#Black-eyed Susan | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dingdongitsbees · 2 years

Text

BLACK-EYED SUSAN | LEVI X READER HUNGER GAMES AU

Chapter 22: An Ode to Death and Her Kind Ways

Previous - Next - Master List

Tw: suicide attempts, drug addiction, drowning, death WC: 14.2k Ao3 link

First person version can be found here

“Didn’t you wake up feeling that you had no future? Didn’t you walk around drained of all meaning, without the right to even the slightest danger? Didn’t you have to promise, a hundred times, not to die?” ― Rainer Maria Rilke; The Prodigal Son

Levi’s hand was tight around yours as you led him to the others. His eyes stayed down, following the knotted roots of trees and paths stomped through the long grass, the blades gradually beginning to bend back to their original height. The sun was rapidly falling, the last few rays glowing through the trees ahead. You glanced at him, watching the way his hair swayed side to side. He hadn’t said a word since he woke, and you weren’t planning on breaking the gentle silence anytime soon. He was still recharging, putting himself back together. Thankfully he was too tired to be embarrassed.

The others raised their heads as you came into their view, nodding to you and giving Levi a sad look before dropping back into their quiet conversations. The last of the fire was dying out, final tendrils reaching up to the sky. Some charred legs and arms of tiny creatures were mixed with the ashes, too tough to tear through with teeth. You helped Levi sit down on a log, his body no doubt aching from sleeping in an awkward position.

Ymir, who had the secret ability to be thoughtful occasionally, handed over some spare cooked meat they had kept on a giant leaf. You accepted it, whispering a thank you, and peeked at Levi who was still on the journey of being awake. Sliding him most of the meat, you told him to eat, letting him go through it painfully slow as long as it meant he’d eat at all.

It was cold, it being cooked likely hours ago, but meat was meat, food was food, as you ripped into the muscle that wrapped tiny bones.

You did a quick inventory of the rest of them. The kids looked okay, all three uncharacteristically quiet. Once in a while one of them would glance to Levi, something between fear for, and fear of him. Eren and Mikasa hadn’t seen him like that before, Levi had made sure of it for as long as he’d known them. So much of his identity was inherit to the way he had absolute command over himself, of how fast he could run, how he could precisely swing a sword, how well he could control every muscle in his face. Not a single twitch out of place. But he had been stripped of that ability ever since the first Games and now he was never quite sure what he was going to do next. He had never had to battle himself before, and never had he lost to his own body and mind before. And so regularly at that.

He hated it, so he didn’t like anyone else seeing it, but it meant it came as an overwhelming shock to anyone who eventually did.

But Mikasa and Eren had seen many things in their short lives, and shock was a feeling they had learnt to abandon after how many times it had come for them. They both stood, dusting themselves off, and walked over. Levi raised his head a smidge, watching their legs get closer and closer while he wished desperately that they’d turn around.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, barely audible, but the only ones that heard it chose not to listen.

Eren sat on the ground by his legs and rested his head on Levi’s knees while Mikasa sat on the log on the other side of him, resting her head on his shoulder. They both closed their eyes and let their bodies rest because they knew as long as this broken man was by their side, they’d give the stubborn man the reassurance he never dared to ask for.

You looked at him, watching the way he bit into his bottom lip so it would stop quivering, and how hard he screwed his eyes shut to stop tears from coming. You slid your hand over his, laced your fingers, and squeezed as hard as you could.

The camp gave the man the privacy of their eyes as Levi’s shoulders shook.

Somehow, everyone always got startled when the music began to play. And somehow, everyone always got startled when they recognised the faces in the sky. It was only five today, so few and so many. You despised the fact you were relieved when children’s faces filled the sky, and you despised the fact that you were annoyed none of the victors did. Little kids stared down at you, one after the other, none from the career districts – they had lasted, but the few dotted through the rest.

You wondered who you had been cursing out for dying with bad timing and worsening Levi’s state, and when Marco gasped next to you, both of his district kids painting the sky, you hoped it wasn’t them. Nifa wasn’t in the sky with them, she was somewhere else in this giant collage arena alone. Shivering with the cold and guilt of whatever must have happened.

Maybe she had snapped and killed them herself.

Nothing could have been less likely, but you still wouldn’t have blamed her if she did.

The camp stayed quiet as Marco grieved for children he had tried his best not to care for. It didn’t matter he hadn’t brought them along; it didn’t matter he knew they were going to die. He ate every meal with them, he taught them everything he knew in that small amount of time at the Capitol. He had cared, as much as he hated himself for it.

Jean hugged him tightly, letting Marco weep into his chest.

It had been a long day.

Everyone soon curled around in groups or pairs for warmth, only a few sleeping bags left to use. Ymir and Historia gifted theirs to you – after a lot of back and forth, you refusing to take, them refusing to take it back – both volunteering to do the night watch together. There’s a strange sense of privacy when standing guard as a heap of people sleep behind you. You had no doubt that Ymir and Historia had many things to talk about without the fear of a few prying ears, even in a forest of microphones.

You settled down next to Levi and watched him as he watched you. The cicadas still sang in his ears despite their vow of silence. They ricocheted around his ear canals and thumped on the drums, and so despite the logic that infested him, he still couldn’t get your faux screams out of his brain. You were in front of him, he knew this, but he had stopped learning to trust his mind.

“You’re here,” he whispered, neither of you could tell whether he meant it as a statement or a question.

“Right here, and I will follow you into Hell before I leave you.”

He still had some patches of dried blood in his hair that you’d clean out later, and the same look of fear in his eyes. But as much as it hurt to see those blue-grey irises contract and splinter, it was better than the other things you had seen swimming in his pupils.

You longed that he would always feel fear, because then at least he wouldn’t discard it.

It had been a good day, the first in a while. That, you supposed, should have been the first warning sign.

Levi had been much livelier that day, even cracked a few smiles, ruffled the heads of the kids, kissed you when he thought no one was looking, or when he couldn’t bring himself to care if they were. He had talked with the old ladies running their stalls in the hub, politely nodding and his cheeks blushing when they threw cheeky compliments and remarks at him about how he’d grown into a nice young man and had even gotten the beautiful girl he’d been pining after since he was a little troublemaker. He snorted at Hanji’s jokes, declined refills of his drink, cooked you both dinner, hummed a forgotten tune as you held onto his waist with your head on his shoulder, and whispered that he loved you as you slow danced in your socks to silent music.

A weight had been lifted off his shoulders. You thought it had been a breakthrough, a little mental fatigue having finally been shoved away so he could live his life burdened with a little less guilt.

Then you had woken up alone.

You had pat down the other side of the bed, not quite believing that it was empty, but only slightly warm sheets met your fingers.

At first you thought he was out on a midnight walk, but he would have left a note or woken you up to go with him. Levi didn’t leave you completely alone unless he didn’t want you to know where he was. Levi didn’t want you to know where he was if he didn’t want you to follow.

You had pulled on a coat, grabbed a torch from the cupboard, and made your way downstairs.

The house had felt eerie – haunted – as you moved through it. Both of you had died time after time inside its walls, past selves and future selves meeting their demise from drinks or a cry or both. Sometimes a tender silence or just a really good hug. Ghosts filled its halls, ones you didn’t want to name, and they watched as you pulled on your boots with the flashlight between your teeth and scooped up the keys before disappearing into the night.

First you had knocked on Hanji’s door, hoping he had gone to just have a drink with her, to have someone who didn’t share his burden quite so equally and similarly, but still understood all the same. None of the lights were on and it was dead silent, but your fist slammed on the wood anyway. A grumbling Hanji met you, ready to chew you out for waking her for whatever reason she had already decided was stupid, until she saw your face.

In an instant, all fatigue flew from her body. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen Levi?”

She shook her head.

“Stay here and try and keep him where he is if he comes back.”

By the time she called your name to try to get you to slow down, you were already heading towards the gate. With Hanji left as a guard, you traversed the abandoned streets alone. Dogs snored next to fences they were tied to, cats watched you with glowing eyes, flicks of moonlight glancing off them and giving you shivers. You had squeezed through the boundary fence, keeping the flashlight off until you were obscured by the trees. There were only so many places he could be, only so many places he’d ever think to run to. Only so many places that gave him the peace of mind he was probably searching for. But what if he wasn’t? What if he wasn’t someplace you knew? You couldn’t search an entire forest. You couldn’t search an entire district.

