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sparkywrites25 · 11 months

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Hey! I saw you were taking requests for AOT? Could I get one with canon Levi(like his personality matches his in the show) where reader thinks he hates her and confesses their feelings but it turns out he feels the same?

I am so so sorry that this took so freaking long to do. So much for aiming to get a request done in a week. I forgot this was all the way back in April. Three months... yikes. I also started writing this a different way and it wasn't going so well so I restarted it and I feel like this turned out a lot better than the original. Anyway I hope you like it and thank you so much for requesting this.

Summary: Reader has to let her feelings out even if it'll hurt like hell.

Pairing: Levi x Reader

Taglist: @notgoodforlife @youre-ackermine @ladycheesington

Notes: If you like my work and want to see more then please join my taglist. Form is pinned on my blog.

Looking at the stars has always relaxed you.

Ever since you were a child, you loved to take yourself out into the tiny backyard of your family’s home in Trost, and stare up at the dark heavens which twinkled with a million lights. Your face would light up in wonder each time; your mind already flying away, creating wonderful stories in your imagination about exploring that canvas of beauty. Your mother would find you lying on the ground, watching it all as if it would change before your eyes if you so much as turned away. She’d tease you about it. Later she would tell you how much it calmed you down whenever you threw a tantrum or were upset with one of your brothers. She would send you outside to look up at your favourite sight in the world.

As you stand on the rooftop of Trost’s Scout base, staring up at those same stars, you realize that maybe she was encouraging you to learn about perspective. How different things can look if you see them from a different angle, or how seeing the same angle with different emotions can make things shift. Your hands are rough and marked by healing cuts from the latest expedition and the weeks of training before it. The price of being strong enough to survive yet another bloodbath. You don’t see the blood or feel the pain that you did at the time all of these marks were made. But they are the same hands, changing with your experiences and with time. It’s a scary thing to think about, change, or it can be a good thing.

You exhale softly and clasp your hands on the stone wall in front of you. You can think of one thing that hasn’t changed, you reflect, despite how many times you’ve stood here and how many different emotions you’ve carried up here all this time. You’re not sure if that is something that will ever change. Maybe it’s just something that you will have to live with, to accept just like these two remaining walls of humanity have accepted that these monsters are their past, present and future.

It’s been three days since the latest expedition. A period of rest and mourning usually follows for a few days but in the winter it’s longer. As this is the last expedition before the heart of winter arrives, the commander has told everyone to take the week off from training. Some have taken leave to be with their families. Some are just recuperating here. For some, they will be taking terrible news to their families. For others, it’s all they can do to hold themselves together.

Normally you’d be downstairs with your squad - the Special Operations Squad - talking and trying to find some normality and peace with your comrades. Listening to Petra and Oluo argue. Teasing Eld about his girlfriend. Trying to rattle Gunther into letting slip some tidbits about his personal life. Watching the Captain drink his tea and list everybody’s cleaning chores for the week. The thought of the captain has your nerves quivering with an intoxicating energy that both excites and frightens you. You’ve never felt this strongly about someone who wasn’t a friend or family. You may have no romantic experience - and in truth, until now, you had no interest in getting any - but you know how you feel.

It’s a fucked up situation; you’ve been reminding yourself of this for weeks now. Training with him and trying not to get distracted by his impressive flexibility and efficient fighting style. You pretend to dread your one-on-ones with the captain in sparring. You pretend that you hate having him watching you train with the rest of the squad. You lie that he intimidates you, that you wouldn’t like to be hauled into his office for anything. All the while you like feeling his attention on you. You like the opportunity to remind him of why he chose you to join his squad. You like being near him and listening to him. You like cleaning his office and talking to him as you work. You love learning the occasional little snippet about him, about what he thinks, what he’s experienced. You like putting together the thousands of little pieces that make up Captain Levi. You take great pride in the fact that he called your tea-making abilities “good” and you have to fight a smile every time he comes over to correct your cleaning.

Ordinarily you really enjoy the post-mission hangout of your squad too. Tonight, however, the thought of it chokes you. Tonight you’re feeling the weight of the veil you wear; this veil of professionalism, of platonic feeling and comradarie wraps tightly around you. The heaviness of it makes you feel dizzy and nauseous. Even up here, taking in gulps of cold, fresh air, you can feel the veil slipping away from you. With every conversation you have with your captain, you can feel the material sliding away and you have to pull it back. You have to remind yourself that professional boundaries exist and that the reality is extremely high that the captain does not share your feelings. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him show any kind of indication towards anyone. Maybe that’s just his way or maybe he’s just private. Not that it’s any of your business.

