#fem!vampire!reader

*Levi’s POV*

Erwin had given the two of them a day to prepare before departing, a day to make sure any tasks that needed them at headquarters could either be finished or handed off to someone else.  Levi spent most of that time making sure the squad was going to put in the work to remain in shape and ready for any potential trouble while he was gone, and closely going over the reports that crossed his desk from Erwin about the developing situation with the refugees.  He didn’t think he was going to be getting a date for the mass execution they were going to have to carry out in the day before they left, but he still looked, still followed every development, every step that brought them closer to the inevitable that was starting to weigh on him more and more.  It hadn’t even been announced or finalized yet, and he could already feel it looming over him like a smog.

Last night had been a much needed and welcome distraction.  Even talking about Emery, having some of the harder discussions about the two of them, had been better than his thoughts lingering on this sickening insanity.

Though, it wasn’t that insane, was it, when he understood perfectly what they were doing, and why, and he and those around him couldn’t think of any other solutions that were a viable alternative to the incoming slaughter.  Either they did something about the situation–with this being the only option anyone could see–or the situation would be solved in an even more bloody and violent way as tensions exploded and people started fighting over resources and inside the walls turned into every man for himself.

Didn’t mean it didn’t make him sick, didn’t mean he didn’t hate every second it was discussed or thought of as the situation developed and plans were being made, he could see some of the moves being made in preparation of what was about to happen…

He’d much rather be thinking about Y/N last night, of their kiss, of the feel of her fingers trailing down his chest, her palm over his heart or pressed against his abdomen, the depth of their kiss that had stolen his breath for the first few long moments, made him dizzy and restless and wanting.  At least, before her position had come dangerously close to one that would have had him driven mad with the proximity, before a stab of anxiety at the thought of stumbling accidentally into more sexual waters when clear-headed he’d already decided he was not ready had made him pull back and speak up.

He had thoughts, that was undeniable.  He’d already…touched himself while having thoughts of how tantalizing he found her how many times, now?  And that hunger that started to burn inside them when they had the time to get particularly close, to be a bit more intimate than brief brushes and kisses, made it clear that he wanted more.

But thinking about actually doing it?  Hell, he didn’t think he’d even pictured her in his mind’s eye unclothed–not yet, anyway.  He wasn’t quite there yet, and it stressed him out too much when he started to think about the potential of them having sex–

He wasn’t ready.  It felt good to know she wasn’t, either, that he wasn’t holding her back or making her wait or anything like that.  He wanted to be closer to her when they had the time and privacy to do so, but the thought of being that close was still…too much, right now.

And besides, they had far too much to be doing right now to be worrying or stressing out over sex.  There were much more important things to worry over.

First Emery, and anything that may pop up into the mix with that mess they were attempting to clean up, then the refugees, and then, most likely, when they returned they were going to be faced with the ‘solution’ to the food crisis.

The extra day to prepare ended up passing quickly enough Levi found it unnerving in how uneventful it turned out to be.  Y/N didn’t come to visit him after dinner this time, mostly because they planned on leaving just before dawn and both needed their rest before then.  Well, mostly Y/N needed her rest–Levi slept just about as terribly as he normally did.  Which also meant that he was up and ready for the day far sooner than she was.  There was barely daylight starting to lighten the sky in the distance when Levi grabbed the bare necessities he’d packed for the trip and headed out to the stables to start readying the horses for their departure.

It had been a while since the last expedition–far longer than normal, by now–and the horses were getting more restless.  They even rivaled their owners in how impatient they seemed to be to leave the cramped walls of their enclosures and venture back into open spaces.

Except the next time that they went beyond the walls, it would just be into the old territory, still within the walls, unable to reach that vast unknown space beyond that they had ventured into before.

As such, once Levi had both his horse and Zephyr saddled and ready–taking the time to make sure all the straps were secure and the gear in the proper place–he took them by the reins and started them on slow laps walking around the pasture to kill the time it would take for Y/N to arrive.

For the most part, they behaved–Zephyr kept wanting to quicken her pace and move ahead of Levi and his horse, but he was able to keep her under control and in pace with himself and the black stallion walking just a step behind.  His horse was mostly well behaved, though occasionally the stallion seemed to lean over to Zephyr and nibble at her mane when Levi wasn’t looking.  Even when Levi gave a small tug on the reins to correct the behavior, the stallion simply waited a little while before he did it again, earning a scowl from Levi and a grumble about Zephyr continuing to be a bad influence on him.

Just as the sky was brightening to the point Levi knew that the sun would be appearing soon, Levi finally spotted Y/N waiting by the fence for him to finish the current lap, rubbing at her eyes tiredly and muffling a yawn, leaning heavily on the post in front of her.  Levi gave a small tug on the reins, encouraging both horses to change directions and start heading towards her.

By the time Levi reached her, she was standing straight again, attempting to look alert after he'd caught her looking half-dead this early in the morning.

“You've been up for a while,” she remarked, voice still lower and rougher than normal, which gave away just how fresh out of bed she was.

“And you clearly just fell out of bed,” Levi responded, tossing Zephyr's reins to her.  At least she caught them.  “We've got a ways to go, and Erwin didn't give us a lot of time to get things done.  The sooner we leave, the better.”

“I know,” she murmured, attempting to muffle and hide a yawn as she came closer to Zephyr to start making sure everything was in place.  Levi watched, reaching out at one point to tug on one of the saddle straps to make sure it was secure and in place and eyeing the straps of her ODM harness suspiciously.  Considering she was half asleep, he wasn't entirely sure it was as tight as it should be, one of the straps seemed to be at something of an angle…

Before she got around to mounting her horse, and while she was still close to him, Levi reached out to adjust the one sitting at an odd angle.  His fingers ran under the straps while he had the opportunity to see how loose they were, before tightening them when necessary with a scowl.

“Are you always this careless with the straps?”

“No.  Guess I didn't pull hard enough.”

“You're not allowed to do your gear half asleep, if the result’s this shit.”

“Are you going to come in and do it for me every time it's an early start and I didnt sleep with them on?” She asked, the teasing obvious in her voice.

“Fuck no,” Levi grumbled, giving a last tug on the last strap.  She was an adult that had already gone through training–and normally he didn't see the straps in this kind of state to prompt this kind of thing.  “If this becomes a problem, you'll be drilling putting on the straps until you can do it in your sleep.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her lips before Levi turned to mount his horse.  “It already feels like I can.”

“The state of those straps suggests otherwise.”

The only response he got was a soft laugh as she mounted Zephyr, bringing the mare around to stand astride Levi.  She knew where the cave Emery was in, and how to find the entrance, but Levi was still taking the lead for the majority of the trip there, at least while they were on horseback and then later when they were dealing with the refugees, considering the technically superior/subordinate in public dynamic.

He'd have to do some digging to see if there was anything they could finagle to fix that so that they were equals, or as close to it as possible, in public and not just behind closed doors.

That, however, was a thought for another time.  Right now, they had a journey to make and a young vampire to go give an ultimatum to, which hopefully would result in one of the positive outcomes, for the sake of everyone involved.

Here was hoping the kid would not only listen, but act accordingly after this.

The ride was a long one, and included at least two breaks for the horses.  They technically only needed the one, considering their breeding and training for long distances in titan territory, but both of them had decided that within the walls, there wasn’t the need to push them in such a manner.  Their timeframe for their trip could afford a few breaks for the horses to rest and drink, maybe even do a bit of grazing while Levi and Y/N took the opportunity to speak.  Neither of them were trying to hold a conversation over the pounding of their horses’ hooves during the travel itself, so any necessary conversation before they reached their destination was done in the brief time they had giving the horses some time to rest.

She was nervous, Levi didn’t even need to try to glean that from her demeanor.  She was going back to being more comfortably affectionate, too, which was part of the reason why it was so easy for him to tell.  Her hands sought out his own, whether it was just to brush her fingers against the back of his hand or to hold it long enough to give it a small squeeze, which also allowed him to feel the nervous twitching of her fingers, the slightly cooler than normal temperature of her skin.  She wasn’t very still, either, shifting to stand closer to him but maintaining a gap between them, still, because she wouldn’t hold the position.  She’d shift to stand beside him, loom over his shoulder, shuffle to stand a bit more in front of him, shuffle away to fidget with something on Zephyr’s saddle.

It wasn’t that bad at the first rest stop, but the second was more noticeable and blatant.  He didn’t ask, though, because he already knew.  She was worried–worried for Emery, worried about what Levi’s approach would be, about risks to Levi if Emery lost control, worried about what choice Emery would make.  She had a fairly long list of things to worry and fret over, but they’d both already discussed it, were already aware of it, and didn’t see the point in bringing it up again when they would just be saying the same things all over again.  Besides, there was no point in fretting over it anymore when they were about to finally carry it out and would have answers by the end of the day, whether they liked the results or not.

Levi also noticed, as they were traveling, that there was more of a Garrison presence on the road than there normally was.  It wasn’t so heavy that there was always a soldier in sight, even from a distance, but it was often enough to make it clear that the roads were being patrolled, monitored, and a military presence was certainly being kept amongst the people.

It could be preparing for potential trouble in the time it took to get the fucked up ‘plan’ for the food shortage executed, and it could also be in part because of the search for Emery.  A presence this heavy on the roads would have made it hard for a normal criminal to get anywhere without someone noticing, and this level of a presence also meant there were plenty of soldiers in the area to react if unrest started boiling over without the numbers of the soldiers being blatantly obvious.

One glance over in Y/N’s direction told Levi that she’d noticed, too, and had come to some very similar conclusions.

The sun was starting its descent into the western sky when the mountain they were headed for started to loom in the distance.  Levi’s head arched back to gauge the hours that they had left to reach that mountain at the speed they were maintaining, doing some mental math to make sure that there would be enough sunlight for them to properly utilize it for his protection while talking to Emery as had been their initial plan.

If not, they would have simply gone to the refugees, first, and seen Emery tomorrow before leaving.  But, he felt rather confident they could get there with plenty of time to do the riskier part of this discussion with the sun.

Once the mountain was in closer range, Y/N took up the lead instead, guiding them off the more well traveled paths and into a more direct path that would lead them into the woods beside the mountains, and then into the mountain’s slopes.  They slowed their pace so they wouldn’t draw attention as two soldiers racing along off the beaten path, and also to more safely navigate the terrain that was giving way from plains and fields to sparse forests, thickening as they grew closer to the mountain itself.  The silence continued between them–comfortable, thankfully, even though the way Y/N was holding her reins bunched up in her hands in a tight grip that would probably destroy the leather if she didn’t restrain herself gave away her continued nerves.

They found a fairly well hidden glade in the middle of a thick patch of trees where the mountain started to slope upwards, and dismounted there, choosing it as the spot they would hitch their horses until they finished the meeting with Emery.  Y/N wasted no time in making sure Zephyr was secured and that she had everything she needed, looking up at the mountain they were about to traverse on foot as Levi dismounted and hitched his horse nearby.  Everything he needed was on him, not his horse, so he didn’t bother with the check she’d made.  Instead, he came right over to her side, noting her continued distraction with her own thoughts and reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder, which caused her to jump slightly as she came back to the present with him.

“Out of your head.  There’s no point worrying over it, it’ll be over within the hour or so.”

At best.  It may take longer than that, but he was sticking with the general estimate for now, if it didn’t take them too long to get to the cave itself.

“Sorry…I don’t have much of a part to play in this besides making sure he doesn’t attack you, so I guess there’s just more nerves than normal over how it’s going to go down.”

Levi sighed at the admission.  It was understandable, of course, that she was so worried about the ultimatum discussion being so out of her control, but again, it wasn’t anything she could do much about right now.  She needed to get out of her own head while they headed to the cave.

In a few strides, Levi was at her side, shoulder brushing hers as he craned his neck to look up through the trees at the slope of the mountain rising above them.  “Come on–we don’t have time to linger,” he remarked, and a second later he felt her hand slip into his.  By now, the gesture was natural, right, and a part of him relaxed to feel it, giving her hand a small squeeze before he tugged her forwards.

Levi only led for the first few steps–once they were out of the glade, Y/N took up the lead since she knew where this cave was, navigating the slopes to find a path that both of them could make with relative ease without having to rely on her vampire abilities to jump an extraordinary high distance or leap over a gap no human could jump without ODM gear.  They had their gear, but they didn’t want to have to use it unless absolutely necessary, since their cover mission didn’t really require its use.

The climb didn’t take as long as Levi thought it might have–the sun hadn’t moved too much lower in the sky by the time she pointed out the cave’s entrance.  At best, they’d only been at it for forty-five minutes, at worst a little over an hour.  Once she pointed it out and Levi knew that they were close enough that Emery would be able to hear them soon, Levi tugged her to a brief stop so they could talk one more time before heading in.

“Before we go in--can you keep your head and let me do this my way?” Levi asked, gaze fixed on her and watching closely for her reaction.

She shifted in place, the smallest frown flickering across her face.  She was still uneasy about what that might entail, then.  Levi wasn't going to expand on it any further.  If Emery needed a more forceful hand to get things through his head, Levi was prepared to be that forceful hand.  But if the kid saw sense quickly and he didn’t need to use force, then there wasn’t any point in dragging it up beforehand.

After a few moments, she gave him a tentative nod, eyes flickering in the direction of the cave.  “Even if I end up not liking something about it, this is your show right now.  I’m pretty much just here to make sure he doesn’t try to eat you and to see what the outcome will be.”

Good enough, he supposed.  As long as she wasn’t going to undermine what he was trying to do, that was the important part.

Levi gave a nod in the direction she’d been glancing in, signaling her to lead on as he fell into step just behind her.

They didn’t travel so terribly far up the mountain that the trees disappeared, but they did get high enough that the terrain became more rock than grass and dirt, and the incline was starting to turn steep.  As for the cave itself, there was an isolated cliff face hidden from the treetops and rising up above them that required a brief use of the ODM gear for Levi to reach, and a simple inhuman jump for Y/N to top before Levi.  She went first so that Emery wasn’t startled by a stranger’s arrival–the situation was tense enough as it was without adding Emery accidentally attacking Levi at the start thinking he was an intruder.

“Emery?  We’re here,” she called softly as she temporarily disappeared from Levi’s view as the cables pulled him up to the lip of the cliff.

As Levi pulled himself up to solid ground and started to get to his feet, she walked straight into the shadows of the six foot tall cave entrance in front of them.  Deeper in, he could see movement, a roughly familiar shape taking form as the vampire, for the first time since the few moments of passing on Wall Rose during the Fall, came close enough for Levi to start noting distinguishing features.  His mind listed the important things quickly–height, weight, youthful appearance, freckles, deep green eyes, dirty blond but unruly hair tucked behind sticking out ears–

Within seconds, Levi had a good enough look at him to be able to effortlessly pick him out of a crowd if need be.  He could also see what she had meant about Emery still being a kid–Levi could tell just looking at him that he'd been turned in the middle of his growing years, some features more defined than others that still had their softer, youthful edges.

Y/N was still between Levi and Emery, with Emery quite a ways back in the cave and not, at the moment, coming a single step closer to the entrance.  Despite the distance, the two of them were much closer than they had been on the wall.  As for Y/N, Levi could see the tension building inside her as they all waited to see how Emery would react to the close proximity to Levi, her shoulders held higher with how tightly strung she seemed, coiled and ready to have to intercept a blind lunge.

Emery leaned just slightly to the side to peer around Y/N, faint recognition sparking in his widening green eyes and slowly growing stronger the longer he studied him.

“Wait, I know you–on the wall that night, and–aren't you–?”

Levi rested a hand on his hip–close to his gear and blades–readying a short response to shut down a slew of off-topic questions about Levi before he saw something shift in Emery's demeanor, the young man's posture going from timid and hesitant to still and taut, the now-familiar red glint spark in the young man's eyes as he stopped mid sentence.

Y/N was already shifting closer, a hand gripping Emery’s shoulder in an abrupt and hopefully steely grasp, trying to pull the kid's attention away from Levi.  Those eyes were turning more red than green, and unlike with Y/N, Levi felt a chill of warning down his spine, his instincts rearing their head to tell him to fight or run–he was far more inclined to fight, but there was still the underlying urge to escape the predator in front of him that she was now trying to talk down. 

“Emery, through the mouth, deep breaths, like we talked about,” she said, voice steady and clear, trying to cut through the blood haze that was taking control.

Emery grabbed onto her arm, turning his head away from Levi as the red continued to consume the green of his eyes, the exhale he let out coming out strangled and guttural, fingers digging in hard enough into her upper arm Levi could see her wince and suck in a sharp breath to bite back any noise of pain.

“Levi, back up a bit–if you can,” she warned.

Levi complied, but it wasn’t much–he was already standing close to the edge, and he wanted to give himself the space to maneuver if he had to redirect Emery away from himself.  He had barely shifted his weight when the wind shifted behind him, blowing in the direction of the two vampires in the cave.  He instinctively switched to a more at the ready position the same moment that Y/N stiffened–

As Y/N had worried over and apparently unintentionally predicted, a shift in the breeze was all it took for the young vampire’s finite control to rupture.  Y/N’s grip on Emery’s upper arm wasn’t strong enough to restrain, as she’d been focused on catching his attention and trying to ground him, so it was no surprise when he was able to pull free with the wild lunge in Levi’s direction, the hand that had been trying to hold to her for stabilizing support now knocking that arm aside to try and get her out of the way of his mad dash.

The movement was rapid, everything happening faster than he could finish drawing a breath.  Emery was lunging for him, crimson eyes having burned away the forest green that had been there moments prior, all four fangs on full display and ready to rip through flesh, a face that had been youthful and dare he say innocent a few moments ago suddenly twisted with animalistic savagery.  Levi barely had time to raise his hands, to get ready to shove Emery back into the cave when he inevitably burned himself in the sunlight, ready to take the hit and redirect the young man back into the shadows when Y/N rammed into Emery from the side.

They both careened into the darkness, Y/N staying on top in a takedown that was more raw force than technique, pinning Emery to the ground with her arm on his throat and a knee in his gut to keep the young man down.  Levi caught a glimmer of red in her own eyes–just a glint–as Emery thrashed against her, trying to claw, bite, and shove her off him with raw strength alone, his fingers gouging into her arms in the process and drawing blood.

Her expression, however, did not hold a hint of the wildness Emery now showed.  Hers was distraught, but focused.  Disappointed, but unsurprised.

Controlled.  Something Levi saw not a trace of in Emery’s feral expression and movements.  Even when Y/N had attacked him in the warehouse out of desperation, or when she’d defended him from the other vampire in the Underground, she’d been nothing like this.  The closest to this he could think of was in the Underground, and even then, while she’d shown some of the more vicious traits lurking under the surface–the flash of her fangs, the hissing and snarling, the red eyes–it had no resemblance to this.

Even the other vampire that had attacked him that night, that had been motivated by raw desire to feed off Levi’s blood, hadn’t been this wild.  They had both still been in control of themselves, of their bloodlust–the focus of most of Y/N’s efforts of growth, always about control of herself and her bloodlust.

He had not seen a vampire without control before, until now, seeing one too new to have any, seeing Emery lose all sense of control and be overcome by raw instinctual need to feast on human blood.

His blood.  Too tempting for someone so new to resist, even unspilled when he was this close.

Suddenly, Levi felt a new appreciation for just how much control Y/N had around him, especially in the early days and when he’d bled in front of her and she’d had to resist so many times before, before she’d grown accustomed to being around him so often.

Maybe he hadn’t fully realized just how enticing his blood was when she’d explained it back then.  Not until now.

Emery’s clawing at her arms gouged new lines into her arms to replace the ones that were rapidly healing–courtesy of the blood still running strong in her system from Levi–dark crimson running down both arms to pool on the stone floor and stain Emery’s shirt, and prompting Levi’s gaze to harden and focus.  The young man didn’t look like he was anywhere close to coming back to his senses, continuing to wildly thrash and claw and snap in a desperate attempt to lunge at Levi.

They weren’t going to get anywhere with Emery like this.  They needed him at least capable of listening.

“Let him go.”  Her head snapped up so she could look at him like he was insane, so Levi gave her a bit more than the command.  “He might burn some sense back into himself.  If he wants to charge headfirst at me into the sun, let him.”

That was clearly something she didn’t agree with, a scowl sprawling across her features as she looked back at Emery, still struggling against her and drawing blood, fixated on Levi and completely ignoring the vampire atop him except in the struggle to throw her off so he could try to get to Levi.

“Fine, but I don’t like it,” she muttered, focused entirely on Emery as she held her position, giving Levi enough time to brace himself before she abruptly let go and backed up, cradling her blood-slick arms to herself while they healed and allowing Emery to make his feral charge towards Levi, unrestrained.

Predictably, Emery charged full speed towards Levi and right into the path of the sun, staggering to a halt a step or two from Levi with arms suddenly crossed in front of himself to try and block the sun as his skin began to steam, skin turning splotchy with read patches of skin peeling away and burning.  His snarling turned into a sharp cry of pain as he staggered backwards towards the shadows on instinct, overwhelmed and confused by the jarring switch from wild full instinctual charge to the shock of agony bringing him roughly back to the present. 

Levi followed the young man as he staggered backwards towards the darkness, only two steps away despite the fairly good look he’d just received of how tempting his blood was for the poor kid.  Just before Emery could reenter the shadows, as Y/N was starting to tense in the background in concern that Emery wasn’t going to make it back out of the sun before he burned up, Levi took the young vampire’s distraction with the pain from the sunlight and temporary confusion from being so painfully shocked back to reality to have an easy upperhand in restraining him.

Grasping onto the young vampire’s forearms in a grip much firmer than the one Y/N had on the kid’s upper arm, Levi pulled Emery’s arms away from the shielded position covering his face, which caused him to recoil and hiss at the pain suddenly burning the more sensitive skin of his face.  Not wanting to risk the young vampire turning into a pile of ash just at the mouth of the cave–something that was getting uncomfortably close to happening judging by the antsy way Y/N was shifting from foot to foot just inside the cave–Levi was quick to spin the kid around to face the shadows of the cave, twisting Emery’s arms behind the kid’s back in the process and pushing him back into the shadows of the cave.

Once Emery was safely within the shadows and no longer actively burning, Levi swept his legs out from under him, causing the young man to fall forwards, the wind temporarily knocked out of him, landing right next to the beams of sunlight stretching into the cave’s entrance, perfectly within range if the young man started trying to attack again.  Levi used one hand to press one of Emery’s arms up into his back–without breaking it, though in a good position to do so if necessary–Emery’s other arm ending up trapped beneath his body while Levi’s other hand preemptively got a good grip on the back of the kid’s head by the hair so, if he started trying to bite him again, Levi could control it with ease and keep from getting attacked.

Behind him, Y/N shifted closer, but she didn’t try to intervene.  He could hear her shifting anxiously behind him, though, staying nearby if something happened, her gaze boring into the back of Levi’s head–

He ignored it for the moment.

For the moment, Emery’s head was turned so that his cheek was pressed into the ground of the cave, but he could look up with one eye at Levi so Levi would be able to watch his expressions and track his mood shifts and make sure he was actually paying attention to what Levi was going to be telling him.  At the moment, there was still more red than green in his eyes, and Levi could feel Emery trying to squirm and buck free beneath him, but Levi kept him pinned to the ground with his position…and with his raw strength.

Interesting…so a new inexperienced vampire couldn’t match his strength.  That was good to know.  Not something to let get to his head, though–he’d already experienced a vampire that matched his strength and a vampire that had strength greater than his own.  However…it was still a point of interest he filed away for later.

Emery tried to lift his head, arm trying to pull free of the grip Levi had him in, but Levi shoved his head back down and tightened his grip on the young man’s arm, gaze sharp and for the moment indifferent to his struggling.

“Breathe through your mouth like she told you, and get your shit back under control, or that won’t be the only time you get some sun today,” Levi said, tone even and calm despite the silence of the cave making his voice sound louder.  Emery tried to rear again, and Levi pushed him back down into the ground again.  “Don’t–you’re going to stay like this until we’re done for everyone’s safety.”

Emery had already lunged at Levi with the instinct to kill and gouged the hell out of Y/N’s arms over and over until her blood stained Emery’s clothes and the floor, Levi wasn’t going to let him do any more damage today.

“Are you listening to me?”

There was far too much red in Emery’s eyes for Levi to be convinced that Emery would really hear what Levi was telling him if he started speaking now, so he had to check, first, watching for a reaction that would show him he could continue and his words would actually process with the kid.  Emery snarled at him, a little more red creeping into his eyes, and Levi put a bit more pressure on the arm that he had twisted behind the young vampire’s back, causing that snarl to cut off with a cry of pain and more red to vanish as his face twisted up in pain.  The eyes staring back at Levi had more green to them, now.

“Are you listening?” Levi repeated, eyes never waving from Emery’s.

“...Yes,” he finally answered, voice gruff and strained around heavy breaths passing his lips, red still gleaming in his eyes, but enough senses having returned to the young man for him to actually listen to what Levi had to say.

Good, Levi thought, the shitstorm this kid had stirred up and was threatening to bring down on all of them roiling to the front of his mind now that the kid was properly under control and wasn’t going to be breaking free any time soon, forced to listen to every word Levi was about to say.

“I hear you want her to do all the shit work and take all the risks while you reap the rewards,” Levi remarked, voice low and hard.  Emery squirmed beneath him, red stained green eyes flickering away from Levi’s unrelenting stare.

“That’s…not how I’d put it…”

“Oh?  Then how would you put it?”

Levi’s voice had turned deceptively calm and quiet, but his grip in the kid’s hair tightened as he pressed his head down into the ground with enough force for Emery to wince and shift his gaze back towards him, eyes widening in sudden fear of the man that had him pinned to the ground so effortlessly with the calm but terrifying tone directed at him. 

“Because you promised you’d put in the effort to learn to survive, but when it was time to do your part, you had her do it instead.  And it sounds like that’s how you want it to be from now on.”

“I…I just can’t hurt anyone–” Emery started to rebuke, but his voice was frail and cracking, lacking conviction in the face of how afraid he was at the moment.

Levi cut him off before that delusion could linger in the air. “You’ve already killed people, so don’t act like your hands are clean.  This pretend bullshit that you can stay innocent if you don’t make any of the hard decisions is just making the shitstorm you created worse–one that’ll get more people killed and take her with you if you don’t start taking responsibility.”

Despite the distress that filled the half of his expression that Levi could see, he could see the red draining from his watering eyes little at a time despite the conversation topic–at least he was getting his bloodlust under control.

“But those were all accidents!  Killing more people–on purpose–can’t be right!” Emery railed desperately.  He wasn’t physically struggling against Levi anymore, seeming to accept finally that this was the best position, uncomfortable as it was, for the time being.  He did, however, start to shudder beneath Levi at the thought of having to kill more people, having to purposely take a life, and tears were now disappearing under his lower eyelid and over the bridge of his nose.

“I never said it was right,” Levi corrected, his voice momentarily distant and pausing to let the reality of what they were discussing be properly absorbed, that he wasn’t trying to simplify and justify something this complicated, before his voice hardened again as he went back on the offense for Y/N.  

“But it is how you’re going to survive and stop having accidental massacres.  Do you think she wanted to?  That it was easy?  She’s had to claw and fight to get where she’s now, a fight you haven’t even started.  She’s giving you the way she knows will eventually mean less or no death, but you’re going to have to fight to get there.”

“I-I just, I just don't think I can do it!”  Emery’s breath hitched around sobs he was trying to choke down, struggling to get the words out around his catching breaths.

“She might have been kind enough to give you a chance, but don’t assume I’m going to let your refusal to survive destroy everything she’s fought for.”  That was the closest to a lethal threatening tone Levi had let his voice get so far.  He’d kept his tone steady and deadly calm this whole time, but when it came to the crux of the issue he took with Emery, the threat Emery was posing to Y/N and everything she’d worked to gain, that was where his anger leaked through.  

“The military is turning this place inside out looking for you, vampire hunters are after you, and that’s just the topside shit that you’re dragging her into.  It’s more than her life at stake if something happens to her, humanity needs her more than ever, and one indecisive brat is not more important than her safety.”

No need for Emery to know this was more personal for Levi than that.  Y/N knew, but Emery didn’t need to, so he went back to the old, ‘She’s important to the Scouts and Humanity’ excuse that he’d hide his ‘She’s important to me’ inside.

Emery’s tumultuous emotions started to clash in his eyes, guilt drawing his brows together and making his gaze turn away, breath catching and holding around another shudder, this time of fear–fear of the threats closing in and the thought of being abandoned now when he’d come so close to not having to go through this alone, if Levi had to guess.

Now was the best time to present him with the choice in front of him, and press for an answer.

Levi’s grip tightened in Emery’s hair, pulling his head back to look at Levi more head on, and even though Emery’s eyes turned a bit more red as a result, Levi got a bit closer to further drive his point home.  “Either you do what she says, fight to survive, or you can stay here and wait to die.  You’re deciding, right now, so she knows if she needs to cut you loose, or can stay.”

The silence in the cave had a weight to it as Levi and Y/N waited to hear what Emery would say, the young man’s gaze searching Levi’s frantically and fearfully, red ebbing and flowing in his eyes like cresting and receding waves as he struggled with his decision, between his fear of abandonment and dying or his fear of taking life to survive.

Something gave way inside him, and a tear fell down his cheek.  Levi knew what his answer was before the kid even said it.

“...Okay…okay, I'll do it,” Emery whispered, voice rough and breaking.

Levi held his gaze, searching it intensely to make sure he really meant it.  “If you don't follow through this time, there won't be a second discussion.”

Emery nodded as much as he could with the grip Levi still had on his hair/head.  “I know.”

That was the best they were going to get for now.  They’d know if he really committed the next time she tried to teach him how to hunt, but for now…this would do.

He relented his grip on the young vampire’s hair, hand still hovering just above his head in case he needed to grab on again.  “Are you going to try and attack me again if I let you up?” Levi asked, ready to get up and move but wanting to make sure Emery wasn’t going to start lunging at him again if he did considering there was still red in Emery’s eyes, red that told them the bloodlust wasn’t entirely gone.

“I…I don’t think so…” Emery said, uncertain.  It wasn’t a great answer, but it was an honest one.  And if Emery couldn’t control himself on his own, Levi would just head back to the mouth of the cave in the sunlight.  He’d done okay restrained like this, though, had this whole conversation to adjust and get ahold of himself, to make sure he didn’t inhale through his nose and get overwhelmed by the scent of his blood.

That had been…enlightening, seeing how Emery reacted instinctively at the mere scent of his unspilled blood.

How the hell did he survive over twenty years in the Underground without becoming some vampire’s snack, again?

…or had he been, and he’d just been compelled to forget?

That wasn’t a thought he wanted to entertain, and certainly not right now.

Carefully, Levi started to ease off of Emery, letting go of the kid’s arm so it could fall back to Emery’s side while Levi shifted up and away, taking a few steps back to where Y/N had been standing and watching the whole conversation, keeping her promise to let him do his thing whether she liked it or not.

Between the now unrestrained vampire that had already tried to attack him in front of him and his concern that if he looked at her he’d see she was upset with how he’d treated Emery, he kept his gaze fixed forwards on Emery instead of looking at her for the time being.

Emery got back to his feet, one hand rubbing at the side of his face that Levi had pressed into the ground as he backed up several more steps, making sure there was a safe distance between the two of them.  Even in the shadows of the cave, Levi could still see that red glint in his eyes, but it was slight, much less than it had been when Levi first approached.

It also didn’t escape Levi’s attention that when Emery backed up, he stayed close to the light streaming into the cave’s entrance from the sun still, that he was close enough to stick his hand outside and burn himself to snap himself back to his senses if the bloodlust got too strong.

The kid was a quick learner, when he wanted to be.  Levi couldn’t fault him for not wanting to take life–the kid had a good heart.  The problem was…it was going to do more harm than good in their current situation.

Y/N would figure something out, once the kid got more control of himself.  She wasn’t going to leave this kid to collect the same high body count she’d collected during her forty-ish year struggle through figuring out her vampirism on her own.  She’d find him a way to hurt as few people as possible, to take as little life as possible.  It was just going to be messy, and take some time, and unfortunately, some people were still going to die in the meantime.

But he would trust her judgement when it came to that.  Now they just needed to see if Emery really would take responsibility for his own survival instead of trying to shove all the ugly parts of it onto Y/N.

Once Emery was steady on his feet again, taking slow and deep breaths to help keep himself under control–Levi did catch him leaning his arm into the sun once or twice when the red got a bit stronger in his eyes–Levi spoke up one more time, gesturing to Y/N standing beside him.

“Listen to her, and if you do your best not to put her in harm’s way, you and I won’t have a problem.”

Emery’s gaze slid to Y/N standing beside him, looking properly remorseful as he moved to take a step in her direction, then thought better of it given it would bring him closer to where Levi was standing, and it was pretty clear now that distance was the safest bet.

“I’m sorry…that you had to kill someone the other night for me,” Emery started, voice soft but sincere, shoulders hunched and head bowed.  “And I’m sorry that I’ve put you in danger.  I promise I’ll try harder from now on–follow the lessons you give me, and…and take responsibility for my own actions and survival.”

That was enough for Levi, he was certain it would be more than enough for her.

Y/N left Levi’s side, approaching Emery and putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, causing the kid’s gaze to turn back to her.

“We’ll get you through this, okay?  The first couple years are always the hardest,” she told him, her voice and words much more soothing and gentle than Levi’s had been.  “But if you listen, you don’t have to go through them alone.”

She left the, ‘and you might survive them,’ part unspoken.

Emery gave a small sigh of relief, nodding in silent answer to her encouragement and earning a small pat on his shoulder in response.  Levi crossed his arms over his chest, backing up another few steps so he could lean back against the wall of the cave.

“We need to talk about what to do about everyone after him,” Levi remarked, aiming his words more towards Y/N but including Emery in the conversation. 

Y/N turned to look at him, curiosity in her gaze considering he hadn’t actually warned her there might be more to discuss before they left–or brought this up to her at any point beforehand.  “I have a plan.  It's unpleasant, but it would get the military off him, at least. It won’t work on hunters, though.”

Y/N’s hand dropped away from Emery’s shoulder as she turned all the way around to face him, brows furrowing together and a slight frown tugging at the corners of her lips.  “What do you have in mind?”

