Hi! I'm still pretty new to posting my work on Tumblr (and sharing my writing in general), so I'm really sorry it took me a while to link everything together. I actually just learned how to make a masterlist today!
I hope you're all enjoying the story so far, and I'd love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to stop by my asks and chat with me about it. Thank you all so much for your supportâit truly means a lot to me!
âGive it up, Falco! It's already too late, everyone knows I'll be the one inheriting the Armored Titan!â Gabi shouted, punctuating the declaration by smacking the butt of her wooden rifle square against Falco's forehead.
âYou don't know that yet!â Falco shot back, rubbing at the growing bump. âThey could still reconsider.â
You sighed, already rising from where you'd been sitting. Separating Warrior candidates before they started a proper brawl had become an almost daily responsibility. You stepped between them before either could swing again.
âHey,â you said, gently nudging Gabi's rifle downward. âWhat did I say about fighting?â
The two of them answered without missing a beat.
âDon't do it in front of you.â
âExactly.â You folded your arms. âI've already got Reiner and Porco trying to tear each other's heads off every other week. I don't need you lot adding yourselves to the list.â
The words left your mouth so naturally that they almost made you wince.
The four candidates immediately straightened their backs, expressions turning rigid with practiced obedience. Something twisted painfully in your chest.
You sounded just like the commandants who'd raised you.
Just like the people who'd taught children to stand at attention before they'd ever learned how to simply stand.
âCaptain...?â Zofia spoke first, nervously digging the heel of her boot into the dirt. âAre you alright?â
You blinked before realizing your expression had drifted somewhere far away.
âI'm okay,â you answered quietly. âJust... listen.â
The four of them watched you with complete attention.
âFriendly rivalry is fine. Compete with each other. Push each other to improve. But don't become enemies.â Your gaze lingered on each of them in turn. âYou're all Warriors. One day you'll be trusting each other with your lives. I don't want you growing into adults who only know how to stand beside one another because Marley told you to.â
Your smile was small.
Almost tired.
âYou should actually be friends.â
Silence settled over them, and embarrassment arrived almost immediately. Gabi looked away first. Falco scratched the back of his neck. Even Udo and Zofia suddenly found the ground fascinating.
âWe're... sorry.â
âAs long as you promise to get along,â you replied, âthen we're all good.â
You dismissed them early, fishing a few coins from your pocket before dropping them into Udo's palm.
âBuy yourselves something sweet.â
âCaptain, that's too muchââ
âWhich is why I'm trusting you to divide it equally.â
Udo puffed out his chest with all the seriousness of someone entrusted with military intelligence.
âYes, Captain!â
You laughed quietly, waving them off.
As they disappeared down the street, your gaze lingered after them almost absentmindedly. Falco wasn't looking at the vendors, or the candy, or the coins in Udo's hand. He was watching Gabi. There was something almost painfully gentle about itâthe way he unconsciously slowed his pace so she wouldn't have to catch up, the way relief crossed his face whenever she laughed, the way his eyes softened without him ever realizing it.
...Ah.
So that was it.
He liked her.
The realization settled strangely inside you. When you were their age, you wouldn't have recognized that look for what it was. You'd never had the chance to. Love had belonged to stories, not Warrior candidates.
Now you understood it.
And somehow...
That made it hurt even more.
Looking back, the signs had always been there. Every scraped knee had Falco rushing to Gabi before anyone else. Every compliment she received from the officers made him smile with quiet pride, even as disappointment settled over his own face. Whenever someone confidently declared she'd inherit the Armored Titan, he never argued because he thought she wasn't capable.
He argued because he knew exactly what inheriting it meant.
Thirteen years.
A life measured by a countdown.
The slow transformation from child...
...into a weapon.
You wondered if he even realized that himself.
Love was a strange thing.
Everyone carried it differently.
Moblit loved Hange by making sure they remembered to eat, sleep, and occasionally stop trying to dissect themselves alongside Titans.
Petra and Oluo buried theirs beneath endless teasing and arguments that fooled absolutely no one except perhaps themselves.
Levi...
You smiled despite yourself.
Levi had been hopeless.
For an entire month after realizing his feelings, he'd done everything short of requesting reassignment just to avoid being alone with you. Conversations became shorter. He found excuses to leave rooms you'd just entered. If you brought him tea, he'd thank you without looking up from his paperwork, only to stare at the door for several minutes after you'd gone.
The great Captain Levi.
Humanity's strongest.
Defeated by his own emotions.
The memory warmed your cheeks before you could stop it.
Then it faded.
Because that was all it was now.
A memory.
âBad memories?â
The voice pulled you back to the present.
You turned to find Reiner standing a few paces away. He'd become broad where he'd once been gangly, the beginnings of a beard shadowing his jaw. The boy who'd followed Marcel with unwavering admiration was gone, replaced by a man who always seemed slightly hunched beneath a weight no one else could see. Nothing about him resembled the child you'd crossed the sea with.
Except his eyes.
They still carried the same desperate need to be enough.
âWhen are they ever good?â you asked.
It wasn't really a question. The two of you knew that.
You were still angry with him. Not the sharp, burning anger you'd carried in the beginning, but something quieter. Older. He had shattered the life you'd built inside Paradis, torn Iris away before you'd even been given the chance to mourn her properly.
But even that wasn't entirely his fault.
It had been Marley. The indoctrination. The impossible expectations forced onto children who'd never been allowed to become anything else. Reiner had simply been another victim trying desperately to survive.
Still...
Knowing that didn't stop him from becoming the face your anger chose. It was easier to resent him than the world that had shaped both of you.
He shifted awkwardly beneath your gaze, shoulders drawing in almost instinctively. Despite everything he'd survived, despite becoming the Armored Titan, despite growing into a man, he still shrank exactly the way frightened children did whenever they thought they'd disappointed someone.
The sight made your heart ache.
You didn't want to become another person who taught him he wasn't enough. There had already been too many.
So somewhere inside the exhausted remains of your heart, you searched for forgiveness. Not because he'd earned it. Not because either of you deserved it. But because no one else was ever going to offer it to him.
And because you knew, with painful certainty...
...you would probably never forgive yourself either.
You exhaled slowly.
âWant to buy me some of that juice I like?â
Reiner looked up so quickly it almost startled you. He nodded at once, tentative, carefulânot because buying juice was any great burden, but because you'd given him something far rarer.
The chance to walk beside you again.
Maybe that was all either of you could offer now.
Small kindnesses. Quiet forgiveness.
Two broken children pretending they'd learned how to become adults.
You hoped that one day, somehow, the unforgiven children would learn to forgive each other.
You hoped, even more selfishly...
...that they might forgive you too.
â
When Levi realized what he felt for you was different from what he'd ever felt for anyone else, everything became a mess. He didn't know what to do with it, so he did the only thing he knew how.
He avoided you.
For an entire month, he treated you like the beginning of an epidemic, always somewhere nearby but never close enough to touch. Every time you entered a room, he'd find an excuse to leave it. Every report was handed through someone else if he could help it. Conversations became clipped, reduced to orders and acknowledgements. It was pathetic. The feeling had already been bad enough when he couldn't name it. Now that he finally could... it was worse.
Every time he'd catch the disappointment on your face when he brushed past you without so much as a greeting, he'd nearly stop. Nearly tell you the truth. Nearly admit it to himself. But he didn't. You were younger than him. You barely understood what love even was, and neither did heânot until you. So he convinced himself distance was kinder.
From afar, he'd watch you carry stacks of paperwork through headquarters, answer Erwin's requests before they were finished leaving his mouth, then disappear to train with the recruits whenever you somehow found free time. He noticed things he never meant to notice: the way you rubbed your wrists after writing too long, the way you'd space out in quiet moments, the way you laughed now. That one always caught him off guard. You hadn't laughed like that when you first arrived.
It was difficult, feeling something you'd never experienced before. Levi had never imagined romance was something he'd have to navigate. The Underground hadn't exactly taught him how. Feelings like this were embarrassing. Inconvenient. Harrowing.
He wanted to tell you that your cheeks looked better now that you were actually eating, that there was color in your face where there hadn't been before, that your eyes had stopped looking so... tired. And that fucking dress. The same dress he'd argued against buying because some stubborn part of him had known exactly what would happen if he saw you wearing it.
You'd looked beautiful.
Not because of the dress.
Because you looked alive. Hopeful. Like someone finally allowing themselves to exist instead of merely survive. He wanted to be the person who protected that. Who understood it.
Who understood you.
âNo, she doesn't need to be on that expedition.â
Erwin barely looked up from the papers on his desk. âLevi, I need Iris in the field. Someone has to document the changes to the formation and the expedition itself.â
âThen tell her what happened afterward. You've got eyes.â
âWhy are you being difficult?â Erwin sighed. âEveryone's noticed you've been avoiding her for the past month, and now that I'm assigning her to one expeditionâone, Leviâin the last four months, you're suddenly objecting. Is it what I think it is?â
âShe'd be dead weight.â His answer came too quickly. âWe don't need another corpse out there. She's more useful here.â
âThat's coming from Levi,â Erwin said calmly, ânot me, Iris.â
Levi's head snapped toward the doorway so fast it almost hurt.
Fuck.
You'd been standing there the entire time.
âI apologize for being a burden in the field.â
Erwin rose from his chair, gathering a folder beneath one arm. âI'll leave the two of you to sort this out.â
The door clicked shut behind him.
âIris...â Levi started.
You stood perfectly straight. âI understand if the Captain has found shortcomings in my performance. I'll work to improve them.â
There it was again. That empty obedience. The way you'd shrink the moment authority spoke, as though you were waiting for someone to tell you what shape you were supposed to become. It unsettled him every time.
âFuck, listen...â
You fell silent immediately. No argument. No frustration. Nothing. Just that same vacant readiness to accept whatever judgment came next.
âIris, I don't want you on the field.â
âYes, because I'm dead weight outside the walls.â
âNo.â You met his eyes. âIt's... fuck, it's complicated.â
âIt isn't, Captain. If I am lacking, then I'll improve.â
âWould you stop talking for one second?â
The words came out sharper than he intended.
You obeyed instantly.
Somehow that made it worse. He didn't want to order you. Not anymore.
Levi dragged a hand through his hair before letting out a long, frustrated breath.
âI don't want you to die.â You blinked. âI want you alive.â
You frowned as though the sentence itself didn't make sense.
âBut I'm a soldier, Captain. That's my duty.â
âYour duty is being Erwin's secretary.â
âMy duty is wherever the commander assigns me.â
âNot as Titan bait.â
âThey said Tucker used toââ
âFuck Tucker.â
The room fell silent.
Levi looked away before forcing himself to meet your eyes again. âI don't want you dead because...â He swallowed. â...because I care about you.â
You stared at him, thinking. Really thinking.
Then, quietlyâ
â...That's not true.â
His chest tightened.
âYou don't talk to me anymore, Captain. You avoid me.â There was no accusation, only observation. âI know you don't have any obligation to speak to me...â You lowered your gaze, your fingers curling loosely at your sides. âBut... I don't think I understand what caring is.â
A small, uncertain smile found your face.
âIf this is what caring looks like... then I don't think I've learned it yet.â
â
It made no sense to you. What did Levi mean by caring for you? People cared in ways you understood. Hange cared by appearing wherever you were and deciding that your business was now theirs. Moblit cared through quiet reliability, through meals shoved into your hands and reminders to eat that somehow sounded less like nagging and more like concern. Petra cared through affection so freely given that it still startled you sometimes, through fixing your hair, linking arms with you, speaking as though your company was something worth seeking out. Levi... Levi had cared by disappearing.
You sat on the edge of your bed, fingers moving absentmindedly through your hair. Petra had braided it that morning. You'd already taken it apart hours ago, yet your hands kept searching for the phantom shape of it. The room was quiet. Too quiet. Your thoughts circled endlessly around the conversation in Erwin's office.
I care about you.
The words refused to settle. Not because you believed Levi had lied, but because you genuinely couldn't understand them. Caring wasn't supposed to look like avoidance. It wasn't supposed to leave you lonelier than before. It wasn't supposed to hurt.
A knock broke the silence.
You blinked.
Another followed.
Slow.
Deliberate.
You opened the door and immediately forgot whatever had occupied your mind before.
Levi stood outside.
Holding flowers.
Irises.
For a long moment you simply stared.
Silence stretched between the two of you before he looked away first, jaw tightening.
"...These are so fucking hard to get this season apparently."
The bouquet looked slightly crushed, not ruined, just handled by someone who clearly had no business carrying flowers. Like he'd spent the better part of an hour arguing with florists instead of simply asking for help.
Your lips twitched.
"Did you need something, Captain?"
His tongue clicked against his teeth.
God.
He'd rather fight Titans.
At least Titans made sense.
You didn't.
Not when you looked at him so politely, as though this wasn't the strangest thing either of you had ever experienced.
"You came here looking dead." His gaze drifted somewhere past you, as though the girl he'd first met years ago was still standing in your place. "You looked empty."
"You needed somebody to keep telling you what to do every second of the day," he said, his voice quieter now. "Like if nobody gave you a job you'd stop moving."
You looked down because he wasn't wrong. Back then, purpose had been easier than identity. Orders were simpler than choices. As long as someone told you where to stand, where to walk, who to become, you never had to think about who you actually were beneath the uniform. Or what you'd done.
"I always was alive, Captain."
The reply came automatically. Defensively.
Levi rolled his eyes. "Don't get smart with me, brat."
Against your own will, you smiled. There was something strangely comforting about being called a brat again.
He sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose like he already regretted walking here. "I'm shit with words."
"I know."
His glare landed on you instantly.
"...Sorry."
"Stop apologizing."
"...Sorry."
His eye twitched. "You see? That's exactly what I'm talking about."
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable, only awkward. Levi shifted his weight before finally forcing himself to look you in the eyes.
"I don't know how to do this."
That surprised you more than the flowers.
Levi always seemed certain. Even when he was angry. Even when exhausted. Even when the world was falling apart.
Yet now he looked completely lost.
"I don't know how people are supposed to act when they care about somebody."
Your breathing caught.
No sarcasm.
No insults.
No walls.
Just honesty.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to say." His fingers tightened slightly around the bouquet. "So I keep fucking it up."
Something inside your chest tightened. Not painfully. Just enough to make itself known, like discovering a bruise you hadn't realized you were carrying.
"I thought staying away would fix it." A humorless scoff escaped him. "Turns out I was just making things worse."
Your thoughts drifted back over the past month. Every conversation cut short. Every doorway he'd left through the moment you entered. Every report he'd had someone else collect.
You'd thought he'd grown tired of you.
Thought you'd somehow disappointed him.
Instead...
He'd simply been struggling.
The realization hurt in a completely different way because it meant you'd misunderstood him.
Levi awkwardly pushed the bouquet toward you again. "I'm shit with words."
"You've mentioned."
"I'll keep mentioning it."
The flowers bumped gently against your chest.
"Take them."
You accepted them carefully. The soft petals brushed across your fingertips.
Irises.
Your throat tightened.
Not because they were beautiful.
Though they were.
Because someone had thought of you.
You.
"I care about you."
There it was again.
Simple.
Blunt.
Entirely Levi.
"I care about you enough that the idea of something eating you pisses me off."
A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
He pointed at you immediately.
"Don't laugh."
That only made you laugh harder.
Heat crept visibly across his face. Not dramatically. Just enough. Enough to make you realize this was probably the most embarrassed you'd ever seen humanity's strongest soldier.
"Petra says I should forgive people in my own time."
"Petra's getting stable duties if you don't accept my apology."
That did it.
You laughed properly.
Brightly.
Without restraint.
The sound echoed softly through the hallway.
Levi stared for a second before immediately looking away, as though even hearing you laugh was too much.
You hugged the bouquet to your chest.
"Thank you, Captain."
Your smile softened.
"I can feel the care so much now."
He groaned.
"You're impossible."
"And you're bad at this."
"I know."
"Terrible, even."
"Iris."
You looked up.
"If you keep talking," he muttered, "I'll take the flowers back."
You gasped dramatically and shielded them behind your back.
His lips twitched.
Only for a second.
But you caught it.
The tiny almost-smile somehow felt more precious than the flowers themselves.
Your own smile slowly faded into something quieter as you looked down at the bouquet again.
A strange realization settled over you.
People kept choosing you.
And somehow...
Levi had too.
Not because you were useful.
Not because you were efficient.
Not because you'd earned it through suffering.
They simply had.
The thought frightened you.
Because if affection wasn't something that had to be earned...
Then perhaps...
You had always been worthy of receiving it.
Levi shifted awkwardly in the doorway, clearly waiting for some sort of answer. Some conclusion. Some verdict.
You looked back up at him, smiling gently.
"I forgive you."
The relief that crossed his face was almost imperceptible.
But you knew him a little more now.
You saw it.
He gave one small nod, as though that settled everything, as though he hadn't just stumbled through the closest thing either of you were capable of calling a confession.
Hopeless.
The both of you.
One man who couldn't express affection without sounding like he was issuing military orders.
One woman who still confused love with forgiveness.
If there truly was a God watching over humanity, they were probably laughing.
Because standing there with irises cradled carefully in your arms and something warm fluttering embarrassingly inside your chest, you still believed those butterflies existed because Levi had forgiven you.
Not because somewhere, quietly and without either of you realizing it...
Romance never came easily to people who had spent their entire lives fighting for the smallest scraps of affection.
You had mistaken recognition for love long before you ever understood the difference.
If people acknowledged your worth, then surely they would love you. If you became useful enough, obedient enough, exceptional enough, then love would naturally follow. It had to. Why else would anyone give it away?
Your mother had always loved you.
You knew that now.
But as a child, love looked different. It looked like coming home too exhausted from work to speak. It looked like calloused hands, missed dinners, falling asleep still wearing work clothes because Marley had wrung every ounce of strength from her before she ever returned home to you. Add years of being told by Marley that Eldians were born owing the world a debt, and eventually you stopped believing anyone could love you without first being given a reason.
So you asked her to sign the papers.
The Warrior Candidate program.
Because if you became a Warrior, perhaps the neighbors would stop looking at your family with disgust. If you became an Honorary Marleyan, perhaps your mother wouldn't have to work until she collapsed at the dinner table. If you became valuable enough...
Maybe she'd finally have something to be proud of.
It never once occurred to you that she already was.
That was the tragedy of it all.
You'd spent your life chasing proof of a love that had existed from the very beginning.
And somewhere along the way...
You forgot to learn how to love yourself.
Love became something transactional.
Something earned.
Something that arrived only after enough suffering had justified it.
So when it was given freely...
You didn't know what to do with it.
Petra braided your hair whenever she had the chance, complaining that you never made enough time for yourself. Moblit somehow always appeared with food before you'd even realized you'd skipped another meal. Hange dragged you into conversations, experiments, and ridiculous outings simply because they refused to let you disappear into paperwork forever.
And Levi...
Levi told you to sleep.
Constantly.
"Oi."
You looked up from another stack of reports.
"...You didn't sleep again."
"You don't sleep either, Captain."
"Don't talk back to your superior."
"...Yes, Captain."
He sighed almost immediately.
It happened every time.
You'd argue right until authority entered the conversation, and then whatever spark had been in your eyes disappeared beneath years of conditioning. Your shoulders straightened. Your voice quieted. You obeyed before you even realized you were doing it.
It unsettled him.
Because you stopped looking like Iris.
You looked like something waiting for instructions.
"...Put the papers down."
You blinked.
"Erwin's going to be in Mitras all day."
Your brows knitted together.
"...He is?"
"You'd know if you stopped trying to work yourself to death."
He nodded toward the couch.
"Sleep."
"...Captainâ"
"There."
He pointed again.
"I'm serious."
Somewhere along the way, his habit of talking to you had quietly become something else. Nagging. Ordering you to eat. Ordering you to rest. Ordering you to go back to your quarters before midnight. Ordering you to sleep whenever he caught the dark circles beneath your eyes growing worse.
Strangely...
His office became the only place where sleep came easily.
There were no nightmares on the Captain's couch.
Or perhaps there were.
Perhaps he simply woke you before they had the chance to become unbearable.
Some days you gave in because arguing with him required more energy than simply closing your eyes.
Other days you escaped before he noticed.
Being Erwin's secretary meant your quarters sat beside headquarters, close enough that messages could reach you at any hour. It also meant you had a room to yourself.
A room where no roommates would discover the maps you quietly redrew.
Or the reports you rewrote from memory.
Or the information Marley had sent you here to collect.
Love was something you didn't understand.
Levi wasn't much better.
â
It was never romantic.
Not in the beginning.
Neither of you knew what romance was supposed to look like. You worked together. He complained whenever you skipped meals. You made sure his tea was always brewed correctly and that his paperwork arrived on time. He nagged you to sleep. You nagged Hange to finish reports. Life simply settled into routines neither of you questioned.
It wasn't unusual.
It was... practical.
At least, that's what you told yourself.
Whenever Petra started talking about Oluo, however, you found yourself hopelessly confused.
"I thought Oluo was older than me when I first joined the Cadets."
"Iris!"
"What?"
"You're not supposed to pay attention to that!"
She'd groan into her hands while you stared back, genuinely unable to understand what you'd said wrong.
The whole thing was bizarre.
People developed crushes as though they were catching colds. They blushed over lingering glances, confessed feelings with pounding hearts, held hands because they wanted to, kissed because... because apparently that's just what people did.
Everyone else seemed to understand the rules.
You felt like you'd missed the lesson entirely.
Love didn't make sense.
It wasn't efficient.
It didn't win battles or secure promotions. It didn't earn Honorary Marleyan status. It didn't put food on the table or keep your mother from working herself sick. It didn't save children from becoming Warriors or stop Titans from devouring people alive.
It accomplished nothing.
So why did people chase it as though it were the most important thing in the world?
You couldn't understand how someone could simply... love.
Without being useful first.
Without proving themselves worthy.
Without giving something in return.
To you, affection had always come with conditions. Every kindness had to be repaid. Every compliment had to be earned. Every place beside someone else had to be justified over and over again, lest they realize you no longer deserved to occupy it.
Love was a reward.
Not a beginning.
So when Petra braided your hair simply because she liked doing it, when Moblit remembered whether you'd eaten before you did, when Hange sought you out because they enjoyed your company, and when Levi quietly slid a blanket over you after you'd fallen asleep on his couch, none of it registered as affection.
Only obligation.
Only habit.
Only people being... nice.
It never crossed your mind that they cared.
After all...
Why would they?
What had you done to deserve something as irrational as love?
â
Levi had brought you home.
Just as he'd said he would.
You entered your home while home remained outside, disappearing back into Liberio's streets to continue searching for Eren. The front door clicked shut behind you, separating the two of you with nothing more than a slab of wood, yet it felt like an ocean had opened between you all over again.
Making tea had become a habit you never managed to break. The leaves were brewed exactly the way he preferredâdark, bitter, left to steep longer than they should've been. You never understood how he could drink something that tasted like punishment, yet your hands prepared it from memory all the same.
"...You're home late."
Your tired gaze lifted to find your mother leaning against the staircase, already dressed for bed.
"...There was a lot of work."
You smiled faintly, your thumbs tracing slow circles around the warm teacup.
"When you're a Captain, there's always something."
She descended the stairs without another word.
"I never should've let you sign yourself up for the military."
Your brows knitted together immediately.
"...Mom."
"You were always such a good girl." She smiled sadly. "You never caused trouble. Never made me worry about you sneaking out or getting into fights. I never had to scold you, never had to teach you how to behave..."
Her hand found your cheek.
"And that's the problem."
You froze.
"I should have."
Her thumb brushed away a tear you hadn't realized had escaped.
"I owed you that much as your mother. I brought you into this world... I should've been the one raising you."
Her voice trembled.
"My darling... your face is still so young."
Another tear slipped free.
"But your soul is spent."
"...Mom..."
"We should've been playing together." She laughed weakly through her tears. "I should've been fussing over dresses and ribbons instead of watching you disappear into a uniform. You should've been worrying about childish things, not military drills."
She pulled you a little closer.
"I failed you."
"No..."
Your voice cracked.
"I understand why."
"It doesn't mean it was right."
The words shattered whatever composure you had left.
You leaned into her embrace with a sob that felt years overdue, clutching at her as though you were that little girl again, waiting by the window for her mother to come home so they could play dolls together.
For years, you'd mistaken sacrifice for love. Believed affection had to be earned. That usefulness came before deserving to be cared for.
If you hadn't learned what love truly looked likeâthat irrational, unconditional thingâwithin the Walls of Paradis...
You never would've recognized it waiting for you here.
You never would've allowed yourself to cry so openly in your mother's arms.
You never would've remembered...
That before you were a Warrior, before you were a Captain...
You had always been her daughter.
â
You were younger than Levi. Perhaps that was why he found himself watching over you.
He never questioned it, never stopped to wonder why his attention lingered on you longer than it did anyone else. As far as he understood, this was simply what caring for someone looked like. You were younger, still learning, still carrying something in your eyes that reminded him too much of people who had been forced to grow up before they ever had the chance to be children.
What he felt wasn't different. Not at first.
Love, to Levi, had always been practical. You looked after the people you cared about. You made sure they ate, slept, stayed alive long enough to see tomorrow. You taught them to stand on their own feet so the world couldn't swallow them whole.
Wasn't that enough?
That was how Kenny had raised him, in his own brutal way. It was how he'd tried to raise Isabel and Furlan too. Keep them alive. Make them stronger than the world that wanted them dead. That was care. That was affection.
So when people spoke of love... of hugging. Of kissing. Of making love.
He couldn't understand why those things were supposed to matter.
What did they mean when they said love made you want those things?
His mother had done them with strangers almost every night. It was how she survived. How he had been born. How she managed to put food in his stomach and clothes on his back.
He had never thought she was doing something shameful. She always smiled when she tucked him into another room before customers arrived. Always told him she'd be back soon.
And every time he returned, she'd already be washing herself, exhausted hands scrubbing away the smell of men she didn't know before greeting him with that same gentle smile.
She always looked so tired.
So he never understood what was supposed to be beautiful about any of it.
Those men came and went. None of them loved his mother.
If that was what love looked like, then it seemed to demand everything while giving nothing back.
When Kenny disappeared and Levi tried climbing aboard a wagon bound for the surface, there were people who saw a starving child from the Underground and wondered how much coin he might fetch. Later, after he'd grown into himself, women looked at him with the same hungry expressions.
Maybe it was because of his reputation. Maybe they wanted the protection that came with his name. Maybe they simply wanted his body.
Whatever the reason, the moment he understood what they were offering, his stomach turned.
He couldn't stomach it.
Not when he'd watched his mother wear that same exhausted smile.
Not when he'd spent his childhood learning exactly what people were willing to do to survive.
So when others joked about romance or teased him about women, he never understood what there was to laugh about.
To him, love had never looked tender.
It had always looked tired.
â
But you weren't a child. You were an adult. An adult who simply lived the only way she'd ever been taught. Levi knew there was a difference.
Somewhere between reminding you to eat, forcing you onto the couch in his office whenever the exhaustion beneath your eyes became too obvious, and threatening to break your leg if you refused to rest, he realized that what you lacked wasn't maturity. It was permission. Permission to sleep because you were tired instead of because someone ordered you to. Permission to eat because you were hungry instead of because your body needed fuel for more work. Permission to laugh without first wondering whether you were allowed.
He couldn't keep treating you like something fragile forever. Not because you weren't, but because you deserved the chance to stand without someone constantly steadying you.
Eventually... you did.
He noticed it in ways you probably never would have. You started finishing entire meals instead of quietly pushing food around your plate until Moblit or Petra stared you into taking another bite. You stopped waiting for Levi to order you onto the couch before allowing yourself to rest after particularly long days. You lingered after conversations instead of slipping away the moment work was finished.
Petra had a habit of dragging you into every little conversation she could find, while Oluo somehow always found something stupid to complain about. Somewhere between the two of them, you learned how to gossip. Poorly. Awkwardly. Usually with a completely straight face that made it impossible to tell whether you were joking.
It was... entertaining.
Slowly, almost without either of you realizing it, you became less like someone surviving life and more like someone actually living it. Levi noticed. He simply never said anything.