If anything, you think as you stare up at the stars, he seems completely disinclined towards even liking you let alone everyone else. He cuts conversation short whenever you’re alone together. Your cleaning irritates the hell out of him. Often it feels like he’s sharper with you than the others. He gives you the duties furthest away from him the most. Your favourite task of cleaning his office is one you’ve done the least out of your squad. He always looks at you with neutral eyes yet he engages with the rest of the squad fairly well. You can’t help but wonder if he regrets taking you into his squad. Maybe he has too much pride to just kick you out. Or maybe he’s just waiting for an excuse?

Thinking about all of this is giving you a headache and you rub at your temples with each of your index fingers.

“Wanna explain why you’re hiding up here on your own?”

You’re startled into spinning round at the sudden sound of the captain’s voice. Your eyes dart towards the door and to the frowning man currently closing it behind him. Holy fuck, you didn’t even hear him approach, or the door open for that matter. The shame burns through you at once. You really should have been more alert even if it is Captain Levi who appears to have mastered the art of stealthy movements. A flicker of envy licks at the pit of your stomach. In all honesty, you can only dream of being that coordinated.

The gentle wind that had been blowing through you for half an hour has brought some hair into your face. You reach up to tidy yourself up on instinct as you straighten up into a salute. The fist over your heart presses a bit heavier tonight and you try and push your earlier thoughts from your mind. With the man himself standing there though, this is difficult.

“I just wanted some time alone, sir,” you answer hastily. It’s not a lie and it’s not an unrealistic answer either. It’s simple.

The captain approaches you. You note that the circles under his eyes are looking dark again. You wonder that he doesn’t at least try and sleep during quieter periods like this. But then again, maybe he has. Maybe he knows a lost cause when he sees one.

It must be nice to be able to move on from such things, you think bitterly as you can’t help contemplating your own feelings for him. If only you could leave them behind so you could just feel… normal with him. That would be pretty nice. The world turns silent as you muse on this. You can no longer feel the wind on your face or the cold in your skin. Everything is muted and it’s not the worst feeling in the world. You stand in that numb state, battling your own thoughts.

After a moment, you realize that the captain is now standing in front of you. His brow is rumpled with lines of deep annoyance and his narrow eyes are fixed on your face. His lips are moving but you can’t hear his words. He speaks slowly but you can’t read the shapes that he forms. So, you blink slowly and try to focus on him. As soon as you do, the world seems to wake up again. Cold touches your face and you can hear your own breathing that sounds heavy after the silence of a moment ago.

“Sorry sir,” you manage to rasp. Your voice sounds closed up, like you’re about to cry and you hate it. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

“Really? I’m stood right here and you can’t hear me? You mean you weren’t listening.”

Your cheeks heat up and you consider arguing with him but instead you just bow your head and turn away from him. It’s easier not to look at the irritation he’s wearing or how beautiful his eyes are when they reflect the starlight. Instead, you reach out and hold onto the stone wall, grounding yourself to the moment.

“Hey.” This time Levi’s voice is gentle. “What’s going on with you?”

You shake your head because, honestly, you’re not so sure yourself. “I don’t know,” you admit quietly, still not looking at him. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, I guess.”

To your right, you observe your captain as he steps up to the wall then turns his back to lean on it. He folds his arms and watches you, his gaze softening in a way you have never seen directed at you. You can’t stop yourself from staring back into those enchanting blue-grey orbs. “Petra would say that that would be easier to figure out if you were with us,” he remarked and gave a tiny shrug of his narrow shoulders.

You manage a weak, crooked smile. “Yeah she would. But I… I don’t really want a group chat right now.”

“You should talk to someone.”

“I don’t think so. It won’t change anything,” you admit and you mentally curse yourself for letting slip even that much.

“So you do know what’s bugging you.”

You sigh, feeling your patience begin to bleed out and you close your eyes. You remind yourself where you are and who you’re talking to. If this were one of your friends, you’d have snapped at them to leave you alone right now. But you can’t exactly do that with Levi, can you? But at the same time, you can feel this unpleasant feeling creeping over you. A feeling of edge, of broken glass, like you’ll go shooting off into a hundred sharp pieces if this feeling completes itself. Who knows what you might say or do if he doesn’t leave you be? What you might say if this feeling gets to take hold completely. You fix your eyes on the horizon, determined to avoid Levi’s gaze. Maybe if you stay quiet, he’ll just go away. He’s not the most sociable man. He’s not someone who seems all that comfortable with heavy displays or emotion or tolerance for awkward situations. Give it long enough and he might just leave you to it.

