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4rs0ny · 2 days ago

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'His Heart'

📍Navigation Station📍

<<<last chapter Wanna 📸teaser📸? ;) and a visual for my OC

I finally had time to finish chapter 2, sorry!

TW: grief-stricken delusion, heavy usage of the word fuck, Levi's a terrible dancer

Maybe She Sent You

He’d finally managed to get her inside, and peel himself away long enough to finish packing up for tomorrow. Furlan hadn’t shut up about her, and honestly, he wanted to punch him - just out cold so he couldn’t ask another fucking question.

“What was that all about?”

“What’d you write?”

“Dinner? Seriously man?”

“You dyin’?”

Like it’s illegal for him to show any semblance of compassion or something. The girl had lost her mom, he’d be a hypocrite to berate her for lashing out. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that his heart beats a little faster everytime she opens her god damn mouth.

So, there she sat, with Isabel, on the godforsaken couch Levi had been begging Kenny to get rid of for years. By the sound of it, Isa had dropped one of Kenny’s vinyls. By the look too, there were sleeves and vinyls scattered across the coffee table - his letter unfolded and discarded in the mess.

Isabel was good at that. Making people smile when they didn’t want to. It takes a special type of person to turn grief into laughter, a talent few possess. Kuchel had it, and sometimes, Levi thinks its why he puts up with the little shit.

Levi didn’t realize he’d been standing in the entryway, watching them like a creeper, until the red head scoffed and waved him over. He only took a couple steps in, ready to for her to turn up her nose and scold him for ‘wording his letter too bluntly’. Though it never came. Collete was just watching him, eyes almost gleaming with amusement.

“I hear that you are…an unintentional asshole,” she mused, “Is this true?”

He scoffs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, shooting a glare at Isabel and her big fucking mouth in the process, “You could say that.”

She raises a brow, wracking her brain for something else to say, because she had had so much to, but now there was nothing. Every bit of misplaced anger had been realized. She knew she wasn’t mad at him, at least not anymore. Just like he would be a hypocrite, she would be too - if she expected someone in mourning to be concerned with a stranger’s mental state.

“Désolè…for just…uh, showing up,” she has to take a deep breath to continue, the last thing she’d expected to do when she got here was apologize, “and for…being a raging bitch.”

A huff that could have been a laugh leaves Levi, chin dropping to his chest to hide the crack of a smirk pulling at his lip.

“None of that…” he gestures to coffeetable, “clean this shit up and c’mon.”

Isabel straightens up a bit, putting a vinyl back in its sleeve. “Where we goin’?”

“The Depot,” he huffs, crouching down to put the records back in their crate, “hurry up ‘fore I change my mind, girly.”

She scampers up to her feet before he can say anything else, mess forgotten, stumbling through pulling boots on her feet, and out the front door. Storm door slamming shut in the newfound silence, save for the soft rustling of vinlys sliding against polyethelane and cardboard.

They haven’t look at each other again, not yet. Too afraid to break whatever was hanging between them. Maybe it was something genetic. Eva’s DNA and Kuchel’s trying to right their wrongs through them; anything to explain why neither of their hearts will just…slow down.

Collete’s eyes stuck on the vinyl in her hands, thumbs sweeping along the frayed edges of the cover. ‘Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?’ By The Cranberries. It was the only one that wasn’t some Rockabilly band she’d never heard of - one of her favorites actually.

Levi doesn’t mind them, or that’s what he says, but how else would it have gotten mixed up in Kenny’s shit? She only looks away when he stands, he’s looking at the way her fingers splay across the back of the album.

Have you ever driven through the middle of nowhere? Right after heavy rain. Just field after field of green. When the Honeysuckle hung thick in the air, and the sun was so warm you could almost smell it. Blanketing the freshly cleansed earth with a shimmer that had a way of creeping up under your skin.

The warmth takes over you. Bathes you in a freshness only mother nature can provide, makes all the bad float away.

That’s what she smelled like. That and the cigarette that hung from between her lips.

“D’you hear me?”

Her eyes flicker up to meet his, brows dropping back into the frown they’d forgotten they were meant to hold. It takes her a moment to gather herself before she can find the words.

“Um…” slipping her purse back over her shoulder, she stands, record in hand with the intention of putting it away, “Yes, I’m moving my ass.”

“Uh-uh, gimme that,” he tuts, stepping in to grab it from her, “’s not his.”

A beat passed, a couple of slow blinks; heavy lashes fluttering when her eyes met his. For a moment, he watched the way the glitter on her lids caught in the fleeting rays of the evening. He kinda liked it; it made her irises sorta twinkle, or maybe it was simply a trick of the light.

“You like ‘The Cranberries’?” She breathes a short laugh, something that sounded a bit like a scoff, before she has to look away.

Kuchel had liked The Cranberries, then Eva liked them too, and now…both of them.

In a way, she feels almost exposed; having so much in common with a complete stranger. Two people, never met, but always connected by a bond that neither would ever truly know. Each on their own path that led them here.

In Collete’s mind, there had to be a reason. The universe never dished out so much coincidence if it was just…coincidence. There was no such thing. Everything has meaning if you just know how to comprehend it. Yeah, sure, call it pretentious. Maybe it is, c’est la fucking vie.

Would Levi Ackerman ever openly admit that Linger is in his top 10? No. He wouldn’t admit to half of the shit that brings slivers of joy to his cold, dead heart. So he only dignifies her with a scoff, turning on his heal and just expecting her to follow.

