#avtfic

[avariantflaire]

“what are those?” hunter asks, voice still gravelly from crying.

“forget-me-nots,” willow replies softly, taking his hand. he squeezes it, sniffling.

“yeah,” he croaks, and she holds him a little tighter. flapjack’s name is etched in stone before them, surrounded by willow’s flowers. “yeah. i’d never.”

[avariantflaire]

She holds him like summer rainstorm, like thousands of droplets touching his face, making his eyes water, extending his hands to a sky streaked with lightning.

“Hunter?” she whispers, her voice soft on his ears, her breath hard on his neck. “Haven’t you ever been hugged before?”

Thunder, clapping in his heart.

“Once.” He squeezes his eyes shut, remembers Gus’s words.

(Just go with it.)

“Not…” His voice cracks like the sky buckling against the weight of a storm. He doesn’t know if he should hate himself or forgive himself for it. “…not like this.”

“Do you want me to let go?”

“No,” he says, too quickly. His hands finally wrap around her, because he should know by now, what a hug means.

Willow’s smile spreads over his skin – like a lightning streak across a battered sky. His heart beats fast. Faster. How does the sky have room for such a beautiful, magnificent, powerful force of nature?

“Okay,” is all she says in return. They stay close together like this, for a long time, until the storm in Hunter’s heart calms into a warm summer drizzle.

[avariantflaire]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

#10: petra; parted haircuts.

Levi bristles, slightly offended. "I could kiss you on the cheek if you wanted me to." "Not the point here, hon," Petra says, "though it's very kind of you to offer. Has our son been possessed by a demon?" "Christ, I hope not. Wouldn't know how to kill it."

[avariantflaire]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

rivetra / aot / levi & petra (lowkey) adopt eren au, canon compliant

"Captain, I swear!" She purses her lips. "It's just." "Just what, don't make me smack it out of you." Even her neck burns. "Eren's missing."

[avariantflaire]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

#9: levi; like blossoms.

"Well… I still have a lot to think about… and I don't know what the future holds, but… um…" She's been drawing it out, all this time, and she peeks at him now, wondering, biting her lip. And maybe he notices, because he says, "I'm going to need your help running the tea shop." She huffs. "You're just going to make me run errands for you. 'You're going to town today, Petra? Here. Get me some of the new Earl Grey.'" "Got a problem with that?" He wrinkles his nose. "You're the only one I can trust with things like that. Oluo would get the wrong shit. Eren would end up burning the store down." That renders her speechless for a moment. Then she laughs, big and loud and guttural, air pushing all the butterflies from her stomach into a joyous melody. "You really are something else!" She wipes her tears away, and cheeks pink, she looks at him with a gracious smile. "There's going to be an empty lot beside my house when the neighbors move." Levi can't quite reflect her smile, but his eyes gleam, if only for a moment. "That a promise, Ral?"

[avariantflaire]

Was it a moment? Hunter wondered often. Did it only take a moment – one moment – to dedicate his heart?

O Captain, My Captain.

“You’re good at doing what you told,” Darius had said to him once, matter-of-fact, without malice. Somehow that was worse, to be told within reason that you were the sum of someone else’s parts. And in an effort to prove himself, there she was.

Willow Park. He knew her first as the eager captain of a future team, looking for the best and brightest. She had seen best and brightest in him, and made sure to never let him go.

At first, he needed that. He didn’t know it yet, but he sorely needed the faith she had placed in him without even thinking twice: a chance he needn’t have earned, only fulfilled.

It was the same for everyone in the Emerald Entrails, in hindsight. They were all overlooked, misjudged, and seeking to prove themselves in some way; Willow – the Captain – had seen the best and brightest in them too. With her there were no chances.

Willow Park never did anything in halves.

“I didn’t know how to say it yet. But –”

“You mean a lot to me too.”

And it was so Augustinian of him, so devoted of him, so goddamn faithful of him, to always reach for her and be by her side. For his loyal heart, this was no difficult feat; it was merely a testament to everything that came before and everything she promised in the after.

He looks at her, now, with her cropped hair and her still bright eyes. She is the best he’s been looking for, all of his life.

“For love of thy love I do it.” - lifted from St. Augustine’s Confessions