#levixreadersmut

Rainwater dripped from the iron rail as you descended the spiral staircase beneath Denfert-Rochereau, each step carrying you farther from the wet cobblestones and café conversations of Paris and deeper into something that had forgotten the sun.

Ever since finding the carved flame three nights ago, sleep had become impossible. Every dream ended in smoke and a name you didn’t recognize when you woke.

Your headlamp cut a white tunnel through the ossuary. The walls of stacked femurs and skulls watched without blinking. Sound died strangely here—the drip of water from the limestone ceiling arrived muffled, as though the bones themselves absorbed it. Twice you stopped, certain another set of footsteps had echoed behind your own. Both times the passage behind you was empty.

The side chamber waited at the end of the permitted tunnel, low-ceilinged and colder than the main ossuary. The kit settled onto the stone floor in its usual careful arrangement: sharpened pointing trowel, brushes of three sizes, dustpan, finds bags, graph paper, measuring tape, scale, camera, gloves. Sketches of the niche already filled the plan. Every layer removed so far had been photographed in place. Protocol required that nothing significant be disturbed without the team present. That rule had already been set aside for the night.

Thin, even scrapes removed the next layer of earth. Carefully, the smallest brush swept away the remaining soil. Metal emerged against the carved back wall: a tarnished oval locket engraved with roses and a single flame. Photographs should have been taken first. Measurements should have been logged. Instead the locket came free in gloved fingers and opened under the headlamp.

The miniature inside showed a young woman with your eyes and the same small mole beneath her left ear. Around her throat hung a pendant identical to the one your grandmother had left you—the one you kept in a box because wearing it made your skin feel too tight.

The locket slipped into your jacket pocket without logging it. The omission would leave a hole in the site’s provenance—a mistake no responsible archaeologist would ever make.

A figure stood where the light gave way to darkness.

So still you thought, for one impossible moment, that he had always been there.

Black hair.

Pale skin.

Eyes like winter river water.

Your hand closed around the handle of the trowel. “This is a restricted excavation.”

He said nothing at first. His gaze moved across the tools. Without asking, he nudged the measuring tape away from the damp edge of the trench before aligning the largest brush with the trowel.

“Your notes will smear,” he said quietly.

You swallowed. “How do you know my name?”

He looked at you for a long moment. “You’ll remember.”

Your headlamp flickered.

Not once.

Three times.

Each pulse left him standing a little closer than before.

The air in the chamber shifted. For three heartbeats it smelled of beeswax and lavender. Someone laughed—light, then abruptly cut off. Ash drifted through candlelight that wasn’t there. Cold iron pressed against skin that wasn’t yours. A church bell tolled once, somewhere far above or inside your own skull. A voice that was not yours whispered in French you had never studied: Run, mon amour.

You pressed your free hand to your temple. “What is this?”

He did not answer. Dust moved along the floor where there was no air current. One skull no longer seemed to fit the pattern. You couldn’t remember whether it had always been facing this way.

You held up the open locket. “This belonged to her.”

His eyes changed for a fraction of a second—something ancient and stripped bare moving behind them—before the stillness returned.

“Yes.”

You should have left. You stayed. “What happened to her?”

He studied the carved flame on the wall as though reading a language only he could see. “They burned her.”

The smell of woodsmoke returned, stronger this time, threaded with lavender and the sharp sweetness of melting beeswax. Fragments surfaced and vanished: ash drifting, someone laughing, cold iron, church bells, a desperate whisper.

Your palm slipped on the edge of the carved stone. A shallow cut opened across the pad of your thumb. Blood welled, dark and immediate.

He noticed. His posture did not change, but something in the air around him tightened. He took one deliberate step back, as though the distance required effort. His eyes fixed on the small bead of blood for one long second before he looked away.

You wrapped your thumb in the edge of your glove. “Who are you?”

Another long silence. Then, quietly: “Someone who’s tired of waiting.”

“You break excavation protocol often?”

“Only tonight.”

“That’s usually how disasters begin.”

You should have been afraid. Part of you was. The rest of you—the part that had lied to your professor, ignored safety rules, and pocketed evidence you had no right to take—felt only a terrible, magnetic recognition.

Footsteps echoed from the main tunnel. Security. Or Dr. Moreau coming to check on the student who had stayed too late. The sound was real and ordinary and somehow more frightening than anything else in the chamber.

The man in the coat did not move. “If you return tomorrow night,” he said, “come alone. The lower chamber beyond this one.”

You swallowed. “Why would I come back?”

He looked at you for a long moment. The answer, when it came, was barely above a whisper.

“Because you already have.”

He turned and walked into the deeper dark. No footsteps followed him. No breath. The shadows simply took him.

You stood alone, the locket heavy in your pocket. The puddle of water near your boots still showed only your own reflection and the carved wall behind you. The skulls watched. The air smelled of limestone again, and rain on old Paris stone.

You climbed the spiral staircase on legs that did not feel entirely yours. At first you thought the second rhythm beneath your ribs was the distant Métro. Then you counted.

Your pulse.

Another pulse.

Not matching yours.

At the surface the night air hit you cold and wet. Rain slicked the cobblestones. Distant sirens wailed somewhere near the river. Café conversations spilled from open doorways. Pigeons startled into flight from a wet ledge overhead. The smell of espresso and rain mixed with the mineral scent still clinging to your clothes. Church bells tolled across the city—Notre-Dame or Sacré-Cœur, you could not tell which.

You pulled the locket from your pocket. It was warm against your palm. You were certain it had been cold when you freed it from the earth.

You did not log it. You did not text Dr. Moreau the truth. You stood in the rain outside the catacombs entrance, fingers curled around the small metal oval, listening to a heartbeat that did not belong to you.

When you finally looked back toward the entrance, there was no one standing on the stone steps.

But the rain had stopped falling on them.

The part of you that was still a rational archaeology student whispered that you were losing your mind.

Somewhere beneath Paris, another heartbeat kept perfect time with your own.

You returned the next night.

The rain had returned with you, thin and relentless, turning the cobblestones outside Denfert-Rochereau slick and reflective. You had told yourself again that you were only going for answers. The lie felt thinner each time you repeated it. Somewhere beneath the city, another heartbeat kept perfect time with your own. It had not stopped since you climbed the spiral stairs.

The ossuary received you in silence. The skulls watched. The drip of water marked time like a slow pulse. You did not pause when you thought you heard footsteps behind you. You kept walking.

The side chamber was unchanged. Your tools still lay where he had aligned them. The locket in your pocket was warm. You crossed to the narrow passage at the back without hesitation and descended into the lower chamber.

Candles flickered to life as you entered, though no hand had touched them. The stone bier stood at the center, velvet dark as old blood. He waited beside it.

Black coat. Black hair. Eyes like winter water. He did not speak at first. He simply looked at you, and the weight of centuries pressed between you like another presence in the room.

“You came,” he said at last. The words were quiet, almost reluctant.

“I had to.”

He studied your face. “The bond has already begun. The locket. The blood you left in the earth. The heartbeat you now carry that is not yours.” A pause. “It will grow stronger whether you stay or go. But only one choice completes it.”

You stepped closer. The air smelled of damp limestone and something older beeswax, smoke, the faint metallic tang of blood long since dried. “What happens if I stay?”

He chose his words with care. “You drink from me. I drink from you. The change takes what remains of your mortal life and remakes it. Sunlight becomes pain. Hunger becomes constant. Time becomes endless. And you are bound to me until the world itself ends.” His gaze did not waver. “You will remember everything. The love. The fire. The waiting.”

Your throat tightened. “And if I leave?”

“I walk you back to the surface. The memories fade. You finish your degree. You live a mortal life. And I return to the dark to wait for the next time your soul finds its way here.”

The thought of him standing in this chamber for another four centuries made something inside you fracture.

You took the final step that closed the distance. “I don’t want to forget you again.”

His eyes closed for one brief second. When they opened, the perfect control had thinned at the edges. He reached out and brushed a strand of damp hair from your cheek with the backs of his fingers—cool, reverent.

“Mon amour,” he whispered. The French slipped out like something he had kept locked away for centuries. “Tu es revenue à moi.”

You rose on your toes and kissed him.

Four centuries of grief and longing poured into the contact. His mouth was cool at first, then warmed against yours with startling hunger. His hands cradled your face as though you might vanish. You tasted rain and salt your own tears and something darker, older, like the earth remembering fire.

He broke the kiss only to press his forehead to yours. “There is no going back after this.”

“I know.”

He led you to the stone bier. The velvet was soft beneath your palms as he laid you down with infinite care. Each layer of clothing was removed like something sacred your jacket, your shirt, the locket set gently aside on the stone. His coat and shirt followed. His body was pale, lean, marked with old scars that had never fully healed even in immortality. He moved over you with the same economy he brought to everything, precise and controlled, until control finally fractured.

His mouth traced your throat. He did not bite yet. He simply breathed you in, lips brushing the pulse that now beat in time with his own.

“Tu sens comme elle,” he murmured against your skin. “Comme le retour à la maison après des siècles de pluie.”

You arched beneath him, hands sliding into his hair. Fragments of memory sharpened and dissolved: candle smoke, lavender, the taste of shared wine, strong hands pulling you into shadow, the crackle of flames, your own voice screaming a name that belonged to both of you.

He kissed lower, reverent and unhurried. When he reached the small cut on your thumb from the night before, he pressed his lips to it. The wound closed completely beneath his tongue.

Then he looked up at you, eyes dark with centuries of waiting.

“May I?”

You nodded.

He bit.

The fangs sank into the soft skin just above your collarbone precise, controlled, almost gentle. The pain was sharp and bright, then melted into liquid heat that flooded your veins. You gasped, back arching off the velvet. He drank slowly, one hand cradling the back of your head. With every pull, more memories returned not in fragments now, but in waves. Laughter in candlelight. The safety of his arms while the world outside burned. Nights of shared breath and skin and whispered French. The terror of the trial. The flames. His roar of anguish as they dragged you away.

Tears slipped from the corners of your eyes. Not from pain. From recognition so complete it hurt.

He sealed the wound with his tongue and rose over you again. His own wrist was already bleeding where he had cut it clean, deliberate. He offered it without a word.

You took his wrist. The blood was rich, metallic, alive with centuries. The moment it touched your tongue, the world shifted.

Fire and ice raced through your veins. Your senses exploded every flicker of candlelight became sharp as starlight, every scent layered and complex, the second heartbeat now thundering in perfect sync with your own. Strength flooded your limbs. Hunger deep, ancient, aching woke in your chest. And beneath it all, the bond snapped into place like a lock finding its key.