You didn’t understand, he had been so good that day, he seemed to have found a crumb of contentment.

Then you had stood upon that familiar hill, flashlight scaring away the night-time creatures, where you had laid in the long grass since you were kids and looked over the dirty district. The smoky clouds hid the moon, taking away the minimal light it had been giving, before slowly sliding away, letting the white circle illuminate a blip on the horizon line. A figure on top of a familiar building.

And then you understood.

Racing down the hill with the wind at your back, you ran to the orphanage to stop the man on the roof stepping off.

There weren’t really any tall buildings in Twelve, not any that were easily accessible, but the orphanage loomed above the area with just three floors and a pointy roof. It wasn’t that high, but it was high enough. Especially with the frozen ground beneath it. And if you jumped just right, if you were able to control your body, then it was as easy as breathing.

You couldn’t take your eyes off his shadow, terrified that if you looked back, he wouldn’t be there anymore. You were too scared to even blink.

You weren’t sure whether or not to shout, to yell at him, to wake everyone up. He’d hate you for it, but you also weren’t sure it would help. The last time one of you had been on a literal edge, it hadn’t been shouting that saved them.

Finally making it to the building, you dragged your gaze away from him, trying to figure out how the fuck he had even gotten up there. Eyeing around for a ladder, a bunch of conveniently stacked crates or at least a good number of footholds. A voice peeked out from behind you.

“Did you forget something?”

Whipping your head around, you found a tired Petra rubbing her eyes, leaning her full weight on the doorframe.

“No, I’m fine,” you said, your words clipped. “Just go back inside.”

She whispered your name in question, sleep slowly dripping away from her small frame. She ventured a few more steps out, and she immediately followed your glance up that you weren’t able to stop. Petra froze and said your name again.

“Go back to bed.”

“But-”

“Go.”

Then Oluo joined the party, and your rage was about to burst from its weak chains. He poked his head out from the door and asked what the hell was going on in his usual cranky voice, and then walked up and flicked Petra in the forehead for not answering until he saw her wide eyes. And his gaze, too, followed up to the roof. But then he did a very Oluo thing: snapped out of being Oluo. He placed a hand on Petra’s shoulder and tugged her back inside.

Before he shut the door, he gave you one last look and spoke. “He probably used the knotted tree out the back to get up, it’s what the kids have been using lately.”

Nodding at him in thanks, you quickly found and scaled said tree, ungracefully reached your foot out onto the tiled roof, and pushed yourself away from the branch onto it, leaving you only a dozen yards from Levi who was yet to move.

He stared at the ground below as you walked over, not bothering to hide your footsteps, heels clicking against the terracotta. You sat down next to him, leaning on your knees as you looked up to the moon, your hand close enough to catch his ankle in time if it resorted to that.

But you knew it wouldn’t.

Because he would have long since jumped if that was the case.

“Hey,” you said, “It’s too cold for you to be out here without a jacket.”

You waited for a click of a tongue, a tch, or even a reply, but nothing came, and you were stuck in the limbo of caring for someone who didn’t want to be cared for.

“Levi? You need some rest; you never get enough sleep as it is.” You were tiptoeing around it all. The disappearance into the night, the roof, his feet on the edge, one strong gust or one strong thought enough to send him over. You thought that maybe if you pretended you couldn’t see what was in front of you, if you didn’t acknowledge it, that it wouldn’t be real. Just some severe misunderstanding or a fever dream that you’d wake up from any second.

But the man next to you stayed stubbornly real as his brain went through a ceaseless war.

His gaze didn’t slip from the ground, blinking slowly as his sleep shirt blew in the wind. He was a dishevelled mess. Eyes red rimmed from rubbing or lack of sleep. His hair going in crazy directions and defying gravity. His laces not even tied, just spilling out of his shoes threatening to trip him. He looked cold – blue lips, white skin, veins viewable in the moonlight – but he didn’t act it. His mind cut off from his body, two separate beings standing side by side on terracotta. And you couldn’t tell what each of them wanted, and whether it was the same. The body remembers just as well as the mind after all.

“Levi, just say something. Anything.”

He wouldn’t even do you the small mercy of sitting down, or just walking home with or without you by his side. He wouldn’t do you the small mercy of pretending this never happened. It was what you deserved. What you deserved from looking away when it was too hard to swallow that he wasn’t getting better and never would.

“Petra and Oluo already saw you up here, imagine if they found you in the morning? Fuck what if the kids found you?”

Even that didn’t get him.

“I…”

You couldn’t claw that three-word phrase from your mouth because you didn’t think it would help. And you didn’t know if you’d be lying. You didn’t want to have to say it out loud to find out.

It’s so much easier to love someone when they aren’t constantly threatening to leave you in the worst way possible. You knew, you weren’t an idiot. You read Levi like a brochure, knowing what meant what, but you had grown the habit of skimming over parts you didn’t like and skipping ahead to the parts you did. Because every good thing always had an evil twin, and you deluded yourself into thinking that if you didn’t speak to it, its silence meant its death.

It's so much easier to love someone when they love you more than dying.

But you were never going to win that battle, maybe fix a draw, but you’d never win, not when death was so beautiful. And how they called to you too. Death was both of your love affairs that you never spoke of even though you both knew you slipped into their bed. They had a tender hand on your heart even when you laid beside Levi, and Levi whispered their name to the dark when he thought you were asleep.

It was ironic almost; each other’s nightmares were your own sweetest dreams. Death always looked so much better on you than him. He thought it suited him more. In the end, even Erwin would agree death was tailor-made for the both of you.

“This isn’t the answer, Levi,” you said, the hypocrisy scratching your throat, “This won’t solve anything.”

Levi stared and stared at the ground, its gaze so much more inviting than your own. It would probably be softer. Safer too.

You were growing hysterical now, locking down every limb and nerve to stop you from just grabbing him or pushing him off to get it over with. Your face shuddered, lips, cheeks, and brows no longer containable.

“Levi please,” you cried out. The only thing stopping you from holding your head in your hands was the fear that if you looked away, you’d find him below. “Let’s just go home. We don’t even have to talk about it, we can just go to sleep or drink as much as you like and forget this ever happened, just please get away from the edge. Levi, I’m begging you, please.”

Then as it always did, without fail, your despair turned into rage. It was the only thing you had left, and you knew at that point, that this had nothing to do with stopping him, and everything to do with you.

“You didn’t even leave a note Levi! How long would it have been until someone found you? How long would it have fucking been until I found out? You would be fucking frozen into the dirt by the time I’d know, and I’d never fucking forgive you. Never never never. So just come home! I’m fucking begging you! Please just say something. Please just tell me I’m enough for you to stay just one more day because I can’t do this shit without you, I can’t Levi, I can’t.”

And then finally, looking you right in the eye with the moonlight bouncing off his blue-grey irises, he spoke with such calmness and clarity it terrified you before his words did.

“Do you love me too much to see me die? Or am I just the last thing keeping you from jumping off yourself?”

You didn’t have an answer and that was as good of a confirmation as one can get.

With a mouth agape and eyes full of frozen tears, you watched as Levi sighed and walked away from the edge and to the tree, his boots clinking on the terracotta.

“We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz,” Armin hummed along to himself as everyone thwacked through the leaves and cursed out at the bugs biting them. Every now and again you’d all pass – or more so trip on – a giant red cross on the ground, and Marco would pretend he didn’t know who it symbolised. Sweat ran down the back of your neck as your arm ached, swinging your sword back and forth.

Between a pant you asked, “What’s that from? Some nursery rhyme or something?”

Armin froze up, caught, making you catch his arm before he tripped over an above-ground root. “Oh uh, thanks-” he stood up properly again and walked by your side “-it’s from a movie school showed us a lot back in Three. During our film unit we were studying colour, and some say it’s one of the first few films, if not the first, to move away from black and white.”

