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stilemawillow · 1 year

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Heat Has Never Felt So Good [Levi | Cadet! Reader]

Silence - heavy, taut with tension like a guitar's string and gelid in the middle of the most scorching summer heat the generations had encountered - such silence was a bringer of dreaded rejection and shameful humility. Struggling to stay erect and stoic subsequently to the inappropriate suggestion you'd voiced a moment prior, you observed the desk before you with excessive fascination in spite of the painful brightness it reflected straight into your eyes. The cool air in the office hindered not the nervous beads of sweat in their journey along your temple and so they travelled, inexorably reminding you of the reason for their unwanted presence.

Your diffident gaze adroitly slid over to the figure sitting behind the desk you'd considered your saving grace mere seconds ago - the man with his slicked-back ebony hair whose natural response to the heat outside was nowhere to be seen. Levi was staring at you, silent and frowning, as his fingers soundlessly held the collar of his button-up shirt. The window behind his back was closed in order to preserve the room's blissful temperature but you could still hear the birds twittering outside, innocent chirps mashing with the anguished groans of cadets in the training field - cadets whose pained calls you were supposed to be apart of. Instead, you'd been summoned to the Lance Corporal's office, admonished for your poor performance following the coming of summer and prompted to offer a suitable explanation.

In truth, everybody's performance had been severely affected by the heat, but your case was exceptional because you were contending for a place on the Special Operation's Squad and such a show of inexplicable weakness was a big chink in the seemingly perfect armour of reliability and potential you'd created for yourself. Levi wouldn't make such a chink part of his squad and, despite having won his sympathies as a person, you had no way of softening the merciless nature of his role as your strict superior. So you'd tried to explain with as much dignity as possible that your disgraceful mistakes were a result of sleep deprivation, which, in turn, was caused by the terrible heat. Since early childhood, you'd shown signs of susceptibility to hot weather but this summer had evidently hit you harder than any other.

Levi had glared in a rather condescending way before questioning if your only problem was truly the lack of proper sleep, to which you'd nodded your head, recklessly adding that he had no way of relating to your experience since the stone walls of his office and personal quarters shared no similarities with the dorms' wooden edifice and its incapability to ward off the summer heat. Then, to his sarcastic question of 'what can be done about that?', you'd flippantly stated that a good sleep in a cold bed such as his would appear to be the perfect remedy - in fact, knowing he seldom slept in his quarters, maybe he could lend you them for the summer weeks to come.

And here lay the moment of truth, tugging at the painful silence and rushing it out of the closed window as you fearfully eyed the ebony-haired superior and his oddly slovenly appearance - his white cravat carelessly draped around his neck, the first three buttons of his shirt undone and its entirety untucked - the uncanny negligence made the orderly man look quite unlike himself. Maybe his attire had wrongly led to you believe his character would also bear a particular change for the better. His ashen hues glared but his furrowed brow briefly twitched as a reluctant sigh slipped past his pouting lips.

"... so be it. If sleeping in my bed will affect your skills positively I'll be escorting you back here after dinner this very evening." The cold voice left no place for objection, filling your whole body with heavenly alleviation and colourful butterflies, flapping their wings in exultation. You saluted, a dopey smile on your lips as your mind attempted to dispel the overwhelming feeling of complete and utter transfixion holding power over it.

"I hope you'll give me some time to collect my belongings beforehand." The tremulous timbre of your voice didn't go unnoticed by your superior, who was obviously set on presenting your wistful self with his point of view. Both, as was to be expected, differed greatly and while yours had been a plan of action borne of embarrassment meant to excuse your imminent appearance in his personal quarters, his had committed to the idea of your residence and taken the liberty of being as efficient and prompt as possible.

"There would be no need, I'll get them." The curt statement made your clenched fist flinch in startlement as the ebony-haired male gazed down at the papers on his desk after giving your wide eyes a good calculating look. "Dismissed. I'm certain the remainder of your training will be flawless, seeing as you've secured your good night's sleep." The latent derision holding hands with his stern command unfailingly managed to chip away at your armour additionally. Your brows furrowed in repressed defiance as the natural compliant response you had to speak struggled to come into being, making the male curiously glance at your hesitant countenance.

"... it will, sir." Shamefully dropping your gaze to the ground at your feet, you turned to the exit and frowned all the way to the training field, unaware of the involuntary sigh Levi's lips had delivered at the fading sound of your footsteps. Slender fingers coming to pinch the bridge of his nose, the Lance Corporal angrily berated his stupidity in a low voice full of disappointment as the image of your childish pout kept surfacing. The next five minutes he spent leaning back against his chair and muttering curses at himself, with the occasional fatigued sigh making an appearance. Once he concluded nothing inappropriate would come of your temporary stay in his quarters he resumed his work, spitefully clicking his tongue twice as often for the rest of the afternoon.

His hand prompted you to walk through the door with a gentle motion that made your lips purse in rigidity so inane it would've drawn laughter from a corpse. You looked at the interior of the superior's room with hardly masked zest, nightwear clenched by your fidgety fingers as Levi closed the door behind himself. A floorboard gave a moaning creak when you made a small step forth, making your brows knit in halting uncertainty as your shoulders tensed, intimidated by the big bed under the window you were to sleep in. It was strange, you could feel the trickling sweat down the back of your neck though you were well aware it wasn't there - a vaporous phantom that made goosebumps complain in their wake down the length of your arms.

"You won't receive an official invitation, (L/N)." The deep voice made your shoulders jump as the stoic male opened the wardrobe in the corner of the relatively empty room and took a simple cotton shirt and pants from its insides. You caught a glimpse of three separate shelves, each of which was stacked with clothes painted in different representatives of the colour spectrum - white, grey and black respectively. A pair of piercing ashen hues bore into your orbs before their owner snorted in mild amusement. "I'm taking a shower. You may use it as an opportunity to change and tuck yourself in since I'm not your mother and I don't plan on babying you."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry for the inconvenience." You forced out as calmly as was feasible, the tinge of guilt coming out raw and genuine. You heard the short male mutter something under his breath as his cold gaze scrutinized your diffident countenance, but he didn't address you directly and you did your best to not provoke him. The tips of your ears were left to burn in embarrassment when he closed the bathroom door with a small click and you silently marvelled at the plain furnishing of his personal quarters. It was like they belonged to everybody and nobody at the same time - the wooden floor was equipped only with the bare necessities: a bed, a wardrobe, a small chair tucked into the corner with a lit candle sitting on it and a shelf buckling under the weight of the thick books on top.

You glanced at the door of the adjoined bathroom when the shower started running, then your hasty fingers began struggling with your uniform straps. You changed into your nightwear - a comfortable short-sleeved shirt and a plain pair of shorts - and curiously stepped towards the frail bookshelf, ignoring the bed altogether though it was the biggest benefit you could draw from this situation. (E/c) hues fervently flickered from title to title, devouring the letters with utmost vehemence as your fingertips gently glided over the spine of the seemingly oldest book, feeling the dents of each character with longing. Your mind went back to the busy training routine that prevented the indulgence of your favourite hobby and you wondered when the Corporal had found time for these books.

"For once I hoped you wouldn't live up to my expectations." Your hand withdrew from the book like it had stung your fingertips when, in reality, the abrupt sound of the male's voice had been what truly pricked your senses. You swivelled, guiltily clasping your blameful hands behind your back. "I felt you might snoop around." Levi had showered and changed, but even the little droplets of water that dampened the towel draped around his neck couldn't disperse the shame nestled in the centre of your chest. "Go ahead and look, you'll hardly find anything of interest." The dismissive whisk of his hand, paired with the disinterested snort dripping past his lips made your brows furrow in uncertainty. You hadn't exactly gone looking through his underwear but the heat creeping up your neck told you touching the spine of that book had been a crime way worse.

"I'm really sorry, sir." Your muttered apology made his frown deepen as his orbs locked with yours, so acute you felt as if some part of you had gotten cut. The pang in your chest grew in intensity at the sight of his harsh glare but then he blinked, sighed and when his eyelids lifted the anger your naive apology had induced was gone. His grey hues dropped to the floor and you watched a stray water drop hesitantly trace the outline of his strong jaw prior to taking a leap once having reached his chin. He, in turn, watched it hit the wooden floorboard under his bare feet.

"Drop the formalities, (L/N). I feel like a predator when you call me 'sir' in my own bedroom." It wasn't a snarl per se but the self-directed indignation it contained was heard, though unspoken and left unaddressed. Levi left the room before you could respond and you breathed a sigh of relief upon detecting the shuffle of papers coming from his office. Your shoulders relaxed and your guilty stance gave way to a calmer pose but the pang in your chest remained heavy and stubborn.

You sat at the edge of his pristine bed and gave his last command a few minutes of deep thought. Calling him by his first name wasn't something you'd ever considered despite the fact you felt some misplaced affection for him, not only as your mentor but as a member of the opposite sex as well. Now you were going to be sleeping in his bed and having to use his first name because he clearly disapproved of his official title - your adolescent brain was sizzling with bad kinds of thoughts you weren't supposed to have about your superior.

As a result, you laid your head against his cool pillow with a red face and a twitchy conscience. Burning up and wishing you could pinch yourself awake from this surreal experience, you revelled in the pleasant scent enveloping your body. Your mind struggled to let go of the image of Levi's narrow eyes glaring at the floor in an unfathomable manner, so you tried to focus your thoughts on the distracting fragrance oozing from the cool pillowcase you'd subconsciously burrowed your nose into. You were sure you knew what it was but the exact piece of information had slipped past your store of knowledge and was currently dawdling uselessly around in your head. You drifted off to sleep and it came to you just as your brain had decided to pull the plug on your consciousness - lavender. It was lavender.

Your first night in the Corporal's bed didn't quite live up to its inappropriate label. The frowning male spent about five hours doing paperwork only to then doze off in his chair, where the irritating rays of the rising sun found him less than three hours later, frowning even in his sleep. Your eyes fluttered open when you heard him unlatch the window in his office with a creak and your body instinctively flinched in response to the unfamiliar surroundings your pupils observed in the golden sunlight. Then it came back to you in a hasty wave and your tense muscles gradually relaxed, allowing you to sit up and look out the window to your left with the disoriented gaze of a person who'd slept more than well. Yes, as you boasted later to your Corporal, a seven-hour slumber in his bed had been immensely refreshing, to the point you swore you'd show him even better results than you normally did during your training.

The doubt his features had shown in the beginning started to fade - with an inward tinge of pride at that - around the second week of your deal. Your dark circles made way for healthy patches of skin on day five, your tired waddle was gone by the first week and your previous glory came back by the thirteenth day - the tripping down the halls and during laps, the lousy job at cleaning, the slow manner of speech, the shortened attention span during lectures and the visibly worsened state of your reaction time and physical strength in close combat training were no more. The 3DMG exercises were the only presentable part of your resume that didn't suffer any drastic change due to its location under the shade of the trees past the sunlit training fields, but the gradual increase of productivity and stamina you went on to show put them in the same group as your lame mistakes.

Your poor social skills during missions and your inept way of always freezing in place when you thought you were going to deal critical damage to an opponent stayed, but Levi was determined to draw them into a corner and exterminate them - similarly to how a person squished a bug with his foot and looked at the sole of his shoe with abhorrence right after. As your mentor, he had graced the sole of his leather boot with such a look during the budding of springtime after he'd gotten rid of your annoying habit of recklessly storming into battle headfirst, overzealous and a tad bit conceited. Nowadays you occasionally allowed yourself a certain amount of arrogance but it was a controlled exertion of confidence which stopped eliciting anger from your peers, which, in turn, strengthened the trust and reliability you shared with them.

In this case, it took some time but soldiers slowly came to notice the odd change in your skills - something inevitable since they'd watched your abilities deflate until your performance put you in last place amongst every soldier in the building and now they bore witness to grace, strength and agility so unlike your miserable skills up until a week ago it was uncanny. Suspicion rose until it became overwhelmingly obvious, but nobody dared question your bizarre transformation. It contrasted the rest of the soldiers so brightly some superiors approached Levi in order to seek permission to recruit you for their own squads. In all six cases that took place, Humanity's Strongest Soldier would glare, snarl and prohibit it with such vigour it made four out of six Squad Leaders flinch.

"She's contending for a place on my squad," he'd almost growl in that cold voice of his, "so you can recruit her when I say she's unfit to be part of it, which, considering her performance, might not happen at all."

