Hard Exterior: Levi x Reader

The Beach

Winter had fallen over the castle where the survey corps trained and set up for their next expeditions. Levi and (Y/n) had started sharing a room. Even if neither of them were in it very often. Levi's short sleeping habits were to blame for that of course, not that hers were much better. She normally slept just before sunrise, and he slept just after midnight. They were almost never in the room at the same time.

All Hanji could do was shake her head. She would try to get them to spend at least some of their free time in the shared room. Half of the time that just ended in them sitting in Levi's office as he did paperwork. (Y/n) would just draw as he wrote and read over papers. It troubled Hanji with how stagnite their relationship seemed to have become.

In fact there was a reason behind when (Y/n) chose those hours to sleep instead of curling up in Levi's arms. She had been having nightmares as of late. So instead of bothering Levi with them, she had been avoiding it all together. She would curl up in the sheets that smelled like him, before falling asleep. All in the vein hope that she wouldn't wake up feeling the need to scream because of what she was reliving.

This night was no different. Curled up in the warm duvet, she inhaled deeply as she drifted off an hour ago. Her mind now wanders the streets of where she used to live. The streets of Marley inside the walls where the Eldians trained for their military. She knew they were only being used, used like useless tools. In reality she knew that they were only fodder to be thrown at the Marley enemies.

She had seen the way the others were gunned down or turned into titans over cities to tear down the walls. She sat with her gun held tightly as she waited for instructions on when to move forward. At the time, she had only done this to get what she needed. A way to help her father achieve his goal. A way for them to find a way out of the hell hole they had been born into.

There just never was a way out. No matter how much training they went through. No matter how many people she took down it never seemed to be enough to ensure her own safety. She was never truly safe with the people of Marley watching their every move. They always made sure that it was known who they were.

Nothing but trash. She had been beaten by the heads a few times, just because they could. She didn't dare fight back either. That would put her under suspicion, it was not something she needed. So taking a few beattings was nothing if it meant she could continue getting ahead of them, when in the end, she really wasn't.

She would always wake up breathing heavily, hand clutching her chest the other over her mouth when she saw what they did to her parents. A cold sweat covered her forehead as she fought back the bile threatening to spill from her guts. It had always been like this during the winter months. Even before her and Levi got as close as they were.

It was making her sick, the stress of trying to keep it bottled up. Getting to the point where she was running a high temperature. When Levi hadn't seen her in the lunchroom, he left to find her. He checked the places she liked to hide first, then the places she wandered. All culminating in him going to the room they shared. He found her curled under the covers, heavy ragged breaths falling from her lips as she clutched at the covers. Her face was pale and clammy, yet she was burning up.

Leaving the room, he gathered snow from outside to make ice packs. Placing those on her exposed neck, he sat in a chair beside her. Her eyes fluttered from the dream she was having. She was remembering the story behind the Marley empire. 'Looking back in time, roughly 100 years ago, the Eldian Empire ruled the world with the Power of the Titans. From the rise of the founder Ymir until today, Titans have robbed enough lives to eradicate humanity three times over.'

It was a story they were told over and over as soldiers. So they remembered their place and what they were to do for the people of Marley. 'Countless cultures and peoples having been wiped out by Titans; their history stolen away. The Eldian Empire's path of slaughter became humanity's history. And when the Eldian Empire ran out of enemies, they soon began slaughtering one another.'