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ginsspitting · 3 years ago

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It's You That I Hold On To

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Reader

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: Talk of murder, angsty Levi

Synopsis: He didn't believe in God, but if there really was someone pulling the strings up there, they had a pretty shitty sense of humor.

A/N: Uh, it's a me, the whore. It's the first time in a long time I'm posting something that isn't smut. Anyways, this is short, but it is not sweet. No closure once so ever, only sadness 😙

It was raining when they buried you.

It was the middle of the summer and the air was a saturated, muggy film that clogged his throat and coated his lungs whenever he inhaled a shaky breath.

And it was raining. He found it rather fitting.

Levi always had a problem with crying; he just...could never seem to do it. Even in the rare times when he actually wanted to, even when the painful lump of tears sat heavily in his throat and he could do nothing but gulp around it. He could never seem to cry and you knew that. So he felt like you'd cut him some slack for not crying at your funeral.

It was raining and he didn't bring an umbrella.

He refused anyone who offered to share theirs and let the rain soak his suit, doing nothing as the water and the grief washed over him and chilled his bones with remorse. He was cold, but nowhere near as cold as you were when you died. Nowhere near as cold as your skin was as he kissed your forehead before they closed the casket. And nowhere near as cold as you would be six feet under, utterly alone.

It was a small affair, with only close friends in attendance. Neither of you had any family, at least not any family you were close to. It was a fact that you both bonded over, something that brought you closer together. And at some point, you became each other's family.

You only ever needed to rely on each other, depend on each other. He always thought—hoped, really—that he'd go first and he could acknowledge how incredibly selfish that was. He was confident he would never have to live without you. And look at him now, standing before your grave. He didn't believe in God, but if there really was someone pulling the strings up there, they had a pretty shitty sense of humor.

He couldn't convince himself to look at your portrait. Too cowardly to see your beautiful face, the same picture that was on your obituary. The same picture that Hange had to pick out because he couldn't bring himself to go through photos of you and be reminded of how things used to be.

He couldn't bear it.

His vision swayed as the man in the black suit with a black book droned on and on about you—about all of the lives you touched and what a wonderful person you were—like he actually knew you. Like anyone here actually knew you like he did.

People were crying as if you meant anything to them. As if they wouldn't leave after all of this was over and move on like you never existed. He didn't have that kind of luxury; his entire life was—is centered around you.

He'll go home and still see your jewelry on the nightstand, still smell your perfume on your pillow slip, still see your dirty clothes in the hamper.

He knew he should have felt angry. He should feel cheated about you being taken away from him, and he did, to an extent. But he mostly felt, well, numb would probably be the best way to describe it. He wasn't apathetic to what happened to you, not by a long shot, but it felt like his emotions were floating aimlessly—like he was floating aimlessly without a tether to guide him.

It was like he completely skipped over the first three stages of grief and shot straight into depression. And he doubted he would ever get to that elusive fifth stage: acceptance. Accepting that you were gone, that someone snuffed out your light would make him compliant. Meek in the face of what happened to you.

Like you weren't murdered.

The day that it happened had been perfectly normal. So normal that he wished that there had been something out of the norm, something that stood out so much that it broke your routine.

You had recently taken on the night shift and Levi had taken it upon himself to wait up until you got back. No matter how early he'd have to wake up for work the next morning, he always stayed awake until you got home. It didn't really bother him, he couldn't go to sleep unless you were beside him anyways.

But on the day it happened, you somehow convinced him to go hang out with his friends instead of waiting up for you. Since he was off work the next day, you reasoned he didn't have to worry about staying out late. And like an idiot, he listened to you.

So he drank, he listened to Hange's horrible attempt at karaoke, and he had fun. And when he got home half past midnight, he wasn't greeted by the sound of you watching tv. Instead, he was met with a nasty feeling of foreboding and missed calls from you.

Fifteen missed calls, to be exact; no voice messages, no texts. He spent the next hour calling you as he paced the entire house, only to be sent straight to voicemail.

After calling all of your shared friends to see if anyone had seen you, he was left with no other choice. He'd rather you be safe and call him dramatic than sit around twiddling his thumbs. So, with shaky hands and a grip so tight his fingers ached, he called the police and reported a missing person.

It was almost twenty-four hours before they finally found you. It was raining then too.

Someone had spotted you in the alleyway on a morning jog, hidden behind trash bags and cardboard boxes, and reported your body.

Levi wasn't one hundred percent sure on all the details, but Erwin told him he was nearly catatonic until he got a call from the coroner's office to come identify a body.

He was almost eager to go if only to prove that it wasn't you. To prove to everyone that there was no reason to treat him like he was a glass cup sitting on the edge of a table because you weren't really gone.

Despite the sick feeling of trepidation in his stomach at the fact that the description of the body was basically identical to yours. Looking back on it now, he guessed that was the denial.

But when they sat him down in a little room and the morgue attendant gave him a photograph of your pretty face, pale and stiff, he couldn't form a response. Because there you were, the love of his shitty life, as lifeless as a doll.

He never would have thought you had died such a violent death. Other than the ashen tint to your skin, you looked the same way you did every morning as you slept beside him.

The coroner had guessed you died before you were even considered missing, and how fucked was that? While he was drowning himself in mediocre beer, you were breathing your last breaths.

The police could find no motive for your death. Your jewelry and money were still on you, so it wasn't a mugging. There were no signs of sexual assault and the only hint of a struggle was the bullet hole in your stomach. It was just a senseless murder.

Someone killed you just because they could. Because you were alone and they knew they could get away with it, and that alone made bile rise in Levi's throat every time he thought about it.

You died alone in a dirty alley. Afraid and in pain as you bled out on the asphalt. He wondered if you called out for him. If anyone had heard your cries. Years together and it was all gone. Not in a passionate bang, but in a dying breath whispered upon the humid night air.

Levi was never one for hoping, but he found that he wished for a lot lately. He wished he had stayed home. He wished he had heard the phone ring when you called. But, for the most part, he wished he died with you in that alleyway. It already felt like a part of him did.

The little black, velvet box was like a hot coal in his pocket. Almost impossible to ignore and painful to think about, but a warm comfort against the chill of the rain. It was a harrowing thought that the twin wedding and engagement rings would never be on the hand of its intended owner. And as far as Levi was concerned, they would never go on anyone else's hands for as long as he lived.

As the service came to an end, people began to filter out, but not before offering condolences for his loss. A loss they couldn't even begin to comprehend.

And just as he predicted, he was the last person there. His black dress shoes sank into the mud from standing still for too long, but he couldn't find the will to lift them as he watched your coffin be lowered into the ground.

By some grace of God, he was able to find the strength to look at the picture he was avoiding.

His hands twitched beside him with the same urge he always got when you smiled like that; the need to rub his thumbs over your cheeks just to check if you were real. It always amazed him that someone could actually smile so big and actually mean it.

You were smiling, grinning at whoever was taking the picture and he could feel the air leave his lungs in a shuddering sigh, because it was him. He took that photo.

You were smiling at him.

And he was crying.

He felt the pressure behind his eyes double, throat tightening and vision blurring with tears. And as if to spite him, the heavy clouds parted and revealed the sun's overbearing presence.

Yet it was raining.

He found it rather fitting.

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