Batard.

She twists, snagging her shawl from the armrest, boots knocking against the couch on her way past.

The door slams shut behind her.

Maybe it was the way the light shone across his shoulders. Golden. Warm. Or the way his cologne had been making it hard to focus since the moment she opened his god damned letter. It could have been the way that he looked at her like he could see her, just the intensity behind his eyes - like they were seeing straight through whatever socially acceptable mask you chose to adorn.

The possibilities are endless, and each more delusional than the last; but this was happening for a reason. Some god sitting up in the clouds toying with the silly little humans, guiding their hands toward something beyond themselves.

“Wait!” She calls, stomping to a halt at the open passenger door, where Furlan was about to sit, “Filles in the front.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“It means girls, dumbass,” Levi grumbles, shooting a glare over the roof as he opens the back driverside door.

“I like her!” Isa calls, leaning over from the driver’s seat, motioning her in, “Come on, chick.”

Levi only scoffs, and shakes his head at Furlan, too tired to listen to him argue with her. So he doesn’t, resigns himself to the backseat silently while Collete settles into the front.

“In Kesha’s name we pray,” she mused, shifting to rest her back against the door. “Amen,” Isa laughs, throwing the car into gear.

She’d imagined what this trip might have in store. There was a checklist in her mind: get a taxi, tell off Levi, and call for another taxi to take her back to the airport. But he’d made that seem like it wasn’t an option.

For a moment, she felt he might have taken pity on her, but there was also something telling her he wasn’t the type to pity anyone. Sure, she usually had a certain…effect on men, but he was so obviously fighting it.

It was strange.

The feeling of not being in control.

Yes, it wasn’t the first time she’d ever just hopped into a car with total strangers, but this was the first time it’d made her nervous. The same way he made her nervous. An excited energy vibrating under her skin for the unknown, laced with the weariness of being in a new place. It was a nice feeling, an almost addicting one.

A content sigh slipped passed her lips as she pulled her feet up into the seat with her, knees pressing to her chest. Manicured nails raked through her hair absentmindedly, and it made Levi’s mind drift to places that made him increasingly uncomfortable.

Because why the fuck would he want to do that? Play with someone’s hair? Are you fucking kidding me?

He tried his best to ignore her. Tried to lock in and focus on what tomorrow would bring. And tried his damndest not to think about how Kuchel wouldn’t be there.

He’d never been the type to believe in coincindence either. Not in the same way as Collete, more in the sense of he has a hard time trusting the likelihood of the whole concept. To hell with the universe, or God, or whatever the fuck else you might believe in - he trusted his gut.

And right now, it was telling him that maybe…something was pulling strings. The imagination is a dangerous thing in the hands of a mourner. It feeds delusion, amplifies emotions, can drive someone off the fucking deep end - but maybe…somehow…his mom sent her. Or maybe Eva and Kuchel are somewhere conspiring.

He only allows himself to humor the thought for a moment because heat started pushing at his eyes, and a dangerous lump formed in his throat. There wasn’t time for that shit anymore. He’d allowed himself a month, and after that he had to man the fuck up. Get his shit together.

Get a fucking grip.

Maybe it was the way she looked up there, like she didn’t even know how hard she was grinning.

“The fuck’re you doin’?” Furlan asked, watching Levi turn and lean over, hunched over the back of the bench seat to rifle through a bag in the trunk.

He scoffs, returning with a cassett in his hand, “Do you ever mind your fuckin’ business?”

“No,” he deadpans, “Not with you’re actin’ like you got body snatched.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response. Just reaches into the front and drops it on the seat. It had the same neat, angular handwriting as his letter, well letters now.

‘Everybody is doing it, so why can’t we?’

“You’re joking,” she scoffs in disbelief, a little too loud for the metal coffin they were in. She twists at the waist, resting her arms over the backrest, “You really like them, then?”

Furlan recoils, and Isa’s eyes fly to the rearview, waiting for Levi to snap at the girl about volume control. He doesn’t. Simply rests his arms beside her’s, jerking his chin toward the deck, “Go on then.”

It fumbles in her hands with how fast she spins, hair whipping around her with the motion. Fucking Jasmine shampoo, a few strands settle across his hand…so, so soft. His brain told him to recoil, snatch his hand away like it’d scalded him, but he didn’t - he couldn’t.

He fucking couldn’t.

It felt like every cell in his body was keratinizing. She was medusa and he couldn’t resist the urge to look any longer.

Is this what his mother had told him about? The pull that Eva had. The way she could wrap someone up, so entirely, they forgot who they pretended they were. Surely, this was different. Surely, his mother hadn’t felt like she couldn’t fucking breathe when Eva looked at her.

Hypnotizing was the only word that he could call to mind to describe it; watching her sing like she was performing for an arena that only she could see. Her voice was incredible. It held the same sort of rasp it usually did. It was strong too, controlled. Perfect.

It feels like his heart is beating its way up his chest. Constricting and contorting to pry through tissue, up his windpipe, clear out his throat. Anything to just…get to her.

“What the fuck,” he breathes, head lulling and knocking against his bicep, “holy fuck.”

A hand knocking against his ribs pulls him back, met with Furlan’s mug in his face.

