Archive of Our Own ^beta

I

The first time Hanji meets him, she’s sitting on the ledge of the hospital roof, in some dark little niche, fingering her cigarette delicately and watching the white ash drift away; float the way she wants to float. She kicks her feet, looks down at the pavement. She’s done the math. It’d be barely a three second plummet and then—

“Are you going to jump or not? I have places to be, you know?”

Hanji squeaks, looks up at a man not much older than her, his eyes cold unfeeling steel. They watch each other for a long moment, before she turns back to the pavement far below; the glisten of street lamps, the streak of car tail lights… She wants to, she does. She wants to be splattered against the pavement, smashed bones, pooling blood.

He bends down to her height, licks his thumb, and wipes away a smudge from her nose. “If you’re going to die, you can’t be filthy.” He says.

Hanji blinks. She giggles. She laughs. She laughs until she can’t breathe, laying back on the roof. He frowns at her and waits patiently for her to finish, clicking his tongue in disdain. She tried to explain that trying to clean her up in preparation for a messy death is the most pathetic thing she’s ever heard, but she can’t find the air.

“That’s a good one,” She says instead.

“Yeah yeah, okay haha. Now jump or don’t jump, pick one.”

“I won’t today, thanks.” She chirps. He snorts and stands, spreads wings as black as night, as ravens, as onyx.

“You sure? Cause I don’t wanna have to come back.”

“I’m sure.” She laughs. She thinks she should be weirded out as he takes off in a ruffle of feathers. “Hey, mister reaper.” She calls to the night sky. “What’s your name?”

“Levi, you four eyed shit.” He calls back.

She grins, pulls out a note book from her back pocket. It’s empty, and on the first pages she writes, “Levi, the grim reaper.”

II

Hanji’s drunk, and 22, sitting on a trash can in an alley, wiping vomit from the corner of her mouth. She thinks she’s not thinking of anything in particular, but he comes just the same, standing just a little ways from her, close enough to kick.

“Heya sugar.” She slurs, blinking blearily at him, mouth twisted in what she hopes is an inviting smile. His nose wrinkles.

“You wanted me?” He asks blandly.

“Didn’t think I did, but you’re here now ain’t cha?” She laughs. Her head is buzzing, her stomach is roiling, she’s wanted to see him so many times since that night but—

“You were calling me.” Levi says, as though that explains everything, as though she hadn’t tried calling him before, “I could hear your song, so I came.”

Hanji stands unsteadily, stumbles forward to drape her arm around his shoulder. He’s shorter than her, and in her heels she towers over him, her breasts directly in his face. She knows she smells like booze and cheap perfume and cheaper lipstick but—

“Do you want me to kiss you?” Levi murmurs. Hanji nods dumbly, wants that more than anything, wants – “If I kiss you, it’ll all end. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Hanji glances from his lips to his steel eyes, shakes her head slowly. She doesn’t want it to end, she just wants--. “It’s not your time yet, four eyes.” Levi grunts, and disentangles them. “You don’t want it.”

“But—“

“Go home. Take a shower. Brush your fucking teeth, you smell like shit.” He’s gone again in a flutter of wings. Hanji sighs dejectedly, and feels like a spurned whore.

III

Hanji  nurses a bourbon and a cigarette, a rueful smile stretching her mouth. Every so often, she fingers a shard of broken glass in her pocket. He doesn’t come to her until she accidentally nicks her finger on it.

“Fancy meeting you here, stranger.” She greets jovially, sucking her thumb into her mouth to clean away the blood. “Can I buy you a drink?”

He grunts at her, swipes a napkin over the oak wood bar, and leans against it. They sit in silence for a few long moments, no sound between them but Hanji’s breathing and the clink of her ice in the tumbler. She’s 26, and alcohol is a great, if clichéd, vice. “My fiancé left me.” She says conversationally.

“Yes.” Levi answers.

“I mean, I know I’m not all there. I know it but….you think he could have guessed that before he asked me to marry him.” She grumbles. Her smile slips, and it feels strange, not smiling, like being naked in public.

“It’s true, you’re not all there.” Is Levi’s uninspired reply, his bored half lidded gaze fixed on her like an insect he’d like nothing better than to squash.

“You’re not really helping.” She grouses, the smile back, and isn’t that much better?

