Attack on Titan: Beyond Canon

Lift the Veil | Levi x Reader

Looking at the stars has always relaxed you.

Ever since you were a child, you loved to take yourself out into the tiny backyard of your family's home in Trost, and stare up at the dark heavens which twinkled with a million lights. Your face would light up in wonder each time; your mind already flying away, creating wonderful stories in your imagination about exploring that canvas of beauty. Your mother would find you lying on the ground, watching it all as if it would change before your eyes if you so much as turned away. She'd tease you about it. Later she would tell you how much it calmed you down whenever you threw a tantrum or were upset with one of your brothers. She would send you outside to look up at your favourite sight in the world.

As you stand on the rooftop of Trost's Scout base, staring up at those same stars, you realize that maybe she was encouraging you to learn about perspective. How different things can look if you see them from a different angle, or how seeing the same angle with different emotions can make things shift. Your hands are rough and marked by healing cuts from the latest expedition and the weeks of training before it. The price of being strong enough to survive yet another bloodbath. You don't see the blood or feel the pain that you did at the time all of these marks were made. But they are the same hands, changing with your experiences and with time. It's a scary thing to think about, change, or it can be a good thing.

You exhale softly and clasp your hands on the stone wall in front of you. You can think of one thing that hasn't changed, you reflect, despite how many times you've stood here and how many different emotions you've carried up here all this time. You're not sure if that is something that will ever change. Maybe it's just something that you will have to live with, to accept just like these two remaining walls of humanity have accepted that these monsters are their past, present and future.

It's been three days since the latest expedition. A period of rest and mourning usually follows for a few days but in the winter it's longer. As this is the last expedition before the heart of winter arrives, the commander has told everyone to take the week off from training. Some have taken leave to be with their families. Some are just recuperating here. For some, they will be taking terrible news to their families. For others, it's all they can do to hold themselves together.

Normally you'd be downstairs with your squad - the Special Operations Squad - talking and trying to find some normality and peace with your comrades. Listening to Petra and Oluo argue. Teasing Eld about his girlfriend. Trying to rattle Gunther into letting slip some tidbits about his personal life. Watching the Captain drink his tea and list everybody's cleaning chores for the week. The thought of the captain has your nerves quivering with an intoxicating energy that both excites and frightens you. You've never felt this strongly about someone who wasn't a friend or family. You may have no romantic experience - and in truth, until now, you had no interest in getting any - but you know how you feel.

It's a fucked up situation; you've been reminding yourself of this for weeks now. Training with him and trying not to get distracted by his impressive flexibility and efficient fighting style. You pretend to dread your one-on-ones with the captain in sparring. You pretend that you hate having him watching you train with the rest of the squad. You lie that he intimidates you, that you wouldn't like to be hauled into his office for anything. All the while you like feeling his attention on you. You like the opportunity to remind him of why he chose you to join his squad. You like being near him and listening to him. You like cleaning his office and talking to him as you work. You love learning the occasional little snippet about him, about what he thinks, what he's experienced. You like putting together the thousands of little pieces that make up Captain Levi. You take great pride in the fact that he called your tea-making abilities "good" and you have to fight a smile every time he comes over to correct your cleaning.