lelet

in the beginning of your relationship, he’s very stiff. hardened muscle that you try to relax in. good luck. you break the ice one time by asking if could give him a massage, which immediately causes him to melt. it’s now a tradition for hard days for him.

he likes to shower with you before bed. nothing sexual, mainly, just domestic. he likes cleanliness, and he likes keeping you clean. makes him feel in control. he also enjoys brushing or combing your hair before bed as well, letting his practiced fingers thread through to pull it back. something he used to do with isabel. if you two ever had children, it would be his routine with them as well.

has a hard time sleeping. but he’s physically able to complete the task (lol?) sleeping with someone else helps him. the routine of being in a relationship with someone sharing a bed aids him in his rest.

he now has a hard time being away from that routine. on longer missions, he takes the longest patrol to avoid sleeping. on his mission to supervise zeke, he told himself every day how much longer it would be before he could come home to you. one month, three weeks, two weeks, one week, so on.

+++

The papers are signed, and you are ushered into the hall where a newspaper photographer is waiting. He directs you and Levi through an array of stiff, staged poses, asking you to stand close, closer, closer still—until you can smell the bleach on Levi’s shirt. Flash bulbs pop, and afterward, the general claps Levi on the back and wishes the happy couple luck. You are dismissed.

Inside the vehicle, your husband sits with his hands folded and his gaze fixed out the window. You do not speak until the rumble of the engine settles and the driver—an Eldian from the internment zone—opens the door to the modest apartment assigned to you on short notice.

Inside, it’s boxy and pale, with furniture that reeks of varnish. Two glasses and a bottle of sparkling wine wait for you on the kitchen table—courtesy of Captain Yeager, according to the card. Levi roundly ignores the gesture and goes straight through to the living area, loosening his tie. You follow, trying not to retch at the idea of seeing your picture on the front page the following morning.

“You should go ahead and wash up,” Levi says without turning to look at you. The words are spoken with the same intrinsic authority as every order you’ve ever heard him give.

Bitterly, you drop your meager luggage by the door and walk to the bathroom, which is as sterile as the rest. You lock the door, not out of fear but sickening distrust, before sloughing off your ceremony dress. Your hands shake as you stand under the shower and wipe away traces of the makeup the officer’s wife assigned to “prepare” you had insisted upon. A shame, you think, even if the flesh-toned foundation is a shade off and the lipstick is too bright for your taste, as makeup is rarely available in the internment zone due to glycerin rations.

You linger in the bathroom, taking your time. It’s more merciful to hide here, at least for a while.

When you emerge, dressed in a robe, Levi has already moved your things into the bedroom. The walls are papered in an outdated floral pattern that makes you want to gouge your eyes out. You decide it will have to be one of the first things to go, along with the hideous drapes and the phonograph, which would have been more at home in the living room than in here. A set of freshly-embroidered red armbands sits upon the dresser. The sight of them turns your stomach.

“You can have your turn now,” you say, the words coming out frigid.

Levi glances over from where he’s hung his jacket and nods once.

+++

Alone, you change into your nightgown and wonder if the higher-ups bothered posting extra guards or if they decided you’d be a fool for trying to run. They wouldn’t be wrong; it’s one thing to risk your own life, but it’s not the only one at stake. You think of your cousins, all young and barely old enough to understand what has happened, shuffled off to distant relatives with little more than a promise that they would be cared for. You can’t bear to think of them facing the same fate as their parents. Does Marley have a protocol for sending children to Paradise?

The apartment is quiet. The plumbing rattles faintly from the bathroom where Levi is washing up, and somewhere below, a radio is playing music muffled by concrete walls. You move to the closet and find half of it occupied by Levi’s neatly hung uniforms and the other half carefully kept clean and empty, presumably for your use. You think back to the robe carefully left out for you in the bathroom and the modest non-military-issue soap you found in the shower. The idea that the brusque man you married had thought about everything ahead of time infuriates you.

But Levi, as you’re well aware, has an almost pathological regard for routine. He keeps a shoehorn at the threshold of his office and a dish for pocket change on his desk. And you’ve noticed him reach for a spare handkerchief to wipe at a spill or a stray spot on many occasions.

You work efficiently, jaw clenched, emptying your peeling suitcase onto the bed and stowing everything away into its new proper place. What would happen if you just decided to upend all of it? Leave your worn shoes in a heap, scatter your hairpins all over his military precision in defiance? The urge to do so is so sudden it stings behind your ribs, but you refrain.

You’ve folded your last chemise when Levi returns to the bedroom. His hair is damp, and he’s put on a fresh button down with the hem untucked and the sleeves unbuttoned. It is not the first time you’ve seen him a little dressed down, as he so often is late at night when he stops by the canteen for a cup of tea, but there’s an awkwardness to it now. An intimacy that makes your skin crawl.

“Hungry?” he asks.

It’s a simple question. Only one word, and there’s not much intonation behind it. But it brings your blood to boil.

“Don’t,” you hiss, nails biting into your palms. You can’t stand to stand here and pretend you’re anything other than a broodmare for Marley’s wretched furtherance of the Ackerman bloodline. Their perfect, loyal soldiers.

Levi’s mouth twitches, the ghost of a wince. “It was just a question.”

“Well, there’s no need to act like this is a real marriage,” you sneer.

“I don’t intend to make this worse than it is,” he says.

You want to ask what that means, but you’re not sure you want the answer. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you had my family arrested.”

He narrows his eyes. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“You’re a dog of the Marleyan military,” you snap. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re complicit.”

Something flares in his gaze, and before you can blink, he’s snatching your wrist. “Come,” he snarls, yanking you firmly toward the door. You fight him, but it’s no use. He marches you into the living room and takes both your shoulders in his hands.

“Let go of me!” you demand.

“Watch your mouth,” Levi barks, and the gravity in his tone makes you go still. “Don’t talk like that again. You don’t know who’s listening.”

You stare at him, searching for traces of malice or threat, but find only exhaustion. “Where?” you ask, unable to help yourself.

He sighs and releases you, flexing his hands. “In the bedroom. The phonograph.”

“I see,” you say flatly, and with a deliberate turn, you walk to the kitchen, more rattled than you want to admit.

+++

You sit at the little table with the sparkling wine between you, but neither of you opens it. Levi pulls a loaf of bread and a jar of preserves from the paper sack left by the kitchen sink and sets them out matter-of-factly.

“Eat or don’t eat,” he says. “But don’t cry to me if you choose to starve yourself.”

“Is that an order, sir?” you say acridly.

He shoots you a sharp look. “It’s a suggestion.”

You watch him as he takes the seat opposite you and rolls his sleeves one by one to the elbow. He’s always seemed compact under those military fatigues, but the lean, corded muscle of his forearms reveals the true strength of his frame, shaped by decades of training. You know Warrior training is brutal, designed to take the soldiers apart and put them back together into unquestioning weapons of the state. That’s exactly what Levi Ackerman is to you.

“Do you always make sure your prisoners are fed?” Your voice is tart, but you can’t quite meet his eyes. The jar trembles a little in your hand as you twist it open.

“I don’t see you as a prisoner,” Levi says.

“Just as well. I doubt the commanders will care about your opinion.”

He doesn’t rise to the bait. He spreads preserves on his bread, then sets the knife down and considers you. “I’m sorry for the position you find yourself in, but it isn’t my doing. Treason has consequences.”

The words are cold, yet the fact that they don’t seem to hold any intentional malice makes it all the worse. Your heart hammers, and your stomach turns. You want to see him choke on the dry bread.

“Disproportionate consequences,” you spit out at him. “My whole family was sent to the island, even the ones that had nothing to do with it. The little ones lost their parents and older siblings. Did you torture them, too? Try to get them to give up our neighbors? Our friends?”

Levi’s face hardens, but he is so impassive, it is impossible to decipher whether your anger moves him. “It is harsh, but that’s how Marley roots our traitors.”

“Traitors?” You let out an incredulous scoff. “They were Eldians, same as you!”

“Exactly,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “And as Eldians, they should have known better.”

The chair beneath you scrapes the floor loudly and you stand. “What do you know?” you ask, voice rising without really meaning to. “You’ve been Marley’s mongrel since the day you were born! And it doesn’t make you any better than us in their eyes.”

“Sit down,” Levi says, eyes darting to the bedroom, where the phonograph sits like a voyeur in the dark.

You don’t sit. You’re too furious to sit. You glare at him, trembling, vision blurring, and consider how far you’d get if you tried to catch a man like Levi Ackerman unaware. When he is asleep, perhaps, or unsuspecting in the shower. It’s a fantasy through and through, because you’re certain you are no match for him in any scenario. But the possibility pulses through your veins, dark and malignant.

Levi calls your name, and you blink. The tears fall hot down your cheeks, and your vision clears enough for you to notice the look on your new husband’s face. He is watching you warily, steel eyes flickering between you and your hand, which you now realize is wrapped tightly around your knife. The blade is still sticky with preserves. You inhale shakily.

“Put it down,” Levi says, almost gently, as he slides out of his chair and inches closer with his hands carefully raised.

You let him approach, lips parted, and his hands close careful around yours. They are shockingly warm for a man that seems carved from unfeeling marble, large and somewhat gnarled from years of strenuous physical activity yet strangely beautiful.

He stands there as you breathe like you’ve just sprinted, and it is almost farcical—as if the bread knife could prove a genuine threat when Levi’s hands are certainly orders of magnitude more deadly. For a moment, you imagine plunging the blade into his chest or your own thigh but loosen your grip instead.

Levi’s shoulders drop. He slides the knife from your hand slowly. There is something unguarded in his face, a momentary slackening.

“Don’t make a scene,” he says, but his voice is low, and if you didn’t know better, you might have heard it as a plea.

The moment passes, and in its wake, exhaustion seeps into your body. You slump back into your chair, and Levi drops the knife to the table with a clatter.

“I didn’t ask for any of this, either,” he says.

He doesn’t scold you further; he just sits down again and resumes eating like nothing happened. You wipe your face with your sleeve, the humiliation mixing in with your anger. You can’t even muster the rage to stomp back to the bedroom. You sit, defeated, and chew mechanically on a hunk of bread

The instant Levi finishes, he stands, collects the dishes, and cleans them at the sink. “You know what's expected of us, don't you?” he says.

You stare at his back, wishing that in all the time you’ve known him in passing, you had learned to read the meanings in his tone. You want to pretend you don’t know, but there are rules, and the rules are as inescapable as walls.

“Yes,” you say quietly.

“They’ll be listening,” he says. “To make sure we comply.”

An image of the phonograph flies through your mind. You want to puke. You want to scream. You want to throw yourself on the floor and cry. But you want to save what’s left of your family, too.

“Fine.” You wipe your face with your palm, surprised not to find more tears.

The faucet runs for several minutes after the conversation has effectively ended as the sound of meticulous scrubbing fills the silence. You wonder if Levi is genuinely that particular or if he simply prefers scrubbing a plate to looking at his wife.

Levi dries the bread knife with a dish cloth, then sets it in the drawer. “I won’t force you,” he says at last. “It—it doesn’t have to be tonight, but—”

He trails off and doesn’t finish the thought, but he doesn’t need to. You understand well enough what he means. It doesn’t have to be tonight, but it will have to be eventually. The government did not arrange this marriage out of charity. Public Security did not spare your cousins because they suddenly discovered a conscience. The officials who witnessed your vows this evening are not expecting companionship or domestic bliss. They are expecting Ackerman children.

