Part 2 Of The Psychological And Emotional Impact Of Levis Early Childhood: How Levis Years With His Mother

Part 2 of the Psychological and Emotional Impact of Levi’s Early Childhood:  How Levi’s Years with his mother weren’t Idealic:

So some of the conversations and additions to my post about Levi’s childhood got me thinking and focusing a little more on one, specific aspect of it, that I wanted to delve into here.   

Again, it’s interesting, because, as we know, Kuchel was a loving mother toward Levi.  She clearly loved him and, at risk to herself, wanted and kept him.  Something which undoubtedly made her own life exponentially harder, when obviously it was already incredibly difficult.  I also talked about how this decision had an aspect of selfishness to it, though, as she knowingly brought Levi into a situation in which he would also end up suffering a great deal.  I want to reiterate that this isn’t meant to be taken as a criticism of Kuchel or her love of Levi.  It’s just a stated fact. 

Kuchel clearly struggled to take care of Levi.  The fact that Levi was at death’s door when Kenny found him is testament to this reality.  All the love in the world wouldn’t have been enough to provide the basic necessities a growing child requires.  Levi was in a state of extreme neglect.  He was starving to death.  He was filthy.  He was barefoot and completely alone, with no sign at all of anyone having come by even once to provide help, and no sign that Levi ever left to seek help.  It was pure luck that Kenny came by when he did and was able to rescue him.  If he hadn’t, Levi would have surely died.

So what I wanted to get into here more specifically is what it tells us about Levi’s upbringing with his mother, that he was left in such a state, and why when Kenny found him, it was obvious that Levi was totally isolated, that nobody came by to help him, and that he also, apparently, never left their room to find help.

What that tells me is that Levi likely never had any real social interaction outside of his mother.  That his isolation may have been so extreme, in fact, that nobody outside of their home even knew he existed.  This seems supported by the fact that Levi was socially inept when Kenny first meets him.  He barely speaks, almost to the point of muteness.  When Kenny talks to him, Levi more often than not says nothing, just stares at him with shuttered eyes.  Kenny describes Levi as “cold” or “unfriendly”.  Levi is also constantly looking at Kenny.  He rarely seems to take his eyes off of him, which could indicate a wariness of him, which, given the sort of life his mother was living, and given where they were, the Underground, makes plenty of sense.  Levi would be wary of strange men. 

Given these details, it seems likely to me that Kuchel, in the least, kept Levi as isolated and alone as she could manage, and that she likely did this out of a desire to protect him from the dangers of the Underground.  It seems likely that she kept him in their room and rarely, if ever, let him out.  Again, probably because she wanted to shield him from danger.

But as we see, there was a price to pay for doing something like this.  Not only was Levi maladjusted, but when his mother was dying, and Levi was left to starve to death, Levi seemingly didn’t know how to ask anyone for help.  Now it’s possible Levi might have tried finding help, and nobody listened to him.  I wouldn’t find that surprising either, given the environment they were living in.  The Underground is a cut-throat, dog eat dog place, where very few people can afford to help anyone else, given the general, desperate circumstances most down there find themselves living in. 

Whether Levi sought help and was turned away, or he didn’t seek help because he didn’t realize he could, and also because nobody ever came by to help either of them, either way, this would have, tragically, affirmed for Levi that neither his nor his mother’s lives were worth anything to anyone. 

I assume it took a long time for Kuchel to die.  She was completely wasted away by the time Kenny found her, essentially skeletal in her appearance.  Part of this could have been because her body was decomposing.  But the fact she’d been dying from disease would have obviously ravaged her body, too.  Levi would have had to witness this slow, no doubt agonizing deterioration for who knows how many weeks or months.  That alone would have been horrifically traumatizing for him, especially given his own, general helplessness.  And in all that time, nobody ever once, we can assume, offered them a helping hand, offered them food, offered them money, offered them medical assistance. 

