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Time seemed a lot slower back when Levi was a little boy. Not that he can remember every single day of his childhood with clarity, but back then, his life seemed to consist of only two things.
His mom, the first. Her job, the other.
In fact, one of the first things he remembers understanding was his place amongst all of it. Her love, their home, and then, between all of the men.
When he was at his smallest, he figures that it must’ve been easy enough to stash a baby away in a closet cradle, at least for a few minutes at a time. A toddler is a lot harder, though, and he knows this from memory; it being that most of the few memories Levi has of his mother consist of being told to be patient and quiet.
He was a good listener, though, and soon enough, as the seemingly endless streams of men began to make sense, so did the rest of his tiny world.
Is there somebody else in here?
Despite the time Levi spent curled up in a closet, and the way his mother was never a guaranteed constant, she never failed to make it known how much he was loved despite the constant facade she had to put on during most of her working hours.
As though the person he thought his mom was and the woman Olympia were two separate people, and the world was divided between fucking things and living.
He knows now that’s not the case, but sometimes it still feels like the world really is that simple, especially when he’s forced to face the smiles of people who have never had to struggle to survive.
That’s always when he thinks of his mom the most; her death seemingly meaningless to people who do not care that she got sick and died, even though they are the same people who paid to fuck her.
Part of him wishes that he could’ve done her right… as if he could go back and change the past, but he was young when he knew her, and he’s not sure what doing right by someone really means. Not in a whore house, at least, because violence was something he found for himself later. After, of course, following in her footsteps.
Sorry, Mom, he often finds himself thinking, the image of her gaunt and lifeless frown one of the only things he has left of her.
That, and his fucking job. His job as a prostitute and lackey for his no good uncle Kenny, who has never once hidden his hatred for humanity under his ugly smirk and a cigarette.
What is he called again? The Ripper?
Levi thinks that Good-for-Nothing Shit-for-Brains fits even better, which is funny, because he was the one to bring Levi to the Military Police, and then to you, in the first place.
Shut up, Pisshead. Go back to fuckin’ the Police for all I care.
He can’t say that you are the worst of them… but it’s a really low bar.
The Military Police all look the same to him, regardless of how they treat him.
Your face blurring into something, someone, he has seen one thousand times; your cynical smile one of privilege, or luck, and also of hatred, for a military who cheated you out of serving a country you used to love, because since enlisting to fight for it, you can no longer say that you do.
At least not here, and not with him.
Because for all the times he has offered to fuck you in the way that your people have fucked him, you have always laughed and said no.
Fucking things is out of the question, you told him once, while enthusiastically showing him around the Military Police station, which he supposes he has to appreciate. The freedom that you’ve allowed him, that is, and the fact that you’ve been good to him.
Kind, even, despite your awful peers.
That’s ironic, he had replied, the dust on every windowsill a cruel reminder of his home.
Because before you, he had no semblance of hope that he’d ever get to leave the Underground, and now, here he is running from it.
It would almost seem surreal, this whole world that you’ve spun up for him, and that there’s still the possibility that you could easily take it all away; but part of him knows that you have better things to do than fuck weak boys from the Underground. Things like... stealing military gear, or running off to roll and smoke funny things with the rest of the shitty Military Police boys. Things that he knows aren’t police related, though these were all just guesses, since nobody really knows what is it that the Military Police actually do with their time.
It’s also guaranteed that he won’t find out while sat across from you on the plush down of your Military-Police-grade issued bed, or during any other time at all, because you are still hardly an exception.
And while he could almost strangle you for it, you don’t seem to notice his discomfort, too busy sprawled out on your bed next to him, busy lighting a cigarette.
“What?” you start, cocking your head to the side when you notice his grimace, the newly-lit joint between your lips doing nothing to stifle your grin as you stare at him with dark, half-lidded eyes.
“What?” he parrots back, confused, if not mostly irritated by your unending and sarcastic cheer.
“You know, if you’re worried about all this…” you wave your hand in the air, fresh smoke curling under the light of the candle on your bedside table, “Don’t be.”
He glances at you, still disgruntled from being ripped from his daydream about the past, and sighs, “I’m not.”
He knows what you’re referring to, what it is that Kenny’s talked you into, and that the only reason you’re even doing a favor for him by keeping his prostitute nephew in your quarters is to keep your relations with the underground on the friendly side of business casual.
But Levi isn’t a fool. He knows that good things don’t last, and that there’s not a single Military Police elite who has ever said what they mean.
Even at your nonchalance on the issue of housing the likes of him in your room, it doesn’t matter. Soon he will end his stay with the military and return back to the Underground. He will go back home to the brothel, and will return to days spent watching the whores’ kids and waiting for the next well fed member of high society to request him to take his clothes off. And after your transaction with Kenny comes to a close and you run out of shit gear to sell, he will have no chance at returning to the surface unless the world fucking ends or the Military Police forget about their sworn duty of lying to the poor.