“I know,” you say. Perhaps, it should surprise you that he isn’t forcing you. He could do what he wanted; you know this, and that knowledge is worse than fear. You can’t claim to know him very well beyond how he prefers to take his tea, but for some reason, you believe him.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he says. “We can figure out what we’re going to do later.”

“You’d rather sleep on the floor?”

Levi’s expression shifts minutely. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

Military camps, your mind supplies. Years of field exercises and of doing whatever Marley demanded of him, even if it meant sleeping in the dirt like the dog he is. And for the first time, you think of what a sad life that must be.

+++

It’s sometime after midnight when the noise wakes you. Falling asleep had been no easy task after such a tense day, especially with the awareness of the phonograph and of the man lying on the floor somewhere behind you.

At first, you’re not even sure you heard it. You lie still beneath the blankets, listening with your eyes open in the dark. For a few seconds, you almost convince yourself it was nothing. Then, it comes again. A sharp intake of breath, followed by thrashing and the incoherent mumbling of someone deep in the throes of a nightmare.

You sit up, blinking against the gloom, and let your eyes adjust. The moonlight through the hideous drapes paints everything in cool silver. On the floor, Levi is still and silent, but only for a moment; the next gust of breath sounds close to a whimper, and his arms jerk taut around the thin blanket.

You’re paralyzed for a split second, then slide off the bed as quietly as you can. In the shadowy limbo between the window and the wardrobe, you make out the sweat glistening on his brow and his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. You could wake him. You think a wife with even a drop of affection in her marrow probably would. It would be easier to turn away and pretend you did not notice. But you don’t move away.

“Levi,” you say quietly, lowering yourself to your knees.

You reach out, and your fingers brush his shoulder. The reaction is instantaneous. One moment, you are kneeling beside him. The next, you are on your back against the floor beside your bed, the air knocked from your lungs, and Levi is above you with his hand around your throat.

There’s a wildness in his eyes that tells you he’s not fully awake when he lashes out, but the panic surging through your veins is real enough. You can see the moment he realizes what he’s done. His pupils dilate, and Levi recoils, his hand vanishing from your neck. He staggers backwards on his hands, and you touch your throat, searching for damage. Your fingers encounter only clammy skin and a fluttering pulse.

“You—” you choke out, then stop. What accusation is there to make? You had known what the Ackermans were.

“What the hell were you doing?” he asks.

You’re surprised by the tremor in his voice, and you sit up, kneading your fingers over the small ache along your windpipe. “You were…making sounds,” you manage. “I thought maybe—”

You cut off the sentence, not sure if you should admit tenderness after everything between you. Levi cards a hand through his dark hair. He looks like a shell of a man, skin sallow and eyes haunted. You wonder if he dreams of Titans or of men in white coats, or if the nightmares claw at him the same way they gnaw at you.

“It’s nothing,” he says roughly, pushing up to his feet. “This was a mistake. I’ll be outside. You stay and rest.”

Speechless, you watch as Levi turns away and crosses the room to the door, not even bothering to collect the blanket and pillow from the floor. Then, he disappears into the living room, clumsily closing the door behind him. A moment later, you hear the scrape of a chair being pulled away from the kitchen table.

You remain seated on the floor. The room feels strangely empty without him in it.

+++

Sleep does not come after that. For two hours, you lie awake, and no matter what you do, you can’t manage to drift again.

You stare at the ceiling and find yourself replaying the look on his face. Not the one from when he lunged at you, but after—that brief, terrible instant when he woke and understood what he had done. As though nearly hurting you had frightened him more than whatever dream had dragged him from sleep.

The realization is impossible to reconcile. As long as you have been old enough to understand what Marley touts as salvation is actually propaganda, you’ve believed Levi Ackerman to be exactly what they made him. An obedient, unquestioning, dangerous weapon. But tonight has complicated things.

You hate complications.

Eventually, frustration outweighs exhaustion. With a sigh, you throw back the blankets. The hallway is cool and quiet as you make your way toward the kitchen. Your throat still aches faintly when you swallow. You try not to think about that, either.

A dim light spills across the floor from the living room around the corner. You pause, hearing a strange sound. A low-throated noise that makes your heart stumble. You worry Levi has fallen into another nightmare and continue forward, creeping quickly on your toes.

Levi sits at the sofa with his back to you, too focused on whatever he’s doing to notice your approach. You take in the tableau and feel a sense of disorientation at what you’re witnessing. The soft intermittent clinking of his loose belt buckle; the rhythmic plap, plap, plap of flesh; the half-muffled groans falling from his mouth. He mumbles something as you approach that sounds suspiciously like your name.

It doesn’t come together in your head until you’re close enough to see—his member, thick and flushed, standing erect where the front of his trousers have been sloppily undone, shining with precum and furiously stroked in one hand. Heat floods your face as blood rushes south to your cunt in a wave of lust, quickly followed by mortification. But by then, it’s too late. The hand freezes, and Levi lifts his gaze to meet yours.

“Shit!” he hisses, scrambling to cover himself with a handful of the forgotten paperwork sitting beside him.

You stare at each other, the air suffocating but crackling with an undeniable electricity.

“You should go back to bed,” he says with a scowl.

Indignance crawls up your throat. It’s not like you were the one caught with your pants down. “Are you always this loud?” you shoot back, but your cheeks are burning, and your thighs press together unconsciously. “What are you doing up anyway?”

“I don’t—” He sighs, disgruntled. “I don’t like to sleep much.”

You stand very still, wondering if he’s even aware of his hand still tenting the stack of official papers, trembling ever so slightly atop his erection. A week ago, you would have had nothing to say to this man but “Would you like more tea, sir?” You would have scurried from the canteen at night to avoid the Warriors entirely. How perverse, then, that you’re the only person alive to catch Levi Ackerman like this.

“You know,” you say, crossing your arms, “I heard you say my name. I think you owe me an explanation.”

Maybe it’s payback or spite, or maybe you’ve lost your mind from the sleep deprivation and dread. He looks at you for a long beat. Then, to your utter shock, a flush rises under the sharp line of his cheekbones.

“Do I?” he says quietly.

“Yes,” you try to snap. “Jerking off to the thought of bedding Marley’s newest breeding sow? Does that help you relax, sir?”

A faint flush appears at the tips of his ears. “You’re one to talk,” he says. “Don’t think I didn’t see you gawking at my cock just now.” His voice is as icy and flat as ever, but despite that—or because of it—heat begins to spiral in your belly. “Were you getting aroused watching Marley’s loyal dog stroke his cock to you?”

“So, you admit it!” you cry, jabbing your index finger toward him. “You were getting off to me! Pervert!”

Levi’s lips tighten in the most infinitesimal quiver before he looks away, fuming. “Yeah, but not for the reasons you think. I’m not a monster.”

“What, is that supposed to be reassuring?” you scoff. “What reason, exactly, makes this better?”

“I’ve been watching you for a while,” Levi blurts out, looking stricken by his own confession. “Back at HQ. I…” He hesitates. “I always noticed when you were in the canteen. How you pour the tea. How neat you keep your apron even when it’s a hundred degrees and the kitchen smells like dog food. I know you hate this, and I don’t blame you, but—” He breaks off, unable to finish.

Your mind races with the implications. You’ve never, not once, thought of yourself as the object of anyone’s desire, least of all the Levi Ackerman. A tremor runs through you.

“You never spoke to me,” you say, narrowing your eyes. It comes out more petulant than you intend.

Levi tenses. “I couldn’t. It... wasn’t allowed. You were never supposed to see this side of me.”

“So, what. Did you make a deal with them? Did you choose me because you liked the look of me?” you ask quietly.

“No!” he shoots to his feet. “Fuck, no! I told you, I didn’t choose any of this!”

The papers scatter, rustling to the floor, leaving him exposed and still half-hard. You swallow thickly. Your tongue feels frozen in your mouth. You’re aware of your nightgown clinging to your thighs, the painful ache of your own arousal, and the immense exquisiteness of having some tiny inkling of control over the weapon before you. You’re conscious, too, of the phonograph on the other side of the wall. Watching, always watching. Your skin prickles.

You take a step toward him anyway. “You didn’t want to marry,” you guess. “But you wanted to fuck me.”

A strangled, incredulous sound escapes him. “It’s not like that—”

But you’re in front of him now, and the words cut away.

“Should I pretend I didn’t see?” you ask.

He glares at you, and for the first time, you don't see only coldness. You are still adrenaline-sick, pulse roaring from the aftermath of nearly being throttled, and yet, what you remember now is the heat of his hand when it had pried your fingers from the knife, how intimate it felt to be the thing he clung to in that moment instead of the weapon.

You tug at the drawstrings of your nightgown. It slumps to the floor, pooling around your ankles, and you stand there, goosebumps feathering up your arms in the chilly apartment. Levi blinks at your nudity as if you’d doused him with cold water. Between you, his cock jumps and starts to twitch back to life.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmurs.

Liar, you think. But you don't say it out loud. Your hands move of their own accord, reaching for the muscle of his forearm, tracing the lines of his beautiful hand until it shudders.

He doesn’t lunge like you expect. Instead, Levi stands stock still, the steel of his eyes thinned out by the black of his pupils, his sullen face aglow in the wash of city lights through the window. He’s stunning, you think, and you want to punish him for it, even as you yearn to be handled.

“You can touch me,” you say softly.

He does not hesitate now. The soldier learns his new orders instantly. His hand finds your waist, and he draws you closer, till the line of your naked body is flush with his. Your skin tingles wherever he touches you, and you feel the rigid length of him against your thigh, sweltering through his half-hanging pants.

When Levi leans in, as if about to kiss you, you turn away instinctively. But his lips land instead deliberately at the side of your neck, pressing hot against the already flushed skin. Your nerves alight with sensation never before experienced. Is it the act itself, the touch? Or the fact that it is Levi who touches you? You’re too stunned to work out an answer.

His palms skim up your sides, over your ribs to cup your breasts. He works slowly, gently, as if to offer penance rather than foreplay. His thumbs tease the pebbled nipples, and you shiver and gasp. The heat in your lower abdomen, which had already been stirred by the sight of his self-pleasure, now rises to a roaring flame. Contrarily, the flesh between your thighs grows slick with moisture at the same time. You can feel it sliding on your skin with every minute quiver of your frame.

It’s sick, you think. There’s something wrong with you that it feels this good.

“Do you want me to stop?” he murmurs into your neck.

You can only shake your head in response. It’s impossible to believe, in this moment, that this man is the same whose boots you’ve scrubbed clean of mud, the same whose name your family cursed behind closed doors. You can’t help speculating. Had he done this before? A Warrior like him, a god in the eyes of Eldians and a novelty in the eyes of all others, must be coveted by many, you assume.

You try to picture him with other women. The power wrapped up in that strong, lithe body. That stoic brow creased just so with effort. Those beautiful hands, capable of violence, yes, but also of throwing someone around with ease. The thought both galls and thrills you. You’re ruined, you realize, already addicted to the contradiction that is Levi. But the answer is obvious in the way he strokes you. No one has taught him to do this; he’s simply learned how to provide comfort in the only way left to him.

As his hands slide down to cup your ass and draw you tighter against him, there’s a hesitance in his grip that suggests he expects admonishment at any second. Perhaps, he expects you to hit him, to flinch, to run. Instead you press yourself to him bruisingly, letting his cock nudge up between your thighs.

