Monke business

The evening of your first class, you stepped through the studio door, feeling mildly proud of yourself for showing up early wearing a tatty oversized T-shirt and some comfortable leggings, and instantly stopped dead in your tracks. There, at the front of the room, stood Levi himself, barefoot and stretching in a fitted black sweat-wicking shirt.

“Oh, sorry,” you said as he looked up, cheeks warming. “I must be in the wrong place.”

Because, of course you were in the wrong place. You had been expecting an instructor with a ponytail and flowing linen pants, maybe a beaded bracelet. It didn’t even cross your mind that Levi would be the right man.

“You here for beginner yoga?” he asked before you could completely turn on your heel.

“Yes?” you said hesitantly.

He stood, raising one eyebrow. “You’re not lost. Grab a spot. Class starts soon.”

The class went about as well as you could have expected. You wobbled on your mat near the back of the class as Levi ran everyone through a relatively simple flow, consisting mostly of poses you’d seen before. Cat-cow, downward dog, cobra.

He made them all look easy as he demonstrated. Then, he’d occasionally walk through the room to inspect and adjust people’s poses. He seemed to be keeping an extra eye on you, stopping during nearly every pose to correct one thing or another. Your shoulders during Warrior I, your knees during Trikonasana.

Maybe he was just being extra attentive because you were the newbie in class. That was what you reasoned to yourself, anyway. But then, he came over to adjust your hips from behind during one downward dog while you were bent on your hands and feet, ass in the air. His fingers pressed lightly at your hip bones, very nearly startling you into tumbling onto your face.

“Lengthen your spine,” Levi told you, making the barely perceptible adjustment with his fingers, coaxing your ass higher.

Your breathing stumbled over itself, pulse ramping up as you tried to concentrate on the stretch in the back of your legs. He stepped away a moment later, and the rest of the class passed in a blur of trembling muscles and heated cheeks. When the final pose came, you sank gratefully onto the mat in relief.

As the rest of the class milled about a while longer, taking their time chatting and sipping from their water bottles, you scrambled to roll up your mat and make your escape. Apparently, Levi noticed because he called after you.

“See you next week?”

You nodded, nearly tripping as you backed toward the door. “Uh, yeah. See you next week.”

“You’ll only get better if you keep practicing,” he added, already turning away to another attendee.

“Right,” you said, your thoughts a tangled mess as you left.

After that first class, you started arriving to weekly classes in your nicest gym sets. No more oversized T-shirts with weird stains on them. You told yourself it wasn’t on purpose—you were just trying to blend in better with the other attendees. But if you were trying to get Levi’s attention, it had the intended effect.

Oh, Levi noticed, all right. He couldn’t help raking his gaze over you as he greeted you by the door. Cropped tops that showed off cute sports bras underneath, cupping whatever was underneath for his viewing pleasure. Leggings with the seams on the back that hugged your ass just right. He could barely keep his eyes off you any time you shifted from posture to posture. It was distracting, honestly. He caught himself watching the subtle flex and lengthening of your muscles, how you’d fight to imitate the poses he demonstrated.

Needless to say, he caught every detail. And he figured, if you were so determined to improve, he wouldn’t deprive you. If your stance was off, he was there at your side in a flash, palms sliding, fingers nudging, insistent.  All the while, he thought he was being helpful, but he only succeeded in making you more and more flustered.

“You’re putting too much weight on your wrists,” Levi told you, again during downward dog. “You should be clawing your fingers into the mat. Bend into your knees if you can’t keep your shoulders aligned.”

You let out a frustrated huff and tried to correct your angle. His thumbs stroked the backs of your thighs, causing your skin to jolt. He sighed, disappointed.

“You’re too tight. You need to be stretching out your hamstrings,” he muttered as he pressed his thumbs a little deeper, almost kneading the stubborn tightness at the backs of your legs.

You bit back a moan, embarrassment flaring that you nearly let out such a shameful sound. Levi’s palm smoothed down the curve of your thigh before falling away, apparently giving up.

“Just breathe through it,” he said. “Don’t force anything.”

Humiliation burned through you as he moved on. You desperately wanted to get the poses right. Why was this so hard for you? Was everyone else getting this level of attention? You didn’t dare look; you didn’t want to know.

Levi stopped you after class one day to give you a list of poses to practice on your own at home. "You'll see a difference if you stick to these,” he said. “Most people don’t put in the work outside of class.”

It was as if he had sensed your mounting frustration. You brightened, hoping your smile didn’t come off too eager. “Thanks. I will.”

