#kerothi

(fashionably late to the birthday scene but shhh)

Prompts for the Grumpy vs Sunshine Trope | Accepting | @kerothi

"You're not in any trouble," Levi assures him when he catches the look on Jean's face as he watches the rest of the new Levi Squad be dismissed for the evening, while he's so luckily chosen to stay behind and help Levi clean up. "Even if it might feel like punishment getting stuck with me."

It's a joke, mostly, but his signature deadpan delivery does little to make that clear.

"You seemed off today. More than you usually are, I mean." There he goes again. He's being sincere, though. "Like there's some shit on your mind." And if there is, hell, Levi can't blame him; with all the shit they've been going through lately, there's a plethora of things that could be bothering him. Take your pick.

And he's not one to pry, isn't going to try to force anything out of him (not going to do something that he finds annoying as fuck when done to him), but he does care, and so he simply leaves him an opening, if he so wishes.

It takes a few moments, but Jean eventually takes it.

Levi doesn't say much while the young soldier shares what's on his mind, mostly the occasional hum or nod to show he's listening while he tends to the dishes, a word or two when it's needed. He's still talking when Levi hands him the last dish to dry, and that seems to be when Jean realizes he's been going on for a while.

"I didn't mean to talk your ear off."

"Hmn." Levi's looking down at his hands while he dries them. "You ever get roped into listening to Hanji's shit? That's talking your ear off. Until the sun's up, if you're unlucky enough."

It's his way of saying it's no big deal. Jean might be a member of the military, a soldier that could die at any moment, but he signed up to fight titans, not... all of this. And at the end of the day, he's still a teenager. They all are.

Levi tries to keep that in mind, when he can afford to.

"Better for you to let it out, anyway." Levi looks over at him. "Wouldn't want you to hold it all in and end up constipated."

Air was an anxious damp swirl –pine, woodsmoke, salt water. Eddied around them as if they were part of the wave eroded remnants of the sea stacks, moments were only ever interrupted by the gentle laps of waves against the shore. Today it welcomed her back with stillness, without horizon, the sky a blank dome of seaweed-flavoured air.

Sat by the shoreline, legs stretched straight in front of her, the fabric of her dress coated with countless sand grains, mirroring the kaleidoscopic vastness of cosmic bodies skyward. The night stayed deeply unmoved. It'd sound odd, but she found it wonderful. This stillness that made most people feel insignificant. They were able to exist and compute under it, she thought. Predict the future, analyze the past, make decisions. In this manner, they did matter. They were able to exist within this reality as they pleased. She found that very special –a pardon from the evolution of entropy.

Lyanna held the blanket tightly around them, her body pressed against Jean's, seeking his warmth against the cold that chewed upon her cheeks. Her warm breaths escaping in gentle wisps into the gentle fanning of the air past her face, feeling grateful for the boy's excellent idea of bringing along something to cover with.

"The problem with stargazing in October is that it's freezing." He niggled, nose wrinkled in a stubborn cubic grin.

She burst into a kinda loud and unfettered laugh, shoulders shaking, her eyes were narrow slits. The alcohol helped a bit but this was because of him. He should be proud of himself, she thought, proud that he'd been the one to make her come apart. Lose control again and again in delight, proud to know that he was the cause of it. Lyanna's face was bright red and her smile was wide and soft as she inspected the shadowy lines of his jaw, then inhaled a hungry breath of seaweed air while idly tracing the surface of a flint pebble with her fingers, a hagstone.

"Yeah, but it becomes my beach again in October." She playfully chunters. "Over the summer I lose it to swimmers and late night barbecues and gangs of seagulls." In the autumn the pebbles start to gleam with drizzle, and the strip of shingle between the tarmac grey of the seafront and the steel grey of the sea empties. She says ‘my beach’ but the reality is she's lived here for a brief three years. Three years before, she became restless. She left the relics of her home and moved on the island. She wasn't sure where else to go. And while she needed him close, she wasn't sure why she didn't follow him back in Marley either. So she stayed. And there she was some months after the heroes' depart to the mainland, on her beach, every other day looking for holed stones in the early morning hours.

"These had their history back... home" She nods at the shiny pebble in her palm. "When you find a hagstone and wear it around your neck you're protected against illness. When you keep one in your pocket and you happen to become lost, look through it's hole and it leads the path back home."

The girl's mind had always been of the material realm, of the absolute belief in reason. Though, since the war ended her edges softened and her feelings extended to something more vague and intangible. There was some comfort in the coldness of a stone she tried to guess, cold, but direct –get on with it, it says, your lifespan is nothing. She couldn't even remember now how it began or when, but since she became a child of this land, they’ve started to appear. Slowly at first, a single one here and there, before long piles of them on shelves, on windowsills. They creep into her sheets of paper. She doodles them unconsciously on paper scraps and she can’t remember not knowing about them, not seeing them on the beach, not stopping to look. She acts as if there wasn't a deeper undercurrent to her compulsion, linking the stone with the soul; maybe today is the day she'll finally catch a glimpse of the boyish crooked smile through the hole. Maybe she felt lost.

