Chapter Text
There was a pub near the sanitorium, a shabby, seedy place that existed only for passing through, where every doorway seemed to be cast in shadow. It was here that Levi had taken to drinking while waiting for Erwin to recuperate. He hadn’t allowed a habit to form - he was very careful about things of that nature - but recently, he’d been going here to drink until he could hardly string two words together.
He made it a point to go when he knew he was most definitely not going to be otherwise occupied, and always alone. But even in his semi-lucid state, he knew that careful, sliding doubletime across the grimy floorboards to be hers, always walking as if she expected the first stranger she met to dip beneath her in a welcome tango.
"Hanji…you can’t always…lead the dance, you know…"
She eased herself into the stool to his right, knobby elbows akimbo and hands deep within her pockets as they always were when she was turning something over in her mind. “Eh? What dance?” she asked. There was usually a keen edge to his voice; everything about him was angled. But tonight his voice cracked and spit like damp firewood.
He laughed and it was more of a bark. He hiccuped weakly and Hanji smiled. “Ever the gentleman once your whistle’s wet.”
Levi lay against the counter, his face flush with its cool wooden surface. Bleary-eyed, he lifted his head up and stuck his chin out in a show of defiance. She leaned over him, impervious to the mead on his breath, straightening his cravat.
And he leaned up and over and into her mouth. A mere brush of his lips against hers, but no one could mistake it. “Sometimes, I have to lead, you know?”
Hanji opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing, and he took it as an invitation. She arched her back up and away from him and put her hands on his shoulders. “You’re drunk.”
"Yeah, and you’re here. For how long? How many street corners will you turn before I lose count? Here or there, that’s all there is. Here or beyond my line of sight but never out of mind. Out of your mind, maybe, and down the maw of one of those shit-eating grins on legs.”
"That kiss was neither here nor there." But she smiled. "I can hardly expect you to own it in the morning." She hefted him off his stool and he slumped against her, sliding down her side until she lifted him bodily and held him against her chest and carried him home. She smelled only of her own pungent musk, not of the tang of titan blood, and he was glad that smells made for the strongest memories.