With a Whimper - [AU] Levi x Reader [Ch 10]

The sun broke through the darkness of night and spilled through the cracks in the boarded windows. You’d only managed to get a couple hours sleep, and were left pretty much dysfunctional for the better half of the morning. You could’ve really gone for a pick-me-up, but unfortunately, in a hell-hole like this, caffeine was incredibly hard to come by.

The others were shocked to hear about Levi’s blind eye, and you personally hadn’t gotten over it either. You felt terrible, like you were personally responsible for it for taking too long. It got you back in that position where you failed Elliot, and now you failed Levi. God, even now, when you have superhuman abilities, you still end up botching it. How is that possible?

But you couldn’t let yourself think on that bullshit now; you had an important retrieval mission to finish.

Armin was putting an eye-patch over Levi’s eye, meanwhile Mikasa and Eren were off patrolling and you were still sulking on your bedroll. God, at the very least you wanted twenty more minutes, but no, that was just too much to ask for, wasn’t it?

“Uh... Co-corporal…” Armin began, wanting to get his attention before continuing on.

“What is it,” he more so stated than asked. Clearly he wasn’t taking this half-blindness thing well.

“Um… well, I’m just saying that you… eh, well, you kind of need both eyes to have depth perception. So, uh, seeing things is probably gonna be a bit hard for you.”

Levi furrowed his brows at this. Was that why he ended up knocking over his mug he was sure he was going to grab? He spilt his drink all over the place and felt even grumpier that his eyes were tricking him.

You stopped wallowing in self-pity for a moment to turn your gaze to the two beside you. “Will Levi still be able to… y’know… fight?” you asked.

“Corporal Levi is humanity’s strongest, I’m sure he’ll still be able to. It’ll just um… be more difficult.”

“Would it help if we kept him out of the action?”

“Will you two shut up? I’m fine. I’ll figure out how to adjust to this, I don’t need you to baby me.”

You stared at him sadly before heaving a sigh. “Alright, alright fine,” you said before going back to your state of depression. What a shitty day this was turning out to be.

You propped your elbows on your thighs and held your face in your hands. You were so exhausted, but you didn’t have time to be sitting around, the NCR could be on your tail at any minute with more numbers than before. If you wanted to make it to the medical institution in one piece you needed to make haste while daylight still lasts.

So you forced yourself out of bed and started to pack everything away to prepare for another long day of trekking the Wastes. Once Armin was finished with adjusting the eye-patch on Levi he helped you in your packing. It was times like this you were thankful that such a cute little angel was in your group.

You carefully situated the cutlery set in its box while storing the other things into the duffle bag in front of you. Carelessly, you knocked one of the plastic mugs away from you while being too focused on other things. You glanced at it then shrugged it off, making a mental note to pick it up later.

Levi glared at the mug, as if its very existence insulted him, before getting up from his seat and making his way over to it. “Tch, shitty brat. I’ll get it.”

He bent down and reached his hand out to grab it, but ended up brushing his knuckles on the worn-out carpet instead. He scowled and clicked his tongue as he placed his hand flat on the carpet and moving his hand around the area until he felt the mug against his skin.

Finally picking it up, he stood upright and turned to face you, who had been watching him the whole time.

“What?” he ground out, his restless and annoyed demeanour coming through in his words.

“Nothing—it’s nothing, I’m sorry,” you replied before taking the cup out of his hand.

You felt your heart aching horrendously at the thought that Levi would have to deal with this burden for the rest of his life, and it was your fault.

Another day went by, another day that – truthfully – was eerily akin to yesterday. It was almost as if the whole damned thing was just on repeat, and you could only hope the night wouldn’t follow the same route. Luckily, you hadn’t encountered many mutants that day. You figured they all kept to the more populated areas, cities and such, not many zombies hid out in the farmland.

You couldn’t lie, seeing your world so empty and lost like this made you feel as vacant as the dead plains were. You missed how this planet used to look. So lively and colourful, filled with vast expanses and open fields – now all of it reduced to a dead and jaded wasteland. How fitting that it was now universally dubbed just that.

As the five of you continued on your path, you started to recognise the locations you were passing by. You had been here before.

“Hey, Levi, you think we’ll make it to Maryland before nightfall?” you asked, breaking the hour-long silence that hung over the group.

