you’d only ever spoken to him in passing.
yet your eyes seem to have found his countless times, whether it’s from across the mess hall, during training or even outside the walls as a titan closes in on you.
but you’d never gained the courage to actually go up and talk to him.
levi wasn’t a social person, and anyone with eyes could see that. despite his harsh words and less than desirable attitude, he’d managed to make a name for himself above ground.
when he’d first arrived at the survey corps, you couldn’t help but stare. you weren’t the only one. men and women alike, couldn’t take their eyes off him. whether it was for a good reason or bad reason, you’d never know. he’d always be up to something. slipping out of the barracks at ungodly hours, hissing at superior officers and never taking any orders lying down.
it was admirable. watching him stand up for himself. watching him defend not just his own name, but his friends too. they’d came up to the surface the same time as him— a bubbly red-head and a boy with a grin that seemed too mischievous at times.
they didn’t last long. hardly anyone does.
you’d only been in the military for around 6 months before levi joined, yet you’d already watched numerous people get their flesh ripped open by inhuman creatures.
one second they’re riding on their horse, the next they’re in the air. you’d watched the way they would freeze up, but by the time they start moving for their blades, the titans fleshy hand would start squeezing their ribcage just a bit too tight, and you’d do nothing but watch as their body burst into two simply from the pressure.
blood would splatter everywhere. on the daises that littered the plains the titans roamed, on the teeth and tongue of the very titan itself. soaked deep into every fibre of your clothing, etched into the skin of your palms, so deep and raw that no matter how hard you scrubbed and scratched at your skin, the stains would never lift.
because you stood there and watched.
when they died, levi changed. despite not being close to him, you’d noticed.
he stopped fighting. stopped resisting orders from the commander, started following the curfew. trained harder, and kept quiet. he ignored the jeers people would throw at him, the ones he would’ve once snarled at and started a fight over.
he changed. for the better or the worse, you’d never know that, either.
but he started getting closer with people. with people you were also close with. lingered more around erwin’s office, would always have hange rambling about something over his shoulder, or he’d be walking down the corridors with miche in a comfortable silence.
then he started eating in the mess hall with everyone, too. became ‘friends’ with everyone, if you could call it that.
everyone apart from you. at first, you thought he didn’t like you. which wouldn’t be too random considering the guy doesn’t like anyone.
but one evening, when everyone was sat at one of the tables eating dinner together, he sat across from you.
you weren’t feeling hungry, so instead of a plate filled with rations that hardly sustained you, you’d traded it out for a book on flowers instead.
“you’re into that flowery shit?” a low voice snatches you out of your bubble, your lashes fluttering as you look up from your book and at him.
he’s sat in front of you, his plate of food looking bare with the measly amount of rations placed upon it. his gaze, cold and unforgiving felt less harsh when it landed on you this time.
he grunts noncommittally, and his focus shifts away from you and back to the conversation the others are having in a split second. your heart was pounding after only a brief interaction, yet he seemed as cool as a cucumber as he forked at a piece of bread on his plate.
you sigh, closing your book with a soft thud and sliding off your seat. you wanted to read your book with a clear head and calm heart, but it was evident that you couldn’t do that with him across from you.
that was the first time he’d ever spoken to you outside of duty. purely out of his own interest. and that thought lingered somewhere within you, and you clung onto the foolish notion that he was somewhat interested in you, despite him only saying a total of five words.
the reason he’d even spoken to you had become clear only a few days later. in the early hours of the morning, you’d dragged yourself out of bed and towards the communal area. nearby one of the large windows, you’d placed a few plant pots in order to grow a few flowers.
you were watering them when he’d suddenly appeared behind you, all mysterious and brooding. you were pleasantly surprised when he asked you a few questions regarding the growth of tea leaves, and you had to try your best to not go on a ramble about the different kinds of methods and conditions to grow them.
he’d asked you to grow some leaves for him, and tried to pay you for it but you refused.
after all, it was just a few tea leaves.
over the next few weeks, the two of you had fallen into a comfortable pattern. levi would approach you, his expression disinterested yet the amount of questions he’d ask would combat that. you’d give him the tea leaves and he’d grunt out a quiet thanks, skulking off to do whatever he gets up so early in the morning to do.
time passes, and slowly, the two of you grow closer. he lingers around you longer, watching you tend to the plants.
