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She's never heard the words 'I love you' in Levi Ackerman's voice.
But she's felt the words in his hands. And 'I love you' is callouses on cold fingertips, in the small, hidden corners of the day — behind his office door, next to the sheets, in a few seconds that are stolen from an empty hallway.
His hands whisper 'I love you' when they tuck her hair behind her ear, and in the way that his touches linger; by her fingers, her arm, her cheek.
'I love you' is mentioned when he folds her laundry, even though he's muttering something about 'how fucking lazy and inept' she is. And it feels like the antiseptic he applies to her wounds. 'Shut up and stay still,' he tells her, as he wraps a bandage around the blood. 'All your stupid ideas gets you into all this shit that I have to clean up.'
'And yet, I don't regret a thing,' she says.
At the end of the day, his fingertips trace her skin, half-asleep or wide-awake. 'I love you' speaks in the nightmare-stricken hours he holds her close in, or the empty, dreamless sleeps he holds her hand through.
Levi's touches are three small syllables — barely there, sometimes — but she's certain that no sound has ever felt more sincere.
'I love you' has a colour and it's quiet grey eyes.
She blushes when the words gaze over her naked body — littered with the red and purple reminders that he was there, and that she fucking liked it too.
She finds the words, gentler, in the next morning's vague smiles, and in those rare afternoons that can be spent outside of their uniforms, between the pages of a book, and in the warmth of a cup of tea that she's brewed.
There's a string of burnt curses. 'This tastes like shit!' he says.
'It tastes fine to me so either suck it up or brew your own,' she tells him.
He brews his own tea.
And makes enough for an extra cup. He hands it to her — 'Here, brat. This, unlike whatever shit you concocted in that teapot, is actually tea.'
Before an expedition, the colour grey holds onto her as he tells her, 'don't be stupid out there,' before he's sitting by her hospital bed, quietly watching, waiting.
There's something painful sprawled across her lungs and it fractures her breathing, forcing her back into bed.
'Stay down,' he tells her. 'You broke three ribs doing the exact opposite of what I told you not to do.'
'Well, a lot of us would have died if I didn't do something stupid.' She looks up at him. 'I don't regret a thing.'
He rolls his eyes and says, 'Shut up and keep your stupid ass still.'
But his eyes are soft, tired from the torment of concern. 'I love you,' she hears them whisper.
And can't help but smile at the words because 'shut up and keep your stupid ass still' has never looked so sweet.
She closes her eyes and says, 'Come lie down next to me.'
For a while, there's nothing. And she thinks that he's left the room.
But then he's next to her; gentle touches and quiet grey eyes, replacing the sanitized and bare smells of the hospital.
Levi smells like soap, and clean clothes, and tea — like warmth, and closeness and familiarity.
His scent lies next to her healing ribs and the wait for her recovery.
Two months pass.
She has new ribs around the same, stubborn, Survey Corps heart. It beats in the silence of her old habit — watching the world from the headquarter's roof.
The night greets her the way it always had — coldly, darkly, quietly. Houses sleep in the false safety of the walls. There's still a war out there; a war to be won.
'Figured I'd find you up here,' Levi says. 'You haven't thrown yourself off yet?'
'I'll jump off if you go first,' she tells him.
His laugh and the smell of his jacket settle around her and the roof's cold night. She can smell the words in the small gesture, next to the soap he uses.
She moves closer to him. And there, in the dark, she whispers the words back: 'I love you,' she tells him.
She tells him for the first time. And she speaks the words certainly, fully, doubtlessly.
At first, silence.
Then, 'Don't be stupid, brat,' he says. 'You'll get yourself into shit, like you always do.'
She laughs. 'Levi, you, by far, are the shittiest thing I've ever gotten myself into,' she says. 'And yet, like all the other times, I don't regret a thing.'
There's the sound of his smile.
Then she feels it against her lips — soft, and warm. Then again, and again. In her hair, across her face, down her neck, and back against her lips — intensely, urgently this time.
There, his kiss sears the promise of three syllables against her tongue. And she doesn't forget the sweet way they burn.
Maybe he'll never say 'I love you', but she knows it. His hands have touched her with the words, his eyes have shown them to her, and she's tasted the way they sound on his lips.
His eyes find hers as the backs of his knuckles fall down her cheek. The smell of his jacket is still around her and the taste of his kisses still skitter across her smile.
He presses his forehead against her's. And there, in a whisper that's hidden from the rest of the world, he tells her, 'I love you too, brat.'