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722alycat · 3 years

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pt i pt iii pt iv

Summary: Kuchel Ackerman makes a bargain, setting into motion a series of events that would leave her sons life forever changed.

“Everything you know about Levi,” Stout had demanded.

The pieces all came rushing together in technicolor clarity. They weren’t here for revenge. They needed to pump you for information regarding your first friend. Levi Ackerman, they said in disgust. As if he wasn’t your partner-in-crime, your confidant, the only boy you had ever felt like you could- no, no, he was Levi Ackerman the fool, who left you for dead in the underground city and took the only family you had ever known with him into the light.

He had left you.

You kept your lips closed. Regardless of the way that betrayal still ached and throbbed like a bruise on your soul, you knew you would never, never, tell either of these men shit about Levi. How could you, when they had spent days ruthlessly beating you and cutting you, trying to pry submission from weeping wounds and dry eyes? If they did this to you out of hope you knew anything about Levi, you could only imagine what they would do to the man himself.

Despite your silent resolution, you couldn’t help but think about the question. What did you know about Levi Ackerman?

Above all, Levi was a survivor. He got that from his mother.

“Yensen! Please be reasonable!” Miss Kuchel simpered, batting her eyelashes at the pimp before her while you shook limply in his grasp, halfway to being tossed into the street. You bawled your eyes out, only six years old and beginning to learn the cruel truth of life. You were wailing and shaking your small fists in the air as she bargained on your behalf, too young to understand then what was happening in front of you.

Yensen sized Kuchel up, looking at her figure, the sway of her too-skinny hips and coy smile on her face. Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she looked at him, a whisper of I know something you don’t know! behind the pretty gray. She was a rare beauty that he had collected, and he found it intoxicating to be caught in her crosshairs.

“Reasonable? Kuchel, darling, this child is now without a parent. She most certainly cannot pay the rent. I know it must be hard seeing this, being a mother yourself, but I can’t support every orphan in the city!” he cried, his wide gestures jolting you around as you cried harder.

You were an orphan now?

“Why wouldn’t mumma wake up!?” you wailed, still not understanding why she hadn’t stirred when you tried to shake her awake, not understanding why she was so cold. Kuchel flinched. She always knew your mother had tried desperately to shield you from the seedier sides of the underground, although everyone knew it to be a lost cause. You had never seen a dead body, were unaware the only home you could remember was a brothel, and life was stealing that innocence quickly, one swift hit after another. Your mother had lived Kuchel’s worst fear. What if she got sick and left Levi alone?

She hushed you, stepping much closer to Yensen to pat your head the way she’d seen your mother do, back when she would send you off to play so she could start working. She flashed a playful smile at her pimp, watching him under her long, dark lashes. “You’re a business man, and a roguish one at that!” she teased, brushing lint from his shoulder, “I’m sure you know a good investment when you see one.”

She felt the weight of the world on her shoulders as she looked at you, knowing the life she was so easily condemning you to with her manipulative words, however pretty they were. But this was the underground. The only ways to make money here was with a gun in your hand, or laying on your back. Your mother had been pretty enough to rake in a fair few customers, and as Yensen leered at you, he could see the family resemblance in your childish features.

Kuchel felt no better than a human trafficker, watching the way his face twisted into a sick grin of delight. “Beautiful, you are one of a kind,” he crowed to her, “you could smell a nugget of gold in shit, I swear to god!”

Kuchel waved away the praise, however disgusting it was, demurely telling him that she was only paying her dues to him, since he had been so kind and generous in the years she’d been here. She felt bile rise up her throat as she walked away from you, still in Yensens grasp.

But you would survive, and if Kuchel had her way, Levi wouldn’t be alone.

“Hey, kid.”

You glanced up at the speaker, and giggled. “Aren’t you a kid too?”

Honestly, he was only a little taller than you, and missing his front two teeth!

The dark haired boy shook his head, pointing to himself, “I just turned seven!” he proclaimed, then snidely turned his nose up, “I bet you can’t even count that high!”

You went quiet and shrugged. Mumma had been teaching you the alphabet, and you were gonna start on numbers next, but...