The week crawled by. You were sore in places you never thought possible from fighting your way through the stretches Levi had recommended in your living room. It was probably pathetic as hell that your primary motivation to improve had become a merciless 5’3 gym rat, but hey, at least you were still consistently going to the class you were paying extra for.

Plus, you were getting pretty confident now. You were setting up your mat closer to the front now, showing up in skimpier exercise clothes with sheer panels and generous cut-outs, arching your back with extra gusto during cat-cow whenever Levi looked your direction.

“Good, that’s better,” he said as his palm flattened against your back during your erstwhile nemesis, the downward dog. “You’re making progress. That hamstring work is paying off.”

You bit your lip, your head upside-down and hovering above the mat, staring at his well-built calves between your legs. This position was way too provocative—him standing behind your bent form, hands at your hip and back. It was practically vulgar. Unable to help yourself, you rocked backwards, just enough to briefly brush your ass against his crotch.

“Oh, sorry!” you said, affecting surprise, as if you weren’t expecting him to be standing so close.

“Don’t apologize. That’s what adjustments are for.”

He sounded entirely unbothered, but his cock was already stirring in his gym shorts. Christ, you really shouldn’t have done that. He’d been holding back for weeks, thinking you were only coming back to class again and again strictly to improve, and the last thing he’d wanted to do was scare you off. But now, Levi couldn’t ignore that heat between you any longer.

His hand slid firmly down over the globe of your ass, giving it a light but deliberate squeeze. Your face flooded with heat, your eyes darting around the room, but everyone had their heads down, focusing on their breathing and form.

“Let’s move into puppy pose,” Levi announced.

There was a rustle as the others lowered down onto their knees. Skin prickling, you followed suit, walking your hands forward while keeping your hips over your knees to melt your chest into the mat. You felt your upper body stretch into the pose.

“Keep breathing. Chin to the mat, weight should be in your hands,” Levi added, addressing the whole class, but you could feel him closing in behind you.

You swallowed a gasp as he knelt, hard abs brushing against your ass as his hands slid up your sides and over your ribs. He was so close you could barely think, hyperaware of how compromising the position of your two bodies likely looked from the outside. Levi pressed the tips of his fingers into you, right beneath the edge of your sports bra.

“Open up through here,” he said, his low voice rumbling just beside your ear.

You breathed in shakily, feeling your chest expand into his palms. Fuck, you were in trouble. You could feel the wetness blooming between your legs. The tight leggings you wore tended to show off everything, so you had opted for a barely-there thong. What if you were soaking through the fabric?

“That’s it,” he said, thumbs gently drawing circles into your skin before leaning in closer. “Stay after class. I think you need a private lesson.”

Then, he was gone, moving off to another mat and leaving you trembling.

“O—ohh—!” You were supposed to be reaching over your head for your toes, but your hand flew to your mouth to stifle your noises.

“Feel that side stretch? Good, lean into it.”

It was just you and Levi in the studio now, the doors locked and the lights dimmed. The class had drawn to a close, and the gym was winding down now that it was nearly closing time. You were sitting sideways on your mat, right leg extended, left bent with your foot trembling against your inner thigh. One of the easier poses for you now after so much practice, to be honest, except it was really fucking difficult to hold with Levi distracting you.

He was kneeling behind you, pressed up against your back, his hands running everywhere all over you. Caressing your hips, brushing over the inside crease of your thighs, along your ribs and beneath the damp, stretchy fabric of your sports bra to fondle your tits. Your top had been flung off and forgotten, leaving your arced neck exposed for Levi’s tongue to loll out and lick a cool stripe up your heated, shivery skin.

“You’re supposed to be reaching.” He grabbed the hand cupping your mouth and guided it back to the right place, ignoring your whine of protest. “Keep your spine long and the left sitz bone down. Don’t fight it. Here, let me help.”

He bore down on your left thigh with just enough pressure to keep your ass grounded to the mat. The deep pull along your hip was a sharp twin to the ache building low in your belly.

“F—fuck…Levi—”

“See? You’re flexible enough,” he said, his breath fanning hot over your ear.

He was supposed to be walking you through compass pose, a pretty advanced pose you were certain was outside of your reach. Levi had insisted you had improved enough to get close to it, and you had actually started to believe him. Until he started touching you like that.

