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What the World Didn't Know -Levi

*Angsty af*

What the world didn't know...

What the world didn't know was that strength came from weakness.

What the world didn't know was that the kindest people have felt the most loss.

What the world didn't know was that bitterness covered up the hole vulnerability left.

What the world didn't know... was that humanity's strongest had someone he was not strong enough to lose.

The lords and ladies in the inner wall thought that they knew him. They thought that he served them. They thought that'd he'd die for them. But the world didn't know... that they were wrong.

The world didn't know him. The world didn't see him. All they did was make guesses and assumptions and assume they were right. Nobody knew him... except her.

He would give it all away for her.

Levi completed every mission he was assigned. Levi did Erwin's biding. He killed and he sacrificed himself time and time again, for her...

She lived, trapped away in the underground. Her fingers always wrinkled from soaps, her palms always sore from scrubbing for the blasted MP member she served, but still she smiled to him. When the Scouts dragged Levi away and she knew she'd likely never see him again, she still smiled for him. "It will be okay." She'd said.

Levi hadn't seen her again for many months. He'd gone through hell; the loss of his friends, the terror of the surface, and the hate from the people up there... but he persevered.

"It will all be okay." 

Erwin was made aware of the situation a while later, through late nights of strategizing and gambling lives away, and hypothetical wills being signed off.

Reluctantly Levi had spoken. "If I do bite the dust one of these days... there's someone you should tell." The man had said grimly into the nipping heat of the fireplace. 

Erwin had given him a look of surprise as he listened to the stoic man's tale of his little wifey, trapped away in the underground. 

Who'd have known?

The world didn't know.

Levi had been allowed to visit once more after that. He hadn't been able to send a note in advance, as there were no addresses in the underground, so showing up unannounced had been the only option. 

The look on the small woman's face when he'd arrived made it all worth it. Her big eyes staring at him standing in the doorway. "Levi!" She'd exclaimed so sweetly his heart hiccupped on the spot. 

"Y/n..." He whispered and his knees buckled when she ran into his arms, sending the two of them falling to the dirt ground. Though neither of them cared. The moment was far too important. 

Levi had only been able to stay one night before being forced to return to the surface by the obligation of work. It had been a wonderful night. A thrown together meal lacking in sustenance but more than made up for in earnestness. Followed by an innocent night curled together on a makeshift bed with whispered "I love you's" and tender kisses til morning. 

Levi had been reminded of the harshness of the underground. It sickened himself that he'd been on the surface for so long he'd forgotten. The soup she'd thrown together for him had been dark and sticky. He wasn't entirely sure that everything in it had been food, and he knew that the small bread roll accompanying it had to be an entire week's ration, but still he ate thoughtfully and enjoyed his wife's excitement, at the same time mentally tucking away the note. 

The next time he crossed paths with Erwin he cornered the man and muttered simply. "I want you to transfer all my salary to go to her."

Erwin looked down at the grim man beside him, but somehow Levi looked ten years younger when he said her name. "...very well." 

Levi didn't see her again for a while, as tension began to thicken in the capital. He'd begun to write letters to her. 

Not literally of course.

That'd be pointless and a "damn waste of paper" as Levi had said, since there was no way to get the letters to her. Instead, he'd write them in his head. 

Every night before he went to bed, he'd write a little letter to her. They varied in length, some were longer, some were shorter. Some ended with him silently bawling curled up alone in the darkness. 

He'd tell her about his day. About the scouts and the surface world. About life. Sometimes he'd ask her about her day. Occasionally he'd try to imagine what her response might be. Those were often the ones he ended up crying over. 

As much as he yearned to storm into Erwin's office, kick down the door and burn everything until y/n could be brought to the surface and the two could be reunited... he couldn't. 

He was humanities strongest.

Too many people feared him. 

Too many people wanted him dead.

Too many people would do anything to find his weakness. 

But what the world didn't know about couldn't be used against him... couldn't be used to hurt her.

What the world didn't know was that Levi Ackerman could never be with the woman he loved.

What the world didn't know was that humanity's strongest believed himself too weak to risk losing her.

What the world didn't know was that humanity's best soldier was a person, who was loved.

What the world didn't know was that Levi Ackerman was tragically in love.

Kinda bad... might take down later. I just wanted something to kind of emphasize that stories often have happy endings, but life doesn't. I feel like that's especially prominent in Levi's story in the series. His mother dies, his friends die, his squad dies, and yet he just has to live with it. 

Thanks for reading <3