Author's note: Finally, an update on this series that I have been wanted to finish. But I had like...zero inspiration for it. My bad. What I intended for this chapter was a lot more...but I ended up writing too much on one thing I guess...so I'll keep it where it's at and just update again later. I wanted a lot more to happen in this chapter. Also, not edited much...and not really all that pleased with it...idk I'm not sure why..and there is more swesring than usual... lolol ALSOOO!!!! We made it to 10k votes! That's a lot. I'm so happy. thank you so much everyone! I can't believe it! You guys are awesome!

Also, I'm sorry. I am really too lazy to recap the last three chapters before this. To be honest, you guys should probably just reread those three chapters at this point because it's been so long since I've updated it, especially because I referenced someone briefly from the second chapter that you might have forgotten (he is a mildly important part of the story btw. He will appear more later). I know, don't hate me. xoxo enjoy it, friends. a;sdkjfskldf ooc Levi??? Maybe? IDK anymore!!!

Part Four

***

Word count: 5321

There was a rhythmic sound for some time now, almost like a drumming; it was distant and familiar but you couldn't quite place it. At least, not at that moment as you lay comfortably in your bed, eyes still closed. You shifted in your place, searching for a cool spot under the lush sheets and blankets before you instinctively clutched the pillow next to your chest.

So fluffy.

You listened to the noise once more while your awareness broadened slowly. It had been ages since you last felt this comfortable in your bed; you could not even remember the last time you slept so peacefully either. If you thought about it, it did not even feel much like your bed, as yours was so stiff and the pillows were flat.

After some more thought, you breathed in deeply. The scent that met your nose was not your normal bed smell, but muskier and rich. There was even a hint of an earthy, woodsy smell to the pillow.

Wait a sec'...you thought.

Opening your eyes, you were met with an all too familiar sight, but it wasn't that of your small bedroom in your two bedroom apartment. You sat up quickly, eyes darting from the duvet covering you, to the empty spot on the bed beside you, and finally to your right where the open bathroom was. From there, you realized the noise you heard earlier was actually the shower water running.

The color drained from your face; Levi was taking a shower while you had been sleeping. In his bed.

"Shit!" you hissed to yourself, recalling the events of last night. You wracked your brain; the last thing you remembered was Levi playing the piano and singing for you as you sat on the couch sipping your wine. It had been a slow song and it apparently had lulled you to sleep. 

Embarrassed with yourself, you wondered if you should just quietly sneak out of the penthouse.

You glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 7:02am. How you managed to wake up so early was beyond your mental capacity at that moment but you were at a loss of what you should do. If you were to just leave without saying a word, Levi would be angry. That aside, you would have to see him in literally an hour at the studio anyway, so leaving without saying something seemed pointless.

Searching for your phone, to which you found charging conveniently next to you and under a pillow, you found that Mikasa had called you three times and texted you sixteen messages.

Mikasa was not pleased that you did not come home the night prior. 'You didn't tell me when you were coming home tonight,' 'should I call the police?''where the hell are you?' 'You better be safe,' and 'When are you coming home?' were some of the text messages that she had sent. However, the last text message, which had been sent only an hour ago, was the one that instantly irritated you. 'Please tell me you didn't end up having sex with Levi and stayed at his place...because if you did, you have poor taste in men.'

Furiously typing your reply to your roommate, you didn't hear the water turn off from the bathroom, nor did you notice that a minute later, Levi had come out of said bathroom with just a towel draped around his waist. In fact, you were so wrapped up in your texting that you did not see that he had stood beside you for a full thirty seconds before saying anything at all.

"Well, I see you're finally awake," he said blandly, rubbing a hand towel over his wet hair. "About damn time your ass got up..."

You had leapt up in fright at the initial sound of his voice, having not been expecting him to be standing next to you. The moment you glanced at him to try and spit back a retort, you looked away frantically to anything else in the room so as to not be caught staring at how attractive his body was. There was water still dripping over his skin and it was incredibly distracting that his towel was dangerously low on his waist.

