Toshinorisbaby's Flufftober
𝔸𝕝𝕥 𝟙𝟞 ⋮ 𝑭͋𝒊͓𝒓̽𝒆̟𝒑͋𝒍͓𝒂̽𝒄̟𝒆 🩵 𝙻𝚎𝚟𝚒 𝙰𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 🩵 A Little Closer (2.3k words)
FLUFFTOBER MASTERLIST | 2025. Visit @flufftober to see everyone's wonderful entries! [A03] [Fanfiction.net] [Wattpad]
summary: When a scouting mission goes sideways, you and Levi must wait out a snowstorm in an old farmhouse. The cold, the dark, and a shared fire strip away every last excuse to keep your distance. (notes: Of course, Levi's prompt is the only one so far that I've gone over word count on AND included smut... hehehe) warnings/themes: Reader Insert, Fluff & Smut, Snowstorm, Forced Proximity, Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, First Kiss, Cuddling & Snuggling, Intimacy, Spooning, Gentle Sex, Comfort Sex, Vaginal Sex, Repressed Feelings, Vulnerability, Softness, Canon Compliant.
The snow comes out of nowhere—first a warning, then a wall. You and Levi had been sent ahead of the main force to scout a stretch of abandoned farmland just inside Wall Maria, searching for signs of Titan activity and any shelter the rest of the Corps might use. You make it as far as the tree line before the storm eats the horizon, swallowing the sun and the path behind. Wind sharp as broken glass whips your cloak, driving you toward the hunched black shape ahead: a farmhouse slumped under its own years, half the windows missing, the roof bowed like a spine that’s given up.
Levi gets there first, always a few paces ahead—shouldering the risk so the rest of the squad don’t have to. He slips inside, scans the gloom, and makes a face like the house itself has personally insulted him. You can see why. The place smells like cold rot and damp fur, floor lost beneath a winter’s worth of straw, mud, mouse droppings, some poor family’s grief fossilised in mugs and boots abandoned mid-flight. Levi’s hand hovers just above some mess, fingers curling like he wants to pinch the entire building between them and flick it off the face of the earth.
“Tch.” The sound snaps the silence like a twig underfoot. “Filthy. Better off sleeping in a Titan’s mouth.”
You shrug off your pack and glance around, boots crunching on something that was probably bread once and is now a fossil record. “Maybe it’s safer in here,” you offer. “Titans don’t like cold, right?”
Levi shoots you a look—one of his, flat and thin, the kind that makes grown men forget how to stand. “You’ll be safer if you stop tracking shit everywhere. Take your boots off.”
You obey because it’s easier than arguing, stripping down to your socks—already wet, making your feet go numb. Levi circles the main room like a vulture with a vendetta, rolling up his sleeves, jaw flexing. He finds an ancient broom, tests the bristles, and mutters something obscene under his breath about “useless country idiots” and “plague.”
You can’t help but smile, a small thing, quick and secret. This is the part no one writes down—the legendary Captain Levi, ankle-deep in dust, losing a staring contest to a dead rat.
“Start with the fireplace,” he says, tossing you a battered tin pail. “If I have to breathe whatever’s growing in there, I’d rather just inhale the woodsmoke and die.”
You set to work. The grate is a blackened snarl of ashes, sticks, a half-melted candle, and the ghost of someone’s dinner bone. You scoop, dust, cough. Levi moves behind you—his motions efficient, silent except for the soft curse when his broom snags on something foul. He’s a study in irritation: lips pressed tight, brow drawn, shoulders rigid as he attacks grime with surgical focus.
At one point, you “accidentally” flick a dust bunny in his direction. Levi freezes, death in his eyes.
“You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain.”
“Mm.” He narrows his eyes. “If you ‘dream’ any harder, you can sleep outside.”
You clean in sync for a while—him muttering, you grinning behind your hand. It would be almost normal, almost cosy, if not for the hunger and the cold and the knowledge that death is only ever a few hours ahead. Still, you make a game of it for your own amusement. You nudge your boots out of the way, and a mess of snow tumbles off the soles onto Levi’s freshly scrubbed floorboards. He glares. You try to mop it up with an old scarf. He snatches the cloth from you and shakes his head, exasperated but fond. You start humming a tune about housework. He groans like it physically pains him.
