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humanitys-strongest-bamf · 1 year ago

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"get me a damned matcha" | Chapter 21: February II

{{ Chapter 20: January II | Chapter 22: March II }} Chapter Directory

they're so stupid, even after they've gotten together 🙄

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✧ pairing ➼ levi ackerman x fem!reader, college x coffee shop x roommates!au ✧ summary ➼ After you find yourself plagued with misfortune due to struggles in your personal and family life, you find yourself needing to move last minute. As a junior in undergrad with little money and little social support, you considered yourself lucky when you found a sublease that was close to campus and was relatively cheap. Unfortunately, it seemed that your roommate did not seem to be so excited regarding your presence. ✧ content/warnings ➼ fluff, fem!reader, both reader and levi being anxious over silly things ✧ word count ➼ ~5.1k

“Happy Valentine’s Day?”

You blinked at and raised your eyebrow at your vice president and his drastic change of behavior compared to the year before.

“What happened to you barging in here and shouting at the top of your lungs?”

“I have matured!” Oluo announced, with an authentic look of pride on his face.

“Sure you have,” you responded dismissively, maintaining your skeptical expression. You remembered Oluo essentially kicking down the door to the classroom last year, having decided that the entire building needed to know that it was Valentine’s Day. A part of you knew that your memory of it was only sour because your general mood around the holiday was horrible last year. Anything would have pissed you off.

You turned away from Oluo, who was desperately trying to save face after your comment, and looked up towards the new officers that you had picked out a few weeks ago. You didn’t have particularly high expectations for the first session that they would be running on their own. It wasn’t because you didn’t believe in Armin or Jean’s capabilities, but it would have been unfair for you to expect them to prepare something extravagant given the fact that they had literally just been promoted. You likely would have been fine with whatever activity they decided to settle on for today, but they made it blatantly obvious that it was a mistake on your end to underestimate them.

They had picked up your trick of getting pastries from Nicolo, who had extended the discount to the newer officers. Given the fact that he was now fully in a relationship with Sasha, you were fairly certain that the discount would last for a while, which would be a solid source of support. The room was littered with red, pink, and white décor, primarily through the tablecloth on the pastry tables and little gift bags that Sasha and Connie had prepared together.

The most impressive part for you was that they were able to make the room and club activities seem thematic without putting that much of an emphasis on the romance insinuation that Valentine’s Day usually involved. You were fairly certain that if it was like this last year, your mood might have been saved no matter how bad your relationship situation was at the time. You knew that your relationship drama is likely why you wanted to stay as far away as possible from anything Valentine’s Day-related last year.

However, things were different this year. Not only did you have all avenues of contact with your borderline abusive ex-boyfriend cut off, you also couldn’t live up to the standard of “being miserably single” like you could last year, even if that was just a humorous effort for you to defuse the tension that resulted from Levi insulting you after refusing to admit to himself that he had gotten jealous.

Plus, being single last year meant that you really couldn’t care any less about planning anything official for Valentine’s Day. You didn’t have an obligation to anyone, other than the social pressure you had constantly felt about needing to participate in every social event you were invited to. Although that social pressure had somewhat subsided, the fact that you were now in a relationship meant that you now had an obligation to someone on this day—whether that was actually true or not was lost on you in the moment. The thoughts of whether you should have planned to do something with Levi or not were already creeping in.

“Any plans?” Petra asked as she leaned against the wall next to you.

“Hmm?” you mumbled, although it was more than audible with how surprised you were by Petra’s sudden question, as if she was reading the exact thoughts that were rushing through your mind.

“For Valentine’s Day!” she clarified, even when it clearly wasn’t needed.

You frowned and looked towards the ground, trying to think of what you had to do in the past. Unfortunately for you, the only experience you had was with Zack and he didn’t exactly set realistic or fair expectations. It had to be special or it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be too over the top or else you’d seem desperate. It was a delicate balance that you were forced to navigate every year and even thinking about it now was giving you some residual anxiety regarding it.

“I’m going on a nice dinner and a late night drive,” Petra suggested.

“Wasn’t aware you were dating,” you grumbled.

“It’s a hit or miss,” Petra said with a shrug, “but I figured I should put in effort for Valentine’s Day.”

You frowned at her commentary. You knew that she wasn’t trying to imply anything or be passive aggressive, but it still made you feel like you were being negligent about the whole thing.

She glanced over at you with a genuinely curious look.

“So? Any plans?”

You did not, in fact, have any plans. However, now that the topic has been brought up, you couldn’t help but ruminate over whether you should have planned something for Levi. Despite having known him for around a year and a half at this point, you were currently drawing a blank when trying to come up with ideas as to what he would like. Even if you did figure out what he would have liked as a Valentine’s Day date—given the fact that you were thinking about it on the day of—everything would likely be booked out. It was too late to get dinner at a nice place and any daytime attractions would be closed by the time you got home.

It was irrational, but you couldn’t help but imagine Levi’s disappointed look if he was expecting something and you didn’t provide. Part of you knew that he wouldn’t expect that of you and he likely wouldn’t even care for the supposed holiday, but you couldn’t shut your anxiety up. You didn't want to disappoint him, and this was for no other reason than the fact that you deeply cared about him.

You immediately turned to Oluo, trying your best to conceal your panic.

“You can clean up, right? Or get one of the new officers to do it?”

Your vice president looked over at you, not expecting the sudden question.

