#Marlo Freudenberg | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

teakookssi · 2 years ago

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Before I Leave You [Eren/Levi x Reader FF]

[ curated playlist ][ full story can be found here or here ]

[Overview & prologue]

➺ pairing: levi ackerman/eren jeager x fem!reader

➺content: mafia au, crime, arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, angst, lol so much angst

➺warnings: SHIT. IS. DARK. YO. violence, blood, strong language, guns/weapons, and illegal activities are all mentioned but hey, that’s attack on titan for you, so if you can handle that, you can handle this (:

chapter 6: a hero and a villain walk into a room

You’re covered in blood.

Not that you aren’t usually covered in blood, but when you’re about to meet a child and her mother, it might be best for them not to see you covered in the blood of their father and husband. Especially when you’re trying to come to a peaceful arrangement with them.

Marlo Freudenberg lies dead before you in his home office, alongside many of Erwin’s police officers.

When you came hunting for the journalist, you’d caught him sending his wife and daughter upstairs to hide while he lured you away further into the lower level of his home, to where more cops awaited you.

Now you stand in their blood and filth, wiping your hands clean of them with the handkerchief you keep in your pocket for messy occasions such as these. Faint traces of blood remain smeared on your cheek and neck, but you’ve at least removed the worst of it so that should be enough to keep the girl and mother placated.

Your knuckles are also bloody and bruised from your brief fist fight with the coppers, and you flex your fingers to assess the damage, already feeling them aching. But nothing appears broken, so you draw your attention to your weapons, collecting whatever blades of yours you can find and reloading your revolver with a fresh round of bullets.

While you’d gone after Marlo, you’d sent Sasha after the child and mother to make sure they stayed out of your people’s direct line of fire and so that they didn’t try to escape until you had spoken to them first. After Sasha took down the men that had been guarding the bedroom of Marlo’s daughter — where the girl and her mother had decided to take refuge — she had Connie inform you of their location.

You head there now. Erwin’s backup could very well be on their way, and you have no intention of supplying Death with any more corpses tonight.

You spare one last look down at Marlo before taking your leave, his daughter’s golden locket you had returned to him, tangled in his hand. But you find him unworthy of such possession, so you pull it free from his hands on your way out and slide it in your pocket.

With only your people left standing to scout the area for any remaining threats, you make your way through overturned lamps and broken furniture, past bullet hole walls and up the carpeted, blood-stained stairs.

Sasha and Connie are stationed outside the girl’s room, guarding and blocking their exit. You tell them to wait outside, but Sasha advises against it. She shows you the gun they’d confiscated from the mother and informs you of the fight she put up when Sasha tried coming inside.

Nevertheless, your orders do not change as you continue to open the door to the room and walk in. You’re well aware of what a mother is capable of for her child, the sacrifices she would make, which is what you’re counting on to help aid you in this accord.

The lights in the room are turned off so you switch them back on, having no need for darkness or secrecy to seal this particular deal.

Taking in your surroundings, the first thing you notice is the room itself is small, enough to fit a twin bed and a miniature doll house in the corner, but the room remains warm and inviting all the same. Lilac-colored walls are the first to welcome you in as you close the door behind you. A floral designed curtain drapes over a window that looks out to the front lawn. And lined against the walls hang various picture frames of a once smiling, loving family. You pass them by without a word, not needing them to remind you of what you’ve just forever broken and ruined.

Marlo’s actual family are nowhere in sight, and they make no sound at your arrival, but you can sense them hiding behind the door in the girl’s closet— the only place they can hide. And yet, you don’t move to approach them.

Your steps are muffled under the ivory carpet floor as you walk around the room, admiring the interests and belongings of a six-year-old girl who still believes the world to be full of wonder and light. A girl whose love for horses and princesses has you thinking back to your own room as a child in the countryside at your family’s estate. A similar —though slightly more grandiose room — once full of color and joy, coveted with memories of you nestled in your mother’s arms as she read to you stories before bed. Tales of brave knights and princesses, of dragons and mermaids, with heroes ready to save the day. A time when things were sunshine and rainbows and there was always a happily ever after in the end for everyone.

But then they went and snuffed the light out of your childhood, encasing it in darkness and teaching you that in the real world, happily ever after’s were as real as fairy tales — they weren’t.