Mumma was gone.

You sniffled, and the boys eyes widened, “Hey! Don’t cry! Mom’s gonna kick my butt! Come on, don’t be a crybaby!”

You really began to cry at this, curled up on the ground and wailing as he berated you in a terrible attempt at stopping the waterworks. “Y-you’re so mean!”

He looked about ready to cry himself when he heard the telltale click of heels on the concrete. She was gonna kill him...

“Levi! I told you to bring her to our room! Not be cruel to her!” Miss Kuchel hollered at the boy- Levi, “She’s been through enough these past few days!”

“I- I tried, mom! But she’s such a baby she started crying before I could even get the invite out!”

You whimpered at this, having never had anyone be this rude to you in your life. Mumma always sent you to play with Isabel down the road, and she was never this mean. And she had pretty red hair.

Life was so much easier when she was alive. You never cried this much then. She used to read you stories before you fell asleep, and now... you couldn’t remember her voice.

Miss Kuchel knelt on the ground in front of you, and tilted your chin up to make you look at her. She cooed, brushing tears from your cheeks with her knuckles. “There, there. I know Levi can be a little harsh sometimes, but he doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just how we Ackerman’s are, sweet thing. Now stop these senseless tears.”

You took one look at her kind face and sobbed harder, realizing you couldn’t picture your mothers any more. Miss Kuchel frowned at this, realizing quickly how weak you were in the wake of your mothers death.

“Y/N,” she began, and her tone of voice had changed, no longer was it the sweet cadence she used on Yensen, on her clients. It was now harder, flint gray like her eyes, something that could conjure a spark, “I know your mother tried her best to shield you from how cruel life can be. She was a kind woman. I am not her.”

You looked up with her, shocked into silence, your sobs hiccupping quiet as Levi watched on, shocked still.

“I know you’re young. It must hurt so much to have lost her. But she would have wanted you to live on. Listen to me,” Kuchel demanded, gripping your shoulder now, your chin still caught in her grasp, “crying will not do anything. It won’t bring your mother back. It won’t make this world less cruel. It will not save you. Only you can do that. Now, stop these senseless tears. If you want to live, you have to eat, and Yensen has given us extra rations to keep you fed... he’s investing quite a bit in you.”

She tugged you to your feet with that hand on your shoulder, hands rougher than mummas had ever been, your shocked stiff form almost toppling once she released you.

No one had ever-

You had never been spoken to like that.

As you followed Miss Kuchel, numb and weary, you realized your tears had finally stopped.

You stopped weeping so much after that. Really, you had stopped all together. You wanted to make Miss Kuchel proud, wanted to prove to that rude boy, Levi, that you were not a crybaby. If miss was right, and tears solved nothing, then you figured they were a waste of time.

You resolutely built up a wall between you and the part of you that screamed and cried whenever anything went wrong, instead choosing to foster a calmer version of yourself, one made of sterner stuff, like Miss. Even now, in the early morning, you resolutely reminded yourself that if you wanted to live, you had to be stronger.

“Levi, take the girl out of here once she’s finished eating. I have a client this morning, and I need you both out of the room earlier than usual,” Miss Kuchel said, putting a pretty hair pin into her hair, twisting the raven locks into an elegant sweep.

You smiled at her, chirping “Wow, miss, you must be really good with your clients, if they come this early!”

Miss Kuchel froze, her expression becoming more fragile than you had ever seen, before she shook herself, and scowled. She looked older, somehow, when she was angry.

“y/n, it doesn’t take much talent to spread your legs and look pretty,” she snapped, and you recoiled.

To what?

“A good whore,” Kuchel snapped at you, heedless of how you shrank away from her, “is one who can survive. You’d do well to remember that. Listen to people around you. Learn how to make them love you, and if you can’t do that, make them fear you.”

You gawked up at her, feeling pieces click too rapidly in your young mind. You had just turned seven, only half a year had passed since your mother died. A whore? She had been a..?

“Miss...” you began, voice quivering despite how you tried to steel it, “you... did my mother..?”