Levi groans, and his hips jerk reflexively, seeking friction. “You’re going to drive me insane.”

Good, you think. It’s the least he deserves. He dips his head to your shoulder, teeth grazing, and your whole body shakes. The air is cool, but where he bites, you feel fire, and where he touches, you ache. You’re barely aware of your own hands until they’re unbuttoning his shirt, forcing themselves under the crisp fabric to move over the ridges of his chest and stomach.

Your breath hitches as the button-down slips off his shoulders and down his arms. Levi is unlike any Eldian you’ve seen before. Not even the dockworkers and trainyard men, toughened by labor but robbed of vigor by the hardships of internment, are built quite like Levi. His pale skin is stretched across hard muscle and littered with scars both old and new—not an ounce of him wasted, his ribs and abdomen cinched tight. You scan his form openly and wonder about the origin of each mark. If they hurt, or if anything hurts him at all.

Levi interrupts your ogling by placing a tender kiss to the center of your throat, right where you can still feel the ghost of his fingers pressing into your trachea. His mouth follows the column of your throat down to where he finds your standing pulse at the hollow between your collarbones. He sinks to his knees—your knees buckle accordingly—and his hands find the backs of your thighs. You lean your hands on his shoulders to keep from collapsing onto him.

He buries his face against your belly, breathing you in. “Stop me if I hurt you.”

The warmth of his breath penetrates your skin. You don’t answer, and anyway, he doesn’t wait for permission. When his mouth finds the soft place above your pubic bone, you gasp. He coaxes your legs apart, and you let him, shame be damned. The heat of his mouth moves lower, lower, and then the tip of his tongue is there, tracing over the wettest part of you.

You stifle a whimper; it feels wrong to make any noise, wrong but addictive. Nothing could’ve prepared you for the flicker of Levi’s tongue at your clit. He buries his face in you, and your hand finds its way into his hair. You nearly yank him away from the oversensitivity, but the pressure only makes him dig deeper. His tongue explores you thoroughly, sometimes darting, sometimes sucking, sometimes simply holding you in his mouth, letting you pulse there.

“Are you so desperate to prove you're not a brute?” you ask breathlessly.

“I’m not the one with something to prove here,” Levi says, his voice a rasp. “You’re the one accused of colluding with Restorationists.”

You nearly laugh, but it breaks into a moan as he presses two fingers into you. You think of the phonograph and the ears surely tuned to it; the impulse to keep quiet only makes you want to scream. So, you let him have it, let yourself gasp and keen and moan until you forget the point of it all.

The first crest of pleasure is so abrupt it robs you of thought. Your body and your thighs threaten to crush his head. There’s a brief moment where you imagine you could kill him like this, the great Levi Ackerman suffocated by your traitorous cunt, but as quickly as it comes, the image is gone, replaced by an explosion of sensation.

You come hard with a strangled cry, riding out the spasms as his hair grows damp with sweat against your skin. When you’ve gone quiet and trembling, Levi rises to his feet, face glistening and gaze hooded, guiding you to collapse against the sofa. You expect him to gloat—maybe even sneer—but when your vision clears, the reality of his state is not what you expected.

Levi stands hunched half over you, bracing one hand on the sofa back by your head. He’s panting hard, flushed chest glistening and heaving with every ragged breath. And his cock is straining, so hard it looks almost painful, leaking copiously from the tip. But somehow, he hesitates. There’s an almost childish anxiety that surprises you, stretching his face tight, and it stirs something akin to tenderness in you.

You reach for him. Groping with confidence you don't possess, you close your fingers around his twitching shaft. Levi’s jaw clenches before a faint, desperate groan escapes. In your hand, he is rigid and feverish, and you feel an astonishing surge of pride at his state. You bring your thumb to the head, lightly swirling the bead of moisture, and he shudders so hard the sinews leap in his neck. Some buried part of you purrs at the power of it.

“Get on the couch,” you whisper.

Levi obeys, lowering himself gingerly over you as you shift longways and part your legs to accommodate him. He hovers above you, looking ruined already, like it’s taking everything in him to hold himself back, and you wrap your thighs around his hips. Your nails dig into the muscled plain of his back, tugging him toward you until the smooth head of his cock is kisses the wet, aching opening of your cunt.

Teeth gritted, Levi glances at your face for any sign of hesitation. Finding none, he pushes inside. He moves slowly at first, his arms shaking. But once he finds himself surrounded by your slick, silky warmth, his restraint shatters.

The stretch is sharp; you aren’t prepared for the sheer fullness of it, but the thrill of it drives you mad. You writhe, struggling to take him as he pounds into you. His hands move to your hips for leverage, and his grip is tight enough to bruise, even as his brow knits like there’s an apology on his tongue. But he can’t help himself. He can only rut into you like a man too long denied.

He fucks you with a violence that’s nothing like the care with which he’d touched you before as he groans out his pleasure. He rasps into your ear that you feel better than he’d ever imagined, that you’re so tight he won’t be able to last. Every drive of his hips forces helpless gasps from your throat. At some point you realize you’re moaning his name, begging, but you’re not sure whether you’re begging for him to be gentler or for more.

Eventually, he gives up on trying to piston in and out of your cunt and just buries himself deep, rocking slow and hard like he’s trying to leave a mark inside you. Each time you think you’ve gotten used to his size, he shifts, grinds, spears even deeper, and a fresh pulse of sensation makes your vision go white. You lose sense of place and time. The city beyond the walls, the unseen eyes recording you. Warriors, Restorationists, even your cousins. For now, nothing exists outside this small apartment.

You reach up to seize the nape of his neck, hauling him down for a kiss that is all hunger. His tongue finds yours, earnest and clumsy and desperate. The heat is blinding. You clench around him as he thrusts and feel his whole body shudder around you. Levi tears his mouth away from yours to bury his face in your shoulder. Then, with a broken hiss, he comes.

Thick pulses of his release spill inside you. The feeling is foreign, strange yet oddly satisfying, even when that little voice in your head reminds you that this is exactly what the higher-ups want: you, full of Levi until something takes and you’re swollen with his child. You picture yourself bent over the kitchen counter while Levi stuffs you full from behind, fucked on your back in the bed with your legs folded up to your chest, and shudder around his softening cock.

The city is deathly quiet, and you wonder if the phonograph is silent now, too. Whether whoever’s monitoring them has decided their work is done for the night, and if the sound of your moans have made some Marleyan bureaucrat blush behind his typewriter.

Levi’s head is pressed to the side of your throat, so still you think he’s fallen asleep—men, you’ve heard, are supposed to do that, collapse into a doze the second they’ve finished. But then he sighs, and rolls away onto his side, while his hand stays splayed at your stomach. You feel his cum trickling out of you in a slow leak, and the instinct is to rise and clean presses at the edge of your consciousness, but your limbs are submerged in postcoital honey, and Levi’s hand is heavy and warm where it rests on you.

It doesn’t feel real; you’ve slept with a Warrior. Perhaps, Levi has had the opposite thought. But what would your family think if they could see you now?

“You okay?” Levi asks. “That… isn’t how I meant for this to happen.”

He sounds remorseful, watching you with a wariness you used to mistake for malice. You equivocate, looking down at the place where his hand presses into your skin. There’s no way to answer his question truthfully, not with so much still churning in your chest. You want to tell him you feel nothing, that it was merely your duty, a demand of the breeding program—except that would be a lie, and you’re too tired to lie.

“I’m fine,” you say, and you find that you mean it.

You push yourself to sit upright. Levi’s hand slips off your stomach, trailing down your hip, where it lingers for a moment as if reluctant to let you go.

“We’re being listened to, right?” you ask, staring at the empty air.

He nods, shamefaced as a schoolboy. “They’ll check the tapes. It’s a formality, mostly. But…” He shrugs. “Still.”

“And what if the phonograph couldn’t pick anything up from the bedroom?”

“I think you were probably loud enough that they’ll get the idea,” Levi says, a touch of smugness in his tone that sparks some irritation. You smack him, albeit lightly. “Point is, we performed for them. There’s no need to repeat this mistake.”

Your stomach feels like a pit, anger rising hot up your throat. A mistake. As if he weren’t the one touching himself to the thought of you. And now, he’s trying to play the gentleman? You can’t help but call him out on it, and not just because you refuse to resign yourself to an indifferent marriage with him, detached and devoid of passion. You won’t be denied the feeling of his cock inside you again.

“You don’t get to call it a mistake if you’re going to make it again,” you say, shifting upright to straddle Levi’s lap. You grasp his shoulders roughly. Your cunt is slick, and his chest is sticky with sweat. Levi blinks up at you, stunned, as if he can’t comprehend your intent.

You press the heel of your hand into his breastbone, pinning him. With your other hand, you take his spent cock and stroke him languidly and feel him begin to harden again. He murmurs your name dangerously, as if to warn you that you don't know what you’re getting yourself into. But you most certainly do.

“The performance isn’t enough,” you say, like you’re making a logical argument and not actively trying to goad him into another round of sloppy fucking. “The Ministry will be expecting a report within the next few months, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Levi replies, visibly straining to get ahold of himself.

“And I expect they’ll simply replace me if you have nothing to report.”

He takes a beat to answer, hands shakily hovering at your hips. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Conceiving within a few months is a daunting task. Most Eldian women, raised on poor rations, do not conceive in the first year of marriage. If you do not want to fail, you both will have to be thorough to ensure something takes. You press his length, still wet from you, against your folds, and he shudders violently.

“Then, we had better make sure we have something to report,” you say, trying to sound curt.

You don’t quite want to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how addicted to his cock you’ve become after just one fuck, how much you want to feel him breed you deep again, but Levi clearly senses your ulterior motive. He smirks wryly and bends to nuzzle your throat, drawing a little sigh from you that you don’t quite manage to hide.

If there is one night in your life you expect to remember forever, it is this one. Wed by a bureaucratic order, fucked to the brink of obliteration by a man you believed you could only loathe, and now, wanting it again. And again, and again.

Suddenly, he’s moving, standing, and scooping you effortlessly into his arms before you can protest. His strength is astonishing. You stifle a yelp and wrap your arms around his neck to steady yourself. His cock valiantly rises to the occasion, hard once again against your ass.

“Efficient,” Levi says like he’s impressed. “I like that.”

And he carries you off to the bedroom.

+++

The papers are signed, and you are ushered into the hall where a newspaper photographer is waiting. He directs you and Levi through an array of stiff, staged poses, asking you to stand close, closer, closer still—until you can smell the bleach on Levi’s shirt. Flash bulbs pop, and afterward, the general claps Levi on the back and wishes the happy couple luck. You are dismissed.

Inside the vehicle, your husband sits with his hands folded and his gaze fixed out the window. You do not speak until the rumble of the engine settles and the driver—an Eldian from the internment zone—opens the door to the modest apartment assigned to you on short notice.

Inside, it’s boxy and pale, with furniture that reeks of varnish. Two glasses and a bottle of sparkling wine wait for you on the kitchen table—courtesy of Captain Yeager, according to the card. Levi roundly ignores the gesture and goes straight through to the living area, loosening his tie. You follow, trying not to retch at the idea of seeing your picture on the front page the following morning.

“You should go ahead and wash up,” Levi says without turning to look at you. The words are spoken with the same intrinsic authority as every order you’ve ever heard him give.