It’s interesting to consider too that Kuchel must have known that she was dying, and that without her, Levi would surely die too.  She had no way of knowing that Kenny would come by when he did, or that he would come by at all.  She hadn’t seen him, I’m assuming, since before she gave birth to Levi, since Kenny didn’t even know Levi’s name when they met.  So what does this tell us?  That Kuchel knew she was dying, and that without her there to take care of him, Levi would die too?

One might think Kuchel, once she realized her case was hopeless, would attempt to hand Levi over to someone else to care for him.  But clearly that didn’t happen.  There could be a million reasons for this.  Mainly, I would think, Kuchel didn’t trust anyone she knew enough to actually care for Levi, or that she simply wasn’t close enough with anyone to feel confident in her ability to ask them to care for her child, and that gives us a pretty good idea of what Kuchel’s relationships with other people in the Underground were like.  We can assume from this that she didn’t have any close friends, and in turn, we can assume that neither did Levi.  I would go so far as to say Levi probably didn’t have any friends.  I don’t think he ever had any real, meaningful interaction with other children, even.  Again, remembering Levi’s social ineptness when Kenny finds him, how withdrawn he was, seems to support this.  So from all of this, I think it’s likely that neither Kuchel or Levi ever got much social interaction, or had any, real social lives to speak of.  I think we can clearly see the ill effects of this in Levi throughout his entire life.  He’s famously very socially awkward.  He doesn’t really know how to express himself in words.  People often mistake him for being apathetic or rude or unfriendly because his face isn’t generally very emotive, and he often speaks in a monotone.  This in itself is it’s own kind of tragedy, because at his core, Levi is actually exceptionally compassionate and kind.  Levi’s social difficulties would also have obviously been terribly exacerbated by the way Kenny raised him after Kuchel died. 

But going back to the way Kuchel raised him, I think it’s fair to say that she kept Levi very isolated, and that she herself was probably very isolated too, and so we have to think about how this bleak reality likely impacted Kuchel’s own ability adequately care for Levi.

Again, going back to the state Kenny found Levi in, it’s obvious that something went very, very wrong in Kuchel’s ability to take care of her son.  It’s obvious that she was struggling severely to provide for him, once again not from lack of effort, but because of the desperate circumstances of their lives.  Food, clothing, shelter, warmth, etc…  We see those things were clearly not being provided to Levi on a consistent basis.  He was dressed in rags, some type of garment that was too large for him, and might be supposed to have belonged to Kuchel herself, meaning she couldn’t afford to buy him anything better.  He was barefoot, meaning she probably couldn’t afford shoes for him.  His hair was uncut and unwashed, as was the rest of his body.  They were living in what appears to be a single room with next to nothing in it.  There’s a single bed which Kuchel occupies, some pots and a pitcher for water I’m guessing, and that’s about it.  We see no toys.  We see no books.  We see nothing of any comfort or luxury.  There’s no other obvious rooms attached to the one they’re in.  No bathroom or washing area.  No doors leading anywhere else but outside.  And finally, Levi clearly hadn’t eaten anything of substance, or any kind of full meal, in a long, long time.   And he was completely alone.  So we see that, in the end, Kuchel, despite her obvious and genuine love for Levi, wasn’t able to take care of him.  Obviously Levi’s deteriorated state when Kenny finds him is a direct result of Kuchel herself falling ill, and she no doubt did her best when she was still able to work to provide for him these basic necessities.  But it’s also still obvious that it was always a struggle.  They had no money, and that’s plain.  They were living, very obviously, in abject poverty.  And already living in such a dangerous, cut-throat environment, where criminals and predators were able to openly roam the streets without consequence, since the above ground authorities rarely ventured down there, a lone mother and her very young child would have struggled all the more to survive.  With such a poor financial situation, their day to day lives must have been incredibly precarious and uncertain. 