Kuchel huffed, all her hot air going quickly at the sight of you, brows furrowed in confusion and sorrow. She reminded herself of how little you knew, and how fast you were learning. She felt some kind of pride when she looked at you now, stronger and braver than you’d been when she bartered for your life, when she found you crying on the floor, “she tried to shield you from it. I have as well, but there comes a time where protecting your child means they cannot protect themselves. Your mother did what she had to do to make you survive.”

What she had to do to make you able to survive, you thought rather bleakly, was die. Die and leave you to the Ackerman duo, even Levi too sharp and too cunning despite his age. You were a kitten in a snake den, and they were as apt to bite you as they were to protect you.

But still, it was better than the streets.

Still, you felt safe here, cared for here, protected here.

You turned to the quiet boy by the door, watching him watch the situation unfold, and sighed, “Levi... lets go.”

Kuchel smiled then, teeth too sharp in the dawns light. You felt like she was somehow proud of you, then, for shutting yourself away from her, even if only for half a moment.

Levi considered you slowly, slate eyes watching as you trudged to the door. His eyes flicked to his mother, seeing how her gaze settled on the two of you, her cubs. He had never seen her look so viciously proud as right then.

You glanced at Levi, waiting for him, unwilling to venture out without him by your side. He shouldered past you through the door.

“C’mon crybaby.” he murmured, and you bristled.

“Hey!” you shouted, chasing after him as he strode away from you, “I don’t cry anymore! Stop calling me that!”

Kuchel watched you go, and felt a weight lift from her weary shoulders. No, Levi wouldn’t be alone, not with you so clearly beginning to latch onto him.

She felt, for the first time in six months, that the bargain she made with your life was paying off.

“Don’t say it like that.” you snarled, low and angry. Your hands shook where you had balled them into fists.

You see, all that crybaby energy had to go somewhere. It went right to your blood. The emotional outbursts had refined from tantrums to acerbic words and clumsy fights. Circumstances had turned you into a livewire, and it was giving Levi a constant headache.

See, you weren’t good at fighting. You never had learned the skill, with how you mumma had coddled you, and how Miss Kuchel was usually busy with clients. Instead, you flew by the skin of your teeth. You threw punches with shitty form, you couldn’t dodge a hit for anything, you were pint sized, compared to your usual opponenets. Your fighting style was simply swing until something stops moving.

Half the time, you didn’t even have your eyes open.

Even now, as you stood across from a bully from the orphanage who was above your weight class, you had your eyes halfway to shut.

“What? Whore? Are you offended because that’s all you’ll ever be, living in that brothel?”

You snarled, furious and thinking of your mother of how her face was a warm blur to you now, her voice a calming buzz, who had died a whore, who had died trying to keep you safe and innocent in a world that gave fuck all for safety, for innocence.

You thought of Miss Kuchel, who seemed to get more tired every day, without your mother there to help ebb the flow of pickier clients. You watched her be run ragged as a whore as she tried to survive to keep her son alive, to keep you alive. To keep you both from being alone.

How dare this little shit say the word whore with such blatant disgust.

Your blood was brought to boil. You lunged.

Levi got there first.

He grabbed you violently around the shoulders, using his larger mass to tug you away from Vic, hissing expletives in your ear all the while about how mom would kill him if he let you get your ass beat again.

Vic made a move to follow you, but the sound of horses broke him from the action, as you watched the clean men in the nice uniforms come back into the town. One coughed into his fist a few times, shoulders shaking as he did, and headed towards the brothel.

“Come on, brat.” Levi muttered, tugging you along by your skinny wrist as he took advantage of the distraction.

You growled, but relented, instead hissing and jabbering at him. “How can you stand that, Levi!? How can you just be so... so calm!? Miss Kuchel is the strongest person I know! Just because Vics mom works for the wall people at that orphanage doesn’t mean she’s better than Miss! Just luckier.”

Levi continued dragging you, almost like he hadn’t heard. You took a deep breath, gearing up to keep on blowing off steam, when he stopped suddenly and grabbed your hand.

You blanched. “Levi...?”

