Attack on Titan: Beyond Canon

What You Are | Levi x Reader

You're panting hard and everything aches. Exhaustion and rage are coursing through you simultaneously, filling you with a kind of dizzying nausea as you scramble onto your hands and knees. Your fingers are caked with mud dampened by this morning's rainfall. Tears are shining in your eyes but you'll be damned if you let them fall.

"Had enough, thug?" Floch's boot lands on your upper back, pushing you back down into the dirt. Mud sticks to your face as you squirm beneath the weight.

"Get the fuck off me," you growl, turning your head so the mud doesn't slide into your mouth. However the boot on your back only digs in harder. The boot's pressure on your spine increases and you emit a tiny cry. You won't give him the satisfaction of vocalizing the pain that is swirling around your back muscles and kneecaps.

"Such an uncouth way with words," your "comrade" sneers, leaning down to grab your hair. "But then what can we expect from Underground trash like you?"

You growl into the ground. "Piss off," you mumble.

Around you, Floch's friends laugh and when you turn your head, you can read the satisfaction on their faces from seeing you like this. None of them have made their disdain for your recruitment a secret. Learning that Commander Erwin had you brought from the Underground and enlisted in the Scouts without military training all because you were skilled with ODM gear. Stolen ODM gear, as your "comrades" liked to remind you. It doesn't matter that you used it to steal off greedy merchants so you and your friends could stay alive. As Captain Levi's "successor" in the Underground, that just made you a thug. It wasn't even an issue for them that Levi had the same past - no, he was just extraordinary and had proved himself to be humanity's strongest. He was the exception to all of their prejudice.

You received it all instead, in spades especially since you had been assigned straight to Squad Levi. Snide comments, jeers in the mess hall, "accidental" bumps and ruining of your cleaning efforts, whispers and stares and laughter at whatever you were doing, no matter how mundane. Even this training session was just another excuse to (this time literally) grind you into the ground. Those same few faces - maybe more if they could scaremonger other cadets about the new "thug" in the Scouts. Even though many other scouts didn't join in on the worst of the behaviour, you knew many of them were wary of you. You had your own room because no one had volunteered to have you as a roommate. Any invitations to join people at their tables felt forced or half-hearted. Beyond training or duties, you spent a lot of time alone.

He yanks your hair and stomps down on your back. Your curse is swallowed up by the ground. "You know what they say, L/N? Karma's a bitch and this is just some payback for all the people you hurt down in that cesspool."

You clench your fists, nails digging deep into the mud. You don't bother to argue that anyone you hurt either deserved it or had been injured by accident. You were a thief, yes, and a criminal certainly, but you weren't the kind of low life that hurt people just for kicks. Not like this bastard on top of you. But he doesn't care about that. No, he has to see you a certain way and that's that.

Another chorus of laughter surrounds you, quiet because Captain Levi is weaving between the pairs, criticizing people's sparring. It's a joint practice between Levi Squad and Marlene's new recruits therefore it had ruined your hopes for a good training session since it meant interacting with Floch.

In your mind, though, the laughter of his friends grows louder. Your cheeks are burning with shame and rage. For six weeks, these assholes have poked at you, tested every crevice of your patience, pulled at every ounce of your endurance, filled your head with echoes of the worst things you used to hear about yourself in the Underground. Now Floch is literally grinding you into the dirt.