“Yeah? Great! Thanks!” you exclaimed before giving him a chance to respond or even orient himself as to what you were asking, before immediately grabbing your bag and walking out of the classroom at a hurried pace.

~~~~~

Even after you were well on your way home, your pace never slowed down. You weren’t able to even really process the walk home and found yourself on autopilot mode the entire time. You were entirely trapped in your head, internally freaking out because you did not know what to do.

When you were with Zack, planning something for Valentine’s Day was a must. You were always diligent about planning something out over a month ahead of time so that you could reserve the most ideal locations without having to worry about a rush. In return, Zack would pay or plan some small activity afterwards. It was the only part of your relationship that was anywhere even close to reciprocal. Although he contributed, it was still you that did most of the work.

You threw that lifestyle out the window after you broke up. You remembered stressing and putting your entire life on hold to make sure that you were planning out the perfect day. You weren’t interested in doing that again anytime soon.

Given how volatile your relationship was with Zack, you really didn’t plan on dating again anytime soon, but Levi snuck up on you in a way that you never would have predicted. Although you’d never trade your relationship with him for anything else, dating again this soon meant you were completely unprepared for the concept of Valentine’s Day.

What do I do?!

Your thoughts were chaotically running rampant through your mind for your entire walk home. You couldn’t think about anything else, but you couldn’t form a plan to move forward either. No ideas were coming to mind. You didn’t even know how to propose an idea to Levi at the last minute. The only thing you could imagine of him was that unamused and disappointed look on his face that you convinced yourself would show as soon as he realized that you didn’t have anything planned.

Panicked, you pulled out your phone to check the time. It was a few hours before Levi would get off his shift at the cafe and come home. It wasn’t really enough time to get anything solid planned, but it might be just enough time for you to put something small together to at least show that you put in the effort.

By the time that you got home, you still hadn’t really thought of anything that you could put together for him. There wasn’t a single suitable idea that came to your mind. You ran a play-by-play of your life with him through your head, but everything that came up was either too simple or too complicated, too effortful or not effortful enough—it was clear that nothing you could generate in your mind would be satisfactory.

Not even bothering to turn on the lights, you immediately went into your room and shut the door behind you, pulling out your computer and pulling up the search engine. Your eyes were intensely gazing at your computer screen as your hands hovered over your keyboard without moving. You had begun typing some term related to ‘Valentine’s Day events for college students’ but immediately froze up because you already knew that most search results would involve something that would have required more time than you currently had to put something together. You were paralyzed without a single idea over what to do.

You knew it was silly to be this fixated on planning something for Valentine’s Day for your boyfriend that probably didn’t even care, but the only thing running through your mind was how Zack had reacted in the past whenever you failed to put something together. He’d get angry, act disappointed, and generally made you feel like shit over it. You knew that Levi wouldn’t do that, but you couldn’t shake off that paranoid part of you that kept on asking you what you would do if he did.

“Get your shit together,” you whispered to yourself, shaking your head in an attempt to get yourself out of your head.

You took a deep breath and forced yourself to type into the search engine. You had little hope that anything productive would show up, but you figured that even the smallest thing would be better than Levi coming home to nothing.

~~~~~

Valentine’s Day was as annoying as ever for Levi. The café had the obnoxious decorations, the undergrads cared for nothing other than the hot chocolates that carried an obnoxiously cheesy name for the sake of the holiday, and Levi was forced to witness more than a disturbing amount of people entering and exiting relationships left and right. Since it was technically a busier holiday, he got paid extra, but other than that, he really couldn’t care any less for the holiday, if it could even be considered one.

His only saving grace was that he was slightly less annoyed about the couples this year compared to previous years. This was only because of his newfound relationship with you, although neither of you really had that “honeymoon phase” since you had already known each other well before entering a relationship. Thus, he could sort of understand the sentiment about couples prioritizing this day for each other, but he still found it obnoxious that most couples decided to do so for public eyes to see.

“Hey Levi, got any plans?”

“Ah?”

Levi looked over and saw Nicolo approaching him, having finished restocking the pastries at his station.

“For Valentine’s Day! We’re closing at 7 today,” Nicolo reminded him.

It was still around 4, so the café was still open for a few more hours and it was clear that he was itching to leave.

“I’m probably going to cook Sasha a nice dinner or something.”

“Didn’t you do that last year?” Levi asked with a bored expression, not particularly interested in the details of his coworker’s love life.

“Yep!” Nicolo said with a nod, clearly not sharing the same concern with Levi over the repeated activity, although cooking a nice dinner could hardly count as a boring, repetitive way to spend the holiday. “You planning anything with _____?”

Levi’s facial expression didn’t change, but he was suddenly at a loss for words. It wasn’t that he was particularly uncomfortable with talking about his personal life, but it just wasn’t something that he usually did.

“Not that,” he said after remaining silent for a few seconds. “_____’s an absolute pain in the ass to cook with.”

“Well, there’s gotta be something, right?”

Levi knew that Nicolo was coming from a good place, but he just didn’t function in the same way. The concept of planning some extravagant event wasn’t something that he usually did, but that was when he was on his own. If a fancy and special plan was something that you were expecting, then he was woefully unprepared, and knew how much of a pain in the ass it would be if he went home and found you disappointed and upset. His bored expression quickly turned into that of a frown.

“What does she like?”

Levi at least knew the answer to that.

“She loves her damn Matchas,” he said with a scoff.

“That doesn’t count. You already make her a Matcha every day,” Nicolo responded dismissively. “C’mon, what’s out of the ordinary that she’d love?”

It was easier for Levi to come up with things that you’d hate than it was to point out even one thing that you’d love other than showing up with your favorite comfort drink. You weren’t that into gift-giving and had stated that the tradition of it on birthdays and around Christmas caused you active distress. You mentioned that public displays of affection generally embarrassed you. Levi knew that the two of you had a habit of going on scenic and romantic walks outside, but you already did that quite frequently, so it would be too ordinary to be considered ‘special’.

He found himself getting increasingly annoyed, not thinking that something as silly as this would’ve popped up on his radar. He had emotionally prepared himself for an annoying day at work due to the heightened presence of undergrads, but didn’t consider the fact that he was in a relationship, and that today was the day meant to celebrate relationships. It just wasn’t something that came together in his head until now. It added stress that he hadn’t anticipated.

Still, a part of him felt like he should do something, or at least put in the effort to do something. He cared enough about you that he wanted you to be happy, or at least not upset—his opinion of you being a pain in the ass when upset had not changed. He didn’t want to come home and see you be disappointed.