He cradled your still clenched and shaking fist. He soothed his fingers along the lines in your knuckles until you stopped huffing quite so angrily, and then he uncurled and recurled your fingers back into the shape they were in, but wrapped your thumb over the middle of your fingers, on the outside.

“If you’re going to risk throwing a punch, don’t break your hand,” he finally muttered, “you’re too reckless.”

You bared your teeth at the criticism, but then it fell away as you read the sentimentality behind the words, and you smiled at him.

“Thank you, Levi, for teaching me.”

He scoffed, dropping your hand like he was scalded. “Just stop picking stupid fights. Especially on moms behalf. She’d go insane if she knew.”

You hummed, looking a little sheepish. “It’s just... she’s always looked out for me, you know?”

He looked at you a little oddly, before nodding shakily.

“Cmon. Lets go see what the brothel has to offer for lunch.”

When Miss Kuchel got sick, there was little you could do.

You tried to convince the pimp to get her medicine, to help her, but he only watched you, as if waiting for something from you. He eventually shook his head, looking past your short frame into the room. He took in Kuchels frail frame, shoulders shaking beneath pale and sickly skin as she coughed. Her gray eyes, once so pretty, so lively, found his, and he resisted the urge to flinch. They were already deadened.

He pursed his lips behind the strip of cloth he used as a mask, watching as you grew desperate before him, begging him softly to please help her. He reached out and ruffled your hair, like Miss Kuchel did, like Mumma, like Levi, and your skin crawled and stomach tossed.

He read the thinly veiled revulsion, and grinned sickly behind the mask as you still didn’t push him away. He watched you steel yourself and continue to plead. Yes, he realized, you would be a great investment. It seemed the fundamentals of being a whore came naturally to you. If you could keep your virginity, you may even be auctioned off for your first night...

“She’s not worth the coin,” he said coldly, even as his eyes fell on the little dark haired boy curled by his mothers sick bed, clutching her hand. “I’m doing you a favor now, even letting her stay here with how disgusting she is. She’s not gonna make it the week.”

You heard the shuffle of Levi behind you, curling deeper into himself, grabbing his mother tighter, as if he could keep her warm, keep her alive through force alone. You were hungry, you were starving in this room with Kuchel too sick to feed you. You were sore, and tired, and scared of what would happen if she-

What if she left just like mom had?

You were furious.

You knocked his hand away from where it rested on your head, and watched with grim satisfaction as it flopped to his side, hearing him let out a shocked grunt. You took a breath, beginning to gear up for another one of your snarling rants when-

“Yensen.”

Kuchels voice was like broken glass. Far from the tinkling harmony it usually was when she spoke to the pimp, winding him around her finger.

“You’ll remember what I said?” she sounded so tired, so spent, and he nodded, looking suddenly uncomfortable at the memory of her convincing him to take you in, “Levi... he helps her. Don’t toss him to the wayside.” she begged, and the mans face grew grim.

“Kuchel, I cannot take in every damn orphan in the underground,” he growled, before striding away, closing the door behind him.

Levi had gone stock still, you saw, and you knew what he was thinking of.

Orphan?

Kuchel snarled, and then coughed wetly into the hankerchief gripped in the hand free of her sons. She let out a broken sounding sob, and the noise nearly brought you to your knees. “Miss...” you murmured, reaching out to her.

You had never seen her so small. Her shoulders were birdlike beneath your hands, her skin graying rapidly. You had kept her clean, washing her skin when she became too weak to move from the illness, but now you doubted you could even move her without hurting her.

“Fuck...” Kuchel hissed, weakly scrubbing the tears from where they had spilt down her temples, “I’m sorry, children. I’m so sorry.”

You knelt beside her, next to Levi, keeping your hand on her shoulder, and the other wrapped around his wrist. You felt Kuchels chest heave as she sobbed out years of pain and worry, and for the years she would miss. You felt Levi’s pulse between your shaking fingers, the jackrabbiting of it telling you everything you needed to know about if he was as scared as you. It was so odd, seeing Miss Kuchel break down. It was wrong.

