Guns and Cigarettes [Levi/Rivaille x OC]

Chapter 12: Know Your Place Pt.1

A small rap on the window outside robbed me of my soul. My heavy head snapped out of the hold of my hand towards the curtains drawn against the night sky outside. An elongated shadow, drawn out by the desk lamp like a cheese stretch, flirted shamelessly over posters of intricate pathways and anatomy structures as I moved rigidly.

I laid my pen down. The draw hovered out discreetly to my command, surrendering its shameful secret of a handgun which I clutch in a firm grip as I slipped in a clip routinely and brushed the safety into release. I wheeled my chair gently towards the source of tapping on glass behind the grey fabric. Wooden floorboards creaked beneath in anticipation, the audience to the scene unfolding before our eyes. My head rotated back to check if the bedroom door was locked behind my back as my bound hand danced for the drapes.

I always had a gun within reach to snap a bullet into the throats of monsters hiding under my bed. Or in rooms under the same roof.

A sprout of dark hair greeted the barrel of my gun. Exasperated, I backed away from the frame as I witnessed Levi crawl through from the outside. Intruding. An invasion from the external world into my sanctuary. Like a twisted, inverted version of a girl crawling out of your TV screen in the middle of your lounge. Something ... someone ... that doesn't belong here. Shadows mimicked his limbs, recreated his movements.

I was terrified.

How do I keep him out of my reality?

Do I shove him out the window?

Like shoving the girl dragging herself out of the TV back down the well? Or do I let her take me?

I couldn't bear to look at him.

I retreated back onto my chair and rolled myself back to my desk, stealthily slipping the pistol back into its dormant location for standby, with its clip loyally placed by its side. Piece by piece, I stealthily dismantled my secrets and thrusted them back into the shadows.

"Damn, we haven't seen your bratty face at school for ages. You haven't even answered any of my calls. I had to stop by and see whether your ass was still alive." He grumbled alongside the purring of the window sliding shut. His voice trailed off as he dusted himself, rubbing a sample of primordial dust between his thumb and index finger in disgust while he examined its contents.

I was glad to see that the classic Levi has not changed.

My head remained wedged upon a hand that clasped across my darkened cheek. Numbers received my dead acknowledgement as my intense gaze that was nailed on my textbook saw nothing, refusing to look up and address the boy who mounted in the middle of my room.

"Sorry, my phone has been dead. And I've been sick." I answered in the most light-hearted lilt I could muster.

Talk about the weather.

Talk about the assholes you hate so much.

Talk about the dust in my room.

Just talk. And I'll listen.

Because for once, I don't think I have anything to say.

The numbers stacked up in towers before me. They were quiet, competing with my unusual silence. Even Levi picked up on the lack of repartee, perched over my shoulder after he unloaded a pile of sheets at the corner of my desk that never made it to me from school.

"Aren't you quiet tonight."

My hand tightened over my face, "What makes you say that?"

"Look at me, will you?"

I wished it was his traditional rough tone so I could bite back with sarcasm.

His hand reached for a lock of hair that curtained the side of my face. I closed my darkened eyes as I turned to him, ashamed of the palette of greys and blues that dwelled on my face.

The books on my maple bookcase mopped up an inhumane voice that seeped from the male's paper-thin lips as he shoved a fist in his mouth. His pupils constricted within the frame of his slanted eyes. His hands hung in the air for a moment, tied between covering his mouth in outrage or taking up my face in his hold.

I was so ashamed of the fissures in my armour. Streaks of grey. These bone-coloured puddles. Just evidence that I wasn't as tough as I made myself to be. Evidence that I'm a fraud, that I'm a lie. That I can't protect shit. That I can't even protect myself. The pits of disgrace and guilt laid at the back of my throat. Dry pills I couldn't swallow.

"Who the fuck-" The wheeze slipped out between his gritted teeth and settled onto the ground like dust. Then I grasped the recognition, a flicker of lightning, in those eyes of his that usually held indiscriminate public contempt. The light was snatched from his orbs that darkened with rage every passing second, and in that instant, I leapt up from my chair to stop him as he trudged for my bedroom door with fists by his side.

Warmth ate away at me as I wound my arms around his waist, pulling him back from the door that was a trigger for the Revelation outlined in the Bible. My cheekbone stung as I rested my face into his back, bolting him into place.

"Please ..." Lips crusting apart, I begged, "Promise me. Don't get involved. Please. You have to promise me."

"I'll kill that son of a-"

"Levi, listen to me! You can't. Please."

He grew quiet when I started shaking. The pinna of my ear was aligned to his back, listening to the jerk of his ragged breathing. I couldn't control everything, I had to come to terms with that. But I could try and save a life. I had to try.

In the straitjacket of my limbs, Levi finally heeded to my reluctance of letting him go.

"Fine." He heaved, "FINE."

He daintily traced along my arms towards his abdomen and pick up my wrists. I couldn't release him. I held onto him like a lifeline. I could never take this moment back.

"Come on now," The boy whispered in a soft tone, "I said I won't. I don't have to repeat myself, do I?"

"You have to promise me." I buried my face into his back, my voice muffled.

"Alright, I promise." A soft pat over the scabs of my knuckles, "I promise."

Unfolding myself from him, I stood there with a heavy head and a gaze that couldn't lift itself from the ground. A burn like extracting shrapnel out of flesh swelled across my cheek when his calloused fingers grazed over it. Those hands, usually expertly wielding a knife and carving into throats, cradled my face gently as he examined me. It was as if he was nervous to hold me.

I won't break, I wanted to reassure him, I've been through worse. Instead, my eyes were fastened to the corner of the room, avoiding his.

"Why can't you even look at me?" He straightened my face, his tone dreadfully grave.

"I kinda look shit right now."

"You serious? God fucking help me, you look shit every day. The stain you call a face looks like roadkill, but I still put up with it every day."

I didn't know why I laughed when he said that. It sure as hell wasn't a compliment. The stitching of his brows relaxed a bit when he observed me giggling, followed by a grimace in agony when I snorted too hard. A vein of blood caked the curve of my bottom lip as a busted wound unstitched itself open to my big smile. Don't we all love the smell of rust and iron.

He took my face firmly in his hands, and I lowkey was worried he'll give me breakouts. "Adler, you should have called me. Why didn't you call me?"

"And do what?" I cocked my eyebrow at him, still trying hard to suppress the edge of my lips from twitching painfully, "Cry about it?"

"I could have put up with that."

God, that really made me want to cry. Instead, I swallowed the vulnerability like a hard pill at the back of my throat and pulled a lop-sided grin at this ragged, knife-wielding street thug who found himself in the middle of my room holding my battered face in his hands. 

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