Levi tutted to himself in irritation. He knew the remaining few hours of his shift were going to be nothing but annoying because he was now fixated on what to bring you home or if there was something extra he should have done to celebrate. The fact that he was even stressed about this bothered him. It hadn’t even crossed his mind when he woke up in the morning, but now, it was the only thing that he could think about.

~~~~~

This is stupid.

Levi repeated that thought to himself in his head as he glanced at the flowers sitting in the passenger’s seat of his car. He didn’t even know if you would like these, but he felt obligated to get you something. He had swiped one of the Matcha cupcakes from the café, but Nicolo’s earlier comment about Matcha's not counting—even if he was talking about the drink and not this flavored pastry—was stuck in his head. He had just started the drive home, barely making it a block down the road, before his intrusive thoughts got the better of him and he turned around to the nearest convenience store to pick up the bundle of flowers.

He had spent more time than he was willing to admit trying to decide what flowers to get you. What did you like? What didn’t you like? Was there some symbolic meaning that depended on which flower he chose for you? Would you even care?

The convenience store was about to close and he noticed that he was grabbing the attention of some of the other customers due to how long he had been standing there, so he eventually grabbed a bouquet of a random assortment of flowers that were so colorful that it hurt his brain to process it. The thought of the differently colored petals being littered throughout the house for the next few weeks irked him, although he wasn’t sure if it was truly due to the prospect of a messy apartment, or if it was simply because he was feeling anxious and overstimulated as a result.

He felt out of place. Not only did the act of him getting flowers for you throw him off, he was weirded out by the fact that he was anxious over whether you would like this or if you would make fun of him for it. On top of that, Levi knew about your history with relationships and how over the top you were forced to be for them, and it ended up giving him subtle feelings of insecurity of whether he’d be able to live up to those standards, which weirded him out further. He was grossly overthinking the whole situation, which was already unheard of for Levi Ackerman.

Once he finally got home, he ended up sitting in the parking lot with his car in park, staring at the entrance to the apartment complex. He knew he was wasting gas by just sitting in the parking lot, not wanting to turn his car off yet given how cold it was outside. He had been sitting there in an attempt to calm his nerves for the past 10 minutes or so.

He really was questioning why he was so anxious about it. It was you. While he couldn’t say that he didn’t give a shit anymore, he had never gotten worried about your perception of him. Throughout the many fights that the two of you had throughout your first year living together and especially throughout that summer, he had never once cared about if you were judging him or thinking less of him. It just didn’t cross his mind, and even if it did, it certainly wouldn’t bother him to the extent that it was bothering him now.

He couldn’t stop ruminating over how you would react to his last minute gift. You could either mock him for getting you an overly simple and basic gift, or you could get weirded out that he even got you a gift in the first place. He could see both occurring and they were equally uncomfortable to think about.

“Get your shit together, dammit,” he whispered to himself, finally gritting his teeth to force himself to switch off the engine and beginning to make his way into the building.

The walk seemed much more effortful than usual. It was similar to the phenomenon where the more you walked towards a certain destination, the further away it seemed to get. Part of him even wished that you weren’t home just so he can procrastinate on actually dealing with your response on the off-chance that it was a negative one. However, given the fact that it was already past 7pm, you were likely home already.

Once he finally got to the front door, he found himself standing there, hesitant to go inside. How would he even give it to you? He wasn’t the type to give gifts and he couldn’t imagine anything other than awkwardly handing you the flowers and hoping that you didn’t notice how anxious he actually was.

After a few minutes, Levi sighed to himself and unlocked the door, stepping inside.

He froze once he immediately saw you pacing around the living room.

You didn’t react that much more elegantly, letting out a startled yelp once you heard the front door open and saw Levi step inside. You looked like a mess. It was clear that you didn’t bother to change once you got home. Your jacket was still on and Levi could see that you haphazardly kicked your shoes off at the front door without bothering to put them up onto the shoe rack, which was unlike you, although that was a habit you had picked up once you realized how much it bothered Levi to have shoes lying around the floor. The lights weren’t on and you looked overly tense.

“...did you just yelp?” Levi asked, raising an eyebrow.

“N-No!” you immediately denied. “You just caught me off-guard!”

“I see,” Levi mumbled, clearly not believing you, as he stepped inside and began to take off his shoes, placing them upside down onto the shoe rack, switching on the lights afterwards.

As you watched him, you began to awkwardly shuffle, trying to shake off some of the anxiety that you had been feeling for the entire day.

“Uhm,” you finally spoke up, getting his attention. “So, I was dumb and forgot it was Valentine’s Day until roughly a few hours ago.”

You spoke slowly, gauging his reaction to see if he was getting upset or disappointed.

“So I couldn’t get us anything thing special,” you continued, “and I’ve been panicking trying to set something up, but everything’s closed or booked and I wasn’t sure-”

You cut off your rambling as you noticed something off about Levi.

“Wait, what do you have in your hand?” you asked as you noticed him holding something. He was slightly holding them out of view, but you vaguely saw the obnoxiously colorful petals of the flowers he had picked up for you.

Levi awkwardly looked away, glad that the lights near the door were dim as the tips of his ears began turning pink as soon as you noticed what he was holding in his hand.

Your gaze on him quickly turned unbearable and he grit his teeth, shoving both the bouquet and the cake in your direction.

You blinked at him with a surprised expression that was quickly replaced with a blush as you realized that he had gone out of the way to get you a gift for Valentine’s Day. It was simple, but actually really sweet, and you found a bashful smile quickly growing on your face.

“...Levi…” you said quietly, trying to hide your smile.

“Listen,” Levi started speaking with a subtle, defensive tone, immediately assuming that you were going to mock him for it, “Nicolo was giving me shit for not planning anything.”

He was avoiding eye contact and was awkwardly scratching at the back of his head. You rarely saw him this flustered, if ever. It was refreshing and oddly endearing.

“Sorry if it’s basic,” he grumbled.

He barely got to finish his sentence before you went in and wrapped your arms around his neck, making him quietly grunt from the force of your hug. You immediately planted your lips on his, pulling him in a tight hug, setting the gift down on the table behind you.

It took Levi a few seconds to react, having been caught off-guard by your sudden act of affection, with his hands eventually falling on your hips as he returned your kiss, now flustered for an entirely different reason.

“I love it,” you whispered after finally pulling away, “even if it’s basic. Why are you apologizing?”

You were too close to notice the backs of his ears gradually growing more red, especially now that he realized that any anxiety he was having throughout the day was silly and uncalled for.

“...Just don’t usually do this sort of thing.”

You tapped your finger against the back of his neck, his comment reminding you of your own dilemma that was occurring just a few minutes ago.

“I was panicking a bit because I couldn’t think of what to do for you for Valentine’s Day…I’m sorry to say I don’t really have anything,” you said meekly, giving him a genuinely worried look. “Are you mad?”

Levi blinked at you in confusion, scrunching his eyebrows together.

“Why the fuck would I be mad?”

You felt your cheeks heat up as he questioned you.

“Oh,” you began, finding yourself stumbling over your own words, “I…I-I don’t know…I just wasn’t sure if you’d be expecting something, and I wasn’t really able to prepare anything, so I thought you’d be upset or disappointed or-”

“You’re so stupid,” Levi muttered before pulling you back in and gently pressing his lips against yours again.

You smiled into the kiss, feeling a sense of relief. You were embarrassed now that you knew you were overthinking it, but still incredibly relieved that it wasn’t anything to actually be worried about.

“I can make it up to you?”

Levi sighed, giving you an exasperated look.

“If you must,” he mumbled before quickly giving you another kiss. “With what?”

“Hmm,” you thought as you slightly pursed your lips in an attempt to come up with something that the two of you would actually enjoy. “Maybe we can split that cake and finish that show we started the other week?”

The corner of Levi’s lips tugged up into a slight smile.

“Thank fuck, I thought you were going to recommend going out or something.”

You looked away, his response further reminding you of the fact that you had wasted the first half of the afternoon freaking out over nothing. The bashful look on your face was more than noticeable at this point.