You cried out, tears flowing freely now. Joy. Grief. Love so vast it had no name. The memories crashed over you in full every night he had stood in this chamber speaking your name to the dark, every century of loneliness he had carried for you.

He kissed the tears from your cheeks. “Pleure, mon amour. Ces larmes sont sacrées.”

You pulled him down to you. The joining was inevitable bodies moving together with the certainty of souls that had done this before. He entered you slowly, deeply, a low sound escaping him that carried four centuries of restraint finally breaking. You wrapped your legs around him and met every thrust with your own, nails digging into his back.

The blood play wove through it like a second rhythm. He bit your throat again as he moved inside you deeper this time, drinking while pleasure built in tight, relentless waves. You bit his shoulder in return, the taste of his blood sending fresh ecstasy through both of you. Every shared swallow tightened the bond until you could feel his pleasure as your own, his centuries of waiting as your own grief finally healed.

“Je t’aime,” he whispered against your skin between thrusts, voice rough with emotion. “Je t’ai aimée à travers le feu et le temps. Tu es mienne. Pour toujours.”

The climax, when it came, was not merely physical. It was the shattering and remaking of everything you had been. You came with his name on your lips Céleste’s name and yours at once. body shaking, tears streaming down your face from the overwhelming pleasure of the bond snapping fully into place. Wave after wave of ecstasy rolled through you, each one carrying fragments of memory and centuries of love. He followed you over the edge with a broken groan, burying his face in your throat as he spilled deep inside you, still drinking, still giving.

The change completed in the afterglow.

You lay tangled together on the velvet-draped stone, his arms around you, his heartbeat now perfectly synced with yours. The candles burned lower. The chamber no longer felt like a tomb. It felt like home.

You turned your face into his chest. “I remember everything.”

His hand stroked your hair with infinite tenderness. “Then you know what we lost. And what we have regained.”

You lifted your head to look at him. His eyes were soft in a way you had never seen open, unguarded, full of a love that had outlasted fire and centuries.

“I’m not afraid anymore,” you said.

He kissed your forehead. “Nor am I.”

You stayed like that for a long time two immortals in an ancient chamber beneath Paris, the rain still falling on the city above, the bones of the catacombs keeping their silent vigil. The locket rested between you, warm and whole.

Eventually he spoke again, voice quiet but certain.

“We have all the nights that remain. I will teach you the hunger. The shadows. The beauty that lives only in the dark.” A faint, rare smile touched his mouth. “And I will never let them take you from me again.”

You smiled back through the last of your tears, the joy still trembling in your chest.

“Neither will I.”

He kissed you once more slow, deep, promising eternity.

Above the catacombs, Paris continued its restless night. Below, in the lower chamber that had waited four centuries for your return, two souls that had once burned now began their forever.

Levi Ackerman x Reader

Modern Office AU | Slow Burn Angst to Romance | Hurt/Comfort |

The offices of Ackerman Enterprises were a landscape of polished glass, neutral tones, and relentless efficiency. At twenty-three, you were the youngest admin on the floor, juggling reports, meeting coordination, and the quiet weight of bills that kept your dreams tethered to a steady paycheck. Your desk stood out like a small rebellion: potted plants stretching toward the windows, fairy lights draped along your monitor casting a soft glow, colorful sticky notes scribbled with lyric fragments, and the occasional batch of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies that mysteriously appeared in the break room.

Levi Ackerman, thirty years old and head of operations, was the embodiment of the company’s sharp edges. Impeccable suits, steel-grey eyes that missed nothing, and a no-nonsense demeanor that commanded respect—and a healthy dose of distance. He didn’t do distractions. He didn’t tolerate inefficiency. Yet somehow, your 12:30 lunch breaks aligned, and over the past several months, the break room had become an unexpected neutral ground.

It started as coincidence. You’d slip in with your bright lunch bag while Levi was already seated, his meal arranged with military precision: grilled chicken, rice, steamed vegetables, black coffee steaming beside it. The first few times you chose a separate table with a polite smile. Then one day he grunted, “Seat’s open,” without looking up, and the pattern took hold.

Conversations grew naturally from there. You kept them light at first—comments about the weather or weekend plans—but Levi’s quiet tolerance surprised you. He never shut you down. If anything, he listened, offering occasional blunt but practical insights that felt almost supportive in his reserved way. He asked real questions about your band. He remembered details. It made your fat crush on him bloom deeper with every shared lunch.

One Thursday stood out as perfectly ordinary until it wasn’t.

The morning had been typical office chaos. Hange had spilled coffee across a fresh stack of reports, cursing vividly while mopping it up with a mountain of napkins. Connie from IT was loudly arguing with the printer down the hall, his frustration echoing in exaggerated groans. Someone had burned popcorn in the break room microwave earlier, leaving the entire floor faintly scented with smoke and artificial butter.

You powered through it with one earbud discreetly tucked beneath your hair, humming fragments of a new melody while answering emails. Your fairy lights glowed softly against the sea of gray cubicles, turning your corner into its own little universe.

Around eleven, your phone buzzed.

JEAN: We got confirmed for Murphy’s next month! Saturday night! Biggest crowd we’ve booked yet.

Your entire face lit up. You nearly squealed before catching yourself, covering your mouth as a bright, quiet laugh escaped. Fingers flying, you typed back rapidly.

YOU: ARE YOU SERIOUS? I’M BRINGING CUPCAKES TO REHEARSAL.

The excitement carried you straight into lunch. You practically floated into the break room, little lunch bag in hand.

Levi was already there, as always. His meal laid out with impossible precision.

You dropped into the chair across from him, unable to contain your grin. “We booked Murphy’s.”

He looked up, fork pausing. “The bar downtown?”

You nodded enthusiastically, unpacking your sandwich. “Saturday night. They’re expecting over two hundred people. It’s the biggest crowd we’ve had yet.”

“Hm.” Levi took a measured bite, but his eyes lingered on you a moment longer than usual. No scoff. No immediate dismissal. Just that familiar quiet tolerance.

“I’ve been working on a new song,” you continued, warmth blooming in your chest. “It’s about holding onto light even when everything feels impossible. Sasha nailed the drum part last rehearsal—chaotic as always, raiding the snack drawer mid-session. Connie’s bass line gives it this dreamy swirl, and Jean’s been tweaking the guitar riff to match the emotion perfectly.”

Levi swallowed, nodding once. “You’ve been writing at your desk again. Lyrics on those colorful notes.”

Heat rushed to your face. “You noticed?”

“I notice everything.” The words were flat, but there was no mockery in them. He continued eating, listening more than speaking as you described band life with Echoes in the Hollow—your chosen family. He even asked practical questions: “How do you handle equipment transport for a crowd that size? Murphy’s stage is small.” When you mentioned eventually recording an album, he didn’t laugh or brush it off. He simply took another bite and listened.

When lunch ended, Levi stood and carried your empty container to the sink without a word, rinsing it efficiently before setting it aside. You watched him leave, butterflies bouncing wildly in your stomach. Maybe Hange was right. Maybe there was something there beneath the steel exterior.

The thought followed you all afternoon, a warm glow amid the fluorescent hum. Those shared lunches had built something real. He tolerated—maybe even quietly respected—your passion. The rainy night months ago had cemented it.

That stormy evening replayed in your mind often. Your car had refused to start after work, dead in the pouring rain. Everyone else had left. You stood soaked under a useless umbrella when Levi’s sleek black car pulled up. “Get in,” he’d said. “I’ll drive you home.”

You’d hesitated, dripping on his leather seats, but he simply cranked the heat and navigated the flooded streets. In the quiet cab, rain hammering the windows, you’d opened up about the band—how music was where the real you survived the corporate grind. Levi kept his eyes on the road, wipers slashing steady arcs. “Persistence isn’t childish if you’re actually good at it,” he’d said quietly. He waited in the lot until you were safely inside before driving off.

Those moments made your crush bloom deep and hopeful. The no-nonsense man who terrified half the office had shown you quiet kindness. Lunches continued with new warmth. You brought extra cookies specifically for him. He saved the seat across from you. Elevator rides turned from nods to brief chats. The office felt brighter.

Until that same ordinary Thursday afternoon.

Around four, you realized you’d left your notebook in the conference room after the budget meeting. You hurried down the hallway, still humming absentmindedly, the excitement from lunch lingering like a song stuck in your head.

The door to the smaller executive break room was cracked open. Voices drifted through—Levi’s unmistakable flat tone and Erwin’s calmer, measured one.

You stopped without meaning to, hand hovering near the door.

“So are you finally going to that girl’s concert?” Erwin asked, coffee mug in hand.

Levi looked up from the paperwork spread across the table. “No.”

“Why not?”

A dry scoff escaped him. “I have better things to do than spend my Saturday listening to amateur musicians in some rundown bar.”

Erwin shrugged. “She seems passionate about it.”

“She’s passionate because she doesn’t know any better.” The words settled heavily in the room.

Levi took another sip of coffee before continuing. “Every paycheck she makes disappears into booking gigs and buying equipment.”

“So?”

“So she’s twenty-three years old pretending she’s still sixteen.”

Erwin frowned. “I think she’s talented.”

“Talent isn’t enough.” Levi’s voice remained frustratingly calm. “The world is full of talented people who never make it. She’s too nice. Everything. She smiles at everyone. Trusts everyone. Thinks hard work guarantees success. Reality doesn’t work that way.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then Levi delivered the sentence that would echo in your head for weeks. “She’ll wake up one day broke, disappointed, and wondering where all the time went. And honestly? I don’t know why she keeps embarrassing herself. She belongs in an office. Not on a stage. Some people just aren’t meant for dreams that big.”

The notebook slipped from your fingers. It landed softly against the carpet. Neither man noticed.

You bent to pick it up, biting the inside of your cheek until you tasted blood, desperate to stop the tears before they fell.

Back at your desk, the fairy lights still glowed. The Polaroids of band moments still smiled from the walls. Your earbuds still sat beside your keyboard. For the first time since you’d started at Ackerman Enterprises, none of it felt bright anymore. The warmth from lunch—the quiet tolerance, the butterflies, the hope built over months of shared conversations and that rainy night ride—had shattered completely.

Across the office, Levi glanced up from his paperwork. Your head stayed down for the rest of the afternoon.

He told himself he preferred the silence.

For some reason, it made the entire floor feel empty. You didn’t cry in the hallway. Not where Levi or Erwin could hear. You walked back to your desk with measured steps, notebook clutched so tightly the spiral dug into your palm, and sat down like nothing had changed. The fairy lights still glowed softly around your monitor, casting their gentle warmth over the Polaroids of band practices and late-night rehearsals. They looked wrong now. Too hopeful. Too childish.

