Marlena

Your favorite part of the day has always been dinner time. The dining hall always gets loud, exhaustion loosening everyone’s tongues so laughter spills easier and smiles come brighter. It’s usually the same thing every night—Sasha trying to barter food from everyone, Eren and Jean arguing about something stupid and menial again before Mikasa cuts in and threatens to kick both of their asses, and Ymir showering Christa with love and affection. 

You’re halfway through your stew, watching how Mikasa has slowly been moving the carrots she doesn’t want into Eren’s bowl while he talks too passionately to realize it. Your conversation had somehow shifted from your last assessment scores to which superior officers would be easiest to flirt with. Not exactly the most appropriate conversation, but hey, it should be expected of a group of twenty-something year-olds.

Jean suddenly snorts into his cup and says, “Captain Levi is incapable of being flustered.”

Connie barks out a laugh. “Captain Levi? Yeah, no. I think if you flirted with him, he’d just tell you your posture was shit.”

“He might blush if someone compliments his cleaning,” Sasha says.

You laugh at the thought of Levi turning pink over you complimenting his polishing of the floorboards. It’s almost charming. But you’re pulled back into the reality of things quickly, reminded by the sure fact that Levi would be the type to make you run sixty laps for even breathing wrong in his direction. At least he would look irritatingly beautiful barking orders at you.

“Maybe he just needs someone hot to compliment him,” Connie says.

Ymir, sitting beside Christa with one arm draped over her shoulders, rolls her eyes. “Please. That man could walk through a brothel and find the mop sexier.”

The table erupts into laughter. Armin drops his face into one hand, already checked out of the conversation. Christa turns scarlet but presses her lips together, very clearly trying not to laugh. Jean wheezes, and even Mikasa lets out a small, polite laugh. You shouldn’t laugh as hard as you do, because if Levi heard your conversation right now he would probably bury you all six feet under.

Then Eren, who has never met a stupid idea he couldn’t charge at headfirst, leans forward with bright eyes and says, “Someone should test it.”

You pause, nervously playing with the charm of your necklace. Jean is the first to look at you. Then Connie. Then Sasha. Then Ymir, a little more wickedly.

“No,” you say immediately, because you know that look, and you know yourself. “No.”

Jean grins. “Come on.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re the only one who could pull it off.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.”

“You say things to the officers that none of us would ever say,” Connie points out. It would be rude if it weren’t true.

“Maybe you could only do it for a week?” Christa offers.

“A week?” you echo, already feeling the dangerous little spark of interest light inside you. The worst part is that they’re not entirely wrong; you are bold, you are blunt, and you have secretly spent far too much time wondering what it would take to make Levi Ackerman’s perfect composure crack, even if only by a little. “You’re giving me a week to flirt with humanity’s most emotionally repressed man?”

“Get a reaction,” Jean corrects.

“Define reaction,” Armin says.

“Blushing counts,” Eren says.

“Stammering counts,” Jean adds.

“Looking away counts,” Christa says.

“No it doesn’t,” Ymir scoffs. “That could just mean he hates you.”

You cock your head. “To be fair, I think he does hate me.”

“He hates everyone,” Mikasa mumbles.

“What if he flirts back?” Armin asks.

Eren scoffs loudly. “Captain Levi? Flirt back? Be serious.”

Your stomach twists at the thought. You can’t even imagine Levi doing anything as human as flirting. But what if he were to step a little too close, lower his voice to a smooth cadence, fix his eyes on yours and then your lips and then smash his mouth against—

Nope. You’re not going down that mental road again.

You set your spoon down and touch your necklace again. Everyone is watching you intensely. The best move here is to refuse. It’s the most sensible move. Captain Levi isn’t a toy for your entertainment. Making a game out of a man who can kill Titans like swatting flies is going to land you in deep shit. You know that.

And yet, you still smile. “A week?” you ask, leaning back with a confident half-shrug. “Give me three days.”

Jean’s grin widens. “That confidence is exactly why we picked you.”

Ymir snorts into her cup. “No. We picked her because she has no sense of self-preservation. And she’s a fucking idiot.”

The worst part is you can’t even argue with that. Game on.

.

Day one, you begin with too much confidence and nowhere near enough strategy, which, in hindsight, is probably the natural consequence of accepting a bet over dinner while surrounded by idiots.

You see Levi just after breakfast, walking through the corridor with a stack of reports in his arms. He looks somewhat more annoyed today, but because Eren and Jean are watching from around the far corner—not very subtly, might you add—and because you refuse to lose your nerve on the first attempt, you slow your steps just enough to pass him shoulder-to-shoulder and say sweetly, “You look good today, Captain.”

Levi doesn’t stop or look at you. He doesn’t even blink in a way that could potentially be considered meaningful, unless you’re desperate enough to start seeing romantic symbolism in basic human functions now. He simply keeps walking, the scent of his soap trailing behind slapping you in the face. You’re left standing there in the middle of the corridor with your mouth still curved into a smile. Meanwhile, at the end of the hall, Jean presses a fist to his mouth to stop himself from laughing and Eren mouths, Nothing?

Nothing. Not a twitch, not a glance, not even a disgusted little sigh. Fine, you think, watching Levi disappear around the corner. Eren and Jean shoot upright and pretend to engage in conversation, though it’s horribly broken and awkward from what you can hear. The moment Levi’s footsteps fade, Jean shoves Eren’s shoulder, and Eren shoves him back.

First shot missed. Happens to the best of us.

.

By day two, you decide subtlety is the coward’s way.

You happen to run into Levi again in the supply closet. While you’re searching for a specific cleaner, the door opens behind you and he steps inside. Suddenly the cramped room seems to shrink even further. There’s barely enough space for both of you to stand without brushing elbows. He doesn’t acknowledge the fact that you’re so close, naturally. 

Instead, he reaches past you for a rag on the shelf above your shoulder. He leans close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body. Your muscles lock momentarily. Damn him for being so attractive. Still, you manage to tilt your chin up and say, “Careful, Captain. Any closer and people might start talking.”