during training, you were flipped and pinned down by your sparring partner, and it’d taken you a few moments to get up and collect yourself. as you dusted your pants off, you looked up to find him staring right at you. your brushed it off, but later that evening he dragged you to the training grounds and made you spar with him.
he claimed that you were weak, and that there was no harm in you getting stronger. but really, what he had meant to say was that he wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself if you get hurt outside of the walls.
the expedition was approaching rapidly, and when the new formation had been released, your heart dropped. your squad had been placed on the left flank, the outermost side of the formation. you caught levi’s eyes from across the room, yet he didn’t even seem bothered. although, he wasn’t in the same squad as you, but he didn’t seem worried at all. maybe he had more confidence in your skills than you did.
the night before the expedition, you’d caught a few of your squad mates writing letters. and then it hit you.
what if you didn’t make it back? there’s still so many things you want to say to people, and you weren’t ready to just…. die out there and be forgotten like everyone else.
when you met with levi for your evening sparring session, he seemed more on edge than usual. his voice had stopped taking on that soft tone that it usually did with you, and he wasn’t a lot rougher with his movements.
it wasn’t until he knocked the wind out of you for the umpteenth time that evening that you had to tap out.
“whats wrong with you? you’re going way harder than usual.” you wheeze, clutching your side.
“i’m not. you’re the one who’s gotten weaker. if you can’t handle this, why are you even here?” he seethes, his voice cold.
you frown, hurt by what he said. “good thing i’m not doing hand-to-hand combat with a damn titan, then.” you snap.
“it doesn’t fucking matter. either way, you’re still weak.”
“fuck you.” you spit out, turning on your heel and storming away, he doesn’t call out for you, and you don’t expect him to either.
you go straight to the barracks, peeling off your uniform and slipping into your bunk with a sigh. you stare up at the ceiling, mind spinning with thoughts you struggle to contain. you only manage to lay there for about ten minutes before you become restless.
you find yourself sat at your desk, quill in your hand as you stare down at the blank page in front of you. so many thoughts in your head yet none could form words for you to write on paper.
the sheet was bare apart from the two words you’d scrawled down at the top: dear levi.
he was only going to read the letter if you ended up dead tomorrow, you reminded yourself. and with that, you began to write.
when you’d finished, you’d only managed to get out one coherent paragraph. but it held everything you wanted to say to him. so you signed with your name at the bottom, folded your paper into an envelope and your mind finally found rest.
only a few hours later, you were in the stables with what seemed to be hundreds of other soldiers, all of them leading out their horses into the formation.
you were fiddling with the buckles of your gear, cursing under your breath as the stubborn fabric refused to tighten. you hear a scoff behind you, and suddenly that familiar inky crop of black hair appeared in front of you.
levi didn’t even look up, he only tightened the fabric around your thighs with calloused hands, checked your gear quietly and then skulked off like he didn’t just make your heart skip a beat.
you shook it off, collected yourself and walked your horse to her position in the formation. you placed one foot in the stirrup, swinging your leg over her back as you settled into the saddle.
you could hear someone giving orders from the front, but you were hardly focused on that. you were still trying to keep your heart from racing. whether it was from levi’s sudden appearance earlier, or nerves from the expedition, you couldn’t tell. if you squinted, you could see him from your spot in the formation. hair swaying slightly in the wind, his undercut slightly grown out after a while of not cutting it.
you remember when he’d let you run your fingers through it reluctantly, grumbling the whole way through whilst you laughed and arranged his hair into various styles.
your heart clenches painfully in your chest and you look away. it’s only when the sound of the flare that shocks your horse into movement that you focus. your hand clench onto the reins tightly, knuckles whitening as your horse gallops forward, along the the hundreds of others.
you feel the wind blow over you, ruffling your clothes and hair and you let it ground you. when the formation breaks through the outermost wall, you see it.
of course, it’s not your first time being outside of the walls, but today seems different. the sun shone brightly, and the grass seemed greener than ever. various flowers bloomed across the fields and hills, ones you recognised and ones you didn’t. the foolish thought of collecting some tried to plant itself in your mind, but you quickly uprooted it and focus on the path in front of you.
you look around at your squad mates, arranged in a formation around you. they already looked grim and pale, as if they’d already accepted their fate. you push the haunted looks on their faces out of your mind, and you face forward, and the greens build and blue sky.
it’s not as if it would’ve changed anything anyways.
lurking in the distance, perched upon a hill, was a man-eating beast that had managed to lay its eyes on the fresh meat known as ‘the survey corps’. it sprung into action almost instantly, as if it couldn’t hold itself back from the prospect of a new meal.
