One place on Earth - Levi x Reader

One place on Earth - Levi x Reader - Part 4

  You had been walking in the hot weather for hours. The sun was shining from a clear sky and you both were sweating. You were out of water and desperately trying to search for supplies from the few abandoned cars that came across on your way, but found nothing. The drive ways always seem to take the long way with all the zigzags. Levi checked the map he had and noticed that the road was going to make another large curve. You decided to take the risk and shorten the way by taking a shortcut through the forest.

You kept going, trusting the fact that the main road was still somewhere on your right and you'd appear on the road again soon. The forest was quiet. The trees were tall and old and there was nearly nothing growing on the ground. The soil turned more and more rocky, and you noticed that you were walking on a slight downhill. Levi stopped suddenly.

You stepped by his side and frowned. "What is it?"

Levi reached his hand and pointed his index finger forward. You narrowed my eyes to see in the distance, and then you could see it. A river.

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Priorities. During these past three years, you'd been forced to think everything twice before acting. Thinking what is wise, what is needed and what is necessary in order to stay alive. You'd imagine, that many of those things you thought were important in your past life, didn't matter anymore. Food, water, weapons and medical supplies where the most needed things in your life today... for the most of you at least.

For some people it would've been enough to satisfy your thirst and fill up your water bottles and keep going, but obviously not for everyone. You leaned your back against a large pine tree with your arms crossed, watching the scene in front of you. Levi had started washing his clothes as soon as you got to the river. You watched him crouching at the shore and scrubbing the dirty soil, blood and mud stains off of his jeans. His t-shirt was already placed against a big rock to dry off and he was wearing just his underwear and his shoes at the moment. Some nerve.

"You're one weird man, you know that?" you said by the tree.

Levi looked at you over his shoulder. "What? They're dirty." he said it like there was nothing weird to be ogled about, and turned his attention back to his activity.

You shook your head and walked next to him, gazing over the river. You wiped your arm over your sweaty forehead and sighed. You took your shoes off and reached your toes into the water to try the temperature. It was cold and you quickly pulled your leg back.

"Aren't you gonna do something to your clothes." Levi asked.

"No. I'm fine with few stains." you told him the truth.

Levi squeezed the extra water off his jeans. "I can still smell the sewers from you. (Name), you're disgusting." he simply stated it as a fact.

"I'm not gonna wander through these woods wearing wet clothes." you shared your own set of facts. "You're ridiculous. The mosquitoes alone are killing me and you wanna add to that misery."

Levi dropped the jeans on the ground and stood up. He stepped in front of you and you had a staring contest.

"You should clean them." he told you. "That rot on your clothes will attract worse things than just mosquitoes, you know?"

You raised your eyebrows, seeing his point, but you still stood against it. "I'm not gonna wash my clothes. They're fine."

All the sudden, Levi looked somewhere beyond you, frowning. "What's that?"

You turned around, which was your biggest mistake. Levi pressed his hands tightly on your shoulders, and before you even knew it, he pushed you.

You fell into the river. The water was deep enough to allow you go under the surface. Your feet touched the bottom and you quickly pushed yourself above the surface again. The freezing water made you gasp for air as you now stood in the water with your arms pulled above the surface. Levi stood at the shore with his arms crossed, having a smug smile on his face.

"You... little... fucker." you stuttered. "Do you have... any idea how COLD this water is?" your gaze shot daggers at him.

"I'm sure it's pretty refreshing." Levi was doing a hell of a job keeping his face straight. "It had to be done, I couldn't afford you risking our lives."

"Risking our lives..." you mocked his words under your breath. You moved a bit closer to him where the dry land was a little higher from the water. "The bottom of this river is nothing but sinking mud, there's nothing refreshing about this. Help me out of here, you asshole." you reached an arm towards him.

Levi enjoyed the moment for a couple of more seconds, before he leaned forward and grabbed your hand.

He was ready to pull you up, when he saw the cunning smile on your face. His eyes widened in panic and he tried to free his hand, but you squeezed your fingers tighter and wrapped your other hand around his wrist and pulled him into the water. He disappeared under the surface with a big splash and reappeared with a big gasp. He pushed his wet locks away from his face and breathed heavily.

You failed to hold your laugh and cracked a chuckle, though you quickly stopped when Levi suddenly turned his head and glared at you viciously.

"W-well, you deserved it." you stammered in your defense. "You can't just push people into a river, Levi."

Your words only triggered him to come after you, curses flying through his teeth.

"Levi? Don't be mad now. Levi!" you yelped and tried to flee to the dry land, but he reached his hand around your wrist and yanked you back.

