#i mean tbh i don't think I think about chapter length when I read fic?

[levmada]

First Times Anthology, ch6.0: let go

work summary » Intimate, vulnerable, gentle. Concepts Levi is a stranger to, until you.

ch.summary: Levi has trouble letting go of his fears. Happily (and not so happily), you give him two places to start. In Mitras, his defenses are down.

content/warnings: lots of insomnia, late-night talks :(, a little body worship, healing mental wounds (together), vague description of past child abuse, search for self-love, hurt/comfort overdose, cum-eating (f!m!recieving), Captain kink (lol), everyone is soft, Hange is chaotic, heavy petting, first time (and checking in), The Levi Bisexual Agenda, descriptions of social anxiety, big gala

wc: 16.4k

a/n: this chapter is split into 2 parts! otherwise it would be the length of a novella, there around. tbh it's bc of the smut😭 my sub levi tendencies won me over in the part 2 of this chappy especially, but that's for later.

i wanted to add a little more backstory for the Reader character, but the most troublesome(?) part i added was the addition of stretchmarks. i don't think many will mind, and besides i wanted personal representation in my own fic lmao.

again (bc who reads a/n's anyway?): this is part 1/2 of this chapter.

previous part・work masterpost・next part

Listened to while writing:

taglist: @peace-for-levi | @sckerman | @jayteacups | @levi-my-beloved | (if you’d like to be added, lmk!)

Over the next month, Levi’s sleep quality takes a nosedive. It starts to become an oddity for him not to jerk awake every other night of the week, if he can get his mind to shut off at all.

And not just that: he’s even quieter than usual. Distracted. It takes a few tries of his name for him to hear you, but ironically enough he’s never strayed so close to you physically, no matter where you are: his kitchenette, the hallways, a crowded courtyard, and on and on.

You tease him for staring; how he tends to idle to your side no matter who’s around, but all he can do is look away and complain that you stop being so ‘worth looking at’ if you don’t want his eyes on you.

You can’t say you’re surprised. He’s been forced to come to terms with “this lovey-dovey shit”, so no wonder—not that you don’t quietly revel in the attention. You remark that he’s just the sweetest for being so attentive lately, and smack a kiss on his cheek while you tend to his mending finger. He can make a mean face all day, but he doesn’t put up a fuss.

Then again, when you mention that you’re worried about him, he spares you a shake of his head and rakes his fingers through your hair.

“Don’t,” he tells you. “You’re good.”

You trust him.

Besides, he isn’t pushing you away. It’s not like he’s been slaving away at his desk at all hours of the night (purposefully), and he's been eating alright—and doing a dozen more little tasks for you than usual. The most telling of which—no matter if it’s just a training exercise—is that he takes good care in quality-checking your ODM.

You count your lucky stars that the Corps’ next expedition isn’t for a few weeks, but HQ is abuzz with papers to push and check to balance, even this soon.

That’s the exact reason you’ve both taken to spending late nights burning candles at both ends to get it all done; it gives you an excuse to spend some much-needed time together. Even better, you get to cook up warm meals for him and try your damndest when this or that needs cleaning (even though his brow scrunches up when it’s not quite up to his standards).

It only takes a few weeks for his splint to come off (a medical phenomenon, as far as Hange is concerned), and a few more for it to both look and function normally again. Very little bitching was involved whenever you checked on it, even; not so much when you insisted on kissing it better, but no matter. You’re happy just to have him.

Things aren’t perfect—more like your relationship dangles upon a tightrope at the moment—but you trust him, and you suspect he’s coming to trust you, too. Since the day you found him in the bathroom, torn to ribbons, a lot more of those moments have begun to seep through the cracks of your day-to-day relationship.

This means—in the hazy purgatory-hours of three or four in the morning—he’s gently rolling over and nudging you awake with his forehead, both hating that he needs something from you and trusting that it’s okay to need anything at all.

Where you’re curled up, facing away, you rouse back to the waking world with a flurry of blinks. “Lev’?”

“Can’t sleep,” he whispers, and tucks his face in the warm shade of your neck. “Can you—” A pause. “Forget it. Go back to sleep.”

You blink the remnants of sleep-fog away, fighting a doze. Curled around you, his chest could double as a heated blanket. “Want tea?”

Lately, you’ve been perusing the more exotic tea shops in Mitras. It started out as a dumb pastime before turning useful. You’ll taste-test and mock-review a bunch of sugary crap, and between that and all the joking, it’s exhausting to him; forget even the nightmares. A lifesaver is what it is.

While a grossly appealing idea, he shakes his head.

This snags more of your attention. You roll over in the tangled comforter and take him into your arms, where he gladly surrenders. Like that is what he was waiting for.

And there you lay, like two spoons in a drawer.

“Can I hear you talk about it?”

It’s much easier for Levi to ask a favor, you’ve found, as long as you present the request like it’s something that you wanted all along. More often than not, that’s the case anyway. You like making it easier for him, as he’s done so much for you for all these years.

His forehead wrinkles and a little more softness bleeds into his dark eyes. Many moments pass.

“...I guess. I just wanted—” His lips press into a thin line. “Don’t indulge me. Don’t want you acting shitty tomorrow if you lose sleep.”

The least he (begrudgingly) decided to wake you for was what you’re giving him now: a little attention, or swaddling him up in your arms, or some warmth to vanquish a bunch of chilling thoughts. He imagined resting his head on your chest, but he’s not that picky.

“Too bad—” you yawn, “—you’re being indulged. I’m listening.”

He has to look somewhere else. “...Would you live with me, if I asked?”

The roundabout way he shares his feelings is a bit lost on you at four in the morning. You blink lazily and glide your hand beneath his shirt to rub his back, up and down. You know how nice it feels, since the rampaging waters of your mind are silenced when he does the same for you.

He murmurs your name, beckoning an answer.

“Would I live with you?” You test the words on your tongue, idling in the aroma of his clean hair. “You’re so cute.”

His brows knit. “What?”

“‘Cause it’s obvious. I’d do anything you asked me to.”

“...W-What?”

“You heard me,” you whisper. It wouldn’t be unlike him to ask you the meaning of life during a picnic or something, but whatever he means by that, it’s a yes.

The silence lingers. “...I would, and, if that’s your weird way of asking if I’d move in with you, that’d be good. I keep telling you I get our clothes mixed up when I stay here.”

A feeling claws at him to pull away, but he can’t. He buries his face in your neck instead.

The meaning of his question didn’t get across the way he meant it, but you answered more than enough. It’s his fault for being vague, but how can he be specific when he can hardly unravel his own feelings? He didn’t mean it in any other way besides you and him, living side by side, until you lived no longer. That’s all.

Hours and days of sleep deprivation is exactly like being drunk, but without the incentive people have for drinking in the first place. From his heart to his limbs he’s heavy, and he thinks zigzagged instead of straight, but there’s no buzz about it.

That’s why your foolish answer inspires hot tears to spring to his eyes. Maybe it’s all these nightmares he’s been dragged through lately, too, all with that day as the trigger.

He's so tired.

Staying away from everyone and needing no one was an ailment he didn’t know ran in his blood. If you’re his life support, he ripped it out, and only then did he see that that way of life was only out to kill him.

If only both of those ways of living weren’t so painful, in totally different ways.

“I don’t deserve that,” he hisses—not cruelly, but with all the desperation of someone staring down a loaded gun.

“Levi…”

You don’t go on, though you were honest and he’s as wrong as could be. You know how much that means to him, when words are precious to Levi. The main method he communicates is by the mirrors in his eyes: when they’re soft, sharp, or glassy—primed to break.

He doesn’t even cry to you, so to sense hot tears against your throat means you tread on razor-thin ground.

“Don’t be stupid. I don’t deserve that,” he repeats.

“Who cares what you deserve?” you whisper. “It’s your choice.”

He wants to curl up and disappear into nothing. The first part is easy, but the second is impossible, just like finding a way for you to be wrong.

He grasps at straws instead: “Is it yours?”

“Of course. Even if…” Never mind ifs. “You make me so happy.”

“Yeah. I know.”

But his voice comes like he’s been gargling nails. Him making you happy; what a double-edged sword. It’s easy to loathe that he can’t convince you otherwise, just like it’s easy to loathe that you two could be wrong together. Not not because you aren’t the best person in his life, but because tragedy follows him.

But, if your mind is made, it’s not his right to try and change it.

You kiss the top of his head, and he swallows hard.

“It’s the same for you, right?”

“Yes,” he whispers.

You want to hear him talk some more: about his doubts, or about anything. Of course he’s scared, but he bears that weight silently. Always has. You’ve reminded him over and over how he can’t carry the burden of the world upon his shoulders (neither can you, for that matter), so he doesn’t have to be alone in his own burdens, either. You remind him.

“I’m here,” you say. “I’m right here.”

Maybe he'll tear your shirt from how hard he grips it, but you don’t mind. He’s tucked himself against you for so long your skin begins to grow swampy, and you don’t mind.

His breaths are pinched, and so small. You think his eyes are squeezed shut, but somehow you know for sure when a knot rips, gets blown to ribbons, or dissolves into pieces. You know for sure that he’s crying.

Instantly, tears spring to your eyes. You’ve never heard Levi cry. Suddenly, a frantic urge swallows you—to protect him from the very shadows in this room from prying to hear, even ghosts, or the lightning bugs outside.

Everything.

You cradle the back of his head, hold him tight, and make sure they don’t.

“You deserve so much, Levi,” you whisper, hushed. “I’m here.”

He pushes closer as if he means to barrel right through you, and speaks like scraping metal together. “Fucking. Pathetic.”

“Let it go.”

His shoulders wrack freely with sobs—ugly, hiccuped things that he can at least bury in your instead of himself. He’s not good enough to not cry, and he’s not good enough to be anything but consumed by shame when he does. A normal person doesn’t kick a beaten dog when it’s down, but he’ll do it to himself, all the while hating that it dared let itself be beaten in the first place.

Forget it all.

His tears turn into sloppy weeping. It feels as though it will never stop.

Get a goddamn hold of yourself, he thinks.

This is ridiculous, sits on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t get a hold of himself, and you keep saying you’re here, and you keep calling him my Levi, so what comes out is: “Don’t leave me—behind.”

“I’m scared too,” you whisper, because you refuse to lie to him. “So don’t leave me behind, either.”

It’s wrenched from down deep in his chest, all this wet blubbering.

He’s thankful you don’t make a promise you can’t keep. That don’t lie to him.

But he still wants it—he wants all of it despite everything that screams the opposite. It should be worth what it costs, or he will die to be proven wrong.

It was his own promise to make a choice, but that feels wrong now somehow, as if no good alternative to what he wants exists, let alone one that would leave you happy. Maybe—just like back then when Petra confessed—there was never going to be another answer.

This is all he can do. Let go, if only it could happen all at once, like shattering glass. Sometimes that must mean holding him like a loaded gun, but you’ve both carried each other this far, haven’t you?

He’s unlearned so much along the way, but never has it felt so profoundly like dying until now.

And you never stop talking to him—mainly about being here. You sound a lot like how downy feathers feel, all around, everywhere, always.

You say, “You’re so good, angel,”, and you tell him that even if being this selfish makes you two the worst in the world, that you wouldn’t regret it, not for a second—but his choice is always his own and that you will be here either way.

You care about him so much you’d even let him go, and that hurts so bad his heart physically pangs. He has no power to scrounge a reply, so all he can do is listen, and remember you.

Even when he wrings himself out, a millstone up high in his chest wobbles. It feels as though it will never stop, and maybe it’ll never dissolve into crumbs he can’t feel. That doesn’t mean it can’t crack in half so he can live without it crushing him.

You run out of meaningful quips, and meander on other insightful things, like how his hair smells nice. “You were sweet to iron my jacket yesterday,” you say, and “Maybe Oluo and Petra will stop bickering one day,” and this and that and this: “I’m here.”

He imagines you make all this noise for him, or to keep yourself awake. Either way, he surprisingly cannot, and he drifts as though between the underside of a silky-smooth stream and just above it where it runs lazily.

It gets him lost, and when awareness reaches him next, silvery-grey dawn presses through the curtains. The colors are all dull, like they’re just waking up.

He raises his head from your chest, cracks his eyes open, then closes them and feels their sting. While he gets back all the air he lost by breathing long, slow and deep, he smears the sticky, cold tears away with baggy sleeves. It’s too warm, but the cottony texture feels good to rub his eyes with.