But I’m also not just talking about providing the bare life essentials when talking about Kuchel’s struggles to take care of Levi.  Going back to Kuchel’s own seeming lack of social interaction or dependable friends, one has to consider the psychological impact of this on her, and how that in turn would impact her relationship with Levi.  Being a mother is a hard job.  It’s hard enough even in the best of circumstances.  Taking care of a helpless child that is in constant need of love, care and attention is incredibly draining and time consuming.  We often hear people joke about how mother’s should be paid to be mothers alone, because it’s such a consuming job. 

Now, you take the general difficulty of that job, and you amplify it with the sorts of difficulties and bleak realities Kuchel and Levi faced, things like abject impoverishment, a lack of any sort of real social life or friends, constant fear and paranoia of ones surroundings, the ever present reality of being surrounded by criminals, and Kuchel’s own day to day life working as a prostitute, and you start to really realize just how bad and difficult their lives together must have been.

Kuchel wouldn’t have had any sort of outlet, or escape, from the harsh realities of her day to day situation.  If she had no real friends (again, something that seems almost certain when considering everything else), then we have to assume whatever downtime she had from selling her body for money was spent with Levi and Levi alone.  So after hours and hours of being forced to let strangers have their way with her and use her body for sex, which we can pretty much guarantee also involved plenty of physical violence against her, Kuchel would then have to come home and take care of a young child who needed to be fed, clothed, washed, paid attention to, etc, etc…  all things Kuchel was clearly struggling to provide.  I don’t think the mental and emotional toll this sort of existence must have had on her can be exaggerated.  She had to have been exhausted, both physically and mentally.  With no one outside of a young child to talk to or interact with, she must have been deeply depressed and often felt incredibly alone.  Those feelings would have only been worsened by her struggle to provide enough food and shelter and warmth to keep them both alive.  They would have only be worsened further by her need to constantly be vigilant and protect Levi from the many, many dangers of the Underground. 

My point with bringing all this up is to show that it’s unlikely that Kuchel, in these circumstances, would have been able to provide Levi, not just things like food or clothing or warmth, but a healthy social environment.  It’s very, very doubtful that Kuchel would have had the time, or the energy, or even the mental capacity, to be able to give Levi the kind of love and attention she would have under even slightly better circumstances.  Realistically speaking, she was probably simply too tired at the end of each work day to really play with him, or spend time with him in any meaningful way.  She was probably too exhausted to indulge in any sort of wants or needs of his outside of immediate essentials.  Assuming Kuchel was often depressed (which I don’t think is at all a stretch or unlikely, again given her own isolation and the ugly reality of her life), that would have also impacted how she interacted with Levi.  Children aren’t stupid, they’re intuitive, and we know Levi in particular is maybe the most emotionally intelligent character in AoT.  He would have picked up on her depressive moods, and her general unhappiness, I’m sure.  He would have felt that negative energy coming from her. 

Going back to Levi’s maladjustment when Kenny finds him, to his muteness and wariness, his “cold”, “unfriendly” demeanor, I think it’s safe to assume that these problems in Levi were a result of not just the incredibly harsh circumstances of his life with his mother, but also came from Kuchel’s failure to provide Levi with enough stimulation to teach him social skills.  Again, please remember, this isn’t meant as a criticism of Kuchel or her love for Levi.  I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to cast doubt on those things.  Again, it’s just to highlight and draw attention to the fact that, despite that love, Kuchel still wasn’t, and frankly couldn’t have been, a perfect mother to Levi.  Their situation just simply wouldn’t have allowed for it.  And so I think it’s realistic and fair to assume that Kuchel failed Levi in certain ways. 