As a child, you had loved the heroes in your mother’s stories. You rooted for them, wanted to be one. But now you’ve come to understand the villain more. You side with them, root for them, because you know better than anyone villains are just victims of tragedy and the result of a greater evil.

You sit down at the edge of the girl’s bed with a heavy sigh, facing the dollhouse. It would break your mother’s heart if she knew what you’ve become; but then again, were she still here, you would have never had reason to turn into this in the first place.

Pulling out Freya’s necklace from your pocket, you secure it in the palm of your hand, knowing it will come in handy.

The child’s closet is to your right, but you don’t look their way. In this position, you can feel the parts of your shirt damp with blood press against your chest and forearm, but the darkness of your clothes masks the red stains from view. Only within close proximity can the scent of blood be truly detected.

“You can come out now,” you call out to them in an almost singsong voice, fixing the cuff of your sleeves absentmindedly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I give you my word.”

You slide your eyes over to the closet doors patiently, but when there is no movement from behind, you sigh.

“Very well. I guess I understand your apprehension towards me.” You lean back on the bed, using your hands to keep you upright. ”After all, you must know all about my family, Hitch,” you say, addressing the mother, “having served under Erwin’s command, and all.”

You pause, waiting for a reaction. When there is none, you continue.

“Five years you spent in the police force before you had Freya, and two of those years were under Erwin’s direct supervision, so you are well aware of how obsessed he is with my family.” You raise an eyebrow. “Of course, when your daughter was born, you quit the force, wanting to dedicate your time to her.” You turn your head to the closet and smile. “Or at least, that’s what you like to tell everyone.”

You finally stand up and make your way to them, your hand reaching out in front of you as you go for the closet door and slide it open.

“But you and I know better.”

Hitch, a young woman with an oval face and hazel eyes, is pressed as far back to the wall as the enclosed space can allow with a half-asleep and pale-looking Freya clutched protectively in her arms. Hitch glares up at you, full of loathing and disgust, but you’re immune to such looks. You stare down at her with nothing but cool indifference.

“How many of your comrades did he send to their deaths, Hitch, for the sake of humanity?”

The short-haired woman clenches her jaw, but refuses to utter a word to you.

You lean against the door frame of the closet, crossing your arms over your chest. “You couldn’t have been supportive of the dealings your husband had with Erwin, could you? Not when you knew of all the questionable choices Erwin has made since you were under his leadership. Orders he had you follow that you regret.”

“Why are you here?” Hitch demands impatiently. “What do you want from us?”

You smile at her boldness, unafraid of what you might do to her, or perhaps too full of grief to bother walking on eggshells with you.

“I’ve come to offer you a deal,” you answer simply.

You reveal Freya’s golden necklace from the palm of your hand and open the locket to admire the picture of Freya with Hitch and Marlo. Hitch tenses at the sight of it, finally showing you some unnerved reaction.

“Everything that happened here tonight was a response to Erwin’s target against my family, Hitch,” you tell her, “so I hope you can understand my choices here tonight.”

You extend a hand out to offer the necklace back to her.

“Just like you protect your family,” you say, nodding to the girl in her arms, “I protect mine.”

Hitch eyes you suspiciously before slowly reaching out to retrieve it.

“Your family did not need to have been involved in this ordeal,” you go on after relinquishing the locket. “In fact, this whole situation could have been avoided if Erwin had just left things alone.” You lock eyes with her. “If there’s someone you want to blame for tonight’s tragedy, he is your villain.”

But Hitch frowns at you in disagreement. “Who is good and who is the villain is a matter of perspective.”

You smile at her, hearing the subtle jab in her words. “The true villain will come to light soon enough. In the meantime, I ask of you one thing. Erwin will come to you — to play the ultimate hero. When he does, I want you to deliver him a message.” You study her closely. “Will you do this for me?”

Hitch meets your gaze with rough, calculating eyes, but behind her spite and sorrow, you know she’s listening. And that is all you need.

Before heading out, you linger by Freya’s bedroom door for a second longer, hand resting on the doorknob in deliberation. Hitch is now standing by the foot of the bed with Freya curled in her arms, sound asleep.

You glance at them over your shoulder, finding yourself with the need to clarify something.