“Must be old then.”

“Real old.”

“What’s it about?”

Armin then proceeded to explain the strangest plot you’d ever heard of, not that you had a great reference for stories – films and books were more infrequent than meals in Twelve – but something about a girl falling in a pig pen, a woman stealing her dog, and then a tornado bringing her into a magical world with witches and flying monkeys and talking scarecrows. He humoured all your questions, especially about the logistics of a person getting crushed by a house, and your accompanying questions about Three.

“I guess you lot are the technology district after all, what weird shit have you had to make?”

“Anything from speakers to bombs,” he said simply, “In school they made us test our landmines; if yours failed you’d have to step on the next person’s.”

You gulped.

“Mine worked. The one before me didn’t.”

Exhaling deeply, you pointed your gaze ahead. You still weren’t quite used to him, as much as you liked him. He was terrified of many things – though usually justified in his fears – more than the average kid. He was meek and physically weak, there was no doubt he would have been bullied at Twelve, he might have stood a chance in Three for his brains. But when it came to the truly horrifying things, the ones that even made your skin crawl and made you flinch away, he wouldn’t waver. It was if his intellect saved him, letting him remove himself from everything but the facts and logic of the situation.

He was only fifteen, but you swore half the time you were talking to a wise old man.

He reminded you a lot of Hanji. Erwin too.

You chose your next question carefully, chewing on it.

“Who was your favourite character from the sorcerer of oz or whatever it is?”

He pondered for a moment, his eyebrows squeezing together, before he looked up at the blue sky that just managed to peek through the curtains of branches. “The lion.”

After what felt like days, but in reality was just a handful of humidity drenched hours, the group reached the end of Marco’s arena. As soon as you stepped over the invisible line, even the air felt different. The trees were huge, much like Kenny’s arena. You couldn’t even reach the lower branches if you jumped and not to mention the trunks were thicker than the height of a person. The landscape moved up and down in steep hills and cliffs, feigning the look of stone and grass waves.

Everyone basked in the cool air that blew past, smelling the slight salt in breeze, letting it run through your hair and across your sweaty face. Everyone took a sigh of relief, all but one, that is.

Jean was on high alert. He looked right and left, his body stiff as a board.

“Yours?” you asked.

He nodded, knuckles white around his trident.

“We’ll be quick then.”

It was more hiking than you had been ready for. Each hill was a mountain in spirit. It took over ten minutes to get to the peak of one, panting the whole way up there. It was a nice view at least; you could even see the abandoned cornucopia and the silent field that surrounded it. It was tempting to just take control over the centre, especially when the slices just kept dealing threats, but with a similarly big alliance walking around somewhere that hadn’t lost any substantial players, the risk wasn’t worth it yet.

You’d rather face a mutt than Kenny the Ripper most days.

Or you didn’t want Levi to face him, rather.

But a climb up meant a climb back down, the particular hill not being big enough for a proper camp, all it did was make you thirsty.

“God, I want some fucking water,” Ymir panted, “Anyone got any spare?”

Everyone shook their heads knowing full well that if they had water, they would have drunk it themselves.

“Jean-boy, are the streams and lakes around here safe?” she asked.

Jean in question switched on properly at the sound of his name and almost immediately went into a lowered panic mode. “We need to stay on high ground,” Jean said, “We can’t go down, we need to just get through as quickly as possible.”

“We’re dying out here man, I just need a sip.”

“It’s not worth it, we don’t need to be swept away.”

“Well when do we even get the next chance for water then? Certainly not in the next fucking one,” she said, pointing.

You all followed her finger. Something inside of you shivered at the sight. The next was yours and Levi’s, waiting for you to step into history.

“I don’t care Ymir, I’ll die of dehydration if I have to. I want to spend the least amount of time below if I can help it.”

Ymir rolled her eyes and decided to ignore him, walking over to the edge of the cliff, peering over the land and between the ginormous trees for a little bit of blue. You wanted to believe Jean, be on his side, but you would have killed for a bottle of water right then.

“Aha!” she finally exclaimed, “Right down there, there’s a little lake. Perfect for some relaxing swimming.” She wiggled her eyes at Historia who bit down a laugh.

“This really isn’t a good idea…” Jean tried again. “I mean it, I’m not being an ass.”

“Since when are you not an ass?” Ymir replied, already making her way down the hill, “But hey,” she paused and looked back up to him, “there’s nothing stopping you from just staying up here. We’ll even bring you some back since we’re charitable like that.”

Jean beat his foot against the ground, his fingers tightening over his trident. His eyes flickered between everyone, hoping someone would be able to help him out, but even Marco was caving to the idea, not able to look at him.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth, “But if we die it’s your fault.”

“I knew you had it you, horse-face!”

The long trek down was thankfully nowhere near as bad as the climb thanks to helpful ability of gravity, but Levi refused to let go of your hand in case you tripped over a stray rock. Jean stayed at the back of the pack, mumbling to himself and biting his nails, eyes flying everywhere at every twig snap and rock sent skidding.

When you were soon on the forest floor, you noticed that weirdly there were only birds around. They hid in the branches above, but no ground creatures ran across the grass. The birds would occasionally fly down to the dirt and pull out a worm or materials for a nest and were gone before you could tell what species they were.

Ymir led ahead with Historia, an arm around the smaller girl, occasionally rubbing her forehead into the blonde hair. Historia was quieter with her affection, but you watched as she looped her pinkie finger around Ymir’s. You kept your smiles to yourself, but it was refreshing to see them display such love for each other when it had been forced down for years.

You squeezed Levi’s hand, glad that your ability to love hadn’t been stripped from you. Given everything, Levi and you had had it easy. Especially when you knew the whispers of what happened to pretty victors.

When you thought of the whistles Levi got in the Capitol, it was a blessing he was already claimed.

You wondered then, if a choice should be made between Eren and Mikasa, of who the Capitol elites would find less desirable.

Eventually, the group reached the lake that in reality was a glorified pond. The kids and Ymir alike dived for the water, skidding to the edge on their knees and instantly cupping water into their mouths. Laughing, you sat down next to them, tugging Levi along.

The water was fresh and clear despite it being unmoving. The gamemakers weren’t a fan of uninteresting infections and illnesses thankfully. It slid down your throat in big gulps and you let it fall messily across your sweaty face, sighing at the feeling.

Jean stayed standing up, fidgeting as he looked from the lake to the landscape around. Though everyone wanted to bask in the soft sun on the embankment, you had all also made Jean a promise, swiftly getting up after a final few sips.

Marco gave Jean a look that Jean was trying his best to pretend didn’t exist.

“Just a bit, Jean,” Marco said, “You need it. It can’t hurt.”

Jean stared at him for a bit, biting his thumbnail, vibrating like a hummingbird, before finally caving with some begrudging murmurings. He brought his hand together and lowered them into the water, a ripple splaying out. Ever so slowly, he lifted the water to his mouth, most of it running down his arms, and swallowed.

The ground began to tremble.

The kids shouted. Armin fell to his knees. Eren and Mikasa hauled him back up. Ymir and Historia held on to each other to stay standing up. Levi’s hand was an iron grip around your arm.

For a split second you thought you were about to drown in invisible sand, get sucked down into the earth. But this shaking wasn’t from the force of sucking everything down with it, but instead of something throttling the earth on top. There, on the blue horizon, was a shimmering wall with a slightly different shade of blue.

And it was moving forward very, very quickly.

Without communication, all of you began to run. The ground shuddered as the tidal wave swallowed everything in its path. Trees, animals, and soon, people.

You all needed to get up high and fast. You wished you had listened to the anxious mutterings of a victor. Humanity has never been able to beat water, and they wouldn’t start now.

And then, as if the Hunger Games gods wanted to taunt you all more, you realised you were one cocky bastard short.

“Jean!”

You all screamed his name, begging him to move his feet as he stared up at the giant wave. You didn’t have time for this, none of you did. You didn’t even have a good reason to try and save him. At the end of all this you and everyone else needed him dead.

But the poor boy looked so scared.

“Levi! Take the kids and go!”