Your fingers moved almost on their own. You reached up and unplugged the string of lights. The tiny bulbs flickered once and went dark. The corner of your desk that had once felt like your own universe suddenly blended back into the gray sea of cubicles. No one else seemed to notice. The office hummed on, indifferent.

The first crack happened on a Tuesday morning.

Hange wandered over carrying a stack of folders and stopped in front of your cubicle. “Coffee run,” they announced. “I’m buying. You want your usual caramel thing with enough sugar to power a small city?”

For weeks that question had always earned an enthusiastic nod. This time you didn’t even look up from your screen. “No thanks.”

Hange blinked. “…You sick?”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“I’m working.”

The conversation ended there. Hange walked away slower than they had arrived. Across the office, Levi watched the exchange without meaning to. His eyes followed Hange back toward the copier. “What happened to sunshine?” they muttered under their breath. Levi returned to his paperwork. “People change.” His answer sounded certain. It didn’t feel certain.

Later that afternoon Sasha burst through the front doors carrying a guitar case almost bigger than she was. The receptionist waved her toward your desk. Your entire body stiffened. Sasha spotted you and grinned. “I brought your jacket from rehearsal!” She dropped it over the partition, then froze. The smile slowly faded from her face. “Where are your lights?”

You glanced at the unplugged cord hanging behind your monitor. “I took them down.”

“…Why?”

“They were distracting.”

Sasha stared at you as though you’d started speaking another language. “You?”

“I’m trying to be more professional.”

The words tasted bitter. Sasha looked around the office before leaning closer. “Who told you that you had to stop being yourself?”

You opened your mouth. Nothing came out. From his office window, Levi watched Sasha squeeze your shoulder before leaving. For the rest of the afternoon, his concentration wandered. He signed two contracts without reading the final page. He misfiled a report. He drank cold coffee without noticing. Every so often his gaze drifted toward the little cubicle at the end of the row. The unplugged fairy lights hung there like tiny stars after sunrise. Invisible unless someone remembered they had once been bright. He looked away every time. Somewhere deep inside, a quiet voice whispered that the office had lost something. Levi buried the thought beneath another stack of paperwork. Work made sense. Spreadsheets made sense. Silence made sense. The ache he couldn’t explain did not.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze. You answered emails with clinical efficiency, filed reports without humming, and kept your earbuds buried in your bag. When Levi walked past your desk, you didn’t look up. You didn’t smile. You didn’t offer the quiet “Have a good afternoon” that had become habit. He paused for half a second—long enough for you to feel it—but kept walking.

That night, alone in your apartment, the tears finally came. You sat on the edge of your bed with your guitar across your lap, notebook open to fresh pages. The pain poured out raw and furious. Every kind word from the break room, every practical question Levi had asked about your band, the rainy night he’d driven you home—it all twisted into something sharp and venomous.

You wrote “Permanent Night” in one tear-soaked, rage-fueled session. The song took shape like a living thing: upbeat psychedelic indie rock on the surface, heavy with the heartbreak and anger underneath. You twisted an old favorite into something deeply personal, every line aimed straight at the man who had made you feel seen… only to tear that feeling apart with words like too nice, embarrassing herself, and not meant for dreams that big.

By morning your eyes were swollen, but your resolve was steel. You wouldn’t confront him. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. You would simply… change.

The slow fade continued. Homemade cookies stopped entirely—no more batches brought in for the team, and certainly none saved especially for Levi. Your bright, infectious laugh that used to echo through the afternoons vanished. You kept strictly to your small bubble: head down, work done perfectly, polite but distant. No small talk in the elevator. No humming while filing. No mentioning gigs or weekend plans.

The break room—once the highlight of your days—became a place to avoid. You ate lunch at your desk or in your car, staring out at the parking lot where Levi had once pulled up in the rain.

Levi noticed. Of course he did. He noticed everything. By the beginning of the fourth week, the office had settled into a new rhythm.

It was quieter.

No humming drifted over the cubicle walls anymore.

No laughter echoed from the printer when Connie inevitably jammed it.

No smell of cinnamon or oatmeal cookies floated through the break room on Fridays.

People still worked.

The numbers still balanced.

The meetings still started exactly on time.

Everything functioned.

Yet somehow it felt like someone had opened a window in winter and forgotten to close it.

Levi noticed because noticing was what he did. He noticed your earbuds stayed zipped inside your bag. He noticed the little cactus on your desk had started to wilt. He noticed the Polaroids had disappeared, leaving pale rectangles where sunlight hadn’t touched the partition. Most of all, he noticed lunch. Every day at 12:30, his eyes drifted toward the door before he could stop them. Every day someone else walked in. Or no one. His coffee tasted the same. His meals were identical. The chair across from him remained empty.

He told himself he preferred it that way. Quiet. Efficient. Professional.

Then Hange wandered into the break room carrying an energy drink and frowned. “Where’s sunshine?”

Levi looked down at his lunch. “Busy.”

“Busy for four weeks?”

He didn’t answer.

Hange leaned against the counter. “She hasn’t talked about music in almost a month.”

“So?”

“The fairy lights disappeared.”

“So?”

“The cookies stopped.”

Levi took another bite. “So?”

Hange stared at him for a long moment. “You really don’t get it.”

“I get plenty.”

“No.” Their voice softened. “You broke something.”

The words landed strangely. Levi frowned. “I didn’t do anything.”

Hange looked toward the empty chair across from him. “That’s the problem.”

They walked away before he could ask what they meant.

Levi sat alone for another fifteen minutes. The silence around him felt heavier than usual. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he wrapped the untouched oatmeal raisin cookie from the cafeteria in a napkin and threw it away after one bite. It didn’t taste right.

Across the office, your desk sat dim beneath the fluorescent lights. The little corner that had once looked like a constellation had become just another gray square in a gray building. No one seemed to notice the difference.

Except the man who had convinced himself it was better this way.

Weekends remained your lifeline, even as doubt gnawed at you. Friday evenings you still drove to rehearsals with Echoes in the Hollow, your chosen family. The car rides were the worst. Tears blurred the road as you replayed Levi’s words on loop.

“Maybe he’s right,” you whispered to the empty passenger seat one night, voice cracking. “Maybe I am wasting everyone’s time. Twenty-three and still chasing bars no one will remember.”

Sasha, Connie, and Jean rallied around you at practice. You wiped your face, stepped behind the mic, and poured everything into “Permanent Night.” For those hours, you weren’t the dimmed office ghost. You were yourself again. But the high always faded on the drive home. Singing was the only place the real you survived.

By the end of the fourth week, both of you were exhausted in different ways—you from holding yourself together with sheer willpower, Levi from pretending the silence didn’t bother him. The stage was quietly being set for something neither of you could have predicted. Permanent Night Permanent Night The days bled into one another like ink on wet paper, blurring the edges of everything that once felt sharp and hopeful. Four weeks had passed since that Thursday afternoon, and the office had adapted to the new silence the way a body adapts to a missing limb—functional, but forever altered. You moved through your routines with mechanical precision: arriving early, completing tasks flawlessly, leaving without lingering. Polite nods replaced smiles. Efficient replies replaced the bright chatter that used to fill small moments. You were the model employee now. Professional. Contained. Dimmed.

Inside, you were barely holding on.

Mornings were the hardest. You’d stare at your reflection in the bathroom mirror before work, practicing the neutral expression that had become your armor. “You’re fine,” you’d whisper. “This is what growing up looks like.” The words tasted like Levi’s voice—calm, cold, final. She belongs in an office. Not on a stage. Every time they echoed, the crack in your chest widened.

One Wednesday, the pretense cracked visibly. You were midway through organizing a stack of quarterly reports when Hange appeared at the edge of your cubicle again, this time with two coffees. “Come on, kiddo. One caramel monstrosity. My treat. We can talk about that Murphy’s gig if you want—”

“No thanks,” you cut in quietly, eyes fixed on the spreadsheet. Your voice was steady, but your grip on the papers tightened until the edges crumpled. “I’m on a deadline.”

Hange lingered, studying you. The usual chaotic energy dimmed in their posture. “You know you can tell me if something’s wrong, right? You’ve been… different.”

“I’m fine.” The lie came easier now. “Just focused.”

Hange eventually left the coffee on the corner of your desk anyway. It went cold untouched. From across the floor, Levi watched the exchange from his office window. His pen had stopped moving over a contract ten minutes earlier. He told himself it was none of his business. She was finally focusing. It was for the best.

Afternoons stretched long. You avoided the break room entirely, eating a simple sandwich at your desk while scrolling through band group chat messages. Sasha sent memes and snack photos. Connie hyped the upcoming Murphy’s show. Jean checked in quietly: You good? Rehearsal tonight? You replied with thumbs-ups and short affirmations, but the knot in your stomach never loosened. By the time five o’clock rolled around, exhaustion clung to you like damp clothes.

Weekends offered no real relief, only a different kind of survival.

Friday evenings, you drove to the practice space with tears already threatening. The car rides became confessionals to no one. “Maybe he was right,” you’d murmur, voice thick as you gripped the wheel. “Twenty-three and still pretending. Embarrassing myself every weekend in front of people who probably laugh behind my back.” The words Levi had spoken in the executive break room replayed mercilessly. Too nice. Trusts everyone. Some people just aren’t meant for dreams that big.

At rehearsals, though, you pushed through. Sasha would envelop you in one of her bone-crushing hugs the moment you walked in. “There’s our star! Cupcakes incoming next time, right?” Connie would launch into an exaggerated story about a disastrous open mic they’d played last month, making you crack the smallest smile. Jean, ever steady, would hand you the mic without fanfare. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Permanent Night” had become the anchor of every set. You poured the festering wound into it—voice starting controlled and biting in the verses, then exploding in the chorus with raw, unfiltered pain. The band matched your intensity: Sasha’s drums hitting like thunder, Connie’s bass swirling underneath, Jean’s guitar carrying the psychedelic edge. On stage at small venues, under cheap lights, you transformed. The office ghost disappeared. You dominated the mic, red lips (saved only for performances now) moving with venom and vulnerability. The crowds responded—cheers, swaying bodies, even a few requests for the new song by name.

But the applause always faded on the drive home. The tears returned. You were surviving, not thriving. Singing was the only place the real you still breathed.

Levi’s side of the wound festered differently.

