Warnings...Levi's squad deaths will be all over this & tiny bits of LevixPetra. Oh, and, ah, smut. I have only a twinge of guilt.

Levi woke reluctantly.

It was late in the morning if the strength of sunlight crisscrossing across his body and bed was anything to go by. He shifted his back to face the window, tried not to think of the significance of this day.

How many years had it been since he'd lost them?

Since he'd lost Petra?

And still the anniversary of their deaths tore at him mercilessly.

The anniversary of her death.

He felt his pulse quicken, his breaths grow jagged as the familiar, sharp ache reappeared in his throat and heart. He never really understood why it still affected him so strongly, or why it was always this day that was the worst. He'd gotten through every other day with his usual grit, hundreds of days without them. But this day…it felt as if he'd aged many years, as if the grief had wrapped tightly about his bones, constricted his lungs—it made getting out of bed impossible.

He could still remember them all vividly, the way they bickered with one another one moment then nearly died the next trying to protect each other.

He could still remember the tinkle of Petra's laughter, the nervous way she'd fiddled with her fingers whenever they were alone, the way her eyes had glittered hopefully.

And he could remember the awkwardly bent angle of her body against the tree, the unnatural stillness of death, the dullness and hollowness of her once bright gaze.

The blood streaked across the young girls face.

He'd felt achingly hollow and twisted for months after, his heart and soul irreparably damaged and brutally clawed. But he'd survived—he always did, didn't he? It was always him that was forced to live while everyone about him was violently taken from him.

Why had he kept living?

He turned onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes, swallowing thickly.

He felt Mikasa shift beside him on the bed, stirring sleepily. She curled up against him, wrapping her slim arms about his bare torso, her silky black hair tickling his chest as she used him as a pillow.

"Morning." She murmured, her lips pressing softly against hard lines of his abdomen.

He touched her hair gently, tangling his fingers in the soft inky strands. "Morning." His voice was low and rough, and he shuddered when she pressed a string of kisses up his stomach and chest.

She paused when she reached the middle of his chest, looking up at him through the dark curtain of her lashes, her inscrutable gaze examining him with her usual eerie sereneness. She seemed to know why this morning was a difficult one for him—everyone did—but she said nothing, asked nothing, only moved over him.

Her soft thighs gripped his waist tightly, the flimsy night shirt she wore slinking off her pale shoulder prettily. The sunlight struck her skin not harshly but lovingly, displaying the rosy flush of her sleep swollen skin temptingly, displaying the softness of it, making his fingertips itch to touch her. They'd stayed together longer than usual. She usually left before anyone woke, before anyone could see she'd spent the night in his bed.

She spoke quietly. "We need to leave."

He inhaled deeply, looking up at her grimly.

Today was the anniversary of his last squad's death, yes.

But that was not the only reason he was dreading today.

At his silence she shifted away—but he gripped her thighs reflexively, reluctant to let her off of him. Their mission today would be a dangerous one, and their chances of survival were slim.

He'd seen enough of the cruel irony of life to know that it wouldn't be at all surprising if they took Mikasa from him the same day they'd taken Petra.

He wasn't sure if he'd be able to survive it this time.

And he needed to feel her.

Shakily, he reached up, fumbling with the buttons of her night shirt. "We have time." He lied gruffly, and she let him pull away her shirt, shutting her eyes as he pinned her bare body beneath his.

How lonely had he been until Mikasa had crept into his soul? He'd fought it viciously, tried to deny what he'd felt, had even tried to convince her to be with Eren but it hadn't worked, had only grown and festered within him, guilt wracking him. Everything had fallen apart and he'd broke, taking her innocence with all the fierceness and desperation of his loneliness, with reluctance and with relish, taming his roughness into gentleness, asking her to let him have her, savagely pleased when she'd acquiesced.

It'll only be just this once, he'd told himself once he'd sated them both, leaning on her heavily.

But once had turned into the rest of that night, and the next, and into weeks and months and...

Now the color of her red scarf was all it took to make him remember how it felt to have her beneath him. Now the scent of her had sunk into his sheets, into his clothing, his skin. Now her breath had filled his lungs.

Now she belonged to him.

And he'd been enslaved by her completely.

He buried his face into her throat as he pushed into her body, hooking one arm beneath her back, his hand gripping her shoulder and anchoring her in place beneath him. He slid his other hand down her side soothingly when she stiffened beneath him, holding her thigh spread as he buried himself as deeply as he could. He knew he should have taken a bit more time to prepare her body for his, knew that her small gasp was due more to discomfort then pleasure and he tried to regain his usual control.

But this morning was different.

