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Despite not being an extremely talkative person, Levi’s ears never knew a minute of peace. He became acquainted with the concept of talking less and listening more, somehow he found comfort in that.
He remembered his mother’s voice whispering stories from above ground, her words were fogged and distorted now, but he still recalled those tales of brave knights slaughtering monsters and fighting for freedom. He remembered Farlan’s calm and assertive tone, Isabel’s loud and excited laughs. He remembered his old squad gatherings and how Oluo and Petra always seemed caught up in a discussion while the rest were simply content to observe.
He was accustomed to the noise, really. That’s why the silence left him uneasy. It left him paranoid, wondering just what his hearing was missing. What lurked in the shadows, what hadn’t he noticed yet?
The silence hurt, especially with Hange.
Hange and Levi were sharing a table in their office. The day was turning dark outside, casting long shadows behind their back and proving to Levi that this evening would grow into another late night spend filling reports.
He didn’t mind the extra work, it wasn’t like sleep came easily anyway. Better to keep his mind occupied.
It became a routine for the two of them to work together, scribbling away pages that after a couple of necessary signatures, would be stored away in some cramped library, probably to never see the light of day again.
After joining the Survey Corps and earning his Captain title, paperwork became mandatory. Levi’s lack of knowledge in that department was clear to everyone once he sat down and had no idea what to do or where to start. Hange helped. A lot. And that was when their office hours turned into shared moments.
But it wasn’t this silent before, no, never this silent.
Levi realized, while he stopped working for a second to massage his sore wrists, that before this particular night, the room was always filled with Hange’s blabber. They usually annoyed Levi about his 3DMG skills or talked about their Titan research for hours on end. Most recently, their new obsession was chatting about their experiments with the Yeager boy.
That’s why their recent decision to shut up had Levi’s eye twitching with curiosity. It was nerve-wracking, especially since he knew they weren’t that focused on the activity at hand to spare him a few words.
For one, Levi knew Hange hated to sit down and stay still for too long. Secondly, whenever they were too engrossed in their work, they often mumbled incoherently under their breath. Their unrecognizable grunts would be a lot better than nothing. Hell, Levi would rather hear battle screams and titan’s steps racing him down outside the walls than endure that unnerving silence.
Not even the ginger tea Levi made before was enough to provide an opening for Hange to leave the empty documents behind and strike up a meaningless conversation.
The sky outside turned from a brilliant and saturated orange to dark ominous blue in the time Levi was lost in thought. No stars, just the moon illuminating the office. Hange finally looked up, diverting their attention from the pages in favor of lighting up the oil lamps and candles laying around. It was a precarious fix, there was only so much a few oil lamps and candles could do with their soft glow.
Levi slid their forgotten cup across the table. “Take a break for a second.”
He saw the exact moment the ginger and the honey smell hit their nose. Seconds later, a relieved exhale escaped their mouth, opening space for a tired smile to appear on their face.
“Ah, thank you.” Hange said. After taking a swig, they murmured something about how that tea was exactly like their mother’s.
“Probably because you like your tea with an unhealthy amount of honey. The sweetness takes away all the flavor.”
“That’s exactly the answer I expected from you.” They giggled.
And as much as Levi was happy the silence was well past them at this point, their words still caused a string of weird and unexpected thoughts to ring inside his head.
He never considered he’d get that intimate to somebody else again, at least not to a point of them guessing his next words or actions. Maybe the two of them had been spending too many late nights stuck inside a room together.
“Did you know my parents were Scouts too?” Hange asked before taking another swig.
When Levi looked up, he noticed Hange’s eyes weren’t on him, but instead, they turned their chair around a bit to stare at the night sky. He missed analyzing their eyes to see if he could find any details.
He felt relieved then, that he could still figure out a lot from their voice and their voice alone. That night, their tone spoke of calmness.
“How the hell was I supposed to know about that?” He asked, observing their body by the window, noticing how their breath came in soft and long tugs that raised their chest slightly.
“Hm,” They continued to stare outside. Levi was getting suspicious that maybe they just didn’t want to face him. “I never told you about them before? That’s weird, I could’ve sworn I had.”
“I think staying inside a library for hours, talking only to your books, is starting to slowly affect your mind, four eyes.”
They finally turned around, flaunting a wide smile on their lips while the moon’s grey brightness outlined their body. That smile showed him that Hange was now ready to talk, and would do so until they had Levi engaged and spilling all of his secrets.
Levi learned right there that Hange had an incredible ability to talk a lot without saying much about themself, he wondered just how many secrets they had piled up inside.
“They met back in training days, but only pursued a relationship after their first mission together.” They started and Levi made an extra effort to pay attention. “There’s something about stepping outside that makes us realize just how much we should value our lives and connections, right?”