“Let the MPs kill him.”

There were perhaps two beats of silence after his statement where the color drained from Emery’s face as the kid stared at him in shock.  Y/N…he could tell was contemplating it, but her expression was anything but pleased at the suggestion.

“...What?” Emery asked in a hoarse voice.

Unsure if Y/N had the discussion about ‘temporary deaths’ with Emery yet, he decided to expound a touch on what he meant before Emery could spiral into a full panic attack.

“Not permanently, obviously.  But if you die in a way that would kill a normal human at their hands, they’ll consider you taken care of and stop looking.  We can recover your body and bring you somewhere safe before you wake up.”  Levi tilted his head towards Y/N to indicate he was addressing her, specifically, again.  “Any hunters on his trail won’t buy it, though, if they’re already certain he’s a vampire.”

Y/N was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, Levi keeping his steady gaze on her as he watched her wrestle with the plan he’d proposed before she sharply turned to an ill-looking Emery, eyes apologetic.

“He has a point.”

“But–!”

“The faster the military stops looking for you, the sooner they’ll forget about you, and the sooner you can blend back into society once you get in control of yourself.  And it would take care of half our problem.  No, it doesn’t solve the hunter issue, but…but it’ll mean no more of these patrols out looking for you everywhere.  It would take a bit more time and planning, we don’t have time to do everything we need to in order to pull that off properly right now, and I won’t lie, depending on how it goes, the temporary dying itself could be…unpleasant, but you’d be basically unconscious for nearly all of it, we’re the ones who would have to get you somewhere safe while you’re out, but do it in a way that no one catches onto anything suspicious–”

“Y/N,” Levi cut her off, prompting her to slightly turn to look back at him.  “You’re rambling.  That’s all shit for us to deal with later.”

Levi’s gaze turned back to Emery, who looked like he was going to faint.  “You can think on it.  She’ll come and give you an actual plan when we have one.  But we need to know if you’re willing to do it.”

Emery was frozen in place under Levi’s unwavering stare, possibly unnerved by how Levi phrased that last part considering the talk they’d just had about following what Y/N told him to survive.  “You…you’re asking me to, to die?” Emery asked haltingly, voice weak.

“Briefly,” Y/N corrected quickly.  “You’d wake up, ideally after we got you somewhere safe, and completely unharmed.  The hardest part will be making the ‘chance’ encounter look like chance…and that the dying itself could be…unpleasant, however brief it may be.  But you wouldn’t have nearly as much danger hanging over you anymore.”

Emery was shaking, understandably terrified if he hadn’t died again since he’d been turned.  “If…if you’re certain I’ll be okay, that I’ll wake up…and they won’t hunt me anymore…”

Y/N leaned into his line of vision, giving him a small, reassuring smile.  “Don’t think about it for now.  Just focus on what we’ve been working on, and let us figure out the details in the meantime, okay?”

“O-Okay.”

Once Emery consented to the tentative plan–or rather, the general idea of what they were aiming for–Levi pushed off the wall, heading for the mouth of the cave.

“Where’s he–?” Emery started to ask.

“That’s all he needed from you,” Y/N assured Emery before calling out to Levi.  “I’ll catch up in a moment.”

He didn’t answer–he didn’t need to.  He simply started to work his way back down the cliffs of the mountain and down to the forest floor.  She’d probably catch up to him before he even reached the bottom of the mountain, anyway.

*Reader’s POV*

You didn’t linger too long with Emery, knowing that you and Levi were actually on a fairly tight schedule with how soon Erwin wanted the two of you back.  Levi had said as you’d been approaching that the two of you would be finished within the hour, which had let you know he did not intend on being here with Emery long at all, and you didn’t want to slow the two of you down.

Still, you stayed long enough to make sure that Emery was okay despite how shaken he was, despite everything that had just been dumped on him at once and the…rough first meeting with Levi he’d just had.

He was far from okay, though he was trying desperately to put on his bravest face.  Understandably.  In the same conversation he’d been threatened with abandonment and a strong suggestion of inevitable death, had to accept he was going to have to kill people to survive and that it would start the next time he needed to feed, and been asked to die–temporarily–to solve only part of the problem of people hunting him.

Plus, he still seemed shaken by his complete loss of control at the start where he’d tried to attack Levi and had harmed you.  Your arms were all healed up by now, but the blood was still on his clothes and the cave floor as a testament of just how much damage he’d done in his brief blood haze.  At least it wasn’t the only change of clothes he’d had–you’d bought him multiple changes of clothes a while back in anticipation of him getting blood all over himself when you brought him hunting.

You’d tried to prepare him for this meeting, and it still hadn’t been enough once he was hit with the scent of Levi’s blood up close and personal, and he was still scared of himself in those moments, waiting until Levi had left in order to confide in you about the feelings that had taken over, the need to rip and tear and feast, and even a concerning desire to feel prey struggling beneath him.

The poor kid was terrified of what he felt inside him, and terrified of the thought of giving into it the next time he needed to feed–terrified of what he could become.

You were more worried about what he could become if you weren’t here to help him tame the monstrous side of himself before he went full blown ripper.

After many wiped tears and soothing words, the promise that he would be okay and that he needed to rest for now and you would talk more in depth about all of this when you came to see him next and Levi wasn’t around and waiting on you, after more apologies from Emery for failing you and harming you and trying to hurt Levi and assurances that as long as he tried next time then it was already forgiven, you took your leave.

You made quick work of the mountain cliffs, nimbly landing on one ledge after another with greater speed since you were descending on your own.  The breeze carried the scent of mint, soap, and tea towards you, letting you know that Levi wasn’t too terribly far ahead of you–he probably hadn’t even made it back to the glade, yet.

Good–maybe the two of you could talk a bit before you had to head for the town barracks.  You weren’t going to get special treatment there, and you weren’t going to have privacy if they stuck you in bunk rooms.

Considering Levi was an officer, even if the Scouts were looked down on…hopefully not.  You hadn’t needed to bunk with anyone in a while, and you’d rather not have to bunk in a room with soldiers from other branches that weren’t so friendly to the Scouts.

In the next few moments, you caught sight of Levi up ahead through the trees, able to easily catch back up to him, especially since he slowed down slightly once he heard you coming.  Neither of you said anything at first, simply walking in silence through the woods, the shadows of the trees lengthening as the sun started setting and the sky turned from blue to a burning palette of colors.

Oh, if you were good with paints, the drawing you could capture in full color with this kind of scenery…

Levi continued to not say anything, which wasn’t entirely out of the normal for him, but he also seemed a bit more…withdrawn, than normal, and he wasn’t looking at you, either–like he hadn’t looked at you all throughout him talking to Emery while he had him pinned, and hadn’t looked at you when he’d initially backed off, either.  He didn’t reach out to try and touch your hand, though he wasn’t putting distance between the two of you and was allowing you to walk close enough to his side it would have been easy to simply brush against your shoulder.

He wasn’t mad at you–he had no reason to be, and that was a different kind of withdrawn, as you were unfortunately familiar with now.  You knew he’d been concerned about this talk in a different way than you had been, though.  He’d kept asking that you let him handle it his way, that you not intervene, that you let it play out, and the slightly more closed off attitude now, not wanting to look at you…

Was he worried that you might be mad at him for how he treated Emery?  It wasn’t pleasant watching him be rough with the kid while Emery was still in such a volatile and fragile emotional state, and admittedly, you’d wanted to tell him to ease up a few times, but…

You knew he could have done much, much worse.  He was still pretty gentle with Emery, all things considered, aware when something was out of Emery’s control–like the bloodlust–and not insensitive to the fact that they were still talking about taking human life, and that wasn’t a simple, cut and dry thing.  But the situation was complicated, and with the options you had right now, Emery needed to take life to survive if you were going to help him, otherwise…

You let out a sigh, soft and slow through your nose, head tilted back to look up at the canopy of golden setting sunlight filtering through the trees.  This was all stuff you’d already discussed with Levi.  You were on the same page about Emery’s feeding situation and what he needed to be doing if you were going to help him.  If Levi was worried, he wasn’t worried about what you’d already talked about.  He would be worried about how you felt about his methods.

You tilted your head to the side so you could glance back at Levi out of the corner of your eyes, leaning slightly closer so your shoulders and hands brushed together, pinky and ring finger curling loosely around his pointer and middle finger, admittedly relieved when you felt his fingers twitch instinctively to curl around yours in response, though there was a bit more hesitance there than normal.

“Levi…?” you asked him gently, slowing down in your walking pace and forcing him to slow down with you.  He finally turned to look at you when you’d nearly come to a full stop, and after hearing that there was no anger or frustration in your voice.

You took a step closer once he was facing you, twining your hand more fully into his own and leaning in to press a soft kiss to his cheek.  His fingers laced tighter into yours, and you heard the softest exhale that sounded like relief before you even pulled away to speak.

“Thank you,” you told him sincerely, waiting until you met his gaze again to speak.  You could see the tension in his shoulders relax slightly at the statement, and knew you’d been right in assuming he’d been worried you might be mad.  You still wanted to be honest, but you were going to make sure he understood you weren’t mad at him, either.

“I might not have liked…seeing you be rough with him, but he needed the push, and I’m still grateful that you got him to agree to try–whether he follows through or not,” you told him softly.  You gave his hand another small squeeze.  “Thank you.”

Levi’s eyes–a steelier blue in the setting sunlight–were studying you, as if making sure that you really weren’t angry with him, or that it wasn’t going to come back and bite him in the ass later in some way if you were just shoving down your anger.  You didn’t look away, letting him reassure himself and see for himself that you weren’t mad at him.  Apparently satisfied and relieved by what he saw, Levi looked away, a soft, short sigh escaping him as his hand tugged you forwards with him to get you to keep walking with him towards the glade where you’d left your horses.

“I know how important him getting better is to you.  But you being where you are now is important, too.”

The little smile that played across your lips was just for you, head ducked low for a moment as warmth seeped through your chest at his words, the unspoken extra meaning you read between the lines as the two of you walked in now comfortable silence back to the glade.

Staying right here with you is important to me, too.

Considering the two of you weren’t Garrison soldiers, you were given a small two bed room in the Garrison barracks to stay in when you reached Kempton fairly late into the night.  No one had wanted to deal with the two Scouts arriving long after the sun had set for the day, so there wasn’t much fuss–they’d simply been shown to the room and left to their own devices.  The two of you lost another hour or so with the cleaning to get the small room in a more habitable state for both of you, and you’d both agreed to leave the window open to let the room breathe more.  After that, neither of you stripped out of your uniforms, but after a whole day of travel and the cleaning and not being familiar with this barrack’s layout–or willing to discover what state the communal washroom would be in–you both collapsed into your respective spots to try and catch a couple hours of sleep, at least.

Well, you collapsed into the standard issue not very comfortable bed, after shrugging off your jacket, pulling off your boots, and freeing yourself from the harness straps, setting everything but the boots as neatly as you could on the desk with your ODM gear.  Once it was all out of the way and neatly set aside so you were certain Levi wouldn’t scold you for being messy, then you flopped onto the bed, arms tucked under the pillow and head turned to the side so you could still breathe, burrowing into the bed without crawling under the sheets.

Levi kept even his ODM gear on, turning the desk chair out to face the room as a whole, more specifically the door, and promptly positioned himself in the chair with an ankle propped up on his knee and arms crossed over his chest.

You didn’t hear or see anything else about what Levi was doing–beside’s a soft ‘Tch’ after you flopped onto the bed–mostly because it didn’t take you long at all to fall asleep, thankfully…

“Oi…oi.  No sleeping in–we’ve got shit to do today, and not long to do it.  Get up.”

Despite the more abrasive words, the touch that went alongside them was gentle, and helped your rousing to consciousness happen a bit smoother.  His hand was on your head, warm and heavy, fingers threading through your hair and gently moving your head around to ‘shake’ you awake, thankfully not pulling your hair in the process.  When you started to wake, his hand pulled away, hair slipping free of his fingers and falling into your face as you raised your head to squint blearily at him getting back to his feet beside your bed, already set to go, and with the usual shadows under his eyes suggesting he either slept very little last night or not at all.

“You’ve still got to get your shit back on, so hurry up.  I’ll find out where we’re going and meet you out front,” Levi informed you as you pushed up onto your elbows, rubbing at your eyes to try and wipe the sleepy blur away.

“Mm-kay…” you murmured.  Levi only lingered long enough to make sure that you were actually going to get up before he took his leave to go figure out where the two of you were headed, exactly.

You couldn’t blame him for the brevity–he may have been awake all night for all you knew, and again, Erwin wanted you back as soon as possible.  There was still the return journey to factor in as well.

He was right.  You needed to get up and moving, and this day needed to start so you could get back to headquarters for whatever it was that had Erwin trying to play it safe and keep you and Levi close at hand.

When considering the state of the refugees you were about to see, it hadn’t crossed your mind that perhaps, farther away from the southern territories, farther away from the territories that had feared being hit next, refugees would be receiving far worse treatment.  If anything, you had mistakenly thought that perhaps farther from the southern areas that most of the refugees had congregated after the wall fell, there might be less struggle over resources and less harsh conditions, a bit more to go around than there was in southern Rose.

You had been woefully mistaken to assume such a thing.

Levi, being the officer between the two of you, was getting official updates from the military leaders in the area, hearing their viewpoints on the situation, and getting briefed on incidents they’d had–including, you had briefly heard, a vague update about the thorough sweep they were doing for Emery.  For the most part, these discussions kept him out of the packed throngs, out of the thick of the worst of what the two of you were there to bear witness to, though even though he was occupied with the Garrison leadership for this area, you could feel his eyes keeping track of you, noticed that no matter how far you moved, Levi moved his conversations naturally as well so he could always be within a decent range of where you were, you could always hear him, always knew where he was.

You, on the other hand–you went to walk among the packed refugees, trying to see if there was anything you could do to help, anything you could hand out, anyone you could get help for.  And in the process you saw some…rather awful sights.

Since the two of you had arrived at this particular refugee housing in the morning, a good swath of the able bodied were out working the fields in the morning shift.  Those that were still in the now-depleted and used for housing storehouse you were now picking your way through were either those who could not work the fields, or those that would work the afternoon, evening shift.

People here were starving, their sunken eyes tracking you with envy that tended to turn seething when they saw the crest on your uniform marking you as a Scout, enough anger in their gazes to make you uncomfortable even knowing you were perfectly capable of defending yourself.  Some were in a far worse state than others, and it didn’t take long to notice the pattern and figure out that the ones that seemed like they weren’t withering away as quickly were the ones that were still able to work–those that could still earn their rations.  Those that couldn’t…

You wish it had only been once, but there had been a couple times you’d found someone lying still and withered away in a corner or just entirely overlooked in the masses you were trying to walk around, realizing there were no heartbeats, no breaths, and that some of the people who couldn’t work had wasted away and died with either nobody noticing or nobody caring.  More than once, you had to get the attention of some Garrison soldiers to help you remove a body for proper burial so they didn’t continue to rot away amongst the still living and cause disease to run rampant in the already cramped spaces.

It feels like I’m back in the Underground.

As much as you wanted to help, as much as you wished you had something to give, you didn’t have the one thing they needed the most–food.  You didn’t have any on you, there clearly wasn’t enough to go around out here, so all you could do was look at the envious or angry faces and pick out the bodies that needed removal before people started getting sick on top of everything else.

This can’t keep going like this.  People are wasting away to nothing and there’s just…not enough to help everyone.  Places are already neglecting those that can’t work, starting to let those that just aren’t able bodied die rather than use up rations on them.  And even then, the workers are still barely getting enough to scrape by, I doubt the rations they’re getting are sustainable…

Across the courtyard you were standing in, raised voices abruptly cut through the miserable hum of all the people crammed together in the small space–a space that would have twice as many people shoved into it come nighttime.  Your attention was drawn to the noise noting that it seemed the morning shift was starting to come back and the afternoon shift was about to head out, people starting to shuffle in and out of the entrances.  The disturbance itself had broken out between two men that the crowd was trying to give a wide berth to avoid being caught in the conflict, most of the masses trying to move around them so that they could get to earning their rations or come back to rest after a shift that had likely started before dawn.

There was a lot of conversation happening around you, a lot of noise, and you had been half listening to the conversation Levi was having about how they’d been trying to move some of the refugees to different parts of Rose to try and lighten their burden here, but had been unable to find a place that could afford to take them.  As such, the argument wasn’t entirely clear with how far away you were, but you were able to at least figure out that the fight was over an afternoon shift worker that had tried to take the spot of a morning shift worker while they were out in the field.  Something petty, especially since the afternoon worker was supposed to be getting ready to leave now, but it was getting loud and rowdy, and it seemed like it was about to escalate to blows.  So, you did your best to move with the current of the crowd to get over to the two brawlers and try to help break it up before it escalated into a much bigger conflict with far more pissed off people that would be beyond the ability of the Garrison to control.

You got shoulder checked a few times by angry refugees as you maneuvered your way through the crowd to the two that were arguing, but you ignored it, taking the aggression in stride and staying focused on the more important matter at hand.  By the time you reached the pair, it had escalated to blows, and two other Garrison soldiers were also arriving on the scene from different points in the crowd.  The mousy brunette threw a punch at the blonde that sent the blonde reeling into the crowd, earning a shout of anger as the blonde was pushed back towards the brunette.  You lunged inside the tiny space that had been cleared in the effort of the crowd to try and avoid the fight, grabbing the blonde and hauling them up with your strength before they could reconnect with the brunette’s fist, while the two Garrison soldiers grabbed onto either arm of the brunette to help in pulling the two away from each other.

The one you’d grabbed, however–you didn’t know who was who in the conflict, who was the morning worker and who was the afternoon worker, but to you, it didn’t quite matter, you just needed the fight broken up–apparently decided he was going to take a much bigger issue with you than the brunette he’d just been sent reeling by, or even the member of the general crowd that had shoved him.  At first, he just struggled because he was being kept from fighting the brunette–he didn’t have anywhere near the strength to break free from your grip, even if he had been properly fed.  However, when in the midst of his shouting and twisting to let him go he spotted the crest on your uniform, the situation changed to something else entirely, and it was a much deeper anger that simmered in his eyes once he realized you were a Scout.

“You!” he seethed, enough venom emanating from him that you were momentarily taken aback by it, even if you’d been enduring the angry envious stares the whole time you’d been here.  “One of those fucking waste of rations?  We’re over here busting our asses for scraps, what the fuck are you doing to eat so well?  Nothing!”

You were also unprepared when halfway through his rant he suddenly bucked backwards, purposely trying to do some kind of damage to you now instead of the brunette.  Your reflexes were fast enough to keep him from nailing you in the nose, but with the fact you were also restraining him from behind, he still got you in the mouth with the back of his head.  You felt your lip split and blood suddenly well up in your mouth, sucking your lip in to try and hide the injury so no one would notice when it rapidly healed.  Still, the man continued his tirade, now trying to swing and hit and do some kind of damage since he’d caught you off guard and connected in one of his hits, and you couldn’t exactly let him go when you were trying to restrain him.

“What the fuck are the Scouts doing for humanity besides getting themselves eaten and wasting food that could go to people that actually earn it!  Why do you get to eat so fucking well while the rest of us are fucking starving?”

Around you, you could hear the sentiment being echoed by the crowd, could feel the anger that had been bubbling around you starting to rise to a boiling point, hear more people getting louder about their anger about the soldiers they saw as freeloaders and wastes of resources in times like this.  

Suddenly, you felt like you were in the middle of a pot you’d known was being heated up to a boil but hadn’t gotten out fast enough and was now sitting in water that was going to boil over and drown you in it if you didn’t find a way out of the pot.  You were suddenly painfully aware that you were the lone scout in a crowd of starving, desperate refugees being whipped into a fury, and the Garrison did not have enough love for the Scouts to put their necks on the line to help you, especially if they’re own people were suffering from the food shortage, not just the refugees.  And you didn’t have the tools or words to diffuse the situation.

What were you going to do, tell him you didn’t eat?  That your rations went to double up someone else’s meals?  Of course not.  You also couldn’t tell them that you were working, that you all weren’t just sitting around doing nothing, that you were trying to do something, wanted to do something, and in your case there had been a lot going on behind the scenes that no one else could ever know about.  You wanted to defend yourself, to prove him wrong–especially considering you’d come to the Scouts so that people weren’t sustaining you with their lives for you to just survive and do nothing with your life and abilities.

But you also knew that these people were desperate, starving, watching people dying around them, crammed into too tight of spaces that weren’t supposed to be lived inside of in the first place, falling ill, not getting enough food to properly survive on even when they worked for it, and to the public, especially because you hadn’t been able to be set loose yet, the Scouts really did seem like a waste of resources, especially in times like this, when the Scouts were on hold and weren’t being allowed to go outside yet so all they could do was wait–

These people didn’t care about politics, or if you wanted to make a difference, or if you didn’t believe the Scouts were worthless and thought they could do the greatest good for humanity if given the right tools.

They wanted to eat, to survive, and find a way to crawl out of this hell they’d found themselves trapped in and somewhere better and at the moment they just couldn’t do it and they were caged and desperate and dying.

Something you understood perfectly.

So you had no argument to give.  All you could do was hold onto the man that was still trying to do as much damage as possible, trying to ram his head into your face again, trying to stomp on your feet or elbow you in the ribs, anything.

The Garrison soldiers that had grabbed his brunette opponent had already hauled him out of the small cleared space, leaving you alone in the now much smaller clearing that was closing back up with the throng.

Out, I need to get out now!

You had seen a crowd in panic when Maria fell, while you were evacuating towns.  You had seen small crowds turn into mobs when people were angry enough, both Underground and in smaller scales during the evacuation and in smaller clusters amongst the southern located refugees.  This situation was about to turn sour, and even though you knew it wouldn’t kill you, you couldn’t exactly explain away a very public death trampled or suffocated or bludgeoned in an angry mob, and your instincts were telling you that you needed to get out of this situation right now.

Trying to get a good enough grip on your struggling captive turned assailant, you tried to decide the best course to ditch the man that had turned his hostility onto you and to move through the crowd that was also turning hostile on you with the least damage, both arms occupied and head moving back and to the side to avoid another backwards headbutt when someone from the crowd through something metal, hollow, small–you weren’t sure what it was, but it was sharp enough you felt it cut into the back of your head, felt blood quickly making your hair turn damp as pain lanced through the back of your head where you’d been hit.

All it took was one.  You needed to bolt.  Now.

No longer caring about strategy so much as survival, you twisted and threw your weight into a shove that sent the blonde you’d been restraining towards the throng in one direction as you ducked your head barely in enough time to avoid another thrown object that nailed a different citizen in the face, causing more shouts to break out, shoving, more throwing–

You were ducked low, trying to disappear into the throng and get to the exit as fast as possible, one hand covering the spot at the back of your head you’d been hit, trying to ignore how tight and cramped the space felt, the difficulty breathing, how similar it felt to the cramped dark suffocating space you’d been trapped in forty years ago–

You didn’t know how far into the crowd you’d gotten, how close to the exit you may have been, but suddenly a hand wrapped around your wrist, seeming to reach out through the crowd and trying to pull you through it all. 

You almost fought back, thinking someone had noticed the Scout trying to slip away in the confusion that you could hear turning into a full on bloody brawl in the space you’d left behind, but you recognized those slender fingers, the calluses from years of gripping knives and then hard ODM gear use, the strong and reassuring way they wrapped familiarly around your wrist and were now trying to guide you safely through the throng, to make sure now that there was a grip on you, that the two of you weren’t going to get separated.

Now knowing that you weren’t about to get attacked and that it was Levi trying to help guide you both out of the crowd and to safety, between his guided tugging and your following through the mess of people, you were both able to quickly get to the edges of the crowd.  You could hear shouting and yelling picking up, the crowd having turned from going to work or coming back to work to now turning inward on itself as a massive fight broke out, Garrison soldiers shouting and trying to get the mob back under control, most likely in vain.

“We’ve seen enough.  We’re heading back.  Now,” Levi said, your sharper hearing able to distinguish his firm voice despite all the noise and the fact that he didn’t raise it to be heard.

You didn’t argue, didn’t question if the two of you should stay and try and help contain the mob.  You’d just seen firsthand that the people were at their breaking point and the Scouts were one of the easiest targets for their rage.  The two of you staying to try and get the situation under control would likely just make things worse and inflame a situation that was already trying to turn explosive.

You already knew the tone of the report Erwin was going to be getting from the two of you about this side mission to check on the refugees.  It wasn’t even really about public opinion of the Scouts right now.

The people were reaching their breaking point, and something needed to be done to fix the situation, or it was going to turn into something much larger that was going to blow up in everyone’s faces if it was left to spiral any further.

Next Chapter---->

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Midnight.

The streets of London were bustling with activity despite the late hour, groups of people laughing obnoxiously as they exited or entered a pub, music blaring over car speakers and out of clubs, sirens cutting through the usual sound of car horns and traffic and bright lights casting the city in an almost supernatural glow.

A man was stumbling along the pavement, dressed in ragged clothing and his beard scruffy and untrimmed, and he clutched a bottle of beer in one of his dirty hands as though it were his most prized possession. The people that he passed paid him no attention, rightfully thinking that he was just another drunk trying to forget about the darkness that clouded the air of the capital. Perhaps the lady that stopped him when he nearly fell face first into the ground should have made sure that he got in the cab she hailed for him, but she was busy, needing to get home after working late. He slurred a thank you to her, patting her shoulder with a tired smile as the cab pulled up to the curb, and she went on her way.

The man didn't make it into the taxi.

A second man appeared before he could, and the driver, not wanting to wait given the late hour, drove off to find better customers. The drunk turned at the tap on his shoulder, furrowing his brow at the polished businessman before him and following in a drunken haze when asked.

If the woman had made sure that the man made it into the taxi, then perhaps she wouldn't have been watching the news the next morning, spoonful of cereal halfway to her mouth, explaining how a drunk man had been murdered late last night in an alleyway.

She rushed to work after shovelling down the rest of her food, downing a coffee on the way to the morgue and demanding to see the body that had been brought in. She pressed her fingertips to her neck, right over her pulse point, and stepped into the room where the drunk man's body was, attempting not to gag at the stench that was already enveloping him.

He's decaying too quickly, she thought, a frown appearing on her face. It had barely been seven hours and already she was needing to press her sleeve over her nose to prevent the smell from assaulting her senses. Pulling back the cloth, the coroner explained how there were no signs of physical assault but for the marks on the neck.

The woman froze slightly, rectifying her slip-up when the coroner eyed her curiously and relaxed again, asking to be left alone for five minutes with the body.

As soon as the door clicked shut behind the last person to leave, the woman leaned in closer, pulling her hair out of the way and examining the marks.

The wound went right into the carotid artery, so at least the drunk man was only in pain for a few seconds before he died.

The woman left the room, dragging the cloth back up over his already-gaunt face, nodding to the people that she passed on the way out. Once outside, she leaned against a wall and pressed a hand to her forehead, the other hand holding her phone to her ear. It rang three times, then someone picked up.

"Yeah?" they answered.

"We have a problem," she said, not wasting time. There was no need for formalities, they each knew who was calling. "I've seen the body; it's definitely his work. We need to call a congress."

"Get it done. We'll need to move fast if you're right." The phone clicked on the other end, signalling the end of the call, and the woman sighed as she headed back to her car.

"Shit." She tapped her phone a few times, sending out the message to everyone that a congress would be in session in two days time. "Shit."

*Levi’s POV*

Levi had no idea how deep into the night it was when she seemed to have finally spent the last of her tears and bled out the pain she’d been trying to suffocate.  He didn’t let go of her through the whole thing, making sure she didn’t lose that bit of human contact he needed to give her to let her have something to anchor to.  Even though he was stiff and sore by the end, he waited until she’d gone silent, and even then he waited several more long moments to make sure she really had gotten all of it out before he moved.

Her body had been heavy against his, enough so that for the first few seconds he thought she’d cried until she’d passed out.  However, when he pulled back her eyes were open, still shining and bloodshot from the harsh cry she’d just struggled through.

He’d take it.  It was much better than the look that had been in her eyes what felt like hours ago but may have only been a few painfully long minutes ago, and it meant he was doing something right that she still had a semblance of herself.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing while he was trying to comfort her.  He had comforted her before, but he’d never had this kind of relationship with someone on the bloodier days, had never tried to comfort someone he was this intimate with after one of the horrific operations that gave the Scouts such a bad reputation amongst the population.  He felt like more than his usual was needed, that he needed to put in more effort than normal, but he couldn’t quite decide what that was supposed to look like, unsure in his actions and what the right move would be.  

He knew what he’d do if they were just comrades, just friends, he knew the kind of silent support he would give, then.

This was different.  This was her, and she was suffering.

And he needed to try and make it better.  He knew he couldn’t fix it–there were enough broken shards in his own soul that was a testament to just how many things couldn’t be fixed–but here with her, unlike up on that damn wall, he could do something.

For now, he could start small; start with what she needed physically, and go from there.

Once he knew that she was awake, and the shuffling back to let him move let him know she was responsive, Levi carefully brushed the hair back from her face before reaching over to start working on getting her out of the excess layers of her uniform, undoing her ruined cloak and helping her slip free of the jacket beneath before he started in on the straps, loosening them from the back plate and shimmying them off her shoulders.

“You’re a filthy mess,” Levi muttered as his fingers worked blood and mud stained leather off her bit by bit.  “The gear can wait for tomorrow:  once we get this off you, I’ll draw a bath, and you clean yourself up, okay?”

The fact he said we seemed to clue her into the fact she could help undo her own gear, working on the straps of her inner thighs and waist, undoing the main unit, and pulling the bloody and possibly ruined wrap around her waist free to lie carelessly atop the growing pile.  Levi’s practiced hands had her free of the upper half of the harness in no time, and he had already started getting her out of the boots by the time she was ready to pull free of the straps around her legs and feet.

When all that was left were her socks, pants, and ruined white shirt, he got up and headed for the washroom, not saying a word about the haphazard mess the pieces of her uniform were lying in at the moment considering the miserable state she was still in.

He’d take care of it before he headed to his quarters to wash up.  She didn’t need to worry about anything else tonight, no matter how small a task it may be–she had enough to deal with.  They all did.

Once he had the bath filled with the appropriate amount of water and it was the right temperature, Levi came back to where she was still sitting on the bed, noting that she hadn’t moved an inch since they’d finished taking off most of her uniform, and he couldn’t help but take a moment to look her over, to make sure she wasn’t slipping back into that catatonic state.

Once again, he felt like he needed to do something more to help and comfort her right now, and he tried to think of what she might need, what she might do for him if she was the one trying to comfort him, what he knew of what had torn her up so much about this far beyond what had been eating at the rest of them.

He could think it over in his own bath–they both needed to get clean, first.

“Get yourself cleaned up,” Levi told her in a soft murmur, grasping her hand to pull her up to her feet and using his other hand to steady her and make sure she would stay on her feet before he gave her a little nudge towards the bathroom door.  “I’ll go clean up in my room.”

She suddenly turned at that, gaze locking onto him with a desperation that cut him deeper than he would have expected it to.  

“You’ll come back…yes?”

Levi swallowed at how raw and cracked her voice sounded, worse than his had been the last stretch of this day, gaze locked on hers–one last check to make sure she wasn’t going to shatter again while he tried to scrub the horrors of the day off his skin.  

“Of course.”

He’d make it a quick bath.  He didn’t want to leave her alone any longer than he absolutely had to.

Levi stayed where he was standing until she’d disappeared into the washroom, moving over to the bed once the door clicked shut.  He took the time to fold the clothes that were salvageable, debating placing them in a corner out of view where they could be gathered for cleaning in the morning–he knew it would be easier to clean the blood the sooner it was treated, but it had already been hours, and her wellbeing was more important than tackling stains that would take him some time to properly get out.  

Considering everything that had happened and how drained she looked, Levi changed his mind and instead started to carefully layer the folded clothes that could be salvaged, her gear that needed cleaned, and the clothes that were beyond repair and needed thrown out in an organized stack that he carried with him out of her room.

He’d take care of it.  It was probably wise not to leave the bloody reminder of what happened in her room while she was in a more precarious state–he’d take care of it all in the morning and get it back to her before anyone could notice he had two sets of gear in his quarters.

The halls were silent, and the trip went uninterrupted.  His room was unnervingly quiet after the constant noise of the day, between the trip to the wall, the long conversation with Y/N, the battle, and then her breakdown in her room.  Knowing she was in the silence of her own room struggling with her emotions that had been in a fever pitch all day probably made the silence seem wrong and dangerous, reminding him she was elsewhere and not in a good mental state while he was here.

Yes, it would definitely be a quick bath.

After preparing the bath water and making it a little hotter than he preferred to give it time to cool to the right temperature while he undressed, Levi made quick work of his gear, setting it atop his dresser to be tended to tomorrow beside Y/N’s, and then looking over his clothes to figure out what he could salvage with a good clean and what needed thrown out.  He put the carefully folded piles of salvageable clothes on either side of the corresponding gear, making it easy to tell which mechanical set was hers and which was his without having to look for distinct minor scrapes or scratches to tell them apart.

As Levi sank into the water filling the tub, his necklace laid carefully out on the washbasin table in wait for when he was finished, he finally felt the soreness and the tight strips of his taxed muscles, letting out a slow sigh and leaning his head back as he took a few seconds to let the heat loosen and soothe the worst of it.  The clean water was already starting to turn colors before he’d even started to scrub down, the smell of the soaps waiting just within reach by the bath for him to use a welcome contrast to the scent of blood, sweat, and shit he’d reeked of since the retreat.

His wrist twinged where it was resting against the rim of the tub, and Levi grimaced slightly, pulling his arm back in towards him with his fingers circling the skin just below where the mottled fingers shaped bruise on his wrist was.

Damn vampire strength…he knew she held back to avoid hurting people, but she had never used her strength on him like that before.  Not that he held it against her, she hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly when she did it, and it would only ache for a short while and be gone in a few days. 

Releasing his wrist and choosing to ignore the bruise entirely, Levi cupped the water in his hands, raising it up to his face to start cleaning up, beginning by wiping away any blood, mud, or salt crust from sweat he may have missed earlier when he was getting the worst of it out of his eyes, mouth, and nose.