"Do you always look like utter garbage in the morning?" he continued on in a bored tone.

"Jeezus, put some fucking clothes on!" you practically screamed, ignoring his insult because you were more concerned with how little he was wearing. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

You turned your head completely to the left and covered half your face with your hand. You were desperately not to sound flustered and even more determined for him not to see you blushing intensely at the sight of him.

"What, are you embarrassed?" he scoffed with a roll of his eyes. "Never seen a man's body before?"

You ground your teeth together; it was too early in the morning for his usual snippy replies. "Shut up, Levi," you said with a biting tone. "Why the fuck am I in your bed, anyways?!"

He scrunched up his eye and put a finger to his ear as if it was ringing. "Will you shut the fuck up already? Is it really necessary to shout so goddamn early in the morning? Christ..."

You whipped your head around in your anger, completely ignoring that his abs were practically staring you in the face, and glared up at him. Not even a full minute of being in his presence, and you already wanted to strangle him.

"I swear to god, if you tried anything on me, you prick, just because I drank – mmph!"

You stopped short when Levi threw his hand towel in your face to silence you before walking away. When you pulled it off, eyes blazing, he was already several feet away.

"That's insulting," he said flatly, returning to the bathroom where his walk-in closet was. "You think I'd sleep with you? When I could sleep with anyone I wanted? Not a chance, ya idiot."

You let out a noise of great irritation by his vanity and threw the covers off your body to tail him in the bathroom but abruptly stopped in second thought. You realized that he was essentially naked and you didn't want to follow him around that way. That towel was incredibly close to falling as it was and you had no desire to see anything hiding behind it.

Instead, you turned to the sink to splash some water on your face before glancing up at your reflection. You immediately paled; you did look like a mess and Levi made it known immediately. You looked like this every morning, and in any other circumstance, you didn't care. However, that was purely because Mikasa was the only person who ever saw you with such a train wreck of hair and sleepiness.

Again, you were embarrassed to be caught in such a position, especially by Levi.

"Are you going to tell me what happened, or what?" you asked again, desperately trying to tame your hair with water.

"You fell asleep on the couch, dumbass. Almost spilled your wine everywhere too," said Levi from the closet. You glanced over in that direction just as Levi opened the door; he was still shirtless but at least he now had a pair of pants on.

"...I did?" you asked hesitantly. "Why didn't you just wake me up and tell me to leave?"

Levi shrugged apathetically before approaching the sink area. "I'm the one who would have had to drive you home, which would have been a stupid move, considering I drank too. Even if I wasn't drunk. It's just easier this way."

You drew your eyebrows together and folded your arms. "You could have thrown me in a cab," you countered as he was rubbing some hair product through his damp hair.

After a moment, Levi glanced at you with his piercing eyes. "Why the hell are you complaining so much?" he snapped. "I moved you to the bed and slept in the guest bedroom. Chill."

You felt your eyes widen just slightly at this statement and you wondered why he didn't just sleep in his own room and put you in his guest room. "So, we...we didn't sleep together?" you settled to ask.

There was hesitation in the tone of your voice but you just needed to get this cleared up immediately. You did not want there to be any tension between you two, or any miscommunication as to what happened.

Levi's expression turned into that of one that clearly meant he thought you were an idiot. "No, I did not sleep in the bed with you, nor did I have sex with you. Get over yourself. We didn't even drink enough to make that kind of stupid ass mistake."

You breathed a sigh of relief, ignoring his harsher statements.

"You should shower. We're going to the studio in by eight-thirty, remember?" Levi gave you an expectant stare through the mirror.

"I'm not going in the same clothes as yesterday!" you protested instantly. "That's gross."

Levi exhaled sharply through his nose and went back to his closet. A moment passed and he came back out with a white button down shirt. As he passed you, he draped it over your face and continued out of the bathroom.

