Childhood Friends (Attack on Titan// Levi Ackerman Fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty Two

"Levi, can you take me home?"

He remembers the time she asked him that. He had just reunited with her at the Wall, waiting for her to come meet him after spending the week at her house in Sina. His eyebrow quirked at the question.

He bopped her head gently, a sigh escaping his lips. "Where else would we be going?"

"No, uh-" she swallowed hard, eyes fitted on the ground. She looked side to side in suspicion, before taking his hand and pulling him into an alley in between houses. "I want to go to the Underground."

"Well that's something you don't hear everyday," he chuckles darkly, thinking about the place he had called 'home' for most of his life. "You're not going there."

"But-"

"Why would you even want to?"

She gave a fleeting glance over to the gate, biting her lip. "I never want to go back there. I hate my family, if you could even call them that. They hate me too. They don't want me there, and I don't want to be there."

The girl was only thirteen years old, yet she was expressing these painful emotions with an almost straight face.

She must have some facade.

"Why would they hate you?"

"Because they wanted a son to carry the family name. They tried to have another child, but there were complications with my birth, so now my mom can't have kids. So they're stuck with me. All they try doing is making me proper so they could marry me off."

"And you think going to the Underground would solve your problem?"

"I want to disappear, Levi. You live there anyway. I want to live with you forever, because you're my best friend and the only person I have."

"If you're trying to hide, I suppose the Underground is the place to go," he sighs, putting his hand on the top of her head and ruffling her curls. "I never want you having to go down there. Any place but there is okay."

____

"Put your hands up and don't scream!"

The words ring in Armin's ears. He turns his head, cerulean eyes finding two shadowy figures behind him. In the scarce glint of the moon, he sees the crest of the Military Police on their jackets.

"Military Police all the way out here," Armin mumbles, swallowing hard. "I can't believe you found me."

Before they even have time to react, two more shadowed figures come out from behind the trees, their movements quicker and more silent than an arrow. They restrict the two attackers, holding them secure under their arms.

"Name, now," Levi says, having a male soldier pinned underneath him.

"Screw you," the female soldier being held down by Mikasa snaps.

"I'm Marlo, she's Hitch," the male soldier says. Levi lets out a sigh, looking to Mikasa.

"We'll rid them of their gear. Go get Kirschstein."

The blonde leaves, running back towards the house, bucket of water in his hands. While he summons Jean, Levi and Mikasa take watch over the two pursuers.

"What are your positions in the Military Police?" Levi asks, nudging Marlo, the more compliant of the two, with his boot.

"It's your fault!" Hitch yells suddenly, amber eyes blazing as she looks to Levi. "You're the reason she's dead! It's your fault, Corporal Levi! You and the entire Survey Corps! You're the reason that Stohess was destroyed and that Annie was killed!" Tears were pricking at her eyes. Marlo attempted to calm her down, but she was livid. "She was my friend! You killed my friend!"