Chapter Text
Levi opens the door with his feet. The crash from its collision is heard throughout the room. The person lying in front of Levi would immediately jump up in fright or fall right off the table, hitting his head. He would have done if he hadn't been dead, of course. The morgue is always too cold.
"Please tell me that you just haven't sniffed a corpse."
"This is necessary for research!"
Hanji wears a woolen sweater, a white coat, a protective mask and drinks eight mugs of coffee a day. Only Levi with his ten cups is ahead of her. Hanji Zoe is a local pathologist.
"Spit it out, already." Hanji smiles broadly.
"Each victim was injected with a unique cocktail of drugs to gradually disable their bodies. It's a terrible agony!" Hanji literally glows as she tells this. Levi looks at her emotionlessly, indifferently, but inside he doesn't cease to be amazed at her enthusiasm.
"Spit it out, already." She mimics him.
"I sketched his profile." Ackerman comes closer to the body, carefully examines it from all sides. "The suspect is probably a white male. He doesn't stand out - his height and build are average, he is smart, but not smarter than me. He is a highly functional psychopath." Zoe chuckles slightly, but keeps the joke to herself. Levi is already too often called behind his back an abnormal or a psychopath, she doesn't want to be the one, who is gonna tell him this in the face.
Hanji monitors his movements - not only his body, but also his face. It remains calm in any situation.
"You sewed up the bodies well." Levi lifts the sheet, examining the neat seam. "You're just a picasso with formaldehyde."
Zoe breaks into a wide smile, looking at him with almost stars in her eyes. "Thanks! and you..." She examines him from head to toe. He raises an eyebrow. "You are so skinny!"
"Thanks, I'm sick of the food." Zoe sighs heavily and goes to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee. She chooses a mug with a heart. As if by accident.
"How much did you sleep?"
"Six hours."
She frowns in displeasure. He involuntarily fades under her gaze.
"Three days ago."
Zoe rolls her eyes, but hands him a mug of coffee. No milk, no sugar. They have identical tastes.
(the only difference is that Hanji sometimes dilutes the coffee with whiskey).
(She doesn't know that Levi adds to his drink brandy).
Ackerman nods slightly, turning back to the corpse. He's tense. He doesn't sleep, he immerses himself in work, doesn't listen to Erwin's orders - he continues to take on every new case, not allowing the recruits to work unattended. Otherwise there will be a shot again. Otherwise, there will be minus one in their team again. Levi won't let that happen.
"You know that I sometimes sleep in the storage chambers for bodies?" Levi almost spits out his coffee, looking dumbfounded at the girl. She doesn't smile, doesn't laugh, doesn't joke. She speaks seriously, openly, as if dedicating him to something private and secret.
She trusts him.
"I'm comfortable here." She looks around her office — she sees medical supplies, dead bodies under the sheets, cold tables. This is her home.
"Maybe you should try to find a place where you can sleep comfortably?"
Levi leaves without a word. He needs to catch criminals.
He carries a pillow and a blanket all over the apartment. He can't sleep on the bed, sogoes to the living room. It doesn't work there, so tries to fall asleep in the bathroom. Then lies on the floor, on the balcony, and then right next to the refrigerator - almost in the coldest place of the apartment.
Suddenly he realizes.
Hanji is awakened by a loud but short knock on the door. Zoe works in the police for the seventh year, she quickly takes a gun from the bedside table, and cautiously walks to the door.
"If you open this door and point a gun at me, you will have no hands left to hold it."
"What the hell are you doing here?"
The door opens abruptly, and Levi grins a little, seeing the gun in her left hand.
"You yourself suggested." Zoe looks at him as if he was retarded. And then she remembers.
"So you found a comfortable place?" She smiles.
Levi Ackerman catches murderers, maniacs and psychopaths every day, making their psychological portraits. Hanji Zoe arrives at the scene of the murder every time with a huge smile and love for the human body. Especially the dead ones. Especially with the guts turned inside out.
Levi finds his comfort in warmth, calmness and solitude, where he can let go of his thoughts, relax his shoulders and take a deep breath.
hanji finds his comfort in the cold, movement and people, even the dead ones.
It's amazing how easily they find comfort in each other.
Climbing under the common blanket, Levi feels the touch of her body to his own. Hanji lies facing him, examines every feature, every emerging wrinkle and every curve.
"Stop staring at me."
"You yourself climbed into my bed, don't complain." He grins.
Closing his eyes, he feels how her hand is intertwined with his, and her body moves closer. Levi has almost difficulty breathing when Hanji rests his head on his chest, listening to his heart. Beating. Still alive. Warm. Not like her morgue friends.
Hanji lives in the cold of the morgue and the unnatural lighting of the lamps. Levi lives in the cold autumn streets and sunlight. But in this darkness, for the first time, they warm up, snuggling closer to each other, intertwining with each other, as if trying to become one.
For the first time in a long time, Levi falls asleep with a smile on his face.
He finally found his comfortable place.