In a world where he hadn't already let you sleep in his bed, you'd probably faint upon hearing how vehemently he defended his position as your mentor and the spot in his squad you might just come to fill by the end of summer. But in this world - this blessed, albeit titan-infested, world - where you slept in his bed and saw him half-naked once every three days you forgot all about flaunting your skills and only focused on the thought of making him proud. Praise didn't matter so long as he kept scrutinizing you with that calculating gaze of his yet never uttered a single reprimand. It didn't matter in moments when he woke you for breakfast and accepted the tea you made for him in the evening with a grateful nod. No compliment in this world would equal the significance of the timid approval in his ashen hues each time you bashfully added his name at the end of a sentence. It wasn't praise you were chasing ever so desperately since your enlistment in the Corps - it was him.

A kind of meticulous routine came into being by the third week you spent in the comfort of the Lance Corporal's cool bed. Whoever woke up first - which mostly happened to be Levi - woke the other when it was time for breakfast. He had his morning shower and you changed into your uniform, then you swapped rooms and whilst he got dressed, you combed your hair and brushed your teeth (with the toothbrush he'd required you bring from your dorm). Each afternoon you showered after training (because he'd have you sleep on the floor if you weren't thoroughly cleaned), had dinner and crept up the staircase to the ebony-haired male's room, supplying every superior you bumped into with the same excuse of being called into the Corporal's office. Sometimes you went out of your way to make tea for him, which was something he was openly appreciative of - especially on nights he had more paperwork than usual.

You also came to establish several unspoken rules during your coexistence: cleanliness was above all for Levi and the moment you disrespected that you'd receive harsher treatment for the remainder of the day - the same, however, went for your personal space. Each rule was learned the hard way - with you running fifty laps for seemingly no reason when you left the bed unmade one morning and Levi coming dangerously close to getting roundhouse kicked into the wall when he walked out of the bathroom a bit earlier. A few others declared that you could get away with leaving the bed unmade if you delivered Levi's finished paperwork to the Commander before waking him up and that, by letting you read his books, Levi could spare himself some of your unprofessional humour the following day.

There were other little things too, but they weren't exactly rules - just periodical occurrences. On nights when the short male left the window open, you'd sneak into his office and drape a thin blanket over him so the cool night wind wouldn't make his muscles cramp. Some nights he spent in bed with you, lying on his back and struggling to keep his eyes closed as you calmed your erratic heartbeat and feigned sleep. Some evenings you indulged in conversing - the topics were both diverse and multitudinous, but the use of his name instead of his title remained constant. Quiet embarrassment painted the tips of your ears and the apples of your cheeks in hot red and you often caught Levi watching you during those moments with a gaze you were yet to decipher. There was something about it, in the candlelight, that made your heart clench - something he pretended not to have noticed himself, because it was too soft to be him, too improper to be allowed and too genuine to be overlooked.

Those few summer weeks, when you weren't busy pretending not to be dying of the heat outside, your thoughts were dedicated to becoming stronger so you could stay at Levi's side and your heart was overcome by an ecstatic feeling akin to that adolescent love you hadn't had the chance to experience prior to this moment. The earnest admiration that had rooted itself into your heart as a child grew a slim stem when you enlisted in the Corps, slowly morphing into the deep attachment of a determined student that would always follow their mentor. There were buds now and, despite having missed the season, they were blooming - how beautiful that feeling of love - inside your chest, blooming and screaming to be let out. You couldn't let them out. That flower - so aromatic, beautiful and pure - would be considered ugly by everybody else, ugly and improper. Maybe even by the very Corporal who'd seeded it.

At night you'd lay in his bed, tangled in the sheets and pressing your twitching face into his pillow. You'd toss and turn, chest constricting painfully at the thought of the frail flower and its untimely existence, and you'd think of your Corporal sleeping in his chair, imminent ache awaiting his muscles as he furrowed his brows at the nightmares and the memories that were by no means any less horrible. You'd think of him and your shut eyes would sometimes sting with unshed tears, then you'd force your thoughts elsewhere but the smell of lavender would keep them in place, desperate and scorching. And somewhere inbetween them, tangled and struck motionless, stood the image of the flower having bloomed in your chest - frail and small. A stalk of lavender.

"You're ogling." Levi's sharp statement made your shoulders jump in fright as you averted your gaze from his bare back with a pout. The earnest - albeit pouty - 'I'm sorry' that slipped past your lips into the still air clearly hindered the process of him getting dressed because the black shirt he'd picked hung from his slender fingers as he turned to look at you, sitting on the bed with one of his books on your lap. "You're not going to deny it?" The question drove your eyes away from his but you kept your face impassive, achieving success through months of trained experience and turmoil. Only the nervous flickering of your orbs betrayed the feeling of embarrassment that had crept into the crevices of your mind. Admittedly, your superior was far from being unattractive, but you wondered if he was aware of it. Even if he wasn't, giving him compliments would be considered inappropriate. Still---

"It's not like you're ugly, sir--- I mean, Levi." Your clumsy correction made his momentary glare fade but the unmistakable sensation of his hues on you remained, austere and anticipant. You glanced up, hastily avoiding the sight of his abdomen and chest to deter the heat from spreading through your body before it reached your face. "Also, I was looking at the marks, nothing else." The brownish bruises adorning his torso, sitting where his uniform straps usually did, gave the impression of something painful - maybe something you wouldn't be able to handle daily. Levi made a few steps forward until he was standing in front of you and you were struggling to sustain eye contact with his cold ashen hues.

"They're just permanent discolouration of the skin. Pity is unneeded." He'd seen it on your face, maybe in the furrow of your brow or the flare of your nostrils or the unintended curl of your fingers, he'd witnessed the sad admiration and he'd called it pity because giving it another name would lead to questions you wouldn't want to answer. You didn't dare dip your head or do as much as nod in understanding, but something had changed in your orbs; something that made Levi snort in mild exasperation. "They don't even hurt." He declared in a cold voice as you blinked, youthful forehead crinkling with doubt and scepticism. "Do you wish to confirm it?"

The fleeting confusion that clouded your uncertain gaze at the inquiry was all Levi needed to see in order to take advantage of the moment and act. His fingers grabbed your hand and lifted it to his chest, quickly coming to sense the alerted tense of your muscles - similar to the involuntary flinch of a person touching something he'd been prohibited from ever coming in contact with. Too shocked to offer resistance, you felt your palm rest over his skin and your mind devoted all coherent thoughts it could produce to the smoothness of it paired with the firmness of the muscle underneath and, of course, panic. Your engines were going into overdrive but once they short-circuited you felt calm enchantment grasp your senses, guiding your fingers up and down the bruises so you could trace their outlines and feel the diminutive dent of his skin.

"How many years did it take for them to form?" Your head tilted to the side as Levi relinquished his grasp on your wrist, letting your fingertips roam with odd composure. You were wholly enthralled by the feeling of it - this closeness - intimate and unplanned. The scent of lavender his body exuded and the lilac colour mingling with the brown - a bruise that would never heal. The male's reaction to your touches was absent on the surface, but your fingertips graced his skin with such light tenderness he found the contact alien. Having been deprived of gentleness his whole adult life, Levi thought the ginger movement of your dainty fingers strange, but not repulsive.

"About three." The low husk of his voice was something neither of you seemed to acknowledge, too hypnotised to process a detail of such subtlety. Gentle grew into compassionate, fear obtained courage - and the wholeness of your palm caressed Levi's chest, up to his collarbone. Your gaze was still hazy when you craned your neck to look at his hues - and when you did they hit you as oddly soft, a muted graphite having lost its conscious glimmer in the dim candlelight. Taken aback by the peculiar change in your superior's eyes, you felt your hand pause in its journey over his pale skin, just having arrived at the crook of his neck in its daring spontaneity.

"Most cadets surely don't live enough to get them." His skin was burning hot under your oversensitive fingers. Hot and damp from the shower he'd taken. Maybe the dampness was what quelled your advance and broke the spell. Or maybe it was the smell of lavender - reassuring and painful - that told you this was too good to have been happening. It might've been the strange grey as well - such an ugly hue, lacking brightness and resolve, lacking gelidity and austerity, lacking everything you'd fallen for. It was the same hue that kept your hand in place only so it could sear it seconds later, so abruptly you felt pain when there was no source.

"Make sure you're part of the minority then." You couldn't stop thinking of how you disliked the unreadable look in his eyes and the one yours were very eager to reciprocate despite not knowing of the exact meaning it bore. For a very small second you could hear him telling you to survive so you could be with him, live and anticipate the moment when he would finally profess his feelings for you, wait and strive for strength and approval until the flower in your chest made its violet blossoms choke you to death - far from the noble demise every soldier looked up to. One moment you heard all that and the next it was nothing - just the muted hue of his orbs and the scorching feeling of his skin. And the words were a rueful phantasm that left your eyes wide and your lips pursed.

"With my performance, I don't think I'll have a problem." Your hand was at once withdrawn, so sharply it made him blink in mild surprise and the relentless glare returned to its rightful place - glimmering with intelligence and something else, something perturbed by the shameful predecessor of its existence. Your Corporal was back and though your mind leapt with jubilation there was a little part of your heart that was a smidge too discontented to witness the detached frown weaving its way back unto his handsome features. He made a step back. Then another one. His ebony locks swayed as he turned his back to the bed and approached the door, latent disgruntlement hidden along the edges of his clenched jaw.

"Just don't get too cocky. You're still a brat." His steps were heavy but his firm voice was a tad bit lighter. His hand settled on the doorknob when he remembered he was still shirtless. Quick to fix that, Levi snorted with condescension before scratching the side of his neck which you immediately recognised as the exact spot your hand had been touching mere moments ago. Your brows furrowed when the door slammed shut after him, leaving you solitary and bewildered - an emotion that had less to do with his out-of-character moment of mellow approachability and more with the perplexing contrast between his words and actions.

For the next two hours neither of you slept and while he sat at his desk - stiff shoulders, furrowed eyebrows and angrily protruded bottom lip - writing and trying his best not to think or make inward inquiries that would be vouchsafed no answer, you lay on the bed - tangled thoughts, clenched heart and sad eyes - with the book in your hands and the question 'why am I sleeping in your bed then?' echoing inside your head. And, much like how your problem was not graced with a solution, his own compulsive list of questions received no satisfactory reply. It didn't make sense - not one fragment of it all - but, as both of you were yet to learn and acknowledge, nothing did when one was under the influence of love.

Some mornings were familiar, natural and lacking in discomfiture. Normally, you woke up, got dressed and went your way, with Levi not sparing you an additional glance, but the longer you stayed, the warmer the candle on top of the chair in the corner felt and the mornings after - all the fresher. In those moments you looked at the sky with new eyes - a bright pair that saw an oddly clear future. Nothing weighted your heart down and your shoulders were never slouched, the flower in your chest was singing. Levi, too, appeared a tad bit softer. He would make a calm entrance with a resting pair of brows and a sharp gaze, and sometimes a cup of steaming coffee would be clutched by his pale fingers.

"You're such a goddamn nuisance." The ebony-haired male had already put on his uniform. You'd slept through his morning shower and the distinct smell of fresh caffeine had made your lids lift some minutes later. He was crouching by the bed and the bored expression sitting on his face failed to convey the exasperation his words had been so desperate to voice. You took the cup from his hand with a grateful smile, a smidge too lopsided to be described as beautiful. With ice rimming his grey hues, the male gave you a warning look and you took a sip from the beverage with a contented sigh.

"Thank you, Levi." You observed the nonchalant pout of his lips when he stood up and turned the other way, just in time to miss the endearing adoration in your orbs as they gazed up at his noble profile. An inaudible sigh escaped your lungs while your superior busied himself with his uniform straps, reminding you of the brownish bruises clinging to his torso under the white shirt he wore. That, in turn, called forth the date you'd seen yesterday in the callendar you had in your room. Autumn was coming, as the first week of September dictated, and with it - the end of your deal with Levi. Your flawless performance no longer required the comfort of his cold bed, which made a prolonged stay in his room pointless and negated the improvement in your relationship. Back to square one, as your peers would say.

"I'm supervising today's training session so we leave in twenty." His imperative voice brought you back to reality, where he was standing by the wardrobe with folded arms and a harsh frown and you were still in bed, enveloped by the enticing smell of coffee and lavender. You sat up with a small snort and nodded your head obediently, warm fingers locked around the cup in their hold. The air of responsibility and promise you wore did nothing to soften your superior's sharp features or melt the pungent shimmer of his hue as he scrutinised the tangled mess your bed hair was.

