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When he was a child, he couldn't understand why people didn't notice the things he did. Colors had a smell. In the dark, he could tell the difference between a red scarf and a brown one by closing his eyes and breathing in. Mike could tell where his father had been that day by smelling his clothes when he came home. He knew which shops he'd visited. He could smell the blood from the butcher, the fruit from the greengrocer, the ink from the stationer's. Sometimes he could smell smoke on him, and he knew he'd stopped to talk to his mother's old friends outside the tavern.
At the start of a sunny morning, he could scent the rain on the wind, and when he started to take the washing in, his father asked him what he was doing and told him to stop. "It's going to rain," he said, when there wasn't a cloud in the sky. His father laughed and shook his head, but Mike repeated himself. "It's going to rain." He breathed in. When the sky darkened suddenly in the late afternoon, and the first heavy drops began to fall, his father looked at him, then walked out without a word to take the washing in himself. Mike ran out to help him, because he always helped his father, and after that, his father never questioned Mike when Mike told him that the day would be sunny or cloudy. Clouds had a smell, and the absence of them did, too.
Rain smelled like freshness and uncertainty and promise. It was a good smell. It smelled cleaner and wilder than the well from which he drew water in the morning. Lightning edged it with acridity, and bigger storms smelled darker. Darker--that wasn't the right word for a smell, but it was the closest word he could think of. No one had thought to make up words for the things he could smell. By the time he was five or six, he realized that no one could smell the things he could.
His mother had died before then. He must have been two or three the last time he was held in her arms. He soon forgot his mother's face and the sound of her voice, but he never forgot her smell. Everyone had their own distinct smell, along with the basic human smell of hair and skin and sweat and the fibers of their clothes. His mother smelled like freshly cut wood, like a distant campfire, like soil in the springtime.
His mother, the hero. People still talked about her: the Titans she'd killed, the people she'd saved, but they stopped talking when he came in the room, and so he never heard the full stories. He wished he could smell out stories like he could smell the weather or where people had been. His father didn't talk about his mother. His father was a quiet, gentle man, and sometimes his hands would shake for no reason, and all at once, his scent would change into something darker.
His father smelled like the paper of old books, like chipped slate, like a handful of crushed mint. "If that's what you feel you should do, then I support you." That's what his father said, when Mike told him he was going to join the military. He said that, but Mike could smell his sadness: a thick, heavy scent, like dust and stale air in a room that hadn't been opened for a hundred years. He was an only child. He didn't want to leave his father alone, but he wanted to be a hero, like his mother. He wanted to save people. He wanted to join the Survey Corps.
What did the Wall smell like? It smelled like a shut door. It smelled like a stone which, split open, revealed a hollow space full of crystals. It smelled like his father's sorrow.
The training camp smelled like dirt and sweat and blood. It was a very human smell, overlaid with the sharpness of fear. Mike wasn't afraid. He thought of his mother and father, keeping their scents in mind. He looked down at the other recruits surrounding him, and he breathed in deeply, taking in their anxiety, their excitement, their pride, their hope. Mike had had an early growth spurt, and was the tallest of all the recruits in his trainee squad, towering over most of the others.
"He'll never pass the test. He's big enough to be a Titan."
About to turn a corner around the side of the barracks to head the mess on that first day, Mike paused at the sound of talk and laughter, listening. They had to be discussing him. He'd stuck out in the crowd.
A second voice spoke, quietly. "No. He'll be the best."
"What? That's crazy. You can't know that."
"I know."
"You think you know everything."
There was no reply to that.
Mike waited a minute or two, until he smelled that the speakers had left. He didn't want them to know he'd overheard. To his surprise, when he rounded the corner, someone was still standing there: a blond boy who turned toward him at once and smiled.
Mike froze. He should have been aware that there was someone still there. He should have smelled it, but he hadn't. The boy didn't have any scent at all. He was human, so he smelled human, but that only made him blend in to the animal smell of people that was everywhere around the camp. There was no secondary, distinct, personal scent. To Mike's nose, it was as if he wasn't there at all.
He didn't understand, because it didn't make sense. It was like having a blank spot in his vision, like a person who couldn't be heard, even as they spoke, who couldn't be touched, even as they reached out. It was jarring. It was impossible. Everyone had their own particular scent. Even dogs and horses. Even trees, even rivers. He could have been led in circles blindfolded through the countryside for hours, and he'd have known where he stood by the smell of the grass and the leaves. People couldn't be scentless. Even if they were clean, they only smelled clean in addition to their usual scent. It wasn't a matter of being clean or dirty.