And with a moment of hesitation and knowing the look in your eye he couldn’t knock out, he picked Eren and Armin by the scruffs of their neck and started sprinting away, Mikasa already leading ahead. Ymir and Historia, who had always been better at self-preservation, followed after, only Ymir sparing a glance back to the three of you that remained.

With Marco by your side, you ran to the terrified boy. The wall of water started to get bigger on the horizon. Soon there would be no chance you could outrun it. Both of you continued to yell for him but it fell on deaf ears. He just stared, every bone in his body calcified.

With every step you could feel yourself regretting it, but you had run out of good ideas a while ago.

Practically tripping over your own feet, you and Marco made it to Jean who was yet to move. You tugged on his arm, hard, but he was wearing cement shoes, now a new feature of the landscape.

“Jean we need to fucking go!”

His mouth fell open; no sound came out.

“Jean?” Marco asked, taking a much gentler grip on his other arm. “Jean, can you hear me?”

Your eyes flitted between him and the giant wave unrelenting in its pace. “Jean!”

“I…” he muttered, “I can’t…I didn’t…I…”

You were stepping back slowly now, letting go of Jean’s arm, fingers trailing off. You couldn’t die. Not yet. Even for these two. But you couldn’t run away. You just stared at the two of them and the giant blue that framed them beautifully.

“Marco we need to go!” you yelled, choosing to prioritise the man whose legs weren’t frozen. But he didn’t spare you a glance, just looked deeply into Jean’s eyes trying to make his best friend recognise the reality in front of him, getting Jean’s brain in sync with his body.

Marco took Jean’s hands in his, thumbs rubbing over the skin, and gave him the softest smile in the world as if it was simply another day at home and not the end of the world.

“Jean, it’s time to go.”

And like a magician snapped his fingers, they took off, leaving you to follow behind. The three of you twisted around trees, avoiding the suspiciously falling branches that dotted your path. A giant branch fell from the heavens and nearly smashed your head in.

Finally, the hill the others had climbed came in sight and your legs burnt at the relief of not having to run much longer. And your heart burnt at the thought of being able to see Levi safe and sound.

Then a tree started to fall.

You took a step back. The other two went forward.

It fell like a wall between you.

Dirt sprayed everywhere and you coughed, trying to open your stinging eyes. The trunk was too wide to climb over, and you didn’t have any time to think. The hill was blocked off to you, and the wave wasn’t going to pause.

It was too convenient. Far too convenient. Like it happened at the press of a button.

“Keep going! I’ll find another way up!”

“Fuck no!” Jean yelled back, though you couldn’t even see him. “We’re not leaving you behind! Levi will have our heads!”

“Just tell him I went somewhere else! I’ll find you guys later I swear! Just don’t die as soon as I leave you alone alright.”

What you could only imagine was them looking at each other with desperation but the desire to survive bleeding through, they bid you good luck and continued up the hill, leaving you to take a breath and disappear into the forest.

You winded through the trees, trying to think about anything but the wave gradually making its way towards you. The rumble of the ground had started a harmony with the snapping trees, some got uprooted in the current and collapsed behind you.

The arena continued to toy with you. You could barely run ten seconds in one direction before another tree came tumbling down in your path, forcing you to turn left or right. You weren’t entirely sure why, past the whole “they want you dead anyway” thing, but this seemed an obtuse way to do it. Finally you understood when you made eye contact with a trio of fellow runners.

“Mike!” you yelled, “Nanaba!”

They, and the boy with them, whipped their heads towards you, the boy in question glancing very nervously to your sword.

“What are you doing here?” Nanaba shouted back.

“Attempting not to die!”

They fell in stride with you like a pre-planned formation; Mike on one side and Nanaba on the other, the boy holding tightly onto Mike’s hand. No one needed to voice the fact you were in a peaceful truce considering the wave was a severely more frightening threat.

“Where’s Levi?” Mike asked, somehow audible over the rumbling.

“Up ahead; I couldn’t follow cause of a fucking tree falling.”

Nanaba and Mike looked to each other, something akin to annoyance on their faces.

“Gotta make it difficult,” Nanaba muttered, though her words seemed to transcend their simplicity, but you weren’t going to ask.

It fell into silence as the four of you tried to bulldoze through the landscape, not sparing a second to look behind. Knowing it was at your ankles would do nothing to help and only increase your panic.

But your main concern was the fact your fateful leg was starting to act up. Surgery had saved it almost a decade ago, but it was never the same, you can’t fully reengineer stolen muscles and hope it’ll be identical. And since the Capitol medical teams would rather leave you to die then let you walk out better than you were before the “accident” happened, your leg would always be a little shitty.

It hadn’t been put under stress like this in a long time and you were waiting for the moment it would finally buckle. You just hoped it wouldn’t be in the next five minutes.

However, it was going to be fine. You’d spot a scalable hill, and it would all be fine. Levi would get mad at you, and you’d help him cool off. It was going to be fine.

You started getting worried when you realised you hadn’t seen the incline of a hill since you had left Marco and Jean. The ground around you just rose to the sky above the trees, no convenient path leading you out of the way of your doom. So you ran and you ran, ignoring the doubt in your head, and the wave rolling behind you, and the desperation that was growing by the second in the others’ eyes.

Levi was someone who held unspoken promises in the aortas of his heart, and you said you’d meet up with him later, so that you would. You had to. For your sake and his. Otherwise, he’d be diving into the water himself.

But staying together wasn’t in your or his control anymore. That had been stripped like every other right to your name.

So when you were looking down the barrel of a cliff face, you knew it was the end.

You just stared, frozen, looking at the pores and creases of the rocks, studying how the gradient changed from greys to creams to browns as the tidal wave rumbled behind you. There were no footholds. Nothing to even bother trying to use. This was it.

It was finally over.

In the limbo between blind panic and nothingness was where you laid, your mind doing the former, but your body doing the latter.

You’re going to die you’re going to die you’re going to die holy shit holy fuck oh my god you don’t want to die you have to look after the kids you have to look after Levi you don’t want to die yet you can’t die you can’t you can’t you can’t–

A strangled scream toppled down from above. There, atop the cliff, was Levi attempting to throw himself off to you. The others held him down, a person to each limb and more, trying to stop the man dying alongside his best friend. His face was contorted beyond recognition, mouth wide and stretching his cheeks, teeth bared. His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his skull. Even with a whole team holding him back, he was still somehow inching closer with every screech of your name. They dug their heels into the dirt to stop him taking them with him. Jean stabbed his trident into the ground for leverage.

This was not the first time he tried to throw himself from a ledge, but the third time would not be the fucking charm.

He screamed and screamed and screamed and you stood still in the rushing world and all you could do was stare back and yell his name like a siren, begging him to drown with you. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t die, but you didn’t want to leave without him.

Where one goes, the other always follows.

Next to you, Mike’s nephew quaked, hyperventilating, the ground swaying beneath him. He was too young for this. You were all too young for this, but his little body was about to get shattered.

Mike and Nanaba were unnaturally calm, eyebrows furrowed in deep thought as if they were trying to remember what food they needed to buy. They looked at each other, then to you, then back to each other, with a face you’d learn later to decipher as the resignation of duty.

They both grabbed you by the arms, steering you back into the trees, the boy stumbling behind as Levi yelled for you.

“Up!” commanded Mike.

Without time to question it, you stood on their hands as they boosted you into the branches. You caught on – just – and swung yourself up. Behind you, you could hear the snapping and crashing of trees getting taken down by the wave, the cacophony deafening. Straddling a thick branch, you looked back down in time to see them hoisting up the boy. You caught onto his forearm and lifted him up, letting him hug the other side of the trunk.

Levi’s screams pierced the air, still audible over your coming death.

“No! Let me fucking go! Let me fucking go to her! She can’t die when I’m not there! I’m not losing her!”

The wave was close now. Too close.

With the boy’s hand in one of yours, you tried to pull Nanaba up, Mike beneath her having already made peace with no one’s death but his own. As Nanaba swung her leg onto the branch and Mike didn’t even bother to try and jump, the wave hit.

Bam.

