Underground (Levi x Reader)

Tea

The next morning, I sat in the mess hall, nursing a weak cup of coffee.

The cadets were at a table across the hall, laughing and talking among themselves, but I didn't pay them any attention. I'd have plenty of chances to listen to their idiot ideas and conversations throughout the day in the field.

Erwin sat down beside me, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, and nodded to me as he pulled out a stack of paperwork and set it down in front of him. "Morning, (L/N)."

"Mmm." I wordlessly acknowledged his greeting, taking another sip of my coffee as he turned to focus on his paperwork.

Levi entered the mess hall next, looking just as disagreeable and unapproachable as always. He sat down on the other side of Erwin silently, holding his tea cup in his strange, usual way, and took a drink of the hot, clear liquid.

I ignored him, which is how it usually went between us unless we were shouting reports to each other in the field, and continued to drink my coffee without saying a word.

The silence between the three of us was broken though, when Hange entered the mess hall, her hair in its usual messy disarray and a sheath of papers and books held under her armor. She grinned when she saw us, her glasses glinting in the morning light, and hurried over to the officers' table, slamming her books down on the wood across from Levi.

"Levi! Do you....." She began excitedly, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose as she did so.

"No." Levi cut her off, not even looking up at her as he took another sip of his tea with measured precision.

Hange didn't let his rejection phase her. She slid her stack of books and papers down the table until they were sitting across from me and then plopped down on the bench, propping her chin on her hands as she gave me a large smile. "(F/N)! Do you want to hear about something exciting I just discovered last night?"

"Sure, Hange." I set down my now empty cup of coffee and gave her a small smile in return. Many found her annoying, she was Humanity's Smartest after all, and she could tend to be a bit overenthusiastic with her research, but I liked her. She was genuine, and when needed, she stood up for what she knew, even if it made her a lot of enemies.

Hange started babbling about some new fact she had discovered on some of the abnormal titans last night in her late night research. I halfheartedly listened to her spouting off titan facts, things she had told me many times before, and my eyes drifted to the cadets at the tables across the hall from us. Jaeger, Ackerman, and Arlert had all come in together and sat at their own table while I hadn't been paying attention. My squad were oogling them all again, whispering to each other as the trio talking amongst themselves and fully ignored everyone else in the room.

I rolled my eyes. They may be special forces, and that Jaeger kid may be "Humanity's Last Hope" with his titan shifting and all, but I felt like they could all be taken down a notch or two. I hated people who treated other people like crap, just because they weren't as important as they saw themselves. I pulled myself back to Hange, who was still talking at me without stopping.

"And then I discovered...." She shuffled through her papers, looking for some drawing or graph or fact to show me next.

I glanced to my right at Erwin, who was trying to remain focused on his paperwork with Hange babbling away, and noticed that the fist that held his pen was clenched tight and turning white in his effort to remain on task.

My eyes flicked past him and landed on Levi for just a moment, who was still calmly sipping on his cup of tea, ignoring all of us at the table. He raised his cup to his lips again and his eyes met mine for just a brief second. He raised an eyebrow at me, and my gaze dropped to his hand on the teacup, held across the top, his fingers cupping around the brim lightly, not touching the delicate handle.

I was instantly brought back to another time when I had watched him drink tea in a completely different setting than this, but in the same hauntingly familair, odd way.

FLASHBACK

I watched Levi carefully lower himself onto the dirt floor beside me, delicately holding the teacup in his hand so as not to spill a drop of the tea he had just poured.

I giggled. "Levi, why do you still hold your teacup that way? You know your cup's not going to break again."

He glared at me over the brim of the teacup. "I can't be too careful, dummy. This is the only cup we have left. I don't want to break anymore. I'll get in trouble again."

I grew serious. He was right. I remembered the day a few weeks back, when we had been in his rundown house, pouring a cup of the weak, warm, watery tea into one of only two teacups his family owned. He had been so careful not to spill any of the liquid onto the dirt floor at our feet, but then when he had lifted the teacup up off the table by its thin, delicate, worn, handle, it instantly broke off in his hand. The teacup crashed to the floor and broke at our feet, spilling the warm tea all over our bare, dirty toes. Levi was horrified, and though we had cleaned up the mess, Levi's father had still found out and punished him severely. And ever since then, Levi had been more than careful with the remaining teacup, not even daring to hold it by its thin handle.

I studied his thin, dirty, calloused fingers, holding the teacup gently around its chipped, white brim, and then said, "You're right, Levi. I'm sorry. It's the only one you have left. You have to be careful. We can't drink tea anymore if we break the last cup."

Levi took a sip of the lukewarm tea, dodging around his fingers that were blocking the teacup's rim, and then gave me a grin, his teeth white against his dirt blackened skin. "Now you've got it, dummy." He handed me the cup cautiously. I took it, careful not to touch the handle, and looked over at him. "Now drink some. Who knows when we'll have enough money for tea again?"

FLASHBACK END

"(F/N)?"

I started, the memory clearing from my vision, and looked over at Hange, who was studying me, eyebrow raised. She gave me a grin. "Are you okay? You looked like you were somewhere else completely."

I shook my head, clearing my thoughts, and stood from the table, giving her another small smile in return. "Sorry, Hange. Just thinking about another time and place." I flicked my fingers at her in a slight wave. "I have to go and rouse my cadets up from their morning stupor. Talk later?"

She gave me a nod and I left the table, brushing past Levi on my way out. He didn't look up at me, and I was careful not to look at him this time. These flashes of intense, life-like memories that happened when I was around him were dredging up things I had tried to forget and making me uncomfortable with their looks into my past. There was a reason I had buried those memories in the first place and even though Levi had obviously belonged in (F/N) (L/N)'s past, there was no room for him, or the underground memories, in Corporal (F/N) (L/N)'s present, or future.