Levi grabbed your chin and made you look at him again.

“Sounds good,” he whispered, planting another quick kiss on your lips. “Let me change into home clothes?”

You nodded, slightly backing away so that he could get to his room to change. You watched him as he disappeared into his room. Once he shut his door, you glanced over to the flowers that he had gotten you, reaching for the pastry bag behind it. You were able to see that it was a small cupcake, but didn’t know what it was other than that. Upon peeking inside, you saw that it was a Matcha cupcake and a small smile appeared on your face, with you finding it incredibly endearing that he went out of his way to get you something Matcha-related that wasn’t the drink, purely because he knew about your small obsession with Matcha's and likely wanted to get you something different.

Grabbing the bag, you flipped the light on in the kitchen and grabbed a small plate out of the cabinet, carefully maneuvering the small cake onto the tempered glass. You grabbed two small forks and a napkin and took the cake over to the coffee table in your living room. You set down the plate and laid out the napkin in front of it to catch any crumbs so that it didn’t land on the table itself.

You turned on the TV and scrolled down through your list of saved shows until you landed on the drama you had recently started watching with Levi. The two of you had started it a few weeks ago, and Levi claimed that he was only watching it for your sake, but got oddly into it, constantly providing commentary on the plotline that clearly disproved his supposed lack of interest in it.

After a few minutes, Levi walked back out of his bedroom, having changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants. You scooted over to the side and he sat down next to you, his arm propped up on the top of the couch as he leaned back.

“What episode were we on?”

You placed a finger on your bottom lip as you tried to remember what had happened in the most recent episode that you had watched.

“The one where he was trying to propose, but couldn’t get ahold of her, I think.”

“Tch,” Levi immediately tutted, discontent with the flow of the story. “Everything that comes up is bullshit. They’re just trying to drag the plot along.”

“Thought you weren’t interested.”

“I’m not,” Levi quickly responded with a frown.

The defensive tone in his response was not missed by you, and you immediately raised an eyebrow at him, clearly indicating that you didn’t believe him.

“I’m not,” Levi repeated with a scowl. “You wanna watch this fucking show or not?”

You shot him a skeptical look that non-verbally communicated ‘if you say so’ before turning to press play to start the episode. You heard him grumble something under his breath about how you have to make even cozy nights in difficult and you slightly shoved at him in retaliation.

You reached over to the other side of the couch to grab the throwover blanket, wrapping it around yourself as you scooted right up against him, resting your head on his shoulder, as his arm wrapped around you.

Although you were quite embarrassed about overreacting, you were very grateful that he didn’t give a shit about Valentine’s Day, and found it quite endearing that he was just as stressed about meeting expectations for the holiday.

Every time that you felt that urge to prove yourself in your relationship with him, like you had to do for so many others before him—both platonic and romantic—you were reminded quickly after that he didn’t care about those small, superficial details. Your relationship with Levi was different, and it was different for the better. It was the only reason why he was able to make you feel how you felt around him. You were satisfied and happy, and didn’t feel like you had to keep up a ruse to satisfy a status quo.

You, as you currently are, with all the little nuances that made your life what it was, and all your little quirks that he had grown to love about you, were enough.

#: @levisbrat25 @gothgril69 @sckerman @berrijam @notgoodforlife @meowjaa @averysmolbear @roseofdarknessblog @bejewelledd @hhighkey @ayame236 @sad-darksoul @velouria17 @kamyru @l1zk4 @layenacreates @lamees004 @whoami-72 @highgoon69 @chaotic-on-main @levishotgf @nube55 @chosos-mascara @heichoucleanfreak @svftackerman @v4mp-wife @moonchild-angel @astri-ackerman @auriuswolve @noctemys @you-always-made-me-blush @raginginferno267 @sillygooseklaudia @jennamelinda12

#levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi heichou x reader #captain levi x reader #levi #levi ackerman #levi heichou #captain levi #fics: matcha #modern!au levi #coffeeshop!au levi #college!au levi #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #snk

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humanitys-strongest-bamf · 1 year ago

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"get me a damned matcha" | Chapter 17: October II

{{ Chapter 16: September II | Chapter 18: November II }} Chapter Directory

heheheh things will start to get heated soon i promise

if you wanna get tagged for updates, fill out this form here!

✧ pairing ➼ levi ackerman x fem!reader, college x coffee shop x roommates!au ✧ summary ➼ After you find yourself plagued with misfortune due to struggles in your personal and family life, you find yourself needing to move last minute. As a junior in undergrad with little money and little social support, you considered yourself lucky when you found a sublease that was close to campus and was relatively cheap. Unfortunately, it seemed that your roommate did not seem to be so excited regarding your presence. ✧ content/warnings ➼ fluff, mutual pining, idiots in love, fem!reader, eventual smut, alcohol, college-typical parties, suggestive ✧ word count ➼ ~5.7k

"Look who's back!"

You stared at Oluo with a deadpan expression as he announced your arrival to the classroom that hosted your weekly meetings for the Honors Society. This was the first time that you had been back since the accident last month. Between waiting for your ankle and arm to heal and catching up with any missed schoolwork since you had been rushed to the hospital by Levi, you had little time to manage the club. Being Vice President, the responsibility fell onto Oluo, which is why you were surprised that the club hadn't burned down to the ground in your absence.

"You make it seem like I was dead," you said in a monotonous tone as you walked inside.

There was food prepped on tables that lined the wall. Upon looking further, you saw a card at the end of the table, surrounded by cheap university pastries that said "Get well soon!" with an obnoxiously bright color scheme that never got delivered to you—likely as a result of having Oluo plan the whole thing.

You smiled to yourself, your heart warming up at the fact that the members of your little impromptu club went out of the way to throw you a welcome back party. Your absence was missed.

You frowned upon seeing the type of food that was spread throughout the tables. It certainly wasn't the high-end pastries that you regularly got from Nicolo. These were the cheap university catering services that you desperately tried to avoid when planning events like these. They were overpriced with questionable quality. Nicolo's was overpriced, but of high quality—and even then, the pricing was offset by that generous discount he would give you for being a regular. You glanced at Oluo, who gave you a shrug. Without exchanging a single word, you were able to deduce that your VP put together this party last minute with some of the freshmen (now sophomores) and had no idea how to do some of the more nuanced parts of the event-planning that you usually took charge of.

Oluo had said that he had today's meeting all planned out ahead of time and that you didn't need to worry about it, which was both the truth and a lie. He had absolutely nothing planned out for today's meeting, but his reasoning was that the event for today's meeting was your welcome back party.

It was sweet and you silently noted to yourself that even though your club was not particularly popular or well-funded by the university, you had at least built some sort of community, which was the whole point of it in the first place. Plus, even if they didn't do that great of a job at being friends, at least the officers seemed to care about you in some capacity.

After the sophomores were done ravaging through the food—Sasha, in particular—you walked up and picked at some of the fruit and crackers.

You heard footsteps approach you and you glanced back and grimaced. It was Marlo.

"Please don't start," you spoke before he even got to you.

"Please!" he said, looking excessively nervous about approaching you. "I nearly got you killed and-"

"Did you?" you cut him off before he could continue. "It wasn't your fault that the pickup truck slammed into us. Nor was it your fault that my airbag didn't pop out."

Marlo fell silent but looked down, clearly still blaming himself for the accident that nearly took your life. You walked over and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Forgive yourself," you whispered to him. "It happens—and I'm fine. You're fine. We're all fine."

You shot him a smile once he looked up. Once you saw him nod to you, you gave him another pat on the shoulder and walked over towards Oluo to debrief with your VP over the state of your club.

He had been struggling a bit to keep everything together, but was overall succeeding, voicing astonishment at your seemingly effortless ability to keep it running.

He had suggested the two of you meet up later in the afternoon to hammer out some details of how to run things throughout the rest of the semester, but you shook your head.

"Can't, I'm meeting up with Petra to catch up on some writing before heading over to that Halloween party," you said without sounding particularly excited, as if attending the party was going to be more of a chore than it was a way to let loose.