“I’m serious, are you dyin’?” He whispers, horribly, “That’s gotta be like…bro code or somethin’. Gotta tell me if you’re dyin’, man. Is it like some sorta…genetic condition? Or- or- like, I’ve heard of people dying of a broken heart- are you-“

“Furlan…shut the fuck up,” Levi hisses, shoving his elbow into the formers chest, knocking him back against the seat.

Collete scoffs, looking back at both of them like they’d committed some heinous offense, “Both of you, ‘Shut the fuck up.’” She turns fully in her seat now, finger poised to lecture, “Neither of you…should feel you have the right to speak over Dolores O’Riordan…ever.”

“It’s not that deep,” Furlan scoffs, pointedly moving her finger out of his face. Collete bristles, absolutely gobsmacked that he, this absolute fucking baffoon, would have the fucking gumption.

Levi wants to - almost does - but he holds it. Not because he necessarily agreed - sure, he thought she was good, wouldn’t go snapping at anyone over it…but why the fuck did he have to touch her? Yeah, Furlan moved her hand; and, yeah, Levi knew and trusted him like a brother.

So, why had he never wanted to punch his lights out so badly? When did he become the type of person to think his dead mother was sending him signs from above? Where did this weird, fuzzy feeling, find the nerve to make a home in his chest? What kind of guy let’s a chick fuck with his head? Who the fuck is this girl?

Who, what, when, where, why.

He had all five. Every ounce of the curiosity it would take to find every answer. At this point, he would pry them out of her. Turn her on her head and shake, until they all fell out. Anything to make sense of this shit before tomorrow, she’ll be gone tomorrow.

She’ll be gone tomorrow.

When did he get to be so god damn…curious. It was disgusting. All he wanted to do was ask question after question. Interrogate her over a cheeseburger - of which she was in utter awe over, it was massive. He’d almost laughed when the waitress set it down in front of her.

“Mon Dieu!” She’d gasped, eyes big as saucers, “Is this…why Americans say they could eat a cow?”

It was cute. Levi didn’t find things cute. Cute things were nauseating - puppies are filthy, terrorizing balls of drool and fesces; count Levi out. Levi fucking Ackerman didn’t think of girls - women, as cute. Sure, he’d entertain one - he’s extremely up front about that fact - but it never went past.

Attachment was a terrifying thing. Attachment after a couple hours of knowing someone? That was a death sentence. The Fates all sat around their table, laughing as they set the wax stamp.

He did not deal in uncertainty. Never had and swore, up and down, that he never would. But the way her nose crinkles up when she laughs is making it very hard to abide by the red flag his conscience was waving. It was like the tunnel vision he got when he was going way too fast down the interstate.

Then, there was that little voice in his head too. A whisper. Kuchel wouldn’t send someone that meant harm on her son.

He’s fucking delusional.

Even more so now, watching her prance around the kitchen in a pair of Isa’s pijama shorts - that are just a little to tight, not that Levi noticed - and a tank top.

They’d decided to make cookies because apparently, ‘It’s a crime to watch a movie without a sweet treat!’

And he entertained it, like a trained, walking wallet. He could say no to Isabel’s pout, did it all the time, no problems at all. Never had he hated how expressive someone’s eyebrows were, it wasn’t something a normal person just notices.

The way her face stayed so flat, but her eyebrows always gave everything away - at least from his limited experience. Who notices that? Again, with the fucking questions?

That’s why it was impossible to follow through after he’d told Isa no. Her brows had pinched together into this heart-twisting frown.

He just couldn’t.

That’s how he ended up here. Pulling up Netflix because apparently it was a crime that he’d never seen All the Bright Places and we just have to watch it, and trying his pitiful best to ignore the mess they were making.

“Are you just gonna…let this happen, man?”

Questions, questions, questions, enough already.

“Yes,” he says flatly, staring ahead blankly at the loading screen on the television, “unfortunately, I think I may have actually been body snatched.”

“Okay, smartass,” Furlan scoffs, plopping back into the couch cusion, arms crossed over his chest, “God forbid I be concerned for my best fuckin’ friend.”

“Jesus- You’re worse than a girl.”

“Fuck you, Dawg…at least I talk about my shit.”

Levi doesn’t get a chance to reply. There’s a loud, shrill shreek from the kitchen, and a ‘turn it the fuck up!’ A sharp huff leaves his nose before he can stop it as Collete comes bouncing out of the kitchen with a plate of cookies in her hand. The sound of the knob on the radio being cranked up following after her.

“Come on, Eileen…” she sang, stepping to the beat, “Oh, I swear- well, he means.”

He wasn’t quite sure whether he could have looked away if he wanted to. His eyes were stuck, like he was. Caught between wanting to cringe and tell her to sit the fuck down, and smiling because she looked fucking beautiful.

She circles her feet, plate rised high in the air before she brings it to clink down on the coffee table, but she continues around it. Going to him, with a hand held out expectantly, folding at the waist, to be eye level, once she’s in front of him.

“The fuck’re you doin’?”

“Dance with me.”

“Tch, no.”

She stands, hands going to rest on her hips, “and why the hell not?”

“I don’t do that.”

“Then start,” she tutts, holding her hand out again.

Furlan muttering ‘stay strong’ beside him wasn’t fucking helping - because he wanted to, but as soon as someone tells him not to, he has to. Why the hell shouldn’t he? When is it his turn?

He sighs, something deeply tormented, getting up with another disgruntled sound.

Dramatic.

She raises a brow at him as he takes her hand, “Do you…know this song?”

“Fuck you, I’m not a fuckin’ caveman.”

