My dark eyes narrowed at the sight of the passive animal, roaming around the bushes in the dark. The night wind caught a few strands of my dark wavy hair, sweeping it to the side of my face as I huffed out a little white cloud into the cold air. The muscles in my upper arm tensed up as I drew the string back, my bow stretched out, ready to send the sharp arrow flying out at any moment.
The deer was going to be our dinner tonight.
I let my lids fall for a minute, my vision darkened as I cleared my head. It has been so long since I hunted outside the walls again. Immediately, my persistent eyes fluttered open and my slim fingers released hold of the string, sending the swift arrow through the cold air at my dinner-to-be.
__________________
His dark murky eyes glanced around the walls at all the unordered papers pinned about, observing all the past photos of various people. The corporal was inspecting one old photo in particular. It was just a timeworn photo of me with my late governess who was coaching me how to wield a bow. I looked so different back then, my dark hair held back in two little pigtails with that retarded smile of mine, my determined eyes targeting for the plum.
Oh, how I miss those good old days.
Theresa was the woman who had first placed a blade in my shaky unstable hands, locking me into a room with a perilous monster. I had to be the one who slayed it for dinner or dinner I shall become. That was how she taught me the meaning of this world. Theresa’s training was harsh, but it was everything I had left.
It provided hope I never thought existed.
“Quit staring already and put on a shirt before you catch a cold.” I bluntly commanded the quiet man who winced as he sat up in bed.
God could not describe how gladness and relief filled up to the brim of my soul to see Levi awake without loose pieces here and there, but I wasn’t exactly the type to jump up and hug a man with two bullet holes in his abdominal.
I wasn’t the type to hug anyone at all, really.
My arm swiftly threw over the green Survey Corps cloak at the grumpy Levi, still keeping the bandage between my gritted teeth, securing it around the reopened wound on my arm. That was the only cloak left that wasn’t tattered into unworkable pieces, not counting the dark one that hung from the corner of the room.
My boots resonated with every step I took as I walked over and knelt beside the old mattress, handing over a piece of roasted meat. He immediately eyed it in disgust, taking note that it was burnt and probably doesn’t look too appealing.
Yeah, probably I wouldn’t eat that too.
“I tried, alright?” I scoffed in an annoyed tone, rolling my eyes at the usual attitude Levi always gives off. Levi finally took the bone off my hold, eyeing at it like titan puke. His dark watchful eyes trailed after my figure as I threw my hunting gear back at the corner of the room. My arm reached over for the neck of my old guitar, slumping down next to him where I started loosening up the tuning pegs.
Man, the strings were blemished as shit. Oh, you poor thing.
My tired orbs drifted up from the worn-out guitar in my lap and eyed at the corporal, and he finally shifted them away to the corner of the room at the dark cloak when I shot over a dirty look. He’s been real attentive about me ever since he woke up. I don’t really blame him either after all the shit he’s been through.
But still, those dark eyes of his were seriously pissing me off.
I muttered under my breath and lowered my eyes back down to the guitar, loosening the last peg before the steel strings would be unwound. My fingers ran down the smooth wooden body of the acoustic instrument, admiring the ancient beauty of it.
I’ll fix you up, as good as new.
“You know, if you’re gonna complain about my cooking…” I started as I slowly clipped off the steel strings without looking up at him, “You should really teach me sometime."
“Is your former instructor aware about you? What you’ve committed in the past?” He kept those dark orbs gazing at the picture of the old woman. A displeased grunt escaped from me, obviously signalling negative.
“Hanji investigated your past.” He continued. “Robbing merchants. Pawning stolen goods. You’re a one of the most wanted criminals on the list. I wouldn’t think your tutor would be pleased if she knew.”
Levi paused after he caught me cursing under my breath at him. I really didn’t need another lecture now. Plus, it was about time something like this emerged into the scene again. I didn’t even know if I should care anymore. That anger I expected to stir menacingly within me had died down to nothing years ago.
If there was no hope left, I’ll slit my own wrists.
That was my plan D, it always was.
“You have a dark history of murders of many Military Officers.”
I kept my cool, robotically replacing the strings like I heard nothing. Levi was gazing at the dark familiar cloak hung up across the room, his suspicious eyes scanning over the familiar tattered cloth.
“You seem calm after I’ve cracked your nutshell.” Naturally, my eyes rolled as I mentally shunned his words, leaving silence as another response to his statement.
His warm hand suddenly grabbed onto mine, pulling me closer towards him. I struggled in his grasp, as I realized that he was running his palm over the bloodied bandage around my upper arm. That same metallic smell was starting to drench the room again.
Reopened wounds.
Levi’s dark eyes shifted up from my arm, gazing at the photo of little blond Luisa holding a bunch of daisies with that big beam on her face. My gaze numbly followed his, directed at the old picture pinned onto the wall; the memories of the young girl were drowning me again.
He knew about it. He still remembers her after all this time.
“Who was she to you?” He enquired.
“Cargo. Nothing else.”
Before the corporal could utter anything stupid in return, I swiftly picked up the green cloak from his lap and draped it around his broad shoulders. Those detailed tattoos from his thug days had submerged beneath the green fabric as I fastened it around him.