“I’m not supposed to.” Levi turns fully towards her, cheek propped on his fist. “I want you to die, remember?”

She laughs. She laughs until she can’t breathe. And just like when she was 18, he watches her with a click of his tongue, disdain clear despite his unchanging expression of apathy. She wants to tell him it’s fucking hilarious that the only friend she has to talk about her failed relationship is the grim fucking reaper. But she’s laughing too hard, slamming her fist down on the bar, struggling for air. The few other patrons watch her warily, but she doesn’t care.

“I’m leaving, four eyes.” Levi says when she regains her breath. “Try not to call to me unless you actually mean it.”

“Yeah yeah, till next time mister reaper.”

She pulls out her notebook when he’s gone, writes some drivel, pays for her drink, and leaves a generous tip for all the mental scarring she’s left on the bartender.

IV

Hanji is driving. The road is clear and open and perfect, and her window is down. Her pedal sinks lower and lower, until her speed gauge is in the red. She blinks and Levi’s there with her, easing back the seat and putting his feet up on the dashboard, rolling down the window so that the chilled summer breeze howls in the car.

“Where’re we going?” He asks without inflection, glancing at her sideways, hands behind his head.

“No where.” Hanji smiles. She wants to tell him about it. To tell him that there’s nothing left for her in her town. In her country. In the whole wide world. She wants to explain to him that it’s terrifyingly liberating finding oneself suddenly adrift with nary a vague childhood dream to fall back on. She knows what he’ll say. Or she doesn’t. It’s the same either way.

“Swerve into that tree” He says, pointing at an old willow tree coming up. “I’ll take you to a special no where.” His lips quirk when he says it, and Hanji giggles. “I know you won’t though. Not tonight.”

“Who says?” Hanji dares. Levi raises an eyebrow at her, and gestures vaguely at her.

“You says. I can hear it in your song.”

“Oh yeah?” Hanji grins. “I may surprise you.” She swerves suddenly into the oncoming lane and veers back so fast Levi’s legs are knocked from the dashboard, his hand on his chest. For a second he looks terrified and then he glowers at her.

“If you’re gonna joke around I’ll just—“

“Wait!” Hanji pleads. She slows her speed, fingers tight on the steering wheel till her knuckles are white. “I’ll keep thinking about death, if you want, just…” She takes a breath and tosses him a smile. “Just keep me company for a little?” He leans back in his seat with a long suffering sigh and she hums happily.

She thinks of filling a bathtub with blood. She thinks of finally kissing him just as she tumbles from a building. She thinks—

“God it’s quiet as a grave in here.” Levi grunts, and reaches over to turn on the radio.

“Isn’t that what you want?”

Levi tosses her a rare tiny little smirk. “If I had my way, the only sound would be rending metal and the last beats of your heart.”

V

She’s not really calling him. Her couch is lumpy, she listens to the neighbour yelling at her kids. She’s 28 and she doesn’t think she’d have made a good mother but she wishes.  She wishes…

“Four eyes.” Levi says gently, leaning next to her ear over the back of the couch.

“Hi.” She replies. She can’t muster up a smile. She can’t tell if she wants to be alone or if she wants him here to torment her with his crass inhumanity. Light from the muted TV flickers on her face and she watches it, and nothing, vacantly.

“You’re tired.” Levi murmurs soothingly, twirling his fingers in her hair. She leans into the touch, she’s wanted it for so long, and she’s unsurprised to find his fingers cold.

“I’m tired.” Hanji agrees, shutting her eyes and purring as his strokes become longer.

“I can tell.” Levi says. “You want me to kiss you?” It barely sounds like a question. She does. She does want to kiss him. She wants to die on this lumpy old couch in front of the tv like an 80 year old. “It’d feel good, I promise. Just a kiss, four eyes, and you wouldn’t have to force another smile.”

Hanji does smirk at that, giggles a little. “You say I call you.” She starts. Levi hums. “What do I say?”

“It’s a song that plays in my head.” Levi answers. “It echoes, and I’m drawn to it because you’re asking for me.”

“What does it sound like?”

Levi kisses his teeth and Hanji feels her smile broaden. “The first time, it was sweet. The second time, your song was pathetic, like a child lost and alone in the dark, crying.” Hanji laughs. That hits the nail on the head. “I only ever answered because I wanted it to stop.” He’s back to himself. Crass. Less sweet words, sweet peace, sweet angel of merciful death. He sits on the arm of the couch.