"Mike Zacharius, isn't it?"
Mike nodded, still stupefied.
"Erwin Smith." The boy extended his hand, and Mike, after a hesitation, took it. He didn't stop with the handshake. Keeping his grip, he pulled Erwin forward as he leaned in, placing his nose at Erwin's neck, beneath his ear, where his scent, if he had one, should be stronger. He couldn't help himself. He had to smell him, to search for that elusive scent. The absence of it was maddening. Erwin's hair brushed his forehead as he inhaled sharply, but there was nothing there.
"What are you doing?" Erwin didn't pull back, but there was genuine surprise in his voice, and Mike withdrew, unsatisfied.
"Nothing." He didn't talk about his nose. His father knew about it, but no one else did.
Erwin made a thoughtful noise, but he seemed pleased about something. Seemed, because Mike couldn't tell. He couldn't smell his pleasure, couldn't tell anything about him, except what he could see with his eyes and hear with his ears. He resisted the urge to lean in and sniff Erwin again.
Mike had the distinct feeling that Erwin knew he'd been listening previously, so he asked him, "Why did you say that about me, before?"
Erwin shook his head, briefly, the smile still on his face. "You'll see."
Could this boy be like him, a person who could sense things others couldn't? Mike had never met someone like that before, but people came from all over to train from the military.
"You're related to Sara Zacharius, aren't you?"
No one else had mentioned her. Slowly, Mike nodded again. "She was my mother."
"She'd be proud of you."
It was something his father should have said, that he hadn't said. It was this strange boy who had said it, and with that, Erwin turned and headed into the mess. Mike could do nothing but follow, dazed and bewildered.
Erwin was right. When Mike stepped up to take the aptitude test, there were whispers and a muffled snicker or two, but soon, no one was laughing. "A natural," barked the chief instructor. "Look at this! If you little assholes don't want to be fuckups, this is how you do it!"
Mike had never talked a lot. After the test, he caught up with Erwin and fell into step beside him, wordlessly. They had a free period following the test, so they could go where they liked, within reason. Most were heading back to the barracks or to the mess, hoping for rest or a little extra food. Mike resisted the urge to try to smell Erwin again. Some part of him felt driven to repeat the attempt. It was like the urge to scratch an itch. Maybe if he tried enough, he'd be eventually be satisfied.
"It's all right. I don't mind." Erwin led them out toward the edge of the camp, toward a dark line of trees, the beginning of the woods where the more experienced recruits would practice killing Titan cutouts, flying through the trees with their gear.
"Don't mind what?"
As an answer, Erwin sniffed audibly, and Mike blinked, then grew aware of the heat suffusing his face. He didn't say anything to that, changing the subject. "How did you know?"
Despite the question's lack of specificity, Erwin understood what he meant. It wasn't a question about Mike's sense of smell, and Erwin knew this. "It was the way you carry yourself, the way you move. You're always completely sure. You know exactly where you are."
Mike frowned. No one else had ever noticed that before. Mike himself hadn't been aware of it. There was something about Erwin that was almost--alarming. It was disconcerting, but Mike didn't find it off-putting. He remained at Erwin's side, silent, as they continued to walk toward the trees.
"What is it you smell?" asked Erwin, once Mike's nose was full of the crisp acidity of the leaves.
Erwin wasn't talking about the leaves. "Nothing," said Mike.
This time, Erwin didn't know what he meant. "You can tell me--"
Mike interrupted, with a shake of his head. "No. Usually I--I smell people." Mike didn't talk about this, and he didn't have the vocabulary to discuss it, so he wasn't sure how to explain it. "People have a scent, and I know things about them when I smell them. Everyone. But you don't. I don't know why."
Mike couldn't tell what Erwin thought about this. He was quiet. His expression didn't change, and he continued to smell like nothing.
"That's weird, isn't it?" blurted Mike at last, his face heating again.
"No," said Erwin, after a pause. "It's useful."
Useful. Was that what it was? He'd been sure people would think he was strange, if they knew, but Erwin didn't seem to. They had come to a halt in the shadow of the trees. Mike leaned down to sniff at Erwin's neck again, and Erwin stood still, allowing it. He was close enough to feel the warmth rising from Erwin's skin, and he felt the ends of Erwin's hair brush his nose, but other than that, there was that absence, so stark and obvious to him above the unremarkable smell of a recruit's sweat after training. Erwin let him breathe in for a long time, but when Mike raised his head again, he remained unsatisfied. The itch hadn't been scratched.