~~~~~

Nothing had really changed between now and the beginning of September, other than the accident that had happened, and how aware Levi now was about his own uneasiness around you. Your first stolen kiss never got brought up, and the second one that happened a few weeks ago hasn't been either.

Between processing that and still processing the shit that ran through his mind while at the hospital, Levi had little emotional energy to plot out the best way to bring this whole thing up to you. Luckily, his unease had begun to finally dissipate. For the first few weeks, he felt like he couldn't take his eyes off of you without feeling like you were going to hurt yourself or that he would leave and come home to see you collapsed on the ground, with it being too late to take you to the hospital.

He was able to tell that it had something to do with the death of his mother, in which he was too late in reacting after she collapsed onto the ground. He hadn't brought up that memory in years, burying it deeply within his heart, but seeing you in the state that you were in unearthed everything and it was beyond uncomfortable.

The fact that he even got this attached to you was astonishing. It was unbelievable to him how quickly he had transitioned from being impatient for the opportunity to getting rid of you towards being in pure distress over the thought of losing you. You were constantly on his mind. He couldn't focus on anything else. Every time he was out, he'd wonder when he'd see you again. Every time you were out, he'd wonder when you'd come home. He couldn't stop thinking about you no matter how hard he tried. It was agonizing.

"Levi, you've been charting that same data point for 30 minutes now."

"Have I?"

Levi gave an uninterested response as Hange approached him, carrying some complex lab tech that they no doubt just ripped out of the wall to replace after the fire in August had wrecked roughly 90% of the lab. Hange's comment reminded Levi of his own comment towards you last year when you were sick and stubbornly kept working until he noted that you had completely stopped typing due to being unable to focus.

"Did something happen with _____ again?"

Levi gave Hange a side-eye, knowing that Hange was going to start giving him a hard time about things they didn't even confirm about him yet.

"Did you kiss again?!"

Levi internally cursed at himself for letting that information slip to his overly enthusiastic labmate a few weeks ago. He had originally only intended to let them know that you helped him with retaining most of the data that was collected over the past year, but he ended up bringing up the unexpected kiss that you had given him—a choice with many regrets.

"Tch," he fully glanced at Hange with a hostile glare. "Why is that the first thing you ask?"

"So that's a yes?"

Levi grunted, not answering the question. However, the grunt in itself was effectively a confirmation.

Hange immediately slammed their hand on the desk in excitement.

"How long ago was this?!"

"Oi, shut up already," Levi said with a groan, "you're giving me a fucking headache."

"Sorry, sorry," Hange said, raising their hands up in defense. "But why have you kept this from me?!"

"Didn't realize it was my job to keep you updated on every detail of my life," Levi grumbled as he turned back to his computer.

"This is a pretty important detail!"

"Drop it already, will you?" Levi said as he turned back towards Hange with a cold, hostile glare. "It just kinda happened after the accident, there was nothing else to it."

Hange placed their hands on their hips and tilted their head at him in disbelief.

"Really?"

"Yes. Really," Levi muttered. "Can you drop this already? I'm never going to get this shit done with you pestering me."

"Alright, alright," Hange said, finally turning away, "but I better be seeing you at the party tonight, yeah?"