Presently, his right hand slipped its way past the elastic waistband of your leggings, easily bypassing the wet strip of your thong to find your pussy. The sensation of his fingers parting your folds startled you, shivering down your spine and forcing a too-loud moan from your lips. You glanced, panicky, toward the door out of the corner of your eye, wary of passing gym workers or custodians.

“So sensitive,” Levi said, tilting your head back against his shoulder with his free hand. He leaned in and kissed you, slow and open-mouthed.

You let out a muffled squeak as his tongue traced yours. His fingers dipped down to gather the humid wetness at your entrance and smeared it up over your clit, beginning to slowly spiral over the swollen bundle of nerves. He pressed his mouth into yours, tongue coaxing for a long moment before breaking the kiss and licking another slow stripe up your neck. You gasped, arching further into him.

“That’s good,” he murmured, tugging your sports bra up to bunch beneath your armpits, freeing your tits to the cool studio air. “Stay with your breath.”

His thumb found your nipple and rolled it between his fingers until it stiffened under his touch. A shudder ran through you, and you could barely remember to keep your leg extended, the stretch wavering.

“Don’t lose the line,” Levi scolded gently, doing nothing to mitigate his effect on you.

You bit down on a desperate moan, your hips bucking, thighs straining as he toyed with you. Fuck, you were absolutely dripping, making a mess of his hand wedged in the sweltering confines of your leggings.

Levi gave your nipple a final teasing twist before releasing it and guiding you by the ribs to sit back upright. “Focus. We’re moving onto the leg cradle.” He pressed a kiss to your nape, grazing his teeth along the tender skin behind your ear but refusing to withdraw his hand from your pussy. “Pick up your right leg and cradle it like a baby.”

Shakily, you followed his instructions, lifting your calf toward your chest. Levi pressed himself against your back and adjust your arm’s hold on your leg.

“Rock it from side to side. Let your hip loosen.”

You rocked awkwardly once, moaning at the friction of his fingers on your clit, then froze. Something thick and semi-hard was nudging into the cleft of your ass. Levi shifted behind you, letting his cock grind more deliberately against you, making it clear the graze hadn’t been an accident. You felt your cunt practically gush.

“Relax. You’re much more open than you were a few weeks ago. Your body’s responding fast.”

He pushed two fingers into you without warning, feeling the slick heat of your pussy clench instinctively around him. Your head dropped back onto his shoulder, a ragged gasp tearing from your throat. Levi kept his left arm wrapped solidly around your waist, holding you steady so you didn’t collapse as he worked his fingers in slow, unhurried thrusts.

You were supposed to be rocking your leg, but all you could do was jerk and shudder, hips moving of their own accord as Levi searched for that sensitive spot inside you. He found it quickly, the soft, spongy patch that made you arch and cry out. Your reaction made his cock swell, the tip leaking and dampening the inside lining of his shorts.

“Good girl. Next step. You’re gonna hook the knee over behind your shoulder.”

“Behind the—?” His words cut through the hazy fog of pleasure. You swallowed hard, hips twitching against his steadily pumping fingers. “Levi, my leg definitely doesn’t go that way.”

“It does,” he said. “I guarantee it.”

“N—no, I don’t think so,” you protested as he moved his hand to your knee.

You yelped as he began to guide your leg up, up—

“Wait!” you said, heart hammering. You lost your balance, wobbling on your sitz bones and nearly falling over if not for Levi letting your leg fall and grabbing you.

“Tch. What’s the matter?” he asked, adopting his usual disapproving tone again. “Hamstrings too tight? Still not stretching properly, I see.”

You whined as he pulled his fingers out of you. He maneuvered you forward, arranging your body onto your hands and knees and roughly grinding the thick line of his cock against your ass.

“On your back,” he directed, voice gone hoarse. “I’m gonna stretch you out.”

You barely managed to turn over onto your back before he was kneeling between your thighs. Levi hauled your hips up into his lap like you weighed nothing at all. The mat bunched awkwardly beneath your spine as his hands dug into the backs of your knees, pushing your legs up and out, spreading you wide.

“Look at you,” he murmured, smoothing his thumbs along your sprawled inner thighs. “You wanna open up for me, don’t you?”

He kneaded at the tight muscles, teasing and pushing until you gasped in his hold. His biceps flexed against the tight short sleeves of his shirt, making you ache all over to be filled by him again.

“Focus,” Levi snapped, snatching your right leg against his chest and leaning forward over you.

You whimpered as he forced your knee as close as it would to go your chest, the deep stretch in your hamstring more pleasure than pain. He pressed his cock against your clothed cunt as he shoved your sports bra over your head, discarding it unceremoniously and lowering his head to take one of your tight, aching nipples into his mouth.