"Roger that." You saw his eyes narrow in mild suspicion when your gaze averted from the coffee you were holding but there was no spite along the crease between his drawn brows so you concluded you hadn't gotten in trouble with your carefree response; it was so unlike the salute you would always perform at the beginning of your acquaintanceship with the cold ebony-haired male it made your heart clench in bashful shame and guilty delight at the same time. Was this the beginning of an actual friendship or just a strange exception in your superior-subordinate relationship? Such a baffling concept - to befriend the man you felt so much for.

"Get that shitty smile off your face unless you wish to be running laps in the sun." The abrupt appearance of Levi's biting tone brought awareness to your senses, making you realise your facial muscles had adapted themselves to a joyous grin - genuine and peculiar in the eyes of a person who saw no reason whatsoever behind its existence. You let out a weak chuckle and nodded your head once more, to which he clicked his tongue in visible dissatisfaction prior to fleeing the room in order to focus on the little paperwork he hadn't finished the previous night.

You sat on his bed some more, taking small sips from the coffee he'd brought you and struggling to bite back a smile. Two cubes of sugar and no milk - just how you liked it. You never told him that was how you liked it, though. Unable to dismiss the warm voice of the aromatic flower caressing the insides of your ribcage, you didn't think much of the man's earlier vexation and thus missed how its cause wasn't your unjustified happiness but the concerning reaction it evoked in him. Glimmering hues matching your own, Levi stared at the blank sheet of paper he was yet to touch and the only thing he could feel but couldn't comprehend was the worrying beat of his heart. Too young for problematic palpitations and too old for love - that was what Levi thought of himself - but the image of your smile refused to leave him until the very moment you had to leave for your training session.

The same night you were having a hard time falling asleep. Stripes of lightning stained the indigo night sky, creating a contrast that made it seem jet black and eerie. Thunder sounded in the distance, shaking the wet ground and pushing you from one side of the bed to the other with its deafening roar. Big raindrops fell from the endless abyss, splattering closed windows and steady buildings, wetting stone, soil and grass, and singing a chaotic tune that made your body instinctively pull on the thin blankets Levi had supplied you with. Storms had never been your thing but you hardly considered them scary. The weather was clearly undergoing a change for the worse this year, so the conclusion of rain and snow exceeding their expected amount wasn't exactly hard to reach.

You groaned in exasperation when another lightning struck the forest behind the training fields and its echo reached your ears some moments later. You rose from the bed and stared out the window before deciding a glass of water would suffice to distract your fidgety thoughts. You carefully opened the door leading to Levi's office, all the while labouring under the delusion he was sleeping soundly in his chair, too tired to stay awake in spite of the discomfort. Your assumption couldn't have been more wrong. The moment you stepped foot in the office his aquiline gaze found your face and pinned you in place as you closed the door behind yourself, finding it too late to turn back once having been spotted.

"It's late. Why aren't you sleeping?" A cold question and an even more gelid frown to go with it. You shivered, moving to his desk in your nightwear and glancing at the window behind his back before meeting his eyes in the dim candlelight. His ebony locks were slicked back and messy, and his tired expression bore a pair of heavy lids shadowed by intimidating brows. He lacked the energy to scold you for being awake and you knew it. Judging by the unbuttoned shirt hanging from his shoulders and the shocking eyebags clinging to his pallid skin he wasn't in any condition to even think of it as something troublesome. You were well aware he could kick you to the curb no matter how exhausted but that didn't stop you from gaining a diminutive amount of confidence for the time being.

"The rain woke me up and I couldn't fall asleep after that." Your voice sounded small and weak in comparison to the unsynchronised dance of the raindrops against the glass window, but Levi felt no need to command you to speak louder. He liked the timid sound of the tone you used as it was. "Hindering your work process too?" Your curious inquiry led his calculating gaze away from the window in the direction of your drowsy figure as it leaned against the edge of his desk, ponderous and far from graceful in its unsettled condition. You wouldn't consider in a thousand years that Levi would have found you pretty at that moment, with your droopy eyes and dishevelled tresses, and the big shirt slipping off your bare shoulder as your capable hands awkwardly scratched at the back of your head.

"The weather's gone batshit crazy." Was his only retort, drained of both amusement and wit - a noticeable absence which just went to show he was way past the point of joking as well. You nodded your head whilst facing the window and contemplating this year's unpredictable seasonal weather: early bloom of flowers and trees in the spring, blistering summer temperatures and now daily bouts of torrential rain when September's second week hadn't even commenced. Winter would be a dreaded season - ice and blizzards all the way, as far as your imagination went anyway. The white visions of the cold made your brows furrow as you stumbled upon an impending problem of bigger vicissitude that was more deserving of your apprehension.

"Agreed. On the topic, I should probably gather my stuff in the morning." Levi raised a quizzical brow that made your gaze stray back to the window. This was the fourth night you spent in his bed after the coming of rains and lower temperatures. Everybody sensed the weather's scarcely subtle change but you and your mentor were extremely adamant to keep up an oblivious act. At this point, you could take advantage of his reluctance and continue using his bed for the remainder of the year, but that was a line of indecency you weren't willing to cross. "With the autumn rains coming, I think my stay has expired." You explained meekly, dismissing the glare at your temple as a messenger of surprise. Giving simple looks bigger meanings than the ones they possessed was an unhealthy habit you had to rid yourself of.

"Winters are colder here anyways." He responded with an approving hum, making you steal a glimpse of his profile when he turned in his chair to observe the raindrops hitting the window. So immensely handsome, even when overwhelmed by extreme fatigue, as dictated by the curve at the tip of his nose, the outline of his thin lips, the austere beauty of his frown and the sharp edge of his clenched jaw. There was something about the shadow falling over his bloodshot eyes that made their shimmer times brighter and more piercing. It was profusely childish of you to get distracted by such things, but inevitable nonetheless.

"Thank you for humouring me, Levi." Sentences such as “do you want to sleep in my bed then?”, “wood is better at preserving warmth than stone” and “I'd be a fool not to return the favour” lifted their tempting heads at you, expectant gazes awaiting your choice. But you wouldn't make it, mostly because you knew the Corporal would shoot you down, offering immediate refusal in the form of a pointed glare or a stern “no”. So you settled for simply voicing your gratitude, seeing as it was something he would have little reason to glare at you for.

"The least I can do for the newest addition to my squad." Deep voice, cold eyes, nonchalant huff - adjectives you were incapable of matching to their suitable nouns due to the shock that struck your body, abrupt and piercing like a blade. Levi gifted your gaping mouth and uncomprehending hues a brief amused glance. You could swear his lips twitched in restrained mirth - a twitch that would've taken the form of a genuine chuckle had the ebony-haired male been less sombre and strict. "Don't swallow your tongue now. I haven't given the final form to Erwin yet. I was filling it out tonight." It took you some time to negate the bemusement his statement had caused but the result left your body light and your mind full of euphoria.

"So you'll call me 'cadet' from tomorrow onwards?" The crestfallen words were spoken curiously as your chest swelled with gelid pride and warm misplaced disappointment, and you distinctly felt the drop of your stomach when your superior gave a curt nod after a moment of contemplation. "And I go back to addressing you as 'sir'." The flat statement could hardly be labelled a question but its confirmation arrived nevertheless, making a small pang pull at your heart. "That's surprisingly disappointing when I just got used to calling you 'Levi' without flushing in embarrassment." The weirdly unabashed admittance made your Corporal's features contort in mild confusion and you could almost see his lips mouth the word “embarrassment?” as his calculating orbs inspected your countenance for any traces of said emotion. "It's hard to get used to the idea my hero lets me use his first name like I'm not just a child looking at him in the street."

Your bashful explanation - accompanied by a pair of tense shoulders and a nervous flickering gaze - made the male's wan features contort in an abrasive scowl as he turned to face you instead of the window. His lips were pursed so tightly they painted a straight line across the lower half of his visage and his stormy hues shone with additional spite upon locking with yours. Then his voice came out, biting and imperious: "Your hero is too idealised to be worthy of actual worship." The animosity and reproach it held, you realised, were things directed at himself he couldn't help but let slip past the chinks in his own armour. Your tense shoulders slouched as you smiled - more so at this part of him he was unintentionally letting you see than him.

"He's not. He's a flawed middle-aged man with a lot of duties who is often tired. His temper's bad but he's patient when he needs to be. What he lacks he makes up for, with no exceptions. That's what I like about him." Your confession, smooth and steady, lacked the usual shyness with which you often took it upon yourself to talk. The drumming of the rain was a rhythmic background you couldn't rid yourselves of, but neither seemed to mind. All it took was a glance - Levi's silver hues searching for yours in dubious surprise - and your halting resolve to be confident crumbled completely. "I've said too much, I apologise if it made you feel uncomfortable, sir." Downcast gaze, sucked in breath and a lavender stalk tickling the back of your throat. You never saw the man's pallid features adopt a borderline embarrassed expression, nor did you bear witness to the doubtful glances he sent around the room, little messengers to ask all inanimate objects the office contained if he was in his right mind, thinking the things he dared come up with.

"Reverting to that shitty title. Why don't you prove you've learned how to use my fucking name, (L/N)?" He snarled, annoyance slipping through the wall of composure he tried to build. Your shoulders shrunk a size but you didn't distance yourself from him or the desk, you didn't have the heart to do it - not when you felt this warm and this tense, this pleasantly embarrassed. “Keep calling my name,” his enchanting orbs whispered imploringly, and you would try adhering to the command though it was not real. "Mute when speech is required. And red to top it off. Have I embarrassed you?" The redness creeping at the base of your neck and the tips of your ears spread further upwards, tinting the apples of your cheeks crimson and making your pouting lips part in mild defiance.

"A little." The humble admittance made Levi snort as you leaned back against his desk - something he would never allow under normal circumstances - vouchsafing his cold eyes a look of mild suspicion that made his thin eyebrow raise challengingly. Your lips pouted in annoyance, glare almost as half-hearted as his when he reprimanded you during training. "Are you by any chance having fun by doing it?" The flow of your blood circulation was still heavily focused on the sides of your face but that didn't stop you from attempting to intimidate your Corporal, who seemed, besides extremely unimpressed, quite amused by the peculiar show of confidence on your side.

"I don't know. You tell me. Would I let anybody sleep in my bed if I couldn't benefit from it?" There was something - something twinkling - in his orb that drowned out its grey colour and the relatively big size of its pupil. It was something that prevented you from noticing his hue was grey contrary to silver and that his eyes had come to narrow in that way you'd seen some weeks ago during your ogling. It was something pretty - almost mischievous - and it attracted you with its simplistic beauty to the point you couldn't think of anything but the man possessing it. Prosaic as it was, the waxen colour of his complexion was made to look extraordinarily healthy and his tired visage's wan features suddenly seemed handsome and uplifted, the lilac crescents disappeared from their shallow nests and, for a single second, he officially became the one man on this world you had eyes for.

"Despicable," you muttered, overcome by the irrational hypnotising urge to reach out and touch the pale temple at his side with its little throbbing blue vein - a result of all the stress and fatigue. Was that because he'd been filling out forms to finalise your transfer to his squad? Was it because he'd been writing reviews about your performance that justified his choice? Was that terrible expression on his face because of you? Your fingers clutched the edge of the desk until your knuckles turned white - a subconscious reaction the ebony-haired male's observant hues immediately pinpointed. It took him very little to understand a nasty thought had wormed its way into your mind but it would have never occurred to him that it concerned him directly, much less his well-being.

"Make sure you're faultless before judging. The fact I pointed out your ogling only once doesn't mean I didn't notice the rest." Determined to distract you from your worries, Levi opted for the one option he knew would undeniably reap success - embarrassment. His mocking words made crimson blossom over your cheeks and erased the dutiful air of responsibility and morbidity your features often held when not busy portraying another emotion. Levi forced his eyes away from the endearing sight with a scoff, once more telling himself he was too old for this - for you. "Go back to bed now, (L/N). You've entertained me enough for one night." The dismissive whisk of his pale hand prompted your gaze upwards and away from the floor you'd admired ever so fervently a moment ago. Uncertainty gathered in the crease between your brows and your heart clenched as you pushed yourself off his desk, the lavender stalk reaching up to chase the air from your throat and hinder your speech.

