Silver Lining | ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴɴ

Chapter 16

It's late in the afternoon when the castle gets into view, and the whole squad comes running outside to see if we're okay. My entire body hurts, but I'm happy. I'm happy to be back, to see everyone again, and to have done what I did with the captain. He's still on my horse, riding majestically toward his Special Squad. I'm behind him, trying to keep up, but my tired feet won't allow me to walk any faster.

Levi rides to the stables, and I have no more excuse to stay by his side, so I have to join the others. Jean slaps me on the back of my head. "How dare you just ride away from us like that?"

Before I get to answer him and explain myself, Hange joins in. "I am your second-in-command, and if Levi isn't here, you have my orders to follow," she snaps, and it's the first time I've seen her angry.

Levi comes back from the stables and pushes through the group to get to me. "Stand down, everyone," he says. "I already gave her enough punishment for what she did today."

I keep my head down so no one can see that I'm trying to hide a grin. When I get my composure and look back up, I find that everyone is still glaring at me like I'm a fucking monster who left them all to die when really, if anything, I went to die myself. I'm sure they were all confident that Levi would make it back on his own, and that's why they must have left him, but why can't they show the same confidence in me? Did they think that if I were to ride into a group of titans, I wouldn't make it out? Well, I did, and that's all I had to prove.

"Now clear off, everyone. Back to what you were doing," the captain orders, making the group dissolve again.

"Captain, can I-" I start, but he walks away without looking at me.

Hange tries to catch up with him. "Levi, don't you want to-"

He stops and whirls around at her. "No. Not now," he says through gritted teeth.

I blink confused, but Petra puts her hand on my shoulder and says, "You'll have to forgive him, he's a massive clean-freak."

Her words make me even more confused. Captain Levi? A clean-freak? I frown. Clearly, I must have misunderstood. "What do you mean?"

She smiles. "Well, he's probably going upstairs to take a bath now. Levi doesn't like things dirty."

How did I not notice that before? The fact that he always sat on a blanket like me, the fact that he dried off the dishes twice like me, the fact that he didn't make fun of me for cleaning them so thoroughly. But then again, he wasn't irritated with his dirty sleeve earlier, and he didn't care about his cloak on the ground.

I shrug. "There's nothing wrong with wanting things to be clean."

That makes Petra turn to look at me with a raised eyebrow, but she's wearing a smile. "Don't tell me you're like this too?"

Just in that moment, Jean joins us and asks, "Like what?"

"A clean-freak," Petra explains.

Jean looks at me, and his expression says that he knows exactly how much of a clean-freak I am. Of course, he knows. He's been there every time to pick me out of the dirt and help me get clean. He smiles a soft smile at me. "Oh, she is."

I roll my eyes at him, but I can't hide my smile. "Speaking of clean, I'm going to take a shower, too."

It's not a lie or an excuse; I really do go to the bathroom. Locking the door behind myself, I lean against it and take a deep breath. My knees give in, and I sink to the floor, completely and utterly exhausted. With great effort, I raise my hand to let my hair out of the braid and feel my muscles scream. Everything hurts when I take off my uniform to reveal a bruised torso. A bruised torso that has been seen, touched, kissed by Captain Levi.

The hot water feels so good against my skin, loosening up my aching muscles. I almost fall asleep, but somehow manage not to. I don't even find the strength to braid my hair again, so I trod across the hall into my room with my hair down and still slightly wet.

I fall down in my bottom bunk and grunt when my bones let out a satisfying crack. I know that I won't make it down to dinner in time if I close my eyes, but there's no way for me to care. They fall shut all on their own, and I'm asleep in no more than fifteen seconds.

A knock on my door wakes me up, but I'm sure I just imagined it. The others wouldn't dare to wake me up just for dinner; they would save some leftovers for me in case I decide to show up. But then there's another knock, more insistent. I raise my head off my pillow.

"(Y/n)." Levi's voice breaks through the door, through the silence, through my veins. "Are you in there?"

My lips stretch into a wide smile, and I'm suddenly not irritated anymore. Without giving him an answer, I get up and walk across the room. I'm not even really dressed yet because I didn't have the energy, so I'm only wearing my pajama pants and a shirt that I found lying around, even though it probably belongs to Sasha. I brush my hair down with my fingers, then open the door.

Captain Levi is so close to me again. I didn't expect him to lean against the door when I opened it, but he almost lost his balance and fell into me. Almost. He takes a step back to create some room between us, and I'm not sure if I appreciate it or not.

He doesn't say a word, so I take it upon myself. "Do you want to come in?"

His dark eyes narrow at me. "I can't be seen going into or coming out of your room at this hour."

I tilt my head to the side and suck my bottom lip between my teeth. I'm playing an unfair game, but I'm too far gone to care. "That wasn't my question. I asked if you want to come in."

Our eyes meet, and it's as if in an instant, all the air vanished from the world. His dark blue eyes have not changed a bit since the first time they looked at me sleeping by the fire. They're still looking at me in the same scrutinizing way, assessing me, taking me in, making me squirm. I don't know if the captain knows what he's doing to me with those eyes, I don't know if he's trying to figure out what I'm thinking, and I don't know since when he would have to try.

"Dinner," he only says and walks away, leaving me standing speechless in my door.

I'm not sure if this playing-hard-to-get is making me excited or annoyed, but either way, I shut my door and hurry after him like a lost puppy. I don't manage to catch up with Levi before he steps into the kitchen, and it makes me wonder how fast those short legs of his can carry him.

Jean and Historia scoot apart to make room for me, and I sit down between them. We eat mostly in silence because all of us are too tired to talk.

"I still can't believe you went back to get Captain Levi," Eren says.

I look up at him, then glance at Levi for a moment and quickly look away when I see that he's already looking over at us. I swear this man develops superhuman hearing whenever his name is mentioned. The others at Levi's table are seemingly unbothered by the fact that he obviously stopped listening to them and is focusing on the conversation at my table now.

My cheeks blush, and I shrug. "Yeah, I guess I'm just really stupid."

Armin shrugs, too. "Or really loyal."

I have to grin when he says that because I'm probably both stupid and loyal. Keeping my eyes on my food, I don't dare to look up in case Captain Levi is still looking over. I can't see his face again, can't see his lips, can't get lost in his eyes.

We finish dinner faster than ever before and leave right as soon as our bowls are empty. We don't even stay to chat or make jokes or go to the fire because we know that every second out of bed is pure torture. Mikasa and I fall down in our beds, and Sasha and Historia climb up into their top bunks. I don't get to count more than eleven breaths before I pass out and give in to another dreamless sleep.