ＡＲＥＡ 104 || AOT: Levi Ackerman Fanfiction

[ ｔｈｉｒｔｙ-ｆｉｖｅ ]

Bottles breaking on the floor.

Plates thrown against the wall.

Painful sounds coming from his mother's wounded lips as his parents screamed at each other downstairs.

Levi was used to them all.

"I'm alright, honey." "Don't worry about me." She would always say whenever he'd ask. And she'd always wear that one particular smile while speaking to him, too.

But after years of being faced with the same situation over and over again, Levi grew to acknowledge the suffering she'd try to hide from him. It went on for a couple of months until the night before his 7th birthday.

The boyfriend had stabbed his girlfriend in the head in the middle of their fight. He attempted to stop her from contacting her older brother for help.

And Levi was watching.

In just a span of a few seconds, the father picks up a broken alcohol bottle and stared at his son. Under the influence of his late night booze, he didn't look at the young child as his own. The little boy couldn't process what had happened next as he was still in shock of what his own father did to his mother.

"You... piece of shit..." The man towered over Levi's small figure, the broken bottle hovering over his head. The boy's mind was hazy, mainly because of his head harshly hitting the ground after his father pushed him over. Little Levi suddenly felt the sharpest end of the bottle pressed against his forehead.

"T-take your brat with you, Kuchel..."

Was his father's last words before a loud sound cut through the atmosphere.

'So warm...' Levi savored the gentle heat present on the skin of his face, though whatever it is hindered his vision from seeing his surroundings. His father laid against him, his heaviness crushing Levi's chest. It wasn't long though until the weight was pushed off of him.

"Oh shit, I didn't see yah there." A voice from a stranger spoke. Levi slowly sits up and rubbed his eyes. When he takes his hands off his face, he froze.

His hand was covered in red.

Now that he had the time to think about it, the deafening sound from earlier was familiar; he heard it from those shows his father used to watch on the television.

Slowly, his head turned to look at the unmoving body of his father, only to see that his face was also covered in red, except he didn't show any signs of life anymore. There was a gaping hole in the middle of his head too, which made Levi sick in the stomach the longer he looked at it.

So the warm, red thing on his face was--

"Are you gonna get up or not, kid?"

Levi turns to the tall man, tears brimming his eyes as his young mind processed what had just taken place.

"Dammit..." The stranger hastily picks up the crying boy, using the sleeves of his long coat to wipe off the blood splattered on his small face. "If you're gonna cry you better hurry it up -- I don't know how to deal with children so take it easy on me, will you?"

The intruder of the house introduced himself as he cleaned Levi's stained face in the bathroom. His name was Kenny, and he was a brother to Levi's now dead mother.

Levi did hear his mother mention someone with the same name to him a few months ago, but never saw what he looked like.

The child had already stopped crying when Kenny was done tidying him up.