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It seems like all he can do is miss him. Miss him every day, every minute, every second. He searches for him in all of the blurry faces around him. Piercing blue eyes with a child like dream pushing them forward.
The grief seems suffocating some days, others it just settles quietly between his ribs almost, hidden protectively because he can’t do this, not today, not right now. hide hide hide hide
His ribs are pushing out of skin now, almost. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t been eating, nowadays everything is too bland and too tasteless and dry, or maybe it’s the overflowing grief causing a storm in his rib cage, it pushes and pulls and it hurts and it burns and some moments he can’t breathe and yet in others he has too much air, too much spaces to fill. How do i fill it Erwin? Please i cant breathe it’s too much-
It hurts in a way he can’t explain. He can’t explain how he’s knees have been clashing together and how his head pounds painfully in a constant rhythm. His eyes are always too watery and his hands too shaky.
Sometimes he wonders if his ribs will give out. If holding in all that grief will make him explode inside out in almost a tragically beautiful way. Dying of grief would seem too beautiful in a world like this, grey and cold. Dying, for him, it’s too easy, maybe that’s why he thinks about it so much.
He thinks about him, finds him in every place he tries to hide. Because it’s almost as if he’s following him and he can’t decide if that’s disturbing or not.
Levi can almost feel that warm hand on his shoulder. He can almost hear the faint whispers levi levi levi levi levi- It’s so repetitive it makes his head spin because it sounds just like him and he’s just so sad so he holds on to whatever lifeline he has because if he doesn’t he swears his lungs will fill up with cotton until he overflows just like his grief.
He doesn’t spill, however. He’s composed and everyone sees him as such. He notices Hanges eye bags, their hunched stance and slight frown. They’re grieving and he knows. He’s grieving and they don’t know. They assume, of course, why wouldn’t he be grieving ? Didn’t he love him? So why is he so composed? So okay? Why can he speak and make it seem like a jumble of apologies aren’t stuck on his lips? Why? Why?
He doesn’t break either, not the way you expect. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t throw things around, doesn’t kick things, doesn’t take out his grief on the poor punching bag until his knuckles split. Instead he sits, still and hunched over himself. He suffocates, quietly. He grips at his throat and he cries gently. It’s just too much, Erwin.
He gasps into the cold night air and he’s so painfully alone. His chest burns and his ribs strain with the pressure of keeping it all in, all the hurt and the pain and the grief. Maybe if he’s quiet enough he can hear his ribs crack slowly, waisting away at their edges and going thinner and thinner.
It takes too long for him to take a proper breath. Instead it’s too deep, too much space in his lungs. And he’s scared because too much lungs means not enough space for his grief, and where would he store that? Where would he hide it and put it away until he’s ready to face it, to face him or maybe himself?
Levi doesn’t know who he’s running away from. All he knows is that he’s been running ever since he injected that serum into the arm of the person he thinks he didn’t know enough to save. He’s been running and running and his legs burn and his muscles are aching but he can’t look back because he doesn’t regret his decisions. Never.
It’s pathetic, really. You start to think too much and start to regret. Maybe if you don’t think you can’t regret. So he doesn’t stop running, metaphorically of course. If it was physically he would’ve collapsed in a pathetic heap of crumbled bones on the blood stained floor.
Maybe he’s running from the man that stares back at him in his reflections. Or maybe he’s running from the man he once loved. It’s hard to tell these days who he is and what he looks like. Everyone is too blurry and too distant and every voice sounds like it’s choking on water. Same way he’s choking on his grief. He doesn’t listen, but he hears, so he keeps pushing forward. He’s not looking, but he sees, so he keeps moving forward.
He wonders that maybe it’s really not hard to run away from your fears if they take human form. He’s always been fast.
But how far can he run until his fears catch up? How far will he go?
Hopefully one day he runs so much he ends up at the edge of the world. Maybe then he’ll make the man proud.
He swore to him after all.