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And though I close my eyes

Summary: On his 84th birthday, Levi looks back. [Post-canon events, canon-compliant]

Pairing: Levi x Pain Levi x Petra, minor Gabi x Falco

Warnings: Suicidal ideation, major character death (ends bittersweet I promise lol)

Words: 1,525

Inspired by this funny video on Youtube. How I turned it into angst, I also don't know.

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“Happy birthday, happy birthday~”

“I’m too old for surprises,” Levi drily notes, trying hard not to smile. He thinks he would’ve hightailed out the room, but Gabi had already blocked the way.

They all ignore his grumpy grumble as Falco places the cake in front of him.

“Happy birthday to you~”

The room erupts in jeers and joyous laughter the moment the song ends, and Levi finds himself being nudged to blow the candle and make a wish.

“Give grandpa Levi a birthday hug, Carter,” Gabi nudges her youngest son.

“Happy birthday, grandpa Levi!” Carter greets him, now too big at ten years old to climb his lap, but not much of a rebellious teen enough to not throw his arms around the old man.

Levi gives an ‘oof’ as he accepts the eager hug from the boy, a small fond smile tugging up the corner of his lip. He gives Carter a pat on the head and allows him to ramble away.

“Happy birthday, Uncle Levi,” Falco greets again as Levi accepts his gift, giving a grateful nod to the couple he’d basically raised since he moved to Marley.

“Thanks,” Levi says, then remarks when he’s sure that Carter was already occupied with wolfing down his slice of cake. “I hope this is my last.”

Gabi erupts in laughter, used to his grumbles and joking quips of how an old fuck like him is still breathing.

Falco, ever the sweet boy that he is even as a middle-aged man now, gives him a nervous smile, always antsy at the thought of Levi dying. It’s the same for all their other children.

“Oh, don’t be like that, grandpa,” Sophia, Gabi and Falco’s now 26-year-old first-born, noted. “I bet you and Carter can still go racing with your wheelchair and his bike.”

“Pretty sure wheelchairs aren’t made for racing,” another piped up. This one looking more and more like Falco since the day he turned 23. Benjamin had sometimes been Levi’s favorite. The blonde knows when to shut up, fond as the old man may be of all of Gabi and Falco’s children.

Levi never understood why they’d all made a fuss out of his eventual passing. He thinks it’s been long overdue, if he’s honest. It’s not like he’d faced death on the daily during his prime years in the military.

And what the hell are you supposed to do at eighty-fucking-four?

The world have no need for Ackermans now.

It would’ve been easy—a gun to his temple would do the trick. A noose around his neck is also a less messy option.

Hell, he could’ve just given into his injuries four decades ago and maybe he would’ve joined them all earlier when he’d saluted his comrades for the last time.

He finds that he thinks of them more frequently in the last few years. Levi doesn’t know if it’s just the impulse that comes with old age—to be a sensitive little shit as you crawl your years away to your gravestone.

Levi mind floats to them as the world gets more advanced, and they didn’t even get the chance to experience what they all worked so hard for.

He thinks Hange would’ve loved all the new technologies that pop up in Marley in what seems like every year.

They recently developed this box thing called a “television” (the twitch on Gabi’s brow whenever Levi breaks another remote had always been priceless). Levi tried fixing the wires once when their first television broke down, before Falco politely asked him if he needed any help and took over repairs.

He gets the feeling the late Scout scientist would’ve dissected the box the first chance she gets.

Marley’s books were next level—their libraries even more so—and he can only imagine how Erwin’s huge-ass eyebrows would’ve shot up in interest.

Tch. Maybe Levi would be a sap enough to gift him a book or two.

There’s a pub a few blocks away the first apartment he rented in Marley. He thinks Eld, Oluo and Gunther would all appreciate the unique list of drinks. He’d bet his finest tea cup that Eld would’ve sneaked a bottle or two out.

The three men sometimes got the courage to ask their captain out for drinks back when they were still alive. And despite Levi’s annoyance at their tendency to share a single brain cell, he’d acquiesced once or twice.