He’s honestly not sure which will come first. Not with the Titans that he’s heard so much about, which you’ve already provided enough basis for him to understand, and what that means for everyone who fights them and everyone who doesn’t.
It’s a life of luxury… or not, and for Levi, he has never experienced the former.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
“I can do illegal things...” you begin again, staring at the ceiling in thought, and Levi can’t help but roll his eyes at the fact that you are just someone who will not quit.
He knows all too well the kinds of things you mean, and though he is the outlaw-and-whore from the Underground that you agreed to house, he rolls his eyes anyway.
“You shouldn’t.”
There’s not a single lavender candle you could light for him to make him feel comfortable with you, and he feels empty when he finally does look at your unchanging, pleased expression from where you lay on the bed.
“But I can,” you tease, your cigarette dripping blue ash on the sheets when you shrug.
He grimaces, before glaring at you, but you only laugh when you peek at him, finding it easy to recognize the street rat in him.
“Oh, c’mon!” you sit up, beginning to crawl to him from your side of the bed, the collar of your white night shirt dipping below your chest. Levi curses himself for noticing… and then for thinking about the fact that you are someone who has never had to starve.
“We’ll put you in a nice outfit, add the cape and everything.” You say as you reach him, brushing your fingers over his hair, the cigarette now between your lips, “You’ll look so handsome.”
He is reminded of the many women who call him that back home.
Don’t frown, Levi!
“And then…?” he asks, one hand reaching for his neck to halt the downward creeping of your fingers. If it were before… when he was still that boy in the brothel, he’d know what to do with your hands. He’d know how to hold them, and move them in such a way that allowed him control of a situation, and a body, that he was being paid to please.
But you are not that person, and he doesn’t want to be that boy anymore. When he does manage to catch your fingers in his, he drops your hand at least to spare himself the pain of thinking about the fact that he does not want to succumb to the same fate of his mother.
No matter how much he wishes he could’ve saved her.
He blinks the thought away, as yet again, you don’t seem to acknowledge his distress, laughing as you blow smoke toward the ceiling, “Then ship you off to, I don’t know, wherever you want to go.”
He pauses, and turns to face where you still kneel behind him, the only thing left between his face and your body a thin strip of silk. You raise an eyebrow at his blank eyes, before realizing that he has nothing to do with his hands since he managed to put yours down.
You purse your lips at his hesitancy to respond.
“That’s what you want, right?”
He remains quiet. Contemplative. Always has been, and you can tell, always will be.
It’s not as if he doesn’t have things to say. He does. He will. But you are not someone who really inspires him to talk, because you are the police, after all, and old habits really do seem to die hard.
It would make Kenny laugh if Levi were ever able to tell him that. Not that he wants to speak to him anymore than he already has to, but if he’s really honest, you are right. This is what he wants, and he can’t even ask for it.
You’re no longer frowning by the time you take another inhale of your cigarette, and when Levi glances at you, you offer the stick to him. When he does take it, he realizes that he doesn’t plan on giving it back.
Besides, the warm smoke feels good in his chest.
He remembers the first time he picked one out of Kenny’s pockets, and he thinks of every time he shared one with a customer. The thought doesn’t seem to hurt as much anymore, not when he’s smoking with you, at least, and for some reason, he doesn’t seem to know why.
You begin again, because by now, Levi realizes that you always do.
“Erwin likes you, you know,” you say, finally aware enough to remove yourself from his side of the bed to shuffle through the papers at your tiny desk, “which means that I can finally say I did right by someone.”
Levi scowls at your words, “What the Hell does that mean?”
He has never been a man of many words, but he cannot help the outburst.
“It means that you can go to war for me.” You are laughing again now, any remainder of your frown gone just as quickly as it appeared. “You know, join the Survey Corps and all that shit.”
His sour face falls soft at the thought, and you smile from your seat, not realizing the weight of your words as you begin to gaze off into the distance of your candlelit room.
“Maybe I’ll even go with you... Leave this shitty burg for once in my life.”
Levi isn’t looking at you, though. He he hasn’t been for a while.
He thinks about being a kid again; about the way that the world still seems to be divided into two things, fucking people and living, and how there is only one thing left that he wants.
It’s great up there, Levi. I’ll take you to see it one day.
He takes another drag of your, no, his cigarette, the smoke now clouding his side of the room, and looks at you… but thinks of his mom, and the way not a man in her family could do her any justice.
“Isn’t that romantic, little Robin Hood?” you laugh when you look at him, the familiar smile on your lips suddenly more weary than he’s ever seen it. He wonders if you know what it’s like to make a sacrifice for love, and if you’ve ever had to fight just to live.
You don’t really seem like the type.
And although you remain in your daze, as you raise a new, unlit cigarette in his direction as if to say Cheers, even Levi can admit that he’s just a little bit excited at the thought of finally being free.