You lay back in bed, watching Levi get ready for the day. He dressed methodically, practice having worn away the challenges of missing fingers and a blind eye. He glanced into the mirror, smoothing his bangs into place, but suddenly stopped.
His hands dropped and he gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles flaring white. You sat up quickly, worried that he was having a flashback- a rarer but still present remnant of the war.
"Levi?" He couldn't hear you. You quickly slid out of bed and moved beside him, edging into his peripheral vision. You raised your voice, careful not to startle him. "Levi, I'm here."
At your voice, his rigid posture fell. He broke his gaze away from the mirror. To your surprise, a sheen of tears glistened in his eyes.
"What's wrong?"
He made a low, dismissive sound, hating the way he'd let emotions spring up and choke him so suddenly. But the shock of it hadn't given him time to process, to shove anything back down where it belonged.
He gestured roughly at his hair. You leaned in, squinting- and noticed a feathery patch of gray threading through his dark locks at the root. You couldn't help smiling. Was that all?
"You're getting older, Captain. There's no shame in that." You ran your fingers through his hair, gently scratching his scalp. "I think you'll make quite the silver fox."
His lips twitched, but he didn't take the compliment. "Tch. It's not that." He caught your hand in his and roughly ran his thumb over your knuckles, staring down at your hands as if they were easier to bear than your face.
"I've never… she didn't…” His throat worked as he swallowed, searching for the words. You waited patiently. "I'm older than my mother," he said at last.
Oh. There was nothing to say, then. That was why it had startled him, his own body renewing grief. You gave him space to think, to keep talking if he wanted, keeping your hand in his like a tether.
“I don’t remember her face, have I told you that?” His face sharpened into something pained, guilty. “But I remember her hair was dark. I imagined the night sky was like that, as a kid.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t at all.”
Levi’s hands trembled. You gently maneuvered him back to the bed. He tipped backward and lay there, frowning at the ceiling. Frustration and grief blended in his voice. “I didn’t expect to get old.”
You curled against his chest. His heart beat against your cheek, soothing the ache in your own. “None of us did, huh? But here we are.”
“Here we are,” he echoed. Another silence fell. When Levi spoke again you almost missed the words- the two of you pinned under the weight of them.
“She would’ve liked you. I know it.”
“Levi,” you started, throat tight, but he shook his head.
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Levi's road to confessing was arduous (to him) and full of longing
contains: angsty fluff. canon universe, reader joined the survey corps a little before Levi became Captain. mentions of canon typical events and minor character death. mostly focused on Levi's view of things. Miche and Erwin are rooting for the two of you, and they gossip about your relationship in their minuscule free time. slow burn ish. no smut.
wc: 6.2k
To Levi, meeting you felt like further proof that the world wanted to consistently push him to the edge of insanity, even if at a smaller scale than every unfortunate event of his past. It was the first time he felt completely weakened by something so harmless, idiotic infatuation.
He realized very early on, during your first week as a new member of the Corps, that he had an unparalleled interest in you. It appalled him.
For the first couple of months he refused to admit to himself that what he felt when you were around meant anything beyond idle curiosity.
He chalked up his harsh treatment of you during training to simply proving you were a good soldier; instead of what it actually was, a weak attempt to make you give up, because he felt someone like you shouldn’t have to deal with the horrors of the world.
He convinced himself the headaches he would get when you were called on for patrols or expeditions were just a result of his lack of sleep. And that the constant thoughts of you swirling in his mind every damn night would dissipate the longer you were around. He was very wrong about that.
He made it a point to not interact with you outside of training, missions, or briefings. Nonetheless, that didn’t mean he didn’t feed into his curiosity. As subtly as he could.
He watched you a lot. Enough to know that you were always late for breakfast, trained yourself to the bones even on your off days, volunteered to help around with anything you could, and were particularly good at mending clothes. He knew you liked eating with Hange almost every night, and it was the part of your day he enjoyed the most. On each of those nights he followed the two of you into the mess hall, sitting far enough that Hange wouldn’t get the idea of asking him to join, but still giving himself the appropriate distance to observe you. To commit to memory every little detail he could, how you ate, how you sat, what you talked about, if your nose also scrunched up at the disgusting taste of the tea everyone but him was subjected to; any information he could gather before the sound of your laugh warmed his chest enough to make him leave.
Truthfully, he could have kept that stalker-ish routine going for ages, and he fully intended to; being able to keep his distance while still getting the smallest doses of you seemed like an ideal arrangement in his mind.
It wasn’t until one damning night that he decided this restrictive mindset had to change. He saw you walking with another recruit, late, and alone. He couldn’t properly hear whatever wildly amusing conversation you were having from where he stood; regardless of that, he could still clearly make out the faint sound of your laugh accompanying it.
The small scene was enough to break him from his ridiculous self-imposed prison. Levi didn’t want to allow himself to indulge in his desires for you. He didn’t feel he deserved to be with you in any capacity further than working alongside each other. Despite that, the idea that someone else could come in and take from him the possibility of a chance with you was much more mortifying than his own insecurities and concerns.
From that alone, he made the decision to allow himself a sliver of your time. And so, the very next day you were graced with your first private conversation with the captain, if you could even call it that.
He approached you after you were done with training, standing against a wooden beam trying to steady your breathing, hair messy, and sweat coating your forehead.
“Your stance was horrible today.” The abruptness of his presence and his comment caught you off guard.
“What?” You looked at him with a puzzled look, processing whether he was actually addressing you or not.
“During training. You were terrible.” He explained, his tone maintaining its harshness despite your confusion.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess so, I’m out of my element today.” You explained plainly, a half-smile tugging on your lips both at the bluntness, and the fact this was probably the first time he came up to you alone.
“And yesterday as well.”
“Right.”
“You’re not sleeping well.” More of a statement than a question, the dark circles you've been sporting this week probably gave it away.
“I've been having a hard time with it, yes.”
He gave you a firm nod, pursing his lips together in thought.
“I’ll come find you tonight, I have a tea for that.” He turned around the moment he finished without a second look, not giving you an actual chance to accept or refuse.
Since then, the two of you started a small routine. He’d look for you after dinner and guide you on a brief walk to the top floor of the main building. A teapot and two cups already placed on the window ledge in the back of the room, with a singular candle lit close by; he hoped that the minimal amount of light would make his intense gaze less noticeable.
It was supposed to last only for however long you were struggling to sleep but continued far past those days. Most times he wouldn’t talk, only listened; he’d let you rattle on about the day if you pleased, indulging you by participating in idle gossip.
“I can reprimand them for that. I trust you’re aware.” He’d slip in when you shared a little too much about the escapades of some recruits, forgetting for a moment he had recently become your superior.
“Well, this is all alleged. Maybe I didn’t hear it right. This tea is great by the way; is it a different kind?" A blush creeping up your cheeks while you attempted to change the subject, looking at him with a sheepish smile that begged him to forget your prior information.
It took a few weeks, but he started contributing with topics of his own little by little. An opinion, a small anecdote, a complaint. Slowly chipping away at the facade of mystery and harshness that used to be all you got from him before. A part of Levi worried that the more you learnt about him, the less interested you’ll be, but the enjoyment he got from your small interactions vastly outweighed that concern.
A year into meeting you, Levi had grown accustomed to having you near him, even if for brief moments. He enjoyed your company and physically couldn't continue hiding it from you. He still kept enough distance to make his ever-growing feelings unknown to everyone else, and didn’t properly confess anything to you, but his advances grew slightly bolder.
Your nightly routine changed a lot from how it originally started. Moving from ten minutes of sipping tea in a semipublic space to secluded meetings in the dead of night. Going as far as sneaking you in his private quarters when he came back from travels you were not part of.
Being away from you became the key that pushed your connection forward. Every time he came back, he wanted to have you around for the night, and he needed the certainty that you wouldn’t be interrupted; the reassurance of it enabled him to make these encounters last for hours.
He sat in a wooden chair next to his desk, beckoning you closer with a simple command. “Show me what happened.”
“You can’t see the bruise with my uniform on.” You argued with a stifled laugh; you had complained to him about a minor injury you sustained recently, something insignificant that happened while he was gone.
“Then change.”
You stared at him bewildered.
“Do I have to do it for you?” His stern tone didn’t falter; it would’ve seemed like an order more than playful teasing, if it wasn’t for how relaxed he looked.
“You returned as tactful as ever, I see.” You laughed, amused at his actions. You made your way to the bedroom, missing the smirk on his face.
You returned to the room in a thin nightgown that made Levi tense at the sight, hands tucking into fists on his lap before relaxing again. His hand sprawled on the back of your right thigh without question once you stood in front of him, pulling it closer to properly view the wide bruise on the outer side of it; purplish hues going from your mid-thigh to the bottom of your glute.
“This is nothing to you?” It came out softer than he intended. Thinking of you being hurt when he wasn’t around, no matter how little, lowered his guard.
“It looks worse than it is.”
His hand carefully grazed the bruise, hiking up the edge of your gown in the process. You shivered at the touch. Goosebumps covered your skin, and it did not go unnoticed by him. “Does it hurt?”
“No. I think this helps.” You humored, not bothering to hide your enjoyment of his treatment.
“I’m sure it does, brat.” He smiled, small, but enough for you to notice. His hand still caressing your leg despite his response.
It took Levi five years to make his feelings for you properly known. But it’s not like you, or others, hadn’t suspected them before that. Despite keeping the matter private, much like most things about him, sometimes he struggled to adequately hide that he had a soft spot for you.
He never outright said he cared about you, never properly held you, but all the things he did do, they proved to be more intimate and sweeter than any regular courting could ever be.
For your first birthday after joining the Corps he went out of his way to gift you a treat from a bakery in your home district. It became a tradition that he fulfilled every year since; he’d go as far as getting it for you in advance if an expedition took place around the date, just in case one of you didn't make it back after.
In your second year, after an expedition where two members of your graduating class were tragically lost, he sneaked you into his quarters every night for a week—Both Erwin and Hange knew but they didn’t say word of it—he’d lay you down next to him, let you cry out your grieve for as long as you needed to, and patiently waited until you grew tired enough to sleep to get some shut-eye of his own.
“I’ll never get used to it, will I?” Your voice was barely above a whisper.
“No.” While your eyes were glued to the ceiling, Levi’s gaze was fixed on you. His expression was unreadable as usual, but he was completely tormented, wishing he could take this hurt away from you.
“Am I being weak?”
“You’re being human.”
“That’s a yes.” You smiled, attempting to joke, yet the humor in your voice didn’t reach your eyes. Tears fell down in a stream, and Levi had to try his hardest not to reach out and wipe them off your cheeks. “I just—” Your voice broke. To him, the sound evoked a feeling adjacent to being stabbed. “I feel I should be stronger than this. I shouldn’t be surprised over what I signed up for.”
“You’re not surprised; you’re hurt.” Levi chastised, shifting his position to look at you properly. “You did your job, you don’t have to be strong now. Now stop this nonsense of acting like it's shameful to grieve. At least don't do it with me.”
You didn’t say anything—instead looking back at the ceiling while your hand found his arm, curling up to his side when the tears started burning your eyes once again.
He didn’t try to hold you, but he didn’t pull away. Even after you fell asleep.
In your third year, when Erwin told him he’d be pulling you out of his team to make you a squad leader, he became sick almost immediately. The notion that you would no longer be under his supervision, that even if you went on the same expeditions as he did, he’d have to wait until the very end before he could know if you were still alive. It circled his head all morning and gave him a headache so outstanding he had to dismiss himself from training that afternoon.
“What do you think?” Erwin ended the silence that persisted since he broke the news.
Levi stared absentmindedly. “I think she’ll be a fantastic leader.”
“Is that it?”
“Are you asking for my permission?”
“No, I simply respect you enough to ask for your opinion.”
“Unless you’re willing to put my preferences above what’s best for humanity, don't ask for my opinion on what you should do with her.”
“Because your preference would be to retire her immediately?” Erwin prodded, with no real expectation for Levi to speak up. It wasn’t the first time he brought you up, and it wouldn’t be the last if Levi kept refusing to trust him with this information. “You don’t have to answer that. I understand you want to avoid telling me what I already know.”
Following your change in rank, the order of retreating met Levi with a wave of asphyxiating dread rather than relief, one that didn’t dissipate until he was able to spot you on your horse, still breathing and in one piece. These concerns were never brought up to you or anyone else for that matter—despite Erwin being aware and willing to speak with him about it if he could just be honest—even if his fear of losing you and not being able to do anything about it grew stronger with every expedition, he kept his worries regarding your well-being private. You always returned; he had no reason to discuss anything he felt. If you were alive and well, he’d be able to mask his love for you for a while longer.
It wasn’t until your fifth year as a member of the Survey Corps when his ‘while longer’ ended. When he had to come to terms with his fears, and his feelings.