Levi rolled his eyes, partially at Hange's tenacity at bringing him along to one major party a year, but also partially at the fact that you'll likely be there as well.

"Fine, but I'll be damned before wearing a fucking costume."

"Yes, boss!" Hange declared before saluting him by placing their fist over their heart, which earned a scoff from Levi as he promptly turned away and back to his computer.

~~~~~

Levi came home to an empty apartment. It was well into the late afternoon, so you should have been done with classes. While he knew that you tended to hang out in the cafe directly after or in-between classes, he knew that you had errands to run today before attending the Halloween party.

He wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved to find that you weren't home. He wanted to see you, that was certain, but not seeing you also meant that he could put off addressing whatever it was that was going on between the two of you—he couldn't put words to it. He knew he couldn't put it off forever, and he wasn't sure if he even wanted to, given how distressed he was when he wasn't sure if you'd make it. He had felt so rushed to get it out while you were injured, but then failed to initiate that conversation ever since you came home. This just resulted in the two of you floating in a sort of limbo, waiting for the other to make some type of move, but never being certain of what would come next.

He placed his keys onto the dining table after taking off his shoes, not bothering to hang them up since he had to head out in an hour. His keys landed on a piece of paper that wasn't there in the morning and he glanced at it to see what it was. A surprised look appeared on his face when he saw that it was a note from you directed at him.

[your laundry basket is outside your room. dont worry about venmo-ing me back the cash. consider it a favor for saving my life =P]

He scoffed upon reading the "saving my life" part, slightly annoyed that you were referring to it with such a nonchalant attitude, but also couldn't help but smirk at it. It was that weird, dry humor of yours that he had grown to appreciate throughout the past year. He neatly folded the note in half and tucked it into his back pocket.

He looked up towards his bedroom door and, as promised, saw that you had left a laundry basket there for him. He wasn't sure when the two of you exactly got comfortable with casually entering each other's rooms, but the fact that you went out of your way to go into his and grab his dirty laundry basket put a rare smile on his face.

Levi took off his jacket and placed it on the armrest of the couch. Since he had an hour to kill, he went ahead and picked up the laundry basket, deciding to fold and put away the clothes before they got wrinkly.

Upon entering the room and dumping the freshly cleaned clothes onto his bed, he dug your note out of his pocket and walked to his desk, opening it up again. He clenched his jaw upon reading it again.

He really did save your life on that day. If what Marlo said was true, it took the police another 30-45 minutes after he had left with you to arrive at the scene. With how bad your head injury was, he wasn't sure how bad your condition would have been if they had just waited for the paramedics to get there.

Levi remembered just how panicked he was as he spent the night waiting on news regarding your condition. That night flew by as if it was some blurry fever dream and he hated that the idea of you being in danger had that effect on him.

He frowned as he placed the note in one of the side drawers on his desk, unable to stop ruminating about how relieved he was when he found out that you were okay. That sense of relief, plus the awkwardness that came with the consequences of that impulsive kiss, only further confused his thoughts and he found himself lost in them as he sorted through his laundry.

He needed to decide if he was going to bring it up—and if he didn't, he needed to figure out how to resolve this. Being in this space of not knowing was miserable and added unnecessary stress onto his life. He had to either tell you or move on, he just wasn't sure which was the better choice. The fact that you hadn't made a move to bring this up either further confused his judgment over what it was that he should do.

His thoughts suddenly paused. It wasn't because he had an epiphany over whether he should confess his (maybe) feelings to you or how he was going to put the whole thing behind him.

He looked at a loose article of clothing that was buried underneath his socks. It wasn't his.

A hint of pink tinted his cheeks as his eyes landed on a stray set of your panties that had gotten mixed in with his clothes. He found his mind drifting places that he couldn't readily admit to without sacrificing some of his dignity, and shook his head in a desperate attempt to get it out. He found himself staring at them, unable to move to grab them or shy away from them. He had seen you in a bikini before, and seeing you wandering around half-naked was normal, considering that the two of you had lived together for a little over a year now, but this was the first time that he had thought about you in that context.

His face continued to heat up and he continued to grow more tense as he caught himself having even the thought about seeing you unclothed. It was inappropriate—and honestly, kind of creepy—but he couldn't get the feeling of your lips on his out of his head. He remembered the rush that he had felt when he pulled you in again and how your presence seemed to lure him in with him failing to keep himself back no matter how hard he tried.

Levi shook his head harder, desperately trying to get any of those thoughts out. It wasn't the right time. He wasn't sure if it would ever be.

Should you talk about it?

Did you even want to talk about it?

Will you even get the chance?

Asking himself these questions only left Levi Ackerman further confused.

~~~~~

"I think you should bring it up."

The only sound in response was typing and the gentle chattering of other students in the library.

You stared intently at your laptop screen, typing out whatever words your tired mind could generate. After hearing Petra clear her throat at your lack of a response, you looked up at her with an unamused glare.

"Why?" you asked dryly.

"He's your roommate," she said, as if the answer to your question was obvious. "And you've kissed twice—and both involved you both kissing back."

"You don't know that," you said dismissively.

"Well, you at least said that he initiated the most recent one?"

You opened your mouth to come up with a way to invalidate her comment, but almost immediately closed it again, realizing that you had nothing to say. Levi's decision to suddenly kiss you the other week certainly seemed impulsive, but you knew that it did have some merit behind it. This was primarily because of what he said immediately after the kiss.

I can't lose you again.

"How the hell am I even supposed to bring this up?" you asked quietly.

Petra shrugged, humming an "I don't know".

You groaned, resting your face in your palms, feeling the overwhelming urge to do something without knowing exactly what to do.

"Let's change the subject," Petra interjected, sensing your increasing levels of distress. "What are you wearing to the party tonight?"

"Ha," you said as you peeked out at her through your fingers. "Not a costume, that's for sure."

You sighed as you put your hands down and fully looked at her.

"I didn't have time to prepare one with the accident and having to catch up with schoolwork and all that. You're lucky I'm even going."

"Oh come on," Petra said as she shut your laptop for you, which elicited another unamused expression on your behalf. "I'm sure a few shots would loosen you up about this whole Levi situation, right?"

You gave a dry chuckle.

"Not if he's also there."