“Oh my—fuck!” you bit out, sinking your fingers into his soft, dark hair as he flicked his tongue back and forth against your sensitive peak. His body kept your thigh pinned high and open. You felt practically folded in half, exposed and dripping through the crotch of your leggings.

“See how much deeper you can go when you don’t fight it?” he said between hungry, wet suckles. “You’ve never been this open before, have you?”

You shook your head, lost for words. Levi rolled his hips, grinding the thick ridge of his cock against the desperate heat between your legs, only the barrier of spandex and polyester separating you. The friction was maddening. You arched up with a breathy moan, seeking more.

Levi let up with a growl, releasing your leg and sitting back on his haunches to yank your leggings down over your hips. They tangled at your thighs, your thong underneath stretched taut over your mound. In a frenzy, you lifted up to help him, wriggling your hips. He tore the clingy fabric past your feet and tossed them aside, then paused to admire you, his gaze devouring every inch.

“You’re soaked,” he said, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head to bare the glistening, taut muscle of his torso. For a beat, you could only stare, awestruck by the sculpted shoulders, narrow waist, and the tight vein that ran along his abdomen and disappeared into his shorts.

His thumbs hooked into the waistband of his shorts next, lowering them down just enough to free himself. The thick length of his cock sprang up, smacking audibly against his hard abs. You moaned, leaning back onto your elbows and eagerly spreading your thighs again.

“Not sure you deserve my cock,” he said, wrapping one hand around his length and crowding forward to rub the head of it through your slick folds. “I thought you were coming to class to make progress, and you’ve barely improved as much as I expected.” He gave a slow, disappointed shake of his head, stroking the head of his cock in a lazy circle against your clit. “You barely tried to keep your knee up. I told you I wanted to see that stretch.” 

“I—I was trying,” you whined, nudging your hips closer to attempt to rub yourself against him. “The pose is—a-ah—too advanced…”

Levi drew back, just out of your reach. “Excuses. But you do want it, don’t you? Want to feel me stretch you out for real?”

“Y—yes, fuck—I want it—”

“Well, c’mon. If you want it, show me,” Levi commanded. “You know how to beg, don’t you?”

You writhed, bucking your hips in desperation. His free hand pinned your hip down.

“Levi, please!” you begged, gripping the backs of your thighs and hauling yourself as open as you were able for him. “Please—fuck!”

He pressed in, just the tip, and the stretch sent a shock through you.

“C’mon,” he chided, rocking shallowly just at your entrance. “You know how to push through the burn now. Breathe for me.”

You sucked in a trembling breath as the thick head of his cock pushed deeper, splitting you open with gradually deeper thrusts. Levi watched your face, eyes locked on the pinch of your brows and the helpless roll of your head against the mat.

“That’s it,” he said. “You can take more, I know you can.”

He pulled out a little and paused before rolling his hips forward again, harder this time. The burn was sharp, but it melted into aching pleasure almost instantly. You gasped, clinging to the backs of your thighs, trembling to keep your knees spread wide.

Without waiting for you to adjust, Levi started snapping his hips, forcing your walls to adjust as he fucked himself in and out of you. Every thought fled your mind as he stretched you, stuffing your pussy impossibly full with each thrust. You felt like you were going to break in half, thanks in no small part to Levi’s hands pressing your knees even closer to your shoulders until you were practically folded up.

“Looks like all those forward folds paid off,” he said, pleased, watching his thick cock getting sucked repeatedly into your squelching hole. “See how deep you take me when you’re like this? Knew you’d take me so well.”

“F—fuck… deep—” you parroted back to him, thoughts incoherent.

Levi huffed an amused scoff and pulled out, turning you over onto your side and shoving his length back inside you again. Your nails scrabbled at the padding of the mat beneath you as he lifted your leg high, allowing him in deeper.

“Wouldn’t be able to do this without all those hip opening stretches, huh? Aren’t you glad I made you practice?” He reached down to tweak your nipples roughly as he spread you so wide you were nearly in a straddle stance.

You were dazed, lost in the rhythm of his brutal thrusts and barely able to register how easily he manhandled you. “Levi—ah! Fuck, Levi—”

The way he rutted into you without mercy rocked your entire body, the collisions of his hips jolting you rapidly and sloppily against the mat. The rubbery material burned your skin, but you were too delirious to notice, your frame racked with throbs of white-hot pleasure.