A hesitant hand settles on her waist, coaxing her back, away from the furniture, “It’s the dancin’ part I’m worrin’ ‘bout.”

Her freehand settles over his on her waist, taking it to lace her fingers through his. She raises their joined hands out to the side, laughing, “It does not have to look pretty.” Her hips start to twist to the beat of her feet, from one to the other - kick, ball, hip, change - “just do what feels good.”

He scoffs, just watching her move his hands around. Making him dance herself since he wouldn’t. But then, the song slows down, and she starts to mouth the words back to him as she takes little steps closer.

‘Come on, Eileen, ta-loo-rye-ay’

She let’s one of her hands slip away to spin herself under his arm, twirling out and back into him before her can protest.

‘Now you have grown, now you have shown’

She’d twisted herself up in the crook of his arm, her body turned in, her side flush with his. Swaying them gently side to side.

All the air was being forced out of his lungs by some unseen force, the one that seemed to have made him its new plaything. Her arm was curled around herself, fingertips resting against his palm; the pad of her index finger was tracing the lines.

‘These things, they are real and I know’

Maybe, it wasn’t his lungs. Maybe, it was the air itself because it was getting hard for her to breathe as well. Like something was wrapping itself around her lungs, compressing them, keeping them from expanding.

His hand slipped from hers, settling on the small of her back of its own volition. The same force turning his body into hers. What feels good. The hand still laced with hers raises them, holding them up as he guides them in an unceremonious circle. He was about to stop, but her smile told him not to.

Her laugh.

God, her fucking laugh…could cure cancer, in his oh, so humble opinion.

There’d never been a time that he’d felt weightless. Never had the thought - that maybe just being wasn’t so bad - ever crossed his mind. It felt good. Her hand in his, pushing her out and then reeling her back. Watching her hair bounce around, nine kinds of crazy; stray waves falling in her face that he swept back into place without a second thought.

Maybe, he didn’t fucking care how crazy he sounded - something brought her here. Eva’s spirit, Kuchel’s spirit - lord help him, he’s losing his mind - God himself - capital ’s’ Something brought her here. There wasn’t any other way to see it.

The song had ended, but neither pulled away. His hands lingered on her waist; her’s laced behind his neck.

Her laughter subsided gradually, until all that was left was the soft shake of her shoulders. His lips were pressed together almost as tightly as his brows - the wrinkle between them had never been deeper. The embodiment of perplexed, almost bordering on looking constipated.

“What’s going on in there?” She asked, tapping her thumb against the vertex of his jaw.

It was pissing her off. The fact that she couldn’t get a proper read on him. He said gentlemanly things, but in the bluntest way possible. He sounded like an asshole. ‘You can’t take it seriously, his delivery is shit.’ Isabel had told her.

But still. It was hard enough for her to read social cues, and now she has to figure out how to talk to a brick wall? She’d figured out how to get sarcasm out of him fairly quickly, this was a whole other ballgame.

She clicks her tongue, patting his cheek before she steps away. “You’re face is going to get stuck like that,” she says, quite pointedly - like literally pointing a finger in his face - before she plops down in the spot where he’d been sitting.

“It already is.”

Isabel fell asleep half-way through the movie, Furlan got bored - code for uncomfortable with the way Levi was eye-fucking Collete - and went home, and now it was awkward.

Her eyes were glued to the TV. Absolutely terrified to move them away. She’d been in this situation before. You look them in the eye and they’ll kiss you - it’s a canon event, there’s no escaping it.

He wouldn’t, but she didn’t know that. She didn’t know him. He’s who she came here for, and she knows more about his friends. It was infuriating.

She finally dragged her eyes to meet his when he cleared his throat. There was no avoiding it, or the awkward turn down, once they’d called attention to it.

“You can take my room,” he said after an awkward pause, hand lifting vaguely in the direction of the couch, “I’ll stay here.”

And she read the vibe…entirely wrong?

“Oh- no, no,” she laughed, shaking her head, “I do not sleep much, I will be okay here.”

Another pause, his eyes flicking away and clearing his throat again as he pushes himself up, sitting straighter in his chair.

“Well…I don’t neither.”

“Hm…” her eyes drift back to the television, “If that is the case…then, we can continue enduring this suffocating silence…” her gaze meets his again, bordering on taunting, “or we can talk about why it is that I am still here.”

“Tch-“

“No, do not give me that…something is eating at you.”

“It don’t look like you’re in all that big’a hurry to leave.”

“No…something is eating at me, too.”

A certain incredulousness seeps into his expression. A subtle furrow of his brow, and a narrow of his eye before he looks away. Jaw set tight.

“I just…wanted to apologize…for being so angry,” she sighs, pushing forward to sit on the edge of the couch, “I realized I wasn’t angry with you, per say…more at everything that’s happened.”

“You already apologized.”

“Yes, but…not very sincerely.”

He scoffs, tipping his head to look at her again, “I’m not…mad or nothin’…” why the fuck is it so hard for him to put thoughts into words? “Look, it sounds…insane, but I-” his lips purse, like his next words are physically paining him to even think up, “I don’t want you to go, at least I think…how you said maybe comin’ here would make you feel closer to your ma…You bein’ here, makes it feel like mine’s…around, I guess.”

“You act as if I will cease to exist when I go home,” she laughs, resting her elbow on the armrest and her chin in her palm, “There is this wonderful invention called a cellphone.”