He threw himself into work with renewed intensity. Mergers, reports, client calls—anything to fill the quiet. The department ran like clockwork. Numbers balanced. Deadlines were met early. He told himself this was success. She had finally listened to reason. Dreams like hers led to disappointment, debt, and regret. Someone had to say it. The world wasn’t kind to people like her—bright, trusting, too nice for their own good. Better she hated him now than spend ten years chasing applause that never came. He knew that truth from experience. Hope was a luxury that buried people. Practicality kept them standing.

One evening, after everyone else had left, he found himself standing near your desk under the dim cleaning lights. The vacuum hummed distantly down the hall. His fingers brushed the unplugged cord of the fairy lights. The tiny copper wire wrapped around the cubicle wall rested against his fingertips.

Plug them back in.

It was a ridiculous thought. They were only lights. Cheap plastic stars bought from some discount store. Yet he could still remember how they reflected in your eyes whenever you laughed during those lunch breaks, how the soft glow had made the break room feel less like another sterile box.

His hand hovered over the outlet for nearly a minute before he pulled it back sharply.

“Tch.”

He turned off the office light and walked away, leaving the cubicle in darkness. The impulse unsettled him more than he cared to admit. Work made sense. Spreadsheets made sense. Silence made sense. The quiet ache he couldn’t quite name did not.

Hange cornered him again near the end of week four. “You’re an idiot, Levi.”

“Tch. Not in the mood.”

“You miss her.”

“I miss productivity. Someone had to say it. The world isn’t kind to people like her. Better she hates me now than spend ten years chasing applause that never comes.”

Hange studied him for a long beat. “Keep telling yourself that.”

The words lingered long after Hange left. Levi worked late that night, but concentration evaded him. He thought of the rainy night months ago—your soaked clothes, the warmth of the heater, your voice talking about music like it was oxygen. He had meant what he said then about persistence. But reality eventually won. Always did.

By Friday of the fourth week, Levi’s own exhaustion had reached a breaking point. A major merger had collapsed spectacularly mid-week—contracts voided at the last minute, clients screaming down phone lines, board members demanding explanations. Endless overtime had left him running on black coffee and sheer stubbornness. His shoulders were knotted steel. His temper, already short, had frayed to nothing.

Hange found him at his desk near seven, staring at a screen without seeing it. “Enough. One drink downtown. You look like death warmed over, Levi. Doctor’s orders.”

He grunted but didn’t argue. Resistance took more energy than compliance right now. They ended up at a packed, divey bar with sticky floors and a tiny stage tucked in the corner. Levi nursed a whiskey, barely present, while Hange rambled about some R&D disaster. The small talk about the failed merger and board pressure filled the first twenty minutes. The whiskey burned clean, loosening the edges of the awful week just slightly. The bar noise rose and fell around them like a dull tide.

Backstage at the same venue, you adjusted the strap of your guitar and rolled your shoulders to shake away the nerves. Beyond the curtain, the crowd buzzed with restless anticipation.

Sasha spun a drumstick between her fingers. Connie bounced on his heels. Jean checked the tuning on his guitar one last time.

The stage manager pointed toward the lights. “You’re up in thirty seconds.”

You closed your eyes and inhaled slowly.

Somewhere out in the crowd, a man in a black suit lifted a glass of whiskey to his lips, completely unaware that the next song was about to change everything.

Neither of you knew it yet, but this was the last quiet moment either of you would have. Levi sat in the back booth of Murphy’s, the packed dive bar loud and sticky with Friday night energy. Cheap string lights hung crooked overhead, and the air smelled of spilled beer and fried food. He nursed a whiskey, neat, barely tasting it. The awful week still clung to him like a second skin. Merger collapsed. Clients panicking. Board furious. Whole thing’s a mess.

Hange sat across from him, sipping something obnoxiously colorful with an umbrella, rambling about some R&D disaster as if it could distract him.

Levi swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “Clients are screaming. Board wants blood. Paperwork’s a disaster.” He took a slow sip. The whiskey burned clean. “Reality doesn’t wait.”

Hange leaned back. “You carried the department again. Small win on the vendor deal yesterday. Breathe, Levi.”

Levi’s jaw tightened. The conversation drifted in fragments—Hange’s chaos, his curt fixes. They enjoyed the lull for a while, the bar noise rising and falling around them like a dull tide. The whiskey loosened the edges of the week just slightly.

Then the house lights dimmed further. Cheap blue stage bulbs flickered on over the tiny platform. The crowd quieted a notch as the band took the stage.

Levi barely glanced up at first—until a familiar voice cut through the speakers.

Echoes in the Hollow stepped into the light.

You looked nothing like the quiet, dimmed 23-year-old who had once brightened the office. Black heels clicked with quiet command. Black tights and a sleek black skirt that fell just at your knees gave you a sharp edge, but the striking blue corset top with flowy sleeves turned it into something powerful and feminine, the fabric shifting like water under the lights. Your hair was a big 90s blow-out, voluminous and bold; bright red lips caught every flicker of the blue stage glow.

No trace of fairy lights. This was unleashed-you.

Sasha slammed into the drums with chaotic energy. Connie laid down a driving bass line. Jean’s guitar wove in heavy, psychedelic riffs. You owned every inch of that tiny stage, mic gripped like a weapon.

The set built beautifully. Then you closed with “Permanent Night.”

The lights swirled into psychedelic colors as the upbeat indie-rock intro dropped—heavy guitars and swirling synths masking the venom underneath.

You started with eyes closed, voice sharp and biting.

[Verse 1]
I’m not that nice… that’s your line, suited man.
Mean and evil in your perfect plans.
Gonna eat your cold heart out — I’ve got dreams you can’t stand.
Baby, I’m ready, I’m ready, ready, ready to blow this whole thing wide.

Levi’s fingers tightened around the glass. Suited man. The words landed like a slap.

Your voice rose, cracking with four weeks of festering hurt as the crowd felt the shift.

[Verse 2]
Go fuck yourself! You heard me right.
Don’t call me nice again.

Levi’s breath caught. He remembered saying it. Cold office lighting. Your smile. He hadn’t thought it mattered.

Don’t you have somewhere to be at 7:30?
Some merger, some deal where dreamers like me don’t fit in?
Baby, I’m ready, I’m ready, ready, ready to blow my brains out —
‘Cause you already killed the light!

The chorus exploded. You dominated the stage—mic gripped tight, red lips snarling, flowy sleeves whipping as you leaned into the crowd. Psychedelic lights swirled. The room roared.

[Chorus]
You die… and words don’t do anything.
Laugh it up while the permanent night rolls in.
You die… and dreams don’t mean a thing.
But I’ll keep singing louder while you stay dim.

Levi sat frozen, whiskey untouched. That’s how I sound when I think I’m being right. The realization hit like ice water. He had believed every word—practicality, protection, the hard lessons life had taught him. Now they stared back at him from the stage, raw and furious and true.

The bridge slowed dramatically. Your voice broke with raw heartbreak, eyes glistening under the blue lights.

[Bridge]
You were kind before… or at least I thought you were.
Now the nicest thing you did was show me the truth.
You die… and I still sing anyway.

Then you exploded back into the final chorus with everything left in you—dropping to your knees on the last note, sweat-drenched, chest heaving, blow-out hair wild. The crowd erupted, chanting your name. Energy electric.

Hange whistled low beside Levi. “Damn… that voice. Wait—is that…?”

Levi couldn’t speak.

After the set, the merch table buzzed with chaotic life. Bass still vibrated through the floorboards. Someone laughed too loudly nearby. Sasha hyped the crowd with snacks in hand. Connie and Jean chatted easily. Fans lined up. A college guy grinned ear-to-ear: “Can you sign my CD? Seen you four times now.” Selfies, hugs, one girl tearing up: “Your song got me through my breakup.”

Levi watched it all, the realization sinking deeper. You already had this—people who believed in you. Real impact. Something he had dismissed as childish fantasy. Something he had tried to kill with what he thought was practicality.

Your eyes met across the room.

The marker shook slightly in your hand. Your breath caught. Your smile vanished. The marker slipped from your fingers and clattered onto the table. Time stopped.

Levi stood slowly, weaving through the crowd. Hange stayed back, eyes wide with curiosity.

You spoke first, voice raw from singing: “…You came?”

“I didn’t know you were playing,” he answered, low and rough.

The silence stretched, heavier than any argument—four weeks of unspoken stones. Bandmates glanced over curiously. Bar noise faded into the distance.

Levi picked up one of the CDs from the table, turning it over in his hands. Your name and “Permanent Night” listed as the closer stared back at him.

“Outside?” he asked quietly.

You nodded. The cool night air hit like a shock after the stuffy heat of Murphy’s. You stepped outside with Levi, black heels clicking against the sidewalk, the blue corset top’s flowy sleeves brushing your arms in the breeze. Your heart hammered harder than it had onstage. The big 90s blow-out in your hair felt wild under the streetlights, bright red lips still tingling from the performance. Four weeks of silence, of dimming yourself, of pretending you were fine—all of it had just exploded in front of him.

Levi walked beside you, suit jacket slightly rumpled, the CD from the merch table tucked under his arm like something fragile. Neither of you spoke for the first block. The silence wasn’t awkward. It was heavy, filled with every unspoken stone you had both carried since that Thursday in the break room.

He stopped under a quiet streetlamp, turning to face you. Steel-grey eyes met yours, tired but steady. The man who had always seemed untouchable looked shaken.

“I didn’t think it would land like that,” he started, voice low and rough. He paused, jaw working like the words were fighting him. “I thought I was being… responsible. Practical. Someone had to say it before the world did.”

You waited, arms wrapped around yourself against the night chill.

Levi exhaled sharply. “No. That’s not it.” Another pause, longer this time. “I was just… wrong.”

Your throat tightened. The streetlight cast long shadows across his face, highlighting the exhaustion from his hellish week and something deeper—regret he was still wrestling with.

“I really liked you, Levi,” you said, voice still raw from singing. “Those lunches where you listened to every band story. The questions about equipment and Murphy’s. The rainy night you drove me home when my car died. You didn’t laugh. You didn’t dismiss me. You made me think maybe someone saw the real me. Then I heard you in that break room—the same place we used to talk—calling it all pathetic. Childish. Embarrassing. I started acting like your version of reality was the only one that mattered. It broke me. I dimmed everything because it hurt too much to be bright around you.”

He stepped closer, close enough that you could smell faint whiskey and clean linen. His hand lifted slowly, calloused fingers brushing a stray strand of your blow-out hair behind your ear with surprising gentleness. You leaned into the touch without thinking.