"It's a pretty big party," Petra said with a shrug. "I'm sure it won't be too difficult for you to avoid him."

~~~~~

It was definitely difficult to avoid him.

You had gotten ready at Petra's to avoid any chance of running into Levi at home and being forced to have The Conversation™. You were telling the truth in that you didn't have a costume and you simply elected to wear one of your dresses that you had left at Petra's after a night out in which you crashed at her apartment. You went with a more gothic theme, wearing a dark dress that fell just a little bit past your butt, some fishnet leggings, and combat boots. You figured that'd meet the criteria for acceptable outfits to wear at a Halloween party without being singled out as being a party pooper.

However, all of your efforts to minimize contact with Levi flew out the window when you immediately made eye contact with your raven-haired roommate upon walking into the house.

You felt your eyes widen and your breath get caught in your throat, only mustering up an awkward wave, before looking down towards the ground and making a beeline to the makeshift bar. If this was indicative of how this night was going to go, you were going to need a lot more to drink.

Luckily for you, Oluo was already there waiting, after having purchased an entire tray of shots.

"To celebrate the prez's speedy recovery!"

"Shut up already about that!" you shouted, as you angrily grabbed the shot glass out of Oluo's hands and downed it yourself, listening to some of the other students cheering you on. You didn't even know half of them.

After a few more rounds of shots, you felt your anxiety finally begin to dissipate. The shots were watered down a bit with mixers, so you didn't get completely shit-faced from the 5-6 that you had taken in a row, but you were feeling fairly buzzed and quickly found yourself shuffling back and forth to the music and chatting it up with some of the other students around you.

You waltzed around the cleared out living room-turned-dance floor with a red solo cup in your hand that was filled up with a cocktail that you had mixed up yourself (although it was debatable if it could even be considered a cocktail, given the fact that you have never made one before in your life). As you were spinning, with your dress lifting a bit too high for sober-you to have been comfortable with, you felt yourself stumble towards someone and quickly lost your balance.

You already knew who it was that caught you before you looked up. It was like the world was determined to force the both of you to be near each other, although you were a tad too drunk to fully realize that.

You looked up into his steely gray eyes and felt your face flush up, immediately picking yourself up and looking away.

Levi hadn't really moved from his spot and was currently sipping on a beer, but you really couldn't tell if he had been drinking at all other than that. He certainly looked much more composed than you did.

"Hi."

You greeted him quickly, awkwardly placing your hand at the back of your neck.

"Hey."

He responded just as awkwardly, taking another sip of his beer without looking towards or away from you.

The two of you stood near each other for a few minutes, avoiding each other's gaze without speaking a word. You sipped at your drink periodically, silently praying that Petra would find you and drag you away, but you knew that she was likely fully distracted and in her own little world at this point, given how late into the party it was.

Finally, you cleared your throat.

"I see you didn't bring a costume either?"

He scoffed, as if he was astonished that you even asked the question.

"You really think I'd wear a costume to a stupid thing like this?"

You pursed your lips and nodded.

"Yeah, you're right. I guess not."

"Where's yours?" he asked, catching you off-guard, which prompted you to finally look at him. "Weren't you a shitty maid last year?"

You scowled at his comment.

"I was a maid, but not a shitty one."

He raised an eyebrow at you.

"Really? I recall making some comment about you being shit at cleaning."

"Asshole," you said as you stuck your tongue out at him.

He slightly smirked to himself as he took another sip of his beer. Even through the awkwardness, those small quirks that made up your personality were still there. Despite all the confusion of what has been happening between you two, your personality was still able to rebound back to the one that he had come to adore.

Although you had both come into the party incredibly nervous (or even flat-out unwilling) to see each other, that awkwardness and anxiety dissipated rather quickly once you actually spoke again. It wasn't your interactions that contributed to any anxiety, only your rumination.

The both of you got immediately interrupted by at least half the party beginning to shout "shots!" repeatedly. You both made your way over to the center of the house and saw a fairly large group gathering around a table.

"What's going on here?" you asked as you leaned towards Mikasa, who was looking towards the center of the table with a deadpan expression.

"Someone came up with a party game called truth, dare, or drink."

"What the hell is that?"

"You tell the truth, do a dare, or drink," Mikasa said nonchalantly.

"Hey, Mikasa, you're up next!" shouted Eren from across the room.

"I say truth!" shouted Jean from the opposite corner. "What's your darkest secret?"

Everyone leaned in, eager to hear what Mikasa's response was.

After about a minute of thinking, Mikasa finally opened her mouth. Everyone's face went from eager anticipation to absolute horror as Mikasa began to graphically depict how she almost murdered someone as a child.

"This is stupid," muttered Levi, who was standing behind you as the rest of the room fell quiet into an awkward silence.

"_____!" you heard someone shout.

"Hmm?" you perked up, scanning around the room for who had shouted out your name.

"If you had to kiss or make out with anyone in this room, who would it be?"

"Yeah, tell us, Prez', who would it be?!"

"Come on, let us in!"

"You never tell us anything!"

So many of your underclassmen in your cohort began shouting at you that you didn't even register who it was that asked the question. Lucky for them, as you would have likely pummeled them afterwards once identified.

Your face only continued to flush up as everyone began to crowd you and the hairs on the back of your neck began standing up as you became more and more aware of Levi's presence behind you. He was standing close enough to you that your legs were touching and you didn't dare look in his direction.

Instead, you immediately reached for a shot and downed it in one gulp, ignoring the disappointed groans from the people around you.

Levi shot a glare towards Hange, who had groaned the most obnoxiously out of everyone involved.

"Tch. What a pain in the ass," he mumbled, finishing his beer before grabbing you by the arm. He could tell by the way that you were shuffling and zoning out that you were beginning to feel anxious by the commotion.

"Come," he whispered to you. "Let's get you some air."

~~~~~

You took a deep breath as soon as you felt the chilly, fall breeze hit your face.

"I'm going to kill that damned four-eyes," Levi mumbled as the two of you walked away from the sidewalk and towards the side of the house to get out of the way of the people roaming to and from the party.

"What for?" you asked, slightly out of breath from the alcohol and commotion that you just had to deal with.

"Nothing."

"Oh," you said, a bit concerned, but being ultimately unable to deduce what was going on in the background due to the alcohol in your system.