It was a constant punch. The energy never ceasing as it pummelled into your back, slamming your face on the tree, cutting you up with every flying branch and twig to the point your skin stung so much it went numb.

It didn’t take long for Nanaba to be swept away.

You held onto her for dear life, nails digging into her arm, but they only became claws tearing through her skin as she was ripped from you.

You couldn’t even scream for her.

You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t fucking breathe.

Your lungs stung. Your body was trying to hurl even though it didn’t have the energy to do so. Everything in your body was going out with a bang, every cog turning even as the metal screeched, as they tried to keep you afloat. The final hour.

You couldn’t hear anything, feel anything or see anything. You couldn’t feel your legs or your arms or anything in your mind. All you knew, and all you cared for, was the small hand still encapsulated in yours. Holding as tight as you possibly could, probably crushing the boy’s hand, you pinned your grasp to the tree.

At least kids were allowed to come out of this.

But the grip was loosening. His fingers tried to slide through yours. You crunched his thumb in your palm. There was no way only you were coming out of this alive.

The wave was slowing down but you were getting dizzy. You’d pass out any second and slip away like everything else, your body a puppet to the current.

Drowning burned like the coals of Twelve.

The more you tried to choke up water, the more would find itself in you. Through each nostril, though your mouth, your ears. Running with more water than blood. It took everything to stay glued to the bark.

Your head felt so light it was a wonder it didn’t float away.

Nothing.

A hand in yours.

Nothing.

A retreat.

Open air.

A choked inhale.

With a rasp you plummeted down from the tree, dragging the boy with you. You slammed into the dirt, body screaming as you vomited water out again and again and again, not able to catch your breath before salt stung your eyes and nose once more. Your lungs and stomach rejected everything until it was no longer just water coming up.

You could barely see, your vision two bright slits with some green. Hands and feet slipped in mud as you tried to pull yourself up, falling back into the wet earth and swallowing some without meaning to.

It didn’t feel real, nothing did. Not your body that ached with a force greater than any blow, and a ground that refused to stay steady beneath you. Your ears still rang and were obnoxiously muffled, letting you in on nothing around you. You were blind, deaf, and mute and nothing you felt with your hands lived in reality except for the small hand that was still gripped in yours.

The boy... the boy…

Mike… Nanaba…

Levi.

A stampede of feet squelching through the mud paired with yelling you couldn’t decipher got closer and closer and closer, one voice carrying above the rest. A body crashed into yours, pulling you up and constricting you. You still couldn’t see.

The body didn’t care about the mud that coated you or the fact you hadn’t said anything but put two fingers to your throat and cried and cried and cried when a steady beat spoke back. You still couldn’t breathe properly, inhaling more water and mud than air. You couldn’t see who was holding you and you were barely conscious enough to know who it was. Your body shuddered along with his, with wheezes instead of sobs, and you felt over him blindly, trying to find his face.

Smaller hands went on you, pulling your hair out of your face, wiping you down. There was someone yelling for water.

The man holding you started to lift you up, making you dizzy. You couldn’t tell up from down, left to right, your head lolling wherever gravity pulled it. As you rose, a weight anchored you to the forest floor.

The boy. Oh god the boy.

Your eyes flew open, trying to catch onto something recognisable. But all you saw was brown and blue, and all it did was sting your eyes.

“The kid,” you choked out, “Kid are you alright?”

Voices around you ceased.

“Kid are you okay?”

Another pause.

“Let’s get you away from here,” Levi said, “Come on let’s go clean you up–”

“No!” You tugged on the tiny hand still in yours. “Kid come on get up!”

Levi said your name lowly, you blocked him out.

“Let go of me.”

“Come on let’s just–”

“Fuck off!”

The group moved in on you like a pack of predators, blocking the little of what you could see with shadows. They were trying to rip you away. A thousand grips on your wrist and arm trying to force you apart. You just wanted to hold the boy’s hand, you just wanted to make sure he was okay.

You screamed at them as they manhandled you, throwing and thrashing your body to wrestle out of Levi’s arms. But he held on like chains, denying your desperation. You scratched at them and lunged, rarely finding your mark, as you shouted and begged for them to let you see the boy.

“Nanaba and Mike are gone,” you cried, “Please, he needs someone.”

Finally, you collapsed back in the mud, not from your own effort but by Levi’s surrender. You crawled across, your arms and legs past pain as they slipped and slid and found home on a small body. All you could hear were your desperate breaths and your name being called as you felt over the face and found a large nose passed through genes.

You wiped over your eyes, at first just adding more mud until it finally started tearing it away. You blinked rapidly and shook your head like a dog, more and more sunlight breaking through your eyelids.

Smiling, you looked down at the boy, a quip of comfort on your lips.

Oh.

Necks weren’t supposed to bend like that.

The current had snapped his neck. At least that was Levi’s theory as he helped you walk. A cannon – well three actually – had fired during the tidal event, and your ears were blocked with too much water to hear over the devastating wave. The boy was left in the mud staring up into the sky that soon a projection of his face would paint. With an arm over Levi’s shoulder and his arm wrapped around your waist, he took you to the cliff face. There, were two bodies smeared into the stone past recognition.

You looked at them like an art installation – strokes of red on a canvas, trying to figure out what it meant.

“They put me up in the tree first,” you said. Levi and the rest of the group turned to you. “Not ever after the kid, they just… looked at me and hauled me up. Why?” You turned to Levi, who you had always hoped had answers when you didn’t, to see an equally lost face staring back. “Why did they save me?”

If you had been paying attention to the small things, which you had lost the ability to do, you would have noticed the heavy but silent exchange of looks between the younger victors. But all you could think as they stared at each other with the same look of resignation that Mike and Nanaba had, was the fact you hadn’t taken them out for drinks like you promised.

“Baby steps,” Levi repeated as he guided you up the last bit of the hill, the steepness having turned impossible. Your body was returning to its homeostasis, but a night of shitty sleep was needed to get it somewhat functional again.

The cold was the real problem. The bodysuit you and everyone else wore did its best to regulate temperatures, as Hanji stated once, heat and cold related deaths were boring to watch. And so, it had done its best to protect you against the biting cold of the tidal wave. What it hadn’t done however, was prevent rips from the flying branches and debris which had let water in. Most of it had drained but you started to shake.

“Armin,” Levi said, “start a fire, we need-”

You shook your head. “Don’t. It’s getting dark, we don’t need careers right now.”

He glared at you. “There’s fucking nine of us, we’ll be fine. Armin, go get some-”

“And-” you interrupted again, “I’m not risking Kenny coming up here just cause I’m a little cold, Levi.”

“Since when did I give a shit about that old bastard?”

“It’s for your sake, not mine.”

You could tell he was two seconds from going “whatever, fucking freeze to death then” but your looming peril hadn’t left his gut yet, so he held back. You could also tell he wanted you to expand more on what you meant by his sake exactly, but something told you he already knew, he just wasn’t up to accepting it.

He made you sit in the sleeping bag, helping you strip the body suit to dry off both it and you, and crawled in himself to share his body warmth. With your head on his heart and his arms wrapped around you, you stared at the ending day, the sunset setting up its colours.

“You need to sleep,” Levi started, “your body needs energy to fight off a cold.”

“Ah yes I’m sure sleep will come to me easy tonight; I’ll be knocked out in no time for sure.”

Levi sighed, but he just held you tighter. No amount of bullshit coming from your mouth would distract him from the fact you weren’t just shaking from the cold.

“God, back in the day I’d just pop a couple sleeping pills and I’d be good.”

He gave you a warning look.

You curled in on yourself on reflex. “Sorry.” There were some things not made for casual conversation. Not anymore.

As night descended, the group stayed quiet, few words were spoken and rarely ever consecutively. The kids grouped around you, Eren and Mikasa being far more clingy than usual. They hadn’t been right ever since Levi’s breakdown, but your near death had pushed them to a quiet edge. Their eyes seemed to never be loose of a few tears whenever they glanced at you. Something in them had switched when they saw you writhing and screaming in the mud blind, and it wasn’t something that would ever switch back.

