The Titan Queen - Levi X Reader

Chapter 13 - The Cage

You were not a fool.

Or at least, you prided yourself on not being one.

You weighed your options carefully as you stepped into your shower, cranking the heat to the highest setting and allowing the scalding jet of water to sear your skin, already burning from the moment you'd entered into the girl's dormitories.

You couldn't say how long you'd spent on that rooftop garden merely crying – hours felt too little for the amount of energy that you'd spent on allowing your emotions to rip free. Levi had stood nearby at first – perhaps waiting for words to find their way from your mouth instead of the gasping brought down by the sobbing.

He'd understood, after a while, that words were not going to have a part to play in their time at that point. You weren't ready for words and sparring and boasts – he knew that well enough. If you two went at it, it would most likely cause damage rather than anything else. You had become something else – something jaded and inherently cruel. And he didn't know which weapon to throw at you, meaning that one of you would probably have broken if you had dared try and talk about your feelings.

Feelings were sickening things with no cure; you almost preferred the titan compound, where the only feelings that mattered were anger, pride and lust. You could deal with all of those well enough; could fall into snarls and the baring of teeth as easily as falling asleep.

But happiness was such a tender thing; you didn't want to shatter by doing anything stupid.

And yet that was your speciality.

The time for words would come later. Would come on a different night, perhaps.

Once Levi had realized that, he had gone to lie on his back on a grassy mound below the canopy of trees that he'd cared for. You couldn't have said how long he had stayed there, just listening to the sounds of your cries. But there had been a moment where you'd been looking at him through puffy eyes and wet eyelashes, and just attuned the rhythm of your breaths to match his. When they had become easy and life had seemed manageable again, you'd known that he'd fallen asleep.

It was at that point that you had stolen away, creeping silently towards the door on footsteps made from shadows. It was easy once you'd shut the door behind you, knowing that the heavy wood would bar your next few steps from his senses. You'd strolled – without a light, on pure memory alone – downstairs and out of the mansion's double doors, careful to walk on the grass beside the sand path leading to the girl's dormitories.

Your room was the same as it had always been.

It wasn't comforting to see the old lock that had been picked and destroyed too many times to be useful, somehow. Or to think that Annie's room was across from yours, likely in the same state as yours – left, ready and waiting. The other girls had been moved upstairs along with all of the other second years – and yet your room had been left on the first floor, uninhabited.

You wondered if Isabel still drew pictures.

You stopped that thought there as you twisted the shower's nozzle, allowing slightly cooler water to cascade down your shivering body. Steam and warm water were always the best place to think - and you needed that more than anything.

Staying would mean that people would begin to scrutinize you and every movement that you made – you would have to act like every inch of you was human. The slightest hint of a snarl could and would probably lead to you being back in chains.

If they even let you out of the chains.

Pixis must have realized that you weren't still in the dungeons – and Levi hadn't seemed surprised to see you free on his rooftop. But Levi would always be a grey area where you were concerned, you supposed.