Broken Hearts, Severed Limbs (Levi x OC x Erwin)

|68| Reaching Out

He couldn’t sleep. The bed was just so damn empty. He hadn’t even bothered to get undressed. He was still wearing that black jacket on top of that white, slightly unbuttoned shirt. His ascot was tossed somewhere in the room. He didn’t care. The cold breeze entered through the window and brushed across his bare chest. He shivered, but he didn’t care. All he could think of was her. You selfish bastard. She was right. He was a selfish bastard. He was an insensitive prick who had trespassed her freedom. He had hurt her. He only had one precious person in his life, and he had managed to hurt her.

He had lied down. His back pressed against the hard wooden bedframe. His hair were a mess from running his fingers and pulling them too many times, and he allowed his head to roll back. His feet, lied crossed across him. He didn’t know what time it was. He didn’t care. He had to go after her. He had no idea where she was, but he was willing to bet she’d be in the interior. In those labs beneath the Royal Palace.

It made sense she’d be there. She would always drown in her books. Her thoughts. Her science. Her research. She would drown in these, and all these would effectively keep her mind off the things that she didn’t want to think about. She would always lock herself in her room when she was upset, and she would always read her books. She wanted to escape reality. That’s what she had told him at least.

“You’re not trying to protect me! You’re not doing this for me, you’re doing this for yourself, you selfish bastard! You don’t care about how I feel!”

He couldn’t believe she had told him that. You don’t care about how I feel. He couldn’t believe he had given her that impression. After all those years, and after all those things that they had been through, did he really manage to make her feel that way? What was she thinking now? Did she think that he didn’t feel anything? That she didn’t mean anything to him?

That was why she had cried and she had fought against him. That was why she had tried so hard to push him away from her. He had suffocated her. He never meant for these to happen. He never meant to push her away from him. But he was so terrible with these. He was so terrible with emotions. Feelings were terrifying to him. He always knew it, and that was why he never opened up.

He never made a move on anyone for anything more than carnal pleasure. But he was married to her. She was his wife. He was her husband. They were bound. They were closer than they had ever been. Closer than he could ever muster the courage to be with anybody. He couldn’t lose her now. He couldn’t stand by knowing that he had hurt her and he wasn’t doing anything to resolve this.

Levi had jumped on his feet before he even knew it. He didn’t know what time it was. It must have been early in the morning. He could tell from the dark blue, early light that rushed in through the window. He buttoned his shirt back up, and he grabbed his ascot. He tied it almost blindly, and hastily. He couldn’t afford to waste anymore time. He had to find her. He had to talk to her.

He had to let her know how much she meant to him. He had to let her know that she was his everything. He had to apologise. She was so damn precious to him that he couldn’t even think of living a future without her. And that very desperation was exactly what had led them to this.

Desperation and obsession. He was obsessed with her. And he knew it, and he was sick of himself because of that, but he couldn’t stop it. His Nathalie. Yes. His. Mine. All mine. But he couldn’t believe he had hurt her. If only he could beat himself up, he would do it with no second thought. He was simply nothing without her. The thought of living without her was the scariest he could make. The world could go to hell. He didn’t care about anything. He only cared about her.

Levi rushed out of the room, and he hurried down the hall. The building was almost empty. The employees had yet to come, and the officers hadn’t yet walked out of their quarters. It was too early in the morning. It was still dark outside. He couldn’t care the least. He made his way to the stables. A horse was missing. It wasn’t his own. It was the Commander’s. The horse that was once her own. His assumptions were proven correct. She had left, and she had sought for the consolation of her books and her research. He could never console her the same way.