“The office was dimmer without you,” he admitted after a long beat. “I told myself you’d finally grown up. That the silence was better. Efficient. But it wasn’t.” He looked away for a moment, as if the admission cost him. “I missed your laugh. The lights. The way you made the break room feel less like a cage. I buried it because facing it meant admitting I was wrong. That my version of ‘reality’ wasn’t protecting anyone—it was just cold.”

The space between you shrank. His hand slid to your jaw, thumb tracing the edge of your bright red lips with tenderness that made your chest ache. Weeks of doubt in your car before rehearsals, the tears wiped away before stepping onstage, the way you’d pretended at work while barely holding together—it all cracked open.

“Then don’t bury it,” you whispered. “Just… be here. With me. As I am. Dreams and all.”

Levi’s forehead nearly rested against yours. “I’m here.”

The kiss started tentative—his mouth brushing yours like he was testing whether this was real, whether you would pull away after everything he’d said. But you didn’t. You rose on your black heels, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, and kissed him back with all the pent-up longing and fire you had poured into “Permanent Night.” It deepened quickly, raw and honest: his controlled intensity meeting your free-spirited warmth, the philosophies that had clashed so violently finally colliding into something mutual. His other hand found your waist, steadying you as the world narrowed to the taste of whiskey, the feel of his suit against your corset top, and the quiet night around you.

When you broke apart, breathing uneven, foreheads still touching, Levi exhaled slowly, like he wasn’t sure what to do with the fact that you hadn’t left. “I didn’t think you’d still be here,” he admitted quietly, voice rough with uncertainty.

You smiled softly. “I’m still here.”

The tension eased just enough for a small, rare twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Not bad for a suit, huh?”

You laughed—the first real one in weeks—and it felt like the fairy lights flickering back on. “Not bad at all.”

The walk continued slowly down the quiet sidewalk. He kept the CD. The conversation turned tentative and hopeful, unfolding in small, careful steps rather than sweeping declarations. He didn’t try to “fix” you. You didn’t demand he change overnight.

In the days that followed, the thaw was slow and awkward at first.

The office felt like neutral territory again. You plugged the fairy lights back in one morning, but left them off for a few days, testing the waters. Levi noticed immediately but said nothing. Cookies reappeared in the break room—his favorite oatmeal raisin first, left anonymously on the usual table. He took one without comment, though you caught him glancing toward your desk more than once.

The first gig he attended after that night was tense. He sat in the back, arms crossed, staying until the end but speaking little afterward. “You were good,” was all he managed. You nodded, the compliment landing like a fragile bridge.

Lunch breaks resumed gradually. At first it was just shared space—polite, careful. Then one day he asked about the next setlist. You answered. The conversation didn’t flow like before, but it moved. He offered practical help with band logistics (equipment transport for Murphy’s follow-up show) without trying to dim your fire. You challenged him gently to loosen up, to see that not everything had to be efficient to matter.

One evening weeks later, back in the break room where it had all shattered, Levi slid the best cookie across the table to you. “Keep singing,” he said quietly, steel-grey eyes softer than you had ever seen. “I’ll be there. Every time I can.”

You smiled, the warmth returning fully. “Only if you promise not to be late to the 7:30 meetings.”

He snorted—a rare, genuine sound. “Tch. Deal.”

Outside the office, under streetlights and stage lights alike, the permanent night had finally given way to dawn. Two philosophies—control and emotion—had collided, cracked, and found something stronger in the pieces. You weren’t just surviving anymore. You were building something real together.

Levi Ackerman x Reader | Dark Hogwarts AU

Ancient Runes Professor x Potions Master Levi Ackerman

A gothic Hogwarts AU where an ancient entity feeds on obsession… and the closer they get, the stronger it becomes.

Enemies to lovers. Slow burn. Dark romance. CNC + bondage + poison play.

Morally gray Levi. No heroes here.

The rain never stopped at Hogwarts. It hammered the ancient towers like a living accusation, carving ceaseless paths down stone walls that seemed to breathe and shift under the weight of centuries. Water pooled in corridors where whispers lingered longer than shadows, turning every hallway into a vein of memory and damp regret. You arrived as the new Ancient Runes professor carrying Ministry-buried secrets and Erwin Smith’s letter that read more like a veiled threat than an invitation: The castle needs you. Try not to die.

From the first step on rain-slicked grounds, the castle noticed you. Runes you inscribed in your classroom misfired without cause, sparks dancing wildly across parchment before dying in smoke. Candles guttered in your wake as if the flames themselves recoiled from your presence. Dreams dragged you into unseen depths — black stone chambers heavy with age, chains glinting in faint torchlight, a low rough voice calling your name from foundations that should not speak. You woke fevered each time, heart pounding against ribs, an unwelcome ache between your thighs that left sheets tangled and sleep impossible. The entity beneath already tasted your magic and found it intriguing.

It guided your feet one storm-lashed evening into the potions dungeons. Torchlight flickered along damp walls lined with bubbling cauldrons that hissed like living things. The air carried crushed herbs, simmering potions, and the faint metallic tang of old blood that clung to the back of your throat.

“Professor Ackerman, I presume?” you said, voice steady despite the chill seeping into your bones.

Levi Ackerman stood at the center table, black robes pristine despite the perpetual dungeon damp. He did not turn immediately, gloved hands adjusting a flame with surgical precision. “If you’re here to observe my brewing methods, you’re already trespassing.”

“Headmaster Smith assigned me to the dungeons for collaborative research on the growing anomalies.”

“He assigns many things. Most of them are regrettable.” His steel-grey eyes finally met yours. Recognition sliced sharp and unwelcome between you, a wrongness that settled deep. The entity stirred beneath the stone, pleased by the collision of your magical signatures. Levi’s jaw tightened visibly. He hated feeling unsettled. You unsettled him in a way no one else had. The torches dimmed slightly, as if the castle itself leaned in to listen.

Rule 1: Do not stay alone after midnight.

He broke it first in the restricted section. Ancient tomes floated above lecterns bound by silver chains of light that hummed warnings. Dust drifted like slow snowfall through dim beams. You traced a glowing curse mark on brittle parchment, feeling it pulse under your fingertip. “This reacts to living magic.”

“Don’t let it react to yours,” Levi said flatly, arms crossed. “It listens. And it remembers.”

Silence stretched. His fingers flexed at his sides. The castle intervened deliberately, shifting a corridor to force proximity. When you subtly altered his research notes with delicate counter-runes later that night, he cornered you against a tall shelf. His breath brushed your temple. Tension crackled like unstable potion. Levi held control of the space with cold authority. You disrupted it by stepping forward into his shadow, voice low. “You’re afraid of what we become together when the walls thin.” The entity fed hungrily on the argument, swelling with fresh power as torches flared brighter.

Students began vanishing for hours, returning speaking dead languages with haunted eyes. Shared dreams emerged unbidden. You witnessed fragments of Levi’s bloodied war past — choices that stained the soul. He glimpsed your volatile power and deep fears of abandonment. Magic reflected emotion violently: suppressed tension caused candles to explode into green flame, books to slam shut with force, wards to flicker erratically across entire wings.

Rule 2: Do not touch during active magic.

Broken during a violent storm in the warded hallway. Thunder rolled like something ancient waking far below. Levi steadied your hand on an unstable rune stone, his calloused fingers lingering a second too long. The bond flared hot between you. Wards destabilized across the floor in response. The castle punished the proximity by misdirecting passages, dropping you both into deeper, forgotten levels filled with echoing drips. Reader seized control, pressing glowing runes to disrupt the entity’s feeding loops with precision. Levi restrained you against cold stone when aggressive shadows lunged, his body a shield and cage. Mutual collapse followed in the aftermath as the entity adapted cleverly, now feeding on the heavy silences stretching taut between you.

Levi grew colder afterward, blocking forbidden texts with cutting words and sealed doors. You challenged him with precise counter-runes, your magic equal and defiant. When a younger professor flirted openly at dinner, Levi’s hand tightened around his goblet until the metal creaked. Later that night he cornered you in a shadowed corridor, eyes dark. “I considered murder.” The castle rewarded the spike of obsession by opening a hidden stair, pulling you both deeper into its gothic heart with eerie cooperation.

Rule 3: Do not acknowledge the bond aloud.

You shattered it deliberately in the Astronomy Tower as wind howled around enchanted glass telescopes. “You can’t keep shutting me out of everything you know.”

“Then stop standing beside me.”

“No.”

The entity escalated intelligently, now feeding on acts of cooperation itself. It manifested trauma during joint research sessions, distorting perception with vivid visions of blood and irreversible loss. The castle actively intervened, slamming doors and shifting floors to separate you during the final descent into the prison labyrinth.

Reality fractured violently above ground. Portraits screamed warnings in forgotten tongues. Hallways twisted into impossible loops. Students were evacuated in waves as the entity no longer hid its hunger.

In the labyrinth, the castle forced separation with cruel intent. Alone in suffocating darkness, the entity fed ravenously on distance and raw fear, inverting your runes to mislead you deeper. You pressed palms to glowing symbols, magic flaring bright to disrupt its loops. Levi found you in the final chamber of hanging chains. Black stone glistened with moisture. Runes pulsed sickly across the floor. “I told you not to follow.”

The entity adapted one last time, feeding on stability itself as you chose deliberate synchronization. Your runes and Levi’s meticulously controlled potions anchored together. Power dynamics shifted violently: Levi dominated, slamming you back against the unyielding stone wall. You resisted fiercely, pushing against his chest, testing every limit with equal force. The fight was raw and necessary. Consent passed in gasped, breathless words. “Don’t stop. I want this. All of it.”

Enchanted chains responded to his will, wrapping your wrists above your head with slow, living precision. The iridescent poison vial burned down your throat — heightening every sensation ritualistically without overwhelming the mind. The entity distorted reality with intrusive visions, but your combined magic held firm against the assault. Levi moved with terrifying restraint, each thrust anchoring the spell you had begun together. His hand rested at your throat — a possessive reminder, never destruction. Pleasure crested like magic completing its circle, intense and deeply consequential. He administered the antidote at the precise peak. You shattered together as the entity howled in bitter defeat.

Afterward, Levi rested his forehead against yours, still joined, chains holding you open. The bond hummed unsteadily between you. “I broke every rule I set. This marks me irreversibly. I feel you even when resisting. It makes me more dangerous, not less. The castle will never let us forget.”

The entity weakened but did not die — sealed yet watchful, its tactics now imprinted with your weaknesses. A permanent magical mark lingered on both your wrists like matching scars that glowed faintly under moonlight. Levi lost the ability to fully sever emotional awareness. The castle quieted, though its agenda remained unclear, intervening in small, testing ways as if judging the new imbalance.

