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Erwin looked up from the Marley text as the glare from the afternoon sun started to fade. He removed the shell-rimmed glasses from his eyes and wheeled himself away from the desk. It was almost time. Levi would be here soon. Like clockwork. And he'd better do something about his appearance lest he gets chided again. He pushed across the room, grabbing his shirt off the empty chair in the way, and entered the washroom, stopping in front of the mirror. It hung over the lowered sink for his convenience.
His fingers ran along his jaw, looking for hints of stubble that might have grown since the last time he'd shaved. Yesterday. There was a small rough patch on his chin, and he applied just a spot of cream before running his blade over it. It was perfect now. He combed through his hair, setting it back into a perfect parting. Erwin thought he had cleaned up well. Except when he looked placed the comb back on the shelf and looked up, the person who stared back was a frail, aging man. No matter how hard he'd try, the shell of the man who'd opened his eyes in the infirmary bed after an entire month wouldn't become whole. No amount of grooming would change the pale skin sitting sallow on the bones that jutted out of his face in sharp angles, the joint of his arm that he'd hide in sleeves and thick sweaters, and the thinness of the legs as it sat limp on the wheelchair. He smelled like an old man now too.
He'd aged almost twenty years overnight, but over the course of the year that followed, his dream had also been realised. Hange and Levi brought him entire libraries worth of knowledge from beyond the walls. The only price he paid was his body not allowing him the chance to see anything for himself. Your insides will spill out before you learn anything. He stiffled a laugh.
"I see you've finally gone and flushed your sanity down the drain, old man."
"Levi," he looked up. "How long have you been here?"
His Captain had, clearly, not gotten acquainted with knocking.
"Long enough," Levi smirked, pushing himself off the frame of the washroom door, walking behind Erwin. "You leave too many flyaways. Does not become of a former Commander." He leaned over, taking the comb again.
Erwin smiled. "You'll never give me a break, I see." His eyes closed - just a blink that lasted too long - against the warmth of Levi's hands that found his hair. It wasn't necessary, he knew, but Levi ran the comb through the greying hair anyway, and patted down the flyaways with his palm, setting them into a perfect parting.
Erwin opened his eyes to let them settle on Levi's face. It wasn't only himself, but traces of strain also made themselves visible on Levi's face. His eye just a little more sunken, and two faint indents appeared on the bridge of his nose. The right eye stayed fixated into the distant. The glass replacement could not replicate the intensity of Levi's glares.Erwin had never imagined Levi, of all people, would someday come to require reading glasses. The scar that ran across his face had healed, leaving behind a white trail that ended just through the corner of his upper lip. Shoulders were a little drooped, and his perfectly straight back, slacked with the weight of all the paperwork he's now having to do. They finally have run out of the need for soldiers, and something told Erwin that Levi didn't voluntarily sign up for administrative work. He just went with the flow. The next logical step.
Suddenly Levi was bending over him, reaching for the shelf. Erwin's breath hitched. He was just keeping the comb back. Relax. He only released his breath when the man returned to his position. Small fingers grazed against his shoulders lightly, reaching for the collar, fixing an unseen fold. Levi's cologne surrounded him. He could finally afford them now, it seems. The subtle fragrance, but if at all possible, it just made Levi seem more Levi. Erwin couldn't stop his lips from a smile. He really did not deserve this, but only for the few hours that the former captain was here, he would lock his guilt away in a tightly sealed box at the back of his mind.
"Stop smiling, idiot," Levi shoved him. "Got you some more books today. They're on the table."
"Ah, I'm almost finished with last week's set. It was fascinating." Erwin's eyes did not leave his face reflected on the mirror. "How is the Relocation program progressing?"
"Not bad. Two hundred more signed up. Most are from the Underground and refugees from Wall Maria." His fingers still lingered on the collars. He seemed to have realised this, dropping them quickly onto the bars of the chair. "Come on, we need to take your old body out for some air before you rot in this room."
The city was changing. Slowly, but surely. The weight of the Maria refugees was lifting after the reclamation expedition, and the new jobs that cropped up relating to the restoration of the lost city took a huge chunk of the crowd away from the interiors. The shops were fuller with fresher vegetables. Meat was available again. As the dusk fell, the newly installed streetlamps started glowing softly. Traces of Titan technology started adorning the city, and it was always such a blessing to be out to see them. Levi seemed to have caught onto this, and would take him out for a stroll in the evenings.