"Wear that for now and I'll take you by your apartment to get a change of clothes," he called from his room. You removed the pleasant smelling shirt from your head and watched him leave while he kept talking. "Hurry up, brat. I still need to brush my teeth."

You stared after him, confused as to what his motive was. You had no idea why he was being so nice to you, or at least as "nice" as he could manage to be.

Levi opened the bedroom door before he spoke again. "There are extra towels in the cupboard beside the shower. Just don't use my razor."

With that, he left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving you baffled and flustered. You knew well enough that nothing did happen last night, but the fact that you fell asleep and he moved you to his bedroom while he took the guest one was...strange.

Some twenty minutes later, you emerged from the bedroom in Levi's shirt and your pants from the day before. The sleeves had been too long, so you had to roll them up to your elbows but resolved that you didn't care enough to tuck in the bottom, despite its length. Your hair was wet, you had absolutely no make up on, and overall, you were incredibly embarrassed to be seen in such a state.

"That was a long ass shower," you heard Levi say from the kitchen. "What the hell were you doing in there?"

"There was so much fucking shit in there!" you snapped back promptly. "I didn't know what the hell I was allowed to use!"

Levi was still shirtless, unfortunately, when you came into the kitchen but he didn't seem to have anything to say to your slight outburst. He glanced at you for a moment, nearly pausing in what he was doing before he set down a coffee mug in front of you and a small plate of toast.

"...thanks..." you said warily, sitting on one of the bar stools.

He did not reply and merely sipped on his own coffee while staring at you.

"Can you please put on a goddamn shirt?" you said. You tried to sound as neutral as possible but a hint of desperation came from your lips.

Levi sort of half smirked from behind his coffee mug. "You're annoying as hell in the morning, you know that?" he replied while setting down the cup. He left the kitchen and you shook your head in mild irritation.

Sipping on your coffee, you were surprised he had made it exactly how you preferred it. You didn't think he paid enough attention to some kind of detail like that. You chewed on your toast and let your thoughts get carried away.

There would be some explaining to do with Mikasa when you showed back up at the apartment, assuming she was there and not already leaving for work. Her schedule always varied, so you weren't sure if she would be there; a part of you hoped that she would not be home because you simply had no energy to explain why you never came back the night before. Not that Mikasa truly cared what you did with your personal life, or whom you dated, but she still was your best friend and cared for your well being.

Levi reemerged from his bedroom, finally clothed.

"Why the hell do you make me get you coffee so often when you have a coffee maker here?" you asked with a bitter tone just as he leaned idly up against the counter across from you.

He took a drink from his mug before replying. "I enjoy how you make my coffee. Is that such a crime?"

You rolled your eyes and swallowed your bite of toast. "No, you just like to boss me around like your fuckin personal assistant."

"Did you only now notice this?"

"You're a real ass, you know that?"

A dry chuckle escaped Levi. "I was not aware that you had a mouth of a sailor first thing in the morning."

"Fuck off..." you griped, throwing him a death glare. "I can't deal with your pretentious bullshit right now, okay?"

It fell silent after that. Levi, unbeknownst to you, found this side of you amusing to some extent. It was primarily annoying, but almost endearing. Almost. You two had been bickering like siblings for nearly three months now but he never realized just how irate you were in the morning. Somehow, you reminded him of a cat that had been tossed into water.

He snorted at the visualization, which caused you to glance up at him.

"What?" you snapped, realizing he was laughing at your expense. Levi's expression was difficult to read; he appeared to be smirking just slightly, but otherwise his eyes were as dead as they always were.

He shrugged apathetically and rinsed out his coffee cup before taking your empty one as well. "We need to get going," he said. "Just let me brush my teeth before we go."

You nodded and watched him walk away again.

"I have a spare one, if you want," Levi called from the bedroom. "Which I suggest you use...because no one needs to smell your nasty ass morning breath mixed with coffee."

Again, you clenched your jaw to keep from ripping into him. You were already one hundred percent done with his attitude inside of the hour.