What a mess. Guilt trickles into his stomach, because this is your sweater. He’ll wash it later.

Then, your sleeping face and the utter peace etched into your soft brow. That’s good.

He doesn’t like to see you asleep; not because you’re not the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on and he gets an excuse to stare, but because of other reasons. It’s already morning anyway, so he decides to poke the sleeping bear and wake you up.

His kisses are butterfly wings—to your cheek, the tip of your nose, then the smooth stretch of skin just below your eye. There’s some longing feeling picking at him to kiss you all over, and even then he still wouldn’t be satisfied.

Your lashes give a tiny flutter, but you don’t wake. His lips find your forehead, and he watches it wrinkle a little. One more, just above your lips, where the air you breathe passes through. Your fingers twitch over his shoulder, where you must’ve held him all night—or since hours ago.

This reminds him of your stubborn insistence that—in the case of his nightmares—you claimed you had them down to a science: “It’s mostly when we’re sleeping on opposite sides” and, “Well… you always reach for me when you wake up.” He rolled his eyes, then retorted that all you needed were a pair of goggles and you’d turn into Hange.

But maybe your theory isn’t just a load of hot air. He’s a light-sleeper (a ‘hair-trigger sleeper’, Mike says), to the point he’s woken before to some faceless soldier padding down the hall; outside his living space, outside his office, past his door. Whenever you’re whimpering and twitching in your sleep and he rouses you awake, your arms usually find him in the same way you described, just like a shot’s gone off. He believes you that much.

With a deft thumb, he traces the length of your cheekbone. You’re really beautiful.

Heart clenching, his lips meet yours just briefly; long enough to get an idea of their light chapped state. For just a moment he thinks that did it, but your hold on him only tightens a little. Fondly, he kisses you again.

Even after that day he made the promise and decided not to kiss you, it fell apart not hours later when you gave him a peck without thinking; he had brought over your laundered clothes in the evening, the hamper braced on one hip. Your eyes blew wide, but all he could do was shake his head, a little stunned, but not surprised.

“I changed my mind,” he told you, “If you’re gonna be so forgetful then—forget what I said.”

He resists the urge to sniff away the last of his stuffiness. What’s worse, his eyes must be red from crying, bruised circles underneath. It’s not a pretty sight to wake up to, but just when he’s entertaining the idea to let you sleep in, you take a big breath and open your eyes.

“Morning,” Levi rasps, somewhat unceremoniously, and gently knocks his forehead against your temple in a manner you’ve endlessly described as ‘kitten-like’. He does it anyhow so you don’t get a look at the state of his hair, let alone his face.

Your hand plops in his hair anyway. “Mm. Awe, this is just like sleeping beauty. Are you my prince?”

He scoffs a little, not because he knows the story (beyond your anecdotal version) but because you called him that. His bad attitude doesn’t stop you from pecking him on the lips, though. Once, twice, but he leans in for a third, a much longer one; to get across that he’s thankful.

“There’s no curse,” he mumbles, and pecks your lips again. He can’t get enough, and neither can you, if your hold on him says anything. “You’d wake up anyway.”

“But are you my prince?”

“...If you never shut up about it.”

Your lips break into a small grin. As you smooth the worry off his brow, you let him know he’d make a very handsome, albeit grumpy prince, and reach around to give the back of his thigh a squeeze. In a perfect moment of weakness, you manage to make him crumple right on top of you. He’s so sensitive there.

He makes a low, warning noise, and raises up with his forearms, which lie at both sides of your head. That’s when your mouth strays below his ear, suckling.

Pleasant shivers lick through him. He dares to play at the hem of your stretchy top, where underneath lies soft skin warm like a furnace. He feels you.

Neither of you have time for this, fooling around, which is why you sigh longingly at the hint of hardness trapped between your bodies, and make an attempt to tame his mangled bedhead instead, where below lies a grumpy expression.

“G’morning,” you murmur, and squish his cheeks.

“Ugh.” His brow draws further, but you know and he pretends not to that he might as well be a razor-eyed teddy bear. “I said that already.”

You snort a little, but you didn’t forget last night. “Do you feel better?”

Levi pries your hands away and kisses a few of your fingers. “I’m hard. What do you think?”

This makes you laugh, shedding the last of sleep from your bones. He plants your hand over your mouth, both passing the kiss on, and in efforts to shut you up. This only makes you laugh harder.

Especially warm heat curls low in your belly, no matter if he meant it as a joke or not. You’re dying a little to know if he’d be interested in doing something about that, and despite how scandalized he looks, he doesn’t say no. Tragically, both of your schedules are jammed full of tasks for the day.

Tonight, or as soon as possible, whenever, is his opinion. If you want to measure the right time to screw around depending on how much he likes it when you kiss him all over, you’re wasting your time.

A white-hot thrill rolls through you. That’s enlightening—if that’s the case, a bit sooner than ‘as soon as possible’ is your preference, personally.

“Not gonna fall asleep.”

You snicker. Usually when Levi says something like that, the opposite is true, but a disgruntled huff against the back of your neck insists he’s serious.

It’s been a long day, but somehow, someway, you managed to drag yourselves (mainly you dragged him) to bed early. While the late-summer sun has long-since sunk below the horizon, the oil lamp on his bedside glows, and you’re so warm. That’s thanks to a hot bath, plus Levi, who’s always run warmer than most.

You skate your fingertips along his tough hand, easing aches out of it from the ODM; a massage was his demand if you wanted him to turn in early. His hand is tense, but he’s a little tense all over.

To be fair, you are too. Because of (finally, for once) taking things easy, or the stubborn daytime heat, you’re dressed down to just a pair of thin panties and a summery camisole: the sort someone might wear to go swimming, if they’re so privileged.

In comparison his bare chest rises and falls at your back. He almost never dresses down this much, which you used to chock up to his extreme need to be ready and dressed in case of absolutely anything. That was until you learned that it’s not just hyper-vigilance, but the whole idea of being exposed.

“Are you kidding? I’m practically naked,” he grumbled once (on a night just as stuffy), all the while dressed in a tight-fitting t-shirt and cotton boxers.

You haven’t forgotten this morning either, but ironically it’s not on your mind when you squirm back against him—he simply radiates heat like a furnace. A disgruntled noise follows, which (naturally) has you giggling and doing it again, this time harder, this time using your hips.

He inhales sharply, and his hold around you grows tight. “Hey... Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

“Hm…” You pretend to measure your hands. “You have long fingers.”

A little gasp leaves you when he nips at your earlobe. Heat wobbles in your lower half.

Dumbfounded, you turn your head, and you get to watch your hair whip at his face. “Did you just bite me?”

His sharp gaze narrows, calculating. “No.”

“Liar,” you laugh, and shift back around.

You fear you’ll pop like a firecracker from nerves. As much as you push his buttons, you don’t have the guts to start anything, not when it comes to something you’ve never done before.

It’s back to his veiny forearms, where muscles ripple beneath his pale skin; his pallor is like porcelain, in this light. You can’t imagine how lifeless his skin looked before leaving the Underground.

Like molasses, he eventually relaxes and becomes a blanket draped around your back again. He peers over your shoulder, eyeing where your curiosity currently lies: the fat, round scars dotting his forearm the color of full moons.

You normally don’t talk about such things—the past, that is—not in any excruciating detail, at least. He’ll tuck his hand beneath his chin and listen aptly as you gossip about anything, but even for you, some shadows the past holds stay there, buried.

“It wasn’t the man who raised me,” he mutters, reading your mind perfectly. “But they are from cigars.”

You feel a blip of surprise, hearing him speak so plainly. Many (too many) traumas in his skin make him up, so intricately-webbed stories don’t exist for every single one, as he’s explained to you before.

You ask for more, if he doesn’t mind sharing. Maybe it’ll ruin the mood, but you care about this more. Plus, he has a nice voice.

By the tightness in his brow, he’s grasping for an unpleasant memory. You lean over and kiss the tip of his nose, and he bashfully ducks his head.

“It’s not a nice story.”

You give his hand a squeeze. “I don’t mind.”

One last time, he searches your face for any objections, then starts: “It was frowned upon to have kids where I lived, when I was younger.” He pauses. “Obviously. So the owner always had it out for me.”

A thread of rage winds around your heart. He must see the look on your face, because he shakes his head.

“Nothing we could do. It was his roof we lived under. That freak made plenty of threats–” his lips twitch, “–never mind. I had babysitters when she worked, so he was hard to avoid.”

He stops there, and just so he doesn’t feel pressured to continue, you worm closer and dot kisses where the scars lie. The tissue feels rough, fused somehow, where his skin will never be the same. Your lips touch each one.

He sighs through his nose, a quiet, even breath, before it lands on the slope of your neck, nudging you like a chipmunk. The gesture is very cute, so much so that you somehow smile after such a tale.

“I have shitty stories too.”

Levi visibly deflates, relieved now that the spotlight is off him. He waits patiently.

You doubt there’s a thing he doesn’t know about you, really, but as for scars, there’s the stretch marks streaking your skin in places; a strange feature for a longtime soldier—let alone a Scout—to have.

You only joined up at fifteen, the age where teenage rebellion snarls its loudest and barrels through with intent to inflict as much havoc as possible. Still, if you could go back, you wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again.

“I always wanted to go outside the Walls—but I think it got worse after we moved to the Interior.”

That is, your father found the sort of pompous, nothing-work that kept your family more than fed. He was alongside the same people who call Levi ‘the Commander’s dog’ just five years past his recruitment.

The caveat of your cushy life back then was the memory of your life before it, when your knuckles were tough and the air was fresh and stained with dew, a shadow of what the air outside the Walls is like.

Levi knows, but not the details: like how hard you fought your family on joining up, how much you hated and bickered and fought just to get another lungful of that same air. The marks on your body have always reeked of shame.

Running away was selfish, maybe even suicidal, but Scouts are the only people who don’t fight for their own lives. If they did, every speck of grass out there would belong to the Titans because no one would dare fight them.

“It’s not shameful to make your own decisions.” His low voice rumbles by your ear. “If you put it that way, waiting would’ve just staved off the inevitable.”

You’re lulled into a dull sense of comfort by his reassurance; his hand, too, moving mindlessly just below the hem of your shirt.

“Thanks.” Thick words of affection stick to your tongue. You have to blink in your stupefaction, for how naturally they floated to the surface. “…I appreciate that. You.”

Suddenly, you would do anything to just not think. With a little haste, you roll around in his arms and kiss his cheek, his pink lips, then his jaw, and his lips again.

This time, he meets you feverishly, rolling over so you drop in a heap right on top of him. Your lips smack obnoxiously, but you don’t hear. Your noses mash, and in him you taste bitter tea, and mint leaves. When he breaks it, his face is flushed like pink late-spring flowers.

Levi blinks like he can’t quite believe his eyes. His lips part, then close. “Okay.”

Fondly, you grin. Your hand roams up and down his chest. “Okay? Okay-what?”

“Okay-good,” he huffs, “I don’t know what made you do that, but okay. Good.”

In reality, he doesn’t know what he’s saying and his mind has been reduced to syrup and butterflies. He wants you closer, so he pulls you there.

Shivers rise up on his skin; all from your hands riding up his bare chest before splitting apart to scoop up his jaw. And all the while, you just keep smiling at him—not the one where you’re laughing at him behind your eyes, but the one that makes him feel fragile and happy.

Your foreheads brush when you kiss this time. Soft lips leave him, then your eyes skitter down below his jaw. “What about this one?”

He blinks lazily at you. “What one?”

You make a little motion towards the pasty tear seared into the skin below his adam’s apple, a silent ask of permission. He shrugs, then feels a shiver run up and down his spine when your finger glides across the thing. It’s overwhelming, like being cut without the blade.

The slice—made with an actual blade—is old, so old it’s hardly visible compared to his pale pallor, but it’s there. A close call, he tells you, from back when he was surviving on his own, but not for very long.

“That’s scary,” you mumble, somehow afraid; not of the close call so much as how simple and yet how devastating a slip-up like that must’ve been; a cheap shot that gave him no chance to even defend himself.

“Yeah.” His lips dip to your hairline. You smell like rich shampoo. “It was, at the time.”

You stroke the fine line a moment longer, then lean in.