"Could I ask you to join me when you finish here?" Insecure and small, close to a bluish colour in the dim lighting and muffled by the loud drumming of the rain, the question hung from the ceiling in the cool air, swaying from side to side in an attempt to attract Levi's attention. The male's lips visibly pursed as he glared at the papers on his desk, eyes not daring to look at you. Mirroring the action, you anticipated his answer with a pleading furrow of your brows, contrary to his displeased one. There was silence - heavy, taut like a guitar's string and burning amidst the first of many gelid nights to come - a silence that was a bringer of feared refusal and shamefully crushed hopes. There would be no miracles this time because your ludicrous inquiry crossed a line neither of you had dared confront prior to this moment.

"No." Strident, succinct and stoic - a proud genuine response that wouldn't push the boundaries of your future active superior-subordinate relationship and thus hinder communication or teamwork. Feelings and intimacy weren't a good mix when you wouldn't be anything more than a mere cadet to him as of the following morning, much less when expressed vocally. And you seemed to be doing that a lot tonight. You fled the office with a despondent nod and not another word, softly closing the door behind yourself. Moping because of a reaction you knew you'd receive was useless, so you ignored the tears gathering in the crevices of your ribcage and lay on the big bed, tucking yourself into the corner by the wall under the window so the rain could block all unwanted notions.

You didn't know how long you lay there, clutching the covers and pressing your knees against the cold stone, but at one point the salty taste of tears you couldn't feel yourself shedding wet your lips and you snorted, engulfed in the dim light of the murky moonbeams and the disappointment clinging to your heavy bones. At the window frame stood the shards of your shattered hope, assembled as to beautifully shine and reflect the glistening raindrops gliding down the glass window. Levi's pillow lay on the opposite side of the bed as you pressed your forehead against the wall, desperate to escape the scent of lavender and the thoughts of its owner it would trigger. Slowly drifting off, you didn't hear the soft click of the door, nor the quiet footsteps coming to a stop at the bedside.

No matter how inconveniently unfortunate your situation, you dreamed of nice things - such as the ones you couldn't have in reality. You dreamed of a training session in the sun, a small word of praise and a tight hug in the shade of a nearby tree, bathing your being in lavender and making your knees give out in alleviation. You pictured a gentle but desperate embrace, and though you knew no words of affection would exit Levi's lips, you heard the echo of his thoughts, telling you he didn't want to let you go. Images of your hands clutching his body for support appeared in your mind, followed by a moment of serene mutual understanding. You both knew this was wrong. But there was no “but” glued to the last word. There was a period instead - a hopeful little end that would allow no further arguments on the topic.

In your dreamland, Levi's fingers were confident as they cupped your face whereas yours were shaking in unbelieving elation on his shoulders. In your dreamland, Levi's hues were silver and glimmering with a burning resolve, a goal in mind. In reality, when the mattress shrunk under his weight you didn't feel the insecure touch of his fingertips caressing your cheek to wipe the tear stains, nor did you connect the smell of lavender coming off his body to anything real. And when he cleared the messy tresses from your face and wrapped his arms around your shivering form you felt the confident embrace of a self-assured man who knew exactly what his feelings for you meant. In your dreams Levi was never insecure, never uncertain, never indecisive - those traits had not once represented him in your eyes. How would you feel knowing they had formed a ball at the back of his throat as he buried his nose in your hair, trying not to choke or recoil in self-contempt because of what he was doing?

That question, much like many others, would be gifted no tangible answer. All you knew, for the time being, was that the malnourished flower in your chest kept singing amidst your misery and would keep blooming until its aromatic petals fell from your lips or its stalk wrapped around your beating heart and crushed it. The next morning you awoke bright and robust, distancing yourself from melancholic notions that would only serve as a distraction. You sat up, noticing the figure sitting at the edge of the bed when it entered your line of sight. The air was heavy with the smell of lavender and fresh coffee, and the sky was an optimistic baby blue. Levi, having sensed your movement, turned to hand you your drink. You took it with a grateful nod and a shy smile, failing to notice the affectionate glimmer in his hues as he watched your visage.

The ebony-haired male didn't speak - not of your recruitment, not of the imminent training you'd face, not of the end of your stay and not of last night's conversation. You sat there, watching the bed hair he never had after sleeping in his chair and the creases over the sheets you'd hardly touched, and your tongue was made of lead but your heart felt light. Your lips pursed as you bit back a smile and sipped your coffee, hiding your conflicted endearment behind the china's thick rim. Levi was, of course, already quite aware of it, but had no intention of shattering your delusions on the topic of his oblivion. So he turned and sat across from you on the bed, drinking the tea he'd gotten for himself from the kitchen and not forgetting to omit the fact he'd slept in for the first time in his adult life. Past the closed window behind your back, the twittering of birds mashed with the faint voices of your comrades having breakfast in the mess hall - faint voices yours was supposed to be a part of.

Skipping breakfast was Levi's last gift to you for the time being - a few peaceful minutes filled with comforting silence and a strange sense of mutual understanding. There were no passionate hugs or declarations of undying love. There was the lingering scent of coffee and black tea, and two pairs of glimmering hues locked on each other as the owners hid their quiet content behind cups' rims and fidgety hands, equally satisfied to have indulged in their selfish urges and unravelled that summer heat had come to reveal itself as the least of their problems. If nothing else, it might've subjected you to a big amount of torture but it also gave you the opportunity to feel closer to Levi and the chance to get to know him before things between you turned professional. Heat had given each of you an opening - you to accept your love and Levi to fall victim to it - so it was a pity neither of you thought of thanking it.

#levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman imagine #levi ackerman fanfiction #snk x reader #reader insert #if you didn't know already i love building up the feelings and not exploring them inside the frame of a romantic relationship #so yet another open ending for you #i do be very interested in the emotional dynamics #should've studied behavioural sciences or psychology lol #levi is too soft and too in denial as usual #reader here is just a bit melodramatic #but that's the whole point so my metaphors can be employed lol #hope you enjoy

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se-mia-bstract · 5 months

Text

‘Don’t you have any semblance of human emotions?!’

The way Dieter says this (S1E22) after the show goes out of its way to show exactly how human Levi is.

He takes Erwin’s order to refuel, despite he and others initially not understanding the point, because he trusts his judgement.

Rather than getting straight to Eren vs the female titan they deliberately show Levi discovering his squad’s corpses, and after each is shown it cuts away to his face and his darkening eyes. This is entirely unnecessary from a plot standpoint, the whole reason for this sequence is to show us a glimpse of Levi Ackerman rather than merely Lance Corporal Levi.

Levi holds Mikasa back from going in blindly and doesn’t write off her belief that Eren is alive despite her desperation for it to be true and when she directly disobeys him he gets himself injured in her stead.

It’s a wonderfully poetic circle, him being called cold and emotionless at the start and one of his final moments in the show being to give a smile and a tear for everyone he lost. But this isn’t down to character development, feeling so viscerally is part of who Levi is. It’s those same feelings that have him in a frenzy at the mere sight of Zeke by the end. It’s those same feelings that kept him fighting even when he was half blind and near immobile. It’s the look of horror at discovering the animals he had been killing for years were actually people.

It’s the man who sat hidden as Eren, Mikasa and Armin dreamed of going beyond the walls and wondered what the future would bring them, who continually gave his life to the fulfilment of those dreams.

He is trusting and protective of others. He is selfless. He cares about the people around him. He mourns.

You can’t dedicate your heart if you don’t have one.

#this show is so good #the level of detail in each characters arc #over whole seasons #is insane #i love this man #so much #levi ackerman #attack on titan #aot #shingeki no kyogin #attack on titan s1

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rp-partnerfinder · 4 months

Note

⚔️🔰Attack on Titan next gen

Guess who decided to rewatch SnK again? Let my heart shatter in peace

Anyway,

We all know the original snk plot right?

Eren losing his family, becoming a titan, joining the survey corps, hoping to stay alive and save humanity.

But in this plot, he didnt.

Its probably 20 a 25 years later after the anime and a lot of our famous soldiers have either started a family or passed away.. or both..

Humanity is still in terror or the high treatening risk of of titans, so the army is training new recruits in the hope of thickening their defense.

[⚠️(text below includes faint spoilers of season 4)⚠️

My chara Eren's son and related to Levi through my other oc. This boy is expected to fill in the position as Lance corporal when Levi retires/dies. (He already will be if Levi already died in this plot) Carrying a huge burden and unable to move on from his mother's death, this boy tries to purify his father's name, the man who was known for being the Attack Titan and villain who betrayed the walls as leader of the Yeagerist..

Your oc can be anyone, whenever its the daughter of Queen Historia. Or maybe a missing childhood friend of my oc, who returned years later as titan shifter..

This roleplay will be a MxF, Oc x Oc, but some canon characters from the original series will definitely return!

Think about Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Levi etc.

This rp will involve nsfw at some point, but lets build it up please!

I hate it when romance goes to fast and being underdeveloped

Im 25+ yo, my timezone is gmt+2 and ive been rping for +10 years and im looking for someone who has at least a few years rp experience.

Also, literate please🙏

Also, please have an Aot related character!

Im kinda picky about this cause im weak for next gen characters.

Please make your oc the daughter of any famous character^^

((This is no must if she have any other specific important role/job^^))

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findroleplay · 4 months

Note

⚔️🔰Attack on Titan next gen

Guess who decided to rewatch SnK again? Let my heart shatter in peace

Anyway,

We all know the original snk plot right?

Eren losing his family, becoming a titan, joining the survey corps, hoping to stay alive and save humanity.

But in this plot, he didnt.

Its probably 20 a 25 years later after the anime and a lot of our famous soldiers have either started a family or passed away.. or both..

Humanity is still in terror or the high treatening risk of of titans, so the army is training new recruits in the hope of thickening their defense.

[⚠️(text below includes faint spoilers of season 4)⚠️

Your oc can be anyone, whenever its the daughter of Queen Historia. Or maybe a missing childhood friend of my oc, who returned years later as titan shifter..

This roleplay will be a MxF, Oc x Oc, but some canon characters from the original series will definitely return!

Think about Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Levi etc.

This rp will involve nsfw at some point, but lets build it up please!

I hate it when romance goes to fast and being underdeveloped

Im 25+ yo, my timezone is gmt+2 and ive been rping for +10 years and im looking for someone who has at least a few years rp experience.

Also, literate please🙏

Also, please have an Aot related character!

Im kinda picky about this cause im weak for next gen characters.

Please make your oc the daughter of any famous character^^

((This is no must if she have any other specific important role/job^^))

#roleplay #rp #attack on titan rp

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prpfs · 4 months

Note

⚔️🔰Attack on Titan next gen

Guess who decided to rewatch SnK again? Let my heart shatter in peace

Anyway,

We all know the original snk plot right?

Eren losing his family, becoming a titan, joining the survey corps, hoping to stay alive and save humanity.

But in this plot, he didnt.

Its probably 20 a 25 years later after the anime and a lot of our famous soldiers have either started a family or passed away.. or both..

Humanity is still in terror or the high treatening risk of of titans, so the army is training new recruits in the hope of thickening their defense.

[⚠️(text below includes faint spoilers of season 4)⚠️

Your oc can be anyone, whenever its the daughter of Queen Historia. Or maybe a missing childhood friend of my oc, who returned years later as titan shifter..

This roleplay will be a MxF, Oc x Oc, but some canon characters from the original series will definitely return!

Think about Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Levi etc.

This rp will involve nsfw at some point, but lets build it up please!

I hate it when romance goes to fast and being underdeveloped

Im 25+ yo, my timezone is gmt+2 and ive been rping for +10 years and im looking for someone who has at least a few years rp experience.

Also, literate please🙏

Also, please have an Aot related character!

Im kinda picky about this cause im weak for next gen characters.

Please make your oc the daughter of any famous character^^

((This is no must if she have any other specific important role/job^^))

like if you're interested and op will reach out

#attack on titan rp #aot rp #snk rp #fandom rp #fandom roleplay #dead dove

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levmada · 4 months

Note

PLEASE write about Levi’s mental state, i’m begging you

He’s faced death and precarious situations since he was born, yet he’s still standing strong and hopeful, WHAT THE HELL I LOVE MY SHORT KING

IT'S FINALLY HERE��im sorry anon i hope you're around to see this and if u are i hope i dont disappoint

the tone in this analysis is so weird because i kept getting caught between 'this is an apa paper no contractions, academic language, double spacing -' and 'this is a tumblr post about a fictional blorbo wtf r u on'

i also use some scientific language i try my best to explain but if this turns anyone off i don't blame them because im unhealthily obsessed

*i'm a third-year undergraduate psychology student w/ a concentration in psychopathology

tw/cw: discussion of childhood exposure to sex (not assault)

Foreword

I’ve been putting this off for a while (I’m forgetful and this topic is intimidating what can I say), but being a year out from graduating with my bachelor’s to become a mental health professional, and being a Levi scholar(/hj), I wanted to give this a shot.

