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A simple pat on the head shouldn’t have had the power to make you feel so dejected. In any other situation, a hand ruffling your hair would have been meaningless to you—a small gesture of affection, one an older brother might give to his sibling. Except. Except the hand ruffling your hair like you were some toddler happens to be attached to the person who has been the object of your affection for years. And quick fingers mussing up your hair in passing feels like nothing other than dejection.
Your shoulders slump, and you can’t help the stinging of tears in your eyes—but sometimes it just hurts too much. The reminder is too much, that the man you love sees you as nothing more than a younger sibling, a kid, that he will never want you the way that you have wanted him for years, for forever maybe.
Not wanting anyone to see that there’s something wrong, that there are tears barely concealed behind your eyelashes, you get up and head to your room, mumbling something incoherent about needing some rest. As soon as your bedroom door shuts behind you, as soon as the lock is turned, you fall back against the door and take in a shuddering breath, your heart tight and uncomfortable in your chest. You reach a hand up and fist it in your shirt over your chest, right on top of where your heart feels as though it is slowly being torn apart, piece by piece. A small whimper escapes your throat and you can’t help but think you’re being ridiculous, that him touching your hair could send you into such a state of heartbreak. Shaking your head, your close your eyes, and when you do, you can’t help but see him behind your eyelids—your Captain who has unknowingly caused you so much heartache.
Levi.
You can’t help the swell of love that rises in your chest, that makes you inexplicably happier the moment he crosses your mind—but then again, maybe you don’t want to help it. Despite the pain that your unrequited feelings have caused you, the love you feel for Levi is everything. It’s your whole being, and it’s pure, it’s soft, and it’s yours. So. Maybe you sometimes hate the way you feel rejected because of the simplest actions, but you also love the feeling that you get when you think of Levi, it’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. The closest you’ve come to it is when you’re strapped into your ODM gear, soaring through the trees, and your heart is pounding in your chest—caught somewhere between fear and awe. It’s a painful feeling, but you wouldn’t trade your love for anything.
***
You don’t understand why, but recently you’ve been struggling more than usual with your feelings for your Captain. Everything hits harder—the loneliness, the dejection, the longing. Maybe because of that, maybe because of something else, who knows (you certainly don’t)—you break. You don’t mean for it to happen, you don’t mean for anyone to see, for him to see, but it happened and now you find yourself completely and utterly lost—you’re left suspended, breath caught in your throat, and your heart constricting in your chest.
You had been on your way to see Levi, for no particular reason, other than a pull in your chest that told you where you needed to be. You found yourself walking the familiar path through the grounds and towards his room, where you knew you would find him working. You didn’t bother knocking, you were long past that. The door is ajar, not quite closed, and—you’re met with a sight that with anyone else, you wouldn’t even have blinked. But with Levi… it breaks your heart, and fills your veins with a complete, and overwhelming feeling of loneliness.
Levi and Petra are sitting side-by-side in front of the desk facing each other, with fond smiles gracing their lips. And Levi’s hands. One rests on her cheek—soft and gentle. And you—
You don’t know what happens. You don’t know how simple touches between friends have the power to make you feel so empty, so jealous, so sad. But they do, and all of your many years of concealed emotions come flooding to the surface, and after all this time you’re a glass house, you’re fragile, and you break.
A choked sob leaves your throat, loud and ugly, without your permission, catching the attention of the other two in the room. Your eyes fill with tears, and you pray that they don’t spill over, that they don’t see how much you’re falling apart—but they do. Of course they do. Tears spill down your cheeks, and your chest has been cracked open, heart raw and exposed and—you run. You run.
You’re out of the door in seconds, and with tears streaming down your face, your breath coming in harsh pants, you don’t want anyone else to see you like this, for anyone else to know. So you turn into the communal bathroom, barge your way into a stall and lock the door behind you. As you sit on the covered toilet seat, your hands fisted in your shirt over your chest, you will yourself to calm down. Calm down so that you can get it together and get to your room without anyone noticing your heart breaking, because if one of your squad sees you they’ll be sure to ask questions—and you’re not sure that you want to answer.
Your breaths are still coming too fast, sobs still bubbling up in your chest, when the door opens. You go completely still, praying that you don’t make any noise, that it’s not—
“Y/N? Is that you?”
His voice echoes throughout the empty bathroom, sounding so concerned, so soft—and you can’t take it. You can’t take the caring, gentle tone of Levi’s voice, so different from his usual tone, and suddenly you are filled with anger. Anger at yourself for being so pathetic, anger at Levi for making you feel so small, so insignificant. Before you know what you’re doing, you’re surging up and banging the door to the bathroom open, so hard that a loud bang echoes throughout the bathroom, causing Levi to flinch.
You stand there staring at each other, your own gaze filled with hurt, Levi’s with confusion, and neither quite knows what to say.
Levi opens his mouth, begins to ask what’s wrong, ask why you’re so upset—and you can’t hold it in any longer. You take in a breath, loud and shuddering, and when you go to speak your voice cracks, and before you can comprehend the words that are coming out of your mouth, you’re speaking.