"We shouldn't…we don't have time." Yet she arched beneath him sweetly, openly, tangling her pale fingers into his hair and holding him to her tightly.

"Hush," He murmured, moving into her in a slow, easy rhythm. "Just relax." He kissed the corner of her mouth, her bottom lip, her fluttering lashes, silently apologizing for his roughness. "I'll be quick."

She let her head drop back obligingly, a quiet sound of pleasure vibrating deep in her throat when he angled his thrusts to rub against her roughly, her soft breaths quickening.

Her eyes were shut and he drank in her pleasured expression not with his usual arrogance but with a raw hunger, needed her vulnerable for him, wanted not an inch of space between them.

He wanted to fill her until all she could think, feel and breathe was him.

Because it was what she'd done to him.

Her fingers clutched the sheets beneath her fitfully as he built her pleasure, and he clenched his jaw and bit back his own. Almost, he thought, his heart pounding in his throat as he quickened and deepened his thrusts, her body fully parted for him, the wet heat making him stifle his groan against her throat.

He felt her body begin to tighten around him, her thighs gripping his hard waist, her soft moans urging him on. The pleasure broke through her body suddenly and she arched beneath him, her pale fingers clutching at his hair tightly. He muffled the broken sounds she made with his mouth, hearing them, breathing them, and he rode her through her orgasm fiercely, driving her up brutally until she bit his bottom lip in frustration.

Her nails scraped the sweat slickened muscles of his back, her name catching in his throat as he came. He shook as he curled over her, holding her still for him, burying his face into her neck, clutching her hand and entwining their fingers as he spilled himself within her.

It should have been enough, Levi thought bitterly; giving them both pleasure should have soothed his restlessness as it almost always did—but it wasn't, and as the pleasure faded he only held her to him more tightly, felt himself shake for an altogether different reason.

"Stay." He bit out, the words tearing out of his throat unwillingly. "You'll stay here. I should be enough to get through the mission successfully."

She ran her fingers through his hair soothingly. "No."

He lifted his dark head, clenching his jaw as a sudden fury gripped him. "I can force you to stay here." He gripped her wrists in his hands, pinning them on either side of her head. "You're my subordinate. I can order you to stay."

She simply watched him quietly for several moments, her gaze dark and knowing. "I am not Petra."

He reeled back slightly, releasing her as if she had burned him. He pulled away from her body—gently—and sat at the edge of the bed, his bare feet touching the cold hard floor. He raked his hair back with a shaky hand.

"Don't be an idiot." Is that what she thought? That she was some kind of replacement for her? "I've never confused you for her."

Mikasa never spoke much, but when she did she was almost always composed and toneless—but now there was the slightest strain in her voice, and if Levi had been a less intelligent man he would have never understood what it meant. "I'm nothing like her." He had his back turned to her, but he felt her rise from the bed, nearly completely silent as she dressed. "Perhaps that's the problem." She murmured softly and before he could answer her he heard the door click shut as she left his bedroom.

Yes, he thought tiredly, pressing his fingers to the backs of his eyelids. It was most definitely what Mikasa thought.

And he didn't know how to go about explaining to her that she wasn't her replacement. That she was an altogether a different woman, a woman who'd somehow kept his head above the black waters that had nearly swallowed him whole; a woman who'd enthralled him with her silence, with her raw power and dark, soul-stealing eyes—but mostly, she'd enthralled him with her depth, with her damaged heart, with her innocence.

And she infuriated him with her stupid, idiotic complete lack of self-preservation, the way she so readily placed her life under the blade for the sake of Eren, Armin and whoever bloody else needed her.

And he didn't think he could keep his composure together if she did it again on this mission.

He didn't think he could hold himself together if he lost her.

And he'd be damned if he let her keep thinking that this whole time he'd been using her as some kind of balm for his wounds, as something temporary, as a distraction.

But had he ever given her reason not to think of herself as such?

He eyed the mussed sheets behind him grimly, his bed looking pitifully empty without her in it.

No, he admitted bitterly, he'd never given her a reason to think she'd meant more.

She needed to know she did.

A/N-This is short, yeah, and probably nicely mangled and nonsensical. It's almost 1am actually and I have work in a few hours...I'm putting up the excuses for all the mistakes you all have found, most likely. I'm sorry. My mistakes, as always, have no damn excuse and I deserve any flames.

Also, I'm sorry for not updating Subtle Unraveling.

I'm kind of...stuck on it? It's just not quite flowing and I have no idea why... so this is my attempt at breaking the block.

And, well, participating in RivaMika week, however faulty my work is.

I'll post the next one tomorrow, I promise.

You're lovely.