And most importantly, he’d found something called a record player.

“Imagine if we can just play music in private, captain. Maybe you wouldn’t be too hesitant to join in on the fun,” she’d teased him when he’d refused to dance in public during one of the midwinter festivals. “We can ask Hange to invent one!”

“Don’t give her more ideas,” Levi had replied to her, hands shyly shoved in his coat pocket as he lounged at the back of the ballroom.

She’d flashed him a dazzling smile and kept him company for the rest of the night, singing along to the band.

He’d found himself entranced whenever he sneaked a glance at her that night, her ginger hair looking more like silk with her every sway to the music.

It’s not that he didn’t want to dance with her. He regretted that he didn’t, to be frank. But Captain Levi back then didn’t have time to dwell on regrets.

On nights when he couldn’t sleep, he’d sometimes turn on the record player that Gabi bought him. He knows jackshit about what’s trending, nor does he care (and the model he still owns is way outdated), often just grabbing a record that seems to fit his tastes.

(Or reminds him of her voice, despite only hearing her sing once.)

“Grandpa Levi,” Carter snaps him out of his reverie. Levi looks around, as if bringing himself back out of his thoughts. He finds the room was abuzz with the usual chatter as the family always celebrate midwinter thanksgiving along with his birthday.

“Wanna go outside?” Carter invites, then comes closer as if conspiring with the old man. “This place is full of boring adults.”

Levi looks at the cake that he seemed to be staring at for awhile now, and decides to humor the kid.

Sometimes conversations with Carter reminds him of another energetic green-eyed boy he’d been in charge of in what seemed like forever ago.

“Yeah, sure thing brat,” Levi replies, making a wobbling attempt to stand up. “Can you grab my cane? This wheelchair’s making my ass sore.”

------------------------

It’s been a few days since his 84th birthday and Levi sees them more these days.

Sometimes he thinks he can feel Erwin lounging next to him, the man’s steady and confident presence accompanying him as Levi flips another page on the morning paper.

He’d also get a flash of messy auburn hair and goggles, only for it to be gone the moment he turns around to find the source of the annoying cackle.

At night, he’d often hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway, which reminds him of his former squad sneaking back to their rooms after a night of whatever fuckery they got involved in. He’d chalked it up to Gabi and Falco coming home late, despite the footsteps being heavier than they’d usually be.

Perhaps the worst of them all is the ginger hair he’d see from the corner of his remaining eye, only for the visage to be gone before he can even blink.

On good days, he’d find her soft fingers running through Carter’s hair, and his heart twists whenever his mind strays to the realization that this oblivious boy could’ve been their grandchild had she lived past the 57th.

Sometimes he’d get a whiff of her lavender laundry soap as he attempts to make his cup of tea, and he swears the taste is almost the same as when she’d made it for him decades ago.

Levi thinks it’s another good day today as she sits in front of him, her form more vivid than it had ever been in the past.

Petra’s smile is soft and melancholic, but it’s there. It's there as she holds his hand tight and reassuring, as she tucks a stray strand of inky hair out of his face. He missed her smile, and he doesn’t know when was the last time he’d been this happy, save for when Gabi and Falco adopted Carter from the streets.

That’s why he doesn’t understand why Gabi is panicking next to him, or why Falco had ran out to seek help.

He would’ve scolded the brats (because they’ll always be brats to him) to calm the fuck down, but Levi can’t seem to find his voice right now.

Everything momentarily went black, his vision blurring, and he feels what felt like a final sharp squeeze on his chest.

“Took you long enough, Captain,” Petra’s voice finally pipes up after a moment, her cheery smile as bright as when she’d first saluted him. He’d only ever seen her the past few days, but had never heard her talk.

It’s been more than forty years since he’d last heard her voice.

As he looks around, taking in how everything feels light and freeing, something in Levi tells him that her voice will be a part of his daily moving forward.

Fucking finally.

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