185 people…

Levi felt his heart contort unnaturally in his chest, bringing another handful of water to his face and wiping it along places he’d felt crusted blood and sweat.

Out of 300,000…

He leaned forwards, putting his head firmly within the confines of the tub as he started to raise handfuls of water to wet his hair, letting his fingers seek out any crusted filth that may have made it down to the roots, hair eventually running rivulets of water back into the tub.

They’d never seen casualties like that.  Even during the fall of Maria, with how quickly the Scouts and Garrison had reacted, there weren’t nearly as many deaths as there could have been–a few thousands in comparison–and mostly made up of civilians in the initial areas impacted while the military was mobilizing, military that got caught in scuffles with the Titans or had fought to try and hold the Titans back long enough to give people time to evacuate, or people that hadn’t believed the warnings that the wall had fallen.

But of that three hundred thousand that had almost been entirely wiped out today, the vast majority of those casualties had been civilians.  Though the Scouts had suffered severe losses to their numbers as well, given how few of them had been on the return trip.

Once his hair was damp enough, Levi started lathering the soap into his hair, making sure his fingers threaded deep enough to rub along his scalp and make sure he was removing any trace of filth within until the soap was a thick foam between his fingers and clinging to his hair, dripping down onto his shoulders and down his back.

She had to hear it.  The rest of them just had to wait in that silence for something to happen, but she’d heard it happening.  Her senses had not allowed her to tune any of it out and had forced her to experience far more of it than anyone else on that wall.  And the way she’d looked at him, the way she’d pled for him to give her something else to listen to, to make it so she didn’t have to sit there and listen to the whole thing unfold–

He wished he could have done more.  He didn’t feel like what he’d done had been enough, given what just happened in her room.

Levi started in on washing the soap from his hair, cupping water back up to his head as he leaned it back to keep the soap out of his eyes, ran his fingers through over and over until he wasn’t coming away with any soap, and then one last pass to pull the hair back from his face and rub a fresh handful of water across his face, reaching for the body soap to lather up and wash his face, neck, and ears, careful not to miss any crevice dirt or blood may be hiding.

He’d seen enough people go into shock to know what was happening to her during the silent ride back to headquarters, but they hadn’t been in a position for him to do anything about it besides ride next to her and watch for if she was about to spiral into something dangerous.  She’d pulled through without any hesitation when she was needed to fight and to save people, to defend her comrades.  But when it was over and there was nothing but the quiet travel back…

Levi set the soap aside again while he rinsed his face and neck, waiting until he’d passed the water everywhere and he was certain there wasn’t any more soap before he rubbed a bit more vigorously at his eyes than he needed to.

Fuck, that look in her eyes.  Out of everything that had happened today, that had been the part to scare him the most.

He had seen dead eyes, flat eyes, empty eyes–the eyes of people who had shattered beyond repair in their soul and were simply a husk waiting to die, the eyes of people with nothing but malice and greed, the eyes of people that seemed to be trying to reflect the horrors they’d seen onto the people who dared try to meet their gaze.

The pain that filled her gaze had cut, had plunged into him like a serrated knife that sawed its way into his core.  The tears hadn’t stopped flowing, her whole body shaking from the force of all the emotions trying to spill out of her at once, struggling to breathe around her sobs and gasps for air to the point Levi had worried she’d pass out from the inability to get enough oxygen into her body.

What was worse was seeing her still, thinking she was going into shock again the first few moments before he realized she wasn’t calming, she wasn’t going numb, it was something else.  It had been like watching the emotions, the light and soul, bleeding out of her eyes, emptying until there was less and less of a person staring at nothing in particular and just this cold, unnatural thing filling the space instead. 

He’d seen the humanity start to drain out of her, seen the unfeeling otherness smother out any warmth and life in her eyes and replace it with this empty void.  She’d turned so still it was unnatural, had almost stopped breathing, started to go as blank outward as inward, and Levi saw, for a few moments, a peek at what she would be if she ever gave in and shut out her humanity.

Cold and death.  Completely devoid of what made her Y/N. 

Other, and not in a way to be praised or lauded as exceptional.

Dangerous.  Unfeeling.

Monstrous.  

He knew she was capable of immense violence, could be cold and calculating, could be lethal when she wanted to be–that was a part of her.  She was a vampire, but that wasn’t all she was.  There was more to her than the prowling beast beneath the surface that could tear a man to shreds without difficulty if pushed wrong.

That beast could still be playful, coy, affectionate, passionate, protective–he’d seen glimpses of it already, how in those moments where her vampire instincts took over, she was still herself, still mindful of him, still cared, protected him when he was in danger…

This had been different.  Dark.  Something that made a chill crawl underneath his skin even now despite the warm bathwater, something that hissed against the back of his neck secrets of nightmares and evil from the shadows.

A glimpse of the demon he’d thought he’d been up against before he’d confronted her in the warehouse when she first joined the Scouts.

She’d been right to be afraid of what would happen if she shut out her emotions.  What he glimpsed when she started to shut out all the things that made her who she was, tried to turn it all off and reduce herself to blood and instinct to avoid the pain…

He never wanted to see her so empty and broken, never wanted to see her pushed that far again.

Realizing he was staring at nothing in particular and that he’d come to a standstill in his cleaning, Levi straightened up suddenly, reaching for the soap and getting to his feet so he could finish up with the last full body lather, taking his time to wet down every crevice and make sure he scrubbed at any stubborn spot left on his skin until he was certain there was nothing left.

Thinking of that void, how close she’d come to shutting out her humanity, was enough to get him to put the urgency back in his movements.  He finished the rest of his bath in record time, climbed out to start drying, got his necklace back on–the cool metal was sharp against his skin after the warm bath–pulled his pants and a button up shirt on, socks, and he left his boots behind since they needed cleaned.  Instead, he slipped on the sole pair of dress shoes he owned for whenever Erwin dragged him along to show him off at those damnable high society events trying to drum up funding and support.

Something he was probably going to have to tolerate again, soon.

He needed to get back.  He didn’t know how long he’d be there, if it would be until she fell asleep or even for the whole night, so he needed to be decent enough he could slip out in the morning without drawing too much attention when he made his way back through the halls.

He’d worry about that in the morning.  First, he needed to get back to Y/N and make sure she was still holding on, make sure she stayed grounded to herself, made sure she was still her.

He just wanted her to still be her.

*Alternating POV*

She was waiting for him when he returned, pacing slowly back and forth in front of her bed, barefoot but otherwise similarly dressed as him, though there were a few more buttons undone on her shirt, and it was a different color than the white he was wearing–which was probably a good thing, given the way it stuck to her at certain curves and crevices that gave away her skin hadn’t been entirely dry when she’d put it on.

The fact she was moving around without a blatant necessity to move was progress in his eyes, and put another piece of his mind at ease to see she was getting better, even if it was slowly, even if he was still worried about what may be going on in her head and heart.

Once he entered the room, her attention shifted fully to him, a sliver of light entering her tired eyes once they landed on him–or maybe that was just the lamplight reflecting off them as she turned his way.  In a few steps, she had crossed the room, his name falling from her lips in a soft exhale that made his heart pound harder in his chest and his skin down his neck and shoulders tingle as she drew closer, her hands raising to gently cusp his cheeks in that tender gesture he was still working on adjusting to. 

It threw him every time she did it, only because the way it made him feel, the way the warmth seemed to seep into him from her hands and straight to his heart, the way his heart seemed to raise up into his throat and he instinctively wanted to tilt his head closer to her while sinking into the gesture itself…it was unfair how much power that tender gesture had, and he needed to figure out what he could do that would have a similar effect for her.

Once her hands found their place cradling his face, Levi stepped closer and leaned into her, letting her rest her forehead against his as his hands settled loosely on her wrists, thumbs idly stroking back and forth inside her palms or on the sensitive skin of her inner wrist.  Relief slowly eased the tension from his shoulders at her affection, relief that even if everything still wasn’t okay, she wasn’t falling apart at the seams anymore.  She was coming back to herself, she was still here with him.

You didn’t say anything–not yet.  You simply breathed him in, the fresh scent of his soaps wrapping around you like a balm while his warmth–slightly higher than normal given he just came from a bath–helped disperse the chill that had been hanging over you since getting out of your bath.  His presence chased away some of the shadows still trying to echo the dying screams of those people towards you, and him being here now gave you something so much warmer and comforting and bright to focus on.

You’d done enough thinking of all this hell today–for a lifetime.  You’d suffered through it on the wall, spiraled on the way here, internally thrashed through the rapids of emotions that had tried to drown you and gone from the numbness of being completely overwhelmed by your emotions, to almost empty, to drowning in the rapids again, until all the emotions had been bled out of you for the night.  Then you’d gotten to be haunted by those feelings all over again while you were alone in the tub trying to clean up, trying not to think of what was echoing over and over in your mind–

Enough of that.  It had been far too much tonight, you needed something else to ground you, to keep you sane–something else to focus on, something good, something calming and right, something that remained despite all this loss and hell–

You needed him.  No one else, nothing else, would do, because right now he was the only person in this nightmare of a world that knew and understood as much as he did about you.  You just wanted–needed–him now.  Needed to feel him solid and steady against you, to know he was here and with you, alive and close–you needed him.

And you wanted him to feel the same way in needing you.  Maybe he did, and he was just better at hiding it, maybe he was so focused on taking care of your needs he was hiding his own, maybe he’d want that comfort and closeness, too–maybe he needed to feel the good between the two of you to ease the pain of all this horror just for a little while, to create a respite for the both of you, just for the night, in this small room where no one would see…

She was shaking.  It was slight, but he caught it, could feel it in her arms beneath his hands, knew it wouldn’t be the only place, that he would feel it in more of her body if he pulled her closer, held her tighter. Despite the shake, the way she touched him was far more gentle, more tender and intimate than the desperation of earlier, though there were still some traces of that desperation lingering in the way she didn’t seem able to even lean away and could only weave further into him.

When she kissed him, every movement was drawn out, like she was savoring every second, memorizing the feel and how he moved, how he responded to her.  Her fingers curled and pressed slightly, dragging in a gentle pull along the shaved down edge of his undercut near the back of his neck and pulling him deeper into the kiss with her.

By the time she broke away, it felt abrupt; the fact he was mildly dizzy from the lack of oxygen was not even enough to stop him from thinking that she’d pulled back too soon.  She stayed right in that position, so close their noses still brushed against one another as she took a breath, a second, the little exhales as she tried to catch her breath puffing against his lips–

“Make me forget,” she whispered to him, one of her hands sliding up to tangle in the damp hair at the back of his head, giving her much better leverage to guide his head in whatever angle she wanted it while his heart skipped a beat in it’s quickened pace, wondering to himself what, exactly, she was proposing they do to ‘forget’.

“Just make me remember the good that’s still here,” she murmured, expanding upon her plea without him having to even ask for clarification.  “I just…I just need you.  Kiss me.  Hold me.  Drown out the rest for tonight.”

He’d wanted to know what he could do to help, to comfort her, to do more, to try and soothe the hurt.  Now here she was, giving him clear instructions, and what she was asking for was something he could do.  Holding her, kissing her, being close, being here for her and trying to focus on one another, giving her the pieces of himself he still had to spare–pieces that he’d been uncovering as they both fumbled through trying to understand their relationship and how it was supposed to work…

He could try to drown out the horrors of the world with her tonight.  If she was offering that…he wanted it.  He’d allow himself the escape just for a little while, to avoid thinking of everything that had happened just a few hours more, and find it here with her.

There were only a few moments of silence after your request where Levi seemed to consider your words, gaze locked on yours, body sturdy compared to you.  You felt like you would be knocked over by a passing breeze right now if you didn’t have anything to ground you, like your knees were weak and your strength was frayed, that you would collapse if someone pushed too hard.  You knew you were just exhausted and emotionally drained, completely depleted by the day, but the thought of sleep wasn’t enough–especially when you feared you’d be met with gruesome nightmares.  You wanted him and his steady presence here to comfort and stabilize you, to make you feel like it was okay you didn’t feel so strong in this moment, that you weren’t okay right now, and that he would make sure that you got through it.  He would, you knew he would, but you wanted to feel it, too–wanted to feel him.

He didn’t leave you to linger in uncertainty or overthink the moment.  He knew better by now, knew you sometimes needed to be pulled from your thoughts for your own good, that there was a difference between your deep thoughts and overthinking, and sometimes he needed to make you focus on the here and now.

And that was just what he did.

Levi leaned in for another kiss after your request, lips sealing over yours in a tenderness that still took your breath away every time.  His hands slipped up your arms, guiding them to wrap loosely around his shoulders while his arms pulled you tight against him, one of his hands curling around the top of the back of your neck to cradle your head, the other tucking under your arm with fingers curling over your shoulder. 

His embrace kept you pressed securely into him, and though you could feel that gentleness in his actions that came when he was trying something new and attempting to go at a slower pace with lighter motions just in case you didn’t agree, he was still firm enough to be a support, for you to melt into him in eager relief.  Your hand at the back of his head threaded deep into the damp tresses of his hair, feeling them slip a bit heavier than normal through your fingers as you started instinctually threading and unthreading to lazily play with his hair during your kiss, not missing that his grip tightened slightly and he pressed a bit closer in response.  Your other hand stayed against his jaw, your touch turning from a cradling gesture to now feel the warmth and the tremble of his throat, the flexion in his jaw while he kissed you, keeping him leaning into you–

He came in gently, his kiss soft and tender, but your kiss was more desperate now that you were getting what you craved, desiring more than the sweet gesture gave.  Levi didn’t need you to break away and ask him for more–your need seemed to seep into him in return with every kiss, the press of his body against yours becoming more of a solid embrace that wasn’t allowing retreat from either of you, soft gasps for air slipping between the more bruising lock of his lips around yours.  You could hear his heart pounding in your ears, the heady scent that made your head swim reminding you his blood was rushing just below the plush skin of his lips, the warm trembling skin of his throat–

Levi’s breath hitched in a sharp intake of breath when he felt one of her fangs nick his lower lip and draw blood.  It wasn’t the first time it had happened–their first kiss immediately jumped to mind–but her tongue swiped away the beads of blood before Levi could even instinctually lick at the cut.  Her lips locked around that tiny part of his kiss-swollen lips, pulling up in a slow break away of the more sensual kiss before she came back a third time with a small suck, trying to pull more blood from the small wound in the process of the kiss.

It seemed her need for him and her need for blood had momentarily bled together in her mind.  And she did need blood–he remembered the way she’d been healing slower near the end of the retreat, how exhausted she’s looked since they had started their way back, but he’d been far more focused on her emotional state than her hunger.

Letting the hand that had curled over her shoulder drop down to the small of her back, Levi turned them around a half step until his back was to the bed, keeping her held against him as she pressed hungrily into their kiss, clinging to him.  It wasn’t even a full step backwards before the back of his knee bumped into the edge of her bed, prompting him to let himself fall back into a sitting position on the end of her bed.  The motion pulled her free of the kiss briefly as they moved, but his hands didn’t fully let go of her, dropping to the side of her neck and her waist and pulling her down and in towards him with his movement.

Her knees planted on either side of his hips as she straddled him–a choice that made his throat clench from anxiety at the thought of what she might feel in a few moments if she stayed in this position–hands sliding up his chest and shoulders and lips having already found their way back to his, tongue running briefly over that cut that was no longer giving her beads of blood before she went back to a deep kiss, fangs occasionally grazing his lips without actually breaking skin.

Once she was situated and they were comfortable, Levi’s hand moved from the side of her neck up into her hair, fingers threading deep at the roots to gently tug her head back, breaking their kiss again.  He leaned his head back and tilted it slightly to the side, exposing his throat to her before the hand tangled deep in her hair pulled her back in until her lips were against his throat. 

He could feel her fingers slip under the collar of his shirt, pushing it back and to the side, try again to press it back further as she kissed the sensitive spot he was used to her drinking from and causing goosebumps to break out in the wake of her lips, her fangs grazing and pressing into his skin without biting yet as she restrained herself a few seconds more.  Apparently unsatisfied with her own efforts to simply push his collar aside, Levi felt her hands drop a bit lower and center, before her fingers slipped the first button free, then the next–

She was working on the third button when her fangs sank into his throat, the slight shift of his head and her own motion leaning into him causing her to bite higher than normal, turning what was about to be a question into a moan as he felt the familiar rush of his blood from him to her, felt more than heard the rumble of her own muffled groan in her chest.  The tension uncoiled instinctively from his body as he fell into the familiar relaxed acceptance of her feeding off him, felt his skin tingle and the flush of heat through his body starting the familiar build in his chest and gut, the hand that had been tangled in her hair sliding down to instead rest against a shoulder blade.  He wasn’t sure if it was just in his head because of the heat of the moment before she’d bitten him, but he swore her bite had felt smoother and gentler than before–

He didn’t have much time to think about it as her fingers slipped another two buttons free, her hand sliding under the fabric of the shirt and across his skin in a motion so light he shuddered beneath it and he held his breath for a few seconds.  The why she was opening his shirt was answered by the sudden feeling of blood trailing down his neck, her hand maneuvering his white shirt off his shoulder and out of its path a split second before the trail reached the hollow where his neck met shoulder.

Her fangs released from his throat far too soon–there was no way in hell she was already satisfied–head dipping to press her lips into the hollow of his throat with just enough pressure to make his back arch up into her and his head lean further back as her lips dragged up along that trail of blood that had escaped before it could deviate further down over his collarbone, eliciting a ragged gasp from him.

“What are you…ah…Y/N–”

His question about the shirt and the early release from his neck disappeared in the sounds she elicited from him–she was hardly above his collar when her fangs sank slowly into his throat a second time in another bite, the pace intentional, a hum vibrating from her to match his second, deeper moan at the unexpected feel of another bite.  

His hand that had been resting loosely in the small of her back fisted the fabric of her shirt to pull her tight against him–against his mostly bare chest.  While he’d been distracted by her lips and teeth and what she was doing with his throat, she’d almost finished opening all the buttons of his shirt, pushing the fabric off both shoulders and letting it hang off his elbows and at his sides.

What she was doing wasn’t just feeding.  It was far more sensual, the way her lips dragged along his skin and her teeth sank tenderly into his throat, the way her tongue now ran languidly along the inner edges of the wound where the blood was pooling, lingering and tasting more than just blood.  Hot, buzzing need and desire rushed through his whole body, breaths coming ragged and in pants and gasps, sweat easily beading across his hairline considering he was still a little flushed from the hot bath, head starting to feel slightly fuzzy with how distracting he was finding the tightness in his chest, his gut, his pants–

The rapid pounding of his heart no doubt made her feed easier as the intimacy of the whole exchange reached a new high.

Levi’s hand clenched tighter at the small of her back, the fabric of her shirt bundled up between his fingers as his head turned into hers, lips brushing her ear, other hand attempting to reach back up into her hair.  The pull of his shirt at his elbows reminded him he wasn’t entirely free of the garment and that its current position restricted his movement, even as her hands came back to rest against his chest and the unbitten side of his throat.  Reluctantly, Levi released his hold on her, just long enough to try and tug his arms free of his shirt as quickly as he could so he could get back to holding and feeling her against him while she drank from him, as if that would cool him off instead of raise his temperature.

While his arms were otherwise preoccupied, she retracted her fangs from his neck a second time, lips running quickly up the length of his throat to catch any stray blood.  Her hand that had been resting on the unbitten side of his throat came up to rest just below his jaw, gently tilting his head the other direction before her fangs sank into the side she had never bitten him on before.

The unexpected action caused a noticeable shudder through Levi that sent him arching into her with an unmistakable gasp of surprise and pleasure.  Cheeks immediately flushing from the overtly sexual and loud sound that had just escaped him, Levi buried his face in her shoulder, fingers clutching tightly into the fabric of her shirt as she drank indulgently from him. 

She didn’t seem to react much to the sound, not that he could tell, but he was quickly distracted from any reactions she may have been having due to the fact his body was responding to the multiple bites to his neck, the feel of her pressed against him, her hands burying themselves deep in his hair, the way she was straddling him which now also threatened to expose his hard kept secret about just how arousing he found her drinking from him, especially when it was like this–

You could certainly tell just how excited Levi was getting in the heat of the moment, the evidence hard to miss with how tightly your legs were locked around his waist, the sudden, solid press against your body in the middle of that last gasp was unmistakable even with the fact you weren’t that experienced in relationships.  Kissing was about as far as you ever got in your human years, but that was unmistakable.

You were fully ready to pretend you didn’t feel it, though, to play innocent and give him an out, considering the way the blood seemed to rush up to his cheeks and he hid his face to muffle his pants and the moan his gasp had turned into, the way his shoulders suddenly tensed and the blood came not quite so easily as it all started trying to rush to different places as he flushed and hardened–that thought sent a zap of a mix of excitement and nerves right down to your core, though you tried to ignore it and push past it before it could settle–prompting you to ease off the force of your drink instinctually so it wouldn’t hurt him.

The multiple bites thing had been an impromptu, spur of the moment idea, and motivated entirely by the fact that you knew how pleasurable you drinking from him seemed to feel to him.  In your mind, if you focused more on biting soft and slow and focused more on the pleasure of the bite than the utilitarian purpose of feeding off him, if you bit more than once to elicit that euphoric rush he seemed to get when you initially bit down, he might worry and stress less on the task at hand and get lost in the moment with you a bit more easily.  

It seemed your little plan may have worked a bit too well, though, given his reaction, the way he clung to you, and the ragged breathing against your shoulder.  At least you had been mindful enough of your actions that if he called for a break, if he asked you to back down, you could do that, too.  You had still gotten the blood you needed, still enjoyed every heady drop and weren’t about to let any of it go to waste, even if the shallower and more sensual bites meant it was a bit more messy and you had to remove his shirt just to make sure no accidental spills stained his white uniform.  You were mostly satiated now, anything more you got more out of desire and indulgence and a pleasant bonus in the pursuit of trying to elicit that blissful reaction out of Levi.

Levi tried to shift, tried to keep it subtle and move his hips away from the locked position he was in, but there wasn’t really anywhere for him to go, and after a few moments of squirming, you finally heard him gasp your name, heard the notes of discomfort, the starting tone of a request–

Your hands slipped back down to his chest, teeth letting go of his throat once more and, without hesitation–momentarily mourning your sheets and the fact you were going to have to discreetly clean blood off them when no one was looking, now–you pushed him back, easing up from the straddling position to allow him to fall back onto the bed.  Of course, you followed after him, though you were careful of where your legs and waist were positioned this time, knees planted into the bed just above his waist and keeping on all fours over him without laying atop him, hands planted above his shoulders, giving him that space without fully sacrificing the closeness you wanted–and needed to clean up some of that blood on his throat.

It was hard to focus on the blood, though, when his hair was falling and spilling across the bed underneath you, your mother's silver chain draped across the base of his throat with the medallion having fallen and momentarily disappeared in the sheets next to his neck, the shirt was long forgotten somewhere around the end of the bed and you could see every plane of his chest, every dip and curve, the recently agitated chafing where he wore the ODM especially tightly that was more of an irritated red tonight than was likely the usual given he’d been fighting only several hours ago, scars decorating his skin that were mostly unknown to you and a couple that were–all caught in a glimpse on your way up before your gaze was pulled to his neck where your three bite marks were still beading blood on one side, welling with more blood around the fresher mark…

Your gaze flickered up to his face, catching the flush in his cheeks and ears still, noticing the little cut on his lip that had stopped bleeding as he sucked in a steadying breath, the starting sheen of sweat on his brow, the way his eyes–trained on you, of course–seemed dark as the night when the moonlight was stifled behind a cloud, especially with your shadow cast across his face as you leaned over him–

Trying to salvage your sheets before he bled on them, you dipped your head low to seal your lips around the fresher bite–just your lips, you didn’t bite again, you’d done enough of that for tonight.  You let your lips catch the drops slipping down his neck towards the bed, let your tongue run along the bleeding wound to soothe it and swipe away the blood.  You felt Levi's hands come to rest at your side and in your hair, his fingers twisting idly along the strands, movements relaxing once more, going back to slow and tender as you both slowed down from the more feverish high you'd started.

Once you were certain the bleeding had slowed to droplets that would cling to the wound, you pulled away just enough to tilt your head back to the other side, lips grazing his Adam's apple along the way and earning a soft hum from Levi before you ran your lips along the shallow wounds on the other side of his neck, swiping away the beads of blood in the process.

After it was clear that you had cleaned the last of the blood–or at least that the blood wasn’t going to be running down his neck anymore–Levi suddenly pushed up and over, flipping the two of you over so that you were lying on your back staring up at him while he hovered over you, eyes still dark as night in the shadows of the room, pupils wider than normal and swallowing some of his steely blue gaze.

Once Levi had her turned over and on her back, he held her there for a moment, breaths still feeling heavy in his chest that his heart was beating against, that coiled, uncomfortable tightness from a solid erection that had prompted their position change so she wasn’t straddling him anymore still plaguing him–

He needed a moment–a couple moments–to breathe and get ahold of himself again.  His eyes were locked on hers, tracking the ebb and flow of that red glow within them, both to know where she was emotionally and to give him anything else to focus on.  They had likely been almost if not entirely crimson while feeding from him, but it was fading now, dulling to a gleam of red mixed into the usual color of her eyes as the two of them gazed at one another, catching their breaths, calming down…

When he trusted himself to have enough control of his own actions to not prematurely cross his own lines before he was truly ready, Levi leaned in, keeping himself hovering over her and ignoring the bump of the now warm metal of his necklace knocking against their chins as he kissed her, cautious with himself and keeping the pace slow and gentle.  He couldn’t feel her fangs pressing into their lips anymore, which assured him that she was calming back down as well.

Her fingers brushed against his chin, the touch light and barely there, making the skin she touched tingle in her wake as they traced further, under his jaw and over one of the two bites on the one side of his throat.

Levi pulled back from the kiss, just enough to speak.  “Indulgent tonight?” he asked, voice low as if he was taking care not to disturb the quiet in the room.

She tilted her head up to kiss the corner of his lips.  “You didn’t seem like you were complaining.”

Levi could feel his face heat up, unsure if she was talking about his usual gasping and moaning at the sensation of being bit and her drinking from him, or if she was referring to the erection they both knew he’d had by the third bite.

There was no more holding to the foolish hope she didn’t know just how excited he got, he knew she knew now, and he didn’t think he was entirely ready for that conversation.  If that was what she was referring to, that was not the conversation he wanted to have, words failing him utterly as nerves clawed their way from his stomach all the way up to a tightening in his throat as he pulled away with a mumbled, “Fuck off,” that had no bite to it.

Settling at the edge of the bed, Levi reached up to feel the bites for himself, feeling the marks and where they were and getting a few beads of blood on his fingers in the process.  Normally the bites were easy to hide, but they might have gotten a little carried away this time–he may not be able to hide this, at least not all of it.  And the two bites grouped so close together would be much more eye-catching than the usual low set single bite.

He felt the warmth of her fingers tentatively glide over his bare upper back, resting atop his shoulders as he felt a gentle kiss just in front of the hairline of his undercut where the back of his neck started to turn into the more sensitive flesh of his throat.  Her movements, the pressure and weight she put into it, were light and cautious, ready to pull back if he tried to give himself space or told her he didn’t like the new gesture.

“Sorry,” she murmured softly into his ear before her chin rested against his shoulder, settling between her thumb and pointer fingers.  “I got a little carried away this time, didn’t I?”

Levi sighed, leaning back into her as a silent way to let her know he didn’t mind and she could hold and touch him like this.  “I’m just thinking of how I’m going to hide this the next few days,” he admitted, turning his head just slightly so that his temple pressed against her forehead.

He liked having her close like this, liked how warm he felt when she was resting against him, liked feeling the steady rise and fall of her breathing or her breath against his skin, liked the way his skin seemed to prickle with awareness wherever her hands decided to rest against his bare skin, liked the feel of her head resting against and supported by his shoulder, liked how still and quiet the world would seem as they settled together…

He didn’t think she could touch or be close to him in a way he wouldn’t like, not at the rate they were going.  He was still ready to make it known if there ever was something he didn’t like, or if it went too fast, and he deeply appreciated that she took the extra effort to make sure he had time and space to adjust to the newer gestures of affection.

She hummed at his comment, her hands starting a gentle rub at his shoulders but never wandering too far down, allowing him the time to adjust to her touching his bare skin–he did feel her fingers ‘catch’ on a scar of his that slashed across the curve of his shoulder, breaking ranks from the rest of her fingers to trace the line of the scar instead.

“I know you’ve said no the last couple times I’ve brought it up, but a little of my blood would fix that easily.”

Levi let out a short sigh, and couldn’t help the quick, half eye roll before he turned his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye.  “That shit again?”

“I know it’s different for you, and not ideal–”

“It’s disgusting,” he cut in, nose wrinkling at the memories of the very, very few times he’d had to drink her blood.

“--but it does fix the dilemma at hand.”

Levi drew in a breath to speak, then held it as the words evaded him.  ‘It’s disgusting’ was really the only reason he had, and she blew right past it.  He’d had it before–entirely out of necessity–but it was still revolting.  She was a vampire, she was made to drink blood, for it to taste good to her.  He wasn’t.

Though she did have a point that a little of her blood would solve the need to hide that she was feeding off him, she’d always had that point.  But to his surprise, the thought of her bite marks disappearing entirely from his skin was…dissatisfying.  A part of him didn’t like the thought of not being able to see those marks like he normally could, which might have been a cause for some of the resistance.

She took his hesitation while he pondered as an opportunity and pressed a little further into the matter.  “I mean, there was that one time you kissed me before I could even get your blood off my lips–”

Levi’s heart skipped a beat or two at the reminder of that moment, a ghost of the desire he’d had coursing through him in that moment that had driven him to ignore the blood flashing through his body.  He shoved it back down as fast as he could before his erection returned full force at the intimate memory and the directions his mind wanted to go with it.

“That was–That was different.”

“Not really.”

“Yes, it was.  We were–things, feelings, got intense, and I, I got carried away–” Levi attempted to defend, stumbling over his words as he tried to explain on the spot the things he felt then and still felt now when she fed from him, things he’d never said aloud or discussed with her and he certainly still choked on now, not wanting to get into that mess of emotions he’d acknowledged but didn’t know how to communicate, at least verbally–he felt more comfortable showing how he felt than making a fool of himself trying to explain it.

She arched a brow at him, sensing that she had an advantage.  “Are you saying I shouldn’t have stopped to ask and just started to share while we were both caught up in the moment?”

Damn her for not giving him a way out and pressing the opening.

He probably would have been more agreeable in the heat of the moment if she’d been kissing him and a few drops dribbled past their lips here and there, probably wouldn’t have thought much if anything about it until later…but he did appreciate, again, that she took the time to make sure he was okay with something instead of just doing it when it was something a bit bigger, like this.

However, he also didn’t like how on the nose the comment was with something he was still working out for himself and struggling through his emotions and words for, the discomfort with the thought that maybe, if the circumstances and emotions were right, he was okay with it even if when he was calm and rational he balked at the thought.

Even if it was still disgusting.

So, he went from defensive to trying to squirm out of the conversation entirely.

“Now you’re just being a pain,” he complained in a low mumble, looking away.  She had this little quirk of his figured out, and he had the sense she would get him to cave to some agreement if she kept up with it.  He probably should agree if he didn’t think he could cover up her bites from tonight, but the rational part of him was still balking.

“I’m not meaning to be, promise, just…”  Her fingers reached out to gently trace along his jaw, getting him to turn his head to look at her again.  She leaned in to quickly kiss his cheek, attempting to placate the disgruntled part of him that didn’t like the conversation at hand.  “I think you’re getting into your own head about it.”

Overthinking it, like she tended to.  She wanted him to stop thinking about it so much and try it, see what happened.  Or at least not think about it so much and go along with it and solve one of the smaller risks of her feeding off him, the chance someone could see the marks.

He–apparently–liked the marks, though.  The small and subtle ones, at least, that he knew were there that no one else saw.

Levi eyed her, reading the look in her eyes, the focus, how close she was, turning over her words in his mind…

“You’re not going to let this go until I agree, are you?”

The small smile she gave him looked almost apologetic.  Almost.

“I promise, I’m not trying to manipulate or force you or anything like that, I just…it’s a solution.  It doesn’t have to be a lot, like when we’ve had to save your life.  And you’ve tasted blood in small quantities before, albeit in the heat of the moment, so…why don’t we try and figure out a way it works for you?” she proposed, her voice turning timid near the end, as if she was shyly asking for some tea brewing techniques instead of asking him to find a way to be okay with drinking her blood–just a little, maybe so little it couldn’t even be considered drinking, more like a small taste, but still–

She wasn’t going to let it go.  And as much as he hated it, she had a point, especially right now when he needed the night’s bite marks to disappear so they wouldn’t be noticed tomorrow.  At least she was willing to be flexible and find a tolerable way, which meant she wasn’t going to use something like the methods that flashed in his mind whenever she proposed this–mostly the wildly unpleasant images of the last two times he’d drank her blood.

Still–he didn’t want to lose the little marks on his neck entirely, and he had a couple ground rules to lay down before he was willing to try and see if they could make something work.

“This isn’t going to be a regular thing,” he warned, and of course, he saw her eyes light up in victory to hear him start negotiating instead of blatantly refusing.

“Agreed.  Only when asked or necessary.  That seems fair enough to me,” she promised, her fingers gently running in a soothing stroke down his throat on the opposite side from where she had her head resting.

“Not a lot, only a little.”

“Only enough to heal or however much you want to take, no more.”

He didn’t miss that word choice allowed for him to change his mind and take more if he wanted.

Not fucking likely, though.

“Don’t…spike my food or drinks with it, or try to offer it to me like it’s some kind of fucking cracker or some shit like that, just…” He struggled with how he wanted to phrase it.  He didn’t want it slipped into his food or drink, he would notice the taste difference, and he wasn’t going to drink it straight up with nothing else happening, that felt too strange, and all he’d be able to think about would be the fact he was going to consume blood.

She pulled him out of his thoughts by kissing the corner of his mouth that had turned down into a frown, making it a quick peck once, twice–the third she placed more properly on his lips in full, drawing it out slowly until he was leaning in and kissing her back in a way that had him sinking back into her…

“I’ll find a time it seems appropriate,” she promised, lips brushing against his as she whispered her assurance.