A feather-light kiss ghosts his throat. Immediately, goosebumps rise to his skin and heat trickles into his lower half. You almost never kiss him there, but only because that place is so vulnerable.

“Sorry.” Your voice is just as soft as the press of your lips. “I should’ve asked first. Is this okay?”

He watches you carefully through his lashes, then nods. As you slowly speckle kisses down his jawline, then down and down, he feels himself twitch and harden. His hand drops to your waist, where your camisole has ridden up.

You must feel it, but you don’t stop, and that’s new.

He finds himself half-sprawled on his back with you flat on top, kissing his throat. You're hesitant at first, mindful of how sensitive he is, but when his breath breaks and he leans back to make room, your confidence grows.

They linger, grow hot and open-mouthed—and it’s good. With nothing else to do with his hands, he fingers the hem of your panties, and pins his tongue between his teeth. His spare falls in your hair so you don’t leave, especially when you trace the scar with your tongue.

Then, your teeth. He hears himself gasp, his chest lifting at the suction of your mouth. You hum while a small sound slinks its way past his lips, and it’s so much he almost retreats. Thing is, his lower half is nearly fully hard and throbbing. He realizes it’s not too much, rather it’s not enough.

“Marks,” he whispers. With a handful of your hair, he guides your sticky mouth lower to a place his cravat will cover. You hum like a songbird, but oblige. The wet trail you leave cools on his skin, and he shivers hard.

Desire claws at him. His hips involuntarily twitch, then roll up into the heat between your thighs. The sound you make has him abruptly rolling you over so he can treat you the same way. Your pulse races under his tongue.

“Yeah, ‘Vi.”

The way he hovers over you now reminds him with chilling clarity of a time many expeditions ago. You both work (and fight) so well together that some moves have you acting in tandem, and once, something went wrong. Before your body could slam into the earth, he forced his wires slack, seized you, and your bodies went barreling.

He took the brunt of the impact—that is, he shielded you—and when the world was right-side up and still again, he found himself on top of you just like this. The difference is, right then in the heat of the moment, he couldn’t slip his palm beneath your head and kiss you like the world was ending. He was also injured then, and you gave him quite a bit of hell for his actions later.

Didn’t matter: All he saw was you falling out of the sky, and he acted. It doesn’t get any more plain than that. Just how a strangled embrace can wordlessly speak, ‘I thought I lost you I thought it was over stay right here,’ you murmur now, “Please. Don’t stop.”

You coax him in for a sloppy kiss. He didn’t plan to, and he doesn’t, not until you take his plump bottom lip between your teeth and he’s forced to pull back for air. It’s hard to breathe; after all, his head is already buzzing.

“You said not to start something I couldn’t finish…” comes the quip, then your lopsided smirk. Another pillowy kiss. “...What if I can?”

Levi pretends those honey-soaked words don’t make him throb. “Always such a smartass.”

He takes your hand and places it in his hair in silent permission. When you kiss him again and your tongue parts his lips, heavy and wet and scathing hot, it feels like the very air is being dragged from his lungs.

Somehow, it’s so much different than the countless kisses you’ve shared. Your tongues glide as gently as silk, as if tasting each other rather than devouring. This has none of the roughness he’s used to from sexual encounters, not even the hurry. He shivers in excited fear.

Then harder when you tug at his dark hair, ushering him the slightest bit closer. Another small sound vibrates the kiss. Almost immediately you make the kiss bruising, and when you suck on his tongue, he moans. An eager heat joins the blood in his veins.

When he hears you too, the sound vibrates the warm fog in his mind. Your unsung praise, not to mention your lower half shifting somewhere beneath him and caging in his waist, encourages him to take the lead.

What he knows you enjoy he does best: he makes himself a little more heard, slipping his hand past your waist to grope at your plump ass, while his free hand flirts with the hem of your fine top. The way your body twitches and bows towards his own tells him he’s doing everything right.

When you pull away—to find air, to shudder a sigh, or both—he doesn’t wait. He nods your head back to reach your neck. You taste like salt and heat and trace perfume.

Once he can get a wrangle on a proper thought, he asks if you’re good. It’s not the most eloquent way to check in, but it’s the most straight thought he can manage. He's never this nervous around you anymore. It’s like as long as you’re touching in any way at all, he gets the same sensation as dragging socked feet across carpet and touching cold metal.

“S’good,” you reply, and to prove yourself further, your hand falls over his and drags it up, underneath your top. He finds silky-soft skin, then your ODM scars etched down your waist in a V shape. Since the fabric is so stretchy, very quickly the rest of your top follows suit, so everything from your collar down is exposed to the cool air. You’re glad to be wearing a bra.

It’s not exactly a word, but a sound on the tip of his tongue very close to your ear, like the air’s been sucked from his lungs: “Oh.”

You feel oddly vulnerable beneath his silvery eyes, so you speak in a rush: “Are you good?” Then you get distracted. “Gods. You look so fucking pretty, Levi…”

It’s the pink peaks of his nipples that have the praise roll off your tongue; the swell of his cock through his briefs too, which is almost too perfectly visible. You wonder if they’re small on him, or if he’s just that hard already.

His perfect brow knits together. “I’m? I’m good.”

Then, it’s bunches of kisses on your wrist, to your elbow, then the slope of your collarbone; all places a partner otherwise wouldn’t pay mind to. You‘re flattered, but it tickles. You find yourself giggling, only to be cut off by his hand dipping into the cup of your bra, and shuddering from what he feels there.

Then he snorts, and when you look up, his eyes faintly gleam with mirth.

“Cute bra.” His fingers skirt across the loose frills at the bottom, then he gives the bow in the middle a tug, right below your cleavage. “No way you wore it just for me, right?”

Fighting every urge to squirm, you bite at your lip. “In your dreams.”

But you did. You think he can tell you did, too, by the way he looks at you, which is why you squeeze your tit through the fine cotton and slowly rock your hips against his.

You get what you want: his lips part with a small groan, and suddenly he’s stooping over you and meeting you halfway, where you’re soaking wet, he’s hard and you’re both bleeding heat. Your thighs part, inviting him in.

Maybe it’s what you should’ve expected, or maybe it’s Levi, but between your thighs, he’s so much harder than you expected—hotter, too, like it's pelting off him in waves.

The friction is mind-numbingly good on your clit, but there’s too much fabric barring you from him. You need more.

Levi moans soft, drives his hips down hard, and must feel the same way. His gaze lifts to you, looking for direction.

You give it by leaning up just a tad, and reaching behind yourself. The sound of your bra coming undone is near-soundless, as is his palms roaming your dips and curves like you’re unfathomably beautiful. Maybe it’s your heart roaring in your ears.

It isn’t exactly the first time he’s seen you topless—you’ve fooled around before, and in general, life as a soldier sometimes requires communal-showering—but you find yourself stiff with nerves anyway.

The sigh that leaves him shakes as his palms roam further. “Sweetheart. Can I–?”

“Yes.”

Your tits feel soft and warm and full in his palms. You’re already whimpering. He bows his head and gives you his hands while his tongue traces the gnarled ODM scar straight across your chest—something he always wanted to do. Then, he sucks one of them into his mouth.

“Oh, Levi.” Your sigh sounds more like a ghostly whine. His tongue is heavy and hot, teasing around your nipple, then flattening his tongue so it’s brought to an aching peak. With his spare hand he gives your other the same treatment.

It seems he’s unhappy that he can’t do both at once; he squeezes them together, eyes glazed, and while you moan for him, he bows his head and digs in. He sucks on your tits and indulges himself until your nipples are raw and his lips are deeply pink. You immediately miss him when he leaves—the cool air is nothing like his buttery mouth.

You scoop up the back of his head, combing his undercut backwards in efforts to steal more and more of his lips. His hair is all messed up now, but you think he’s too turned on to care.

Just below, you’re stunned to feel him throbbing. He meets the rolls of your hips like you could possibly get anywhere without taking off the rest of your clothes.

“Levi, baby,” you try.

He whines softly, like he can but doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. Two lithe fingertips slip beneath the hem of your panties, tugging, playing at them.

Your voice is small. “Please… touch me, if you want to.”

If you want to. He thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t. One of his hands falls between your thighs, beneath that yet another little bow decorating your panties. He makes a light sweeping motion up and down where you’re clearly the wettest with two finger tips, and you jolt. “Levi.”

You must really fucking like that. So, he presses down on your soaked mound with one wide palm, and rubs. Your hips practically jump into his hand, and he gets chills. You get so damn loud.

“So fucking wet,” he breathes. You’re positively soaked through the thin, cotton fabric, actually. He feels the wetness gather on his palm.

You gasp in kind, rutting up so he cups your pussy just right. The friction is to die for. “Levi, please. Quit teasing me.”

“But you like it,” he retorts, and parts your thighs a little wider so he can skate his fingertip in circles. He presses down a touch harder in a spot where your voice shakes. Admittedly, he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing.

He’s so hard he’s aching. It doesn’t help that his dick is trapped. He doesn’t want to squirm, so he reaches between his thighs, palming himself. He thought it’d be embarrassing, but the way you practically ogle the sight of him now erases his doubts.

“Shit.” Dark eyes flutter. His cock is actually pulsing.

You lean up on your haunches, ask, “Can I–?” and he pins his tongue between his teeth before giving consent. You’re nervous and so is he, but you’ve both earned that right after years and years of flirting around each other and doing next to nothing about it.

He saw your hand moving, but he still goes rigid when your palm lands over the obvious bulge in his briefs. In some effort to reassure you, or guide you along, his hand falls over your own, and he rocks his hips. His jaw falls slack. “Ah.”

“Oh.” Your lips part at the sight of him so earnestly rocking into your touch. You feel electric. “Off?” Again, your voice sounds ghostly.

He hesitates. In his version of events, all the attention would be on you, not him, but if that’s what you want, it’s good enough for him and the hot ache twisting in his lower half.

He tugs at his waistband, freeing his cock, then shoves the stretchy fabric down much more so he can kick it far away. His dick slaps against his rippled stomach, dusted by dark hair that trails down and down between his thighs. He’s hard to the point of straining. Your lips part at the sight, your breath growing heavy just from looking.

He’s thick, too, from the base—where his balls are fat and swelled—to his plump, round cockhead, where cum has beaded and dribbled down, practically begging for you to wrap your hand around. It’s a pretty pink, too, a shade lighter than his lips, but just as dark as the blush stretching down his neck.

“Is it–” he squirms, “Am I…”

You remember yourself. “So fucking pretty, honey. Fuck, it’s so thick. Gorgeous,” you babble.

Closer. You tug at him until the wide planes of his thighs are flush with the bottoms of your own. Then, you bend your knees to give him room to get even closer. Anything closer.

He squeezes his eyes shut even though it’s the praise he craved so badly, and tugs for you so you’re propped up against a few pillows; no matter that you’re already close as can be.

“C-Can’t just say that.”

“I mean it. And you like it,” you huff, just to get him back for earlier. “S’twitching, so hard for me.”

You run your palm up the wiry hairs just below his navel, up his chest, chiseled and packed with muscle. It’s so easy to adore him.

You can’t imagine ever tiring of this; until he got sick of it you’d touch him—while burning with the satisfaction of how he twitches and squirms from the littlest touches—and admire the strawberry peaks of his nipples, how soft his skin and how rough, how he moans for you and how he complains when you compliment him.

You want it all. It’s deviously appealing to spread him out and map every one of his scars with your tongue. You could leave wet trails over the curves of his muscles, and bright red bruises along the dark indents where the ODM has permanently made its mark on his body.

Levi watches where your gaze goes, feels your hands wandering all over his body, and his heavy breaths become open-mouthed panting. He can’t help but squirm—your pretty hands are groping his tits, for fuck’s sake—and yet he lift his hips, craving more.

“C’mon already. Fucking—wasting time.”

“Oh?” Your pointer finger finds his chin, lifting his head up. “I’ll take all the time I want. You deserve to be admired.”

His brow wrinkles, absolutely helpless. After pulling away, he doesn’t even realize his thighs have pinched closed a little. It’s becoming more and more clear just how deep his embarrassment, or fear, runs.

“Don’t.”

Your brows lift. You didn’t expect that; like years before, outright pulling away when you shower him with compliments. Then again, the most you ever did was pat him on the head. Now this, well.

