In Another Life | Levi x Reader/OC

Suspicions

Your body jolted up in surprise from the sound of the alarm clock by the nightstand. It was 5:30 a.m., and you only had half an hour before doing your dreaded task of the day. Petra groaned in her bed, covering her face with her sheets to muffle the noise of the alarm. You yawned sleepily, reaching over with your hand to shut the darn thing off. As you extended out your arm to shut it off, you accidentally knocked it over, creating even more noise. You groaned and groggily sat up from your bed.

"Sorry, Petra," you whispered while picking it up.

You hardly slept for two hours. It was difficult to sleep when your mind was constantly running.

Walking over to the vanity, you stared at yourself in the mirror and rubbed your face in an attempt to wake yourself up some more. It was so much easier to get less sleep when you were younger, but you supposed things changed as you got older. You felt like absolute crap right now.

You tried to get ready to the best of your ability by brushing your teeth, washing your face, and changing into your clothes. Sleepily, you put your shirt on backwards; you quickly realized your mistake when you looked in the mirror and corrected it. After that, you shoved on some comfortable shoes, knowing you were going to be walking on horse shit the entire day.

As you left the room and walked past the kitchen to leave the building, you had a brief thought in your head that it would be a good idea to make coffee to give yourself some energy.

You lightly smacked your forehead at the thought. You forgot that Paradis didn't have coffee, unlike Marley. All they had was damn tea here. It was definitely the sleep deprivation messing with your head.

Still, you decided that it would probably be ideal to grab something to eat quickly before leaving. You saw an opened box of the military crackers they always handed out to everyone during breaks and decided to grab one. You started ripping open the plastic and ate the crackers on the way to the stables.

It wasn't a very far walk, but you finished the crackers promptly on the way there and threw out the wrapper in a nearby trash can. As you drew closer to the stables, you could already make out a small figure from a distance.

You exhaled dramatically at the site of the person standing in front of the doors.

"You're two minutes late."

"Good morning to you too, Captain," you said groggily, ignoring Levi's comment. You were really hoping he wasn't going to start a problem with you right now; you couldn't bite your tongue when you were tired.

He stared at you for a few seconds, taking in your appearance. Maybe you didn't adjust your hair in time, or maybe your eye bags were just extremely prominent right now; whatever the case, the look he gave you made you feel extremely self-conscious.

I probably just look extremely exhausted.

You were really mad at how seemingly put together he always looked. His eye bags were dark and heavy, but somehow, he was still able to get himself to look presentable.

"Why are you here, anyway? Did you come to check on me?" you asked him, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"I have to give you the key for the stalls, brat," he said, opening the doors. "But I also needed to make sure you arrived." The horse in the stall next to him nudged his head slightly, indicating that they wanted to be petted. Levi turned his attention to the horse and started stroking the side of their face.

"Well, I'm here now. I would like to get started without you breathing down my neck, if that's okay," you responded rudely.

"Watch your tone," he told you firmly. "I don't want to have to tell you again."