Eren slithered in his hand for you to hold. You pulled him closer, wrapping an arm around his shoulders with your mouth on his head in a constant kiss on his scalp. He quivered. He gripped you tighter, terrified that if he let go, you’d slip between his fingers. And that wasn’t what family was supposed to do, not anymore, not after everyone that he’d lost. Holding his face in your hands, you raised his face to you to see tears brimming his emerald eyes.

“I just want to go home.”

With your eyes stinging, you held him as hard as you could, as tight as you can hold a boy who had the weight of mortality finally dumped on his shoulders. “I know, I know. Me too.”

“Can’t sleep?”

You glanced behind you to see Levi walking up, keeping his steps light as to not wake the rest of the group. He sat down next to you, staring up at the starry sky. Midnight had long since passed. You hadn’t looked up to the projected faces. You already knew who would be up there. But you followed his gaze back up, glad to be witnessed under the heavens with him. At least when you both left, someone would remember your love. That, at least, didn’t have to die. You wondered if they’d bury you side by side, maybe even in the same grave. Should have written it down somewhere.

“Yeah, decided to let Jean and Marco sleep at least if I can’t.”

He hummed, trailing his fingers over your thigh absentmindedly. Closing your eyes at the touch, you let yourself forget anything and everything except him, just pretending you were back at home on the couch, a little tipsy and ready to go to bed. What happiness a simple life had given you, you hadn’t treasured it while you had it. God, you’d even trade everything you had in your life to go back to that shitty shack where you slept on dying mattresses pushed together and cleaned yourself with a horse brush. You had thought you’d lived a pitiful life, but then you learnt what living in hell truly was, and no velvet ottoman was able to negate that.

You just wanted to be those kids again. Even if you were a little cracked, at least you were whole.

Before you could stop yourself, tears were streaming down your face. “Fuck.” You wiped at them, your sniffles getting more pathetic by the second as Levi just took you as you were. He looped an arm around you, pulling you closer. With slightly cracked but still soft lips, he kissed your bare shoulder, only making you more hysterical. You hiccupped, cupping your hand over your mouth in an attempt to let the others sleep, as Levi brushed away your tears and kissed under your eyes, swallowing every shard of your despair.

It felt stupid. Everything was stupid. You were going to die, you just nearly did. And Levi was going to die. The kids were going to die, the still-kids were going to die. Everyone you knew in the arena was going to die. Everyone would be gone and there’d be nothing you could do about it except cry because tears were the only thing left.

Levi looked at you with the gentle glow of a mine explosion. He knew. He knew everything that went on your head to his own detriment. But he knew, he felt the same, and he cradled your heart as it wept for everything you were never going to have.

“I just want to go home, Levi.”

“I know, I know. Me too.”

Red pill, blue pill, purple pill, white pill. You’d have the whole rainbow soon. You’d been a good scavenger, a discreet one. You couldn’t order a million sleeping pills for yourself, that’s a mistake waiting to be found.

It had begun after you had first run out, having to go two weeks without a single pill going down your throat. It was one of the worst weeks you had ever gone through, maybe only the Games compared. Maybe. It was a miracle Levi didn’t notice. Just thought you were going through a regular rough patch, not a self-inflicted one.

First, you did the obvious. Ordering some in Levi’s name. At the very least you’d have double the amount you usually had, not having to stretch it out as much. You dealt with all orders from the Capitol anyway, picked up the packages from the train station, opened them and stuffed the pills in your pocket before you got home, making sure you ripped off the receipt. An incredibly easy supply that would only satisfy you for a month.

Next was a little harder, but still an easy feat. There was a steady supply of them going to the orphanage, most of the kids needed help getting through the night every now and again. Problem was, Petra and Oluo picked up the shipments and they would most definitely notice if a bottle didn’t make the walk between the train and the building. Instead, you’d feign visits to the kids, just check-ups. Giving hugs, ruffling hair, reading to the younger ones. And then you’d slip upstairs to the staff quarters and go through the medicine storage, taking some from the top of the opened bottles. Never enough to be suspicious. When multiple people were coming in and out, a few unaccounted pills were nothing new.

“Need any help?” Petra usually asked, popping her head in the door.

You gave her a disarming smile. “Just checking to see if we’re low on anything.”

Those extra pills were good in the low periods, when you hadn’t monitored your intaking well. Your lapses of judgement that would encourage you to take one, two, three more.

The next step felt a little low, even for you, but skimming through Hanji’s bathroom cupboards was necessary. You’d drink wine, gin, whiskey, anything she’d give you, and go up to take a piss, seemingly drunk enough to take a while. And then you took them out from their regular spot in the cupboard, take two or three, and stuff them in your pocket.

It was the most you had ever visited Hanji; you had never been such a good friend.

Those days were the best you ever had. Wake up, take a pill, eat, take a pill, visit the kids, take a pill, go to the forest, take a pill. You melted from one high to another, watching the world get slower and easy to process. You laughed so much, smiled so much. Happiness had looked good on you.

But it was never enough, it was never enough. Soon your body grew used it and you were back to square one. Every time. So you’d up the dosage, bit by bit, desperate to stretch it but battling the self-control of a toddler.

You could stop whenever you wanted to, of course you could. It’s not like you were an addict or something. You just preferred it when you weren’t sober. And they were medicine, it didn’t count.

Levi started to watch you more, his eyes seemed to linger longer than usual.

“Been sleeping okay?” he’d ask.

“Never been better,” you’d reply.

And you’d watch him swallow, tongue nervously flittering over his lips, before asking if you wanted to visit the kids that day.

One morning you skipped off to the station, a smile stretching your cheeks. Rocking back and forth on your feet, the train pulled up, the workers unloading the boxes which were always few in Twelve. You picked up your box, the delivers knowing your face, more so from your frequency in their lives than the fact your face was plastered all over the Capitol for a year.

After bidding them goodbye, you ducked into an alley and opened the package. You rummaged through. Your smile started dropping. Your stress slowly grew as you saw bottles of gin, first aid supplies, nutrition gummies.

There wasn’t a single pill.

You checked over the receipt, you had ordered some, you knew you had. Both for you and “Levi”, that was your main supply. You wouldn’t have forgotten something like that, you couldn’t. But there, on the slip of paper, was everything contained in the package. “Sleeping pills” didn’t grace it.

You didn’t understand.

This would kill you.

You watched the train leave as you sprinted and screamed after it. There had to be some mix up. They must have had them in a different box. There had to be some explanation. You tripped over the tracks, eating shit in the gravel. You tried your best not to cry.

Making your way home was the hardest thing you had done in a while; you had left your spares at home thinking you’d get some from the new capsules. Fingers gripped tightly around the cardboard to stop the shaking, you gave strained smiles to people you knew, deflecting away from conversations, saying you needed to get home. How the fuck were you supposed to get through this?

When you got home, Levi was leaning against the kitchen counter, a tea in hand, another steaming beside him. You put the package down on the table, slowly unpacking to hide your wobbly grip. He watched silently as you put together a plan in your head, the nerves on fire.

“Bit weird,” you said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, shrugging, “they didn’t send my sleeping pills.”

“I know,” he took a sip from his tea, “I cancelled the order.”

Time stopped. You turned to look at him in minute horror. “You… you what?”

He didn’t repeat himself.

“I need them to sleep, Levi,” you said, hoping you sounded level. He flinched. “I really fucking need them.”

“You’re not using them to sleep, I know because you get up in the middle of the night to take more.”

You mouth stayed agape, trying to justify your actions as if they could be justified. He stepped forward cautiously. The planks creaked beneath his feet. You took one step back.

“I got shit to help with withdrawals.” He reached for your arm, you ducked away. “I called up a doctor from the Capitol who specialises in it, he’ll be able to help you.”

A bark of laughter escaped you. You shook your head in disbelief. “How dare you.”

You ran and ran and ran. First you ran to the orphanage, not saying a single hello as you flew up the stairs, cursing under your breath whenever a kid tried to greet you. Finally, you made it to storage. Going to twist the handle, you stopped in your tracks. There was a heavy-duty lock holding it closed.

Swearing under your breath, you looked up to see Petra. She had been expecting you.