You hear your name being spoken and you close your eyes. You love the sound of those syllables in his baritone voice. You hate that you like it so much.

“Sir.” Once again you sound fragmented. “Please just leave me be.”

“No.” Levi’s quick answer surprises you and you turn your head slightly but not enough to look him fully in the eye. “Do I look stupid enough to just leave my comrade to it when they look like they’re about to jump off this fucking roof?”

Your eyes are blown wide as you finally meet his again then look to the horizon and then back to him in a rapid string of disbelief. “You think…” you begin to say then push yourself away from the edge and shake your head. “This isn’t…. It isn’t that. I’m not… I’m not depressed, Captain.” Your voice sounds strong, at least, as the words tumble out of you. “God, I don’t… I don’t feel like that. I… I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you if I wanted to…” You don’t even try and finish the sentence, wrapping your arms around yourself as you begin to walk around the rooftop.

His footsteps barely sound against the stone as he follows you. “Then what’s going on?”

“It’s personal, sir. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“When personal gets shitty, it gets in the way of work.” Levi argues, “and then that shit puts your life in danger out in the field.”

You release a breath in a huff, tightening your arms around yourself as you feel your temper shooting up to the surface, burning its way through your nerves. Your self-reminders of who Levi is and of behaving yourself are falling quieter by comparison now.

“You… can talk to me… if you want. Whatever helps you keep your head and keeps you alive.”

You should be appreciative of his words, of the discomfort you can hear when he delivers them. You don’t want to feel agitated with him. You wish you could swallow down your feelings and leave them be. Your captain is not a comforting man. He’s not someone whose natural instinct it is to mollycoddle and reassure. Yet he is trying to get through to you right now. The way he can. He has his own ways of getting through to people. But right now those ways are not what you need or want. But how do you tell him that without sounding like an ass?

He says your name again and your impatience and your temper spill over into each other.

“It’s too painful, captain!” You snap at him as you turn on him. Your voice echoes across the rooftop as tears burn in the corners of your eyes. “It’s too painful to talk to you about this,” you spit out. As soon as the words escape you, you can feel your chest deflate even as the horror of what you’ve just said fills your cheeks and warms them up.

Fuck.

Beat after beat of silence follow and with each second, you can feel your throat constricting with the burn of your admission. Regret pours through your veins like rain washes over leaves. It drenches you and the words hover in your mind, painful and clear.

“Why?” Levi only speaks one word but the heaviness of it hangs in the air between you. He doesn’t need to elaborate and your original intention of bullshitting your way out of this is rapidly disappearing. With your admission out in the open, you can feel more rising up from your chest. You may as well keep going, you tell yourself. It’s got to come out now.

You turned your back on him and stare up at the stars again, your eyes seeking the comforting presence of those beautiful lights.

A hand touches your arm, fingers cupping your elbow. It’s not a firm grip. You could pull away from him if you wanted to. But the intention is clear. Don’t run away.

Yet even as you resign yourself to the confession, your body moves of its own accord. You step back, pulling your arm out of Levi’s reach. You turn further away from him, your torso twisting faster than your feet. The sudden turn and lack of coordination catches up with you in a second, and you overbalance. You land on your side, your hip taking the brunt of the fall. You curse quietly, scrunching up your face as pain and irritation battle across it.

“Tch,” the captain’s voice is surprisingly tender as he kneels down beside you, lifting both of his thin eyebrows. “It’s a good thing you don’t get nervous on the battlefield,” he observes, “otherwise you’d be titan chow by now.”

You stare at him for a moment and then a small laugh bubbles out of you. Your nerves have always made you clumsy and it was something you were worried would stop you progressing in the Scouts. Yet here you are.

“Yeah, a good thing,” you mutter and bow your head. You wish you could wake up from this. Somehow even burying these feelings seems like a better option than continuing this scene and yet there’s no avoiding it now. What needs to be said, must be said. You both have to move forward. Rip the bandage off, your mother would say if she was here.

“What’s going on?” Levi asks, firmness entering his voice now. “Just say it, whatever it is. Then it’s done. You can’t hold onto it now. Not without it screwing you up.”

You take it in with a deep breath. His words are surprisingly insightful and, in a way, they do make the prospect seem easier. But then you think about how you could be throwing this away, the ability to talk with your captain with a reasonable lack of awkwardness. Now there will be this thing hanging in the air above you, always. But maybe it’s a weight that can finally come away from your shoulders. You’ve begun to walk down this path and now you have to continue.