With a quiet apology, you kiss his temple, tasting salty sweat, then his chin. And you are sorry. You didn’t mean to upset him.

He takes this ample opportunity to kiss you. “Can it be your turn now?”

“Yes.” You almost laugh. “Please.”

Surprisingly, he hesitates before letting his palm roll over your cunt, barred by (those goddamned) panties. Your whimper rises into a moan when he thumbs them to the side and dips into your slit.

Oh, fuck. One finger glides between your soaked lips, causing your pussy to flutter so hard your jaw goes slack.

“Are you–? Shit, pretty girl.” He shudders a sigh at the way you practically hump his hand; or rather, at the sight of you. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you whimper. You vaguely register that that’s not at all the question you expected, but the thought runs off the rails as soon as his thumb rolls around your clit. Heat sweeps through your belly. “Oh. ‘Vi.”

You make a quick grab for his heavy shoulders, craving support, but he stops.

He lurches back to look at you. “Did that hurt?”

You could cry. A wet whimper falls from your mouth instead with a sharp shake of your head.

His obliviousness makes you question how much experience Levi really has; not that it’d be a bad thing if it wasn’t much, or if it was bad experience, but you figured he’d know it would feel good, playing with your clit like that.

“No, it’s good. Really good. Do you not know?”

His mouth opens, then closes. He pats your thigh, motioning for you to lift your hips so he can help you shed your (most definitely ruined) panties. You do so like a shot’s gone off.

He finally gets a good look at you, but he doesn’t look at you for long.

“Not about—someone like you,” he manages, and picks at the sheets below you.

Your brows lift.

With a sharp twist of embarrassment, “Sorry… I should’ve said. You got so loud, screaming like that, I got worried.”

The shot of surprise passes you by when he exaggerates so much. You deny that with a giggle, and gather more pillows behind yourself so you can sit up without all the strain.

With your ankles resting by his waist, his knees hug your own. The position is strange—if you launched forward you’d drop right into his lap—but you both have plenty of room to kiss and touch each other.

“I’m sorry, for assuming.”

Anyone would. He shrugs and invites you closer by the small of your back, then kisses your shoulder, shy.

“Hey, I’m a good teacher.” You let your foreheads fall together.“You’re really good, but not scream-worthy, Captain. Maybe one day, hm?”

His chest lifts. “Fuck.” His shoulders drop. “That’s not fair. Fuck you.”

A little snag of curiosity wants to exploit just how much he likes his rank being used against him. Instead, you flick him on the ear as punishment, and kiss him before he can bitch any more.

You have an idea, and you tell it to him—touching each other at the same time.

“If you can focus on two things at once, sure.”

As he says this, his palm slides down, and strokes your slit.

He watches your expression pinch, your chest lift, and he’s fascinated by just how soaked you are. It’s too easy to imagine his cock slipping right between your folds, plunging inside, but it’s an overwhelming image, too. This is the first time you’ve done anything at all, or he’s pretty sure.

He asks, just to know for certain, but at the last possible word his voice dies a little. Your hand is so close to his cock.

Touch me, he thinks. Touch me, touch me, fuck me.

Sheepishly, you nod, which is why he guides you with his free hand, his other much too busy stroking around and around your pink clit. The way you lift your hips like that, it reminds him—in a twisted, perverted way—how your body moves when launching off with the ODM.

Focus—what a joke.

Every one of his muscles draw tight when your hand takes the base of his cock in a loose grip. The air thickens somehow, laced with electricity.

He helps you stroke up and down, so slowly his hips stutter forward for a little more. A little tighter, and he shudders. Cum oozes from his slit and dribbles down his cock.

“Oh,” you say.

Once you’ve picked up on the way to properly work him—and you’ve always been a quick learner—the resulting slide licks tender flames at his insides.

Each time he opens his eyes to watch you pump him, while your wet cunt is right there, he feels profound satisfaction. It’s not just the sensations, but it’s you touching him, you moaning all sweet and soft when his thumb rocks your clit. Amazing chills run through his bones.

You don’t notice his guiding hand fall away; only feel it when it falls over your shoulders to hold you closer to him. He looks so gorgeous you forget the rest.

You stare. Levi almost never wears short sleeves or shorts, so if the rosy pallor of his face was anything close to tan, the rest of him is porcelain. Because of the sweat, or the sex, his pink lips, his eyes, and between his thighs (where he runs the hottest) seem to shine, almost.

Under your hand his cock is hot and slippery. Thick, too. He doesn't even need length for it to be impressive; intimidating, even. It feels different to touch than you thought it would. His skin in particular has always felt deceptively soft, past the callouses, muscles, scars.

He sounds so pretty, too. No matter if his teeth are constantly hooked in his bottom lip, the softest, sweet noises escape him anyway. It seems he hates the sound of his own pleasure, but there comes a point where he just can’t help it.

He flicks your clit. You clench around nothing, and a soft sound escapes your parted lips.

“Fuck.” He shudders as your finger scales a large vein on the underside, where he’s sensitive and throbbing and coated in cum, and you agree: “Yeah.”

Soon, it becomes unbearable. “Can you—use your fingers? Please. It’s-It’s easy.”

Of course he can, but since you got undressed he’s been curious: It’s not just the sweet, heavy air of sex in the room that makes you smell so good, does it?

His fingers are webbed in your cum when he pulls them away. He’s just about dying to taste them—there’s no way, with how saliva floods his mouth that there’s anything gross about it—but your lost puppy-eyes are out. It can wait.

Your hand falls away from his cock to spread your legs for a better angle. Along the way you’re trying your damnedest to keep a train of thought and explain that, “You almost never have to… prepare me, or anything, and you don’t need anything extra–”

And then a single finger is prodding, circling your rim, and your head is spilling back onto the pillows. You gasp out loud, and it leaves in a quiet moan when he shallowly slips it inside. Then deeper.

Like a dimwit, his mouth drops open; it’s just that your cunt is so hot, like a velvety cushion growing somehow tighter around the intrusion, swallowing him in. His cock pulses in the air, helplessly.

Doesn’t matter. He’s watching your blissed expression for any signs of discomfort before gently bullying in a second one. It could be totally unnecessary, but that’s the way he’s used to doing it.

If you were feeling good before, you’re fucking euphoric now; especially when he decides he’s done with testing the waters and starts short strokes. Gently, he stretches his fingers apart, then curls them inside. He’s just down to the second knuckle.

“Oh, fuck.” Your thighs squeeze his waist tight, so he does it again. It’s the easiest thing to pick up a steady pace, splitting your pussy open around two fingers. His are slender, so they don’t add up much to how thick his cock is. If he goes on too long imagining your tight, pillowy heat swallowing in his girth, just how full it’d make your cunt, the image of the gorgeous woman before his eyes will run away from him.

You’re moaning, dragging your nails along the big planes of his thighs, and when you beg for more, he’s laying you down a little more and giving it to you. It’s a stupidly appealing thought to drag it out, to tease, and make you whine for him, but he wants to please you more; this time. This time he wants to watch your expression split with bliss as your tight pussy gushes around his fingers. Maybe he’s drunk on you.

“Levi,” you gasp, “Levi, Levi–”

He whines and finger-fucks you harder. The pain is dazzling when you pull his hair this hard.

A little further down, the soft weight of your tit feels so good in his grasp; looks good, too. It reminds him that he’s the one making you feel good. You’re calling his name. His.

You’re close. You feel it—licking pleasure cresting into a sweltering wave, that buzz rising into a roar. And he’s right there, kissing all over your throat when you’re too far past the brink to move your lips properly to kiss him.

Your hand shoots between your legs to rub your clit, but quickly he nudges it away and adjusts so his thumb can take over for you. In the same way his fingers plunge into your cunt, he blankets your clit in quick circles without his pace faltering even once.

He breathes hot and heavy by your ear, says, “Shit, you’re so close, aren’t you? My pretty girl, so tight–”

It’s enough to make your thighs shake and your back arch. “Levi–”

“That’s right,” he noses at your throat, “come all over my fingers.”

Your cry hits the ceiling, but to him it’s louder—the hot, sloppy sound of his fingers fucking your cunt. It’s so much wetter.

You’re coming for him. He has to hold you flat on the mattress while you moan all pretty in his ear—his fucking name—and your cunt no longer hugs him, but squeezes so tight he struggles to keep his pace. He moans along with you, but he’s not so caught up that he can’t fuck you through it just right and watch you while he does it.

Only when your back has collapsed back on the bed does he slow down, dragging his fingers through your shakes and little whimpers. Not only did you somehow turn his name into a prayer, but you’re still clinging to him; you’re curled around him like you’d fall away from earth if he disappeared.

Past the aftershocks, your thighs twitch, then fall loose around his waist. There’s a question on the tip of his tongue—whether you’re good; it’s second-nature—as he pulls his fingers from your fluttering hole.

But you beat him to it. “God, ‘Vi. You just…”

You trail off. He thinks you’re just speechless, but he goes to smooth your hair from your face, making sure you’re laying comfortably again as he does so. It’s not in him to assume a single thing while you’re high off the first time you’ve done this, after you came that hard.

“You were…” Maybe he’s speechless too. Just now, he remembers what he said in the heat of the moment and chides himself silently. “I didn’t hurt you.”

It’s a question, really. You shake your head. The kiss you share next is a wreck that smushes your noses together. You glow, it feels like, from your feet to your twitching fingers. There’s a pleasant buzz rolling on in your head, and it sings when he sighs into the kiss.

“Sorry,” you huff, partly amused. “I was–”

“–good,” he finishes for you, and kisses you again, this time chaste. “Don’t be stupid.”

You snort, but then he goes to pull away. Your hand lands in his wrecked hair, leading him back in; not unlike taking a dog by the scruff of its neck. “Wait. Where are you going?”

“You came already,” he reasons, brows knit. “So you don’t have to.”

A laugh bubbles up in your throat. “Oh, I fucking will.”

He lets you hoist him up and into your lap. “...I don’t get what’s so funny.”

And he really doesn’t. He’s serious. It’s not like you’re obligated to get him off unless you want to. Maybe it’s prudish to be so self-sacrificing—as if his balls aren’t fucking aching at the moment—but he doesn’t believe this, or what you have here, is transactional, or obligated—or expected. You can do it if you want to, but.

“Honey. It’s not that serious.” Sat up, you guide his arms up and around your shoulders so he’s spread in your lap. His thighs hug your waist, your knees bent a little. There’s not much wiggle room for him.

“It is,” he insists, secretly hurt. “In what world is it not?”

That’s not what you meant. Rather, there isn’t a speck of doubt in your mind that you want to—it’s hardly even a question, but you appreciate him for keeping you at the forefront of his mind, like always.

You sense that he’s sensitive about this topic (which in hindsight you should’ve had in mind from the start).

“Oh,” he breathes. He wasn’t expecting that. “Okay. Obviously I would.”

“Can I kiss you?”

He watches you for a moment. In this light, in this moment, his eyes appear a tad more blue, like a twilit sky. He’s searching for any hesitation on your face, and finds none. He nods, but then: “Wait.”

“Hm?”

His fingers are still webbed with your cum, two of which are pruned. Cautiously, he brings them before your lips. Your expression is only mildly scandalized, more smug, which is what has him squirming a little.

“Have you ever tasted yourself?”

You look very pleased with yourself. “Haven’t you?”

“Are you crazy? That’s–” He actually gives it some thought, and his nose screws up.

Yeah, but not mine, is how he’d answer that, but he doesn’t. In his experience, cum tastes pretty gross. But then, you push one of his fingers past your lips, sucking, then leisurely painting his finger with your tongue.

Your hot mouth works to swallow around his finger—around a smirk, of course—and the show you put on has his cock stirring. With your soft tits pressed to his chest, his dick trapped between his thigh and your belly, he ruts forward a little.

A whine dies in his throat. It’s not enough, not until you wrap him in a hot fist and start moving. A new bead of creamy white spills over his cockhead. He whispers your name, begging.

Maybe you can tell, or maybe you know more than you let on—because you press into his slit, rub his sensitive cockhead, and his eyes roll into the back of his head. He doesn’t register his finger slipping from your mouth, coated in spit rather than cum.

“Fuck,” he moans. He has to shut his eyes, and just shake. It’s so much more intense than he thought it’d be; all it is, is your fucking hand, but that’s not it at all. It’s fiery hot, and tender and consuming, and he’s bound to burn up any minute. It’s you, that’s all.