Once he was sure you'd found your footing, things settled back into routine. Professional again. Morning reports. Tea brewed exactly the way he liked it. Paperwork stacked neatly across his desk before he ever asked for it. Occasional conversations that somehow stretched longer than either of you intended. Small routines. Quiet routines. The sort that became so ordinary neither of you ever questioned them.
He'd already accepted, long before then, that he cared about you. He'd figured that out sometime around the day he'd quietly bought a blanket to leave folded over the couch in his office because you always curled up without one. He never told you it was yours. He simply left it there.
And every time you fell asleep beneath it, he pretended not to notice.
That should have been enough.
It would've stayed enough... if Hange hadn't decided you deserved a celebration.
Your first anniversary as the Survey Corps' secretary somehow became an event despite your complete lack of involvement.
"I don't see the point," Levi muttered as Hange enthusiastically threw ideas around Erwin's office. "Tucker never got a celebration."
"Well uh... whatever! You're heartless!" Hange threw their hands into the air. "Have you ever seen her off duty?! If you had, you'd understand why!"
"I think it's a good idea."
"Thank you, Nanaba!"
"It wouldn't hurt to get her something nice," Dita added. "What does she even own? Clothes left behind by dead soldiers and Petra's nicer hand-me-downs."
"She doesn't need a dress," Levi answered flatly. "Get her a pen."
"...A pen?" Hange deadpanned.
"She writes all day."
"But she'd be so pretty in one!"
Levi pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I didn't say she wouldn't."
Silence.
Hange slowly turned toward Nanaba.
"...You heard that too, right?"
"I heard it."
"For fuck's sake..." Levi muttered.
One captain against four squad leaders.
The dress won.
You, meanwhile, knew absolutely nothing.
"Surprise!"
You froze in the doorway of your office, blinking at every squad leader crammed inside alongside Erwin... and Levi, who looked as though he'd rather be anywhere else.
"...Surprise?" you echoed cautiously. "What... is this about?"
You fidgeted with your hands, eyes darting around the room.
"It's been a whole year!" Hange exclaimed.
"A year of being such a great secretary!" Nanaba smiled. "Erwin approved this, by the way."
You looked toward the commander.
He nodded once.
"...I..."
A quiet laugh escaped you.
"I don't know what to say. I've never..." You looked down, smiling awkwardly. "...Wow."
"No need!" Hange grinned. "Just open the present! We all pitched in!"
"...Levi included."
Your eyes immediately found him.
"They forced me."
"Shut up."
The box they handed you was far bigger than you expected.
Carefully, you lifted the lid.
Your vision blurred before you'd even touched what was inside.
"...Iris?" Dita spoke first.
A quiet sniffle escaped you.
The room collectively froze.
"Do you... not like it?" Nanaba asked carefully.
"Is the colour wrong?" Dita added.
"Oh no..." Hange's shoulders slumped.
Slowly, you reached inside and lifted out the dress.
Not stitched together from a dead soldier's belongings.
Not another hand-me-down that carried someone else's memories.
Yours.
You held it against yourself, fingers trembling around the fabric.
Then you laughed.
Brightly.
"It's..."
Another laugh escaped between your tears.
"It's so pretty."
Hange burst into tears immediately.
"We'll buy you more!"
You laughed harder, clutching the dress against your chest.
No one had ever given you something simply because they wanted to. No expectations. No repayment. No purpose beyond seeing you smile.
You hadn't realized how starved you'd been for kindness until someone offered it freely.
Looking around the room, you saw Hange wiping their face, Nanaba smiling to herself, Miche pretending he wasn't invested, Erwin watching with quiet satisfaction...
...and Levi.
His eyes met yours for only a moment. Long enough to see your smile. Long enough to realize, with terrifying certainty, that all he wanted to do was walk across the room, wipe away the tears on your cheeks...
...and kiss you.
The thought struck him so suddenly.
He'd spent months convincing himself that worrying about you was normal. That buying the blanket, nagging you to sleep, noticing when you skipped meals or looked exhausted was simply what a captain did for someone under his command.
But this...
This wasn't duty.
It wasn't responsibility.
It wasn't the quiet affection he'd given Isabel, Furlan, or any of the people he'd lost.
It was selfish.
Because for the first time in his life...
Levi wanted someone for himself.
And that frightened him far more than death ever had.
Where us begins and I end is amazing. Love seeing fics where reader is from Marley. Is this your first work? It's so gooddd. Really loved the back and forth in time part. Makes me very interested to see more of the dynamic between levi and reader. Looking forward to all the future chapters â€ïžâ€ïž
Aaaaaa, first of all, thank you so much for the compliments đ„čđ€
And to answer your questionâthis isn't my first work. It is, however, the first one I've decided to share publicly and attach an identity to.
I'm so happy you're enjoying the alternating timelines! I really wanted to highlight the contrast between then and now, and I'm so glad that's coming across.
Word Count: 4.1k | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
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It felt like hours before your breathing finally steadied. The panic loosened its grip little by little until each breath stopped scraping against your lungs. Only then did you realize how close the two of you still were.
Levi hadn't moved.
One hand still held your wrist in an iron grip. The other remained over your mouth, though the pressure had long since softened. Somewhere between your panic and his quiet insistence to breathe, your back had found his chest, the two of you hidden in the shadows of the narrow alley as though neither of you wanted to acknowledge how familiar the position felt.
He was the first to break the silence.
"...So it was you at the harbor earlier."
Your stomach dropped.
He'd seen you.
Of course he had.
The moment his hand slipped away from your mouth, you pulled yourself free, putting what little distance the cramped alley allowed between you. You turned sharply to face him, shoulders squared, arms instinctively crossing over yourself as though a defensive posture could rebuild everything that had just fallen apart.
You wanted to glare. To be angry. To remember exactly who he was.
Instead, the moment your eyes met his again, whatever anger you'd managed to gather simply... dissolved.
"...What are you doing here?"
His answer came without hesitation.
"Isn't it obvious?"
It was.
You knew why the Scouts had crossed the sea, just as he knew why you were standing here wearing a Marleyan uniform. Playing ignorant wouldn't change either of those things.
"...Why did you hide me?" Your voice was quieter now. "You could've dragged me out to Hange. Hell... you could've taken me yourself."
"Yeah." He didn't deny it. "I could."
A pause.
"But I'm curious."
His eyes stayed on yours.
"Why haven't you reported seeing us yet?"
Fuck.
Your jaw tightened.
"...Who says I haven't?"
A lie.
A weak one.
His expression barely changed.
"You're a bad liar." Another pause. "It's a wonder you had us fooled for years."
The words struck harder than any punch could have.
Because they weren't cruel.
They were true.
Silence settled between you again.
For God's sake...
Why was he standing here talking to you?
Why wasn't he arresting you? Beating you unconscious? Dragging you back to Hange as a hostage against Marley?
"...Your hair's shorter."
The comment caught you completely off guard. Your fingers instinctively brushed the ends resting against your neck.
The sting behind your eyes returned so suddenly it almost hurt.
"...You've lost weight." His gaze lingered on your face for a second longer. "The Marleyans not feeding you?"
"...Stop looking at me like that."
The words came out quieter than you'd intended.
His eyes shifted away for the first time since you'd collided.
"...Like what?"
You swallowed.
He answered himself before you could.
"...Like you're not a traitor?"
His jaw tightened.
"...Or like I'm trying really fucking hard to forget that you are."
Your hand moved before your mind could stop it.
Instinct.
Training.
Years of conditioning.
You lifted the edge of your coat, fingers wrapping around the grip of your sidearm before drawing it free in one smooth motion. The barrel settled squarely on his chest.
Your hands didn't shake.
You wished they had.
"It's a bad thing for a soldier to lie to his comrades, Captain." Your voice sounded strangely hollow. "You're hiding the enemy."
He looked down at the pistol.
Then back at you.
"...You're going to shoot me?"
Not fear.
Not anger.
Just...
Acceptance.
"...Do it."
The acid returned immediately. Your stomach twisted so violently you thought you might be sick right there in the alley. Heat climbed your throat as your vision threatened to blur again.
You didn't want this.
Not anymore.
Not with him.
Not with any of them.
"...Do you think I won't?" you forced yourself to say. "I didn't hesitate to get our comrades killed. I didn't hesitate to feed your military's plans to Annie and the others."
You watched something flicker behind his eyes.
Petra.
His squad.
The forest.
Annie.
You knew exactly where to strike.
Which somehow made saying it even worse.
His pistol appeared so quickly you barely saw him draw.
One step.
Then another.
Until the muzzle rested on your sternum, close enough that you could feel the cold metal through your uniform.
Neither of you pulled the trigger.
"...You're a shit liar." His voice remained as calm as ever. "...And an even worse person."
You let out a laugh.
Small.
Broken.
"...Doesn't take a genius to figure that out."
Againâ
Nothing.
No gunshot.
No struggle.
Only two loaded pistols aimed at hearts that neither of you seemed capable of shooting. The alley fell silent save for your uneven breathing and the distant murmur of Liberio's streets carrying on as though the world hadn't stopped between the two of you.
For the first time since leaving Paradis, you realized neither of you had truly wanted to survive this meeting.
You had only wanted to know the other still existed.
â
Maybe Tucker had fed himself to the Titans on purpose.
Getting Hange to write their own reports was fucking hell.
"But, Iris!"
"No!" You planted your hands on Hange's desk. "You can't keep dumping your work on Moblit! You work him to the bone enough already! Look at him! He looks dead!"
"...Gee. Thanks."
Moblit didn't even bother looking up, continuing to write his own stack of reports with the hollow-eyed expression of a man who'd long accepted this as his fate.
"Section Commander!" another Scout called from the hallway. "Captain Levi's waiting for those reports!"
You groaned loud enough for the entire headquarters to hear, stomping your foot against the wooden floor.
It still felt strange.
Back in Marley, tantrums earned punishment. Eldian children weren't allowed to complain, let alone throw fits over paperwork. Somewhere during these last few years, Petra had managed to beat that part of you into submission.
It had taken nearly six months before you spoke to anyone beyond what was necessary. Guilt made for terrible company. You ate alone. Trained alone. Sat alone. The other cadets kept their distance too, partly because you were older than most of them, partly because no one quite knew what to make of the quiet girl from Wall Sina.
Petra hadn't cared.
She decided, entirely on her own, that eating lunch alone was unacceptable. Then she'd dragged you into conversations, into friendships, into becoming something Marley had never taught you to be.
A person.
A friend.
A girl.
Now here you were, stomping your foot over paperwork.
It was ridiculous.
It was... nice.
"Oi."
The room fell silent.
"Where the fuck are the reports I asked for?"
You winced.
Levi stood in the doorway, looking about one inconvenience away from murdering somebody.
"...Captain, it's just that the Section Commanderâ"
"You know how Hange is." He cut you off before you could finish. "If you don't figure out how to handle them, it's going to keep causing delays."
His eyes landed squarely on yours.
"So do your damn job right."
Then he was gone.
"..."
You buried your face in your hands.
Then slowly turned toward Hange.
Your smile didn't reach your eyes.
"This," you said far too calmly, "is the last time I get yelled at by the Captain because of you, Section Commander Hange Zoë."
"...I'm sorry, Iris."
Hange immediately grabbed the reports.
"I'll finish them right now!"
â
A knock on Levi's office door at night could only ever belong to you or Erwin.
Hange never knocked.
Erwin was meeting with the other Corps commanders.
So...
"It took you long enough."
"...Good evening to you too, Captain."
You slipped inside carefully, balancing a cup of freshly brewed tea in one hand and the reports in the other, moving slowly enough that neither spilled over the mountain of paperwork covering his desk.
"I brought you tea."
"Hm."
He finally looked up.
"At least you know how to bring a peace offering."
He gestured toward the desk.
"Put it there."
You placed the tea to one side, the reports to the other, letting out a quiet sigh of relief as the last task of the evening finally left your hands.
"I'm your last stop today?"
The question caught you off guard.
Over the past month, Levi hadn't exactly been welcoming. Late reports earned sharp words. Badly brewed tea earned even sharper ones. Most conversations between you lasted less than a minute before he sent you away again.
"...Yes. Commander Erwin won't be back until tomorrow, so I'll collect everything in the morning before bringing it to him."
He merely hummed, flipping through Hange's report while sipping his tea.
A minute passed.
Then another.
"...Hange's handwriting is shit."
He squinted harder.
"I preferred it when Moblit wrote these."
"Moblit has his own reports."
"I know."
He sighed.
"But it was still better."
His eyes narrowed at the page.
"...For fuck's sake."
He held the paper farther away.
"What the hell is this?"
Another page.
"...Titan feces?"
Yet another.
"What the fuck am I reading?"
You bit down on the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from laughing.
It didn't entirely work.
His eyes flicked toward you.
"...Didn't you graduate in the top ten?"
"...Yes, Captain."
"Then why the fuck are you in the Scouts?"
You smiled faintly.
"Petra."
"...Petra?"
"She's in your squad."
You shrugged.
"We both agreed becoming Scouts was the right thing to do."
"...Want to die early?"
You thought for a moment.
"...Only if the Titan that eats me can replace me as secretary."
For the briefest moment...
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Fucking brat."
He waved you toward the door.
"Go to bed."
His eyes returned to the reports.
"You look like you don't sleep."
You didn't.
Not in Marley.
Not here.
One place buried you beneath expectation.
The other buried you beneath guilt.
"...Yes, Captain."
You offered one last salute before opening the door.
"Have a good night."
â
Levi wasn't exactly what anyone would call pleasant.
He was curt, perpetually irritated, and spoke as though every extra word physically inconvenienced him. His patience was thin, his standards impossible, and getting praised by him was about as likely as seeing Hange finish their paperwork on time.
But he was kind.
Quietly.
Almost stubbornly so.
You noticed it in the things he never spoke about. The way he'd clean up after everyone without saying a word, how he'd make sure newer soldiers ate before he did after expeditions, how every insult somehow came paired with practical advice. He wasn't warm.
He was simply... dependable.
Your work revolved around the Survey Corps' upper ranks. Every morning and evening became the same circuit through headquartersâSquad Leader Miche first, then Dita, followed by Hange, then Levi, before finally ending in Commander Erwin's office.
You used to look forward to visiting Dita the most.
He was, by far, the easiest of the four to talk to. Miche spent half his time buried in strategy meetings or wandering off because he'd caught a scent no one else noticed. Hange was... Hange. Levi was usually one misplaced document away from threatening someone's life.
Dita, on the other hand, was normal.
Well...
As normal as someone who spoke to his horse Charette like an old friend could be.
He'd let you linger after dropping off reports, offering cookies he'd somehow always had tucked away in his desk drawer while chatting idly about horses or the weather. It wasn't much, but on particularly difficult days, those few minutes almost made headquarters feel peaceful.
Lately, though...
Your favorite stop had quietly changed.
Much to your own confusion.
Captain Levi had somehow become...
Talkative.
Not with anyone else.
Just...
With you.
You weren't entirely sure when it started. Somewhere between the late-night paperwork, the increasingly acceptable cups of tea, and your growing ability to survive one of his moods without flinching, conversations had simply... begun happening.
They were short.
Usually accompanied by profanity.
But conversations nonetheless.
You found it strangely amusing.
Humor had never really existed in Marley. You understood jokes academically more than emotionally, laughing only after everyone else had to avoid standing out. You knew when something was supposed to be funny.
Actually finding something funny...
That was new.
Levi's dry, uncouth way of speaking shouldn't have made you laugh.
Yet somehow...
It always did.
"Erwin better have a good fucking reason for sending me this much paperwork." He dropped another stack onto his desk with obvious disdain. "I've already got enough to deal with training Oluo's stupid ass."
You placed another folder beside the pile.
"Squad Leader Miche's occupied with meetings regarding Nanaba's promotion. Squad Leader Dita's at the stables, and..." you paused, "...Section Commander Hange is being themself."
Levi looked up.
"So."
He deadpanned.
"You dump it all on me."
"I had no say in the matter, Captain."
"You could've burned it."
"I could have."
You nodded thoughtfully.
"But then Commander Erwin would've fed me to the Titans himself."
He stared at you.
"...Smart ass."
Another file landed on the desk.
"Go make me tea."
He flipped open the first report.
"I'll be done in an hour."
Another page.
"Then you can drag all this over to bush brows."
You lasted exactly two seconds.
A snort escaped before you could stop it.
Then another.
"...Yes, Captain." You covered your mouth, tryingâand failingâto compose yourself. "Sorry, Captain."
Still laughing quietly to yourself, you hurried out of the office before he could change his mind and assign you another stack of reports.
The door clicked shut behind you.
Silence.
Levi continued reading for another few seconds before setting the page down.
"...Huh."
The corner of his mouth twitched.
Just slightly.
"...Brat."
â
"Petra!"
"Iris!"
She was around you before you had the chance to brace yourself, arms wrapping tightly around your shoulders. "I've missed you so much! We never get to see you on expeditions anymore. I'm so glad you're here!"
You laughed softly as she pulled away only to fuss over your hair, fingers immediately weaving loose strands together with practiced ease. Petra had always been good with braids.
"Commander Erwin needed me along for this one," you explained, standing still while she worked. "I'm documenting the new formation and the route we're taking."
"...Makes sense."
With your back to her, your smile faded.
Your friend.
The thought still tasted bitter.
Every report you wrote was another page Marley would have killed for. Every map you copied, every formation you documented, every observation you made about the Scouts eventually found its way into a notebook hidden far from curious eyes. Insurance, you told yourself. If Marley ever came looking for you... if Reiner, Annie, and Bertholdt never returned... then at least your mission wouldn't have been a complete failure.
Though from the whispers circulating through the military after Wall Maria's fall, you'd gathered enough to know the three of them had survived.
They'd done it.
They had actually breached the Walls unfound.
You dreaded the day your paths crossed again.
"...Done!" Petra beamed proudly, turning you toward a nearby window to admire her work. "See? So pretty."
You looked at your reflection.
Your hair had grown well past your shoulders now.
"It's gotten so long, Iris." Petra pouted. "It's such a waste that you're always buried under paperwork. I hardly get to do your hair anymore."
"It's alright."
You smiled.
"I still remember the simple braids you taught me."
She gasped dramatically.
"No! That's not enough."
She adjusted a loose strand behind your ear.
"Not with pretty hair like yours."
"Oi, Ral."
Levi's voice carried across the courtyard.
"Quit chatting and get over here."
Petra rolled her eyes.
"...Ever the gentleman."
You couldn't stop yourself from laughing.
"I'll see you later, Rissy!"
"Bye, Petra."
You smiled.
"...Be safe."
Petra hurried over to the Special Operations Squad, reports already tucked beneath one arm. She'd become something of Levi's unofficial secretary over the course of her becoming a member of his squad. Eld, Gunther, and Oluo apparently possessed handwriting so atrocious that Levi refused to read anything unless Petra copied it first.
"Iris."
You turned immediately, saluting as Commander Erwin approached.
"Yes, Commander."
"I need your full attention during today's expedition."
His voice remained calm as always.
"The higher-ups are scrutinizing every operation since the breach. I want today's documentation to be flawless. Record the route, casualties, timings... everything."
"Yes, Commander."
You straightened.
"I'll make sure they have nothing to criticize."
A small smile crossed his face.
"I've never regretted assigning you this position, Iris."
He held your gaze for a moment.
"You've honored that decision every day."
"...Thank you, Commander."
He moved on before noticing how tightly your jaw had clenched.
What a cruel thing trust was.
He praised your diligence while unknowingly handing military intelligence to the very enemy responsible for forcing humanity behind these Walls to fight harder than ever before.
And you...
You accepted every word with a salute.
What a piece of shit you were.
â
Erwin becoming the Survey Corps' thirteenth commander had been the best thing to happen to the Scouts in years.
Expeditions still claimed livesâthere was no changing thatâbut fewer names returned crossed out than before. The higher-ups, reluctant as they were, had begun approving requests they would've laughed at under the previous command. Supplies arrived more often. Formations grew sharper. Recruits came willingly, drawn in by a commander who somehow made dying for humanity sound almost noble.
Erwin Smith was frighteningly good at convincing people to believe in tomorrow.
The expedition ended just before sunset, horses returning through the gates caked in mud and blood, but alive. It had been successful by Scout standards, which simply meant more people came home than expected.
You, however, were ready to collapse.
Being Erwin's secretary meant the work only truly began after everyone else dismounted. Reports had to be collected, organized, copied, signed, redistributed. You wandered headquarters in a haze, carrying stacks of documents from Miche to Dita, from Dita to the newly appointed Nanaba, then inevitably wrestling Hange for their paperwork before making your final stop.
Captain Levi.
By the time you managed to pry Hange's notes from their handsâand decipher enough of the handwriting to ensure it was actually readableâyou stopped by the kitchens long enough to prepare tea.
One knock.
"Come in."
Routine had long since settled between the two of you.
Tea on the right.
Reports on the left.
Levi barely looked up from his desk as you arranged everything.
"...You look like shit."
"Thank you, Captain."
"It's not a compliment, you puâ"
His sentence stopped short.
"...Oi."
You blinked.
"...Your nose."
Your fingers instinctively brushed beneath it.
Wet.
When you pulled your hand away...
Red.
Blood.
"...Oh."
The room tilted.
You barely registered yourself swaying before Levi was already there, hands firm against your shoulders, steadying you before your knees had the chance to give out.
"...Easy."
He guided you toward the couch tucked against the wallâthe one Erwin had practically forced into his office after deciding Levi didnât sleep enough in his own room to justify pretending otherwise.
You sank into it without protest.
It was... comfortable.
Too comfortable.
Levi crouched in front of you, pulling a neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket before pressing it against your nose with practiced efficiency.
"...Did you eat before coming here?"
"...No."
Your voice sounded distant.
"I'm not really hungry."
He sighed.
The kind that carried far more disappointment than irritation.
"...Sorry, Captain."
You let him hold the cloth in place.
"I know you don't like your office getting dirty."
"If you know that much..."
His grip adjusted slightly.
"...then start acting like a responsible adult."
He glanced toward the dark window.
"The infirmary's closed."
Another sigh.
"And I don't trust you to be alone tonight."
Your eyes drifted toward him.
"...You're staying here."
"...Captain, I can't."
You tried sitting up.
"I'd just be imposingâ"
"Don't argue."
His expression didn't change.
"I'll break your leg."
Silence.
"...Yes, Captain."
"...Good."
He stood, finally satisfied.
"Sleep."
You meant to insist you weren't tired.
Meant to tell him you still had papers to deliver in the morning.
Meant to apologize again for bleeding all over his office.
Instead...
Your eyes slipped shut almost immediately.
Whether it was the softness of the couch...
Or the first order you'd obeyed in years that asked nothing of you except to rest...
You weren't sure.
All you knew was that, for the first time in what felt like forever...
Sleep came before guilt did.
â
Levi returned to his desk once he was certain you weren't about to topple off the couch.
The reports still needed reading, signatures still needed giving, and Erwin would undoubtedly want everything first thing in the morning. Even so, every few minutes his eyes drifted toward the couch tucked against the wall, making sure you were still there.
Still breathing.
Still asleep.
For someone so meticulous at work, you were surprisingly hopeless at taking care of yourself. You never forgot a report, never misplaced a document, never brewed his tea incorrectly anymore, yet meals were somehow optional, sleep seemed nonexistent, and you always brushed off concern with a smile that convinced nobody.
If Moblit wasnât constantly shoving food into your hands like he did with Hange, Levi suspected you would've forgotten to eat altogether.
Outside of them...
There was Petra.
That was about it.
He'd heard enough over the past three years to piece together the story you'd fed everyone. A girl from Wall Sina. A wealthy family. Abuse hidden beneath expensive clothes. It explained the way you stilled at raised voices, how you apologized for inconveniences that weren't your fault, why you seemed almost surprised whenever someone showed you basic kindness.
Mitras girls usually carried themselves with pride.
You carried yourself like someone waiting to be punished.
"...No..."
The murmur drew his attention from the paperwork.
"...Please..."
You shifted beneath the blanket, brows knitting together, fingers clutching at the fabric beneath you.
"...No more..."
Your breathing grew uneven.
"...I'm tired..."
The words came out so quietly they were almost swallowed by the silence of the office.
Levi set his pen down.
By the time he reached the couch, your face had twisted into something painfully young.
"...Please..."
A tear escaped the corner of your eye.
"...Stop..."
He frowned.
What the hell had they done to you?
Even after three years, there were moments when you seemed less like a woman in her late teens and more like someone who'd never been allowed to grow up properly. As though every piece of your personality had been built by someone else's hands, leaving you to figure out who you actually were only after escaping them.
Slowly, carefully, he rested a hand against your head.
His fingers brushed through your hair, stroking gently across your scalp in slow, absent circles the way he'd seen mothers calm frightened children, the way his own mother had.
"...It's alright."
His voice barely rose above a whisper.
The tears didn't stop.
Your breathing remained uneven, shoulders trembling despite never waking.
His hand lingered.
"...Leave her alone."
The words slipped out before he thought about them.
His thumb brushed another strand of hair away from your face.
"...Let her sleep for once..."
A quiet sigh escaped him.
"...You bastards."
â
His gun was the last to rise.
The first to lower.
"...Don't point that shit at me unless you really mean to kill me."
He tucked it back beneath his jacket. Yours lingered for only a moment before you hid it away as well.
"You look like it kills you just thinking about it... for fuck's sake."
He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair before turning his back on you and walking out of the alley. He didn't look back, didn't check if you'd follow.
He simply assumed you would.
You did.
The streets were quieter now, lamps beginning to replace the dying sunlight. For a while, neither of you spoke.
"...Eren's missing."
Levi's voice broke the silence.
"We can't find him."
You frowned. "Knowing him... he's probably in Liberio. Or the refugee zone."
"...Refugee zone?"
"It's over the hill. Southern part of town."
He absorbed that quietly before speaking again.
"...So this is where you really lived."
You nodded.
"My mother and I... She's probably asleep by now."
"...Let's go."
Your steps faltered.
"...Go? Where?"
"I'll take you home."
The words knocked the air from your lungs.
"...Levi..." Your voice cracked.Â
"We'll be killing each other the next time we cross paths."
And then, his hand found yours.
Warm. Calloused. Certain.
Your fingers trembled before curling around his on instinct, tears spilling freely as he kept walking without another word.
No promises.
No forgiveness.
Just two soldiers walking side by side, stealing one quiet trip home before the war remembered them again.
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"Oh, darling! You poor thing!" Hange was at your side before you could react, hands flying to their face in horror. "Running away from an abusive home only to get cornered by some pervert? You poor, poor thing!"
"Section Commander, you're frightening her."
The soldier who'd rescued youâMoblit, you'd learnedârubbed at his temples with practiced exhaustion.
Your mind, however, was elsewhere.
The plan.
You were supposed to regroup with the Warrior unit.
Instead, you'd somehow ended up inside Survey Corps headquarters.
Good or bad, it didn't matter.
You'd adapt.
"Thank you for letting me stay here..." Your voice trembled as you lowered your head. "The breach... it caused panic even in Wall Sina, so I managed to run away from my family. They... they used to beat me, so I..."
Another sob.
Your face disappeared into your hands.
"Oh, sweetheart..." Hange's voice softened. "I never would've imagined someone from one of those fancy houses living like that."
"Section Commander," Moblit sighed, "that's a little insensitive."
"They hit me where I could hide it."
Slowly, you pulled the shoulder of the blue dress aside. Old scars crossed your collarbone, faded bruises littered your shoulderâmarks left behind by years of Warrior training. Neither Hange nor Moblit spoke. They simply stared.
"I... I was actually hoping to join the Cadet Corps." You swallowed hard. "It'll be difficult, but... there'll be food... somewhere to sleep..." Your voice grew quieter. "...And I'd get to be myself."
Hange shot to their feet.
"Moblit! Go get Erwin!"
"...Section Commander?"
"I'm training this one myself!"
â
"You can't."
The room quieted immediately.
"She'll have to follow the proper procedures like every other recruit," Erwin said calmly. "The cadets have already begun training, but the Training Corps won't object to one late addition. I'll speak to the commandant myself."
"So no?" Hange asked, visibly deflating.
"...No."
"What if I ask nicely?"
"...Still no."
"...Meanie."
You watched the exchange in silence.
These people...
They were nothing like Marley had described. No suspicion. No interrogation. No one questioned your story. They simply accepted it.
It made your stomach turn.
"Iris."
Right.
That was your name now.