He kept his composure as best as he could while going through the list of those dead and missing with Erwin, watching other scouts load bodies into carriages, though he’s sure it did not go unnoticed how tightly he was gripping his gear while he waited for every name to be read. Even then, after all bodies were loaded, the trek to the walls started, and confirmation that you were not one of those lost received; his heartbeat did not return to a healthy rhythm. He needed to see you.
This was the most stressed he ever felt trying to find you after an expedition. Deep down, he could feel something about today was different, as if you not being okay was something he could physically feel. And it didn’t help the fact that it took him so long to spot you; carriages and horses already on the move to safety without him being able to catch a single glimpse of you.
Every second that passed he could feel his body tense further, cold sweat reaching his palms, a knot tight in his throat that only got tighter the moment he saw you. That sickening feeling of dread he thought he had grown used to crashed down on him and threatened to finish him right then and there. He spotted you being carried by Miche when he made it past the wall. Your body limp in his hold, your inability to even keep your head up made Levi assume the worst and had him rush in your direction before he even realized it.
He got off the horse calm and collected, as if his heart wasn’t threatening to rip itself out of his chest. His relief upon seeing you were still breathing was immediate, yet short-lived as he paid more attention to your injuries. Your left thigh and arm were bandaged. There was blood all over you, dripping from your nose, your mouth, and the seams of the binds on your wounded limbs; you must’ve been hurt close before the order to retreat was given.
It made him sick and brought a vile sting to his eyes, a sensation he had long forgotten.
“She’s okay.” Miche assured him, smiling lightly at how Levi was frowning at you as though telepathically reprimanding you for getting to this state. “Nothing’s broken, but she’s weak. She couldn’t keep riding.”
Levi nodded firmly, not trusting himself to speak right away. He reached under your body, taking you in his arms with little protest from the other man. “I’ll take her. I don’t want her in a carriage.”
“She’d be laying down.” Miche pointed out yet still took a step back once Levi had a solid hold on you, not really wanting to interfere.
“She’d be alone.”
Miche nodded, holding back his reaction at what the captain was displaying, and promptly retreating to his horse; more than ready to get back and tell Erwin about this little interaction.
You were conscious enough to hear the conversation, although far too drained to register the worry behind Levi’s tone let alone comment on it. You had half a mind to realize he carried you back to his horse, helping you on it before getting behind you. He took a hold of the handle and took off in a slow ride, while his left arm went around your waist, keeping you tucked back against him.
One of your hands went to his forearm, giving it a small squeeze to show your acknowledgement before relaxing again.
“Are you okay?” He questioned quietly. Not that anyone would be able to hear him past the sound of hooves against the ground and the many murmurs of civilians watching them pass by.
You turned your head enough to look at him out of the corner of your eye. The concern written all over his face almost made you forget the waves of pain crashing through you. You nodded, small, before letting the back of your head rest on his shoulder; the tiny action having wasted the remainder of your energy.
“Liar.” He murmured against your hair, the touch of his lips against your scalp so fleeting you could only assume you imagined it.
That night Levi had been more consumed in his own thoughts than he would have appreciated. You were out most of the ride back to the base; the only thing keeping you upright was his firm hold on you that didn’t falter once. He spent that time wondering what happened, how did you injure yourself, did somebody help you, did you have to drag yourself all the way to your horse and pretend you didn’t feel so bad until it was inevitable?
He imagined every single heartbreaking scenario his brain could come up with, images of you crying out while you bled in the woods flashed through his mind, torturing himself with the idea that maybe you had been near him, maybe you even called out for him and he didn’t hear it, trying to find ways to blame himself for your poor state.
He woke you gently once you made it to the base, helping you off the horse and onto your feet, guiding you to wrap an arm over his shoulder to steady yourself when you were unable to suppress your limping. Everything was a blur for you, every step you took forgotten when the next one happened.
You could remember briefly smiling at Hange when she approached the two of you, catching some of their conversation, and Levi whisking you away before you could manage a goodbye.
“You really busted yourself out there.” You chuckled at her comment and winced immediately after, a stabbing pain reaching your ribs, the mixed noise making her laugh. “You’re okay?”
You nodded, not getting the time to answer before Levi interjected. “She is.” He stated, adjusting his grasp on your hip when you clutched your side.
“Right… I’ll get one of the scouts to take her to the infirmary. Erwin wants to talk to us.”
“No.” Levi spoke up before Hange could even attempt turning on her heel. “I will take care of it, and I’ll go to his office after. Tell him I’ll only be a moment.” He kept walking without another word, not giving her any time to make a comment on his behavior.
He took you to his quarters, helping you out of your stained cloak and muddied boots before starting to undo the soaked bandages on your limbs. He seemed unaffected by the sight he was met with, the gashes and lacerations covered in dried blood were nothing he hadn’t seen before; but the fact that they were on your body, it brought a shake to his hands he was completely unfamiliar with and he thanked the heavens you were too busy scrunching your eyes together at the stinging feel of him cleaning the open wounds to notice it.
You don’t know if you talked, if he asked you anything, you don’t think so. The only thing you committed to memory was the feel of hardened hands touching you in the softest ways imaginable, guiding you to his bed when he was done and easing you into laying down. He caressed your face before he moved away; the way he looked at you a mixture of longing and thinly veiled restraint.
He left almost as soon as he laid you down, knowing that if you said anything, if you made even the slightest sound, he’d discard his meeting altogether to lay next to you.
Levi came back less than an hour after with a thick bag under his arm, having raided your room before coming to gather anything you might need. He was being exceedingly obvious today; he knew more than well his friends no longer needed a heartfelt confession to know exactly why he had been so special to you in the past five years with how he's behaved, but for once he couldn’t care less about that matter.
He found you just as he had left you, now asleep with your mouth slightly agape. Your messy hair tussled all around was the only indication that you moved while he was gone. He pulled a chair next to the bed, not wanting to risk waking you up; ready to patiently wait until he could get you out of your filthy, blood-stained uniform. Your change of clothes and a clean set of sheets awaiting next to him already.
He doesn’t know how long you were asleep for, but it continued through enough hours for him to follow suit at some point.
He vaulted out of the chair when you woke up with a loud cry; the sound was completely gut-wrenching.
“What happened? What’s wrong?!” He grabbed you by the shoulders with a desperate pull, his eyes searching for yours. The sting of tears threatening to break free he felt earlier returned with a vengeance when you coughed up blood, tears streaming down your face.
“Talk to me, angel. Please.” He begged, hands reaching for your face, wiping your tears. You didn’t speak, didn’t explain what was ailing you, instead your cries became louder, deafening.
Levi could feel his heartbeat hammering in his chest, and before he could do anything, more blood came out of your mouth, then your nose, then from your wounds, white bandages drowned in the crimson red liquid. He couldn’t find the words; he didn’t even know what to do. He frantically moved around the room, searching for anything to wipe the blood with, to apply pressure and stop this someway.
Before he knew it, his own eyes were welled up with tears as he desperately tried to stop you from bleeding out, the sound of your crying overwhelming him completely.
“You’re going to be okay. You’re okay.” He repeated like a mantra, the room spinning around him when he looked at the pool of blood under you. He wiped his tears with his forearm. His heartbeat grew louder, and the sound of it seemed to echo through the room.
You wouldn’t stop crying, and God, you wouldn’t stop bleeding, it was futile to try. Your hands went to his shoulders, bringing him closer to you while you sobbed hysterically.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.” He wrapped his arms around you tightly, crying onto your hair, hopelessly clinging to you. “I can’t do anything. Please forgive me, angel. Please.” He wept, his grip tightening the quieter your cries became; your energy depleted the longer you kept bleeding.
“Don’t leave me.” It became uncontrollable; he felt completely out of himself, the sound of his thunderous heartbeat, the feel of your blood on his hands, the pain in his chest crushing him further and further. “Please don’t leave me.”
“Levi?... Levi.” He woke up with a jolt to see you standing above him, mind completely fogged by the images his brain came up with. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the room, looking around the now empty bed then back to your fragile frame.
The glow of the moon coming from the window was the only source of light, but it was enough to see you properly; not in tears, and not bleeding out. Instead, you were looking at him with a puzzled expression, an arm cradling your midsection as you tried your best to stand upright.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I’m—” He closed his mouth before continuing, rubbing his eyes before he looked at you again, a slight wet feeling coating his fingertips—was he crying?—it was just a dream. “Don’t worry. Is something wrong?”
“I wanted to get out of all this blood. But I could barely make it a few steps past the bed.”
He hummed, burying his face in his hands for a moment, trying to regain his composure. “I’ll help you.” His eyes found you again, narrowed. Going over every inch of your body to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary, to prove to himself that you wouldn’t randomly start bleeding out in front of him. He debated telling you about his dream, telling you about how worried he was earlier and how the stress of his concerns was swallowing him whole right now, but that would mean delving into a conversation he’s unsure he’d be good at. Maybe he’ll need to practice it.
He walked you to the bathroom, arm stretched out for you to hold onto through every step. “You look terrible.” He murmured, helping you stand in front of the small tub.
“Aren’t you sweet.” You laughed dryly, slowly loosening your grip on his forearm to let him stand back.
You and Levi stared at each other willfully, both waiting for the other to take the next step.
“Can you do it alone?” He asked while reaching for the top button of your shirt, undoing it slowly, waiting for you to form a response, groggy and restless voice adding something new to his usual stoic tone.
You wanted to object, tell him he didn’t need to continue. But you were sure you’d end up falling face first on the floor at some point if he wasn’t holding onto you. “Maybe I could.”
“Sure.” He muttered, gaze focused on where his hands started to undo the rest of your shirt, a deep frown covering his features at the side of fresh red bruises covering your left side.
He carefully undid the bandages on your arm to slowly slide off the shirt. You didn’t care to watch his movements; you couldn’t look away from his face, how concentrated he was, how troubled he seemed over your wounds. It made you smile, both that and the pink tint of his cheeks when he exposed you further.
If you knew him less, you would’ve asked him to kiss you right then and there, but by now you knew well his only answer to that would be questioning if you were concussed.
Levi kept himself from speaking. Too focused on the crushing weight in his heart over the sight of your bruised and battered frame, a weight that grew more draining the more of your clothes he got rid off.
His mind also trotted over the idea of kissing you. He thought about it every single day, but now more than ever he wished he had done so before. That way he could pepper every single inch of your body with small soothing kisses now and it wouldn’t be strange, there wouldn’t be a possibility of you freaking out, because by now you would’ve been used to his affections.
If only he had been braver about it before.
He desperately wished to hold you tenderly in his arms, to caress your skin and kiss you senselessly, trusting that every bit of his devotion would help you forget about the pain you must be feeling.
“What happened?” He helped you stand above the drain, squeezing your hand before letting you stand on your own. He soaked a cloth before he started carefully scrubbing your arms, trying his best to not pressure the slash on your left arm into bleeding again.
“It was my stupidity. One of my scouts was kicked off his horse, and a titan was going to grab him, and I— It was impulsive. I threw myself at them and I didn’t realize another titan was coming. It was a big mess and I wasn’t thinking clearly.” You yawned between your sentences, watching him with tired eyes, following his hands whenever he bent to dampen the cloth and settling back on his face when he returned; his eyebrows furrowed at your anecdote. “I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened, I just know I flew through more trees than I would like, and when I finally got my cables to stick to something I was hanging two inches from the floor and looked like this.”
Levi stayed silent for a moment, trying to picture the situation, as if that helped him in any way. “How did you get on your horse?”
“Miche found me. I would have only been able to drag myself until I found someone. It’s hard to lift this leg.” His grip on your waist tightened at the notion, his eyes now meeting yours to avoid staring at where he scrubbed on your chest, ever-present frown adorning his features.
Levi saw the images of your explanation vividly in his mind; he could clearly see you dragging yourself out of the woods in fear that you wouldn’t make it, as if it actually happened, as if he had been present. It was completely nauseating. “I’m sorry.” His hands stopped, both settled firmly on your hips, indifferent to his proximity and your bare skin.
“For what?”
“I could’ve been there.”
One of your hands reached his bicep, tentatively caressing him. “Don’t do that.”
He pursed his lips together; he knew it was ridiculous to upset himself over something he had no control over, and yet he couldn’t stop. He stayed silent, instead opting to watch you get closer, your hands rubbing up and down his arms to ease him. The delicate body he’s grown to yearn for standing less than an inch away from him, laid bare for his eyes only.
“I’m supposed to be taking care of you.” He murmured, tense muscles taut under your touch as it rose up to his shoulders then back down to the front of his chest.
“I know, but you seem to be more troubled than I am. I may need help getting up, but you’re looking at me like I’m dying.”
“I just don’t know what to do with myself.” Levi let himself get closer, his hands hesitantly moving to your back. “Seeing you like this.”