I wanted to dissect and examine Levi Ackerman’s mental health “currently” (as in general canon), and explain as thoroughly but as simply as possible how and why he thinks and acts the way he does.

Seeing how AOT is pretty renowned for leaving out the ‘insignificant’ details, especially character details, a good majority of my assertions and even details of his life are built off of correlations and “signs and symptoms”; meaning some things could be an aspect of Levi’s personality, or a symptom of psychopathology.

I will examine his childhood (especially his childhood), adolescence, young adulthood, and “present” adulthood, with a short summary at the end of where he might be mentally after the war.

*Lastly, I don’t like it when things I say about a series or character are taken as fact or make it implied that someone else’s thoughts are “wrong”. This is partly built on headcanons anyway, which are influenced by my own experiences. Don’t take away from this that this is me telling you what to think.*

Childhood

The most important period of development occurs in infancy and childhood, especially from the ages of 3-6. This is when a child learns where to find security, love, and basic skills, gaining stability as they develop.

Well, Kuchel died when Levi was 4.

Maternal Love / Learning Empathy / Anxious Attachment Style

Levi was born into deep poverty within a violent unwelcoming environment. Basic physical needs must have been very hard to meet (i.e., consistently fed enough, a clean environment, no physical threats). And where Levi was born is like the dictionary definition of a bad environment for a small child, excluding only his mother’s care and love.

As it’s generally understood in canon (and suggested from Levi’s special backstory manga so far) she was a caring parental figure early in Levi’s life that loved him unconditionally. We can conclude that Kuchel did everything within her power to compensate for both parenting Levi alone and shielding him the best she could from his horrible surroundings, teaching the kindness, goodness, and love that Levi would internalize and go on to strive for for his entire life.

As far as we know, no other children lived in the brothel. Socialization is just as important for a young child as receiving love. With this isolation, it’s extremely difficult to learn how to connect to other people, or pick up on social cues. Levi would’ve never learned how to interact properly with his peers—aside from use of aggression and violence which Kenny would go on to instill in him.

With the danger/anxiety imposed by strangers, mostly if not entirely men, he would turn to his mother for comfort all. The. Time.

And she would give him that support and affection of course. This early motherly affection is integral to child development: a child who receives empathy and affection is subliminally taught how to feel and express empathy towards others.

While Levi’s surroundings were dangerous, lonely, and chaotic—traumatizing enough for a toddler or young child—Kuchel provided a safety net from that, so I think that Levi developed an anxious attachment as a child: exhibiting clinginess, excessive fear of abandonment, and an excessive need for security and/or reassurance.

Paternal Trauma / Potential Androphobia

Born and living in a brothel, we can assume that Levi was probably seen as a burden and a mistake by others, especially by men (both the likely majority of her customers and her boss).

AOT ch69; Before the Fall, ch34

This is likely in contrast to the women (those living and working in the brothel like Kuchel). They should know Kuchel if not as friends, then acquaintances who could empathize for her and her son.

There’s an obvious trend here. If Levi is going to feel fear/danger/anxiety because of men, he should have a general aversion to men and-or the behavior of men who he encountered as a child. This is impossible to know for sure or in meaningful detail, but it seemed to be resolved by the time he became an adult if so.

Although Kenny in his words was no more than Levi's teacher, Levi did see him as a father figure.

The subject of Kenny will be expanded on later, but it's clear Kenny in no way resembled a father, who also would go on to abandon Levi (at the age of 11 or so). Children without father figures tend to struggle more emotionally, psychologically, and socially. Specifically, (especially boys) tend to exhibit intimidating/aggressive personas to compensate for resentment, fear, and unhappiness.

Sexual Trauma (Tangent, Probably)

This is unconfirmed but a likely trauma Levi went through: exposure to sex as a child. There’s no way to confirm what he experienced, so I’ll function on ‘probably’s’ and ‘most likely’s’.

Because Levi and Kuchel only lived in one room, other rooms in the brothel should have belonged to other women, and he was at the oldest four, I wager that he was babysat by women who Kuchel knew and/or was made to hide somewhere while she worked, such as in a cabinet.

(for reference)

AOT ch69

The odds are high that he was exposed to the aftermath of sexual violence (i.e., marks seen on his mother), and the sound or smells that have to do with it. That young, he wouldn’t know what it was, but he should have realized later as an adolescent.

In general, children regardless of gender exposed to sexual content usually experience early puberty (which is just as likely for impoverished children, or children who experience chronic high-stress in general); issues with intimacy; become desensitized to high-risk behavior; negative/inaccurate expectations about sex and relationships in the future; influence inappropriate behavior with other children or adults; sex addiction.

This is especially relevant to Levi’s fear of closeness/intimacy in the future. Exposure to sexual situations—possibly not including CSA in his case—very early in life inflicts on a child emotions and stress they don’t have the intellect or reasoning to process or understand. An extreme aversion to interpersonal relationships, especially physical ones, results.

This stress Levi must have felt, being powerless to this happening to his mother, is a different beast. Children aren’t capable of handling high levels of stress, and so the brain will automatically create coping mechanisms: dissociation (a severe form of “zoning out”; observing the self “from the third person”; numbness; the feeling of living in a dream), excessive daydreaming/overactive imagination, symptoms of PTSD (nightmares and terrors; flashbacks; spontaneous activation of fight-flight-freeze associated with anxiety; excessive worrying/fear; loneliness/self isolation). PTSD will also be prevalent in Levi’s later life, which I’ll delve into later.

Inappropriate behavior and sex addiction are also highlights for me because they shouldn’t exist in him based on Levi's personality and behavior throughout the series. In my opinion, Levi ought to associate sex with pain, shame, and violence; he does see it as an ordinary job—a means to an end. He should be desensitized to sex as a concept, but associates it personally with shame, sadness, and pain, possibly feeling disgust towards it. So it is highly likely that Levi in every stage of life following this experienced sexual repulsion (usually associated with high anxiety towards sex), a low libido, or a lack of sexual desire entirely.

From a trauma perspective, he could avoid sexual topics of conversation, sexual settings (i.e., brothels), or an array of things which are sexually suggestive or he as a child possibly associated with sex (i.e., cleavage, panties, specific touch). Similarly, he might avoid direct reminders or have a post-traumatic reaction to them, such as anxiety or flashbacks (i.e., the sound of a bed creaking, the sight of wet clothes).

Importantly, it can be concluded that sexual violence was often exhibited, and the idea would be ingrained in him that sex, like everything else besides his relationship with his mother, is “give-and-take”, “victim-and-attacker”, and learn to be repulsed by intimacy. This impacts his willingness for later friendships and relationships as we’ll see later.

Early Abandonment & Early Exposure to Death

As Kuchel’s health deteriorated, Levi’s sense of security would break down. Availability of shelter, food, and emotional support would be even less secure than before. He might have been providing for Kuchel for some time, even, as it can be gathered that he received little to no help from those around him while she was sick. To whatever length he had to take responsibility and both fear for Kuchel, this would cement a sense of responsibility and guilt in him from the age of just four years old.

He will fail to save her—regardless of the fact that that’s not his responsibility in the first place; a child wouldn’t understand that—and then lose her with nothing he could do to even cushion the blow.

How powerless he must’ve felt. How hopeless. How likely is it that Levi found comfort in joining her? A child his age wouldn’t be able to comprehend death, basing our understanding on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. To summarize, at the age of six or seven, children aren’t capable of complex, abstract thought like death or the finality of it. But Levi had to learn early.

AOT ch69

This will be center in his “clean-freak” tendencies later.

Adolescence

Most of this section is going to be rather vague again, but we already got the bulk of that over with in childhood!

Emotional Train Wreck / Lack of Identity

It’s hard to notice if you’re not paying attention, but in every scene we’re shown with Levi after his mother dies but before Kenny leaves, he’s wearing some variation of his mother’s one dress styled into a shirt. He loves her endlessly, even or especially in death. And part of cherishing her memory, to him, should’ve been taking after her as much as he could.

That’s how to explain why he didn’t become a cruel person (Kenny for instance) as he grew into a teenager, even though much of Levi’s outlook and behaviors come from him (ch57).

The more pertinent question is how extreme violence, reinforcement of the idea that that violence is power, and Kenny’s total (or most likely total) lack of communicated emotional connection affected him.

Levi would still desperately want that connection deep down, especially with his mother gone. This is a major reason why Levi sought to get stronger to please Kenny. For chronically abandoned people, that continues into adulthood and even beyond. A hole inside which can't be filled.

AOT ch69

Chronic loneliness—like I explained before—basically explains his aloof nature and awkward disposition. It’s not that Levi feels as detached as he looks, but he doesn’t know how to express himself or open up. He wouldn’t learn how to process his emotions, let alone talk about them. He’s basically emotionally stunted and immature in impersonal relationships (between friends and especially in regards to intimacy).

The Underground’s environment also makes him socially awkward, rude, of course stoic/not very expressive, and blunt. Levi was forced to become extremely observant of people to suss out their intentions, remaining vigilant of his surroundings at all times.

Levi doesn’t even get affection in any sense anymore. He doesn’t get a hug or a pat on the back, and he certainly doesn’t get a shoulder to cry on.

If anything, Kenny would punish him for showing weakness. Vulnerability is weakness; weakness is death.

What results is a continuous and boundless sense of emptiness inside that can’t be filled. He’s plagued by a chronic sense of unbelonging and loneliness. There’s no time or opportunity to develop “normally” as an adolescent. Socialization is limited at best; thinking of his place in the world is irrelevant when his one and only most pressing goal is survival; he doesn’t get to explore hobbies or interests.

OCD Propensity

One “interest” Levi is passionate about is cleaning, at least. Disease is what caused his mother to die. The easiest cause to point to would be their disgusting surroundings (although, Kuchel was infected by a customer). It is canon that Levi’s love of cleaning comes from "his personal experiences". In that interview, Levi first specifically references the important of fighting disease.

In other words, his "clean freak" nature comes, primarily, from the death of his mother: Filth -> disease -> death, and abandonment by extension.

His mother would’ve encouraged him to keep their room clean. There were times he or she had to have come down with something and dirtiness was the cause. On top of Kenny’s enforcement to keep up “clean” appearances to garner respect from everyone else in the Underground.

This in particular is extremely relevant to his mental health. When someone feels out of control of what is happening to them, especially in a recurring way, and especially as a child who doesn't yet know how to feel stable in an unstable environment, they look for something to control. It can be weight, bodily functions (blinking, breathing, etc), dominance over others, or cleaning, for instance.

Fear of disease, the urgent need to have control, and the basic need for stability makes it obvious that Levi would become obsessed with cleaning. And moreover, developing OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I’ll go deeper into this diagnosis later.

Lack of Self Worth

Despite the acknowledgment throughout canon that he trusts in his own strength, it wasn’t always that way.

Canonically, Levi sought praise from Kenny by showing his strength because that was the only thing he received praise for. The conclusion Levi came to once Kenny left him was that he wasn’t strong enough (wasn’t good enough) to warrant staying with him.

In conjunction, Levi’s first conclusion was that he did something wrong, not that Kenny possibly had some obligation that forced him to leave the Underground, pointing again to his own lack of self-worth.

This scenario created a complex in him, the very root cause of Levi’s pain, the very foundation of what Levi would go on to prioritize in adulthood. If he isn’t useful to those he wants not to abandon him, he’s worthless. He’s only useful when he shows his strength. Every other aspect of him like his interests is either irrelevant or bland by default in his eyes.

He would go on to make it his mission to try his best to be good enough in order to save and protect the lives of others, but foremost those he cares about.

Young Adulthood

Our first exposure to Levi as an adult is in A Choice with No Regrets, his OVA/backstory.

(By the way, I’ll be basing this analysis off a mix of the manga and the OVA.)

Emotional Immaturity/Affective Dysregulation

Generally, Levi’s defining negative character trait as a young adult is his emotional immaturity/anti-social behavior. Yes he’s grumpy and rude which is always indicative of him, but he’s very quick to anger, too. He cursed at the Squad Leader who offended him (by assuming that because he, Isabel, and Farlan are from the Underground, they’d be dirty), and argued furiously with Farlan that he would kill Erwin—not because it was required for the job, but because he disrespected him—for a few examples.