Erwin was smiling at him.
Mike couldn't read him. He had no idea what he was thinking, but the situation became clear to him in this moment, full of the dark scent of the woods, the faint scent of clouds that meant some cover but little chance of rain, and the fading messy stink of the camp with its fear and bad cooking and latrines. It would be like this, he realized. He would follow Erwin, like this. He would keep trying to smell him, and he never would. Nothing had ever been so clear to him without him being able to smell it, but the absence of smell meant something too, didn't it?
So, that was how it was. The other recruits grew used to the sight of Erwin and his taller shadow. Mike was the top scorer in all their exercises, widely accepted to be the best among their number, but it was Erwin who received the greater amount of attention, of admiration. It was Erwin who people listened to. It was Erwin who people followed, as Mike did. Mike wondered if, in some way, they couldn't smell--or not smell--what he did, without being aware of it. Maybe they were affected by it in the same way that he was. No, it was more likely Erwin himself. The way he noticed people. The way he knew things about them. The special sense Erwin had.
Mike was content to be quiet and follow. Surrounded by the rich language of smells, he felt less need to speak than most people. He spoke more to Erwin than to anyone else, likely driven to it by the fact that he couldn't smell him, so he needed speech to bridge the gap he wasn't usually aware of. Erwin never remarked upon Mike's choice to accompany him. He accepted it, and as the months passed, he must have come to expect it, because he would pause at times, as if waiting. He would glance at Mike after practice, and Mike responded to his cues.
"It's been a long day," said Erwin, after a particularly grueling training session, words which Mike knew meant not that he wanted to rest, but that he wanted to keep going.
"It's going to rain." Mike's weather sense was near-infallible.
"We could use the rain."
That was probably true. They were dirty and reeking. Water wouldn't hurt them, but Mike frowned. The rain-scent carried by the air was particularly dark and bitter today, but he didn't disagree with Erwin. He seldom did.
There were no practice sessions scheduled in the woods that day, so it would be safe to enter. It wasn't encouraged behavior, but it wasn't strictly prohibited, either. They walked through the trees in silence. Mike noticed how deeply tanned Erwin's skin was, more so than when he'd first seen him, standing outside the mess. Being with Erwin made him rely more on his other senses, like sight and hearing. He tried to articulate, to himself, what it was he thought about Erwin, but it wasn't something that could be expressed in either words or smells.
It was Erwin who found the marker in the bushes. It wasn't a particularly tall stone, rising only a few inches above the tops of the leaves, but it was too even to be natural, and when Erwin headed toward it, after a moment, Mike spotted it, too.
Erwin pushed aside the brush to get a better look at the small monument, but they didn't wonder long at its purpose. There was no marking on it, but the intent behind it was obvious. "Someone must have been buried here," Erwin said. "I wonder why."
"Maybe someone from the camp," Mike suggested.
"They wouldn't put up a stone for a recruit."
That was true. People did die during the grueling training, but there was no graveyard for the dead trainees. Their bodies were collected by their families. If they had no families, or none who could come for them, they were probably burned. That wasn't a matter Mike had looked into, preferring not to think of it too much, but few things escaped his notice, even if he wished to escape them. He had smelled charred flesh, once. It wasn't a smell that was easy to forget.
He and Erwin stood regarding the stone together. "It must have been a long time ago, before there was a camp here," said Erwin at last.
The stone didn't smell like death. It smelled cool and soft. Any death or sorrow that had clung to it was gone now, and it was likely no one remembered the person this monument stood in honor of. Mike rested his hand on the stone, and that was when it started to rain.
The rainfall was heavy from the first.
"Should we go back?" Mike asked, glancing to him uncertainly. He would have followed Erwin instinctively, but Erwin hadn't moved.
"No, let's stay." Erwin's hair was already soaked, plastered to his forehead and the sides of his face. Mike didn't know why he wanted to stay, but he didn't question him. He nodded. He pulled his hand away from the stone, and he turned to Erwin to find him watching him. Without a thought, Mike leaned in, as he often did, to sniff at Erwin's neck. The rain dampened him and cut the scent of his sweat, but that was all. There was nothing new. No mysteries were revealed, and the secrets remained.