“Petra, why the fuck is there a lock?”

She gulped and said nothing. You walked towards her, steps like cannons, counting towards someone’s end. You refused to let it be yours.

“Give the key, Petra. Give it me right now.”

Her lip quivered but she remained where she was, hands in fists as she stared down the woman who raised her. You screamed at her. Grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her against the wall. She wouldn’t say a word. You tore at her clothes, trying to find any hidden pocket as she cried and begged you to stop. You yelled at her to shut up as you scratched her skin.

“Oluo!” Petra called.

You spun around, nails still digging into her arms, to see Oluo, Gunther, and Eld staring you down. A key sat in Oluo’s hand. Your chest heaved, swallowing your anger to fuel the rage of your gut. Oluo stepped forward and ripped you from Petra who still couldn’t look away from you. Some of the kids were behind you, peeking their heads out from stairwells and doorways after hearing the commotion, watching you disintegrate.

Oluo looked down at you, a mix of emotions behind his eyes that you didn’t care to decipher because he was ruining you. “You should go.”

Spitting at them and calling them things that would bounce in their heads for years to come, you left the orphanage and went to your next pit stop. Having a key to Hanji’s place was always useful, but never before had it been a saviour. You let yourself in and went to her upstairs bathroom. She always kept her pills in the cabinet behind the mirror, the top left corner.

They weren’t there.

Faster than you could blink, you were throwing everything around the tiled room. Throwing everything in her draws and cupboards, not caring where they landed.

Cruel footsteps walked up the corridor and stopped outside the open door. Hanji looked down at you, pity infesting her eyes.

“I hid them,” she said, “You won’t find them.”

“Fuck you.”

She just sighed and looked up as Levi came in. You had never seen that look on his face before. You didn’t care. He picked you up by the shoulders, your body going limp like a kitten picked up by its mother. He directed you out as Hanji just stared at her bathroom and the damage you left behind.

As soon as Levi closed the door of your home behind you, you exploded. You thrashed and kicked, tearing yourself from his grasp, facing him with bloodshot eyes and a convulsing body. He held his hands out, as if trying to calm a lion, but a lion would have been less dangerous as you shook with rage.

Your hands moved by themselves, picking up bottles – some drunk, some full – and threw them at his head. He dodged and they shattered on the wall in a deafening crash. You threw pillows, glasses, plates, hoping something would make its mark and kill him. If he was dead, he couldn’t stop you. Should have killed him when you had the chance.

He just shouted your name pathetically, like he wasn’t the villain in the story. He asked you to stop, to calm down. You kept going.

When you had run out of nearby things to throw, he dived towards you and held you as tight as he could, squeezing his eyes shut as you struck him again and again, hitting him on the back of his head. He stuffed his face in your shoulder to stop you from scratching his eyes out, saying your name over and over like it was worth something.

“We’ll get through this, I promise. You’ll be alright.”

Your head and arms fell back, laughs and sobs choking you, praying for something to kill you. “What have you done?”

That night you woke, and you knew what you had to do.

You slipped out of bed, sure to pull the covers back up to keep the sleeping Levi warm. Giving him one last look, barely able to even see him in the dark – it was better that way. You said you loved him and went downstairs. You wished you could say you were on autopilot, that some strange creature had taken control of your brain and conducted you like an orchestra, telling your feet to move towards the bathroom as if telling the violins to play. But you knew what you were doing, and you had never been in more control of yourself than when you locked the bathroom door behind you.

The person in the mirror stared at you for a long time. They didn’t look anything like you. Gaunt, sickly, tired. You were supposed to have outgrown those traits after getting a nice big house and infinite food on the table. If an animal recognises themselves in the mirror, they’re meant to be an intelligent species. What had you devolved into?

Why did a sad child stare back?

Perhaps that’s all you were.

Adulthood doesn’t exist when you have nothing to grow into.

You tried to trace the outline of your reflection but only met your other zigzagging finger, not letting you touch anything else but your mirror’s fingertip, both with the shake of an addict. How cruel, you couldn’t even stroke her face or hit her. You could only touch her red dripped hand.

Finally, you opened the draw, pulling out everything. The hairbrush, spare toothpaste, extra shavers, stray hair ties. You dumped them on the counter without care, instead pushing down on the bottom of the draw, flipping the false bottom. Underneath was a treasure trove. The whole rainbow.

Your hand dived for one of the bottles. White pills. Keep it simple.

Well, here you go.

“You alright?”

You froze. You didn’t reply, not even a “getting a sleeping pill”, “needed to take a piss” or simply “killing myself.” And because he was Levi, the silence meant he had already deduced it to the last option.

The door handle started to turn to no avail, and the door shook a few times, as if a few shakes would get the Capitol grade lock out of alignment. He said your name through the door, a slight quiver to his voice and all it did was make you feel worse.

With shaking hands, you tried to get the capsule open, the bottle rattling from your inability to keep still. You hated it you hated it; your hands quivered with an addiction you were trying to feed to finality. Your body was simultaneously fighting against you from getting what you needed while begging on its knees for just one pill on your tongue.

“Open the door.”

“Just go back to bed, Levi!” you finally shouted, the voice not feeling like your own. Someone else must have said it, someone who didn’t love who their words were directed to.

“Unlock the door.” The door itself was shaking more now, thudding against the frame.

“Fuck off!”

Your hands still struggled with the capsule, finally getting an okay grip on it and started turning the lid off even though it sounded like a fucking maraca.

“Please just let me in,” he said, “Just let me in, we can talk about it, just stop what you’re doing, brat I swear to god-”

Your brain tuned him out, the only sounds you were able to process was your laboured breathing and the pills that shook with almost as much excitement. The lid clattered on the tiles, spinning and spinning and spinning, speeding up until it was a blur on the ground, the rattling falling in sync with Levi’s shoulder ramming into the wood.

He yelled for you, but none of the words made sense. Not even your name seemed quite right anymore. The only thing that existed, the only thing that mattered, was closing the gap between the pills and your mouth.

“Let me help you, please, please!”

With convulsing arms and hands, you poured the pills into your palm, ready to shove them all down your gullet. You threw the capsule away, letting it bounce in the bathtub as you lifted your hands to your mouth, drinking from the fountain of youth.

Bang!

The door flew open, handle splintered, slamming against the wall and shattering a wall tile. In a panic, the pills escaped your hands, scattering all over the floor.

No. No. No no no no no no.

Scrambling, you dropped to your knees, trying to collect all of them with trembling hands. Levi almost tripped over you, but quickly went to crushing the pills under his feet like bugs. He slammed his heel on each one, turning them to dust, and rapidly sweeping them away before you could lick it up.

He begged over and over, your name ricocheting around the room like a bullet, trying to find its target. But it never found its mark. You went for the draw, but hands being nowhere near trustworthy, you slammed a bottle down on the ground, breaking it and dispersing the pills like an infestation.

Levi pinned you to the ground, forcing you to stare at his crushed expression as his fingers dug into your wrists. The tiles were so cold compared to his burning grip, it was like your skin was getting ripped off over the heat of coal. Your body was getting cooked alive as it longed for the little white killers that spotted your bathroom floor.

You struggled, kicking out at anything and everything. Trying to kick him in the head so he’d leave you alone and let you die in peace. Levi never let you do fucking anything, he never listened to you. He never let you die like he was supposed to. He should have pushed you off that sandstone tower and then you would have both been free.

Turning your head, you stretched your tongue out, trying to get at least one in your mouth. Just one, just one. Just one would be enough to pretend to live.

With the hand of unrelenting love, Levi gripped your chin and forced you back to him, nearly making you bite your tongue off in the process. But if that was what it took you to stop, Levi would have cut it out himself. But the problem wasn’t the muscles or the bones. He couldn’t dig your brain out, though you wished he could prune it like a bonsai tree.

Maybe it would be best if you threw it out and started all over again from scratch with spare nerves. Maybe then you wouldn’t hurt so much anymore. Maybe then you wouldn’t hurt him.

You sobbed and sobbed and sobbed for the brain you’d never get.