“That sounds like an excuse to make stupid decisions,” he said, but in reality, he had come to the same realization before. His response was quite the opposite, though. Was it worth it letting people in if he could simply lose them any second later? Their lives and connections were valuable and that was exactly why Levi tried to keep everyone else distant.
Hange was an exception, there was always an exception.
“Ever the pessimistic.” They chuckled. “When I was born, my mother had the choice to leave the Survey Corps and raise me, but she refused. I’m glad she did. She inspired me, I don’t think I’d be a scout if she left.” They smiled proudly. “I was raised by my grandparents, in a farming town inside Wall Rose. My parents came to visit whenever they could and they always brought me gifts.”
“You were a spoiled child then?” He teased them. Similar stories weren’t unfamiliar to him. He heard them before, anecdotes of wealthy and absent parents trying to buy their child’s affections.
“If you count rocks, seeds, and flowers as gifts.” Levi raised his brows, confused. “They’d bring me things from outside.” They explained and somehow that made perfect sense.
Levi wondered what it would be like... Growing up on a farm, staying outside all day, every day. Not having to worry about the next morning's food or the lack of sunlight on their skin.
How many curious children of curious parents were raised besides Hange?
In a heartbeat, Levi was left surprised by the extreme gratefulness he felt for Hange’s parents. People that he didn’t even know, but that fought for humanity and brought back stupid little gifts for their kid, gifts that fed their insatiable need for knowledge and understanding.
“There was this one flower in particular…” Hange got up and started walking around their office while scratching their hair.
They stopped in front of a fully stocked shelf. They eyed the books for a bit, moving their fingers on their spine and searching for a particular name. He heard when Hange successfully found what they were looking for in the form of a relieved exclamation and quick steps back.
Soon, they were sitting in front of Levi again, opening a book at the exact page where they had pressed flowers before. The flowers were simple, really. Purple little things with five small petals and a dark interior each.
“What’s so important about these?” He asked. Despite how harsh his question could be interpreted, his tone was curious, he would accept every detail Hange wanted to share.
“You know, I searched every book, every report about the expeditions outside the walls... I went to a popular salesman, I talked with seasoned gardeners…” They started, still holding the pressed flower delicately between their fingers. “But in my search, I never found a record about these particular flowers.”
“They only exist outside the walls.” They nodded and then extended the flower stem for him to hold.
Levi froze for a second, not really sure of how to react. Should he accept the frail thing? What if he broke it? It looked thousands of years old and was clearly something important from Hange’s childhood. What if he--
Hange pressed the flower to his hand and closed both palms over Levi’s fist. When he looked up, they shot him a short smile. They kept their hands on him for only a second more, but when they pulled away to stare at the sky again, Levi wondered why he didn’t step back first.
“Yes, they only exist outside the walls.” They confirmed. “Sometimes that’s the only thing that keeps me eager to leave those gates again.” They sighed, the weight of that confession pulling their shoulders down. “I want to find these flowers.”
Levi understood the shame that came with that statement but didn’t blame their reasoning. There had to be something more than killing and dying to keep them going. “If you’re the first one to find these…” He started, a bit unsure on how to end his sentence just yet. “What-- What did you call them?”
With the way Hange turned around and smiled, Levi knew that was the right thing to ask.
“Marsha.” They looked down, still smiling while fiddling with their fingers. Somehow that name made perfect sense to Levi, he couldn’t help but attribute the small but fierce purple flowers to that word now. “That’s my mother’s name.”
In the following months, while struggling to find a way out of the political intrigues, Levi somehow learned more about Hange than he ever thought possible.
Their father’s name was John, something so incredibly common that Levi decided to write it down, fearing he might forget it later. He learned about the seeds from outside the walls that Hange planted and watered but never bloomed. He learned about their grandparents, who despite being sweet and caring, didn’t want their grandchild to venture into the unknown unsafely, not after their parent’s brutal death.
Most importantly, he learned about how Hange packed their things and fled the farm as soon as they became old enough to join the training corps.
But Hange always looked back, they still visited their family whenever they could. The tradition about bringing new and exciting things that their parents had started before was kept every single time Hange brought something from the outside world for their little cousin to enjoy and explore, no matter how trivial those things seemed.
He learned all of that quickly, after all, getting closer to Hange was a hard thing not to do once the two of them were the only ones left from their old comrades' group. Between the grief and the mourning after Shiganshina, they found solace in each other's company, comfort in their familiar late nights filling reports, especially when everything else was all but comforting and familiar.
Adjusting to a new position was hard for Hange, he noticed before they could tell him. Not that they would ever say such words, they were still trying to prove to everyone that they could fit into Erwin’s shoes.