“Know that I offered him money to save her,” you tell Hitch, sliding your gaze to the girl in her arms. “And he refused.”

The pained look on Hitch’s face tells you she knows you’re referring to Marlo, but you have no intention of holding back your opinion of him.

“He sacrificed his family for the sake of humanity.” You glance over at Hitch. “Tell me, does that make him a hero?”

Hitch casts her eyes to the floor in answer, heartbroken and ashamed by what Marlo had done, and you nod, knowing there was a part of her that would understand you.

“He made a choice,” you say with open disdain. “A monstrous choice. And men capable of such things do not deserve to live. That is the only reason why he is dead.”

Turning your back to them, you take your leave, stepping over the unmoving bodies scattered in your path out of the Freudenberg residence as if they weren’t there at all, knowing full they were taking your place at Death’s side, bidding you time whilst you finished your work above ground.

A deal you had made with Death that one godforsaken day.

—

By the time Jean begins to finally turn into your street an hour or so later, you are beyond exhausted. It’s taking all your willpower not to pass out in the car.

You contemplate telling Mikasa and Jean to just leave you in the back to sleep for the night, thinking of the stairs you’ll have to walk up to your room, when you hear Jean curse as he begins to approach your home. You glimpse outside your car window at what’s caught Jean’s attention and you feel a stubborn headache coming on.

Eren remains right where you left him last. Only now he’s sitting on the steps outside your front porch with Historia situated right beside him, as if to keep him company.

Neither appear in a much talkative mood though and Eren’s expression appears bleak. It isn’t until he sees your car approaching that his eyes come to life. He numbly rises to his feet and waits by the foot of the stairs as Jeans pulls up the car in front of them.

“What is he still doing here?” Jean demands Historia the second he turns off the car and steps out.

She stands in front of Eren before Jean can get any closer to him. “He’s not doing anyone any harm. He just wants to talk to Anya and then he’ll head inside.”

You’re the last one to step out of the vehicle, any hint of exhaustion wiped clean from your features.

“It’s fine, Jean,” you say, walking into the light of the lamppost in front of your home. “Eren is going to bed now.”

Your eyes land on Eren as your cadre step aside to let you walk through and stand before him, but whatever hope Eren had been holding onto that night dies at the sight of you, having noticed the dry blood on your hands and the smell of death you wear on your clothes like perfume.

He swallows nervously, looking pale, as he realizes most of your cadre are in a similar state.

You sneer. “Don’t look so tense, mate. This is what a typical Tuesday looks like around here.” You raise an eyebrow playfully. “Better get used to it.”

“Anya,” Mikasa growls angrily beside you, hating how much Eren had witnessed today already and how much you didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

Eren flinches at the lack of remorse you present in your demeanor and his eyes harden. “What did you do to him?” he dares ask through clenched teeth.

You hear the barely restrained anger in his voice, but you choose to walk past him, not considering him a worthy enough threat to put up your defenses.

“I took him out for a long walk,” you answer him innocently without bothering to look back at him as you lead your cadre up the stairs to the front door. “He won’t be coming back.”

Eren reacts out of impulse and lunges towards you despite Historia trying to hold him back. This comes as no surprise to you. The boy is too emotional for his own good. But Jean is already waiting for him the second he slips out of Historia’s clutches and gives him a proper beating before any of your other members of your inner circle can get their hands on him.

You watch everything unfold from the deck of your front porch with a detached expression. When Jean has Eren down on all fours at the bottom of the stairs, coughing up blood, you turn for the door, thinking the situation has been nullified. But Eren refuses to stay down and somehow manages to find the strength to speak.

“How can you live with yourself?” he demands reproachfully in between labored breaths, struggling to direct his attention to you given the amount of pain he’s most likely feeling in his ribcage. “Do you feel no remorse for what you’ve done?”

You come to a sharp halt before you can reach the front door, his words awakening your demons from their slumber. You don’t realize how upset you are until you feel your nails digging into the palm of your hands. It takes you by surprise, this reaction of yours. His words, his opinion of you, shouldn’t affect you at all so why did you react in such a way?

Forcing your fingers to relax, you slide your hands inside the pocket of your trousers, hiding the crescent marks your nails have left on the palm of your blood-speckled hands.

By the time you turn back around to face Eren, your face is void of emotion.