“Why can’t you see me?” the words are quietly spoken, your voice thick with emotion, and you can’t bring yourself to regret it—because you have to know. After all this time, you need to know.
You can see the deepening confusion on Levi’s face, that he doesn’t understand the question, and why can’t he just understand.
And you are angry. You know it’s irrational, and that you can’t fault him for not knowing the feelings that you have never told another soul—but you can’t help it. Your heart is broken and you want it to stop, you want the hurt to stop.
Your voice comes out harsh, revealing how upset you really are, and you can see Levi’s eyes widen at your tone, “I’m not some kid you have to take care of, why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see me?”
Your eyes are blurred with tears, but you can still make out the shock and confusion on Levi’s face at your words. His mouth opens and closes a few times, seemingly trying to figure out what to say—you can see it in his face, Levi wants to ask, but at the same time he can’t because it would change everything. Before Levi can make up his mind on what to say, how to take control of the situation, your mouth is spewing more words, words that you’ve kept buried for years, but now they’re forcing their way out—needing to be said, to be purged.
You can barely hear yourself speak, your blood is pounding too loud in your ears, but you know that you’re loud, that you’re close to yells—but you just can’t keep it inside any longer.
“You’re all that I see, but you don’t even see me. You look right past me, every single time,” you take in a heaving breath, and before you can continue, he is cut off by the deep timbre of Levi’s voice.
“Y/N, what—I don’t understand, you’re my family, of course I see you, I don’t—”
With that one word, your heart breaks even more. Family. If any one of their squad called you their friend, you would be proud, so fucking proud, but with Levi it only resulted in pain.
You know that you shouldn’t, that you should stop while you’re ahead, while Levi doesn’t understand what’s happening, but you can’t. You need to know, to be sure, and—
Quietly, with your eyes downcast, your voice barely a whisper, so loud in the empty room, “Family,” the word is spoken with so much disdain, so much hurt, “Why can’t I have more? Why can’t we be more?”
And that. That is when it happens. When Levi’s eyes widen, finally catching onto the unknown emotion flashing in your eyes, the longing, the heartbreak. He’s frozen where he stands, you can see his muscles tense, and he knows.
“Y/N, I—I, I don’t…I’m your captain, I don’t feel—I don’t see you like that—I’m sorry, I’ve never, I—”
As Levi struggles for the words to explain his feelings, your captain who is usually so well-spoken, tripping over his words—you feel nothing. Because you knew. As soon as those words left your mouth, as soon as you saw Levi’s body freeze as though in terror, you knew that you were alone in your feelings. And so, as Levi spouts out apologies, you feel nothing, because if you did, it would be too much to bear.
Your voice comes out quiet, barely a whisper, and the words that leave your mouth taste like ash, they hurt—
“I’m nothing but a second thought to you, Levi, but you—” you choke on a sob, “you don’t cross my mind, you live in it.”
With that, you can no longer hear the apologies being directed your way, and you turn away pushing the door open, walking quickly through the hallways, alone. Always alone.
***
It’s been one week since his encounter with Y/N in the bathroom, and Levi is clueless as to what to do about the whole situation. When he followed Y/N into the bathroom, the last thing that he expected was a confession of—what exactly he isn’t sure (he is sure, he just doesn’t want to admit it). The heartbreak and the longing that was reflected in the younger’s eyes was impossible to miss, and it was all directed at him. Fuck.
As he sits in his room, his head in his hands, Levi is truly at a loss of what he should do. He and Y/N have successfully avoided each other for one full week, and if they’ve happened to be in the same room—there was nothing. No words, looks, no anything exchanged between the two of them. The rest of the squad had surely caught on to the rift between them, but thankfully, no one had yet to say anything. He couldn’t help but feel a roiling in his stomach whenever he was confronted with the sight of Y/N, a whole lot of guilt, and a hint of something else that he couldn’t name. That he didn’t want to name.
Because the thing is. Ever since that day (since he was so utterly shocked to find out that Y/N, sweet and gentle Y/N, had…feelings. Feeling for Levi), Levi couldn’t shut his mind off. Couldn’t shut his mind off from thinking things, showing him things, that hadn’t crossed his mind before. Before he knew that Y/N had been harbouring feelings for him. Romantic feelings. It had honestly, really fucked him up.
Because now, now, when he let his mind wander, instead of thinking of mission strategy, of training, anything else he used to think of— he now thought of Y/N. Of Y/N’s eyes, of their smile, of their hands, of the smooth skin of their neck. And of certain situations that he would have never dreamed of before, that would have been so out of left field, if only not for that day in the bathroom.
He thinks of Y/N’s arms around him, holding him close. His hands trailing down the bare skin of their back, between their legs—and it needs to stop. Because not only does he feel guilty for all but throwing the younger’s heart on the ground and stomping on it, but now there’s the added guilt of these thoughts, these fantasies. And Levi feels like shit.
He feels like utter shit, and he has no idea what to do, how to remedy the situation that he’s found himself in.