Your hand slows so you can tap his hand. “You still wanna taste?”

He doesn’t say anything. Only, he squeezes the wrist attached to the hand that isn’t jerking his cock anymore before bringing his finger to his lips. His tongue darts out, but he does so in a way that doesn’t let you look at him while he does it. It’s too embarrassing.

He hums around the sweet taste that rolls over his tongue when you speed up. There’s your teeth nipping at where his collarbone juts out, the heat licking away at his wet cock, and the way you taste—which he can’t focus on over all this happy noise.

It’s not at all like the hint to the way you smell, or even your taste when you kiss with all tongue. It’s heavier than that, so much sweeter in a way he didn’t expect; not overly so, but it’s slick, complimented by a touch of bitterness too. He finds himself disappointed when there’s no more left to lap at.

A small groan rises in his throat. His hips rock. He could eat you out, drag his tongue between your folds and suckle on your clit, fuck your wet pussy with his tongue. He could taste you all fucking day if he did that. That has to be better than just his fingers, just like sliding his cockhead into your sticky mouth compared to your hand. But, he wants it all.

With a catch of his name, you motion his head back and take his plump lips. You taste like your own sweet musk and old toothpaste and heat.

“My baby,” you whisper, and a wet sound is punched from his chest. “How do you like it?”

You already know how sensitive his cockhead is, how he practically keens if you pay good attention to his balls, but there has to be a way to jerk his cock that runs his blood the hottest; a way he prefers when he does it himself. You want to know.

He mashes his face in your throat, which makes you stop. Unhappily, he huffs through his nose, because humping your belly is, unsurprisingly, not enough.

“Captain…”

You are using that against him. His soul leaves his body for a second. His eyes squeeze shut, because he can’t, and his balls feel so full. “You’re—such a fucking pervert.”

He’s quicker to give in than usual, you notice, but first he guides your fist back around his plump cock, at the bottom. You’re more than pleased. You wait patiently, watching with quiet reverie when his expression pinches and his lips twitch.

“Tighter.” His voice is hoarse. “Hold it tighter. And, flick your wrist.”

You do as he says. Immediately, his jaw drops with a mewling noise.

“Like this?”

“Yeah. S-Sweetness, faster.”

Heat he can actually feel rises to his cheeks; not only from the sensations, but you giving a shit about what he likes and going far beyond. He’s never had someone do that before.

You reach with your other hand to fondle his balls, and his pretty lips part with a moan. He’s too beautiful. You tug his earlobe with your teeth (again, to get him back for earlier), and he jumps.

“S’good?” Your voice is like torn silk. “Gonna come all over my hand, ‘Vi?”

He says your name around a gasp, and works in a few hard thrusts. It’s so wet that he can fuck your fist effortlessly. His cock throbs in your grasp, then pulses so hard that a hiccupped cry is torn from his throat. The answer is yes, yes, I’m so fucking close, but all he comes out with is your name again, pleading.

You smooth over his hard nipple and rub. Mostly, you speak without thinking: “Be good, hm? Come for me.”

He does. With a soundless cry, that tight heat explodes, and crashes over him. His toes curl and his muscles lock and he comes so hard. It’s a white-hot pulse that swallows his whole body in euphoria, from the slack in his jaw to his thick thighs and the shots of warm cum that pelt your torso. Constantly, moans are dragged from his throat.

Through it all, you jerk him as if you mean to empty his balls, but for the vast majority of those precious first seconds, he’s thrusting erratically into your fist with no mind left to how his hips move.

You don’t mind: he’s fucking gorgeous—a sight you wouldn’t dream of missing. With how his back arches, he’s practically curled around you. Even now he smothers his noises, but you can see his temple painted with a sheen of sweat, and his pinched brow, his gaping mouth.

Heat sinks like an anchor in your belly. His cum spills all over your belly, some in your lap; even your chest in places.

“Just like that, Lev’,” you praise, when you’ve recovered the mind to. He’s whimpering with the last pulses. “Fuck, yes.”

He heaves an open-mouthed breath, shivering. Your fist has only just now stopped, leaving his cock twitching through those last shocks. He feels carried by a warm breeze; blissfully weary and spent.

Already, he squirms in your arms. Complaints come to his mind, like, I need a fucking shower, or, Stop drooling, but he’s never stayed in someone’s arms afterwards, either. Ever. When you were done, you dressed, parted ways, and you were done.

On one part, you’re gently putting kisses on his temple, then his cheek: he could sink into your embrace, relax for even five minutes, and feel like a warm ball of fluff.

On another, he’s somehow scared. There’s no reason to be, he knows that, but it’s there. It feels like being smothered by an invisible blanket; it’s sharp, like sandpaper, and he needs to get away as soon as possible.

Feeling torn, his brow knits when you ask if he’s good. But then, you do that trick where you listen without him saying anything: you give him ample space to get up if he wants to, but all he does is roll onto his back. However, not a moment passes before he jerks back up and snatches a handkerchief from the bedside. First, he wipes the streaks of cum off your belly, then his.

You chuckle a little as he does, as if you’d prefer laying around in his mess. It’s common manners, and he tells you so when you kiss the tip of his nose and call what he’s doing cute. If you make him blush any more, there won’t be any blood left for the rest of his body.

That question, once more: “Are you good?”

He nods, and leans in to just briefly kiss you. It turns longer, lazier when your hand lands on his cheek, though. Even now he feels sparks from it, but those are lazy too. He’s tired.

What just happened will have a fat impact on what he wants later, but he’s so sick of the idea pressing down on him. For now, he’s pleased that you’re pleased. It feels good to toss a thin sheet over you once you’ve laid down, but even better is your head on his chest. He gets to hold you. Even better, you worm your way in close.

“No shower?” Your shock sounds dragged down by weights.

He clears his throat. “Yet.”

But that answer doesn’t feel quite right, so he has to dwell on it for a few more moments. He noses your hair. “You’re staying here tonight. You got any objections?”

Some unsung understanding passes between you. It’s hard to tell what it is exactly, except you want to cry. You imagine rain showering a spread of earth still bathed by sunlight.

As far as first times go, you’re still reeling. You wriggle closer still, making your cheek well-acquainted with his chest. If you had any say in the world, this moment would become forever.

“Mm,” your hum is carried on a breeze. “I’d love to.”

It becomes glaringly obvious that you’ve entered a new stage in your relationship when—the moment you get a good moment alone—the air turns heavy and electric and you simply can’t bear to be anywhere but all over each other.

Sex-crazy, Levi wants to dismiss it as, but he can’t be spiteful because he’s gone crazy too.

Fully within working hours, he didn’t tell you off for dropping under his desk and crawling between his legs—he couldn’t, because you stole all the air from his lungs. You popped his cock in your mouth and learned quickly how to suck him down like he’s candy. Either you just want him that much, or it’s your way of goading him into taking a break for once. Maybe both.

Either way, he can't bring himself to throw too much of a fit about it. It’s strange, willingly taking what you have to give, not that he isn’t finding any conceivable way to shield his face (and by extension, his voice) when time alone together turns into more.

He didn’t sleep a wink the night before because that’s been on his mind—that is, taking what you have to give without throwing a fit. In general, not just the sex, but heat stirs below his waist thinking back on those times, too.

It’s still so early his bedroom looks more like dusk than morning, but his attention is more caught by you. That was his whole night. He knows staring is creepy, but you’re better than the clock on the dresser, or gods forbid the cracks in the ceiling that irk him to no end.

He lays backwards in your embrace so he’s using one of your arms both as a pillow and something to hold; his head lies on your shoulder. The longer you sleep, the more the sight of you doing so makes his skin crawl. It’s an irrational fear.

He’s dozing a little, and his internal battle has shifted: whether to have you wake up with his mouth between your thighs, or whether to wake you up beforehand and ask first. He’s half-hard, he really wants to get rid of the dirty cottonball taste that not sleeping has left in his mouth, and he wants to.

There was that first time he did it, and you chanted his name so much it no longer had meaning when he did—you loved it—but that was then and this is now. No matter if you’re giving or taking, it’s not a guaranteed Yes! every time, or ever for that matter. He was half the size of some scum he knew that disagreed with that sentiment in some way, and even though it was none of his business, he made them pay. Levi only has a certain tolerance for irredeemable crimes.

He mashes his face with your arm and blinks hard to get off that train of thought. You’d probably agree to it anyway, even though it’d dampen the surprise, but…

What feels like acid stings his eyes when he closes them.

But, she needs to sleep too.

An expedition is set to start today. The lack of sleep will surely affect his performance, but he never sleeps the night before an expedition—a pattern so consistent he’s apt to call it a ritual.

An orgasm isn’t a bad thing to wake up to before life or death business begins, and it’s utter nonsense to even get the idea in your head while you’re out there. It’s only funny if the offenders are caught and Erwin is forced to court-martial them.

Another time. A big part of him is still driving blind. It can wait—that is, until the night before, if he can muster the gall to open his mouth and ask; if you’re still doing this kind of thing, too. And if you both live through this one.

All these ifs. He doesn’t know what to do.

Sleep doesn’t come.

Between the new leaps in your relationship and the gala in Mitras you’ve both been mandated to attend, another week-long expedition passes you by. Its outcome was critical to the Survey Corps’ reception in Mitras. The point of it is to earn funding and positive word of mouth, and people aren’t exactly willing to throw money at a bottomless graveyard.

The losses were minor, and under Erwin’s command the Scouts managed to secure two new supply routes northeast of Shiganshina. No matter the successes though, blood still spotted green cloaks by the time the formation crossed through Trost’s gate, injured in tow.

You and Levi strayed especially close to each other this time. Reason being, Eld and Petra counted two of those laid in the wagons reserved for the injured. You had no personal losses, but you could have, which was enough for him to carry a dark, faraway look on his face until long after the sun sank below the horizon.

You had a good guess what he was thinking about, which is why—after the death certificates were signed and stamped, you both checked in with the squad, and a long, scorching shower—you spent the entire evening tucked against each other. It started when he exited the bathroom, and where you were curled up on his sofa, you opened your arms. Somber, comfortable quiet joined you both.

For how many expeditions you’ve both endured and survived, it becomes harder to let yourselves be so easily convinced that you made it, when it should be easy. Survival is proof of your endurance and your skills, but your good graces, as well. Some are unlucky—some recruits, some even you graduated with—and it never gets easier. At best, the toll on your minds the expedition demands stays the same.

Bundled up in Levi’s lap, he protectively cradled you, and you laid your palm flat over his chest, where his heart beat. Your other hand was draped over the nape of his neck, and he mimicked you, except his thumb and forefinger was steady on either side: a stark reminder that you were both still here, despite everything, and neither could be more glad.

Occasionally, you nosed his cheek, and he rested your foreheads together, exchanging each other’s breaths. You lounged like that sitting room was the entire world: past Wall Rose, and whatever laid beyond Wall Maria. Nothing needed to be said, except maybe, I’ve got you.

That was days ago, but like many expeditions blemished by a close call, it’s still on your mind as you smooth down the pleated ruffles of your ballgown; a sophisticated (expensive) one too, but it lacks the poofiness that would leave you looking like you’re wearing a balloon otherwise. You can walk in it, in other words, as the hem is just long enough to sweep the floor.

Not horrible, you think. All this was out of Mitras’ pocket, not the Scouts’ (or Levi’s, for that matter), so you followed through when he practically ordered you to go all-out.

The neckline is cut fine so you can show off a bit of jewelry, and maybe the way it fits you flatters your body a lot more than you thought it would. Your pensive reflection reminds you of a doll, but you’re well-aware of how much Levi loves lipstick.

He hasn’t seen how you looked in it yet, or even laid eyes on the dress, but you haven’t seen what he bought to wear, either. That’s the little game you came up with, and he agreed to. You almost wish you hadn’t said anything now: you’ve never attended one of these things—not one in Mitras of all places, where funding for the next three expeditions depends on how many faces you manage to impress. You want to look good.

Maybe you do, though. Levi always hears you out when you have doubts, but he makes it a point to hammer in the point that your way of thinking is stupid; not that you’re stupid, he’s sure to clarify.

You close your eyes. I look good. Eyes open. You feel sick, but close enough.