He pulls back and looks at you. For a second, you think you’ll get something. A stammer, a blush if you’re lucky, but Levi only looks unimpressed. It’s the exact same look he gives soldiers when he manages to find a speck of dust after three straight hours of cleaning.

“People already talk,” he says flatly. “Usually because you give them material.”

You swallow a laugh. Damn him. You lean your shoulder against the shelf, trying not to focus on the fact that your pulse has just spiked dramatically. “Oh, we can give them plenty of material.”

Levi takes the rag, steps back, then leaves.

.

By day three, you’re beginning to suspect the bet is cursed.

You’re gathered in the yard for ODM training. Your friends have formed a not-so-suspicious circle across the field. You see them gathered with a false innocence, sneaking glances at you, favoring the potential spectacle awaiting them over doing anything useful.

You check your gear and realize one of your straps at your thigh is loose, the buckle hanging awkwardly against your leg. Before you can crouch down to fix it yourself, someone approaches.

“Hold still,” Levi says.

You’re almost embarrassed by how quickly you obey. He crouches in front of you and grabs the loose strap before you can object. There’s nothing intimate about it, nothing that should make heat rush to your face—and yet it does. You look down at his dark hair and the concentration on his face and think to yourself, this is fine. This is normal. He’s just fixing your gear. You’re not going to die.

Then you remember the bet. Now’s your chance.

“You always this good with your hands, Captain?” you ask, nervously toying with your necklace.

Across the yard, Connie visibly folds in half. Eren grabs Mikasa by the sleeve. Sasha’s mouth drops open. Levi tightens the buckle with one tug and looks up at you, his expression so blank it’s almost hostile in a way.

“Only when someone’s done a shit job and I have to fix it,” he says.

You stare at him as he walks away, unaware of the others across the yard silently screaming into the void.

.

By day four, your pride is no longer bruised. It’s limping, bleeding, and asking whether anyone saw the driver of the carriage that hit it. 

You’re cleaning one of the common rooms with a scrub brush in hand and a flicker of annoyance in your heart when Levi comes to inspect the progress. He steps inside, surveys the floor, the windowsill, the table legs, underneath the tables, and even the door handle.

“Do it over,” he says.

You slowly turn your head toward him. “Excuse me?”

His gaze flicks to the windowsill. “Dust.”

You look behind you at the window. Tragically, there’s dust. It wouldn’t matter to a normal person, but Captain Levi is far from normal when it comes to cleanliness. “You’re very hard to impress, Captain,” you say, forcing your voice to carry a teasing tone instead of something that makes it clear how badly you want to throw the rag at his head.

Levi looks at you, and he doesn’t look away. Standing under his intense gaze like this makes your stomach clench in ways you don’t even want to think about. “And you’re very easy to ignore.”

Your smile twitches before you can stop it. That one stings a bit more. You know Levi isn’t above personal insults, but were you really that forgettable to him? You manage to muster up a bit more courage and say, “You know, I’m more skilled in other areas.”

Levi only quirks an eyebrow and tilts his head. That was enough to pull him in, it seems. Success. “How so?”

You smile, because finally, you’ve found the opening. “You’re not the only one who’s good with their hands.”

Silence. Such deep silence that you could hear a pin drop. Levi holds your gaze for exactly one second before he says, almost bored, “Knock it off and get back to work.”

And just like that, he moves on with his day, leaving you standing in the room with a rag in your hand, a burning face, and a grim realization that you may have underestimated both his composure and his commitment to making you feel like an idiot.

.

The moment you sit down at dinner that night, Connie leans across the table and hides his mouth from the view of the superiors’ table with his hand. “Nothing?”

You drop your head into your hand. “Nothing.”

“Not even a blink?”

“He has eyes, Connie. He’s going to blink,” Mikasa says without looking up from her bowl.

Sasha groans and slumps dramatically over the table, one hand still clutching her apple. “We’re doomed.”

You groan too, louder. “No, just me.”

Jean makes a sympathetic noise that’s ruined completely by the fact that he’s smiling. “You still have three days left.”

“Three days to accomplish the impossible,” Eren mumbles.

Armin, kinder than the rest, tilts his head. “Maybe you need to adjust your approach.”

“My approach is fine,” you say.

“Your approach is dogshit,” Ymir says.

Christa gives you an almost apologetic smile, which makes you feel even worse. You stab at the softened carrots in your stew with one hand and toy with your necklace with the other. Every time you touch it, you remember your mother’s hands in yours, the cold metal in your palm, her soft words wishing you safety and prosperity. You long to see her again. Soon, you think. Soon.

You force yourself to not look toward the officers’ side of the hall, where Levi sits with Hange and Erwin, drinking tea without a care in the world—as if he hasn’t spent the last four days ignoring your best efforts. It should be funny. It was funny, at first. But now his lack of a reaction has begun to get under your skin, turning challenge into irritation, then irritation into a feeling that’s far more embarrassing, because it’s one thing for Levi to ignore the flirting and another thing entirely for him to make you feel like he’s ignoring you.

It’s personal now, you decide. 

.

Levi thinks this is the most irritating week of his life, by far.

It’s not distracting enough to matter, and certainly not enough to affect his work, but it’s definitely irritating. And persistent. You are persistent. You’re always there. In hallways, in supply rooms, in the training grounds, always pushing and pushing, waiting for him to break at the seams. 

Levi doesn’t crack. He’s survived this long by being difficult to shake. Still, he thinks about it—about you—more than he should, and that annoys him the most.

Levi walks into the stables. Hay bales are stacked neatly against the wall. The tack is all lined up and organized in the storage room. He’s only searching for a harness clip, nothing more, because apparently grown soldiers can’t keep equipment where it belongs. He barely passes the first row of stalls before voices reach him from the far end. He recognizes them. Eren, Jean, Armin. Levi stops before they see him. 