ACWNR ch2

He tended to be arrogant, too. Such as when he ultimately called a Scout who had experience with the Titans stupid for telling Levi to hold his swords in a certain way. He spoke to every officer the same as he would anyone on the street, having a remarkable lack of basic respect for authority. He was insistent on distancing himself from the entire setting and structure of the Scouts as much as possible, both to not get attached, and he found their mission childish/foolish.

He’s rather selfish. There is nothing Levi cares about genuinely more than Isabel’s and Farlan’s lives and the job that will set them up with a good future. Farlan’s advice is the only one’s he takes and the only judgment outside himself that he considers, such as when Farlan asks him to not cause trouble with authority to keep a low profile, but even then he acts stubborn. Levi trusts nobody wholeheartedly except himself (until later in ACWNR).

There’s a cognitive dissonance in him. Growing up, and still as a young adult, Levi’s headspace is marked by fear and uncertainty, with his power as his source of confidence. The first time he kills a Titan (with Isabel and Farlan), he uses too much gas because he refuses to potentially risk his friends’ lives; when the expedition is upcoming, he abruptly tells Farlan and Isabel to find a reason to stay back, and that he’ll complete the dangerous part of the job on his own.

Levi is full of repressed fear and uncertainty. He hides and/or buries all of it for the sake of self-preservation both emotionally and physically.

Antisocial Personality…?

It’s extremely interesting how a character as selfless, heroic, and empathetic as Levi exhibits antisocial symptoms. I’d even argue that if his childhood was spent entirely without his mother figure, then he might be a dictionary definition of ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder).

People with this disorder live day-to-day under the constant assumption that whoever is around them is “out to get them”/searching for a weakness to exploit. Humanity is made up of only prey and predators; morals are completely subjective, perpetuated by the society that surrounds them. This constant need to defend oneself, the effect of the exact trauma the potential sociopath experienced, combined with a muted emotional spectrum, results in a complete disregard of everything, including people outside of themself. They might believe they’re entitled to comfort or admiration, but overall, they’re intensely self-serving, often aggressive, and ruthless.

Because Levi for instance learned to rely on violence both for “love” and survival, then he might fall on violence to manipulate a person or situation into serving himself. I see reason to believe that Levi could have grown into worse than Kenny’s image if it weren’t for his mother’s influence.

However, the greatest cause for deniability is Levi’s wide emotional spectrum (especially including empathy and shame), while a lack of shame is the most significant marker of ASPD . (It is arguably one of many testaments to his strength that a victim of so much suffering, violence, and cruelty could become a man as empathetic as him.)

However, these tendencies may still be relevant: A sense of arrogance—both to the way Levi thinks of some who he perceives as weak and live without good morals—lacking issue with using deceit or violence to attain a goal, and living outside the rule of authority.

I go into more detail about this idea here.

Conclusion

As is true in general, there’s very little to say of mental development once someone has reached their early–mid-twenties. What we know of Levi’s young adulthood does reinforce his fear of abandonment, but he finds a cause where his strength and compassion can be “put to good use” and give to him a life that is worth living.

Conclusion: the ‘Present’/Diagnoses Overview

C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

Levi’s emotional dysregulation (i.e., inability to sit with and process negative emotions), his difficulties in relationships, insomnia, negative worldview, absent sense of self, and finally, his persistent sense of unworthiness/worthlessness are all indicative of C-PTSD. It’s distinct from PTSD in that he didn’t endure one short-term traumatizing event, but he grew up surrounded by trauma and saw it as normal (e.g., gang violence, extreme poverty, death of a parent, (more presumably) physically and emotionally abusive parental figure). Levi as a child developed no understanding of a nurturing, secure environment.

Negative/Absent Sense of Self

I’ve talked about this at length already, but it’s worth noting how Levi’s perception of himself must have changed when it was revealed that he is extremely strong physically not from his own efforts as much, but because he’s an Ackerman.

His self-confidence and self-worth have always been built on the foundation of his strength. He’s useful if he’s strong, so he’s worthy if he’s strong. Along with the extreme high pressure his goal to kill Zeke put on him in season four, he might have gone to extreme measures to compensate for his strength he might have felt was “unearned” (such as excessive exercise for example). This is an aside, but it was a blow to him for sure.

Emotional Dysregulation

The causes of emotional dysregulation generally which he experienced are as follows: early childhood trauma, feelings ignored, judged, or invalidated at a young age, and physical and emotional child neglect. Beyond his first four years of life with his mother, Levi experienced all these things (early exposure to sex and likely exposure to domestic violence aside).

It’s important to focus on emotional neglect specifically, when any and all perceived “weakness”, no matter how small, is unacceptable to Levi. He will never ask for help (being independent to a fault), he can’t define or process his emotions, and it doesn’t occur to him—and it could be a shock—when he learns that his friends care about him, not him insofar as how useful he is.

As an adult, Levi appears to be emotionally mature, but I argue that this isn’t the case. It’s more accurate to say that he has better control over his emotions (in that he buries them or ignores them) with a mature outlook because of all his experiences with suffering.

Similarly, he’s not outwardly emotional not because he’s antisocial (as related to ASPD, not introversion), but because he’s so “emotionally constipated” that he’s numbed the vast majority of the time.

Relationship Issues + Fear of Abandonment

Because of his fear of abandonment and impaired emotional intelligence in close relational conflict, he’s extremely passive and/or passive aggressive. In order to avoid potential abandonment, he doesn’t go out of his way to win major arguments—such as threatening to break Erwin’s legs if he didn’t stay away from the expedition in season three, but ultimately giving in. He’s also more likely to sneak petty insults into arguments, give “silent treatment”, slam doors, etc. His kindness and exceptional empathy shouldn’t let him be physically or overly violent.

These are likely additions to why Levi doesn’t foster many close relationships.

Fittingly, as a child I thought that Levi might have had an anxious attachment style (clingy, excessive need for security), but as this possibility for security was removed entirely, and he was taught to not rely on others, he would develop more of an overt avoidant attachment in adulthood in combination (fearful-avoidant): making very few emotional demands—even though he has needs—withdrawing when there’s conflict, acting aloof yet fearing abandonment, having difficulty expressing emotions he feels intensely, and fear of depending on someone else.

Anxiety

His cool-headedness even in the heat of battle/war (other factors like experience aside) is exactly what you would expect from someone diagnosed with C-PTSD; he’s accustomed to chronic high-stress. But small stressors (i.e., a change of plans) are overwhelming and make him quick to anger/excessive annoyance.

OCD

Emotional dysregulation is also closely associated with OCD.

OCD is much much more than being concerned with keeping clean or organized. OCD is an anxiety disorder composed of anxiety-related obsessions and compulsions, such as frequent and disturbing thoughts or images (intrusive thoughts). These attempt to be managed through rituals (i.e., handwashing, counting in patterns). Although symptoms will fluctuate with anxiety, OCD at its baseline is a distressing disorder.

Since he was young, Levi should have had an incessant need to be in control at all times. A shining example of this is his mother’s death, an incident he couldn’t control but included dirtiness/disease as a cause he could pinpoint, so this anxiety with dirtiness becomes a major obsession, and the compulsion is cleaning. (Putting aside the fact that Levi enjoys cleaning by itself too.)

It’s a widely-held belief that if Levi has OCD, it’s contamination OCD, as it specifically has to do with an obsession with dirtiness and a compulsion in cleaning (i.e., damaging handwashing, ritualized bathing that may take hours). However, based on the multitude of times Levi was covered in blood and remained unbothered by it (Titan and human), and in fact the obsession’s lack of relevance entirely during urgent missions/situations, contamination OCD is simply not plausible. Instead, it’s general OCD.

There’s no way to know for sure, but I don’t see his OCD as mild or severe. Levi is an extremely orderly and balanced person, so it can be concluded he must have things done a certain way, routinely, organizational, or planned; when the dirtiness is “negative” (i.e., Titan blood, blood on a knife he used to kill Isabel’s attackers), he is never more rigid with cleanliness; it’s probable he suffers intrusive thoughts (likely of the violent nature), a fear of contamination, and/or counting ritualistically, but the most obvious compulsion is cleaning. He might have sensory issues, such as disgust if he happens to brush shoulders with a stranger; aversion to particularly bright lights, irrational rage towards “mouth sounds” (i.e., chewing, coughing, swallowing), etc.

EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified)

Levi should have a complicated relationship with food to say the least.

In the realm of eating disorders, EDNOS is sort of a catch-all term when an individual doesn’t qualify for the diagnostic criteria of anorexia or bulimia, and it encompasses lesser-known eating disorders like Pica. It’s the most common diagnosis for clinical eating disorders.

I already covered how integral the early years of life are, and beginning at a young age, if children aren’t given a basic need like food, and they must seek out food on their own, it becomes an anxiety deeply rooted in the brain regardless of how well-fed they are when they’re older. There will always be an urge to have food available. Levi’s years in the Underground were spent either actively starving, or going about every single day having acquiring food as top priority. He was a young adult when he left, so it’s impossible to unlearn this (without extensive therapy, which Levi doesn’t seek). It’s similar to compulsions found in OCD: even though he logically knows that there will be a dinner after lunch, it’s impossible to put aside this worry.

That may mean always having food stashed, eating too much—especially in his early years Aboveground when he’d eat as much food in a day than he’d eat in a week Underground— stealing food, or eating way too quickly (as someone who lived in a place where food was considered something of a luxury resource and threatened being stolen at any time).

The latter factor contributes to Levi’s suggested preference to only eat alone—joining the fact that Levi only eats with Erwin after expeditions. Eating in front of others should be considered a weakness to him.

As time passes with this easy access to food, combined with his extremely narrow sense of what makes him “good enough”, his relationship with eating may become toxic. Especially when the stakes of his worthiness are so high—literally life and death. He may think that he’s privileged to eat at all, and when he feels worthless, he restricts himself from that “privilege”.

He may be so accustomed to the feeling of hunger, that it doesn’t immediately register with his mind when he is hungry.

Lastly, he may have a generally low appetite. This is often associated with depression, but depression is comorbid with C-PTSD.

Misc.

Some tangents/miscellaneous speculation about Levi’s psychology:

Queer?

Sexuality is formed and shifts due to a wide variety of factors, which most if not all are terribly understudied: genetics, hormones, and your environment/experiences. So again, my speculation.

With his fear of close relationships and negative experiences with sex, I think he should land somewhere on the queer spectrum, specifically under the asexual or aromantic umbrella (i.e., pansexuality/being panromantic (attraction to personality) and demisexuality/being demiromantic (attraction only to those he has an emotional connection to)).

MDD

The odds of Levi having MDD (major depressive disorder/clinical depression) are iffy. Most if not all of the symptoms are comorbid with childhood trauma and C-PTSD: Such as persistent apathy, guilt, and/or discontent; sleeping too much or too little; lack of energy; reduced or heightened appetite; irritability.

Oftentimes, depression, C-/PTSD, and related mental illnesses cause unexplained physical pain, such as back pain and occasional tension headaches. “Stress hormones” like adrenaline are built-up in the body, and usually persist without physical therapy and-or medication (Disclaimer this mention is based on nothing more than Levi always standing with at least one hand on his hip).

Body Language

Similar can be said of his body language from a cognitive perspective. The vast majority of the time, Levi has himself closed-off in some way, usually by crossing his arms to protect his chest; a subconscious barrier between oneself and another person.

Also see this official art of Levi asleep.

Afterword

We’ve known it’s not just Levi’s physical strength and skill that makes him the strongest, right? It should take immense mental strength to make it day-by-day dealing with the trauma and issues that he does, but not only has he survived and continues to, but he lives heroically, selflessly, with the wellbeing of everyone around him as a top priority. He buries all of his pain by moving forward always and without exception regardless of how painful the present is. Living with “no regrets” should in mental respects be a guise for pushing his trauma down, too; there’s just no words that can properly do Levi’s resilience justice.

Part of me wants to go into detail about his later adulthood, but given how very little we know (right now), I think it’d be too speculative.

However, based on what we have seen at the ending of AOT, it’s comforting to know and plain to see that Levi wasn’t defeated when he “lost” the reason to be so strong, and even his strength itself; he didn’t lose his love for his friends nor of life.

In middle age, based on Erikson’s psychosocial stages, the conflict that should enter Levi’s life is the idea of generativity versus stagnation. He seems satisfied with his life despite the negative effects of all he went through—grief, physical disability, inevitable mental scarring—and he’s still concerned with helping others, especially the younger generation in a world after the overwhelming devastation that was the Rumbling.