They did not have a lot of words anymore. Levi would silently shell him through the city. Before they set out, he would put a thick grey sweater over him. "It's cold outside. You'll spray your guts out with one sneeze if you catch a cold." Levi was always a bit too concerned about the abdominal injury from his last expedition in Shiganshina. He would wheel him showly, avoiding all dips and cracks on the road as if he'd already inspected the road a thousand times before deeming it suitable for Erwin. Perhaps he did just that. The thought of it stiffened his body. Ah, the tiny box was opening just a crack.
A hand on his shoulders brought snapped him out of the trance.
"I don't bring you out for walks so you can bring your worries outside, y'know," Levi spoke.
Erwin wondered what his expression might be like. Even after years of standing alongside him, he could never tell. He could also never tell why he was not left there to die either, but he'd never brought it up before. The cost of that decision must already be weighing Levi down.
"It's nothing," Erwin sighed.
"The city is not that bad anymore. Things are falling back into place, and humanity is finally venturing outside. What else got you tensed?"
Levi knew, obviously, what was in his mind. He just never directly questioned him. Carefully avoiding the subject for a whole of eleven months like he avoids irregularities on the road while wheeling him. Erwin knew that. And the new wall that sprang between them got them from really talking at all. Just presence, and guilt.
"And you?" Erwin strained his head up to meet Levi's eyes. The sharp steel had dulled overtime.
"And me what?"
"Levi," Erwin sighed. "Wouldn't you want to see the outside too? There is nothing for you in the city."
There, he said it.
Levi looked away. The wheels came to a stop. "The tea shop is closed today?"
Avoided.
"The owner applied for the Relocation Program yesterday. His son gave his life for in the last expedition, and he chose to see what world his son fought for."
"Tch. I still have to go through the profiles of the citizens who applied," Levi sighed. "Haven't had the time after reading for possible settlements and city plans."
"I see you've been quite busy," smiled Erwin.
The tea shop was quaint little place Levi liked to frequent. The old man who owned it barely showed his face, but the aging waitress who ran it, baked the fluffiest cakes which drew Levi to it, though he'd rather die than ever utter the word fluffy. Their tea could, however, could never match the delicacy of Levi's brews. He would often bring Erwin with him. Erwin would have a milky coffee while he would sit across him with a strawberry castella and a cup of black tea. The tables were tiny and rounded. Their knees would brush the whole time they were there.They allowed themselves just that. Maybe that was the reason they kept asking for another cup of tea, and another cup of coffee, maybe a side of cheese and bread to extend the time. Sometimes they didn't talk much - the days when Levi was tired of his day's work in the headquarters making plans for the expansion. "How the fuck did you keep doing that for years, Erwin?" Most of the times, Erwin would keep talking about everything he's learned from the books, and Levi would tell him how the cities outside the island were. What the ocean looked like, how they had air-baloons, and technology that Erwin had never seen. And for those moments, when Levi brought the world to Erwin, the glass eye begged to emote.
They would enter when the light was warm, and the sun hadn't set yet, and occupy the table at the corner by the window. The two saw the sun set on the horizon through the green painted windowpanes, instead of disappearing behind the wall. Levi would disappear some days and return with a piece of chocolate cake topper with a generous helping of cream, and set it in front of Erwin. "Sweet enough to rot your teeth just fine."
One day Erwin asked him to taste. "I'm not dipping my spoon into that mud and ruining the taste of my cake," he snorted. Erwin chuckled.
"Then use mine."
Levi was frozen on the spot. A bit too still. Erwin would have though he just disappeared, if he didn't hear the sigh that came next. "It was a nice place."
It wasn't always that Levi used assertive sentences to compliment something. Not bad , was probably the closest he'll come to a compliment.
"It was a beautiful place," he agreed.
"I'll make you some tea when we get back."
When Levi finally set the teacup in front of him. He dragged a chair for himself by the window.
"When did you get glasses, Levi?" Erwin broke the quiet.
"You noticed," Levi hummed. "I can't see all that well anymore. Must be all the reports I have to keep reading."
"When are you planning to actually set out?"
The question stiffened Levi again. He stared out the window.
"I'm not."