“Told you,” Eren says with a hint of smugness. “Captain Levi doesn’t flirt.”

Levi’s brows shift by the smallest degree. 

“She still has two days, Armin says, a little quieter. “And honestly, he’s been looking at her more than usual.”

“Looking annoyed doesn’t count,” Jean laughs. “He looks at everyone like that.”

Levi freezes for a moment, then swallows. Then Eren speaks again, painfully unaware of the grave he’s digging with both hands. “Doesn’t matter. The bet was to make him react. She’s been flirting with him for five days and he hasn’t done anything.”

Levi doesn’t know what to feel at first. Then annoyance practically slams into him. Of course the sudden compliments, the lingering looks, the suggestive comments delivered with too much confidence and nowhere near enough survival instinct are not lapses in judgement but a coordinated effort by the loudest collection of children to ever survive to adulthood.

He almost steps out. He almost makes them regret every syllable. He almost assigns all three of them stable duty until their hands smell permanently of horse shit. He almost leaves to go find you and drag you into his office and inform you that if you have enough free time to treat your commanding officer like a tavern dare, you have enough free time to scrub every inch of the barracks.

But he doesn’t. He remains where he is, half-shadowed beside the tack shelves, and thinks of you when you were in the supply closet with him, your chin tipped up and your mouth spilling smooth words you clearly expected to land, of the flash of irritation in your eyes when he refused to give you anything back.

So, you’ve been trying to break him in front of an audience. Bold. Stupid. And mildly interesting. You want a reaction from him. No. More than that. You want proof that he can be moved, that there’s something you can reach underneath all the discipline and deadpan remarks if you’re reckless enough to keep trying.

Fine. Let’s see how well you handle it when he stops being polite.

He turns without a sound, leaving the missing clip for someone else to find and the three idiots still talking at the far end of the stable, none of them aware that the terms of the bet have just changed.

Two days then. If you wanted a reaction that badly, he could give you one.

.

Day six begins badly, which, considering the trajectory of the week so far, should not surprise you. The morning vanishes beneath papers and one disaster involving Connie dropping a crate of replacement gas canisters. You’re on the last thin shred of your patience. By the time late afternoon rears its ugly head, you’re tired and hungry, having spent five days throwing stones at a wall. You’re considering whether you should just run headfirst into it. But you can’t give up. That would be mortifying. Also Jean would never let you hear the end of it. 

So when you turn the corner into the east corridor and nearly collide with Levi himself, you decide the universe has not abandoned you entirely. He stops before you can hit him, and you catch yourself with one hand against the wall, your heart giving a stupid little kick as you look at him. He looks as he always does: composed, mouth set in a flat line, irritatingly clean despite the hour. 

Fine, you think, dragging your confidence up by the collar. One more time.

You let your smile come slowly, forgetting how the last few days have been consistent public humiliation. “I was starting to think you were avoiding me, Captain.”

Normally, this is where he would keep walking. Normally, he would ignore you and tell you to find something useful to do. But Levi stops beside you, close enough that the corridor feels smaller, close enough that you can smell the last cup of tea he had still lingering on his lips. He turns his head, eyes meeting yours from the side. Your smile falters.

“Why would I?” he asks. Your breath hitches—stupidly. The words themselves are nothing, barely a response, but it’s the way he said them, in a way you’ve never heard from him before, that makes the world stop for just a single second. Then his gaze drops, briefly, and he says, “You wanted my attention, didn’t you?”

You forget how to answer. Your mind produces absolutely nothing. You can’t find a single comeback or tease. You technically got him to react, and you should be celebrating, but you can only focus on the fact that Levi has just taken the same game you’ve been playing all week and held it against your throat.

Before you can recover emotionally, he turns and walks away. Just like that. 

You remain there, your hand now nervously touching your charm necklace, staring at him while your heart nearly explodes out of your chest. The worst part isn’t that he answered, but that he answered like he knew exactly what it would do to you.

No. Absolutely not. This is not happening. You are the one flirting with him. You’re the one with the bet, the plan, the reputation for saying things no one else dares to say, and Levi is supposed to be an immovable force. He is not supposed to look at you like that. 

And you are not supposed to feel this way in return.

.

Dinner approaches, and you almost manage to convince yourself that you imagined it. 

He was probably being sarcastic. You’re tired and frustrated and maybe starvation has you seeing seduction where it doesn’t exist. Levi’s voice is always low, his eyes are always intense, and your imagination just lost its grip because you’ve spent too many days thinking about him. 

The mess hall doors open onto chaos. Everyone is trying to leave and enter at once. Soldiers are pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the crowded corridor, laughter and complaints tangling with the clatter of dishes from inside. You’re caught near the doorway, half-turned as Jean calls to you from the table and Mikasa waves to you.

You start to step aside when you feel a hand settle at the small of your back. Levi moves behind you, close enough that his chest nearly brushes your shoulder as he guides you smoothly out of the flow of traffic. His palm rests low on your back for a moment longer than necessary. Your lungs practically stop working.

“You’re in the way,” he says. 

You turn your head, because apparently you’re feeling particularly self-destructive tonight and want to look directly at the weapon killing you. You find him already watching you. Your mind tells you to take the mercy of silence and leave with whatever remains of your dignity.

But because your survival instincts are apparently the worst and will always lose to your mouth, you say, “You always touch your subordinates like that?”

His hand slips from your back, his eyes holding yours as he answers, low enough that the noise swallows it before anyone else can hear. “You always like getting touched by your superiors, or is it just me?”

Your mouth parts. Nothing comes out. Levi’s eyes flick, very briefly, to your lips, then he steps around you and walks into the mess hall like he didn’t just completely make you short circuit. You stand there in the doorway, heat rushing to your face so fast it nearly makes you dizzy. You reach up to touch your necklace again. You still feel the burn of his palm against your back.