“I told you, you’re going to catch a freakin’ cold soon, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I took a quick undetected glance down at his annoyed expression underneath my lashes. Levi honestly looked so young under the hoodie, except for that constant death glare he keeps radiating off at everything. Side-tracking started to kick in as visualizations of what the corporal would look like in cat ears… hmmm … maybe bunny ears.
Funny. Very funny.
“What are you smiling about?” His cold voice broke me from my chain of idiotic thoughts.
Levi’s grip on the back of my collar was tightened as he pulled me closer, literally dragging me on the bed with him now. I nervously gulped, near to screeching at him when my orbs gazed down and realized that the freak was unbuttoning my shirt.
“W-What are you-” My face quickly reddened, a blush breaking in like a drunken idiot’s as my hand rose up, pushing him away.
“Stop resisting, brat.” He held tightly onto my collar as he fished up his cravat, wrapping the piece of cloth around my bare neck. It took me a few extra seconds to finally piece together that he was actually tying it around my neck. My eyes took in the sight of his swift movements as he unthinkingly tied the ribbon, covering up my collarbone.
Cravat typing must be an art to Levi or something.
I awkwardly knelt there in front of the corporal like a little kid as he quietly worked on the cravat. I was used to him fixing up my uniform here and there occasionally, but this was … his cravat. Do you not understand how much of a big deal this really is?
Girls would kill for this shitty piece of cloth.
“How do you wear this thing without feeling like a 200 year old count Dracula?” I smirked quietly.
He tched at my little witty comment as he continued on with his little handiwork.
“Levi?”
“What?”
The thought just smacked me in the face out of the blue. My dull pupils shifted to the side, staying away from the corporal’s range.
“Thanks.”
Silence was my expected friendly reply. Levi continued to work on the ribbon around my neck, but it looks as if he was waiting for me to continue.
“Thanks… for saving me back then… you know, the tree and ... yeah.”
I personally knew it wasn’t a lie. I didn’t pass out from dehydration or any other shit the other squad leaders have been trying to shove through my thick head, I was really swept out of my fall. You don’t need an idiot to tell you how you were pulled out of the way from Death's door.
And not a lot of people do that.
I was thankful.
Actually thankful for what he did, even if he denies it himself.
I noted Levi’s gaze softening a little as he heard my words, but he still kept quiet like he heard nothing at all. It was good enough for him to hear my gratitude; he didn’t need to unhand a response. My eyes glanced down every so often to check on the cravat around my neck that took an unusually long time for him to finish.
“It was like Death was finally coming before.” His voice was low and hoarse as he hastily glanced down at the bandages around his torso. I discreetly looked down at the man, closely listening to his incontestable words.
“You expect him to come anytime, don’t you?” My edges rose to a smile, “Is that makes you so different from the others who suppose everything has a nice tie to the end?”
Levi, the strongest soldier all of humanity, never expected another meal in his life. He knows his game; he knows what he was facing against. He had no hopes for the future. It was painful to hear him speak of such, but I had to admire him for his strong way of thinking.
Tragedy gives birth to heroes... or villains.
Eventually, the corporal's eyes latched off my neck and onto the dark cloak across the room, narrowing them as he spoke. “Where did you get that from?”
I stared down in awe, biting my bottom lip as I intriguingly observed my new cravat. Man, so much swagger.
“Oh that thing? I found it.”
“You stole it.” In an instant, the corporal bluntly corrected as he glared at me. His hand roughly pulled my collar towards him as he passed me a dirty look. Those usual dark slanted eyes of his met mine as he tried to claw the truth out of me.
“Alright, I did.” A smile crept onto my face as I answered, clearly testing him now.
“From whom?”
“A merchant.”
“Wrong.” He grumbled.
He really does remember. So it was him all along.
I hurriedly pushed his face away with my hand, grabbing hold of my guitar again as I threaded on the last string next to him. Levi muttered under his breath, but I never bothered to look up at him again.
“Where did you get it from?” The corporal asked me again, prying the answer from my lips.
My fingers strummed through the steel strings, as I listened to the pleasant majestic tone of the acoustic instrument. The strings felt so new, so sharp, like it was going to cut through the skin of my fingertips at any moment. But it was so perfectly beautiful.
“Is it really necessary to know?”
Immediately, my lips parted in wonderment as I played the repetitive melody, taking in the magnificent clean tone as I fingerpicked the strings. The melody silenced the corporal’s enquiries for a moment, and I leant back against the wooden wall and kept playing to keep his mouth shut.
I wished I could play forever.
I didn’t want to answer his question.
I didn’t want to admit I was her that night.
“Abigail.” Levi crossed his arm, repeating the name that was encrusted into both our minds as he leant back against the wall. I looked over at the corporal, who had closed his eyes once more in rest.
He knew.
I sunk down in my spot, my tired aching fingers finally slowed down to a halt. The beautiful tone slowly faded out, with silence crawling back in to replace everything once more.
There was no use trying to hide it anymore.
“You can have it back, if you want. The cloak.”