“I’ve been hurt before.” Your tone was confused, and he hated that it urged him to continue.
“Not like this. Not when I’m not around.”
“I thought you didn’t care if I was not by your side.”
“I lied.”
You couldn’t help the weak laugh that left your lips, looking away from him as you tried to retrieve your composure.
“Are my worries amusing to you?” His gaze narrowed, not in his usual scowl—in dismay.
You shook your head, a hand coming up to caress his face, looking at him with nothing but utter reverence. “I’m more than appreciative of your worries. But I do find it humorous that I have to come back like this for you to say these things.”
The time seemed to stand still between you. Patient, as always, you waited; letting him find the words he’s been struggling to muster. He hated how difficult this was; to expose feelings he has been certain of for years. “Sit, we need to wash your hair.”
You sighed, hands dropping from him with a small nod. He helped you sit in the middle of the tub, kneeling down on the floor next to you, holding onto a small water pitcher with trembling hands.
You closed your eyes at the feeling of water slowly dripping onto your scalp, finally relishing in a soothing feeling. “Don’t look at me when I say this." His voice was low, unusually unsteady, despite being completely certain of his words. "I’m terrified of losing you.”
Your lips pursed together, trying your best to keep yourself from turning your head; wanting to indulge him if it meant being able to hear what he had to confess. “Why?” You asked quietly, eyes stuck to the water falling from your shoulders, bloody and muddy dark streaks slowly disappearing, becoming clearer the more his fingers helped brush water through the thick locks of hair.
Silence lingered for a moment. The only sound being the slow rush of water, and Levi’s deep breaths. He could do this, if there’s someone he could say anything to, it was you. So why did his chest ache this much?
“I’ve belonged to you from the moment I met you.” Levi’s voice came out ragged, broken. His hands softly brushed through your hair, moving back the strands that fell on your face. He cleared his throat, trying to regain some semblance of control. “And I don’t know what will be of me if the only reason I hold any hope for the future is no longer with me.”
You couldn’t help meeting his gaze, lips parting and closing with suppressed praises. To hear something that gentle, romantic, out of the very lips you’ve wished had graced yours long before today; it could’ve been enough to push you through every day of your life from now on.
The way you were looking at him was his undoing, a softness he did not deserve, and that he could only ever receive from you. He watched you uneasy, his throat running dry, unsure of what he was even waiting for. “Please say something.”
Words evaded you completely, too stuck on repeating that sweet confession over and over again in your head. Instead of coming up with some clever poetry of your equal feelings, you did the one thing you knew no amount of prodding would make him do.
Your hands slowly reached for him, cupping his face to bring him closer to you. And you waited, for a moment; not wanting to miss how he relaxed, how he gave in. Only then did your lips meet his with a tenderness that made Levi’s stomach flutter.
One of his hands went to the back of your neck, long fingers twisting into your hair, keeping your lips flush against his while he inched closer to you. His free hand gripped the back edge of the tub, his body looming above yours, completely trapping you under him.
The kiss was searing and all consuming. As if you were trying to pour into him every unsaid word; as if Levi was trying to make up for every single moment he wished your lips had been on his. It grew desperate within seconds, teeth clashing and noses bumping while both of you tried to absorb each other’s oxygen.
It’s only when you tried to wrap your arms around his neck to drag him down did you break away, wincing at the sting from a gash on your bicep.
Levi immediately tensed when you stopped. “I’m sorry.” His voice was breathless, a small whisper followed by him pulling back, softened gaze raking over you to make sure he didn’t hurt you.
“It’s my fault, I should’ve waited until we were laying down.” You quipped, instinctively reaching out for his arm to keep him somewhat close.
He laughed, openly, warm. “That might’ve ended worse.”
A comfortable silence fell in the room after your chuckles died down. Both of you staring at each other with the sweetness of two madly in love idiots. All flushed lips, red cheeks, and stupid smiles.
—
“And then what happened?” Erwin asked while flipping through pages of planning, the words he had written already mixing together from how long he had been staring at them, and how late it already was.
Miche stood by the window, looking out to the empty grounds below them. “I told him she’d be lying down in the carriage, probably more comfortable.”
“Mhm.”
“And he argued she’d be alone, very solemnly.”
“He did not.” Erwin dropped the papers, turning on his chair to meet Miche’s gaze, the other man already snickering to himself.
“He did, and then he just took her away. And I’m completely certain he kissed her hair when they got on the horse.” Miche whispered the last part, as if he was sharing the most confidential work information he could ever manage to get his hands on.
“In front of everyone?” Erwin stared at him dumbfounded, imagining the scene he described before letting out a quiet laugh.
“If they remain nothing but friends after tonight I fear we might have to send Hange in.”
Arranged Marriage with Levi - series preview / taglist <3
You are set to marry Levi Ackerman, an arrangement since before you were even born - yet you've never even met him. With all your fortunes riding on this marriage, you must please your future husband, but how can you even get to know him when he's ever so aloof and distant?
lord! levi ackerman x f! reader
this will be an angsty slow burn, title incoming - set in the 1800's, you fall first but he falls harder, eventual smut. I'm so excited to write Levi! Comment below to get tagged <3
fic is here!!!
The carriage wheels crunched loudly along the gravel drive of Ackerman Manor, each roll of those wheels hitting rocks jostling you just a bit, as you get ever closer to the place that would now be your home.
Your home.
Your hands are trembling as you smooth down the silky blue fabric of your gown – it was the finest you owned, but you fear it would seem quite simple to the man you were to be married to soon.
You didn’t exactly come from money, in fact your family name and an old agreement between Levi’s parents and yours before you were born was the only reason you were here like this. That and pretty looks were what your entire family’s fortune banked on, truly, so much pressure at times it made you sick.
You’d never even met him – Levi Ackerman, you’ve only heard stories of \your soon to be betrothed by tales of friends and members of your family.
By all accounts, he was apparently short tempered, angry and aloof – though no one said he was ‘unkind’ at all. Rather a bit cold, and arguably treated everyone with respect, which was more than most women could hope for these days.
Yet you don’t know how to feel.
A business transaction, this was, not a fairy tale wedding, your parents so eagerly shipped you off it was laughable, in all other aspects a girl had a dowry, where you had almost a non- existent one. This was truly only Levi respecting his father’s late wishes and being ever the gentleman.
Ladies everywhere were ever furious that there was no chance with him, with the richest man in the very city, the one they all seemed to love to go after, but no.
It was you to be his bride.
The carriage door opens now after you’ve come to a halt, and a well groomed servant helps you out and down the steps, guiding you as you take in the sight before you – the pretty manor that’s utterly pristine. You lift your skirts and step up the glimmering stone steps, as the butlers stand aside and open the doors for you.
The very entrance hall was immaculate, sparkling clean unlike anything you’ve ever seen, there was not a speck of dust anywhere,and the faint hint of some sort of lemon polish hits your nose as you take it all in. Even the chandelier overhead was fucking gorgeous and sparkling, you almost feel terrible stepping foot in such a pretty place with your shoe that had fallen into mud earlier.
"Mr. Ackerman will see you in the drawing room," the butler says now, eyeing you carefully.
Usually, people waited to move in until marriage, but your parents had sent you off early, about a week early – with the idea of meeting him and staying in one of the guest rooms, but now it all hits.
You’re getting married to a stranger.
The door opens once you sit down in the pretty chair, and you immediately stand right back up – seeing him standing there.
Shorter than you'd expected, surely, but the man commands a fucking room, truly – this presence that almost intimidates you, his dark hair shining just a bit under the chandeliers as if he’d freshly washed it. His eyes were taking you in, assessing you so intensely all you can do is stand there, dressed in a perfectly pressed dark suit that probably cost more than your entire wardrobe.
"You're late," were his first words to you – his bride-to-be. His voice is so fucking bored, too, like he’s annoyed as shit at you. You clear your throat now, curtseying just a bit.
"The roads were muddy from the rains," you manage to excuse. “I’m sorry that I am a bit late.”
“Yes, well,” he passes by the small inn table as he walks toward you, pausing now, running a finger along the surface, sighing as he holds it up to the light.
"There's dust," he shouts it, and two servants immediately run into the room. "Did I not explicitly state this room was to be cleaned twice daily?"
"Sir, it was-"
"Then this is unacceptable,” he kneels then, tugging out a handkerchief from his coat pocket. “I'll just do it myself."
Your fiancé – the Lord Levi Ackerman, starts fucking frantically wiping down every surface in the room as you watch, just blinking, the servants are scrambling to help polish silver that does not need it, while the tea sits on the table, cooling. He faintly looks at you as you stare at him, his dark gray eyes taking you in.
“Sit and have tea,” he manages, realizing you’re staring, all pretty in a simple gown that at least is decently clean, if not crumpled by your hands. “I’ll be done momentarily.”
“Oh! Yes…”
You sit there, crossing your legs at the ankles, watching the man you were to spend your life with finding a spot on the floor to clean now.
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𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬◞﹒୧. The love of his life betrayed him. Now Eren is alone. Alone with the burden of paying for his father's debt with assassination contracts. Alone with the burden of getting revenge on his rivals who killed Armin. Everything is so painful now he is alone, and he hates you so much for that. You ruined everything, every dream he had with you, every ‘I love you’ he said to you. Now he has to hurt you to feel better. Your tears and the pain in your eyes don’t faze him, he knows what you are. A manipulative traitor. He is too hurt to remember the genuine love you both had, too angry to even wonder if that's really what happened. Because did you really betray him? In any case, you have Jean if he never forgives you. Even though he would never be Eren.
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬◞﹒୧ 9.6k words, dark content, heavy angst with no comfort, tragedy, black!fem!reader, thick!reader, bimbo!reader, love/hate relationships, fully!tattooed!eren, crimes, strip-tease, murders, hitman!eren, revenge, heavy backstory, heavy sexual trauma, depression, traumatic mutism, rough sex, violence, impact play, sex toys, fingering, vaginal penetration, public sex, backshots, no aftercare.
𝐤𝐫𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬◞﹒୧ . extremely scared to post this……
“You’re pissing me off,” Eren muttered.
You kept giggling like your joke was the funniest thing ever, even though Eren's expression was sinister. He moved his tongue against the inside of his cheek to calm himself, but when you repeated your stupid thing, he wrapped his hand around your neck and shoved you violently against the mattress.
He glared at your playful eyes. “I said you’re pissing me off.”
“Then why do I feel your erection, dumbass ?”
“You’re just prettier when you laugh but I’m serious right now.”
“Mhmm, just fuck me to punish me then?”
He rolled his eyes but glanced at the time on your alarm clock on the bedside table.
You always did that when he had to go to work. And not the legal kind of work. Eren was a hitman and a literal criminal outside of killing people for money. He couldn't disappoint his boss for too long before being killed or, at best, tortured.
“I was here all day and you preferred to talk to me about astrology,” he sighed.
“No astrology slander in my house!”
“It’s my house, I pay the bills, you’re just here for decoration.”
You spat on his face. Deadass. Eren blinked for a few moments, trying to understand if the saliva on his cheek was a hallucination or if you really wanted him to strangle you to death.
“You want to play that game?” he asked, his voice as sinister as his expression.
You shivered, fighting the urge not to smile out of excitement. “I…”
“I’m going to play with you, don’t worry.”
He released your throat and moved away. You whined, disappointed, but swallowed hard as he went to get the object whose name was not to be spoken.
“Eren… I was joking…”
“What?” he chuckled. “You don’t think the game is funny anymore?” He leaned down to kiss the exposed parts of your stomach through your crop top, his hands slipping under your denim mini-skirt. Your legs trembled, and he lifted his head to smirk at your scared expression. He waited for the safe word, to know if you were really against it, but it never came.
“Fucking performative,” he scoffed.
He roughly pulled off your panties, and his fingers caressed your core, preparing you for the long hours of overstimulation the sex toy would provide.
“Eren, I can’t do that shit, I’m stripping tonight, I can’t be aroused during work.”
You tried to stop rolling your hips to take more of his fingers inside, but it was impossible.
“I forgot I was ‘Captain Save a Hoe’ because my girlfriend is a fucking stripper,” he grumbled.
It wasn’t that simple. He knew it was a coping mechanism for you, and he never judged you for it. You were both very troubled people. BDSM had always been the best way to externalize your traumas. So your need to regain control of your body by making money from its objectification wasn’t a problem.
The problem with stripping was that not all clients were respectful. He fought his urges to lock you up in your apartment when you came home with a new experience of unwanted touching.
“Watch your tone when you talk about me I’m gonna spit on you again.”
“Yeah?” His fingers plunged into you while his thumb rubbed circles on your clit. “I’m so excited to see that. You want me to be mean?”
You clenched your thighs around his wrist, moaning. “Shut your damn mouth.”
The stimulation of his hand didn’t last long because he put the sex toy in place, at a low intensity for the moment. He had the remote control to increase when he's at work to lead your clit to burnout.