No, no, no. That did not happen. Captain Levi did not just say that to you in a crowded hallway. Captain Levi, who has spent five days ignoring your every attempt to flirt, did not just choose now, now, in front of the open mess hall doors where your idiot friends are sitting within view, to say that.

You turn slowly toward the dining hall. At the table, every single one of them is staring. Eren has a spoon halfway to his mouth. Mikasa is watching you calmly, as she always does. Ymir is smiling widely. Jean’s eyebrows are raised to his hairline. You walk to the table on stumbling legs and sit down shakily.

Jean speaks first. “Well?”

You reach to pick up your spoon, then you realize there is no spoon. You haven’t even gotten your food yet. “W-what?”

“What happened?” Connie demands. “We saw him stop.”

“Did he react?” Eren asks. “Did he blush? Stammer? Look away?”

“Nothing happened,” you say a little too quickly.

Armin tilts his head. “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” you repeat, trying not to spontaneously combust from the inside out.

Eren squints at you. “Why do you look like you just ran thirty laps?”

“Because I hate all of you.”

Sasha gasps softly. “Even me?”

“Especially you,” you joke.

“Oh, come on. Something happened,” Jean laughs.

“Nothing happened.”

“You’re flustered,” Christa says gently. Damn it, of course it had to be her who noticed.

“It’s hot in here.”

“It’s winter,” Mikasa says. You glare at her.

Ymir leans forward, elbows on the table as she rests her chin on her linked hands. “Oh, something definitely happened.”

“It didn’t,” you insist, even though your skin is still burning where his hand touched your back. 

The bet was supposed to be simple. You flirt. Levi refuses to react. You keep pushing until you either win through charm or lose with enough grace to pretend you never cared. At no point was he supposed to turn around and make you feel like the bet had never belonged to you at all.

You stand up and grab your food, your cheeks still hot and shoulders stiff. When you sit back down, Ymir’s gaze follows you. She knows. She absolutely knows. But you tell yourself again that nothing happened as you stab a potato hard enough that it breaks apart in your bowl.

Nothing happened. And if that’s true, then you’re in far more trouble than you thought, because apparently Levi can do absolutely nothing and still ruin you.

.

It’s the final day. The day you either make Captain Levi blush, stammer, or lose composure, or you lose the bet and spend the rest of your life—however short that may be—listening to Eren and Jean taunting you and becoming the most smug humans to ever exist on this earth. You’re much less confident than you were when you started, and truthfully, you’re ready to take the loss and humiliation.

The training yard is blue with the early morning, fog clinging low to the ground while the first soldiers trickle in with their gear half-fastened and their faces pinched against the chill. You stand near the equipment racks with your ODM harness hanging around your hips. Your fingers feel slightly clumsier than usual as you tighten the buckle at your waist. It’s not that you’re nervous. You’re just tired and cold. You’re aware that Levi has spent the last twenty-four hours looking at you as if he knows something you don’t, touching you where he doesn’t need to touch you, speaking in a voice that, franky, should be illegal, and then walking away like nothing ever happened.

You tug the buckle too hard and it nearly pulls the breath out of you. Then it falls loose, and you mutter a low, “Shit.”

You feel someone move behind you. Your heart reacts before the rest of you does.

“Your waist buckle is loose.”

You close your eyes for a brief second. Damn the universe for sending him. If you’re going to lose, you might as well go out strong. “I’ve got it,” you say.

“You don’t,” Levi says.

Before you can argue, he steps in behind you. His hands rise to your waist, grabbing the buckle you were fumbling with, and your spine straightens so fast you might as well have been pulled up by a wire. He’s so damn close. Too damn close. 

There are people in the yard. Not many, but enough. Enough that you can’t turn around and ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, enough that you can’t grab his wrist, enough that you can’t do anything except stand there and pretend him correcting your gear isn’t an act of psychological warfare. 

His voice lowers near your ear. “You’re distracted.”

“I’m not,” you say a little too fast.

Levi pulls the buckle tight, enough to force a little “mmph” out of you. You swear you hear him scoff in amusement. “You are.”

“I’m perfectly focused.”

“You’re slower.” His knuckles brush, barely, against your stomach as he tightens the leather. “Your breathing’s off.”

As if your body is eager to prove him right, your breath hitches. You hate him. You hate him so much you want to bite him. You angle your head just enough to speak over your shoulder. “Did you come over here to critique my breathing?”

“No.” He leans in just enough that his next words touch the edge of your ear. “I’m wondering what’s on your mind.” Your first name falls from his lips. You despise how much you like to hear him say it.

Your brain, which has faced Titans, blood, death, and the endless exhaustion of military life, simply abandons you. “I—nothing,” you say, the word catching in your throat. 

Levi freezes for a breath, then finishes buckling your gear. He withdraws his hands, but he doesn’t step back immediately. The absence of his touch feels somehow worse than the touch itself. 

“Save your filthy little thoughts about me for later,” he says.

You freeze. There’s no possible response. Nothing clever nor dignified. Nothing that doesn’t immediately reveal your thoughts, filthy or otherwise. But you realize they’ve already been dragged into broad daylight and inspected by the one man you least want to have that power.

Levi steps around you casually with a perfectly neutral expression, acting as if he hasn’t taken your last functioning nerve between his teeth and smiled around it. You stand there, frozen, your entire body burning. 

Maybe this bet was a bad idea.

.

By midday, you’re coming to terms with the fact that you’re no longer trying to win the bet. You’re just trying to survive the damn thing.

The realization comes to you somewhere between drills and the deeply inconvenient moment when Sasha asks why you keep looking like you expect someone to sneak up on you. Because that’s exactly what it feels like right now; like every corridor has become a battlefield and every corner might contain Levi with another clever line ready to slide under your skin and make its home there.

