Your lie (Levi • Reader)

22. Taube and Kuchel

Home. But you didn't know where this was anymore.

Resolutely you released the eye-contact and parted from him.
Still a little totritt you got up on your legs and steadied yourself on the ground to be able to see the scene again.

Your breathing felt heavy and slow, but you managed to restrain your overbearing feelings, as you got closer to the body.

When your eyes met her empty ones, as well as the glassy look of hers, your heart felt as if it got squeezed together by two strong hands.
The hollowness inside of them frightened you.
You kneeled down carefully and put your hand over her forehead, moving your palm down softly.

Her eyes finally closed.
She could rest now.
In peace.

In the same moment you wanted to turn away, something on the ground caught your attention.
It was a shrewd of a cheap, dirty tatters.
Carefully you picked it up from and lifted it to your head to be able to observe its details.

Levi behind you had gotten up and walked closer.
"Bastards...", he mumbled with his raspy voice.

Your breathing quickened, thoughts whirling around.
"Do you know what this is?"

Levi coldly:
"Some bastards from the underground."

Your eyes focussed on the piece of rag and you watched it in a sinister fascination.
As your pupils shrunk, your heart started racing.

Levi sceptically glanced over to you without saying a single word.
He then went inside of your old home and returned a little later with a light cloth under his arm.
Carefully he lifted it above your dead mother's body, while you plainly watched him proceeding.
Your gaze softened, when looking at him.
Internally you was thankful for what he did, but your mouth was too dry to whisper anything more than his name.
"Levi."

-

The two of you rode back in silence and arrived in the late noon.
The sky was painted in grey, because of the clouds covering the faint sun's beams.
Maybe it would rain.

You left your two horses back and went in together. Maybe you were too dizzy to do anything against it, but your body automatically followed Levi, who didn't seem to mind that. The way he took leaded to his room on the second floor.
He retrieved an old key from his pocket and unlocked the door, going in.
Thereafter you looked to him in question and he emotionlessly glanced back.

Inside, you simply went to to the middle of the room, sat down on the blank ground and leaned back against his desk.
Everything was clean and well-ordered, just as always and nothing less than expected.

Levi eyed you shortly and then went out.
After a while, he came back with some food, two tea-cups and a small, dark-gray blanket. Thereupon he carefully put the tea onto the desk and held a loaf of bread out for you.
You wearily looked up to him and then at the food again.

Levi took the blanket and carefully put it over you.
Then he glanced down and said:
"Eat."

Due to your lack of appetite, you avoided even looking at the food.
"I'm not hungry."

Levi monotonically:
"Eat."

"I told you, I can't-"

Levi coldly:
"And I told you to eat, so you'll eat. That's an order."

With your missing energy you lifted your arm to the loaf, but he already slightly kneeled down and handed it to you.
Afterwards he sat down next to you, not lifting his ganze from the clear floor.

Unwillingly, you tore off a piece of the bread and guided it to your mouth.
At the thought of putting something inside of you, you just wanted to puke.

After a while, your sluggish chewing was the only sound in the room.
Levi took the cup of tea and handed it over.
"Maybe it'll be easier with some fluid.", he said.

You accepted it and the bread got a lot more easier to chew.
A long silence followed after your meal.

"My mom's name was Kuchel.", Levi suddenly said, still staring at the ground.
"She did everything she could to provide me with a good life. And she went through a lot, just to get a little money to be able to feed me and keep me alive."

His voice was monotone as he spoke.
"She passed. Long ago. After that I lived down there with my comrades Isabel and Furlan. We dreamed of getting out of this shithole called underground and when we finally did, I-", he gritted his teeth, while looking down in profound pain.

"They got killed.", he croaked silently.
Now you were the one looking to him and saw the immense effort it took him to share all of this.

"What were they like?", you asked.

Levi made a long pause.
"Farlan was kind and humorous, while Isabel ...", he trailed off in what you guessed were memories.
"She was free-spirited and unrestrained. She would've gone beyond any limits to help anyone."

I looked over to him with sadly.
"Sounds like this world lost a lot when they left."

Quietness.

You asked yourself how much these people meant to him, since Levi wasn't somebody to easily open up. It probably must've taken its time for him to trust someone like that, so the experience of loosing them had an immense impact on him. Your heart hurt even more at the thought. Maybe he even lost a lover, you didn't know.

After a while you spoke as well.
"My dad was a good man."
You had to smile at the thought.
"He always spent as much time with me as possible and we had those secret nicknames only him and I knew."
Summer memories flushed over you.

"He called me 'Amsel'. That means 'blackbird'.
I called him 'Taube', which means 'dove'.
He gifted me with dreams and hopes, wishes and happiness, until he died a few years ago, when the titan-attack occurred in Shiganshina-district."
The last part sounded callous coming from your mouth, as if you recounted about a subject, which didn't concern you at all.

Levi listened calmly.

"Heh. He always told me not to cry.", you laughed with your red, swollen eyes.
"Haven't I enough already?", you asked ironically.

"He was right.", Levi responded and you turned to him in surprise.
"You shouldn't.", he responded.
"Crying doesn't change anything."

His metallic-gray eyes were cloudy and filled with emotions he obviously wasn't keen on showing, so you turned away from him to evade him feeling uncomfortable.

"But it surely doesn't make you weak."

In one moment your eyes glistened gloomily out of pure surprise.

Levi, you thought.
What are you saying?

In your mind your asked myself, whether he truly didn't perceive crying as a weakness. Couldn't he see that you were weak? Truly and entirely powerless?
In anger you clenched your fists tightly.

—