In the weeks that followed, Hogwarts began to heal under endless rain. Levi remained cutting, emotionally contained, and fiercely protective in his danger. He set new rules. You broke them with runes and refusal. Two dangerous equals bound by fuel, weapon, and lasting consequence. The obsession endured — dark, ritualistic, and entirely theirs.

Levi Ackerman sat under the big metal slide, knees drawn to his chest, wood chips biting into the backs of his thighs through thin summer shorts. Two weeks since the funeral. The dirt still smelled like turned earth and the cheap carnations someone had bought because real flowers were “a waste.” Uncle Kenny’s house on Maple Street reeked of cardboard boxes and the stale cigars he smoked on the porch after dark, the smoke curling up like it was trying to follow something into the sky. Five doors down, the yellow house had a tire swing that creaked even when there was no wind. Levi wanted to disappear inside the ache in his ribs. The world had cracked open like an egg and kept spinning anyway, stupid and loud.

A pair of scuffed pink sneakers stopped in front of him, one lace untied.

“Hi! Why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” Levi muttered, swiping at his face with the heel of his hand. It came away wet. Traitor.

The girl crouched anyway, pigtails swinging like two dark pendulums. Cartoon foxes chased each other across her purple shirt. A bright turtle lunchbox balanced on her knees. “You look like you are. I’m Y/N. I live in the yellow house. My new puppy’s a golden retriever named Toast—he steals every sock I own and buries them under the porch. Mom says he’s part archaeologist.” She tilted her head, studying him the way she might study a new bug under a magnifying glass. “Why are you sad?”

Levi swallowed so hard it hurt. The words scraped out flat. “I lost my mom.”

Her smile dropped like someone had cut the strings. Without asking, she scooted closer on the wood chips and wrapped her arms around him—small, fierce, smelling like strawberry shampoo and playground dirt and something warm like fresh laundry. Levi stayed stiff for three whole seconds, then his shoulder leaned into hers like it had been waiting for permission.

When she pulled back, her eyes were wet but determined. “I’m really sorry. My grandma went to heaven last year. It hurt so bad I couldn’t eat ice cream for a whole month. My mom says they stay in your heart, watching from the clouds. Maybe yours is sending a hug right now.”

Levi didn’t believe in clouds that hugged, but he didn’t pull away either.

“Wanna be friends?” she asked. “I’ll show you the good hiding spots. After school we can go to the big oak tree at the end of the block. Best climbing tree around. Toast can come too.”

“…Okay.”

That was how it started.

Three-thirty became the sound of the yellow house screen door slamming. Levi started waiting at the oak without meaning to. Some days she arrived already talking about raccoons fitting through holes the size of oranges. Other days she simply dropped beside him and stole half his chips. By winter he brought two sodas automatically. She always took the grape one, twisting the cap with a satisfied little grunt.

One October afternoon a sudden rainstorm caught them halfway home. They raced for the oak, sneakers slapping puddles, soaked by the time they ducked under the low branches. Y/N kept talking anyway, hair plastered to her forehead, laughing about how the rain made the leaves sound like applause.

Levi shrugged off his hoodie—black, too big even then—and dropped it over her shoulders. It swallowed her.

“You’re gonna freeze,” she said, teeth chattering.

“I’m fine.”

Ten minutes later he was shivering. Y/N scooted closer and opened the hoodie like a blanket. Their shoulders pressed together under the damp fabric, her arm warm against his. Neither moved for a long time.

When the rain eased, they walked the rest of the way to her yellow house. Toast barreled out the door, muddy paws and all, and immediately stole one of Levi’s socks. Y/N’s mom appeared on the porch with two towels and a knowing smile.

“You must be Levi. Come in, honey. I’ll make hot chocolate.”

Inside smelled like cinnamon and wet dog. Levi sat at their kitchen table feeling too small for the room, while Y/N chattered and Toast tried to climb into his lap. Her mom didn’t ask about his black clothes or why he never smiled. She just slid a mug toward him and said, “You’re welcome here anytime.”

By the end of that first summer the oak had claimed them. Its bark was rough and familiar. Toast raced circles around the trunk while Y/N braided lopsided dandelion crowns. One humid August evening they lay on their backs in the grass, fireflies blinking above like slow green stars. Y/N’s hair tickled Levi’s arm.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she asked.

“Something with money. Kenny says it’s the only thing that lasts.”

She bumped his knee. “Money’s nice. But you need adventures too.” She rolled onto her side. “Promise we’ll still meet here when we’re old. Gray hair and everything.”

Levi’s chest did something strange. “Yeah. Okay.”

That winter the oak stood skeletal against gray skies. They still came—Levi with two sodas and a spare hoodie, Y/N with hot chocolate and stories about her grandma. Grief felt less sharp when shared under damp fabric and warm breath fogging the air.

By sixth grade routines had settled. Fireflies thick in summer grass. The promise under the oak felt bigger every year.

High school pulled at everything. Levi stayed late at the library and shadowed traders with Erwin on weekends. Y/N came back from the nature preserve smelling of pine and mud. They still walked home together most days, but silences stretched longer.

One Friday junior year they studied in Levi’s room. Y/N sprawled across his floor in fuzzy socks, stealing fries. The motion of sliding the ketchup toward her felt automatic. Comfortable. Dangerous.

Her hair fell across her shoulder. When she tied it up, the line of her neck made his pulse hammer. Kenny’s voice echoed: Don’t get soft.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“You’re acting weird.”

“You’re loud.”

She laughed and threw a paper ball. Their eyes held too long. The air thinned.

“Ethan from environmental club asked me to homecoming,” she said.

Levi’s pencil tip snapped. “Cool.”

They fought properly the week before homecoming. Under the oak, October wind stripping leaves.

“You’ve been busy,” Levi said, voice flat.

“So have you.” Y/N hugged her knees. “Kenny’s got you on a leash.”

The argument cracked open old fears. She walked away. Two weeks of silence followed. Levi sat alone with two flat sodas. He watched her laugh thinner laughs with Ethan. On the thirteenth rainy night his phone buzzed: You win. I’m tired of chasing.

They patched it awkwardly. Shoulders brushed. She told him Ethan asked her for real. Levi shrugged. “Do what you want.” That night he sharpened pencils until they were needles, the stolen hoodie in his closet still carrying faint strawberry.

Senior May arrived too fast. Y/N dragged him on the lookout hike, windows down, Toast trotting ahead. At the top, hills rolled out like spilled honey. Fireflies rose as they sat on warm rocks.

“I wanted more memories,” she said. “What if we visit each other?”

“Different worlds.”

“But we started in the same one.” Fireflies lit her face. “Levi… do you ever think about more? Us?”

His pulse kicked. He wanted to close the distance, taste her lip balm, tell her she was permanent. Kenny’s voice roared louder. He swallowed. “Fireflies make you sappy.”

On the drive home she fell asleep on his shoulder. Levi drove ten under the limit, memorizing her weight, knowing it might be the last time.

The next afternoon under the oak he almost said it. Almost reached for her hand. Instead he asked about her college applications and let the moment slip away again.

Graduation spring. Under the oak she told him she got into State for wildlife biology.

Then: “Levi… I love you. Since the slide. I wanted kissing you. Building something.”

Silence pressed. Levi’s jaw tightened. “I can’t. Success first. Love complicates everything. Go chase the parks.”

Her face folded. “So I’m just a distraction?”

He walked away before his hands shook.

The first unanswered text came two weeks later. He replied good. Months later he deleted drafts about foxes.

In Yosemite, Y/N bought the tea set with shaking hands and mailed it. She cried into the stolen hoodie by the campfire.

Second year she almost called from under the bare oak. Third year at Glacier she photographed a thin fox and closed their thread again.

The package arrived on a Tuesday. Levi set the porcelain on his marble shelf. He never used it. Never packed it away. At night the tiny bears looked like trapped fireflies.

The penthouse echoed. He bought grape soda he never drank. Dreams of reaching under the oak haunted him.

Thanksgiving at Kenny’s, Mikasa cornered him: “You’re an idiot. Mom wouldn’t have wanted this.” Kenny’s laugh boomed from the porch. Levi’s jaw tightened, but the tea set waited back home like an accusation.

At The Rusty Nail their eyes met across the bar. He left.

Next afternoon his feet carried him down Maple Street like they had a mind of their own. Past the tire swing that still creaked. Past the yellow house whose screen door no longer slammed at three-thirty. To the oak.

Y/N sat against the trunk, book open on her lap, knees drawn up the way she had since she was eight. She looked up. Sunlight caught in her hair the same way fireflies once had.

“Levi.”

“Didn’t mean to end up here,” he said, hands in his coat pockets.

She closed the book slowly. “But you did.” A pause. “Sit… if you want.”

He sat. Bark rough through his coat. The silence stretched, thick with ten years of unanswered texts and almosts.

She spoke first, voice careful. “Trails, mostly. Yosemite sunrises that make you feel tiny in the best way. Redwoods so tall they block the sky. Glacier ice cracking into lakes like the world is rearranging itself. Forest Service work—tracking animals, fighting developers, writing reports nobody reads. Messy. Underpaid. Real.” She glanced at him. “You?”

“Stocks. Hedge funds. Erwin and I built the firm. Penthouse with a view that never changes.” He flexed his fingers against his knee. “Kenny’s thrilled. Says I finally made it.”

“Anyone back west?” she asked, too lightly.

“A couple dates that didn’t matter.” Her voice sharpened. “You?”

“No.” He met her eyes. “No one.”

She looked away, tracing a finger over the book’s spine. “Remember senior year? Right here? I told you I loved you.”

“Yeah.”

“I meant it.” Quieter, edged with old hurt. “And you left. Disappeared. While I kept checking my phone like an idiot for years. Every new park, every fox on the trail, I thought maybe this time you’d answer.”

Levi stared at the ground. A dry leaf skittered across his shoe. He reached over slowly and brushed another from her hair, the motion so familiar it hurt. “I threw away ten years for a view I never cared about. Bought bigger places thinking the silence would feel different. It never did.” His fingers hovered near her shoulder, not quite touching. “The tea set’s still on my shelf. First thing I see every morning.”

Y/N’s eyes glistened, but she didn’t soften right away. “You kept it but couldn’t even text ‘thank you’? I sat in my car in that Yosemite parking lot crying because I thought—maybe this time you’d choose me. Even a little.”