The side of your mouth curves faintly upwards as you head down the stairs towards him, seemingly amused at the way Eren is glaring up at you, jaw clenched, and eyes brimmed with unshed tears of frustration. He’s never looked at you that way before. But then again, you wonder if anyone has ever given him reason to look at them in such a way as you have.

“You’re angry,” you observe curiously. “Why?”

Reaching the foot of the stairs, you begin to circle around him like a hunter sizing up its prey while your cadre stand on guard not too far away.

“Have I disappointed you?” you ask him mockingly. “Did I fail to meet your expectations?”

Eren works his jaw and looks to the ground shamefully, not wanting to admit his childish hopes for you had been all wrong.

You scoff in annoyance, stopping to stand in front of him. “You should have known better than to have expected anything good from someone like me.”

Eren frowns at your cruel tone, a sad look on his face. “I had hoped…” His voice grows quieter. “I wanted to believe… they were wrong about you.”

Your eyes gleam brightly under the light of the street lamp as you bend down and force him to look up at you with a finger tucked under his chin. “And now that you’ve met me?” you ask, mildly aware that all traces of anger towards you are absent from his face. “Do you believe everything you’ve heard them say about me to be true?”

A line of blood drips from the side of his mouth from the punch Jean dealt to his jaw and you brush it away with a thumb, but his silence speaks volumes as his bright, green eyes do nothing but watch you with a pained and pitiful expression.

For a moment, you think this will do it. This will surely send him running. Those eyes of his will never look at you the same way again. But then you catch a glimmer of that unexplainable yearning he holds for you still buried underneath all his broken hopes and dreams for you and you’re thrown off guard again.

Something sinful sprouts flowers in your ribcage at the sight of it, at the dangerous possibility, but your demons make sure to trample them before they can fully blossom.

You lean towards him, close enough for Eren’s hair to brush against your cheek, and he shivers as you mutter closely in his ear, “You should have stayed in your little village. Whatever it is you came here to find…” You smirk in spite of yourself before rising to your feet with finality, avoiding his gaze. “You’ll find only monsters here.”

“Are you?” he asks behind you, his voice sad, broken. “A monster?”

You throw him a smile over your shoulder that doesn’t meet your eyes. “Monsters are born from darkness, Eren Yeager.” You turn for the stairs. “And I have lived in darkness all my life.”

When you finally make it to your room, the only reason you don’t throw yourself at your bed and head to the bathroom instead to clean yourself up is because you don’t want Levi to see you with blood under your nails and have him go on a ten minute tangent about the importance of personal hygiene and blood borne illnesses.

You’re too tired for a proper shower so you save it for the morning and scrub off as much blood from your hands and body as you can on the bathroom sink, discarding your blood stained clothes in the process.

By now, your skin is red and irritated and burning, but no matter how hard you rake your fingers through your skin, the blood won’t come off.

It makes you laugh — your exhaustion making you delirious — as your realize how pointless it all is, and you fall to your knees on the cold, hard marble floor. Drained.

All that blood on your hands…

You laugh some more, leaning forward, forearms pressed against the floor as your head rests against your fists.

Of course it’s not coming off.

As if that were possible; as if it stopped there, at your wrists, like a glove. As if there could be any part of you that wasn’t completely stained or dripping scarlet red.

Sensing your derangement, Darkness arrives to wrap its blanket around you, greeting you like an old friend and keeping you warm and dry after finding you drenched all over and lacking a shirt and pants.

Its familiar presence is all that keeps you company as your laughter morphs into grief, and your cries for the life you lost, remain muffled and confined within your bathroom walls for no one else to hear or witness except you.

—

After what happened with the journalist, you expect to hear stories from Levi’s men about how Eren had attempted to leave that night or the day after that. Or the day after that.

But no such reports ever came.

Eren continued to stay. Continued to perform his work at your father’s office most dutifully and without protest.

He was still sullen about the whole thing, there is no denying. He could not hide the look of disappointment in his eyes every time he caught sight of you as you walked into the same room as him or passed him by somewhere in the streets.

But it’s made him keep his distance from you and your cadre, at least. Or everyone apart from Historia, that is, who he had to work closely with at Ymir & Co., and the only member of your inner circle whom he didn’t seem to be overly wary of.

