𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐲 | 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐢 𝐀𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

✥𝙲𝙰𝚁𝙴✥

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It had been two days.
Violet's eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling as night fell on them all. Her heart felt heavy, felt like it weighed more than the whole world. And maybe that was true, maybe she did hold a lot in her heart, but right now all she could feel was the loss of her friends taking all the space in her saddened core. It was still raw. It was a wound that will take a long time to close, to heal. She knew it would be something that would haunt her every time she closed her eyes as she tried to sleep. Knew that she would always think of them, of their absence, at any moment in her life. Would see them again any time something reminded her of them. And it would pain her. It would open once more that wound that probably never truly closed.
There was no time for her, for anyone, to process what had happened. What had been lost. Who they lost. And she wasn't the only one haunted by the hollowness, by that emptiness, that devoured the entirety of the Survey Corps. Because a few rooms away from her was Levi Ackerman re-living that same scene that had killed something inside him. He was seeing it all with vivid clarity, saw all his cadets, all those people he cared for, broken and hurt. And it scarred him. A wound so big. He dragged his hands through his face in an attempt to clear it all away, rubbing his eyes until he was seeing stars; but that didn't help. He hadn't stopped seeing that scene ever since that day. Had never once stopped thinking about them and how much of a failure he had been to them; how he had let them down. He knew he shouldn't be blaming himself, but he couldn't help but feel responsible for their deaths. He was their leader, their captain, and he had abandoned them. And in that short time that he had left, they had been snatched away from him. 

It haunted him. It really did.
He felt their long-gone presence with every breath he gave. They were everything he had going for himself for a long time, they had been people he cared about even though he didn't show it. Their faces, their smiles, their eyes, they flashed so vibrantly inside his mind. And the fact that he had lost them all-- he didn't know what to feel. But he did not think about the what-if's, because all if would aid was making him feel more like shit.
His heart felt so heavy and it had been a long time since he last had felt like this. The last time it had been when he lost the two people he had loved the most. His precious friends that he held so close to his heart. Now his cadets were gone, just like with everything he loved. It scared him how everything he held dear to his heart was always taken away from him. How every time he finally let them into the most delicate part of him, it didn't take long for them to be cold and lifeless instead of warm and alive like they were before. It made him think that he was not able to love, was not allowed to. He came to believe such a thing, especially now with the one thing he had allowed himself to love and care for was also gone. That was why he is so hesitant to let Violet inside the very foundation of him. Levi Ackerman was afraid that if he let her in, he would lose her just like the rest. That's why he tried to push her away, to be cold and distant with her. All of it just for that she was able to live the longer life that she deserved. He did not want to live with the burden, with the heavyweight, of knowing that her death was all because of him. He did not want to see such flame of wildfire be extinguished forever right before his eyes.

And maybe the world was really teasing him, testing how far he would go to stay away from the one person he loved because there was a knock on the door. He knew that symphony of a knock, knew how many times and the rhythm Violet knocked on the door with. "It's open." He mumbled.
The door opened wide and revealed the person he knew was waiting outside. There she was, Violet Grey standing right in the middle of his office with dishevelled hair, a grey shirt hugging her skin and the same pair of trousers she had worn in the morning. Her eyes looked at him with concern, her nose and brows furrowing in a saddened frown. His own followed where she was staring at him and landed on his sprained knee. He knew he would not be able to hide for too long, especially not to Violet. He placed his sprained knee down and attempted to get up, to show her that he was fine; but that failed miserably as an indescribable amount of pain shot right through his body. And soon two pairs of arms guided him back to his chair, gently setting him back down. "Sit down, Levi." She said, "You shouldn't be up in that state."
She crouched before his eyes and took off his shoe, taking away the sock that warmed his feet and took a look at his swollen foot. It was one hell of a bad sprain, she could tell with just one single look. He was for sure in no shape to be doing anything, let alone stand up like he attempted to do. Levi's eyes watched her as she moved around the room and looked for a medical kit, the way that her legs moved and the slight sway of her hips. She went back to him with the kit in hand and crouched again, wasting no time to grab what she needed to work on the injury in front of her. Levi only stared at her as she worked, her hands moving smoothly as if she had done this time and time again. She treated him with such gentle care that Levi felt his heart swell, it made him love her even more than he already did. 

She looked up to him as she started wrapping up his feet. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He said nothing. He did not know why he didn't tell her, or anyone for that matter. Before, it was only him against the world, so he didn't have anyone to share his burdens, his pains, with. So he had found it normal to keep it to himself because no one before had cared enough to ask him if he was okay, much less help him in any single way. Until her.
She sighed. "Levi, you should take more care of yourself. You can't hide this sort of thing from me or everyone. We need you. I need you." She paused, "So, please, take care of yourself. Promise me that."
He felt his lips stretch the tiniest bit when she looked down again as she finished bandaging the injury. Giddiness flowed through his body at her words, filling him with a momentary pang of happiness that he hadn't felt in a long time. She needed him. She needed him and that made him insanely happy for some reason he could not register in his mind. But he nodded at her, he would keep that promise to her, no matter what. "I promise you, Violet."
Violet smiled, too, and looked back up to him. "Thank you, Levi."

She stood up and placed the medical kit back where it belonged, standing in front of Levi as he moved his feet slightly. "So, how does it feel?" She asked. "Does it hurt less?"
He nods. "It feels better, thank you."
She smiled slightly and took a sit on the other side of his desk, at one of the chairs facing him. Once she turned to look at him, Levi asked, "How are you holding, Grey?"
And the facade that she was putting fell down with just those five words. She didn't say anything to him, didn't cry, just stopped forcing that gentle smile that she had thrown at him before. She shrugged her shoulders and swallowed down a lump. They both didn't say a word, the silence being enough to understand what the other was feeling. They were devasted, beyond control. They had both lost something that meant a lot to them, a part of them that they had held close to the warmness of their hearts. And it was hard. Hard to know that they were long gone, that they would never come back. That they won't see them ever again neither tomorrow nor someday in the future. They were gone, dead. And it was just very hard to admit such a thing.
 
Words would never be enough to explain what they were feeling, nor will they be enough to bring comfort to the other. So Violet stood up and walked over to Levi once more, and threw herself to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing her head to rest in his chest. She needed a hug, desperately. Needed some sort of comfort before she broke down crying once more. Her arms wrapped around him even tighter as she felt an overwhelming amount of emotions rock her body whole, felt the tears want to fall even when she tried to hold them back the most she could. And when Levi wrapped his arms back around her waist, it took a lot for her not to burst out crying.
He had hesitated to return the gesture, had been shocked when she had thrown herself at him and brought him into a warm embrace. He hadn't been touched that way by anyone for years, had not felt such touch in a long, long while. Maybe never before. And when she had done such gesture so easily, it had taken him back. The feeling of her against him had left him breathless, he had felt a burst of emotions when she wrapped her arms around his neck and tighten her hold. He wanted to hold her like this forever, once he wrapped his arms around the small of her body. There was nothing more that he wanted than just hold her in his arms forever, to know that she was safe and alive here in his arms. 

And as he ran his fingers up and down her spine, as they got more comfortable in their embrace, Levi could only think about her. About Violet Grey and the love he had for her. He wanted this moment to last forever, to know that she was here with him and that he could keep her safe and sound here in his arms. He would do anything for her, he decided, anything at all just to keep her here next to him; so that she would never leave his side. 

He would do that, over and over again, just for her. 

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