"Yes, sir?"
Erwin studied you with an unreadable expression. He wasn't loud. He didn't need to be. Somehow, his kindness unsettled you more than anger ever could.
"Are you certain you wish to join the Cadet Corps? Hange tells me you've endured difficult circumstances."
"Yes." You nodded without hesitation. "I... I believe the military is where I belong."
It wasn't entirely a lie.
"Very well. Get some rest. I'll introduce you to the commandant tomorrow morning."
"...Thank you, sir."
Later that evening, Hange and Moblit brought you a fresh set of clothes, insisting you change out of "your" blue dress. Once everyone had gone to bed, you carried it outside and watched it burn until nothing remained but ash.
No dress.
No evidence.
No trail leading back to the woman whose life you'd stolen.
When you finally lay down, your eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. The Survey Corps headquarters wasn't so different from the Warrior training center back in Marley. Shared quarters. Young soldiers. The smell of leather, steel, and worn wood.
What a sick joke.
Sleep never came.
It rarely ever did.
â
Erwin had been right.
You were folded into the ranks of the cadets as though you had always belonged there, another frightened teenager chasing the illusion of purpose behind a uniform. Three years, they said. Three years of training before earning the right to call yourself a soldier.
Three years.
You had no idea what had become of Reiner, Annie, and Bertholdt. Whether they had managed to regroup after Wall Maria, whether they had even survived. Every day spent inside the Training Corps was another day without answers, but searching for them recklessly would only expose you. Until fate decided otherwise, this was your mission now.
Gather information.
Learn.
Wait.
The irony wasn't lost on you. You had spent your childhood learning how to become a Warrior, only to spend the next three years learning how to become the very thing you had been sent to destroy. The drills were different, the equipment unfamiliar, but discipline sounded the same no matter which side of the sea you stood on. Wake before sunrise. Train until your muscles burned. Endure. Improve. Survive.
The only real difference was the enemy.
Back in Marley, you had trained to become a Titan.
Here, you trained to kill them.
Harder still was sharing meals with people whose families Marley had already torn apart, listening to stories about homes swallowed by Wall Maria's fall while pretending your own hands hadn't helped set those events into motion. They mourned parents, siblings, neighbors, friends, never realizing they sat across from someone who carried a piece of that blame. Every laugh you shared with them felt borrowed. Every friendship another debt you could never repay.
Playing the part of an ordinary recruit proved just as exhausting. Years of Warrior training had become instinct; you moved too efficiently, reacted too quickly, knew things a frightened girl from Wall Sina had no business knowing. You caught yourself often enough to avoid suspicion, fumbling deliberately, allowing yourself to finish behind those who genuinely deserved the praise. It became another performance to master. Competent enough to place comfortably within the top ten.
Never exceptional enough to invite questions.
That balancing act became easier with time, as did the name Iris.
It stopped feeling borrowed.
People greeted you by it without hesitation. Instructors barked it across training fields. Friends laughed when they called it from across the mess hall. Somewhere along the way, you stopped turning your head a heartbeat too late. Iris became considerate, dependable, quietly sarcastic when the mood allowed for it. The sort of person others naturally gravitated toward, the sort of soldier who carried extra bandages, stayed behind to help clean, and listened more than she spoke.
The frightening part wasn't pretending.
It was how effortless the pretending became.
Among those friendships was Petra Ral.
She was kind in a way that made you suspicious at first, always offering a hand before being asked, always speaking with the quiet confidence of someone who genuinely wanted to help people. She talked often about joining the Survey Corps, her eyes bright whenever expeditions beyond the Walls were mentioned. To her, it meant protecting humanity. Pushing farther than anyone else had dared.
You found yourself agreeing.
For entirely different reasons.
If anyone was uncovering the truth about the Titans, it was the Scouts. Every expedition, every recovered journal, every failed mission chipped away at the lies both sides of the sea seemed so desperate to preserve. Marley wanted information.
The Survey Corps had it.
The years passed with an almost cruel normalcy. Seasons changed. Cadets graduated or dropped out. Faces grew older. Your hair, once shorn close to your neck, gradually found its way back to your shoulders.Â
By the end of those three years, the choice placed before every graduate hardly felt like a choice at all.
The Military Police promised comfort.
The Garrison promised stability.
The Survey Corps promised death.
You stepped forward anyway.
Because Iris chose the Scouts out of hope.
And the Warrior Marley had sent across the sea chose them for the truth.
â
"You're spacing out, Captain."
Porco's voice pulled you back before your thoughts could drift any farther. He sat across from you with his legs spread carelessly over the chair, arms folded across his chest as though he hadn't a single worry in the world.
"I'm tired," you answered, rubbing at your temple. "Zeke pissed me off, and the harbor was too loud to enjoy today."
A lie.
The harbor had been loud.
But it wasn't the noise that had driven you away.
You should tell them.
You should tell Magath.
The Scouts were here.
Levi was here.
The thought alone made your stomach tighten. Every instinct drilled into you since childhood screamed to report it immediately. That was your duty.
But how much more could you betray them? You had betrayed Paradis every day you wore Iris's face. Every report sent across the sea. Every piece of information Marley had used. Every smile you'd returned while knowing exactly how it would end.
Keeping this from Marley wouldn't erase any of it.
It wouldn't even begin to.
Marley and Paradis had never stood on equal footing.
Not after everything Marley had taken.
"...You look pale."
Pieck's voice was quieter than Porco's. She lay stretched across the sofa beside you, watching you with that same gentle concern she'd carried since you were children. Without thinking, your hand found her head, absentmindedly smoothing down her hair.
"I'm getting old."
Porco snorted.
"Twenty-five isn't old. If it is, then the Generalâ"
Your eyes met his.
He stopped.
"...Right."
The walls had ears.
Even here.
"It's just..." You leaned back with a sigh. "Hard adjusting to life here after being in Paradis for so long."
That, at least, wasn't a lie.
Pieck hummed thoughtfully.
"Maybe a drink would help?"
"You know I don't like drinking."
"Then..." She smiled lazily. "How about we make Porco buy you those juices you like from the market?"
You considered it for exactly half a second.
"Porco."
"What."
"Go get me juice."
He stared at you.
"...Fucking hell."
Then at Pieck.
"I hate you guys."
He shoved himself out of the chair with an exaggerated groan, muttering curses under his breath all the way out the door.
The room fell quiet after he left.
Pieck didn't speak immediately. Neither did you.
"...Were they mean to you?" You looked at her.
"In Paradis," she clarified. "When you were with the Scouts."
No.
Not once.
"...Yeah."
The lie came far too easily.
"They worked me to death." You let out a tired laugh. "Always had me running around doing errands. Then, once I was done, they'd send me right back outside to kill Titans. It was awful. Power-tripping bastards."
Pieck frowned, sympathy settling across her features.
"...I'm sorry."
You smiled.
It almost hurt.
Because the truth couldn't have been more different.
Erwin had known. Not everything, but enough. Enough to understand there was little point wasting your abilities on meaningless labor. You were organized, observant, good with people and better with paperwork than most soldiers cared to admit, so he'd quietly assigned you to assist headquarters. Reports, correspondence, schedules, messages between squad leadersâyou spent more time hurrying from office to office than you ever did complaining about it.
You had run errands.
Constantly.
But every request had come with a quiet "thank you."
You'd complained anyway.
Mostly because Levi insisted you were too slow.
Looking back...
Those had been the happiest years of your life.
"...Captain?"
Pieck's voice drew you back again.
You hadn't realized you'd started smiling.
"...Must've been the thought of juice."
Another lie.
â
Your head was killing you.
Not the dull ache of exhaustion, but the kind that settled behind your eyes with an almost personal hatred, as though your own body had grown tired of carrying everything your mind refused to let go.
The juice Porco had begrudgingly bought you sat half-finished in your stomach, doing little more than washing away the taste of another lie. It had been like this ever since you returned from Paradis four years ago. Sleep never lasted. Headaches lingered. Every quiet moment became another opportunity for your memories to drag you back across the sea.
At least Marley had kept you close to Liberio. Unlike Zeke and Reiner, you weren't constantly deployed across the continent. Soon enough, Pieck and Porco would be called away too, leaving you behind at headquarters.
Alone.
The walk home was always the hardest part of your day.
There was nothing left to distract you from remembering.
It was almost cruel how fiercely you missed the people you'd betrayed the most. You remembered dinners at headquarters, Hange's voice echoing through the halls, Moblit sighing somewhere in the background, Petra's easy smile, Erwin quietly thanking you after another late night spent sorting reports.
And him.
Most of all, him.
You could still picture the look on their faces when everything finally unraveled, when Iris disappeared and all that remained was the Warrior Marley had sent. Confusion. Betrayal. Disbelief. You wondered sometimes if those expressions haunted them as often as they haunted you.
Your vision blurred. Head lowered, too lost in thought to watch where you were going, your shoulder collided with someone else's.
"Oh... I'm so, soâ"
The apology died in your throat.
For one impossible moment, your lungs simply forgot how to work.
Levi.
Was this karma?
Or the answer to prayers you'd never been brave enough to admit you'd whispered?
He stood just as still, looking as though he'd been searching for something else before finding you instead. Neither of you spoke. His eyes swept over your face with practiced precision before settling on the small scar running upward from your upper lip.
The one he'd given you.
Something shifted across his face. It was barely thereâa tightening around his eyes, the slightest crease between his browsâbut it was enough. Recognition.
Your breathing turned shallow. Your hand found the collar of your shirt instinctively as you took a step back, then another, before turning to leave.
His hand caught your wrist.
Firm.
Certain.
Not enough to hurt.
Just enough to stop you.
Still, he said nothing.
Once, his silence had been comforting. You'd learned to understand him through the things he never bothered to say, had found strange comfort in the quiet that always seemed to follow him. Now it pressed against your chest until breathing itself became difficult.
"Levi! Is that you?!"
Hange's voice echoed down the street.
He reacted without hesitation, pulling you into the narrow alley beside him in one sharp motion. Your back met the wall as he stepped between you and the street, hiding you from view just as Hange's footsteps drew near.
"Huh... Must've been my imagination..."
They kept walking.
Levi's palm covered your mouth, your quick, shallow breaths warming his skin as the familiar scent of soap, leather, and steel filled your senses. He didn't move until Hange's footsteps had faded completely.
Only then did he finally look down at you.
"...Breathe."
His voice was quiet.
Steady.
"Just breathe."
What...
The hell?
â
"Iris! It's been too long!"
Hange had you wrapped in a hug before you could even greet them, Moblit trailing behind with the resigned look of someone who'd seen this happen one too many times.
"Erwin told us he'd already assigned the new recruits, so I got suspicious when I didn't see you in my squad this morning!"
You smiledâa genuine one. You'd gotten better at those.
"The Commander said he had another task for me."
"She's not being assigned to a squad."
Erwin stepped into the room, a stack of papers tucked beneath one arm.
"Huh?" Hange blinked. "Then how's she supposed to work here?"
"Do you remember Tucker?" he asked.
"The boy always running around with paperwork?"
"He died during the last expedition." The room quieted. "Iris will be replacing him. I reviewed every recruit's profile personally. She's organized, observant, composed under pressure. Headquarters will make better use of her than the field."
Your chest tightened.
Of all the assignments...
Headquarters.
The place where reports were written, expeditions planned, maps revised, and information passed from one squad leader to another.
The very thing Marley had sent you here for had just been placed neatly into your hands.
"...Thank you, Commander Erwin." You saluted. "I'll do my best."
Before anyone could respond, another door creaked open.
"...Don't you people know some of us are fucking working?"
Every conversation died at once.
Your eyes lifted toward the doorway, and for a moment the air left your lungs.
Grey.
His eyes were grey.
Not dull, but sharpâsteel drawn into a human gaze. You'd heard the stories whispered around the barracks during training, recruits passing them between bunks after lights-out. Humanity's Strongest. The soldier who carved Titans apart faster than anyone could follow. The captain who returned from expeditions others never walked back from. Most of it had sounded like the kind of legends soldiers invented to make survival seem possible.
Looking into his eyes...
You believed every word.
"Apologies, Levi," Erwin said. "We were discussing assignments for the new recruits. This is Iris. She'll be replacing Tucker as Headquarters secretary."
His gaze shifted to you.
Not curious.
Not welcoming.
Assessing.
It swept over you with unnerving precision, lingering just long enough to make you wonder what he'd already noticed. You forced yourself not to fidget beneath it.
"It's a pleasure to be working with all of you, Captain."
You saluted.
He looked at you for another beat before speaking.
"Don't die like Tucker did." His expression didn't change. "I can't stand it when Hange's the one sending me their reports."
"...Yes, Captain."
That was all he said before disappearing back into his office, yet it took another moment before you remembered how to breathe.
It hadn't even been a day since the five of you set foot on Paradis.
For years, Marley had painted the island as a land abandoned by Godâa place where Titans wandered endlessly through scorched earth, where the descendants of devils waited behind towering Walls to descend upon the world once more. Instead, Paradis greeted you with rolling hills blanketed in green, forests stretching into the horizon, rivers clear enough to reveal every stone beneath their surface, and mountains standing quietly beneath a sky so impossibly blue it almost felt offensive.
It was beautiful.
You hated that it was.
Because beauty made the lies harder to believe. If the land was this peaceful, then perhaps the people living upon it weren't so different either. You buried the thought before it had the chance to grow.
It wasn't why you were here.
Crouching, you spread Marley's map across the grass, pinning its corners beneath loose stones. "There are three WallsâMaria, Rose, and Sina. If Marley's intelligence is correct, whoever possesses the Founding Titan will be inside Wall Sina."
Your finger stopped at the center of the map.
"If I leave now, I should reach the interior before the rest of you begin the operation. Give me six days. I'll learn what I canâhow they govern themselves, whether the king reacts to the breach. On the sixth day, break Wall Maria. If the Founding Titan truly belongs to the royal family, we'll have our answer."
"If it doesn't," Marcel muttered.
"...Then Marley owes us an apology for the intelligence report."
A quiet chuckle escaped him.
"I'll be sure to file the complaint myself."
Even Bertholdt smiled.
Reiner didn't.
"...You're really doing this without a Titan?"
There was no doubt in his voice. Only concern.
You sighed dramatically before resting a hand on his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake. "Braun, you're making me wonder whether I've been a terrible senior. I may not have inherited one of the Nine, but I can still manage a reconnaissance mission." Tilting your head, you added, "Unless you're offering me the Armored Titan at the last minute."
"...No."
"I figured."
The tension eased just enough for a few reluctant smiles to appear around the circle. That had been the point. They were still children, no matter how desperately Marley wanted them to become soldiers.
Turning back to the map, you looked at Marcel. "What do you think, Galliard?"
His smile was gone.
Instead of answering you, he looked at Reiner.
"...Before we left, I spoke to the officers."
Something in his voice made your stomach tighten.
"I convinced them Porco wasn't fit to inherit the Armored Titan. I exaggerated your abilities." He swallowed. "I didn't want my brother to inherit a Titan."
Silence settled over the group.
You had questioned the decision yourself. Porco had always been the stronger fighter, quicker on his feet, sharper in combat. But Marley had never searched for the strongest child. They searched for conviction. For obedience. For someone willing to throw themselves into death before anyone had to ask.
Reiner possessed that in abundance.
Perhaps that had been enough.
Perhaps Marcel had only tipped the scales.
"...I'm sorry."
Reiner's lips parted, but before a single word escaped, the ground trembled beneath your boots.
It was faint.
Enough to make every Warrior instinctively look around.
"...Something'sâ"
The earth split open.
A massive hand tore through the soil, followed by another as a Titan dragged itself from underground in an explosion of dirt and stone.
Everything happened at once.
Reiner froze.
Marcel didn't.
He shoved Reiner aside with all the strength he had.
The Titan's jaws closed around him before anyone could scream.
Blood stained the grass.
For one impossible moment, the world seemed to stop. You watched Marcel disappear between rows of teeth as though your mind refused to understand what your eyes already had.
Gone.
Just like that.
"...Marcel?"
Reiner's voice cracked.
The Titan swallowed.
Something inside Reiner broke with it.
"No..."
He stumbled backward before turning and runningânot toward Marcel, but away. Away from the blood. Away from the Titan. Away from the impossible reality that had unfolded in the span of a heartbeat.
"Reiner!"
Bertholdt sprinted after him without hesitation. Annie cursed under her breath and followed close behind.
You remained rooted where you stood, your thoughts colliding all at once.
Marcel.
The Jaw Titan.
The serum.
The mission.
The Titan had already begun wandering deeper into the wilderness, Marcel's bodyâand the Jaw Titanâlost with it. There was nothing you could do. Not without a Titan of your own. Not without throwing your life away alongside his.
Your hands curled into fists until your nails bit into your palms.
"...Damn it."
You forced yourself to move.
Not after the Titan.
After the others.
If Reiner kept running, there would be no operation left to salvage.
â
Perhaps that was where the first fracture appeared.
Not in Reiner's mind, not yetâbut in the boy himself.
Marcel had died saving him, and somewhere beneath the horror and guilt, Reiner reached for the only thing that still made sense. If Marcel was gone, then someone had to become him. Someone had to carry the certainty, the confidence, the strength the rest of you had always leaned on. It wasn't a conscious decision. It was survival. Children had an uncanny way of reshaping themselves into whatever the world demanded of them, especially when the alternative was falling apart.
Perhaps that was why Marley chose children.
Children bent before they broke.
They accepted burdens too heavy for them because they had never learned they were allowed to refuse. Tell them they were saving the world often enough and they'd march willingly toward hell, convincing themselves every step had been their own choice.
Just like you.
Marcel had been a good kid.
Before he was a Warrior.
Before he was the Jaw Titan.
Before Marley had looked at a child and seen military potential instead of a life.
You wanted to mourn him.
You didn't have the luxury.
By the time your breathing had steadied, you were already inside Wall Maria.
The breach had yet to happen, so entry proved almost laughably simple. A handful of gate guards, more interested in passing bottles between themselves than watching the road, barely spared your forged papers a second glance. Marley had prepared you for Titans, for soldiers, for fanatics devoted to the king.
No one had prepared you for negligence.
Or for ordinary people.
Children raced through the streets, laughing as they chased one another between market stalls. Merchants argued over prices while customers complained with the familiarity of people who expected tomorrow to arrive. Bakers pulled fresh loaves from ovens, the smell drifting through the streets alongside conversation, drunken singing, and the steady rhythm of a town simply... living.
There were no devils.
Only people.
The realization lodged itself somewhere uncomfortable, but there was no time to linger on it. Every answer only seemed to give birth to another question, and questions were dangerous things for someone in your position.
You kept moving.
By the fifth day, you stood before the gates of Wall Sina.
Unlike Maria, the soldiers here actually looked awake.
Uniforms were spotless. Rifles were loaded. Every cart, every traveler, every face was inspected before being allowed through. Nobility lived beyond these walls. Complacency had no place where privilege resided.
You watched for hours, saying nothing, learning everything.
Patterns emerged.
Who was questioned.
Who wasn't.
The wealthy rarely lingered at the gate. They were recognized before they spoke, their names and faces familiar to the guards who greeted them with practiced respect.
You only needed to become one of them.
So, when evening settled and the roads emptied, you followed a lone woman returning home from an afternoon beyond the Wall. She was well-dressed, carrying herself with the unconscious confidence of someone who had never needed to fear the people walking behind her.
The encounter was over quickly.
You took her papers.
Her blue dress.
Her parasol.
You left her alive, bound and hidden where she'd be found long after you had passed through Sina's gates.
Your rifle remained buried beneath a patch of loose earth outside the Wall, carefully marked so only you would know where to retrieve it.
By sunrise, the woman who had approached Wall Sina no longer existed.
In her place walked someone else entirely.
You.
â
Then came the breach.
Even within Wall Sina, where the nobility hid behind yet another layer of stone, panic spread with astonishing speed. Messengers raced through the streets, soldiers struggled to keep order, and officials crowded into meeting halls where voices rose higher with every passing hour. You waited for retaliation. For outrage. For the king to reveal himself. For the Founding Titan to answer the destruction of Wall Maria.
Nothing.
Not a single order to reclaim the lost Wall. Not a single whisper of the Founding Titan. Instead, they argued over grain, over housing, over how many refugees Wall Rose could sustain before the treasury collapsed. Men dressed in fine coats complained about feeding "tax eaters," reducing thousands of terrified people to numbers in ledgers. The greatest military power behind the Walls wasn't preparing for war.
It was preparing for a humanitarian crisis.
Your stomach twisted.
What had Marcel died for?
What had those civilians died for?
What had been the point of stealing a frightened woman's identity, of stripping her dignity so you could slip deeper into the capital, if the enemy Marley had promised never even appeared?
You had always known there would be people inside the Walls. You were Eldian. Of course there would be. But seeing children cry in their mothers' arms, merchants abandoning livelihoods they had spent years building, husbands searching desperately through crowds for their wivesâit all looked painfully familiar. The faces were different. The fear wasn't.
Someone had needed these people to become devils.
Someone had needed you to believe it.
The realization settled like lead in your stomach, forcing you into the nearest alley where you doubled over, retching until there was nothing left. It wasn't the bloodshed that made you sick. You had seen blood before. It was the thought that perhaps none of this had ever been necessary.
There wasn't time to dwell on it.
With refugees pouring into Wall Rose, the others would inevitably regroup there. You slipped out of Sina under the cover of the confusion, retracing your route toward the place where you had buried your rifle. From a distance, however, you spotted the noblewoman you'd robbed days earlier surrounded by soldiers, animatedly recounting what had happened. Digging up the rifle now would be suicide.
You turned away.
The weapon would have to remain buried.
For now.
The return journey should have been uneventful, yet after only a few streets you noticed the same footsteps behind your own. Every turn you took, they followed. Every attempt to lose him only confirmed what instinct had already told you. He wasn't lost.
He was following you.
You diverted down quieter streets until the silhouette of what appeared to be a military headquarters came into view. Surely he'd back off near soldiers.
He didn't.
The alley narrowed until there was nowhere left to go. You turned just as he stepped closer, his intentions written plainly across his face. Your body shifted on instinct, already preparing to strikeâ
A dull crack echoed through the alley.
The man crumpled to the ground.
Behind him stood a young soldier gripping a wooden training staff, his brown eyes widening as they landed on you.
"Hey... are you alright?" He immediately tossed the staff aside, holding up his hands as though afraid you'd bolt. "You're safe now."
Your heartbeat steadied.
Then you remembered.
You weren't a Warrior.
Not here.
Your breathing hitched as tears welled in your eyes, your shoulders trembling just enough to sell the panic. The concern on his face deepened immediately.
"What are you doing out here alone?" he asked, offering you a hand. "The breach's brought out the worst in people. The Militaryâs stretched thin trying to keep order." He glanced toward the unconscious man before looking back at you. "Come on. My squad leader sent me back to headquarters for supplies. You can stay there until things settle down."
You hesitated just long enough before taking his hand.
"...Do you have a name?"
Not the noblewoman's.
That name would already be circulating.
Your gaze drifted past him, searching for anything, until it settled upon a white iris blooming stubbornly beside the headquarters wall.
"It's..." You swallowed, forcing your voice to tremble.
"...Iris."
Just Iris.
â
"Captain! Captain!"
The voice reached you through the haze of sleep, distant enough that, for a fleeting moment, you couldn't tell where you were. Captain? That wasn't right. You weren't the captain. He was. Heâ "Captain! The General is looking for you!"
You blinked the dream away and sat upright with a groan, rubbing the sleep from your eyes before looking at the boy standing over you.
"What does he want, Falco?"
"The General said he needed you and the War Chief in his office." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "He... didn't tell me why."
With a sigh, you pushed yourself off the sofa, every joint protesting after another night spent sleeping somewhere other than your own bed. As you passed him, you reached up and ruffled his hair.
"Thanks for coming to get me."
Falco beamed.
"You're very welcome, Captain!"
You couldn't help the faint smile that tugged at your lips. What an eager kid. Bright, earnest, and painfully hopeful. Nothing like the Warrior candidates you had grown up with.
What a shame.
"You called, General?"
Magath looked up from the stack of paperwork on his desk just as you leaned against the doorway, failing to suppress a yawn.
He sighed your name.
"You used to be so rigid. Now you yawn in my face like a damn cat."
"Give me a break." You rolled your shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness. "It was hard to relax inside Paradis."
A lie.
Paradis had been the only place you'd ever learned how.
"Whatever." Magath waved a hand dismissively before glancing around the room. "Where the hell is Zeke?"
"No clue."
"I'm here." Zeke strolled through the doorway, adjusting his glasses as though he hadn't kept everyone waiting. "Sorry to be late to the party. I was taking a shit."
Magath groaned loud enough for the entire hallway to hear.
"...Fucking Eldians. Whatever, I'll get straight to the point. The Mid-East War needs to end." He pointed toward Zeke. "I need you to take care of that." Then his finger shifted toward you. "And youâI need you negotiating with the international diplomats and the media afterward."
You frowned immediately.
"Why do I have to do that? I hate sucking up to those moody cunts."
Zeke smirked.
"Didn't have trouble doing that with a certain moody cunt."
Your eyes slowly found his.
"Still mad he had you running home with a blade up your ass?"
"It was up my mouth to my eye!"
"Really?" You folded your arms. "I couldn't tell. Your mouth and your ass smell the same."
"You'd know from how much ass you kiss, huh?"
"No." You tilted your head. "Your ass just fucking smells so bad that I can tell it's yours from a distance."
"Enough!"
Magath slammed a hand onto the desk.
"Do as you're told and stop acting like children!"
The two of you straightened instinctively.
"Yes, General!"
You saluted in perfect sync before turning toward the door. As you walked past Zeke, you casually stuck a foot into his path.
He caught it beautifully.
"The hellâ" His face hit the floor with a curse. "You bitch!"
You didn't even bother looking back.
Takes one to know one.
â
Headquarters was beginning to get to you again.
It usually did.
The walls always seemed to close in after a campaign, the air inside thick with tobacco smoke, paperwork, and conversations that never strayed far from death. Whenever it became too much, you wandered. Being an Honorary Marleyanâand more importantly, a Captainâmeant the streets no longer greeted you with rocks or slurs. People stepped aside instead of spitting at your feet. Vendors waved you over with easy smiles, eager to sell fresh bread or whatever new dessert they insisted was worth trying. It was strange how a change in rank had taught strangers to see a person where they once saw only an Eldian.
The harbor was alive that afternoon. Ships drifted lazily against their moorings while sailors shouted to one another over the cries of gulls. Travelers hurried between docks with luggage in hand, children weaved through crowds, and somewhere nearby a violinist played loudly enough to drown out the sea. It was noisy. Comfortably so. Far enough from headquarters that you could almost pretend war wasn't waiting for you there.
A breeze rolled in from the water, cool against your face, stirring the short strands of your hair. Your hand rose out of habit before stopping halfway.
There wasn't enough left to tuck behind your ear anymore.
You had told yourself cutting it was practical. Long hair caught on gear, obscured your vision, gave an enemy something to grab. Soldiers didn't have the luxury of vanity.
It was easier to believe that than the truth.
The truth was that every time you caught your reflection, you remembered gentle fingers combing through your hair beneath the dim light of headquarters in Trost.
"It's softer than I expected."
Then, quieterâ
"Clean, too."
You laughed under your breath. Of course. Coming from him, cleanliness had somehow become the highest compliment imaginable.
The sound had barely escaped you before another voice carried over the crowd.
"Hey! Car! Hey! Wait, please!"
Your smile vanished.
Every muscle in your body locked.
That voice⊠Your eyes found the source almost immediately.
"Hange..."
Your throat tightened so suddenly it hurt to swallow. Cold spread through your hands despite the warmth of the afternoon as your gaze swept frantically across the harbor, counting faces before your mind had even caught up with what it was doing.
One. Two. Three⊠A group.
Scouts.
Why were they here? Scouting? Negotiating?
No⊠They couldn't be here.
They weren't supposed to be here.
Your pulse hammered against your ribs as instinct screamed at you to leave, to report this to Magath, to disappear before anyone looked in your direction.
The world has never been kind to those born with nothing. It is crueler still to those who dare believe they deserve more than what they were born into.