You slid off the bar stool and put your small plate in the sink before you followed him once more back to his bedroom. This entire scenario was hard to wrap your head around. No one needed to know about this, as you were sure it would be taken out of context in all the wrong ways. You did not need anyone implying that you spent the night at Levi's penthouse out of interest for him romantically or sexually.

Once in the bathroom, Levi had already had his automated toothbrush going. Immediately, you felt awkward; this was much too intimate, in a strange way, for you to be comfortable with. Only couples who were serious about each other did things like this. Levi, however, did not notice your turn in mood and wordlessly handed you a spare manual toothbrush, still in its packaging.

Quietly, you tore it open and began to brush your teeth a moment later, listening to the whrrring of Levi's toothbrush and your mind began to race.

This is the weirdest shit ever...you thought to yourself, idly brushing away. Not only did I fall asleep here...but he put me in his bed like a weirdo...and I took a shower using his shit so now I smell like him...and now I'm wearing his fucking shirt.... And then this fucker decided to make me breakfast.... AND I'm brushing my teeth here?! How did this even happen? What the fuck, man? This is, like, couple shit.

Levi watched you through the mirror with interest. He realized you were refusing to make any eye contact with him and after a moment, he noticed your cheeks were beginning to flush with color. He rinsed out his mouth before turning to look at you directly.

"What the hell are you blushing about?" he asked abruptly, which caused you to choke on some of the foam of the toothpaste.

"N-nothing!" You struggled to speak through your mouthful and hurriedly went to rinse. "Leave me alone already, damn!"

Levi stifled the need to chuckle at your expense. "Whatever," he replied with an amused roll of the eyes. "Let's go."

With that, you both collected your belongings needed for the day and made for the elevator. 

The ride down was one of the most awkward two minutes of your life as neither of you said a single word. Just as the floor number approached the first, Levi slid on a pair of sunglasses and exited before you. You followed behind him, keeping your head low and your still damp hair half covering your face.

As you both walked through the lobby towards the doors to the front, you realized you would have to pass by the steward, Ray, at the front desk. You and him had gotten friendly over the last few months, as you had been visiting the penthouse regularly now. He was often the best part of your day. Still, Ray often liked to tease you about your consistent visitations, implying that there was a secret relationship forming between you and Levi.

You always vehemently denied this fact. However, the evidence appeared to be stacked against you since you never left from the night before, which was logged in the guest book, and wore Levi's shirt.

"Good morning, Mr. Ackerman," said the elderly man pleasantly.

Levi merely nodded in response.

"Oh, Miss (L/n)," said Ray in mild surprise. "Good mor-"

"It's not what it looks like!" you shouted over him, with an outstretched finger pointing him in the face.

Your partner, whom was only a few feet ahead of you, abruptly stopped walking and turned to you with an expression of irritation laced with straight up shock at your outburst. At the sight of Levi's face, you blushed deeply; you realized you should have not said anything at all, as it now look like you were trying to cover something up.

"Are you an idiot?" Levi snapped.

After a strained moment of silence, you heard Ray chuckle lightly on your right. Feeling embarrassed, you turned your gaze hesitantly towards him.

"I was not implying anything," he assured you, though amused. "But good morning, nonetheless, my dear. It's good to see you again."

"R-right..." you stammered. "Good morning, Ray.... See you around."

You ducked behind your hair once more and hurried on, completely flustered at your lack of social skills in the moment prior.

"Honestly, you're literally so fucking dumb," said Levi, pulling the front glass door open so that you could step outside first.

"Shut up already!"

***

Two days had passed since that strange morning incident. Neither of you brought it up to anyone, not even to each other. You were grateful for this, as you did not need Levi to have that hanging over your head. The only person you had to explain yourself to was Mikasa.

When you had stopped by your apartment to change into some clothes, she was waiting for you at the kitchen table with an expectant expression. You quickly explained yourself as you put on your clothes in your room.

