Edelweiss [Levi Ackerman × Reader]

Nine

You sit back with your back against the headboard of the bed, the man takes place next to you.

There's a near twenty centimetres wide gap between your bodies, but he didn't let go of your hand.

His skin feels soft and warm, yet rough at some parts as the years of fighting strengthened it.

You pull up your legs and rest your chin over your knee, tilting your head to see his face. Your gaze runs over the sharp jawline, the subtle arch of his lips.

Levi holds the book silently, his index finger keeps it open. Only the sound of the burning candle and his slow, steady breathing sounds.

The loose white shirt follows his silhouette. You see the veins and tendons running in his arms, drawing almost invisible shadows.

Collarbones playing with the wobbling light of the tiny fire.

The more you remember his old self, the more you try to find the signs of that little, thin boy inside the man who's being called the strongest soldier of humanity.

He was someone that meant everything back then. And now, after losing your family, you need to find the same feeling, believing that it isn't gone by the time.

You wonder if he does the same. You often feel his gaze clenching on your figure when you walk around the house.

In such a world, only peaceful moments like this keep you moving.

Moments that you can remember, that can bring a strange state of calmness into your mind.

True care shows itself in little things, you always believed that. Not words, not promises or responsibility.

As Hannah couldn't stop asking how are you, at least five times a day. Dimitry's smile when he made you laugh, Leif always giving you a warm hug after a nightmare, saying that it'll be okay.

Benedict's forehead against yours whenever he wanted to calm you down.

Just an act of kindness.

You close your eyes even if you don't want to.

The disturbed dream slowly pulls you in again as you get closer and closer to sleeping, to a place where they are still alive.

You only return when he touches your cheek gently.

"Sorry," you murmur and sit back, rubbing your eyes.

You see his fingertip gleaming a little after it leaves your face, and you understand you started crying, so you wipe it off as fast as you can.

He looks at you with the gaze so well-known at the Scouts.

"Crying for lost ones isn't a crime. Especially here," he answers, looking down at your locked hands. His thumb draws a circle above your skin. "You are home."

Home.

He takes a deep breath and lours.

"Go back to sleep, [Y/N]."

"No. I want to stay."

He nods slowly, doesn't try to persuade you. You bit off the end of the sentence about the reason, and you're not sure he knows what it was meant to be.

"Even reality feels like a dream these days," you whisper, looking at the candle. "I keep drifting away to places I was at, meet people I don't recall knowing. I... don't even know myself anymore."

You feel the greyish eyes on the side of your face.

"You often slept with me and my mother when we were children," he says, and you turn to him. It makes a little muscle twitch at his jaw, then the man turns away from you. "You had a lot of nightmares, but whenever I took your hand, it seemed like they stopped."