“You spoil me, mister reaper.” Hanji smiles. “What did my song sound like tonight?”

“Pure.” He answers shortly.

He’s gone in a flutter as usual, nothing left of him but his scent in her nose, the gust of his breath on her ear, the chill of his fingers at her nape. She draws out her notebook and writes until morning. Her wrists cramp, her fingers ache. Her writing slants.

VI

“I’m beginning to think you’re flirting with me.”  Levi says drily, face as straight as ever. Hanji barks out a laugh and kicks her legs out on the swing set, throwing her weight back and forth.

“Whatever gave you that Idea?” She laughs. The park is deserted, there’s a lone suspicious man at the end of the street. She’s practically looking for trouble. Or, she thinks with some humour, death.

“It occurred to me somewhere between you offering me a drink, and you, piss drunk, determined to shove your tongue down my throat.” His voice, as usual, puts no emphasis on the words. His expression doesn’t give a read into how he feels about it. If Hanji were the type, she might blush. But she’s not.

“Well what d’ya know?” she laughs. “I’m flirting with death!”

Levi snorts. “Were you anyone else, I’d think you were bargaining. But you’re you. You’re just that crazy.”

She howls with laughter. Levi doesn’t look at all amused. “I really whored myself out back then.” She says, slightly more somber. “Do you remember?”

“I remember.” Levi answers, taking a seat on the other swing.

Hanji shrugs. “That’s more than I can say. I spent those days in an alcoholic blur.”

“You still spend your days in an alcoholic blur.” Levi retorts. Hanji laughs. He makes to stand, spreads his wings and flies up to the top of the swing set, balancing precariously. “Make up your mind at some point, four eyes.” Levi says with a sigh. “I’m sick of seeing your fucking face.”

VII

She’s 30, and her life is strewn around her in so much shattered glass and over turned furniture. She lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling, upon which the moon casts a single weak beam. Her faces crumples, tears spill from her eyes.

“Levi!” She blubbers. She takes a shaky breath and tries again. “Levi!” She scrubs her tears from her cheeks, whispers his name to the shadows.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Levi says when he appears at the end of her bed, one leg drawn up and arm resting against it. He looks around the room with thinly veiled disgust, his fingers twitching.

“I just needed you.” Hanji apologizes. Levi clucks his tongue at her. She tells him about her boyfriend. About the explosive fight they’d had just forty minutes ago. She doesn’t tell him that her boyfriend had black hair and blue eyes and the same delicate jaw Levi has. She doesn’t tell him she’d projected onto him, that he’d accused her of loving him as a replacement for someone else, that he was right.

She can’t let him know that she’s seriously messed up. His weight at her feet is a comfort enough.

“You have the shittiest taste in boyfriends.” Levi says at last as he stands. Hanji laughs. He touches her hair, and doesn’t look altogether kindly at her, eyebrow raised. “You could one up him by kissing me. Give him guilt for days.”

“Not today.”  She whispers. He makes an unimpressed noise and leaves.

She turns her bed side lamp on. There’s a crack in the base and it casts light on the strewn remnants of her relationship. Her socks. He hated it when she didn’t pick up her socks. A picture of them, the frame somewhat worse for wear, hides underneath her notebook. She picks it up to study him in the photograph.

He’s nothing like Levi really. Too expressive. His eyes are too wide, a lovely shade of ocean blue. Hanji laughs to herself, tosses the picture on the floor.

She’s aware that she’s pathetic. She doesn’t need to be reminded.

VIII

For a moment she’s very confused as to why her head is pounding, why she’s upside down, why—she whines when she tries to move. Everything hurts, everything—

“You fucked up, four eyes.” Levi’s voice isn’t sympathetic at all. She’s surprised she can hear it, because her ears are ringing, she numb to her bones yet still in so much pain.

“Hurts.” She whispers hoarsely. She can’t pry herself away from the steering wheel, she’s certain her ribs are fractured, but her hands just flutter around herself uselessly.

“I know.” His tone softens. He reaches through the shattered window to wipe blood away from her eye. It smears across her cheek, painting her. “If you’d let me kiss you before, you wouldn’t be so filthy, or hurting.” He tuts at her. “Come then, four eyes.”