“I don’t do all the texting, social media nonsense.”

“Then download WhatsApp and we can call.”

He scoffs again, “you got an answer for everythin’, don’t you?”

“I do, indeed,” she mused, hand help out expectantly for his phone.

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4rs0ny · 29 days ago

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'His Heart'

Part 1 - The Beginning

📍Navigation Station📍

“Slow🗣️burn🗣️!” They all chant, “slow🗣️ burn🗣️!”

Read this in a shitty french accent for dramatic effect

Incase you wanna edge urself a little - here’s the 📸teaser📸

Levi x OC - hear me out

🎞️ 🐦‍⬛ 🎸 🏁 ♠️ 🦅 🫀

- Sorrow Follows-

Cw: Language, come on people, it's Levi.

What is a woman?

Not just in the sense of biology, or the difference between masculine and feminine nouns, but what does it really mean? Societally speaking.

Some will say that it’s curves, her ability as a nurturer, or simply how long she’s lived. Collete does not believe in that. Womanhood to her is spiritual - the connection with nature, with the moon herself; Aphrodite, Venus, Athena. To be a woman, is to have power.

Words drip from your lips like silk. Mysterious in a way that leaves them grasping at straws, trying to get close enough to know what it is that’s stealing their breath. The job of a woman is to drive a man to the brink, shred every last thread of sanity, until there’s nothing left but undying, unbridled devotion.

She’d always had to work so hard for it, men were always too eager, to willing - it was boring. The day a man could resist her eyes would be the day hell froze over.

Until she received a letter, concise, with neat, angularly sharp handwriting, and the paper smelled of the faintest hint of cologne - mouth watering cologne.

“To whom this may concern,

My mother received a letter. I’m writing to inform of her passing.

Levi Ackerman”

Ackerman, that name was familiar, and suddenly her heart had dropped into her stomach, caught in the knots it was twisting itself into. Kuchel.

Nestled along the edge of a quiet park, an apartment stood, tall and unasuming - La Sanctuaire du Cɶur. It had stood for centuries now, and the interior hadn’t been updated since the early 1900s. Rich oak wainscoting, deep maroon wallpaper woven with intricate muted-red designs; furniture that was almost gothic, but the atmosphere was always too airy to seem…dark.

The apartment was no longer an apartment. Most doors had been taken off their hinges, there were common rooms on every floor, woman and girls, of all ages, living together in their own realm. There were rumors about the building, about it’s residence; the happenstance surrounding it raised suspicion - there were even some rumors of them being some sort of faes, or nymphs even.

It was a fair conclusion to draw - strangers weren’t welcome to enter unless invited, nairy a man in sight. And sometimes, in the dead of night, you can hear music, idle chatter, filtering through the leaves of the trees; where they’ll dance and do, only god knows, what else.

But Collete knew, and Kuchel did too.

In 1996, two women met on bourbon street, attached at the hip from that moment on. Kuchel and Eva - Evangeline du Cœur - dancing beneath neon lights and frying their insides with whatever they could get their hands on. It was the best week Kuchel had ever had, so when Eva invited her to go back to France, there was no hesitation.

Haphazordly packed bag on her shoulder, she boarded a flight, with the full intention of never looking back. She’d dreamed of Paris, the lights, the way they say the air is alive, buzzing with history, with energy. Everything felt like a dream from the second she stepped off the plane.

They’re right, the air is different. It fills your lungs and possesses you. You’ll chase that feeling for the rest of your life, except you won’t be able to find it again. The bug, that’s what she called it.

The food, the music, the night life, the architecture - hell, even going to the market felt like dream walking. But it was the friends she made, the women that would become her sister’s, that solidified it for her. They kept her grounded, made everything seem real, even in the whirlwind of wistfulness that was Eva’s mind.

Because, you see, there was something going on in that apartment. Maybe it wasn’t as exciting as fairies, but it was enthralling nonetheless. It was a woman, with too much time, and a distaste for men.

“They are pigs,” Eva would say, “not one is deserving of the beauty that lives in this home.”

So it was wine, slumber parties, and festivals or excursions she’d plan - for no good reason at all, because, “Why should only certain days be cause for celebration? We are alive, healthy, and sexy, that is cause enough.” It was rituals of hair care, “because you hair is your crown, cherie,” where they would gather in the living room and oil their scalps and take turns brushing each other's hair. Practiced self-love and loving of those who surrounded you, setting intentions for the energy of the day.

A home of glamour magick and whimsy - why would she ever want to leave?

She didn’t.

Kuchel arrived in Paris at the age of 17, and didn’t set foot outside the city until 22; or a day away from Eva for that matter.

It was heartbreaking. The fact that Kuchel thought she couldn’t go to her with this, that her sister, not by blood but by choice, would cast her aside? For coming to be with child for that matter - it was unthinkable. Eva never got to ask her why, or try to offer help - because she would have, they would have raised that baby together - all she got was a note.

Only a few sentences. Ink smeared by stray tears that had fallen to the paper while Kuchel wrote it; shaking hands, knuckles white from the grip she had on the pen. She didn’t want to leave. Kuchel knew that she would put her entire life aside and be with her ever step of the way - and she couldn’t do that to her. She coudn’t just sit and watch Eva throw her life away because of a stupid mistake /she/ had made.

So, Kuchel went back to Tennessee, in a town in the middle of bumbfuck nowhere, tucked just against the Kentucky border, to live with her brother.

