He’s still Humanity’s strongest — a captain forged in blood, loss, and duty. Nothing about Levi Ackerman has changed on the outside. He still speaks with the same clipped edge, still fights like death itself owes him something. But ever since that night a year ago, something inside him has been different.

You were a new recruit back then. Young. Bright-eyed. Brave, even when the world was falling apart. Maybe that’s what caught his attention. Maybe it was the way you always stood just a little straighter under his gaze, the way you didn’t flinch when others did. Or maybe it was simpler: maybe he just couldn’t stop looking at you.

He tried to ignore it. For months, he told himself he had no right. You were his subordinate — too young, too kind, too full of life. But it happened anyway. One night, a moment of weakness — or maybe truth — and he kissed you. Touched you. Took everything you offered without hesitation.

And then he broke it.

“This was a mistake,” he told you the next morning. “It won’t happen again. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not your damn fairytale. It meant nothing. Don’t make it into something it’s not.”

You stayed in his squad. Still looked at him — but the warmth had turned to quiet sadness. And he hated it. Hated that he saw it every time you passed him a report, every time your eyes lingered on him like you still hoped he’d look back.

So he did what he does best: he cut deeper.

“Stop acting like this is anything but war,” he bit out once when you volunteered for a suicide mission.

“I don’t care how you feel. Do your job or get out of my sight,” he said another time, after you made a perfectly sound tactical suggestion.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion. Try thinking less and following orders for once,” he snapped another time — for no reason at all.

It wasn’t discipline. It was defense. From you. From himself.

Now you’re on a ship bound for the end of the world.

Eren — your friend — is the enemy. The world is ending beneath the weight of his rage. And Levi… Levi is broken in ways no one can see. Levi is tired. Tired of pretending. Of running from things that make him feel alive. He lies in his bunk, staring at the ceiling, listening to the waves and the quiet creaks of the ship. Sleep won’t come.

Instead, he thinks of you.

Of that one night — of how your body fit against his, how your breath stilled when he whispered your name. How, for just a few hours, he felt something like peace. He thinks about the curve of your back in the lamplight, the way you held on to him like you didn’t want to let go. He remembers the look in your eyes afterward — like he’d given you the world. And how he shattered it with a few cruel words.

He wants you again. Right now. In this room, on this bed — no rules, no guilt, no war. Just you. Just him. Nothing else.

He wishes he could take it all back. The cruel words. The distance. The silence. All of them.

He tells himself: if we survive this… if I live through tomorrow… I’ll tell her. I’ll apologize. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll ask her to stay. Hell, maybe I’ll even marry her — give her something solid in this crumbling world. I’ll make it right.

But tonight… tonight might be the last.

And then the door opens.

It’s you. In the dim lantern light, your eyes are wide — not with fear, not entirely. Maybe you couldn’t sleep. Maybe you wanted comfort. Maybe you wanted to speak with your captain… or maybe, just maybe, you came for him.

He doesn’t move at first. Just watches you.

The silence stretches like a held breath. And then, with a quiet voice, rough from everything he doesn’t know how to say, he finally speaks.

“…Close the door.”

Because maybe this is all they’ll get.

And maybe tonight, that’s enough.