Up until her moods would rise on his return. Amber eyes pierced her again –everything golden reminded her of them. A haunting tinnitus; it kept her up at nights, tonight it was silenced.

"I guess it worked, though somewhat unconventionally. Home returned to me."

She was snapped out of her thoughts by a warm hand on her elbow, the gentle touch bringing her back to earth. Jean. She looked at him, her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, as they're taking in his image, a flicker of surprise crossing her face before she returned his smile with a small, gentle one of her own. He is here.

"Oh, but I did. I'm an islander now" As he laughed, she found her own quiet giggle building up in her chest. Three years. It felt like it had been both an eternity and no time at all since they had last seen each other. He's matured. It's obvious on his face, in the shadows that have taken the place of the dimple in his cheek, the twinkle in his brown eyes. He's grown up.

Jean's right, of course, she hasn't changed one bit. Still fashioning the same embroideries on her shawl, the same colours on her dresses. Her mind quickly drifts to her hair. Lyanna's fingers brushed against long dark strands, as if to reassure herself of its presence. The memory of Jean saying how he thought it was pretty flickered and stayed with her even through the years of rebuilding, a small but significant thought that she found solace in. No wonder he said she hadn't changed; she could barely bring herself to cut her hair in the three years they were apart. She could practically hear his laughter at the shock of her own realization, the way he would poke fun at her for being too stuck in her ways. Hair holds memories –when she was a little girl she'd chopped it off, all of her 18 inch, feeling lighter as it fell to the floor in a heap, knowing she'd carry more of her and less of her parents. Hair holds memories and since three years ago, when they've last said their goodbyes, she wanted each lock to remember each stare that was held a bit too long and every single one of the times he'd mouthed her name.

She blinks once, twice, unsure if she was looking at him or some kind of hallucination born out of her exhaustion. The smile, his touch, it feels real enough. "I've missed this grin" she retorts. Despite the lingering tension of the occasion, she couldn't help but feel an overwhelming pull. Her shoulder muscles are taut, and her pupils are two deep dark wells. This isn't like her. Though she guards her heart carefully, she's always open and generous with her body, whether for comfort or for pleasure. Now, she hesitates.

For a moment.

She closed her eyes, a gentle smile playing on her lips, as she stepped forward, finally embracing him, her cheek pressing against his. His scent enveloped her, a mix of cologne and a hint of tobacco.

As their embrace came to an end, her hands rested on his shoulders, eyes holding a flicker of relief as she looked up. "Your mother misses you a bunch, she's been talking about you nonstop," They had formed an unlikely bond during his absence, finding comfort in each other's company. Whenever she needed a helping hand with the housework or simply someone to share a cup of tea with, along with a chat and some gossip, Lyanna was happy to lend a hand and a listening ear. "That one story from when you were five-ish where you mooned the whole market? Amazing Mr. Ambassador"

Long gangly shadows stretched across the pine straws, the hues began to leach away into a lifeless grey; the autumnal sights of Paradis felt surreal today, almost as though the passage of time were playing tricks on her senses. Every once in a while, the distant whisper of a bird's wing would pierce the silence, only to fade into oblivion, leaving behind an eerie hollowness.

No rain or thunder made an appearance in the hours she had been up, but she could tell a storm was coming from the various creaks and aches that reverberated through her system. After the war, Lyanna was never given a moment to deal with the consequences of what happened because any moment of hesitation meant progress went backwards and the state of their home wouldn't allow further hold ups.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in whatever comes after the war. And she's been somewhat thankful for this business – obviously not for the horrors of that final battle or the things witnessed and lives lost – but for this sudden project of rebuilding and sustaining she now shared with the rest of the people there. She did not have time to think of him or anything that's happened. Sometimes thoughts do slip in, but now it has been three years and they've both gone on to follow their respective lives. The constant underlying ache has turned into an occasional sting. The pain was a fact written into the crevices of her heart– but she owed it to herself to live.

A meeting of the heroes has become infrequent and only once every few years. They've all settled in different places some far and some close. Today, through the guise of peace and restoration, Lyanna would see the others again. And Jean. Sometimes she's written to him as months went by, between him signing treaties and tending to whatever duties are bestowed upon him and her participating into reinstating civilisations and mourning the ghosts of a past life.

The anticipation was tempered with a deep-seated sense of dread, a nagging doubt. The ache she had tried to suppress was now a constant presence, a gnawing sensation that left her heavy and hollow. She couldn't help but wonder what he would make of her now, if he would see the war's toll on her as clearly as she did. Sometimes she barely recognised the one that stared back to her in the mirror. As if she's been but a mere imitator of her past self. A fraud.