It wasn’t exactly an uncomfortable life. Kenny tried to keep his business away from the house, helped with the kid when he could, but eventually it got too much. He was on the outs with some bad people and there was no getting out of it unscathed. So, he moved her and the kid to an even smaller town just over the borderline. The only recognizeable landmark for miles was the Bell Witch site and an amish market - miles apart, and then you go some odd miles past that, you’ll find their place.

The drive way is barely there, easily missed if you were driving to fast, and it goes on for what seems like miles, through thick oak trees, back, back, back - until you hit a clearing. In a small dip in the hill, sat their little house. Big back porch for Kuchel to see out into the pasture where the neighbors kept their horses; two bedrooms, two baths, not too big, but still had a decently sized garage - Levi will be grateful for it when he’s older.

It wasn’t a bad childhood, nor a terrible place to live. He grew up a little wild, always outside finding something to get into - until he found his way into the neighbors barn. Spooked the biggest horse he’s ever seen in his life, and got his first ever concussion; the old man who owned the horse said he should thank the lord for giving him such a hard ass head.

Everybody thought that the scrawny little 6-year-old would be terrified to ever set foot back there, but he was on the old man’s doorstep almost everyday. Eventually, he’d spent so much time there, the man hired him on as a hand, and when he was older, he taught himself to ride. That same horse that had knocked him in the head, the massive black horse that seemed to loom over the rest.

As Levi got older, he began to see himself in the beast, not the height, but in other ways. The thing was never particularly outgoing, though had energy for days, always ready to work or train. He was 16 before his mother decided enough was enough.

There were a few different reasons she’d given for the move, mainly being that he was too antisocial.

“You need to go to school, petit corbeau,” she’d huff while she packed what seemed like the millionth box, “at some point you’ll need to know how to talk to people.”

“Why would I need to do that?”

“Listen to your mother,” she’d say, a bit more sternly than usual, and even though she couldn’t do shit to him, that tight-lipped, narrowed eye glare always shut him up.

So, they moved to Nashville, where you were either in a million dollar neighborhood and hood adjacent, or just straight in the hood. Kuchel would come to regret this decision because Nashville is where Levi met Furlan Church.

At first she was ecstatic, Levi made a friend, who would have thought? But that happiness was quickly replaced the first time he called her from jail.

“We were out with some friends and some dude started running his mouth,” turned to him not even bothering to call her because he didn’t want her to worry sick over what he’d gotten himself mixed up in.

It wasn’t like they were doing inherently bad shit - working on bikes and getting a little to wasted wasn’t a crime. Never hurt anyone to sell an ounce or two neither. It was the people that were also around that got them into shit, there’s always a few bad apples when there’s too much testosterone in one place. That is, until they met Isabel Magnolia, and slowly but surely, the bad apples were picked out - Levi wasn’t gonna let her be around guys like that.

On top of that, Levi finished school, thank god. It was torture for him, having to be confined to a classroom. There’s nothing more tedious for someone so used to being able to run free of his own volition, no one there to really tell him what to do. Despite some trouble with authority figures, he got out, and even applied to College - because that’s what Kuchel wanted.

He promised her when he was young that he’d do better. Buy her a house in a safe neighborhood once he finally was out in the world with a real job. Sure, maybe he was only going for a business degree, but he’d hustled before, and wasn’t opposed to doing it again.

Internship after internship he applied, and had four over the course of that summer.

Midway through his last one before College in the fall, he realized he should have been home. There’d been so much going on, trying to keep up with his crew and do right by his mother, and he only managed one.

August 2nd, 2021, he found his mother cold and stiff to the touch upon his return home that night. She’d been so ecstatic about Levi’s new enthusiasm for his education, so when she’d gotten the news that the lump on her breast was, in fact, not just a lump, she didn’t tell him.

For days, he spoke to no one unless absolutely necessary. Didn’t utter a single word besides telling her he loved her as they lowered her into the earth. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Days turned to weeks and not a peep - because he’d smashed his phone and couldn’t be bothered to replace it, not like that was easily done now anyways. He’d gone to stay with Kenny after he’d gotten her affairs in order, sold off most everything he or she ever owned, just up and left.

Furlan and Isabel were pissed at him the first time he called them. It had been nearly 5 weeks, and he called them up, like it was any other Tuesday, to ask if they were all riding to campus together. It wasn’t far, a three hour drive north, but he needed to put his shit in somebody’s trunk - maybe Kuchel was right to tell him not to get a bike, too late now.

They relented. You can’t hold shit like disappearing against Levi. He barely could handle everyday emotions, it had to be hell losing his mama.

They were loading up the car the evening before they were set to leave, when his entire world shifted on its axis. That was the night Kuchel’s son met Eva’s daughter, who’d been born not even a year after Levi, and had received the bluntly worded letter informing of Kuchel’s passing.

She’d grown up hearing about Kuchel, spoken to her on the phone on a few occasions when her and her mother would catch up. There was nothing more beautiful, than the stories the two shared, to Collete. Her favorite photographs growing up were of the two, they hung proudly in the halls of La Sanctuaire du Cɶur, and Kuchel a permanent fixture to anyone who had ever met her.

That’s why, when her mother passed, she wrote to Kuchel. Somehow hoping that having her there would fill the void the lack of Eva’s presence left, bring light back to the heart. But then, all she found was more darkness, and anger towards whatever emotionless asshole wrote that letter.

