Birdie (Levi x OC)

eighty-five

Sleep didn't find many of us that night around the campfire. Unease and dread filled my head as I squeezed my eyes shut, my head resting on Levi's lap after he had insisted on taking the first watch. I knew he was going to stay up the whole night; he had a hard time sleeping during the best of conditions, let alone while surrounded by people he recently considered his greatest enemies.

Hange had given me a threadbare blanket at one point, and I curled underneath it, my leg brace lying haphazardly beside me in the dirt. I felt Levi's hand settle on my head, his fingers tracing slow patterns against my scalp. I desperately tried to get the sleep I knew I needed for the oncoming day, but my mind wouldn't quiet.

Instead, I found myself staring listlessly into the dying embers of the fire, thinking about everything that had transpired. Some people were sleeping, others were like me staring off into the distance, minding their own business as they thought about the inevitable.

My eyes drifted toward the children. Gabi and Falco were huddled together, whispering in low tones. My gaze lingered on Falco. It still felt surreal that he was now the possessor of the Jaw Titan; a fact that had stunned me when I was told earlier that evening.

Levi hadn't told me the plan for the coming day, and I hadn't found the energy to ask. Besides, I already knew. I wasn't an idiot. I could see the way they looked at the horizon, the way they checked their gear with a grim, final sort of precision.

We were going to have to try and kill Eren.

The thought felt like a stone in my stomach, cold and heavy. I shifted closer to Levi, seeking the heat of his body, wondering how many of us would actually be alive to see the sun set tomorrow. Above me, I felt the rhythmic rise and fall of Levi's chest, his hand never leaving my hair.

I felt him shift, leaning down until his lips were pressed firmly against my ear, his breath a warm contrast to the biting night air.

"Sleep," he murmured, the command softened by the exhaustion in his voice.

I breathed deeply, tilting my head back to meet his gaze. I didn't need a mirror to know I looked broken to him; I could see the reflection of my own wreckage in the way he looked at me. His eyes traced the length of my body, inventorying every scrape and bruise, noting every place where I winced or where my muscles seized in pain.

I was doing the same to him. We had changed the bandage around his face earlier, carefully covering his eye and the deep gash I had stitched along his cheek. Hange had inspected his hand again, too, disinfecting the place where his fingers had once been and wrapping them in fresh gauze. No infection. Despite the blast that should have killed him, he was cleared to fight tomorrow.

The thought made my stomach churn.

I furrowed my brows, gently reaching my hand toward his face. In the flickering firelight, the shadows were long and cruel, emphasizing the hollows of his cheeks. I traced the dark circle beneath his good eye. The lines there were deeper, more pronounced than they normally were, and the sight made my heart ache with a sharp, squeezing pressure.

"I should be saying the same to you," I whispered, my thumb grazing the edge of his fresh bandage. "You need rest more than I do."

His mouth upturned slightly; the ghost of a tilt that barely qualified as a smirk. "I think I've aged another ten years in the past few weeks," he rasped.

I returned the tiny, fragile smile. "Liar. You don't look a day over thirty."

"Well, now you're just flattering me," he replied, his tone dropping into that quiet, teasing cadence he reserved only for me.

He leaned into my touch for a brief second, his eyes closing as if he were memorizing the feeling of my hand on his skin. For a moment, the war, the Rumbling, and the boy we had to kill were miles away.