Bitterly, you drop your meager luggage by the door and walk to the bathroom, which is as sterile as the rest. You lock the door, not out of fear but sickening distrust, before sloughing off your ceremony dress. Your hands shake as you stand under the shower and wipe away traces of the makeup the officer’s wife assigned to “prepare” you had insisted upon. A shame, you think, even if the flesh-toned foundation is a shade off and the lipstick is too bright for your taste, as makeup is rarely available in the internment zone due to glycerin rations.

You linger in the bathroom, taking your time. It’s more merciful to hide here, at least for a while.

When you emerge, dressed in a robe, Levi has already moved your things into the bedroom. The walls are papered in an outdated floral pattern that makes you want to gouge your eyes out. You decide it will have to be one of the first things to go, along with the hideous drapes and the phonograph, which would have been more at home in the living room than in here. A set of freshly-embroidered red armbands sits upon the dresser. The sight of them turns your stomach.

“You can have your turn now,” you say, the words coming out frigid.

Levi glances over from where he’s hung his jacket and nods once.

+++

Alone, you change into your nightgown and wonder if the higher-ups bothered posting extra guards or if they decided you’d be a fool for trying to run. They wouldn’t be wrong; it’s one thing to risk your own life, but it’s not the only one at stake. You think of your cousins, all young and barely old enough to understand what has happened, shuffled off to distant relatives with little more than a promise that they would be cared for. You can’t bear to think of them facing the same fate as their parents. Does Marley have a protocol for sending children to Paradise?

The apartment is quiet. The plumbing rattles faintly from the bathroom where Levi is washing up, and somewhere below, a radio is playing music muffled by concrete walls. You move to the closet and find half of it occupied by Levi’s neatly hung uniforms and the other half carefully kept clean and empty, presumably for your use. You think back to the robe carefully left out for you in the bathroom and the modest non-military-issue soap you found in the shower. The idea that the brusque man you married had thought about everything ahead of time infuriates you.

But Levi, as you’re well aware, has an almost pathological regard for routine. He keeps a shoehorn at the threshold of his office and a dish for pocket change on his desk. And you’ve noticed him reach for a spare handkerchief to wipe at a spill or a stray spot on many occasions.

You work efficiently, jaw clenched, emptying your peeling suitcase onto the bed and stowing everything away into its new proper place. What would happen if you just decided to upend all of it? Leave your worn shoes in a heap, scatter your hairpins all over his military precision in defiance? The urge to do so is so sudden it stings behind your ribs, but you refrain.

You’ve folded your last chemise when Levi returns to the bedroom. His hair is damp, and he’s put on a fresh button down with the hem untucked and the sleeves unbuttoned. It is not the first time you’ve seen him a little dressed down, as he so often is late at night when he stops by the canteen for a cup of tea, but there’s an awkwardness to it now. An intimacy that makes your skin crawl.

“Hungry?” he asks.

It’s a simple question. Only one word, and there’s not much intonation behind it. But it brings your blood to boil.

“Don’t,” you hiss, nails biting into your palms. You can’t stand to stand here and pretend you’re anything other than a broodmare for Marley’s wretched furtherance of the Ackerman bloodline. Their perfect, loyal soldiers.

Levi’s mouth twitches, the ghost of a wince. “It was just a question.”

“Well, there’s no need to act like this is a real marriage,” you sneer.

“I don’t intend to make this worse than it is,” he says.

You want to ask what that means, but you’re not sure you want the answer. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you had my family arrested.”

He narrows his eyes. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“You’re a dog of the Marleyan military,” you snap. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re complicit.”

Something flares in his gaze, and before you can blink, he’s snatching your wrist. “Come,” he snarls, yanking you firmly toward the door. You fight him, but it’s no use. He marches you into the living room and takes both your shoulders in his hands.

“Let go of me!” you demand.

“Watch your mouth,” Levi barks, and the gravity in his tone makes you go still. “Don’t talk like that again. You don’t know who’s listening.”

You stare at him, searching for traces of malice or threat, but find only exhaustion. “Where?” you ask, unable to help yourself.

He sighs and releases you, flexing his hands. “In the bedroom. The phonograph.”

“I see,” you say flatly, and with a deliberate turn, you walk to the kitchen, more rattled than you want to admit.

+++

You sit at the little table with the sparkling wine between you, but neither of you opens it. Levi pulls a loaf of bread and a jar of preserves from the paper sack left by the kitchen sink and sets them out matter-of-factly.

“Eat or don’t eat,” he says. “But don’t cry to me if you choose to starve yourself.”

“Is that an order, sir?” you say acridly.

He shoots you a sharp look. “It’s a suggestion.”

You watch him as he takes the seat opposite you and rolls his sleeves one by one to the elbow. He’s always seemed compact under those military fatigues, but the lean, corded muscle of his forearms reveals the true strength of his frame, shaped by decades of training. You know Warrior training is brutal, designed to take the soldiers apart and put them back together into unquestioning weapons of the state. That’s exactly what Levi Ackerman is to you.

“Do you always make sure your prisoners are fed?” Your voice is tart, but you can’t quite meet his eyes. The jar trembles a little in your hand as you twist it open.

“I don’t see you as a prisoner,” Levi says.

“Just as well. I doubt the commanders will care about your opinion.”

He doesn’t rise to the bait. He spreads preserves on his bread, then sets the knife down and considers you. “I’m sorry for the position you find yourself in, but it isn’t my doing. Treason has consequences.”

The words are cold, yet the fact that they don’t seem to hold any intentional malice makes it all the worse. Your heart hammers, and your stomach turns. You want to see him choke on the dry bread.

“Disproportionate consequences,” you spit out at him. “My whole family was sent to the island, even the ones that had nothing to do with it. The little ones lost their parents and older siblings. Did you torture them, too? Try to get them to give up our neighbors? Our friends?”

Levi’s face hardens, but he is so impassive, it is impossible to decipher whether your anger moves him. “It is harsh, but that’s how Marley roots our traitors.”

“Traitors?” You let out an incredulous scoff. “They were Eldians, same as you!”

“Exactly,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “And as Eldians, they should have known better.”

The chair beneath you scrapes the floor loudly and you stand. “What do you know?” you ask, voice rising without really meaning to. “You’ve been Marley’s mongrel since the day you were born! And it doesn’t make you any better than us in their eyes.”

“Sit down,” Levi says, eyes darting to the bedroom, where the phonograph sits like a voyeur in the dark.

You don’t sit. You’re too furious to sit. You glare at him, trembling, vision blurring, and consider how far you’d get if you tried to catch a man like Levi Ackerman unaware. When he is asleep, perhaps, or unsuspecting in the shower. It’s a fantasy through and through, because you’re certain you are no match for him in any scenario. But the possibility pulses through your veins, dark and malignant.

Levi calls your name, and you blink. The tears fall hot down your cheeks, and your vision clears enough for you to notice the look on your new husband’s face. He is watching you warily, steel eyes flickering between you and your hand, which you now realize is wrapped tightly around your knife. The blade is still sticky with preserves. You inhale shakily.

“Put it down,” Levi says, almost gently, as he slides out of his chair and inches closer with his hands carefully raised.

You let him approach, lips parted, and his hands close careful around yours. They are shockingly warm for a man that seems carved from unfeeling marble, large and somewhat gnarled from years of strenuous physical activity yet strangely beautiful.

He stands there as you breathe like you’ve just sprinted, and it is almost farcical—as if the bread knife could prove a genuine threat when Levi’s hands are certainly orders of magnitude more deadly. For a moment, you imagine plunging the blade into his chest or your own thigh but loosen your grip instead.

Levi’s shoulders drop. He slides the knife from your hand slowly. There is something unguarded in his face, a momentary slackening.

“Don’t make a scene,” he says, but his voice is low, and if you didn’t know better, you might have heard it as a plea.

The moment passes, and in its wake, exhaustion seeps into your body. You slump back into your chair, and Levi drops the knife to the table with a clatter.

“I didn’t ask for any of this, either,” he says.

He doesn’t scold you further; he just sits down again and resumes eating like nothing happened. You wipe your face with your sleeve, the humiliation mixing in with your anger. You can’t even muster the rage to stomp back to the bedroom. You sit, defeated, and chew mechanically on a hunk of bread

The instant Levi finishes, he stands, collects the dishes, and cleans them at the sink. “You know what's expected of us, don't you?” he says.

You stare at his back, wishing that in all the time you’ve known him in passing, you had learned to read the meanings in his tone. You want to pretend you don’t know, but there are rules, and the rules are as inescapable as walls.

“Yes,” you say quietly.

“They’ll be listening,” he says. “To make sure we comply.”

An image of the phonograph flies through your mind. You want to puke. You want to scream. You want to throw yourself on the floor and cry. But you want to save what’s left of your family, too.

“Fine.” You wipe your face with your palm, surprised not to find more tears.

The faucet runs for several minutes after the conversation has effectively ended as the sound of meticulous scrubbing fills the silence. You wonder if Levi is genuinely that particular or if he simply prefers scrubbing a plate to looking at his wife.

Levi dries the bread knife with a dish cloth, then sets it in the drawer. “I won’t force you,” he says at last. “It—it doesn’t have to be tonight, but—”

He trails off and doesn’t finish the thought, but he doesn’t need to. You understand well enough what he means. It doesn’t have to be tonight, but it will have to be eventually. The government did not arrange this marriage out of charity. Public Security did not spare your cousins because they suddenly discovered a conscience. The officials who witnessed your vows this evening are not expecting companionship or domestic bliss. They are expecting Ackerman children.

“I know,” you say. Perhaps, it should surprise you that he isn’t forcing you. He could do what he wanted; you know this, and that knowledge is worse than fear. You can’t claim to know him very well beyond how he prefers to take his tea, but for some reason, you believe him.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he says. “We can figure out what we’re going to do later.”

“You’d rather sleep on the floor?”

Levi’s expression shifts minutely. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

Military camps, your mind supplies. Years of field exercises and of doing whatever Marley demanded of him, even if it meant sleeping in the dirt like the dog he is. And for the first time, you think of what a sad life that must be.

+++

It’s sometime after midnight when the noise wakes you. Falling asleep had been no easy task after such a tense day, especially with the awareness of the phonograph and of the man lying on the floor somewhere behind you.

At first, you’re not even sure you heard it. You lie still beneath the blankets, listening with your eyes open in the dark. For a few seconds, you almost convince yourself it was nothing. Then, it comes again. A sharp intake of breath, followed by thrashing and the incoherent mumbling of someone deep in the throes of a nightmare.

You sit up, blinking against the gloom, and let your eyes adjust. The moonlight through the hideous drapes paints everything in cool silver. On the floor, Levi is still and silent, but only for a moment; the next gust of breath sounds close to a whimper, and his arms jerk taut around the thin blanket.

You’re paralyzed for a split second, then slide off the bed as quietly as you can. In the shadowy limbo between the window and the wardrobe, you make out the sweat glistening on his brow and his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. You could wake him. You think a wife with even a drop of affection in her marrow probably would. It would be easier to turn away and pretend you did not notice. But you don’t move away.

“Levi,” you say quietly, lowering yourself to your knees.

You reach out, and your fingers brush his shoulder. The reaction is instantaneous. One moment, you are kneeling beside him. The next, you are on your back against the floor beside your bed, the air knocked from your lungs, and Levi is above you with his hand around your throat.