Well…he supposed that was that.  She wouldn’t do it right now, but it was going to get slipped in there sometime tonight while they were doing…whatever came next.

Apparently, what came next was more kissing, considering her lips were on his again once it was clear he didn’t have another verbal answer for her.  However, the kissing was less desperate and heated than earlier–earlier she’d been driven by multiple kinds of need, but now she’d fed and calmed, and he had a chance to calm down from how worked up she’d made him.  As a result, the kisses were slow, sensual–more of what he’d expected when she’d asked him to make her forget, to kiss and hold her.  It was the kind of kissing he enjoyed the most, where everything slowed and every touch seemed to have more to it.

One of his arms reached to hook around her back with his hand cupped at the base of her neck, while his other arm rested against her side, his hand planted in the bed behind her for stability and support as he leaned into the depth of the kiss.  She had one hand still lingering on his shoulder for the time being, though the other was slowly making its way up the back of his neck to twine into his hair once more, the gesture bringing even more of a sense of rightness and calm to the kiss.

After a few long moments of the two of them taking their time kissing one another, her hand that had been resting on his shoulder brushed lower, across the top of his pectoral.

Suddenly, the fact that he was still shirtless became one of the details at the forefront of his mind instead of being shoved aside as less important than everything else they were doing or saying.  If her hands were going to start to wander further down…

Levi’s breath hitched between your kissing, and you could hear his heartbeat pick up in speed as well from the calmer pace it had settled into while the two of you talked.  Beneath your fingers, you could feel the goosebumps rising, the quiver of his skin when you brushed against it, slight flinches from the gentle touch–though he didn’t pull away entirely.

He was jumpy like some of your earlier gestures of affection had made him, and you were quite aware of the fact tonight was the first time you’d seen him shirtless while you two were intimate and the situation wasn’t some kind of medical emergency.  Perhaps he was worried that you might try to press this a bit farther, like earlier–pursue the state of arousal you’d worked him into earlier.

No, that wasn’t what was on your mind–far from it, actually.  It might end up an unexpected side effect, but your goal was not arousal.  Your fingers had brushed along the scar on his shoulder while you’d talked, and you were…curious.  It felt strange, perhaps you were being silly and he’d tell you to knock it off and you’d go back to just regular kissing, but…you wanted to take the time to discover his scars–at least the ones you could find in his current state of undress.

Sex was not the kind of intimacy you had on the mind tonight.  It wasn't what you needed to soothe the pain in your soul and chase the shadows from your thoughts long enough to find stable footing again.  What you wanted was…deeper, an understanding and a closeness that you hadn’t had the chance to work up to, yet.  You wanted to be seen, and you wanted to see more of Levi, too–to dig past the officer and the support he'd had to be most of today and get him to take off the mantle of responsibility and meet you eye to eye as two people that just needed to be seen and understood tonight.

This was a good start.

Not breaking from your kiss, the hand that had come to rest atop his pectoral pushed him back until he was falling back onto the bed, with you following close after him.  Levi didn’t lay all the way back like he had the first time, still a little jumpy about where you were going with this, so he stayed propped up on his elbows, eyelids halfway open to watch your movements between kisses.

You didn’t try to climb over him like you’d been when you were feeding off him, not fully, anyway.  His positioning made crawling over him difficult, but it also left space for your hands to explore his back when you got to that point, so you didn’t complain.  Instead, you situated yourself side-lying beside him, propped up on one elbow so you could easily reach over and kiss him but your other hand was free to roam and explore.

Now that you were in a position that would work for what you wanted to do, your lips wandered from Levi’s at a steady and undaunted pace, working their way lower, past his jaw, down his throat, to his collarbone…

Your kisses slowed once you passed his collar–not stopping entirely, but you weren’t blazing a trail anymore.  Now you were observing, your head tilted to rest slightly on his shoulder, letting your hand trace that scar you had found earlier, feeling the curve, the slight raise that suggested the wound hadn't been too terribly deep when it had been fresh, noting how the paler skin of the scar stood out even in the lamplight.

This had to have been a gash from a blade of some kind–not like the ultrasteel, this had to have been smaller, a knife that someone had reached and brought back in, cutting into his shoulder.  It was older, too, the mark faded and long since healed over–likely from his time Underground.

“What’s so interesting?”

Levi’s voice broke the silence, quiet but curious.  He seemed to have calmed down from the jumpiness of a few moments ago, the skittishness giving way to curiosity to figure out what you were actually doing, since clearly this had not gone in the direction he had been nervous about.

“Did you get this Underground?”

There were a few moments of silence after your question, as if to give you a chance to answer his own question before he responded to yours.  When you didn’t clarify what you were doing, he spoke again, words slow and careful, his gaze still focused on you.

“...Yeah.  Lucky hit during a knife fight.”

He didn’t expound any further on the history of the scar, but you didn’t need him to.  The direction of the scar, the way it lay across his skin, the depth–you knew whoever it was had come at him from behind, and they hadn’t had contact long enough to dig in deeper or for it to be particularly long.  Levi had handled it almost as quickly as the knife had connected with his skin.

After the confirmation for the scar on his shoulder, you moved to press your lips lightly against the old knife scar, hearing his breath catch and hold at the action.  The tender gesture didn’t linger long before you pulled back and allowed your fingers to trace lower, trailing lightly across the freshly raw chafing marks from his gear straps.  You didn’t need any explanation about those, you knew exactly how he’d gotten them, they were self-explanatory.  You only placed a gentle kiss against some of the more presently agitated spots, and your fingers didn’t trace all of them, trying to keep your progress fairly linear as your focus dropped to a collection of various sized puncture scars.  

One was larger than the rest, a slight divot in his skin with jagged edges that were more noticeable than the others.  Marking it as an entry wound was easy when there was a smaller exit wound to be felt in his side, not quite as rough as its matching entry scar, but still testifying to what must have been a more serious wound.  It wasn’t another blade wound, the edges were too unevenly jagged and strangely shaped…he’d been impaled–shallowly, thankfully–by something rough and slender, something that went in at an angle and came out the side.  If you were to take a guess, you would say it was–

“Wood,” Levi murmured, having sat perfectly still while your fingers traced the edges of the old scar over and over, trying to discern its origin.  You’d almost gotten there–the how was a mystery, though.  “Titan launched itself at us near some trees, made splinters and shit fly everywhere–took a larger piece to the side, and some smaller ones that had to be dug out.”

That explained the loose cluster, the jagged edges…you knew what it was like to have splintered wood sticking out of your body, and it was a painful experience even with a healing factor…

…and it was not the only time he’d had a chunk of wooden debris pierced through him.  Your eyes shifted to the larger jagged scar near the center of his abdomen, one that had faded and healed unnaturally well to the point that it was hard to see, the slightest raise of a shade paler skin, hard to differentiate from the rest of the planes and dips of his muscles.  If he had been a vampire, or perhaps if you had given him blood during the scarring stage of his healing, there wouldn’t be any scars to testify of what he’d survived thanks to your blood.

Your fingers only brushed briefly across that barely visible scar, able to see the injury clear as day in your mind’s eye, the way he’d been impaled on that broken framework, the blood rapidly blossoming across his shirt, could feel the open wound beneath your hands that were trying to shove what didn’t feel like enough fabric into the gaping hole in his middle to stop the bleeding–

A wound you had caused because you hadn’t been careful, a wound that very nearly killed him, or could have turned him.

Gently, apologetically, your lips lowered to kiss the barely visible scar, lingering there a few moments longer than you had with the others.  “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

You never wanted to be a source for his pain or injury ever again.

You could feel a shiver go through Levi at the brief kiss, could see goosebumps breaking out across his skin at the touch and the brush of your breath against his skin as you started to pull back, and before you could sit all the way up, his fingers were curling around your chin to lift your eyes to look at him as he shifted into a side-lying position that mirrored your own and also kept you from moving on to the side of his torso you hadn’t explored for scars, yet. 

“No point in bringing up shit we’re long past,” he chastised, a gruff edge to his voice.  Still, his eyes were gentle as they searched yours, probing and curious.  “Why are you even asking about some stupid scars?”

You were quiet for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to put it to him.

“Scars are stories, witnesses to what we’ve seen and experienced, what we’ve survived.  I want to know yours.”

The grip on your chin tightened, just a hair, a knee jerk reaction from Levi as something vulnerable flashed in his eyes too quickly for you to fully process what the emotion was other than some pain and surprise before his guard was back up.

“Nobody wants to hear that.”

Carefully, you reached a hand up to brush just above his eye, where that cut had been when he’d been attacked by the vampire Underground–there was no scar, but you knew it had been there.  

“I do.  Whatever stories you have to tell, I want to hear them.”

“Why?”

The question hung in the air, and you gave it a moment to sink in so that you could make sure you answered what he really wanted to know.  The easy answer would be that you wanted to know more about him, wanted to understand him better–but he could probably easily deduce that part on his own.  He wanted to know why, of all the ways to come to understand him better, you were tracing and asking about his scars, why that was one of the paths you wanted to take to get to know him better.

Your eyes dropped to the bite marks on his neck, and the faint and faded ones from your repeated feeding off of him for some time now, marks that were part of his history now, a physical manifestation to the relationship between the two of you, that he trusted you enough to feed off him regularly, that he knew what you were and accepted it and believed in you enough to risk his life and put himself in such a vulnerable position.  You knew there was a scar on his back, the proof that he would put his life on the line for you, a reminder of how deeply he cared, as harrowing as the experience had been; and the scar on his abdomen, a reminder of just how far the two of you had come.

“The marks from all the hard work, the experience–experiences…I can’t have that,” you finally said, voice low and barely heard, as if it was some secret.

It felt like you were confessing something that was already well known, and doing so with a disproportionate amount of sorrow.  This wasn’t something you should feel sad about, it was a good thing not to scar, that you healed perfectly, that there would be no chronic pains or old aches in your long life–this was such a strange thing to complain about, wasn’t it?

Your eyes shifted again, towards the hand that had curled its fingers around your chin, down to the wrist you could see fresh bruising in the shape of the grip you’d subconsciously held him in earlier.  A reminder that the impaling back in the warehouse wasn’t the only time, and that you needed to be careful with him, even if he could keep up with you better than most.  The guilt rose back up in your chest again to see it, but you didn’t voice it this time considering how he hadn’t mentioned it so far and had shrugged off the apology for an accidental injury just a few moments ago.

Instead, you let your hand curl around his fingers, loath to remove his fingers from that tender gesture around your chin but wanting more to raise his hand towards your face.  You turned and dipped your head just enough to let your lips brush against the mottled bruises on the tender inside of his wrist, ignoring the steady thrum of his pulse below your lips with ease being freshly fed, careful and light in your gesture to avoid making the bruises ache from the pressure.

After the careful and apologetic kiss, you turned your face into his hand, leaning into it and feeling his fingers carefully uncurl to instead rest his hand lightly against your cheek with your hand cupped gingerly over his.

“It all gets wiped away on me like it never happened.  I don’t have that visual history, and…and I want to know yours.”

Levi’s gaze searched hers after the confession, even as her gaze flickered up to him and then looked away just as quickly, as if embarrassed by the admission she’d just made.

He never thought of his scars as anything special–they were just scars, some of them just normal wear and tear from being in the Scouts, a lot of them injuries from things he hadn’t been quick enough to stop, hard lessons learned, moments of foolishness that he didn’t repeat…some had more meaning, like the little scars on his neck from her feeding on him, or the one on his back from when he saved her life.

Now that she was bringing it up, she had a point.  There were some scars he’d rather not think about, some memories that he’d rather leave buried in the past, but…she was right, there was a story to almost every scar.

Maybe not all were stories that they wanted to be sharing tonight, though.  There had been enough loss and grief tonight.  They didn’t need to be revisiting older pains.

But the way she’d traced his scars, the way she eyed some of them even now while she avoided meeting his gaze, some of the scars he got from the Underground, scars he got in rougher fights–the look in her eyes, the understanding was more than just a recognition of what kind of weapon or injury had caused it.

How many scars, how many injuries, had her vampire healing covered up?  How many pains had she suffered that her body naturally hid from the world?  How many scars should she have for him to map and recognize that he could only wonder at?

More than he could likely imagine.  He knew that sometimes, especially with how faded the scars from his two near death experiences with her had become, it felt surreal that it had even happened, like perhaps he’d dreamed it all, yet there were scars to prove it, as unnaturally faint as they were for how recent they still were in comparison to the rest of his scars.  He doubted they would even still be there in another year or so, erased as if they had never been when he should have had them for life.

How strange must it be for her to have none, to have no proof of the things she’d been through, what she’d survived.

He knew some of the scars she should have, though–he knew where she’d been hurt while he’d been around her, some of the places there would be proof of her history, as she put it, if she hadn’t been a vampire.

Levi sat up and resituated so that he was kneeling on the bed, pulling her towards him and getting her to similarly position herself kneeling directly in front of him.  He had a thought, something to help soothe this feeling of hers, but part of it…part of it made his stomach clench and his throat tighten.

“They happened.  I remember them,” Levi told her, voice firm in purpose despite the nerves over what he wanted to ask.

Hesitantly, one of his hands dropped to the topmost button she’d done on her shirt, reminded in that moment she’d left a few buttons undone at the top and bottom of her shirt, whether for comfort or just because she hadn’t had the energy to button up all the way he wasn’t sure.  He didn’t immediately start unbuttoning, however, and let his fingers linger on the fabric and the small little metal button under his thumb–

“May I?”

She was taken aback, and he felt her tremble beneath his fingers before she gave the tiniest nod, holding her breath and looking down with him as he undid the buttons one after another.  

He was confident for the first two, but once he saw her bra underneath, his fingers slipped on the next button from the slight shake in his hands, causing him to inwardly curse the clumsy action before he pushed relentlessly on, now trying to undo the buttons as fast as possible and toss the shirt towards where his was still neglected on the floor.

Yes, he’d seen this before–yes they’d both seen each other shirtless before, but it had been a medical life saving necessity in the past.  This was…different.  His mouth felt dry, his heart was pounding so hard he couldn’t ignore it, and he was hyper aware of how warm and soft she felt under his hands as he removed her shirt, especially after their discussion about her inability to scar.  He was aware of the uneven skin on his own body, the dips and raises from old wounds, the layers of calluses his skin had developed from his lifetime fighting and work with the ODM gear…

She was right.  Her skin was smooth, unblemished, not so much as a faint discoloration from an old burn or a small cut–nothing to see visually to testify of the long life she’d already experienced.  But he knew…

He didn’t start at the top, like she did.  Self conscious about their similar states of half undress with neither of them planning on and both of them actively avoiding sex, he was finding it a touch difficult to look her in the eyes.  He found it easier to simply focus on the task at hand, on remembering and…

Trying his best to emulate the gentle way she’d touched his scars, Levi let his fingers ghost against the spot in her abdomen where the vampire had driven that piece of wood into her when she’d protected him in the Underground. 

He tried to imagine, based on his own scar from the wood shrapnel and being impaled, where the edges of the scar would be, where it would dip like a small gouge in her skin and where there would be jagged thin edges that jutted across her skin like the edges of broken glass.  His fingers did their best to map it out across her skin, the imagined edges of what should have been there, the missing scar.

His hand moved to the other side and a touch lower, recalling where his blade had cut her in their fight in the warehouse, finding the approximate spot he had made contact and tracing the slash across her body up to her other shoulder, fingers hovering over but not actually touching when he passed where her bra was still keeping her semi covered.  He kept the pangs of guilt for causing her that harm to himself, considering he’d been the one to brush off his own scar from the warehouse fight as ‘shit they didn’t need to dig back up’, so he didn’t need to bring it up himself a few minutes later.

Near where the scar from his blade would have ended, he knew there would have been a small arrow puncture scar from the hunter that had pierced her shoulder–perhaps it would have been worse with the burning poison of the sage, perhaps it would have had the small puncture scar with splotchy or spiderweb patterned burn scars, but however it would have turned out, he knew it would have been right here, in this sensitive hollow of her shoulder–

Considering these two scars were positioned just above her breast, while his fingers traced the imagined lines of her unseen scars against her skin, he could feel her chest rising and falling with faster, heavier breaths under his touch.  She was shaking beneath him, but she hadn’t yet moved–like he had, she was trying to stay still, to let him explore and find all the places her scars should be.

More than just a little self conscious about it, Levi let his hand move lower, just beneath the support of her bra and finding a very specific rib with the press of his thumb, a place his knife had unwillingly slipped over and over in their practice spars when they pretended it was a stake, a place he had once seen a stake protruding out of at thankfully the wrong angle to drive home where it needed to be to prove fatal.

The ribs that could lead a properly angled stake to drive deep into her heart.  A place that had been targeted and attacked and should have had a layering of scars from repeated wounds over it.

As his thumb brushed that sensitive spot with the utmost care and admittedly a bit of reverence, she made a sound that caused him to look up at her at last, despite his attempts to avoid looking at her eyes as he adjusted to seeing her shirtless in this entirely different context from before.  His eyes hadn’t even found hers before both of her hands found their way to cradling his face, pulling him in for a kiss that was purely raw emotion, feeling warm splashes and smears of water–tears, from her–across his cheeks.

The kiss was deep, slow, fervent, and the way she pulled him into her was filled with an unspoken need to have him as close to her as possible.  The tears continued–she wasn’t sobbing like earlier, but there were tears that occasionally dripped onto his skin–but it didn’t stop her from kissing him.  Her hands moved back, deep into his hair, angling his head so he was kissing more up into her, her legs shifting so that she straddled one of his thighs, mindful not to straddle his whole waist.

For those first few heartbeats, Levi’s hands stilled, his thumb still pressed lightly into the spot just under her bra, the other on her waist by where his blade scar would have started.  When the kiss broke long enough for her to take a staggered gasp, one of her hands slipped slowly down his neck, down his back, until her fingers found the more pronounced scar on his back, the one over his heart–the scar from when he’d taken the stake for her.

She was still feeling his scars, finding them with her fingers even if they were too caught up in the kiss to seek them out visually.  He could feel her fingers follow the curves, dips, and raises of old injuries from his environment Underground, old fights, beyond the wall–she wasn’t leaving any stone unturned.  If she could feel the scar, her fingers found it, and she was taking the time to familiarize herself with each one. 

Since she was still seeking his scars, he let his hands resume their wandering across her smooth skin, doing his best to map out the injuries he knew there should be a physical manifestation of, to recall her history to the best of his ability and substituting his hands for the proof she lacked.

And yet, even as he tried to recall the injuries he’d seen her sustain, the wounds he knew of from her stories of the past, he knew it wasn’t anywhere close to the real number of scars she should have had.  Her skin was smooth, soft, warm, unblemished thanks to her vampiric abilities.  And yet, he knew that the body so warm and gentle against his own was a body that had been broken down and battered more than his, that had suffered death more than once despite how flawless and invulnerable she seemed on the surface.

But he was learning the fissures, the weaknesses, the gaps in her armor that he wanted to cover and shield with his own body.  He was learning the way her emotions slipped like a knife between the cracks and cut right into her heart.  He knew the burns she’d sustained from the worst of all the Titan steam earlier had taken longer to heal by the stiff way she’d moved around, as if the skin was stinging, scalded, pulling painfully, slower to recover due to her weakness to burning and her more sluggish healing factor after all the energy she’d spent just in this one day. 

Never would he forget the black veins that spiderwebbed through her body when she was poisoned by the white sage, the way her skin charred, peeled, and bubbled, the sickly pallor.  Above all else, he was vigilant of that precious space where her heart was, how she was still oh so vulnerable if she was struck the right way or with the right material.

Following her example of what she’d been doing earlier with his scars, as Levi finished mapping the injuries he knew about for her torso–and unable to reach her arms for the many he knew about on them while they were wrapped around his body–he moved onto her neck not with his hands but his lips, his arms wrapping around her waist to hold her securely in place.

It required breaking the fervent kiss that they were locked in, but the small sound of bliss she made when he kissed the spot his blade had cut into her throat, when she leaned her head back with a soft exhale of his name as he placed slow, closely packed kisses around the spot that vampire Underground had ripped into her throat with his teeth–those sounds she made were more than enough to make breaking the kiss worth it.

While his lips made their way around her throat, her fingers brushed all the way down his spine, one of her hands trailing back up in a stroke that set his skin flush with sensation and made him struggle to resist shivering or arching into the touch.  It was distracting enough he didn’t even realize her other hand had dropped away, not until he felt something warm and wet smear across his collar and pulled back enough to see crimson flowing down her collarbone and smudged across his chest from their close embrace.

She’d cut herself while he’d been distracted so he could drink from her like he’d semi-agreed.

He didn’t give himself the time to second guess it–she’d heal up fast, and he’d rather she didn’t have to inflict the wound a second time because he hesitated.

Carefully, Levi switched his attention to the other side of her neck, leaning in and letting his lips circle the fresh wound.

As Levi gently kissed the spot you’d just cut deep enough to draw a decent amount of blood, you were reminded fleetingly of what felt like ages ago when he’d nipped at your jaw and throat, the spike of excitement that had flashed through you when he’d broken the pattern and had been the one to bite you–albeit lightly and not hard enough to leave even a faint mark–instead of the other way around.

Now, having him drink from you, from your neck, was…you weren’t sure.  There was the excitement, the pleasure from the way his lips brushed against your skin, the way he was still holding you pressed flush against him, the shivers that raced through your body to feel his tongue brush against the wound.  There was a touch of relief that he wouldn’t have to worry about covering up your indulgent bites from earlier, and a small sense of victory for having officially won the debate of whether or not he should partake in at least a little of your blood, just enough to heal and recover after the more serious or…overzealous biting.

But there was something else that was blooming in your chest, spreading like a rush of warm water through your body, outwards from your heart to your hands as if your whole circulatory system was aware that you weren’t the only one it was sustaining.

The other two times you’d shared your blood, you’d been overcome with fear and it had been out of dire necessity, it had even been forced to a degree, whether from Levi’s mistrust that first time or his struggle to respond the second.  During his recovery from the stake, you’d spared a few drops mixed into his food and drink, but it hadn’t been like this, hadn’t been voluntary, active, personal.

You’d never shared your blood, not since becoming a vampire, not like this.  To feel him drink from you in such an intimate and voluntary setting sparked something inside you, made the whole moment feel strangely precious, like some instinct had been roused.

Whatever that instinct was that had woken inside you, that was causing something to happen, was…strange.  Not a bad kind of strange, it was a lightness, like you would be carried away in some current that was about to sweep you away in its rapids.  It pulled at you to respond, and the urge to bite him suddenly reared its head again, a temptation to feel blood flowing from Levi to you and from you to Levi, linked in some strange way.

But you resisted the urge, well aware that you had bit him enough tonight.  Any more would be too much, so you buried the temptation.  Instead, you tilted your head back to the ceiling aglow with the flickering lamplight, closed your eyes, let your fingers anchor deep into the freshly washed threads of his soft hair, and focused on the raw feeling of the moment.  You focused on the way your body was curved into his with the way you arched into him, the feel of his hands sliding up your bare back, the feel of his lips pressed lightly to the curve of your throat while his teeth latched on around the still welling and occasionally spurting blood, his tongue running over the spot in a careful, languid motion that you thought might be purposely emulating you when you fed from him–meant to make you feel good while also keeping any extra blood from spilling free.

It didn’t last long–it was fleeting compared to when you fed from him, given your healing and the fact that you had just fed more than you needed to from Levi.  You’d made the wound deeper and messier in an attempt to make it last long enough he would get the amount he needed.  When you felt the blood flow coming to an end, Levi’s kiss had released from your neck, lips moving to try and clean up the rest, kissing the spots the wound was still healing just to make sure.  Lowering your head back to look down at him, your fingers ran along his throat, feeling only smooth skin and only the small, barely seen marks from your feeding in the past left behind.

You were fed, he was healed, you’d shared a moment where you felt seen and known as he traced your unseen scars and you had taken the time to start learning his, you had calmed and settled back into yourself, your emotions were more manageable and controlled, and you could feel warmth and light in and around you again, the world wasn’t all cold, dark suffering.

There were good things in this world that were worth it, things to be cherished and protected, things to keep living and feeling for.

When Levi pulled back, you didn’t hesitate to bring him back to kissing you, back to the slow kissing he would relish, not giving him time to really think over the fact that he’d just drank some of your blood–and in a manner that did not suggest disgust, unless he was just better at swallowing that down when it was in the heat of the moment.  Still, the kiss was a distraction, but it was also a desire to feel him, to keep him close, to bask in this warmth and light that was him.

Even as the quiet, the lack of a goal, the tenderness with no plans to do anything more, allowed your mind to wander, let the sorrow creep back into your heart for what had happened.  Having him, having his comfort and his presence, the care and affection, the way he touched you like something precious to be cared for and protected, made the sorrow bearable, made the weight not so crushing.

You’d endure.  You’d both find a way.  He’d grounded you when you were drowning, and now that you were on steady footing again, you wanted to make sure you did the same thing for him.  You’d promised, even if it hadn’t been verbally, that you would support him.  You were going to keep that promise.

You’d felt the tears that had escaped him earlier while you’d been having your breakdown.  You knew he needed it, even if he was so focused on your wellbeing he wasn’t going to voice it.

The kiss she had pulled him into slowed, lingering on the press and drawing out the parting of their lips for every kiss until they stopped entirely, until her forehead was pressed gently against his, her hands cupped around the back of his neck, his hands splayed along the center of her back, holding to each other in that moment with eyes closed, relishing the quiet, the closeness, the contact.

He didn’t want her to pull away, and he was glad that even though their kissing had ground to a halt, she didn’t try to back off, she stayed in his arms.

When he finally opened his eyes, it was to find her already gazing down at him, waiting patiently for him to finish relishing in the moment.  Once he was gazing back at her, one of her hands reached up to gently brush the backs of her fingers along his cheek, starting a feather-light, repetitive stroke that made his heart lighten.

And her eyes…they had glimmers of red speckling them like light reflecting off a gemstone.

It wasn’t just the red in her eyes that caught his attention, though.  He could read the emotions swimming amongst those flecks of red, probably causing some of them.  There was the tenderness she looked at him with, a knowing edge; but there was also the sadness, the grief creeping back in with the way her brow furrowed closer together, the bittersweet feel of the small smile she gave him, the sudden thickening of the atmosphere in the room.

She was thinking of the day again, of what they’d seen and experienced.  She wasn’t cracking this time, though.  She seemed steady against him, grounded in his arms.  If anything, that knowing look in her eyes seemed expectant, searching his expression.

She wanted to know how he was handling it.  Now that she was steady, she was checking on him.

And he…he had been compartmentalizing it.  With her spiraling, he didn’t have much time to process it, though he was allowed some time to feel it while she’d been trudging through the emotions crying in his arms earlier, and while he was in the bath.  He’d processed bits and pieces of it, but how he felt now, how he was handling it…?

Levi leaned into the gentle touch against his cheek, feeling his heart clench at the reminder of all the death, of the responsibility that sat on their shoulders as Scouts now, briefly wondered how Erwin was handling the larger portion of the responsibility as the Commander that had overseen the planning and been given the responsibility, even if Pyxis and the Garrison had helped in the execution of it all.  He thought of how it had broken her for a few hours, how close he’d come to losing her in the process of her shutting out her humanity.

He thought of all the horrors she must have heard having to stand on that wall, all the people dying bloody and excruciatingly, thought of the powerlessness in his inability to do much to help her and in knowing all those people were dying and he was supposed to let it happen.  He thought of the people they still couldn’t save even after they’d finally been given the go ahead to save people and not just stand by doing nothing.

His soul was laden with the knowledge and the loss of life, of the impact it was playing on the people around him–especially her.  His heartbeats were painful in his chest, as if the chamber for it to beat had been compressed into a too small space.

It hurt, and he doubted he would sleep tonight.  It would plague him for the foreseeable future.  He was still steady on his feet, though, stable enough to be a support, to keep pushing forwards–and far more determined than ever to eradicate the plague of the Titans tormenting humanity.

Levi’s gaze didn’t leave hers as he processed all of the emotions and the weight, felt the pain but didn’t buckle under it, and leaned against her to seek out the comfort of her touch as he came to his conclusion, letting his gentle shift into her and the soft though somber expression speak for him.  She seemed satisfied by what she saw, at least enough not to press, and she kissed his cheek, shifted to kiss his temple, and gently pushed him back down onto the bed.

There wasn’t more making out, no more steaming kisses or tempting positions.  She tucked herself into his side, the position much more comfortable than when they’d tried to cram together side by side on the couch, her legs lying loosely beside his.  One of her hands twined slowly into his, as if drawing out the contact to make sure she felt every moment of connection from fingertips to the base of her palm before their fingers were laced together, and she brought their intertwined hands to rest just over his heart, causing a soothing warmth to spread through him when he felt her hand resting tenderly over his heart and covered with his own, eyes closing when he felt her rest her head against his chest right by their hands, close enough he was certain she could effortlessly listen to his heart beating.  Levi’s other free arm shifted around her to hold her against him, hand resting on her side with fingers idly tracing a loose line up and down her waist and ribs.

The way she was nestled close to him suggested she was seeking refuge, so Levi let his voice briefly break the silence, keeping his words quiet so he wouldn’t disturb the gentle stillness between them with his question.

“You okay?”

He just wanted to make sure, before he settled in and relaxed, that she really was going to be okay, that she wouldn’t shatter when he wasn’t looking.  She didn’t have to be fine–no one was going to be fine tonight.  He just wanted to know that she was going to be okay.  

She was quiet for a while, long enough that Levi worried she had fallen asleep and might not have heard him, though he doubted she would have fallen asleep that quickly.

“...No,” she finally admitted.  He was grateful for the honesty, but his heart still ached to hear the slight crack in the whispered admission.  As his embrace tightened around her, she continued.  “But I’m still me, and I have you.”

That was all he could ask for tonight.  They weren’t fine, neither of them were doing great, but having this, having each other…

It was something good, something pure to hold onto, to help them keep anchored, to keep themselves.  Both of them had been and in a way still were soaked in blood, but this good thing still remained, was still a small light that could burn away the filth and darkness long enough to find each other again.

They weren’t okay.

But they were still here, and they weren’t going through it alone.

Next Chapter---->

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*Reader’s POV*

After your meeting with Erwin, you went to the kitchens to fetch Levi’s lunch, something the cooks were used to by now.  They already had a pot of water almost to a boil by the time you arrived for Levi’s tea, and Levi’s officer rations for his rank prepared on a plate they were keeping warm by keeping it near the oven.  It made your task much easier, just making sure the water was the right temperature before making Levi’s tea, assembling it all on the platter you usually used to take him his meals, and thanking the cooks for the day (Some were volunteers from the Scouts, a few hired professional cooks) before leaving for Levi’s office.

You moved a bit quicker than normal on your way there, a few thoughts stirred up by Erwin and that had been on your mind for a while prompting your feet to move a little quicker than normal.  You gave your usual knock on Levi’s door, five knocks with a slight pause before the last knock, which prompted Levi to call you into the room.  You entered the room, shutting and locking the door behind you before proceeding forward with Levi’s lunch.

“If you keep doing this people are going to ask questions.  Or think you’re still an aid," Levi pointed out as you approached his desk, though he didn't look up from what he was reading.

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t give a damn," you mused, setting down his tea first near his hand before you sat down his plate of food and tucked the platter up against the side of his desk on the floor.  "Levi?"

He didn't look up at you, though you were staring at him and waiting for him to do just that.  Instead he just hummed, expecting you to just ask a question or maybe give him one of your little shows of affection like covering his hand with your own.  That's not what you were thinking, though, and after a few moments where he didn't look up, you asked again.

"Levi?"

"Yes?" he asked, far more vocally but with that tonal lean that suggested he'd get annoyed if you asked but didn't respond to his acknowledgement again.  Normally you weren't trying to distract him from his work, quite the opposite, so this was probably throwing him off a bit.  He was expecting a gentle touch, maybe a quick kiss, and then a departure.  Now you were actively trying to pull his attention away from his work, which he was being a little resistant to.

Deciding he needed a bit more of a nudge--and he could always stop you if he wasn't comfortable with it or wanted to draw a line--you stepped closer, which started to get his complete attention before you reached over and your fingers gently ran up his jaw to turn his head up and towards you.  By now you were standing directly beside and over him, and with the slightest angling up of his head, he was in the perfect position for you to lean down and kiss him.

Deeply.

Your lips pressed against his--slightly unresponsive at first because he'd been caught off guard--slowly and with just enough pressure, taking the time to revel in it and really enjoy the moment.  As well as to try and give him the true sense that you wanted him to feel...adored at the moment.  Or at least that he was receiving warm, unpolluted affection.  A sense of stability with whatever the two of you had.

Your hand stayed on his jaw while you kissed him, his ink pen having dropped out of his hand and onto the desk without either of you noticing yet.  He met the affection you gave him in kind once he started returning the kiss, though it was obvious he was a little lost about the purpose in how you kissed him before you even pulled back, just enough to look at him.

"What was that for?" Levi asked in a low voice, his tone quiet because of your close proximity.  His comment certainly wasn’t a complaint, with the subtle quirks on his face that told you he’d enjoyed it, even with the abruptness and pulling him away from his work.

"I just wanted to do it," you told him in an equally quiet voice, fingers reaching out to gently stroke up his jaw, knuckles brushing against his cheek in the process.

After giving him his answer, you leaned down to kiss him again, just as deeply and intensely as the first time--and with more of a response from Levi since he was expecting it this time, and had his answer of ‘because I want to.’  The only sound in the room was the sound of your lips pressed against each other, of the occasional gasp of breath between kisses.  Also there was a slight shift and tap that suggested his fingers seemed to be searching out the ink pen lying abandoned somewhere on his desk.

“I have...work to do,” Levi murmured in mild disapproval with the occasional breaks for air.  Though apparently it wasn’t enough disapproval to make him stop kissing you, since he kept going despite his little protest.

You leaned into him, causing him to lean back in his chair in the process.  “This will only take a few minutes,” you murmured against his lips, coming in for a slightly sweeter kiss after your proclamation about how long you intended to intrude upon his paperwork time.