Yet, his behavior unsettles you. You had always taken pride in predicting how a person would behave or react, because you understood people. Understood the way their minds worked. It’s how you were always able to stay ten steps ahead of your enemies.

But Eren…

Eren is the only one who you can’t seem to read.

You just never knew with him. You’ll expect him to react a certain way about something, but then he’ll surprise you and behave in a way you least expected. Just like when he finally addresses you directly for the first time at your father’s office since that night he confronted you about Marlo two weeks ago.

You had come into Ymir & Co. to collect some forms from Historia that you needed Armin to look over and sign in regards to the businesses your father had set up in the Colossal Sector. Your father, being held up with other affairs alongside Levi, was out of town and had no one else he could trust to deliver them for him.

And so, with Mikasa and Jean waiting for you in the lobby, you sit in your father’s vacant office as Historia goes over the documents with you. Eren, being her all reliable assistant, stands waiting patiently by the door’s threshold with a clipboard in his arms full of papers.

“I’ll gather the remaining paperwork,” Historia informs you when she finishes going through the documents in front of you. “I won’t be long.”

You had told Historia to prepare all the documents necessary for you to pick up next week — the date you’d originally said you’d stop by for them — but since you were in the area, you wanted to spare yourself another trip later on, so you arrived at Ymir & Co. unannounced.

Now you have Historia frantically trying to gather all the paperwork you need that she hadn’t been able to prepare for you beforehand. She turns for the door with hasty steps, passing by Eren at the door and expecting him to follow after her to help her sort through the documents.

You assure Historia you’re in no rush, that you’re in need of some time to kill so she doesn't overwhelm herself like she usually does, but that does little for her. As she disappears out the door you stand from your father’s chair and stride over to your father’s bottle of drinks to fix yourself a glass while you wait.

Except, Eren doesn’t leave with her.

“You shouldn’t try so hard,” he says from across the room, his voice low, solemn. “To be cruel.”

You pause halfway to your father’s desk and grin, sliding your attention to him.

“Oh?”

Eren lingers by the door with his back to you, looking as if he’d plucked up the nerve to stay halfway out the door.

But his eyes do not waver as he slowly turns to face you. “I don’t think you’re as evil as people think you are.”

“No,” you agree, taking a drink from your glass and resuming your walk back to your father’s chair. “I’m much worse.”

“Then how can someone so evil be so kind?”

You turn to him expectantly as you stand by your father’s desk, wondering what he could be on about now.

You watch as he takes a few calculated steps towards you now that he knows he’s got your attention.

“I’ve seen the way you look at your friends, Anya. You care for them, just as much as they care for you.” He lowers his gaze sadly. “I don’t want to imagine what you must have done for them to be so loyal and protective of you….” He pauses. “Or maybe I can. You spared my life that day, after all. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.” A soft smile appears on his face as he looks back up at you. “There’s also that stray cat you saved from the street...What’s his name?”

You roll your eyes, having heard enough, and settle back down in your father’s chair. “Everything and everyone around me has a purpose.” You point a finger at him. “Just like you. Do not mistake it for kindness.”

He nods, having heard you say this before, but his eyes don’t believe you as he cuts the remainder of space to your father’s desk to stand before you.

“Does this have a purpose too?” he asks, dropping off some documents in front of you he’d been carrying on top of his clipboard.

A swift glance at what he’s left on the desk has you looking up at him attentively as something unreadable passes over his eyes when he reads your face, searching for something. But before you have the chance to decipher it, he turns for the door without another word, leaving you to wonder what to make of this piece of information he now knows about you.

He thinks he’s won at something, proved something to you by showing you these papers exist — invoices for hospital bills and receipts for payments and medical treatments given to Freya Freudenberg, Marlo’s daughter, these past two weeks.

You down the rest of your drink in one swing, not at all surprised or concerned by how he was able to get his hands on this since he’s got access to the financial records of the company, and Ymir & Co. is the one covering all the girl’s medical expenses.

No, what’s pissing you off is how he’s left you staring down at the documents in front of you like they’ve betrayed you, because in all the medical bills that show being fully paid for and covered by Ymir & Co., Eren has circled the name of the one person who signed and authorized the transactions.

And circled in bright red, over and over again across all the forms, is your name and your bloody signature.

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