Levi x Witch!Reader - Fall Out of Trees

He had never heard her scream before.

Levi’s eyes pinched shut and for a moment he lost his footing, stumbling between the thick-trunked trees and unkempt bushes. In his ears he could still hear the shrill sound ringing like gunfire. When he looked ahead of himself again he was nearly caught off guard by the vastness of the woods. With a burst of effort, he pushed off hard on his right leg, trying to carry himself farther and faster than he’d ever had a need to do before. His mind reeled in circles, trying to make sense of all that just happened while also struggling to keep him moving in the right direction.

It had all happened so fast. One moment, they were together. So ordinary and common, right beside one another and sitting lazily beneath an oak. He leaned against the trees rough back, she leaned against him, they both looked up between the leaves and to the sky. He couldn’t remember what it was they were talking about, if it had been anything at all. They were both comfortable with the silence when they were with one another. There wasn’t anything in its quietness that could scare them worse than the horror stories they had to share.

His hands had been touching her arms, running slowly up and down until he didn’t even realize he was doing it.  He always wanted to touch her now. It seemed no matter where they were, he would forever find himself gravitating towards her, as if she were the sun and he was simply caught in her orbit.  

The calloused skin of his palms pinched together as he clenched his hands into fists, a white anger flashing into him. That monster. Levi had thought he’d known monsters before – Titans for so long had reigned king in the hierarchy of creatures that went bump inside his mind. But this half-man, half-equine ginger was torn right from the pages of a book called Impossible. It dawned on him only after she had taken off and the beast went running after her what he was. A witch hunter. Something that had destroyed [Name]'s people and her home and her happiness. Something that haunted her dreams, and he sometimes caught her crying about while she slept.

In truth, when Levi had first seen it, he was frozen in fear. His mind strained to make sense of what type of creature stood dead before him, but the sound of her screaming rattled every nerve ending in his body and his brain just couldn’t seem to make the connection between her horror and his intention. He was here to kill her. Take her life in cold blood, and the strong and fearless woman that he had thought he knew seemed suddenly powerless and weak and fragile in the face of this new enemy. An old enemy. For her, he imagined, it was always the same enemy.

“[NAME]!” his voice bellowed between the trees, trying desperately to in the least reach her with his words if not with his own hands. He wanted her to know that she was not alone, and that he was coming. Everything is going to be okay, [Nickname], he promised her inside his head. Everything is going to be okay.

What would he do when he got there though? Yes, this witch hunter was considerably smaller in size than even the most dwarfed Titan, but if anything that proved as a disadvantage. His 3DMG would be useless against him. Hand to hand combat almost seemed ridiculous – even using the term combat seemed unnecessary. He was a fighter. A brawler. But not a combatant. He’d never done – could never even dream of doing – the type of warfare that he knew [Nickname] capable of conspiring. And if these hooved horrors lived with the soul intent of vanquishing her kind…

A cold chill ran down his spine. He couldn’t let himself think of that. He couldn’t let himself think of anything, in fact, except for getting to her. Seeing her. Knowing she was okay. If she were anything less than that… A string tied itself and a knot around his heart and kept him from thinking further on that too. His head went blank again. His vision seemingly was going white, bouncing and blurring his surroundings to a mess of greens and browns. He didn’t want those colors. He wanted [skin tone] – her skin, soft but so firm and resilient to scarring. He wanted [hair color] – her hair, longer than anyone he’d ever known and lush between his fingers. He wanted [eye color] – her eyes, looking straight into his as they laid in bed together at night.

When had she become so important to him? So much more than anything anyone had ever even come close to. It was almost sickening how often thoughts of her crossed his mind, how often he found himself lost in strings of dreams and memories that revolved around her. She’d changed his life so completely, looking at the things he knew and laughing before messing them up and bringing them back together only to show him something more meaningful. Like the alphabet, rearranged to spell ‘you and I’ between a jumble of other letters.