Your nerves are well-founded, though. Levi is your official-unofficial date to the gala, as is Mike to Nanaba, and Hange to Moblit. The news found its way across your desk eventually, but you’d only skimmed the parchment before skulking down the hall to Levi’s office and playing dumb so he’d have to tell you. You thought it’d be hilarious, and it was.

It was too much fun to watch the utter bewilderment on his face morph into bashfulness, but when he figured out the trick you played on him, he got back at you by making you dust all his shelves. But, not before making you shriek when he hauled you over his shoulder and took you to bed. The memory leaves you giddy, even with the future sitting in a cloudy bubble of uncertainty.

You should go find him.

You tug the bathroom door open, then freeze. With your hand slapped over your mouth, you smother a laugh just in time.

Who knows when Levi decided to let himself into your quarters, or—your gaze is drawn to the planter by your desk, where a fresh assortment of your favorite flowers have been tucked in—replaced the wilted flowers in your planter, but he lounges on your loveseat now with his head tucked against his chest, asleep.

You don’t want to wake him. He’s missed so much sleep lately, but there’s also the once-in-a-blue moon opportunity to see him sleeping for once. A strange thing about him is he’s always the last to fall asleep and the first to wake up between you.

It’s excruciating not to laugh. He often likes to complain that he could take a nap in the time it takes you to get ready for anything other than everyday military duty.

You pin your tongue between your teeth to fight a grin. His arms and legs are crossed lazily, and he breathes long, slow, and deep. Unfortunately, you don’t have a perfect view of the three-piece suit he must be wearing from where you stand; there’s a pair of black slacks he must’ve ironed three times to get them that good-looking, with matching shoes so clean they practically shine.

His hair. It’s slicked back all the way over his forehead; very similar-looking to the pomade Erwin uses. A good deal of where his hair is buzzed short shows as a result.

You wonder if he was ordered to do that or not. Knowing Levi, definitely. He’s always very particular about his hair. Your cheeks grow red under your palm after holding your breath so long. Stubborn giggles creep up your throat.

Unable to resist, you tiptoe closer as if the floor was nothing but a sliver of glass. You’re close enough to get a hint of how good he smells—like lavender mingling with something deep and smoky—while you experimentally brush your fingers through his hair. It’s shiny, somehow, and feels a little like wax. Then, you take another look at his face. One side of his mouth is curled in a tiny smirk.

You gape. “How long have you been awake?”

Finally, his eyes flutter open. In a flash he steals your wandering hand. You go to reach with your spare, but he snatches that one too, so you’re stuck shooting him a pout where you stoop down.

“Long enough to see how perverted you really are,” he replies, voice rough. He blinks the sleep from his eyes as you roll your own and wiggle your fingers in efforts to hold his hands. He’s always had thick lashes, but if you didn’t know any better, you’d assume he put on eyeliner.

“Says the one… restraining me,” you grumble.

“Tch.” He matches your pout. “Because your grubby fingers were in my hair. Don’t touch it. It has shit in it.”

“Erwin’s pomade has shit in it?”

Abruptly, he leans forward and practically scoops you to your feet. He has a smartass remark on his tongue, something about you being a little brat, but he finally gets an eye-full of your appearance and is left utterly blank. You look like a princess on the day she’s to get married, while he’s as dumb as the fool rolling out the red carpet.

He’s stunned. You take the opportunity to yank yourself free and throw your arms around his shoulders. If he can’t even process the fact that you’re petting down his cravat—which is tied up in a flowing bow, you notice—you definitely did something right.

It’s impossible not to smile. “I look okay?”

He finds himself and puts his arms around your waist. It’s sweet, but he looks at you like you’ve just grown two extra eyes. “Are you stupid?”

“Such a flirt,” you scoff, but he doesn’t hear anything you say. He’s much too busy staring at your lips moving.

The rich color you used leaves them shiny and plump, but if he kisses you, not only will his face be painted, but you might just convince him to make you both late. He prefers to think he’s much too responsible to neglect political duties without an angel of seduction goading him into it.

He swallows. You watch his adam’s apple bob as he does so, hands wandering beneath his suit-jacket, where he’s strong and warm. Warmth pools below your waist.

“We got somewhere to be,” he tells you, as if it physically pains him to say it, and stops your hand tangled in his belt loops.

With a voice as smooth as dark silk, “Captain…”

His chest rises. “Careful, pretty girl. Let’s go.”

“Stop drooling. My hair’s shitty,” Levi mumbles, for the third or fourth time since he made a show of helping you step off the carriage; more of Erwin’s orders, or so he claimed. “Fucking hate these things.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It looks good.” You squeeze his arm a little where it’s linked with yours.

His sigh is stressed. “...Sure.”

You recognize a few faces from the Garrison—those you remember graduating with, that is—as you file into the entrance hall. Ornate decorations decorate it, some polished and in so many colors it leaves your head spinning a little. Your earlier anxiety returns and churns in your stomach.

Maybe he senses it, because he shoots you a look. It’s a lot more earnest, somehow, without his bangs in the way. “You’re gonna be fine. Do the talking, if you want.”

That’s Levi-speak for, Feel free to join me if all this excitement makes you anxious. You laughed when you learned he’s more or less ordered to be silent at these things, but the idea of being helpful to him makes you smile.

“Thanks.”

The hairstyle really does suit him: it accentuates the short, buzzed parts and exposes his ears. Without his bangs in the way (though, you like his hair in any form), his features seem much sharper, and somehow more handsome.

One downside: a few strands tend to find their way back onto his forehead, which he flicks away now and then, but they’re stubborn. Eventually, he stops trying to tame his hair.

For some reason, it’s a comfort to you; as if his issues with his appearance validate your worries somehow. Even if he didn’t say anything, that alone would’ve made you feel a little better.

After introductions, a million conversations, a few cocktails, and two hours pass you by. Things are going well.

Hange, the most dolled-up you’ve ever seen them, does the best job at selling the potential that more funding presents for the Survey Corps. They speak frantically in animated motions that Commander Erwin in no way imitates, and yet he draws the same sort of attention.

You’re not doing too badly yourself, but you’d rather attest the approving looks and nods to Levi, who needs only speak in one-word responses for nobles to be impressed by him. If you confess that you don’t know who Captain Levi is, you’ll get laughed at.

“Fake it till you make it,” Mike says, popping another bonbon in his mouth, much to Hange’s chagrin. Moblit cut them off after they “only” had “about” a dozen.

He shoots them a peeved look at the fine round table you’re all seated at now, save for Erwin. Levi said that’s because Erwin loves the sound of his own voice, and no one really corrected him; you included.

The tablecloth feels silky-soft, and looks white as fresh snow. You fear you’ll somehow dirty it by resting your arms upon it.

Hange makes a sound like a field mouse. “What? That’s horrible advice. I just compare my people skills to Levi’s, and I feel better every time.”

You snort despite yourself, and give him a look, but he’s busy glaring daggers at Hange across the table. The way his arms are crossed low over his chest reminds you of a petulant child—an adorable one, anyway.

“Am I wrong?”

His glare only deepens, and while Hange celebrates their victory with a bellied laugh, you slink your hand beneath the table and tap his thigh with your little finger. As enticing as it’s been to mess with him tonight, you haven’t dared, and neither has he.

What you want is his little finger too, which he reluctantly gives you so no one seated gets even a hint of an idea of what you two are doing. As much as Levi is repulsed by the idea of gossip—especially revolving around you both—you can at least link your pinkies together and feel that much better for it.

Buttering up a ton of nobles by practically gloating about the Survey Corps’ achievements has gotten under your skin more than you’d like to admit. You’ve slayed monsters that dwarf most buildings in Trost since before Levi joined up, but gods help you if you’re selling to a crowd.

As many times as you’ve run out of things to say, Levi has spoken up and changed the subject, or added onto your points. It was easy to doubt his claim that he’s under explicit orders to talk as little as possible during ‘political duties’, until a prim lady asked him what the Titans were like, and he told her: “They’re man-eating giant monsters. What do you think?”

He gives you what you want, but the shiny lights and chatter is reserved for the back of his mind for the moment. He’s back to thinking about you two again, weighing his options. It’s gotten to the point where he’s forcing himself to imagine shit that would never happen in efforts to beat back what he wants.

For instance: He tries to imagine the face you make when you step in horse shit, but it’s more amusing than anything. He imagines you tracking it all through his quarters, then; maybe jumping on his neat, pressed sheets. Disgust licks up and down his spine for obvious reasons, but two of those things you would never do.

Anytime you make a fool of yourself in general, the look on your face makes him feel fond, in a way. It flashes him back to the rare occasion he’s made your head throw back, cackling at his attempts at toilet humor. You’re very pretty when you laugh.

Whatever you’re laughing about, you laugh harder when Hange waves their arms about wildly. Levi’s busy pretending to be listening, but then his attention gets caught by you dabbing more shiny lipstick on your perfect lips.

Hange says, “Didja get it, Levi?”

He blinks. “Get what?”

They heave a great sigh. “I don’t know, didja get dropped on your head when you were a baby? I told a funny joke!”

“Hange,” you chide,” don’t project your childhood onto him. Levi just doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

Levi bites his lip, and hides his expression behind his fist. When your eyes meet, you grin, showing teeth, and he wants to kiss you; in the same way he wants cool, spring mornings and steaming black tea late at night. He wants your lipstick smeared all over places your lips have never touched him.

Hange laughs so hard they nearly tumble out of their chair. Clearly, they’re drunk. “Not wrong at all! Touché!”

When it’s back to work—that is, making rounds with investors and playing up looks—Levi left your side when Erwin beckoned him. As his best soldier, and in the eyes of aristocrats one of Erwin’s greatest achievements, it was a given.

Now he’s giving his voice (but mostly his mind) a rest. He sips fine tea out of ornate china, and although it’s very good, his eyes are heavy and his mind is jammed.

He’s thinking again, about you. It’s not just him, though, because your eyes have found him from across crowded rooms all night; he’s bristled up like a feral cat when pompous men become a little too friendly with you; with a shred of guilt, he’s traced the curves of your evening dress. You caught him once, and flashed him a wink before taking a good few seconds admiring him up and down back.

Maybe his defenses are down because he’s sleep deprived, so it feels impossible to go with an option not involving you. No, that’s stupid. It’s been this way for a while. Rather, he doesn’t have the energy to fight himself on his feelings like usual.

Shrinking them, let alone smothering them isn’t working. The more he denies them, the stronger they grow. It’s been that way for a long time now. So distracting.

That’s a good excuse, actually: I won’t be able to focus on cutting down Titans while I’m so distracted.

The Titans, you, the impossible issue of retaking Shiganshina, one day exterminating the Titans, possibly having a repeat of Shiganshina in Trost (they still know nothing about the abnormals that attacked that day… Wall Rose could fall next) and you. There are other priorities, ones he chose to forgo another life for, and he will continue to do so until he loses this one.

In terms of logic, you’re a distraction. If there ever came a day where the cost of your safety became his life, he shouldn’t pay it, but as for what he would do, he still doesn’t know. At times, his body simply acts and takes over for him. At times, he isn’t just strong, but unstoppable.

The thing you both share never distracted him to the point of any real issue, though. It’s more distracting when he’s away from you. He worries, or he’s afraid (Ugh.), that if you promised each other everything, the fear would whittle him down to caged prey.

But. He closes his eyes briefly, the lack of sleep making them sting. Your experience still trumps his own, and you’ve saved his ass a good number of times too. He’s trained you himself; to the point of bruises, angry ODM welts, scrapes, and even tears. Maybe you should train together more.

Or like you implied, maybe he should grow some balls and accept the chances for what they are. It’s good advice.

He rises from his seat. For now, he has more social problems to attend to. Most of the problems he has with these cocktail parties is how personal they get; like the genuine mirth on doughy faces when a joke is made about Levi’s appearance, his past in the Underground, or the way he talks.

He’s beyond being offended by some—he doesn’t care how he looks very much—and once every millennium or so, they’re clever. Most aren’t. It’s a good way to butter up someone who’s round enough to be made of the stuff to tell them their joke is funny, but he’s not an actor.

“Captain Levi,” a potbellied man greets, and holds his hand out for him to shake. “It’s a privilege to meet you.” He talks far too earnestly, like Levi was the first in the delivery room when the man’s wife gave birth.

Still, he returns it without consideration; a strong, firm shake. “Sure.”