He’s only doing this because he knows, somehow, because he’s figured out the bet or sensed weakness or simply decides that torturing you is a productive use of his time. That’s what you try to tell yourself, anyway. But none of those explanations quell the heat in your stomach. None of them make you stop remembering the low cadence of his voice. None of them help when you take the stairwell after grabbing a stack of reports to deliver and find him descending from the floor above, eyes already fixed on you as if he knew exactly where you would be.

Your first instinct is to step aside. Your second is to flee. Your third, which is unfortunately the one you choose, is to fight. 

Levi reaches the landing and moves as if to pass you, not stopping, not granting you so much as the satisfaction of another look, and you feel your pride explode in your chest. This is reckless, but when have you ever not been reckless? It led you here, after all.

“If I didn’t know better, Captain, I’d think you were coming onto me,” you say.

Levi stops. Slowly, he turns. His face is unreadable, but his eyes are not empty. They are darkened, focused purely on you and filled with so much control it feels more dangerous than if he had simply smiled.

“You’d know if I were coming onto you,” he says.

A warning. A door. A line on the floor with your toes already over it. Leave it alone. Let him go. Remember that there are only a few hours left in this ridiculous bet and the safest thing in the world would be to stop poking at the man who’s already proven he knows exactly how to make you forget your own name without even touching you.

Stupidly, you say, “Would I?”

For a moment, nothing happens—then Levi steps closer. A single step that takes the distance between you and closes it. His boots echo quietly against the stone. Your back doesn’t touch the wall yet, but every part of you understands that it could. He leans in and you go still. It’s just enough room to move away. But you don’t. His breath brushes your ear as he speaks.

“You’d know,” he says, voice so low the words barely survive the air between you, “because I’d have you backed against this wall and make damn sure you remembered who you were teasing.”

You swear you feel your knees give out. There’s no other way to describe it. A part of you dips, a violent little swoop of heat and shock and want that leaves your fingers tightening around the reports until the papers bend.

Levi draws back just enough to look at you, almost patiently, able to see every ruined thought passing across your face—and he has all the time in the world to watch you suffer through them. You force your mouth open, but nothing coherent arrives. His gaze drops once to your hands clenched around the reports, then he steps past you, the sleeve of his jacket brushing your arm.

You nearly pass out when his footsteps finally fade away.

.

Hours later, after dinner, you and your friends gather in the yard, warm with lantern light and the fading noise of the day. The sky above the barracks deepens into a royal blue. You sit on the grass with your friends, trying to look as normal as possible and most likely miserably failing.

The bet is nearly over. You’ve technically won it, but for some reason, you don’t want to admit it, because if you do, the things Levi said and did become real. Still, you don’t tell them anything. Connie is looking at the stars, Sasha is finishing the last of her crackers that she snuck out of the mess hall, Jean is laying down with his hands behind his head, Mikasa is watching the yard, and Ymir keeps glancing at you with an expression that suggests she knows there’s blood in the water and she’s simply waiting for you to admit you’ve been bitten.

Eren is the one who finally breaks. He waits until the last bell rings from somewhere inside the barracks, marking the end of the day. He smiles and looks at you so smugly it makes you want to slap him.

“That’s it,” he says. “Told you. Captain Levi doesn’t give a shit about romance.”

The others groan, laugh, and argue, immediately debating technicalities, because Jean insists there may still be time if Levi walks through the yard in the next thirty seconds, and Connie says you should just sprint inside and say something ridiculous in case it works. 

You hear it all from very far away, because you know with certainty that Levi didn’t blush, nor stammer, nor look away. He didn’t lose. Not where anyone could see, at least. Eren is right. Jean is right. Everyone is right. 

But they don’t know about the corridor, about his hand at your back, about the training yard and the filthy little thoughts he somehow spoke into existence just by naming them; they don’t know about the stairwell, about the way his voice lowered just for you, about the wall that never touched your back but has been haunting you for hours anyway.

You sit there in the grass with your face turned toward the darkening yard, letting the others mourn and gloat around you, while the memory of his words presses insistently at the forefront of your mind.

You’d know.

You press your lips together and say nothing, because the truth is yours now—and Levi’s.

And that might be worse than losing.

.

Several days pass, and in that time, Levi Ackerman becomes a ghost. He’s somehow everywhere and nowhere at once. In the courtyard while you’re sharpening your blades, standing at the edge of the formation while you run drills, passing through the dining hall with a cup of tea in one hand; and every time you see him, every time his eyes flick over you, your mind drags itself to the stairwell again. 

You try to be normal about it. Privately, you fail, but in public, you’re a master of composure—or at least that’s what you tell yourself every time you miss a cue or spend a full three seconds staring at Levi’s mouth during morning briefing. You spend too long trying not to think about him, and the act of thinking about him suddenly becomes the only thing you know how to do.

Then the summons comes, delivered after dinner by a junior soldier, who says, with a nervous little glance over his shoulder, that Captain Levi wants to see you in his office.

“Did he say why?” you ask.

The soldier clears his throat. “Performance issues.”

The others at the table look at you with a mix of confusion and pity, but you don’t look back at them. You simply stand, smooth down your jacket, and walk out of the dining hall while desperately trying to ignore the fact that your heart is about to explode.

Outside Levi’s office, you lift your hand to knock, but you pause when you become aware of the warmth gathering underneath your collar. This is ridiculous. You’re a soldier. You’ve faced Titans. You’ve bled, trained, survived, laughed in the face of exhaustion, taken orders from men twice as loud and half as terrifying, and you are not going to break down just because Levi asked to speak with you behind a closed door.

You knock.

“Come in.”

You open the door. Levi’s office is exactly as it always is; painfully neat, the shelves orderly and every stack of papers aligned neatly. A single lantern burns on his desk, where he sits with a report open in front of him and a cup of tea sitting near his right hand. He doesn’t look up immediately, and it makes the knot in your stomach tighten.

“You wanted to see me, Captain?” you ask, stepping inside and closing the door behind you.

Levi lifts his eyes and says, “Sit.”

Your spine reacts to the order first as you enter the room and sit in the chair opposite his desk with as much grace as you can muster, which isn’t a lot under the circumstances.

