This is My Last War (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) - Part 3

A Big Deal

Levi remembered all their intimate times together in haunting detail. Of course he did, how could he not pathetically replay them in his head when he wanted to get off? Hanji had made the call for them to "keep their distance" and he, out of choices and robbed of agency by circumstances, had felt compelled to accept it, even though it was the biggest waste of his fucking life.

Years ago, he had sworn to live what was left of his life with no regrets. But now he had regrets, big fucking regrets, and they grew by the minute. Regrets of not holding on to her when it mattered. Regrets of time speeding away from them. Regrets of having to watch her suffer in that tiring position that brought her little joy and would get her killed too early. And not least, regrets of being born on an island into a race that was cursed to be hunted down and obliterated by nations far more powerful than them.

Were her hands shaking on the buttons of his shirt because she, too, felt weighed down by the inevitability of their fate? Levi found himself precariously short of breath and unable to peel his eyes off her face.

"You should take better care of yourself, idiot," Hanji murmured, her eyes on the bruises that she was beginning to uncover, a faint blush spreading on her cheeks under his scrutiny. How could anyone be this pretty?

He was so fucked.

"Hanji," he croaked. "W... wait."

Her hands stilled on his shoulders. His fingers itched to touch her skin, to trace the contours of her nose, her lips, her eyebrows. Yes... fucked.

"Why?" She whispered.

A thousand reasons, all proof of his cowardice. He hated that they lived their lives next to each other yet apart, he hated that she had duties that ate her up, he hated their circumstances - but there were no alternatives, too much depended on them and on this mission. They needed to find Eren, they needed to steal the Titans from the Eldians that lived in Marley. They had no other option, even if their current plan was only going to buy them some time. Two years, five, at most ten?

"There is a good reason why you said we shouldn't...," he choked on his own words. We shouldn't fuck did not express what he really meant to say.

"Yes, there was," Hanji said and lifted her eyes to look into his. The one she had hurt so badly at Shiganshina was cloudy, almost gray - a strange eye he wasn't familiar with yet, it made her look mysterious and wise beyond her years. The other one that he knew very well shone behind her glasses with the color and warmth of molten sugar, with an expression that made him hopeful and very afraid at the same time. "But reasons change."

Don't do that, Levi thought, his knees turning to jelly.

He often relived their last time together in the gazebo behind the pink rose bushes at the Hange estate north of Stohess. Her glorious ass in the air, her legs spread for him, the wetness of her cunt, the scent of her in his nose and mouth, the way she moaned his name, all of this, it was better than any erotic fantasy he could dream up.

But... he did not only remember it for the sex and how good it had been. He also remembered it for what she had said to him, those words he dared not repeat because he didn't let himself believe she had meant them. Things had been crazy, Hanji had been overwhelmed by her new position as Commander... actually, he was sure she had not meant it, it was an at-a-whim utterance. Love? What a grand, useless word, standing between them like a wall.

"You're leaving again very soon," Hanji mumbled. "That's one reason."

"It's because I have to," he replied cautiously.

"I know," she acknowledged. "It's always that."

They both understood that all sorts of promises about the future were moot. What often haunted him were the what-ifs, the what-could-have-beens, the words unspoken and the decisions not taken. What if they had missed the right turn? She was so close, her shoulder warm underneath his hand, her lips glistening red and inviting. He wanted her, had always wanted her. And yet... he knew his hesitation to go for it was a grade-one idiocy but crossing the line she had drawn felt precarious and dangerous. He liked to trust his instincts, they had saved his life many times in the field.