You dragged it out for a few more gentle, lingering pecks on his lips before you actually pulled away, resting your forehead against his.  His head was leaning against the back of his chair, half-lidded gaze fixated on you, lips parted like he expected you to keep going because of the proximity.

However, you weren’t just here to kiss him because Erwin had dug up some memories of how close you came to losing him, which made you focus on how much you wanted to keep him around you.  You were also here to talk.  Because amongst everything else that came up while talking to Erwin, there had also been a concern that Erwin raised that you knew the two of you needed to discuss before you could be put in a situation like that.  You really hoped he wouldn’t feel ambushed by you bringing it up now, but you wanted to talk about it sooner rather than later.

“I care about you…” you murmured softly to him, leaning down to kiss him on the lips again, slowly and carefully before you pulled back to keep speaking, fingers idly tracing along his jaw.  “Deeply.  That much I know.”

Levi’s head tilted to the side, eyes opening a bit more so he could give you a probing look, wondering where you were going with this, no doubt.

You really hoped he wouldn’t get mad that you were about to flip the mood you’d just created into the complete opposite direction, without warning.

“Levi…” you said seriously, pulling back a bit more to give him some fresh air and space to think, though your hand still rested in the curve where his jaw became his neck.  “If you were ever put in a position...where it was me or the Scouts...what would you do?”

Levi leaned back and pulled farther away, all the relaxed signals he'd been showing draining away as his eyes widened, then turned stormy and dark.

"What kind of a fucking question is that?" Levi accused, pulling a little farther from you.

"It's not some kind of fucked up trick question or anything like that," you defended yourself, quickly trying to explain why you were throwing this question at him so suddenly.

"I'm not answering a stupid question like that," Levi said with a bit of a bite, turning away.  He was retreating, and rapidly.  It was a question that brought up a lot of dark thoughts that neither of you wanted to consider, but Erwin’s question made it obvious to you that this was something you needed to establish soon.

"I'm not looking for a specific answer or a hollow promise, I just...I just want to know where your head is at right now," you tried to explain.

"If you can't tell that right now, that's your problem," Levi said stiffly.

Oh, you could tell he was pissed about the question, but that didn't mean you didn't still need an answer.  And you were afraid he thought you were trying to trap him into giving you an answer he couldn't actually promise you.

Levi had retrieved his ink pen by now, the report he'd been reading in front of him once again and his eyes scanning the document too fast for him to actually be reading it properly.  You reached out your hand to gently touch the back of his.

"Levi…" you said quietly, but Levi pulled his hand sharply back, now silently fuming and apparently deciding that he was going to try ignoring you until you went away.  You took a deep breath, smothering the sting of hurt for now as you settled for words he'd have to hear instead of touch he could shy away from.  "I just came from a meeting with Erwin.  He brought up the question, and even if it's not one I want to be thinking about this early on…considering our positions in the Scouts I think it's a conversation we should still have sooner rather than later."

Or too late, you also thought, but that morbid thought you kept to yourself.

Levi still wasn't looking up at you, but he stilled, which prompted you to think that he was at least contemplating what you were saying.

"I'm not trying to measure your feelings or anything, I just...I just feel that it's a boundary or scenario or whatever you want to call it that we should clarify our positions ahead of time.  For various reasons that could save us a lot of...trouble...later."

He was holding that pen a little tighter than necessary--you were surprised it didn't snap from the pressure.  He still wasn't moving, but you weren't saying anything else, giving him time to process, recover, and decide what he would do next--answer or continue to ignore.  You really hoped it would be the former.

"I'd choose the Scouts," Levi said, so softly even you had trouble hearing the reluctance-saturated words.

You nodded at his answer, looking up away from him and out his office window.  "Good."

That answer got Levi to look at you again, leaning back in his chair in surprise, though you kept your gaze fixed out that window for now.

"What the Scouts do is bigger than both of us, especially now that Maria's fallen.  We can't jeopardize that bigger picture for one person, no matter how personally important," you said in a low voice.

You paused for a moment so you could look at Levi again, reaching out to cover his hand on the desk once more, grateful he didn't flinch away this time.  He was watching you intently, a bit of conflict in his eyes as he observed your reaction, studied your answer that was rather cool logic and so far didn't seem to be factoring in any level of importance he might have with you.  If he didn't know you by now, it might have been mistaken for indifference.  Thankfully, he did know you rather well, at least well enough to know you weren't as cold as you might sometimes seem, and deeper emotions might just be well-disguised.

"But that doesn't mean we can't still look out for and protect each other," you said warmly, giving his hand a slight squeeze.  "Just...if we're ever in a true either or situation, we both know duty to the Scouts comes first.  For both of us.”

Your fingers gently curled around his hand, thumb gently stroking over the back of his hand as you continued to speak.  “Thankfully, since we’re both critical to the Scouts with our current positions, and we’re pretty much a package deal, the chances of an either or situation is much slimmer than for most people...but still there, so we can’t pretend it’s an impossibility.  But I just...felt like we needed to have the conversation now--before we resume the expeditions again.”

Levi sighed heavily, his hand returning the little squeeze you were giving him.  “Just stop talking,” he grumbled, pulling slightly so you were brought closer to him, craning his head back to reach up and kiss your lips, silencing you before you could keep babbling on about a morbid thought it was obvious he didn’t want to keep dwelling on.  And kissing you was a good way to stop the current line of conversation while chasing away any morbid thoughts your question had brought up.

You’d already said everything you wanted to--namely got the answer you needed with both of you clearing the air on what you would do ahead of time.  So you let him kiss you, let the distraction slip into place where you’d both been having an uncomfortable conversation seconds before.  It was a welcome distraction for both of you--and, so far, anyway, one of the very, very few times Levi had been the one to initiate a kiss.  You weren’t going to argue.

Levi’s lips pressed hungrily into yours, seeking out what distraction and comfort you could give him in contrast to your ominous discussion.  One of his hands came up to cup your cheek as he turned in his chair so he was facing you properly, the work and lunch on his desk of no concern at the moment.  In response, your hand lifted to gently thread through his hair, fingernails lightly scratching along his undercut in the process.  Levi took a deep breath at the motion, and then pressed his lips a little harder against yours with renewed fervor, a bit of heat leaking into his kiss as a sudden thrill went down your spine, hand burying deeper into his hair to pull his head closer, cradle him up towards you as your lips parted but did not separate from his, hot breath momentarily mingling as you longed to taste just a bit deeper.  Your jaw tingled slightly not with bloodlust, and not with the need of your fangs to come out.  It was just the raw emotion of the moment starting to take over.  You were certain if your eyes were open they would be crimson.

A knock on the door shattered the moment, and you both swiftly pulled away, you pushing back to the side of his desk and him returning to properly sitting in his desk chair while you both looked away, cheeks flushed and breathing still heavy.

“What?” Levi snapped, burying his hand in his hair in the place your hand had been so the disheveled hair wouldn’t be a dead giveaway.  You were busy rubbing at your cheeks and waiting for the tingling in your jaw to go away, taking calming breaths to get yourself back under control so your eyes would stop glowing before whoever was on the other side entered the room.

“Postage, Sir.”

It was that time, wasn’t it?  Usually you were out by the time postage came around--actual mail, not just military messages.  And Levi rarely got postage from outside the Scouts, but occasionally…

Levi was scowling, though you could clearly see that his suddenly low mood was disappointment--and the reason was obvious.  “If it’s another request from one of the other branches that their ‘star pupil’ gets transferred to my squad…” Levi growled, though it was softly, obviously meant more for himself and not for whoever was on the other side of the door.  His gaze flickered towards you, that disappointment growing clearer for a moment.  “Did you lock the door?”

“Yes--habit, sorry,” you apologized, returning his now normal tone that the messenger would be able to hear.  He gave you a small nod to tell you that you were in the clear--no glowing eyes, and he was ready for the door to open as well.  It also meant that was your cue to leave.

Your gaze flickered to the lunch you’d set on his desk as you bent down to pick up the tray you’d set aside while the two of you talked.  Shit, I hope his lunch didn’t get cold while we were talking...namely his tea.  I might have to get him another cup.

You crossed the room and opened the door to let the messenger in once you were both good and ready for another person to see you.  Once it was open, the man’s eyes slid from you to Levi suspiciously, before he noted the tray in your hand and the currently untouched meal sitting just off to Levi’s side.  It looked like an innocent enough scene.  Maybe there would be a bit of a suspicion about the locked door and the few extra seconds it took for you to reach the door, but there wasn’t much to go on besides those two little details.

“I actually have one for you, too, ma’am--just give me a moment,” he said with a slight nod, quickly crossing the room to lay the letter on Levi’s desk, though Levi wasn’t paying any attention to it.  His gaze was fixated on you with a sudden intensity much different from the one the two of you had been sharing a few moments ago.

The only mail you should be getting was an awaited message from another vampire...or an unwelcome and unexpected message from yet another vampire.  Hopefully it was the former.

The message you were given was more of a folded up note shoved in an official envelope from a familiar address in your home town.  As the messenger left, you stayed in Levi’s office and opened your letter, knowing he’d want to know whatever information was on the paper inside.

It was brief, barely any words scrawled on the little paper.

Just after midnight, the corner of Oak and Pine, Sedalia.  The night of the twenty-third.

Tomorrow night.  Plenty of time to scope out the area.  It was in another town, but you could easily make it there and check out the area.  Find a good place for Levi to hunker down, come up with a good vantage point of your own, look for any places an unpleasant surprise could try to lurk in.

You paused, taking a deep breath through your nose as you caught something off about the paper.

There was the faintest scent of blood coming off it, one only you could pick up on.  It had to have been quite a bit of blood for the scent to still be there, especially if you could see no visible traces on the paper.  Which suggested it might have been on the young vampire.

Not a promising sign.  But if you were lucky, that was just because he’d written it after a feed.

"Well?" Levi asked.  He didn't even need to ask what it was since you were contemplative, not freaking out.  The only thing he was missing was what it said.

Done with your little discovery of the scent of blood, you held out the note for him to take before heading back over to lock the door again, since you were certain there was about to be another discussion neither of you wanted someone walking in on.

“It doesn’t sound like he’s panicking, considering he’s giving us at least a day before the meeting,” Levi mused.  Unfortunately, that could be good or bad.  If the other vampire’s intentions were pure, panicking and rushed actions would suggest something bad had happened and you were the one he was turning to for help, so not panicking was a good thing in that case.  If his intentions weren’t pure, then giving time before the meeting and not panicking could mean something unpleasant lay in store for you.

But you couldn’t dwell on that too long, or else you might start to wander into paranoid territory.

Levi read over the note again, a thoughtful, slight frown making an appearance on his lips.  “We have enough time to scout the area before the meeting, find the hiding spots, vantage points…”

“I take it you still want to be there when I meet him,” you said quietly, eyeing Levi while trying to gauge in your mind how close to fully recovered he was, and whether or not he would be safe.

He still wasn’t at full strength, which was what he would need if something went wrong.  But he still tired out faster than normal, he was still slowly getting more physically active, not quite where he’d been beforehand.  Recovery took time, even when he insisted he was a fast healer, even if you’d been slipping him your blood during those first few weeks to help speed up the first half of his recovery.  At the same time, you knew there was no way in hell he was going to let you go to this meeting alone--he wanted to make sure you had help if something went wrong, he wanted to be there just in case.

Levi looked up at you, an eyebrow arched challengingly, as if daring you to try and suggest he shouldn’t be there, that he should stay behind.  “I haven’t said otherwise.  Is there something on your mind?”

You sighed, shifting the tray in your hands to your side, under your arm.  “I’m just thinking...depending on what’s going on with the kid, it could be dangerous for you.  You’re still not back to your full strength, and with how new he is, he doesn’t have much control, if any.  You might not even need to bleed to be too much temptation for him to handle if you’re too close, or the wind shifts wrong.  If you do come, you can’t get too close, for your own safety.”

Levi shook his head slightly, setting the note aside and, for the moment, not really addressing your concern that he shouldn’t be there because he was still recovering.  “I’m going to be there.  We can figure out the logistics when we see the area he wants to meet.”

He knew where you were meeting this kid.  He’d show up one way or another.  The best you could do was try to make sure he was as safe as you could get him.  Besides, you’d already agreed you shouldn’t go alone, and saying you were going to be fine wouldn’t work this time because of it.  Besides, if it really was a problem, you still had a day to convince him to stay back.

Though you doubted you’d be able to.

“All right...when do you want to go scout the area?” you asked, deciding you could at least see if there was somewhere Levi could place himself where he could still see and intervene if necessary, but he’d be far enough away to be safe.  Clearly it was in the middle of town, which meant rooftops, which meant a good environment for ODM gear.  Hopefully, his strength had returned to him enough that he could use the gear when he needed to without tiring out too quickly--a concern you had since he was still taking his walks to build up strength, and you could still hear him tiring out on the way back with those walks.

Hopefully the most he would have to do would be to get on a roof, and then later get back down.

“I won’t be free until it starts getting dark today, and we should scout it out during the day.  So tomorrow.  We’ll go in the morning during our usual sparring time,” Levi suggested, looking up at you with a more relaxed air since you weren’t continuing to push him to stay behind.

You nodded--you’d have a whole day to come up with a plan and prepare, so it was a plan you were satisfied with for now.  You'd have to take some more things into account while you were there tomorrow to think up ways to keep Levi as safe as possible during the meeting without excluding him entirely.

With that out of the way, your gaze flickered to the still-untouched meal on his desk.  "Do you need me to get you a new cup of tea?"

Levi glanced back down at the teacup, reaching out to touch it and see how much of its heat it had managed to retain, a flicker of disappointment in his eyes giving you an answer before he spoke.  "That would be appreciated.

You nodded again, turning to leave now that you had an answer.  "I'll be back in a few minutes, then."

“Y/N,” Levi called before you could leave, and you turned at the door to look at him.  However, he seemed to rethink whatever he was going to say, and shook his head.  “Don’t let your guard down when we go to meet this other vampire tomorrow.  We still can’t be sure of his intentions,” Levi said pointedly, reaching out to pull the plate of food closer to him.

“I know,” you said softly before leaving the room.

*Levi’s POV*

Not being at full strength was starting to get irritating.  He was well enough to do things, but he had to make sure he took care not to push himself too far.

Though that didn't mean he was inept.  Which was why he was still going to this meeting as backup.

He was also aware that this vampire she was going to meet was indeed just a lost kid in a really bad spot, and if the kid wasn't harboring ill intent, Levi wouldn't mind Y/N making efforts to help him in her spare time so long as it didn't bring dangerous trouble to the Scouts--or rather, so long as it didn't end up violating Erwin’s stipulation about her presence not putting the Scouts in too much danger in any way.  But he also wasn't foolish enough to completely write off the possibility this other vampire could be a danger in some way.  That was a good way to get killed.  So he was going to continue to be the voice of caution, just in case.

Scouting the area was a task the two of them could do alone without much issue--and doing it so early in the morning gave them the rest of the day to plan accordingly.  Erwin had already been informed, as per usual, about developments and what they were doing, and Levi had made sure there was a healthy amount of white sage in his drinks for today, since Y/N’s main concern seemed to be with the possibility of Levi getting attacked even if this vampire didn't mean any harm.  The sage could at least help protect him in that scenario if it was running through his veins again and not just in his necklace.

Just for now, though.  Y/N had been holding back and scraping by in the blood she needed while trying to avoid damaging his recovery, so he was trying to keep his blood clean of white sage for those times she needed it to keep skirting by, or when she would finally take a full dose.  But they could worry about that after tonight--everything was taking a momentary back seat while they handled this issue that had been lingering in everyone’s minds since they got back from the wall falling.

So, early in the morning when they would usually be sparring together--something they’d been avoiding until Levi could actually put in full effort and stand his ground again--the two of them met in the woods where they trained, and then headed for the meeting location in the note to do the recon and figure out their plan of approach.

The trip there was relatively silent, though Levi could feel her eyes on him as they walked, taking note every time his breathing grew noticeably heavier and insisting that they take a moment to rest before continuing.  It was quite a ways away--they would probably come by horse tonight.  Levi had simply thought this would be a good way to get his strength building exercise in, and then a little more.  He’d brought a canteen of water for this very reason, sipping on it as needed during their long walk to Sedalia.

Whenever they were on a deserted stretch of road during their travel, Y/N’s fingers would brush against his or gently lace between them, causing a slight tingle against his skin and a warmth to start taking hold in his chest.  He didn’t so much as glance in her direction when she did it, but he would grasp to her fingers, or give her hand a small squeeze, wanting her touch to linger or stay as long as possible before they would separate again because of other travelers, nearby farms and homes, or their hands were starting to get sweaty and uncomfortable.  She stayed close for the entire trip, always within easy, subtle reach of his hand, how close she wanted to be to him obvious with how often she managed to find her way there.

It was comforting, in an odd way, to know she wanted to be so close.  And he didn’t find it annoying--she was picking up on when it started to make him uncomfortable, and would back away when he started to seem displeased with her proximity or agitated by the invasion of personal space.  So far, she’d done well to respect his boundaries while also being the one to push the envelope more often than not.  It also helped that she was constantly checking on his comfort levels when she was trying something new--that annoyed him more than any new thing she tried, honestly.  Sometimes.  Sometimes it was annoying when she asked more than twice if he was comfortable with something, other times it was justified by a little knee jerk reaction he’d have or a shift he’d make that could come off as uncomfortable while he tried to make up his mind on how to react.  She was getting better and better at reading him, which was making this journey of discovery in new territory much easier for him.

When they finally reached Sedalia, they took a conscious step away from each other now that they were in public, and considering there was a chance Levi might be recognized, thanks to his rapidly prominent place amongst the Scouts.  It was less likely he would be recognized the further from Scout headquarters and the gates that the Scouts went through for expeditions that they were, but it could still happen.  Considering how well the two of them had kept...whatever this was...a secret so far, he wanted to keep that going as long as possible, and didn’t even want to chance strangers getting a glimpse of the two of them on the off chance they recognized him.  Any chance for privacy would be out the window as soon as this got out to the rumor mill.

The corner of Oak and Pine, once the two of them found it, was surrounded by enough buildings and rooftops that Levi felt somewhat pleased by the prime ODM gear environment he was able to see.  There were plenty of rooftops, quite a few chimneys or outcropping windows he could hide behind to be visually out of sight.  The particular place this young vampire had asked to meet was a well-shadowed one, though, with an alley splitting off from it that he had the suspicion would be where exactly this vampire would want to meet, since it was narrow, tight quarters, and out of sight--even more so once dark fell, he would wager.  It would be difficult for Levi to see what was going on at a safe distance if that was where the vampire wanted to meet, though…

That was just what he could see at first glance and as they were walking up on the corner, as well.

"Oak and Pine," Y/N murmured, tilting her head in a manner Levi was learning meant she was listening much farther than he could hear.   "Seems mostly residential.  A few empty buildings, some warehouses that will be closed come nightfall.  It doesn’t look like a heavy foot traffic area, so I don’t think we’ll have to worry as much about people wandering into our meeting."

Levi's gaze was sweeping the surroundings, a small frown on his face as he took in the tightly packed houses and narrow stone and dirt paths.  "I'm not going to be able to get close enough on the ground to see what's going on without being seen myself.  Which means being on the rooftops is my only option,” he remarked, head now tilted up towards the roof of the closest building.

“Well then, let’s see what we can see from above,” Y/N said, coming up behind him as Levi was about to make the remark that neither of them had the ODM gear on besides the straps.  However, her arms snaked around his chest in a firm grip, and all he managed to say was the start of a question before she suddenly coiled and jumped.  Wind briefly rushed against his skin as the sunlight grew stronger, Levi’s body momentarily weightless until they started to descend, and Y/N planted her feet on one of the rooftops above them with hardly a sound.  She let him go as soon as she was steady, one hand left on his arm to make sure he was all right with the sudden shift in position with an ability he should have assumed she had, but hadn’t occurred to him quite yet.

He was about to make a comment about the astounding jump height and the ease she seemed to do that with, but decided to leave it be and simply make note of that for the future, turning away to start observing the streets below.  He wanted to observe how many of the streets were blocked from view of the rooftops, and what was the best place to get a view of the corner, and the alleyway he’d already pegged as the likely meeting point.

As he moved, he shared his thought process with Y/N, hoping if she knew what he was doing, her vampire eyes might be able to point out something he missed.  “See if you can see any ambush points from up here that I should keep an eye on.  I’m looking for a spot that I can see the corner from, and where I can see that one alley off to the side.  It was dark and well hidden from the surrounding area, so I was thinking if there was anywhere he would hide or want to move the meeting, it would be there,” Levi instructed.

He’d worry about a place where he could be hidden after he found a spot with his desirable visibility.

“I don’t know how much the higher vantage point will help with overall visibility.  A lot of these streets are close together or have the buildings looming over them.  You’d have to keep moving to make sure you see everywhere around, and if you do that you’ll be noticed for sure,” she commented, though she was peering in the direction of Oak and Pine, looking for any spots like he’d asked her to.

“I just need to be able to see what’s going on there and as many streets as possible, and if you have any threats coming from above.  I’ll have to leave the streets I can’t see up to you,” Levi remarked, Leaning off to the side to see if he could get an angle on this roof that allowed him to see the alley.

“You’re not going to like this, but I think I need to move you further back.  I think if the wind shifts wrong at any point, a vampire could still pick up on a scent from here,” Y/N suddenly remarked, turning back to him with a frown and starting to move towards him.  Realizing she was about to try picking him up again, Levi held up a hand to stop her.

“I can walk just fine on my own along these roofs," he said with a disapproving frown.  He was right, though.  These houses were close enough together he might only need an assist if he was crossing to the other side of a main street, which there wasn't one nearby--just back alley sized streets and alleys so thin they hardly graduated past the classification of gaps between buildings.

She shrugged, turning to look back in the other direction.  "Thought I'd offer, since it's faster."

"If you want faster, you scope the ground for ambush points while I look for a good vantage point," Levi suggested, turning away as well as he headed for a spot he'd noticed a few roofs away that would have cover, hopefully visibility, some distance…

Basically, it seemed to be the kind of space Levi was looking for.

"I'll be back when I'm done scouting the ground area, then.  You keep looking for your tactical point," she told him, and then nimbly dropped down from the roof and to the ground below as if she'd simply stepped off a steady boat into the center of a lake.

Trusting her keen eyes would spot any possible traps, especially since she'd lived in the Underground as well and knew all the different creative ways a person could hide themselves, he didn't worry about her separating from him for now.  Besides, it was daylight--part of the reason they did this was so that they wouldn't have to worry about any vampires that didn't have a way to walk in the sun like she did--such as the very vampire they were going to meet tonight.

On his own now, Levi started moving about on the rooftops, looking for the best vantage point he could find, and trying to find the best line of sight he could have even if he had to push further back because of his scent.

Not something he had to keep in mind in the past, but he understood perfectly why it needed to be a factor now.  That was something only Y/N could inform him on, and would probably be the last thing they did before Levi returned to the ground.

It took a while to find the perfect point, especially since he didn't have ODM to zip around and he was taking his time and trying to find a spot that it would be okay if he had to back up some to avoid getting detected, but he managed to find a spot just behind a window jutting out from a roof where he could peek over the top of the slanted roof cover or around the edge in front of the glass pane and see the street corner and a little ways into the alley he suspected.  It wasn't full visibility, but it was better than nothing, and based on his circling around the area on the roofs, the best spot he was going to get. Maybe he should try to nab a spyglass? Especially since night would make it darker and harder to see...but Y/N was smart enough to make a weapon glint or draw him out if something happened.

Or at least he would be telling her to give him that kind of signal if something went wrong.

Levi took up his discovered position, crouching down on one knee like he would if he was currently acting as Y/N’s watchful backup.  Fingertips pressed lightly against the shingles of the roof in front of him, leaning forward first around the outward jutting window in front of the window pane.  His sharp eyes studied the winding passageways, any movements down to the twitching tail of a sitting cat.  The shadows of the alley were harder to peer into, but this was still the spot with the best view, so he would have to simply try his hardest to peer into the alley from this point, and hope he wouldn’t have to move so far back that he couldn’t see into the alley anymore.

There was a rush of wind behind him that made his skin prickle and his head turn sharply to try and take in the arrival before he was ambushed, his survival instincts kicking in before he reassured himself that it was Y/N enough he didn’t draw any fatal weapons.

Just because they’d chosen to move in the daytime because vampires couldn’t walk in the sunlight, didn’t mean that they should be ignorant enough to believe that meant there weren’t other vampires out there that could walk in the sun that might seek out or stumble upon them.  And, he was always on alert--he couldn’t help it, it was instinct for him, instinct that had kept him alive for years.

“Levi?” Y/N’s voice thankfully called out before he could finish turning all the way around, allowing him to relax before he pulled any weapons all the way out of their hiding places.  It was a few more beats before her hand touched his shoulder, giving him the time to relax before trying to touch him since he’d clearly been on alert.

His gaze barely raised up to meet her before she continued talking, getting right to the task at hand and continuing to skip past idle bullshit for now so they could get back sooner rather than later.  There were other things each of them needed to do back at Headquarters.

“I scoped the area--there’s a few spots, some too large gaps in walls, hidey holes covered up by boxes or backdoor trash bins, what might have once been an alley that got blocked up when another house was built--it’s a twisty turny area, lots of places to tuck into.  But there’s also sound and smell for me to work with.  And most of the hiding spots are far enough back I think there should be just enough of a heads up to react.  There’s no ambush points at the corner itself, it's all spots tucked a little ways back into the alleyways.  So as long as you’re keeping an eye from up here…”  She moved behind him to see the same range of view he had, crouching down slightly at the same time to have a similar eye level.  “We’ll have it rather covered between the two of us.  Well...I could still catch whiffs of you down there.  If you can find a spot a little further back--”

“I already figured as much,” Levi said, cutting her off before she could finish the thought.  “I’ll move, see what I can see.  Go stand at the intersection, wave me back if I’m too close, hold up a hand when I’m far enough,” he said with a sigh, stretching as he got up and already starting to move back.

That was the rest of their time at the intersection, both of them tweaking his lookout position little at a time, further back and a little over to this side or that to try and keep the intersection and alleyway in view.  It took a little while, and Levi ended up having to compromise a bit of his visibility for safety, but they found a spot for Levi to keep a lookout, Y/N was aware of the close ambush points, they had their time and location…

Now all that was left was the meeting, and making sure they were prepared if something went south.

*Alternating POV*

When dusk was approaching, Y/N returned to Levi’s office to meet with him and make sure they were both ready before heading to the meeting.  He was finishing a last few reports, but as soon as Y/N entered, he looked up, gave a slight nod, and sat aside his ink pen, getting to his feet.

“I can wait--” she started to say, but he shook his head.

“We need to get going if we want a chance to set up before he can go outside,” Levi said clearly, pulling his jacket off the back of his chair and pulling it on before heading over to where he had his ODM gear out and ready to be put on, strapping it all into place by the window.

“Here, may I?” Y/N asked, coming up behind him with fingers sliding over some of his to start strapping one of the blade and gas holsters to his thigh so his other hand was free to put the other one on.

He paused for a second, hand stuttering backwards for a second like he was pulling away but also wanting to keep control of getting the gear on.  You could feel him looking at you with how close you two were for a few seconds, his breaths quieter as if he was holding it and only barely remembering to breathe every now and then as you stepped close to put the gear on.  He was still a few seconds, before it seemed something reminded him this was supposed to be a joint effort, and he went back to putting on the gear as well.

Once the two of them had the gear on, Y/N put her hand on Levi’s chest, calling his attention back to her long enough she could lean in for a lingering kiss, hand sliding slightly across his chest in the process.  As she pulled back, her hand brushed gently across his shoulder, and she gave a slight nod.

“We should probably get going,” she murmured softly, stepping back.  “Do you have anything?  Any stakes just in case?”

“A few.  You?” Levi returned, fingers twitching on the hand that had a slim wooden knife whittled to a sharp, dangerous edge from one of their training sessions strapped flat to his inner arm within reach of his fingertips to jimmy free in a tight spot.  It was one of a few well-placed wooden weapons on his person.

“A couple,” she admitted, unfolding the cloak draped over her arm and starting to arrange it over her shoulders for the trip.  Levi was grabbing one of his Scout cloaks, that way if Garrison soldiers saw them snooping around Levi could pull the official business card.

He doubted they would be caught with her vampire abilities and his own experience with this kind of thing, but he was being the cautious one tonight, and he was making sure to take as many things into account as he could think of.

Levi took the lead, passing her in a few strides and walking with a purpose out of Headquarters towards the stables.  “We’ll take the horses into town, hitch them a few streets away, and make the rest of our way there on the rooftops.  It’s the least expected--since he knows you're a Scout, he might have thought of it, but it’s still less expected than coming by the street.”

“Try to stay downwind if you can help it.  I know we picked a spot earlier, but the wind could carry your scent if it’s strong enough, and we want to avoid that more than most other outcomes,” Y/N added, heading over to where Zephyr was kept and ushering the mare out of her stall so she could get the required tack on quickly and they could get on the road.  Levi was going through a similar process with his horse as they talked, both of them leading their horses out of the stables before mounting.  “I know you don’t want to hear this, especially since you’re coming as backup, but if you’re not in a state to spar with me, then you should stay as far back as possible if a fight breaks out.  Normally I wouldn’t shorthand your abilities, but it’s more likely you’ll just get yourself killed than help if you get up close.”

Levi didn’t say anything, mostly because he knew she had a point, and she wouldn’t budge on this issue, but also because he wasn’t going to follow the suggestion in a dire situation.  If he could do something, he was going to do it.

They didn’t really talk during the ride there.  There wasn’t much to talk about, since they weren’t entirely sure of this vampire’s intentions for the meeting or what was going to come of it, and they already knew their positions, where they were going, and what was around it.  For the most part, they traveled in silence, occasionally looking at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking, and thinking over the possible what ifs for how this meeting could play out.  The horses were a little skittish with the nerves in the air, but nothing unmanageable or problematic.  Not yet, anyway.

When they arrived, like Levi suggested, they hitched the horses a few streets away, and went opposite ways.  Levi navigated up onto the rooftops to get into his lookout position, and Y/N went on foot towards the meeting point, though she was also equipped with her ODM gear under her cloak, just in case.

Y/N took her time coming up on the corner to give Levi time to get into position, appearing at the intersection well after Levi had taken the time to settle in at his predetermined lookout point, cloak pushed back enough he could have access to his blades without anything hindering them.  After he was settled and let out a slightly heavier breath to release some excess tension, Y/N appeared within view approaching the intersection, Levi’s gaze tracking her while also flickering around the area surrounding her to keep an eye out for movement, occupants, and threats.  He couldn’t see from a distance as well as she could, but he was assuming she was keeping a similar roaming gaze on her surroundings and staying on edge, making sure she was prepared for a sudden entrance.

At least, he hoped that was what she was doing.  He was still her second set of eyes.

For the first few minutes, as Y/N walked towards the center of the intersection and picked a spot to wait with a wall at her back and visibility of most of the intersection and visible paths, it was quiet with no movement.  Both of them were simply sitting and waiting with bated breath, keeping an eye out for anyone and everyone since neither of them had seen this young man yet.  Levi had seen him without paying attention to him at night from a distance once, but that was not enough to positively identify him again from a distance.  Make him suspicious, yes, but not positively identify him.  And Y/N hadn’t seen the young man at all, only heard his voice while talking to him.

It turned out that they didn’t need to worry about not knowing what he looked like being an issue, because when he did show up, there was no way to mistake that it was him.

Levi saw the movement first, but Y/N must have heard it because she was much closer than Levi, and must have been keeping her ears open for any kind of noise.  Either way, she turned to face the very alley Levi had pegged earlier, posture so defensive Levi could tell she was on guard from where he was sitting.  Of course, once the young vampire came into the light enough Levi could get a better look at him, it became obvious why she was on edge.

Blood.  The young man’s shirt was stained with blood, and a lot of it.

Levi straightened and rose to a crouch instead of kneeling on one leg, a hand pressed against the stonewall of the window outcropping he was hiding behind, coiling as he started to prepare for trouble.  However, the young man wasn’t charging at her.  Instead, he was almost staggering towards her, his movements halting and hesitant, hands down at his side.  He didn’t seem to be attacking, just approaching at the moment, though it was definitely in an alarming state.  She hadn’t moved yet, either, so the best he could do was stay ready to react if things happened...suddenly, which was the only way he could see this going, good or bad.

Levi didn't advance yet, there was no reason to.  Instead, he waited, watching Y/N's body language the best he could from this distance and trusting her judgement on this to lead any actions he took.

While Levi observed what he could from a distance, you got the unbridled full view.  Where you were standing, you could smell the lingering scent of so much human blood shed at once sticking to him, not just the evidence dried on the clothes.  Not just in his clothes--there was some dried into his dirty blond hair, making the almost brown color black in several places.  Some spots on his face among the freckles spanning from ear to ear was apparently blood, not freckles, making you believe it might actually be a dusting that looked thicker because of the blood.  His hooded eyes looked like they were emerald or a forest green normally, but right now they were wide with fear and darker with glimmers of red in them.  His ears stuck out slightly, but that might have been because his hair was getting long and unruly and was currently hastily tucked behind his ears.  His thick eyebrows were also matted with blood, but not as much as his hair and face--they simply suffered from the same dried spatter hiding in his freckles.

He was young, like Levi said, like he'd sounded that first day.  Young enough it looked like some of his softer edges from youth had still been giving way to stronger, defined features when he'd been turned, trapping him in one hell of a youthful but not a child kind of balance.  A strong jaw and chin, but it was smoother, rounder up near the ear, like someone hadn't finished drawing the sharpened edge over the general sketch. Definitely a teenager, and the safest bet you could make was seventeen, though he could easily be younger, could easily be older.  The point he was turned made it difficult to tell.

He had a thin upper lip, but the way his lips were currently parted and trembling made it harder to tell.  He was approaching in an almost stagger, hesitant, scared of you but clearly more scared of whatever the hell happened that drove him to you. Whatever it was, clearly people had died.

"Y-you're her, right? You're the soldier from The Fall?" He asked, taking another step towards you.  You stepped back on instinct, taking in the blood all over his threadbare clothes that made you tense and wary, this entire meeting plummeting into an even more dangerously unpredictable unknown.