Through wide windows sunshine poured like wild honey, lying in puddles on the floor of the bustling Sinian teashop. Together, they were painted into a picture of sophistication, surrounded on all sides by the almost musical hum of bone-achingly polite and banal conversation.

Lying was not a talent gifted to boys who wore their hearts on their sleeves, nor to men who held fast to the final fraying threads of old optimism. Deception was a skill that went undesired even now. Even when Jean’s question, reiterated, struck Marco like the fist of god.

What answer could he possibly give?

Nobody needed to know of the herculean effort it took to rise every morning, to extract himself from his mattress like a tooth rotten at its roots. Nobody needed to know how it felt to wash his corpse and brush its hair, to string his ruined body together with linen and leather. There was no articulating the grief and loneliness that came with walking a path parallel to that of his friends, how letters lacked the warmth and presence of flesh.

Nor was there any describing the crushing misery of finally taking a boyish dream between his teeth only to find it sour, spoiled like soft summer fruit. This was the bed he had begged for, and Marco would lie in it with all the grace he could muster, or could be tipped from a murky, amber bottle. Half a coderoin dissolved under his tongue filed the sharpest edges of his pain and kept his speckled fingers from trembling. Half a coderoin could cost him his police badge and more.

A patron breezed past with a slice of cake in hand. In the wake of their passing the scent of rosewater perfume washed over the pair, but Marco was consumed wholly by the weight of Jean’s gaze. It was like a living thing, warm and curious and concerned. Those eyes stroked over his face, sifted through dark hair now overdue a trim, traced the white linen wound around his skull, obscuring the ruin of his unseeing eye. To buy time, Marco stacked their empty plates – previously bearing pastries, now reduced to sticky crumbs and a sugary veneer on the lips – then he refilled both of their teacups. Starting with Jean’s, naturally. His movements were very careful, mostly fluid save when the spout of the teapot clattered against the ivory rim of his cup. Reduced to one eye, his world had fallen in on itself and become strangely flat. Marco had no choice but to navigate this two-dimensional plane, to move forward, to murmur apologies for moments of newfound and seemingly unavoidable clumsiness.

Only once he had served them both did he dare to look Jean in the face, to muster an answer. To his disappointment, it arrived anaemic and underwhelming:

“I don’t know. As far as I can be, I suppose.”

Marco shrugged affably, apologetically, with shoulders that had broadened in recent weeks. Fed on the rich and varied diet of the Interior, he had lengthened in the limbs, building on the muscle formed during the years of their shared training. His body was damaged, incomplete, aching, but it was nourished – and his smile remained much the same, save perhaps the sorrow that touched its edges. How easy it was to smile sincerely, for his expression to smooth into one that was fond, for his care to carve out a new and less confronting avenue of conversation. After all, Jean sat across the table from him. Tired and pinched with worry, but otherwise alive and well and here. How lucky he was to have someone care enough to come all this way, to ride into the glittering and polluted heart of Paradis.

“It’s strange. This was our dream, wasn’t it? I never saw a future with me in the Military Police without you.”

To his black tea Marco added a splash of milk, and a half-spoon of sugar. As he stirred, silver sang against porcelain.

Favorite way to give affection?

Soft Sunday Meme | Not Accepting | @kerothi

Levi's favorite ways to give affection generally matches his favorite ways to receive it, I think.

Physically, his favorite kinds of affection are small, quiet touches. Head resting on the shoulder, hand at the small of the back, fingers brushing against each other, fixing a collar or out of place strand of hair. He's not one for big gestures or overly obvious PDA. With a partner in particular, he does love just... lying with them, holding each other, resting his head on their chest or vice versa, with a gentle hand in his hair.

ice  cold  gaze  dilates  ,  sliding  from  their  position  fixed  ahead  to  the  scout  beside  her.  irritation  prickles  up  her  spine  at  the  nickname  ,  though  the  emotion  is  fleeting  ,  not  enough  to  make  her  lash  out.  ice  queen  indeed.  ironic  ,  wasn't  it  ?  that  the  very  thing  her  father  molded  her  to  be  would  be  her  downfall  across  the  sea.

❛  not  that  it's  any  of  your  business,  but  I  wasn't  ditching.  ❜      annie  says  matter-of-factly,  not  caring  either  way  if  jean  believed  her  or  not.  there  would  have  been  no  benefit  to  rushing  off  ahead  by  herself  (  except  escape  their  cumbersome  breathing  and  whining  )  since  the  exercise  required  them  all  to  finished  together  as  a  team,  much  to  her  chagrin.      ❛ I  scouted  an  easier  route  ahead  the  second  thomas  started  wheezing  like  a  ninety-year  old  grandmother.  ❜