Minutes or hours later, when Kuchels tears had dried, she pulled herself away from the two of you, hauling herself up onto her elbows to sit up. She hissed when you reached to help her, swaying dangerously to keep away from you.

“Listen to me.” she said, voice crackling and gravelly, and you thought how strong she was yet again, “Levi.”

Levi hunched deeper into himself, shaking harder now, and your heart broke for him, a chasm opening within it. But even so, you could feel an ache rising to fill it, an anger.

“Levi!” you snapped, “Look at her!”

He flinched at your tone, wide eyes finding yours in shock, and you gripped his wrist tighter as he tried to pull from you. You would have given anything to have had this chance with your mom. You wouldn’t let him squander it.

“She’s your mom,” you cried, “look at her!”

While you still have the chance rang unspoken in the air, like a tolling bell, and he looked away. When he finally gathered the courage to look at Kuchel, you could see the wetness in his eyes.

“You’re so strong,” Kuchel said, shaking hand coming to ghost over her sons cheek, “An Ackerman, through and through. I want you to beat this world. I want to watch you come out on top.”

You felt like you were intruding on their moment, watching her imbue his spine with the same metal she had always had, even as her arm quaked holding herself up.

“I never wanted to leave you alone,” she murmured, eyes flickering softly to you, and she reached out to ruffle your hair softly, washing away Yensens touch in moments, “and thanks to her, I won’t. Take care of eachother. Stay alive. Survive, whatever the cost. I beg of you.”

You nodded your head swiftly, hand wrapping around Levi’s shaking one, and you pursed your lips in determination. Levi’s fingers twisted to twine with yours, and he shook harder beside you, desperate eyes drinking in his sick mother. Every moment felt like the last, every breath she took, you fought the urge to hold yours.

“I’m so proud of you, my darling boy,” she whispered, growing tired. “Of both of you. Now please, go play. Leave me to rest.”

Levi opened his mouth to protest, and you stood to leave, releasing him.

You couldn’t let this happen. You couldn’t.

You raced through the door, desperate to find medicine.

If no one would help you, you would help yourself.

You fucked up.

You knew stealing medicine would be harder than the petty theft you and Levi had screwed around with, but you didn’t know it would be tied-up-and-beaten hard.

The store clerk had left you, curled on the ground and spitting blood, promising to turn you to the Military police on their next patrol. You felt so scared, so out of your league. Miss Kuchel couldn't save you. Levi would never leave her side to find you. You were alone here.

Maria, Rosa, and Sina help you.

The one thing Miss Kuchel had asked of you...

You couldn’t leave Levi alone.

and so you got to work on the knots binding your wrists, the rope rubbing your skin raw and red.

You needed to grab that fucking medicine and go.

You didn’t know how long it took you, tugging at the ties and hissing as your sore fingers cracked and popped from keeping them curled up in such an unnatural way, before you were finally loose.

The store clerk had gone to bed, not seeing such a small girl as a threat. Foolish bastard. He would pay for that. You scrambled out of the small room he kept you in, knees aching and legs wobbling after sitting for so long. You launched your small elbow through the window of the store room, unwilling to bother with wasting time on the lock. Kuchel needed you.

You frantically snatched a variety of medicine, frantic and quick as you heard a crash from the floor above you. You didn’t have time to read labels, just shoving handful after handful into your knapsack. You let out a frantic whimper as you grabbed one last fistful of bagged powder from beneath the counter, and sprinted out of the shop as fast as your legs could carry you. It was dark in the underground at night, and you were more scared now than you were when the store owner caught you. You had never been outside so late.

You tripped some blocks away, adrenaline fading fast and leaving you feeling all the aches and pains the man had left you with. Your ribs burst with needle like jabs every time you panted out a new breath, and it didn't help when you crashed to the ground on them, arms curling to protect your stolen medicine more than your injured body.

Kuchel needed you.

You had been gone for a few days now, the frantic trek across the underground to one of the lesser known clinics took you a while, and you knew going back would take longer still, with your wounded body throbbing reminders of what you had survived with every step.

Still, you trudged on.

Kuchel needed you.

Levi needed you.

Please, you thought, let me get back in time.

