#i swear im working on precipice i have 3k words in the draft

[mochalate]

"ghosts" ; postwar!levi/reader w/c: 700 ; fluff/angst

unlike levi, you're physically whole, but you seem to have lost some pieces of yourself too

“Do you want milk in your tea?” you ask, firing up the stove.

Levi pretends there isn’t a lump in his throat. “No.” 

He remembers you asking him this question before, in another life. One where the monsters didn’t only show up at night; where you knew what they looked like without him having to tell you. 

Where you remember he hates milk in his tea.

Levi fears he's being greedy, wishing for you to remember. He’s been doing nothing but wishing for the last few months— how long until the universe takes away everything it’s given him this time, like he’s a spoiled child having his playthings confiscated after a tantrum? 

He tries to be grateful. You survived that fall from the Founding Titan’s spines. Someone, somewhere had listened when he’d held your hand and prayed for you to wake up, to look at him just one more time, so he could apologise for not being there to catch you. He’d wanted nothing more than to hear you say his name again. So what if you'd ended up saying it like a question?

Levi watches you set his cup down in front of him, smiling. You’re always smiling now, far more than before. It makes him worry he’s being selfish, wanting you to get better. Wouldn’t he choose to forget too? All of the death and the destruction, from the underground to the coast of Marley; and the powerlessness to stop any of it?

He tries to tell himself he would, but he knows it’s a lie. What else did he have to show for all of it, if not for those memories?

“Have you remembered anything?” he asks. 

You shake your head. “I’m sorry, Levi.”

“Don’t apologise. You aren’t doing anything wrong.”

You bite your lip— just like you always did. That’s what gives him this devastating, soul-gouging hope, every day. How you’re still you. You still like sweet things more than salty ones, and your spoon still produces the same clinking melody when you stir the sugar into your tea. 

He allows the wound to reopen itself every morning after you ask to start sleeping next to him again, because he wakes up with your head tucked against his shoulder just like he remembers. He knows everything is still in there, buried somewhere inside your body; because on some nights, you cry and struggle in your sleep, running from things that won’t ever chase you anymore. 

Levi selfishly wakes you up, to ask you again and again if you remember, but you never do. 

Pieck had visited once, back from one of their peace-mongering trips. They weren’t working, she’d told him. She’d heard all about him from his brats in the 104th, and thought he would have some sage wisdom; or at least understand what it felt like to lose hope in something you believed in.

He couldn’t supply either of those things.

Pieck was smart, he’ll give her that. She had understood immediately. 

“I always felt,” she’d said, “that it was the worst thing in the world to not have any scars to show. But at least I could explain what was wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Levi had replied. It was true.

Pieck had hummed. “There’s definitely something wrong with you though, captain. Who thinks waking their wife up from a nightmare is selfish?”

It's selfish, because Levi feels like what he wakes you up into must be the real nightmare, lying next to a strange man who knows more about you than anyone else in the world.

"What's got you worried?" you ask him, shaking him out of his thoughts.

He's worried you'll realise he could just be a bad dream, if that's what you wanted. "I'm not worried."

"You're quiet."

"I'm always quiet."

You laugh. He realises your cup is already half-empty, and his is untouched.

"You're quiet, but not like this. Penny for your thoughts?"

You give him a smile that's as lovely as always, as lovely as it's always been. He knows he could fall in love with that smile as many times as it took. And when you reach for his hand, he wants to believe you'll allow him to, even if it's just for today.

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