“I…” the words jam in your throat and you scowl into the space next to Levi as frustration rattles your insides. Why can’t you just say it? You close your eyes and try and focus yourself. It’s some advice that one of your fellow cadets gave you years ago when you used to lose your temper over little matters. She taught you how to rein in some of your intensity. But thinking of her just reminds you of the last time you saw her, in the jaws of a 9-metre titan.

Levi says your name again and you’re pulled from your memory. It’s a relief, compared to the image that was taking clear form in your mind’s eye again. Compared to what Katya endured, you realize that you have to be able to say these words, to put to good use what she taught you.

“I’m in love with you.” The jam in your throat fades and the words slip out as quickly as water. You even manage to raise your eyes to look into Levi’s. You stare into them once you do, caught off guard by what you see.

You can see the surprise in his ever-so-slightly widened eyes and the barely noticeable slack in his jaw. But what really surprises you is the lack of judgment in his eyes. He doesn’t give you the look he normally gives you when he’s seriously considering your decisions - such as attempting to showcase your standard of cleaning as acceptable when he can still see dust on his bookshelves, when he eyes your lamentable folding and when there are still patches of dirt on the newly mopped floor. The you’re-killing-his soul narrowed eyes and thin, disapproving line of a mouth. You don’t see any of that.

Instead he stares at you like you just appeared right in front of him, like you came out of nothing and he’s trying to wrap his head around how that’s possible. He looks beautiful like that, caught in wonder. You feel yourself begin to smile despite the surprise in your own chest filtering into a clawing sense of dread.

Now for the rejection… the reprimand.

Where you should stay quiet and delay the arrival of either of those things, you now find your voice returning to you. As though your brain has decided for you. To hell with this. I’m going to throw it out there. You swallow and you plant the tips of your fingers on the cold stone beneath you.

“I know it’s unprofessional. You’re my commanding officer. We serve in the same team. It makes things awkward.” Your cheeks are searing with heat now. “I’m sorry for it but you’re right. I had to get it out. It’s eating away at me. I can’t afford to keep this to myself anymore. I-I’ll take whatever you say. I just… had to get it out.”

More silence. As the seconds pass, your stomach twists. You gaze expectantly into your captain’s face. Despite the open surprise, he’s still somewhat unreadable. You can’t see traces of anger, embarrassment or irritation in his expression. It gives you a flutter of hope that maybe this could be a bit less painful than you had expected it to be.

“Huh,” Levi says after another minute or two. He lowers his gaze and you feel your stomach plummet along with it.

“I’m sorry-” you begin to say just as he speaks.

“So, I’m not the only idiot then.”

It’s your turn to look surprised. “What?” you squint and lean forwards a little.

Levi sighs and takes your elbows. He rises to his feet, taking you with him. You wobble a little when upright, just for a moment but he keeps a firm grip until you’re steady then he lets go. “I said I’m not the only idiot.”

“Why… why you be an idiot?” you repeat. Your brain feels too fogged up in confusion to pick out the meaning behind his words. It was so far from what you expected him to say. All the imaginary reprimands and rejections are still hovering around although they are retreating a little.

He tilts his head, a slight smirk curving up one corner of his mouth. “Figure it out,” he answers and there’s an almost playful edge there.

It takes an embarrassing number of seconds for the fog to lift and suddenly the impossible seems to manifest in front of you all at once. You feel your own jaw dropping and a tingling feeling sweep through your body at once. “You… feel the same?” you ask, not hiding the disbelief from your voice. “I don’t understand,” you admit.

Now Levi’s lips press together into that familiar frown that you were expecting before. “I do.” He answers as he folds his arms. “What’s hard to understand?”

“How can you return my feelings when you dislike me so much?” You blurt out. “It just…. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Come again?” comes the dry response. Levi’s brows knot together. “Who the fuck said I dislike you?”

“No one needed to!” you fire back, annoyed. “It’s pretty obvious that I annoy you. You seem to regret choosing me for your squad. You seem to hate me being close to you.” The instances roll through your head on a loop, firing up your words. It clouds over the part of you that is telling yourself to be careful of what you say to him. Because right now you have to get through this conversation, or rather, at this point, make sense of it.

Levi closes his eyes and brings a hand up to pinch between his brows. “And people tell me that I’m shit at reading people.”

You’ve always known that Levi has an audacious tongue but even so, you falter. “Excuse me?”