Levi groaned out his appreciation, eyes fixated on the way your body pliantly twisted and stretched for him. You were so good, so eager to please, letting him handle and manipulate your limbs as he liked. His good little student, so needy and trembling. He couldn’t resist giving your ankle a squeeze.

“Stay with me. Don’t slack off now. Open up for me.”

You fought to keep your leg up like he wanted, hands clutching at the mat. Your cunt clung to his cock, heat and wetness pulsing around him with every plunge. “Fuck, Levi, it’s too much—”

His grip on your calf turned to iron, holding you wide as he angled his hips, searching until he heard the gasp. You let out a shattered cry, leg straining against his grasp as his cock ground against that sensitive spot he found with his fingers earlier.

“That’s it. Right there, isn’t it?” he rasped. He shifted his free hand from your tits down to your pussy and began pressing firm circles to your engorged clit.

The pressure was sharp and direct, and you shrieked, quivering violently into his grip. “O—ohhh, fuck, fuck! Oh, god—!”

Levi hummed in satisfaction, pounding you dizzy into the mat. You were taking him so good, every inch of him. He couldn’t take his eyes off how your sloppy little hole clung to him so hard that he was practically struggling to pull his length out and in. Struggling enough, that is, that he gave up the tactic entirely to shove himself in and rock deep inside you.

“Don’t hold back,” he demanded. “Let me hear you.”

You keened at the fullness, too limp to do anything except take all of him. His tip bruising at your cervix and his girth reaching every inch of your walls, pressing up deliciously against your g-spot. Together, with the unrelenting attention of his fingers on yourclit, drove you higher, higher—

“Fuck! I’m cumming—I’m—” You broke apart, convulsing with the force of your orgasm with residual mutters of, cumming, cumming, cumming—losing all sense of your surroundings, vision gone white and heart hammering behind your ribs. Your leg kicked up, shaking frantically in his grasp, but Levi held you meanly oh, so open as your pussy pulsed hard around his pistoning cock.

He groaned out your name as he pulled himself free and stroked himself furiously over you, letting go with a hoarse sound. Hot ropes of his cum streaked across your tits and hip, dribbling down over your stomach and glistening in the dim studio light.

You rolled limply onto your back, sprawled out beneath him, breathing hard and quivering. Levi’s palm smoothed over your calf as he watched you, cum-smeared and sticky with sweat, the last shudders of his orgasm shivering through his tight abs.

“You see?” he said, voice thick with satisfaction. “Told you you were capable, didn’t I?” He ran his thumb slowly over your ankle, enjoying the way you twitched. “Now, wait until you see what kind of positions I can put you in if you keep practicing.”

But you couldn’t just let him do the job, could you? Not when your body reacts to his proximity so absurdly, not when you were already aching at the thought of having disappointed him. Not when the second Titan appeared ouf of thin air, your blades too worn-out to kill it as efficiently as you should’ve had. No one touches Levi, no one pushes him out of the way and charges at whatever danger is ahead. Because it’s Levi and because he is the most capable soldier the corps will probably ever have. But that’s the point, isn’t it? He’s essential. You’re not. Humanity doesn’t have a chance at survival if he’s gone, you are allowed to be collateral damage.

You succeeded at killing the Titan but were also thrown against a tree, yards away. Levi remembers how he couldn’t immediately understand where it hurt because you were just losing so much blood. He remembers the stupid, idiotic relief in your half lidded eyes at the sight of him, the way your lips closed around the barely whispered words. You’re alive.

Why the fuck wouldn’t he be? And how dare you embark on a kamikaze mission right before his eyes, minutes after he already lost so many of his soldiers?

You were out of it for three days. Three entire days he spent stubbornly watching from afar as your friends and fellow soldiers visited the small room the corps used as medical wing. Then came the news of you finally opening your eyes, Erwin irritatingly clicking his tongue at his uninterested shrug.

Levi concealed the urgency making the pads of his fingers itch for a week. He collected all the information he needed to not lose his mind: your arm was broken, leg fractured, you had a concussion that made it impossible for you to walk without losing your balance.

“You’re awake”, his first words to you are calm but you know him too well.

Watching as he sat by your bed, the ice in his stare makes its way into your chest. He is mad, he is always busy spending his time being so mad.

“Surprisingly”, admittedly, not the ideal timing to land a joke. Your captain’s nostrils flare.

“I’m sorry”, you’re quick to add.