“Rennieeeeeee!” You threw yourself at him when he got up from the bed and hugged him from behind. “Just have sex with me, stop doing that. You work too much and now you do weird stuff like this. They are exploiting you.”
“Complaining about laws for an illegal job,” he laughed and pushed you away to put on a black t-shirt.
You already missed seeing the tattoo about your own astrology sign on his lower abdomen. Eren loved to talk shit about your love for spiritual stuff, but he always respected it secretly. His whole body was just tattoos about you, your favorite things he always mocked in real life. When you were almost hurt about his mean tone, you just have to undress him to remember he is a loverboy spirit in a jerk body.
At this point, he should just accept he was a simp. The cute blue penguin keychain he has on his jeans that matched your pink one was a sign he should accept this very quickly. He didn’t fool you when he said he was a feminist and won’t do that immature stuff as a grown ass man. He had it on him the next day, and was unfazed by Connie’s reaction at his job. He was the best hitman in his organization, people needed to leave him alone and let him wear matching stuff with his woman, especially Connie who burst out of laughing every time he saw the penguin.
“You know you’re kinda cringe with that,” you mocked when he put on his sneakers.
He glanced at you, and then at the bed with many plushies of anime male characters he was forced to sleep with, and decided he wouldn’t fall for the ragebait of the queen of cringe herself.
After some whining from you, you accompanied him to the front door.
He pushed the braids that were in front of your shoulders to let them in your back, the sound of the beads at the end clashing together made him smile. He wasn't stupid, you always wore the hairstyle he found you the most beautiful with when his birthday was near. And that asshole was specific. Boho braids that stopped around the shoulders with beads. Even your braider knew it was Eren's birthday when you asked for that hairstyle.
He leaned to kiss your forehead. “Send me a video when you will cry because it's too much, I love seeing that,” he said softly, but his soft tone didn't hide his sadistic tendencies to force you to wear sex toys.
“I won't cry for your lame ass punishment.”
“You love lying, baby.”
He kissed you but pushed you away when you wanted to add your tongue. You made an indignant expression and cursed him out as he chuckled, leaving the apartment.
The pleasant late afternoon air caressed his skin as he touched his pocket outside the building. His eyes softened as he realized you'd bought him another pack of Malboro cigarettes without him telling you he was out and had slipped it into his jeans. He was an asshole, so that information didn't make him feel any guilt about his punishment. Your brave ass spat on him. You deserved it.
He sat in his car, driving unconsciously with one hand on the wheel and the other outside the window because you'd told him one day he looked sexy like that.
He parked near the organization disguised as a home cleaning company. Connie was smoking, sitting on the sidewalk across the street, and Eren took a breath to endure his umpteenth joke about his keychain.
“You wear that penguin for her here when she wears nothing at all at her job,” Connie snickered as they did their usual handshake.
“And I have hair and you don't, guess life is unfair ?”
“Man, fuck you.”
Some people walked near them, so Eren spoke in their secret language for their organization.
“What type of household chores should we do?”
“Tidy up mainly the office, there’s no big mess at the moment.”
Eren let out a groan. He hated doing the administration and logistics of drug and weapons dealing. It's sad to say but he was more comfortable killing people.
“You're the only one who applied for every job here, I don't know why you don't focus on one task.”
Eren tensed. Connie was just a good friend but he knew nothing about his father's debt he had to pay he didn't have time. The only friend who was so close to Eren, to the point that man followed him in his crimes, was Armin. But he had been murdered by his organization's enemies. Now, he avoided creating deep bonds there.
The organization was located in a remote corner of the city, its monotonous buildings bearing an old, cheesy commercial slogan for a home cleaning company. Once you entered, every floor seemed legitimate; there were even closets stocked with cleaning supplies. All criminal documents were hidden away in drawers secured with unbreakable locks.
Eren sat at his desk and began the tedious task of verifying that drug suppliers had been properly contacted with favorable prices. Then he had to contact all the associated dealers in the city to find out if they had been threatened recently, given the tensions that had arisen since Armin's murder.
He spent hours doing administrative work, ignoring his criminal colleagues who came to greet him. He was well-liked by the lower ranks and disliked by the higher ranks, who realized how much better Eren was than them and could be replaced quickly.
Joke on them, Eren had been ordered to take on more important missions, he refused and was tortured, but he kept his word. He wasn't there for loyalty, he was there for money.
It was only towards the end of his shift that he received a hidden call. He let out a heavy breath, already knowing it was his enemies. He always answered the call though, it was funny for him. They were only able to kill one man in a rivalry of 10 years when his boss killed 13 of their men. A very, very precious lost, but they were only an angry dog that barks a lot and never bites.
“I fucked your girl,” one of them said on the phone first, Eren rolled his eyes. They always said that to any man in the organization who had a wife or girlfriend.
“Yeah, me too, every night. What do you want?”
“No, I really did. Look at that.”
The unknown number sends him a video. Eren frowned, thinking they wanted to install a virus on his professional phone, but clicked anyway since the phone was protected.
That's surely what the dinosaurs felt when the meteorite crossed the planet's atmosphere. The end of the world. That's the image he had in mind when he recognized the butterfly jewelry on the navel piercing of the woman in the video who was being fucked.
The angle of the video changed and he let out a painful noise when he also recognized the tattoo on her hip. The cute doodle tattoo they created when they were 15 and had it on both of their bodies. Showed on a video where multiple men fucked you.
He genuinely couldn't watch the dick comes in and out of her because the creamy arousal on it made him sick to his stomach.
He left the building without respecting his working hours, throwing the keychain in the trash before. This fuckass organization didn't even respect laws, who cares.
He drove to your strip club in the deep darkness with his hands gripping the steering wheel far too tightly.
He should have reacted rationally. Thought. Considered whether you were capable of doing that. Found a logical explanation for why the love of his life would have done that.
But Eren was incapable of it.
Maybe his fear of being too much because of his mental issues was real. He felt things too deeply, too intensely. His impulsivity. His rage. His job as a hitman that makes him forget empathy. His morbid attachment to you. His passion and determination. Everything about him screamed borderline personality disorder. He knew that, he just refused to see a therapist.
Was he really too much for you ?
He shook his head, he couldn't believe the hollow ache in his heart.
There was no way. There was no way the girl he knew since 10 years, was in love since he was 14 years old, engaged since he was 18 had cheated on him. With several men. He wanted to throw up when remembering the many hands on your thighs in the video.
But everything made sense. Since a few weeks, you asked for rougher sex, he had to learn knife play now for you. Everytime he wanted to be gentle, you asked him to go harder.
You felt guilty, and didn't think you deserved his gentle side.
He parked in the strip club's parking lot and lied to your manager about one of your closed ones dying, telling them you had to end your shift early when he went inside.
He couldn't hear the music while waiting for you, couldn't even look at the dancers around the poles. Everything was blurry and clear at the same time. His body was seething with the urge to blow up the entire planet, and he was bleeding so much he was surprised he wasn't crying with all the hurt you'd just caused him.
When you came in with hurried steps and a surprised voice about the supposed death, Eren just ignored you and left the strip club.
“You're that shocked about the death, who—”
“When you told me the sexual abuse made you obsessed with being objectified for money, was that a lie too?” He slammed your head violently against the hood of his car, ignoring your surprised and painful moan. “Because it seems to me, you are just a fucking traitor.”
“E-Eren, what the fuck? What are you talking about—”
“You know,” Eren cut in, his voice so cold that you trembled, “I really believed you when you told me sometimes rape victims aren't perfect victims. It made a lot of sense. But you aren't ashamed of yourself for faking a trauma just to cheat on me? Rape victims are a joke to you?”
Your whole body freezes. The most violent sentences he ever said to you and the most hurtful he could say to the helpless child you were when your mom's friend abused you.
You knew what he was talking about.
It was so dumb, so stupid, so ridiculous, but you thought what happened was a nightmare. When two weeks after it Eren still didn't know anything, you were reassured.
Deep down, you knew it was real. They told you they were gonna kill him if you talked.
“E-Eren, I—”
“I really loved you, you know that?” There was so much pain and resentment in his voice, he sounded like he was dying, breaking down in front of you. Tears prickled in your eyes, but your voice wouldn't come out to defend yourself.
You had a feeling of déjà vu.
Not just a feeling. This was the second time it had happened.
Your mother had the same voice. But tinged with a lot of misogyny. Because who in their right mind would believe a 35-year-old man saying a 13-year-old child seduced him?
Your mom, apparently, thats why she abandoned you in foster care. To cope, you thought it was good that she abandoned you so that you could meet the love of your life, even if he hated your guts now.
The trauma of her never believed your victim status was a ghost that never really left your body and mind.
And now, the ghost was as pained as you at the situation with Eren.
They could kill him if you told the truth. He could not believe you if you told the truth. Both of these options were death sentence for you, so you accepted the painful one of being seen as a cheater.
“I'm sorry, Eren,” you only could say as the tears fell on your face and accepted your fate.
“You're not sorry at all,” he chuckled darkly. “Your tears don't fool me.”
The sound of a belt being unfastened sent shivers down your spine, and you glanced around the parking lot, which was deserted except for a few unoccupied cars. Your fellow strippers were finishing at the same time as you, in three hours, so there shouldn't be too much trouble. Besides, it was the employee parking lot, behind the club.
“Eren, I—”
“Shut your damn mouth. I'm going to give you real sex since you want it that badly you searched for it from my own enemies.”
Eren's body trembled with rage. He needed to channel the destructive suffering he felt into something—sex, always sex. Because otherwise, he'd kill you in this parking lot.
For betraying him. Betraying your relationship. Betraying the ring on your finger. Betraying his initials tattooed on your finger. Betraying your name tattooed on his ribs.
You were his whole world, why did you even do that ?
Eren couldn't know. You were so scared. It was you enduring his rage or him getting killed.
When he lowered the shorts part of your pink Juicy Couture set, your cheeks heat up at the disgusting damp thong you had on because of the sex toy.
“Always with these bimbo clothes. You should just stick to the whore clothing style, I wouldn't have confused you with the love of my life.”
He tore down the underwear. He raised your head roughly, pulling your braids back and shoving the arousal-filled thong into your mouth, your muffled shocked sounds ignored.
“Just taste, baby. How does it taste ? The games we had ? The sexual routines ? Our hard limits ? Tell me how does it taste after you let these motherfucker be inside you.”
He nudged with his dick the feverish warmth between your legs, the disgust on his tongue making him pasty in the mouth and want to stop everything. He hated doing things like this. He wanted to make love to you, brutally, maybe, but lovingly. Not this weird hate fuck.
“I’m not your mom’s friend. I’m just mad,” he mumbled, embarrassed to even care about you. He spanked you, making the pillowy flesh of your ass bounce. “Don’t forget this.”
The brutal way he slid in, your wet folds welcoming him like a warm home, made you jolt. Your own taste on your tongue accentuated Eren's dominance. You couldn't see him, bent over the hood of his car, but his presence was everywhere. In the way he gripped your braids to harshly to make you see the starry sky, your mouth agape. In the way his dick just kept hitting and hitting the best spot, at the best pace, like he always did.
You wish you could see the anger in his eyes. The madness, the one he had when he came back at home after a paid murder. You always knew your boyfriend was mentally ill, but at this moment, his disturbed mind made you hot all over.
The loud noise of his pelvis hitting your fat ass echoed in the parking lot. You looked regularly towards the staff door to check that no one was going to see this humiliating spectacle.
But you loved that shit. You didn't want him to stop talking with you, kick you out, or block you. You wanted him to continue hating you while loving you so much that it was only when your sweaty bodies rubbed together that there was a moment of understanding.
Maybe one day he would forgive you.
A way of having a happy ending without revealing the tragedy you suffered at the hands of these men. A way of having the man of your dreams alive.
He will give you all his hatred and you will welcome it in a hug, cherishing it. Because at least, it will mean his heart still beats. And if it does, you won over these evil men.
“I need more,” I whimpered, spitting out your thong, begging him to even ruin you if he wanted.
“I think you forgot who’s taking the lead now,” he rasped, his pace picking up as he smashed your head against the car hood again.
The pain made you sobbing, part of your face swelling from the contact. But he angled his hips in such an exquisite way, your eyes closed just to savor how he killed this.
You wished things could be different as you sobbed against the hood.
It’s like you were doomed. You never had any chance in life.
If all you deserved was Eren’s violence, then you were going to take it.
At least he’s alive when he hurts you.
────────
You had locked yourself in the shower for hours because you couldn't hold back your tears. After coming home, Eren had destroyed all your favorite plates, the ones he'd given you for a birthday, torn down all the couple photos on your bedroom walls, and smashed the mirror by the bed that you'd specifically used for mirror sex. You had to watch him do all of that, unable to ease his pain by telling him it wasn't consensual when it happened.