Levi grabbed his arms around you to make sure you stay right there in the wet and cold with him. You tried to squirm away, but it was hopeless. Admitting your defeat, you gave up and stopped fighting back. You didn't think he was going to really hurt you for what you did, and as you faced him, you knew this for a fact. You just stood there in the freezing water, breathing heavy, staring at each other.

"Am I in trouble?" you questioned your fate, feeling oddly secure under the tense stare of this stranger.

"Waist deep, I'd say." Levi joked about the situation, his eyes blinking down to your lips and back to your eyes.

"Oh no." you only smiled, seeing him lean closer and you closed your eyes as his lips met yours.

It was just this moment. Everything that had happened, all the sadness, terror and fear was being wiped away from your mind. You had kissed before, but none of them had felt like this. Maybe it was the situation itself in its raw comedy, or the fact that you had met just a few hours ago and it already felt like you'd seen the whole circle of life with him.

Just yesterday you thought your sad little life was over, but for some reason you'd been granted an extend to it. Nothing mattered, you were alive, and you damn well could enjoy it for a change. It was a mixture of passion, despair and hope, releasing you from all the stress and horrors of your lives. He pulled you closer. Your hands grabbed the hair at the back of his head. You didn't want it to end. More, more.

*CRACK*

You departed quickly. Levi's head turned and you followed the act. You looked at the hill, seeing a group of seven dead men stomping and staggering down the hill.

"Oh shit." you whispered and you hurried closer to the land.

Levi reached for his clothes and the back bag waiting at the big stone near the water, while you tried to climb up to go for your own stuff near the trees.

Levi grabbed your shoulder. "Forget it. They're too close." he pulled you with him deeper in the water. "We need to swim across, there's too many of them."

You didn't want to abandon your belongings, but you saw what was coming at you, and Levi was right. You needed to retreat. You can't fight like this.

You managed to get on the other side, grabbing a hold of everything that was attached to the land. The dead ones had tried to follow you to the water, but they were taken away by the stream. More dead men had appeared on the other side, roaming around the spot where we just were. It was impossible to go back. Levi was the first to get up to the land and he helped you get off the water.

You sat on the ground, breathing heavy and looking at the other side of the river. Levi tried his best to get his wet clothes back on as quickly as possible. He just got his jeans back on, when you heard a low roar somewhere nearby. Another dead man was coming towards you near the waterline on this side of the river, several others following from the distance.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Levi muttered and hurried to pick up his shirt and back bag from the ground.

You had already stood up and checked the surroundings, thinking about where to go.

"This way!" Levi said and took your hand, leading you to the right.

You ran. Both of you were already tired, but you just had to keep on going forward. More and more dead people came after you. Sometimes one appeared right next to you from behind a tree or you just happened to see one on our way. You only stopped to kill those on your way and kept running away from the ones behind. The forest was swarming dead people. It was a huge mistake to take the shortcut.

They kept tailing you, there was probably more than a dozen of them. Your chest hurt, breathing hurt, your legs and feet hurt. You were so tired, beginning to doubt your strength to keep going. The forest changed a little, there was now some bushes growing on the ground. You ran through them and suddenly the trees ended. There was a hill ahead and you could see some objects peeking from the top of it. You realized they were cars.

"The road!" you gasped in relief.

You ran to the road, and turned to the left. The asphalt was filled with broken glass from the shattered car windows and you were running on bare feet. You tried to watch your steps, but you couldn't possibly dodge all the sharp pieces. Every step felt painful, but you had to keep running. Glancing behind your shoulder, you could see the dead people scatter to the road from the forest.

"Oi, keep your eyes forward! Don't fall!" Levi yelled and jumped over some abandoned luggage on the way.

The road was getting more open from the cars.

"That shortcut was the worst idea ever!" you panted, hoping that you'd manage to gain more distance from the dead.

Something appeared on the road ahead of you. It was getting closer. You could see a pair of lights at the front of it.

"Is that a car?!"

"It is!" Levi said, being as surprised as you were.

The car was getting closer. It drove about another hundred meters, when it suddenly hit the brakes with a loud shrieking sound. The one driving it probably saw the unpleasant crowd on the road ahead. You could see that it was a gray minivan. The car made a turn on the road on sideways.

"No, no, no, no, WAIT!" you yelled desperately and waved hands in the air.

