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pickalilywrites · 4 months

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Petra is shopping for Levi's birthday/christmas present at the mall. but has trouble what to get. She runs into her friends and ask for help

thanks!!! have a good holiday :)

gift shopping

rivetra. high school au. 2119 words. read on ao3.

Petra feigns a smile when she finds herself running into her friends at the mall. Somehow, she’s not surprised to see them here. Even though she already knows the answer, she asks, “What are you all doing here?”

“Holiday shopping,” Eld replies easily without any trace of shame. Behind him, Auruo and Gunther nod their heads a little too vigorously. Eld grins down at Petra. “You’re going gift shopping too, right? Maybe we should shop together. The more the merrier, right?”

“We could also be helpful if you’re shopping for a guy. It’s good to have a male perspective in these situations,” Gunther says. He’s a little too eager, a little too helpful as he tries to subtly convince Petra to allow them to join her shopping spree. It would be obvious even to an outsider that they’re not so much helping as they are trying to weasel their way into her business.

“Especially if you’re shopping for a special guy,” Auruo adds. He wears the same eager smile that Gunther does and it makes Petra stumble backwards in alarm. “As special guys ourselves, we would be more than happy to help you in that department, Petra. Especially if that guy is Levi Ackerman.”

Her cheeks flush red at the mention of Levi’s name, but Auruo’s words are not untrue. She has come to the mall with the intention of purchasing a gift for Levi’s birthday, although she is admittedly having difficulty finding the perfect gift. Levi isn’t a very materialistic person to begin with, so Petra is afraid he will be less than impressed than whatever she manages to find. She has already been at the mall for two hours scouring the shelves of half the stores in the mall only to come up empty-handed. At this point, Petra should be glad that her friends have turned up and offered to assist her, but she knows they’re only here to meddle rather than offer any goodwill as they so claim.

“You three are awfully interested in my affairs with Levi Ackerman,” Petra mutters. She moves towards a rack of winter coats and flips through the various peacoats even though she knows she won’t find anything suitable for Levi. Even though she doesn’t turn her head, she can hear her friends shuffling behind her, following her every move. “It’s just a birthday present. It’s not that interesting.”

“If it has anything to do with Levi Ackerman, it’s automatically interesting. Those are just the rules,” Eld says. Behind him, Auruo and Gunther nod in agreement.

Despite being rather popular at school, Levi Ackerman is an enigma. He’s in a well-known indie rock band called No Name with two other classmates. While the band has their fans and even holds concerts from time to time, Levi tends to keep to himself and only speaks with a few other classmates. It seems Petra is a part of this precious few, much to her friends’ utter delight.

In complete contrast, Petra and her friends can fly under the radar at school. They don’t stand out, but they aren’t at the bottom of the social ladder either. They blend in seamlessly with the rest of the crowd at school. If Petra were any more popular, she’s sure that her unexpected friendship with Levi Ackerman would surely turn heads, but she’s so invisible that nobody has noticed aside from her small circle of friends.

“It’s really not that interesting. I’m sure it’s not that different from buying a present for any other guy,” Petra mutters.

“Untrue. Would you buy the same present for Levi that you’d buy for me? Or Eld? Or Gunther?” Auruo asks. He doesn’t falter when Petra shoots him a glare. Instead, he grows more confident, standing up taller and puffing out his chest as Petra refuses to answer. His smile widens. “See? You need us.”

Petra doesn’t agree, but it would be tedious to argue with her friends. If she refuses to accept their help, they would only follow her around the store at what they believed was a discreet distance even though she would easily be able to see them if she turned her head to look over her shoulder. It would be more convenient to just accept their help. At least then she could just buy the first thing they recommend her and return it the next day before continuing her gift shopping by herself.

“I don’t need you, but I’ll allow you to help me,” Petra says and instantly regrets it when she sees her friends pump their fists in victory.

“You’ll be so excited once we help you find the perfect gift for Levi,” Eld says. He links his arm around Petra’s and begins to lead down the aisle.

Auruo links his arm with Petra’s free arm. He’s practically vibrating with happiness. “We’re going to help you find the absolute best gift, Petra. You’re going to wonder why you hadn’t begged for our help earlier,” Auruo grins. He seems to have forgotten the fact that Petra hadn’t begged them for help in the first place.