You learned that long before the military commandants barked it into your ears until it sounded like scripture. Long before they taught you to bow your head, to be grateful for scraps, to mistake obedience for virtue. Every lesson carried the same truth beneath a different uniform: know your place.
You were Eldian.
That single word had already decided the worth of your life before you ever drew your first breath. Not because you understood what it meant, but because everyone around you did. Your mother apologized for taking up space before she ever asked for help. Strangers looked at your armband before they looked at your face. Every kindness from a Marleyan was treated like charity, every insult accepted as something you had somehow earned. By the time you were old enough to question it, the answer had already been chosen for you.
Even as a Warrior candidateâone of the fortunate few granted the illusion of honorâyou knew what your future truly was. A borrowed life measured not in decades, but in the years left before inheritance claimed you. Praise came only when you proved useful. Freedom came only when you died having served your purpose. They called it redemption, as though enough blood spilled for Marley could wash away the sin of being born.
The cruelest part wasn't that Marley believed it.
It was that you almost did too.
You trained harder because you wanted to be chosen. You endured every bruise, every broken bone, every sleepless night because somewhere inside you lived a child foolish enough to believe that if you worked hard enough, someone would finally look at you and say, you are enough. Not because you were Eldian. Not because you were useful.
Because you were you.
You wanted more.
Not glory. Not medals. Not even freedom.
Freedom was a dream far too large for people like you.
You wanted something much smaller. The right to exist without having to earn it. The right to be loved without first proving yourself worthy of it. The right to wake up one morning without feeling indebted for the privilege of breathing.
But the world had no place for desires like yours.
The best this life had to offer was the privilege of enduring it, of waking each morning despite every instinct begging you not to. Not because you wanted to, but because your mother needed you to. Because dying would only leave someone else to carry your burden. Survival became less of a choice and more of a habit.
That was the lesson Marley taught its Eldians.
And behind the Walls of Paradis, it was much the same.
Different lands. Different lies. The same cage.
Perhaps that was the cruelest truth of all. Crossing the sea had felt like crossing into another world, only to discover that people remained the same wherever you went. Marley called the people of Paradis devils. Paradis called Marley monsters. Yet both sides buried their children beneath the same earth and wept with the same tears.
No matter which side of the sea you stood on, the world had already decided what you were long before you ever had the chance to decide for yourself.
The only difference was that, within the Walls of Paradis, you were allowed to pretend.
Pretend to be a soldier instead of a Warrior. Pretend that the uniform on your back wasn't stitched together with lies. Pretend that every smile came easily, that every laugh wasn't borrowed, that every act of kindness wasn't another brick laid upon the foundation of your deception. Pretend to be a comrade. Pretend to be a friend.
Pretend that the people sharing your meals were not the same people you had been sent there to destroy.
At first, it was easy.
They were enemies. That was all they had ever been.
Then they started remembering your favorite food. Saving you a seat at dinner. Asking if you had slept well. Complaining about instructors. Laughing over things that no soldier should have found funny. Somewhere between shared meals and sleepless nights, they stopped being the monsters Marley had promised you.
They became people.
That was when the guilt truly began.
The cruel thing about pretending was that, eventually, everyone began believing the performance.
Everyone except you.
The guilt settled into your bones, heavy as lead, refusing to loosen its grip no matter how many missions you survived or how many names you memorized. Every kindness they offered became another debt you could never repay. Every bond you forged became another life you were destined to betray. You found yourself memorizing faces you knew you would one day lose, as though remembering them could somehow make up for what you had come there to do.
Reiner had broken beneath that weight.
His mind had splintered under the burden of sins too immense for one man to bear, until he became someone else entirelyâa soldier who could forget he had ever been a Warrior. You used to pity him.
Eventually, you envied him.
Because he had somewhere to hide.
You had no such mercy.
You remembered everything.
Every lie. Every corpse. Every promise you had no intention of keeping. Every face that looked at you with trust instead of suspicion. Every smile that made it harder to remember why you had crossed the sea in the first place.
Your mind remained whole.
If fractured only by guilt.
If that could even be called sanity.
Perhaps madness would have been kinder. At least then, you could have mistaken your sins for someone else's.
Instead, every morning you woke knowing exactly who you were.
And every night, in front of the mirror, you had to forgive someone you never could.
â
"Leonhart will inherit the Female Titan."
The words settled over the room with a strange finality, as though the decision had been made long before any of you had stepped inside. Silence followedânot the respectful kind, but the sort that came from people swallowing disappointment before it could become insubordination. Heads lowered in practiced discipline. When they rose again, more than a few eyes lingered on you. Not with pity, nor relief, but with the quiet understanding reserved for someone whose future had just been rewritten in front of them.
You should have seen it coming.
Annie had been catching up to you for years. Every evaluation placed her a little closer. Every sparring session ended with another instructor praising the things you still struggled to perfect. She moved with a certainty you had never possessed, fought without hesitation, endured pain as though she had been born expecting it. You had experience. Annie had talent sharpened by relentless discipline. Somewhere along the way, the gap between the two of you had stopped shrinking and quietly begun widening.
You knew that.
You just hadn't wanted to believe it.
For years you had lived as though effort alone could bargain with fate. Every bruise, every sleepless night, every punishment endured without complaint became another promise you made to yourselfâthat eventually someone would notice, that eventually all the sacrifices would amount to something greater than survival. You told yourself you weren't working toward glory, but that wasn't entirely true. You wanted recognition. You wanted Marley to point at you, an Eldian, and say, this one was worth saving.
How childish.
As though usefulness and worth had ever been the same thing.
Your hand rose into a salute before your mind caught up with your body.
"Yes, sir."
The words left your mouth effortlessly. Years of training had made obedience instinctive. You wondered, not for the first time, whether they had trained the humanity out of you alongside the hesitation.
No one questioned the decision because there was nothing to question.
Annie deserved it.
That was the part that hurt.
It would have been so much easier if she had cheated. If the officers had favored her. If politics had stolen what was supposed to be yours. Anger needed somewhere to go, someone to settle upon. Instead, every reason they chose Annie was a reason you couldn't deny. She was the stronger candidate. The safer investment. Marley was sending children to reclaim the Founding Titan; of course they would choose the child least likely to fail.
You couldn't even bring yourself to resent her.
You tried.
For a fleeting moment, you searched for something to hateâa smirk, a look of triumph, the slightest flicker of satisfactionâbut Annie stood as she always did, expression unreadable, shoulders stiff beneath the weight of a future that would kill her before she reached adulthood. She wasn't celebrating.
She had simply been handed a different kind of death.
And suddenly the jealousy curdling inside you tasted shameful.
Because if your places had been reversed, you would have accepted the Titan too.
Not because you wanted thirteen years.
Because thirteen years were still worth more than a lifetime spent wondering whether you had simply never been enough.
That realization settled somewhere deep inside you, heavier than disappointment ever could. It wasn't the Female Titan you were grieving. It was the version of yourself that still believed sacrifice guaranteed reward. The child who thought that if she bled willingly enough, obeyed quickly enough, smiled gratefully enough, the world would eventually return the favor.
The world never made that promise.
You did.
And somewhere along the way, you had mistaken your own hope for destiny.
When the meeting adjourned, nothing had changed.
You were still a Warrior candidate.
Still an Eldian.
Still useful.
Only now you understood something you hadn't before: there would always be someone stronger than you, someone harder than you, someone Marley could use more effectively. You had spent years believing your greatest enemy would be the people across the sea.
Instead, it was the quiet, unbearable knowledge that no matter how much of yourself you gave away, there was never any guarantee the world would decide you were worth keeping.
â
"Aren't you upset?"
You hadn't realized Pieck had been calling your name until the third time. The report in your hands had long since stopped making sense, yet you kept staring at it anyway, as though another glance might somehow rearrange the words into something easier to accept.
"The operation to retrieve the Founding Titan is only a week away," she said carefully. "And they just... replace you?" Her voice caught around the last sentence. "You were supposed to inherit the Female Titan."
There should have been anger. Disappointment. Anything.
Instead, all you felt was tired.
You searched for something honest to say, but honesty had become a dangerous habit since joining the Warrior program. Somewhere along the way, you had learned that the right answer was rarely the truthful one.
"Annie is a good Warrior candidate," you replied at last. "She's better suited for the mission."
The words came easily because they were true.
"Marley will find another use for me." Your gaze drifted toward the window, where recruits still marched in perfect formation. "They always do."
Pieck didn't answer immediately. She simply looked at you, her brows drawn together with the quiet concern she never quite managed to hide. Of everyone in the Warrior unit, she had always been the hardest to lie to. Not because she questioned you more than the others, but because she listened.
"That's not what I asked."
You looked away.
"It's unfair," she continued softly. "You know it is."
Before you realized it, her hand had slipped into yours.
"What about your mother?" she asked. "You were supposed to become Honorary Marleyans. She was supposed to have a better life because of you."
Your chest tightened.
Not because she was wrong.
Because she had spoken the one thought you had spent the entire day refusing to entertain.
You had long since accepted whatever became of you. Warrior candidates didn't have the luxury of imagining old age. But your mother...
She had endured every humiliation with the unwavering belief that one day her child would save them both. Every extra shift. Every ration skipped so you could eat. Every smile she forced whenever neighbors whispered that no Eldian ever truly escaped being one.
She had believed in you with a certainty you had never been able to afford yourself.
And now you would have to look her in the eye and pretend nothing had changed.
You turned your hand over, giving Pieck's a gentle squeeze before letting it slip away. The smile you offered was small, practiced enough to pass for genuine.
"That's my burden to carry," you said quietly. "They won't touch her. I'm still a Warrior candidate, Titan or no Titan."
You weren't sure whether you were reassuring Pieck or yourself.
"So don't worry about me."
The words felt familiar.
You had spent your whole life asking people not to worry about you.
As though carrying your own suffering somehow made it weigh less.
"You have your father to think about," you added, forcing something lighter into your voice. "Besides..." A faint smile tugged at your lips. "I'm still your senior. I don't remember that changing."
It earned the ghost of a smile from Pieck.
Only for a moment.
She knew you too well.
She knew that acceptance and surrender often wore the same face, and that you had become frighteningly good at mistaking one for the other. You weren't at peace with what had happened. You had simply decided that your feelings weren't important enough to change it.
There was nothing she could say that Marley hadn't already taught you to argue against.
So she let the silence remain.
Not because the conversation was over.
But because kindness sometimes meant sitting beside someone while they carried a burden you couldn't help lift.
The quiet between you lasted only a few minutes before the door swung open.
Theo Magath stood in the doorway without knocking.
He never did.
Privacy implied personhood, and Eldians had never been afforded enough of either.
You stood before he spoke, instinct overriding thought.
"I told you," you murmured as you passed Pieck, managing one last tired smile.
Marley had found another use for you.
â
"Galliard, Leonhart, Hoover, and Braun will depart for Paradis to retrieve the Founding Titan."
Magath spoke the names without pause, each one carrying the weight of years of training, sacrifice, and expectation. His hands remained folded behind his back, his expression as unreadable as ever.
"As you were originally assigned to the operation," he continued, "you will accompany them."
For the first time since entering the room, your composure faltered.
"...Accompany them, sir?"
"Without a Titan."
The clarification came so matter-of-factly that it almost sounded insignificant, as though he had merely corrected a detail in a report instead of the course of your life.
Your role has changed.
The words settled somewhere deep in your chest, quieter than disappointment and somehow heavier because of it. You had spent the last few hours convincing yourself that losing the Female Titan meant accepting whatever came next. You simply hadn't imagined that whatever came next would still lead you across the sea.
"You will infiltrate the Walls while the Warriors create a diversion," Magath continued. "Observe the king's response. Learn their military structure, their customs, their methods. Gain their trust if necessary. Blend in."
His gaze settled on you, assessing rather than acknowledging, as though he were examining a piece of equipment before sending it into the field.
"You have no need for a Titan to accomplish that."
There was no admiration in his voice.
No consolation.
Only calculation.
You understood then that Marley had never measured your worth by whether you inherited one of the Nine. That had simply been the most efficient use of you at the time. Now another purpose had presented itself, and so you were moved accordingly, no differently than a rifle reassigned to another regiment.
Useful things were never asked what they wanted.
They were simply used.
"You're older than the others," Magath said. "More composed. Better with people. Better with words. You understand the assignment I'm giving you."
You did.
Perhaps that was the cruelest part.
He wasn't wrong.
Reiner could inspire people, but he wore every emotion across his face. Bertholdt disappeared into the background because he wished to, not because he knew how to make people trust him. Annie had neither the patience nor the desire to pretend to be someone she wasn't. Marcel had always been the one meant to hold them together but even so, he was young.
You, on the other hand, had spent your entire life pretending.
Pretending not to notice the hatred in a Marleyan's eyes.
Pretending that gratitude came naturally whenever your people were shown the smallest kindness.
Pretending that obedience was a choice instead of a necessity.
Lying had become second nature long before Marley ever asked you to become a spy.
For the first time, you wondered if that had always been their intention.
Perhaps they had never seen you as the next Female Titan.
Perhaps they had always seen someone easier to bury.
Someone who could disappear behind enemy lines and never return without anyone questioning the cost.
The realization didn't frighten you as much as it should have.
It merely confirmed what you had known since childhood.
To Marley, every Eldian had a purpose.
Some became Titans.
Some became soldiers.
Some became corpses.
And the fortunate ones were useful long enough to become all three.
You lowered your head in acknowledgment.
"Understood, sir."
The words came as easily as breathing.
The four of them would wage war.
You would disappear into it.
By the time Marley returned to Paradis, they expected the Walls to welcome you as one of their own.
Only then would you show them where to strike.
â
Celebrations were held before they sent the children they called Warriors off to war.
The streets filled with applause, speeches praising courage and sacrifice echoing from every corner of Liberio. Decorations draped across buildings that would still be standing long after the children beneath them were gone. Medals were pinned to uniforms too large for the shoulders that carried them, each polished piece of metal presented as though it were a blessing instead of an advance payment for lives already promised to Marley.
You stood among them.
Somewhere between the ceremony and the parade, an officer removed the faded yellow armband from your sleeve.
In its place, he fastened a red one.
Honorary Marleyan.
The cloth was softer than the old band. Newer. Cleaner. The crimson stood out proudly against your uniform, a color meant to signify loyalty rewarded, sins forgiven. Around you, people smiled. A few even applauded as though the strip of fabric had transformed you into something greater than what you had been only moments before.
You couldn't stop staring at it.
It was astonishing how little a person's worth seemed to weigh.
A different color.
A different title.
And suddenly the world expected you to believe you belonged in it.
You knew better.
The armband hadn't changed what flowed through your veins. It hadn't erased your name from the internment zone's registry or rewritten the history Marley insisted your people carried. It had simply declared that, should you die on foreign soil, your sacrifice would be remembered more fondly than most Eldians'.
You weren't being rewarded.
You were being invested in.
The realization should have embittered you.
Instead, it only made you tired.
Your mother, however, looked at the red band as though it were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
When she embraced you before the parade, her hands lingered on your arm, fingertips brushing over the fabric with a tenderness that made your chest ache. Tears blurred her vision, but her smile never faltered.
"You did it," she whispered. "You really did it."
You could barely return the embrace.
Not because you didn't want to.
Because you couldn't bear the weight of what she believed.
You had begged the military to keep the details of the mission from her. She couldn't know that, unlike the others, you would cross the sea without a Titan to protect you. She couldn't know that while Annie, Reiner, Bertholdt, and Marcel carried the power of monsters within them, you would carry little more than a rifle, a knife, and orders to disappear behind enemy lines.
She still believed you would stand beside them as an equal.
You let her believe it.
Before the ceremony, the Warriors had reached an unspoken agreement: no Titan identities, no assignments, no details of the operation would ever reach their families. Some lies were acts of survival. Others were acts of mercy.
This was both.
So your mother smiled through her tears, smoothing the sleeve beneath the red armband as though trying to memorize it. Pride shone in her eyes with such certainty that, for one selfish moment, you almost wished the lie were true. That the cloth really had changed something. That it could protect her from grief. That it could protect you from what waited across the sea.
It couldn't.
The red armband was never a promise of life.
It was simply proof that Marley believed your death would be worthwhile.
You hugged your mother one last time, saluted when you were told, and boarded the ship without looking back.
The red cloth remained wrapped around your arm.
It was the only part of you Marley had bothered to save.
Your ears ring with the deafening aftermath of artillery, a shrill, ceaseless whine that swallows every other sound. Smoke hangs thick in the air, stinging your eyes until the battlefield melts into a haze of ash and blood. The rifle in your hands feels less like a weapon and more like a sentence, its cold steel biting into your palms as if reminding you there is no turning back.
Through the scope, the world narrows to a single silhouette.
A man.
Not an enemy. Not really.
A man you have known in quieter times, before uniforms replaced names and borders decided who deserved to live. He knows you by the cadence of your footsteps long before you come into view. He knows the absentminded melody you hum when sleep refuses to find you. He knows every scar you've hidden beneath your sleeves, every lie you've told to spare someone else's heart, every corner of your soul that the war has not yet managed to rot away.
He knows you by heart.
The crosshairs rest against his chest, rising and falling with each measured breath. One gentle squeeze is all it would take. Years of training have reduced life and death to muscle memory, drilled into your body until hesitation became a greater sin than murder.
This is your duty.
Your duty to your country. To the band stitched onto your sleeve. To the comrades who have already bled into this cursed earth. To the commanders who will never know the sound of his laugh, the warmth of his hand, or the way his eyes softened whenever they found yours.
You were taught that duty demanded sacrifice.
No one warned you that sometimes the sacrifice would be the only thing that had ever made surviving worth it.
The battlefield waits. It does not pity. It does not forgive. Somewhere beyond the smoke, another shell screams through the sky, and for one fleeting moment the entire world seems to hold its breath alongside you.
The rifle does not shake.
You do.
And there, with your finger tightening around the trigger and your heart already mourning the man still drawing breath in your sights, you finally understand what they meant when they said that love is the death of duty.
could you perhaps do a aerion arranged marriage fic where he begins closed off but slowly warms up to reader đ
â TO FORGE A FLAME / AERION TARGARYEN
aerion targaryen x peake!reader
SYNOPSIS: a disgraced lady of house peake is given to prince aerion targaryen as punishment for her familyâs treason. forced into dragon colors and courtly captivity, she resists him quietly until cruelty, pride, and dangerous tenderness begin to blur...
WARNING: arranged marriage, power imbalance, aerion targaryen is his own warning...
WORD COUNT: 11k
NOTES: this story is canon divergent. iâm moving the peake rebellion/royal conflict earlier in the timeline so it happens while aerion targaryen is still alive!!!! i wanted to keep the political weight of house peakeâs blackfyre history while giving aerion and lady peake their own very messy, dramatic version of events.
House Peake had once possessed three castles.
Starpike, Dunstonbury, and Whitegrove...three proud black towers upon a field of burning orange, three dark teeth set into the golden mouth of the Reach. In old songs, men said those castles had stood like clenched fists against storm and sword. In older tales still, Peake lords had ridden beneath their banner as though the sun itself had been cut into silk for them, bright and brazen and impossible to ignore.
But songs were kinder than history. History remembered treason. It remembered Daemon Blackfyre. It remembered banners raised for a dragon that had not sat the Iron Throne. It remembered the long red harvest of rebellion, the broken men, the pardons given like knives with velvet handles. It remembered how House Peake had lost Dunstonbury and Whitegrove, and how Starpike remained not as a triumph, but as a warning.
One castle left. One daughter left. One price left to pay.
You stood in your fatherâs solar while rain worried at the narrow windows and the orange banner of your house hung limp upon the wall. Three black castles stared down from the cloth, though two had long since been stripped from your blood. They had remained in the sigil because pride was a stubborn thing. Pride was sometimes all a disgraced house had left.
Your father, Lord Gormon Peake, would not look at you. That was how you knew the worst of it before any word was spoken. He stood with his hands braced on the carved back of his chair, shoulders broad beneath dark wool, his face stern as the stone walls that had raised you. Wax from the royal seal lay broken upon his table. Red wax. Dragon wax. A dead little pool of command.
âThey will not burn Starpike,â he said at last.
His voice was quiet.
You should have been relieved. Instead, the room seemed to narrow around you until the air itself had teeth.
âNo,â you said.
A single word. Barely breath.
Your fatherâs jaw moved once. âThe crown is merciful.â
You looked at the letter. You did not need to read it again. The accusations had already carved themselves behind your eyes.
Renewed correspondence with Blackfyre loyalists.
Refusal of a royal command.
Quiet mustering of strength.
Treason, treason, treason...the old word dressed in fresh ink.
âThe crown is not merciful,â you said, and your voice did not shake. That surprised you. It surprised your father too, for he lifted his eyes then. âThe crown is elegant.â
His expression hardened. âYou will guard your tongue.â
âWhy?â Your hands were folded before you, white knuckled in the sleeves of your gown. âWill they take me twice?â
The silence that followed was so complete that even the rain seemed to hush.
You were beautiful. You had been told so since girlhood, first by nurses with warm hands, then by ladies with calculating eyes, then by men who praised beauty the way merchants praised horses before asking the price. You had the kind of loveliness that made people pause before they remembered themselves. The Reach had shaped you generously...skin like cream warmed by candlelight, a mouth made soft by courtesy and sharpened by restraint, eyes that seemed too watchful for so delicate a face. Your hair, dressed that morning with tiny black pins in honor of your house, gleamed like something poets would have wasted half a page naming.
Beauty had been meant to serve you. Now it had made you suitable for sacrifice.
Lord Gormon looked older than he had the day before.
âYou will go to Kingâs Landing,â he said. âYou will be received at court. You will be betrothed to Prince Aerion Targaryen.â
Prince Aerion.
Even in Starpike, his name had reached you before his person had. Names had a way of traveling when attached to cruelty. Aerion Brightflame, some called him, with admiration or fear or both. A prince with silver hair, violet eyes, and the temper of a dragon half starved. A prince who thought himself more fire than flesh. A prince whose laughter was said to come most easily when another man flinched.
âYou are giving me to him,â you said.
Your father looked away again. That was answer enough. Not marrying. Not offering. Not arranging. Giving. As one gave coin, grain, land, hostages.
âYou will save Starpike,â he said.
And there it was...the softest chain in the world, laid around your throat by a familiar hand.
You thought of the castle beneath your feet. The servants who had carried you as a child. The septa who had taught you your prayers. The kennel boy with the crooked smile. The old cook who still made honeyed oatcakes when grief sat too long at the table. You thought of the smallfolk clustered beneath Peake protection, of children who knew nothing of black dragons or red, nothing of treason written before their birth.
You thought of the banner above you. Orange. Black. Three castles. Soon, you would be dressed in red and black. Not your black. Not your old mourning black, not your proud castle black. Dragon black. Dragon red. Fire and blood laid over you until no one could see what had been there before.
âDid you agree before telling me?â you asked.
Your father said nothing.
You smiled then. It was a small, terrible thing.
âYou did.â
âIt was the only way.â
âNo,â you said softly. âIt was the way that cost you least.â
His hand struck the chair so hard the wood groaned. âYou think I wanted this?â
âI think you wanted Starpike more than you wanted me.â
His face twisted. For one moment, he looked not like a lord but like a father wounded by his child. You might have pitied him, had pity not been too expensive a thing.
âYou are my daughter,â he said.
âYes,â you answered. âThat is why you had something left to trade.â
He turned from you then, and perhaps it was mercy. Perhaps he did not wish you to see his shame. Perhaps he wished not to see yours. But shame was already in the room. It stood beside you like a fourth person. Shame wore your face. Shame wore your colors. Shame had your fatherâs seal beneath its nails.
You crossed to the banner and lifted the edge of it between your fingers. The orange cloth was old but well kept, bright despite the dimness, proud despite history. Three castles. Three losses. Three lies and one truth. You pressed the silk once to your mouth. Not a kiss. A farewell.
The court had received you as though you were honored.
That was the first cruelty.
Kingâs Landing rose before you in heat and stink and splendor, crowned by the Red Keep upon Aegonâs High Hill. Its walls were the color of old blood at sunset. Its towers stabbed the sky like spears thrust upward by dead conquerors. Dragons had made this city, and though dragons no longer darkened the heavens, their memory remained in stone, in banners, in the arrogance of every red clad guard who looked upon your escort and saw not guests, but spoils.
You arrived beneath Targaryen eyes.
There were no chains upon your wrists. There did not need to be. Your gown was fine. Your hair was arranged with care. A cloak of deep red had been placed around your shoulders before you crossed into the yard, its lining black as a ravenâs wing. The ladies who came to receive you praised the richness of it.
âHow splendidly the colors suit you, Lady Peake,â one said.
You lowered your eyes and curtsied.
âHis Grace is generous,â you replied.
A lie, polished until it shone.
Whispers followed you through the Red Keep like little knives drawn from little sheaths.
There she is.
The Peake girl.
Starpikeâs ransom.
A pretty price.
Does she look frightened?
Wouldnât you?
Prince Aerion will tame that pride soon enough.
You had thought yourself prepared for fear. You had not prepared for being watched.
Fear in solitude was one thing. Fear beneath a hundred eyes was another. At court, even breathing became performance. You learned before the first evening bell that grief must be graceful to be forgiven. You must walk as though you had come willingly. Sit as though your chair were not a perch above a pit. Smile as though every courtesy did not have a hook beneath it.
You were placed among noblewomen whose hands glittered with rings and whose voices were soft enough to conceal malice. They asked after Starpike. They asked after your father. They asked whether the journey had been pleasant. One wondered aloud whether the Reach seemed smaller after one had been summoned to court.
You answered each question as you had been taught...gently, neatly, with no word loose enough to be used as rope. Inside, something in you paced. Anger, perhaps. Or terror. They felt much the same when caged.
You first saw Prince Aerion in the hall of the Iron Throne.
He did not enter loudly. Men like him did not need noise.
The court seemed to bend before awareness of him. Heads turned. Conversations thinned. A path opened with the obedience of grass before flame.
He was beautiful in the cruel manner of Targaryens, as though some ancient god had shaped him lovingly and forgotten to give him mercy. His hair was pale as moonlight, his eyes were a deep and venomous violet, and his mouth looked made for both poetry and ruin. He wore black chased with red, a dragon wrought in rubies at his throat. He was not broad like a warrior in old tapestries, nor plain like honest men in fields. He was slender, princely, bright as a blade drawn at dawn.
And he smiled when he saw you. Not warmly. Possessively. As if he had been shown a fine hawk, hooded and delivered.
âSo,â he said, when you were brought before him. His voice was cultured, light, almost amused. âStarpike has a daughter.â
You curtsied. Low enough for obedience. Not low enough for surrender.
âMy prince.â
His gaze moved over you with insulting leisure. Not the clumsy hunger of a drunken knight. Not even desire, precisely. Assessment. Appraisal. He looked at your face, your throat, the red cloak swallowing the last visible traces of your house, and understood at once what had been done. So did you.
To him, you were no bride. You were proof. House Peake made flesh. Treason dressed in silk. A living banner lowered before the dragon.
âHow lovely,â Aerion murmured. âThey told me you were fair, but men so often grow generous when describing hostages.â
The word landed softly. Hostage. No one gasped. No one corrected him. That was the second cruelty. You felt every eye in the hall turn sharper.
You lifted your chin by the width of a prayer.
âThen I am pleased not to disappoint, my prince.â
His smile deepened. There. Something kindled behind his eyes. Interest. Not affection. Not admiration. Interest, like a boy discovering an ant did not die when pressed beneath his thumb.
âCareful,â he said. âCourtesy becomes a dangerous weapon in the hands of traitors.â
âMy hands are empty.â
âFor now.â
A few courtiers laughed because he wished them to. You did not.
Aerion stepped closer, close enough that you could see the fine stitching at his collar, red thread biting through black.
âLittle traitor,â he said, almost fondly.
The hall heard. It was meant to.
Your face did not change.
âMy prince,â you answered again.
And for the first time, his smile flickered. A lesser man might have wanted tears. Aerion, you would learn, wanted the moment before them.
In the days that followed, he taught the court how to look at you.
That was his first art .
He did not rage. He did not shout. He did not drag you by the arm through corridors or break cups against walls. Such things were for coarse men, men ruled by appetite and weather. Aerionâs cruelty wore perfume and jewels. It came gloved. It sat beside you at supper and corrected your posture with a touch light enough to seem tender from afar.
When Lord Caswell asked whether you had found comfort in the Red Keepâs sept, you opened your mouth to answer.
Aerion spoke first.
âMy lady-wife-to-be finds comfort wherever she is commanded to find it.â
Laughter, soft and obedient.
You lowered your gaze to your plate.
âHis Graceâs sept is very fine,â you said.
Aerion leaned back, smiling. âSee? She learns.â
When a lady of the Westerlands praised the embroidery at your sleeve and asked whether the pattern was of the Reach, Aerion lifted your wrist before you could move.
âNot the Reach,â he said. âDragons. I had her old colors put away. Sentiment is how treason keeps its roots.â
His thumb pressed once against the delicate bones of your wrist.
Not enough to hurt. Enough to remind.
You smiled at the lady, âPrince Aerion has been most attentive.â
His eyes cut to you. You had made the words too sweet. Just enough sugar to curdle.
That night, your maid found you kneeling beside your chest with a strip of orange silk in your lap. Not much. A ribbon torn from the lining of an old gown, small enough to vanish beneath finery.
âMy lady,â she whispered, frightened.
âHush, Betha.â
âIf he seesââ
âHe sees everything,â you said.
Your fingers did not tremble as you stitched the orange and black beneath the inner seam of your sleeve, where it would rest against your skin and no courtier could praise or mock it.
âThen why risk it?â
You drew the thread through cloth.
âBecause there must be some part of me he has not been handed.â
There were judgments twice that week. Aerion made you sit beside him for both.
The first was a knight accused of carrying letters westward to men who still drank to the Black Dragon when doors were barred. The second was a household steward from a minor Reach house whose cousin had served your father. The hall was cold despite summer heat. The accused men stood below the dais, pale and sweating, while courtiers craned for a better view.
Aerion offered you his arm before the court.
You took it because refusing would be spectacle, and spectacle was always his chosen ground.
âHow fortunate you are here,â he murmured as he led you to the raised seats. âYou may learn what becomes of men who mistake old loyalties for living ones.â
âI have learned many things at court, my prince.â
âHave you?â
âYes.â
âName one.â
You sat beside him, hands folded, face still.
âThat mercy is loudest when it wishes to be admired.â
His eyes found yours. For a breath, the hall seemed to tilt. Then Aerion smiled.
âCharming,â he said. âYou must say such things more often. I do enjoy wondering whether to be pleased or offended.â
âWhichever serves you best, my prince.â
His smile did not fade, but something sharpened beneath it.
During the judgments, he watched you more than the condemned.
He watched when the steward begged. He watched when the knight denied knowing any Blackfyre sympathizers, though his voice broke over the lie. He watched when punishment was pronounced. Not death. Not that day. Mutilation for one. The Wall for another.
Your stomach turned itself to ice. You did not look away. That, too, displeased him. Or pleased him. With Aerion, the two were often twins.
At feasts, he made you ask permission.
âTo leave, my prince?â
His goblet paused near his mouth. âAlready?â
âThe hour is late.â
âIs it? I had not noticed.â
The table listened.
You stood beside his chair, every inch the graceful lady, every inch the captive thing.
âMay I be excused?â
Aerion looked up at you with lazy delight. âYou may.â
A murmur passed down the table. As you turned, his voice followed.
âLittle traitors tire easily.â
You stopped. Only for a heartbeat. Then you looked back and smiled.
âThen your mercy in allowing me rest shall be praised all the more.â
His goblet touched his lips. His eyes burned over the rim.
You refused wine from his hand once. Only once, and before too many witnesses.
He offered it during a supper where singers played beneath the gallery and heat pooled under the high windows.
âDrink,â he said.
The cup was his own. Gold. Dragon handled. Red wine dark as blood. You looked at it. Then at him.
âI thank you, my prince, but I am not thirsty.â
The hall seemed not to notice. Aerion did.
His fingers tightened on the stem.
âAre you afraid I have poisoned it?â
âOf course not.â
âThen drink.â
You let the silence stretch just long enough to become visible. Then you took the cup. But you did not drink. You lifted it, bowed your head slightly, and set it untouched beside your plate.
Aerion laughed. It was a beautiful sound. That was perhaps the worst of it. The court laughed with him, relieved to discover they were allowed. But after that, he watched your mouth whenever you drank from anything else.
You had not won. There was no winning in a cage. But you had denied him something small, and the denial lived between you like a candle refusing to go out.
Then came the dancing.
The court loved dancing because it could pretend cruelty was ceremony if music played beneath it.
Aerion chose you before the hall had grown warm. He crossed the floor with all the ease of a prince born beneath chandeliers, and every lady near you lowered her eyes in envy or pity. Perhaps both.
âMy lady Peake,â he said, extending his hand. âYou will dance.â
Not would you. Not may I.
You placed your hand in his.
âMy prince.â
His fingers closed around yours and the music began.
He danced as he did all things...beautifully, precisely, with a violence hidden so deep in grace that only the person held by him could feel it. He guided you through each turn as though displaying a conquered banner. His hand at your waist did not bruise. It did not need to. Every watching eye understood the claim.
âYou are very quiet tonight,â he said.
âI feared I might interrupt myself.â
His mouth curved. âWas that wit?â
âOnly obedience, my prince. You so often speak for me that I presumed I should leave room for you.â
His grip tightened. There it was again, not anger, not quite. Interest, irritation, appetite.
âYou dislike being looked at,â he said.
You turned beneath his arm, red skirts sweeping the floor like spilled flame.
âI dislike being mistaken for an object.â
âHow unfortunate.â
âYes,â you said. âFor the object, especially.â
He drew you closer on the next step, too close for propriety, not close enough for scandal.
âYou think yourself brave.â
âNo.â
âNo?â
âI think myself watched. There is a difference.â
Aerion stared at you. For one strange moment, his face altered. Not softened. Never softened. But sharpened inward, as though you had placed before him a puzzle he resented wanting to solve.
Then the music ended. He bowed over your hand and kissed the air above your knuckles.
âTo be watched,â he said, low enough that only you heard, âis the first lesson of belonging to me.â
You wanted to say you did not belong to him. You wanted to say no vow had been spoken, no cloak placed, no bedding witnessed, no gods called down to bind you.
Instead, you curtsied.
âMy prince.â
The tourney was held three days before the wedding. The court called it celebration. You knew better. It was rehearsal.
You were seated among noble ladies beneath a canopy of red and black silk, your gown chosen by Aerion himself. Black velvet, red sleeves, rubies at your throat like drops of conquered blood. Beneath the left sleeve, hidden against your skin, the little seam of Peake orange scratched softly whenever you moved.
A secret. A wound. A prayer.
âYou look splendid,â Lady Mooton said beside you.
âDragon colors do wonders for her,â another replied.
You smiled.
The stands were crowded bright with banners. Gold lions, green towers, purple grapes, silver trout, crimson dragons. Knights rode below in painted armor, lances raised, horses tossing plumed heads. Trumpets split the air. Sunlight glanced off helms and made every man seem briefly holy.
Aerion shone most of all...
He entered the lists in armor dark as polished night, chased with red and gold flame. His helm bore the three headed dragon. The crowd loved him because beauty and danger were easy to adore from a safe distance. He raised his lance, and applause moved through the stands like wind through wheat.
You clapped when the ladies clapped. You smiled when eyes turned toward you. You performed loyalty with hands that felt far away from your body.
Then Ser Duncan the Tall entered the lists. The laughter began almost at once. He was enormous, awkwardly noble in a way the court did not know how to forgive. His armor was plain and ill matched. His horse lacked ornament. No great house colors streamed behind him, no ancient blood announced him before his name could. He looked like a man who had walked out of the earth itself and been told, too late, that the sky belonged to princes.
âA hedge knight,â someone behind you whispered.
âSeven save him. Does he know who he faces?â
âLook at his shield.â
âLook at his boots.â
A lady near you laughed behind her fan. The sound scraped against your nerves.
You looked toward Aerion. You tried to keep your gaze there, where duty had placed it. He sat straight in the saddle, radiant, careless, adored. Born to be watched. Born to be praised. Born to turn the worldâs gaze into a mirror and find himself glorious in it.
Below, Dunk adjusted his grip on his lance. Men laughed louder. And he did not answer to it. That was the first thing you noticed. Not his height. Not his plainness. Not the absurd courage of standing where everyone expected him to fall. His restraint.
The herald called and then the horses charged.
Aerion rode like a song of war. Swift, bright, terrible. His lance struck cleanly, and the crowd roared. Dunk swayed but did not fall. When he returned for the next pass, dust clung to him. Someone shouted that hedge knights were harder to knock down because mud loved its own.
The ladies laughed again. Your hands tightened in your lap. Another pass. Then another.
Dunk fought plainly, without flourish. There was no cruelty in him. No hunger to humiliate. When Aerion pressed him hard, sharper than sport required, Dunk did not answer with spite. When the crowd mocked him, he did not spend his strength hating them. He endured.
That was what undid you. Not admiration. Recognition.
You knew what it was to stand dressed for judgment before people waiting to see how well you would bleed. You knew what it was to be laughed at softly because open laughter would be indecorous. You knew what it was to be outnumbered by eyes.
Then came the moment. Aerionâs horse turned too sharply after a pass. Perhaps the ground betrayed him. Perhaps pride did. He slipped in the saddle, only slightly, but enough. Dunk had the angle. He could have taken advantage. He did not.
Instead, he checked his horse. A murmur passed through the crowd. It was nothing, perhaps. A small mercy. A little courtesy in a world that hoarded them. But to you, it seemed enormous.
Before thought could become caution, before fear could clap a hand over your mouth, you leaned forward.
âWell struck!â you said.
You did not shout it loud but clear enough. The ladies around you went still. One fan snapped shut. Someone gave a small, delighted laugh. You realized what you had done before the words had finished dying. The red and black on your body seemed suddenly brighter than flame. Every ruby at your throat became an accusation. You could feel the women near you looking from your gown to the field, from the field to your face.
Then you looked at Aerion.
He had heard.
His horse stood motionless beneath him. His helm was lifted. Across the lists, across banners and dust and sunlight, his face had gone completely still. No anger. No yelling. No visible wound. Only stillness. It was worse than wrath. Wrath had shape. Wrath could be prepared for. This was a door closing in a room you had not known you stood inside.
For one moment, Aerion looked not like a man, nor even a prince, but like the carved image of some beautiful god to whom a village had forgotten a sacrifice.
Then he forced a smiled. And you knew, with a coldness that began in your bones, that he had not forgiven you.
To you, the words had been pity. No. Not pity. Something cleaner than that. You had seen a man mocked and alone, and for one unguarded heartbeat, you had reached toward him with the only mercy available to you.
To Aerion, it was humiliation.
His betrothed, dressed in his colors, seated before the court as proof of his claim, had praised a hedge knight. A lowborn man. A man with no old blood, no dragon, no splendor, no fear coiled like incense around his name. Worse than praise, it was judgment. As though you had looked upon Aerionâs brilliance and Dunkâs plain honor and found the prince wanting.
You knew this before he spoke to you. You knew because he did not speak to you for the rest of the day.
After the tourney, Aerion grew cold. Not absent. Absence would have been easier. He remained everywhere...at meals , in corridors, in the breath held conversations of courtiers who waited for punishment like boys waiting for war. But he withdrew the sharp warmth of his cruelty and left you with courtesy polished to ice.
He sent notes instead of coming himself.
Lady Peake will attend supper at the hour of the bat.
Lady Peake will wear black tomorrow.
Lady Peake is excused from the gardens.
Lady Peake.
Not little traitor.
Not hostage.
Not even my lady.
It should have been relief. It was not.
His cruelty had frightened you, humiliated you, angered you until you lay awake with your hands clenched beneath the coverlets. But cruelty, at least, had seen you. His coldness passed over you like light over glass. You became an object again, but no longer an interesting one. That hurt. You hated that it hurt.
At dinner, he sat beside you and did not look at you once. When Lord Rowan asked whether the wedding preparations pleased you, Aerion replied before you could.
âLady Peake is grateful for whatever she is given.â
His tone was mild. Perfect. Not a single person could call it cruel.
You folded your hands beneath the table.
âI am instructed daily in gratitude,â you said.
Aerion lifted his cup. His eyes did not move to yours.
âNot well enough, it seems.â
The words were soft. They cut anyway.
You tried to apologize the next evening.
Not because you believed yourself guilty of desiring another man. Not because you had meant insult. But because the court had sharpened your small mercy into a blade and placed it between you.
You found Aerion in a gallery where the sunset poured blood red through narrow windows. For a moment, with the light behind him, he looked winged.
âMy prince.â
He did not turn.
âI wished to speak about the tourney.â
âHow tiresome.â
You swallowed. âI did not mean to shame you.â
At that, he looked back. The beauty of him struck you again, as it always did, with unwilling force. He was almost too finely made for decency. Men should not be so lovely and so cruel. It confused the soul.
âNo?â he asked.
âNo.â
âYou praised him by accident, then?â
âI spoke without thought.â
âA dangerous habit for a traitor.â
Your throat tightened.
âI was not cheering against you.â
Aerion crossed the space between you slowly. That was his way. He never rushed toward cruelty. He let dread arrive first and open the door for him.
âNo,â he said. âOf course not. You were merely moved by the sight of your hedge knight.â
âHe is not mine.â
His eyes flashed then, at last. There was the wound. There and gone again.
âSave your pity,â he said, voice low enough that no servant beyond the archway could hear. âYou spent enough of it on your hedge knight.â
The words struck harder than they should have. Because they were wrong. Because they were almost right. Because how could you explain that it had not been Dunk himself, but the loneliness around him? How could you say, Everyone was laughing, and it was cruel, without naming Aerion chief among the cruel? How could you tell a dragon that you had flinched from fire?
âI meant no insult,â you said again, but the words were pale little things.
Aerion leaned close.
âI know what you meant,â he said.
But he did not. That was the tragedy. He did not.
The days before the wedding folded themselves into silence.
You continued as court required. You dressed. You sat. You smiled. You answered when spoken to and held your tongue when Aerion chose to speak over you. But something in you had gone quieter. Not broken. No, never that. Your pride remained, cold and bright, hidden like orange thread beneath dragon cloth. Yet the court had become heavier. The whispers more piercing. The future nearer.
Betha wept one morning while lacing your gown.
âStop,â you said gently.
âI am sorry, my lady.â
âDo not give them tears on my behalf. They are greedy enough.â
She laughed once, miserably, and wiped her face.
You touched her hand. âI am not dead.â
âNo,â she whispered. âBut they are burying you.â
You had no answer.
That evening, Aerion noticed. Of course he noticed. He noticed everything and pretended not to. He noticed when your replies shortened by a word. When you ate less fish than before. When you turned your wrist inward to hide the seam where orange silk laid beneath your sleeve. When your smile remained perfect but ceased to reach the place beneath your eyes where real feeling sometimes betrayed itself.
It irritated him. That was what he told himself.
Lady Peake was dull when subdued. Lady Peakeâs quiet defiance had been more diverting than this careful, bloodless courtesy. Lady Peake had no right to change in any manner he had not commanded.
So he cornered Betha outside your chamber.
The girl nearly dropped the folded linens in her arms when she saw him.
âMy prince.â
âIs your lady ill?â
Betha stared. âIll?â
Aerionâs gaze was sharp enough to skin. âDo not repeat me like a trained bird.â
âNo, my prince. She is not ill.â
âThen why does she wander about like a ghost in borrowed colors?â
Betha went very still. A wiser servant would have lowered her eyes and lied. Betha was frightened. But she loved you.
âShe meant no insult, my prince.â
Aerionâs expression hardened at once.
âDid she send you to plead for her?â
âNo.â Betha shook her head quickly. âNo, my prince. She would be angry if she knew I spoke.â
âThen do not.â
The girl should have obeyed. She did not.
âShe did not cheer because she favored Ser Duncan.â
Aerionâs mouth curved without mirth. âHow loyal of you to explain your ladyâs heart to me.â
âShe cheered because everyone was laughing at him,â Betha said, voice trembling now. âBecause he was alone, and they wanted him shamed, and still he tried to stand with honor.â
Aerion said nothing.
Betha clutched the linens tighter.
âMy lady said she knew how that felt.â
There are some silences that fall. This one opened.
Aerion remained very still. He had remembered your voice as betrayal. Your praise as desire. Your pity as judgment. He had held the moment like a coal and fed it his pride until it burned hot enough to warm his anger. But now the memory altered. The stands. The laughter. Your face turned toward the field, unguarded for once. Not admiring. Not yearning. Stricken.
You had not looked at Dunk and chosen him. You had looked at him and seen yourself. And afterward, Aerion had punished you by making you lonelier.
His anger did not vanish.
Aerionâs pride was not a candle to be blown out by one servantâs trembling confession. The humiliation remained. The court had still heard you. The ladies had still laughed behind their fans. The wound still knew its own shape. But beneath it, something unfamiliar moved. Not remorse. Not yet. Something sharper because it had no name yet.
The wedding came beneath a sky white with heat.
The Sept of Baelor rang with bells and you thought they sounded like iron.
They dressed you in Targaryen colors. Red silk fell over your body in gleaming folds, black lace webbed your sleeves, rubies flashed at your throat and ears and wrists. Your beauty became a weapon in other hands. The ladies praised you until praise itself felt like mockery.
âNo bride in the realm could rival you,â one sighed.
âHow fortunate Prince Aerion is.â
âHow fortunate Lady Peake is.â
That last one nearly made you laugh. Instead, you looked into the polished silver mirror and saw a stranger conquered in red.
Betha stood behind you, pale and silent.
âInside the left sleeve,â she whispered.
You lowered your gaze. There, hidden where no court could see, she had sewn the smallest strip of orange cloth, crossed by black thread in the shape of a tower. It rested near your wrist. Near your pulse.
Starpike. Dunstonbury. Whitegrove.
One living. Two lost. All remembered.
âThank you,â you said.
Betha bowed her head, and you pretended not to see her tears.
When you entered the sept, every face turned.
The walk to the altar was not long. It felt endless. Lords and ladies filled the sacred space in jeweled rows, their eyes bright with hunger for beauty, scandal, surrender. Your father stood among them, dressed in Peake orange darkened almost to rust. His face was carved from stone. You wondered whether he saw you as daughter or bargain fulfilled.
Aerion waited beneath the gaze of the Seven. He wore black. Of course he did. Black, slashed with red, a dragon brooch burning at his shoulder. His silver hair caught the light and made of him something unearthly, something too bright for human tenderness. When his eyes found you, they moved at once to your sleeve.
A flicker. He saw. Of course he saw. Your hidden colors might as well have been a banner unfurled from the sept roof.
For one moment, you feared he would expose you. That he would take your wrist before all the court and turn the seam outward, laughing as he stripped even that last private rebellion from you.
Instead, he smiled.
He leaned close when you reached him, his breath stirring the veil beside your cheek.
âDo try not to cheer for another man today.â
The words entered you like a needle. You looked ahead, face still.
âI shall endeavor to remember the occasion, my prince.â
âNot prince,â he murmured. âNot for much longer.â
The septon began. You heard very little. Words rose and fell above you like birds crossing a battlefield. Duty. Union. Loyalty. The eyes of gods and men. Cloaks. Houses. Peace.
Peace.
What a strange name men gave to a womanâs surrender.
Aerion placed the cloak around your shoulders. Targaryen red and black covered you completely. The court watched House Peake disappear.
When it came time for vows, your mouth obeyed because your body had been trained for obedience long before this day. The words tasted of ash.
âWith this kiss, I pledge my love.â
Love.
The sept did not crack open. The gods did not strike anyone down.
Aerionâs hands were cool when they took yours. His face was close. Too close. Beautiful enough to grieve over, cruel enough to fear.
When you had to say the word husband, it caught. Only slightly. Only enough for him. His eyes sharpened. Then he kissed you. Not roughly. Not tenderly. Publicly.
The kiss was brief and exact and devastating because all kisses before witnesses belonged partly to the crowd. The court sighed as though they had seen romance. They had seen conquest and called it holy.
When Aerion drew back, his gaze remained on your mouth. For one moment, something passed through his expression that was not mockery. Then applause filled the sept like wings beating in a cage.
The feast was a mercy performed by executioners. Everyone toasted peace. Everyone toasted loyalty. Everyone toasted the wisdom of the crown, the humility of House Peake, the generosity of House Targaryen, the radiant beauty of the bride, the splendor of the groom.
No one toasted the truth.
You sat beside Aerion beneath a canopy of red and black. Your hidden orange thread scratched your wrist whenever you moved. You were grateful for the pain. It reminded you that you were still inside your own skin.
âStarpike has given its fairest jewel to purchase forgiveness,â Lord Costayne said, raising his cup.
A murmur of approval.
You smiled.
âThen may the jewel prove worth more than the debt, my lord.â
He blinked, uncertain whether he had been honored or rebuked. Aerion laughed softly beside you.
Later, a lady with pearls netted through her hair leaned forward.
âYou truly do look better in dragon colors, my dear. Orange is such a difficult shade. So loud.â
You touched the stem of your goblet.
âLoud colors are useful, my lady. They make it difficult for history to pretend one vanished quietly.â
The ladyâs smile thinned.
Aerion turned his head toward you and you felt his attention like heat. Then a young knight, too drunk on wine and his own courage, called from lower at the table, âHow quickly traitor houses learn gratitude!â
Silence trembled.
Your fatherâs face darkened. You did not look at him. You looked at the knight.
âHow fortunate, then,â you said, voice gentle, âthat loyal houses are born knowing courtesy, lest they be forced to learn it from traitors.â
A few people coughed. Someone laughed before disguising it badly. The knight flushed scarlet.
Aerionâs fingers rested beside his cup. He tapped once against the table.
âYou are bold tonight,â he said.
You turned to him.
âI am married now, husband. Surely I am permitted one virtue.â
The word husband landed between you. Not soft. Not at all willing. A blade wrapped in silk.
Aerionâs eyes darkened.
âCareful,â he murmured.
âAlways,â you replied.
He watched you for a long while after that. Not with anger alone. Never that simple. Fascination had begun to eat at him, little by little. You were not what he had expected. You did not break loudly enough to satisfy. You did not plead prettily enough to amuse. You answered cruelty with such perfect grace that the cruel began, by comparison, to look vulgar.
Aerion hated vulgarity. He hated, too, that you could make him feel crude without once disobeying him.
The bedding was called for near midnight.
Voices rose, wine thick and eager. Men laughed too loudly. Women smiled with that peculiar cruelty women were taught to hide beneath custom. Someone shouted that dragons need no encouragement. Someone else called for the brideâs cloak to be taken.
Your whole body went cold. You had known it might come. Knowing did not lessen the horror. All day, you had been watched. Measured. Claimed. Now they wanted to turn even your fear into entertainment.
Aerion stood. The hall quieted by degrees. At first, a few men laughed, thinking him ready to play his part. Then they saw his face.
âNo,â he said
One word. Flat as a drawn blade.
âMy prince?â a lord ventured, smiling uncertainly.
Aerion looked at him. The smile died.
âNo man here touches my wife.â
My wife.
You hated the claim. You hated the relief that followed it. It washed through you so swiftly you nearly swayed. You despised yourself for that, too. That mercy could come dressed as ownership. That protection could sound so like possession. That a cage door could remain locked and still keep wolves out.
Aerion offered you his hand. This time, you took it without delay. His fingers closed over yours. He led you from the hall through a silence richer than music. Only when the doors shut behind you did you breathe.
The wedding chamber was dark except for the hearth. Servants had filled it with flowers, as if sweetness could disguise fear. Roses, myrtle, lilies. Their perfume lay heavy in the air, too lush, too living. The marriage bed stood draped in red.
You looked at it once. Then away.
Aerion dismissed the attendants. Betha looked at you before she left. You gave the smallest nod you could manage.
Then the door closed. No court. No ladies. No father. No one to watch how well you endured. Only Aerion. Only your husband.
He stood by the hearth, removing his gloves finger by finger. The ordinary motion felt unbearable.
âYou are trembling,â he said.
You clasped your hands before you.
âThe room is cold.â
âNo, it is not.â
You said nothing. He came toward you. Slowly. Always slowly. Your body remembered every public humiliation, every soft insult, every command dressed as courtesy. It remembered the wedding cloak. The feast. The laughter. The men calling for the bedding.
Aerion stopped close enough to touch you. He did not.
His gaze moved over your face. Whatever he saw there displeased him. Or perhaps it pleased him too much.
âI do not take trembling things to bed,â he said.
Cruel words. Merciful meaning.
Your breath caught. He saw that too.
His mouth twisted. âDo not look grateful. It makes you dull.â
âI would not dream of boring you, husband.â
The word came bitter this time. His eyes narrowed. Then, to your astonishment, he turned away.
âSleep.â
You stared.
Aerion crossed to a chair near the fire and sat as though the matter were settled.
âMy princeââ
He looked back sharply.
âHusband,â he corrected.
The word burned. You lowered your eyes.
âHusband,â you said, and hated the tremor in it.
Something moved across his face. Not triumph, though he might have made it so. Not tenderness. Something uncertain.
âSleep,â he said again, quieter.
You did not understand him. That frightened you almost more than cruelty. Cruelty had rules. Terrible rules, but rules. Aerionâs restraint was a door opened onto darkness. You did not know what waited beyond it.
Still, you slept. Poorly. In your wedding gown. With orange thread hidden against your skin and a dragon seated awake beside the fire.
Marriage did not soften Aerion. Not in the way songs might have begged it to. He remained cruel.
He still called you little traitor when the mood took him, though less often before those whose laughter displeased him. He still corrected you in public when he wished to feel the shape of his power. He still made you wear red and black to court, still watched every room understand that you had been claimed.
But the cruelty changed. It turned inward. Grew intimate. Complicated itself.
He sent gifts. A necklace of garnets dark as old wine. Gloves stitched with silver thread. A comb of carved ivory. A gown so fine the fabric seemed made from midnight poured over flame. No notes came with them. No tenderness. Only objects laid before you like offerings from a god too proud to kneel.
âWhat does he expect me to say?â you asked Betha one morning, looking down at a pair of earrings shaped like dragons biting their own tails.
Betha hesitated. âThank you? â
âI have thanked executioners for cleaner cuts.â
Yet you wore the earrings and Aerion noticed.
At supper, he looked at your ears once and said nothing. But for the rest of the evening, his mood sharpened into something dangerously bright, as though your obedience had pleased him and his pleasure offended him.
He protected you, too, though never sweetly.
When a lord who had drunk too much leaned close enough for his breath to touch your cheek, Aerion appeared at your shoulder.
âStep back,â he said.
The lord laughed nervously. âMy prince, I meant onlyââ
âI did not ask what you meant.â
The man stepped back.
Later, you had said, âI did not need rescuing.â
âNo. You needed better enemies. That one was beneath you.â
You looked at him, startled. Aerionâs face closed at once.
âDo not preen. It was not praise.â
âOf course not, my prince.â
âHusband.â
You turned away.
âMy prince.â
His silence followed you for the rest of the corridor.
You continued your small rebellions.
You called him my prince when no ceremony forced otherwise. You kept Peake colors hidden in seams, ribbons, underthings, once even a black thread braided through an orange ribbon tied beneath your hair where only Betha could see. You refused to cry where Aerion might witness it. You answered insults with courtesy so fine it cut the hand that received it.
And Aerion continued to notice contradictions in himself with mounting disgust.
He noticed when you were tired and ordered you to bed as though annoyance, not concern, moved him. He noticed you preferred pears to figs and had them placed near your plate, then mocked you for looking surprised. He noticed you lingered near windows facing west. He noticed you did not sing, though once, passing your chamber, he heard you humming very softly through the door. He stood outside for longer than he should have. When he realized it, he left angry. Not at you.
That was new and intolerable.
Something had begun in him, something he had no language for except possession. He wanted your attention and called it obedience. He wanted your smiles and called it vanity. He wanted your trust and had no idea what name to give such a foolish, defenseless thing.
Aerion knew fear. He knew how to summon it. How to feed it. How to wear it in anotherâs eyes like a jewel. He did not know how to be wanted without command. So he tried to purchase softness. Jewels. Silks. Protection. Power displayed at your feet like severed heads. You accepted none of it the way he wished. That made him want more.
The first time you realized he cared, he did not say it.
Aerion was not a man made for confession.
It happened at a feast held for visiting lords from the Reach, where every cup was filled too often and every courtesy had a second meaning. You sat beside Aerion in black velvet, a red girdle at your waist. Beneath it, hidden against your ribs, lay a scrap of orange silk.
Lord Ambrose, a cousin to some house that had never risked enough to be punished for anything, raised his cup with a smile too broad to be kind.
âTo Lady Peake,â he called. âWho has traded orange and black for worthier colors. A wise exchange. Some houses must lose honor before they learn taste.â
Laughter pricked the hall.
Your face remained still. Inside, something old and tired folded around itself. You had answered such insults before. You could answer this one. A graceful phrase. A little blade. A pretty smile over a bleeding thing.
But before you spoke, Aerion stood. The laughter thinned and you turned to him. At first you saw only his face, pale and remote, terrible in its calm. Then you saw his sleeve. At the cuff of his black doublet, worked so finely one might miss it until the light found the thread, was a line of orange embroidery.
Your breath stopped.
A black castle pin rested near his heart. Not a dragon. A castle.
The lining of his cloak shifted as he moved, and there, unmistakable, hidden until he chose to reveal it, burned orange silk. Peake colors. On Aerion Targaryen.
The hall understood by degrees. Silence spread outward, table by table, lord by lady, smile by dying smile.
Aerion lifted his cup.
âAn odd thing, Lord Ambrose,â he said, voice silken, âto speak of honor while displaying so little of it.â
The lord went pale.
Aerion continued, almost lazily, âMy wifeâs colors are not yours to mock.â
My wife.
This time the words did not sound only like a cage. They sounded like a shield. A dangerous shield. A possessive shield. A shield with a blade on its rim. But a shield still.
You stared at the orange thread at his cuff.
He sat again as though he had not just overturned the hall. You could barely speak.
âYou should not have done that.â
Aerion looked at you. âDo not look so stricken. They are only colors.â
âNo,â you said softly. âThey are not.â
His face changed then. Only a little. Enough.
âNo,â he said. âThey are not.â
An almost confession. No sweeter words could have undone you so thoroughly.
After that, wanting became a thing with weight. It entered rooms before you did. It stood between you at windows. It sat beside you at feasts. It found you in silences when Aerion looked at your mouth too long and you forgot, for one dangerous breath, every reason to hate him.
You did not forgive him. Not then.
Memory remained. The sept. The cloak. Little traitor. The feast where he made you ask permission to leave. The tourney wound. The wedding night fear. The many small humiliations he had offered the court like entertainment.
But beside memory, another truth had taken root. Aerion could choose restraint. Not easily. Not naturally. Not always. But he could. And sometimes, for you, he did. That frightened you more than cruelty because it asked something of your heart.
Then Starpike rebelled.
The raven came before dawn.
By noon, the Red Keep rang with it.
House Peake had broken faith. Men loyal to your father had stirred in the Reach. Letters had been intercepted, bearing promises to those who still dreamed of a Blackfyre return. Riders had been sent toward Starpike. There were whispers of men mustering beneath old banners, of lords who spoke of rescue, of stolen daughters and dragon tyranny.
Rescue.
The word made you ill.
They had given you away. Now they named the taking theft because rebellion required prettier language than regret.
Your fatherâs message reached you by secret hand, hidden in the binding of a prayer book.
Daughter,
You were taken from us under threat. Blood remembers blood. Starpike has not forgotten you. Endure a little longer. You will be brought home.
Home...
You read it three times. Then once more. Each time, it grew colder. Not one line asked what you wanted. Not one.
You sat by the window until the light faded, the letter open in your lap.
Aerion found you there.
âIs it true?â you asked before he could speak.
He did not pretend confusion. âYes.â
âMy father?â
âYes.â
âAnd they claim it is for me?â
Aerionâs mouth curled. âMen love noble motives. They dress treason in them whenever possible.â
You looked down at the letter.
âThey gave me to you.â
Aerion went still. You had never said it so plainly before.
You lifted your eyes to him.
âThey gave me to you when it saved them. Now they want me back because it serves them. They call that love.â
His expression was unreadable. Perhaps because he heard the accusation beneath it. You too...you also treated me as something to be possessed.
Aerion crossed the room. âI will burn their rebellion to ash.â
âNo.â
His eyes flashed. âNo?â
âPunish the guilty. Not Starpike.â
âStarpike raised banners against my house.â
âStarpike has children in its walls. Servants. Smallfolk. Stable boys and washerwomen and cooks who have never written to a Blackfyre in their lives.â
His voice cooled. âYou ask mercy for traitors.â
âI ask justice for the innocent.â
âYou ask me to spare those who would take you from me.â
You rose then. Fear moved through you, but pride moved with it.
âI ask you not to become the monster they call you.â
The room darkened around his face. For a moment, you thought you had gone too far. Perhaps you had.
Aerion stepped close, violet eyes bright and terrible.
âYou think I fear that word?â
âNo,â you whispered. âI think you have worn it so long you no longer know where it ends and you begin.â
Silence.
His hand lifted. Not to strike. You knew that before it reached you. Yet your body flinched from old expectation, from court, from marriage, from men and power and rooms without witnesses.
Aerion saw.
His hand stopped in the air.
Something broke across his face so swiftly you might have missed it if you had not been watching him for weeks, learning the language of his smallest cruelties and rarer restraints.
He lowered his hand.
âI will punish the guilty,â he said.
Each word seemed dragged from him by iron hooks.
âStarpike will stand if it yields.â
Relief nearly took your knees.
âThank you.â
His laugh was harsh. âDo not thank me. Mercy tastes foul enough without gratitude.â
But he had listened. That was the beginning of the end of one thing, and the beginning of something far more dangerous.
Prince Maekar summoned him two days later.
You were not meant to attend. You went anyway.
Perhaps you should not have. Perhaps a wiser woman would have remained behind tapestry and rumor, waiting for men to decide the shape of her life as they always had. But you were tired of being absent from rooms where your fate was discussed.
You entered quietly enough to hear Maekarâs voice before either man saw you.
âShe has made you weak.â
Aerion stood before his father in the solar, spine straight, face pale with fury held on a leash. Maekar was hard where Aerion was bright, iron where his son was flame. A prince made of discipline and expectation, with a soldierâs contempt for softness.
âThe Peakes defied the crown,â Maekar said. âYour wife was meant to remind them of obedience, not teach you hesitation.â
âMy wife asked that Starpike be spared if it yields.â
âYour wife,â Maekar repeated, and the word was scorn. âA traitorâs daughter.â
Aerion smiled. It was the kind of smile you had once feared most.
âChoose your next words carefully.â
Maekar stepped closer.
âYou dare warn me? You wear her colors before court. You let lords see you marked by a disgraced house. You speak of restraint while rebels gather courage from the thought that Aerion Targaryen can be softened by a pretty face.â
Your breath caught.
Aerionâs head tilted.
âDo you imagine beauty is all she has?â
Maekarâs hand twitched.
âYou were always vain enough to mistake possession for strength.â
The words struck Aerion. You saw it, though he hid it well.
Maekar saw it too.
âThat is what this is,â his father said. âNot love. Do not flatter yourself with songs. You have found a toy that resists you, and because it does not break when pressed, you have mistaken frustration for feeling.â
Aerion said nothing. His silence was terrible.
Maekarâs gaze moved to the orange thread at his cuff.
âTake those colors off.â
âNo.â
The word was quiet. The room seemed to draw breath.
Maekar struck him. Or would have.
You moved before thought.
There was no courage in it. Not the kind songs praise. No shining calculation. No noble speech. Only the sight of his fatherâs hand rising, and the sudden unbearable knowledge that you did not want the blow to land.
You stepped between them and the slap caught you across the face.
Sound vanished. Everything vanished in that room.
Your head turned with the force of it. Pain bloomed hot along your cheek, bright and humiliating. For a moment you saw nothing but white light and the edge of the table and your own hand gripping it to remain upright.
Then stillness.
Maekar stared at you.
Aerion did not move and you looked at him.
Whatever had been in his face before was gone. He was utterly silent. Shattered into stillness. You had seen Aerion angry. You had seen him amused. You had seen him wounded, proud, vicious, fascinated. You had never seen him afraid. Not for himself. For you.
His hand rose, slowly this time, as if approaching some wounded bird that might die of fright. He did not touch your cheek. Not at first. His fingers hovered near the mark his father had made.
His voice, when it came, was almost unrecognizable.
âLeave us.â
Maekarâs face darkened. âAerionââ
âLeave.â
There was dragonfire in that word.
Maekar looked from his son to you, then back again. Something like understanding passed over his face, grim and displeased. Then he left and the door closed.
Aerion turned to you. For a long time, he said nothing. Then, with care so fierce it looked almost painful, he took your wrist and led you from the room.
His chambers were quiet.
He sat you before the hearth and stood over you as though guarding a battlefield after the slaughter had ended. His fingers flexed once at his side. Then again.
âLet me see,â he said.
You lifted your face. The mark had risen red across your cheek.
Aerion stared at it. Violence meant for him, written upon you. That was the thing he could not bear. Not because you belonged to him. Because you had chosen it.
You had stepped between pain and him with nothing to gain. No court had watched to praise you. No father had commanded it. No vow had required it. You had protected him not because he was gentle, not because he deserved it, not because you had forgotten what he had done.
You had done it because somewhere in the ruin between you, he had become yours too.
Aerion understood fear. He understood obedience. He understood taking, breaking, possessing, punishing. He did not understand this. So it broke him open.
âWhy?â he asked.
A prince, a dragon, a cruel and beautiful creature of fire and pride, reduced to one bare word.
You could have lied. You did not.
âBecause I did not want him to hurt you.â
His throat moved.
âHe has struck me before.â
âI know.â
âThen why would you put yourself in the path of it?â
You looked at him, cheek burning, heart worse.
âBecause knowing does not make it right.â
He laughed once, but it was not laughter. It was a broken exhale.
âI am not good.â
âNo.â
âI have been cruel to you.â
âYes.â
âI frightened you.â
âYes.â
His face twisted. Perhaps he had expected denial. A mercy he had not earned. You gave him truth instead.
âYou humiliated me,â you said softly. âYou made my wedding feel like a sentence. You called me traitor until the word followed me into sleep. You made me wear your colors so everyone would know I had been conquered.â
Aerion closed his eyes, only briefly. When he opened them, they were bright with something more dangerous than tears because he did not know how to shed them.
âAnd yet?â he asked, bitterly.
âAnd yet,â you said, âyou wore mine.â
The silence after that was not empty. It was full of every unsaid thing pressing its hands against the walls.
Aerion knelt before you. The sight of it startled you so deeply you forgot to breathe.
He did not seem to know what to do once there. Gentleness was foreign country to him. His hand lifted again, and this time, with terrible care, his fingertips touched the unmarked edge of your jaw.
âI will kill him for this,â he said.
âMy father?â
âMy father. Yours. Anyone who places a mark on you and calls it duty.â
âYou cannot kill every man who has hurt me.â
His mouth curved, humorless. âI can try.â
Despite yourself, you almost smiled. Almost.
âAerion.â
His name changed the room. You had not used it often. Names were intimate things. Dangerous things.
He looked at you as though you had touched him.
âPunish the guilty,â you said. âSpare Starpike.â
His jaw tightened.
âYou ask again.â
âYes.â
âYou know what they did.â
âI know what they did to the crown. I know what they did to me. I know my father traded me, then called for my return when I became useful again.â Your voice trembled, but did not break. âI am not asking because they are innocent. I am asking because I will not let the innocent burn for their pride.â
Aerion looked at the mark on your face. Then at your eyes.
âMy mercy will not be gentle,â he said.
âI did not expect it to be.â
âNo. You never make that mistake.â
He rose.
When judgment came, it came with teeth. The men who had plotted rebellion were seized. Lords who had written treason in careful hands found those hands bound. Ravens flew. Riders rode. Starpikeâs gates opened before dragon banners, and because they opened, the castle did not burn.
Lord Gormon Peake was brought to heel. Not slain, for you had asked that much with a face still marked by another princeâs hand. But stripped of command. Sentenced before witnesses. His lands watched, his household divided, his pride cut down to a stump.
Aerion stood before court in black and red, with orange at his cuff and a black castle near his heart.
âStarpike stands,â he declared, âbecause my wife asked it of me.â
The hall listened, breathless.
âIf House Peake mistakes her mercy for weakness, I will correct them. If any man claims her name as excuse for treason again, I will teach him the difference between a womanâs compassion and a dragonâs patience.â
No one laughed. No one whispered this time.
You stood beside him, still in Targaryen colors, but not swallowed by them now. Beneath your sleeve, Peake orange rested against your skin. At Aerionâs wrist, it burned where all could see.
For the first time since leaving Starpike, you felt not displayed, but witnessed.
That night, he found you in the garden.
Moonlight silvered the leaves and turned the fountains pale. The city below muttered in its sleep. For once, there were no courtiers. No ladies with fans. No fathers. No banners raised like accusations.
Only you and him him.
Aerion wore no crown, no courtly smile, no easy cruelty. His black cloak was lined in orange. You saw it at once. He saw you see it. This time, he did not mock you.
âYour city wanted you back badly,â he said.
There it was...the cruelty he reached for when fear came too near.
His voice was light. His eyes were not.
âGo, then,â he said. âIf that is what you want. Starpike stands. Your father lives. The bargain has been remade prettily enough for singers to choke on. Go home.â
You looked at him for a long moment.
âYou do not mean that.â
His smile cut. âDo I not ?â
âNo.â
âHow fortunate that you know my mind so well.â
âI know when you are trying to bleed before you can be wounded.â
The smile vanished.
A breeze moved through the garden, stirring the orange lining of his cloak like a small, secret flame.
âI frightened you,â he said.
âYes.â
âI humiliated you.â
âYes.â
âYou hate me.â
You could have said yes. Once, it would have been simple. Now truth had become harder.
âI hated what you did to me,â you said. âI hated the way you made me small. I hated that everyone watched and you let them. I hated that my wedding felt like the end of myself.â
Aerion stood very still.
âBut House Peake made me small too,â you continued. âThey gave me away when it saved them. Then they tried to reclaim me when it served them. They called both duty. They called both love. Neither time did they ask what I wanted.â
âAnd what do you want?â
No command or mockery.
You stepped closer.
âI want to choose.â
His face changed.
You wondered whether anyone had ever offered Aerion a choice that was not also a test, a weapon, or a trap.
âThen choose,â he said.
His voice was rough.
You looked at him...beautiful, cruel, wounded, dangerous. A dragon who had burned you and shielded you with the same fire. He was not redeemed. Not purified. Not made gentle by the shape of your hand. Some part of you would always remember the girl in the sept beneath the red cloak, the hostage in silk, the bride led to the dragonâs mouth.
But you remembered other things too. A bedding refused. A cup left untouched. A black castle near his heart. A prince kneeling before you, undone by the sight of your pain.
You chose yourself first. That was the vow no septon had given you. Then you chose him.
You touched the orange lining of his cloak.
âThese are my colors,â you said.
âYes.â
âYou should not wear them.â
âNo,â Aerion said. âI should not.â
âYou do anyway.â
His gaze dropped to your mouth.
âYes.â
You kissed him first.
It was not like the kiss in the sept. That had belonged to gods and lords and hungry witnesses. This belonged to no one but you. Aerion went still beneath it, as though struck not by force but by wonder. Then his hand rose to your face, careful of the fading mark on your cheek, and he kissed you back with a restraint so fierce it trembled.
He wanted. You felt that. But more than wanting, he waited. That was what broke your heart open.
When you drew away, his forehead nearly touched yours.
The garden was quiet around you.
âMy prince,â you whispered.
His mouth tightened.
Then you corrected yourself.
âMy husband.â
Aerion stopped breathing. The word hung between you, no longer sentence, no longer surrender.
Choice.
He looked at you as if the whole court, the crown, the war, the old stains of blood and treason had fallen away, leaving only one impossible mercy he had not known how to ask for.
âSay it again,â he said.
Not as an order. Almost as a plea.
You touched the orange thread at his cuff.
âHusband.â
And this time, when Aerion closed his eyes, he looked not conquered, but saved from conquest. Only a little and only with you.
After seeing your ex with his new girl at a work party, you take the not-so-smart advice from a friend to call a sex hotline to get over him. Your match? A baritone bossy dom named Levi.
READ THE STORY ON AO3
Pairing: Levi Ackerman x F!Reader (Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin)
Rating: Explicit ( 18+ )
Word Count:Â 17k
Tags: 18+ MINORS DNI - alternate universe (modern), slow burn, smut, sex work, phone sex, pet names, guided masturbation, dirty talk, dom!levi, light dom/sub, alcohol, sex toys, mention of body image
OFFICIALLY COMPLETED ON 07.25.2024
â Summary: For weeks, Levi refuses every confession you offer him. Then you stop asking, and heâs forced to face the wound he left behind.
â Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Female Reader
â Genre/Tags: Canon Compliant, Levi Ackerman is Bad At Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Jealous Levi, Angst With A Happy Ending
â Content Warnings: Minor blood and injury, references to death, alcohol use
â Word Count: 14.4k
â AO3 Link
â a/n: This was requested by Anonymous. THANK YOU to my beta reader @slaytherinthoughts for going through this long ass document and helping me! Much much love <3
[ I could not find the original artist. If anyone knows who the OC is, please tell me so I can credit them properly! ]
It was more of a slip of a tongue than anything.Â
Itâs late in the night. The corridors have gone quiet. Everyone has finally surrendered to their sleep. Lanterns have either been snuffed or are running down to the end of the candle wicks. Branches of the trees drag across the glass, and somewhere beyond the courtyard, a horse whinnies, restless in the same way everyone seems restless these days, even where thereâs nothing immediate to fear.
But you know as well as anyone, that there is always something to fear.
Thatâs the thing about the Scouts. You donât carry fear with you. It follows you. It lives in your bones, beneath your fingernails, in your tight shoulders after a mission briefing, in silence that follows when someone says a name and no one answers because that person is already gone.
Maybe thatâs why youâre so attracted to Levi. Because he never seems afraid. Not openly, anyway.
He sits at his desk with his sleeves rolled to his forearms, a stack of reports arranged neatly in front of him. His teacup is placed at the exact corner of the desk, where even one small shake of the desk could knock it over. His cravat is loosened slightly, but itâs not enough to make him look relaxed, because you believe Levi would rather be dragged through the streets tied by the hands than look relaxed where anyone can see him. But itâs enough that the sight catches you off guard every time you glance up from your own work.
Youâre supposed to be copying casualty numbers into a ledger. Youâre, instead, watching the flex of his fingers as he writes. Itâs almost humiliating how attracted you are to them. Itâs even worse because you realize that itâs humiliating, and yet you keep on doing it. You really should stop staring.
âYouâre staring,â Levi says without looking up.
Your quill nearly slips from your fingers. Caught. âIâm not.â
âYou are.â
âIâm thinking.â
âThat must be new for you.â
Maybe you should be offended. Maybe you already are. Perhaps a part of you lifts its head, bares its teeth, and considers heâs awful and itâs about time you stop treating him like heâs royalty when all heâs done is insult your intelligence and correct your handwriting twice. But you simply smile over your ledger, because thereâs obviously something wrong with you.
âI was thinking,â you say, dipping your quill again, âthat you look nice like this.â
Leviâs hand stops. Itâs tiny. So small. A momentary pause in gesture, a flicker of silence between one word and the next, and yet you notice it, as you always do. You always see the things you wish you didnât, because your affection for him has made you perceptive to the point of self-injury.Â
Then he resumes writing. âGet your eyes checked.â
You laugh tiredly. âI mean it,â you say, because apparently your mouth has decided to ignore every remaining sensible instinct you possess. âYou always look nice, but especially when youâre not threatening to make someone scrub the latrines with a toothbrush.â
âI can still threaten you, if that helps.â
âIt might,â you say, and when he finally lifts his gaze to you, one brow faintly lifted, you press your lips together to keep yourself from smiling too much. âI think I might be falling in love with you, Captain.â
You definitely did not plan on saying that out loud.Â
The words are like a lit match dropped onto paper. You expect something to happen, though youâre not sure exactly what; maybe for Levi to look startled, maybe for your own heartbeat to become so loud that he hears it and tells you to quiet down, but thereâs only the sound of his quill stopping and his eyes fixing on you with a disbelief thatâs usually reserved for soldiers who have done something phenomenally stupid with live blades. Youâve seen Connie almost cut open his own hand at least a dozen times now.
âNo, youâre not,â he says. Itâs so blunt that, for a second, you almost laugh again.
âI think I know what Iâm feeling.â
âYou clearly donât.â
âThatâs a little presumptuous.â
âYouâre exhausted. Youâve been copying death tolls for two hours, and your standards are slipping.â
You should probably retreat now, but the bruise of it is too new to hurt yet, and maybe youâre still brave because you havenât learned your lesson on how this man can cut you without drawing steel.
âMy standards are excellent,â you say. âThatâs why I picked you.â
Levi stares at you. You stare back, fully aware of the heat gathering beneath your skin. You notice how he hasnât looked back down yet.His face shiftsânot much, because Leviâs expressions never move far enough to be generous, but enough that something flickers behind his eyes. You canât tell what it is.Â
Then he presses his lips together and scoffs. âFinish the ledger. And donât say stupid things just because itâs late.â
The match goes out. You look down. âRight,â you say, your smile feeling much more fragile than it was one minute ago. âYes, sir.â
After that, you decide that confession didnât count. It was late. You were tired. He was rude, but Levi is always rude, and somehow that makes the rejection easier to deal with.
Except it does count.
Because the next time you say it, youâre not tired enough to pretend you donât mean it.
The next time you flirt with him is after training, when the sun is high and cruel and every inch of your uniform is clinging to your skin. The sound of the training grounds is always loud. Someone groans dramatically near the water barrels. Sasha is arguing that dinner time should be two hours earlier than it is, to which Jean tells her that sheâs going to get kicked out of the Scouts with her behavior. Eren is insisting to Mikasa that he could take down one of the veterans in hand-to-hand combat, which is not true and everyone knows is not true.
Youâre bent forward with your hands braced on your knees, sweat dripping from your chin into the dust, lungs burning, thighs trembling with the intensity of being thrown onto your back three times by a man who has the emotional warmth of a snail. Levi stands several feet away, not even breathing hard. You hate him a little for it. You love him more.Â
âYouâre leaving your right side open,â he says, acting like thatâs the main problem and not the fact that heâs driven your spine to the ground so many times that the two of them might as well get married.Â
You straighten your back, wincing when your shoulders throb in pain. âI noticed.â
âCouldâve fooled me.â
âIâm choosing to believe youâre only being this mean because youâre impressed.â
âIâm not.â
âWounded,â you say, touching a hand to your chest. âAnd after I gave you such a good show.â
Leviâs eyes narrow as they fix on you. Thereâs dirt on your cheek, gritty beneath the sweat. Your hair is tousled, strands sticking to your face and neck. You know you probably look half-dead, which makes it even more ridiculous when you grin at him as though youâre the one with the upper hand.
âIf I land a hit, you have to have tea with me,â you say, shifting your stance again, though your legs are already screaming in pain.
You feel the shift around you immediately, the tiny ripple of attention passing across the training grounds. People know by now. They know you admire him. They know youâre reckless enough to smile at him when most soldiers avert their eyes. They know Levi has never once softened for you in front of them. But they donât know that youâve already told him once. They donât know that some small part of you is hoping the second time will land differently.
Levi looks at you for a long moment. âGood thing you wonât,â he finally says.
Then he attacks. Itâs over quickly. You last longer than you did the first round, which youâll cling to as a personal victory when your pride has stopped bleeding. But itâs not enough to make him sweat, and certainly not long enough to win yourself tea. He hooks your ankle and drops you onto the dirt with one hand gripping your sleeve and the other arm pressed against your throat.
Heâs too close. Close enough that you can see the dark crescents beneath his eyes, the tiny nick near his jaw from shaving too quickly, the dust clinging to his hair. Close enough that his arm, still pressed against you, feels like the only solid point in the universe.
âYou know,â you say breathlessly, âthere are easier ways to get me on my back.â
Someone chokes in the distance. Jean, probably. Armin winces and covers his face. Leviâs expression doesnât change, but his fingers clench your sleeve before he releases you and stands up.
âGet up,â he says.
You push yourself onto your elbows. âNo tea, then?â
âNo.â
âDinner?â
âNo.â
âA walk?â
âNo.â
âAn emotionally honest conversation?â
âAre you always this annoying?âÂ
You laugh then. If you donât laugh, you think you might cry a little. To anyone else, it would sound like he despises you, but you know deep down, he appreciates your presence. At least, you think he does. You hope.
Levi steps back, eyes already moving toward the others. âAgain,â he says.
Your smile falters. âAgain?â
âYou wanted to land a hit.â
âI also want to retain the use of my spine.â
âThen move correctly.â
You groan, but you get up anyway. When he turns away to retrieve the training blade he had discarded near the fence, you miss how his gaze drops briefly to the place where his fingers had been on your sleeve. He didnât mean to do that.
Levi hates this. Not you. This. This thing you keep doing. This reckless habit of saying what you feel for him as though feelings are not the most complex thing known to man, wanting someone has never been a mistake, and affection is something you can simply place in another personâs hands and expect them not to drop it. He has no use for it. He has no patience for it.
And yet, when you stand again with dirt on your uniform and that stubborn light in your eyes, Leviâs first though is not that youâre irritating like he says you are.
Itâs that youâre still alive and with him.
His second thought is that he wants you to stay that way.
His third thought is so dangerous that he buries it before it finishes forming.
.
People start to make jokes about you and Levi. The Scouts have a talent for taking anything sensitive and turning it into humor. It beginsâas it always doesâin the mess hall. Itâs loud. The long tables are crowded with soldiers leaning shoulder to shoulder, passing bread, stealing scraps, arguing over insignificant things (mostly Eren and Jean), laughing too loudly at stories that are shared between moments in the training yard.Â
You sit with your squad, eating your soup as you try not to stare at the officersâ table. You naturally fail. Levi sits apart even among the other officers, a cup of tea held lightly in one hand. Erwin is talking beside him, and Hange is gesturing enthusiastically enoughâprobably about their latest experimentsâto nearly knock over their own bowl. Levi appears to be listening, though his eyes flick briefly toward the table with Connie and Sasha when both of them laugh too loud.
Then he looks at you.
âYouâre doing it again,â Petra says beside you.Â
You look down at your soup immediately. âIâm eating.â
âYouâre daydreaming.â
âIâm not!â
âYou absolutely are,â Oluo says, leaning back with misplaced confidence. âItâs pathetic, really.â
âYou bite your tongue every other sentence trying to imitate him. Donât start throwing stones,â Eld says. Oluo sputters. You smile, grateful for the distraction and defense, but your eyes betray you by drifting toward Levi again; and this time Gunther catches it too.
âYou could always confess again,â he says. You had told the squad about your confession a week or so ago, and naturally, they found it the funniest thing in the world. And then they called you the stupidest person in the world. âMaybe persistence will wear him down.â
âIt works on doors,â Eld says.
âLevi isnât a door,â Petra says.
âHeâs got the personality of one,â you say. That earns a few laughs.Â
Across the room, Leviâs eyes lift again. You know immediately that he heard that last part. The man could probably hear dust drifting in the air. For a moment, you consider looking away. Instead, because your pride is a stubborn creature, you lift your cup and toast it in his direction. His eyes narrow, but you smile anyway. He looks back to Erwin.
That should have been the end of it, but it wasnât. After dinner, when the mess hall begins to empty and soldiers drift toward their beds or their duties, you find yourself in the kitchen near the dedicated tea stationâwhich youâre convinced was set up only for Leviâreaching for the kettle at the exact same time Levi does. Your fingers nearly brush, and itâs enough for your breath to hitch. Levi glances at your hand, then at you.
âMove,â he says.
âYou could say please,â you mutter.
âI could also assign you stable duty.â
âYou make romance very difficult, Captain.â
He frowns at the title, but you donât really notice it too much since youâre trying to not pour hot water on yourself. Youâre being ridiculous, you think. Itâs only tea. He barely touched you. Levi is just standing this closeâclose enough that you can smell his soapâbecause heâs impatient and waiting for the kettle.
Behind you, someone snickers. You donât turn, but Levi does. The snickering stops with impressive speed. âProblem?â he asks.
âNo, sir,â several voices answer.
You press your lips together to stop yourself from laughing. Levi turns back to you. âYou enjoy making yourself a spectacle?â
You donât know why, but those words hit a tender spot in your nerves. Your smile falters. âIâm not trying to.â
âArenât you?â
That stings. Not badly, but enough for you to look down at the tea in your cup, watching the surface tremble with the tiny motion of your hand. âI just like you,â you say, quiet enough for only him to hear.
The silence that follows is almost deadly. Levi doesnât move. You suddenly wish youâd said it louder, made it into a joke or dressed it up with such an unserious tone that he could brush it off as nothing. But itâs not nothing.
Leviâs face tenses. âDonât,â he says.
One word. Not no. Not stop. Donât. Youâve clearly reached for a wound without knowing it was there. Your throat tightens slightly. Itâs stupid how much that single word hurts. The others have gone quiet behind you, though whether because they heard or because Leviâs silence has made things tense, you donât know. You nod once.
âSorry,â you say.
Leviâs jaw flexes. For the briefest moment, his eyes change, and a hint of regret moves through them, but then he reaches for his cup, turns away, and leaves you standing at the tea station with a teacup in your hand that suddenly feels too hot to hold.
You should probably stop. You tell yourself that while watching him disappear down the corridor. You tell yourself this while you stand there with the unbearable knowledge that you wonât.
.
Levi doesnât sleep well that night, which isnât unusual. Sleep has always been an issue for him. Itâs something his body demands but his mind resents, a brief surrender that leaves too much room for memory to crawl in with its dirty hands. Heâs accustomed to lying awake for hours. Heâs accustomed to the silence of the night and his own thoughts circling until they get stripped down to their bones.
Heâs not used to thinking about the way your voice sounded when you said, I just like you. Then he realizes thatâs a lie. He is used to thinking about your voice. Thatâs the issue.Â
Levi lies on his back in the dark, one arm folded behind his head. His eyes are fixed on the ceiling. He knows this has gone on long enough. Youâre careless with your affection. You throw it around like it costs nothing. Like you have so much of it that losing some wouldnât hurt you.
Then he remembers your hand trembling around your cup. He realizes, no, youâre not careless. That would be easier. Careless people donât look away so quickly when theyâre hurt. Careless people donât apologize for taking up too much space in someone elseâs guarded life. Careless people donât learn how someone takes their tea and remembers it without being asked. Youâre not careless. Youâre one of the few sincere people he knows. Thatâs worse to him.
Levi closes his eyes. Behind them, he sees you smiling at him across the training yard, flushed and breathless, daring him to be human for one second. He sees you in the mess hall, laughing because everyone else is laughing, even though your eyes keep searching for him. He sees you tonight, freezing around a single word.
Donât.
He should have said something else. He should have said nothing. He should have made you stop sooner. If you stop, this ends. If this ends, no one gets hurt. Except he already hurt you.Â
Levi opens his eyes. The ceiling offers no answers, no matter how hard he stares.
âDamn brat,â he mutters.
.
The confessions become a routine, almost. Theyâre never spoken in the same way, but they become woven into the strange fabric of your days. Itâs as familiar as the bitter taste of weak coffee when tea runs low and the scent of soap after Levi has ordered an entire hallway scrubbed because someone left a single muddy footprint in it.
You tell him in fractions. Sometimes lightly. Sometimes accidentally. Sometimes because the feeling rises up in you with nowhere else to go, and the alternative is swallowing it until you choke.Â
Levi rejects you every time. Sometimes you think he has a list of things to say prepared. Sometimes you think he makes them up on the spot. Youâre not sure which scenario is worse.
The fourth time you confess comes in the stables, of all places. Rain has slicked the yard into a mess. The horses are restless tonight. Youâre adjusting tack and cleaning hooves, your sleeves rolled up despite the cold because one of the mares keeps nudging your elbow and trying to chew the cuff.
Then Levi enters. âYouâre doing that wrong,â he says.
You glance down at the stirrup strap in your hand. âI havenât even done anything yet.â
âExactly.â
You sigh and step aside, letting him take over, because while there are many hills youâre willing to die on, arguing with Levi about equipment care isnât one of them. He checks and adjusts the straps that you already did. Then he lifts the tack onto the assigned mare to make sure everything looks good. The horse calms beneath his touch, which is unfair, because Levi is as soft as a sword, yet animals seem to understand him. You watch him stroke one hand down the mareâs neck, murmuring something too low for you to catch. You feel a strange flutter in your stomach.
âYouâre gentle with them,â you say before you can stop yourself.
Levi looks at you. âWith horses.â
âHorses. Animals. Things that scare easily.â
His expression goes blank, and it tells you instantly that youâve stepped too close to something heâs not willing to reveal yet. You should retreat, and yet, you donât.
âI like that about you.â
His hand stops on the strap. Rain thunders on the roof. The mare huffs, her warm breath ghosting into the air. Levi stares at you for a long moment, then says, âYouâre reading too much into basic competence.â
âMaybe,â you say. âOr maybe youâre more careful than you want people to know.â
Levi looks away before you can follow up, tightening the girth. âStop romanticizing me.â
âIâm not.â
âYou are.â
âMaybe Iâm just seeing you for who you are.â
He laughs humorlessly. âYou should look somewhere else.â
You breathe in through your nose, the scent of hay and wet earth filling your nostrils. It should be comforting, but you feel foolish standing here with your heart spilling out of your chest like this.
âMaybe I donât want to,â you say.
Levi hardens. âThatâs your problem.â
You flinch. Itâs tiny, but itâs there. You know itâs visible because Leviâs eyes move immediately to your face. You can tell he caught it. He seems to recoil, his brows drawing faintly together, but then he looks away.
âFinish checking the tack,â he says.
You nod. âYes, sir.â
.
You donât count the next time you confess because youâre half-delirious with exhaustion after an expedition that has left everyone hollow-eyed and covered with dirt and moving like ghosts through the building. You sit on a bench outside the infirmary with a bandage around your forearm and a bruise forming on your ribs, watching medics hurry past you. Levi is standing next to you with blood on his sleeveâblood that doesnât belong to himâwith a look in his eyes that tells you heâs not fully here.
Youâre alive. Heâs alive. Too many others are not. That kind of thing makes people act and speak recklessly. Which is why you think you say what you say.
Levi hasnât spoken to you since returning through the gate except to ask if you were injured, and when you showed him your arm, he clicked his tongue and said, âIdiot,â with enough fury that you understood he had already been watching when that Titan came too close.
Now he stands in front of you, arms crossed, staring at the bandage. âYou hesitated,â he says.
You look up at him. âWhat?â
âOut there. You hesitated.â
Youâre far too tired to defend yourself quickly. You say, exhausted, âI was trying to pull Kessler back.â
âKessler was already dead.â
You look away. You know that. You felt the moment that Kesslerâs body relaxed and it started dragging you down. You felt the horrible slackness of his arm in your grip. You knew, even then, but knowing and letting go are not the same thing, and youâre too tired for Leviâs version of mercy.
âI know,â you say.
âDo you?â
Your head snaps back up, anger flaring. âYes, Levi. I know.â
His eyes narrow at the use of his name. Good. Let him hate it. Let him feel something.
âI know he was dead,â you continue. âI know I almost got myself killed trying to save someone who was already gone. I know that was stupid. I know youâre going to tell me it was stupid. I know.â
Levi stares at you as you breathe too hard. Your ribs ache. Your eyes burn, though you refuse to let any tears fall, because crying in front of Levi after a mission feels like bleeding in front of a shark. His jaw works once.
âThen donât do it again,â he says.
Itâs still an order, but thereâs a certain rawness underneath it that makes your anger falter. You look at him, at the dirt on his clothes, the blood on his sleeve, the exhausting plastered on his face. You look at the man everyone calls humanityâs strongest, standing there as though strength has ever saved him from grief.
The words come out before you can stop them. âI worry about you too, you know.â He tilts his head, expression hardening. You should probably stop, but you donât. âI know you donât want me to. I know you think itâs stupid, or useless, or whatever else you tell yourself when people care about you, but I do.â Your hands curl into fists against your thigh, nails biting into your palms. âI worry every time we leave the walls. I worry every time you go quiet after we come back. I worry because Iââ
âEnough.â
You shut your mouth. Levi is no longer looking at you, but through you. You feel a shiver run down your spine. He canât even look at you when turning you down?Â
âDonât make this into something it isnât.â
You swallow. âAnd what is it?â
âA bad habit.â
You feel the color drain from your face. The whole world closes around you. You can only focus on the mud on the soles of your boots, the muffled sounds of suffering through the infirmary doors, Levi standing there with his hands clenched so tightly beneath his crossed arms that his knuckles have blanched.
A bad habit. Thatâs what your affection has become. An inconvenience. Something to correct.Â
You nod once, though the movement feels fuzzy. âRight,â you say.
Levi eyes flick back to yours. You stand before you can fully lock your gazes. Pain flashes through your ribs, and you nearly sway, but you keep yourself upright because you canât bear the thought of him seeing you so weak.Â
âI should get this checked again,â you say.
Leviâs gaze drops to your arm. âYou already did.â
âI know.â
He understands then. You see it happen, the moment he realizes youâre leaving because of him, not because of the wound. He doesnât stop you. You walk away.Â
Behind you, Levi remains still for a long time. Long after your footsteps disappear. Long after the rain begins again. Long after he realizes that the words he meant to use to keep you alive have found the most tender spot of your heart.
And still, you come back. You always come back. Even if it pains you to see him right now.
The next morning, you pass him in the corridor and give him a smile thatâs smaller than usual. âCaptain,â you say.
Levi nods once. He expects you to say something else. Some joke. Some reckless little comment. Some ridiculous remark about how he looks like he slept badly and should let you fix that by being charming towards him for ten minutes.
You say nothing, and you keep walking. Levi turns his head without thinking, watching you disappear around the corner. He has a strange feeling in his chest. Annoyance, he decides. Thatâs all it is.
Thatâs all it ever will be.
.
Days later, while youâre cleaning, you stand on a stool to reach for a stack of fresh rags on the highest shelf of the supply room. Shelves line the walls from floor to ceiling, packed with folded clothes, brushes, buckets, spare mopheads, bottles of polish, and enough cleaning solution to disinfect the entire world if Levi ever gets his way. The door opens behind you.Â
âCareful,â Levi says.
You glance down. He stands in the doorway, arms crossed, looking entirely unimpressed. With what, youâre not sure. He seems to be in a perpetual state of disappointment with the world. You canât say you blame him.
âI am being careful,â you reply.
âStanding on that thing will make you crack your skull open.â
âItâs a stool. Itâs meant to be stood on.â
â...Itâs wobbling.â
âThatâs because it fears you.â
âIt should.â
You laugh. It surprises you. Maybe it surprises him too, because Leviâs eyes flick up to your face and stay there for half a second too long. Thereâs a dangerous pause, and both of you feel it. You ignore it and reach for the rags too quickly to escape it, your fingers brushing the edge of the stack. You canât quite grab it. The stool shifts.
Your balance suddenly tips just enough for your stomach to drop. Before you can correct yourself or grab onto anything, one of Leviâs hands meets your waist, the other gripping your forearm. You feel your heart slam against your ribs.Â
âIdiot,â he snaps.
You canât focus on anything except for his fingers on your waist, warm through the fabric of your shirt. Heâs standing so close behind you that when you inhale, you catch his scent. Itâs always smelled of clean soap with an undercurrent of something almost like cedar.
You look down at his hand. He does too. Then he releases you as if youâve burned him. âGet down,â he says.
You quickly grab the rags and climb off the stool, holding the items to your chest. âThank you,â you say.
âDonât thank me. Stop doing stupid things.â
âI was just trying to reach theââ
âDoesnât matter.â
âIâI had it under control, Captain.â
âNo, you didnât.â
You pause, then you hesitantly say, âYou worry about me.â
Leviâs eyes flash briefly before he restrains it. âNo.â
You tilt your head. âNo?â
âNo.â
âThen what was that?â
âReflex.â
âYour reflex was to grab my waist?â
His mouth tightens, which is how you know youâve gotten under his skin. âMy reflex was to stop a soldier from injuring themselves because they canât manage basic balance.â
âThat almost sounded affectionate.â
âIt wasnât meant to be.â
You smile then, because despite everything, despite the way he keeps pushing you away with both hands while somehow still catching you when you stumble, your heart keeps finding reasons to love him.Â
âI think you care about me more than you want to admit,â you say.
Levi steps closer. Your smile fades as his shadow falls over you. âYou donât know what youâre talking about.â
You hold his gaze, and for once, you donât try to soften the moment with a joke or quip. There are moments you need to be serious, and this is one of them. âMaybe not, but I know what it feels like when you look at me.â
âYouâre imagining things.â
âAm I?â
âYes.â
His answer comes far too fast. Levi seems to realize it at the same time you do, because he sighs and looks away toward the shelves.Â
âI wish youâd let me care about you,â you say quietly. Leviâs head turns back, and suddenly, the room feels smaller than it did a moment ago.
âI donât need that from you.â
Itâs not the cruelest thing heâs said, but it still breaks a piece of you inside. You inhale slowly, gripping the rags a bit tighter. âSorry.â
Frustration flickers across his face, but you can tell itâs directed inward this time, at himself, at you, at the entire existence of this thing neither of you seems to be willing to label.
âJust do your job,â he says, harsher now.
âYes, Captain.â
You donât see the small flinch he gives when you turn back to the shelves.
.
By now, Levi has recognized that there are stages to this. First, you say something reckless and stupid. Second, he rejects it. Third, you smile. Fourth, he says something. Fifth, your smile falters. Sixth, he feels like the worst kind of bastard for doing that. Seventh, he tells himself you brought it on yourself. Eighth, he thinks about it all night.
Itâs a miserable system. He wishes to dismantle it. Heâd like, more than that, to understand why he keeps waiting for it to happen again, because thatâs the part he canât excuse. He can excuse rejection. Rejection is clean and sets boundaries where your affection keeps trying to cross them. He can excuse harshness. Harshness is useful. Soldiers listen better to shouts than soft pleas. He can even excuse the anger that rises in him whenever you come too close, because anger is familiar, and familiarity makes things easier to handle.
But he canât excuse the waiting. He canât excuse his attention shifting when you enter a room. He canât excuse the fact that he knows your footsteps by sound now. He canât excuse how he notices when you donât look at him. He definitely canât excuse how guarded he feels when your voice comes gently, as if heâs bracing for impact from a hand thatâs never struck him.
He hates it. He hates the anticipation. He hates the feeling that lingers. He hates that some part of him, buried deep beneath the discipline and the loss and blood, wants to hear you say it again. He wants to know if you still mean it. He wants to know how many times he can refuse you before you finally decide heâs not worth the trouble.
Part of him hopes the answer is infinite.
.
You find Levi in the corridor outside of Erwinâs office, standing with a stack of documents in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. His expression is blank as always, lit by the dim afternoon light. The day has been mostly gray from morning onward. The entirety of headquarters feels submerged. Youâre carrying reports from the supply division when you stop beside him.
He looks tired. Levi often looks tired, but there are different tiers to it, and youâve learned them despite not trying to. This isnât ordinary irritation or sleep deprivation. This is the kind that only comes after countless meetings and casualty estimates, after decisions that will ask other people to die in the name of maybeâsomedayâbeing free from the Titans.
âYou should eat something,â you say.
His eyes slide to you. âIâm fine.â
âNo, youâre not.â
âI meant what I said. Leave me alone.â
âNot until you eat.â
He exhales through his nose. âAre you always this insistent?â
âWith you? Usually.â
âFantastic for me.â
You smile. âYou make it very easy.â He looks away. Instead of walking away like you know you should, you shift the reports against your chest and say, âI brought extra bread.â
Leviâs gaze returns to you. âWhat?â
âFor you.â You try to shrug it off, pretending like you havenât been carrying it wrapped in cloth beneath the reports because you noticed he skipped lunch. âItâs in my pocket. Which sounds unsanitary, but I wrapped it. Mostly.â
He stares at you, then says, âYouâre ridiculous.â
âProbably.â
âI didnât ask you to do that.â
âI know.â
âThen why?â
You wish he wouldnât ask. You wish, sometimes, that Levi would allow kindness to come to him without dragging it into the spotlight and demanding to know whether it has teeth or not. But heâs looking at you now with a challenge in his eyes, but something else lingers. Something that tells you he doesnât understand why anyone would go out of their way for him unless obligated or expecting something in return. Your heart hurts for him.
âBecause I care,â you say.
Levi grips his documents a little more. âStop it.â
âIâm not asking you for anything.â
âYou are.â
You frown. âNo, Iâm not.â
âYou say things like that because you want me to say them back.â
Thereâs a bitter taste in your mouth, maybe because itâs partly true, and maybe because itâs not the whole truth, and heâs chosen the ugliest piece of it to hold up between you.
âI want you to eat something,â you say quietly. âThatâs all this was.â
Levi says nothing. You reach into your pocket, pull out the wrapped bread, and place it carefully on top of the documents in his hand. His eyes drop to it, then lift to meet you.Â
âYou donât have to make everything a battle,â you say.
âI didnât ask for this.â
âNo, you didnât,â you say, the words coming out a little sadder than you intend. You see him hear it, and you see the shift in his eyes. But you donât wait for him to respond. You walk away, reports held tightly against your torso, and you tell yourself that caring about someone shouldnât feel this much like holding your hand over an open flame and pretending the burn is proof of devotion.
Behind you, Levi looks down at the bread. He stands there and stares at it for a long time. Then, with a quiet curse, he takes it with him into the office. He eats it later. Every bite tastes like guilt.
.
âYou know,â Hange says one afternoon, leaning casually against the doorway of Leviâs office while he tries to read a report and pretend theyâre not there, âmost people enjoy being adored.â
âMost people are idiots,â Levi says.
âTrue, true. But still. Itâs good for morale.â
Levi doesnât look up from his papers. âIf youâre here to waste my time, find a better hobby.â
âI have several. You hate all of them.â
âBecause theyâre obnoxious.â
âEverything is obnoxious to you.â
Leviâs quill pauses, and that makes Hange grin a little more. He resumes writing, shaking his head. This isnât exactly new businessâHange always comes to annoy him for the most miniscule problems and to talk about the most insignificant topics. Heâs learned how to block it out over the years.
âIâm serious,â Hange says. The shift in their tone catches Leviâs attention. âShe cares about you.â
âNo shit.â
âAnd you care about her.â
The quill stops again, and this time, it doesnât resume. Levi lifts his eyes slowly, sharpened to a point. âCareful.â
Hange, to their credit or possibly their doom, doesnât turn around and leave like any sensible human would after the tone Levi just used against them. âThat sounded like a threat.â
âIt was.â
âMm.â Hange tilts their head, studying him in such an invasive way that it makes Levi want to shove them into the nearest supply closet and lock the door. âYou get nastier after she talks to you.â
âI get nastier after you talk to me too.â
âYes, but thatâs because Iâm charming in a way that overwhelms you.â
âYouâre exhausting in a way that makes murder understandable.â
Hange waves his remark away. âWith her, itâs different.â
Leviâs face goes blank. Is it different with you? He realizes now that while he blocks out Hangeâs antics, he doesnât block out yours. He realizes that all the times heâs kicked Hange out for uttering a single stupid sentence, heâs let you stay after uttering a dozen. Hange sees the realization and smiles softly.
âIâm not saying you have to return anything,â they say. âNo one can make you feel something you donât. But if you donât, you should stop letting her bleed herself dry trying to reach you.â
âIâm not letting her do anything.â
âNo,â Hange says, âyouâre just standing there while it happens.â The room goes dangerously quiet. Levi looks down at the report, but the words have rearranged into nonsense. Hange sighs deeply. âFor what itâs worth, I think she knows youâre not as indifferent as you act.â
Leviâs grip tightens around the quill. âSheâs wrong.â
âMaybe.â He looks up at that. Hange gives him a sad little smile, which is worse than their normal grin, worse than their teasing, worse than anything else they could have done. âBut if sheâs wrong, then you should make that clear before it hurts her even more.â
Levi says nothing. Hange leaves.
That evening, you bring Levi tea. You didnât plan on doing so. It just sort of happened. You told yourself several times that day that youâd stop doing things like this, acting like your kindness is water and heâs a dying flower that you can bring back to life. You pass the kitchen, see the kettle, and think of the tension in his face that morning.
So you make the tea. Because youâre weak and hopeful, and youâre beginning to suspect those are sometimes the same thing.
When you arrive at his office, the door is slightly ajar. You knock anyway. He calls for you to come in, and you step inside. Levi sits behind his desk, eyes on a report, the candlelight casting shadows across his face. The room is painfully neat, which you should have expected. Your presence feels immediately disruptive. You carry the cup carefully, both hands around the saucer.
âI made too much,â you say.
Levi looks at the tea, then at you. âYou made too much tea?â
âYes.â
âFor yourself?â
âYes.â
âIn one cup?â
You blink at him. He stares back at you. Your face warms slightly. Not your best attempt, but it was worth it. âFine. That was a terrible lie.â
âEmbarassing.â
âDeeply.â
He leans back slightly, crossing his arms. âYou here for a reason?â
The question should be harmless, but itâs not. You think of all the times Levi has made you feel childish for just wanting a connection. You think of the fact that your hand is already starting to ache from holding the saucer too tightly.
âNo,â you say. âNot really.â You step closer and set the cup on his desk, exactly where he usually keeps it, because youâve grown to know the exact spot by now. âI just thought youâd want some.â
âI can make my own tea.â
âIâm aware.â
âThen stop.â
You look at him. His face is unreadable, but his eyes are clear as day. Thereâs a tension and conflict there, anger held down so hard that you see it shaking. But youâre tired too. Tired of reading hope into every almost-soft thing he does. Tired of standing at the edge of him, calling out, and hearing only your own voice come back.
âStop bringing you tea?â you ask.
âStop acting like this means something.â
Your heart drops. âThis?â
Levi looks at you. For once, you wish he wouldnât. At the same time, you want him to.
âAll of it,â he says. âIâve told you no multiple times. What part of that are you too stupid to understand?â
All of it. The tea. The bread. The jokes. The concern. The confessions. The look you give him after missions. You remembering his preferences. The way you keep offering pieces of yourself and pretending it doesnât matter when he refuses to take them. All of it.
You nod, though it feels like something has finally broken inside you.Â
Youâre too tired to keep doing this.
âI see,â you whisper.
Leviâs eyes gleam in the moonlight as he looks at you. He looks like he might say something else. Something better. Something worse. You donât even give him the chance.
âIâm sorry,â you say, your voice calm enough to make yourself believe that youâre not hurt. âI didnât realize I was making you uncomfortable.â
Levi makes a face, the most emotion youâve seen from him in months. âThatâs notââ
âIâll stop.â
He goes silent. You give him a small smile because you canât seem to help yourself. Even now, youâre trying to make things easier for him, because some habits are harder to kill than hope. Then you turn toward the door.
Behind you, Levi says your name. It stops you for a second, but only a second. You look back. His hand is resting near the cup, not touching it. He looks almost panicked, if Levi Ackerman were capable of such an honest expression.
âYes?â you say. He says nothing, and there it is. The whole tragedy of him. You wait one second. Then two. Then you nod. âGoodnight, Captain.â
You leave. The door closes behind you. Levi sits very still. The tea cools untouched on his desk. And for the first time, the silence you leave behind feels less like peace and more like punishment.
.
You stop.Â
You donât stop in a manner that would give him the satisfaction of calling it dramatic, because the stubborn, wounded part of you refuses to let Levi Ackerman look at the ruin heâs made of your heart.Â
You donât avoid your duties. You donât let your work slip. You donât flinch when his name is mentioned, and you donât turn your head too quickly when he speaks, and you donât stand in the kitchen holding the kettle, telling yourself that tea is only tea and kindness is only kindness and that none of it has to mean anything unless he lets it.
You simply stop offering. Thatâs all.
Reports appear on his desk when theyâre supposed to. Your handwriting is clean across the pages. Supplies are accounted for. Gear is cleaned, straps are checked, blades are sharpened, and when you pass him in the corridor, you step aside with the same respect you would give any superior officer.Â
âCaptain.â
Nothing more. No little smile curling around the title. No teasing lift to your brow. No, you look terrible, did you sleep at all? No, I saved you bread before Sasha could inhale the entire basket. No, if you keep glaring like that, your face will get stuck and then what will we do?
Just Captain.
The first time it happens, Levi tells himself heâs relieved.
He has paperwork in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. You walk down the hall with a crate of medical linens balanced against your hip, your sleeves rolled to your elbows. You see him, shift the crate higher, and move out of the way.
âCaptain,â you say. Levi nods once. You keep walking. Thatâs all there is to your interaction.
He should be relieved. Instead, he grips his teacup a little tighter. Idiot, he thinks, though heâs not entirely sure whether he means you or himself.
By the second day, the relief has turned into irritation.
Youâre everywhere, because the universe apparently has something against him and is trying to force you into his everyday life when heâs trying his hardest not to notice you. In the training yard, helping one of the newer recruits correct their stance with a voice soft enough that the soldier actually listens instead of stiffening under correction. In the mess hall, laughing at something Petra says, your face finally turned away from him. In the corridor outside Erwinâs office, handing over a stack of documents to Miche with a polite nod before disappearing around the corner before Levi can decide whether he wants to speak to you.
Not that he does. He doesnât. Thereâs nothing to say, after all. He told you to stop, and you stopped. Thatâs how orders are supposed to work.
Leviâs spent his life surrounded by people who either donât listen or listen too late, by soldiers who break formation, by fools who mistake hope for strategy, by men who die because they canât follow one simple command when terror has sunk its teeth into them. He should appreciate obedience. He should appreciate silence. He should appreciate how you gave him exactly what he asked for.
Instead, every âCaptainâ feels like a door slamming shut in his face. And the worst part, the most aggravating, unforgivable part, is that youâre not even punishing him. Punishment would be easier. Punishment would give him something to push against. If you snapped at him, he could snap back. If you glared, he could meet it with his own colder stare. If you cried, if you accused him, if you said, how dare you, Levi, after all the chances I gave you, then at least he would know what to do.
But you do none of them. Youâre kind. Professionally kind. You answer when spoken to. You follow orders without hesitation. You still look after the youngest soldiers, still trade your last piece of bread to Sasha, still smile when Armin asks a question and still help Connie adjust his gear that he should know how to adjust by now. You havenât become colder in all aspectsâyouâve merely taken your warmth away from him.
And Levi, who has survived hunger, blood, filth, loss, and the Undergroundâs endless ruthlessness, finds himself undone by the absence of things he once pretended not to want.
By the third day, Hange notices. They appear beside him in the training yard while heâs watching you across the dirt, though heâd rather be disemboweled with his own blades than admit that heâs watching you. Youâre speaking to Eld near the fence, head tilted as you listen, one hand braced on your hip, the other gesturing toward the Titan dummies. Eld says something that makes you laugh.
Hange hums. âInteresting.â
âWalk away,â Levi says.
âI didnât even say anythingââ
âYou were about to.â
âI was going to say the weatherâs nice.â
âItâs overcast.â
âEmotionally, then.â
Levi turns his head just enough to glare. Hange grins, but their expression softens too quickly, and thatâs how he knows heâs in trouble. He can handle Hangeâs manic curiosity, their teasing, their horrifying experiments, their complete lack of respect for personal space or peace. He canât handle pity.
âShe stopped,â Hange says.
Levi looks back toward the yard. âGood.â
Hangeâs brows rise. âVery convincing.â
âShut up.â
âYou told her to?â Levi says nothing, and thatâs answer enough. Hange exhales, not quite a sigh. âWell, congratulations. You won.â
Hange looks ahead at you. Across the yard, you take the training blade Eld offers you and shift into position. Levi looks back at you, and he sees how dirt has already lined your face. Thereâs no bright glance tossed in his direction, no grin, no silent invitation for him to notice you. It makes him furious. Not at you, thoughâthat would be simpler. No, the fury coils inward, because thereâs a place inside him that recognizes that this silence is something he made with his own hands.
âI did what needed to be done,â he says.
Hange tilts their head. âFor who?â
Levi doesnât answer, and instead, he watches you lunge, watches Eld parry, watches your foot slide back to correct your balanceâsomething you learned from him. There are pieces of him in your movements now. Small ones. Things he taught you without meaning to leave any part of himself behind.
For who?
His mouth dries. For you, he wants to say, but even in his own head, the lie limps, because if this were for you, then why does your smile seem weaker when you think no one is looking?
.
That evening, you deliver papers to his office. You knock once.Â
âCome in,â he says, and he hates that he knows itâs you just by the sound of your footsteps approaching. You step inside with the papers held to your torso. For some stupid reason, Levi expects tea. Thereâs none, only papers. You cross the room, set the stack on the corner of his desk, and take a half step back.
âCommander Erwin asked that these be reviewed before morning,â you say.
Your voice is perfectly calm. Itâs built for distance, polished until nothing tender can catch onto it. Leviâs eyes shift from the reports, then to you.
âYou can leave them,â he says.
You nod. âYes, Captain.â
Levi swears his eye twitches from the title. âYou donât have to call me that every time,â he says.
You look at him then, and he almost wishes you hadnât. Your eyes are not angry or pleading, but theyâve been extinguished of that hope youâve been carrying with you for months now.
âI thought you preferred professionalism,â you say.
Levi grips the arm of his chair slightly. âI prefer people not putting words in my mouth.â
A flicker of hurt passes over your face, but itâs gone as soon as it arrives. âUnderstood.â
He should stop. He knows he should stop, but the silence after your answer feels unbearable, and Levi is not built for handling unbearable things he canât kill. âThat all?â
âYes.â
You turn toward the door. He feels a spike of panic, the kind heâs only ever felt when he was galloping in the rain to return to Isabel and Furlan. His stomach sinks. âWait.â
You stop. Your hand rests on the doorknob. Levi stares at your back, at the tension in your shoulders. Youâre holding yourself with a carefulness that implies youâre waiting for something to split you open at any moment.
What does he want to say? Donât go? No, ridiculous. I didnât mean it? He did mean it. At least, he meant part of it. The part that wanted safety. The part that believes every relationship eventually ends in the ultimate heartbreak of the other personâs name carved into stone. I miss you? Absolutely not. The words rise to his tongue anyway, but Levi crushes them beneath the heel of his pride.
You wait. He says nothing, so you glance back at him. âYes?â you say.
His throat works. The candlelight looks so soft against your face, and only then does he see how tired you are. Not physically, though perhaps that too, but tired emotionally. Tired of holding your hands to someone who keeps treating them like weapons.
Levi looks away first. âNothing,â he says. The word tastes bitter in his mouth.
Your expression doesnât change, and somehow that makes him feel worse. âGoodnight, Captain.â
You leave. Levi sits there for a long moment, staring at the place where you stood. The reports remain untouched. His tea, made by his own hand and brewed exactly the way he likes it, has gone cold beside him. He lifts the cup anyway, takes one sip, and slams it back down so hard that the porcelain almost cracks.
It tastes wrong.
Everything is wrong.
.
Levi sees you laughing with Eld in the training yard, and the feeling that moves him makes him so nauseous that he can only stand there with his hand still on his harness and hate everything about himself.
Itâs not like he feels betrayal. He doesnât overhear any confession and thereâs no obvious intimacy that any reasonable man could point to and say âthatâs the reason my blood is boiling.â Youâre simply standing near the fence, one shoulder leaned against the post, your arms crossed as Eld speaks to you. His hair is messy from training, and his expression is unmistakably fond. Fond.
Leviâs eye twitches.
Eld says something too low for Levi to hear from across the yard, and you laugh. Not that small, polite laugh youâve been giving Levi lately (at least before you started ignoring him weeks ago), the one that feels like a closed door and leaves him standing outside of it like an idiot. You laugh properly. Your head tips back and your face eases in a way that Levi hasnât seen directed at him in days. Eld smiles, knowing heâs the reason you look a little less tired now.
Leviâs grip on his harness worsens until it creaks. He should look away, but he doesnât. Eld steps closer, enough to reach past you and grab his coat hanging from the side of the training dummy, but from where Levi stands, the movement brings him into your space. Your shoulder brushes his. You donât even flinch or step back. You only look down at what heâs doing, say something that makes his smile widen, and then you lift your hand to shove lightly at his shoulder.
Itâs the same kind of touch you used to give Levi without thinking. A hand on his sleeve when you wanted his attention. Fingers brushing his hand when you set tea beside him. Your shoulder bumping his when you walked too close in a corridor and pretended it was accidental. The touch he had rejected so many times that you finally learned to control it.
Levi doesnât know what he feels, but he convinces himself itâs not jealousy. Jealousy is for men who think they have a claim. Levi is without a claim. He made sure of that. In fact, he was the one who caused the distance with each cold reply, each command, and the times when you were vulnerable with him and he pushed it back as if tenderness was a weapon aimed at his throat.
So no, he has no right to feel anything when Eld leans closer to you. He has no right to hate the way you seem calmer beside him. He has no right to remember your face when you once told him that you wish heâd let you care about him, and how he had answered how he didnât need that from you.
Eld says something else. You smile. Levi moves before he decides to.
By the time he crosses the yard, his expression has gone sharp enough to send three nearby soldiers into immediately pretending to be very busy with their gear. Eld notices him approaching first, straightening his posture the way a subordinate does when they realize their superior is walking toward them.
âCaptain,â Eld says.
You turn. The smile fades from your face. Not entirelyâyouâre too composed for that now, too determined not to let Levi see where the pain still lives, but he sees the change anyway, the armor coming up to shield you.
âCaptain,â you say.
Levi looks from you to Eld, then back to you. âYou done wasting time?â The words are even colder than he wants them to be. Or they might be just as cold as he means them to be, because quite often being cruel is more acceptable, in his mind, than standing there and confessing that he actually walked across the yard because another another man made you laugh and Levi wanted, with a sudden violence that disgusts him, to insert himself between you and that warmth.
Eldâs brows draw together. You freeze. âIâm not wasting time,â you say. âEld was helping me with the new recruitsâ drills.â
âLooked like a lot of laughing for drills.â
The silence that follows is thin and almost dangerous. Eldâs eyes move briefly between the two of you, and because heâs neither stupid nor cruel, he steps back. âIâll go help Auvrayâs squad. Captain.â He gives you one last look, almost protective, then leaves.Â
Levi hates that too. He hates that Eld looks at you as if your feelings are something he knows how to handle gently. He hates more the fact that Eld might be better at it than he is. When the space between you clears, you face Levi fully.
âThat was unnecessary,â you say.
âExcuse me?â Levi scoffs.
âYou heard me.â
A month ago, the challenge in your voice would have come wrapped in humor. You probably would have tilted your head at that moment and smiled, softened the tone for him so you could pretend you were just teasing. This time, thereâs no smile, nor softness offered for his comfort. He should be glad. He isnât.
âYouâre still on duty,â he says.
âSo is Eld.â
âEld isnât the one Iâm talking to.â
Your lips part slightly, half in surprise, half in disbelief. âNo. I suppose not.â
Leviâs hands ball into fists at his sides. He wants to ask what that means. He wants to ask if thereâs something between you two. He wants to ask if Eld has touched your hand, if youâve brought Eld tea, if you smiled at Eld the way you used to smile at him. He wants to ask if youâre happy now that youâve stopped talking to him. But he knows he has no right to ask any of it.
âYou should be more careful,â Levi says instead, because his mouth has always known how to be the worst possible weapon. âPeople get the wrong idea when you throw yourself at every man who gives you attention.â
He did not mean to say that.
Your face goes blank. Completely, utterly blank. You donât even look hurt or angry. Itâs just blank. His stomach drops. Your fingers twitch once at your side, but your voice, when it comes, is surprisinglyâpainfullyâeased.
âI see.â
You step back. Levi says your name. It leaves him before he can stop it, stripped of rank and anger and all the useless armor he keeps trying to force between himself and whatever the hell youâre doing to him.
âDonât, Captain.â You turn away and leave without looking back.
The title hits harder than if you had slapped him. He honestly would have preferred if you slapped him. Levi just stands there, frozen, watching you leave while the recruits pretend not to stare, pretending that they didnât just overhear the most emotionally charged conversation theyâve heard in their entire time in the military.
He thinks of following you at first. Then he thinks of what he would say. Nothing comes. Nothing that would undo it. Nothing that would explain why he keeps turning fear into a knife and then acting surprised when you bleed. So he stays where he is until your figure disappears amongst the crowd. Only then does he realize Eld has stopped near the fence and is looking at him with disappointment. Levi looks away first.
By the time he reaches his office, the anger has returned, boiling hotter than shame. He shuts the door harder than necessary, and the sound breaks through the silence of the room before it rushes back in, deeper than before. He looks at the teacup waiting on the corner of the desk, empty, because heâs not yet made tea and you no longer do.
Itâs better this way, he tells himself. No more pointless kindness. No more interruptions. No more break snuck to him because you noticed he skipped a meal. No more stupid confessions. No more of you looking at him like he could be anything other than what he is. A soldier. A killer. A survivor by habit, not by virtue. A man who has spent his life learning the names of the people he couldnât save.
Levi grips the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white. He remembers the exact words he said to you not two hours ago. The memory of your face after he said it hits him with such force that his breath hitches.
âFuck,â he mutters.
He pushes away from the desk, pacing once toward the window, then back again, restless energy crawling beneath his skin. He wants to clean something. He wants to tear something apart. He wants to go back in time into the yard and rip the words out of the air before they can reach you. If he could, he would slap himself before he could even get the words out.
Instead, he does nothing. His thoughts circle you first. Your hand in his field of vision as it places tea on his desk. Your melodic voice. Your laugh across the mess hall. Your eyes, now careful, guarded because he taught you to guard them.
Then Eld. Eld standing too close. Eld making you laugh. Eld smiling at you. Eld looking at you like he wouldnât punish you for wanting to be wanted.
Leviâs jaw clenches so hard it aches. This isnât about Eld. Thatâs the truth, and he hates it. Eld is a good soldier. Loyal. Kind without making a spectacle of it. Heâs the kind of man who probably knows how to accept affection. The kind of man who might say yes if you chose him instead.
The thought makes Leviâs stomach turn. He braces both hands on the desk and lowers his head. He realizes now what heâs been avoiding. It isnât jealousy; it isnât irritation or discipline or concern with professionalism. Itâs fear. Raw fear.
Itâs been there from the start, waiting beneath every rejection, every insult, every cold turn of his shoulder. He sees it now. You were never the danger. Wanting you was. Wanting you means imagining you outside the walls and worrying you wonât return. Wanting you means knowing the exact sound of your laugh and then imagining a world where he never hears it again. Wanting you means letting your existence become a part of his own, and losing you would nearly kill him. No, it would kill him.
And Levi knows loss.
His mother. Kuchel, pale and motionless in a bed that heâd seen too much of. Her hand no longer able to reach for him. Her voice gone before he was old enough to understand all the ways the world could take from him.
Then Isabel. Loud, passionate Isabel, with her recklessness and her impossible faith that the world above could be something other than a nightmare. Isabel, who had called him big brother with such devotion that heâd pretended to hate it because pretending was safer than letting himself feel vulnerable.Â
Furlan too. Furlan, who had trusted Leviâs judgement more than anyone had a right to, who followed him out of the Underground, who believed, who died because the world is merciless and Levi is never fast enough when it matters most.
His comrades. Countless comrades buried beneath banners and speeches and the rotten consolation that they died for humanityâs cause. Faces that once turned toward him in trust before the Titans took them.Â
Connection, to Levi, has never been safe. To him, itâs a door opening into a room that will one day be empty. A hand reaching for his that will one day go cold. A voice saying his name that will one day stop answering.Â
So he rejected you. Again and again and again. And some sick, righteous part of him had called it mercy. If he kept you away, you would be safer. If he made you stop loving him, you would stop standing too close to the blast radius of everything he loses. If he refused to want you, then losing youâif the world ever took you, when the world took youâwould not destroy him.
Except youâre not gone. Youâre alive. And heâs still managed to lose you.
Levi sits slowly in his chair, his legs suddenly feeling unsteady. He did this. Not titans. Not the Underground. Not fate, not duty, not the walls, not the endless bloody machinery of survival. Him. His fear. His hands pushing away the one person stubborn enough to keep reaching for him. To keep trusting him.
He doesnât move for a while. The office grows darker around him, the last of the daylight fading behind the curtains. Somewhere outside, he hears footsteps. Theyâre not yours. He wishes he wasnât so disappointed. He hears voices fall and rise. Life continues with an indifference that feels almost insulting.
Then comes a knock at the door. For a moment, he thinks foolishly that itâs you. Then the hope is snuffed by reality, and he doesnât bother answering. The door opens anyway. Hange steps inside, takes one look at him sitting motionless behind his desk, and pauses. They already have a knowing look on their face.
âYou know,â Hange says, closing the door behind them,â for someone so smart, youâre impressively stupid about feelings.â
Levi sighs deeply. âFuck off, Four Eyes. Not in the mood.â
âNo, I imagine youâre not.â Hange approaches without waiting for permission and leans against the edge of the desk. âI saw what happened. Eld looked like he wanted to hit you.â
âEld knows better.â
âMm. He does. Thatâs probably the only reason he didnât.â
Levi looks away. The words should irritate himâand they doâbut beneath the irritation is shame, and shame has sharper teeth. Hange studies him for a moment.
âWhat did you say to her?â they ask.
Leviâs eyelids flutter down briefly. It would be easy for him to lie. He could tell Hange to get out and leave him alone with the wreckage he caused. Instead, because some exhausted part of him is too tired to keep bleeding in secret, he says, âSomething I shouldnât have.â
âThat bad?â Levi gives them a look, and it makes Hange wince. âOuch. That bad.â
Silence settles between them. For once, Hange doesnât rush to fill it. Levi stares at the teacup near his hand. He wonders if you still make tea for yourself. He hasnât seen you near the tea station in a whileâbut then again, you could just be avoiding him that efficiently. Or perhaps you just avoid the places where he lingers.
âShe stopped,â he says finally.
âYou asked her to,â Hange says.
âI know.â
âDid you mean it?â
Leviâs throat tightens. That should be an easy question. He's built his entire life on making hard answers sound simple, but nothing about you has ever been simple, not from the first time you looked at him like he wasnât nearly as scary as everyone was making him out to be.
âI thought I did,â he says.
âAnd now?â Hange asks.
Leviâs hand wraps around the teacup, though thereâs nothing in it. He thinks of you laughing with Eld. He thinks of your face going blank. He thinks of how much easier it was when you loved him loudly enough that he could pretend your heart was the problem and not his own cowardice.
âI donât know how to do this,â he says.
Hange doesnât ask what this meansâthey know. âStart by not hurting her every time she gets close.â
Levi bitterly laughs once under his breath. âBrilliant advice.â
âYouâre ever so welcome.â His eyes lift to meet them, and Hangeâs expression is painfully serious now. He hates when they look like thisâit means theyâre impossible to escape. âYouâre allowed to be scared, Levi.â
He looks away instantly. âNo.â
âYes,â they say, firmer. âYou are. After everything youâve lost, youâd be insane not to be. But being scared doesnât give you the right to make her feel disposable.â
Leviâs stomach churns. âI know,â he says. It sounds like defeat. Maybe it is.
Hangeâs voice gentles. âDo you love her?â
Levi freezes. His first instinct is to refuse. His second is anger. His third is to remember your face. Your smile. Your voice that softens only for him. Your absence now, filling his office more than your presence ever dared. Levi lowers his gaze. Thereâs nothing to hide behind anymore.
He nods.
Hange doesnât smile like they normally would. They only nod once, confirming what they already knew and had been kind enough to let him reach on his own. âThen youâd better figure out how to say that to her before someone else does.â Levi glares at them, and they lift both hands in defense. âJust being real. Sheâs a catch.â
Real. Levi has always hated that word, but this reality sits in front of him now, unavoidable. He loves you. He hurt you. You might not wait for him to become brave. The idea ought to make him stand, should send him out of his office, down the corridor, to your door with an apology and every wall inside him burning down behind it. Instead, he stays seated, because despite his love being genuine, the fear that was born first is still the one to rule.
Hange pushes away from the desk. âFor what itâs worth,â they say at the door, âI think she loved you enough to listen.â
Loved. Past tense. Levi flinches at that. Hange notices, but they leave anyway, the door clicking shut behind them. Levi sits alone in the dark with the word still lodged in his chest.
Loved.
.
Levi didnât plan on drinking. He doesnât drink. Not normally. He definitely doesnât drink because he enjoys it. Enjoyment has always been something he doesnât trust easily. He drinks because the bottle has been sitting untouched in the bottom drawer of his desk ever since Erwin left it there three months ago after some late night visit that had run past midnight and into the hours of the morning. He drinks because the office is silent now. He drinks because Hangeâs question wonât stop replaying in his mind.
Do you love her?
He grabs the glass and pours the amber liquid into the cup with a hint of anger and almost spite. He doesnât lift the glass for a toast to the empty room. Thereâs nothing worth celebrating or honoring in this moment. No winning, no relief, no opening up of himself that could be considered noble or brave. Thereâs only the fact that he loves you. And because Levi is a man whoâs lived by the rule of cutting off weakness before the world can get its hands on it, that very fact feels like a wound in his gut, and he has no idea how to bandage it.Â
He drinks. The liquor burns down his throat and warms his chest. The heat gives him something physical to hate for a blessed second. He pours again. Outside his office, the headquarters eases into a slumber. Someoneâs laughter echoes down the corridor before itâs hushed by another person. A door closes somewhere else. The fact that life continues is taunting him, acting like it doesnât matter that his entire world has shifted because you finally stopped loving him.
Well, you didnât stop. He doesnât know if you stopped. He only knows you learned how to be silent about it. He taught it to you. The thought makes his heart skip a beat.
Levi leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, but the darkness behind them provides no mercy. It gives him the image of you instead, because his mind canât go anywhere else. He imagines you in the supply room. You in the corridor, placing bread in his hand. You in the stables, admiring his connection to animals. You outside of the infirmary with both physical and emotional wounds. You in the courtyard today, your face going blank after he used your own affection against you.
âDamn it,â he mutters, pressing the heel of his hand against his brow ridge. Heâd just meant to protect himself. Heâd looked at the recklessness of your devotion and saw every grave heâs stood over. His motherâs body. Isabelâs smile turned slack. Furlanâs trust, wasted on the impossible idea that Levi could let them all out alive.
Levi drinks again and again. The room begins to spin slightly. His reflection waits in the dark window as he turns to face it. Pale, blurred, a man with too much blood on his hands. A man who has no idea what to do with love except ruin it. Heâs a coward.
If rejecting you had been mercy, then why had it only hurt you? If pushing you away had been kindness, then why had your voice gone so careful around him? If he had been protecting you, then why does the memory of your face make him feel like the danger was never the world outside the walls, but him?
He pours again, his hand shaking this time, and a small amount spills onto the desk. Normally, he would reach immediately for a cloth. Tonight, he only stares at the dark stain spreading over the polished wood. His mouth twists in both disgust and irritation.
âGreat,â he says to no one.
Every time he raises the cup, it feels heavier. So does the truth. He loves you. He loves the way you say his name. He loves the stubborn tilt of your chin when you refuse to let his cruelty be the only thing between you. He loves you for noticing when he doesnât eat, doesnât sleep, when heâs so angry that you know grief alone couldnât cause it. He loves you, and it scares him so much that heâs tempted to seek refuge behind every locked door inside himself.
Instead, drunk and stripped bare by the quiet, Levi thinks of you. Your room is down the corridor, past the turn by the east stairwell, three doors from the end. He knows it by heart, despite not being there often.
For several long minutes, he sits motionless with the glass in his hand, raises to press against his forehead. He breathes deeply through the horrible desire of wanting to see you and the equally horrible knowledge that, deep down, he has no right to ask anything of you now.
Then he stands. His vision swims. Levi grips the desk, scowling at the fact that he canât even balance himself. Itâs pathetic, he thinks groggily, but he doesnât sit back down. He leaves the bottle open on the desk. The spilled liquor dries beside his hand. He stumbles into the corridor.Â
You need to hear the truth from him. Even if you no longer want it.
.
You sit on the edge of your bed with a half-mended shirt in your lap, needle in your fingers. The motions are familiar after years of practice, though it has been a while since youâve needed to mend something. Youâre surprised, considering the less than gentle treatment your clothing constantly endures. Youâre glad, however, that your mother taught you how to sew. You think briefly that you should send her a letter soon.Â
Then a knock comes. Itâs so late in the night that you think you might have imagined it. You shake your head, dislodging the illusion, and return to your sewing. But then the knock comes again, more urgent. Your hands stop moving. Your stomach turns at the first thought that comes to your mind. But you know itâs not him. Why would it be? You sigh and set the shirt aside, then stand.
When you open the door, youâre immediately proven wrong. Levi is standing before you, one hand braced against the doorframe, his hair slightly messy, his cravat loose at the throat, his eyes too dazed. Levi is many thingsâcontrolled, scary enough to whip grown men into shape just by entering a room, but heâs never this. Never unsteady or vulnerable. Never looking at you like this as if heâs spent the entire night debating and fighting over the urge to go to your room, still not knowing whether he deserves to enter.
âCaptain?â you say.
His face twists. He leans in slightlyânot intentionally, but from a loss of balance. âDonât call me that.â
Then you smell the liquor. You blink, taken aback. âLevi, are you drunk?â
His mouth pulls into a line thatâs too bitter to be a smile. âUnfortunately.â
You donât know what to do. You donât know what to do with him at your door in the middle of the night, drunk enough that heâs tipping over but sober enough that his eyes are still full of pain. You donât know if you should let him in or tell him to screw off, whether to be worried or angry, whether to protect yourself or reach for him before he walls. And the worst part is that deep down, you still want to care for him.
âWhy are you here?â you ask.
Levi looks at you, and his face breaks in a way youâve never seen before. âI fucked up.â
The words come rough and raw. Theyâre not even surprising to you, because youâve known that for weeks now, but hearing him say it is different. You peer down the hall and step aside before you can convince yourself not to.
âCome in before someone sees you like this.â He enters slowly. You close the door behind him, and when you turn around, heâs just standing there, his shoulders and hands tensed, looking at everything except your face. âYou should sit down.â
âNo.â
âLeviââ
âI wanted you.â You freeze. His eyes finally lift to yours. âI wanted you. Every damn time. Every time you said it, every time you smiled at me, every time you made those stupid jokes. I wanted to say yes. And I didnât, because Iâm a coward.â
You swear all of the air in the room escapes at that moment. You stare at him, your heart pounding in your chest, shock and hurt and old longing colliding so violently that you almost feel sick. This is what you wanted once, isnât it? This confession, this man standing in front of you and finally saying the thing youâve been dying to hear. But it only came after he drank. After heâs made you feel stupid for offering what he now claims he wanted. You swallow hard.
âYouâre drunk,â you say. âWe shouldnât talk about this now.â
âNo,â Levi says, stepping closer, then stopping himself. âYouâre going to hear it. You listened to every shitty thing I said. You can listen to this too.â
Heâs not wrong. You did listen. Every time. You stood there and took every dismissal, every wound, and you kept making excuses for him because loving him was easier than admitting he had been hurting you on purpose.
Your eyes burn. âFine,â you whisper. âSay it, then.â
âIâm sorry,â Levi says. He swallows, looks down, then forces himself to look at you again. âIâm sorry for all of it. For making you feel like you were stupid for caring. For treating you like dirt under my shoes. For taking every good thing you gave me and throwing it away because I didnât know how to deal with it.â
Your throat closes. You want to hate him. You think hatred would be far easier than thisâthe fact that you still love him while still remembering why you learned to retreat. âYou made me feel pathetic.â Levi flinches at that. For a second, youâre happy, and then you hate yourself for thinking that.
âI know,â he says, his voice smaller than youâve ever heard it.
âYou made me wish I hadnât said any of it,â you continue. âI meant it every time, Levi. Even when I made it sound like a joke. Even when I smiled. Even when everyone laughed. I meant it, and youââ You pause. âYou made me feel humiliated.â
Leviâs eyes close briefly. When he opens them again, theyâre wet. âI know.â
âThat doesnât fix it.â
âIâm not trying to fix it.â
âThen what are you trying to do here?â
He looks at you so helplessly that it hurts you. âI donât know how to do this.â
âDo what?â
His gaze drops to your hands, then returns to your face, and when he speaks, the words sound like theyâve been dragged out of the deepest, most guarded place in him. A place you have rarely, if ever, seen.
âLove someone.â
The room goes silent. The candle flickers across his face. Your heart twists. Levi takes a shaky breath. You match him.
âBut I love you. I do. And Iâm sorry it took me hurting you to stop lying about it.â
Part of you wants to reach for him. The other part of you wants to step back. You want to tell him you love him too, and you always have. You want to ask why love had to be dressed in apology. Instead, you look at the floor between you.
âLevi,â you say quietly. âI still love you. But Iâm hurt.â
âI know,â he says.
âAnd I donât forgive you yet.â
âGood.â That surprises you. You raise both eyebrows, and he gives a humorless little exhale. âYou shouldnât. Not just because I finally stopped lying to myself.â
âYou need to sit down,â you say.
This time, he doesnât argue. He lowers himself into the chair by your desk, elbows resting on his knees, head lowered. He looks so exhausted. You pour him some water from your pitcher and bring it to him. Both of you freeze momentarily when his fingers brush yours when he takes the cup. He withdraws first.
âIâll say it again when Iâm sober,â he says hoarsely. You look down at him. âIf youâll let me.â
Your fingers curl around the empty space where the cup had been. The answer should be simple, but it isnât. You donât know if you want to hear those words without the barrier of alcohol. They might just break your resolve.
After a moment, you nod. âSay it sober,â you whisper. âAnd then weâll see.â
Levi nods and closes his eyes.
.
Morning breaks through the thin curtains, laying a strip of light across the floor and the half-mended shirt still folded at the end of your bed. Levi wakes in a chairâthe same chair he was in last night. Heâs no stranger to falling asleep in chairs. Where others would be aching, he feels fine, save for the headache pulsing behind his eyes.
He doesnât remember where he is for a second. Then he looks around, and he remembers everything about last night. The drinking. Coming to your door. Your face when he said he wanted you. Him confessing his love.
Levi sighs. Across the room, youâre laying in bed, turned toward the wall, blanket pulled to your shoulder. You look peaceful, or close enough to peaceful that guilt moves through him with a force that nearly brings him to his feet to leave before you can wake up. Maybe that would be better. He could go back to his quarters and pretend this never happened.
He shifts carefully, trying not to make the chair creak, but the movement sends pain up his spine and a low sound leaves him before he can swallow it. You stir in your sleep and wake. Levi freezes. You open your eyes slowly and turn around to face him. Now that he looks at you, you donât look like youâve just woken up from sleep. You donât have that grogginess most do, and your hair is neatly brushed.
He gets confirmation of this when you get out of bed and grab a teacup, filled with tea that you must have brewed before he woke up. You carry it over to him. He stares at it, then at you, and you hold it out.
âWell?â you say.
Levi takes the teacup, though his fingers shake around the porcelain. He doesnât even bother to hide it this time. He looks at the caution in your eyes, the hurt still sitting behind it, the hope that lingers. His mouth dries and his throat closes up, but he forces the words out anyway.
âI love you,â he says.
Your lips part slightly. âYouâre sure?â
Levi lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh, though itâs not really a laugh, more like an exhale of exhaustion laced with a hint of relief. âI was sure before,â he says. âI was just an idiot.â
Your face crumples for a second. You never thought this day would come, that he could utter those words. You didnât realize how badly you wanted this. How much it cost to hear it now.
He sets the tea aside and stands, keeping enough distance that you can choose whether to close it. Youâre not sure if you want to yet, but the urge trembles between you.Â
âIâm sorry,â he says again.
You look down, blinking hard to force the tears back. âPlease donât hurt me every time youâre scared.â
Levi nods. âI wonât. I promise.â
The silence comes to rest between you. Then, carefully, you step forward and reach for his hand. Levi looks down as your fingers touch his, stunned by the gentleness of it, by the fact that after everything, youâre still willing to reach out. He grabs your hand and wraps his fingers around yours.