He wanted to run faster, but no matter how hard he pushed couldn’t pick up a pace that would even come close to matching hers and this beasts. The only thing he had to go off of was the sound of her periodic cries of terror, and the hunters heavy hooves pounding against the ground in a rhythmic quartet of thumps. If only he had his god forsaken maneuver gear. None of this would have even been a problem. He could’ve caught her and whisked her away to safety. Somewhere high, like a tall tree, that that four-legged freak could never dream of reaching her at. Then they could sit up there together and decide what the best way would be to destroy him. Would that make her happy? To be able to feel and see the death of her worst enemy? He couldn’t imagine why it wouldn’t. It would give her the release from fear that she had most likely so long been searching for.

[Nickname]'s screams of terror had become frantic, and Levi’s heartbeat reacted promptly. She was saying things, but he couldn’t make out the words. Something in a different language. It almost hurt him, as though whatever she had to say she didn’t want him to hear. It would be okay though. There would always be time later to ask her what she’d said. The formal corporal’s hands were clammy, and he ignored the hollowing feeling in his stomach that came when her voice suddenly fell short.

“[Name]!!” he shouted just before launching himself over a fallen tree. He hadn’t even noticed the wet and slick feeling of the moss as it pressed against his palm on the bark. When his feet hit the ground again he continued sprinting, despite the way he struggled to keep his breath. “[Name] answer me!!” He waited a few moments, but was given no response. You are okay, you are okay, you are okay, you are okay, he thought to himself like a mantra. If he kept thinking this, than it would be true. You are okay, you are okay. My god [Nickname], you are my everything. You have to be okay.

He almost didn’t see her when he reached her. He would’ve continued running right past, if his arm hadn’t brushed hers. His eyes went wide as he stumbled forward, falling onto his knees. She was behind him. He had felt the electric surge when her skin grazed his. Look back, he told himself. Look back and see her. But he couldn’t. His heart had clawed its way into his throat, and for the first time in his life he had known the most awful horror in existence. “[Nickname]?” he hushed, still faced away from her. When she says my name, I will look back.

He counts the seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… Her voice never reaches his ears, and of their own accord his eyes begin to burn, and at first he doesn’t realize what’s happening. His vision blurs, and soon tears are swelled on his bottom lids. Levi turns slowly, unwillingly, mechanically around, and his eyes first catch sight of her feet. They were not touching the ground. The man’s thin lips begin to tremble as he lets his eyes trail up her body, something he’d done so many times before with a terrible longing to reach her face. Now it was with terrible dread.

His stare reached her throat, and a sob burst forth from his lips. A thick rope was pressed into her skin, turning it purple and blue with how tightly it held her. He closed his eyes, unable to look any further. Shakily drawing himself closer to her, his arms reach out to hold her around the legs. “I’m so sorry…” he whispered. He turned his face, kissing the soft skin of her shins and calf muscles. “I’m so, so, so sorry…” The apology wouldn’t stop. It kept flooding from his mouth as if it would somehow inspire the universe enough to lend him her sweet voice again.

A memory came back to him abruptly, and the remembrance made him vomit into a bush. Sometime years ago, when he and her were still shy with each other when not behind closed doors, they’d been sat up in a tree outside of the Scouting Legion Headquarters. The sun was setting, and he’d thought to himself that it was all so annoyingly romantic. But for some reason he was compelled to kiss her, and as he did Hanji had come out to find them. “[Name] and Levi, sittin’ in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” she’d sung like a child before laughing until she was red in the face. When Levi looked at the ashen skinned woman, she seemed slightly perturbed, and he had always wondered if it was because of Hanji’s words, or because he’d kissed her.

Tears washed across his cheeks as he kissed her again, now on her legs as she hung from a tree. “I love you forever,” he told her in a shaking voice, pecking her ankle and still not having looked to her face. “I swear, I will love you forever.”

It was eight hours before he could cut her down, and an entire lifetime before she was completely erased from his mind. He died an old man, falling into everlasting sleeping, dreaming that she might’ve smiled that last time when he kissed her in a tree.