"What did you do?" You asked in a voice you tried to make soft, but there was a firm edge to it that you couldn't help considering his answer affected how dangerous it was for you to help him.

He winced, pulled back, and stared at his hands which were surprisingly clean and unblemished.  Then again, it had been a day.  He'd had time to scrub his hands raw until they were free of blood.

"I-I...I didn't mean to, I…"

His voice was shaking, and it cracked near the end, tears glinting in his eyes with what little light the two of you had to look at each other in.

"He wanted help.  He ran into me, where I was hiding, and he...he was bleeding and I…I couldn't stop myself," he finished in a horrified whisper.  You could feel the sympathy for that loss of control that would horrify you, that shame at the realization you took a life, the terror at the lack of control with such deadly consequences.

"I hadn't eaten in a couple weeks, and…when the Garrison chasing him came through and saw me… they attacked and I...I don't know. It-it's all a red blur, but there was so much blood and when I came to I panicked and ran as far as I could, and…"

Your heart dropped and you cursed inwardly at the mention he killed Garrison Troops.  That was never the kind of attention you wanted to get, because the military would be looking for you under every rock, and it drew hunters in like flies on shit.  This was bad.  This was dangerous.  What if some hunter already had a trail on him? He was just turned, he didn't know how to cover his tracks. And what would Erwin and Levi say to you trying to assist someone who'd killed Garrison soldiers?  It wasn't the Scouts, but it gave the impression he was a definite threat to any soldier that crossed his path.

The kid looked at you with tortured eyes and shaking hands.  "I need help.  Please.  I don't know what else to do."

That pulled hard on your heartstrings.  Dangerous or not...he was just a kid, one that didn't understand what was happening to him and had nowhere else to turn to for help. Not even you had the luxury of knowing a kinder vampire to turn to for help when you'd been at this hellish point of your new life.  He was asking you to help him out of that hell before he slipped further in and did more terrible things.  Were you really going to turn him away?

“How old are you?” you asked him softly, chin lifting slightly as you appraised him closely, studying his features again.

“Sev--seventeen,” he said in a stuttering voice.

“And how long since you were attacked?”

“How did you--?”

“Based on the fact you don’t know much, it’s not that hard to guess.  How long?” you pressed again, taking care to make sure your voice remained soft so you didn’t come off as aggressive or threatening.  He needed a soft touch, like with a wounded animal, right now.

“A year, I think, I don’t know, I haven’t really been keeping track.”

Sixteen, then.  He was young, forever sixteen.  Some might say it was a dream, others a nightmare.  Either way, he was never going to get a day older.  Clearly he wasn’t aware of that, yet.  It was probably best to save that for another time, he was dealing with a lot right now.  Basics for now, and then moving on to the next step by step.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s...It’s Em--Emery.”

“Emery…” you said slowly, taking a moment to reinforce the name with the appearance, studying his gaze before you held out a hand.  “Y/N.  It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emery.  I wish it was under better circumstances.”

Emery took a moment, seemingly surprised at the sudden show of basic courtesy after all this caution and mistrust.  Staring at the outstretched hand, he took a step forward with hesitance, stopped, and then came a step closer before reaching out to take your hand in a surprisingly delicate grip.  You gave his hand a slightly more reassuring squeeze, then pulled away to let a hand carefully touch one of the bloodstains on his clothes.

“You need new clothes, and time to get clean.  You can’t be walking around looking like that, even at night,” you said, starting to turn away to lead him elsewhere.

“Wait, so...so you’re going to help me?” he called after in a voice that plainly gave away his fear that this was a trick or that he’d somehow misunderstood.

You turned just enough to look at him over your shoulder.  “We’ll talk about it, and I’ll see what I can do.  But first, you need to get cleaned up.”

And I need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with a vampire that can’t walk in the sun, you thought to yourself, eyes flickering up in the direction Levi was hidden, no doubt wondering what the hell was going on and wanting an update.

His two cents on the situation was going to be interesting to hear as well...though right now, it was going to be safer for him to stay away from Emery until Emery learned a bit of restraint.  From the sounds of it...it sounded like Emery might have some ripper tendencies, uncontrollable bloodthirst.  Maybe.  If you caught it now, you might still have time to curb it, but in the meantime, you didn’t like the thought of Levi being within a hundred yards of Emery.

You would help him, and Levi would no doubt want to make sure you didn’t pay for the risky act of kindness, but you weren’t going to let these two anywhere near each other if you could help it.  Not until Emery had enough control he wouldn’t lunge for Levi when Levi got too close and the scent of his blood got too strong for Emery.  You were still older, faster, stronger--as long as you acted fast enough you could restrain Emery if the two ever got too close and Emery lost control, but, it was best to simply avoid that kind of situation.

Here you were, already coming up with plans for the inevitable moment of Levi and Emery meeting...well, even if Emery didn’t know it yet, and you were still figuring out the logistics, it seemed you were committed to taking this teenager under your wing and helping him.

There was just a little too much of yourself you could see in his eyes that wouldn’t let you turn your back on him.  You had to try.

Next Chapter---->

(Strikethroughs couldn’t be tagged)

Everything Tags:  @antistellxr @mochicheeks-world

Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn @babydabi @whalerus @sunny-flo @thirstyforsometea @hauntedhousecat @peaches-and-clouds @chaoticyuna@wubbawubwub04 @lollobos @pasteldays @itsmeaudrieee @macaronnv​ @tokyo-banana​ @apuci-kis-szornye​ @morgana-olson​ @yellowminb​ @ashikothedog​ @spnwinchestersd​

*Reader’s POV*

The reports that were coming in were shoddy at best, dubious or hard to swallow, earth shattering at the worst.  There wasn’t time for full briefings or finicky details, all you had time to be told before being given an assignment to aid in the response was that a giant Titan had appeared and broken through the wall in Shiganshina, allowing Titans to flood into the pocket city, and then another Abnormal of some kind had broken through Maria itself, with Titans now flooding the third and largest wall.  Warnings were being sent to cities to evacuate, trying to get to towns along the way if they could.  Groups were being sent to try and stem the flow of Titans to at least give the citizens of Maria time to escape.  Garrison soldiers were already being sent to reinforce the escorts for the boats coming from Shiganshina to make sure no Titans swarmed them as they moved upriver towards Wall Rose.

Levi Squad was meant to go to the front lines to try and stem the tides and give the refugees time to escape.  Of course, considering the importance of both you and Levi to the Scouts, and just how vital the advantage the two of you provided was, especially now with this tragedy unfolding around you, you also had strict orders to retreat when nothing more could be done, or you risked losing one of you if you continued.

If, by the time you reached the point the Titans had managed to reach, wherever that may be, Titans had already overwhelmed the area and there was nothing you could do to hold back the tide, then you were to switch objectives and help run the warning through Wall Maria and make sure the towns were evacuating, that the messengers were actually making it to their goals and hadn’t been swallowed up by Titans.

Considering it took roughly a day, in theory, to travel the entirety of Maria on horseback, and that was in a hard run without stopping which was impossible, you all knew by the time you reached the scene, it would be painfully far away from the gate city the Titans had initially broken through.  At best, you would reach an area and take part in a bit of damage control for half an hour, an hour, trying to give the residents of some poor town time to flee.  More likely, you all expected to be given the directive to switch tasks and start acting as messengers to make sure as much of Maria evacuated as possible before Titans swarmed the land entirely.

You, personally, expected that switch in missions to happen around the halfway point to the gate city, sooner, maybe, considering the Titans had a head start and longer gait then the horses.  And it would help you be better prepared, sooner, to think that way.

Currently, you were all in the process of racing towards the center of danger, a grim silence hanging between all of you as you rode as hard and fast as you could, gas and blades still full and unused as--at the moment--you hadn’t run into trouble.  However, you were all on edge, because there was no telling if a Titan had slipped past the Garrison soldiers if they’d managed to keep the Titans contained, or what directions any strays might have gone in, how fast they were moving, and how far they managed to get.

“There’s really no way to seal the gate?” you asked quietly, keeping your gaze fixed forward despite the abruptness of your question causing a slight stir in the group that had been utterly silent up until now.

“No.  They destroyed the seal and everything, and no one was prepared for something like this.  I don’t know if we’ll have a plan to fix it, either,” Eld said grimly near the middle of the group.

“No one knows how the walls were made, so it's not like we have materials on hand to seal it back up so Titans can’t get through again,” Gunther added.

“And I doubt Titans are going to just sit back and give us the time we’d need to seal it, anyway,” Oluo grimly chimed in.

“We’ll worry about that part another time,” Levi cut in sharply, bringing an abrupt end to the darker-toned discussion you’d just initiated in the group.  “Right now our focus is the evacuation, so stay focused on that.”

“Yes, Sir!” came the sharp chorus from the group, and an uncomfortable silence stretched over them all once again.

It was torture riding out there at full speed in silence.  Yes, your hearing would give you a heads up, but so far, you had nothing dependable to go off, no Titan fight sounds at the moment, just the thundering of the horse hooves in your ears and the utter lack of conversation to fill the grim air between everyone coping with the news on different levels.

You, personally, hadn’t wrapped your head around the concept, yet, and were just trying to stay focused on the task at hand, because that was something you could accept and do right now.  Processing the reality of what was happening could come afterwards, like Levi said.  Right now you all needed to focus on the task at hand and on getting out of this alive.

Your gaze drifted towards the back of Levi’s head.  You in particular had a damn good reason to make sure you made it through this tragedy in one piece, despite being ordered to the front lines.  The suddenness of what happened had not completely erased the minutes before the tragedy, the discussion you and Levi had been having, the necklace you’d given him now tucked well out of sight underneath the collar of his uniform like you kept your daylight necklace.

And he’d been about to tell you something, something about what he wanted, before everything happened.  Something that he’d been struggling to get out amid stumbles with his words and an awkward apology for acting strangely towards you recently.

Something important, clearly, but not something that the fall of a wall could wait for.

Something you wanted to hear when you got back, if it wasn’t wildly inappropriate depending on the manner of your return to Wall Rose.

A familiar sound reached your ears, and you straightened in your seat, gaze scanning the horizon for trouble, or any kind of visible sign of what you were heading for.  Already?  They were already this far out?  Sure, the message had to get to Wall Rose, Scouts had to get ready to leave, and you’d been riding for hours, but this was still sooner than you’d expected to be running into Titans.

“Captain--up ahead,” you called to Levi, who inclined his head before getting his weapons ready for a sudden clash.  Up ahead, you could hear Titans roaring and snarling at a still considerable distance, enough that the others couldn’t hear them yet, as well as the sound of ODM gear and people shouting.

It seemed you’d found the front lines.

Eventually, the group came close enough that the others could hear the distant sound of a conflict as well, but you could now hear it in clarity.  You could hear panicked orders being shouted, civilians screaming and trying to flee, the rumble of Titan footsteps, you could hear the distinct hiss of cables fired and whir of gear being pulled in different directions, even the occasional thump of a falling body.

Expecting to come across a bloodbath, you clenched your teeth in grim determination, readied yourself to have to deal with an overpowering scent of blood, and tensed, ready to stand up in the saddle at the first hint of proximal danger so you could leap right into action.

A few more minutes, and into view came a town, steam billowing high into the air from several different locations, civilians fleeing as fast as they could in a general direction towards Wall Rose, others having no choice but to flee in other directions because of Titan threats and conflict cutting off their route to the wall.  Titans of various sizes could be seen moving amongst the houses, and you were certain there were more smaller sized Titans or Titans that had just lowered themselves below the house line that your group couldn’t see.  In the distance, you could faintly hear more Titan activity.

This was the front line?  Already?  They were this far inside the walls already?

Shit!

The horses continued to carry you all towards the chaos as Levi barked out quick orders.  “Support the Garrison soldiers--make sure the civilians get out.  And don’t get killed!”

Once you were close enough the ODM gear could reach a building, you jumped off your horse and fired your cables, eyes set on a Titan that was following a small stream of civilians sprinting for the edge of town with screams ringing in your ears.  You weren’t rushing in blindly, smart enough to know to let your senses do a quick sweep of the area to make sure there weren’t any other threats as you let the ODM gear bring you rapidly closer.  Predictably, the Titan looked up at you as you neared, jaws open wide as it reached a slender arm up into the air towards you.  You disengaged the cables so they wouldn’t get grabbed, twisted your body through its fingers, planted your feet on its wrist, and then raced up its arm, which was only possible because in that split second its arm was horizontal with the ground and you had your vampire speed to cross the distance before your ‘terrain’ grew too steep to cover.

You launched yourself off the back of their shoulder, turning as you jumped into the air so you were facing the back of its head, firing a cable and releasing the gas so you shot towards the Titan’s nape, slicing through it with a low snarl and landing on your knees on the roof of a nearby house as it fell behind you.  You took a moment to let the pain in your knees go away as your body healed itself, gaze sweeping the smoke and fire filled scene to pick out your next target, watching Levi intervene several roofs away to take out three Titans in quick succession before they could grab two Garrison soldiers apparently stuck on the ground but trying to help citizens evacuate, still.

Sometimes, with your vampire abilities putting you so easily above everyone else, you forgot just how damn deadly and good at this Levi was.  You didn’t see it much in your day to day, or when you as the vampire point of the formation, took out the Titans before the rest reached them, but in moments like this, with Titans all around and chaos reigning, as grim as it was, he really shone.

Humanity’s Strongest, indeed.

A small Titan appeared around the corner, its fuzzy hair barely clearing the rooftops as it tried to snatch a civilian coming out of their house at the wrong moment, and you dropped your brief musing to take off again and continue aiding the evacuation as much as you could, well aware that the other part of the city was already rampant with Titans and a deathtrap for the soldiers, so it had been abandoned...and many of the Titans were coming from that direction.

You were steaming yourself by the time you stopped for a second to catch your breath, gaze cast down to make sure a family made it safely out of the maze of buildings as you wiped at some of the Titan blood on your cheek, taking care to breathe through your mouth to lessen the temptation from the blood in the air.  It was polluted thanks to the Titan blood in the air as well, but despite the efforts of the soldiers here on the ground, it was still enough to be disturbing and highly uncomfortable.

Not too far away, but far enough away you shouldn’t have heard if your hearing had been human, you heard a discussion between Levi and another soldier that had your head snapping over in their direction, ignoring the fact more Titans were on the edge of a city that was, for the most part, evacuated by now.

“Captain Levi!  A horde of Titans broke off in the fighting and headed for the river, where the refugee boats are--we were swarmed before we could intercept them!”

“How long ago?” Levi asked in tense urgency.

“Too long.”

“Shit.”

At that, you whistled for your horse, already knowing where this was going--or rather, where you were going.

As you waited for Zephyr to appear close enough for you to drop down and mount her, the conversation sort of continued, though this time it was directed to the other.

“Eld!  Tell the others to switch to the second objective--they’re too spread out by now, and we need to focus on evacuations.  Be smart, head west, pull back when you have to.  Y/N and I are headed east.”

“Captain--” Eld started to say in a displeased voice, but then Levi looked at him or something, you weren’t there, so you couldn’t see, but whatever it was, it made Eld shut up pretty quickly.  “Yes, sir.”

By then, Zephyr had appeared, and you used your cables to maneuver your way down and onto the saddle of the still moving horse, taking up the reins and maneuvering her through the maze of houses in the direction you’d heard Levi, ready to turn around as soon as you saw him and head back east.

You wanted to make sure he didn’t get ambushed by a Titan he couldn’t see while you were waiting on the outskirts of the town for him, which was why you were heading towards him instead of waiting.  Plus, the last thing you were comfortable with doing in a town that was being infested with Titans was staying in one spot, in or out of town.

Levi and his black stallion appeared as you rounded a corner, and you quickly turned Zephyr back around, already guiding her in the direction you were supposed to be going, but pulling back just enough that Levi could close more of the distance between you before you urged her into a full sprint, heading out of the city at breakneck speed and guiding Levi through the safe and uninfested part of the city before you broke out into open country field.  Levi was keeping up with you on his horse, though he was still several paces behind, and no explanation was given as at this point, given your direction and urgency, it was clear you’d heard what was happening and what to do.  The two of you rode hard in morbid silence, both of you hoping that you could make it to the river in time so that, at the very least, you could minimize casualties.  Those boats moved fast enough you thought they might have a chance, but they were still slow enough a Titan could catch them--they were slower than these horses, at least.  Hopefully the horde wouldn’t be so many that the Garrison escort wouldn’t be able to hold them off, but given what you’d witnessed back in the town, as much as you gave them credit for trying...you weren’t too optimistic.  They weren’t the Titan killing regiment that the Scouts had turned into, they didn’t have the experience and skill the Scouts had.  Which made the fact that no Scouts had even been in Wall Maria more misfortune for the people.  It took the Scouts hours to reach where the Titans were.

If you hadn’t been with the regiment, and expeditions continued like they normally did, they would have been, at the very least, in Shiganshina itself, or maybe not far from the gate town within Maria.  At worst, they would have still been outside the walls,  But maybe they would have been close enough to lend support much faster.

If it had been after the expedition, though, they wouldn’t have been in any state to fight--most of them wouldn’t have, anyway.  And they wouldn’t have had you to help them.

Shit.  This whole mess was bad no matter how you looked at it.  There wasn’t much you could wish for to make the situation worse, even--not realistically, anyway.  And Levi would just tell you to get your head out of your ass and stop thinking about shit that wasn’t relevant, that was already past and couldn’t be changed, and focus on what the two of you were doing right now.

Right.  At the moment, you were going to be locked into a perpetual cycle of observe, react, control, retreat, relocate, repeat.  You couldn’t keep getting distracted from that, you needed to focus.

An overwhelming amount of screams up ahead reached your ears as the sound of a rushing river came close enough to reach you.  However, Zephyr was panting beneath you, and pushing her any further at this pace, or trying to force her to go faster, was cruel, and might hurt her.  So, hearing Levi curse you from a few paces behind, you swung around on the saddle and jumped off, tucking and rolling, vampirism your saving grace as you took the brunt of the fall rather well, injuries healing quickly thanks to the healthy dose of Levi’s blood still running through your system, and your speed allowing you to pop back onto your feet and almost instantly overtake Zephyr while injuries were still healing, a broken arm you’d fallen on held in place by the unhurt one while it healed, arm finally stitching itself back together as the river finally came into view.

The screams were largely coming from the people on the boats as Titans waded through the rivers as if it was more simple grassy terrain, arms reaching for the wood and wires, a sad remainder of Garrison troops trying to hold them at bay as people on the boats scrambled and cowered.  There were bodies of soldiers sprinkling the ground for a good stretch before the river, horses without riders trying to escape the carnage, and up ahead of you was a soldier held tight in the grasp of a ten meter titan standing in the water by a boat, squeezing him and raising the soldier to it’s open mouth as the people on the boat watched and screamed.

You were fairly certain there was blood on that boat, too, so this hadn’t been the first time a soldier had been eaten in front of the boats trying to protect them.

You kicked off the ground, Cables attaching to the boat beside it as you put on a burst of speed with the gas, shooting forward with blades drawn, body curving in a way you’d seen Levi do many, many times by now.

With the unnatural strength in your blows and the durability of the ultrasteel, you cut through the Titan’s arms with ease--both of them, halfway between elbow and wrist, the soldier dropping with another, different kind of terrified scream as he fell still clutched in the Titan hand into the water.  Your feet planted on the side of the boat’s cabin roof, body coiling as you ignored the civilians on board, kicking off with cables already finding purchase in the screaming Titan’s flesh as you vaulted towards it, cutting through it’s nape as you sailed right into it, riding it down for a split second as you sheathed your blades, tossed the gear to the grassy ground when it was close enough not to break it with the impact, and jumped off the back of the Titan into the water after the soldier that had plummeted underwater in its severed hand and had not yet reappeared. 

Below the surface, you had to quickly maneuver under the falling Titan that was dissolving even under the water, causing the temperature to heat rapidly.  Much longer and it would be unbearable even for you, so you had to act fast.

Also because this Titan was probably going to crush the soldier in the hand if it didn’t dissolve faster than it fell in the water.  And right now the soldier was at risk of drowning.

Grabbing onto the soldier, you pushed yourself forward into the darkness, spotting the wild thrashings of a man who was almost out of air not too far away.  You swam towards him as quickly as you could manage, lungs starting to burn uncomfortably as you reached him in the stiff hand, peeling the fingers back with your vampire strength as his thrashing grew more death-throes frantic, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and then rapidly kicking once he was free of the hand, hardly clearing the Titan, pulled back by the suction of the dissolving body landing on the river floor.  Soldier still in hand, you kicked towards the surface furiously, though it still took a few seconds before you broke the surface with your stilling baggage.  You gasped in air as he coughed up water, dragging him with you to the shore as you kicked and tried to keep yourself afloat and moving with one arm, pulling him successfully onto the shore.  A familiar and far too close rumble and roar had you glaring at the Titan that was waiting for you, hand reaching out as your grip tightened on the soldier, coughing and gasping for air but still tensed and about to dash inhumanly away.

Before you had to, cables sank into the Titan’s flesh, and you relaxed instinctively as a dark shape cut through the air, Levi appearing on the other side of the Titan with eyes burning at you accusingly before the flesh of the nape even fell to the ground.

You ignored the look, since you had the situation under control even if a normal person wouldn’t, pulling the soldier out of the way of the falling body before you got back to your feet and raced over to your dropped ODM gear, still running as you strapped it all back into place, controls in hand as you kicked up into the air, cables firing into the wood of another boat to launch yourself up into the air, gaze scanning the area, ignoring the faces staring at you with a mixture of fear, awe, relief, more fear, amazement, pleading--none of that mattered, you were focused on the Titans still trying to swarm the boats.

Closer to the one you’d just been at, Levi let out a yell, burning through four Titans with terrifying speed for a human being, while you ended your arc in the air with a sudden plummet towards three Titans by the other boat, slicing through the nape of one Titan on your way down, sinking your cables into a second to launch yourself back up at an angle that allowed you to slide through a second Titan’s in the process before you turned midair, still with enough momentum to be going up, fired into it’s nape before it could straighten away from the boat and coming in fast and hard to kill it as well, this Titan falling so fast that the speed you were falling caused your Scout cape to rip through the air behind you, the thin part of the fabric held by a clasp at your neck almost choking you, though you ignored it, ears perking when Levi called your name in the other direction.

Back onto the cabin roof you went, the people below you exclaiming at the sudden action and still jumpy with the fact a Titan had literally just been about to eat them, before you ran and leapt, cables firing into the cabin of the second, pulling you towards the second boat.  Your feet planted into the side of the cabin, hand grabbing the edge of the roof as you flipped over to the top of the roof, ran, leapt--

Levi was dealing with a smaller Titan that had climbed onto the boat by another larger Titan who had bitten into the boat itself to get the people on it, three more either at the boat and reaching for people or almost there, refugees throwing themselves from the boat into the water in an effort to escape.

You didn’t have to ask what he wanted.

You twisted in the air as Levi made a beeline for the one with its teeth sunken into the boat’s wood, and as he cut deep into the nape of the biting one, you attached yourself to the back of the tiny one that had crawled onto the boat, one arm snaking around its throat as you pulled it back amid the chaos of the people on deck, one step, two, three, and then overboard, releasing it’s throat so you could attack with both hands, cutting it’s nape on the way down and disengaging your cables a split second before a solid arm wrapped around your middle and pulled, holding you firmly to a small but strong body and bringing you high into the air before throwing you even higher.

You caught a glimpse of Levi’s focused expression, the furrow of his eyebrows the only current hint of his concern since he was focused on where he was going and the threats on the other side.

Threats you had a perfect view of from up high thanks to his throw.  While Levi slung himself around the corner by hooking into the cabin of the boat, you dropped from above, cutting through the arm of one of the Titans that had reached the boat and had managed to get its hand on a civilian who was screaming shrilly enough it made your ears throb painfully.  You ignored it as you plummeted and cut through the arm as easily as you had with the Titan holding the soldier, hearing Levi zip by in the air, cutting through two napes above you before you launched up again, hooking around to cut through the nape of the one whose arms you had cut through.

With no immediate Titan threats, you focused on fishing for refugees that had jumped from the boat, cables sinking into the side of the boat as you used the cables to lower to the water, grab onto the arm of a refugee to pull them out of the water, cables pulling you back up to the edge of the boat and helping them back onto the deck before repeating the process again.  Levi was doing something similar, though he was fishing stray refugees that had gone a bit too far away to be within your reach, ones that were closer to the other boat or had tried to swim upstream.

He was done faster than you, since you had refugees swarming you to get a ride back up onto the boat that was still moving, all of them clamoring in the water while your sharp hearing took in a few more coming your way, making you fidgety the entire time.  Levi, however, was back on the shore, speaking in quick, sharp tones to the Garrison soldiers who were left, telling them about the Titan situation to the east, but as long as they made it past the head of the Titans moving north, they should have a straight shot to the wall.

The problem was, with how much their numbers had been depleted with that attack, they were asking Levi to stay and help defend the boats until they could pull ahead of the main mass.

But you two were supposed to be spreading the warning that the wall had fallen to the towns and cities out to the east..  Yet they really needed the assistance.  But every moment spent here was time for the Titans to reach farther and farther in, possibly to towns that didn’t receive a warning.

You finished helping the refugees back into the boat, using the cables but not the gas to conserve it as you got back to shore, whistling sharply for Zephyr again, hoping she’d continued forward at least long enough she was close enough to hear you.  While you waited, you turned to Levi.

“Captain,” you called, getting his attention, though there was a spark of some of that same intense expression he’d given you earlier.  He didn’t say anything yet, though, waiting for what you had to say.  “I think it would be wise for to stay with the boats until they reach the point they’re in the clear again.  They won’t be able to fend off another attack with these numbers.”

Levi’s eyes started to widen with what you were suggesting, before they narrowed in anger and he approached quickly to pull you aside and have a private conversation--that way vampire things could be discussed directly instead of having to muddy the clarity of what was being said by having to use roundabout language.

“Vampire or not, I’m not sending you alone into Titan infested land with no backup,” Levi hissed at you, a protest you could have predicted.

“Someone needs to stay with them long enough to make sure the boats actually make it to Rose, but someone still has to get the warning to the eastern towns.  I’m faster, I can handle myself just fine, if anyone’s going to get close to where the Titans already are, it’s me.  I can go through the southeast towns, warn as many people as I can, and head back when either I meet messengers coming from other directions, or I have to pull back.  And if I get the southeast towns, then when the boats come into the clear, you can get the northeast towns, that way we still warn everybody but the boats stay safe.  We have to split up here if we’re going to help as many people get behind Wall Rose as possible.”

“You’re not faster than everybody else when you’re on horseback,” Levi pointed out.  “And it’s still too fucking risky.  If something goes wrong I won’t be around to help you.”

“I’ll manage.  As for the speed, I can’t keep riding Zephyr like this, anyway.  I’m sure there’ll be someone who needs a horse to get to the wall.”

Levi’s expression darkened considerably.  “That doesn’t help to convince me.”

“We both know I’m the opposite of normal people--I’ll do better outrunning and evading when I’m on foot, anyway.  It’s pointless arguing with me about it because I’m going to do it anyway.  Levi, I’ll be okay, just let me do this.  The longer you stand here arguing with me, the more Titans there will be in the towns I go through.”

Levi’s jaw clenched, he stepped back and cursed, glared at you, then stepped up to you again, hand clenching into the fabric of your shirt as he pulled you closer so you were eye to eye, unable to look away from his intense gaze.

“If you run out of blades and gas, get back to the wall.  If you can’t fight them off, you’re no help to anyone.  If there’s too many Titans in the town and you don’t have the supplies to help them, get to the next town--you’ll save more people getting the warning out while the Titans are preoccupied than you will fighting a battle you can’t win while more Titans move on anyway.  If you get injured bad enough that you’re at half your capability or worse, get back to the wall, you’ll just get yourself killed.  No dumbass hero moved that will get you killed.  You’re--”

“I know, too valuable for the Scouts to lose.  The long run and all that.”

Levi hesitated, gaze flickering down to where he still had a fist curled into your shirt to pull you close, and he tsked, letting go and pushing you just barely away in the process so you weren’t standing almost nose to nose with him when he let you go.  “Right.  That’s why...at least you’re listening to shit.”

His face turned away so you couldn’t see it, he whistled to his horse, who trotted right in front of him, Levi mounting the stallion with surprising ease with how...high off the ground it was.  “When we get through this, we’re gonna talk about these fucking stunts you’re pulling.”

Zephyr finally arrived, standing dutifully just a few paces behind you, looking a bit better now that she’d had a short rest.  Levi met your gaze as he spoke, his expression stony and focused, but his eyes slightly squinted, brows a bit closer than usual, lips pulled in as if holding things back, his grip a little tight on the reins.

He was worried.  Probably a hell of a lot more than even the little things could let on. But that wasn’t going to stop you from going.  As much as you hated the thought of how he’d have to go until the end of this mess, until you were both back behind the walls, to know if you were all right, this was still your best option--in your mind.  The best option that would let you help as many people, so personal concerns had to be set aside.

As if you didn’t hate the thought of him having to break away and go through the northeast towns alone.  But--and you weren’t going to mention this to him out loud because he’d catch on--if he was going through the northeast, he wouldn’t run into as many Titans.  It wouldn’t take that long for the boats to be in the clear, and it was going to take a while before Titans reached the northeast towns, considering they were mostly following the throngs that had come for Shiganshina, throngs that were probably streamlined towards Trost.  They’d be after that mass of people, these were--frighteningly enough--stragglers coming to the eastern and western parts of Maria.  You were all still fairly ahead of the spread, so he shouldn’t run into too many Titans while acting as messenger.  But he was also one of the only people you felt could handle himself just fine if he was on his own--you both knew he could.

Vampires he was at a disadvantage, but Titans, what you were dealing with right now, that was a different story.  He’d be okay.  You were the one braving the part of the walls far more infested with Titans, the areas they were more likely to be in if they were fanning out from Shiganshina.

You were taking the higher risk because you knew your vampirism gave you a bit more security in that landscape than Levi.  It was still risky for both of you, but not as risky as it would be for regular soldiers--it would practically be suicide for them.

But you weren’t going to tell him about that logic that reinforced your belief this was the best course of action, because if you did, he would shut it down fast once he realized it was partially out of a desire to maneuver him further from risk while throwing yourself near the danger.

Though you still had no intention of dying.  There was too much you needed to get back to the wall to hear, apparently.

“It seems like we’ve got one hell of a conversation waiting for us back at Headquarters,” you said as you mounted Zephyr, taking care not to word anything in a way that might jinx your return.  “I’ll have to be sure to make that appointment, then,” you said, then urged Zephyr forward before Levi could take back his decision to relent, feeling his eyes on you as you raced passed the boats you’d just helped rescue, further and further ahead until you came to a bridge that had not yet been raised so you could cross the river and start heading east, angling Zephyr so you were also heading further south at an angle, deep into what was likely Titan infested territory.

You stopped keeping track of the injuries you were collecting on this near-suicide mission, hardly paying them any mind now as you would simply take out whatever offending object caused it--if it was still in you--and keep going, ignoring any pain to the best of your abilities and still moving while it was healing, like you’d done when you’d jumped from Zephyr.  So far, every town you went to you ended up fighting Titans to try and help civilians escape, Titan appearances painfully common while you were out here on your own.  But, like you told Levi, you were one of the best equipped to be doing this mission alone, even if normally it would be a suicide mission.

You were still on Zephyr--you hadn’t yet come across someone who needed a horse to get them north, and most of the time you were busy killing Titans while people were fleeing, so it wasn’t like you had much of an opportunity to offer her, either.  Though, as much as you loved the mare, it was starting to get aggravating, because you knew you could cover more ground without her, but you needed to make sure she would make it back to the wall at the same time.  So, currently, in a sense, you were handicapped.

And you were running out of supplies.  Yet there was still so much ground to cover.

Fuck...you had to get ahead of these Titans…

The next town you came to was again besieged by Titans, but this time, it seemed like the tail end of the attack--mostly because of how small the town seemed to be.  You charged in without hesitation, doing a sweep of the area with your senses once more as you tried to pin down the Titans in the town to exact points, and the number you were looking at.

Not too many, but you were also officially at the point where you were trying to conserve everything.  It was the tail end of the fight, so maybe you should just do a quick pass, make sure there weren’t any stragglers, that most people had escaped, and then move on.  The lesser amount of Titans might mean you were catching up to how far out they’d gotten.

A shrill scream and a whimper caught your attention, your body instinctively bringing you closer to the source.

The source was at the end of the alley, two children tucked into what amounted to a crack in the wall instead of an actual alley trying to avoid the hand of a grasping Titan that would not give up, crouched down and trying to wedge them out, fingers pinched around the younger one’s arm as the older whimpered and tried to hold on for dear life as the younger one screamed non-stop in terror.

One swift motion and you were standing on Zephyr’s back.  One more quick motion, and the cables of the ODM gear had buried themselves into the closest building giving you enough air to have a clear shot at the distracted Titan’s nape, the creature too intent on the possible meal it had a hold of to give you any mind.  You came in fast and hard, making sure the stroke of your blades were just right so you wouldn’t damage what was honestly your last set.

The younger one was still screaming, the older sobbing as you jumped gracefully off the back of the Titan and grabbed Zephyr’s reins, approaching the two in the crack at a hurried walk.

Now that you were looking, you could see it was two sisters that you’d come across, both bloody and tear stained, clothes burned or ripped, staring at you with wide eyes as you gestured for them to come out of the hole.

“Hurry, we don’t have much time,” you said urgently, regretting that you didn’t have the time to talk to them properly and calm them down.  Everything had to be quick, especially in a corner like this, with the younger one still screaming, though it was turning into hysterical sobs at a gradual rate.

The older sister picked up her younger sibling and shuffled out of the crack, looking everywhere like a mouse looking for the cat it knew was nearby.  You picked her and her sister up with ease, getting them up onto Zephyr and guiding the older sibling to wrap her arms around her younger sibling and hold onto the saddle horn as you grasped the reins and quickly guided Zephyr through alleys and streets, using your hearing to avoid wandering Titans as much as you could with the younger sibling the older was trying to console.