“I know.” The words scraped out. “I wanted to. Every single day. Then Kenny’s voice would start again—soft gets you broke—and I’d close the message. Cleaner, I told myself. Safer.”

“Cleaner,” she repeated bitterly. “You always loved clean breaks. Except you never actually broke anything. You just left me holding the pieces.”

They argued then, the way only old friends could—over whether the old creek still smelled like copper after rain, whether the tire swing had been higher when they were kids. She insisted it had. He reminded her she nearly broke her arm jumping off it in fifth grade.

“I landed it,” she said, a small laugh slipping out despite herself.

“You cried.”

“I was eight.”

The laugh lingered between them, fragile but real. She let him hold her hand for a minute, thumb brushing her knuckles the way he used to under the rain-soaked hoodie. Then she pulled back, cautious.

“I leave in a few days,” she said. “I’m not promising anything, Levi. I can’t keep being the only one who hopes.”

“I’m not asking you to.” He swallowed. “Just… don’t disappear on me yet.”

Before he flew back they traded numbers on her porch. She wore his old hoodie again—stolen years ago, sleeves still too long. His thumb brushed hers longer than necessary. Neither let go right away.

The next day he spotted her in the hardware store, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like they always had.

“You still hate these lights?” she asked, pausing in the paint aisle.

“…Gives me headaches.”

“Some things don’t change.”

“Some do.” He gestured at the hoodie peeking from under her jacket. “You still have that.”

She tugged the sleeve self-consciously. “It’s warm. And it smells like home, even after all this time.” A beat. “You still buying grape soda you don’t drink?”

He almost smiled. “Habit.”

They stood there awkwardly among the brushes and rollers, the almost-touch from yesterday still humming between them. She reached for the same can of wood stain he did. Their fingers brushed. Both pulled back like it burned.

“I should go,” she said.

“Yeah.”

She walked away first, shoulders tight.

They tried coffee two days later at the old diner. Same booth, same cracked vinyl, same waitress who remembered their orders from high school.

“You still take it black?” Y/N asked, sliding in across from him.

“Yeah.”

“That’s depressing.”

“Coffee’s coffee.”

Conversation limped along—safe topics at first. How Toast had slowed down at thirteen. Trails versus spreadsheets. The way the oak looked the same but smaller now. Then her eyes flicked to his hands on the mug.

“Did you… ever get the tea set?”

Levi’s fingers tightened until the ceramic creaked. “Yeah.”

Silence stretched, heavy as wet wool.

“I never used it,” he admitted, voice low. “But it’s still on the shelf above the sink. First thing I see every morning when I make coffee. The little black bears… they catch the light like fireflies sometimes. I kept meaning to text. Kept failing.”

Y/N’s laugh came out sharp and wet. “God, Levi.” Her voice cracked on his name. “You kept the stupid tea set on your fancy marble counter but couldn’t manage one text? I sat in my car in that Yosemite parking lot crying like an idiot because I thought—maybe this time you’d choose me. Even a little. Even a thank you.”

“I know.” He reached across the table slowly and brushed his thumb over her knuckles—the same motion from under the oak, from the rainstorm, from every quiet almost they’d ever had. “I wanted to. Every day for weeks. Then I told myself it was better if I didn’t. Cleaner. Safer. I was wrong.”

“Cleaner,” she repeated, stirring her drink too hard, spoon clinking. “You always did love clean breaks. Except you never actually broke anything. You just ghosted and left me holding the pieces for ten years. I built a whole life out there, Levi. Good days. Hard days. And still—every damn fox on the trail made me think of you.”

He didn’t flinch. “I deserve that. I disappeared because I was scared. Kenny drilled it into me that love complicates everything. That it makes you weak. But the weakest I’ve ever felt was in that penthouse with nothing but the tea set looking back at me.”

She pulled her hand back after a moment, eyes glistening. “I leave in four days. I’m not that girl under the slide anymore. I’m not going to keep waiting for you to choose me.”

“I’m trying to choose you now,” he said quietly. “It just took me ten years and a penthouse full of silence to realize the view was never worth it.”

She left angry anyway, shoulders tight under the green sweater. For three days she ignored his texts. Levi sat in Kenny’s guest room staring at the ceiling, thumb hovering over her name, old habits clawing at his throat like cigar smoke. On the fourth day she replied with one word: tired.

Manhattan felt heavier after that. One late call she sounded exhausted from always being the bright one. He listened half-distracted, answering an email. She hung up quieter than usual.

Mid-board meeting, Erwin mid-projection, Levi stood.

“Levi?”

“Can’t do this anymore.”

He walked out. Grabbed his coat. Drove to the airport.

She stood on the yellow porch, suitcase by the door. Turned at his footsteps.

“Levi—”

He stopped a few feet away. No dramatic reach. Just stood there in his black coat, hands at his sides. “Walked out of the meeting. Got on a plane. Couldn’t sit there knowing you were still here and I was still choosing wrong.”

Her arms crossed, protective. “And what? One realization fixes everything?”

“No.” He swallowed hard, words like pulling stitches. “You told me about Yellowstone and I answered an email. You were standing right there on the hike and I still acted like work mattered more. I kept the tea set because throwing it away felt like throwing you away. I just… couldn’t say it out loud.”

Y/N’s shoulders trembled. “I resented you for so long. For making me the only one who hoped. For every unanswered text, every time I checked my phone like an idiot on some trail in the middle of nowhere.” But her fingers brushed his suit jacket anyway, stubborn even now, the same way she’d scooted closer under the rain-soaked hoodie all those years ago.

He caught her hand. Laced their fingers slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. She didn’t. “I’m sorry. For the silence. For leaving you on those trails alone. For every almost I was too scared to finish.”

She exhaled, shaky. They stood like that a long time, foreheads eventually touching. The kiss started careful—his hands cupping her face like something that might break—then deepened with everything unsaid. Twelve years of grape soda and fireflies and almost-touching. She tasted like salt and home and the strawberry shampoo she still used. When they parted, both breathing hard, she laughed wetly against his mouth.

“Took you long enough, Ackerman.” Her forehead pressed to his again. “But we’re talking about all of it. No more disappearing. No more clean breaks. I need to know you’re choosing this—us—every day. Not just when the penthouse gets too quiet.”

“I know.” His thumb traced her cheek, slow and deliberate. “I’m terrified. Kenny’s voice is still loud some mornings. But yours is louder now. Under the slide. Under the oak. On every trail I wasn’t on. I’m choosing you. Starting today.”

That evening they sat under the oak again. Fireflies drifted slow through the dark, the same slow green stars that had watched them grow up. Y/N’s head rested on his shoulder, warm and heavy with familiar stubbornness. Levi held her hand, thumb tracing small circles over her knuckles—quiet proof he wasn’t leaving.

The old tree rustled overhead. The silence felt peaceful, though it still scared him sometimes. No penthouse echo. Just roots, fireflies, and the girl who once found him under a metal slide and refused to let him disappear.

“You okay?” she whispered.

Levi looked up through the branches. Her hand stayed warm in his. The tea set was waiting back in the city, but he already knew he’d pack it carefully and bring it with him next time.

“Working on it,” he admitted.

The pitchfork scraped against the stall floor with a dull, repetitive rhythm as you finished the last of the morning chores. Sweat made your modest white sundress cling uncomfortably to your back, the thin fabric damp and slightly translucent in places. The silver cross necklace rested warm against your skin, a constant, grounding weight. You kept your head down the way you always did. Better to stay quiet, stay out of the way. Don’t draw any attention to yourself. Don’t risk upsetting your father this early and earning another round of slurred insults that would cling to you like burrs for the rest of the day.

You could hear him already on the porch — the sharp clink of the bottle against glass, the low mutter of curses about the failing farm, the bank notices, and his “useless daughter” who couldn’t do anything right. Every cruel word landed like a stone in your chest, heavy and familiar.

Just get through today, you thought, throat tight. It’s Sunday. Church soon. You’ll be away from the house, away from him and his drunken anger, even if it’s only for a few hours.

Your mother appeared like clockwork, Bible tucked under one arm, phone already in hand. She snapped a quick photo of you brushing down the old mare, then typed with sharp little taps.

“Smile next time, darling. The ladies’ group loves seeing how well I’ve raised you to serve the Lord.” The post went up immediately: So blessed by my pure, respectful daughter. Always putting God first.

Then the smile dropped. “And fix your posture before Mass. Don’t speak out of turn like last week. Father Levi doesn’t need your silly little questions. You could do better.”

You nodded silently, cheeks burning, and climbed into the truck. The ride was quiet except for her humming hymns that felt more like chains than comfort.

Inside the cool, incense-scented nave of St. Augustine’s, the pitying glances were as familiar as the creak of old pews. Poor girl. That drunk father… at least she has the church.

You sat in your usual pew, hands folded tightly in your lap, trying to focus on the hymns. But your mind kept drifting no matter how hard you prayed for it to stop.

Father Levi stood at the altar in his black cassock, tall and severe, steel-gray eyes scanning the congregation as he preached on resisting temptation. His voice was low, commanding, edged with that cold authority that made spines straighten across the entire church. Thirty-five. Grumpy. Strict. A man who lived by the rules and expected the same from everyone else.

You shouldn’t have noticed how perfectly his dark hair fell across his forehead when he tilted his head. You shouldn’t have remembered the faint, clean scent of sandalwood and something darker that clung to him when you’d stood close last week asking about Sunday school crafts. You definitely shouldn’t have let your gaze linger on the broad line of his shoulders beneath the cassock, wondering what strength lay hidden beneath layers of cloth and vows.

Heat bloomed low in your belly, unbidden and shameful. You squeezed your thighs together beneath your dress, clutched your cross tighter, and whispered a silent prayer for forgiveness that already felt too late.

After the final blessing, most of the congregation filed out into the bright afternoon. Your mother left with the other women after another reminder to “be courteous,” her hand lingering too long on your shoulder like a warning. You stayed behind, as always, gathering the cleaning supplies.

You moved through the empty nave humming a soft hymn under your breath as you wiped down each pew with slow, careful strokes. You straightened the missalettes and hymnals, dusted the altar until the silver candlesticks gleamed, and finally returned the supplies to the closet.

The whole time, your thoughts refused to behave. You imagined strong arms sliding around your waist from behind, a warm mouth pressing open kisses to the side of your neck, a low voice murmuring your name. Levi. Heat flooded your face. No. Stop. You shouldn’t think these things in the house of God. You shook your head sharply, trying to dislodge the sinful images, but they only clung tighter.

That was when you noticed him standing near the confessional, the door slightly ajar, watching you.