She did not seem convinced by your story but you assured her that nothing happened with Levi but merely drank too much and passed out on his couch from exhaustion. Mikasa did not like that he did not try to take you home; she felt that he had an ulterior motive that would appear later on, since it did not seem to "arise" the night prior.

Your tried to tell her that you and Levi basically hated each other, so therefore the only motive you were sure he had was to see you suffer endlessly at his whim. Mikasa remained silent on the subject but you knew she disagreed.

Presently, you were in the studio once more, working on a refrain for one of the newly decided songs that the band would be singing. The younger members pushed for this particular song, but you could tell Levi wasn't pleased with the selection based off the light and fun lyrics. For now, everyone agreed to record the song and agreed to scrap it if needed later on.

At the moment, the overall music to this piece was finished, but you felt it was a little too generic for your liking, as if every other pop song sounded similar. This piece was not meant to be a ballad, but one of the album's more upbeat songs.

Levi had left to go find some coffee for you both, as you had been at it for more than three hours. You were constantly fine tuning the chord progression with your guitar while listening to a previously recorded piano melody in your headphones.

You were so focused on writing the chords down and playing them back to yourself that you didn't notice Erwin enter the room or approach you.

There was a loud slam! that jolted you from your concentration, causing you to yelp in fright from the noise. Looking up from your small table in the sound room, you found Erwin giving you a hard stare. This was the first time you had ever been under his wrath, and you did not even know what you did wrong but it was terrifying.

You couldn't find your words in time to ask him what he was doing because he spoke first, and his tone was icy.

"Care to explain this?" he demanded, glancing down at the table he was leaning on.

Confused, you let your eyes follow his arm and down to where his hand was splayed across the table in front of you. Under his hand was a gossip magazine. You furrowed your brows together, and once he removed his hand to show the front page, you felt all the color drain from your face.

The headline of the magazine read "Is Levi in Love?" in big, bright yellow lettering. Underneath it in smaller font, it continued with "One of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors may have a girlfriend!! Who is she!? Attack on Titan's Levi Ackerman finally found the girl of his dreams?"

Behind the lettering was an attractive picture of Levi from an old photoshoot.  However, in a small circle near his head, it showed a picture of you and Levi outside The Palazzo with you in his shirt while he was holding open the passenger door to his car for you.

"You're kidding me," you hissed to yourself, tearing open the magazine. Your heart was pounding in your chest cavity and beginning to have a cold sweat.

You found the story on page ten but you weren't interested in whatever the three page article had to say about you as much as you were about the photos. What was your primary concern was that there were multiple pictures, clearly taken by hiding paparazzi, of you and Levi. Primarily, the article focused on how you had been seen going into Levi's building with one shirt the night before, picture provided, only to come outside his apartment in his shirt  and wet hair the next day. However, there were pictures of you and Levi waiting at a local coffee shop from a week ago and another two from when you were seen entering and leaving the dance studio with Levi where Attack on Titan practiced.

"I asked for an explanation," Erwin said, breaking through your thoughts.

You looked up frantically from the magazine into his cold, blue eyes. "I-it's really not what it looks like, Erwin," you struggled to say. "I swear!"

"Oh really?" he said, folding his arms. "You're telling me that though it appears as though you are mixing your personal life with your professional life, but the reality is that it's not?"

"Y-yes!" you snapped, growing frustrated by his scrutinizing and accusations. You stood up so that he wouldn't glare down at you so much. Not that it helped. "I understand it looks really bad from how this trash magazine put it but I would never do something so stupid! Levi and I have no interest in each other!"

Erwin did not look convinced, nor did he like that you were beginning to raise your voice at him. You did not care though, as you had something to prove.

"I accidently fell asleep at his house that night," you explained quickly. "He said he didn't want to kick me out...I dunno, maybe Levi felt bad. So I just slept there. That's it,  nothing happened!!"

"Nothing happened, but you're in his shirt and your hair is wet the next morning. That's as incriminating as it gets in this world, (l/n)," Erwin replied in deadpan.