What if there was some other way to understand him? Some other sense he could use, which he hadn't tried yet? Mike had barely formulated the thought before he was licking at the skin beneath Erwin's ear, tasting him. This wasn't usual, but it struck him as a natural progression. Erwin stood still, as he did whenever Mike sniffed him, as if this were to be expected. Mike drew his tongue across Erwin's skin again and again, tasting salt and rainwater, but nothing that gave him any answers. Even when he started to suck lightly at the skin beneath Erwin's jaw, Erwin didn't move, didn't offer him anything.
"Erwin, why don't you--" Mike broke off, because he didn't know what he was asking. Why Erwin didn't smell? Why he didn't taste like anything? Why didn't he say anything? Why he wasn't reacting? He pulled back, to find Erwin's bright gaze still on him. He was reminded of his first impression of Erwin, that he was alarming, and he looked down, unable to hold his gaze.
Useful. That's what Erwin had called him, more than once now. Like a tool, or a weapon. Mike was the most skilled of the recruits, and he had the ability to sense things other people couldn't. Was that why Erwin spent so much time with him, because he was useful? "Sometimes I want to know what you're thinking," Mike confessed, as a wind blew through the trees, striking his wet skin and making him shiver. The storm was picking up. Thunder boomed, and Mike smelled the lightning a few moments before its flash lit up the sky.
"We should find somewhere to take shelter," said Erwin, frowning up at the sky as water poured down his face. "There's a blind not far from here, isn't there?"
Mike nodded, dumbly, as he backed away from Erwin. There were a number of small shelters in the woods, built for trainees on practice missions. They were concealed, but not too difficult to find, if you knew where you were looking. He and Erwin had found a couple of them in the course of their explorations of the woods. As he scented the air, seeking the smell of the blind so he could lead them there, Mike's heart was a painful knot in his chest, trapped in a ribcage that was too tight. Why had he acted that way? It wasn't like him. He was supposed to follow Erwin, not demand things of him. That wasn't how things worked. What if he became less useful?
"That's better." Erwin sighed and shook the water from his hair and clothes as they entered the shelter, which was cramped, but dry. There was no furniture inside, only the floor. Erwin sat down at once, but Mike remained standing, awkwardly, feeling as if he had crossed some line, broken an unspoken rule. Erwin's face remained almost blandly neutral as he patted the floor beside him. Mike continued to hesitate, for once not following Erwin's orders immediately. Erwin blinked, and Mike wondered if this had surprised him.
It was Mike who was surprised when Erwin suddenly lowered himself further, until he was lying on his back. When he reached out an arm, it was obviously an invitation, and this time Mike didn't hesitate. He sank, straddling Erwin's waist, and bent down to run his tongue over his neck again. He wasn't sure what else to do. He was aware of Erwin's hand settling on his thigh, and he tentatively shifted, turning his head until he was licking the side of Erwin's face. Erwin turned his own head to meet him, and Mike's tongue passed over Erwin's lips. Erwin's mouth opened, and Mike paused, breathing hard, excited and confused. "What do you want me to do?"
"I don't know."
Erwin had always seemed to know everything, but that wasn't true. He was uncertain, too. Mike leaned forward until his head was resting on Erwin's chest. He could hear his heartbeat. The sound told him that Erwin's heart was beating as quickly as his own. Mike wondered if he was in love, but he couldn't say for sure. He was sure that he was happy. He could smell the fresh sap of trees, echoed in the fainter scent of the cut wood that made up this structure. He could smell the rotting leaves in the soil outside, and another flash of lighting perfumed the forest even as it lit it up. He pressed his hand against Erwin's chest. The texture of Erwin's jacket was faintly rough, damp from the rain and warm from his skin. Mike listened to the rain drumming on the roof of the small shelter in one ear, while the rhythm of Erwin's heart drummed in the other. Erwin's tanned skin looked darker against the white of his shirt, and it made his eyes look brighter, when Mike raised his head again and found them focused on him. Erwin's breath caught in his throat, and the grip of his hand on Mike's thigh tightened. Mike closed his eyes and breathed in deep. He could smell the colors: black, brown, grey, and the gold of Erwin's hair. Even colors had a scent, though Erwin didn't. These sensory impressions, varied and intense though they were, weren't enough to express the happiness that overwhelmed Mike. There was another language, beyond all the senses, even smell, one which everything else was secondary to.
Mike didn't say anything. He kissed Erwin's mouth. Erwin kissed him back.
It didn't matter if he couldn't smell Erwin. He could find another way to understand him.