“You’re not sorry at all”, he narrows his eyes, “you would do it again in a heartbeat. Because you’re a fucking idiot”.

You furrow your brows.

“I would do it again. And I am sorry”.

“You’re also out of my squad”.

You exhale slowly, shut your eyes for the brief seconds you need to let the words sink in.

“Can’t we just-”

“You heard me”.

“Don’t do this”, unforgiving wrinkles emerge within pristine sheets as they partially disappear within your curled fingers.

“You did this to yourself”, Levi grimaces, “I can’t keep soldiers who would turn any mission into a suicide one”.

“Maybe you should’ve let me fucking die then”.

A muscle jumps in his jaw. You see it before the anger gives the ice in his gaze a whole new thickness.

“Know your place”, the seemingly calm warning shows a crack in what’s really simmering beneath.

“Or what? You’re not my captain anymore, are you?”, resentment makes you bold and Levi hates that about you. He hates that he remembers everything about you all too well and the memory of the way you had impulsively kissed him so many months ago slaps him in the face once more.

Word had spread that captain Ackerman wasn’t able to make it out alive. His latest expedition, one you couldn’t participate in, had apparently failed. So many casualties, including humanity’s strongest soldier, the captain of the Special Operations squad.

He remembers limping back inside the Walls covered in blood, his soldiers cheering, everyone cheering. Not you, though. Levi had to read the relief in your anguished stare, catch a glimpse of the wetness on your cheeks before you turned around and ran away to hide. He still doesn’t know why he went after you of all people, a talented soldier of his squad, one that is always a little too worried about those around her.

He tells himself he wanted to talk to you to make sure you wouldn’t let stupid gossip distract you. He tells himself he chased after you just to tell you to stop worrying about everyone around you. Because it’s dangerous, useless and it will eventually get you killed. So then his squad would have one less talented soldier.

Levi meant to tell you all that, he really did, but then you saw him and how could he have guessed you’d quite literally jump in his arms, take his face in your hands and kiss him? With all that blood still on him. He remembers everything about that moment, from the orange glow of the sunset washing over the dormitory to the way his heart throbbed. He remembers his own arms acting too slow, unable to press you further against his body before you could think of pulling away.

The horrified look in your eyes still haunts him, how you bowed and apologized a million times without ever giving him the chance to utter a single word. And then you murmured something about being so happy he was still alive, too happy in fact, too eager to remind him that he is cared for. As a person, not just a soldier.

Levi just stood there, his breathing heavier as the stream of justifications and painfully thoughtful words left your mouth at such a rapid rate he couldn’t understand half of what you were saying.

“I am still your superior and you will shut the fuck up if I tell you to”, he doesn’t want to be mad, he wants to express the same relief you showed when he was the one to make it. But it’s not something he does easily, manifest how he truly feels about things. What good would that do?

You avert your gaze, arms crossed, and childishly turn your head to hide hot tears of defeat. He studies your profile for a while, the bridge of your nose, bruised jaw, the small wabble of your bottom lip. Then clicks his tongue.

You still refuse to look at him when he rummages through a nearby drawer but jump when his cold fingers graze the arm that is not broken.

“What are you-”

“Stop moving”, he tucks the resentful words back into your throat, “you’re bleeding”.

It makes you want to cry some more, the delicate way he changes your bandages with. It makes you want to cry and scream and punch him in the face. Because he will never know, will he? How important it is for you that he stays alive. That you would uselessly jump in front of a hundred Titans to protect someone who doesn’t need protection, because he’s still one of the most important people in your tiny, fucked up, probably too emotional world.

“Don’t kick me out”, you murmur, eyes low, “I’m no use anywhere else”.

“Why did you do it?”, Levi refuses to meet your gaze, still carefully cleaning your wound, “I trained you better than that. Why would you do something so stupid?”.

He’s humanity’s one, true hope. You’re expendable. He’s someone who maybe doesn’t remember what it’s like to be cared for. You’re an idiot.

“I’m sorry”, you say.

“I didn’t ask if you were sorry”.

“Look-”

“No”, he doesn’t let go of your arm, “stop trying to get yourself killed”.

“I’m a soldier, we’re here to do that”.

“We’re here to survive. I’m ordering you to survive”.

Your heart kicks behind your ribs when you meet his gaze. It’s serious, sharp yet fiery. Levi thinks he might either kiss or kill you himself if you insist on getting on his last nerve.

“So you’re still my captain?”.

He huffs out an exasperated sigh.

“Depends on whether you’ll follow my orders”.