“Am I in trouble?” you ask.

Levi leans back slightly, his fingers resting against the edge of the report. He studies you carefully. “Depends how honest you plan on being.” You smile despite the cold chill running down your spine. He narrows his eyes at you. “Your focus has been shit.”

Well. Not the line you expected, maybe, but the tone is familiar enough to turn into irritation, and you’d rather deal with irritation than the other feeling gathering in your stomach.

“My focus is fine,” you say, more meekly than you’d like.

“No, it isn’t.” Levi closes the report. “Your turns were wide during drills yesterday. Your reaction time was slow this morning. You checked your gear and didn’t realize your gas pressure regulation valve was broken.”

Your lips part, then close again. Damn him. “That was one mistake.”

“Several mistakes.”

“I was tired.”

“You’ve been tired before. You’re sloppier when you’re distracted. And you’ve been distracted.”

Heat starts rushing to your face. “Is that what this is about? My form?”

“It’s about performance issues.”

Your body locks up. Levi’s expression doesn’t change, and that’s the worst part, because his face remains perfectly neutral while the words crawl under your skin, dragging every memory of the last two weeks with them. His hand at your lower back, his voice at your ear, his proximity in the stairwell, his near-command to save your filthy thoughts for later. You try to breathe through your nose.

“My performance is fine,” you say.

“It’s shit,” he says.

You grip the arms of the chair a bit tighter. “Did you just call me in here to insult me?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Levi sits in the silence for a moment, then he says, “Next time you make a bet involving me, pick a group of idiots that won’t talk about it loudly.”

You swear your stomach drops so fast that the whole room spins around you. Your vision blurs and your mind scrambles backward through every report, every hallway attempt, every bold little comment you’d thrown at him. He knew. Levi knew.

You stare at him, completely frozen, shame flooding through you before anger surges to meet it. Not only did he know, but he had let you keep going, watched you struggle, and taken the game from your hands and turned it against you.

“You knew?” you say.

“Since day five.”

Your face burns. The air in the office suddenly feels suffocating. “And you just let me keep going?”

You swear you see Levi’s eyes glint with amusement. “No. I started playing.”

You stand suddenly, chair scraping back against the floor loudly. “That was petty, Captain. Were you trying to embarrass me?”

“You’re the one who was trying to make me blush in front of half the regiment.”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out, because he’s infuriatingly, humiliatingly right, and he knows it. “That was different,” you say weakly.

“How?”

“It was a bet.”

“Mm.” Levi steps out from behind the desk. “That makes it better?”

You hold your ground as he rounds the desk, though you become increasingly aware of the closed door, his desk behind you as you turn around, how his shoes make almost no sound against the floor. Your pulse skips.

“It was harmless,” you say.

“It was stupid.”

“You didn’t seem to mind.”

His eyes lock onto yours. “No. I didn’t.”

Your back suddenly meets the edge of the desk. You hadn’t even realized you were stepping back. Levi doesn’t touch you, but he steps close enough that the space between you becomes a silent dare, and when his hands come down on either side of you, palms braced against the desk, you’re caged without being held. Trapped only because neither of you has chosen to move.

He’s left you room to step away. You could step away. But he’s so close. He’s close enough that you can see the shadows beneath his eyes and the faint scar above his eyebrow. Your breath thins. Levi’s gaze sharpens on you.

“You’re very bold when there’s an audience,” he murmurs.

You swallow, but your throat feels dry. “And when there isn’t?”

For the first time, something almost like a smile threatens the corner of his mouth. He cocks his head slightly. “That’s what I called you here to find out.”

The office goes silent. It presses around you, filling the space between your faces, making you conscious of every small thing surrounding you: the desk biting into your thighs, the faint scent of tea gone cold, the lantern flame shifting in its glass, Levi’s hands braced on either side of you, close enough that your own fingers could reach his wrists if you dared.

Your anger is still there, and your embarrassment too, but beneath both, beneath the humiliation of being caught and the fury of being played, something else opens its eyes, a recklessness that’s starving for touch. It’s been alive since the corridor, since the stairwell, since the first time Levi turned the game back on you.

His gaze drops to your mouth. Yours drops to his. Neither of you moves. You can hear your heartbeat thundering in your ears now, unsteady despite your best efforts to calm it. Your hands grip the desk behind you. The urge to say something snarky leaps to your lips, but you have nothing. You’re completely, utterly speechless.

But you feel the smallest flare of courage. And with that courage, you’re able to whisper three simple words.

“I dare you.”

The kiss is nowhere near gentle. It’s controlled for a single second, just a firm press of his mouth against yours, like he’s giving you exactly one moment to pull away; and when you don’t move, when your hands leave the desk to grab his cravat and pull him deeper in, his restraint breaks. He kisses you like he’s been waiting for this, like he’s been counting every reckless word you threw at him and has finally decided to answer all of them at once.

Your legs press into the desk as his body leans in, one hand leaving the wood to rest on your waist, the other sliding to your jaw. You make a small sound against his mouth that you would absolutely deny under oath, but Levi hears it, feels it, and answers by tilting your head exactly how he wants it. Your thoughts turn into complete static, but only one breaks through.

This is the reaction you wanted. Not a blush or a stammer. This.

Levi pulls away to breathe, his mouth still close enough to brush yours. His hand is still firm at your waist. You don’t speak, and neither does he. You notice the darkening of his eyes. Yours are fixed on his mouth. Then his thumb moves along your jaw.

“You wanted honest,” he says quietly.

You smile against his mouth and whisper, “I wanted a reaction.”

Levi scoffs. “You got one.”

His mouth crashes back into yours, tongue sliding against yours. One of his hands fists in the fabric at your lower back, pulling you against him. The other cups the nape of your neck, holding you exactly where he wants you. You feel the way his breath hitches once before he deepens the kiss even further. He’s done waiting.