Erwin nodded. He had been suspecting that for quite some time now. "Is it because-"
"No it's not because I brought you back into this world when you should have been at rest, no."
"I hope not, Levi," Erwin spoke. "Do you regret?"
Levi finally looked at him. Thin eyebrows drawn together. "That's the problem, old man. I don't."
"I am happy. You helped me see my dream come true. I don't think I ever got around to thanking-"
"Stop it, Erwin," Levi was in front of him in a flash - grabbing his collar within his fist. "What," he breathed, steel grey eyes boring into Erwin's, "is the fucking point if you can't even go out to see it?"
Erwin smiled; his hand raising to hold Levi's wrist softly. "I only wanted to know if I was right, Levi. If my father was right. Nothing else. Now I do."
He felt Levi let out a deep breath, shaking. The fist on his collar tightened.
"When will you go out to see the world? Did you draft a plan for that?" Erwin smiled. "Ah, it seems our places have reversed."
Levi's face had a lot more creases now. Traces of crow's feet appeared around his eyes. The lines between the eyebrows had deepened. His hair, too, Erwin noticed, was streaked with greys now.
He finally looked away. The blue of Erwin's eyes were far too bright. Too intense. He just-
"I'm not going," Levi finally muttered. "It's all the same. The sun sets behind the same horizon, the walls are not even here anymore. One city is the same as the next now. Besides setting up a team of corps would take time, and we are all to busy building the new city, and all this work that needs to be-"
"Levi?"
Erwin waited till he looked back up. "Are you tired?"
Levi's eyes widened as if he just heard the most atrocious accusation anyone could ever hurl at him in seven lifetimes. He opened his mouth ready to dismiss such a ridiculous assumption so that no one would ever think-
"Yes."
It was only a barely audible whisper. He surprised himself with the confession.
Erwin cautiously stroked the underside of his wrist with his thumb. Levi's pulse was threatening to break out through the thin skin. The grip on his collar loosened, and the fist slowly dropped, falling into Erwin's hand.
"I know."
Levi smirked. "Who would have thought? Humanity's Strongest- a tired old man."
"Who can brew the most delicious cup of tea in all of humanity," Erwin smiled.
Levi hadn't pulled back. Instead, he rested his weight on the armrests of the wheelchair, and leaned over Erwin. His small, calloused palm was still in Erwin's hand. Just as long as he didn't notice. Not because it was incredibly warm, or it was the first time the former commander had ever taken Levi's hand in his. No.
"You're going slightly off topic. Is your brain giving up?" he smirked.
"Madam Elma still wants to bake strawberry castellas in the tea shop, you know," Erwin couldn't hide the edge of a smile tugging on one corner of his lips.
" What in the shitting hell did you cook up in your shitty head, Erwin?"
"Nothing too elaborate," Erwin let himself smile. Levi's reaction was worth it. It seems like a lifetime ago that he saw the same fire in those eyes. Except there was only one now. "Like I said, the owner is relocating. I helped take the property off his hands."
Levi stood up straight. His back as straight as Hange's rulers.
"I have a lifetime of savings that I would have been taking to the grave. I also have not thanked you properly enough-"
"Are you still talking?" Levi finally found his voice.
"-for everything." Erwin finished.
"I can't accept this. It's a lot, I can never repay you-"
Erwin's hand reached out and took Levi's. This time, it was a definite pleading. The small man relaxed under the touch. "Thank you for everything , Levi. For helping me realize my dream, for giving your all to humanity. Now, just... rest. "
"That shop never had the best tea, huh?" he smirked.
"I was hoping you would brew me some."
"This tea is getting cold now, you big oaf."
"You never cut a crippled man some slack at all, do you?" Erwin laughed.
"Crippled man indeed," Levi slid back onto the windowsill. The tip of his fingers still rested in Erwin's hand. Just a touch.
"Buying an entire property for- give me a break. This shitty habit of gambling didn't lose you yet did it?"
"Not really gambling this time," he smiled back. Erwin didn't know if Levi remembered the day he had casually let slip that his dream of having a tea shop. Atleast now he can finally have all the exotic tea he'd wanted without blowing a canon-sized hole in the Survey Corps' budget.
When his eyes returned to Levi again, the man was already back to his habit of hiding his smiles behind teacups. This time, it was a delicate China instead of military grade mugs. Civilian life wasn't so bad at all.