Levi’s eyes split open as he focussed his attention back at me. I rolled my tired eyes to the other direction away from him, still smiling bitterly in shame, my cheeks slightly tinted in pink.
“Sorry… for disappointing you with such an eyesore.” I quietly muttered, just loud enough for him to pick out my words.
My hand ripped off the cravat he tied around my neck and dropped it back into his lap, not bothering to even look at him again. I heaved a heavy sigh and repositioned my fingers back over the strings, and once again the repetitive tone kicked into the atmosphere, chasing away the eerie awkward silence.
The light in the room eventually grew dimmer and dimmer, until it burnt out to nothing. The flickering light of the dancing flames had disappeared, leaving us both in total darkness.
“You’ve got a shit place.” He mumbled beside me.
“Geez, thanks.” I rolled my eyes, the edges of my mouth lifting into a concealed smile behind my untied hair. I gently put the guitar aside and pushed my tired figure up to go relight it, before the corporal gripped onto my arm, stopping me.
“What? Are you scared of the dark?” I smirked mockingly in the darkness. "Clowns will come out of the woods to get you, kiddo. Girls will come out of the mirrors to make you bleed to."
“Don’t bother.” His cold voice projected, dragging me back down to the mattress beside him. I curled up into a ball, sighing in the dark as the cold slowly crawled onto my skin again.
“Was it lonely hiding outside the walls, all that time?” Levi’s voice broke the silence after a while.
“Yeah… it was. I forgot what it was like to talk to people again.”
"Was it like this all the time?"
"Yeah, much quieter, much darker. But peaceful... morbidly peaceful." I answered in a poetic tone, recalling the darkest nights outside the walls alone.
“What made you come back then?”
My dark pupils shifted, taking a quick glance at Levi beside me.
“Luisa. The cargo.”
My arm flinched as I felt Levi’s muscular triceps brush against mine. I couldn’t get over the fact that the corporal was the same boy I had forcefully… osculated a few years back. I had a feeling it was him, but there was no legit confirmation until now. Who knew the pathetic thug I encountered years ago would turn out to be the Lance Corporal now, today, next to me this second.
And I thought I asked fate to cut our ties already.
“The kid?”
“Yeah, her. At least I could do one rational thing in my life, keep a promise to a kid?”
“And what was that?”
“She asked me to be a soldier for her.” I could feel the corporal’s gaze on me.
What a lame excuse to get back into the walls, but it was the truth.
Luisa’s father was an imprisoned criminal back then. There were other gangs out there who saw this as a chance to hunting his only daughter down, and I was assigned the job to shift her back to the underground city where there were a few individuals who’d take the girl under their wing as their own daughter.
I honestly didn’t know why she asked me to become a shitty suicidal soldier when I was making so much as an outlaw, but I had falsely promised her, so I had to keep it.
The mission ended up as a huge failure. And the people who ended up killing the girl weren’t the gangs I’ve prepared to fight, but were Military police themselves.
I brushed my dark hair aside as I slumped down in my sitting position, finally resting my tired eyes which were beginning to sink into slumber.
“The irony of life,” I dictated in the dark, “I took it as a specialty to kill soldiers. Now I am one.”
One of my eyes slightly split open as I sensed the man’s warmth when he cupped his warm palms around my cold hand. I thoughtlessly interlaced my cold fingers with his contrasting warm ones, really staggered by how warm the corporal was, considering his constant icy façade.
Levi, indeed, was different from everyone else. He was a pain in the backside, but I enjoyed his company just as much as … a jar of cookies.
“Your hair used to be long back then.”
“I know,” I mumbled tiredly, “I actually liked it, until you made me cut it off. What a dickhead.”
“You’re such a bitch.” He snickered, “Always had such a big fucking mouth.”
“Shut up.” I let out an exhausted laugh, as I tilted my head to the side. My cold, aching body was pleading for rest, so for now, it was lights out.
"You know, you're not such an eyesore when you wipe that stupid frown off your face once in a while."
I crossed my arms and scoffed in a cocky attitude, trying to hide that embarrassment that was brimming over and out, slightly tinting my cheeks with pink once again.
“Damn right I ain’t.” I snickered sarcastically, but immediately got cut off when he pressed his soft lips onto mine in the dark, sending down a warm, fuzzy sensation throughout my whole body.
For once, everything didn't feel as if it was falling apart.
Not tonight, at least.
Lights out, and it was a rest for the restless.
_____________________________________
[A/N]
Hi guys! I'm so happy to get this expedition arc over and done with. I've legit written like ... 11 parts for this 'little' arc, omg. Surprisingly, the rebellion story OST helped a lot with writing this chapter. If you haven't seen the third movie of the one and only morbid PMMM, I really suggest you do :)
Side link video thing for the soundtrack which is currently my favourite one in the album, I think?
I'm gonna go on a writing hiatus, just because its break here and I'm going to use the time to do update my tumblr blog, that thing is like deserted now lol.
Thank you guys for sticking up to this point in the story. This is not farewell yet, just a little break. I swear it's 'little'.
Thank you for the reads and comments and EVERYTHING supportive of this book so far. I really mean what I say here, arigato gozimasu~~~
Love you all so much.
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