The Experiment (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) (Part 1)

Family

Levi was so furious he had trouble breathing.

First and foremost, he was furious with himself. Furious for hurting Hanji and making her cry. Even though he didn't fully understand her tears, he knew in his gut she was sad because of him. Also furious for being weak and selfish, giving in to his urges when he had known from the very start that it would end badly. And furious for lying around in bed with her even though he knew their enemies had to be closing in on them.

Now, they were cornered, at the mercy of whoever was approaching the door. His senses might have come alert in the last few minutes, but he felt a deadly sluggishness in his limbs, a mixture of being barely healed enough to move and deep sexual satisfaction that made him want to curl up next to Hanji and forget everything around them. For days. Even forever.

"Get behind me," he commanded her. Was she dressed? He threw a quick look over his shoulder. He shouldn't have... She looked more vulnerable than he had ever seen her as she was attempting to close the one remaining button on her shirt with shaking hands.

"Take mine!" he barked and threw his shirt to her, hating how harsh he sounded when all he truly wanted was to fold her into his arms, stroke her hair and tell her it would be okay.

There was a knock at the door. He took a step forward, ready to defend against whoever demanded entry, but had to jump back when the door was kicked in. Seriously, why the fuck knock if you were going to use violence? Five giants in a black, elegant uniform stormed in. He recognized the crest over their heart. It was apparently a Hange thing to like tall, muscular men.

"No bloodshed," Hanji urged with a shaking voice.

Did she think he was a brute? Yes, that was probably exactly what she thought of him. And she was right: Levi was furious with himself but he was also furious with the world. So furious he felt like killing everyone and everything with his bare hands, ripping off heads, poking out eyes, seeing blood spatter everywhere.

But because of her wish, he didn't resist when the Hange house guards grabbed him roughly, twisted his arms behind his back and threw him to the floor, a knee at the small of his back to keep him down. A hush fell over the room as two shiny black boots stepped over the threshold. Levi turned his neck a little to have a look at the man wearing those fine shoes, earning himself another painful twist of his wrists and a fist to the face.

"Stay down, vermin," someone snapped at him.

"Don't hurt him!" Zoë yelled.

She was normally much smarter than this, he thought as he gritted his teeth against the pain and humiliation. She had to know that she should neither give away who he was nor that she cared about him in the least. Even if it filled him with a weird, tender feeling that she might. That he meant something more to him than what he deserved.

"Zoë," a deep voice said.

"Father," Hanji answered with a gasp. Her voice shook. Levi hated it. He hated that she sounded insecure all of a sudden, like all her spunkiness was wiped away by one word. He hated this man, with all his heart for what he was doing to Hanji just by existing. But... she wanted no violence. So be it.

"Sis," someone else said, stepping forward as well. "We are so glad we found you."

"Ben... Benjamin?" Zoë's voice shook even more.

This was one of Hanji's brothers, Levi knew. He had seen him once, when Erwin had asked Levi to accompany him to a Council meeting, a few months past. 'To watch and learn', as Erwin had put it. Oh, he had watched and he had learned... learned to hate those self-serving bastards who brown-nosed the Fritz family even more than he already did. To them, people like him were exactly what he had just been called: vermin.