“Why? Why?” he asked as if he didn’t know the answer, as if the same the problems didn’t infect him and make him stand on the roof of the orphanage.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry-” The words dribbled from your mouth as your tears slid down the sides of your face and into your ears. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” You didn’t know who they were for. You didn’t know what they meant.

You wished you could say love conquers all, but it doesn’t do jack shit in the face of someone who hates themselves. You knew that all too well, you had played both roles for so long you knew the script backwards and forwards and alphabetically. It’s holding the other and hoping your presence, your words, your existence, is enough to drive everything bad away, to at least keep them at bay for a moment. It’s being held by someone who is flowing with so much love for you and knowing it’ll never be enough.

You sobbed on the bathroom floor, pills rolling at every thrash and hiccup, Levi begging you to stay with him, begging you to just love him enough to not leave. But as you spouted out sorry after sorry, you could only find yourself apologising to the melted boy on the other side of the door who said you weren’t allowed to die.

The sun was bright, and you wanted it to be over already. Not by your own hand, you’d outgrown that fantasy and you were far too busy. But the Games were starting to wear on you now. It would have been fine if it was just you, or even with Levi, but trying to keep a whole team of unstable half-adults and terrified teens alive was getting you to your breaking point.

So you don’t know why then, if your emotions were on the brink of collapse, that you suggested going to the 67th Hunger Games arena. Levi hadn’t disagreed to make it even stranger; he had nodded while the rest looked on in horror.

If the precedent that Marco and Jean set was anything to go by, it should have destroyed the two of you considering you leant trauma to each other. Levi was probably more scared of a metal hook shooting out than you were, you were probably more worried at the prospect of snakes than he was.

To be fair to yourself, there were a couple reasons it was a good idea. The layout of the arena was sparse and therefore easy to spot incoming tributes, it offered a good visual point to see the cornucopia and the rest of the actual arena, and most importantly no one would want to go there except for suicidal bastards like yourselves. Your arena was notorious for a few things to say the least, but the noon lowering of the towers was certainly one of them. No one liked the prospect of getting sand in their lungs.

So the alliance waited until noon passed, watching from a nearby hill the way the towers were sucked into the earth before rising once more, as everyone else waited for you and Levi to back out of the idea. But you just stared at it wistfully, your skin already warming under the anticipated hot sun.

You stood and brushed yourself off, your leg still feeling like a rusty hinge. Levi rose next to you, offering an arm to steady you. And with your hands gripped around Levi’s bicep as he held both of your swords in his other hand – yours having been retrieved from the mud the day before. The sand gestured for you to come forward, flowing through the ghost breeze you couldn’t feel yet.

You stepped inside.

You expected there to be a bang, an explosion, some sort of signifier that you were standing where your seventeen-year-old self once had. But there was nothing. Just the billowing of sand and the towers in their monumental glory. The others followed close behind; Eren was only a step above in dignity from holding onto your elbow.

Levi and you led the way, no way in particular, just what felt right and with no need to communicate that to each other. Into the abandoned city you went, the blue turned into a grid above you. Your hands swept over the sandstone walls and they crumbled at your touch, not used to such tenderness. But this was home, in a way you’d never truly understand.

With soft eyes you looked over the landscape, over the occasional red x’s you would spot, sometimes recognising its positioning, over the blips of green oasis’s you noticed in the distance, over the empty cornucopia at the city centre that looked like a child’s version compared to the new and improved one. Perhaps because the old one was for children.

It was beautiful in a deeply objective way. You could tread over the memories of this place that had caused you nightmares and peril ever since, but on its land, it was just a place that you had once been and nothing more.

With your arm and grip around Levi’s bicep, it was like you were two quiet lovers walking through a museum, looking at the sculptures, the paintings, but never dwelling too long on them, just observing and looking at what you found pretty.

Levi seemed to be the same, eyes occasionally lingering on the red x’s but that was it. He stopped when you got to where he had laid Niccolo’s body, indulging in pausing a little longer to remember how that long ago boy had laid in the sand after being stolen from the world with his own hand. Another boy’s hand. One that no longer belonged to Levi.

Eventually, as you absentmindedly wandered around buildings, left and rights decided on a metal coin flip, you saw a red x outside of a door.

Levi let you go.

You crouched down as the others kept their distance and kept quiet. You traced over the metal, each appendage buffed and smooth, all edges and corners precise and unassuming, fingernails scraping on the sides. It had been an equally red scene back then, though a lot less witnessable. It was strange seeing it…cleaned up like this. It should have been ugly, burnt your eyes, but yet somehow a simple x was worse. However, it didn’t upset you, just created a mild irritation at an artistic decision.

With a hand over the middle, you began to speak. “Hey Connie, it’s been a while. I don’t expect forgiveness, I never have, just wanted to say hello. It looks like unfortunately you won’t get your wish, or maybe fortunately, though I can’t say that I haven’t tried to break it myself, so I’m sorry about that. Friends are supposed to keep dying wishes though I hope at least you’ll understand this isn’t really my doing, not entirely at least. You’re probably still pissed at us, pissed at me, but those days in the training room are some of the few memories I treasure. Maybe you changed your mind, maybe not. Maybe Sasha helped with that. But see you soon Connie, I’m sure you can tell me all about it later.”

There were no faces in the sky that night. You slept well.

The next morning the alliance woke with dry mouths and got ready for an excursion. Sleeping bags were packed up, swords were dusted off, and abandoned cans were hidden under the mini dunes. Down the stairs you went, leading the charge, having already scouted the oasis. The group winded around the towers, joking as they went, the kids mucking around and Jean and Ymir antagonising both them and each other. Historia and Marco slipped into pleasant conversation with Levi and you about the plan for the day, and the schedule you’d have to keep by.

Levi’s hand stayed in yours, swinging between your bodies like a rope bridge, connecting two beings into one. He glanced at you intermittently, making sure all was well and dusting away any sand that got in your hair.

As you rounded corners you kept expecting to see someone, ready to jump out like an unwelcome surprise. But everyone you thought it could be, was decidedly dead. You saw Gabi and Falco relaxing in the sun with their backs against a tower, you saw Marcel, Annie, Bertolt and Reiner discussing their next plans, you saw Niccolo and Kaya leaning on a windowsill in silence, you saw Sasha and Connie pretend fighting and laughing their heads off. But they’d disappeared from your mind’s eye as soon as the image came, leaving you desperately clinging to the vision’s tendrils.

Sometimes you saw Isabel and Farlan, but never fully. You’d catch their heels and feet as they turned corners ahead of you, their voices carrying and beckoning you onward. You wondered if that counted as ghosts.

Not far from the oasis, the green of the trees now fully in view, you pulled yourself back into reality, looking at what was actually there not what you wished was.

Huh.

You stopped, crouching down to inspect something brown and black, Levi peeking over your shoulder with furrowed brows.

There, half buried by the sand, was a camp. Tendrils of smoke were still puffing off the charred wood, still hot to the touch. Sticks that presumably used to be covered in meat, were strewed all around with no care to hide their presence. There were a lot of them, and the owners weren’t scared of being found.

Your blood seized up in your veins as the grip around your sword tightened.

“Yo, Levi. You grown any yet?”

a/n: “I'm going to be (attempting) to post every two weeks or so” all I do is not write, eat hot chip, and lie

This ended up being my biggest accidental hiatuses apologies ive learnt my lesson :’) but I will ACTUALLY try this time though absolute no promises on the two weeks thing, I will get into good writing habits one day I swear

anyway! hope you enjoyed the chapter and i'd love to hear your deranged thoughts!

Previous - Next

Master List

You can tip me on ko-fi :)

Taglist (Just ask/reply to the post to be added!):

@queenofcurse @regalillegal @midaribaby @art-sparrow @lust-for-pan @hansolo1805 @cloudy-island @uniquecookiealienshoe @captain-tch @angelanimedesaray @hanges-gf @fate-huntress @hiqhkey @saturnsjustabouthadit @chans-baby-girl

#levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi x you #levi ackerman x you #aot x you #aot x reader #levi x female reader #black-eyed susan #black eyed susan #levi angst

28 notes · View notes