spite || levi x reader

3 - 4

It comes to you in a dream.

Cursing, hands pushing at the bloody cut in vain. Crimson seeping between your fingers. A beautiful woman, dying at your feet. You can't picture her face, but you know she's beautiful. She has to be.

Running. Slipping in a puddle, scraping your knees. Getting up again and running some more. Knife clutched in your shaky, blood-soaked hands.

And then you hear voices.

"Kenny Ackerman- folks know him as Kenny the Ripper. Hefty price, but he's worth it. Always gets the job done."

"Kenny Ackerman."

The name feels like poison on your tongue.

"I'll kill him."

When you wake up, metal is digging into your cheek and your fingers are lightly brushing the dirty floor. You're still on that damn bench, strapped in. There's blood drops littering the ground from where your cuts have dripped down from your back and rolled off your sides.

Traute comes in who knows how much later. "Ready to talk?" she asks.

And the process repeats.

This time, you scream.

.

Passed out once again, you dream of Levi.

But it's not a dream, it's a memory. And it's one that you recognize: one of the first times you sat up on a rooftop with Levi. Hange had told you that Levi wanted to talk to you, and he arrived under the premise you wanted to talk to him. Then, you two had bitched at each other for a bit before calming down and Levi finally telling you a bit about yourself.

This memory is sparring-related. Wrestling on the roof, Levi nearly throwing you off the edge before he grabbed you in time. "You were going to throw me off the roof," you'd said in indignation.

"You need better training," had been his reply. "You're going to get yourself killed."

Your response had been fueled by annoyance. "Well, I hardly think I'm going to be fighting anyone on rooftops any time soon."

Ah. The irony in that, hm?

You want to live in this moment. Ironic, honestly, how you used to count down the days until training was over and now you long to relive those days. To take those moments you had with Levi and cherish them just a little bit more, sit in them just a little bit longer, study him in the moonlight and hold his hand under the stars.

You wake up with tears in your eyes.

.

Levi wants to leave.

He wants to ditch his squad. He wants to leave them in this damn barn to fend for themselves and go after you, find wherever they're keeping you and where they're undoubtedly torturing you. He wants to kill everyone in his way, including that good-for-nothing bastard that raised him.

He wants you. Fucking hell, he needs you- he's going insane without you.

Levi knows it's illogical. They're wanted, he's got no clues to your whereabouts, and it's likely that he'd make the entire situation more complicated by trying to locate you. What if he goes after you and you've already escaped? Then it's just pointless. But what if you need his help?

He needs to trust you. He really does. And he desperately wants to.

"Fuck," Levi mumbles into his hands. 

He can't do this. He can't.

If you're dead...

Levi squeezes his eyes shut and presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. He needs to trust you. He needs to put the mission first. He knows he does. But Isabel and Farlan died because he trusted them, because he put the mission first-