As it turns out, shopping with her friends is more distracting than it is helpful. Gunther has a tendency to try every article of clothing of interest, insisting that Petra needs a live model to get a good visual of how the clothes fit rather than relying on mannequins and online models. Never mind that Gunther and Levi are completely different body types, the other boys think that it’s an excellent idea and give their honest opinions of Gunther’s modeling, asking him to turn so that they could see the clothing at every angle. If they are looking at food items, Auruo will snatch whatever Petra is looking at from her hands and inspect the list of ingredients. He nods whenever he comes across ingredients he knows and for those he’s less familiar with he will look up on his phone. When he finally finds the ingredient online, he announces it for everyone to hear. (“Malic acid,” Auruo says at one point with a wrinkle of his nose before furiously typing it into his phone, and everyone waits for him to give them the definition before moving onto the next item.) It can be argued that Auruo and Gunther are at least trying to help in their own way, but the same cannot be said for Eld. With Eld, Petra finds that they’re constantly being pulled towards whatever gimmicky, holiday-themed gift that catches Eld’s attention. He’s dragged them to a rack of ugly Christmas sweaters, Christmas stuffed animals with loud bells or bright lights, and Christmas chocolates that are so sweet that it hurts Petra’s teeth just to look at them.

At this particular moment, Eld is having them try out different Christmas headbands. The entire afternoon has been wasted and Petra is no closer to find a gift for Levi than she was at the beginning of the day. She would have plucked something off the shelf and bought it for Levi just to rid herself of her friends, but she has already tried that three times before and each time her friends wrestled whatever random object she had out of her hands because they didn’t believe it was the right gift for Levi. At least their hearts are in the right place.

“Petra, what do you think of this one?” Eld asks, turning around to show her the headband he’s slipped on his head. It looks like an elf hat, bright green with thin red stripes and a large bell dangling at the end.

“Is that for you or for Levi?” Petra sighs. She’s been trying to steer them all away from the holiday section of the stores they visit. She doesn’t think Levi would particularly enjoy a Christmas themed gift for his birthday even though his birthday’s the same day. Her own birthday falls at the beginning of December and she still gets Christmas themed presents.

“Come on, Petra. Lighten up. This is all part of the process,” Gunther says. Petra would normally trust Gunther, but the ridiculous Christmas tree hat on his head makes him lose any credibility he previously had.

“Yeah, all part of the process,” Auruo echoes before placing a headband with a large, sparkly green gift ribbon on Petra’s head. On his own head he wears an enormous pair of reindeer antlers that flicker and light up. “It takes time to find the perfect gift.”

Petra is about to snap and reply that finding a decent gift shouldn’t take an entire day when a familiar voice squeals, “Gift shopping? Us, too!”

Petra is horrified when she turns around and finds Isabel bounding towards them. Behind her are Levi and Farlan, shopping bags hanging off their arms. They look amused to see Petra and her friends with holiday headbands on top of their heads.

Isabel doesn’t seem to notice Petra’s distress. The redhead hooks her arm around Petra’s and smiles widely up at her. “Have you been shopping very long? You guys don’t seem to have very much.”

“That’s probably because they don’t buy everything they think is cute,” Farlan grumbles, setting the bags down at his feet.

“Maybe they’re just unsure of what people want!” Isabel says. She gives Petra another dazzling smile. “If you guys are buying Christmas presents for us, I really like holiday gifts. I think they’re so cute!”

“Oh, is that why you purchased everything with a reindeer or a snowflake on it?” Farlan asks sarcastically as he gestures at the bags he had set on the floor as well as the bags that Levi still carries.

“I’m just trying to get into the Christmas spirit! It’s better than being a scrouge like you!” Isabel huffs.

With shopping bags still hanging on his arms, Levi navigates towards the rack of holiday accessories that Petra and his friends had been looking at earlier. He shifts all the bags onto one arm so that he can look through the racks better. As his friends bicker, his gaze passes over the festive hair ties and headbands. He seems more interested in the simpler ones: hair ties that are plain red or green with gold sparkles or silver stripes, little gingerbread men on plastic hair clips, or a clip with a poinsettia. He eventually pulls out a bundle of hair ties with jingle bells attached to them.

“Hey, Isabel, will these do?” he asks, holding them out to her.

The redhead’s emerald eyes grow in excitement. “Oh, those are so adorable!” she gushes.

“Good. Now you can leave me alone about buying you a Christmas present,” Levi says.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Isabel cheers. She jumps up and down in her excitement and accidentally jostles Petra in the process. She turns her head to apologize but must notice something in Petra’s expression because she composes herself quickly and asks Levi, “What would you want as a present, Levi? It must be difficult buying presents for you because people have to buy things for Christmas and your birthday.”

“A present? I don’t really care much for them,” Levi says. His eyes travel from Isabel to Petra and his gaze settles on the green ribbon on Petra’s head. “As long as the person put thought into it, I’d be grateful. Especially if they took the time to wrap it nicely.”