There’s a wildness in his eyes that tells you he’s not fully awake when he lashes out, but the panic surging through your veins is real enough. You can see the moment he realizes what he’s done. His pupils dilate, and Levi recoils, his hand vanishing from your neck. He staggers backwards on his hands, and you touch your throat, searching for damage. Your fingers encounter only clammy skin and a fluttering pulse.

“You—” you choke out, then stop. What accusation is there to make? You had known what the Ackermans were.

“What the hell were you doing?” he asks.

You’re surprised by the tremor in his voice, and you sit up, kneading your fingers over the small ache along your windpipe. “You were…making sounds,” you manage. “I thought maybe—”

You cut off the sentence, not sure if you should admit tenderness after everything between you. Levi cards a hand through his dark hair. He looks like a shell of a man, skin sallow and eyes haunted. You wonder if he dreams of Titans or of men in white coats, or if the nightmares claw at him the same way they gnaw at you.

“It’s nothing,” he says roughly, pushing up to his feet. “This was a mistake. I’ll be outside. You stay and rest.”

Speechless, you watch as Levi turns away and crosses the room to the door, not even bothering to collect the blanket and pillow from the floor. Then, he disappears into the living room, clumsily closing the door behind him. A moment later, you hear the scrape of a chair being pulled away from the kitchen table.

You remain seated on the floor. The room feels strangely empty without him in it.

+++

Sleep does not come after that. For two hours, you lie awake, and no matter what you do, you can’t manage to drift again.

You stare at the ceiling and find yourself replaying the look on his face. Not the one from when he lunged at you, but after—that brief, terrible instant when he woke and understood what he had done. As though nearly hurting you had frightened him more than whatever dream had dragged him from sleep.

The realization is impossible to reconcile. As long as you have been old enough to understand what Marley touts as salvation is actually propaganda, you’ve believed Levi Ackerman to be exactly what they made him. An obedient, unquestioning, dangerous weapon. But tonight has complicated things.

You hate complications.

Eventually, frustration outweighs exhaustion. With a sigh, you throw back the blankets. The hallway is cool and quiet as you make your way toward the kitchen. Your throat still aches faintly when you swallow. You try not to think about that, either.

A dim light spills across the floor from the living room around the corner. You pause, hearing a strange sound. A low-throated noise that makes your heart stumble. You worry Levi has fallen into another nightmare and continue forward, creeping quickly on your toes.

Levi sits at the sofa with his back to you, too focused on whatever he’s doing to notice your approach. You take in the tableau and feel a sense of disorientation at what you’re witnessing. The soft intermittent clinking of his loose belt buckle; the rhythmic plap, plap, plap of flesh; the half-muffled groans falling from his mouth. He mumbles something as you approach that sounds suspiciously like your name.

It doesn’t come together in your head until you’re close enough to see—his member, thick and flushed, standing erect where the front of his trousers have been sloppily undone, shining with precum and furiously stroked in one hand. Heat floods your face as blood rushes south to your cunt in a wave of lust, quickly followed by mortification. But by then, it’s too late. The hand freezes, and Levi lifts his gaze to meet yours.

“Shit!” he hisses, scrambling to cover himself with a handful of the forgotten paperwork sitting beside him.

You stare at each other, the air suffocating but crackling with an undeniable electricity.

“You should go back to bed,” he says with a scowl.

Indignance crawls up your throat. It’s not like you were the one caught with your pants down. “Are you always this loud?” you shoot back, but your cheeks are burning, and your thighs press together unconsciously. “What are you doing up anyway?”

“I don’t—” He sighs, disgruntled. “I don’t like to sleep much.”

You stand very still, wondering if he’s even aware of his hand still tenting the stack of official papers, trembling ever so slightly atop his erection. A week ago, you would have had nothing to say to this man but “Would you like more tea, sir?” You would have scurried from the canteen at night to avoid the Warriors entirely. How perverse, then, that you’re the only person alive to catch Levi Ackerman like this.

“You know,” you say, crossing your arms, “I heard you say my name. I think you owe me an explanation.”

Maybe it’s payback or spite, or maybe you’ve lost your mind from the sleep deprivation and dread. He looks at you for a long beat. Then, to your utter shock, a flush rises under the sharp line of his cheekbones.

“Do I?” he says quietly.

“Yes,” you try to snap. “Jerking off to the thought of bedding Marley’s newest breeding sow? Does that help you relax, sir?”

A faint flush appears at the tips of his ears. “You’re one to talk,” he says. “Don’t think I didn’t see you gawking at my cock just now.” His voice is as icy and flat as ever, but despite that—or because of it—heat begins to spiral in your belly. “Were you getting aroused watching Marley’s loyal dog stroke his cock to you?”

“So, you admit it!” you cry, jabbing your index finger toward him. “You were getting off to me! Pervert!”

Levi’s lips tighten in the most infinitesimal quiver before he looks away, fuming. “Yeah, but not for the reasons you think. I’m not a monster.”

“What, is that supposed to be reassuring?” you scoff. “What reason, exactly, makes this better?”

“I’ve been watching you for a while,” Levi blurts out, looking stricken by his own confession. “Back at HQ. I…” He hesitates. “I always noticed when you were in the canteen. How you pour the tea. How neat you keep your apron even when it’s a hundred degrees and the kitchen smells like dog food. I know you hate this, and I don’t blame you, but—” He breaks off, unable to finish.

Your mind races with the implications. You’ve never, not once, thought of yourself as the object of anyone’s desire, least of all the Levi Ackerman. A tremor runs through you.

“You never spoke to me,” you say, narrowing your eyes. It comes out more petulant than you intend.

Levi tenses. “I couldn’t. It... wasn’t allowed. You were never supposed to see this side of me.”

“So, what. Did you make a deal with them? Did you choose me because you liked the look of me?” you ask quietly.

“No!” he shoots to his feet. “Fuck, no! I told you, I didn’t choose any of this!”

The papers scatter, rustling to the floor, leaving him exposed and still half-hard. You swallow thickly. Your tongue feels frozen in your mouth. You’re aware of your nightgown clinging to your thighs, the painful ache of your own arousal, and the immense exquisiteness of having some tiny inkling of control over the weapon before you. You’re conscious, too, of the phonograph on the other side of the wall. Watching, always watching. Your skin prickles.

You take a step toward him anyway. “You didn’t want to marry,” you guess. “But you wanted to fuck me.”

A strangled, incredulous sound escapes him. “It’s not like that—”

But you’re in front of him now, and the words cut away.

“Should I pretend I didn’t see?” you ask.

He glares at you, and for the first time, you don't see only coldness. You are still adrenaline-sick, pulse roaring from the aftermath of nearly being throttled, and yet, what you remember now is the heat of his hand when it had pried your fingers from the knife, how intimate it felt to be the thing he clung to in that moment instead of the weapon.

You tug at the drawstrings of your nightgown. It slumps to the floor, pooling around your ankles, and you stand there, goosebumps feathering up your arms in the chilly apartment. Levi blinks at your nudity as if you’d doused him with cold water. Between you, his cock jumps and starts to twitch back to life.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmurs.

Liar, you think. But you don't say it out loud. Your hands move of their own accord, reaching for the muscle of his forearm, tracing the lines of his beautiful hand until it shudders.

He doesn’t lunge like you expect. Instead, Levi stands stock still, the steel of his eyes thinned out by the black of his pupils, his sullen face aglow in the wash of city lights through the window. He’s stunning, you think, and you want to punish him for it, even as you yearn to be handled.

“You can touch me,” you say softly.

He does not hesitate now. The soldier learns his new orders instantly. His hand finds your waist, and he draws you closer, till the line of your naked body is flush with his. Your skin tingles wherever he touches you, and you feel the rigid length of him against your thigh, sweltering through his half-hanging pants.

When Levi leans in, as if about to kiss you, you turn away instinctively. But his lips land instead deliberately at the side of your neck, pressing hot against the already flushed skin. Your nerves alight with sensation never before experienced. Is it the act itself, the touch? Or the fact that it is Levi who touches you? You’re too stunned to work out an answer.

His palms skim up your sides, over your ribs to cup your breasts. He works slowly, gently, as if to offer penance rather than foreplay. His thumbs tease the pebbled nipples, and you shiver and gasp. The heat in your lower abdomen, which had already been stirred by the sight of his self-pleasure, now rises to a roaring flame. Contrarily, the flesh between your thighs grows slick with moisture at the same time. You can feel it sliding on your skin with every minute quiver of your frame.

It’s sick, you think. There’s something wrong with you that it feels this good.

“Do you want me to stop?” he murmurs into your neck.

You can only shake your head in response. It’s impossible to believe, in this moment, that this man is the same whose boots you’ve scrubbed clean of mud, the same whose name your family cursed behind closed doors. You can’t help speculating. Had he done this before? A Warrior like him, a god in the eyes of Eldians and a novelty in the eyes of all others, must be coveted by many, you assume.

You try to picture him with other women. The power wrapped up in that strong, lithe body. That stoic brow creased just so with effort. Those beautiful hands, capable of violence, yes, but also of throwing someone around with ease. The thought both galls and thrills you. You’re ruined, you realize, already addicted to the contradiction that is Levi. But the answer is obvious in the way he strokes you. No one has taught him to do this; he’s simply learned how to provide comfort in the only way left to him.

As his hands slide down to cup your ass and draw you tighter against him, there’s a hesitance in his grip that suggests he expects admonishment at any second. Perhaps, he expects you to hit him, to flinch, to run. Instead you press yourself to him bruisingly, letting his cock nudge up between your thighs.

Levi groans, and his hips jerk reflexively, seeking friction. “You’re going to drive me insane.”

Good, you think. It’s the least he deserves. He dips his head to your shoulder, teeth grazing, and your whole body shakes. The air is cool, but where he bites, you feel fire, and where he touches, you ache. You’re barely aware of your own hands until they’re unbuttoning his shirt, forcing themselves under the crisp fabric to move over the ridges of his chest and stomach.

Your breath hitches as the button-down slips off his shoulders and down his arms. Levi is unlike any Eldian you’ve seen before. Not even the dockworkers and trainyard men, toughened by labor but robbed of vigor by the hardships of internment, are built quite like Levi. His pale skin is stretched across hard muscle and littered with scars both old and new—not an ounce of him wasted, his ribs and abdomen cinched tight. You scan his form openly and wonder about the origin of each mark. If they hurt, or if anything hurts him at all.

Levi interrupts your ogling by placing a tender kiss to the center of your throat, right where you can still feel the ghost of his fingers pressing into your trachea. His mouth follows the column of your throat down to where he finds your standing pulse at the hollow between your collarbones. He sinks to his knees—your knees buckle accordingly—and his hands find the backs of your thighs. You lean your hands on his shoulders to keep from collapsing onto him.

He buries his face against your belly, breathing you in. “Stop me if I hurt you.”

The warmth of his breath penetrates your skin. You don’t answer, and anyway, he doesn’t wait for permission. When his mouth finds the soft place above your pubic bone, you gasp. He coaxes your legs apart, and you let him, shame be damned. The heat of his mouth moves lower, lower, and then the tip of his tongue is there, tracing over the wettest part of you.

You stifle a whimper; it feels wrong to make any noise, wrong but addictive. Nothing could’ve prepared you for the flicker of Levi’s tongue at your clit. He buries his face in you, and your hand finds its way into his hair. You nearly yank him away from the oversensitivity, but the pressure only makes him dig deeper. His tongue explores you thoroughly, sometimes darting, sometimes sucking, sometimes simply holding you in his mouth, letting you pulse there.