“No way in hell. We’re still a few hours away at least,” he answered. The whole day Levi had been only offering short and to-the-point replies, which was out of character for him considering his usual talkative nature. It kind of unnerved you.

“Well, um, it’d help if we found somewhere safe to sleep, right?”

“There are no mutants out this far. We’ll be fine.”

“What if the NCR attack again?”

He didn’t answer.

You continued on anyway. “I was just thinking that maybe we could look up some people I know.”

“You know people?” he mocked.

“Ha-ha-ha, you’re a comical genius. I spent nine years trekking across America; I’ve met survivors along the way. The people I’m talking about were a group I met a few months ago – before I was bitten. They live out this way; we could find them and stay with them for the night.”

“Who are they?” asked Eren.

“A group of around six people from way down south, I was pretty close with their leader, Bertholdt, before I left.”

“What’s this ‘Bertholdt’ like?”

“He’s timid and he sweats a lot. But he’s a good guy. As long as we don’t prove we’re trouble he’ll let us stay with them, I’m sure. I only left because that was when I got attacked by a zombie and thought that was it for me. I didn’t want to infect them or turn on them, so I headed out to go be with my people. Make a little zombie clique or something.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.” Was all Levi said for the longest time; instead he contemplated exactly what it was that he wanted to do.

Honestly he wasn’t very keen on sleeping out in the open – or worse – in the wilderness. God, the thought of little grimy bugs making their way into his bedroll gave him jitters. Any chance to find a survivor camp was a chance worth chasing.

“…Where are they?”

Relying on nothing but your memory, you spent the next two hours tracking down the camp that once stood. You ended up walking around in circles and getting lost in the foliage a few times, and the sun had already started to set by the time you got anywhere important. Levi was just about ready to hit you over the head and call you an idiot, but once he saw the smoke from a fire in the distance, he postponed his disciplinary beating to see if that fire belonged to the people you were seeking.

Armin sniffed the air, inhaling the pleasant smell that was coming from the direction of the camp. “What is that? It smells nice, like what my mother used to cook.”

You furrowed your brows and inhaled deeply. “Roast… chicken? Some kind of meat. And vegetables. Potatoes. Holy shit there’s a lot of potatoes.”

“You think that’s them?” he inquired.

“No doubt. Living in the wilderness so close to a farm gives them plenty of opportunity for food. Much better than scavenging old preserved cans of beans from run-down shops.”

“I hope they’re intending on sharing…” Levi murmured, feeling a rumbling in his stomach at the thought of a good hot meal. He was sick of eating cheese sandwiches and beans.

You emerged from the bushes to find the camp looking as prosperous as ever. It was still the same six people you remembered from way back when, and Bertholdt was among them, drenched in his own sweat like he always was.

They didn’t seem to notice you, and so you motioned for the others to stay back while you went and talked things out.

Levi had been expecting some sort of suave negotiation, but he wasn’t entirely surprised when it was just you shouting nonsense.

“Nice to see that nothing’s changed here, Bertholdt!” you called, causing him to jump and turn toward you.

“[First]?” he gasped. “You’re alive?”

“You sound surprised to see me.”

“I-I am! You just disappeared with no goodbyes or anything; we all thought you were dead!”

“I thought I was going to die, too. Or at least become a zombie. Turns out I’m a successful product of Project HE though, so hooray for that.”

He gaped at you confused for a moment, and a few others joined in on the gawking. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing. “W-…what do you mean you’re a successful product of Project HE?”

“It’s a long story. I can tell you all about it, but I’ve got a few friends with me and, y’know, we’re kinda looking for a place to stay for the night… I just thought since we were in the neighbourhood we’d drop by and say hello.”

“You’re looking for a place to stay?” he repeated, as if to make sure he heard you right.

“Yeah! Would, uh… would here happen to be an option?”

“Oh, of course! We were just in the middle of making dinner, are you guys hungry?”

“Yeah, actually,” you answered.

“We should have enough food here. I’ll go tell the others that you’re staying.”

Bertholdt’s approval was enough signal for the others to grab their things and follow you deeper into the camp. As the oversized young leader went over to inform the other people at the camp, Levi passed you by and muttered in your ear.

“Not bad, [First], not bad at all.”