Your brown skin hid the faint bruises they left when they held you down. They deliberately didn't hurt you too badly so the abuse would go unnoticed. A gun was pressed against your temple when they filmed it from an angle that showed telltale signs of you. They were so clever.
You spent so many years falling asleep on his chest, and he was the one who put on your satin bonnet. He was the one who made your breakfast when you got back from your shift. He was the one who ran your bath. He was the one who went to get your new makeup products once you'd finished using the old ones. He knew the shades of blush, foundation, and concealer by heart.
What will your life be like now that he hates you?
You got out of the shower wrapping a towel around your body, thinking Eren was sleeping. But as soon as you came out of the shower, you encountered his murderous gauze, freezing you on the spot.
“Why didn’t you wear the waist beads I bought you during it? A way of respecting me when you let them penetrate MY woman?”
“Eren, I…”
“Answer, I don’t give a shit about you anymore.”
“I didn’t want to feel your presence during it, I forgot it there,” you whispered, your tearful eyes looking at the floor. Being raped with your boyfriend’s gift around your body was too heartbreaking.
“So loving of you. I’m gonna make your life such a nightmare. You’re gonna regret betraying me forever, love.”
You didn’t know until now we could use the ‘love’ pet name with so much hatred in a voice.
“Do you…” You struggled to speak. “Do you still want me to live with you?”
“I already told you why you can’t live alone.”
You hid your relief, your shoulders relaxing. “But you hate me now, why do you care if your enemies kill me?”
Eren tensed, looking away. “Mind your damn business.” He sat on the sofa. “You're going to sleep here. I threw away your useless anime stuffed animals.”
You took a deep inhale. “Okay.”
“Did you give them information?” Eren asked as you sat on the couch.
“Why would I do that?”
His gaze hardened. “Why would you let them be inside you?”
I stared at the floor. You hated how he genuinely believed you let them do that, but you can't tell him. Eren will absolutely want to destroy them and they will know you talked and kill them or even both of you. Eren always told you how much they weren't very skilled, but they were. They just killed Armin, a very smart element in the organization and now they are stressing out the other one who is important.
“I wasn’t very… satisfied with you lately.”
Eren chuckled, a sad chuckle, a broken chuckle. You knew he wanted to cry. You want too, again.
He just left you in the living room and slammed the door.
You fell asleep on the couch, heart heavy.
────────
Eren looked at you sleeping, wondering how the fuck that shit could have happened.
Was it during a sleep over with your stripper friends?
How could you do this to him?
You were getting married. He was supposed to take your last name.
You understood each other on so many levels. So many people were uncomfortable with foster kids. People didn't want to deal with your pain. Nobody had the same trauma as you. A boy abandoned by his father and used for his father's debts. A girl, a victim of sexual abuse by a family friend and abandoned by her mother. You only had the two of you to feel less alone, more seen and more heard.
So why did you do this?
The video played in his brain, constantly, all night.
Now that you were asleep, his rage left, replaced by just sorrow and pain.
He loved so badly, what did you mean you weren't satisfied anymore?
He nuzzled his head against your soft stomach, inhaling the mixture of scents between your cocoa butter oil and the Sol de Janeiro body cream he always bought you. They touched your stomach. They must have even cummed on it; his own belly twisted at the thought.
He clenched his fists, fighting the disgust inside him.
He cried a bit, but he wasn't sad. Maybe he tried to connect with you with his tears on your skin; maybe physiologically you would understand how much you had hurt him. Maybe you still didn't care.
He wiped away his tears and left the apartment. He was so tired, but he had to return to the organization at dawn. He had to alert everyone that his enemies were planning something nasty. Even if you were a cheater, he knew damn well they had found you and not the other way around.
────────
You were woken up by a torrent of water on your face, making you feel like you were choking.
“I wasn’t that mean yesterday, but I came to my senses,” Eren scoffed. “I really realized that shit. You let several men sleep with you? While you're engaged? You deserve hell.”
You coughed but froze when you saw he was shirtless, clearly fresh from the shower, wearing only sweatpants and with damp hair. It wasn't the fact that he was shirtless that made your eyes widen in pain. It wasn't missing his abs rubbing against your thick body, his hard planes against your softer curves, that you missed.
You missed his tattoos about you. He had covered them. All of them. Your name under his ribcage had been replaced with something else.
“Eren…”
He stiffened at your trembling voice. He hated hurting the woman he loved so dearly, but you didn't care about him. Or that's what he thought.
“What? Surprised? I don't want your name on me anymore.”
Was this really how you were going to end up?
When he's finished paying off the debt his father forced him to bear by disappearing, is this what you'll have left? You, with all your tattoos about him, hoping he'll forgive you one day, and him with all his tattoos about you forgotten under a new ink?
Maybe death would have been a better choice.
“You're going to stop stripping.”
“Eren—”
“You weren't protected during it, I saw their dicks,” he spat with disgust. “I don't know what you're doing with your clients during private dances.”
“I took a pill, Eren.”
“I hope so, I would have killed that baby.”
You shivered, a bit horrified at how mean Eren can be when angry.
“Anyway, it's not about pregnancy. Sexually transmitted diseases are a thing, if you didn't know. You disgust me anyway. Find another job. I don’t buy your coping mechanism bullshit anymore.”
Your body was vibrating with him screaming they raped you so he would stop ruining the good things in your life but you couldn't because that scream might kill him as a result.
“Can I ask Jean if I can work with him?” you asked, apprehension in your voice.
He glared at you.
“So you fucked him too?”
“Eren, you know damn well I'm only friends with people from my club. Jean left it, but kept my number. He works in another bar now.”
“I also thought I knew you loved me.”
“I do, Eren. A lot. So much.”
He burst out of laughing and you looked away, drying your wet braids.
“You're really funny,” he muttered before leaving the living room.
Getting tattooed for hours just to let go of the urgency of not having you on his skin anymore was painful, but such a relief. Ony, his tattoo artist was so talented.
But he loved you so much, it felt so strange to not see your big ass name on his sides when he looked in the bathroom mirror. You were all his life but he was just a chapter for you.
He still hadn't slept yet. When he woke up, his hand was grabbing your breast and you rubbed your ass against his morning erection on purpose, but now you cheated on him because you weren't satisfied anymore. Life was so weird.
He loved you deeply so of course he winced when he remembered what he said about your trauma with your mom's friend.
He didn't truly believe you lied. He was here when you cried during sex when you were still a teen. But he was just confused.
It didn't make any sense, and he was too hurt to even seek answers from you.
He put on a t-shirt and he flinched when you came in the bedroom to get dressed.
“Who you’re gonna fuck now?” he asked, disdain barely hidden in his voice.
“Jean.”
It's like you stopped trying to deny what he thought of you. You had already made your choice, now you had to play the game.
He let out a heavy breath.
“Have fun, since hurting me is your new kink. Must be the weird graduation of the dominance you wanted since a few weeks ago.”
You almost lost control of your resolve to tell him you need rougher sex to numb yourself from the trauma but you kept your mouth shut and tried to act bored. Even though it was still raining in your heart.
────────
“Wow, I would never thought you and Eren would be over,” Jean said, drinking his cocktail.
The Emerald, the bar where Jean worked now, used its name perfectly. Luxury green was everywhere with chairs, tables and plants. Drinking in this bar was like drinking in a comforting lush jungle.
“Yeah, time changes relationships,” you lied.
Jean looked at you nervously, not knowing if it was the right time to tell you that he had a crush on you.
“So you…”
“How can someone who cheated be forgiven?”
He widened his eyes. “He cheated?”
“Jean, please answer the question.”
“I would never forgive cheating.”
You stiffened. “Even it’s the love of your life?”
“The love of my life wouldn’t cheat on me.”
You fell silent, your eyes watering but managed to leave your slight tears unnoticed.
────────
Eren was so tired. Tired of you. Tired of his life. It's been 48 hours and he's still awake because he had to work.
As he was stalking a new target, parked in front of a restaurant, he tried not to fall asleep even though his eyes kept closing on their own.
He needed money. He never refused assassination contracts.
But as he drove behind the target's car after he finished his dinner and headed home, other cars were behind him.
“Fuck, I'm so dumb,” he grumbled. He got in his fucking car and forgot to take the ones with tinted windows from his job.
Of course, a mafia boss would want to eliminate a novice who was stalking him and realized he was being sent by someone.
He drove like a maniac and accelerated to escape the cars chasing him, his need for sleep forgotten. His life was at stake. This mafia boss was Russian, the assassination contract was from his Italian rival, they didn't know the streets of the city very well. Unlike Eren, who had grown up here.
In the deserted streets, the men behind him tried to shoot him, damaging the car. Eren let out a groan, grabbing a handbag you'd left on the passenger seat floor and putting all your personal information in it. They'll maybe find him. But he can still protect your life.
He used the car's full speed to get ahead before jumping out and running between alleyways he knew they couldn't come by car. He looked ridiculous with your Miu Miu bag in his hand, which cost him almost three thousand dollars. But it was your engagement gift; he would do anything to please you and buy everything on your wishlist. When he arrived at the apartment after half an hour of intense sprinting, he collapsed on the sofa to sleep, covered in sweat.
────────
The soft sound of the television finally woke him, and he frowned at the sight of a plate of kuru fasulye with rice on the table. He glanced at you, watching yet another Cheetah Girls movie, and it made him roll his eyes.
“You need to get off these movies.”
Your heart swelled at his calm tone; maybe you were lucky today. You opened your mouth to say happy birthday, but fell silent at his outburst.
“Who told you to cook my favorite Turkish dish? You think I’m that stupid to forgive you for that?”
He pushed the plate away, and it crashed to the floor with a loud clatter, the food spilling out. An uncomfortable lump formed in your throat. You wanted to tell him that you'd followed the true recipe of his culture and had soaked the beans for hours in cold water, just the way it should be, while he slept, but he'd think you were trying to manipulate him.
You had enough self-respect not to just bend down and clean up the mess he'd made. You ignored him and watched the TV again, focusing on the movie.
But Eren grabbed a handful of your braids and pulled them so you fell onto his chest. You let out a groan of relief at the thought of him being close to you after hours of hatred. And he was sweaty. It was disgusting, but you nuzzled his chest.
Eren's jaw tightened, but he said nothing, inhaling your scent. His shoulders relaxed when he recognized the cocoa butter oil scent and that one popular body cream.
"You didn't fuck Jean. You still smell like yourself."
"Maybe I just sucked his dick."
“Oh my god, I’m going to kill you.” He pulled on your braids even harder, glaring at you, but you chuckled nervously at the absurdity of the situation. You kept lying and he believed your nonsense, but he thought you lied on the only real true thing: your love for him.
He was still too groggy, so he rubbed his eyes. He looked so cute like this, you leaned down to kiss his cheeks. He narrowed his eyes but stayed silent, as if he needed that kiss after all.
“Don’t open the door to anybody if I’m not here and don’t leave home without a gun.”
“Why?”
“You made me act like a moron at work with all this exhaustion,” he treated the subject in a trivial manner before looking at you better. “Do you remember how to use a gun?”
“Of course, you taught this when we were still teenagers.”
“When you still acted like you loved me.”
Your lips parted, you paused. Silence. You stared at each other, you trying not to cry because you loved him more than anything, he trying not to kill you for what he thought you'd done.
You were thinking about your engagement.
Marriage was an obligation for some. An act of love. Or a religious reason.
For you and Eren, getting married was your chance to connect with others. To be more than just foster kids. To finally be normal, to have people ask you normal questions. No more pity, embarrassment, or discomfort. You were a married couple who had gone through so much trauma together, and people would find it beautiful. Nobody would think you were broken.
But what about now?
“About…”
“Shut up, go clean up.”
“I’m not going to clean up the mess of a grown ass white man.”
Eren's eyes shot daggers but he got the message, and you chuckled again seeing him cleaning up his own mess. You wanted to cry so badly, everything hurts, but you were laughing. Maybe you will end up with dementia at this point.
──────── 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫,
Eren acted like like a fucking lunatic.
One hour, he will be teasing you, the next one you would cry because he has his gun against your temple, forcing you to show him your text messages.
He struggled with so many stuff that stressed him out. The debt. Armin’s death. Your “cheating”.
So today, when he came home from work, dark circles under his eyes, you thought it was normal. He had always been tired of his job as a hitman, and you always took care of him when you could.
But he collapsed in the entryway of your apartment.
Worried, you wrapped your arms around him, and he let out a pained groan.
“Eren?”
“Leave me alone,” he muttered, his voice weak.
Your hands went to his back to help him up. His back was damp; you thought it was sweat. But when he rested his head on your shoulder and leaned on you to walk to the sofa, you realized with horror that you had blood on your hands.
Once he was seated, you took off his clothes and tried not to get goosebumps at the sight of his muscular thighs, abs, and how blessed nature had him.