“Are you so desperate to prove you're not a brute?” you ask breathlessly.

“I’m not the one with something to prove here,” Levi says, his voice a rasp. “You’re the one accused of colluding with Restorationists.”

You nearly laugh, but it breaks into a moan as he presses two fingers into you. You think of the phonograph and the ears surely tuned to it; the impulse to keep quiet only makes you want to scream. So, you let him have it, let yourself gasp and keen and moan until you forget the point of it all.

The first crest of pleasure is so abrupt it robs you of thought. Your body and your thighs threaten to crush his head. There’s a brief moment where you imagine you could kill him like this, the great Levi Ackerman suffocated by your traitorous cunt, but as quickly as it comes, the image is gone, replaced by an explosion of sensation.

You come hard with a strangled cry, riding out the spasms as his hair grows damp with sweat against your skin. When you’ve gone quiet and trembling, Levi rises to his feet, face glistening and gaze hooded, guiding you to collapse against the sofa. You expect him to gloat—maybe even sneer—but when your vision clears, the reality of his state is not what you expected.

Levi stands hunched half over you, bracing one hand on the sofa back by your head. He’s panting hard, flushed chest glistening and heaving with every ragged breath. And his cock is straining, so hard it looks almost painful, leaking copiously from the tip. But somehow, he hesitates. There’s an almost childish anxiety that surprises you, stretching his face tight, and it stirs something akin to tenderness in you.

You reach for him. Groping with confidence you don't possess, you close your fingers around his twitching shaft. Levi’s jaw clenches before a faint, desperate groan escapes. In your hand, he is rigid and feverish, and you feel an astonishing surge of pride at his state. You bring your thumb to the head, lightly swirling the bead of moisture, and he shudders so hard the sinews leap in his neck. Some buried part of you purrs at the power of it.

“Get on the couch,” you whisper.

Levi obeys, lowering himself gingerly over you as you shift longways and part your legs to accommodate him. He hovers above you, looking ruined already, like it’s taking everything in him to hold himself back, and you wrap your thighs around his hips. Your nails dig into the muscled plain of his back, tugging him toward you until the smooth head of his cock is kisses the wet, aching opening of your cunt.

Teeth gritted, Levi glances at your face for any sign of hesitation. Finding none, he pushes inside. He moves slowly at first, his arms shaking. But once he finds himself surrounded by your slick, silky warmth, his restraint shatters.

The stretch is sharp; you aren’t prepared for the sheer fullness of it, but the thrill of it drives you mad. You writhe, struggling to take him as he pounds into you. His hands move to your hips for leverage, and his grip is tight enough to bruise, even as his brow knits like there’s an apology on his tongue. But he can’t help himself. He can only rut into you like a man too long denied.

He fucks you with a violence that’s nothing like the care with which he’d touched you before as he groans out his pleasure. He rasps into your ear that you feel better than he’d ever imagined, that you’re so tight he won’t be able to last. Every drive of his hips forces helpless gasps from your throat. At some point you realize you’re moaning his name, begging, but you’re not sure whether you’re begging for him to be gentler or for more.

Eventually, he gives up on trying to piston in and out of your cunt and just buries himself deep, rocking slow and hard like he’s trying to leave a mark inside you. Each time you think you’ve gotten used to his size, he shifts, grinds, spears even deeper, and a fresh pulse of sensation makes your vision go white. You lose sense of place and time. The city beyond the walls, the unseen eyes recording you. Warriors, Restorationists, even your cousins. For now, nothing exists outside this small apartment.

You reach up to seize the nape of his neck, hauling him down for a kiss that is all hunger. His tongue finds yours, earnest and clumsy and desperate. The heat is blinding. You clench around him as he thrusts and feel his whole body shudder around you. Levi tears his mouth away from yours to bury his face in your shoulder. Then, with a broken hiss, he comes.

Thick pulses of his release spill inside you. The feeling is foreign, strange yet oddly satisfying, even when that little voice in your head reminds you that this is exactly what the higher-ups want: you, full of Levi until something takes and you’re swollen with his child. You picture yourself bent over the kitchen counter while Levi stuffs you full from behind, fucked on your back in the bed with your legs folded up to your chest, and shudder around his softening cock.

The city is deathly quiet, and you wonder if the phonograph is silent now, too. Whether whoever’s monitoring them has decided their work is done for the night, and if the sound of your moans have made some Marleyan bureaucrat blush behind his typewriter.

Levi’s head is pressed to the side of your throat, so still you think he’s fallen asleep—men, you’ve heard, are supposed to do that, collapse into a doze the second they’ve finished. But then he sighs, and rolls away onto his side, while his hand stays splayed at your stomach. You feel his cum trickling out of you in a slow leak, and the instinct is to rise and clean presses at the edge of your consciousness, but your limbs are submerged in postcoital honey, and Levi’s hand is heavy and warm where it rests on you.

It doesn’t feel real; you’ve slept with a Warrior. Perhaps, Levi has had the opposite thought. But what would your family think if they could see you now?

“You okay?” Levi asks. “That… isn’t how I meant for this to happen.”

He sounds remorseful, watching you with a wariness you used to mistake for malice. You equivocate, looking down at the place where his hand presses into your skin. There’s no way to answer his question truthfully, not with so much still churning in your chest. You want to tell him you feel nothing, that it was merely your duty, a demand of the breeding program—except that would be a lie, and you’re too tired to lie.

“I’m fine,” you say, and you find that you mean it.

You push yourself to sit upright. Levi’s hand slips off your stomach, trailing down your hip, where it lingers for a moment as if reluctant to let you go.

“We’re being listened to, right?” you ask, staring at the empty air.

He nods, shamefaced as a schoolboy. “They’ll check the tapes. It’s a formality, mostly. But…” He shrugs. “Still.”

“And what if the phonograph couldn’t pick anything up from the bedroom?”

“I think you were probably loud enough that they’ll get the idea,” Levi says, a touch of smugness in his tone that sparks some irritation. You smack him, albeit lightly. “Point is, we performed for them. There’s no need to repeat this mistake.”

Your stomach feels like a pit, anger rising hot up your throat. A mistake. As if he weren’t the one touching himself to the thought of you. And now, he’s trying to play the gentleman? You can’t help but call him out on it, and not just because you refuse to resign yourself to an indifferent marriage with him, detached and devoid of passion. You won’t be denied the feeling of his cock inside you again.

“You don’t get to call it a mistake if you’re going to make it again,” you say, shifting upright to straddle Levi’s lap. You grasp his shoulders roughly. Your cunt is slick, and his chest is sticky with sweat. Levi blinks up at you, stunned, as if he can’t comprehend your intent.

You press the heel of your hand into his breastbone, pinning him. With your other hand, you take his spent cock and stroke him languidly and feel him begin to harden again. He murmurs your name dangerously, as if to warn you that you don't know what you’re getting yourself into. But you most certainly do.

“The performance isn’t enough,” you say, like you’re making a logical argument and not actively trying to goad him into another round of sloppy fucking. “The Ministry will be expecting a report within the next few months, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Levi replies, visibly straining to get ahold of himself.

“And I expect they’ll simply replace me if you have nothing to report.”

He takes a beat to answer, hands shakily hovering at your hips. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Conceiving within a few months is a daunting task. Most Eldian women, raised on poor rations, do not conceive in the first year of marriage. If you do not want to fail, you both will have to be thorough to ensure something takes. You press his length, still wet from you, against your folds, and he shudders violently.

“Then, we had better make sure we have something to report,” you say, trying to sound curt.

You don’t quite want to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how addicted to his cock you’ve become after just one fuck, how much you want to feel him breed you deep again, but Levi clearly senses your ulterior motive. He smirks wryly and bends to nuzzle your throat, drawing a little sigh from you that you don’t quite manage to hide.

If there is one night in your life you expect to remember forever, it is this one. Wed by a bureaucratic order, fucked to the brink of obliteration by a man you believed you could only loathe, and now, wanting it again. And again, and again.

Suddenly, he’s moving, standing, and scooping you effortlessly into his arms before you can protest. His strength is astonishing. You stifle a yelp and wrap your arms around his neck to steady yourself. His cock valiantly rises to the occasion, hard once again against your ass.

“Efficient,” Levi says like he’s impressed. “I like that.”

And he carries you off to the bedroom.

You first hear your soulmate’s voice in your head on an ordinary evening while you’re closing the curtains of your small home in Trost. The sky outside turns a soft orange and gold as the sun dips behind the rooftops. At first, you think the voice is your own thought echoing strangely back at you until it speaks again in a tone that is very clearly not yours.

You’re thinking too loud, the voice says.

You freeze. You look around your empty room.

Hello? you think cautiously, not entirely sure how this works even though everyone grows up hearing about it—about the voice that appears one day, about the person on the other end of your thoughts who belongs to you in a way no one else ever will.

There’s a pause. Then the voice answers.

So you can hear me.

You sit down slowly. I think so, you reply in your mind, heart beating a little faster now. What’s your name?

Another pause, shorter this time.

Levi.

You smile to yourself. Huh. Okay. I was hoping I wouldn’t get someone annoying. You sound sane.

Levi, miles away in the Survey Corps headquarters, blinks slowly at the wall in front of him.

You’re very confident for someone who just met their soulmate, he thinks.

I’m choosing optimism, you reply immediately. You should try it sometime.

Levi almost smiles.

.

After that, you talk every night.

It becomes routine faster than either of you expected, your thoughts finding each other easily at the end of long days as if your minds already know the path to one another. You tell him about Trost, about the markets and the crowds and the way the smell of fresh bread carries down the street in the mornings, and he tells you very little about where he is but enough that you begin to understand. He’s a soldier in the Survey Corps. It’s dangerous. You know that. Everyone knows that. You realize this slowly over several conversations, the pieces fitting together in your mind until one night he says quietly:

I might not answer for a few days.

Your stomach tightens. Why?

There’s a long silence before he answers. Expedition.

You sit on the edge of your bed, staring at the floor.

Be careful, you think.

Levi is sitting in the barracks sharpening his blades when he hears that, and something in him shifts in a way he doesn’t entirely understand yet. I always am, he replies.

.

During the expedition, when the sky is too open and the Titans are too close and the air smells like blood and fear, Levi finds himself thinking of you without meaning to.

You would hate this, he thinks once while riding through the trees.

I already do, you reply instantly, somewhere safe inside the walls. 

Levi exhales quietly through his nose because somehow, even from this distance, hearing your voice makes the world feel steadier. He talks to you in his head when he’s stressed. When he’s tired. When he can’t sleep. And he’d never admit it, but also when he’s lonely.

You feel his emotions sometimes—bursts of adrenaline, exhaustion so heavy it feels like sinking into deep water, loneliness he never talks about out loud—and you begin to understand that Levi, wherever he is and whatever rank he holds, carries the weight of too many people on his shoulders.

You become his quiet place. The voice he listens for when everything else is too loud.

.

You ask to meet him many times. 

You come through Trost sometimes, right? you ask one night while lying on your back staring at the ceiling.

Sometimes.

Then we should meet.

There’s a long pause.

I don’t have time for personal affairs, Levi replies.

You frown slightly. I’m not an affair. I’m literally your soulmate.

Levi rubs his temple slowly in the dark. I’m busy.