"That doesn't mean I'm dating him!" you protested. 

"What the fuck is going on in here?" said an angered voice to your left. You knew that voice instantly and admittedly, a part of you was relieved to hear it. Someone needed to save this conversation.

You and Erwin glanced over at the sound room door to find Levi approaching you both with coffees in hand, expression bland but his dark eyes clearly shaded with irritation.

The taller man swiped the magazine from your grasp, to which you did not like, and held it up when Levi was only a few feet away.

"The hell is this?" Erwin's tone was harsh yet incredibly cold. "Have you seen this?"

Levi barely even glanced at it as he set down the coffees on the piano near him. "Yeah, I saw it," he said apathetically. "Saw the three other shitty trash magazines just like it too. What's the problem?"

Your heart skipped a beat at the statement. There were more? More trashy, gossip ridden magazines that undoubtedly just ruined your life?

"You're being rather reckless, don't you think, Levi?" said Erwin. "Which is odd, coming from you. I was under the impression you'd be far more careful and discreet."

The shorter man shrugged. "It's fucking hearsay, just unsubstantiated information based off of what? Three fucking pictures? They have nothing to back it up with," said Levi. "I don't give a shit what that says. This isn't the first goddamn time we've gone through this shit."

You were surprised how nonchalant Levi was acting about the news. You were internally having a mental breakdown; you did not want your career to be altogether ruined by this sudden "scandal." Of course, the band had been involved in plenty of gossip beforehand but nothing quite like this could be.

"What exactly is the problem here, Erwin?" said Levi tersely when it was silent for a moment. "It's not like I was caught doing a line of coke in a fuckin bathroom of a bar or some bullshit. They think I'm dating this girl-"

"Hey!" you snapped, because he had gestured at you with such disdain.

"That's not the point, Levi," Erwin replied, practically slapping down the magazine again on the table. "Regardless of whether this is fake or not, gossip or not, it looks bad on your part."

You swallowed, eyes flitting between the two men in a state of mild panic.

"Once they find out who she is, because they will, and find out that that we hired outside help to write our songs for our next album, I don't think fans will be all that pleased," continued Erwin. "You know that a large part of why we are successful is because we did it all on our own before."

He stopped to face you. "And for the record, your life is about to get a hundred times harder now," said Erwin gravely. "You are going to be harassed by the papz, and there are going to be fans that will hate you...purely for the fact that those magazines are implying that you're dating Levi. You need to steel yourself for that."

Rooted to the spot, you were speechless; you knew that already. You knew from the moment you saw the cover page that you were going to be in some deep trouble.

"I don't care what your personal life looks like," said Erwin. "But whatever you do, now is not the time. Professionalism is of utmost importance. Do you understand that, Levi?"

"Tch." The shorter man rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I do. Not dating girl, by the way."

Erwin ignored him. There was another painful stretch of silence and you were sure the two men could hear your heart beating hard at this point. You wanted to say something but you did not even know what you were feeling anymore. Most of your head was scrambled with the shock but another part of you was completely fearful of the coming days ahead. Attack on Titan's fame was astronomical throughout the world; you were bound to be hated for mere association to Levi by crazy obsessed fangirls.

"For both your sakes', you better do well on this album, or we all will have to pay for it," said Erwin finally. He shook his head and made for the door. "Levi?"

His tone was stern again as he glanced back at his bandmate.

"What?"

Erwin opened the door. "Fix it, or you're going to cause her a lot of suffering from here on out."

He left the room, the door shutting loudly behind him. The air was still and quiet, as Levi continued to stare at the door that Erwin exited from.

After a moment, Levi let out a heavy sigh before turning to you to say something. Upon seeing your face, his voice caught in his throat, taken aback by your reaction to the recent developments.

You were staring down at the magazine, mind racing at all the implications that it would bring. Your right hand was covering your mouth as if you were trying to hide away behind your hair...

...with tears silently streaking your cheeks.