Levi wasn’t okay when Kenny found him.  Again, not just based on the fact that he was literally dying and in a state of extreme neglect, but based on the fact that he was clearly a child who had never learned to be social.  He was strange. He didn’t act at all like a normal child his age might.  He was deeply withdrawn, almost mute, he never smiled or laughed, he was wary, probably from having been taught to be afraid of men, listless and resigned.  None of this speaks to a child who is well adjusted or who received a lot of love and attention.  He doesn’t demand attention, the way most children do.  Instead, when Kenny finds him, Levi is curled against a far wall, just waiting to die, quiet and accepting.  Think about this.  He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t making a fuss, he wasn’t even visibly upset in any way over his situation.  He was just resigned to it.  He didn’t beg Kenny for help when he came, or even talk to him, except to tell him his mother was dead, and after being promoted multiple times, to tell him his name.  Levi didn’t demand or seek attention, even from the first person to show up and offer help, likely because Levi was taught through example not to expect attention.  And once again, this isn’t a criticism of Kuchel, but an acknowledgment of the likely reality that she just didn’t have the time, energy or ability to give Levi attention beyond providing for him the bare minimum required to keep him alive. 

Levi’s state when Kenny finds him, not just physical, but his emotional and mental state, suggests a certain amount of neglect in Levi’s life from his mother. 

So again I posit that this general perception in the fandom of Levi being provided plenty of love and care from his mother in the first, few years of his life is idealized in the extreme, and fails to acknowledge the harsh reality of their lives and circumstances, as well as fails to acknowledge the state Levi was in when Kenny found him.

I say all this, and think it’s important to acknowledge, because I don’t think Levi is given enough credit for making himself into the man he would eventually become.  Very often, the credit is solely given to his mother, and sometimes even to Kenny (really don’t get that one), for Levi turning out to be a kind, caring and compassionate human being.  But in my opinion, in the face of everything we know, this belief doesn’t hold water.  It doesn’t account for just how bad off Levi was, not just physically, but mentally, when Kenny took him in. 

There’s always the question of nature vs nurture, and I’m always of the mind that how a person turns out is more a mixture of the two than any, single one.  And certainly, we see parts of Levi’s personality which have been shaped by the way he was raised, both by Kuchel and Kenny.  Levi’s social awkwardness, his blunt, sometimes rude interactions, his anger and violence, his fear and readiness to act in the face of that fear, etc… all these things were no doubt informed by Levi’s experiences growing up.  And yes, I’m sure that part of Levi’s ability to love and be loved came from his mother.  But not all of it did.  Levi, from seeing how his mother was treated, from seeing the negative results of the life she was living, not just on her, but on him, would have been sent the lesson early on in life that neither of their lives were worth very much to anyone but each other.  From Kuchel’s inability to really take care of him, Levi would have undoubtedly questioned his own worth, not because Kuchel didn’t love him, but because he would have picked up on how his existence was a burden to her, how it made her life harder, how she in turn wasn’t always able to provide him with a great deal of warmth or affection, because it was already too much to provide him with basic necessities for staying alive.  Levi knew not to expect a lot of love or attention, and that tells us an awful lot about Levi’s life with his mother.  He doesn’t throw a fit or complain when Kenny takes him in and starts treating him harshly.  He doesn’t whine or demand love when Kenny starts teaching him how to use a knife, or how to “greet people” (ala, beat the shit out of them).  He doesn’t show any expectation from Kenny at all, let alone an expectation for love and affection from him.  Every panel we see of Levi with Kenny shows Levi standing there, mute and listless, simply accepting of his new situation and the new way in which he’s being treated.  He just… takes it.  This isn’t a child who’s been taught that he deserves better.  This isn’t a child who expects to be treated with kindness or respect or gentility.  This isn’t a child who is used to getting his way, or who expects to be paid attention to.  This isn’t a child who expects much of anything at all.  Again, the fact of Levi’s immediate acceptance of the way Kenny treats him tells us a LOT about what his life with his mother was like.  He wasn’t spoiled, he wasn’t treated as special, he wasn’t given an excess of attention or love.  If he had been, that would have made itself evident when Kenny took him in and started treating him the way he did.  And once more I reiterate, this isn’t meant as a knock on Kuchel, or to cast doubt on the love she had for Levi.  It’s just a simple acknowledgment of certain facts.  When Kenny leaves Levi, Levi just accepts that as well, though obviously it hurts him immensely.  He doesn’t chase after Kenny, or beg him to come back.  He just stands there and watches him walk away.  He just accepts that he’s being abandoned.  Again, this isn’t indicative of a child who has a particularly strong sense of self-worth or importance, or a child who was taught to fight for his right to love.  He was taught to fight for his life by Kenny, sure, but he was taught the exact opposite regarding other people’s lives in turn.  And we know, bizarrely, from how resigned he was to his own death after Kuchel died, that Levi’s experiences in the first years of his life with his mother didn’t teach him to fight for or value his own life, though I’m sure that isn’t what Kuchel ever intended. 