She struggles weakly against him as he reaches through the window, glass crunching beneath his boots. “N-no!” she tries to scream. She doesn’t want it. Not like this, not here. Not so foolishly. She wants to kiss him more than anything, and she’s not going to do it here.

“Fuck, four eyes. You make my life so difficult.” Levi sighs. “Just this one fucking freebie.” He stands, his boots moving away from her flipped car, and she wants to call him back. She’s scared and she’s hurt. “I’ve never met a suicidal person so determined to stay alive.” He grouses.

The doctors patch her up. She makes a “miraculous” recovery. They tell her she’d been holding on to life with everything she had. She laughs. She knows the truth of it. She’d been holding onto death.

IX

In this one case, ironically, Hanji wasn’t exactly tempting fate when she’s attacked. Wiping her bloody nose on the back of her hand, she chuckles a little. Then again, she thinks, she’s always tempting fate lately. She hurts. She thinks her eye is swelling. The palms of her hands are scraped and skinned, her thighs are bruised. The pain between her legs, on the other hand, isn’t unlike a very bad screw with drunk boys taking advantage of how wrecked she is. Was.

Hanji is 32 and she thought stuff like this had stopped happening to her. She doesn’t think she can get up, her skirt is split right up the seam. She can’t find one of her shoes. She thought she’d out grown this feeling but…

“I’ll kill them for you.” Levi growls, crouching before her with her shoe out stretched for her to take. She laughs drily, but doesn’t move. He puts the shoe on for her, shifting her ruined stocking around her toes. “You’re so fucking annoying, four eyes.” He grumbles. “Were you dropped on the head as a brat, and now you can only laugh when shit happens?”

Hanji actually thinks this is hilarious. “I’ve come full circle.” She laughs. Suddenly she’s 22 and questioning everything she knows and believes and wants to be. She’s glad she’s not drunk. Not today.

“Not quite full circle.” Lev smoothes her hair over her brow with cold fingers, then pulls her up to stand as though she weighs nothing. There’s a long pause as he looks at her, holds her hands in his while she teeters uncertainly. “I can kill them you know. Just say the words and they’ll regret ever laying eyes on you.”

Hanji laughs. “Thanks Mister grim reaper. I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.”

“Never said you couldn’t, shit stain.” He watches as she dusts herself off, straightens her rumpled shirt and rent stockings.

For the first time since she’s met Levi, she leaves first.

X

She lights one last scented candle and shakes out the match. Maybe the scent of lavender and apple pie clashes, but it’s nice. The pill bottle lays empty on the floor, and she moves as though she’s in a dream.

“Hanji.” Oh but isn’t his voice perfect around the letters of her name? “What did you do?” She watches him kick the empty bottle, narrow his steel eyes at her. He looks romantic in the candle light. She lies back in bed, head propped against a pile of pillows to watch him. He moves to her, sits beside her on the bed.

“Here.” She says, and presses her stupid little notebook into his hands. He frowns at her. “Don’t read it until…after.”

“You’re so fucking stupid.”  His hand is cool on her thigh, his sharp eyes are burning her. She’s 34, and she’s finally going to kiss him. He clucks his tongue at her, brushes her hair out of her face, and gazes at her with general disdain. “You can still make it to the hospital.” He says, fingers digging into her hand when her eyelids flutter shut.

She shakes her head dreamily. “No, not this time.” She giggles. “No need to look so sad, mister grim reaper.” She touches his cheek, runs her fingers over his lips. He grabs her hand and kisses her palm. “It’s been a good run.”

“I could have come for you at a ripe old age.” She laughs. She doesn’t tell him that she wants to kiss him when she’s still something like beautiful, when romance hasn’t slipped past recall or desire. He wouldn’t understand. “Why now?”

“Have you ever held yourself back from something, just so it would feel better when you finally got it?” She’s tired, slow, trailing and unraveling. “C’mon then sugar, I didn’t waste all this time just to not get my money’s worth.” She tangles her fingers in his hair, pulls him down to crash their lips together. Levi makes a surprised noise in his throat, arms caging either side of her head. She kisses him, tastes him the way she’s always wanted, and laughs against his mouth as she does.

Then she’s  gone, eyes glassy and staring at nothing, mouth pulled into a vague smile. “Idiot.” Levi sighs, and looks down at the notebook in his lap.

Levi, the grim reaper. It says. To you when you finally take me.