Long Time, No See - Levi x Reader (Modern!AU)

06 - Don't Leave

"Farlan and Isabel were their names," Levi said, his voice little more than a hushed whisper. Everyone else around us was still asleep after all. We didn't want to wake them and risk having to help them back to sleep. That was nothing more than a headache, so if we could avoid that happening, we would.

"And were they the ones I saw with you that day? Running by?"

"That's right," he said. He lifted his head from my shoulder, revealing his tear-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. My own pair widened, and I leaned forward almost instinctually. To do what, I didn't know, but... I felt that I needed to help. I had to. But how could I...? 

Thankfully, despite how unsure I was, he didn't shy away, but his eyes expressed his confusion and perhaps... embarrassment? Was I too close? In just needing to think that, I realized that I was, in fact, too close. Far too close by my own standards, and definitely far too close for his own.

That cued the embarrassment in my own system to kick in and I leaned away. I hadn't even noticed that he had cried, not until now that I could see the tear tracks that ran down his skin. He'd been so silent, so still. But I supposed that whatever I had done had helped because his crying had ceased by the time I'd even noticed it.

I reached out with one hand slowly, swiping a finger underneath his eye. He blinked but didn't flinch away otherwise. Now that I knew it was ok, I continued, lifting my other hand, and gently dried his cheeks. He continued his story only once I drew my hands away and back into my lap.

"I'd known Farlan for a few years. Isabel joined us not long after we met."

"Were both of them orphans?"

"Farlan was. Isabel, we didn't know for sure. We didn't ask, but we assumed as much. She didn't look like the usual rich runaway. They're usually a lot worse for wear by their first night on their own. But Isabel kept up just fine."

He took a deep breath in and his eyes redirected downwards. He reached out, taking my hands into his own in a rather shy, unsure manner. But when he realized I wasn't pulling away, that alone seemed to steel his nerve or at least make his mind up for him. He pulled them to his lap, continuing to look down at them as though they were the most fascinating things in the world.

Perhaps doing so offered him a distraction, brief though it was, from thinking about his old, lost friends. It must have been difficult to think about, let alone talk about it. Luckily for him, I was more than willing to offer him all the time he needed to ready himself to speak more... and I was ready to respect his wish to refrain from speaking on it further, if he so wished.

After a quiet moment, he began to speak again. I listened intently, offering him all my attention and then some. I was not about to waste the trust that he oh so carefully set on me. 

"We stayed in that park I showed you, usually," he continued. "There's a wooded area you can't see from the paths where we hid out at night. But someone caught on eventually and the cops found our spot one morning. We ran."

"And ran right by the orphanage," I said lightly with a smile, recalling that day well.

"Where a creepy little girl was looking through the planks," he said, his eyes lifting to meet mine. I had to force myself to ignore the way the look sent the butterflies in my stomach into a fit.

"Oh, hush," I laughed lightly. "It's not creepy. There isn't exactly a lot to do here, you know that."

Levi's eyes rolled and a smirk occupied his lips. "Whatever you say."

"So," I pressed, "you were running."

"We kept going until we lost the cops. And we were fine, for a while. It wasn't until later that we got caught again. It was a fucking disaster. A freak accident, they called it. Farlan and Isabel were on their own, and... I only got caught because I heard them screaming. Isabel had been run into traffic. Farlan had fallen, and his knife..."