And so when we take this all into account, when we take into account that Levi wasn’t ever really taught to value or fight for his own right to love and compassion, or even life, how he wasn’t taught to even expect those things, on top of which, taking into account how he was taught not to value the lives of others through Kenny’s lessons, and then you reflect on how, DESPITE all that, Levi was open enough to make, on his own, his first, real friends in Furlan and Isabel, to form an actual family with them, and to make more friends after they died in Erwin and Hange, how he fights with everything he has to protect the lives and dreams of others, how he has so much deep compassion and care for others, how deeply affected he is by the deaths of others, how hard he tries to keep everyone around him alive, how much he values life, values the lives of others, and their right to life, you realize how remarkable that really is.  You realize that nothing in Levi’s life growing up can really account for that ability to care, or that deep compassion he holds.  It comes down to his nature.  Levi is just an innately caring, kind and compassionate person.  Rather than inheriting that ability from Kuchel’s example, I would rather say Levi inherited that ability from Kuchel’s nature.  He wasn’t taught to be loving and compassionate.  He just was.  And so was his mother.  Both of them maintained that capacity despite their horrible circumstances and experiences, not because of them.  Just like how Levi and Mikasa are innately loyal, Levi I would say is also innately, inherently kind and compassionate.  Some traits of our personalities are just inborn, not taught.

I think Levi deserves so much more credit than he generally receives for being the kind, caring man he is.

I will never not ride for this man <3 😌

new pfp :3

sometimes i forget how reading is just. marvelous. just an absolutely fucking endlessly joyful activity. i’ll go about my life and not read one single book for months and be like why am i morose! why am i so apathetic! what is missing here!!!! and try to look for whatever it is that is lacking and never find it anywhere and i get so tired and sad and angry, and then i’m finally like i’m gonna stop everything for a couple days and read a really good book bc i don’t care about anything else. and suddenly i get motivated to work bc i know i’ll read when i’m on break. i get more creative. i want to watercolor again and bust out the shameful fabric stash with all my unfinished sewing projects. god even my dreams get more vivid!! what the fuck! and i’m like here is the magic i was looking for, why did i ever think i was going to find it anywhere else. it was always here!!!

I bet little Levi used to play with Mama Kuchel's hair all the time

"Give 'em here,"

"Hm?" Levi hums distractedly, briefly glancing up at you from his desk. A solid stack of paper rests on the dark wood, one he's been slowly working through for more than an hour. Eyes flicking back down to his current page, he grimaces, fingers tightening on the pen. Black ink continues across the page in a tight, stiff scrawl.

You approach his side, dragging your fingers across the smooth, recently polished mahogany. Unlike Erwin's gargantuan desk, his is a more conservative workspace, kept mostly clear besides whatever he's currently working on, a small candle in the far corner and the occasional steaming cup of tea. Sliding the white pages to the side, you take their place, plopping down onto the hardwood. Plucking the pen from his grasp, it quickly joins the pages by your hip. You reach out, miming a grabbing gesture like an eager child, "Your hand. Gimme."

“Are you really so needy? Already?” He sighs, leaning back in his chair. Running his fingers through his bangs, Levi glares up at you. "I still have 20 pages to finish."

"Nope," you say with a firm pop. "I've noticed you taking little breaks. Stopping to try to stretch your fingers. Give it here."