the captain of your squad shot his arm up, the sound of a black flare being released almost bursting your eardrums.
it must’ve been, with the way it was running towards your area. if you could even call it running. the muscles in its thigh purled with each pounding step it took towards you, its feet twisted at an odd angle as it neared you.
its arms flailed bonelessly behind it, and its mouth was split into a grin so wide you wondered what it was so happy about. it must’ve been atleast 15m tall, with the way it got larger and larger as it moved closer and closer.
you looked towards the front of the formation, but you’d yet to see a response flare. one that would indicate what to do. whether to fight, or to run.
but as the titan neared, it was evident what the answer would be.
you heard a yell from behind, someone had risen up onto their horse, shooting out their hooks which sunk deep into the flesh of the tian, and launched themselves into action.
you whipped your head around, you couldn’t watch. you had to face forward. but you kept your ears perked, waiting to hear that sound of a 10 ton beast hitting the ground.
you didn’t hear anything.
you flared your nostrils slightly, waiting for the familiar scent of rotting titan flesh to invade your senses.
you don’t smell anything.
instead, you heard the sickening sound of bones being crushed and blood spurting, and the deathly cry of someone who’d just been crushed in the jaw of a beast.
it wasn’t long before the ground started to vibrate with each step the titan took. it was no longer running towards the group, it was running alongside the formation, as if this was some sort of sick race.
you cringed slightly when you heard the familiar crush of bones followed by not only the scream of a human, but the howl of a horse too. it didn’t take to long to realise the titan was crushing people underfoot.
you gripped your reins tighter urging your horse past her limits as you willed her to go faster. you stopped being able to tell what was going on. you could hear the zips of the omni-directional-gear behind you, but the sound of the titan falling never came.
scream after scream after scream, the titan was simply plucking off members off you’re squad like they were cherries.
you knew that you wouldn’t be able to outrun it. the more skilled members of the survery corps were placed at the front of the formation. too valued to be plucked off by a titan like this. your squad was one of the more average ones. it was clear that average wasn’t going to cut it for this titan.
with each scream that you heard, the more you realised that if you were to jump off your horse and attempt to slay the beast, you would only end up like the rest of them.
however, you had no choice. the scream stopped. you couldn’t hear any horses or feel anyone behind you— anyone human, atleast.
you let out a shaky breath, and turned.
at first, all you could see was a hand. a large, fleshy, calloused hand reaching out towards you, in slow motion. past that hand, you saw the mouth splitting grin of the titan once more. yet this time, its teeth were stained red with blood, pieces of flesh stuck between them. its eyes, empty and soulless were locked on you.
it’d clearly already eaten more than enough, yet had decided it wasn’t full. it would never be, forever tearing into the flesh of humans until time came to an end.
you didn’t allow yourself to freeze up like you’d seen others do once before. you shot out your hooks— into its hand, just for a split second to give yourself momentum, before retracting them and shooting them into the very face of the titan.
you moved towards it’s face at an alarming speed and its mouth lolled open, as if you were about to launch yourself into its mouth as a free treat. the thought almost made you laugh. the filthy beast had wiped out over half your squad, and you weren’t going down without a fight. you unsheathed your blades, and once you got close enough, you slashed into the beasts eyes.
blood spurted out, staining your sling and clothes. you ignored using, retracting your hooks and using momentum to propel yourself over the titans head, flipping in the air until you were face to face with its nape.
before you could start falling, you shoot your hooks into its nape and ready your blades. the gas in your canister propels you forward, and forward, until you almost already imagine the titan falling at your hands—
the titan blindly reaches a hand back for you, but its fingers get caught in your wire, completely changing your trajectory. you thump uselessly against the titans back, and it clutches onto your wire, ripping your hooks out of its back and dangling you over its mouth.
you stare into the filthy, rotting flesh of its throat, and your blades dangle loosely in your hands, and you realise there’s nothing you can do. its eyes start to heal, each nerve and synapse reconnecting, then the muscle, and then the skin. all until you could see its lifeless eyes looking back at you.
the titan brings up its other hand and it clamps around you. at first, it felt almost like a soft caress. then its fleshy hand tightened, and you let out a guttural scream as your ribs creaked under the pressure.
the titan was toying with you. playing with its food.
you hadn’t been the most religious person, but you found yourself praying to God as you neared the titans mouth, squeezing your eyes shut.