The sun was setting when one of those yellow Taxi vans came tearing down the road, and screeched to a halt at the end of the gravel drive. Levi’s hand went to the knife on his belt, straightening up to see who the fuck had the balls to pull up on him, of all people, like that.

He’d never been one to get caught up over a girl’s appearance. Sure, there were pretty ones from time to time, and maybe he’d taken one or two home in the past - but none had ever really been anything special. Never had his breath caught when his eyes met a woman’s, nor had his hands shook when she was close enough for her perfume flood his nose.

She was intoxicating, in every way he’d ever fantisized about. All attitude and defiance burning behind forest green eyes, framed with long, wavy brown hair that fell in a curtain fringe around her face, narrowed eyes, smoldering with a scowl that could rival his own. But it was her voice that cracked the stoic expression on his face. Light and almost breathy with an accent he would listen to in his spare time like music if she’d let him.

Vintage leather boots crunched gravel beneath them as she stormed down the driveway. The little creme slip she wore flouncing around mid thigh with every step, the maroon shawl flowing from where it draped around her back and over her arms. His letter was clutched in her raised fist, creasing against maroon nails, staring him down in a way that made him feel the need to take a slow, steadying breath.

“Who’s that?” Furlan murmured, rounding the driver’s side of the SUV to stand at the trunk beside Levi.

“No fuckin’ clue,” Levi muttered absentmindedly, eyes raking over her and a little wide. It earned him a smirk from Furlan who just gave him a look before going to drag Isa inside, there was no way he was letting her ruin his chance to see Levi fucking Ackerman talk to a girl.

“Can I help you, darlin’?”

He called out to her once she was a few feet away, only to be met with a disgruntled noise from the back of the woman’s throat, something between a groan and a scoff. She knew from pictures of Kuchel, that this was her son, the one who signed that damn letter, Levi.

“You call this a death notification?” She snapped, as she came to a stop in front of him, slamming the letter into his chest; it barely even knocked him back, but the contact made the air leave his lungs like she’d punch him in the gut, “one sentence, and c’est mort, seriously?”

His hands came up to clutch the letter, stopping it from falling to the ground when her hand retreated, lips parting as he stares at her.

“That’s just how I talk-“ he tries, but she clicks her tongue at him.

“Tais-toi,” she sneers, cheeks flushing red, “you read my letter and then send me back that, are you serious?”

“I didn’t read it…” he says almost dumbfounded, if you squinted, never had he had anyone snap at him like that, not even grown men, “felt disrespectful to go through the dead’s mail.”

She pauses, blinking at him a few times as her brows pinch together before she takes a step back, muttering a nervous, “oh.”

They stand there staring at each other for a minute, until the taxi sounds its horn - she’d told the driver she would only be a few minutes. Her head snaps back to look, and then she stammers for a moment before she finally gets out a reluctant apology. Even still, Levi just stands there with slightly widened eyes, staring at her like she was some sort of supernatural being from another planet that had landed in his yard.

“Bah…Sorry to bother you…” she says carefully backing away from him, and something sharp turns in his chest watching her retreat. So much so that he couldn’t stop the “hold up” that left his mouth when she finally turned away from him.

The toe of one boot hit the back of the other with how fast she whipped her head around, eyes a fraction wider to match his.

“Why don’t you come on inside…” he sighs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, tongue swiping across his lips when his eyes tip to the ground, “…and I’ll read that letter…maybe, write you a new one if I feel the inclination…reckon that’d be alright, miss?”

“And why would I do that?”

He purses his lips to stop the curve that threatened them, tongue swiping across them again, “‘Cus I can tell you want wanna yell at me some more, or am I mistaken?”

A huff of what Levi took as laughter left her pillowy, pink lips, “what makes you think I wish to stay here, with you?”

“Are you just going to keep answering my questions with questions?”

Another huff, but she circles her feet so her body is facing him again, and starts toward the front porch. Levi shoots daggers at Isabel - who has her nose pressed to the window, Furlan just beside her, both grinning ear-to-ear - as he start after her.

The woman - who Levi just then realizes he never asked the name of, he mentally notes to look at the signature on her letter - sets her purse down on the small glass outdoor side-table, the glass clattering softly against the metal. With her now free hands, she waves off the taxi, folding her arms over her chest as she watches it drive away.

Levi only spared a moment to watch her sit, deft hands rummaging through her purse to take out a crumpled box of red label Marlboros; manicured nails glinting with the reflection of the flame that danced from her plain back Bic lighter, as she puffs from it a few times, just until the cherry wasn’t boating. Pretty fuckin’ lips.

He braces himself for the taunting comments, the ones he can already hear, before he opens the door. Sparing the woman one last look before he disappears into the house.

In a rare moment, Levi feels like shit. She’d sent a heartfelt letter about how much his mother meant to her family, and how welcome a visit from her would be in their time of tradgedy. Then he goes and writes back one sentence, not even addressing her by name; she had every right to be angry, thinking he’d read the letter, afterall.

A part of him knew she deserved a rewrite, but there was another part - a small echo whispering in his mind - just wanting to see the fire in her eyes one more time.

So, his lips were pursed minutely when he walked back out onto the porch, sushing the two still pressed to the window as he shut the door behind him.

“Miss Collete?”