He tears his mouth away again, voice low and rough. “Bedroom.”

“Is that an order, Captain?” you tease.

Levi’s mouth twitches into something almost resembling a smirk. “It’s an invitation. Don’t confuse the two.”

His fingers lace through yours and he leads you out of the office, down the short hallway to his private quarters. The door shuts behind you, and then he’s on you again, mouth hungry, hands already working at your straps. You push his cravat aside and unbutton his shirt with equal urgency. Every brush of his hands against your skin sends sparks racing through you. 

You reach up to your neck and unclasp your necklace, setting it carefully on the small table beside his bed. You’ve never taken it off, so the absence doesn’t register at first. When it does, you feel more naked, despite already fully being so. Then you turn back to him. Levi watches the movement, then his hands return to your bare waist, guiding you backward until the edge of the mattress meets the backs of your knees. He gives you the gentlest push and you sink onto the bed, the sheets cold against your skin.

Levi follows you down, bracing on one forearm as he kisses you again. His free hand trails along your side, mapping the curve of your waist, the flare of your hip. He breaks the kiss to move lower, pressing his mouth to the hollow of your throat, then the slope of your collarbone, then lower still. 

When his lips close over once nipple you arch, a soft sound escapes you. He sucks gently at first, then with more pressure, tongue circling the sensitive bud while his thumb teases the other. The dual attention makes your walls flutter around nothing. You thread your fingers through his hair, feeling the satisfaction that rolls through him at every gasp you give.

He continues downward, kissing a path over your stomach and your hipbone. He bites gently, leaving a whisper of a mark. His hands part your thighs and then suddenly, without warning, his mouth is on you, tongue stroking slowly. At the same time two fingers slide inside, curling so perfectly that your vision blurs for a moment.

Levi’s thoughts are focused on only one thing: he wants to feel you come apart, wants to hear every sound you make when there’s no audience left to perform for. He works you steadily, tongue flicking and sucking at your clit while his fingers stroke that perfect spot again and again.

Your own thoughts scatter now. The bet feels distant, ridiculous compared to the reality of Levi’s mouth and hands. Pleasure builds fast, coiling tighter with every pass of his tongue and every thrust of his fingers. Your hips move without conscious thought, chasing the sensation. Levi’s free hand presses your thighs wider, keeping you open for him. The quiet growl he lets out against you vibrates through your core. Your inner walls clench around him, urging him deeper.

“Levi, please,” you whimper, hands tangling in his hair as you grind against his face. “Need more.”

With a low chuckle, he adds a third finger, stretching you deliciously as he picks up the pace. His tongue dances over your clit, sending a wave of ecstasy through you. He doubles his efforts, sucking your clit into his mouth and flicking it with his tongue. Your thighs close around his head. One hand flies from his head to the sheets, gripping tight.

In a moment of surprising tenderness, he reaches out for your hand with his free one, lacing your fingers together. His other hand is still preoccupied, fingers thrusting deep and curling against your g-spot. The tension inside you winds tighter and tighter. Your quiet moans fill the room, a symphony of pleasure that seems to drive Levi on.

Your orgasm comes so suddenly it catches you by surprise. Your body clenches around his fingers as wave after wave rolls through you. You cry out, back arching off the bed, your hand in his hair tightening its grip on his locks. Levi doesn’t stop until the tremors ease, drawing every last ripple of pleasure from you with careful strokes of his tongue. When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are dark and intent, lips glistening. He kisses the inside of your thigh once, then moves back up your body to press his mouth to yours.

Your heavy breaths turn into small, hitched inhales as your pulse races. Levi’s weight settles partly over you, one hand stroking your side. You feel his cock twitch against you. You reach for him, pulling him closer, and he comes willingly, his chest pressed against yours as he grinds his hips down to meet yours, his length sliding over your wetness. 

He then pulls back, eyes searching your face. There’s a softness in the way he lifts his hand and brushes his thumb across your cheek. He feels the rapid flutter of your heart through your chest. He’s been denying it for days now, but he’s wanted this. He wanted it since the first time you tried to make him react, but he needs to know you do too.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks.

You nod without hesitation. “Yes.”

Levi watches you for another second, looking for any signs of doubt, then he settles between your thighs. His hand guides himself to your entrance, and the first press of him stretches you in a way you never could have prepared for. He’s thicker than you expected, the tip parting you slowly. The sensation is overwhelming at first. You feel every inch as he sinks deeper. Your body yields around his solid girth. A quiet sound escapes you, half gasp and half moan. Levi stills once he’s fully inside you, giving you time to adjust.

He takes both of your hands in his and lifts them above your head, pinning them gently to the mattress. His fingers are laced through yours. He begins to move, slow rolling thrusts that you feel the full stretch each time he pushes in. The push of him inside you is deep, hitting places that make your toes curl.

Sensations layer one over another: the slickness, the pressure against your inner walls, your hips tilting to take him deeper. He lowers his mouth to your neck, lips brushing first. Then his teeth graze in a light bite, the sensation racing down your spine. You feel the sting melt into heat, and he soothes it with a slow kiss before biting again, a little harder this time.

Against your skin he murmurs, “You feel so good.” 

The words spread through you in a rush of heat. He shifts your hands and grips both of them with just one of his, while he slides his now free hand down to grip your hip, steadying you as he thrusts again, deeper. You kiss him when he lifts his head, mouths meeting in an open exchange that still tastes faintly of you. He pulls back enough to speak, still moving inside you with long strokes. 

“Is this what you wanted?”

You nod, a moan threading through the motion, your body arching to meet each thrust. The stretch is constant, a fullness that blanks your mind. Levi feels the way you clench around him and the small tremors in your thighs. He slows deliberately, hips rolling in a lazy pace that keeps him buried deep but denies the hard friction you’re starting to crave.

“Yeah?” he says, tilting his head. “Wouldn’t like it if I stopped now, would you?”