When you saw the deep, bloody wounds on his back, you shivered.
"Did they ask you to change ranks again?"
"No," he whispered, his voice so frail it twisted your stomach, "I'm just being punished for the target I missed a few weeks ago."
"Why does your boss torture you all the time when you're one of his best men?" You started disinfecting his wounds.
“He’s not my boss. He’s the higher-ups. They’re jealous because they want to keep their positions,” he breathed.
“But you don’t want their positions!”
He chuckled but groaned at the pain it caused since he’d also been hit in the ribs.
“That’s why they’re idiots.”
You quickly forgot the context of your current relationship and began to tend to his wounds as best you could, gently. You gave him painkillers and herbal tea to help him relax. Then, you took his face in your hands to see if he had a scratch.
“Don’t be fooled by my state, I still hate you.”
The venom in his voice made you stiffen and your eyes sadden. He pushed you away.
“You didn’t have those sad eyes when they were pounding into you.”
I had, actually, I even sobbed, you thought.
“Are you feeling better?”
“It’s not like you’ll give a damn.”
“Eren…”
“Call me Yeager. My name is too intimate for a whore.”
It was like receiving spit on your face. You glared at him, but for what? He thought you had group sex behind his back. You were the one at fault.
“O-Okay.” You swallowed hard, you no longer had dignity. “Then… Yeager… Do you need some help with showering?”
“No, fuck off.”
He tried to get up but always fell so you helped him while he snarled insults at you.
You were undressing him and preparing his bath, but you realized he was staring at you with a particular intensity as he sat in the tub.
“Um…”
“Why don’t you kill me?”
“What?”
“Why. You. Don’t. Kill. Me. That’s what you wanted to do, right? Make me feel so exhausted from the grief of our relationship, distracted at my job because of the hurt, and still getting close to me like a poison because of my love. You wanted to kill me. You’re having fun watching me being tortured. Why didn’t you just shoot me in the head? It would be faster.”
Your hands trembled as you soaped his neck, avoiding his gaze.
“I guess I want you to feel pain longer…”
“You know… You’re weird. The situation is so weird. Something doesn’t add up.”
Your brain worked quickly to find something to stop him from discovering the truth and being killed.
“I was just tired of you. You promised me you would take care of me and our life is a nightmare. It was fine when we were minors. But your job as a hitman ruined everything. You just ruin everything with your mental health and your family debt problems. I want more in life.”
You immediately regretted this way of doing things with the sight of his eyes which gave a glimpse of the soul bruised by your words.
“I meant…”
“You’re right. I never had been the best man for you.”
“Eren, I didn’t—”
“Shut up.”
He stared at the bathtub floor without saying anything.
What you said made a lot of sense.
He knew that.
He just ruins, ruins, and ruins.
Kills, kills and kills.
He wasn't a good person. But he thought you liked him that way.
Maybe your romance was all a lie.
──────── 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫,
Eren tucked the stray curl of hair into your satin bonnet, pushing it back with his gun, his other hand holding his blunt. He held his breath so as not to make a sound and wake you when you stirred on the bed.
He'd always loved watching you sleep before. It was funny seeing your angelic face drooling on the pillow, a far cry from the needy expression you had when you asked him to slap you in bed.
But right now, watching you sleep made him want to kill you and then himself.
How could such a beautiful woman be such a traitor? A girl so caring, who did everything for him, with him. It didn't make any sense. He was so close to the truth. Too hurt to see it.
He stared at your forehead for long seconds and squeezed the trigger against it, wondering how he would react if you were dead. He hated you, but he'd rather you were alive somewhere on this planet. Alive with Jean, maybe. His jaw tightened as he pictured the brown-haired man with you.
He placed the gun on the mattress. His hand slipped under your t-shirt to caress your soft stomach. Was Jean going to be the father of your children now?
His whole body was churning; he wanted to reject this fate.
For the past few days, Eren hadn't recognized himself.
He kept replaying what you'd said in the bathtub. That he was destroying everything, ruining your life with his mental and family problems. That you wanted more.
He was having trouble eating and sleeping these days. The fog in his head was taking over.
"Eren?" Your hands in his hair pulled him out of his inner darkness. He hadn't noticed he'd lain down on top of you, his head on your chest.
"Why are you crying?"
He touched his wet cheeks, confused.
“Nothing,” he grumbled, sniffling. “Acting like you don’t know why.”
You looked away, biting the inside of your cheek. “It’s not my problem.”
He let out a quiet laugh—a sad, hoarse one.
“Nothing is your problem. You only care about shaking ass at the club. Aren’t you ashamed?” He snapped, his voice raising. “You could have left way before than betraying me like that.”
You wished you could make the tears in the corners of his eyes disappear.
“You fuck good.”
His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched even more. “That’s all? That’s the only thing you like about me?”
Tell him he mattered. Tell him his mental battles weren’t such a burden.
You wrapped your arms around his neck and brought his head close to yours.
“Yes. Now do something.”
“You don’t deserve it,” he spat, venom in his voice.
That’s what you wanted. His hatred. His anger. Something that proves he’s alive. You could keep the secret of what happened your whole life if it was to keep him safe.
Even if his hands between your thighs were rougher than usual when he fingered you, despite what he said. Even if it was your turn to cry when he fucked you, his hand on his bedframe, a full view of the tattoos on his chest covering the ones about you. Even if there was more pain in his gaze than lust when he finished.
Eren hurriedly got out of bed, pulling on sweatpants. Eren needed to stop sleeping with you when his emotions were uncomfortable. He needed to detach himself from his ex. It was over between you. You didn’t love him. You were going to become the mother of Jean’s children. He was nothing to you. His hands trembled as he smoked on the balcony, barely able to hold his blunt.
He had your mouth forming an O in his mind as he gazed at the city lit by illuminated skyscrapers and streetlights. Your little whimpers. Your hands caressing his sculpted abs. Your pleas to go faster, harder, more intense. As if it wasn't already heartbreaking enough that he had to be so sexually rough with you to satisfy you.
Was that why you cheated on him? Always needing more. He's never enough and always too much for you.
He glared at you as you slept.
He resented you so much.
──────── 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫,
“You look terrible, man,” Connie observed, his feet up on his desk, smoking a joint as he surveyed a gaunt Eren with deep-set dark circles under his eyes.
“Focus on your work. We have to avenge Armin, and you know my own reasons for wanting to kill them all.”
“You don’t look very ready to hear what I’m about to say.”
Eren slammed his fist on the desk. “Just spill the beans on what you found, damn it.”
He had asked Connie to hack into their enemies’ security cameras several weeks ago to prepare an attack plan behind his boss’s back.
“Eren, I don’t think you want to see that, I’m serious.”
He shoved Connie’s chair aside with a “tsk” and opened the surveillance video folder. With the mouse cursor, he watched the fast-forward footage of the men entering and leaving the organization. “You’re playing with me, Con. That’s boring as hell.”
“Go back two and a half months. Don’t scream. What we’re doing is against protocol.”
He did as Connie asked. He frowned as a woman was helped out of a car trunk by several men. The hot knot in his stomach grew and grew as the cogs in his brain assembled the pieces of the puzzle.
The woman had a bag over her head and was struggling, but it was easy to recognize you. You were wearing a House of CB dress Eren had bought you. A long, floral bustier dress. One he hadn’t seen since you came back from your night out with your stripper friends, and you were avoiding his gaze with the oversized men’s clothes on you.
You had asked for rough sex that day. No matter how much you cried, you had asked him to be even rougher. He thought it was your way of dealing with your sexual trauma.
He was right; he didn't know at that time that you had a new one.
His whole body burned, his trembling fingers clicking on the internal cameras, but Connie turned off his computer by unplugging it.
“I know you don't want to be friends with me since Armin died, but I like you. Don't beat yourself up watching this. It was very long and painful to watch.”
The hotness rose in his throat, and he vomited his breakfast onto Connie's desk. He winced but understood his reaction.
“Why didn't she tell me?” he murmured, lost and horrified.
“Why would she? You're going to try to kill them all, and they'll kill you. We underestimate them a lot; that's how they killed Armin.”
“Who cares?” Eren sneered, incredulous. “They hurt my baby.”
“You’re not going to make her suffer from your death on top of everything else? She must have been so scared for you all this time.”
While Eren put you through hell.
He kicked the desk, cursing.
────────
He nuzzled your neck affectionately; your scent no longer made him nauseous. It was what you had been a victim of that made him feel sick now.
He couldn't talk to you right now; he would break down and show you he knew. He preferred to cuddle you while you slept and plot his revenge.
He wasn't sure he would come back alive. But he had to, for his girl. He wouldn't be able to look at himself in the mirror if he didn't do something to bring you justice.
"You're gonna be okay if I die, right?" he whispered against your skin. He lowered his head to listen to your heart—the most important sound in his universe.
You're gonna be okay if he dies getting revenge on you, you have Jean.
Even though he's already dead to the thought of you with someone else.
──────── 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫,
“Give her this if I don’t come back,” Eren said to Connie in the car, handing him an envelope. “Give it to her personally. She’s not stupid enough to come to my funeral and get caught or even open the door.”
“A love confession?”
“A will of love.”
“You don’t really have to do this, Eren. You can leave the organization and have your happy ending with her.”
“Happy ending? I have a fucking debt to pay, Connie. They’re already threatening me enough because I’m not paying it back fast enough, according to them. I’ll be in a life of crime for a long time. And even then, the men who abused my girl can’t be alive. I’m going to try to kill at least one of them to rest in peace.”
Connie chuckled nervously.
“You don’t understand that’s exactly what they’re waiting for, Eren. You’re the best member of the organization. Losing you is good for them. They’ve chosen low-ranking members to carry out their massacre.”
“And they made me hate and hurt the love of my life for weeks. They all deserve to die, I don’t care about their ranks.”
“Your girl can’t say I didn’t try to save you.” Connie watched Eren walk away toward the place where he had ambushed the enemies. Eren seemed calm, smoking a cigarette, his hand in the pockets of his baggy jeans. Connie knew he was going to kill at least two of them, we were talking about Eren. But just him against the six men who abused you? Connie gripped the steering wheel of his car, already mourning a man he wished he could call a friend.
──────── 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫,
It had been several days since Eren wasn't home.
You weren't stressed. Eren sometimes had to travel long distances for his assassination contracts.
You broke a glass by rubbing it too hard. You bumped your head on a cupboard door while cleaning it. Your toe stubbed on the bed while sweeping. Distracted but not stressed. Eren sometimes had to travel long distances for his assassination contracts.
You glanced at the door at least once every three minutes. Then you looked at the kitchen clock, counting the hours. Four days and eight hours since he'd come home from work.
You weren't stressed. Eren sometimes had to—
The doorbell rang, but your body remained tense because Eren never used that option to announce his arrival.
With incredible calm, you grabbed the gun Eren had bought you. A hitman wouldn't get involved with an incompetent woman.
"Who's there?" you asked loudly, pressing your ear against the door.
"A friend of Eren's. He... died. I have some things to return. Sorry, it took me a while to find his address."
Several seconds passed in heavy silence. Connie finally knocked, but you were already back to your housework.
Eren is dead.
You scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. You didn't know if it was your own arm you were scrubbing.
Connie kept knocking, as if he had something important to give you.
But you were far away.
In a world where the sun had gone out.
──────── 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞,
“Thank you for the kind words about my work. But don’t put me on a pedestal, I’m nobody.”
You reread the sentence in your email and sighed. It sounded insecure, when you wanted to be humble.
You’d been freelancing as a graphic designer with your boyfriend, Jean, for several months. He came from art school, so he had the expertise your creativity lacked.
It was the perfect job because you didn’t have to speak.
You lost your voice that day.
Your hands would tremble when you thought about him.
You were okay. You saw a therapist, you had your antidepressants, you’d stopped BDSM and learned to enjoy gentle sex with Jean after your rapes. Because life still has things to offer, even if he’s not there. That’s what you tried to believe.
“Isaree wants to go to the mall for candy,” Jean said softly, his hand on your shoulder. “We could go to the park first.”
You tensed at the touch, wishing it were someone else’s. Even your baby girl, you wanted her to be someone else’s. That’s why she was called ‘freedom.’
You said ‘no’ in sign language and plunged back into the social media story template you were creating.
“Isaree would like to spend more time with you, love.”
You paused, your hands sweating. Was it so bad not to be passionate about life, your boyfriend, and your child?
You were okay. You had a job, no insomnia, ate healthily, had shed tears of joy when Isaree was born, and you did her homework with her. An average mom. If we ignore your muteness. If we ignore the blank expression you have every day. If we forget your feeling of drowning in the depths of an endless ocean. With no way out, and with the hope of seeing him again at the end.
