Humanity's Hope || Levi Ackerman

CURE

Levi couldn't sleep again, sitting in the chair of his office at around 1 a.m. in the morning and although it wasn't late, the Survey Corps curfew said everyone was to be in their rooms by 11 p.m. That meant he was annoyed when he heard the huge bout of laughter coming from somewhere below him, disturbing his peace. Then he was surprised when he found the source of the voice and found the laughter familiar in a way.

He was about to step in, ready to scold the people being loud in the hours of night and stopped in his tracks when he saw Marta sitting on that horse face Jean's lap, they were both laughing as she buried her face in his neck. Jean's head snapped up, his face turning serious when he noticed the short man in the doorway but Marta just smiled at him.

"Levi!" She whined out as she flailed in her drunken state.

"Get to bed, cadets," it was a word he had never used for Marta and it took her a minute to realise she was angry at her. Jean had already began to get up and Marta made her way towards Levi, calling his name.

"Leviiiiii," Marta whined again before said man grabbed her thin wrist, dragging her straight to her room as she stumbled down the corridor behind him.

"I expected more from you, cadet."

"Why are you calling me cadet, my name's Marta," she replied to his criticism in a droning tone.

They eventually reached the door to the basement and he let go of her roughly, nearly knocking her back onto the hard wooden floor. Then his voice and eyes softened again, "just don't do it again."

Marta watched him start to walk off, her mood growing worse than it had been before she started drinking with Jean and she felt hot tears sting at her eyes. Marta looked down at herself, her teal eyes blurring with the unshed flow and managed to choke out another "Levi..."

Marta had sobered up far too quickly.

Everything told Levi to just leave her there and go back to his room to do more work but when he heard Marta call out his name in that sad tone and he turned around to see that broken look in her eye, he couldn't help but not go back to her. He had never seen that look on her since the trial and even then that was fear and not sadness, she wore a smile constantly.

"Tch, brat..." Levi sighed, kneeling beside her crouching figure. "What's wrong?"

"Marco..." Marta said, her voice trailing off as she choked up again, the tears beginning to stream down her face. "I'm sorry, please don't leave me alone right now."

"Shut up, brat." His soft voice giving away that his words weren't serious as wrapped his arms around her small figure. "You can stay with me, your room probably looks like shit anyway."

Marta could only stifle a small laugh as she felt herself being lifted off of the ground, "I can walk, you know."

"Sure you can," Levi smirked at her tear streaked face. He walked slower than usual when trying to reach his room, most likely just to hold onto Marta for a few seconds more even though he wasn't quite sure why yet.

He kicked open the door to his room and sure enough it was as clean as Marta expected it to be, absolutely spotless. Levi practically threw her down on the bed's crisp white sheets that were sort of cold, having not been used in God knows how long. "You don't need to be so rough."

Marta was lucky it was dark inside the room because it didn't take her long to realise what her words could mean if taken out of context, especially since she was in his bed. "I'll sleep in the chair," she insisted.

"it's fine, I sleep there anyways," Levi replied, turning on a small lamp so he could finish up some paperwork he was doing before finding Marta and Jean in a somewhat compromising position.

"You shouldn't, we wouldn't want Humanity's Strongest to get back pains."

"Hmph," was Levi's only reply before they drifted back into their usual silence. Marta shrugged off her training jacket and began to unstrap her uniform before kicking off her shoes, which banged against the wall.

That was the only time Levi bothered to look back at her with a look that said 'if you dirty my room, I'll kill you.' Marta tucked herself in between the cold sheets and rolled about for warmth for a while but to no avail.

"Levi."

"Marta."

"I'm cold."

He sighed. "What can I do about that?"

"Come to bed?" Marta tried and he sighed again, getting up and turning off the light. The clinking of his 3dmg straps was heard before he slipped in between the cold sheets as well, he actually shivered a little. "Thank you, Levi."

He grunted out, "for what?"

"For taking care of me when I'm being an idiot," Marta replied. In the pale moonlight Levi could see the sparkle of tears in her eyes as they both stared at each other, face to face.

"Don't get used to it." Levi stated and rolled over to not face her way.

Marta nuzzled into the covers and they lay there for a while in silence despite both being awake.

They were both still cold.

Levi rolled over to face Marta again whose eyes were closed right now, he tried to subtly scoot himself closer to her but she ended up opening her eyes. When she did, he quickly crashed her into his chest, her nearly banging her nose on his rock solid chest but still laughing at Levi's awkwardness anyway.

"Tch, shut up, brat. I'm not gonna lie here and be cold all night."

They didn't talk after that, instead becoming tired, Levi for the first time in a while being able to sleep. As they slowly fell into slumber, their thoughts were too consumed by the other to realise that this had been the first time Levi was able to fall asleep for more than 3 hours and the first time Marta slept without having a nightmare.