Although you were technically more sober when compared to when you ran into Levi earlier, you were still tipsy, which put you in that gray area between knowing what is going on around you and having just enough 'liquid courage' to come out of your shell a bit more than usual.

"I'm surprised to find you here," you said, changing the subject.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I thought you hated these things," you said, tilting your head at him.

"Well, unfortunately Hange wouldn't stop pestering me until I get dragged to at least one of these a year."

Your eyes perked up at that statement.

"Oh, so you're telling me that I just needed to enlist Hange's help in order to get you to do what I want?" you asked, teasing him with an amused look in your eyes.

"Or you could just ask, dumbass."

You feigned a surprised gasp.

"That is so not true. If I asked you to do anything last year, you'd go out of your way to do the exact opposite."

"You're so dramatic," Levi muttered as he rolled his eyes.

"You literally put my name in your phone as 'Matcha Girl' to spite me!"

You were right. He did put that specifically as your name because he saw that it irritated the shit out of you.

"Well," he said as a small smirk grew on his face. "You do love your Matchas."

You frowned and pushed at his shoulder a bit for teasing you, looking up into his eyes.

However, upon meeting his gaze, you immediately regretted looking up. You felt your body tense upon getting to look at him properly in lighting that wasn't the flashing party lights.

This was part of what you loved about him. The two of you had non-stop awkward situations come up over the past few weeks, yet you were able to naturally fall back into the dynamic that you two had commonly shared over the past year before everything went to shit. It felt natural. You felt more comfortable chatting with him—even with all the tension over what you were to each other—than you did with most of your friends.

Your eyes darted down to his lips, remembering the feeling of his lips on yours the past two times that you've kissed. You remembered how soft they were along with how gently he held you as he embraced you. You couldn't help but think of what it would be like to have him on you again.

As you felt your body heat up from your thoughts, you cleared your throat and looked away, trying to get ahold of yourself. You shuffled on your feet a bit, trying to clear the tension in your body, but—as you were still quite tipsy and therefore off-balance—you stumbled and Levi immediately grabbed your shoulders to keep you from falling completely into him.

You looked up at him again.

"Fuck, I hate you so much," you whispered.

"Is that so?"

You absolutely hated his guts. You hated him because he was making you feel all sorts of ways, continuously confusing you and your judgment. You couldn't stop yourself from wanting him no matter how hard you tried.

You glanced to the side and saw that no one was around and that everyone was inside, no doubt still participating in that silly party game.

Looking into his eyes, you felt your lips part and you slowly leaned in, connecting your lips to his.

He didn't move, and you froze. You might have just made a huge mistake. The first time you kissed him was due to heightened emotions. While you could blame the alcohol for this one, you knew that you had sobered up enough that you wouldn't be making impulsive decisions unless there was some merit to them.

You felt your heart soar once he finally kissed you back, gently pushing you up against the wall, taking care to not put too much pressure on your arm that had freshly healed from the accident.

As the two of you continued to exchange kisses, you felt his body on yours—warm and electrifying—and your kiss deepened. Before long, he was biting at you and his tongue was prodding at your lips.

It was hard for you to catch a breath, and your breathing was so warm that it was literally turning steamy whenever you exhaled to the cold air surrounding you.

Levi lowered his hand towards your waist to pull you in, his hand gently brushing across your breast on the way down.

"God," he whispered, his voice heavy and breathy, "I hate that I can't keep my hands off you."

His other hand lifted up your leg and—given how short your dress was—landed on your hip underneath your dress. His hand gripped at you tightly to the point that it was almost painful, but it just sent you further into that euphoric feeling that he provided you every time he placed his lips on yours. His lips pulled back from yours and he began to press his lips down your cheek, jawline, and finally to your neck, doing a scarily pleasurable combination of kissing, sucking, and biting along it. Whether he was biting hard enough to leave marks was left completely out of your mind. You couldn’t think properly. You didn’t want to think properly. All you could even process was how he felt on you.

Your back arched into him, pressing your chest up against his, so much so that you felt your heart rates in sync, as gentle whimpers and moans were escaping your lips. As he continued to bite and kiss at your neck, you couldn't focus on anything other than just how good he felt on you. He set your senses on fire and you never wanted this feeling to go away. You felt something warm deep within your core, and the electrifying feeling that he sent throughout your body was annoyingly addictive. You were completely lost in the feeling of just him.

Your fingers found your way to the back of his head, slightly tugging on his hair, which only earned you a tighter grip on your thigh. You wanted him. You wanted everything that he could offer. You wanted to press your body further against him and never let go. You wanted your hands to travel lower and lower and explore all that he was. All you could think about was Levi and how he would feel-

You felt him pause and immediately understood why. The door to the front door of the house had opened and you both pulled away from each other. He took his hands off you and you immediately lowered your dress back down so that you were covered again and he began readjusting his jacket and shuffling. You shook your head so that your hair fell back into place, making it seem like you two weren't just pressed up against and embracing each other.

A group of undergrads stepped out of the house, yelling something about grabbing food downtown. They were very intoxicated, so they didn't even notice you or Levi standing at the side of the house before running off.

You exhaled shakily, your breath creating a puff of steam, and awkwardly avoided looking at him to avoid that dangerously warm feeling that was building in your gut.

"So..." you began to speak. "Should we go back inside?"

He was quiet for a bit before saying, "That's probably a good idea."

Both you and Levi walked back into the house without really touching each other, maintaining a distance so that you wouldn't even risk brushing up against each other. You couldn't take your mind off of his body on yours, and even the slightest touch would likely make you explode.

Although the alcohol had somewhat worn off by now, you were easily able to pretend that the immense blush on your face was simply due to the drinking, which made it easier to ease any ongoing suspicions on behalf of some of the people present, like Petra and Hange.

Neither of you could continue to doubt that there was something between the two of you. This was explicitly the case now. No matter what you did, you couldn't stop yourself from recalling how he felt against you.

You desperately wanted him, and you were fairly certain a part of him wanted you too.

#tw: alcohol #tw alcohol #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi heichou x reader #captain levi x reader #levi #levi ackerman #levi heichou #captain levi #modern!au levi #coffeeshop!au levi #college!au levi #attack on titan #aot #shingeki no kyojin #snk #fics: matcha

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