Levi wanted to tell them there was no need for a sudden and unwanted change, that they were chosen for the commander position especially because they weren’t exactly like Erwin, that the novelty was somewhat of a refreshing start. But times were hard, and the findings of war in the outside world — a war they had no idea how to fight in yet — left him speechless.
The Hange Levi knew was still there, just hiding behind the misty weather of uncertainty. Work and duty were two heavy topics that far outweighed everything Levi had to question, so he said nothing and hoped Hange understood.
For a long time, there wasn’t more talk of flowers, only silence. That is, until their first expedition past Wall Maria in six years. There, he saw them again, a glimpse of the Hange who placed delicate purple flowers in his hands and told him that sometimes, those flowers were the only reason why they kept moving forward.
A couple of days before they finally reached the ocean, when patience was running low, they started to gallop faster and to take fewer breaks.
Unexpectedly, they found a field full of blooming small purple flowers. Once Levi noticed how their delicate hexagonal petals were so similar to the ones Hange kept in their office pressed between pages, he turned to look at the shocked scientist.
They had pulled their horse to a sudden halt and everyone else did the same. Levi could hear Connie and Sasha whispering about the beautiful sight they encountered, and the view was indeed beautiful. Fields that stretched for miles, hills covered in green and purple until they merged together with the bright blue sky, miles away into the horizon.
Levi turned his attention to Hange again, he wanted to drink up all of their reactions. They had their right eye wide in surprise and their lips parted in a smile. When their eye glistened, Levi pretended that it was because of the scalding sun shining through their iris, not for the small and lonely tear that ran across their cheek.
Hange left the saddle and walked to the hills, Levi had to run to pick up the horse's reins. “Let’s stop for a while.” He ordered and then helped the kids to settle everything down for a short break.
He paced calmly to where Hange stood near the flowers, they were kneeling in the middle of the field with only their head sticking out from that lilac river. Sasha, Connie, and Armin ran past him, eager to take note of this new finding.
“You noticed right?” Hange said as he approached. He thought he was quiet enough in his steps before, but apparently not quite enough to hide from them. “You noticed it’s the same one right?” They repeated.
“Marsha’s flowers.” He said.
For a moment, Levi was scared for the future. “Sometimes that’s the only thing that keeps me eager to leave those gates again. I want to find these flowers.”
That’s what Hange said before. Now that they finally found it, what if… What if Hange was done leading them into the unknown?
“I want to know more.” They whispered. Somehow that small muttered sentence was able to set Levi’s mind at ease again. Of course they wanted to know more, that was in their nature after all. “I mean, we are the Recon Corps.” They smiled and Levi curled up his own lips a bit. “Besides just killing titans, beyond all the death... Our purpose is to research the world outside, right?”
“Right.” He nodded and kneeled beside them, both using the shade that the somewhat full and tall flowers provided. Their sweet smell was intoxicating in abundance, but Levi didn’t wanna leave those fields so soon.
“I wish I could take some with me, roots and all, so I could plant them back at headquarters to study.” Hange bit their lower lip.
“But?” He asked once Hange didn’t continue.
“How can I injure these amazing things? How can I ruin this amazing sight?”
“Your mother didn’t have the same concerns…”
Hange laughed and fell to sit on the ground, dirt stained their white pants now... But again, dirt was always staining their white uniform pants.
“After I became squad leader, I searched through old records of previous expeditions outside the walls. I wanted to see exactly where my parents found these flowers.” They shook their head, their next words were only higher than a whisper. “But I’ve never found anything.”
The possibilities were endless, really… Levi knew Hange had already analyzed all of them. Maybe there was someplace else that they didn’t explore after Shingashina’s breach, someplace else with fields just like these, fields Hange’s mother happened to stumble upon, a report the Survey Corps failed at maintaining.
“Were you here too, mom? Did you see these same fields, dad?” Hange spoke so low, the tone so lost, that Levi thought they didn’t mean to say the words out loud. So he said nothing and focused his attention on the endless sky that covered an endless scene. “Are you proud?” They continued, words getting lost in the breeze.
Levi wished those words could reach the dead.
We’re here. Are you proud of us?
The only answer they got was the silence of the flowers.
Levi saw Marsha’s flowers again after they set foot in Marley’s port for the first time. Trying to control the kids and Hange’s curiosity was beyond his naivety at that point, he just stuck close to Onyankopon, hoping his group wouldn’t cause too much trouble to those poor merchants.
His expectations were small, and maybe that is why they were so easily broken. He caught a flash of brown hair with his peripheral vision and followed behind quickly until he was in front of a flower stand blooming with diversity. White, red, lilac, and blue, some types he knew, others he wished to.
Hange was hunched over one of the lower stands, Levi didn’t have to look to know what they were examining, but a quick glance was able to tell him those were the flowers he came to consider an essential symbol of their friendship in the last years.
