The Night Before: Levi x Reader

04: never look back

~ 2.5 Years Ago ~

You rummage through the contents of a cupboard, looking for a new pair of knives, yours have officially dulled to the point of no return. It's been three years since you've seen Levi, Isabel, and Farlan and at this point, there's no use in keeping them around.

You held onto them because they were some of the only things you had left of him after he left you. Although it pained you to get rid of them, they finally met their last match when you'd got in a fight with some men at the bar. They taunted you about your body and asked you to come home with them, and you think maybe if you didn't have as much of a temper since Levi left, you could've kept your cool.

Instead, you pinned both men's sleeves to the counter with your blades, ( "Speak to me again, and your hand is next" ). Breaking the tip of the knives, you left them there, pinned to the table, the tip of the knife buried firmly into the cloth.

Shit, well guess they're ruined now, you'd laughed, striding down the street, abandoning the hilt of the knife somewhere along the side of the street.

Which brings you to this moment, ruffling through the drawers of some random man's house. You fiddle with the hooked end of your lock-picking tool, shoved deep in your pocket. You abandoned skirts long ago, after the incident with your husband. Simple black pants, and a white long sleeve.

You've come up empty.

ODM gear heavy around your hips, you slip out the door of the house, ready to make your way to the next. You had a few hours left until you had to meet with your allies. You'd taken over operations for Levi and Farlan, completing jobs under the radar of the MPs.

They seemingly left you alone, now that there weren't four of you terrorizing the streets, and you were able to complete heists in peace. They raised the stairway tolls more than ever now, and it's practically impossible to get up there at this point.

So you survive in your freedom in the darkness, waiting for something to come along to take you away. God, the repetitiveness of it all was beginning to drive you mad, though. Wake up, steal, clean (an ode to Levi), run your heists, split the cut, eat, sleep.

You inhale a sharp sting of smoke flicking the end of your cigarette gently, something has to change. You've officially mourned the loss of your friends for longer than you even knew them, and it makes you want to either kill everyone, or yourself.

Do you even remember what they look like?

You squeeze your eyes shut trying to recall Isabel's soft auburn pigtails, the dirty blonde tuff of hair on Farlan's head, and Levi's silver-grey eyes.

Yes, you remember.

Levi's eyes pierce into your soul, and suddenly you can feel the way his hands grip your waist, his breath on your lips, and his promise that he'd see you again.

You can feel it radiating down your body like a fire fueled by your adrenaline. But then, you remember, your lips never touched, and those promises had slipped away so quickly like they were never spoken in the first place.

Something snaps behind you.

Your eyes fly open, your instincts screaming at you to duck.

You drop to the floor, a foreign object flying over your head, it crashes into a stone wall just ahead of you producing a loud, and very unwanted noise. You don't even register what it is, because you're body's moving quicker than your mind, Levi's training flowing through your veins.

Gripping your cigarette between your teeth, you kick a leg back into the stomach of someone behind you. They grunt, and by the noise, you can already tell it's a man. Turning quickly, you establish the threat, one man is reeling back, clutching his stomach. Two, three, four, men and one, woman. Advancing on you from the shadows.