My speculated psychopathologies/diagnoses of Levi:

C-PTSD (insomnia prevalent)

OCD (contamination obsessions)

EDNOS

#levi aot #snk levi #levi ackerman #levi attack on titan #captain levi #captain levi ackerman #aot levi #aot levi ackerman #attack on titan levi #aot meta #levi heichou #rivaille heichou #levi rivaille #rivaille ackerman #lance corporal rivaille #levi snk #levi.thoughts #aot #attack on titan

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lostcauses-noregrets · 2 years

Note

Hi Lost, I found an Euri fic on AO3 from 2013 that I think you’re really going to want to read… it’s called “With what we’ve been given” by chablis_smut. It’s impeccably hot, with beautifully done characterizations that feel very canon. There’s a theme of time, with markers throughout, making the most of every precious moment they have together. It’s breathtaking.

Hi Anon, thanks for the rec! It's always fascinating to read fics that were written way back in the dawn of the fandom. It's amazing how well some of the early writers managed to nail Erwin and Levi's characters (if not their names and ranks!) with so little information to go on. I haven't come across this one before so I'll look forward to reading it. Interesting to see that the authors got Levi's name right, a lot of the older fics went with Rivai, but they've given his rank as Lance Corporal, rather than captain. It's a Kink Meme fill as well! You don't see many of those these days. It looks like this is the only SnK fic the author wrote, though the appear to have been writing Hetalia and Kuroko no Basuke fic right up to last year.

With What We've Been Given by chablis_smut (ChampagneSly)

"On the rare occasion that life grants a respite, it is best to while away the quiet hours within the arms of another.

A KM fill for a prompt that asked for marathon, athletic sex between the Commander and his Lance Corporal during a brief moment of peace."

#asks #eruri #fic rec #snk

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lesinquietes · 7 months

Text

WIP for Respite on Black Waters 🌊🌨️

Yandere!Levi x Fem!Reader

In which you’re fixing him a cup of tea and he can’t seem to stop prodding about your personal life.

—

“Most women your age already have a husband,” he mutters. “None of the scum on this island good enough for you?”

You fight the heat from spreading across your face to no avail. Every time he makes you feel this way — embarrassed? no… excited…? — you want to escape. You feel the familiar tug of temptation. It’s risky to stay here and continue engaging with him. You fear you’ll do something stupid.

“I-I—“

You what? What were you going to say? You’re waiting for the right one? You’re too busy enjoying yourself to seek out a husband? You prefer women? Whether these responses are correct or not, it doesn’t distract from the fact that he’s asking you an inappropriate question.

“I-I don’t want to talk about that,” you implore. “I'm sure I don’t need to tell you to focus on the mission, lance corporal.”

#robwips #minors dni #yandere levi x fem reader

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goodlittlefangirl · 2 years

Text

I feel like you guys would like part of the chapter I’m writing in my Levi book. It’s not done, but enjoy.

Erwin had told me many things about Levi, but it specifically boiled down to the day they attended the trial for Eren— The one where Levi came straight home to kiss me. What Levi neglected to mention in his version of events was what he really did at the trial. He told me that he convinced the court to put Eren in his custody; but Ewin told me that Levi changed their minds by beating Eren to prove that he wasn’t a violent risk. It had been so shocking that even Erwin didn’t know that it was coming. One second Levi had been at his side, the next, he was kicking Eren’s teeth out.

“He said that you…” I hesitated.

Levi raised a brow. “Go on.”

“He said that you— you…” I couldn’t find the polite words, so I just went for it with, “You stepped on his head.”

“I did.”

How could Levi admit to something so casually, so cooly, and not expect me to continue to pry? Desc.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked.

Levi shrugged while crossing his legs and sprawling his wingspan out along the back of the couch to make himself look bigger than he really was. “It’s about dominance. You put them under your boot, they’re nothing more than dirt to your shoe, and they know it. You put them under your weight, they know they’re at your mercy. You’d be surprised how limp and weak people go when it happens to them.”

My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my fucking chest due to the way he was explaining such a graphic thing so intimately.

“I’d like to… uh, not be surprised any longer.”

Levi flicked his glance over to me. “What have I told you—”

“I know, I know, but just this once won’t kill me.”

“Daia—”

“Please. I’ll truly beg, if you want.”

Suddenly, Levi uncrossed his legs and pushed himself to his feet in one fluid motion. When he was towering over me, that was when I felt my heart finally drop into my stomach and do a somersault. His flat, almost disappointed look reminded me wholeheartedly of the day we met when he stood there as I was on my knees, cleaning up the mess I made. Now there was another mess in front of him. Now I was the mess, yet I couldn’t seem to collect myself.

“You can beg for things later.” He began rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. “You’ll tell me if I go too far, though. Tell me if you want me to stop. Tell me if you’ve had enough and want me to leave for a bit.”

“You still underestimate me, Lance Corporal—”

“Daia,” he hissed, grabbing my chin, “this is another moment in our lives when I’m being serious. You tell me, and I’ll stop.”

I nodded understandingly. “Okay.”

As my mouth hung open, Levi took the opportunity to push his thumb into my mouth, playing with my lips before venturing further in where he found my tongue. I tried my very best to maintain eye contact with him as he tested me. He was interested in knowing me now. Of course, he knew me, but he didn’t know every inch of me that was inside and out, and if he was going to do something so demeaning like I had asked of him, the very least he could do was know every intimate detail of my body. The way his thumb pressed down, I knew what he was investigating, and I attempted my very best to not give him the satisfaction of breaking so soon.

“You weren’t lying about not being so innocent after all, brat.”

I hummed an ‘I-told-you-so’ around his thumb.

“On your knees.”

Carefully, I slid off of the couch, my knees hitting the floor gently, our gazes still met. Levi seemed pleased by my obedience.

“Down.”

As his thumb pressed harder on my tongue, I started leaning forward with him following me, his one good knee bending to crouch him down in order to stay face-to-face with me until my cheek was on the carpet and all I could see were the table and chair legs. Levi slid his finger out of my mouth. I finally caught my breath. He had been pressing to make me gag, but I refused at the time, but now my throat itched and I wanted to cough. He didn’t hesitate to ask if I was alright despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything and he hadn’t even done what I asked of him; so I said I was fine. I heard him shuffling around for a moment.

When I was sure he was standing just over me, that was when I realized how I was presented in front of him. My ankles were together, my feet crossed due to nerves, and my ass was in the air while my back sloped down toward my neck which was twisted to the side so that I could see and breathe. I was entirely vulnerable. Every part of me was on display for him. He could have done anything to me and I would have never seen it coming, which made it all that much more exciting to experience. And then I felt it. The light pressure on my skull that was probably less than what he gave Eren. Levi had kicked and beat at Eren bloody, and he had done this to prove Eren’s submission to authoritative figures; Meanwhile Levi had a strange proclivity for warning me against any kind of violence, which would have made sense if I didn’t know that he liked this. I still couldn’t understand why he was lying to himself about me.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Levi insisted, already moving his foot off of me.

“You didn’t even do anything.”

“I did what you asked.”

“No, you hovered.”

And then I felt the pressure again, this time a little harder.

Levi exhaled roughly above me. “There. Are you happy? It’s all I can do without hurting my leg.”

I didn’t know what to say, honestly. It was far from what I expected; but that wasn’t what he asked me… He asked if I was happy, and I figured the reason I went silent was because I did in fact enjoy it, and I was deeply ashamed of that. When I asked earlier, he said the joy in it was the power and control rush he got from knowing that the person under him was at his will. Was he thinking about that with me under his boot? All I could think about was the fact that he could flip my skirt up at any moment and toy with me however he’d like.

“You’re trembling, Daia.”

Yet I hadn’t told him to stop.

“Daia, did you hear me? You’re trembling.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

I felt my body go weak in the way he described people did in this position; and, yes, I was thoroughly surprised just how far my back could hollow out while my ass lifted higher. He had to know the truth now. Without even saying a word, my change in posture was likely enough to tell him everything he needed to know about what was going on through my head. Yet, he didn’t say anything. I could almost feel his Dominant energy coursing down his leg, through his boot, and into me, making me whimper. I heard him let out another rough breath— I was beginning to assume that was his version of a needy whimper.

“Tell me now, Daia.”

I could have melted right then and there. He definitely knew the truth because now he was more arrogant, and he was milking this moment for everything it was worth, and, hell, he even shocked me when he managed to press slightly harder on me as a warning to speak up soon. I felt myself practically buzzing with need. I knew the words. They were vulgar and they were personal. I couldn’t say such things without being thoroughly embarrassed; but I supposed that was what he was hoping for. He wanted me to burn with embarrassment while I was trapped under his boot because it was my place.

“Because…” It was too dirty to admit. “Because…” I could have just said that it was because I was cold or scared— But then he would have stopped. “Because…”

“If you stutter one more time, brat,” Levi warned warily, digging the toe of his shoe into my cheek. So he was lying; He could do more, but he was refusing.

“Because I like it, sir.”

Another rough breath left him. “Why?”

“Because I’m at your mercy.”

“You are.”

“And because being at your mercy means… you can do anything…”

Levi was quietly panting now as he said, “You said you know what I did at the trial. You know everything?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re not scared of me?”

“No, sir.”

“You know that he couldn’t stop me when I did it? His hands were chained behind his back. All he could do was take it as I made him bleed. That doesn’t terrify you?”

My thighs instinctively rubbed together.

“Go on, see how it feels, put your hands behind your back.”

I did as I was told, adjusting my weight distribution so that the force on my cheek was now the only thing still propping up the rest of my body after I clasped my hands behind my back. Somehow, it felt even better this way.

“How’s that?”

“Sir,” I croaked pathetically.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I like it, sir.”

I could practically hear the butterflies in his own stomach as he said, “Every day, you surprise me more and more, Daia Brauer.”

And then, he did exactly what I wanted him to do. As if he had been reading my mind all along, Levi leaned down and suddenly flipped up my skirt, revealing my bare body underneath, causing me to hiss when I felt the cool air meet my warm heat that was dripping with slick. Levi chuckled to himself. At first, I tested him and his new found arrogance by wiggling under his boot, but Levi put an end to it quickly by grabbing my ass roughly to hold me still. I whimpered and went limp again. What we were doing now felt entirely despicable and disgusting, yet I practically wanted to beg him to step harder if it hadn’t been for his injury, and I wanted to plead with him to do something other than hold me still.

“Touch me, please.” It was a thought I had that left my lips unexpectedly.

“Where?”

“You know where.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

One of Levi’s hands left me before quickly coming back down on my ass as a light spank to test the waters. As I winced and cursed pleasantly, I recalled all of the times where he told me that I should never let anyone hit me ever again, and yet I was so glad he had done it. I was glad he was putting me in my place. I asked him to do this, and he was fulfilling the obligation above-and-beyond.

“Say it, brat.”

“My clit, sir. Please.”

Levi obliged. His index finger, I assumed, met with my clit gently, and he simply kept it there. He didn’t move. There was no pleasant pressure for me to mewl at. It was just a touch.

“There,” he teased so smugly, “I’ve touched you.”

I rolled my hips.

“No.” He moved his finger away within an instant. “I do what I want, remember? You don’t get what you want.”

#op #Levi Ackerman #Levi Ackerman smut #the rest of the book will eventually be published

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stilemawillow · 2 years

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Tale of the Green Monster [Eren | Reader | Drabble]

I can stand him not loving me - I can’t stand him loving her.

- Lang Leav

A game of feelings. Yes, but not exactly deliberate. Fighting in the army wasn't supposed to be easy, but it turned out easier than not paying any attention to the sound of your heart breaking every time you saw Eren Jaeger flirt with Historia in some way. Be it lend her a helping hand when in need, make her laugh when she was sad or make her blush using a well-picked out comment, Eren had it all figured out when it came down to making the petite blonde smile.

You could see Mikasa seep with anger every time she became witness to such a scene but could she see you do the same? Because - secretly or not - you definitely did.

Jealousy was an ugly feeling - a green monster possessing a terrifying kind of wrath - which took all and every opportunity to make an appearance in your thoughts, sometimes even speech. With the green monster having turned its head in the direction of Eren and Historia, you became determined to make cut its head off and watch every last drop of blood leave its body.

You used a technique you'd heard your mother mention - distraction. Find yourself somebody to flirt with so the jealousy could calm down. Not wanting to use anybody from your regiment, you snuck out one night and visited a bar, where you found yourself a nice handsome boy named Michael you thought wasn't that much older than you. You drank, you laughed and the green monster purred when somebody started paying attention to it.