then suddenly, a flash of green, with a hint of black.
and then you’re falling. within the hand of the titan.
it feels as if you’re falling for eternity. the wind whips through your hair, blurring your vision and causing tears to roll down your cheeks.
you would feel cold if it wasn’t for the hand of the titan still wrapped around you. that’s when you realised there’s hand was no longer connected to the body.
you tried to push your way out of the limp hand which held you, but even if the hand was essentially dead, it was much to heavy for you to try and push out of.
you simply lay on the back, within the titans palm, and stare up at the sky. so deep and blue. you wonder if the impact will kill you. it was evident that someone had saved you.
what a waste, you thought.
and then the impact came. pain coursed through you body, unimaginable, searing pain, but you only felt it for a split second. your ears started the ring, your head pounding as your eyesight became grainy and blurry.
they say the hearing is last to go when you die.
the last thing you remember hearing was the sound of the titan collapsing to the ground, finally slain.
finally at peace, a small smile graces your lips. you allow your head to loll to the side, and you take in the view. you could hardly see, but the vast green of the hills and the deep blue of the sky was impossible to miss.
you couldn’t make out the flowers, though.
your body lay there, legs bent at a slightly awkward angle and your eyes widen open yet unseeing. the hand of the titan you lay in was cocooned around you, protecting you, almost. but it wasn’t long before it started to steam, and rot, and disappear.
the it was just you. you, sprawled out against the grass and the flowers you loved so very much.
by the time he’d just slain the beast, covered in its blood, and panting. yet he still ran over to you, hoping, praying. but it was too late.
your body was still warm as he crouched over you, grabbing your shoulders and shaking you. if it wasn’t for your eyes staring dead at him, he would’ve thought you were sleeping. you looked peaceful, almost.
shakily, he raised his hand over your parted lips, fucking hoping you would pull through.
then he felt… nothing. he could still feel the wind whipping past the two of you, he could still hear the sound of the distant hooves of the formation, the birds in the sky, yet he felt nothing. numb.
gently, brushed his hand over your face, closing your eyes. he righted your legs, and tightened your cloak around you, as if you were going to get cold.
he hadn’t realised he’d let a tear slip out until it landed on your cheek, rolling down. he wiped it off you quickly and collected himself, reminding himself that it was fault for getting close to someone else in this kind of place.
he ripped himself away from you, avoided looking at your frame resting in the flowerbed.
he whistled and his horse returned faithfully. mounting him, he squeezed his calves and urged his horse forward into a sprint, chasing after the formation which he could still see.
he completed the rest of the expedition mindlessly. he doesn’t even remember what happened after seeing your corpse. he simply killed titans, and that was it.
it wasn’t until the formation finally reached the walls again that the ache in his chest finally started to bloom. his heart squeezed painfully, and the feeling was unfamiliar. he’d ignored the cheers of the citizens of the city they were currently riding through, scoffing as he heard some officers calling the expedition a ‘success’.
how could they fucking say that when you were still out there? granted, you were dead. but he atleast should’ve been able to fucking bury you.
he only just about makes it to his private quarters before the guilt and pain overwhelms him. he only gets a minute of silence until someone raps at his door.
he ignores the knock, and the person eventually walks away, but not until sliding an envelope under his door.
he was going to ignore that, assuming it was some report he had to fill out after the expedition. but he froze when he saw your neat handwriting on the paper.
it was almost embarrassing how fast he scrambled up from the bed, picking up the sheet of paper in trembling hands. he carefully plucked it open, his eyes scanning the words.
i hope this letter finds you at the right time. but if you’re reading this, i’m dead. i’m sorry i didn’t have the courage to say this whilst i was alive, and im sorry if these words complicate things for you.
i loved you. quietly, and for a lot longer than i had realised. it wasn’t a fleeting feeling or a convenient one— it was the kind that settled into my days and made me look forward to seeing you. i didn’t want anything in return from you. just loving you was enough.
i’m sorry for every moment i held back, or said something hurtful that i didn’t mean. for every truth i swallowed believing it was the best for us both. i thought silence was kinder. i now see it was only safer.
you dont owe my memory anything, so don’t feel burdened by this. i just wanted you to know that you were deeply cherished.
take care of yourself. that would mean everything to me.
you signature was scribbled at the bottom, with a little heart next to it.
the flimsy paper slipped from between his fingers, fluttering as it landed between his feet on the ground.
and for the first time in a while, he allowed himself to cry.
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