You sigh dramatically in your thoughts. You’re avoiding me.

I’m not.

You are.

Levi doesn’t respond to that.

But the truth is he is avoiding it, because meeting you would make this real in a way that scares him more than Titans ever have. Because right now you’re a voice and a presence and a comfort that fits neatly into the spaces of his life without disrupting anything, and he’s not sure if he deserves more than that.

Still, the conversations continue. Weeks pass. Months.

You know his favorite tea, his least favorite people, how he hates messiness and worships cleanliness, how he prefers quiet over crowds. He knows how you organize recipes and ingredients in your mind when you cook, how you talk too fast when you’re excited, how you always think out loud when you’re trying to solve a problem.

You know everything about each other except what the other looks like.

.

One afternoon, while you’re walking through the markets, you suddenly hear his voice again.

Are you in Trost today?

You blink in surprise. Yes. Why?

Levi doesn’t respond for a good thirty seconds. It’s long enough that you stop walking. Then he says, I have a day off. Meet me near the market fountain.

Your heart immediately starts racing. Are you serious?

Yes.

You grin.

Okay. I’ll be there in five minutes.

.

You recognize him immediately.

You don’t know his face, but the moment your eyes land on him, standing near the fountain with his hands in his pockets and his expression calm and slightly impatient, it feels like you're coming home.

It’s you, you think.

He looks directly at you.

Yes.

You walk closer. He’s much shorter than you expected, but he’s solid, sharp-eyed, and dressed in the uniform of the Survey Corps. And very attractive. The thought slips into your mind before you can stop it.

Oh. He’s hot.

Levi’s eyebrows lift slightly. You’re not subtle.

You freeze. Your face immediately heats. “You heard that,” you say out loud.

“I hear everything you think,” Levi replies calmly.

You groan. “This is going to be a problem.” Levi almost smiles.

You spend the day together in Trost, walking through the market, talking both out loud and in your thoughts. The conversation flows easily like it always has, except now you can see how his eyes soften slightly when you laugh and he can see the way you look at him when you think he isn’t paying attention.

He’s quieter in person than he is in your head. You smile more than expected. You sit together near the wall for a while, watching people pass by, comfortable in the silence.

I’m glad you came, you think.

Levi looks at you.

Me too.

At the end of the day, he walks you back toward your street. Neither of you really wants to say goodbye, but neither of you knows what comes next either.

You stop walking. “So,” you say quietly.

Levi nods once. “So.”

Neither of you talks for a moment. Then, before you can stop yourself, you lean in and plant a kiss on his cheek. You don’t even take the time to wait to see his reaction—you turn and start running away. He watches you go until you disappear around the corner, one hand rising to touch his cheek.

Levi smiles.

.

That night, when you’re lying in bed, you wait. You’ve made a habit of it now—you know you need to stop. A few minutes later, his voice appears in your mind again. 

You still awake?

I was waiting for you, you reply.

There’s a long silence. Then Levi thinks something very quietly, so quietly it almost feels like he didn’t mean for you to hear it.

I think… I like you.

You turn over and press your face into your pillow, unable to hold back your smile.

Yeah, you think back softly. Me too.

MASTERLIST ♡ JOIN THE TAGLIST ♡ AO3 ♡ WATTPAD ♡ KO-FI

tags: @saccharinefool @bunbun6casp @levkuna @strangeeaglepost @how-interesting-wow @d1leviglazer @y44washere4somereason @ddilfs4life @slaytherinthoughts @levishart @gloomyveil @levislolita @nerdskillz @elegantmakercoffee @miaszt @astersfantasies @daisyy-lev @naxymoon @bxcketbarnes

divider by: sweetmelodygraphics

You were an odd one, he thought for a while. He did not mean to spy on you, yet he often found himself hiding behind a pillar or bush just to observe the odd and overly quiet girl from Essos. You were born in YiTi. A land so distant and different from them, and Aemond had believed that your oddness was because of your land’s customs. However, as days and moons passed, he learned that you were truly just different from the other ladies of the court. 

Aemond was no stranger to the peculiar. He had seen eccentricity before, his family being a prime example. His sister was overly interested in bugs and murmuring to herself. His eldest brother had a strange fascination with women twice his age. Even his father, the king, was hyperfixated on the miniature models, spending most of his time on them instead of caring for his children. Aemond was not in a state to question nor critique your demeanour, he was simply curious. 

He was curious why you hid yourself in the desolate corners of the gardens, the shade of a weeping willow tree near a pond being your favourite. He was intrigued by why you barely spoke, and if you did, you spoke so softly, as if you were whispering a secret that was only meant for certain ears to hear. But most of all, he was eager to learn why he was so interested in you. 

Perhaps it was your appearance. Admittedly, there were not many YiTish in court– there were only three, you and your kin. Perhaps it was that. Aemond was fascinated by your fox-like eyes, heart-shaped lips, and your silky onyx hair. And as you two grew older, your already striking appearance only furthered. It was a shame you hated attention, as you were always the center of it. Aemond could not recall a day when not a single knight, lord, or even prince did not look back at you as you passed them in the halls. He noted how their pupils would always dilate ever so slightly, and some would even let their mouths hang in astonishment.

Maybe it was because of your insistence on not being noticed– maybe that is what fueled his intrigue. An ironic turn of events, for even if you try to hide yourself behind crowds and shadowy corners, he still found you. Once, you were invited to play the hiding game with other ladies of the court. Where the other ladies hid themselves behind pillars and cramped broom closets, you opted to hide in the wine cellars in hopes they would not find you and simply leave you be. Aemond found that particular memory quite amusing. Especially as it was the first time he saw your fox-like eyes turn doe-like as he caught you by surprise. 

“What are you doing here?” Aemond questioned as he saw you tilt your head to read the marking on the large, oak barrels. A surprise yelp left your lips, and it was the loudest sound Aemond had ever heard you make. He bit back his smile as you rested a hand on your chest, your other hand fisted your skirts as if to ground yourself. 

You were twelve now. You had spent the last three years in the Red Keep, but only now did Aemond decide to speak with you. He must admit that he had gotten used to simply following you about the castle, that speaking to you barely crossed his mind. It was thought that only came in the dead, silence of the night. Where, instead of sleeping, he would think of an opening phrase to utter if and when he approached. 

“My prince,” You curtised quickly, your eyes still planted on the ground, and did not even dare to look at his. “I was playing a game of hide and seek with the other ladies,” 

Aemond hummed as he cautiously took a step forward. “You are quite competitive then. Not a single one of them has even ventured near your hiding place. I suppose you could be declared the winner.” 

You gave a wry smile, eyes still planted on the ground, where you could see each cautious step the prince took to inch closer to you. Aemond observed you closely, as this was the closest he had been to you since the first day you two met. 

“You are gifted in hiding.” The prince remarked, and he felt his heart skip a beat as a small yet true smile came to your lips. “And you are gifted at seeking.” You remarked, but the smile on your lips dissipated, and a questioning frown took its place. 

“How did you even know I was here, my prince?” You asked in great confusion. Not even the ladies who invited you to their game found your hiding place. How then did the prince find you?

Aemond never answered your question. Even after moons passed, he never once explained how he would always find you; he would only appear by your side, and he was fortunate enough that once he discovered a concealed corner, you were kind enough not to leave or excuse yourself from his presence. 

The following year, a decision was made: Prince Aemond made known his intention to court you. 

You could still vividly remember the confusion that overcame you when your father informed you of his conversation with the prince. 

“He was quite eager for my approval if I were to be honest. He would not leave my side the entire afternoon. Well, at least not until I gave him my blessing.” Your father hummed as he poured himself a cup of wine. The moon was high, and so was your bewilderment. You never thought that a prince would court you. A statement not at all brought forth by modesty, but genuine confusion. When he discovered you in your hiding places, you assumed he was merely searching for somewhere to conceal himself as well. It never crossed your mind that he had been searching for you all along. “But why would he wish to court me?”

“I believe that is a question we should be asking you, my child.” Your mother hummed, a small, almost teasing smile on her lips as she did her nightly embroidery. She hummed and exchanged glances with your father, who hid a smirk behind the cup of wine he raised to his lips. “I wouldn’t even know what to answer. I, too, am just as confused as you.”

“Well then, perhaps it is best that you ask the prince the question on all our minds.” Your mother suggested, as you mindlessly nodded, standing and kissing their cheeks as you returned to your chambers. However, as you neared the door to your room, you froze in shock as you saw the prince already waiting for you in the shadowy halls. 

He had a small flower pot in his hands— a rather odd image of a royal prince holding a potted orchid in his hands when you had gotten used to seeing him holding his sword. 

Aemond felt out of breath as he stared at you through the light of the moon. You looked radiant— ethereal— nymph-like. 

“This is for you,” he nervously said. Aemond was a brave man. He was courageous when he claimed his dragon. He was courageous when his eye was taken. And he was courageous when he asked for your father’s blessing to court you. However, he felt the courage he always relied on falter when he came face to face with you. 

He watched as your ever stoic gaze finally met his. In the years he had known you, he had gotten used to your overly composed state. You were reserved, like he, however, you were more consistent in your reservation. The only moments when he actually witnessed your reactions were moments when you were startled or confused.

“Why?” You asked plainly, and Aemond felt his heartbeat in his ears. “Why? Because I’ve noticed you are fond of flowers— and I do believe that your favoured ones are orchids.” He explained and held out the pot closer to you. A confused frown overcame your face. 

“No… why had you decided to court me, your highness?” You asked, not wanting to be vexed by the question the entire night. Unfortunately, your question was left unanswered once more as the prince simply reached for your hand and placed the small bundle of flowers in it. A smile on his lips as he bid you good night and left the halls. 

How do you court a lady? Aemond could not help but think. He had hoped that he would find the answer long before he asked for your father’s blessing, yet here he was, kept up at night trying of ways on how to court you. 

In hindsight, courtship should have come naturally to him. However, he was a prince– a pawn for the crown. The custom was to bind him to a lady who came from a family that could be great allies to the crown; however, Aemond had taken it upon himself to find a match made by himself, not his grandsire or mother. He had seen the effects of marriages borne out of duty, and as dutiful as he was, he’d rather not subject himself to a loveless marriage filled with misery. 

Do you win a lady through gifts? Aemond thought. Ladies of the court seemed to easily give their agreements to the lords who courted them when they were given gifts. Who was Aemond to question such traditions? Especially when he was entirely clueless about what to do. 

It started with little gifts left by your door. Each morning, you would be stirred awake with a light knock on your door and a gift left unattended. The first morning, it was a jade pendant from your home, YiTi. The light green stone was remarkable and unmistakable under the early morning sun. 

Aemond hid himself behind a pillar and watched your knitted brows as you held the necklace to your eye, a small smile on his lips as he could already foresee the image of you wearing his little gift. However, Aemond’s enthusiasm was left dim when he found you in the gardens, bare-necked, and mentioned naught about the necklace you found. 

The prince was disheartened, but not so much to easily relent. It was the first days of your courtship. Of course, he could not be so vain and arrogant to think that you would lay yourself on his feet after offering you a simple pendant. He at least thought a small blush would come to your face when you met him that day; however, he supposed he asked for much for his little effort. 

The second day, he sent a pair of pearl earrings. Pearls harvested from the mighty seas of the Orient. On the third, he sent a set of gold rings mined deep within Casterly Rock. 