You hesitated, then slipped inside the penitent’s side and knelt on the worn cushion. The lattice screen offered only the thinnest veil of safety.

“Father, forgive me for I have sinned,” you whispered, voice trembling. “I’ve been having lustful thoughts of a man I know I shouldn’t be thinking about. I don’t know how to control these thoughts… or this lust.”

A long pause. You heard the faint creak of wood as he shifted.

“What sorts of thoughts have you been having?” Levi asked, voice steady but low.

You swallowed hard, cheeks already burning. “I think about a man kissing up and down my body… touching me in places he shouldn’t. I’ve prayed and prayed, Father, but the thoughts won’t leave my mind. The sexual urges won’t leave me.”

Silence stretched, heavy and watchful.

“How long have you carried these thoughts, little one?” he asked, tone low and almost playful, though the dangerous edge beneath it made your stomach twist. “How naughty you must feel… hiding such things behind those modest dresses every Sunday.”

Your breath caught. You dared a glance through the lattice and met his steel-gray eyes — dark, intense, locked on you.

“Come to my office,” he said quietly. “We should continue this discussion somewhere more private.”

You followed him down the short hallway on shaky legs. He closed the heavy oak door behind you with a decisive click. Levi leaned against the front of his desk, arms crossed, eyes locked on yours.

“You still have these thoughts, then?” His voice was gruff, but there was a teasing undertone. “Even after praying so diligently?”

You nodded, cheeks burning. “Yes, Father. Every night.”

His jaw tightened. “Who exactly do these thoughts concern?” The question carried a cruel, testing edge. “Say the name.”

You sank to your knees on the old rug. “…You, Father Levi.”

He made you confess every filthy detail.

You blushed furiously, staring at the floor as the words left your mouth in trembling, halting pieces. “I think about you kissing down my body… slowly. Your mouth on my neck, my chest… lower… licking and sucking on my… my pussy until I can’t think straight.” Your voice cracked with disgust at your own words. “I imagine how your hard cock would feel buried inside me, stretching me open. How your dark hair would stick to your face with sweat as you… as you make love to me.”

Each confession dragged out under his heavy silence and short, probing questions. He forced you to describe every depraved image aloud — how you touched yourself at night, how you woke up soaked and aching, how you pictured him ruining you until the only word you could remember was his name. By the time you finished, tears streaked your cheeks and the air in the office felt thick enough to choke on.

Levi’s control was fracturing in slow, visible cracks. His knuckles whitened on the desk. His breathing had grown heavier.

He stepped closer. “It must be so hard for you, carrying these filthy thoughts every day. I’ve had thoughts of my own since the day I baptized you. The way the water made your sundress cling to every curve — your full breasts, your round ass, how it turned transparent and showed your silhouette. How your wet hair stuck to your face while you smiled up at me so innocently. Every time you bend over those pews to clean, presenting that perfect ass to me… I’ve dropped to my knees in this office afterward and prayed for strength. Prayed to stop imagining you on your knees before me, those pretty lips wrapped around my cock instead of praying.”

His gaze burned into you. “You’re so devoted, aren’t you, angel? Such a good girl who listens to everything your Father tells you. I know exactly how to get these sinful thoughts out of your head.”

“Touch yourself,” he ordered, voice hoarse and commanding. “Right there on the rug where you confessed. Show me how you do it when you think of me.”

Shock flashed across your face. Heat crept up your neck. You looked up at him, stunned, but slowly — trembling — you raised the hem of your sundress. Your hand slid over your panties first, rubbing slow, shy circles over your soaked pussy. Levi stepped closer, practically looming over you.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

You lifted your gaze, guilt and lust warring on your face. Then you hooked your fingers under the fabric, sliding your panties aside to expose your glistening, untouched cunt. You dragged a finger over your swollen clit and let out a soft, embarrassed moan.

“How many nights have you wished your fingers were my tongue, angel?” he murmured, voice low and filthy. “How long have you wanted me to devour that pretty little pussy?”

Your skin burned hotter under his stare. You couldn’t think of anything but him. Shyly, you pushed one finger inside yourself, pumping slowly.

“That’s it,” Levi growled, guiding you. “Fuck yourself to the thought of me taking that sweet pussy as my own. Good girl.”

Just as the coil inside you tightened—

“Stop.” His voice cracked like a whip. “Dirty little whore. You don’t get to come until I say.”

You obeyed instantly, pulling your hand away with a whimper. Before you could beg for forgiveness, Levi undid his pants and freed his thick, heavy cock — flushed, leaking precum, veins throbbing. He grabbed your hair with calloused fingers and yanked your face closer. You winced at the pull.

“You’re going to show me how badly you want this cock, angel. Get on those pretty little knees and show me your devotion.”

You opened your mouth and wrapped your full pink lips around the head, taking him in slowly. You’d never done this before. It felt dirty, wrong… and you loved it. You licked at the leaking slit, then took him deeper, your hand gently cupping and rubbing his heavy balls. You bobbed your head, gagging softly when he hit the back of your throat, but you kept going, moaning around his shaft.

Levi groaned, eyes locked on yours. He pushed your head down further, fucking your mouth with controlled thrusts. “Fuck…”

Then he pulled you off with a wet pop, yanked you up by your hair, and growled, “Take the dress off. I’ve had enough of these games. I need more of you. I need to taste that sweet pussy.”

You stood on shaky legs and let the sundress fall. Levi dropped to his knees before you like he was praying and devoured you.

His tongue dragged a long, slow, filthy stripe from your dripping entrance all the way up to your swollen clit. He lapped at your folds like a starving man, then swirled the flat of his tongue around your clit before sucking the sensitive bud into his hot mouth with a lewd suck. Two thick fingers pushed inside you, curling mercilessly against that spongy spot while he ate you with greedy, wet sounds. He added a third finger, stretching you wider, tongue lashing your clit until your thighs shook and you came hard with a strangled scream, gushing all over his face. He drank every drop, refusing to stop until you were a trembling, oversensitive mess.

He rose, stripped off the rest of his clothes, and lifted you like you were something sacred and filthy at the same time. His mouth latched onto your neck, sucking and biting marks into your skin as he carried you to the desk. Papers scattered everywhere when he slammed you down onto the heavy oak surface.

His hands gripped your hips with bruising force, fingers digging deep into soft flesh. The thick, flushed head of his cock nudged your soaked entrance, leaking precum against your folds. Then he thrust forward in one merciless, savage stroke.

You cried out sharply as his big cock forced your virgin walls apart, the burning stretch intense and overwhelming. The sharp pain of your hymen tearing made a single hot tear slip down your cheek. Levi immediately leaned down, lips brushing tenderly along your neck and jaw, kissing the tear away while his cock throbbed deep inside you.

“Shhhh, angel… easy, baby girl,” he groaned, voice rough and strained with the effort of holding still. “I know it hurts. Fuck, you’re so tight… squeezing my cock like heaven. Breathe for me. Let this pretty pussy adjust to me.”

He stayed buried to the hilt for a few heartbeats, letting your walls flutter and grip around his thick shaft. Sweat already glistened on his chest and shoulders. Then he pulled back slowly, only to slam back in harder. The wet, obscene slap of skin on skin filled the office as his heavy balls smacked against your soaked pussy.

“Fuck— that’s it,” he grunted, hips snapping forward with raw power. “Take every inch of this cock, darling. Feel how deep I am? This pussy was made for me.”

Your tits bounced with every brutal thrust, the silver cross necklace jumping wildly between them. Your lips parted on a broken moan, breath heaving as you sobbed his name like a prayer. “Levi… oh God, Levi—”

He groaned low and animalistic, the sound vibrating through his chest. His hands roamed your body possessively — sliding up your sides, cupping your bouncing breasts, pinching your nipples before gripping your hips again like you were the most precious and filthy thing in the world. Sweat slicked both your bodies, making skin slide against skin as he railed you harder.

The pain melted into blinding, mind-shattering pleasure. Every punishing thrust drove his thick cock impossibly deeper, the fat head kissing your cervix while his dark pubic hair ground roughly against your swollen clit. The wet, filthy sounds of his dick slamming into your dripping pussy echoed through the room — slick, rhythmic, obscene.

“You feel that, angel?” he growled, voice wrecked with lust. “Feel how your tight little cunt is gripping me? Milking my cock like you never want me to leave. Such a good fucking girl… taking your priest so deep in the house of God.”

You clawed at his back, nails raking red lines down his muscles as your moans grew louder, more desperate. He leaned down again, capturing your mouth in a messy, claiming kiss, tongue fucking you in time with his cock while he pounded you mercilessly into the desk.

The coil inside you tightened unbearably fast. “Levi— I’m— oh fuck—”

“Come for me, princess,” he snarled against your lips, hips snapping even harder. “Squirting all over the cock that ruined you. Let me feel it.”

You shattered with a strangled, sobbing cry of his name. Your walls clamped down violently around him as you squirted hard, soaking his stomach, his balls, and the desk beneath you. The orgasm tore through you like lightning, thighs shaking, vision whiting out.

Levi groaned deep and guttural, fucking you through every pulse. “That’s my good girl… fuck, you feel perfect.” A few more brutal thrusts and he pulled out with a wet sound, stroking his glistening cock. Thick, hot ropes of cum painted your stomach, your heaving breasts, and even your silver cross in messy white stripes, marking you as his in the most depraved way.

He collapsed over you, forehead pressed to your neck, both of you panting and trembling, bodies slick with sweat and sin.

After a long moment he lifted his head and kissed you — slow, deep, and tender.

“This isn’t a one-time sin, angel,” he whispered against your swollen lips. “I’ve wanted you for far too long. If you’ll have me… I want to court you properly. Take you on real dates. Make you mine the right way… even if I already ruined you the wrong one.”

Months Later

To the outside world, nothing had changed.

You still taught Sunday school with your gentle smile and colorful crafts. You still wore modest dresses and your silver cross. Your mother was ecstatic when Father Levi asked permission to court you — “What a blessing from the Lord!”

You dated properly. You married in the same church where he first ruined you — white dress, flowers, the entire congregation beaming at their sweet young pastor’s wife.

But behind closed doors you remained his filthy little temptress.

Every “lesson planning meeting” ended with you on your knees, throat full of his cock while he called you his perfect angel and dirty whore in the same breath. Every hidden moment at the rectory or the horse farm left you bent over his desk or the altar, sobbing his name as he claimed you again and again.

To everyone else, you were the innocent, beloved pastor’s wife.

To Levi, you were his darling, his princess, his sweetest sin — the one temptation he would never repent for.

And you wouldn’t have it any other way.