This noble—the proprietor of a company based in one of Sina’s industrial districts, he recalls—is worth impressing. He introduces himself as Maron, and he goes on and on. It’s a good thing, too. People like Maron get flattered just by hearing themselves talk.

“I was wondering if the Survey Corps would be willing to spend a small dividend for a product my company is planning to produce—the same one that manufactures your omni-directional mobility gear.”

He talks of ODM like Levi doesn’t know what it is. “You would have to take that up with the Commander,” he replies, unphased.

Maron’s caterpillar-mustache bristles when he smiles. “I wanted to come to you first. Reason being, they’re for physical performance, making them quite useful in battle. Fighting is what you do, isn’t it, Captain?”

Is he messing with him? It sounds like steroids. He’s familiar with blacktar-type drugs like that, back from his days Underground. There are all sorts of ways Levi can let him know his idea is worthless; while careful not to stray from Erwin’s good graces.

He pretends to think about it, but can’t stop himself from saying, “like dick-enlargement pills?”

“Hm.” Maron’s round eyes go slant, and mischievous. “That’s certainly an idea. Would the Scouts be willing–”

Levi stares at him like shit is leaking from the noble’s mouth—there might as well be. “Are you kidding? That was a joke. Our dicks are big enough, thanks.”

Maron’s eyes somehow grow wider than saucers. “By the Walls! Do you speak to your mother with that mouth?”

He stares. He has to pin his tongue between his teeth so hard he risks biting it off, and turn his back when he walks away. Maron’s disgruntled mutterings are totally lost on him. He’s much too busy counting up to ten, then down again.

Pig’s lucky, he thinks behind a face of utter murder. If he ran into Levi ten or so years ago and said that, he’d be missed by whoever gave a rat’s ass about a guy. Despite the limited space behind the Walls, people go missing all the time. Plenty of rivers around.

Granted, these people don’t know a thing about Levi’s life; just like Levi doesn’t know a thing about politics. He’s upset over nothing new. He’s used to being talked down to by nobility; difference is, he’s not allowed to defend himself.

It’s not like he’s killed anyone at one of these things before, but he’s broken glasses, and almost a face, once. But only because baby-faced idiots are impossible for him to get along with.

The way things used to be, he’d get insulted freely. They talked table manners and corrected his grammar every time he opened his mouth. For all they knew, Levi was some dog Erwin trained into being a soldier using sorcery.

Erwin always felt sorry in some capacity and made up for it (after he became Commander, by pilfering tea shipments or something just as illegal), but it didn’t get under his skin any less. Shadis never liked him; not that Levi made himself very likable in the first place.

You wouldn’t know about that, because you’ve never been to one of these things, but back when any average Scout was unhappy about criminals (or a criminal) joining their ranks, you’d get so pissed there might as well have been steam pouring out of your ears.

Kicking someone in the ass has never been your specialty, but you were a Squad Leader just like Mike, Erwin and the rest. You knew how to give a verbal whipping and a month of stable duty to someone mouthing off.

Even when he was an asshole to you (like he was to everybody), you didn’t throw stones. He thinks the only time you gave him shit for anything in the beginning was before Levi saw a Titan in the flesh for the first time. You called him a fool for acting cocky at the idea of fighting them. If he listened then like he would today, maybe his friends would still be alive.

Afterwards, you were still somehow there. He threatened to break your arm it if you didn’t quit talking to him so much, and you only believed him for three days. Then he picked out things about you that he didn’t mind, maybe even liked, and suddenly you were something like friends.

You didn’t know Levi back then like you do now, but you’ve always been kind, always a good head on your shoulders.

Having you on his mind tames his temper quite a bit, as usual. Throwing a look around the hall from one of the far corners where he’s retreated, he frowns when he realizes he hasn’t seen your face in quite a while. You’re not in the great hall, under all the shiny chandeliers, or anywhere a guest ought to be. It wouldn’t be like you to flake out on your duties.

It isn’t hard for anyone with ears to find Hange, so Levi finds Hange, face ruby-red from just how drunk they are. They’re pretty impossible to talk to, but Moblit is attached to them; via some magnetic field, probably.

He claims you weren’t feeling well, and sheepishly let them know you had to step outside.

“How long ago?”

“Uh–” Moblit puts on an exasperated face in wake of Hange, who’s shaking the hell out of a servant’s skinny shoulders, yelling something about shots. “About a half-hour. Sorry I can’t be more helpful—Hange, please!”

It’s fine, because Levi already has a pretty good idea in his mind of what’s wrong.

To be continued.

| levi masterlist | main masterlist |

[peninkwrites]

hey, so as someone who is very normally obsessed by tddd and possibly inspired, how do you go about writing a longfic as opposed to oneshots? how do you keep the momentum? I really admire your work :)

Thank you sm!!!

This is a very good question lol. I've had to think about it for a bit. I've written quite a few long fics over the years– some of them actually taking years lmao– so I should probably have an answer! I love this stuff so if you ever have questions/wanna talk about fic stuff my ask box is always open!

(this is probably much more than what you were expecting so I did put a tl:dr at the end!)

This is both true for something that motivates me and a warning: The cheap and dirty answer is positive feedback. It is a nice thing and one I value Very Much but there's a difference between enjoying it and depending on it. It's not good to depend on the support of others to write. It will always eventually stop being enough. (this is also a reminder for myself tbh.) I've been trying to teach myself that people reading my work is more like a nice bonus/side effect of me writing rather than the goal of it.

But some actual practical advice from me–

Write what you'd want to read. If that means throwing away what you originally had planned or writing something you don't know if people will enjoy reading, so be it! Write what's fun. That is always the goal. Give Yourself brainrot ! Write what occupies your mind and let what you write make you happy! I like writing horror, I like building tension and seeing how I can make suspense or surprise, so I write that!

That advice might feel useless when even though you're really passionate about a project, in the long slog sometimes it's just hard. If you're having writer's block, feel unmotivated to work on this project anymore, take a break, try writing something else. If you still find yourself not wanting to work on this project, change it up. Even if you don't want to make any drastic changes, writing a chapter from another perspective, writing a oneshot off of the same fic, talk about it with someone else, making a web weaving, stuff like that can help get you a new direction.

I set a loose goal for myself to post a chapter once a month. It's not set in stone bc y'know life gets in the way, but just having a vague idea of "oh I last posted 3 weeks ago I should sit down and see where I left off" can get me moving again. This may sound odd but I advise against strict update schedules. Those tend to psych me out and make me procrastinate on what's supposed to be a fun hobby! And another thing on the 'technical' side of it, chapter lengths are a balancing act for me between two things: I aim for over 4000 words, but if that is stopping me from moving forward, I finish when I like where I've left off!

And as for keeping momentum, I tend to have a Goal for each chapter. It doesn't have to even be a plot related event, it could just be a bit of dialogue I want to get to or an emotion to be had. Sometimes it's just something I want to try writing, like a chapter psychological horror that can almost be treated as its own thing. My chapters are distinct sections with something I want to have happen, not stepping stones to the grand finale or whatever that may be. That's especially helpful if you usually write oneshots, treating a longer fic like a bunch of oneshots that are connected type deal. If each chapter has A Goal, you have something short term to aim for.

That goes for overall stuff too. For me at least, if I know where I want a fic to end up I refuse to quit until I get there. I've never given up on a work that I know how it's going to end. It's easier to write horror than recovery for me, but I know where I want that recovery to lead so having short-term and long-term goals makes that easier to work on. I rarely have a proper outline (actually probably never do tbh) but if I Know that all of this is leading to the happy ending, revelation, moment of hope, moment of horror, etc that I want to get to, that paired with having fun with where I am in the story, it's easier to power through.

I hope that was somewhat helpful? If you have specific stuff that this didn't answer feel free to send an ask about it and I'll see if I have any ideas!

TL:DR

-write for yourself/write what you want to read/what you have fun writing

-when you get stuck work on something else

-have a general schedule (I suggest not a strict one) of when you'd like to update

-have a specific goal for each chapter and the overall fic.

[wistfulrat]

a 4-part rec list of my fave drarry fics - the thrillers, dramas, soft bois, and wankbanks getting me through 2020′s shitstorm

[ for my fellow fledgling drarry stans! the drama list is here and, well. like i didn’t initially intend to go off in the mini-reviews beneath every rec but it’s just that you can't nOT yell about drarry as classic literary foils!! also it’s my dumb sideblog so i decided there are no rules and i get to be annoying about good writing.

but rly, the whole premise of the drarry pairing is shaped by this genre and if the ~serious world of serious published writers~ weren’t absolute cowards, they would admit that drama fic authors have contributed more to the genre than the average shit you can find at your local chain bookstore. so that's that on thAT. & if you love a fic here, don't forget to follow the authors, leave kudos & comments on their work, send them nice msgs bc they do all this shit for free xoxo ]

part 2: dramas

mood: for when I need emotional catharsis and maybe 7 hours to sob/brood about loneliness, the cost of love, & the perpetual fear of being truly known

includes: angst, hurt/comfort, reconciliation fics. it’s cruelty o’clock folks and someone is about to say/do something Fucked Up that they can’t take back. but don’t worry!! there will be a Reckoning feat. hamlet-worthy monologues, ugly truths, unbridled rage, trauma, insecurity, and just a fuck ton of tears!! but maybe even tender apologies and mended things.

(Un)wanted by @aibidil​ - 36k - E | Ginny's pregnant, then she's not and Harry's single. Harry, again with no family, doesn't know what to do with this turn of events, or how to find a new life—post-war, post-Ginny, post-abortion—in which he belongs. He doesn't expect that life to include dancing to the Backstreet Boys with Hermione and Draco Malfoy. A story of finding belonging in the unexpected. | --- can a fic be tender and unflinching at the same time? bc this story strikes that balance rly well and for a piece about unwantedness, it is incredibly humanizing. ginny holding her own, draco being gentle but not letting harry play victim, hermione calling harry “hazzah” and just the way this friendship insists on the validity of found families even when harry is spiraling?? and you’re forced to consider that no one has the monopoly on fucked-upness and that doesn’t absolve us of the ways we hurt each other but it means that everyone has the same potential to be better after being broken. goD JUST READ IT, OKAY.

Blood Magic, the series by @houseofhebrideanblacks and @thestralsofspinnersend 335k - E “Later that night. . .Draco wondered at the depths of magic, its breadth and scope. The ways in which life pervades and eludes death, the ways in which they endure all manners of small and large deaths within their lives.” -- if you don't read any other fic on this list, i hope you read this series bc holy shit it’s breathtaking. harry’s a recovering addict, draco’s recovering from abuse, and in a cottage within the forbidden forest begins an unlikely partnership as the boys take up the tedious work of healing. there are thestrals and everyone's in therapy. there are whole chapters of cottagecore drarry. it's a beautiful exploration of how we bare the immensity of loss against the miracles of birth and regrowth. 

Ship of Theseus by GallaPlacidia - 18k - T “A ship in a full sail, a ship in a state of decay, a ship that had been rebuilt, slightly different. A repeating cycle. “What makes the ship the same?” asked Harry. “I don’t know. There must be something in it that lasts across the changes.” -- DO YOU KNOW HOW THIS QUOTE LIVES RENT FREE IN MY SAD, SAD BRAIN. DO YOU KNOW HOW I LOSE SLEEP THINKING ABOUT THE FUCKING SHIP OF THESEUS. it’s a memory loss fic and everything is so unFAIR. you want to murder harry sometimes bc he’s such a shiT and you suffer through the ways he questions desire, penance, redemption, true love. and by the end, you want to believe in those golden slumber lyrics: “once, there was a way to get back home” 

Yours to Keep by @dracoismytrashson​ - 135k - E i love the university setting, i love getting to see harry and draco’s first forays into a real LGBTQ community, the class and race structures outside of the wizarding world. i love that this is the context in which they’re allowed to confront the shittiness of PTSD, anxiety, depression etc. as they come together and fall apart against each other’s traumas. it makes the ending feel earned af. “Baby, we’ve been easing into it for a decade.” -- my god this line

Away Childish Things by @letteredlettered​ - 153k - T  this fic is devastating. like, completely forget whatever reticence you might have towards a de-aging fic and read this. the de-aging premise allows the author to cut through the ways harry and draco hold each other at a distance and you end up with these stunning moments of clarity where they’re truly seeing each other for the first time. and suddenly everything makes sense. i won't spoil it here but there’s a scene towards the end where harry is talking to hermione and ron about realizing the first time he felt what its like to be loved and I fucking SOBBED. an all-time fave fic about learning how to belong.