By the time the sun vanishes behind the snow, the room is—if not clean—at least bearable. Levi straightens, stretches his neck with a pop, and surveys the damage.
“Better,” he says, like he’s grading you. “Still disgusting, but I won’t catch dysentery in my sleep.”
With the last pile of debris swept aside, you glance at Levi, then go to the door, hoping for even a glimpse of clear sky. It doesn’t budge. You brace both hands against the frame and push with your whole weight. Nothing. The wood groans but stays shut, frozen in place by a wall of drift outside.
Levi joins you. Together, you shove. The door gives maybe an inch before jamming solid.
“Snow’s packed tight,” you say, breathless. “We’re stuck.”
He leans in, shoulder to yours, peering out the cracked window. White as far as you can see, night swallowing the road. “Great,” he mutters. “I get to die in a pigsty. With only you as company.”
You laugh. “Could be worse. Could be Hange.”
He grunts, and you swear you catch the shadow of a smile.
There’s wood in the old wicker baskets by the fireplace, bone-dry by some miracle. Levi kneels, arranging sticks and splinters, striking flint with practised hands. His movements are quick, precise, all tension and intent. You watch the small flame bloom, fragile and golden, licking life into the dark. He glances up, catches you staring.
“Tea?” he asks, voice flat, but there’s something softer under it. He digs in his pack, producing a small, battered pan and two tin cups. Always prepared for the worst, always practical.
You sit shoulder to shoulder, letting the fire thaw the ache from your fingers. Steam coils from the pan. Levi pours, sliding your cup across with a nod.
You sip, burning your tongue, and let the warmth bloom in your chest. The fire pops, throwing light and shadow across Levi, highlighting the hard angles of his face, the old scars on his collarbones, the way his mouth is always set like a line he doesn’t cross unless he means it.
The wind howls, shaking the shutters. The room feels small, safe, oddly intimate.
You shiver. He notices—because he notices everything. “Move closer,” he grumbles, not meeting your eyes. “I’ve already spent the afternoon hauling out rat corpses. Don’t make me add you to the pile.”
You inch nearer. To the fire. To him. The heat of him seeps into your bones, steadying your breath. You can smell soap and leather and a hint of sweat, the iron tang that always follows him, sharp as new blood.
Outside, the windows are black—darker than ink, darker than night should ever be. Every gust of wind sets the old boards creaking, cracked glass panes rattling loose in their frames. Somewhere out in the fields, something shrieks—a fox, maybe, or the storm twisting through hollow eaves—but your mind supplies the memory of Titans moving through fog, faces too close, too wide. Every shadow outside the flickering fire feels a little too alive.
You try to lighten the mood. “Know any ghost stories? Feels appropriate, since we’re in a haunted house and all.”
Levi snorts, low and unimpressed. “You want ghosts? I’ve got plenty.”
“Prove it.”
He sighs like it’s a fate worse than death, but gives in. “Once there was a bunch of brats—filthy, lazy, and stupid. They never cleaned their boots, never washed their hands. Dirt everywhere, piss in the corners, socks that could kill a man at ten paces.”
You bite your lip to keep from laughing.
“One day, a monster showed up,” Levi goes on, voice dry as the old bone you found in the fireplace. “But it wasn’t a ghost. Or a titan. It was me. I dragged them out by their ears and made them scrub until their skin peeled. But they never learned. So now their ghosts haunt the barracks, leaving muddy footprints and shit in the latrines. Sometimes, if you listen at night, you can hear them—bitching about cleaning duty, plotting their revenge.” He pauses, then adds with gravity, “If you find a stray sock, don’t touch it.”
You snort tea out of your nose, coughing. Levi just smirks, proud and annoyed all at once.
“Your turn,” he says.
You go for humour, but the story wanders somewhere darker—a shadow on the wall, a friend who never made it home, the way silence settles in after laughter dies. Your voice falters. Levi’s grey eyes catch yours in the firelight, sharper, more open than you expect.
He doesn’t say anything for a while. The only sound is the fire, the wind, your own too-loud heartbeat.
“You’re still shivering,” he says at last, softer. He moves—awkward, abrupt, but gentle. He tugs you into him, pulls his cloak over you both like a tent. You go without protest.