—
“Does Eren like the park?” Isaree asked, playing in the grass. Jean tensed at the sound of his name, but he knew that Eren was the only way your daughter could connect with you. Isaree had understood early on that something had happened to her mother. She had gone through your things and found photos of a mysterious dark-haired man with green eyes. It was the only thing you ever paid attention to.
You fed her, took care of her, took her to school, and hugged her when she cried. But Isaree kept watching the mother-daughter pairs around her, wondering what she was doing wrong to lack the sparks they shared. You signed to her that he preferred the sea, and Isaree's eyes lit up with excitement.
"Wow, he's so cool. Why is he always sleeping? I'd love to meet him."
She had Jean's eyes, bright and enthusiastic. You didn't want to break her childlike heart, so you allowed your lie.
"He's in another country right now, but you'll be able to see him someday," You signed.
She twirled in the grass, already thinking about writing down the information about the sea in her diary. Isaree wrote about everything she cared for, because Eren was one of them in her eyes. Not a friend or a father, a secret thing where death and life create an in-between.
Jean was painting a portrait of his daughter and you on the grass. With colors, colors that reminded you that life was beautiful, even if you weren't quite sure anymore if it was worth it.
─
As your lineage continues to reproduce, Eren has disappeared from everybody’s memory, and nobody knew who should have been the father of your children, decades after your and your daughter's death.
──────── 𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧'𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫,
“Dear brat,
If you're reading this letter, it means I've failed.
I'm sorry I can't control my emotions. I feel like it's genetic. Be careful with your future children; maybe they'll have the will to fight from birth.
I hope they'll have the will to fight for you.
You deserve for everyone to fight for you.
I hope you know how hard I fought for you. My death will be proof of that.
I'm sorry our story ended like this.
I should have reacted differently. I knew you. You wouldn't have done that to me. I shouldn't have been so horrible and angry. I said things I didn't mean.
I'm sorry my fears were stronger than me. You don't know what it's like to have a baddie and not be mentally healthy for her.
Let Jean take care of you.
Never talk about me to your children, please.
I'm the worst.
I know I will die, abandon you, that I will no longer be there to protect you.
But I’m still doing it because we are still engaged. For life.
Jean can make you babies, but your soul will always have my name on it. Just like mind has yours.
Never talk about me, and please see a therapist for what happened, baby.
Take care and be happy for me, okay?
So that I can rest in peace, while that horseface is lucky as hell.
(I took your pink keychain to be buried with it just in case, don’t panic if you can’t find it).”
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☆ Summary: When photos of Levi leaving a hotel with another woman turn into a full-blown cheating scandal, you know the truth is harmless. But knowing Levi didn’t betray you doesn’t make the public humiliation hurt any less.
☆ Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Female Reader
☆ Genre/Tags: Modern AU, Sports AU, Athlete Levi Ackerman, Soccer Player Levi Ackerman, Established Relationship, Gossip, Miscommunication, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Making Up, Protective Levi, Levi Ackerman is Bad At Feelings
☆ a/n: This is a prize fic for anonymous for getting 100% on the 700 follower quiz! Thank you to @slaytherinthoughts for beta reading as always <3 please don't ask for a part two or I'll cheat on my best friend with another closeted glasses-wearing lesbian.
[ Art by rivaille_akrmn on Instagram ]
You fold another shirt, the fabric still smelling of detergent but also carrying a faint scent of Levi. You pause with it halfway over your lap before smoothing your palm over the crest stitched near the chest, pressing your thumb over the raised threads. It’s your way to reach him across the city, through the traffic and the rain and whatever pre-match obligations have kept him away since morning.
It’s Saturday. The sky outside the windows is pale and watery grey. Your coffee has gone lukewarm on the table. A half-edited batch of client photos waits on your laptop from your recent wedding shoot. You keep telling yourself you’ll get back to them after you finish matching socks.
Then your phone buzzes. Three times.
You look at it absently, expecting a reminder, a group chat text, maybe your friend asking whether you’re still on for lunch tomorrow, but the first message on your screen nearly makes you drop the shirt in your other hand.
Are you okay?
Another one follows.
Please don’t look at Twitter.
Then another.
I know it’s probably bullshit, but I wanted you to hear from me first.
When the link appears beneath your friend’s next message, you stare at the thumbnail without opening it, because there is Levi outside a hotel, his face turned away from the camera, and beside him is a woman you don’t recognize at first, slender and pretty and wrapped in his black jacket as she ducks her head against the flash of cameras.
All sound drowns out from your senses, then it rushes back with your pulse pounding in your ears. The headline is worse than the photo.
LEVI ACKERMAN SPOTTED LEAVING HOTEL WITH MYSTERY WOMAN
You open it, even though you know you shouldn’t. It’s the same as touching a hot pan, looking down from a great height, or reopening a wound just to check if it’s still capable of bleeding. You tap it anyway, and suddenly the article flashes across your screen.
There are three main photos. In the first, Levi is stepping out of a side entrance with one hand lifted toward the reporters, not waving or greeting, but blocking his face. In the second, the woman is closer to him, his jacket around her shoulders, her blouse visibly stained by what looks like wine. In this third, his hand is at the small of her back, guiding her toward a waiting car. Even though you know Levi, know that touch is anything but intimate, it doesn’t stop the twisting of your stomach.
Your phone rings. Levi’s name fills the screen.
You consider not answering. He hasn’t done anything wrong, really, and you definitely don’t believe the article, but hearing his voice might be the thing that breaks you. Because you know he’s going to try to explain, and explanations will only deepen the wound. You answer anyway.
“Don’t read it,” Levi says immediately. No hello. Not even an are you okay?
You close your eyes. “Little late for that.”
You hear him breathe out, quietly with a hint of frustration. You can picture him perfectly, one hand on his hip, the other holding his phone to his ear, probably glaring at nothing in particular while his expression sours.
“It’s bullshit,” he says.
“I know.”
“It was Erwin’s sister.”
“I know,” you repeat, though you didn’t until this exact second.
“She got cornered after dinner,” Levi says, as if he’s explaining this to his PR manager. “Some bastard knocked into her, wine went all over her blouse, reporters were swarming the front entrance. Erwin asked me to get her to the car through the side.”
“Levi—”
“My jacket was because of the spill. My hand was because she was about to walk into a camera. That’s it.”
“I believe you.”
Silence falls. Those three words should erase the photos, destroy the headline, pull the sickness out of your stomach, because trust is the hard part, isn’t it? The thing all the songs and movies and relationship advice columns treat like the center of it all. But instead, the words just hang there, while your eyes keep drifting back to the photo of another woman wearing Levi’s jacket.
His voice changes, low now, the first hint of uncertainty breaking through the anger. “Then why do you sound like that?”
You look down at the shirt in your lap and realize you’re gripping it like a vice. “Because believing you doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Levi says nothing for a moment. You can hear him trying to solve the issue within a minute, trying to decide whether he can outrun this, whether he can force these headlines to disappear.
“My PR manager is putting out a denial,” he says at last.
“Okay.”
“I’ll call Erwin. He’ll confirm it if they need him to.”
“Okay.”
“It’ll pass.”
You sigh. You refresh the article. There are already dozens of comments. “Yeah,” you say, though you don’t believe it. “Probably.”
Levi exhales your name. “Don’t look at the comments.”
You laugh once. Too late again. After you hang up, you sit there with his shirt in your lap and do exactly what every rational part of you is screaming at you not to do. You scroll.
She looks better with him anyway.
Your breath hitches.
His girlfriend always seemed boring.
Your thumb moves before you can stop it.
imagine fumbling Levi Ackerman.
He’s been playing worse since he went public with her.
She’ll stay. Girls like that always stay.
That one stops you. A smug little hand of a stranger reaching through your screen to pat your head and tell you what kind of woman you are, what kind of woman you will always be, how much humiliation you’re built to swallow. Suddenly, your eyes burn so badly that you lock your phone, toss it onto the couch, and press the heels of your hands against your eyes.
You believe Levi. So why does this hurt so much?
.
By the time Levi comes home, the laundry is folded, your coffee is cold, and the apartment has become eerily silent. He enters as he always does, key in the lock, shoes off at the door, jacket hung on the hook, hands washed before he touches anything else. There’s something almost ridiculous about watching him set his keys in the little metal tray you bought at a street market while half the world is deciding whether he loves you.
He looks at the folded laundry. “You didn’t have to do mine.”
“I was already doing laundry,” you say. A nothing sentence. A nothing answer.
Levi has never needed much to read a room. It’s one of the things that makes him terrifying on the field, the ability to see an opening before anyone else knows it exists, but now you hate how quickly he notices just how nervous you are, how his eyes are glued onto your hands keeping busy with a pair of socks that have already been folded.
He walks closer but stops before he reaches the couch, as if an invisible line has appeared between you. He doesn’t know whether crossing it would be comfort or trespass.
“You saw the statement?” he asks.
“Your PR manager’s?”
“Yeah.”
“I saw it.”
“It says the rumor is false.”
“I know.”
“It says I was assisting a family member of a teammate.”
“I know.”
“It says—”
“Levi,” you interrupt, and he stops. He looks at you with glassy eyes. “I believe you.”
He furrows his eyebrows. “Then what’s the problem?” The words don’t land right. You can see the second he knows it, but your hurt is faster than his regret.
“The problem is that everyone is talking about me like I can’t see what they’re saying,” you say, standing so quickly that one of the folded shirts slides off your lap and onto the floor.
“I told them it was bullshit,” he says.
“You told them you didn’t cheat.”
“Because I didn’t.”
“I know that.”
“Then what else do you want me to say?”
You laugh again, this time with too much pain in it. You’ve spent too much of the afternoon reading strangers comparing your body to another woman’s and your personality to a blank wall. “I don’t know, Levi, maybe something about the fact that people are calling me stupid and ugly. Maybe something about the fact that they’re blaming me because you had a mediocre game last week. Maybe something about the fact that now my name is trending for the wrong reasons. I didn’t ask to be in this scandal.”
“I didn’t want to make it worse,” he says.
“For who?”
“For you.”
“And you think that’s your decision to make alone?”
Levi looks away first, down toward the shirt on the floor. He bends to pick it up, almost careful in the way he moves close to you. Guilt crawls up your throat. You love him. You know him. You know he’s able to protect people he loves from pain.
“I’m trying,” he says.
“I know.”
“You keep saying that, but it doesn’t sound like you do.”
“And it doesn’t feel like you’re listening.”
That one hurts him. You see it before he hides it. In this moment, you’re nothing more than two people who are standing on opposite sides of the same wound, both bleeding, both too proud or frightened or exhautsed to move first.
That night, you sleep in the guest room. Levi doesn’t argue when you take your pillow from the bed, though he stands in the doorway with his arms at his sides and watches you like he wants to tell you to stop, to stay, to tell you he doesn’t want you to be apart from him, even for a night.
You lie awake for hours. On the other side of the wall, Levi does too. You eventually hear him wander into the kitchen. You hear the floor creaking, the sound of water running, the opening and closing of a cabinet. You imagine him making tea you know he won’t drink right now, staring at nothing because he’d rather be angry than afraid.
You don’t want to admit to him you’re afraid too.
.
The next match comes three days later. You watch from home. You don’t want to be a distraction—that’s what you tell yourself. But you truly can’t bear the thought of cameras finding your face in the stands, can’t bear commentators saying your name, can’t bear thousands of people pausing the broadcast to decide whether you look heartbroken enough, loyal enough, pretty enough, strong enough. So you sit on the couch in one of Levi’s old shirts and watch him walk onto the pitch.
The match goes badly almost from the beginning. You can tell within minutes that something is wrong. A pass goes wide. He mistimes a run he would normally make in his sleep. Then, in the second half, he misses a shot he would have easily made, and the commentator says, as if pretending not to enjoy the car crash, “You do wonder whether the off-field noise has followed Ackerman onto the field tonight.”
Later, he snaps into a tackle too aggressively and gets booked, yellow card lifted above the referee’s head while the camera zooms in on Levi’s face, all anger and dark eyes. By full-time, he’s walking off with his head slightly lowered, and you can already feel the internet sharpening its claws.
And because you can’t help it, you look.
she ruined him hahahaha
imagine playing like that after your girlfriend forgives you for cheating.
Bro has been washed since getting into that relationship.
maybe if she showed up, he’d remember how to score.
good thing she’s not there. she’s bad luck.
You set the phone down as if it burned you. When the game ends, the broadcast cuts to a post-match panel where three men discuss Levi’s “mental distraction,” as if he’s not a human being but just a broken machine they’re watching malfunctioning.
You want to comfort him. Even though you’re humiliated and your pride is hurt, the wanting comes so fast that it scares you. Your heart still reaches for him, even now. You pick up your phone, open your messages with him, and type:
Are you okay?