“Weren’t you supposed to be reading?” His eyes flick toward the office’s couch, your book resting closed on the middle cushion. “Couldn’t keep your eyes off of me?”

You smirk, “How could I, with you hissing in pain over here.” You wiggle your fingers again. “I think I even heard you whimper a few times. Now gimme.”

Eyes narrowing, his fingers twitch from where they're resting on his thigh. “Is this just some shitty excuse to hold my hand?”

Teasing, you knock into his knee with your own. “Like I need to ask?" This.. this whatever it is between you might be new, but it's nice. It's refreshing. Something easy while everything else seems to be difficult. "No silly! I’m going to give you a hand massage!”

His nose curls up, brows drawing tight. At his thigh, the digits in question curl into the fabric of his thigh. “A what?”

Holding your hand out, palm open in askance, you try again. “It’ll help. I promise.”

“Fine.” Finally his hand falls into yours. It's stiff, the digits held firm and tense like those of a wary animal.

Patting the back of his hand, you cheer exaggeratedly. “There you go! That’s a good boy!”

He clicks his tongue, “Don’t praise me like i’m some fucking cat.”

“Then don’t act like one.” Twisting the back of his hand to rest on your thigh, you interlace your fingers loosely with his, rubbing your thumb firmly into the meat of his palm. “Relax.”

With a sigh, he does, if only a little bit. Still, his shoulders are tight, eyes locked onto where your hand is wrapped around his, following the firm press of your thumb into the meat beneath his own.

“You have such beautiful hands,” you murmur, torn between watching your work and watching him watching you. Suddenly, you feel warm, anxious excitement prickling along your spine. You'd gone into this so confidently, you can only hope that it actually helps. “Have I told you how much I love your hands?”

His lips curl, a filthy smirk peeking up along the edges. “My fingers, yes. Loudly.” His fingers loosen, curling to press along the back of your hand.

"Ha," you snort, happy to see him a bit more relaxed. Stretching his hand out flat, you glide your fingers along the length of each of his digits, one after the other. They pop a little bit, small airy noises.

"You take such good care of your hands," you note, twisting it to press his palm to your thigh. He has callouses, that's for sure, rough little patches at the base of each finger. There's little knicks too, white lines of thin aged scars. A particularly deep one is gouged into the length of his pointer finger, right along the outer edge. Still, his skin is soft, you tell him as much.

He shrugs, swallowing heavily and watching you follow along his fingers, pressing heavily into the skin. "Just like to keep clean. You know that."

Huffing, you reply, "I'm pretty sure everyone on base knows that." Even his nails are pretty, perfectly trimmed without even a single bit of dirt beneath them. Even the cuticles have been pushed up. Dragging the tip of your finger along the perfectly smooth rounded edge of his nail, you note, "I'd love to paint your nails. It'd be like a good old fashioned sleepover."

Levi hums, eyes heavy. His hand is no longer stiff, relaxed completely into your grip. "What's that?"

You gasp, "A sleepover? You don't know what a sleep over is?"

His lips thin, somewhere between a frown and a scowl. "I didn't exactly have a normal up-bringing, remember."

"Oh," you breathe. Sometimes it's so easy to forget that his missed out on most normal childhood experiences. "Don't let Hange ever find out. They'll go on a whole rampage."

Levi rolls his eyes, "I'm sure. So what is it?"

"Hmm," you struggle, "It's sort of like a girl's night?"

He replies slowly, not quite understanding, "Girls..night?"

"Boys had them too!! And there were mixed ones! They were fun!" Hand still working against his, you trace your fingers along the boney lines on the back of his hand, watching the skin shift as you press into him. "It's like... pillow fights! And painting each others nails!"

His brows scrunch up in confusion, eyes distant as he tries to imagine the experience. "That sounds...fun."

Excited, you continue, "There were games too! Truth and Dare! Oooh and spin the bottle!"