Something about his gaze is too much for Petra to handle. She has the urge to cover her face with her hands or at least snatch the headband off her head so she looks less like a fool, but all she can do is look down quickly and hope that the flush of her cheeks isn’t too apparent. She’s so lost in her thoughts that she’s startled when she finds Levi gently touching the gift bow on her head.

“This looks nice on you, Petra,” he tells her.

“Th-thanks,” she manages to stammer.

“We need to get going. I need to pick up one of my purchases before the store closes,” Farlan says as he looks down at his watch. He picks up his bag and starts off. Isabel has detached herself from Petra’s side and is skipping behind Farlan. “It was nice bumping into you all. See you later.”

“See you guys at school!” Eld says back, waving off Farlan, Isabel, and Levi. When they’re far enough away, Eld and the rest of Petra’s friends turn towards her with shit-eating grins. “I guess you know what to get Levi for his birthday this year, Pet.”

“Shut up,” Petra mutters but she nonetheless pulls off her headband and stomps towards the cash register to buy it as her friends fall over in laughter behind her.

#petra ral #levi ackerman #snk #modern au #high school au #eld jinn #gunther schultz #auruo bossard #isabel magnolia #farlan church #requests #asks #answered #anon #anonymous

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rowenas-megacoven · 1 year

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Bauklötze is such an amazing song. It can be interpreted as if it’s about Eren, everything he lost when the wall fell and what he became because of it.

But recently, when looking at both contexts in which it was used, I think it can also be interpreted as a giant metaphor for the true Survey Corps but especially Levi and his heart. The first time it was used was when the original Squad Levi, especially Petra from what I can remember, was begging Eren to trust in them. Eren does and it all goes tragically wrong and Levi’s looses some of his most beloved companions.

The next time we hear it, it’s Hange’s outro song. She wants Levi and co. to trust her decision to buy them enough time and this time, it goes tragically right. She succeeds but she dies in the process - and she’s the last of Levi’s most beloved companions from a time the rest of them can’t remember.

“I like playing with blocks, I build carefully with bricks. Take a look at my empty box of bricks.” A wall has been built, slowly, purposefully, around someone’s heart. “You innocently break my wall down with dirty hands.” Despite how distant Levi tries to be because of previous loss, he can’t help letting people in and he cares deeply despite the inevitable pain. The dirty hands bit - the lyric also really fits with Bert being an innocent kid with blood on his hands, but there’s also Levi with his comrades, soldiers covered in dirt and blood and grim and Hange is known to neglect her personal hygiene without Levi’s intervention.

“And that day was a fiery sunset.” In contrast to the breaking of the wall, the day Levi lost Hange in the Anime was a fiery sunrise. “I hide the blocks from you. A sad memory of my childhood.” The loss of his mother, his first loss from what we know, what caused his first wall. He’s hiding the blocks from the broken wall, hiding how much it hurts to lose someone, Isabel, Farlan, his first squad, Erwin, now Hange.

“Is that the destroyer or the creator?” Eren with all manner of things he could do with access to the founder, he’s using it to destroy the world and create a new one for loved ones who don’t want him to commit such a massive atrocity in their names. “With the fervour of hate, we weild our swords. Is that our fate or our will? We’ll fight until the hot wind takes our wings away.” Don’t even get me started on that final line. That’s Hange, through and through. She’s the only one who wears the classic Survey Corps cape in that episode, wings of freedom on the back. It’s the first thing to catch fire from the heat of the wall colossal titans. It’s so damn literal. I can’t help but wonder if Isayama based her outro around this line or if Isayama had any say in what kind of lyrics he wanted in certain songs.

“I don't put anything into the box of bricks. I don't want to lose anything. I hide the toy blocks from you. I carefully build walls of bricks again” he doesn’t want to lose Hange but he’s hiding how much her decision is hurting him so as not to disrupt her bravery or interfere with her choice. He’s so used to rebuilding the walls that keep being broken around his heart. To love is painful and it’s as Hange says when she hugs Mikasa on that rooftop in Shinganshina:

#anyway whatever way you interpret this song it’s amazing #it was wonderful back in season 1 and it still is #it’s also pulling on my heartstrings bc this song is such a call back to the good old days with the veterans were still alive #aot and it’s constant tragedy and loss pissed me off but I can’t deny it’s done so beautifully like no other show I’ve seen #screaming into the void #levihan #Levi Ackerman #Hange Zoe #Erwin Smith #Petra Ral #oluo bozado #eld jinn #gunther schultz #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot #snk #mwah.txt

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