The night was over once the clock hit one a.m., but your secret adventures were yet to end themselves. You met Michael over and over again, at the same bar, the same spot in the dark corner with the same beers sitting on the wooden table for about two months. You woke up in the mornings, telling only Jean of the affair and giggling at breakfast as he would tease you about Michael, otherwise oblivious to your feelings for the teal-eyed titan shifter sitting just a table away.

On one of your usual sneak-out missions, however, when you'd gotten relatively drunk after an incident including you witnessing Historia and Eren in an embarrassingly incriminating position Michael brought you to his room a few houses down the road outside the inn and let you rest in his bed.

Poor thing, you never told him you were part of the Survey Corps because you knew he'd insist on knowing your age and that would lead to all kinds of complications regarding your drinking and past-curfew adventures outside the HQ. The fact he lay next to you, played with your hands and your hair and kept staring at you like he was in love was beside the point - no, actually, it wasn't. It was important because you hadn't had anybody regarding you in such a manner before and you were already pretty much in love with Eren Jaeger - as unrequited as that case might've been.

You were sure of it - you didn't love Michael, but you'd been so desperate to gain somebody's attention you'd given him the false hope Eren sometimes gave you.

The next morning you woke up with him having left you a note and your thoughts a complete and utter mess. You checked the date and ate some bread he'd left for you on the table in his small kitchen when it hit you what day it was - the day on which you and the rest of your squad, along with a few hand-picked Garrisons were to aid Squad Leader Hanji and Lance Corporal Levi during one of Eren's experiments.

Eyes as wide as saucers, you sprinted out of the house and frantically made your way through the streets towards the HQ. You would be late - that was inevitable - but if you were lucky enough you wouldn't arrive too late and you'd manage to avoid punishment with a lame excuse at least one superior would buy. That would surely do your hangover no harm whatsoever.

Ten minutes of running later, you made your way into the building where you put on a clean uniform and brushed your hair. Attempting to fix your straps on your way to the training fields was a worse experience than having to listen to Jean compose poems about the beauty of Mikasa's hair during dinner. You arrived at the place and bumped straight into your best - albeit only - horse-friend's sturdy back from too much haste. After questioning the beginning of the whole ordeal, Jean explained the situation and pointed you over to the Garrisons attending.

Michael's familiar face stood out from the line of soldiers, making your already pulsating temples burst. Panic bouncing around in your head, you followed your initial instinct and ducked behind your tall friend's body so the male wouldn't be able to see you. When your best friend inquired about your behaviour you explained the situation and he almost burst out laughing in the middle of Lance Corporal Levi's speech about the experiment and the precaution all attending should take. You slapped the tall male's arm and glared as murderously as you could before straightening your posture and asking an impulsive favour from him, which he, surprisingly enough, agreed to humour.

In return, of course, you'd give him your dessert and clean the stables in his stead for the overall of a month. All and every kind of payback was fine with you, however, so long as you got to avoid Michael and his feelings. You were acting like a terrible human being - sure, but you didn't want to burden the boy with any more false hopes than you already had. In order for that to happen, you had to bring his heart down from the cloud nine it'd risen to and break it. Then everybody would move on from the situation. During the next two hours of the experiment, Michael took notice of your presence and attempted to make contact - be it by locking gazes, waving or trying to call out to you - but you ignored him. For you, he didn't exist.

You were nervous but your face was set straight in a deadpan similar to the expression of a constipated person - it was something Jean often teased you about, which would earn him a punch to the shoulder each and every time. Now he didn't even dare make fun of it because he could see you were so tense you'd probably break out in a sprint if tapped on the shoulder by the wrong person - meaning anybody but Jean himself. Maybe, if you tapped your own shoulder you'd flinch like it had been somebody else.

When the experiment was over you saw the Lance Corporal helping Eren out as Hanji attempted to question him further about something you couldn't hear. Historia and Mikasa immediately ran to his aid and while you were busy narrowing your eyes at the sight, you almost missed Michael coming your way. Jean alerted you to his incoming presence and you exchanged looks, telling him it was time to put that favour to use. Your best friend gave a snort and offered you an arm, which you linked with yours just as the Garrison's soldier was nearing you.

A girlish giggle left your lips as you let Jean lead you away towards the entrance of the HQ where everybody had already gathered. You held onto his arm and told him to keep it up when you saw Historia worriedly wiping the sweat from Eren's forehead as Mikasa gave off a deadly aura. The brunet titan shifter was sitting at the stairs leading to the doors and Michael was behind you and Jean so there was no way for you to let go of his arm whilst passing by them.

A helpless exchange of looks ensued before you walked towards the entrance, soon to be noticed by the trio already standing there. You were trying to come up with a joke when Mikasa furrowed her eyebrows at you suspiciously and Eren lifted his gaze from the ground to eye your linked arms. Your heart leapt up in your throat and Jean was forced to exchange simple pleasantries with your comrades as they observed you doubtfully. You noticed Eren's nose scrunch up cutely in dissatisfaction, teal hues as if glued to your linked arms. You glanced back and saw Michael was seconds away from catching up to you so you did the first thing that came to mind.

It being pulling Jean ahead by the arm with the biggest grin you could put on and calling him “darling” in the meantime, just loud enough for the male behind your backs to hear. Mikasa made way for you to pass as Eren's unbelieving orbs bore into your fretful eyes. You were about to reach for the door when a strong grip made its presence known at the base of your wrist - tight yet somewhat gentle. Your gaze dipped, meeting two beautiful dark teal hues shadowed by a pair of knitted eyebrows when the question “can we talk?” fell atop your shoulders.

Jean leaned forward to look at your face but your orbs couldn't leave Eren's. Michael might've looked like a kicked puppy but he was still walking toward you. You had to leave. So you did. Pursed lips and a shake of your head, you pried Eren's strong fingers from your frail wrist before letting Jean lead you inside the building. Once there, you took his hand and ran down the hallway into your dorm, sure nobody else would be there at this time of the day. Slamming the door behind your back, you leaned on it and listened to your best friend question the situation. You had no answers to give him.

Your heart was beating erratically and at Jean's mildly worried comment (”I thought Jaeger was trying to cut off my arm with his eyes.”) no laughter was heard. You stayed in your room even after Jean left to get himself some breakfast and kept thinking of Eren's behaviour with all blood in your body welling up in the apples of your cheeks and your fingertips constantly running over the skin his digits had grasped. How was it that a simple look and a fleeting touch could make you this dizzy and love-struck?

Oh, and how love-struck you were. You lay against the door of your dorm for the following half an hour, the image of his gorgeous eyes not once leaving your mind with his question (”Can we talk?”) playing on a loop in your ears like a broken record. You just stood there, blinking helplessly at the wall and occasionally chuckling at how pitiful you were being. Being part of the army wasn't supposed to be easy, but it turned out way easier than not thinking about Eren Jaeger for more than ten seconds.

You reached a certain number of conclusions that day: you'd make it your goal to never bump into Michael again, you'd thank Jean for helping you and you'd avoid this “talk” Eren wanted to have with you at all cost.

Avoiding feelings, the all-time favourite hobby of cadet (Y/N) (L/N). Maybe it was because your mother was a prostitute and the first time in her life she felt fear was when your father told her he loved her, maybe it was because you were never loved properly yourself or maybe it was just because something was wrong with you as a person. Either way, knowing which it was wouldn't help you handle the problem so it was a useless topic to ponder.

You attended dinner the same day, sat quietly next to Jean and led a lengthy conversation on the topic of you and Michael. You were glad you had somebody to help you figure shit out but listening to Jean's constant reminders of how broken Michael had looked seeing you two together wasn't exactly helpful in terms of letting you sustain a decent emotional state. Overlooking that fact, you were quick to leave the table as soon as the discussion came to an acceptable end since you could feel Eren's eyes burning a hole at the back of your head as of the very moment you'd come through the doors.

Reassuring Jean everything was fine and you were just tired, you paced out of the mess hall with your shoulders jumping at the slam of the doors behind your back. Just as you were turning the corner to your dorm, however, you heard the same kind of slam before a pair of hurried footsteps started trailing after you. Your name was called rather loudly but, having acknowledged it was Eren's voice saying it, you ignored the intense urge to dig your heels into the ground and freeze in your tracks. Your steps were speeding up but Eren's chase hadn't ceased and he hadn't stopped calling your name either.

You felt a certain amount of safe when you slammed the door of your room behind yourself, which quickly came to break into pieces as Eren's fist thumped over its wooden surface and his voice called your name once more, so desperately it made your face scrunch up in mild guilt. “(Y/N), I need to tell you something. Please open the door,” oh, did that break your heart, taking into account he sounded uncharacteristically upset when he already had Historia and Mikasa tending to his every need.

The sound of his voice as he pleaded (”Please let me in, I just want to talk.”) called forth the unpleasant image of his upset expression as his fist weakly hit the door a few more times. You pursed your lips and your mouth moved on its own because before you'd known it you'd heard your own voice promptly tell Eren you didn't want to talk to him at the moment. The brunet fell silent but you never heard his fading footsteps so you knew he was still on the other side of the door, holding his limp fist over the place it had last hit.

He understood, his next phrase was delivered by a dejected soft voice, he understood you and Jean were close and it had led to something more, but - your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as your head leaned back against the door - couldn't you have waited a few more days? Eren's speech didn't make sense and neither did his question. You didn't understand what you'd had to wait for and then he said it, so softly you might've missed it. The words kept replaying in your mind for the next few seconds and chasing them away wasn't an option because this (”I wanted you to hear me confess.”) was something you'd been dreaming of ever since you met him.

This exceptional individual, a free-spirited teenager filled with strength and determination who never gave up - this was the person who made you fall in love using nothing more than a kind smile, a pair of twinkling teal hues and a single sentence. And he was confessing to you. Or confessing that he'd wanted to confess at least.

“Open the door,” you could hear him plead one last time as his feet stepped back from it, “please open the door.” And you did. You opened the door and you stood face to face with the only person who could tame the stupid green monster in you, the only person who could make you melt at the mere sight of his smile. In this case, he was hardly smiling - his thick brows were knitted together and his lips were pursed in determination, almost to the point they were pouting. You could hear yourself apologising but it didn't matter because then his fingers had grasped your wrist again and his lips had placed themselves upon yours.

Your wide eyes slowly fell closed when the brunet titan shifter cupped your cheek and gingerly rubbed his thumb over it as your hands pulled at the front of his uniform jacket - pull him closer, they chanted silently, and you both complied. The kiss was sweet and innocent but you felt all the jealousy gathered behind it - jealousy, jealousy, jealousy. So much of it the amount overwhelmed you. It wasn't one-sided though - the way you clung to Eren's body and stubbornly kept your lips pressed to his for as long as possible gave away your own need to be appreciated above all others around him.

The statement that he wouldn't let himself do anything of the sort anymore because you had a boyfriend now left his lips just as you'd parted and he was trying to hold himself back from pulling you into the room and pushing you against the door. You looked into his eyes and bit your bottom lip before admitting the truth and to say Eren's eyes lit up in genuine joy at the sound of that wouldn't be a lie. The small inquiry he handed you in return (”Does that mean I can kiss you again?”) made your cheeks burn in embarrassment as you nodded your head ever so bashfully.

The brunet's grin was giant and his hands were warm as he cupped your face and sweetly gave you a taste of the tea he'd drank earlier, making your whole body melt in happiness. The butterflies were dancing inside your stomach and your mind was at a loss for coherent thoughts but you'd always remember the warmth of Eren's fingertips and the inexperienced passion on his lips as he tried to tell you how much he liked you without using his words. Overjoyed smile slipping over your lips, you tugged him back into your room and closed the door, listening to the green monster purr and lower its head obediently at the sight of Eren Jaeger's bright teal hues.

“I like you,” each of your green monsters softly whispered as you looked at each other, “I like you so much I would rip somebody to shreds if he touches you. But now there's no need for that.” There was no need for that. Because no matter how much he made Historia laugh and Mikasa worry, and no matter how jealous you felt of it all, the only one whose smile made his heart flutter at the end of the day was yours.

#eren jaeger fanfiction #eren x reader #eren jaeger x reader #x reader #snk x reader #eren jaeger imagine #reader insert #eren jaeger as a jealous boi because we all know he is #still so fucking cute tho #i do not endorse drinking and stringing others along as a form of dealing with feelings #just confess yo stuff man #but the miscommunication does make fiction tasty #eren best boi #stop giving me smut about him just give me him as an awkward teen #i'm hooked on the dumbass suicidal queen that loves to scream #not on a nonexistent sex god #anyway enough ranting enjoy

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