When the fourth day came, he sent various rolls of fabric for your dresses. Light blue silk from Lys. Delicate white laces from Myr. A serene cream velvet from Braavos. Crimson brocades from Volantis. Fine threads of various colors from the Reach. 

Aemond almost revealed his hiding place in great concern when you opened the door, and the rolls of fabric that he set upright came toppling down. Almost crushing you if you were not agile enough to step to the side. You did not use a single fabric nor thread for any of your fine dresses. 

By the fifth day, the prince already had the inkling to quit. It was clear that you were not easily impressed– he was foolish to think you otherwise, for if you were, he certainly would not be this eager in your courtship. Nevertheless, the prince was no quitter. 

By the fifth day, he veered away from the usual gifts given to the court ladies. Instead of shiny things, the prince left a small wooden dragon that he had carved in childhood. It was imperfect– it was left dusted in some corner of his chambers for years until the moment the prince decided to offer it to you. 

When you opened your chamber doors after hearing a soft knock, you almost expected a chest of gold left by your doorstep. However, a small, yet true smile came to your lips when you saw a simple carved dragon made from oak waiting for you. Aemond almost hollered in triumph as he saw the corners of your lips curl upwards ever so slightly. Inspecting the carving with more interest than the shiny jewels he had left days before. 

He watched as your fingers delicately traced the carvings he made, a sense of giddiness at the thought that your fingers caressed the wood that bore his touch. A new sense of hope coursing in his bloodstream. 

Aemond had foolishly hoped that it was enough for you to return his affections, or at least announce your favour towards him, so the other line of suitors who paid you tribute would dissipate. However, the prince would be a fool to think that simple carving would have you swooning. 

Word got around about how you set the little carving on your bedside table, near you, even in sleep. That was enough to inspire your other suitors to send you tens of pieces of woodwork, turning your chambers into a woodcarver’s shop.

Aemond knew he must take a different approach, which led him to question once more: How do you court a lady? 

Could Aemond win you through feats of strength? 

As all know, Aemond had no care for tourneys. He found it pointless– superfluous– pathetic for a man of his station. Yet, he rode out into the grounds, adorned in his armour, hoping to seek the favour of the lady he courted. 

Aemond struggled to find where you sat through the slats of his helm. His mount circled the grounds as he searched for you through the jeering crowds, when he spotted the familiar outline of your parents without you by your mother’s side. He frowned severely as he realized that you would not attend, and he could not seek your favour. 

He felt foolish as he charged his horse, his lance unadorned by a flower garland but stained by blood. He knew you well. You hid from crowds. What then led him to believe that you would willingly attend a tourney? Aemond felt no satisfaction the entire day, even if he was named the victor. The only speck of satisfaction he found was when he spotted you by a bench in the quiet gardens as a celebratory feast commenced. You said not a word when the prince sat next to you. Yet, that was enough for Aemond.

However, not enough for him to learn how to capture your favour.  Especially as Aemond heard cruel whispers of you leaving Westeros.

“You are leaving?” The prince asked in dread as he found you in your usual place, hidden inside the weeping branches of a willow tree. It had been a year after he announced his intent to court you, and it had been a year filled with gifts, flowers, and attention that you not once asked for, but Aemond was enthusiastic to give. 

He stood behind you as you sat on the cool, soft grass. His body tense, his stomach pitted, and his heart aching even if he denied it as such. 

You turned your head to glance at the prince, his eye steely– almost seething, and his hands clenched tightly by his side. Aemond swallowed thickly as the afternoon sun cast you aglow and formed an angelic halo. How could you look so beautiful even as you threatened to leave him? 

“Only for a year, my prince.” You explained and watched as Prince Aemond fervently shook his head and took his place next to you. “You are to leave for a year.” He gritted out, his fists clenching tightly around the damp grass. 

“Well, a year and two moons. It takes a month of sailing and traveling to reach YiTi.” You clarified as you set your eyes on the pond's calm waters, which reflected the afternoon light. Aemond breathed heavily at the thought of you leaving him for more than a year. What shall happen then? Would you garner new admirers in your homeland? Should you be forced to take a groom who resembles your own culture and customs? What should become Aemond then? Would he be a man who lost the only lady who consumed his thoughts for the past five years? 

“What of our courtship then?” He could not help but ask, his hand that gripped the grass, loosening as it inched closer to yours. “What of it, your highness?” 

Aemond pursed his lips. His eye was intently studying every possible expression that may come to your ever-composed face. He stayed silent, and he heard a sigh leave your lips before you turned your head to meet his gaze. 

“Do you wish to cease courting me?” You asked quietly, heartbeat erratic, and you tried your best not to let it show. 

“No.” The prince quickly answered, and you bit back a smile as you stood, watching as the prince followed each single one of your movements. “Then court me in YiTi, my prince.” 

“Another letter, my lady,” a maid called as she approached with a rather thick scroll that was wrapped tightly and bore the Targaryen seal. It had been three moons since you had left Westeros, and it had been three moons filled with consistent letters from the prince. 

You sat upright on your bed, your eyes glancing and admiring the simple wooden carving of a dragon that the prince gave you years before, placing a small smile on your lips as your maid exited your chambers and left you in your own company. 

How long must I live in agony, my lady?

You breathed out a laugh as you read the first line of the prince’s letter. You sighed dreamily as a blush came to your cheeks, and your fingers caressed the bold letters of what he wrote. 

Sometimes, at night, you feared the prince would leave you spurned. You feared that you were not enough for him to keep interested. That your overly composed and some would even say, stoic demeanor would run him off, and he’d find a lady who did not struggle in showing their affections. 

In truth, the reason why you were completely perplexed when he decided to court you was because you had been completely infatuated with him ever since you arrived in the Red Keep. As children, many feared him and his lack of one eye, but if you were being honest, you quite liked him that way. 

It was a tragedy, of course, but the silver lining was that even if he had only one eye, never once did the unique lilac orbs leave your thoughts. 

You bit your lip as you drafted your letter of reply. The prince had sent a dozen letters, yet the one you wrote would only be your fifth letter sent. You stared long and hard at the blank parchment, torn as to what to write. Fear was a powerful emotion that often left their captives paralyzed. And so, you took a deep breath and simply wrote. 

Wrote anything and everything you could think of. No direction. No aim. Simply a letter written in hopes the prince would be reminded of your existence and would wait until your return. 

I believe your dragon would enjoy the East. There is a vast valley near my grandsire’s keep that your great Vhagar would find agreeable. 

I also believe that you shall enjoy the East. I recall that you are fond of combat, and here, there are customs in which fighters do not rely on weapons but simply their bodies. Men fight with open palms, swift and fluid like water, while others strike with such force that one would think their fists forged from steel. I suspect that you shall excel in such a kind of combat, my prince. 

Aemond bit his lip as he reread your letter for the tenth time in an hour. Gods, he wanted to feel foolish. There he was, in his grandsire’s study, being forced to listen to business dealings, all the while his only thought was of you. His heart that beat for no other than you, swelled at the thought that not only did you write to him, but you as well knew of his fondness for combat and were thinking of his dragon too. 

Lord Otto eyed his grandson in curiosity and concern. For the past hour, Aemond read a letter repeatedly, would let out a yearning sigh, and stare at the wall with an odd softness in his eye that he could not believe was capable. “Are you listening, Aemond?” 

Aemond breathed out another sigh. His mind recalling what you had written, imagining your voice that uttered what you wrote echoing in his head. Gods, he missed you. He did not even think he’d miss you as intensely as he did. You were a quiet little thing, you prefer to go unnoticed, and the prince foolishly thought that he could manipulate his mind to think that you were simply hiding away in your corner, but he felt your absence deeply, and he could not concentrate on his duties. 

“This is pathetic, my prince.” He heard his grandsire sigh from his desk. The lord hand’s gaze steady on a parchment containing business while his grandson reread a letter over and over. 

“I did not ask for your opinion.” Aemond gritted out. The elation he felt just moments earlier quickly disappeared at his grandsire’s words. Otto Hightower sighed. 

“You are a prince of the realm. You have hundreds of ladies at your disposal, yet you obsess over a lady who cannot even name you as her favoured suitor. A lady who you had let distract you from your duties. Had you acting and sighing like a damsel as well.” 

 “She had made you weak. Turned you into a simpleton.” 

Prince Aemond frowned deeply, his fists clenching around air. No word of reply nor defense on his tongue as his grandsire plainly said the doubts and thoughts he fought hard to repress. Aemond had grown distracted as to who he truly was. He acted like a love-sick pup when he was meant to be a dragon prince. 

Aemond did not respond to your letter. Nor did he respond to the other two that followed. He simply let the year of your absence pass. His grandsire’s word aimed true to his heart. All his life, the only thing the prince knew was that he did not like being seen as weak. He had been weak as a child, as he let his brother and nephews constantly belittle him. He knew it could not happen once more, even if you were the reason. 

For the following moons, the prince made no move to contact you. He sent no bi-weekly letters. He sent no greetings or regards. He even hindered himself in sending you a bundle of gifts on your name day. He exercised a great feat of restraint and control for an entire year, simply lying in wait until the dawn of your return came. 

Prince Aemond stood by the docks, his veins fueled with adrenaline and his heart aching to see you once more. He did not know how he had been able to resist you for a year, yet it did not matter, for now his long suffering was to come to an end. 

However, as he watched your parents disembarked the ship, it was painfully obvious that you were left in YiTi. 

***

Prince Aemond broke your heart. Your great fears of being left spurned– of being forgotten turned true as the prince seemed to forget your existence. He ignored your letters, even if you sent three scrolls consecutively. You had spent your days staring longingly out the windows, hoping that the ravens that flew would come with a letter from a prince, but none did. 

You tried your best to hide the grief you felt at the prince’s action. You tried to act your usual detached and unemotional self. But each time you would sit alone in either the great gardens of your home or at banquets and feasts, you feel your heart pit as you had gotten used to the prince finding his way to you and accompanying you even through silence. 

The days that led to your return to Kingslanding, you made the decision to stay in YiTi. You could not subject yourself to return to Westeros with a broken heart. You could not fathom the thought of facing Prince Aemond once more. And so, you stayed. You did not return after a year and two moons. You stayed in YiTi under your grandsire’s care and hoped that the ache in your heart would dissipate soon enough. 

“The Westerns are simple-minded– especially the Targaryens. They act as if they are gods among men when in truth, they’re mere ferrets who only rose to power because of their dragons.” You hear your grandfather remark as you join him for supper. 

Your parents had sent word that they were already in Kingslanding, and they also mentioned that the courtiers had to ask why you did not return. They mentioned naught of the prince, and you did not know whether to feel grateful or not. 

“They reside on stolen land. They trample over the cultures and customs of those before them and punish those who disagree with their views. They appear to be almost the same as us, but not quite, for they trample over others they believe beneath them.” Your grandsire continued as you picked on your food. 

“They were kind hosts,” You defended quietly, but heard as your grandfather clicked his tongue and watched him shake his head. 

“It’s a lure, my child. Kindness to those men is given for their amusement– once they tire, they discard what no longer entertains them.” Your fingers tightened around the porcelain cup in your hands, holding it tightly so that you feared the warm tea might spill the moment you cracked the delicate clay. “It’s a lesson you must learn soon enough.” 

Across the narrow sea, a prince stewed in rage, anger, fear, and sadness, trying his best to figure out how to get his girl back.