He says lowly, just enough to get her attention, trying not to startle her from her trance as she stared out at the tree line, cigarette still precariously balanced in the corner of her mouth. The worn wood groans under his boots as they thud, heel…toe, under slow foot falls. He’s facing her, so she cant see the freshly written letter, in a crisp new envelope poking out of his back pocket.

“I really don’t think I said nothin’ wrong,” he says flatly, with a practiced coolness, but he’s fighting so hard to keep the smirk from his lips as she whips her head around to raise a brow at him, “and ought just be on your way.”

“Big bro!” Isabel barks through the window, ripping the curtain back to glare at him, “you shut your mouth, talkin' like that, right now!”

Collete’s attention snaps away from the man in front of her, twisting in her seat to look up at the red-headed girl standing behind her as she glared at the raven haired man through the glass. She almost felt the urge to duck, for fear lazors shoot from her eyes, shattering the glass, and straight through his brain. Her eyes flit to the guy beside her, who waves sheepishly as he tucks the curtain back into place after pulling the girl away.

Slowly, she turns to face Levi again, crossing one leg over the other as she takes a long drag and finally plucks the stick from between her lips.

Her brow raises quizzically, eyes scrutizing, “I thought Kuchel only had one child?”

“She does-…” he sighs heavily, still staring at where Isa had been in something akin to frustration and mild disbelief. A hand raises to pinch the bridge of his nose, “Ignore her.”

Collete hums, eyes scanning over him as she takes another drag, basking in the silence that usually makes men squirm, the smoke falling from her lips.

“Are you going to tell me why you think I am undeserving a better correspondence?”

“Never explained myself before,” he deadpans, leaning back against the railing across from her, “not starting today.”

“Are you always an asshole?”

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

Another beat of silence, never has she been so irritated and intrigued at the same time. Reading people was something of a super power for her, feeling their energies, body language - even through the nonchalant mannerisms she grew up emersed in. Why was this pluc any different?

“I cannot read you…” she says with the same flatness, gesturing over him vaguely, “I find it treatorously bothersome.”

“Weren’t you just apologizing for bothering me?”

“Who is asking questions now?”

He pauses to just look at her for a moment, biting down on the inside of his left cheek, mouth pulling to the side.

“What happened to the ‘tude you rolled in with, doll?”

Her brow raises higher at the name, tutting her tongue as she takes the last drag, stamping it out in the ashtray by her purse. “I was overstimulated from traveling, did not mean to be so bitchy,” she muses softly, uncrossing her legs to stand, swiping her hands down her backside to straighten her slip, “If you want to be an asshole, that is your prerogative.”

She’s making her way to the stairs when he scoffs, and she freezes. “Flew all the way from fancy pants France…for what? To make me feel bad?” He ask incredulously, eyeing her as he thumbs over the envelope.

“Non…” she murmurs, turning her gaze to his, “I just…thought maybe I might feel closer to her.”

“Right…” he says, voice dropping to the same hushed tone, “I’m sorry…about your ma…”

“I’m sorry about your’s…”

She’s gotta stop looking at him like that, gotta stop looking at him period. Green eyes shimmering with tears welling up on her lashline, the saddest little smile, he’s ever seen on anyone, on her lips, trying to tug itself down into a frown at the same time. It feels like his heart is tearing itself apart, clawing and tearing away muscle to try to dig out the heavy ache settling over it.

He’s not sure whether the ache is from his own situation, or just how pitiful she looks; could be both - it’s probably both.

Finally he has to tear his eyes away, hands itching with the want to reach out, to wipe away the tear that had slipped past her lashes, but hadn’t quite fallen yet. Teatering in the same limbo that the two had seemed to find themselves in.

“I was…fuckin’ with ya…” he mumbles, slipping the envelope from his pocket; lips pressed in a straight line as he strides across the porch. Long, slender fingers hold it out to her, stopping in front of her - close enough she could smell the cologne that had clung to the parchment of his letter.

Goosebumps prick her skin as it floods her nose, eyes flitting between the paper, the veins running along the back of his hand, and then finally to his eyes.

“Don’t cry,” he whispers in a rushed breath.

Grey, not the kind that’s so bright it’s mildly uncanny, but the stormy kind, the intense kind. Sharp, punctuated by a tired purple in his inner corners, and long lashes that she found herself wanting to count.

Every one of his features was sharp - jaw, nose, brows, the frown his lips drew themselves into. Usually, too much angularity in a face’s structure can be a bit…much, but it looked almost pretty on him.

Her bottom lip pulls taut between her teeth when green falls away from grey. Never in her life had she been nervous like this. Afraid to say the wrong thing, or look for too long - no matter how much she wanted to. Her eyes meet his through her lashes, timid fingertips closing over the opposite edge to his, taking it into her hands; eyeing it as she turns it over a few times.

“You could…come in, and read if you want…” he says, cursing his tongue for stumbling, “or- I can give you a ride to…well, there’s only one motel.”

“The mo-“

“I really don’t feel comfortable lettin’ you stay there,” he adds, shoving his hands in his pockets, what sounds like hesitancy slipping through his words, “not safe…or clean.”

“But I don’t want to put you out-”

“Safety…isn’t an imposition…” he grumbles, pivoting on his heel to open the front door, “Let us finish packin’ the car and we’ll go to dinner.”

“But-”

“Shut up and move your ass, woman.”

#levi aot #college au #backstory #oc #oc story #isabel magnolia #levi and kuchel #kuchel ackerman #furlan church #levi fanfiction #aot levi #captain levi #attack on titan #p&p 2005

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