You stare at it. You imagine him reading it in the locker room, still sweaty, still angry, surrounded by teammates and staff, and you imagine him looking at your message and either throwing his phone down or fighting back tears. You shake the thought and delete the message. Then you sit there with your empty hands, feeling worse than before.
.
Levi doesn’t come home after the match. At ten thirty-seven, your phone buzzes. It’s not him. It’s Erwin.
He’s with me. He didn’t want to make things harder for you tonight.
You know why he made that decision. You can already picture him sitting in the passenger seat of Erwin’s car, refusing to look at his phone, deciding that absence is kindness because his presence has become complicated. Love is sometimes best proven by removing himself from the room before he becomes another burden, in his eyes. It’s so him, but it’s so wrong.
The house feels enormous without him. His teacup is still by the sink, rinsed but not washed. His running shoes are still near the door. His black scarf is thrown over the back of a chair, and when you touch it, you nearly tear up at how cold it is.
You go to the bedroom, but you don’t sleep.
Across the city, Levi sits in Erwin’s spare room. He hates himself. He catalogues every mistake from the match, every misplaced pass, every headline he’s dragged to your door, every comment he can’t erase. He’s angry at the press. Angry at the fans. Angry at the photographers who came too close to Erwin’s sister. But mostly, though he would rather bite through his own tongue than admit it out loud, he’s angry at himself.
He can defend a ball under pressure from three defenders, can read an entire field in a second, can turn a hostile stadium into background noise, and yet, he can’t figure out how to stand between you and the public.
Your phone rings just after midnight. It’s Levi. Your thumb hovers over the screen. In the space of one ring, you think of the articles, the comments, his empty side of the bed, his face after every missed shot, Erwin’s message, his jacket around another woman’s shoulders, his habit of handing you tea while you’re editing photos, his mouth on your forehead on mornings when he leaves before dawn, his gentle whispers to you when he thinks you’re asleep.
You answer. Silence falls between you for a moment. Then Levi says, “You awake?”
It’s such a stupid question that you almost laugh. “Yes.”
Another pause.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” he says. He breathes in, and you feel the rawness of the guilt coursing through him just through the shakiness of his breath. “I can take them saying shit about me. I’ve had worse. But they’re saying things about you because of me.”
You close your eyes. The anger you’ve been carrying all day weakens just slightly, not disappearing completely, but softening enough that you don’t feel it pulsing through your veins anymore like a second heartbeat.
“Levi—”
“I thought you needed space,” he says. “I thought being there was making it worse.”
“You leaving made it worse.” He goes quiet. You sit up slowly, pushing the blanket away from your legs. “You didn’t have to leave. I didn’t need that.” Your voice trembles, which annoys you, but you keep going because if you don’t say this now, you’re afraid you’ll both keep mistaking silence for mercy. “I need you to be on my side.”
“I’m always on your side.”
“Then come home.”
The knock comes twenty minutes later. You know because you spend every one of them standing in the living room, sitting down, standing again, checking the time, hating that you checked, then pacing to the window when headlights pass across the ceiling.
When you open the door, Levi is there in a dark shirt and wrinkled joggers. He looks so tired that for a second, all of the ugliness from the last few days becomes small, and all that you can think of is how worried you are for his mental wellbeing. He looks completely destroyed.
He swallows, then says your name. The sound nearly breaks you. You step aside. He comes in, takes off his shoes, hangs his jacket over the back of a chair, then washes his hands because he’s still Levi. You make a sound that might be between a laugh and a cry. He turns from the sink.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” you say, wiping one eye with the heel of your hand. “You’re just ridiculous.”
“I’m just washing my hands.”
“Exactly.”
“People should do that more—”
“I know, Levi.”
You both end up sitting on the living room floor, backs against the couch, because the kitchen table feels too much like an interrogation, the bedroom feels too intimate for right now, and the couch feels too casual for what’s sitting between you right now. The floor is neutral enough territory for the both of you. He sits close, but not touching. You notice.
“I never thought you cheated,” you say. “Not for a second.”
His throat bobs. “I know.”
“No, I need you to really understand that. That wasn’t why I was upset.”
His gaze drops to his hands, loosely clasped between his knees. “I understand that now.”
You exhale slowly, looking toward the dark television screen, where both of you are faintly reflected side by side. “It was seeing everyone talk about me like they knew me. Like I was stupid or pathetic or some boring placeholder you were going to get rid of. And then seeing people comparing me to her—a-and she didn’t do anything wrong either but she was dragged into this. I just—I felt humiliated.”
Levi’s hands tense. You keep going before he can turn that anger outward and miss the point again.
“And I know our lives aren’t private. I know your life isn’t private the way mine still is. But I’m not built like you, Vi. I don’t have a PR manager. I don’t have a team. I don’t have a locker room to disappear into. I’m just me, and suddenly my face is online and people are deciding what kind of woman I am because of one stupid photo.”
“You shouldn’t have to be built like me,” he says. You look at him. He’s staring down at his hands. “I thought if I said too much, they’d just go after you harder. The internet is a vulture. A leech. If I made it personal, if I said your name, if I looked angry or desperate for control, they’d dig. Find your work, your clients, your family. I thought shutting it down through PR would keep you out of it.”
“Why did you make that decision without me?” He’s silent. “You left without asking me.” You exhale sharply. “You keep trying to protect me by making choices for me, and then you leave me alone with the consequences. Do you understand what that does to me?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. No defense, no explanation, just that. You swallow.
“I’m sorry too.” He looks up at you. “For shutting you out. For expecting you to know what I needed when I didn’t know how to say it. For not texting after the match when I knew you needed it.”
He frowns slightly at the mention of it. The game is still sitting under his skin, a deepening bruise. “You watched?”
“Of course I watched.”
“I played like shit.”
“You were hurting.”
“I’m not supposed to.”
“Because professional athletes famously stop being human once they sign a contract?”
He gives you a flat look. You give it right back. Eventually, he looks away first, which you count as a victory because you’re petty and wounded and still in love.
“I hated that you weren’t there,” he admits.
“I hated not being there,” you say.
“But I didn’t want cameras on you.”
“I didn’t want that either.” You shift a little closer. His eyes come back to you. “We need rules.”
“Rules?”
“Agreements. Whatever. It’s better than both of us guessing wrong and hurting each other.” Levi nods. “No reading comments alone.”
He furrows his eyebrows. “No reading them at all would be better.”
“I’m a person, Lee. Not a saint.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
You nudge his knee with yours. His gaze drops to where your legs touch, then returns to your face. You half-smile. “No comments alone,” you repeat. “If one of us spirals, we tell the other.”
“Fine.”
“And if people attack me, you tell them to leave me out of it. Don’t just deny the rumor.”
“I should’ve done that already.”
“Yes.”
“I will.”
“And stop making decisions ‘for my own good’ without asking me first.” He nods. “I mean it. Space is different when I ask for it. It feels like I don’t have a choice when you leave because you just assume I’m better without you.”
“You always get a choice.”
“Then let me have it.”
“I will.”
You breathe in slowly. “And I’ll tell you when I need comfort instead of space. Or space instead of comfort. Even if I’m embarrassed. Even if I don’t know how to say it perfectly.”
“You don’t have to say it perfectly.”
“Neither do you.” His mouth presses into a thin line. “Levi.” He looks at you. “You’re allowed to be hurt too.”
For a long moment, he says nothing, just shifts slightly and sighs. Then, very quietly, he says, “I don’t like what it does to you.”
“I don’t like what it does to you either.”
“They blamed you for the match.”
“They blamed me because they’re all idiots and have no one else to blame.”
“Was that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, that was me being bitter.”
“Good. I was worried.”
You laugh, and Levi’s face eases as he watches you. Through the guilt, through the exhaustion, something tender moves through him. He reaches for your hand slowly. You don’t pull away. His fingers slide between yours, the first reach touch after days of distance. You look down, blinking hard. It’s scary how a hand can feel like home even when home has been hurting.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. You squeeze his hand. “I love you.”
You feel your chest practically cave in. Levi rarely ever says those words. He says them in gestures instead, in breakfast served in bed, in laundry he folds himself when you’re too tired to do it, in pastries and desserts he brings home after he’s been gone all day. For all the world has tried to make a spectacle of him, of you, of the life you’ve built together, this part is still yours.
“I love you too,” you whisper.
He leans in slowly, and you meet him halfway, your lips making contact softly. His mouth brushes against yours once, then again, a question asked twice because the answer matters. When you lift your free hand to his cheek, his breath catches so quietly you feel it more than hear it. He kisses you like he’s coming home—or maybe like he’s asking whether he still can.
You answer by staying.
.
The next morning, you wake in your own bed with Levi’s arm around you and sunlight slipping through the curtains, gold spread across the sheets. You don’t move at first, just breathing and living in the quiet.
Behind you, Levi mutters, “You’re awake.”
“You’ve been awake longer,” you say.
“You were drooling on my arm.”
“I was not.”
“You were.”
“And you didn’t move me off?”
He pauses, then answers, voice rough with sleep, “Didn’t want to.” You stare at the wall and feel a smile creep onto your face before you can stop it. He scoffs. “Don’t start now.”
“I’m not starting anything. Who’s starting?”
“You are.”
“You’re so bad at this.”
“Don’t make me regret coming back here.”
You turn in his arms. His hair is an absolute mess, strands sticking out everywhere. His face is bare and tired. You hate the public and press all over again for ever believing they could understand Levi from a photograph.
Then his stomach growls. Loudly. You blink. He stares back, expression blank.
“Was that you?” you ask.
“No.”
“There’s only two people in this room.”
“Then it was you.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I gathered.”
So he makes breakfast. Technically, he makes tea and toast that’s slightly darker than intended and eggs that are slightly overdone. You sit at the kitchen counter island dressed in his shirt, watching him move around the kitchen.
Then your phone buzzes beside you. You glance at it warily.
“Don’t,” Levi says.
“It might be work.”
“It’s not.”
“You don’t know that,” you say, glaring at him. He answers by sliding a mug of coffee in front of you.
“Drink.”
“Still bossy in the mornings.”
“I’m bossy all the time.”
“True.”
Your phone buzzes again. This time, Levi reaches into his pocket and takes out his own. Something about the way he looks at the screen makes you straighten your spine.
“What?” He hesitates, not for long, but long enough. “What did you do?”
“I posted something,” he says.
You reach for your phone before he can stop you. When you open his profile, there it is at the top of his page, the pinned post, plain white text on a black background, no logo, no PR formatting, no professionalism.
The rumors are false. More importantly, the comments directed at my partner are disgusting. Leave her out of it.
You read it again, then again. It’s nowhere near professional or poetic or even lengthy. No one would look at this and swoon over romance and boyfriend behavior, or maybe someone will, who knows. But it’s not that that makes your heart beat faster. It’s the fact he said it. Not his manager. Not the club. Him. Levi, who hates exposing himself and his vulnerabilities to the public, who treats cameras and paparazzi like pests and interviews like torture, has stepped into the spotlight and drawn a line with your name behind him, protected.
When you look up, he’s watching you like he’s braced for impact. “I can delete it,” he says.
You laugh, and it breaks in the middle. “No, you idiot. I…” You wipe your eye quickly, annoyed by the tears. “I needed this.”
His face changes. The relief is subtle, but you see it, feel it, and love him for trying not to show too much and failing just enough. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He looks down at his tea. “I should’ve done it sooner.”
“Probably.” His mouth twitches. You reach across the counter island and take his hand, which he lifts to reach for yours. “But you did it.”
His thumb moves over your knuckles once, then again, and then the quiet stretches between you, no longer empty. After a while, Levi says, “Next match is Friday.”
“Mhm.”
“You don’t have to come.” You look at him. He holds your gaze, serious now. “If you want to watch from home, watch from home. If you want to come, come. If you want to skip it completely, I’ll live.”
“Will you?”
He exhales through his nose. “Probably.”
You take a sip of coffee to hide your smile. “I might come.”
“Might?”
“Might,” you say, setting the mug down. “But only if you play better, because I refuse to get blamed for another disaster.”
Levi stares at you for one full second, then says, dry as dust, “How motivational.”
“I try my best.”
“Honestly, it was closer to a threat.”
“Motivation wears many faces.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“You love me.”
His expression softens before he can stop it. He comes around the counter, and when he bends to kiss you, one hand braces lightly against the back of your chair, the other cupping your cheek. You feel the smile he tries to hide against your mouth.
“Friday, then?” he murmurs.
You brush your thumb along his jaw.
“Maybe.”
He squints at you. You laugh and kiss him before he can complain, and this time, when he sighs against your mouth, the sound is almost peaceful. You don’t know what the next headline will say, or whether the next match will hurt, or how many times the world will try to make your love feel like public property, but Levi looks at you like he’s ready to choose you out loud every single time.
The world can keep talking if it wants to; here, you have everything that matters.
I WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEARI WILL DO KINKTOBER THIS YEAR