“Can you ride a horse?” you asked the older sibling, who hesitated before she gave a none-too-confident nod.  It was probably more of an ‘if that’s what gets us out of here alive’ reply than a definite ‘yes I can.’  You still accepted the answer.  “Good.  When we get out of town, I’m going to point you in the right direction, and you ride as hard and fast as you can that way.  Get to the wall, then follow it to the nearest gate--or flag down a soldier to help you if you can, but make sure you’re always moving to a gate.  When you get inside, tell them this is a Scout horse belonging to Levi Squad--and make sure they know I gave it to you and I’m still alive.  Okay?  If you see any Titans, just avoid them, try to outrun them.  Don’t panic, just run.  And trust the horse, she has good instincts, so make sure you listen to her.”

You spoke with rushed words, but you made sure that the girl understood everything you were saying, ducking and darting through the streets until at long last you came upon the edge of town.  There was a Titan closing in on you from behind, but the girls would have taken off by the time it reached you, so you were ignoring it for now, just keeping loose tabs on it in favor of getting the girls out.

Once you reached the edge and open space was in front of you, you angled them ahead of you, in the direction of Karanase, the eastern pocket city along Wall Rose, since there would be less Titans in that direction and less people trying to shove their way in--it was better chances.

“Hold on.  Hya!” you shouted, giving Zephyr a sudden slap on the rear and sending the horse into a full gallop in the right direction, watching a few moments longer to wish the girls luck before you turned to face the Titan that had just appeared around the house and was staring at you with a constipated look on its face.

“That’s right, ugly, I knew you were coming,” you muttered under your breath, using the cables to bring yourself back to the urban setting, no gas to propel you since you were now conserving it for emergencies only.  You landed on the side of the second story of the house, climbing up onto the roof as the Titan straightened up, leaning forward towards you, arms outstretched.

As you’d done to the other Titan, you leapt up onto its wrist, running up its arm while it couldn’t understand what was happening, jumping off it’s shoulder and twisting to fire cables down to the house below and behind it, giving you the opportunity to sip past it’s nape and slice clean through, landing on the opposite roof with a roll as it fell behind you.  You closed your eyes for a brief second, listening to the town you’d reached, which again, had been at the tail end of an attack.  It didn’t sound like there was anyone else to save, and the blood in the air definitely suggested this had been a bloodbath.

There was no one left to save here.  You’d gotten the girls out, and you were horse free.  Which meant it was time for you to book it to the next town on foot, hopefully outrunning any Titans that had already been on their way there.

Nimbly, openly using your vampire abilities since there was no one around to witness them, you jumped down from the roof and landed coiled on your feet, getting up and darting back out from the edge of town and into open fields again, racing with vampire speed towards what you hoped would be the next town, ears listening hard for any sounds that would lead you properly to a town or village that needed warning or protecting, able to cover much more ground now that you were on foot.

You had no idea what was going on with the warnings, but it hadn’t been as efficient as you might have hoped.  Some towns were empty long before you arrived, others had no idea what was going on.  Some messengers might have gotten through, but it seemed they were too terrified to double back and make sure they got all the towns, or their fellow messengers had made it through other towns.  Maybe some towns just got missed because they weren’t that well known, or their messenger had been eaten before the town could be reached.  Either way, you started seeing more of people and more of Titans after the fifth or sixth town after passing Zephyr off to someone else.  It meant you were finally ahead of the Titans, and the people finally had a chance to properly evacuate without running and screaming in blood and chaos.

However, you gave the explanation, “I lost my horse a while back and ran here on foot, you lucky bastard, now get these people out of here!” far more often than you would have liked, arguing with people who just didn’t believe that the wall had fallen, or could fall, and didn’t want to leave.  You ordered everyone out that you could, trying to forcibly get others to leave when they were one quick intimidation away from complying, and reluctantly leaving behind even the stubborn fools who still refused to leave.

You couldn’t save everyone, and for those fools, it would be their own stubborn stupidity that killed them, not you.  Though you didn’t know what part of an exhausted bloody Scout on foot with next to no supplies left yelling that the wall fell with a hard look in her eyes they didn’t get.

Whatever, there was no point dwelling on it, you’d done your part, done what you could.  If they died because they didn’t have time to leave by the time the Titans appeared, it would be their own fault.

However, as unpredictable and insane as this day was, you could not have anticipated what you stumbled across in one of the towns that had been warned.

You’d been about to run right through, noticing that the town was completely devoid of life, not so much as a whisper of a breath that you could hear.

Until, at the very edge of town, you heard movement.  Human movement, not Titan--Titan had a distinctly different sound to you.  This was the sound of someone moving around quietly in a house--something that wouldn’t be detected by human or Titan ears, just vampire hearing.  Only after you heard the initial movement could you hone in on the soft breathing, the surprisingly steady heartbeat given the situation.

There was someone still here.  Intentionally?  Maybe not.  At least you hoped not.  Who the hell wanted to be here right now, besides soldiers trying to get people out.

And even then, you didn’t particularly want to be here, you were just needed here, so this was where you were.

Coming closer at a semi-quick pace, staying quiet as well but not about to lose your lead on the Titans with other towns suffering for it, which was why you gave up part of your stealth in favor of speed.

Whoever was inside suddenly stilled, holding their breath and only letting out and taking in slight breaths when absolutely necessary, minimizing the sound they made as you got closer.

They shouldn’t have been able to hear you yet…

Suddenly cautious, glancing up at the slowly setting sun that told you there were a few more hours of daylight left before you would be moving in darkness, you slowed down, the house the noise was coming inside coming into view as you approached from the back.  Shadows were getting longer, but sunlight was still dominant, and something made you stay in the light as you crept closer.

“I know you’re in there,” you called when you were a few paces from the wall, eyes sharp on the curtains as you watched for any signs of someone peeking out of the window.  “You need to leave--the Titans aren’t that far away.  You can’t hide here.  You’ll have to move for Wall Rose--”

There was silence, and you scowled.  “I know you’re in there, no point in playing coy with me,” you said, some of your annoyance peeking through as you started slowly walking along the side of the house.

There was more silence, but before you could speak again in a more demanding tone, you finally got a reply.

“I’m not leaving, so don’t bother.”

Male.  It was a young male, too, from the sound of it, that was speaking from within, albeit reluctantly.  Your gaze flickered across all the tightly shut windows and curtains, looking for any sign of movement, but not a single opening that could let in light was even cracked open, and no light from candles glowed from the other side.  There was no scent of burning in there, either, which was further confirmation there was no light.

What the hell?

“If you stay, the Titans will find you, and it will be over.  You have to leave, now,” you repeated much firmer, starting to come up on the front of the house.

“I can’t leave.  Just get out of here.”

“Are you injured?”

“No.”

“Sick?”

“No.”

“If you can walk, you can leave.”

“I can’t!” he snapped back, sounding annoyed now--no, a bit more than annoyed, but not yet furious, at least.

You paused.  Something was off here, something that had the hairs standing up on the back of your neck, a whisper of a warning going through your gut.  So you paid closer attention to what your senses were trying to tell you, standing silently a few paces from the building, just before you could reach the front.

The sound was still barely there, heartbeat a tad bit quicker but still there, and their scent…

You paused.  Took a long, deep breath to double check.

You had no desire to drink their blood well up in you, even with how exhausted you were.  There was no natural pull towards it that there usually was when you came across a human being.  Even if it was something you noticed subconsciously when you were well fed, you certainly noticed its absence now, when you hadn’t even been looking for it with all the humans you’d been around all day.

A fully dark room, able to tell you were coming before they should have been able to, a refusal to step out of the dark house and into the sunlight…

You stilled, cocking your head to the side.  “How do you see humanity?”

“Excuse me?” came the incredulous answer a half-second later.

“I asked how you see humanity.”

“Is now the time for questions?”

“I have time for a couple before I have to leave.  Indulge me.”

“I don’t know...haven’t thought about it.  Weak and stubborn, especially today.  Fearful.”

“Someone’s a pessimist...but at least you’re not comparing them to cattle,” you mused, gaze flickering around your current surroundings, suddenly assured that whoever was inside wasn’t going to risk opening the windows to get a peek at you.  “Do you think they deserve to live?”

“...they?  Not we?”

Your lips twitched towards a smile that he’d picked up on the subtlety.  “I said what I said.  What do you think?”

“...Who the hell am I to decide that?  And why the fuck are you asking me?  Who are you?”

You hummed, your curiosity rising through the roof, but also well aware you couldn’t stay to have as meaningful of a conversation and interaction as you suddenly felt the urge to have with this mystery young man.  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to decline to answer that.  And I’m going to have to leave.  I haven’t had any good run-ins with a fellow vampire yet, and I’m not risking it today.  Not to mention, I have time-sensitive things I need to be doing right now.  You understand.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, sudden movement, and then, “Wait, wait!  You--you’re like me?”

You paused at that frantic, lost tone, something old and painful struck within you to hear it from him.  “You’re new, aren’t you?  To this, to what we are?”

“...Yes.  I-I haven’t met...How are you out there, how are you in the sun, I can’t even open the windows…”

“Now’s not the time for that.  The Titans will be here soon, and I have to warn the other towns.”

“But--”

“I can’t take you with me, it doesn’t work like that.  Listen, they’re less active at night, our time, when we usually come out.  Stay down, stay quiet, and when it’s dark, wait an hour or so, and then run as fast as you can to the walls.  Flag down a soldier to let you in, say you had no way to the wall and they were too close on foot, so you waited until dark to travel.  They might believe that.”

“Please, can you tell me your name, or something, so I can...maybe I can find you, or--”

“No.  No offense, whoever you are--and don’t tell me your name--but I’m not going to trust another vampire right out of the gates, and you shouldn’t, either.  I have yet to meet one with good intentions.  So we won’t exchange names.  I’ll tell you how to get to Wall Rose, but that’s all.”

“Please, I’m still new to this, I don’t...I don’t understand what or why, you’re the first person I’ve met that could give me answers, please…”

“You also need to be careful of vampire hunters,” you continued stalwartly, staring up at the sun.  “They’ll kill our kind without remorse, they don’t care if we deserve it or not.  We’re vampires, and that’s enough for them.”

You heard a slight sob inside, one that did, despite your best efforts, break through the armor you’d been hastily trying to construct against this sudden encounter.

Sighing, you ran a hand through your hair, looking specifically in the direction of the sound.  “Okay...okay...I’ll make you a deal.  Learn to control your thirst, or at least try to direct it away from innocent people, first.  That’s my cardinal rule--no innocent people killed.”

“I’ve been feeding off livestock...making it look like animal killings…”

You clicked your tongue.  “That won’t do.  I know you don’t want to hear it, but that will make your tolerance, your control, shit.  And with Maria falling, people are going to need all the livestock they can get.  Can’t keep picking them off.”

“I don’t want to kill people.”

You softened at the whisper you don’t think you were meant to hear, staring at a rock near the building next door.  “When you get inside Rose, wait until a day where it's rainy and cloudy so you can travel in the daytime.  Go to the elder’s home in Freising, and give them a letter with a time, date, and place to meet at night, and tell them it’s for the Fraiser’s former mystery donor.  We’ll talk more, then.  But I really have to go, now.”

“Wait!”

You didn’t wait--you couldn’t afford to.  You were already doubting your decision--what if he’d been playing you?  Hence why you gave him a roundabout way of contacting you instead of a name and place, that way you could scope it out and come prepared when the time came.  But if he really was a lost, freshly turned young man…

You couldn’t stand to knowingly leave someone behind to suffer the same as you had, and possibly go down a much darker path.  But you also couldn’t stick around and chat.  You had to outpace the Titans and keep warning people, you couldn’t stop now.

Even for the unique case of a newly turned vampire you might be able to help.  Though right now, you couldn’t do anything with the sun out.  You’d have to wait until it got dark to actually do anything for him, and you couldn’t afford to wait around until dark.  You had other things to do.

So you left him behind, hoping he made it safely to Wall Rose in the night and he would be able to reach out to you like you’d asked.

And that it wasn’t all a trick.

Darkness fell, but you kept going.  You were out of blades, out of gas, and absolutely exhausted.  You could hardly see straight anymore, you staggered and weaved, breathing ragged, panting, legs burning--you weren’t even sure you were running at vampire speed anymore.

But you kept going, warning every town you came through, directing people to safety, warning them how far away Titans were, telling Garrison soldiers who were still in these few towns or were about to leave since it was dark the emergency and to get people out of the towns.  Many, many times people asked if you needed a ride back, commented how you looked like you were going to be sick and collapse, asked you to stop, but you said the message had to keep going, waved them off, and kept going.

You were so exhausted, that you almost fell right into a lake, the cold water sending a brief jolt through your system as you backed up, trying to get your bearings, moon shining high above you, head spinning and pounding even as you slowly made sense of your surroundings.

A lake...a big one, at that.  No, huge.  Landmark huge.  If it was the lake you thought it was--not that you’d ever seen it personally, but you knew of it--than that meant you’d reached the far north.  You’d covered the entire east side.

You started to collapse to one knee, finding it hard to get simple breaths in and out of your lungs, legs shaking.  You could just lie here and sleep, right now even the grass would be enough.

No...no, you couldn’t.  You would rest well into the day, and the Titans would find and eat you in your sleep.  You couldn’t stop here.  You had to keep pushing.  But now, you could finally fucking retreat.  You’d reached a stopping point.  Surely messengers had already gone out from the north.  That would explain why you’d been straight up running recently, only passing empty towns--there was no one to warn because they had all been warned up here.

It was time to go back.

You pushed yourself up to your feet, doubled over and vomited as your head spun and vision darkened, body rebelling violently, amazing that you’d actually made yourself throw up for a split second before you realized you were tilting closer to the ground and you had to move now or you were going to pass out.

You just had to reach the wall.  The northern wall.  Someone might actually see you before the Titans saw you, that way.

And you still had your flares.  You could fire a flare for a rescue if you needed to.

But first you had to reach the fucking wall, and the odds weren’t in your favor in your current condition.

You had to try.

So you staggered one drunkenly exhausted step forward, then another, a hand planted in the grass to steady yourself the first few times before you got some momentum and forced yourself to stand, legs trying to give out underneath you with every step.

Just a little farther.

*Levi’s POV*

He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours.

The Garrison soldiers on the wall, strung out and nervous as they are with what happened, terrified a giant Titan would appear and destroy Wall Rose as well, they were legitimately annoyed by Levi’s presence, not that anyone had the balls to tell him that.  But he caught glimpses of the looks when he turned away from them.  He didn’t give enough fucks to do or say anything about it, though.  

They weren’t going to stop him, even if they tried to.  He’d been up here since he came back through Karanase, prowling the walls from Karanase to northern Utopia, telling every Garrison soldier on duty to keep an eye out for a certain female scout regiment soldier that should be coming through within this expanse of wall, one that would be on foot, but alive and in need of assistance, and to tell him immediately when she arrived because she was one of his.  All of them gave him dubious looks, clearly doubting she was alive, thinking he was some scout who lost their damn mind because they lost a comrade.

But he knew she was alive.  She had to be.  Even if it had been far too long since he saw her.  Even if, in his mind, with how much of a head start she had on him, she should have been here before him.

He knew she would be on foot, because coming through Karanase, he’d been told about the scout horse two girls came to Karanase riding, claiming it belonged to a member of his squad who’d sent a basic message of ‘I’m still alive, I gave them the horse’ with them.  It hadn’t been much of a surprise when the horse had been Zephyr, he’d been expecting it, but it was still nerve-wracking to know she was out there on foot, vampire or not.

And she’d been out there too damn long.  He’d expected at the latest she would be back in the night, and when the dawn’s rays appeared over the wall, he thought he would be sick, mind starting to be officially convinced of all the terrible possible scenarios of what might have happened to her.

He tried really damn hard not to think of the what ifs about letting her go on this dumb suicide run.  Tried not to think of how he should have refused and made her stay, how they should have gone together, he shouldn’t have let her convince him.

One Garrison soldier had the audacity to walk up to him and start to suggest he go back and get some sleep, starting to say that Levi looked like he was going to collapse, but Levi had sent the young man a look that silenced him instantly and made him slink away.

He was exhausted.  He did feel like he would collapse.  He’d been fighting and riding for hours, almost a full day, making it to Karanase as dark was settling.  But even though his limbs shook and his eyes felt so damn heavy for once in his life, telling him he was exhausted--likely from the stress as well as all the physical exertion from this shitshow of a day--he kept moving on the walls, never stopping no matter how much his feet  and legs ached and throbbed in protest, how many times he thought his knees might give out, how many times his mind whispered to just sit down for a little bit, he kept moving to keep himself awake and so he could prowl the length of the wall she would appear at.

She would show up.  She hadn’t promised him, she was wise enough not to do what so many others did and guarantee they would come back just to make it false, but it may as well have been a promise.

They had things to discuss.  Her reckless actions today, for example.  Nearly getting squashed by a Titan as she dragged a Garrison soldier out of the water, running off on her own like that without backup instead of taking the safer option of waiting for him, now making him lose his goddamn mind atop these walls waiting so long for her to show up.  Those were important things they needed to discuss.

And also...there was what he’d been trying to tell her earlier.  But maybe that could wait.  If she--when--she came back, that might not be the right time, he might have to wait, but there were other things they needed to talk about, as well.

The only other sign of her they received throughout the night was the young man that flagged down garrison troops somewhere in the general sector that people fleeing to Karanase came from.  Levi hadn’t paid the young man much mind, especially cause his story was shaky at best--something about having no way to the wall besides on foot, and the Titans being too close to travel on foot, so he waited until dark like some female soldier who he hadn’t physically seen told him to do.  A shoddy story, at best, but it was the most he had to go off.  Even then, though, the young man--teenager, actually--had claimed that conversation with the soldier happened a couple hours before the sun set.  So there was still the entire night that she was unaccounted for.  Besides the information about the female soldier, his shoddy story, and some erratic seeming behavior he appeared to be trying to control, Levi didn’t pay much attention to it--he’d seen all types today, and wrote it off as yet another traumatized civilian reacting in a new way.

Levi weaved, dropping to one knee and biting back a groan, hand planted in front of him as he resisted the urge to even close his eyes.  One of the Garrison soldiers posted on the wall started to walk towards him, but Levi looked up and shot him one of his soon-to-be-routine glares, and the man returned to his post, side-eyeing Levi as he got shakily to his feet.

He couldn’t leave.  Not until she came back.  She’d fucking promised, in her own way, and she was not allowed to break it.  She was the one that had the greatest chance of surviving the Titans, as she always liked to remind him when she convinced him to let her do her risky suicidal stupid shit he was never going to let her do again.

He knew he was reaching levels of irrational, that with anyone else, by now, he would have grimly accepted that they died.  If Erwin knew he was up here, the towering blond would show up and give Levi a verbal lashing and drag his ass back, and for once would be able to do it considering the condition he was in.  But so far, thankfully, no Erwin.  Though Levi knew the Commander knew Levi was alive, he’d sent word back to Erwin so that he would know that much, as well as the comment he was waiting for Y/N to get back.

The world spun again, and Levi steadied himself on a stack of crates on the wall, trying to ignore how the sun made his head throb and eyes burn, letting out a shaky breath.  If he would actually sit down right now, he would fall asleep instantly.  That’s why he had...to keep…

“Hey...does anyone know what the fuck that color means?”

“I didn’t know we had a flare like that.  What is it, pale purple?  It looks like pale purple, right?”

Levi’s eyes snapped open at the overheard conversation, a burst of adrenaline pushing him forward as he hurried in the direction of the Garrison soldier conversation, eyes frantically searching the horizon for the lilac smoke, brushing right past them and ignoring their angry exclamations.

In the back of his mind, he registered that he was on the pocket wall surrounding the city of Utopia, staring off what had to be four miles, at least, at a pale lilac flare that was arcing straight up into the air.

It was her.

Thank God...Thank God...wait, Titans--where are the Titans?

“What was the nearest Titan sighting?” Levi asked, suddenly grabbing an unfortunate Garrison soldier that was nearby and one of many trying to figure out what a light purple flare meant.  He asked because, in case there were late arrivers, they were still keeping track of how far along the wall the Titans had managed to reach, though by now they had to be everywhere.

“About three miles back towards Karanase, ten minutes ago I think?” he asked in bewilderment.

Levi let go of him, hurrying to the point of the wall that went furthest out into Maria, gaze searching the ground of the horizon, looking for Titans or a blip his human eyes might see that showed him where she was.  Purple meant an emergency, she needed help...he needed to go to her.

It was suicide for him to go on foot in his current state, even with fresh blades and gas.  But he needed to function off the assumption she wasn’t going to come to them because of the flare.  And he didn’t have time to go looking for a horse and having it raised and lowered over the wall.

Don’t be reckless Erwin had told him.  And Y/N.  Hell, he’d been lecturing her about recklessness yesterday.

His tired eyes searched the surrounding area, unable to see any immediate Titan threat.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, cursing himself even as he jumped off the edge of the wall, firing a cable halfway down to control his fall, coming to a rather graceful stop at the bottom--until his feet hit dirt and he staggered slightly, cursing to himself again before he took off at a sprint in the direction of the flare.  His lungs burned, skin prickling and eyes scanning every damn inch of land he could see, taking out his blades ahead of time as he sprinted, pushing the exhaustion aside with painfully practiced skill and ignoring the pain, trying to tap into that inhuman power of his to push himself just hard enough to reach her.  He’d worry about getting back once he got to her.

The open space was Titan free, but two, three miles in, he realized it was turning into a forested area.  Refusing to stay a prime target on the ground, he started using the trees and his ODM gear, keeping silent in case Titans were hiding among the trees, hoping the fifteen, twenty minutes it took to run the three-ish miles without stopping at his above-average and well in shape speed, even exhausted, with how he was compartmentalizing right now, was enough to reach her in time if she was truly in danger and the flare hadn’t just been to fire a unique one that would get someone to know she was here.

He heard the Titan before he saw it.  Hell, he saw her first, on her knees, head bowed low, body shaking, a spot she must have vomited a step or two from her, leaning against a tree.  Exhaustion worse than his own--she didn’t seem able to even stand.

And that was when the two Titans burst through the treeline, heading right towards her.  A fifteen meter and a six meter.  Levi’s blood boiled, his focus sharpened as something in him raged not this time, cables cutting harshly through the air and bringing him right to the two creatures, a snarl ripping out of him as he cut them both down two steps from where she was still leaning against a tree.  The cuts were messy by his standards, and he didn’t quite stick the landing, and one of the cuts were almost too shallow, but it did the trick, and they were both falling and starting to evaporate by the time he stumbled his landing on the ground, hurrying over to her side and picking her up after one, two, three tries, his own breathing shallow as he suddenly found her difficult to pick up.

It had been a long thirty-six hours or so for both of them.  Not even adrenaline was getting them through this anymore, it was just sheer fucking will and pain, and only on Levi’s end.  She seemed to have reached her limit.

Still, as he finally managed to pick up what felt like dead weight, she attempted a smile, though her eyes were barely open to even look at him.

“Hey...did I make my appointment?”

Levi took a few unsteady steps forwards, looking around the forest like a paranoid man as he raced out of it in the same direction he came, praying to whatever forces hated him so much to make his life hell that they let him skate by just this once, at least enough to make it to the walls.

“Your late as fuck...and you look like shit,” he returned in a huff, hating that he couldn’t even hide how exhausted he was right now.  “Are you hurt?”

“Nah, just...tired,” she said, sighing and sagging against his chest, looking like she was trying to stay awake on principle since they were still in Titan territory, though he doubted it had been as hard to resist falling asleep as it was right now, being carried instead of forcing herself to run.

He waited until he broke the treeline and it was open field around him with the wall a couple miles ahead, still running at full speed and trying so damn hard not to trip or collapse on himself, though he did stumble a few times, managing to catch himself and keep a tight grip on her as he kept running.  Once he was certain he didn’t see any Titans in their path or close enough to intercept--though he saw a few in the distance that seemed to be turning to head their way, fuck--he chanced looking down at her to make sure she really wasn’t injured.

There was a disturbing amount of blood on her, though he had the feeling not all of it was hers.  Some places, though, her clothes were torn or ripped, giving away--at least to him--that she had been injured, many times, but it had healed and she’d kept going.

“Fucking idiot,” he huffed under his breath, gaze fixed forward as the Titans continued to close in but the wall got closer and closer.  Just a little faster, a little further…

“Levi…” she murmured in his arms, her own arms going limp, exhaustion somehow making her feel heavier as Levi realized one of the Titans was running towards him.

“Shit...sorry,” he mumbled, before shifting her into more of a potato-sack carrying position, pushing himself to run faster, terrified for a few heartbeats he was about to make an amateur mistake and trip on his own two feet and face plant into the dirt for a few seconds as the world tilted, but he kicked up, fired the cables as the running Titan got close enough to leap at them…

His cables sank into the wall, and he released a torrent of gas, sailing up the wall at breakneck speed, releasing the cables again as he was still going up and firing again to reach the edge, leaving the Titans far below as he gracelessly vaulted over the edge and him and Y/N rolled, both groaning from the impact as Garrison soldiers almost instantly swarmed to inspect and make sure they were alright, one of them having the audacity to yell at Levi about how reckless and stupid that had been.

Yeah, he fucking knew, it wasn’t any of their goddamn business.

Shoving a few off him in an embarrassingly weak push, Levi staggered back over to her and shoved the others away, kneeling down next to her.

“She’s my right hand, I’ve got her,” he growled at them before turning his attention fully to her, brushing hair out of her face and pulling her head into his lap as he finally sat down, exhaustion piling on him so heavily he bowed over her with a low groan, the others shuffling away and saying words he didn’t care to make sense of.

“You okay?  You need a drink?” Levi asked her in a low voice, knowing she would know he meant blood, not water, like the others would think.

Her head turned towards him, eyes drooping shut as the fact she was fully safe registered, and she started to pass out, managing two words as fragments of what had to have been a sentence given the way her lips moved between them without sound coming out.

“Later...sleep…”

And she was out like a light, falling asleep in his lap right then and there.  He was going to get up, but just as he’d thought would happen, now that he sat down, he couldn’t even find the will to stand up.  His own exhaustion was crushing him, the stress he’d been under waiting for her to return shattering in the face of his relief and leaving him drained.

“Yeah...yeah...sounds good...for once,” he muttered, finding enough energy to pull her a bit closer so her upper body was cradled in his arms and atop his lap, her legs strewn out beside him.  He weaved, eyes heavy, world darkening, and he hardly even realized when one of the Garrison soldiers, some blonde drunk from Shiganshina that had enough heart to be patrolling Rose to make sure those still alive stayed safe once he’d reached the safety of the walls, steadied him moments before he passed out fully and could collapse on top of her, the last thing he felt being wooden crates against his back, and the feeling of someone trying to wedge something soft between his back and the crates so it wouldn’t be hell when he woke up.

He didn’t have the strength to stay awake after that, though he at least understood someone was trying to give them a place to rest safely atop the walls, the morning sun and activity of the soldiers around them telling the new shift soldiers not to disturb the two scouts who had done the most for warning and evacuating the refugees not enough to disturb their exhausted sleep.

Even if one of them was propped up against a grain sack and wooden crates while the other was sleeping on a stone floor, ODM gear, and the other’s lap and arms.  And after that explanation, coupled with their ragged and drained appearance even in sleep, no one bothered them.  They just let them sleep.

Next Chapter---->

AN:  Before anyone gets up in arms about this and the poor character gets undeserved hate--no, no I am not taking a love triangle route.  Calm down. Lol.

Everything Tags:  @antisteller​  @mochicheeks-world

Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn​ @babydabi​ @whalerus​ @sunny-flo​ @thirstyforsometea​ @hauntedhousecat​ @peaches-and-clouds​ @queenofcurse​ @wubbawubwub04​ @lollobos @pasteldays​ @itsmeaudrieee​ @macaronnv​ @tokyo-banana​ @apuci-kis-szornye​ @morgana-olson​ @yellowminb​ @ashikothedog​​

*Reader’s POV*

You didn’t spend all of your time with Levi, though recently, sometimes it felt like that.  You still made sure to spend a fair amount of it with the other members of the team, making sure they didn’t feel like--or more accurately, suspect--there was something formed between you and Levi that the others weren’t privy to.  At least, no more than normal.  You figured with the new position in the formation for yourself and Levi’s squad, it was clear there was something about you that they didn’t know but Levi did, but you didn’t want it any more obvious than necessary.  You weren’t going to be shoving it in their face by emphasizing the exclusivity between you and Levi--so you made sure to keep your ties with the other members of the squad as strong as you could.  The dynamic had certainly shifted by now, considering it had been made clear that you were on a different level than they were when it came to raw talent, plus you had been on a few expeditions and were no longer green, though that didn’t change the fact you were the newest of the group.

You still did some basic training with the others, but you had entered the role of a formidable opponent meant to test the skills of the others and make them work to expand them further.  Namely in spars, where you finally put Levi’s original advice into practice and didn’t go easy on anyone, even if that meant they were repeatedly knocked to the ground in the process.  You were also part of the group training sessions, of course, where you all worked on coordination with your different styles and approaches to using the ODM gear, coming up with some predetermined maneuvers and simply getting used to one another’s styles astride your individual styles taking form.  You also went out of your way to try and make sure your friendship with Petra was maintained, taking care to still set aside time to spend with the other woman in the group.

It was a nice break from always being around the boys, too.  Yeah, Erwin wanted you working with Hange now to try and optimize your gear and do what you could to be at your best in the field, but that wasn’t the kind of relaxed company you had with Petra.  Hange was sharp as hell, and you felt like you were constantly balancing on a wire trying to make sure you didn’t tip your hand too much and make her suspicious about you, like you’d done with Levi once upon a time.  Again, the network of people who knew what you were was a net you wanted small and tight, not large enough to be catching twenty meter Titans in.  So you were going to stay tight and careful with who knew what from here on out.

Unfortunately, that meant you were on edge more than at ease when you were with Hange, so it wasn’t exactly companionable silence--though she was interesting, and every now and then you didn’t mind listening to what she had to say about her theories and how badly she wanted to catch Titans again to run experiments and learn more about them.  However, the whole ‘trying to keep your vampirism on the down low’ was making much of a relationship with Hange difficult--too much distance because you knew she was observant and smart enough she’d pick up on something possibly before the other two had.  Or at least progress through the evidence a bit faster, especially if Levi and Erwin got cagey if she started asking them questions.

At the moment, though, concerns about revealing too much to Hange through your actions was the last thing on your mind--you were having an evening out with Petra at the moment, the two of you walking through town two days after you received your salary, a couple bags on Petra’s and your arms combined, mostly holding replacement clothes after the expedition, or a couple personal purchases here and there like tea supplies, you bought a few new sketching supplies and some new plants for your garden, but besides that, you were keeping your purchases to a bare minimum.

You had other plans for your salary, plans that might take a couple months worth to actually make happen.

Seeing the store you wanted to get a look at up ahead, you told Petra you were going to head inside and make an inquiry, and that you’d be out in a few minutes if she didn’t mind waiting for you.  She looked a little surprised that you wanted to go in alone, but didn’t argue, wandering to a small bookshop across the street.

Meanwhile, you went into the jeweler shop alone, thankfully, a carefully rolled piece of parchment you’d kept tucked away on your person suddenly very prominent to you.  You went up to the store counter, ignoring the pieces on display entirely and instead focusing on the man at the counter with silver starting to streak through his hair, his eyes fixed on you intently with how purposefully you were walking right up to him.

You gave him a polite smile, pulling out the parchment you had on you and holding it in both hands, careful not to bend or crease it while you waited to hear what the man would say, first.

“What’s your policy on custom pieces?” you asked, thumb idly stroking along the parchment in your hand.  The man put down the ink pen he’d been using to write in what you assumed was a ledger of some kind, gaze flickering to the paper in your hand knowingly.

“We require a partial payment up front and full of the remaining payment upon pick up, in case costs change with materials used or prices fluctuate while it’s being made,” he said, his gaze going to the military-style clothes that everyone within the walls were familiar with. You didn’t have your jacket on, or your harness, but you did have the boots, pants, and shirt on.  He wouldn’t be able to tell for certain which branch you belonged unless he’d seen you out and about in uniform--unlikely--but he could at least rule out Military Police, since you’d probably be looking for a custom piece in Sina if you were in the more luxurious branch of the military instead of the Garrison or the Scouts.  No wonder he jumped right to talking about payment--he was probably wondering if you would be able to afford the piece you were about to request.  “The more complex the piece, the longer it will take.  A letter will be sent to the designation of your choosing when it’s ready for pickup, and again, if a full payment hasn’t already been made, the rest of the balance must be met when you pick up your order.”

“What about materials?  Are there any limitations for the kinds you can get a hold of?  What I’m thinking has a few...unique choices.  Nothing like platinum or diamonds or anything like that, though,” you asked, continuing as if his warnings about payment meant nothing to you.  Your questions, however, only seemed to make the speculations in his mind intensify.

“That depends on the materials you want.”

You nodded--it was a fair enough middle ground.  You might as well show him.  After one last little question.

“What about putting something inside the jewelry?  Like...an oil, or an herb, for a natural scent or superstitious reasons?”

That got more of a reaction out of him, eyebrows raising as he leaned back slightly.  “That will be tricky, but not impossible.  Might take a couple tries, depending on oil or herb, the fragility of the materials being worked with...which means a higher cost for any wasted materials.”

“Will the cost go down if I can provide what goes /in/ the piece?”

“Yes.  Hardly, in the face of the other charges, but it will save you a few scraps here and there, depending on what you wanted to put in the piece.”

You smiled at him again, finally unrolling the design you’d sketched up after many different tries and variations and ideas, smoothing it out on the counter for him to get a good look at as you pointed to the respective parts while you explained your idea to him.  “It’s a little complex, I know, a lot of different parts, but...I just need this piece, I already have something to put it on.  Silver, for this part right here, and then an emerald fire opal.  Then this part right here I was thinking blue steel, perhaps, and this one, probably the more expensive part, rose gold?  I enlarged the drawing so the details would be clearer, but I also don’t want it to be huge.  Something fairly small, I don’t want it turning out the size of a cookie, maybe four centimeters diameter at the largest?  That will make the detail more difficult, but any bigger and I’m worried it will be too gaudy.  I know it will be pricey and it will take a while, but if it could be done…”

“It can.  As long as you’re prepared to wait a while for it.  This is...quite the complex design, yes.  Lots of engravings and minute details, different parts...getting the oil in there will be difficult--but that’s something you want to provide yourself?”