Levi's eyes widen in horror, no doubt recognizing those as games the younger scouts play, often under the influence of heavy amounts of alcohol. "Hange would go on a rampage," he agrees solemnly.

Pressing his palm down into the meat of your thigh, you push into his first knuckle. It pops, loud and resonant, beneath the press of your thumb. Levi tenses, hissing at the uncomfortable sensation.

Heedless, you continue onto the next, earning another loud pop. And another. And another, until all five joints have been released. “It’s such a shame that your hands been bothering you.”

His shoulders dip in a long sigh, eyes fluttering closed. “It’s really not that big of a deal. It’s fine.”

Flipping his hand back over, you tug at his forefinger, quickly pulling the length to pop it. “You’ve been holding your fingers weird for awhile now. How long have they been hurting?”

“It’s nothing. An ache, if anything,” he shifts uncomfortably in his chair. As you tug at another one of his fingers, he grunts. “A couple weeks.”

You switch your grasp, pinching your fingers together and pulling along the lengths of his own, no longer popping them, merely soothing the sore muscles. "Do you think it's gear aches?"

He grumbles something under his breath, low enough that you can't really catch it. "I'm not some fucking brand-new cadet."

As with most physical activities, using ODM gear hurts at first. The constant grip strength makes your hands ache, burning with red hot pain as muscles build and callouses form. New cadets complain constantly about the pains, dubbing them 'gear aches' and constantly whine to the medical staff for lotion to sooth their hands until they can adjust.

"It's not just new cadets," you note with a hum, "Sometimes scouts complain about them after training particularly hard."

"I never even had them when I started out," Levi clicks his tongue. "Izzy had them pretty bad though. Had to find some lotion for her."

"Find or steal?" The glower you get in response is answer enough. You smooth your thumb along his palm, repeating your earlier actions and working the digit hard enough into his muscle to earn a grunt. "Of course you didn't get gear aches. Is there anything you're not immediately perfect at?"

Levi purses his lips, but you cut in before he can speak, "Ah ah, no self deprecating."

He grumbles something very quiet under his breath.

"What was that?"

He responds quietly, barely audible. "I'm shit at paperwork."

"It's just something new. You'll get used to it eventually." Levi's hands are so small, his palm wide and the fingers long and thin. The skin is pale enough that you can trace the blue lines of his veins, where they twist and curve along the back of his hand and across his palm. Dainty. His hands are dainty, graceful yet somehow still masculine. "Okay.. so it's not gear aches. What is it then?"

You can barely catch it, but Levi's eyes flicker towards the stack of papers by your thigh. At just the same time, your fingers catch a rough spot on the side of his middle finger. A callous. It seems to be newer, up towards the top of the digit, near the first joint. Wait a minute..

The realizations strikes you so fast, you can't help but blurt out, "It's the paperwork!"

Levi scowls, fingers twisting into your palm. He looks shy, ducking his head down. "It's fucking useless anyways. Why do those pigs need to know every time someone on my team scrapes their knee? Or fucks up their uniform in training?"

You stiffen your shoulders, pitching your voice low in a rough imitation of Erwin. "Levi, cataloging our mistakes is an important measure to prevent them going forward. A mere scrape during training could equate to a loss of-"

"-Stop. Shut the fuck up," Levi cuts you off with a small laugh, "That's such a shitty imitation of him."

You're happy to see him smile and the sound of his laughter has your heart doing somersaults in your chest. You pat his hand softly, "You don't need to stress so much about it. Most of it just ends up decorating some tiny little storeroom in the basement of headquarters. Erwin might glance at some of the more important ones, like incident reports- but the higher ups don't really care.

The fingers of Levi's free hand disappear into the inky blackness of his bangs, frustration oozing from his features, "If they're just going to end up in some musty-ass storeroom, then why the fuck do I have to fill out 50 fucking pages every week?"