You shake your head, no words yet, just the desperate cling of your legs wrapping tighter around his waist. Your hands flex under his hold. You feel the strength in his grip. You couldn’t break free if you tried, and somehow, the contrast of tenderness and control makes heat flood through you again.

Levi’s mouth curves slightly. “That’s right. You want me to keep going, pretty girl?” He leans down, his lips barely ghosting over yours. “Come on, use your words.”

You nearly crack under the weight of his words. Your voice comes out breathy and urgent. “Please don’t stop. Keep going, Levi. I need it. Need it harder.”

He obliges without hesitation. His pace shifts, thrusts growing harder, the bed creaking softly beneath you as he drives in with more force. His thickness fills you completely with each stroke. The wet sound of it mixes with the quiet moans he lets out against your neck. He bites there again, teeth sinking just enough to mark without breaking skin. He kisses the spot, tongue soothing the sting. 

A rush of emotion floods you through the physicality of it all, a mix of being wanted so thoroughly and the unexpected gentleness in how he holds you even while fucking you harder. The moment Levi releases your hand to brace himself properly, you drag your nails down his back, the urge to mark him back rising. The scratches start light but deepen with the next thrust. Levi’s voice comes low near your ear.

“Not too hard, love.”

You nod quickly, the word settling somewhere low in your stomach. You know why he said that. Marks like that would be impossible to hide in the showers. Questions would rise. Explanations you couldn’t give. You ease the pressure of your nails, letting your hands smooth over his skin instead. You feel the flex of his muscles beneath. 

Levi doesn’t falter, his hips snapping down in a rhythm that pushes you higher again. He kisses you to muffle the louder moans that slip out of you, his mouth claiming yours while he drives deep. The tip of him brushes your cervix with every stroke. You feel the tension coiling in him, the way his breathing grows rougher, the subtle tremor in his arms holding his body up. His own pleasure builds, the quiet sounds he makes rising in volume, murmured words of how perfect you feel around him, how much he’s thought about this. 

The pace stays relentless, but he still holds enough control that he doesn’t get lost in the haze. You cling to him with your legs. He kisses your neck again. You feel the precipice approaching for him, the way his thrusts grow slightly erratic, his quiet moans turning into messier, louder groans.

When he pulls out at the last moment, it’s with a low moan, and he shoots ropes across your stomach. The sight of it, the claim on your skin, the way his body shudders through his release, almost makes you cum again on the spot. 

Levi stays close afterward, breathing hard, his forehead resting against yours for a moment. He kisses you gently, fingers stroking over your wrists where he held them before to check without words that you’re alright. You nod silently. He suddenly stands on slightly shaking legs and crosses the room to retrieve a cloth. He sits beside you and wipes you carefully before lying beside you, one arm draped over your waist. 

You turn into him, closing your eyes, not worrying about what the morning will bring. Right now, it’s just you and him, and the very distant thought that you’ll have to thank the others for throwing you into this bet.

.

The morning after is painfully awkward.

Surely, you can survive sitting down with your friends after spending the night with Levi. Surely. Probably. Maybe, if no one looks at you too closely.

You slide onto the bench beside Sasha, trying not to remember Levi’s hands on your waist, Levi speaking against your lips, Levi’s breath finally turning uneven in the dark when your fingers dragged through his hair and pulled a rough sound from his throat that absolutely would have counted as a reaction if the rest of these idiots had been there to witness it.

Then again, fucking your captain probably counts as a reaction too.

Sasha looks up from her breakfast. “You’re late.”

“I slept in,” you answer smoothly.

Ymir, sitting across from you with Christa close at her side, narrows her eyes immediately. “Did you?”

“Yes.”

“That sounded defensive.”

“That’s because I’m being attacked before I’ve had tea.”

Jean and Connie snicker. Then Connie sighs and shakes his head, saying with genuine disappointment, “I still can’t believe you couldn’t get the Captain to react. I was so sure you could do it.”

Oh, you did it alright. 

“I did my best,” you say.

Ymir props her chin on her hand and smiles lazily. “Please. No one could ever make Levi blush or stammer. The whole thing was a waste of fucking time.” She pauses, then adds, “A funny waste of time, though. That was pathetic.”

Jean points his spoon at you without looking at you. “She did get him to talk to her more than usual.”

Armin suddenly says your name. All eyes turn to him. He tilts his head, eyes locked onto your throat. “Where’s your necklace?”

Your hand goes to your throat and meets bare skin. Your heart drops through the floor, through the earth itself where it can lie down and die in peace. You know where it is. You know exactly where it is. But you cannot tell the truth, because you would absolutely never hear the end of it.

“I must’ve forgotten to put it on,” you say, and immediately slap yourself in your mind because you have never forgotten to put on your necklace, because you never take it off except for showers.

Then you feel it on the hairs on the back of your neck. Someone’s approaching. But before you can turn around, a hand enters your vision and sets something down on the table in front of you. Oh gods, you know those hands. They were all over you last night.

You look up and your entire soul leaves your body.

“You left this,” Levi says.

You look down at what he set down. It’s your necklace. Right there, on the table, beside your hand. In front of everyone. No one speaks. No one breathes. You stare at the necklace and it feels like its staring back in disappointment at you.

Levi turns and walks away without another word. When you look up, every single head is turned to you. You look back down at the necklace, your face absolutely boiling with embarrassment and the memory of last night. Fuck, fuck, fuck—

“Why did the Captain have your necklace?” Connie asks.

You pick it up with slightly shaking fingers. “That is… a great question.”

Jean leans forward. “And?”

“And I’m admiring how great it is.”

Eren’s eyes are now huge, both horrified and fascinated. “Wait, did you manage to get him to react?”

You look down at the necklace of your palm, remembering Levi’s hands lacing through yours, his mouth lavishing attention on your neck, his body settled between your thighs, his praises and moans and whispers—all things you will be taking to your grave and beyond it.

Then you smile.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

thank you for reading, and for allowing me to reach this milestone <3

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