It seemed weird to see those slender stems and small petals decorated in a bouquet, arranged with a peach-colored thin paper and a white bow, especially when he was so used to staring at those flowers in the wild of the infinity hills just before the sea, or in the mess of Hange’s now unused lab.
Part of him almost felt jealous. Those flowers were their concealed secret, they were Hange’s to name. Before, they belonged to his commander and to Paradis. Not for the world to sell, not in some dirty stand in a smelly port, never to be brought and slowly rotting.
“Do you want to buy some flowers for your friend, sir?” The seller caught Levi’s attention. He looked up and found an old woman with a sweet smile and experienced eyes. Levi wondered if those eyes knew something he didn’t.
With the same speed and intensity the anger came, it left. Those people were just living and struggling to make ends meet. In the end, those flowers didn’t belong to him, to Hange, or to Paradis. They belonged to the world, Levi knew Hange would agree that they should be shared.
“What are these called?” Hange quickly stood up, holding the bouquet in hand, their only eye wider than he had ever seen before.
“Oh, nice choice. Heliotropes don’t sell that much… Well, nothing sells more to lovers than roses these days…” Heliotropes… Levi couldn’t help but think that Marsha was a much more fitting name.
Levi wanted to raise his voice, he wanted to correct the woman and tell her they weren’t buying anything, but one quick look in Hange’s direction had him change his mind faster than ever. They had their nose deep in the arrangement while whispering the newfound flower’s name the old woman had just stated. Their eyes were closed and a simple tender smile dug its way into their lips.
Levi found strange fulfillment with the sight in front of him, it had been a long time since he saw Hange acting so calm and content.
With a grunt, he reached for his wallet and paid the woman for the bouquet.
“There you are.” Onyankopon appeared by their side. “I’ve been looking for you both, we should stay closer together from now on.”
“That’s right.” Levi agreed and grabbed Hange’s arm to pull them along to wherever the rest of the kids were waiting. “The last thing we need is for someone to get lost.”
“Cheer up, Levi.” Hange sang. Their tone seemed lighter somehow. While they walked in the crowds of people, struggling to follow behind Onyankopon, Levi couldn’t help but think that Hange’s slightly tanned skin matched well with the purple tone of Marsha’s flowers... Shit, Heliotropes. The change would take some time to get used to. “Are you still mad that the clown confused you for a little kid?”
Levi chose to ignore their teasing. He kept pulling them along, both were almost reaching where the kids stood waiting near the railing.
“Wait!” Hange stopped, the sudden action caused Levi to stumble a bit in the commotion of people. He looked up intending to curse at Hange, never mind if they were his superior.
But before he could say anything, Hange placed a couple of Heliotropes in his hat, securing it close to the base; they had done something similar to their own. Levi was too surprised to deny that sweet gesture, not that he would ever admit it was sweet.
“There.” They smiled and Levi felt his cheeks heating up for no reason. “Purple really is your color, Levi.”
Levi let go of Hange’s arm and quickly turned around to hide his blushing. However, despite his flushed cheeks, he didn't dare to remove the flowers from his hat, somehow, they belonged there now.
“Are you interested in flowers, Hange?” That simple sentence Onyakopon asked earlier sent Levi and Hange into the large Azumabito library.
They would stay in Marley for a few days and Levi knew that sometimes there was nothing more to do than sit around and wait for the sun to set, so he was grateful for the calm and pleasant time spent inside that book-filled room. Kiyomi and Onyankopon helped Hange to gather a pile of books about plants and gardening while Levi preferred to stick with fiction.
The tea and the silence were similar, but somehow, Levi didn’t feel the uneasiness he experienced before. Years ago, Hange was too tired and overwhelmed to even be able to talk, but now, they were genuinely engrossed in learning. Levi couldn’t wait for them to tell him everything, he was glad for the snippets of peace they were allowed in the middle of a war.
Hange, every once in a while, broke the quietness to mutter unrecognizable words under their breath. They had several books open on specific pages, Levi guessed they were looking for one plant in particular.
“Didn’t Onyankopon give you some books about plants before?”
“He did.” They confirmed without looking up. “But I never had the time to look through them.” Levi hummed in understanding.
He ignored the sharp pain that shot inside his head, signaling that a stress headache was coming back. He avoided thinking about all of Hange’s lost interests, forgotten in favor of dealing with unwanted burdens and necessary responsibilities. He avoided remembering their unused lab, waiting back in Paradis for their return.
He disregarded the start of a migraine and focused on Hange, who was looking up to say something more.
“This one is about gardening. Apparently, this particular type of Heliotrope is a tropical plant, which means that they favor warm weather and are heat-resistant... It also says here that they oppose extreme cold climates.” They grabbed another book and started flipping the pages like a maniac. “This one is about flowers and their meanings, but I can’t find anything about Heliotrope in them…” