hi!! sorry if this is a silly question, but is levi month for the month of july? or maybe august or june? idk if you’ve already said but yeah i was just wondering lol 😭😭
Oh it’s August! Not a silly question at all, I’m sorry it looks so invisible on the poster here, sometimes when you import the picture the platform changes how it looks 🥲 On top of already pixelating it…it’s (and everything else too 😭) much clearer when you click on the picture, written right below the giant “#levimonth26”
@levievent's LeviNSFW26 day 01: postwar + age difference
⋆˙⟡ levi didn't really need an assistant at the tea shop…
⋆˙⟡ postwar!Levi x Marleyan ex-soldier fem!reader. 4.2k words. NSFW. age difference, a little background for the reader, blowjobs, cum eating, semi-public (stockroom), handjobs, giving levi a bath/showering together, unprotected piv, cowgirl and creampie (mentioned)
uggghhh took me a while to get back to writing. i've completely lost confidence in my writing (myself, in general) the past month, been so demotivated because of it while also so drained at work :( anyways, i hope you all still like this even if i dont lol honestly, i wasn't going to post this if it weren't for @aphroditaeon (she believes in me more than i myself😂) 🫶❤️ thank you, as always, for being my number one supporter!!! <333
read on AO3 | masterlist | header by @uzmacchiato
Levi doesn’t need an assistant at the tea shop. It’s barely been a year since it opened! He can count in both hands his regulars and most days are slow since there are plenty of other more established tea shops around and cafes that offer the so-called ‘coffee’ drink that the younger generation seem to prefer. But Gabi was persistent. Said you were good at chores and that you would be a big help at managing the shop. Even used the “her landlady would evict her if she missed another rent payment” guilt card which forced him to agree. That wasn’t his concern, still isn’t, but as people say: third time’s a charm—fortunately for Gabi (and you) and unfortunately for him. Twice he was able to say no, but the third, he couldn’t anymore. Not when Gabi brought you with her. Not when the way you looked at him made him weak in his already-weak-knees. He didn’t understand it then and he still doesn’t until now.
And he definitely can’t fathom how or why he’s in the stock room, slouched on a stool, thighs trembling, head thrown back against a jar of tea leaves, and mouth open in a breathy sigh while his cock slides in and out of your mouth.
He’s not going to lie, you really are good at maintaining the cleanliness of the shop. You even donated potted plants to make the shop look appealing and a phonograph to play classical songs in the background, bringing color and life to the place. It’s only been six months since you started, yet you’ve already brought so much life to the shop (read: to his life), so much more than he ever could and would. There’s not one bad thing he could say about you, not one reason to fire you. You need not be told what to do, always ready to greet the customers with a smile (something he isn’t good at), prepared to help them choose which tea to drink (which, to his surprise, you know a lot of), serve orders right after they’re made, and clean up after the customers left. You’d wash the used teacups without being told, wipe them dry, and organize them on the overhead cupboards just the way he prefers. It didn’t take him long to realize he’s been watching you (and enjoying it) from behind the counter all this time.
And you are so, so good at making him feel good. So fucking nice to look at when you’re on the ground and between his knees, your calloused fingers wrapped around the base of his cock, stroking him slowly while you suck at the head. He forces himself to look at you, eyes half-lidded, his cheeks a faint red, and it always catches him off-guard, makes him choke out a gasp, when he finds you already looking at him. A hum escapes his throat at the sight of your smile around his cock, his eyes rolling back so hard when your lips wrap around his head.
He breathes your name out, setting his eyes on you again. “Go deeper,” he murmurs.
You prop yourself up with your forearms on his thighs, careful not to hurt his knee. He grabs at the shelves on each side of him, gripping so hard his fingers turn white, still unable to make himself touch you with his disgusting hands. You let go of his cock, and he chokes out a moan, head hitting the jars on his back when you take all of him into your mouth, deep down your throat that your nose touches his stomach and you twitch and gag on his head. A sharp pain tears through his knee when his hips buck up in reflex, thrusting his dick further despite already hitting the back of your throat. You pull back with a loud gasp and an admonishing laugh that makes him sigh out another cuss. Levi watches you caressing his thighs. You’re staring back at him, tongue stuck out and pressed against the frenulum of his cock, your hands momentarily sliding up his pelvis and under the fabric of his shirt while his cock disappears into your mouth once more.
“Fuck—” he utters weakly, body shuddering as his cockhead hits the back of your throat.
He can’t believe he’s once again allowed himself to be this pathetic disabled man so easily reduced to a whimpering mess by a girl fifteen years younger than him. How can he let you do this? And in his tea shop, for that matter! How can he disgrace you and his little tea shop?!
How the heck are you so good? How the heck do you look so fucking good with your mouth around his cock?
“Fuck,” he sighs, thighs shaking, the coils in his belly starting to tighten. Your fingers wrap around his girth once more, stroking him while you kiss down his length, earning a twitch from his cock and a stream of pre-cum leaking from the slit. “I think I’m—”
“Please, Captain,” you cut him off, smiling prettily. Knowingly. He loves it when you call him that, you can tell. Even when he says he’s not that person anymore.
“Shit!” His toes curl in his shoes.
You grab at his hips, bracing yourself as you take him back into your mouth. He cries out a moan, and when his head hits your uvula and your throat tightens around him from another gag, the coil in his stomach finally snaps. His body shudders as a huge wave of pleasure takes over. You pull back slightly, fingers immediately wrapping around the base, stroking him hard and fast while you suck the cum right out his twitching cock. Suck harder and his soul might also leave his body. Levi bucks his hips once, twice, and stops when the pain in his knee becomes too much. He lets out a whimper, though he’s unsure if it’s because of the pain, or the pleasure, or the desperation to fill your throat until you’re choking on his cum. You giggle around him, eventually pulling away once he’s finished. Levi lets out a breathy sigh, tired yet very satisfied, as he watches the movement in your throat when you swallow.
Smiling, you wipe the corner of your mouth for a little show. “You good?”
“Yeah,” he answers, breathless. “Are you?”
You nod. “Felt good?”
“Yes.” No doubt about that.
You stand up. He straightens up in his seat when you begin to unzip your pants.
“Brat,” he utters, alarmed. He knows where this is going. You’re going to ride him next, and it wouldn’t even take him five minutes before he’s cumming again.
With the boots you’re wearing, you struggle a little to step out of your pants and underwear. It’s one of the things he likes about you: the not-so-fancy clothes or dresses (not that he’s going to ever say that out loud—at least, not yet).
“What?” you chuckle. “A good soldier should be rewarded, right?”
“Yes, but—” The words die in his throat when you sit on his lap. His hands immediately find your waist, keeping you still.
You lightly poke his nose before draping your arms over his shoulders. “Never had a girl go head over heels for you when you were younger?” A rhetorical question, one you always ask when you’re doing this with him. You know he would’ve had a line of women vying for his attention. You’re sure he was famous not just because he was Captain of a squad. Even until now, despite the broken eye and the scar on his face, he’s still the most handsome man you’ve ever laid eyes upon.
But Levi sighs, quietly as if he doesn’t want you hearing it. There’s a sad smile on his face, almost regretful, that you would’ve missed if you aren’t looking closely.
“I didn’t know,” he says, thumbs lightly brushing your hips. “With the threat of titans and all the fighting to survive, I didn’t have time for such things.”
Your shoulders drop. Levi lost half of his life battling monsters because of your people. Because of you. You begin to wonder how he could keep you with him at the shop. By his side. You can’t understand how he could still look at you so gently like you weren’t someone who killed his people during the war.
A gentle squeeze on your hips pulls you back to reality.
“You’re in there again,” he murmurs knowingly.
You shrug it off, then respond with a coy smile, “well, now you’ve got all the time in the world.” He only hums, and you take that as a positive response and begin rolling your hips, rubbing your wetness against his cock. “And we’ll make every second of it count.”
His hands trail up, staying at your waist. “I’m too old for you.”
You pause just to click your tongue at him, as if scolding a child. “Only I get to say that.”
“It’s true though,” he insists.
Pressing your foreheads together, you resume rolling your hips into his. “Fifteen years isn’t a lot.” You place a chaste kiss on his lips.
“You do know how much fifteen years is, don’t you?” he chuckles.
A loud knock from the main door startles the two of you. Levi glances at his wristwatch.
“They aren’t supposed to be back in another hour!” you cry out, pulling yourself away from him. “Ugh!”
Gabi’s shouting outside, calling your name and Levi’s. You quickly put back your underwear and pants on, glancing at Levi as he pushes himself up from the chair. You hurry over to help him pull his pants up to his waist.
“Go. Tell them we’re stocking up the shelves.”
You look over at the boxes of tea, none of which are open.
“Five minutes.” You close the door behind you.
Levi straightens his clothes and starts unboxing, get things moving even a little bit. Outside the stockroom, he hears you asking the trio how their days went, making small talks. You discuss your plan for dinner, a little belated celebration for Falco’s birthday. It doesn’t take long before Gabi’s asking about Levi while walking towards the stockroom.
“Hey, old man,” she calls over to the man in question, who has just opened the second box. “Let’s get going! It’s the weekend!”
“It’s only Friday,” he answers.
“Friday night,” she points out.
Levi glances at his watch. “Ten minutes to four.”
“Come on, Grandpa,” Gabi chuckles, rolling her eyes. “You need to relax sometimes!”
Huh. He does need to relax after what you’ve done to him. He could still feel his heart hammering in his chest after his last orgasm!
“I’ll just finish this second box,” he answers with a sigh.
“Falco’s gonna help with the rest of the boxes!” Gabi volunteers, turning to the boy in question. “Right, Falco?”
“Of course,” he answers in a “do-I-get-a-choice” sigh.
Thirty minutes later, your group heads out to a steakhouse downtown, where you wait for another half hour before a table big enough to accommodate your group is cleared. You each get a steak meal, fruit juices for the kids, and a bottle of wine for yourself, Levi, and Onyankopon. A simple celebration. Quiet, but a happy one. Gabi recounts memories when she and Falco were still with the Warriors, birthdays they celebrated with Udo and Zofia. There is bitterness in her voice even though she’s smiling through her stories. You hate reminiscing. There’s nothing nice to remember when you were still in the military, not when the only friend you had died in battle. It was your fault after all. He may still be alive if only you didn’t run away. He may still be alive if you took him with you when you ran away.
You have been selfish. You still are, choosing to show up before Levi everyday despite knowing you were once with the people who made their lives a living hell.
“So, tell us what you’re grateful for, Falco!” Gabi’s voice pulls you out of your thought bubble.
You glance in Levi’s way, realizing he’s watching. He must’ve noticed you zoning out, knows what thoughts are in your head. You look away, pretending to stir your wine.
Falco’s reluctant for a moment. “Well… I am grateful that we are all here and that you remembered my… my birthday,” his voice cracks, tears clouding his vision. “It’s been a while since we’ve celebrated this peacefully.”
“Aww, you’re such a cry-baby!” Gabi teases. “What else?”
“That’s it,” he sniffles.
“That’s it?!” She complains.
“A-huh. Your turn.”
“What? It isn’t my birthday!”
“It isn’t, but the birthday celebrant wants to hear what you all have to say too,” Falco says with a chuckle, looking at each of you across the table.
Gabi smacks her forehead, earning a laugh from Onyankopon, who volunteers to go next. He says he’s grateful for the food and that he got a job to keep himself from starving and to keep a roof over his head. Then, he passes the spotlight to you.
You know what to say but somehow, the words won’t come out. You don’t want to ruin the mood, but besides the fact that you get to do whatever you’re doing with Levi—which, you obviously can’t disclose to anyone around the table—the only other thing you are grateful for is that…
“...I ran away,” you say, almost inaudible. Then, you look up, meeting Levi’s eyes, and in a louder voice you continue, “if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here with you all. What I did was a disgrace, but I’m glad I did it.” You swallow, remembering your late friend. “Somehow,” you added shakily, unsure suddenly, shame immediately eating up your insides.
“You still fought,” Falco points out. “And you kept us safe. Remember?”
“Mhm!” Gabi agrees eagerly. “You looked after our families!”
You nod, although weakly, as if you aren’t convinced yourself.
“None of you kids should’ve been there,” Onyankopon adds.
There’s a bitter smile on your lips when you turn to him. “I’m no kid. I’m twenty-five.” But you understand him. You were nineteen when you were conscripted. No one at that age should’ve experienced being in the frontlines of war.
“You did what you had to do to live,” says Gabi. “We all did.”
You shrug, turning back to Levi. “Not so good a soldier, am I?”
He doesn’t answer. You know he thinks otherwise. He always tells you what you did isn’t wrong. That you should’ve had a choice back then.
He holds your gaze for a moment, and knowing it’s his turn without you having to voice it out, he says, “I’m grateful that we are all here celebrating.”
“Come on, you can do better than that,” Gabi protests.
Levi looks at her, unbothered. “Your turn.”
Gabi purses her lips. And then, she sighs and smiles softly. “We made it out alive.”
“That’s it?” Falco counters.
“That’s it!” She raises her glass of juice. “Cheers to us!”
That’s something you all easily agree with. Glasses raise and clinks together for a toast to what’s ahead and to the birthday celebrant.
They’re right. What matters is you being here. You are alive. What’s done is done, and you only did what you had to do to stay alive. You will forever bear the guilt of running away, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be happy anymore.
The day ends sooner than you would’ve wanted. You and Levi part ways from Onyankopon, Gabi, and Falco, whose houses are in the opposite direction. You pull your coat tighter around yourself, closing the space between you and Levi after looking behind you to confirm the trio are out of eyeshot. You shove your hands into your pockets, kick at the thin sheet of snow that covers the ground, before latching onto Levi’s arm.
“So cold,” you chuckle.
“Take my scarf.”
You squeeze his arm. “I’m good. Thank you.”
The two of you walk in silence, side by side, until you finally reach your house.
Standing at your doorstep, you turn to face him with a shy smile. “It’d be nice to have someone to cuddle with on this cold night.”
“Just ask, brat,” he says with an eyeroll and a chuckle.
You open the door and take his hand. “You should come in.”
And he does, closing the door behind him. You kiss him slowly, your cold hands trailing up his chest and hooking over his shoulders. It’s so quiet all you hear is the sound of your lips against his, none of his breathing nor yours, for time seems to have stopped and with it your lungs from needing air. He is your oxygen, your blood. Everything you need. He gently wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer. Pulling away slightly, you smile at his pink cheeks and smoldering eyes.
“Stay for the night,” you hum, touching his cheek. Warm. They feel so nice against your fingers.
“We both had drinks.”
“Nothing will happen,” you promise.
You both know that’s a lie.
You take his hand and turn to face… the stairs. “Shit. I forgot.”
“I didn’t.” He squeezes your hand. Reassuring. “Go start heating water. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“I can still walk, brat,” he points out, no heat in his voice.
You let out a little cheer before placing a peck on his lips and then heading upstairs.
He steps out of his shoes, pushing them aside by the main door, which he makes sure is locked before following you upstairs. Levi tries not to be negatively affected by it, but it still takes him almost a minute to climb just an eight-step staircase. Forty six seconds, to be exact, for just eight steps. For fuck’s sake.
He’s not the kind of man you should be with.
When you come out of the bathroom, you’re humming to a song, dressed in just your plum sweater and underwear, walking into your room to get a pair of sleepwear for you and Levi. He takes a moment to catch his breath and lets the burning sensation in his knee subside. You always remind him to be patient with himself. Healing and recovering takes time, you always say, and you’ve always been patient with him even when he’s too much of a burden. You deserve better.
But he can’t leave you. Whatever it is he feels for you, he feels so intensely, he can’t bring himself to walk away.
“You good?”
He lets out a deep sigh. “Yeah.”
You hug the clothes and towels against your chest and take his hand, leading him to the bathroom. You help him undress, unbuttoning his trench coat, taking his shirt off, then his slacks, underwear, and socks. He watches you fold them neatly on the counter before starting the shower, letting the water run for a few seconds until steam fills the bathroom and clouds the mirror. You help him step into the bath with you, enjoying a short moment of comfort under the hot water that pours over your heads and down your bodies. When it’s time to bathe, he leans back against the wall while you scratch his hair to wet it thoroughly. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why he doesn’t want to go: he likes how you take care of him. He likes this kind of affection.
It feels so nice he wants time to stop so he could be with you for as long as possible. You always make him feel that way.
Maybe it isn’t so bad to want to be cared for the rest of his life.
He places his good hand on your back, the one with complete fingers, letting it sit at the top of your bum. You take a step closer, right thigh between his thighs, so close that it rubs against his cock whenever you move. He keeps his eyes glued to yours. You stare back, a ghost of a smile curling your lips. You know what you’re doing to him, what each barely-there contact does, sending jolts up his belly, rousing his body from sleep. The first twitch comes when you scratch at his undercut, and he barely manages to suppress the moan that escapes his mouth.
“Don’t tease,” he groans, and you only laugh. A bit late for that, because by the time you’re done washing the soap from his body, his cock’s already up.
“You sure you don’t want to?” You ask with a lilt in your voice.
No. He swallows down the word and says, “let’s not waste water.”
You chuckle. “Okay, gramps. Your back, please.”
He turns around, hands pressed on the wall for support. He notices the holes.
“What are these for?”
“Oh…” you hesitate, but you know there’s no point in keeping it from him. “I was going to install handrails for you to hold onto at times like this.”
His lips part, but nothing comes out of his mouth. Why would you do that? Why would you go through such lengths for him?
You pull closer, pressing your body to his, arms wrapped around his body. “Don’t you like it?” You ask, thinking his silence must’ve meant he disliked the gesture.
“I— I do… I appreciate it,” he forces out. “But you didn’t have to.”
“Didn’t have to, but I wanted to.” You place a kiss at the nape of his neck. Your left hand inches up his left pectoral, while the other takes his cock and starts stroking it. “It’ll help especially when I do this.”
“Shit—” He murmurs your name.
“Hmm?” You twirl his nipple in your fingers, pulling at it to stiffen. “How about this? Do you like it?”
“Y–yeah…” So much that his knees almost give out when your fingers focus on the head of his cock, stroking deliberately in a circular motion.
“I knew you would,” you murmur with another chuckle, pressing your thumb against the frenulum and then dragging it up the slit, drawing out some precum. That also pulls out a whimper from him and causes his hips to jerk back, which, unfortunately, sends a sharp pain down his bad knee.
Levi says your name in warning. You pull back with an apology.
Fuck. Fuck! He should be the one apologizing.
He shifts his weight on his other leg, but the discomfort in his knee wouldn’t go away.
You grab the soap and start cleaning his back. “Sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You did not.” He turns his face to look you in the eyes.
That brings a smile to your lips as you continue to wash his back, all the way down to his legs and feet. He still can’t believe how you’re patient with him, how you make things so much easier for him without asking anything in return.
How did he get this lucky? Does he even deserve this? Does he deserve you?
When you’re done with his back, you ask him to face you once more so you could wash his front thoroughly. He turns without a word, then pulls you into a hug.
“Oh,” you chuckle, hugging him back. For a moment, it’s just the sound of the shower that can be heard until you look up at him to ask “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he says, even when all he wants to say—to ask for—is that you never get tired of him. “Do you have the rails? Let’s install them tomorrow.”
You smile widely, and it steals his breath away.
When he’s all rinsed, he steps out of the shower to start drying himself with a towel. He watches you wash the shampoo off your hair, his heart swelling with emotions while thoughts race in his mind. He wishes he could do the same to you: wash your hair for you, scrub your body clean, fuck you under the shower, make you cum with his fingers, make you cum some more with his mouth (and his cock, if only his knees could handle his weight.)
He wants to be better for you, but he knows he can’t rush himself to heal. He does have to be patient with himself like you are with him.
“Did I forget anything?” you ask, realizing he’s still in the bathroom.
He shakes his head and starts getting dressed. “I’ll wait for you in bed.”
“Be there in a few minutes.”
Levi prepares the bed for the two of you—that’s the least he could do. And when you finally join him fifteen minutes later, he no longer stops you when you pull his trousers and briefs down and then lay on your stomach between his legs. He watches you closely as you kiss his still soft cock, nuzzling the head with your nose before taking him and stroking him with your mouth, so slowly until he’s hard as a rock and he comes. He doesn’t stop you when you mount him (he does choke out a ‘wait!’, but doesn’t get the chance to ask if you still have pills because you’re already taking him back inside you with your other set of lips). He doesn’t stop himself when he grabs your waist gently, a reminder that he’s got you should you get tired. He doesn’t stop you when you lean forward, pressing him down on the bed with your hands on his chest, as your hips move fast and your moans grow louder, more desperate, even louder, until you’re a twitching and whimpering mess on top of him.
And he doesn’t resist when he says he’s cumming and you tell him to do it inside you.
this fees like it's the first ever fic i've written 😩 hope you all enjoyed it! day2 fic should be ready in the next few days, fingers crossed
Thank you everyone who voted - here are the chosen Levi Month 2026 prompts! 🥰♥️ The official announcement poster will be out few hours later within the day.
Please pick only 10 from each category: kink, AU, duo prompts HERE. The voting will last 4 days and will conclude on June 1st, when the announcement will happen.
Reblogs are much appreciated - and reminder to please refrain from voting multiple times, that just creates more work for me to go through to figure things out and delays the process.
... and this is where i end levi nsfw week 2026 - on a new blog, late and missing a day 😭 lol hope you guys enjoy! until the next oneeee @levievent ao3
Unfortunately for you, you think of Levi at least once everyday. It's not … a debilitating condition that you would diagnose yourself with, but it's becoming a bit of a problem.
You think of the scowl that graces his handsome face when you drink your morning coffees, knowing that he would disapprove of so much caffeine. His voice wriggles into your brain with a smart quip at the times you do something you know is a little stupid. One can't judge too harshly. It's not fair that he's such a handsome man, always looking like he had just waltzed out of a magazine instead of your usual dull university lecture. It's the stuff of daydreams, and many wet dreams. It doesn't help that the two of have reenacted many of them many times.
The first time was an accident. The two of you were busy studying in your room, with Levi occupying your desk and you on your bed with your laptop, typing out an essay. You had asked him to proofread a particularly difficult section on the assignment.
However, instead of taking the laptop you offer him back to the desk, he moved next to you on the bed. Close, thighs touching. He smelt of fresh linens and the faint scent of earl grey.
That had sent your system into haywire, your heart taking on a tumultuous pace. As he turned to face you, no doubt with thoughts about your essay, you blurted out the first thing that never fails to come to mind when you see him.
"I want to kiss you."
Your words had manifested into a strangled kind of sound, something akin to a squawk. Levi had looked shocked for a second, eyes wide, making you wonder if he even knew what you had said.
And then he did. Kiss you. Nearly with no time between the words at all, as if he had been waiting for you all along, Levi kissed you. It was better than what you had imagined.
Then, it spiraled into kissing him in other places.
Fast-forward three weeks after leaping over that line of friendship, you have been thinking of him everyday, which only exacerbates that pesky crush you had on him in the first place that began years ago.
Bent over his desk, nails digging into the plastic wood as he takes you from behind, you think about how you would like to hold his hand and do more than fuck and study. This is the third time today alone you've thought about wanting something more from him, when this was just casual.
You're his friend. You have evidence. He's begrudgingly introduced you to people as his best friend many times before and after this thing between you. You still do friendship film nights where you make fun of his weird philosophical horror, and he pokes your cheek with his index finger to distract you from the tears your shed at the end of your rom-coms.
Levi bends to attach his lips to your shoulder, thrusts slowing but hitting you deeper than before. It's delicious. You moan lightly as his teeth scrape across the skin.
God, you hope he leaves a mark. You need him to. He bites down harder as if he heard every word. His name tumbles from your lips loudly in pleasure. A hand moves to smooth your hair out of the way, he presses his mouth against the free space of your neck. You pretend it's a promise to litter you with marks all over when he has some time to dedicate to you later, and not just something that makes your cunt squeeze around him so he can get off quicker and then leave to meet with Erwin or something to do … whatever.
"Just what are you thinking about, mmh?" Levi breathes into your ear.
"Y-you," your reply nearly gets lost when Levi kisses you again, tongue licking into the cavern of your mouth, "Just thinking of you," you pant when the two of you part for air.
He thrusts into you a few more times before his eyes narrow. He pulls out of you, still hot and hard. You hiss at the loss of him, empty.
What is he thinking? You can never tell.
"Levi, what the fuck—"
"Bed, c'mon. If we keep at it like this, your back is going to give out," he pulls you by the wrist, oddly gentle. Your back is fine — mostly. His eyes remind you of pencil lead when he looks at you so intently like this, "unless you don't feel like it."
You shrug, "It's your bed."
"I-Yeah, fine."
You think he wants to say more, but he's pushing your back into the bed and settling between your thighs before you get the chance to ask.
"Bend your knees for me."
You almost cave from his voice alone, husky in a way that makes you want to hear him wake in the morning and whisper out your name. He kisses and sucks at the flesh of your inner thigh. Your breathe hitches, but you reach down and tap his cheek to get his attention. He looks up and the sight makes you want to cry. He's flushed, wearing the most ridiculously pretty shade of pink across his cheeks and nose.
"You're not eating me out again are you?" You ask curiously, ignoring the way your pulse is hammering at the door of your ribs, wondering when you're going to stop being such a coward and ask for more, " You seriously don't have to."
His fingers find their home between your thighs, gathering the wetness and pressing against your clit. A burst of heat runs through you.
"Clearly the first time wasn't enough. I … I want you to feel good."
"I also felt good when you were hitting it from the back though —" You cut yourself off with soft groan as he inserts a finger into you, prodding that sensitive spot inside you.
"Then that wasn't good enough. You—" he chooses he next words thoughtfully, "—you weren't with me. You were thinking of something else." He dips his head to suck lightly at your nub. The fact that his eyes are glued to you makes your face heat. He catches every crease of your brow and twist of your mouth.
"You're too sweet to me, Levi."
His voice is muffled, but your hear it anyway, "You're the sweet one," over the sound of him plugging up your pussy with his fingers and tongue, "so pretty like this. All you have to do it take it, alright?" He sighs in delight the moment you thread your fingers through his hair. He dives down to lap up all the slick you leak out.
Your core vibrates with need, "Yes-yes, Levi, please."
Until you're writhing over his bedsheets giving him all you have, and long after, you don't think you ever stopped thinking about him.
Please pick only 10 from each category: kink, AU, duo prompts HERE. The voting will last 4 days and will conclude on June 1st, when the announcement will happen.
Reblogs are much appreciated - and reminder to please refrain from voting multiple times, that just creates more work for me to go through to figure things out and delays the process.
Hello there, and thanks for continuing to create these events for us! I've had such a great time writing my own and reading others' fanfictions. I've got some prompts for you for Levi Month 2026! Hope this finds you well! :D
AU Prompts:
Dragon
Fairy
Business rivals
Business partners
Assassin
Bartender
Bookstore
Angel
Demon
Werewolf
Beach
Club
Monster/Monster hunter/monster tamer
Office
Pen pal
Author
Teacher/Faculty
Pottery class
Florist
Mechanic
Home improvement/renovation
Handyman
Podcast
Reality TV Show
Dating show
Spy
Witch
Wizard
Wedding planner
Survival
Fashion designer
Kink submissions:
Getting aroused from sounds made during sex
Bondage
Jerk Off Instructions
Mirror Sex
Queening
Sensory deprivation
Tentacles
Sexual arousal from jealousy
Anonymous sex/glory hole
Teratophilia
Sex at great heights
Outside sex
Pegging
Body painting
Sensation play
Revving (aroused by revving an engine)
Dirty talk
Uniform
Strength
Duo Prompts:
CEO/CEO
Stripper/client
Reality TV Show: Bachelor/contestant
Teacher/Janitor
Boss/Employee
Boss/Secretary
Fashion designer/seamstress (whoever makes the clothes)
Library owner/patron
Bartender/patron/regular
Athlete/athlete
Athlete/coach
Athlete/sports medicine/occupational therapist
Doctor/nurse
Pet sitter/pet sittee
Witch/wizard
Werewolf/vampire
Shapeshifter/human
Shapeshifter/shapeshifter
Knight/dragon
Titan Shifter/Survey Corps soldier
Artist/gallery owner
Master/apprentice
Survey Corps/Military Police
Survey Corps/Garrison
Oh thank you so much! 🥹🫶🏻💕💕 So happy you enjoyed the last event and contributed with such a beautiful work yourself! 😻♥️ (and gave me a new kink 🤭)
All suggestions are added to the poll - hope to see you again!!! 🥰
This is a long shot but a while ago back on my old blog I was writing a chaptered Levi x reader fic called Stolen Moments. Reader was a medic on Levi's squad, and they went into a titan infested village to retrieve a document. The first chapter had them leaving little notes for each other on the wall of a building in their headquarters.
I got into a rough mindset one night and deleted it, and while I still have a few chapters saved on my pc, I'm missing others.
If anyone reblogged it or saved it anywhere, I'd be so so grateful if you could let me know. I love that story so much and I deeply regret losing it.
Thank you for voting guys! 🥰 Once again it seems the consensus for the event is clear, so please send prompts you’d like to see on Levi Month’26!
There will be 3 categories: kink prompt, AU prompt, “duo” prompt (like the former month event - ie. priest/succubus, athlete/cheerleader, scientist/artist etc). The prompt submission will last for the next 4 days, then we will vote for 4 days on the prompts, and the announcement will happen on June 1.
I really enjoy your content 🫂 Do you use AO3 or Wattpad? I'm not one to easily search, I've only recently started using Tumblr 🥹
Glad you’re enjoying the events and works of our wonderful contributors! 🥰 This event blog does in fact have other accounts, levievent on ao3 for collections but if you mean to ask for my main, it’s @aphroditaeon and my own works are here on my ao3.
tags: voyeurism, masturbation, pining, neighbours AU, Levi's dick outline in gray sweatpants is my religion, oblivious and awkward and extremely horny Levi (doesn't even begin to describe), fluff and humor, misunderstandings
When the lights across the building were on, it was time for him to turn his off.
Again and again, even though we know love's landscape [Chapter V]
Chapter V: I can still smell the fire, though I know it's long died out
Levi Ackerman/ Reader | Reincarnation!AU| 8.2k words
Masterlist | AO3 | | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
CHAPTER SUMMARY: Levi’s been dreaming of scorched, trampled earth. He doesn’t know how to explain it to you; he doesn’t want to.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Staying late updating because I need something to sustain myself during the whole work week. Also, I have a thousand works to read from LeviNSFW26 (I’m so excited to see what you all did with the Mythology prompt).
It was a joy to write about the 104th Squad. I do have my favorites, and I hope they are not that obvious (It’s Jean. I love Jean). And Kindergarten teacher Levi has my soul. I remember reading it on a doujinshi a long time ago and it convinced me it was his perfect profession in any modern au.
Anyway, this is the closest to a timely update I’ll ever manage (just one month? I’m becoming too quick). Please let me know what you think. All comments are thoroughly beloved and squealed at. And, as always, thank you for reading.
Content warnings [Spoilers]: Birthday party (reluctant). Levi Squad (104th Training Corps). Slow dancing. Phantom pain. Kindergarten Teacher!Levi. Intrusive thoughts. Grocery run. Domestic fluff. Domestic angst. Soft!Levi Ackerman. Detailed warnings on AO3.
Year 853. Thirty-five.
The kids barged into his office during a strategy briefing. You were in the middle of explaining the fucked-up history of dalliances between Marley and the nations of the Mid-East Allied Forces, according to some Northern professor’s book, when the door creaked open.
Mikasa was at the head of the group, metal-sharp eyes challenging him to try to scare her.
She was direct: “It is your birthday.”
In spite of the terseness, she was holding a wrapped box in her hands—no bows or decorations, just red fabric arranged in skillful folds. She set it down on the desk, right over the fancy global administrative map Hange had found in one of the Marleyan warships the Survey Corps had seized and held. The gift settled on the wood with a blunt and peremptory thud that gave the rest of the brats enough courage to trickle into the room.
Bewildered, you kept the little wooden figurine, the one you were using to represent the Shah of the long-fractured empire of Perser, dangling from your hand.
“Get out.” Levi didn’t stand up. Jean and Connie cowered back to the door’s threshold, but the rest of the squad held their position.
Levi was about to beat the fuck out of them and lock them away for the rest of the month for insubordination when you tried to appeal to reason.
“Armin, we are busy. We are in the middle of a briefing. Can we do this later?”
“You and the captain-” Arlert looked at Levi and deflated. Words became thinner and thinner until he was squeaking like a mouse. “You always say that. And then you both disappear for the rest of the day.”
You turned to Levi. There was a conceding tilt on your brow.
You always babied Arlert. You’d babied him since you first heard him fearlessly talking in the canteen about the vast, deep, blue ocean, and the stretch of frozen, white, blinding snow at the edge of the earth, and of the men and women who lived in the confines of the world, and of their princes and queens. The boy had grown up with his own illegal encyclopedia. A kindred spirit, even if you’d long confessed to Levi that any silly dreams of landscapes faded the same day you first saw the sky— that the beauty of all the fantasies of your childhood was nothing but a barren stage.
Truly, you babied them all. And it had stuck to him, because as he saw Sasha salivating over the cake that she probably had her boyfriend bake, Levi started to wonder if he could maybe cede them one night.
“Why the fuck is this so important to you, Arlert?”
“We’ll infiltrate Marley next year, sir. We don’t know what will happen,” Armin said. He glanced at Eren and Mikasa; he glanced at you. The kid found his reassurance and steadied his voice. “You’ve been a good captain, sir. And we want to-”
“Fine.” Levi relented.
“Fine?” Armin echoed.
“If you so much as leave a single crumb in my office, I’ll have you scrubbing the bathrooms with your own fucking nails.”
The squad stood motionless for a brief second of disbelief. Then, they cheered enough to make Levi regret it.
“Wait,” you managed to stop Connie, Jean and Sasha from placing a banquet-full of food on his desk. “Let me put the map away first. Mikasa…”
The girl grabbed the box again.
You were fussy about rolling the piece of paper back into its cylinder, like you were years ago with the crumbly, yellowed pages of the censored books that sprang up in the Underground every time the powers above decreed no true human should have access to such apocrypha—as if the whole scope of the world and its resources were still contained by three sets of walls; maps ransacked from enemy warships fucking abounded.
“What’s that box, anyway?” Levi asked.
It lay once again on his desk, alongside three bottles of wine, an uncomfortable amount of those pink marine cockroaches, several platters of shit that would leave crumbles, and that fucking cake oozing whipped cream. He’d have to clean and revarnish.
“Well, Captain, you have to open it to know,” Springer blurted with the stupidest grin on his face.
They all gathered around him in some sort of tight circle as he unwrapped it.
It was a wooden box fitted with a metal platter and various cranks and levers.
“What the fuck is this?”
All the kids around him were particularly excited. Jean and Connie even snickered. He surmised it must have been one of those inventions from beyond the sea.
“Onyankopon calls it a gramophone,” Armin explained.
“And what the fuck does it do?”
“I saw an advertisement in one of Marley’s newspapers,” Jean added. “It plays music.”
“How?” you asked, much more interested in the contraption than Levi ever could be. You trailed your fingers across the velvet lining. “There are no strings or holes.”
“They are in these,” Armin produced a black disk out of some sort of compartment underneath the metal platter. “They have tiny spiral grooves that memorize the music.”
The thing was very fucking smooth, as far as Levi was concerned.
“Can you make it play something?” Mikasa asked, somehow more interested in the contraption than in the boy frowning his life away at the window.
“Yes, but we have to assemble it first.”
After the briefing, you and Levi were going to ride to the sea. A white glare of the winter sun would make you squint as you walked with him across the beach. You would have to keep your boots, because Yule always came with biting winds, even when there was no rain. He would accept the fine wrist-watch you’d wrapped in a silk handkerchief embroidered with his name on the four edges. He would pretend he hadn’t found it in your room a couple of days before, when his afternoon was too idle and he had the sticky thought the dust in the corners of your drawers would make you sick. You’d trace his wrinkles, saying something about how old he was getting, about how grateful you were. And he would feel the tickle of your hardened fingertips—layers of weapons: the scars of Kenny’s knife-learning, ten years of calluses from the vertical maneuvering equipment, the new blisters from the training with the advanced overseas rifles.
Instead, Sasha was salivating all over his desk, gobbling the food when she thought Levi wasn’t watching. Connie tried to pour the wine into glasses and ended up spilling it on his desk; Jean noticed and tried to clean it up with his own sleeve. Mikasa had retreated once again to Eren’s side. She offered him a plate of that nasty shrimp; he didn’t take it.
Levi decided he did not like the machine. But he saw you gawking at the box, mouth agape and eyes wide, as Armin started turning the crank, and that expression was enough of a gift.
“I think it’s ready!” he finally exclaimed.
It was an unnatural thing, the sound coming out of the disk as if invoked by the needle. A piano and gravel tones and trumpets and a choir of voices all singing about warmth and happy people who hadn’t felt the sting of titan blood evaporating from their hands. Charming. Jolly. Bodiless.
No one spoke during that first song.
But the cheeks of the kids flushed gradually. Their grins grew. They sought each other’s eyes. Jean started tapping his foot—a paced thump that vibrated on the office’s floorboards. Armin had that bright-eyed stare. Eren stared at Mikasa with that dopey look he wore when he thought no one was paying attention. She was smiling. The other two brats were practically vibrating.
They started dancing and laughing all over his office. He let them for a while. Levi retreated to a corner (and there might be some indignity in letting his teenage squad take over his office for a birthday party, but he thought of the field of corpses in Shiganshina: young bodies pelted through the legs, the chest, the head. Armin had ten years left. Eren had five. So, Levi let them.)
You were in the same corner, watching Connie and Sasha guzzle wine while they jumped to the rhythm of some ragtime tune.
You were not grinning like the rest of them. Glossy eyes. Wet lashes.
He reached for his handkerchief, fine silk from Mitras with loose leaves shoddily embroidered in a corner—you’d made it to wrap his birthday present last year— and rubbed your eyes dry. Amidst wet spots, one eyelash tangled in the fabric.
“I’ll have them scrub the office clean in the morning,” Levi said because he knew it’d make you smile.
It did, but it was sad and pitiful: a minuscule trembling on the corners of the lips.
“The squad always has a rest day after Yule.” You played along with his shitty back-and-forth. Your voice was shaky.
Levi let his shoulder graze yours. Stiff coats rasped under an absurd song about red-nosed draft animals guiding King Fritz through a dark gift-giving night. His subordinates were yelling inane comments over the music: that Sasha had to leave some shrimp for them, that Connie was a disgusting pig with his uniform soaked with wine beyond salvaging, that Jean could wipe that smirk off his face, because his sleeve was fucked.
“Yule can get fucked,” he said.
Eren brushed Mikasa’s hand. Then, he ducked his head and cowered toward Armin, cheeks a bright red. The blonde boy was humming while parsing something on the back of a cardboard slipcase. His Marleyan was still rudimentary, despite the late-nights Levi had found him (and you) fumbling over grammar manuals—it was still better than Levi’s shit-fuck nothing. Sasha was clamoring about the depth of flavor of some grotesque combination the Marleyan cook had shown her.
“If you want to punish them, you’ll need to ask Hange. They are the commander, after all,” you replied.
Your hand hung next to his; during the minuscule shifts of your body that accommodated each inhale and exhale, your fingers brushed the back of his hand.
“Hange can get fucked, as well.”
“Oh, they will happily.” You paused, caught his gaze. A glint of playfulness shimmered over the sadness. “If you lend them the gramophone.”
Levi couldn’t help but smirk.
“Why are you so constipated, anyway?” he asked. If he just could grab your hand—fingers over your wrist, a tiny rumble of your pulse against his thumb. If he were riding across the coastline beside you. Cloudless skies were rare in Yule: on clear nights, the sand seemed to be made of the same glistening dust as the stars. The horses would be left to rest alongside the tree line. You’d plead with him to sit over his own coat, and he’d complain about the fuck-ass sand getting in the seams, but he’d do it, and you’d sit on his lap, and your head would rest against his chest as you stargazed. “Wasn’t your morning shit good enough?”
“The songs-” Your eyes were still fixed on the kids. You were following Eren; he worried you. The fireplace shed shadows on your cheeks.
“What do you-”
Levi did not get to ask his question. The heroic self-restraint that had kept Sasha leashed through the whole evening finally snapped. She came to the corner to retrieve him. First, he heard her mumbling some delirious refrain about sweet, sweet cake; then, she tried yanking him by the arm, any fear of discipline utterly vanquished by her fucking gluttony.
When Levi didn’t yield, the force of her grip had her toppling on the ground.
“What Sasha meant is that it’s time to cut the cake, Captain.”
Armin was vehement, even in his mousiness. He did not stammer as he spoke, like he tended to when his friends made him their spokesperson. He looked at Levi directly in the eye. The boy’s cheeks were red.
It had just become very fucking clear that none of the kids would be functional enough to clean his office tomorrow.
Levi knew you’d come to the same realization before you pushed yourself off the wall. For a mere second, there was a tug on his sleeve; a thread from your cuff had tangled with his coat. It snapped off as you walked toward the kids.
“That’s it.” You were stern as you snatched the last bottle from Jean’s hand. He sluggishly pursued it with his giant arm before letting his hand fall to his side in resignation. “No more wine.”
“But the cake, captain. The cake.”
Untouched amidst the ravaging force of Sasha’s mouth lay a cake. White frosting with “Happy Birthday, Captain Levi” piped on the center in practiced cursive. It was nice. Levi had never gotten a cake before. He’d never wanted a cake.
“Fine.”
They spared him any birthday songs. But the synchronized “Happy Birthday, Captain” was enough to pull the corners of his lips.
Most of their voices were deeper now. Jean was on his way to becoming a colossal; the other boys were following suit. Mikasa had already lost the stubborn baby fat he remembered in her cheeks back in Trost. Sasha would soon enough tire of the war and retire to the restaurant of that boyfriend of hers. Connie was still a dumbass. Sometimes, Levi caught himself finding Erwin’s eyes or hair or manipulativeness in Armin. Eren wouldn’t get to twenty-five, and he knew it.
Them, and Hange—trapped somewhere in a grinding higher-brass meeting— were all that had survived Shiganshina.
Titans did not eat the dead; the cheapness of death filled the stomachs of all of Paradis’ crows and then left some. The corpses rotted on the field outside the city. Retrieval was only possible after three months. Nothing but bones and sinew. Skin attached to the fingers, the ribs, the scalp —some reddish leather. But the flesh had putrefied into all-permeating sulfurous scent. Bodies couldn’t be recognized. They were placed in a communal grave at the gates of the district with some shitty memorial plaque. Most of the recruits had just finished the Training Corps.
He swallowed it all down with the cake. It was good.
You liked it as well. Your tongue darted over your lower lip to clean a smidge of whipped cream. You hummed. You scraped your fork against the plate to collect the last crumbles.
“Want more? Eat mine.” The offer felt natural. A remnant of the weeks in the Underground where there was nothing to eat but one half-rotten potato and he was so fucking afraid of the slowness of your breath.
“Levi. It’s your birthday.”
He’d ask the Marleyan cook for a cake for your birthday.
“We should save Hange a slice,” you mused. “They come back from Mitras tomorrow.”
The cake was too massive for a party of seven; half of it stayed intact, even when generously portioned.
He recalled a childhood of cutting stolen loaves in half and carefully sweeping the crumbles into a tin plate—stale bread fell apart too easily. The flame of the oil lamp elongating the shadows until the bread seemed infinite. He recalled ladling his potatoes onto your plate to give you something more to eat during those months when, after Furlan’s and Isabel’s death, you retched at the taste of any kind of meat. He recalled splitting ration crackers during the endless humanity retrieval expeditions that kept the wretched remains of the Survey Corps out of the walls for many weeks following the Fall of Maria.
Levi would get you a second slice.
For now, Armin was negotiating with Sasha about taking another slice instead of directly biting the thing.
“We’re done.” The categorical tone was enough to have them all straighten their backs. Sasha withdrew from the food table with a feral growl. “Turn off the music. You still have to wake up tomorrow to clean the bathrooms.”
Armin took the needle arm away from the rotating disk and the room, once again, drowned in the stagnant silence of winter nights.
Among the crumbs and scraps that littered his desk, Levi caught a white, wet spot. The spilled wine had fucked the varnish.
“But Captain-”
Kirstein got remarkably courageous when drunk; he got close enough for Levi to gut-punch him into sobriety, had their efforts not softened him.
“Does this office look spotless to you, Kirstein?” he interrupted the kid before he whined his way into a true punishment.
“No, sir.”
Then, the idiot turned to you with pleading eyes. He tried to be subtle, but his face deformed in a pout.
“There’s no weak link,” Levi said. You placed your hand over your mouth, and Levi hoped they were drunk enough to not notice you were hiding a smile of endearment. “Hold your part of the deal.”
“Yes, sir,” Jean replied with that pout still on his face.
“Now leave.”
Connie wobbled enough that both Sasha and Jean had to help him walk. Both were quick to forgiveness. Sasha was raving about eating the leftovers of the Yule feast the Marleyan cook prepared; Jean was healing his pride by remarking how terribly bad his friends were at holding their liquor—Levi let the hypocrisy pass because he saw your crinkled eyes and heard your chuckle and hoped he might rest his head on your lap this evening.
“Thank you for letting us celebrate your birthday, captain.” Armin approached with Eren and Mikasa in tow. Blonde hair stuck to his sides like straw. “We’ll clean everything tomorrow, we promise.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
For a tiny moment of smiles and blushes, the whole squad glowed. It reminded Levi of another team that also cherished his praise as if it was worth something. Petra’s dad still wrote to him, penmanship blurred by a shaky hand and tears; the soldier’s pension kept him fed as the shaking palsy robbed him of his farmer’s strength. That check wasn’t his daughter.
Eren, however, did not seem to budge. The loss of his naïve idolization was disappointing—although Levi always made sure Hange didn’t hear about it. The boy fixed his uncannily green eyes on you. Numbness. Anger. Regret. A scorching guilt that shrouded everything else. Levi had heard you try to talk with him, but he always responded with tight lips and clenched fists.
“Take this with you.” You, always spoiling them rotten, handed Mikasa the half-full bottle of wine and a chunk of the cake. “Enjoy Yule.”
As the three lagging soldiers pulled them shut, the office’s doors creaked again. The squad’s laughs echoed in the hallway. They’d try to continue their party in the canteen.
You could finally rest your head against his shoulder. Wisps of hair tangled in the embroidered Wings of Freedom on his arm.
On the floor, a trail of crumbs followed his subordinates’ dance patterns. Sprinkles of red wine marred his parquet. He could go back to his quarters and itemize from memory the lines and calluses and scars on your hands before nestling his head in your lap, but red wine stained.
“They fucked up my office.”
“It was sweet,” you corrected him. “And you let them.”
There was a puddle of wine next to the bookcase. Shallow and narrow. And yet, it spread farther every time Levi looked at it.
“They should drink beer like normal soldiers.” Levi’s hands itched to clean.
You took a rag, a scrubbing brush and spirits of salt from his cleaning cabinet.
“Don’t clean too much,” you said, perching on the ledge of his desk. “You promised Armin you’d let them clean.”
“Vermin will fuck the shit out of my office before he does.”
A trail of crumbs and icing circled the empty cake tray. Under the spills, varnish turned opaque. White, humid, disgusting spots he shouldn’t touch until it dries again. A droplet of lantern oil had dripped onto his desk’s top right corner. The desk ought to be sanded and revarnished, if Levi wanted it truly clean.
But you, pupils wide and trailing his hands, were still leaning against the edge of his desk.
The air was stuffed with sweat. The room was too small to withstand the excited dancing of too many teenagers. Levi opened the window and the early winter winds swept their cold throughout the room. The fire was dimming; pulsing embers cast amber hues onto your neck.
He blotted the wine and brushed off the crumbs, little more.
Levi would drag the kids from their bunks in the afternoon (they’d still be too hammered in the morning) and order them to sand his desk and wax the floors. He’d redo their work during the night.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I don’t want to see the fucking dirt in this place more than I have to.”
“What are you going to do with the gramophone?” you asked, fingertips carefully tracing the metal corners of the box.
It stood intact and alien, metal arm jutting out towards his desk.
“Don’t care. It’s too tricky. Creepy.”
“It’s not that hard,” you said, voice tinged with a curious brightness. “You just have to turn the crank, place the vinyl, and set the needle.”
You demonstrated and then there was music once again spewing out from the depths of that ugly brass horn.
“Fine. Let’s stay, then.”
A doleful singer wailed above a piano and some sort of raspy trumpet about her neglectful lover abandoning her for another (apparently less whiny) woman amidst Yule’s twinkling lights.
You’d fallen back into the habit of collecting advertisements. You hunted them in the Marleyan newspapers the Corps were required to smuggle for information gathering. You cut black-and-white photographs promoting cheap merchandise or good deals or innovative technology. That was how he learned that Marley liked to decorate trees with strings of electric lights for Yule. And Levi felt that Underground vault covering the sky again—that shit taste of squalor in the face of wasteful abundance.
The wistful expression had returned to your face. You watched the black disk spin, chin cradled in the meat of your palm and fingers splayed on your lips.
“Do you want those lights?”
Onyankopon was thrifty; he’d get them if Levi asked.
“Not really. It’s a waste. Most of Paradis doesn’t even have electricity.”
“Then what the fuck is wrong with the thing?”
You fiddled with the lapels of his jacket; fingers traced the seams before flattening the fabric against his chest. Levi was wearing his old uniform—you’d said you liked it more. The first lot of the new design, slick, petrol-black and sorely tight had already arrived. The squad would have to train in vertical maneuvering with the black suits.
“Nothing. It’s a nice gift.”
Levi reached for your wrist; you let him grab it without any resistance. He sought the labyrinthine lines on your palm, the same as he had always seen them—they revealed the span of one’s life, had once told him one of his mother’s friends as she, bony fingers and ulcerated hands, read his palm. And some nights when, muscles tight and mouthfuls of rot, his body inventoried the dead, Levi found himself tracing those lines of yours from memory.
The skin at the base of your thumb was torn. He placed his lips there.
“The new rifles?”
“Some have unpolished wood at the handle,” you replied. Levi saw you try to find your words in the window behind him. The perpetual torches on the headquarters’ walls reflected in your eyes. “The songs make me think…”
“A tragedy, always,” he coaxed you to continue.
“They must all be in their own parties, dancing to these very songs.”
The needle scratched a different melody: a baritone so similar to Erwin’s voice during those scarce occasions he got drunk enough to sing the raunchy songs he learned in his training days. But this song was a cautious love ballad about the new year.
“Well, the kids were also dancing to them. It’s not that special.”
Violins and trumpets joined the voice in some sort of musical keening. It didn’t compare to his mother’s Yule lullabies, heard directly from her chest as she rocked him to sleep after all her clients were gone; to the makeshift polkas of his fellow soldiers during Yule parties, always filled with flat voices and a boorish grasp of string instruments.
“That’s the problem, Levi.” Your gaze fell; eyes followed the slow swinging of your legs. Close as he was, your inner thighs grazed his hips. “They are like the kids. And there’s going to be war. There’s-”
“You don’t know.”
The first pamphlets started arriving shortly after Zeke’s cohort first proposed his shitty plan. It had been an obvious manipulation attempt: with no other allies, Paradis would have to fold to whatever that disgusting ape planned. But it had also been true.
Hange had agreed with the rest of the brass that peace talks should start in the new year. But Levi remembered finding you in your office, face on your palms, tears on your cheeks, harsh breathing. Hundreds of paper clippings sat on your desk. Tracts calling for the extermination of the island’s population (corrupting vermin, immoral, inhuman); caricatures of the Walls teeming with cockroaches and rats; some sort of children’s story about flesh-eating Eldians hoarding gold and the dashing boy who eradicated them. “Who would negotiate with cockroaches,” you’d asked him.
Levi was gentle when he pulled your arm.
“Stand up.”
Crestfallen and fixated on the idle movement of your feet, you didn’t comply. “What-”
“Stand up. Come.”
The next song on the black disk was stewed in the same melancholic lovestruck sniveling as the others—a duet he quickly stopped paying attention to. You were close enough for your knee to dig into his thigh as you stepped away from your perch; you stumbled forward. After catching you, Levi did his best to copy the frock-coated, feathered nobles he’d frowned at during the scarce fundraiser balls Erwin had made him attend: he kept his left hand tangled with yours, guided your free hand to his arm and placed his right hand on your back.
Then, he stepped forward and you, a standing doll, were unmoving. He trod on your feet.
“You are very bad at this,” you teased, voice shaky. Your back was stiff.
“You know you are supposed to move as well. Don’t make it worse,” Levi retorted. He looked down, willing his feet to follow the music.
Movements as cautious as his, you indulged him with a firmer grip on his arm and unrefined footwork.
Levi had never danced before; neither had you.
So, he heeded his body until the movements became familiar. Soon enough, he was pressing his forehead against yours. Eye-to-eye. Touching noses. Shared breath. He half listened to the song and found himself tasting the declarations of love on his tongue.
“Why are we doing this?” you asked. He felt the air shaping around your mouth.
The yield of the uniforms was sparse—leather and stiff cotton were meant to brace the body for the gear’s impact. But Levi could imagine you wearing one of the silken, draped evening gowns Marley advertised in the newspapers. He could almost imagine you liking them in a life where opulence wasn’t cruelty.
“Now we are dancing as well,” he replied. “We are like them.”
“Levi, you know well that-”
“Listen to me. We are like them,” Levi repeated because he would not risk you saying it aloud. “And we’ll make them understand that. Yeah?”
“Okay.” You shut your eyes and pressed closer to him. Your hands escaped his grasp as you wrapped your arms around his back.
“There will be peace talks,” he insisted, still swaying. “And we will make it work. We’ve always made it work. Yeah?”
“Yes.”
Unease cakes under his nails like a fucked-up slurry of blood and dust.
It’s been the same all week.
Today, he’s felt it while he helped his little students take off their wet coats in the morning, and while he watched them make a murky swamp of the classroom entryway, and while he explained to them, for an appalling tenth time, the perils of eating the half-chewed, soggy sandwich they found in the hallway.
Most of the kids are still happy to see him without the cast. They gather around him and grope his arm until they stir the ache in his shoulder. Then, they notice his limp and suggest he put the cast back on.
His leg worries you, too. It has hurt all week. “It’s maybe from the car-crash,” you tell him. You want to take him back to physiotherapy. And then Levi thinks of the rattling of giant teeth against his femur.
Levi appeases you as best as he can. It’s always happened to him, he tells you: that he’s had a fucked-up leg since he was a kid and that he’s stiff, probably sleeping wrong.
You never believe him, not fully. There’s guilt in the lie. But the same instinctual dread that followed him around during the first life—when Kenny left, when Furlan and Isabel died, when Maria became a mass grave, when burning dust rose under the giant feet of Eren’s wrath—came back with the scent of smoke in your hair.
Levi’s been dreaming of scorched, trampled earth. He doesn’t know how to explain it to you; he doesn’t want to.
After the Battle of Heaven and Earth, he stayed in Fort Salta, or so Falco told him months later when Levi could listen. All he remembered of the aftermath was pain clamping its jaw around his leg.
And the pyres.
They had been Jean’s idea: half-reverential, half-practical. Flesh rots fast in the heat, and beneath the thick, heavy clouds that shrouded the sky, scavengers had started to show their disgusting beaks. Bodies were recovered only in parts. Arms and legs and severed torsos and every shredded leftover of Eren’s tantrum—all covered in layers of flies.
He was conscious enough to watch the first pyres. Long. Tall. They covered Marley’s land for as far as he could see. They burned into black smoke, feeding the dark clouds that covered the sun for months.
He wasn’t conscious after that.
Corpse recovery used to be a common task for the Corps. But this time Levi couldn’t do it; he snarled and gritted his teeth and bled in the pretty little straw cot Falco found for him inside the fort.
The medics arrived alongside the brutal tempests that shelled the earth once the air had cooled enough. Levi remembers they wanted him still and calm and that all the endurance his genes had carved into his body had bled away through his leg (and fingers, and eyes and ribs). He remembers screaming and thrashing and tearing open the skin of his wrists from the friction of the rope until it snapped.
Fat droplets are still crashing against his classroom’s windows when that last fucking negligent mom comes for her kid. His little student has spent the last half-hour trying to comb into compliance the sloppy pigtails Levi let her do with his hair. The mother exclaims something about rainwater and the slippery roads and how she had to drive from the nail salon with freshly done nails.
“Arrive on time tomorrow.” Levi’s stern. The kid is already transfixed by the iridescent shine of her nails, all toothy smiles; but her nose, which Levi had wiped clean of snot earlier, is still red. “You’ll screw her up.”
He knows he has fucked up. But (tense muscles, prickling skin, the taste of wet earth in the air, the utter certainty that prepares his body for violence) Levi’s always been a natural soldier. He doesn’t find it in himself to be softer, more patient—not with this woman, not this week. And the mother seems ashamed enough to shut up.
They leave. Before the mother can even offer to help, his little student puts her coat on alone.
Levi can spend another hour disinfecting the classroom: you’ve promised to spend the night, but the hours at your shitty job are long. You said you’d come to his classroom.
So, he makes sure the kids’ finger paintings, convoluted splashes of colors labelled in squiggly pencil letters, are neatly displayed in all their laminated glory. He reorganizes the crayons by color, size, state of decay. He washes his hands with scalding water to try to remove the ghost of dirt from under his nails. He thinks of dinner: something easy, rich and warm followed by your soft hands in his hair. He picks up the leftover clutter his kids are not even able to recognize (toys outside their station, a lone half-chewed pencil, a discarded drawing of him with “Teechr Levy” crammed in the bottom left corner) and ignores the sharp strain in his leg when he bends down.
You’ll gift him that endearing smile of yours when he shows you the drawing. Levi wants you to move in.
Somewhere between the tables and the building blocks, you text him.
“How’s the leg?”
It hurts to stand up. His knee locks up, making the limp more noticeable. A bone-deep ache throbs its way around his leg before dwindling again. It’s not real.
Still, Levi sits down. He has to grab his phone with both hands to reply. The fingers he blew off back then are too stiff to do much.
“Work’s done?” He ignores your question.
You reply with a green fucking heart.
Without daylight, the assortment of stuffed animals his students brought at the beginning of the year looks creepy as fuck. Shaggy big-eyed little things deformed by shadows. There’s a monkey, the favorite of one of the boys. And, for a moment, he wonders if Zeke’s royal blood-
Levi washes his hands, again. He scrubs soap deep under his nails.
Before you arrive, Levi has time to check the desperate writings he published during all those years he hadn’t found you—he should delete them, now. There’s a comment complimenting the worldbuilding and asking for updates, although the whole thing is maybe too bleak. Someone calls him cuckoo-insane for his description of the Rumbling’s famines.
You are wearing your green scarf; you know Levi likes it.
You wait just behind the classroom’s threshold, a folded umbrella dangling from your arm. The hems of your coat are wet.
“You hung new drawings,” you state.
“Farm animals,” he replies.
You are eyeing a three-legged brown scribble posing in the middle of a grass field and a sunny sky. Among the blue, there is “horz” written in the shittiest handwriting Levi has ever seen; beside it, Levi had helped him write the correct spelling.
“They are getting better,” you say. Your umbrella is still dripping onto the hallway. You won’t step inside and dirty his classroom.
It might get you sick—the cold or the rain or the wet coat. He wants you in his home.
“Museum-worthy, already.” Levi walks as he speaks. He tries his best to hide the limp; you are watching him keenly. “Might sell them and retire.”
You kiss him once he’s close enough. Lips against his cheek are cold from the weather. Levi reaches out to probe your hands. He does his best to warm them up with the same tenderness you did in the past: thumbs running over knuckles again and again in quick circles. Palm against palm.
“Levi,” you ask while he locks his classroom’s door. “What were you doing in the classroom?”
“Waiting for you.”
He walks you through the poster-packed reception. He is slower. The leg fucking drags. You notice.
“In the dark?” You are playful, arm looping around his good one, head leaning against his shoulder. But he senses the worry.
“Do you need lights to wait?”
You exhale an exasperated chuckle and press yourself harder against his arm.
The rain is nothing but a drizzle now, but the water that poured down earlier had already flooded the sidewalks. The tram is a five-minute walk.
The little light the thick stack of clouds lets through grays out the yellow of the streetlamps. And he thinks of waking up one morning, six months after the Rumbling, still relegated to one pretty straw cot, still hearing the whimpers of his fellow infirm, still rationing the half-rotten food that the Northern nations generously sent to the unfortunate half of the world, still writhing under Falco’s ceaselessly pitiful gaze. It was the first morning he tried to walk. By then, the rains had already started. Shellings of water softened the soil. Even inside the tents, the ground was nothing but sludge. Three steps in, field nurses had to wrench him from the earth.
His fucking leg is still-
Levi does his best to entertain himself with the menial task of holding the umbrella. He thinks about the drawers you’ve been slowly filling up with washed clothes you refuse to take back to your house. He presses his cheek harder against the crown of your head and thinks of dinner.
Coats hung to dry in the bathroom rack. A hot shower. Black tea. An easy dinner. The vibrations of your voice in his chest as you tell him about your day under the covers.
Levi steps into a particularly deep puddle. Water seeps into his boot and drenches his sock. He spits out a “fuck”.
He didn’t notice—he should have noticed. It’s the fucking leg and the dark skies and the grime under his nails and his guts preparing for some sort of terrible wrongness.
Worry in your frown, you look at him.
“Too bad?” you ask.
You reach out for the umbrella, as if releasing him from it would fix shit. You let him keep it when you see the tightness of his grasp.
He’s thankful for the way your hands caress his cheeks, cold as they are.
In his apartment, you’ll lean against him as he prepares the tea. You’ll tell him about the condescending prick who doesn’t know how to restock the printer’s paper and about the soggy lettuce of your lunch. The warmth will soothe his leg.
The station is one street away.
He grumbles about the shitty job of Mitras’ Department of Roads. You laugh at the crassness and tell him the latest developments of the torrid, carefully hidden love affair between your middle manager and the guy at HR.
Once in a while, Levi can sense you focusing on his leg, fixating on the hints of the limp he’s not able to hide.
When the tram finally arrives, the digital timetable has already been blinking for a minute. It’s not completely full. You weave through the late commuters until you find a pair of seats. Then, you cajole him into sitting down (“I had to walk from my job to the kindergarten. Let’s sit down, Levi. I’m tired”) before you ask him:
“Is your leg better?” You are earnest, caged as you have him on the five-stop trip to his house.
Two rows ahead, there’s a pair of teenagers conspicuously letting smoke blow out of their mouths. They wave their hands in the air, trying to guide it towards the ventilation windows. It smells like rainbows and shit.
You wait patiently for him to reply, fingers caressing his palm with an avid worry Levi wishes he didn’t understand.
“It’s just stiff,” he tells you, eyes on the smoke. “The cold makes it worse.”
It also did, back then. He needed the wheelchair almost every winter.
That fucking wet sock is slowly draining the heat from his body. All that is left is the numbness in the muscle and the deep ache in the bone.
“Levi, I really think we should go to-”
“It isn’t from the accident.” He’s curt. And, again, he knows he’s fucking it up.
But you don’t remember, and in all the wretchedness of his solitude, it is a blessing. How can he talk about the pieces of bodies (rotten fingers, mats of hair, severed legs) they found in the mud when the year-long tempests stopped for long enough?
He can’t talk to you about the Rumbling; he doesn’t want to.
“But still, maybe they can give you something,” you insist. “Please.”
He keeps his stare forward. A monotone voice states the name of the station. A second one repeats it, emphatic, almost cheery. Next Stop: Trost Street. The two teenagers rush towards the door, holding hands. One of them has long straight hair. Ratty and greasy, just like Eren’s when he returned to Paradis.
“It isn’t real,” Levi says. It’s a useless thing; some sort of vague comfort he repeated to himself when he was a teenager, orphaned and alone, and his growing pains resembled more and more his injuries: the bite of heated metal; the perpetual pulsing of flesh surrounding old bones. “I’ve had it before. Since I was seven.”
You are quiet, gaze locked on his face. Levi stares at the seats in front of him, at the display panel.
Next Stop: Karanes Street.
“I get nightmares. Then the pain appears,” he continues. Your grasp on his hands becomes infinitely tender, soft. You are still cold. “It fucks everything up and then it disappears.”
Outside, it starts pissing rain again.
There’s the twisted desire to find recognition in your eyes when he turns. He finds it—some sort of memoryless kinship that tenses your jaw.
“Nightmares?” You have to drag out every syllable.
Next Stop: Stohess Plaza.
Two stops to get off the tram. One freezing claw at a time, cold keeps creeping up his leg. A woman pushes her stroller all the way to the back of the car; water slides down the waterproof liner. There are three men, white-collared workers, loitering near the exit doors.
“It’s bullshit. But the rain makes it worse,” Levi says. “All. The pain, the nightmares. It’ll go away on its own.”
You don’t reply immediately.
You blink. Head down, you clasp your hands in your lap.
“Hey.” Levi stumbles over the little gentleness he’s ever capable of giving. “It’s fine. It’s not real. Yeah?”
“What kind of-” You choke back the question, like you did after the nightmare you had in Levi’s bed—the only one he’d witnessed— when you had to grieve for people you didn’t remember knowing. “I get nightmares, too. Sometimes.”
Levi’s hands are again all over yours, rubbing and pressing and uselessly trying to create some sort of warmth.
“Sometimes I even see you in them.” The confession comes in a whisper. “Sometimes you are hurt, bleeding in the grass. And the air is hot. It smells of explosion. And I think you are dead.”
For a second, he feels like he’s sharing that first life with you. He is relieved. And selfish for wanting you to remember. And he becomes a coward when he avoids uttering the truth.
Levi can’t explain it to you. He doesn’t want to. He replies with the same worthless recitation: “It’s not real. Not now. They are just shitty nightmares.”
Next Stop: Reiss Chapel.
“I’ll make tea when we get to your apartment,” you say, all glimpses of vulnerability wrapped in the brightness of your voice. “Getting you warm will help your leg.”
You stand up. Levi follows.
His leg is completely fucked up. He conceals it as best as he can.
Next Stop: Maria Park.
As you step out of the tram, Levi opens the umbrella. Large raindrops drum overhead as you both walk towards his apartment.
It’s early enough for the storefronts to be lit up and filled to the brim.
While he hangs the coats to dry in the bathroom, dishes clink in his kitchen. He dries his dripping wet foot and changes his socks. You are boiling water in the electric kettle. Cupboards open and close. Pans rattle. You are pulling his storage jars and then putting them back.
Levi wishes he could have convinced you to take a shower and change into warmer clothes first. But you had just stared at his limping leg and told him to go warm up—that it took two minutes, even less, to prepare a cup of tea.
He’s changing into his house-clothes when you appear in the bedroom, tin in hand.
“There’s no tea.”
You are apologetic. But it is his fucking fault: his shitty leg doesn’t let him think. He should’ve noticed.
“Shit,” he says. The sweater he just picked lies, limp, on his forearm.
“It’s still early. I can go buy some,” you offer. Under your voice, the eternal clatter of the rain goes on.
“No,” Levi replies. “It’s already dark.”
You peer through the window, empty tin swaying in your hand. The metal catches the teals, yellows and oranges of the street’s signs.
“The supermarket at the end of the street must still be open.”
“I don’t need your shitty tea.”
You step forward. You seek his eyes and hold his stare. The movement makes the pitiful scraps in the tin rustle.
“Levi, I’ll be fine,” you insist.
The unease he’s carried all day keeps piling up. He folds the fucking sweater, just to have something to do with his hands.
“Fine,” he says. He puts the sweater back in the closet. The wooden floors are slippery under his socked feet; he has to put more weight on his leg to walk. “I’ll go with you.”
You don’t even try to argue.
The coats are still dripping when you put them back on. The folded umbrella leaves behind a second set of tiny puddles as you retrace your recent steps down the stairs. Levi has trouble raising his knee; he lets you lead. You turn back several times, worried. Once, you try to suggest going alone before Levi shuts it down.
The laundromat in front of his apartment glows in a shitty blue neon. The five minutes of comfort in his own home left him colder. Beside him, you are freezing. Levi tightens his hold on your hand.
The first time it rained after the Rumbling, Levi was tied down to his cot with repurposed leather straps of his own gear—Jean and Connie apologized afterwards, once Levi could nebulously think; they had braced for a beating that Levi couldn’t give anymore. By that first rain, the pyres had been burning for weeks. They’d still have enough carrion to burn for months to come. Drops loosened the soil and a boiling heat rose back from the earth. Levi remembers having the delirious conviction that he was in hell. Pain pain pain bleeding from his leg (open, raw) to whatever was left of his body.
“We should buy take-out on the way back,” you comment. “It’s faster than cooking.”
He hums.
The sidewalk is crowded. People returning home from their cushy office jobs in the outer ring of Mitras. People braving the shitty spring weather to eat outside after cooping up for most of winter. Too many umbrellas to dodge. A wet leaflet for a new clothing store almost makes him trip.
“See? It’s open.”
The supermarket is empty. One cash register is working. The cashier is alone, elbows against the conveyor belt. There’s buzzing: the fluorescent white lights and the fridges encroaching on the room. It smells of old, wet cardboard. Emanating from the freezers, the warmth is of the pasty kind. Bland pop songs drone out of the speakers: a singer talks of heartbreak and revenge in clichéd terms.
Tea is at the back of aisle four, alongside coffee and breakfast meals.
“Same as always?” you ask him as you both pass the produce section.
Raindrops fall against the metal panels of the roofs. The noise mixes with the shitty music and the buzzing lights and the whirring of the fridges and the squeaks of wet soles against linoleum floors. There’s a leak: red buckets are fenced off with yellow plastic signs.
“Levi,” you ask him again. “Black with bergamot?”
He half-listens, the second time: “Yeah.”
There’s something wrong. And the certainty makes his skin prick up with the mere rustle of the air. Levi picks up the pace. He ignores the leg and wills it to work; he’s made for endurance, after all. He pulls you along, and you follow him with such trust Levi knows he’ll have to answer for it later.
The miasma of cigarettes envelops him first.
A sour stench that soaks into clothes and hair. Levi recognizes him by it—the tall man with greasy blond hair and a dirty beard, slouching towards some blue-branded cereal. Lying on the floor next to him is a full bottle of wine. Dark red. Green glass.
He’s quick to turn. But, rooted to the spot, you don’t yield.
“Come.” The smell of smoke scratches his throat raw. “Please.”
“I don’t-”
“Levi!” The voice is acetic. It reminds him of titan blood, vaporous and fetid. “Leaving already?”
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