He lowers his hands to his hips and frowns at you although there is a softness to his eyes. “I don’t dislike you. I never have,” he admits. “Look, your cleaning is inconsistent and needs work at best, you never leave a tea to brew long enough before you start drinking it, you always get drawn into arguments with people especially Oluo, and you worry too much about shit that’s just not that important,” he tells you brusquely. “You’re shit at asking for help and you always take too much crap from other people.”

You frown deeply and shake your head. “Where are you going with this-?”

“You’re also one of the best team players I’ve ever seen. You make sure a job gets done even if it’s not your turn. You back up your comrades in and out of missions. You’re a capable and talented soldier yet you don’t get cocky about it. You don’t whinge about this job. You give your heart to the Scouts.”

You can feel the blush in your cheeks spreading over your face. “That’s what we all have to do.”

“Not everyone does it. People are shitty and selfish.” Levi tells you. “But not you. You do your damn job and you take what comes. Why the fuck would you think I’d dislike that?”

You fidget from one foot to the other. “But you always act like… like I’m a pest.”

Levi looks away from you, his eyes rising up to the starry canvas above him. “I’m not Hange. I don’t wear everything on my fucking sleeve. I’m not Erwin either. I’m not someone who dazzles people with eloquence. But more importantly,” and his eyes shift back to you, “I’m your superior officer. Coming on to you… I’d look like a fucking creep.”

You bite your lip and step forward. “I wouldn’t think that. I would have… you know… I would have admitted it too.”

“And if you hadn’t returned my feelings?” Levi questions. “You could have reported me. You could have requested a transfer. I would have lost a very capable soldier from my squad,” he explains. “You said that I didn’t act like I liked you. You’re pretty damn capable of concealing things yourself.”

You step forward a little and a smile crosses your face, small and sheepish. “Okay, that’s fair. I-I could have maybe hinted or something but I really didn’t want to be reprimanded or embarrassed.”

“I wouldn’t punish you for having feelings,” Levi insists. “But they’d have to be kept in check especially on missions.”

“I know. I’ve seen them get people killed,” you assure him. “I guess we both decided it’d be safer to say nothing.”

“But something changed for you today,” Levi takes half a step towards you. “What happened?”

“Nothing in particular,” you admit, returning your attention to the horizon and wrapping your arms around yourself as you return to your spot by the wall. “But it’s tiring playing pretend.” You rest your arms on the wall and lean your chin on them with a heavy sigh. “I just had to let myself stop for a moment.”

Levi’s footsteps approach you but you don’t look around. The confession and this entire conversation is taking it out of you. On the one hand it’s going so much better than you expected and on the other hand, you feel like you’re walking on unknown territory, on ice where you don’t know if it’s stable or not. Trying to think over what that means is unsettling.

“What does this mean?” You decide to take the initiative. “We both had our reasons for keeping quiet. Now we’re here, I don’t know what happens now.”

“You think I do?” Levi steps up next to you and leaned his back against the wall. “I can’t offer you a safe life.” He tells you quietly. “I’m not going to quit the Survey Corps and go be a farmer or work in a shop. I’m not going to stop fighting the titans.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” you answer, turning your face and leaning your cheek on your arms. “I’m not walking away from this life, either. I’m good at what I do. Humanity needs you to fight for them. They need us to fight for them. I didn’t train for three years and witness all this death just to walk away and play it safe.”

Levi’s mouth twitched into a smile. “So we’re both sticking with this shitty life in the shitty military.”

You smile back at him. “Looks like it, captain.”

He turns around, leaning against the wall with his front and partway mirroring your folded arms on the wall. His gaze lingers on your face and you stare up at him. This time the silence is comfortable, filled with an unspoken agreement that things will be different now. The path ahead is no longer clouded with uncertainty and assumptions. You can see Levi clearly and he can see you. You know what you mean to each other now and your heart feels lighter for it.

“I don’t know if I’m capable of being what you want,” he muses quietly but he’s leaning in towards you.

You’re lifting your head towards his, your eyes dropping to his lips as you whisper back. “You’re already what I want. You always have been.”

“So are you,” he murmurs back and then his lips touch yours. It’s a soft press and for a few moments nothing happens. Uncertainty returns between the two of you. That and inexperienced curiosity. Your lips move first, against his and his match on instinct. You both slip into it as instinct takes over.

Moonlight and starlight fall around you but for now those beautiful sights are relegated to being the background for something new and wonderful and unknown. Something that will bind you and your captain even closer together.

#my fics #fic: lift the veil #attack on titan #attack on titan fanfiction #shingeki no kyojin #shingeki no kyojin fanfiction #drabble #levi ackerman #levi ackerman fanfiction #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x reader fanfiction

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