Had To Be You by @lettersbyelise​​ - 59k - E a genuinely excellent slow burn about absolute fucking morons who refuse to express their mutual love over the course of literal years?? HOW MANY TENDER MEET-CUTES DO 2 GAY IDIOTS EVEN NEED. a car ride a bookshop a street corner -- when harry met sally is my enemy. but you know what? this fic is masterfully written, it’s an epic tale of unexpected friendships and the inability to say the things we feel. also its very much also a soft boi fic if not for the Major Fuck Up that pushes it into drama territory for me. so worth the turmoil tbh.

Hurricane by phrynne - 120k - E auror partners terrified of love. it’s a fic about walls - where the emotional landscape of this fic is occluded by dishonest words so you feel the tension play out in hollow voices, shuttered looks, emptied eyes. it’s like watching two ppl get flayed alive in slow motion and everything is SHIT for a little. it’s mean, it’s ugly, it doesn’t let you give the characters an out when they’re being cruel - to each other and to themselves. but harry and draco are two violent forces hurling toward each other’s walls and the inevitable reckoning comes and it’s so very worth the ending. the hospital bed scene to rule all hospital bed scenes.

Returning Tides by @zigster-ao3​ - E  “Is my timing that flawed? Our respect run so dry? Yet there's still this appeal That we've kept through our lives” --those fuCKing ian curtis lyrics in the summary!! p a i n. why do i put myself through getting-back-together fics knowing full well i’m gonna be Sad As Hell during the not-together portion of the story?? we are all unfortunately hoes for heartache. anyway this fic is beautiful. draco’s a dad and recently widowed, harry has a thestral reserve, the settings here are stunning. a story about grief and love that lingers.

A Piercing Comfort by @talithan - 44k - T “There is no objective scorecard. There isn’t anything that a person does that tips the balance from ‘deserving’ to ‘undeserving’, or vice versa. A ‘deserving’ person will not run out of worthiness after a set time of happiness and have to then go about working to deserve it again. And an ‘undeserving’ person does not have to suffer at length before having the opportunity to be ‘deserving’.” -- the heart of this fic. harry’s in therapy, facing depression, and learning how to accept love he doesn’t think he deserves. (also draco is harry’s therapist but yes, that power dynamic is handled ethically-well imo and addressed in the author notes I promise!!).

Borrowing Courage by @xx-thedarklord-xx​ - 70k - E |After years of being a Magical Artist and painting for other people, Draco decides it’s time to paint for himself for once. The secrets pile up as he tries to unravel the mystery of his relatives but the only thing he didn’t count on was having to go to Potter of all people for approval.| --god i love this fic. the thing about drarry here is that they never mean to hurt each other but they do. they do and draco’s trying to do the right thing and he wants so badly for good family but harry’s never rly stopped grieving sirius and it’s this whole unintended mess of festering wounds forced to heal. everyone needs a hug. also ron/blaise pairing and ron+draco’s friendship here is everything!!

Reparations and the sequel, Foundations by Saras_Girl - 320k - E | Harry is about to discover that the steepest learning curve comes after Healer training, and that second chances can be found in unexpected places.| -- incredible. harry and draco’s dynamic as healers, the cast of original characters, the boys learning what it means to trust each other, draco building a rehabilitation center, harry falling in love with him, and “meus fabula est mei ut dico: my story is mine to tell.”  i cry

The Ties that Bind by phoenix_writing (not on ao3) - 61k - T | Upon Andromeda’s death, Harry and Draco are given custody of Teddy. Their lives will never be the same.| -- harry’s got major abandonment issues and he’s just trying to be a good co-parent with draco but everyone is being the woRST and you want to murder them on behalf of harry. but then, the boys learn to listen to each other and god it all becomes so tender. also harry has a gay panic. things are awful but it all works out. -

[part 1: thrillers | part 2: dramas | part 3: soft bois | part 4: wankbanks]

[chateautae]

Heyy Sammy, I recently got to know about mid through another blog and to be honest, at first I thought of not giving it a try because I am actually not much of a reader of idol×y/n fics as I usually read ship fics (!!I don't ship idols in real life!!), but then when I was kinda trustfrated {inserts Jk's voice [ I am sorry but after jhope's ppapappapapaaa ( the dance practice one from bangtan bomb ), this is one of my favourite voice memes and I can't stop mentioning it ]}from studies, I decided to give it a try and now, I realised one of my mistakes, not reading it earlier.

I started reading it about a week ago and at first when I saw the chapter length, I was honestly thinking about not giving it a go because I have read many books and fics wherein long chapters might add up to the thickness but the whole story becomes so boring and as a writer (I only write sometimes though), I personally prefer writing long chapters over more chapters but then sometimes this thing becomes hard to pull off correctly but listen to me, YOU MADE IT WORTH IT. Your writing style is just so good (chef's kiss tbh), it's neither over cheesy nor emotionless, just the perfect way anyone would want to read. The way you described their relationship growth from partners in crime (just a reference) to head over heels couple is just so good.

Moreover, when I read an ask wherein a person was asking for some tips regarding intimacy and in the answer where you told that kisoek is actually inspired (idc if anyone cares about this man or not but there is nothing to be inspired from him, I just used the word as a reference for a connection!) from an actual person, I felt so hurt, angry and irritated. I am sorry but I don't remember the chapter number/name but when y/n finally opened about kisoek to mid!tae in the balcony (I guess), I felt so sad at that time and even though I haven't been in such a situation in my life till now (and never want to be too), I felt like crying over it, the way you described her broken state at that time made me feel so sad and then when I got to know that this kisoek person is actually someone who has done this with you in real life, I felt so hurt and I seriously cried, I mean, my assumption maybe wrong but the way you wrote that opening up scene, made me feel like you are telling me about your past and how you felt at that time. I am happy to know that you have gotten over it now but trust me, I want to punch the hell out of that man (even now!)

I am sorry if this is long

Anon I'm speechless!! Tysm for giving maybe I do a read and I'm sincerely thankful you feel this way about the series!! And wow I'm acc stunned you've made that connection, I'll leave my response below a cut since it'll be quite a personal one.

Kiseok is based on a person in my life, someone I legitimately know and still have to see. That opening up scene truly was just me kind of letting it out, since just like wifey oc I've never told anybody about what happened to me and so I have no outlet for my feelings or trauma really. I'll be frank and say honestly all of mid oc's trauma is my own, and so that's why this fic is very personal to me and holds a special place in my heart, because I guess I almost write this story and mid!tae to find some peace within myself and a way to heal. Which I did, I'm glad I was able to at least work through my feelings and know that somebody is and will love me that way mid tae loves his oc. Thank you for feeling like that for me my love, it seriously means a lot that you thought about me and the things i felt because yes, that entire scene is honestly me just screaming from the inside tbh. You don't have to do anything for me love!! This message is enough to make me feel loved, tysm for reading again!! 💓

[networkluvs]

writer tag game !

tagged by: @kwonsyoungs thank u sm for tagging me!

tagging: @wonwooslibrary ummm I don't know who else to tag im sorry but if u want to do this pls do!

1. what fandoms have you written for (but do not currently)?

none :) was a reader before and now I'm doing my own aus :D

2. what fandoms are you currently writing for?

seventeen only

3. how long have you been writing?

on Tumblr, since may-ish? but in terms of writing fanfic I've been writing them for ages lol

4. on which platforms do you post your stories?

just Tumblr

5. what is your favorite genre to write?

chaos lol I can't write serious things

6. are you a pantser or a planner?

pantser... my only flaw when it comes to writing lol

7. one shot or multi-chapter?

ummm both tbh? I think both have it's ups and downs in terms of writing :)

8. what is the perfect chapter length in your opinion?

I have a low attention span so maybe like 2k-5k

9. what is your longest published story? is it complete?

probably my melody lol it's completed with 30ish chapters... but longest written post is probably something from bittersweet

10. which story did you enjoy working on the most?

I enjoy doing bittersweet rn!

11. favorite request you have written and why(if any)?

I don't do requests at the moment

12. are there reoccurring themes in your stories?

chaos lol and fluff!

13. Current number of wips(works in progress)?

umm in terms of new au drafts... one ;)

14. three things you have noticed about your own writing.

there's always a comedic relief character, overused phases and uhh idk cliches probably

15. a quote you like from a published story.

OH GOD ummm let me think... I don't think I can exactly quote but here's my fic rec blog :D @bunnicafe

16. a quote from an unpublished story.

I have none at the moment T_T

17. space for you to say something to your readers

thank u so much for sticking with my blog and being vocal about enjoying my work! I'm probably one of the most unorganized writers ever but it makes me feel a bit better knowing there's a few people that enjoy reading it regardless :') the feedback means so much to me and pushes me to become a better writer :D

[benjaycaptain]

How about 15, 16, and 27 from the writing ask set?

bless you nonnie bless you and thank

15. What’s your favorite plotless fic you have written?

what is considered a plotless fic lmao brain fog is real folks so uhhhhh if this is like pwp, then "Reprieve" would be it [lmaooo marvel 616 nicksteve go figure]. if this just means like. oneshot/ficlet, then by far "The Gift of Paradise" which is a 13th warrior alternate ending fic. both of which are on my first ao3 account that i don't really use any more lmao but they're still some of my favorites

16. Are one-shots really underrated?

i mean, possibly!! idk what trends are happening in fandoms nowadays, but got damn do i love me some oneshots. that's mostly what i read, even mostly what i write lmao most oneshots are the perfect length for me to reeeead cause i'm a slow as fuck reader. that isn't to say i never read long/chapter fic tho. but yeah, oneshots are amazing and their writers are a blessing forever

27. Do you agree that one shouldn’t start a story with a piece of dialogue?

well. considering that i'm pretty sure i start most of what i write with a piece of dialogue, i'm gonna say no i definitely don't agree lmao and tbh, the only "advice" i actually endorse when it comes to writing is breaking paragraphs when someone new speaks, a new thought occurs, or a new “action” occurs, but even that can be tossed aside sometimes. writing is a free for all type of thing, and interesting styles can be developed by saying "i don't know her" to the so-called rule book. tho, switching tenses and or povs within the same scene can be a little, uh, grating? for me. but eh, some things are a rite of passage xD ANYWAY got distracted, point is, no, i don't think starting with dialogue is a bad thing

[walkingstackofbooks]

What's the ideal length of a fanfic chapter?

I am at least a few weeks out from finishing my fic, but I'm just thinking ahead to how I want to put it up

It's a 5+1 fic, so has automatically got 6 chapters. (Julian is stuck for six consecutive days in a timeloop.) Originally, I was just going to post 1 chapter every week as I edited it, but while Chapter 1 is a friendly 3,500 words, Chapters 2 and 3 are both just over the 10,000 word mark, and I'm only halfway through Chapter 4 but it's shaping up to be at least 15,000, somehow!

So my options are:

The Original Plan

I aim to publish one 10k+ word chapter each week.

Pros: It's as intended, each "day" of the story happens in full, within its own chapter. Good if you like long updates?

Cons: Since I don't *actually* know how long editing will take, I might not be able to keep to a weekly schedule and timings may vary. Pretty lengthy chapters.

Plan 2:

I cut each of the original chapters in half for publishing, and either:

2a - I aim to publish two 5k+ word chapters each week.

Pros: It's still mostly as intended, each "day" gets published in full, just in two parts. Shorter chapters

Cons: Timings may vary again, since it's a lot to edit in a week. The story is split up slightly arbitrarily.

2b - I publish one 5k+ word chapter each week (cutting the original chapters in half)

Pros: I should be able to stick to the weekly schedule for sure. Shorter chapters

Cons: Each "day" of the story is cut in half, probably at a somewhat arbitrary point. 1/2 of Chapter 4 is still going to be 7-9k in length 😅

Plan 3

I publish one or two 3-6k word chapters each week. I'd think of the story as one long tale rather than as The Six Days and split up the current chapters into smaller ones at places I feel are suitable.

Pros: Shorter, more even, chapters. Better pacing Being able to stick to a weekly schedule (and possibly an extra chapter every so often)

Cons: Completely abandoning the 5+1 structure Story won't be told as intended