Because on one hand, he can’t help but think that if he does approach Y/N and tell them that now he feels the same way—it’s kind of fucked up. What if they think that Levi’s only saying that to take advantage, now that he knows how the younger feels? But on the other hand, Levi thinks that it’ll be pure torture to be around Y/N, when he knows how they feel. How they both feel. So, that’s his dilemma. And it fucking sucks.
As he sits alone, head in his hands, and thinks this thing through over and over again—he thinks he knows what he’s going to do. What he has to do.
***
You haven’t able to sit still since your encounter with Levi in the bathroom. You’re constantly moving, fidgeting, feeling unrested in your own body, in your heart. Whenever you see the older from across the room, your heart soars in your chest, due to years of habit—until you remember what happened. Until you remember the look of fear on Levi’s face, at the thought of your love, at the prospect of loving you back. The realization never fails to make your heart sink in your chest, all the way down to the tips of your toes.
So. As you sit on the floor of the training room, shirt clinging to your chest with sweat, you can’t help the constant moving of your fingers, your toes. When you feel tears spring to your eyes, which has become a common occurrence this past week, you tilt your head back and push your hair out of your eyes. You stare at the ceiling, trying to stop the tears from flowing over.
While your gaze is focused on the roof above you, you hear the familiar sound of the door creaking open, and when you look over, you aren’t prepared for what you see.
Standing at the door is none other than Levi Ackerman, his eyes fixed on you where you are sat on the floor, his gaze unreadable. You’re both still for a few moments, gazes fixed on one another, barely breathing, the tension in the room thick and stagnant.
Before you can open your mouth to say anything, the older speaks, walking further into the room.
“Y/N… can we talk?” His deep voice is quiet but rich, and still sends shivers down your spine.
Your voice gets caught in your throat, but you manage to get the words out, “Y-yeah, yeah, we can talk…”
You don’t know what to expect, maybe a lecture on how they can’t let what’s between them change the dynamics of the squad, or maybe something completely unrelated, if they’re pretending that nothing happened.
What you don’t expect, not for a million years, is for Levi to take a deep, shuddering breath, tears visible in his dark eyes and say—
“Y/N, I—I want to tell you, tell you something and I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I hurt you, I’m sorry for that day, I didn’t—I didn’t know—” he takes a deep breath, and squeezes his eyes closed, as though he can’t finish speaking while looking at you.
“I didn’t know what it felt like.”
At this, he opens his eyes and locks his gaze with you, and you can’t help but feel confused, not understanding what he was trying to say.
“I don’t… Levi, I don’t understand wh—”
You’re cut off by Levi’s voice, so incredibly soft—like that day in the bathroom, but with something more, something underneath—
“Loving you, Y/N. I didn’t know what loving you felt like.”
At those words, your eyes fill with tears and this time they spill over, they spill down your cheeks, in rivers. And before you know it, before you can even think of a response to that, your heart about to beat out of your chest, Levi is there. Levi is on the floor in front of you, rough hands cupping your cheeks, thumbs wiping away the tears.
“Don’t cry, Y/N, please don’t cry—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
You cut him off, you don’t want to hear his apologies, you only want to hear one thing, “Levi, Levi, please say it again,” you take in a deep breath, and breathe out, “Please, I need it, after all this time I need—”
Levi’s lips are pressed against your forehead, and somehow you’ve ended up tangled together, gripping each other on the hard, wooden floor, and you hear the words, feel them too, “I love you, Y/N, I love you, I’m sorry I didn’t know before, I’m sorry it took so long, baby, I’m so sorry.”
Levi’s hands are buried in your hair, his lips pressed tight against your forehead, and your hands are gripping Levi’s wrists like you never want to let go. And you don't, you really don't.
You hear yourself whispering over and over again—I love you, Levi, I love you. And you do, you love Levi more than anything, and finally. Finally, you feel whole. You’re not empty anymore.
When your tears stop, when your hands stop shaking, you release Levi’s wrists and lift your head to look him in the eye. You aren’t prepared for what you see. You see Levi, your Levi, looking at you with so much love in his eyes, so much longing—he’s looking at you the way that you have been looking at him for years. And your heart bursts.
Your eyes well up with tears again, and you're helpless, you’re helpless being so close to Levi, so close to what you want—and finally, after so much time, you take it. You take what you want.
Leaning up, slowly, you slot your lips against Levi’s, and you can’t help the sigh that escapes as your lips brush against the older’s—the relief that floods through your veins at the sensation that you’ve been longing for, for what seems like forever. As you pull away, Levi’s hand is at the nape of your neck, pulling you right back in, lips meeting again. It’s harder this time, more hungry, your lips parting, breaths mingling—and there is no where else you’d rather be.
A whimper bubbles up in your throat when Levi tugs on your bottom lip, and the groan that the older lets out at the sound shoots right to your groin. Your lips meet again, wet and slick, and you pause to take a shuddering breath. Levi pulls back, his nose brushing against yours, and with concern lacing his voice, he asks, “Okay, Y/N?”
You break out into a smile, so big your teeth are showing, and pecking Levi’s lips once more, you murmur, “Yeah Levi, I’m good—really good.”
And you were. You were truly, completely happy. For the first time in a long time.