You didn’t make it back in time.

You knew as soon as you opened the door, days old stench rising to meet you. You were far too late. She had died while you were still fiddling with knots, while you cut your elbow breaking glass to steal antibiotics, while you were napping because you got kicked in the head a little too hard.

You looked at the scene before you in shock. The proud and strong Miss Kuchel left to rot in her bed, her leakage staining the sheets she worked to keep pristine and white. You couldn’t... you couldn’t understand.

You had got the medicine. Everything was supposed to be fine.

You threw up, shocking yourself. The mess landed at your feet and on your shirt, adding an acrid smell to the sweetness of rotting meat.

“M-miss...” you croaked, stepping towards her. you were halfway across the small room when you kicked something. Looking down, you saw Levi. Curled in on himself still, like that day you left.

Your hands shook as you kneeled to look at him, taking in his sunken features from days without food, unsure and aching. What were you supposed to do? What would Kuchel do?

You knew the answer to that one.

You grabbed Levi’s hand, prying it from where it was curled around the back of his head. He startled, looking up at you with fear and shock in his eyes.

He blinked, once, twice, then grimaced, “I thought you were gone,” he croaked, “like mom.”

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

He let out a dry sounding sob, before stilling again, “I thought I was gone, too.”

You grit your teeth. You thought of Kuchel, of how she had drug you back from the brink, of how she taught you how to survive. You would not lose the only person you had left, you vowed, you would return Miss Kuchels kindness with another.

“Levi. Get up. Miss wouldn’t have wanted you to die here. You have to survive,” you yanked him easily to his unsteady feet, taking in how he wavered and drooped in your grasp, “Walls, Levi, you have to eat.”

You pulled him from the room, desperately, tugging him along. If you could get him out of there, into fresher air, you could save him. Just one step after the other. You had lost your mother, you had lost Kuchel. You would not lose Levi.

You released him from your grasp outside the room, a little further down the hall. You let him sag against the wall as you pulled a loaf of bread from your knapsack. “here,” you whispered, “eat.”

Levi took a cautious nibble of the bread, before savagely scarfing it down, shaking and sobbing as he did, seeming to finally break apart as you held him close, tucking him against your chest. You let him sob his heart out into your filthy shirt, clutch your aching waist as he scrambled for something to keep him grounded. You didn’t know how long the sound went on for, the desperation, before he calmed. He sounded so much like Miss Kuchel when he cried. You fought back the emotion rising in your throat, unwinding a hand to wipe the side of your mouth.

You glanced up when you heard footsteps, steeling yourself to see Yensen. If that son of a bitch even tried to separate you and Levi, you swore you would kill him. Your hands found the broken shard of glass in your knapsack, from the window you had busted. You weren’t letting anyone be taken from you by him again.

Your arm curled tighter around Levi’s still shoulders, feeling his sleeping form puff breaths against your neck. Your gauze wrapped fingers curled around your makeshift knife with vicious determination. Never again, you promised yourself.

You heard the footsteps round the corner and snarled, only to find an odd man you had never seen before. Dark hair going down to his shoulders, an earring, slate gray eyes, and a tall lithe form approached you slowly.

The stranger looked impassively at the two of you, just some whoreson and whore-to-be to him, but he still pursed his lips, long fingers on scarred hands pushing his black hair from his face.

“You kids know where Kuchel Ackerman happens to be?” he questioned, before nudging Levi harshly with his foot, as you snarled, startling him awake, “kid, I’m fucking talking to you.

“Leave him alone! If you’re here for her body, you can find it yourself you fucking bastard. Let Levi rest!”

The stranger stilled. Eyes taking in Levi and you with far more interest, lingering on the boys familiar features, dark hair, and slate gray teary eyes. Well, I’ll be fucked, he thought, “I thought she’d gotten rid of it.”

He watched you curl around Levi, the boy obviously still sleepy and confused. He saw the glint of the glass in your gauze-wrapped hand. Fuck me twice, Kuchel adopted a wildcat.

Still, he forced himself back onto the more pertinent topic.

“What do you mean, brats? ‘The body’?”

pt iii

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