The heat is shocking, a shield against the cold, the world, the ache of old memories unfurling at the edge of your thoughts.
For a moment, Levi just sits there, rigid and uncertain, chin resting lightly on top of your head. The fire crackles. Your shivering doesn’t stop.
Then, with a quiet, resigned exhale, he slips his arm around your shoulders—hesitant at first, then firmer when you don’t pull away. It’s strange, being this close to him. He’s always been a presence at your side, just out of reach; now the line between you is thin as breath, and you can feel every rise and fall of his chest against your back.
“Not gonna let you freeze,” he mutters. “Can’t afford to lose good soldiers.”
The words sting a little—he says it like an order, but you catch the lie in the way he's holding you. Closer than duty requires, warmer than command demands. His hand lingers on your shoulder, thumb brushing over the bone. There’s a softness to his grip that says more than he ever will.
You turn, just enough to look up at him. His face is close in the firelight, expression hard to parse—a flicker of something in his eyes, pupils huge and dark. He looks at you the way a stray might watch an open door—uncertain, wary, but unable to turn away from the chance. You wonder if anyone else has ever seen him this close, this unguarded.
The silence stretches, charged, trembling. You could break it with a word, a joke... or a brush of lips.
You lean in.
The kiss is sudden—awkward, a little desperate, but real. Levi freezes for half a heartbeat, then responds, slow but careful. His lips are rough and chapped, but honest. You taste smoke and tea and all the unspoken words he never lets himself say.
He pulls back first, breath ghosting over your cheek. “You’re a pain in my ass,” he says softly, but his hand falls to your waist, fingers tracing the curve of your ribs as if he’s counting to be sure you’re real.
You nestle closer, legs tangled, head tucked beneath his chin. He huffs, as if baffled by himself, but he doesn’t move. His heartbeat steadies. Yours slows to match.
You sit in the hush, the silence between you peaceful in a way that feels rare. When tiredness finally wins, you lie down side by side. The floor is hard and uneven, planks jabbing at your ribs. Still, with Levi’s cloak draped over you both and his body radiating heat at your back, you think you might actually manage a few hours of rest—if you’re lucky.
You shift closer, drawn by warmth. Maybe it’s the cold, maybe it’s the hush between heartbeats. Your back fits against his chest, and when your hand finds his at your waist, he lets it stay—a conscious choice in the quiet.
His nose finds the curve of your neck. Hot breath ghosts over skin; his mouth brushes your pulse—softer than you expected. When his hand slides beneath your shirt, fingers splaying warm across your stomach, then lower, a small, surprised sound slips from you. He pauses, asking without words.
“Levi,” you whisper, a question and an answer in one.
His reply is another kiss, open-mouthed, just behind your ear.
You shift back to make space, and the truth of him—hard, wanting—settles against you. You bite back a laugh, the whole thing too absurd and intimate for words.
He moves slowly. Every motion is careful, a soldier’s discipline turned gentle: pulling you closer, easing himself into place, groaning softly at the first, impossible contact. The world folds down to heat and longing, the fire a low chorus before you.
You guide his hand, let your own reach back to tangle in his hair. He buries his face against your nape, mutters something filthy and fond, hips rocking in a rhythm as old as the world.
You try to be quiet—Levi’s hand over your mouth when you can’t—but whimpers slip out anyway, muffled between his fingers, trembling through both of you. You unravel together like that: shivering, pressed close, laughter dissolving into pleasure, blurred by warmth and exhaustion.
After, Levi doesn’t let you go. He sighs about the miserable floor, pulls the cloak higher, wipes you clean with a corner of his shirt, then fits himself close behind you, keeping the cold at bay. The room seems smaller, softer—heat passing from his skin to yours, yours to his.
“Sleep,” he says, voice hoarse. “Don't snore. And don’t even think about drooling on me.”
But his hand stays at your hip, thumb moving slow circles until you start to drift off, safe and warm, firelight dancing over both of your bodies, tangled in the dark.
You think you hear him murmur, just before sleep claims you both: “This feels right.”
Or maybe it’s just your mind settling, a dream starting early.
Outside, the snow falls. Inside, in the flickering dark, you learn the shape of safety—small, hard-won, and warm enough to last till morning.