“Yes, I grow the herb I want to put in there, so I can collect some of the oil and come by to provide some to you.  I’ll try to get a decent amount, since getting it in there will be tricky.”

“Right...let me look at a few things, and I can give you a rough estimate of how much it will cost if everything goes well and nothing breaks...actually, I’ll give you a slightly higher price, because I expect some of these materials to be...difficult, with what you want.”

“I’m prepared to pay several hundred right now, if that helps.”

He paused, staring at you, as if doubting you would carry that much on you.  Normally, no, even if you knew you could handle any thief that was unlucky enough to pick you as a target, but you’d known you were coming here to set up this custom order, and you wanted to make sure you had at least a starting deposit for good faith.  Between the materials and the complexity, though, you expected this was going to be pricey.

Well, it wasn’t like your salary was going to anything, now, anyway.  You probably wouldn’t notice at all if a few months worth disappeared into this little endeavor of yours.

“I’ll take that into account,” he said with a nod, disappearing into the back room likely to look at records for prices on the materials, where he might get some of them, if he already had some on hand, that kind of thing.  Meanwhile, you waited patiently at the counter, turning the design you’d brought with you around to stare at it thoughtfully.

You hoped it wasn’t too flashy.  Maybe it was a little bit, but you’d gotten carried away once the idea struck you, and you couldn’t resist using it once the idea was on the paper in front of you.  Maybe it should have been something a bit simpler, considering who and what it was for, but, in this case, you decided to indulge yourself a little bit.  And you had your own reasons for going with this idea instead of the simpler idea you’d almost resigned yourself to.

This would do nicely, though.  Hopefully this jeweler would be able to pull it off as nicely as you had it in your drawing, or at least close to it.

The part that was going to kill you was going to be the wait.  But, you’d only just gotten your salary payment for the month, and you’d just settled on the design and made up your mind for going through with this, so, this was actually fairly quick, all things considered.

The jeweler returned with reading glasses nestled on his nose, which he peered at you over the rims as he approached to discuss payment, timeframe, and all the other minute details of the purchase.

You’d wish that it was done soon, but you wanted it to be done right.  And just to make sure he was aware of its importance to a degree, you did, in fact, mention to him that the piece you were requesting was a gift, just to emphasize that what you were getting was an important piece you wanted care put into without outright demanding it in a bitchy way.

Now you just had to wait.

Levi had called you into his office--a very common thing for you--in the middle of the day, sending Petra to find you and pass on the message.  Since it was about lunch time, you didn't go there immediately, deciding you would do the courteous thing and put together, then bring, his lunch, since you doubted he'd come down to eat yet.  You grabbed something quick for yourself while you were there, nibbling on the bread to help sooth the slight pressure in your jaw and just give you something to chew on.  Hopefully it would help sooth the steadily growing thirst you felt, since you were going as long as you safely could without feeding.

Especially since this was new territory and you wanted to see how long you could go before having to drink from Levi again.

The roll held in your mouth so you has a free hand, and the tray with his food balanced on the other hand as you headed up to his office, knocking quietly on the door before waiting for an answer.  Surprisingly, Levi came to the door for once, opening it himself to let you inside.

"It's about time you showed up--what, did you take the scenic route?" He grumbled as he opened the door, stepping aside to let you in while you took your bread doll out of your mouth to answer him.

"No, I just stopped to make sure you were going to get lunch," you explained, walking over to his desk to set the lunch tray down while he shut and locked the door behind you.

Curious…

"You're not an aid, anymore, you don't have to keep fetching things for me."

"Too bad, because I did, and I will," you returned, turning to see him undoing the cravat around his neck as he walked towards the desk, folding it up carefully and setting it down before he started undoing a couple buttons on his shirt. There was a quick flash of heat that raced through your body, causing you to shift uncomfortably as you stared openly at what he was doing.  "Ah...what are you…?"

He gave you a droll stare as if it should be obvious.  “Petra told me you’re getting twitchy again.  You need to eat.”

Oh.  Oh, thank God, you'd panicked for a second trying to figure out what the hell was going through his mind, but this was a lot safer and comfortable than some of the places your mind jumped to.

By now he'd opened the top three buttons of his shirt, giving him plenty of space to move the fabric out of the way and more fully expose his neck once he got his jacket off, which he was doing right now.  You blushed when you realized that, as if to prove a point, you were staring directly at the exposed skin of his neck and collar, a sharp pain going through your gums as your senses started to sharpen.

Fuck, no, not yet, not yet.  This was something that needed to be done properly every time.

You cleared your throat, rubbing a hand over your mouth as you turned your gaze away, watching him drape his jacket across the back of his chair.  Why did you feel like you'd been ambushed with this?

"You should...probably eat, before I do anything.  To help avoid you being faint when I'm done," you said haltingly, turning away and sinking your teeth into the bread roll in your hand, a little disturbed to be able to feel your fangs slowly poking through and into the bread while you took a seat on the loveseat in front of the fireplace--which was actually in use, at the moment, a pot of tea warming up over the fire. Chamomile, from the smell of it.  Why chamomile?  That was quite the deviation from his usual.

Levi sighed behind you.  "That wasn't a problem last time--"

"I don't care, I'm not biting you until you've had something to eat.  If this is going to be a regular thing, we're going to do it right, and that includes looking after your health as well as mine," you said in a cool, even tone, biting into your roll again and willing your fangs to slide back into their hidden position.

Levi 'Tched' behind you, but you heard him take a seat at his desk, a few chuffed and soft chink sounds informing you he was starting to eat.

You both ate in silence for the first few minutes, allowing you time to finish your roll before you turned around and stretched out on the couch, feet dangling off the side so you wouldn't get anything dirty, head pillowed on the armrest as you stared up at the ceiling.

"By all means, make yourself at home," Levi grumbled from his desk.  You didn't move, though, staying comfortably snuggled into his couch.

"Well, I'm in here often enough," you said with a little shrug.

"It's annoying."

"I could just leave."

"Shut up.  When did you get so fucking sassy?"

"I got comfortable," you said honestly, quickly attempting a wisecrack to cover up the moment of blatant vulnerability.  "And sometimes you make yourself an easy target."

You could practically feel him scowling, the silence between you returning as you closed your eyes, taking a few soft breaths, the sounds in the room what you used to focus and meditate, including Levi’s breathing and the sound of his heartbeat not too far away from where you were laying.

"Could we try this in a different position this time?  Sitting up, preferably," Levi asked abruptly.  You sighed slowly, contemplating his request.

"Not yet.  Sitting up I worry about blood rushing down, away from where I'm trying to draw it.  And I'm still trying to find the best way to go about it. So…"

"Fine...there's already a towel in the bedroom," Levi said, a note of disappointment in his voice.

Honestly, another reason why you said no was you suspected that would be done on the couch, which would be a much tighter fit with less comfortable room to move and adjust.  Laying down was just the best position right now, even if it was a little awkward.

"I'm going to bite a little higher this time, see if that helps with the blood flow, which would help with the pain.  I think I was too close to your collar last time.  If that's okay with you--you're the one that has to hide it," you said, feeling like you could bring it up since the two of you were comfortably talking logistics and technicalities about it at the moment.

"Whatever you think works better, as long as you don't bleed me dry."

"...I'm hoping since I'm not starving and injured this time it will be easier to control myself."

"I know. And if not, I'm prepared."

Prepared...right...if something went wrong…

Best not to dwell on those thoughts.

Levi stood up from his seat at the desk, prompting you to open your eyes and sit up to look at him again.  He was already headed for the bedroom door, his back starting to turn to you.  "Let's get this over with, then, shall we?"

You blinked at his attempt to be nonchalant and dismissive about this whole arrangement, but didn’t say anything, getting up off the couch and following him into the bedroom.  The sheets had been changed since the last time you were in here, and it was already set up and ready with the towel folded up and lying just below the pillow where his neck would go, everything else tucked tidily away and simply waiting for the occupants.

Hanging back while Levi climbed onto the bed and got situated, you felt your jaw starting to ache again, breath catching as he laid down and shifted around, trying to find a comfortable spot while he adjusted the pillow and towel, turning his head to the side to expose the same side of his neck as last time.  Your sharp eyes were able to take in the faintest mark where your fangs had sunk deeper than anything else, but other than that, the skin was healed up without scarring.

That was another important goal you needed to keep in mind when you were biting him.  Don’t leave a scarring mark.

When he seemed to be settling down, you finally moved towards him, having given him the space and time to get comfortable before you physically intruded.  You shrugged off your jacket so it wouldn’t get in the way, laying it carefully on his dresser before you approached the bed, the seriousness of the situation returning to you once more as you sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at him evenly, resisting the urge to look at his exposed neck.  Now that the moment was upon you, your instincts were starting to kick in again, that need to tear into his throat forcing its way to the front of your mind, not yet at the potency it had been when you’d sparred with him, but quickly working it’s way to that point.

“Are you ready?” you asked him seriously, holding his gaze and treating this moment as delicately as if it was the first time again.

“Obviously,” Levi scoffed, though you were both aware it was a front.  He could act as nonchalant as he wanted, but you could hear his quickened heartbeat and the slight shake in his breath.  He was still nervous about this, understandably.  He wasn’t scared like he’d been the first time, maybe because that first time had cleared up some of the unknowns that had been terrifying him at the time.  He was still clearly anxious, though he was doing a good job at outwardly hiding it.

“This time, tell me when it hurts, don’t try to tough it out.  I can’t get better if I don’t know when it's hurting you,” you added in a slightly scolding tone.  He didn’t answer, but since he was holding your gaze, you knew that he understood what you were saying.  Hopefully he would actually listen to and abide by it.

Hopefully he would.  There was nothing wrong with wanting to improve so this wouldn’t have to be so painful for him.

Since Levi wasn’t going to say anything, and you didn’t think you had anything else to say, so, ignoring how this looked under any other circumstances, you shifted closer to him, reaching over to plant one of your hands near his shoulder, shifting so you were leaning over him, eyes now on his throat, watching the slight tremble in flesh as he swallowed.  His eyes were fixed on you as you moved towards him, watching every change in your expression and focus so intently you could feel the tension rolling off him.  It must have been so opposite who he was as a person to just lie here and let you do this when all his instincts must have been screaming at him to run or fight off the threat.

You, however, were gradually loosening the control you held over your bloodlust, the aroma of his blood seeping in with how close you were, intertwined with his usual natural scent you’d come to be so familiar with, the tea and mint and soap that was a fresh, clean, sharp scent on its own overpowered by what you could smell of the blood flowing through his veins.

This time, you were mindful not to painfully draw these beforehand moments out.  The waiting just made the suspense worse, which did nothing to help Levi relax.  And this time, you weren’t fighting your starving self to try and make sure he really was okay with it.  This time, you just had to bite him when you were ready.

Your jaw throbbed, causing you to dip your head low towards his neck, hearing his breath hitch at the action while your fingers tangled lightly into his hair, fingernails scratching gently against his undercut in the process.  His hair was soft against your skin, probably just washed and dried either last night or this morning, judging by the softness and the slightly stronger-than-normal scent of soap on him.  Using your gentle grip, you tilted his head just a bit more, nose brushing against the underside of his jaw and making goosebumps break out against his skin before a soft hiss escaped you, fangs flashing before they sank into his throat in one quick motion, lips quickly closing around the wound to seal it off and make sure the initial swell of blood didn’t slip down his neck and into the sheets.

Levi sucked in a sharp, pained breath above you, his body tensing with the initial puncture as you latched on tight to his throat.  As you warned him, you bit a bit higher this time, in more of the sensitive, soft flesh instead of so close to his shoulders and collar.  He would still be able to cover it up naturally with the uniform, but he would have to be mindful his collar didn’t sink too low.

After his sharp breath, you felt Levi start to try and force himself to relax beneath you, which was easier this time since you were partially laying atop him, your torso resting diagonally across his chest.  You felt his hand starting to gently smooth out the fabric of your shirt bunched up in the back, his fingers tangling into the naturally folded fabric as he held you to him, as if encouraging you to keep going.

That was about as much as you got of a conscious read of the room before the feed took over.  His blood washed passed your lips and down your throat like a wine that had been aged to perfection--but so much better tasting.  You didn’t know if he could feel it, but your tongue traced lightly against his skin to clean up any stray blood hat might be staining his skin instead of flowing with the rest down your throat, hot and fresh, rich and heady, enough to make you feel drunk in a few gulps, though you clearly continued to drink eagerly from him after the drunken feeling started to seep into your limbs and make you feel warm--no, hot.  Pleasantly hot, energy and new strength crackling through your veins like lightning.  Your ears started to ring, eyes closed, breathing deepening as you pressed yourself a little tighter to him, face buried in his throat so that his hair brushed against your forehead and you senses started to drown in his scent--both natural and the one his blood, freshly spilled, gave off in powerful waves--and the heat of his own skin, the sound of his heavy, hitching breathing sometimes breaking through the rush of blood and slight ringing in your ears.

Deep in your chest, the occasional rumble of a moan built up, occasionally strong enough to break past your lips--as much as it could when you were so tightly attached to Levi’s throat.  You didn’t mind, no, you didn’t care.  Because this was one hell of a luxury, and you still couldn’t wrap your head around the thought this was going to become your standard, something you were treated with routinely.  You’d honestly thought Levi would back out after the first time, after feeling the pain and the awkwardness, or maybe just deciding he wasn’t ready for this kind of commitment.  But he’d stayed, though.

Speaking of Levi…

You had a moment of awareness reach you, enough to do a quick check, the hand that had been holding you up now apparently clutching to his arms, fingers wrapped around a relaxed bicep, running slowly up along hot, goosebump riddled skin towards his shoulder as you laid comfortably across his chest to reach his throat.  His breathing was deep, fast, and ragged--not the kind that was pained or low on blood, something else.  He was far more relaxed than you’d expected him to be, too, which was a good thing, it meant he wasn’t in pain, and you could drink deep without worry.

Your face buried itself a little deeper into his throat, fingers tangling through his soft dark hair in the process as you took a long pull, feeling a moan vibrate in your throat as a sudden rush of blood upwards through his body made it pool a little more thickly in your mouth, freshly pulsated through his body and into you, and a split second later, you heart an audible, gruff moan.

It didn’t come from you, either.

The sound abruptly cut off, and you felt blood rushing upwards past where you were drawing it for the second time, much stronger, and Levi shifted slightly beneath you, his arm that wasn’t clutched in the fabric of your shirt lifting.

He’d moaned.  And now he was blushing.  That’s what that rush of blood was.  Was he…?

You started to loosen your grip on his neck, but then paused, feeling his fingers tense against your back, his breathing hitching, the blush intensifying as more blood rushed through his veins to his cheeks, ears, you weren’t sure, you hadn’t opened your eyes to look at him, but you could tell he was blushing.

And, knowing Levi, the last thing he would want you to do right now would be to let go and look at him right after he moaned while he was still blushing furiously for the sound having escaped him in the first place.

This entire arrangement could become suggestive rapidly and so easily if you both let yourselves go there, and clearly, he did not want to go there.  Neither did you, really, you felt like it would be terribly awkward when you came here for a drink and it ended up…

Well, either way, it was best to pretend you hadn’t heard, or at least choose not to say anything.  So your bite solidified again, face burying back into his neck instead of continuing to pull away like you’d started to, fingers digging into his shoulder and hair just enough so you had a firm grip but you weren’t hurting him or breaking skin.  Levi’s breath hitched in your ear and you heard the start of a moan that he was ruthlessly trying to swallow and silence before it could escape again.

At least he wasn’t in pain.  Maybe the problem last time really had boiled down to where you bit him and how tense he was.

With the little...disruption, it was fairly easy to pull yourself back out of it this time when you started to feel engorged, full to bursting and thoroughly satiated--and you reached that point before Levi even said anything about light-headedness or his breathing changed to something strained in a loosing blood sense.  Partially, you thought you just wanted to back away from the situation before it had a chance to get any more awkward, but at the same time, you really were full.

Though, even full, your vampirism seemed to be begging you just to keep tasting.  Maybe you didn’t have to drink, but just taste it, just a little, just let the delicacy linger.

As tempting as the thought was, you pulled away, licking the blood off your lips and reluctantly getting rid of any traces left on his throat by wiping it away with the towel before pressing the cloth against his neck, waiting a few seconds for your fangs to retract again before you started to pull away, holding yourself up with the hand that had been tangled in Levi’s hair but was now planted at his side.  You couldn’t help but to glance at him as you pulled back, heart skipping a beat at the pretty solid confirmation you had for your suspicions when you saw his eyes half-lidded, hand rising from where it had been covering his mouth to push back slightly damp strands of hair, a flush still lingering and lightly coloring the top of his cheeks and very tips of his ears, his heartbeat pounding erratically in your ears.

He pushed the hair from his face and swallowed thickly as you sat back, rapidly composing himself so that by the time you looked away before he could catch you, sat up completely with Levi’s other hand taking over holding down the towel, and looked back at him, he was composed, albeit a little...tense.

You shuffled back to the edge of the bed, running a hand over your face to make sure there weren’t any random flecks of blood leftover, clearing your throat and smoothing out your clothes, trying to ignore the lingering scent of blood and sweat in the air mixed in with everything else.

“There’s…”  Levi’s voice came out a little hoarse, and he stopped, clearing his throat and trying again as he shifted uncomfortably on the bed.  “There’s chamomile in the other room, if you’d like.  You said it calms you down after you feed, right?”

You blinked in surprising, having not expected that was what it was for, but definitely appreciating the gesture nonetheless.  You could certainly use a cup right now.  “Ah...thank you.  And are you--”

“Go ahead and leave whenever you’re ready, I’ve just...got to take care of a few things.  Don’t bother waiting for me,” Levi said with a gruff edge in his voice, scooting off the bed and pausing when he had a brief dizzy spell before he straightened and headed over to the washroom attached to the bedroom.  Trying not to take it personally, especially since even if you both pretended you hadn’t you’d both experienced that awkward moment in the middle of that, you got up and left the bedroom, returning to the front room and finding a teacup to use before taking the pot of chamomile tea and pouring yourself a drink.

Even without trying, you could hear Levi shuffling around in the other room.  Heard water splash and a towel hit the floor, heard bandaging supplies pulled out, heard the slap of skin against the wooden counter as a soft groan of discomfort seemed to escape him before he silenced it, probably well aware you were in the other room and could hear him.

“Shit,” he cursed softly to himself, and you heard unsteady hands preparing the bandage for his neck while you sipped on your tea.

Just one cup, and you’d leave.  He hadn’t been moving with any issues, this was something else, you just weren’t sure what.  And, considering he was trying to be quiet and had quickly sequestered himself to another room, it was clear he wanted some privacy.

Not something your hearing could provide when you were in the same room, but as soon as you were done with your chamomile, hearing him groan softly with a sudden sound of rapid shifting around, like a hummingbird flitting from place to place like he was looking for something, impatience and restraint coloring his tone, you put down your cup, gave a concerned look towards the bathroom, and then left the room with a bit of a blush coloring your cheeks as well, now.

Even if you were both obviously dodging the topic at the moment, this was definitely something the two of you were going to have to talk about.  If you had found the right way to do this, but it involved some awkwardness, you were both going to have to talk and work through it because it was inevitably going to happen again.

But for now, avoidance, yes.  And you were going to give him plenty of space and privacy in the meantime, which meant the rest of your day was about to be spent out in the pasture or in the stable with the horses...or out and about town with Petra again.

It took four months' salary total to be able to pay for your little secret project.  But, since you hardly used your salary for anything else besides the occasional set of clothes to replace old ones, or other necessities you still needed even though you were a vampire, it wasn’t that much of a sacrifice.  Up until recently, your salary had gone towards boarding your parents.  Now...you were mostly just accruing wealth you had little to no intention of using.

Of course, there was no way in hell you were going to tell who it was intended for that it cost that much, out of concern that it wouldn’t be accepted because of how much it cost.  That little detail was going to remain under lock and key.

However, one good look at it was enough to tell that it was not a cheap piece.  The jeweler had gone to great lengths to make sure the details were all there, that the materials were fine, unblemished cuts, the engravings just right.  You were all too happy to pay for it after seeing the finished product, having it put into a small box to keep it safe and hidden while you hurried back to headquarters.  Once in the safety of your room, you took it out at your desk, letting it catch the sunlight as you got a good look at the result of your months of salary, a faint smile on your lips before you took out a simple silver chain from where it was safely stored in your desk, threaded it through the silver loop, and then put it back in the box for just a little longer.

Now you needed to go see Levi.

Things had been...a little strange, between the two of you, since that moment when you’d been feeding off him and his control slipped.  It hadn’t happened again, not to that degree, but even you could tell Levi was holding something back now, though you weren’t sure what.  He was a bit more guarded around you, especially when it came time for you to feed off him again.  It wasn’t malicious in any way, it didn’t seem like he was scared of you or anything, but surprisingly, the guardedness you saw from him...hurt.  You hadn’t talked about what happened like you’d thought you should, because at first, it didn’t seem like it would be a problem.  But after the third time feeding from him, the guardedness had been obvious.

No sound like that escaped him again, but you could still read body language and what your vampiric senses picked up on.  The increased heartbeat, the quick and hitched breaths, blood rushing when a flush started to color his cheeks and ears.  But instead of being more open and obvious, he just retreated into himself, especially around these moments.  He didn’t seem to want to talk about it, either, he was always quick to send you away afterwards, wanting time to himself even if he took the time to make sure you had a cup of chamomile and were satisfied before sending you on your way.

Ironically, he seemed to be in his head more than you, recently, too.  When he was around you, more often than not you felt like his thoughts were somewhere else, on something else, and it was a little harder to claim his attention.

You didn’t know what was going on with him, and you were starting to get worried.  Hell, you hadn’t realized it would worry you this much.

Maybe you would be lucky, and giving him this gift you’d drawn up for him months ago would help get him talking.  The strange aura between the two of you couldn’t be ignored anymore, it was far too intense for you to bear and you wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Calming your nerves and banishing silly thoughts of how this could go wrong, you found yourself outside Levi’s office, knocking gently on his door and waiting for his usual ‘come in’ before you entered.

That was the other maddening part--nothing about your routines or habits had changed, you still did all your training with him, still brought him meals on occasion, still tended to find yourselves around each other more often than not, but even then, this strange sense of distance or separation was there, and you didn’t know what caused it or what was on the other side.

Levi was seated at his desk, pouring over what looked like plans for the next expedition--something that was coming up fast, now that you thought about it.  He glanced up as you entered the room, something shifting in his eyes before he quickly looked back down at the paper in front of him.

“I’m surprised to see you here.  How much do you have left to do before the next expedition?” Levi asked casually as you approached the desk, his gaze tellingly fixed in one spot instead of flickering across what appeared to be a map with more uncharted space than charted--a tentative map of the outside world based on what little progress the Scouts had been able to make previously...and the plans to push farther using you as the point of the formation.

“Hange managed to come up with a way to get the ODM gear to operate faster, but she’s still tinkering with more durable.  And I have my new flare color--the one for if I need just you for help.”

“Mm...Hange told me about it, I’m aware.  It’s been a while since we were out in the field, though.  Erwin’s been making major preparations for this expedition, it’s a big one, will probably take several days, so we haven’t been going on expeditions lately.  We would have been out on one today if we weren’t tied up in the preparations for the big one.”  His gaze raised to you, eyes studying you closely.  “How are you feeling about going back out after so long?”

“I didn’t get lazy in the meantime, if that’s what you’re worried about.  I know what this next one is going to mean.  It’s a lot of pressure, but...so far I’m handling it,” you said honestly, enduring his stare for a few moments longer before he nodded and looked back down at the map.  “All due respect, though, Levi, but I didn’t come up here to talk about the expedition.”

“Oh?” Levi asked, leaning back in his chair to look at you again, gaze probing but a little distant.  “You don’t look like you're hungry, so this isn’t one of those visits, either.  And if it was simply social you wouldn’t be so borderline official right now.”

You sighed in mild aggravation at his analysis, pulling the box out from your inside jacket pocket and holding it in both hands in front of you, not yet offering it to him.  You were about to speak confidently, but you hesitated, grip tightening slightly on the box as a sudden wave of insecurity swept over you.

What if he didn’t want it?  What if whatever this shift was between the two of you meant he wouldn’t accept any gifts you tried to offer him?

No matter.  This wasn’t just a gift.  Not in the usual sense.  It was more like those tea blends you’d once offered him.  It wasn’t just a gift, it also had a purpose.  And he’d made a deal with you.

“Remember when we started this arrangement where I feed off you, and you agreed to accept any alternative forms of protection I managed to come up with for when you’re not taking white sage?”

Levi stilled in his seat, his attention on you much sharper now.  “I remember,” he said carefully.

You let out a soft sigh to calm your nerves, offering the box to him with a slight nervous tremble in your fingers, a fear of rejection in different forms, not only of the gift in general, but a fear he wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t like the design you came up with personally, that it would be too gaudy for him.

“Well...I had an idea a while back, and I decided to go for it.  This is...for you,” you said hesitantly as he took the box from you, fingers brushing unashamedly against yours in the process, though it caused that distance to flicker in his eyes again before he focused on the small box you’d just handed him, taking off the top to reveal your gift several months in the making.

Inside was a necklace with a round, intricate medallion.  It had a rim of silver that was just wide enough to hold the contents firmly in place and allow a fine engraving of what could have been flames or waves all along the edges--the design was meant to be ambiguous between the two in distinction, meant to go along with a bit more of this theme of duality or unity.  Inside the silver edge was a polished, rounded emerald fire opal--a gemstone much like the one in your necklace, except this one had more green in it that came out whether the sun was shining on it or it rested in the shadows.  The centerpiece for this design was what was laid over the fire opal.

Two phoenixes, one made of red gold, the other blue steel, intricately carved so their fiery or sharp plumes were intricate in detail, making them distinct from each other in ways other than just color.  They circled one another like koi fish in a pond, head to tail, wings stretching out over the silver edge of the pendent and not constrained to the circular space inside the silver edges.

Levi paused once he got a good look at what was inside, eyes widening no doubt in realization of just how damn expensive this must have been.  Quickly, you jumped to explaining the practical reason for the medallion, coming a step closer to the desk to point to the loop in the silver medallion that the silver chain was threaded through.

“You can kind of see the weld marks where it was sealed, but, I had a bit of white sage put inside the medallion.  That way, as long as you’re wearing this, you can’t be compelled by a vampire--even if you don’t have any white sage in your system because you’re trying to stay...available for me.  I made sure it was small or at least thin enough you could wear it underneath your clothes so it’s hidden and it’s not front and center for everyone to see,” you said quickly, eyes hungrily taking in his expression as you tried to figure out what he was thinking, if he was going to accept it, hell, if he even liked it.

“This is…” he said slowly, struggling for words, shoulders and eyebrows lowering slightly and lips pressed in a thin line as he tried to think of something to say.

You felt your heart drop, realizing he probably didn’t want it or at least didn’t like the design.  Maybe you should have thought of something else to protect him, or maybe you should have gone with the other design idea, with the dragon engraving along the silver edge and the two crossed ultrasteel swords with the dove in the center.  It might have been more fitting, maybe he would have liked that one more, maybe not.  Shit, this was a bad idea.

“If you--if you don’t like it, I can take it back, you don’t have to--” you started to say hastily, reaching forward to take the offending item back so he wouldn’t have to try and find a word that wasn’t rude to let you down easily, something he was apparently finding difficult.

Before you could even touch the necklace, Levi’s hand covered yours and stopped you, fingers curling gently but firmly around your hand.

“I didn’t say that,” he said pointedly, eyes still on the necklace, looking at it with surprising intensity.  “It’s just...where did you find this?”

He was still holding to your hand.

“Um...I didn’t--I didn’t find it, I had it made.”

His hand squeezed yours slightly, brows appearing to furrow even more.  “Custom?”

“Yes.  Well, except for the chain, I...I already had that.”

Levi frowned slightly.  “I don’t remember you having or buying one recently.  I thought you only had the sunlight one.”

“Well, it’s…”  you suddenly grew somber, voice softening significantly as some of the nervous tension eased out of you.  “It’s one I got recently when...it was my mother’s.”

Levi abruptly let go of your hand, pulling it back and into his lap as his jaw clenched.  “I can’t accept this,” he said suddenly, demeanor shifting suddenly with that little admission.

“You can, and you will.  I had it made to keep you safe, and I want you to have it.  At the very least for a little peace of mind.”

“If this was your mother’s, you should--”

“I won’t ever use it, anyway,” you cut him off firmly, hiding the slight sting the truth of your words honestly gave you.  Yes, it was your mother’s chain necklace, and it was the only thing you were going to have of your parents besides memories, moving forwards...but you wouldn’t even wear it.  If anything, that fact alone meant it was more likely you would lose it.  But if someone was using it, if someone was wearing it all the time...well, then it wouldn’t be lost, would it?  And you felt no discomfort from the thought of Levi wearing what had once been your mother’s necklace to keep him safe.  You really did want him to have it.

“I don’t want to risk trying to wear them both at the same time and one of them gets tangled and breaks or something like that, and if I’m never going to wear it, it should go somewhere else so that it’s in use.  Really, Levi, take it.”

He still seemed extremely hesitant with the gesture, but to your relief, he picked up the necklace with care, holding it by the medallion while he let the chain drape over his fingers, undoing the clasps.  The medallion caught the sunlight and shone a brilliant green from the stone for a second before he brought the necklace to his neck, fastened it in place, and held the medallion between his fingers, looking down at it with an expression you couldn’t pin down.

You were just relieved that he accepted and would wear it, but at the same time, he was still frowning.

“What’s wrong?” you asked before you could think twice, thinking you were about to hear him comment about the chain being your mother’s again.

He hesitated for a moment, as if debating he should say something or not.  “You’re always giving me things, but I never give you anything.  How is that fair?” he asked in a low mumble.

Wait...he was feeling guilty that...he didn’t have anything to give in return?

Bullshit!

“That’s not true.  You give me plenty in return,” you said incredulously, staring at him openly.

“What, my blood?” he scoffed, as if that was all.  You let out an exasperated sigh.

“That, but also your knowledge.  Your time, your training, your help.  God knows we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t given me the benefit of the doubt, even for a little while.  But…” you hesitated, not wanting this to turn into you listing things that he gave you in case he started to think this was a gift you’d given him out of some kind of feeling that you had to repay him.  “That’s also not why I do it.  I don’t want you thinking I’m doing things because I feel some kind of obligation to repay things you’ve given me in the past.  It’s just because...well, it’s because I I want to, and that’s the only damn reason I need.”

You were only partially surprised by the conviction with which that last part came out.  You were friends with the other members of the squad, but Levi...Levi was the only one you were getting close to before this strange, awkward barrier sprung up between the two of you.  He was the only one who also knew and accepted what you were.  You didn’t want to lose this--whatever this was.  And since it had been so long since you’d had any kind of stable, continuous relationship with anyone, you were holding all the tighter to it, refusing to let go.

No, it wasn’t that you didn’t want to lose this, you didn’t think you could.  You had a life again, people you knew and cared about, relationships, a purpose, someone who cared about you.  Yes, cared, considering everything he was doing to help you, and what he’d already done to help you.  He didn’t have to do half of the things he was doing, but he did.  You weren’t blind, you had just been afraid to think it, especially recently, but when you stopped and looked at it, Levi wouldn’t have gone this far, done this much, out of simple obligation.  It had to be that he cared about you, to some degree.  Even with this recent awkwardness or unseen distance between the two of you.

Levi was looking at you with wide eyes, the medallion laying carefully over his cravat with his hands lying loosely on the desk in front of him, the blue of his eyes a little more vibrant in this light as he searched your expression closely for what, you weren’t sure.

By one of his hands, you thought you saw the drawing you’d done of him and his horse hidden almost entirely from unwanted eyes but in perfect view for him on his desk.

His jaw clenched, he seemed to recoil slightly, and then he got to his feet, the tips of his ears starting to change color as his lips pressed together, gaze cast down at the desk.

“Y/N, I...I’m not the best at words, and...I’ve been acting weird, I think--no, I have.  And...I’m not good at this kind of shit, okay?” he started to say, looking characteristically frustrated with himself while he--at least to you--uncharacteristically fumbled with his words to say whatever was on his mind.  He looked off to the side, like he might back away from what he was about to say, before he suddenly looked up and fixed you with an intense stare that made you freeze up on the spot.  “Listen, I want--”

Bells, loud and urgent, suddenly sounded in the city, more picking up the sound and causing your head to ache with how sonorous it was.  You put your hand over one of your ears to cradle your head and winced, while Levi suddenly stood up straight, expression darkening to something serious and concerned.

“What the hell?” you asked, gazing out the window as Levi suddenly grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair.

“Come on--something’s happening,” he said in a suddenly commanding tone, quickly shifting from Just Levi to Captain Levi in what felt like the drop of a hat.  You followed after him with the only complaint being muttered ones under your breath about how the bells were hurting your ears as they continued ringing, and outside, there was suddenly the cacophony of horses being gathered and saddled, of ODM gear going off, soldiers moving.

You and Levi arrived out front to see Erwin quickly ordering groups of scouts in different directions, giving them names that sounded like locations, some of which you recognized from trips on the path to get ready for expeditions beyond the walls, locations in Wall Maria.  Other groups he sent to be on Wall Rose to assist the Garrison troops, and all around, people were running to follow orders.  Most looked pale and scared, and you saw one person who was silently crying as they raced past with their jaw locked to keep them from sobbing while their shoulders shook and they raced to help bring out supplies.

“Erwin!” Levi called, immediately gaining the Commander’s attention.  “What’s happening?”

Erwin turned to face the two of you fully, his expression far more serious than you’d ever seen it, large eyebrows furrowed to complete an expression somewhere between seriousness and grim determination.

“Wall Maria just fell.”

Next Chapter---->

Everything Tags:  @antisteller  @mochicheeks-world

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