"If you're lucky some higher up might even use the pages to wipe his ass," you chirp, enjoying the resulting snort. "Us scouts are scrutinized pretty heavily, ya' know. Sometimes I think Erwin is just desperately trying to keep us funded."

Levi frowns, "And so he's, what? Overloading them with useless nonsense?"

"Maybe? I certainly wouldn't put it past him. Something you're actually bad at is relaxing. Just take breaks every once and awhile. You don't need to do it all in one sitting." At some point during the conversation you'd stopped massaging his hand, instead merely fiddling with the lengths of his fingers. "Did the massage help?"

Levi grunts, "Yeah." His finger pat your thigh. "It was nice. Thanks."

"They don't ache anymore?" His hand is still limp and heavy, warm against your thigh.

"No." His hand rises, fingers stretching cautiously. "Feels kind of fuzzy, actually."

"That's good. I'm glad." You expect him to scoot you back to the couch so he can get back to the paperwork, but he doesn't. He just sits there, not wanting you to move. "If I had some lotion it probably would've been even better."

"Maybe next time," he replies. He shuffles in his seat, scootching forward several inches so his knees knock the inside of your thighs.

"Next time?" Your surprise is doubled when his other hand falls into your lap, palm up with back pressed to the fat of your thigh.

His eyes ask the question that his mouth doesn't and your fingers immediately start kneeding into the meat of his palm.

Next time.

I love the grumpy shortcake to death but I actually HC that Levi is the worst kisser at the beginning of a relationship.

no because you’re completely right. at the beginning of the relationship honestly expect levi to be bad (but just too pathetically cute) at just about everything. he’s got the passion. he’s got the looks that he doesn’t think he has. but he’s just a BABY

literally flash him a cute little smile - especially when you’re alone - and he blushes.

levi taking holding hands way too seriously. finds himself practicing WITH HIS OWN HANDS how to correctly link your fingers (how much bigger or smaller is your hand than his? (he asks himself)) or stroke your thumb in just the right way. he hates himself for it but he just really doesn’t want to mess up with you. he thinks he needs to be good at something to be good enough and it kills you.

then the time comes and his hands get clammy from nerves. “disgusting” he says. poor levi

the first time you do kiss, he definitely asks to do it because of consent (he is traumatized). he asks to do anything the first time. “can i put my hand here?” and it’s not even your THIGH it’s your KNEE😭 he’s precious.

he would keep his eyes open like a freak at first, with your lips just barely making feather-light contact, because he wants to see. he wants to admire. levi is a careful person, an intense person, and a doting one. he cherishes your first kiss like it’s your last.

one could say it’s amateur to move his lips less and just press against yours, but he wants to savor the feeling, too. your softness, the indents from whether you have the tendency to bite your lip when you’re nervous, the shape of them. which side of your lips curl up first when you smile into it. brushing his thumb over the indent of your dimple (if you have any).

so that’s to say he’s barely kissing at all and feeling it out more than anything. he’s very bad at it. no subtext there at all /s.

it’s easy to mistake levi being flustered for levi being annoyed. he just gets crabby because he registers it as showing weakness. but you know how he feels.

puts off sleeping in the same bed for like. months. not out of lack of desire but he’s pretty much convinced he’ll be bad at it. he’s NERVOUS. what if nightmares? what if it’s hot, but you’re cuddling him and he doesn’t want to move away?

levi would watch you in your sleep. not in a perverted way. but, like that he’s free from the possibility of being embarrassed, caught admiring the details of your face that others would not think twice about. levi feels in poetry but speaks in crass one-liners and retorts. it’s true.

in reality, sleeping next to levi means being clung to by him at any given moment. except when you’re awake, because if he senses so much as a shift in your breathing, he’s awake first. however if you tend to cling too, then everyone is happy.

he sleeps restlessly, though. levi has never known a moment of peace in his life, sleep included. he’s eerily silent. like. corpse silent, but he squirms and wriggles a lot.

i’m sorry i couldn’t have gotten more off topic. YES YOU’RE RIGHT