You were exhausted, running slow for pushing your bodies at their limit for so long. The dead ones kept coming closer, and now the last bit of hope seemed to be turning away. The car remained still on the road for a while, and the people inside of it were moving pretty restlessly, judging from the fact that the whole car was jiggling. The car quickly turned around, and after making another shrieking sound, for your surprise, the car hit the reverse and started backing towards you.

After realizing it was coming back, you pushed all our remaining strength to get to the approaching car. The back door slid open when you were almost there. Some guy reached his body out of the car.

"Hurry!" he yelled.

The car stopped. Levi threw his things in the back seats and jumped in just as the car started going forward again. Levi reached his arm and pulled you in, just when the driver hit another gear on and the car gained more speed. You pushed the door close and both of you just gasped for air in the backseat. You had to hold your hand against your chest because it was hurting so much. You had to blink and squeeze the seat just be sure you were really there, that you were still alive.

"L-Levi?" you heard the other person on the front seat speak.

You looked at the boy. He was around your age, a bit younger maybe. He had a dark brown hair and green eyes. He was looking at Levi with wide eyes, then he looked at the driver, who was also looking over his shoulder at Levi. He had a slightly lighter hair and his face had sharper features. Levi pulled himself to a better position against the seat, looking at the two individuals.

"Well, I have to say... This might be the first time I admit to be glad to see you two." Levi leaned his head back.

"You know these guys?" you asked Levi, who gave you a quick look and nodded.

"Yeah, they're from the zone. They're from Home."

The one with green eyes kept looking at Levi with a weird face, as if he had come across at a strange animal and he wasn't sure if it was going to bite or not. "What are you doing here?" he finally asked, concerned. "And why are you shirtless?"

"Not now, brat." Levi replied, annoyed, as he still tried to calm his burning lungs.

Levi made a 'tch' noise and took his shirt from the seat and started putting it on. The young man gave a couple of confused looks towards Levi, before his eyes turned on you.

"Hi there. Are you alright?" he asked you.

"I'm fine, just a bit out of breath. You came just in time. Thanks." you flashed him a genuine but a tired smile.

"Looks like we did. I'm Eren." he introduced himself. "and this is Jean." he gestured towards the driver.

"Hi!" Jean said cheerfully and looked at you trough the rear-view mirror.

"Nice to meet you." you smiled. "I'm (Name)." you told them and relaxed against the seat, puffing out a relieved sigh.

Jean kept checking on you. His eyes moved down a little and the sides of his lips twitched. The car made a quick turn to the right due his lack of steering. Jean quickly corrected the movement with another harsh move to the left and cleared his throat as the ride was steady again.

"What the fuck was that, you idiot!" Levi growled.

Levi was being pushed over you from the sudden movement, while Eren was halfway on Jean's side, looking really uncomfortable. You all straightened yourselves back to your seats when Jean tried to explain himself.

"I, I just... eh, what's with the wet clothes?" Jean laughed nervously.

You looked down at your chest and realized the miss wet t-shirt candidate attire that was going on with you. You quickly crossed your arms, meeting the eyes on the mirror again.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean... it's just good to see your, that' you're I-mean-I-just-OW!"

Levi hit Jean at the back of his head.

"Eyes on the road." Levi snapped and sat back in his seat. "You morons." he muttered to the window. "What were you doing here anyway?"

"We were just looking for some supplies. Gasoline mostly, for one of the generators." Eren answered from the front seat.

"How far away are we from where you live?" you asked.

"Um, it's about fifteen minute drive from here." Eren replied and turned his head towards you, looking at the bandages on top of your bite mark. "That looks like it hurts, are you sure you're OK?"

You placed a hand over the bandages. "I'm fine, it's nothing." you faked a smile.

You looked to your right, locking eyes with Levi as you pressed the bandage. He didn't say anything, but you knew he acknowledged your sudden discomfort. Eren only nodded to your answer, and turned to look back at the road. He glared at Jean and punched him in the shoulder.

"What was that for?" Jean whined and punched him back with his elbow.

"For being a shitty driver." Eren hit him again, and Jean kept hitting him back until they were almost constantly slapping each others.

"For fucks sake!" Levi yelled, making you all flinch. "One more hit and I swear I'll make you repeat what happened last time when you got on my nerves." he stated and whatever he meant by that, it made both Jean and Eren turn pale.

They quickly turned their faces forward and didn't move on their seats. You touched the bandages on your arm while looking out the window, suddenly realizing what was still coming. You still didn't know if they would let you in. You really started feeling nervous now, and spared another look on Levi.

Levi knew without asking what was troubling you. He reached out his hand, and you took it. He squeezed firmly, telling you everything was going to be all right.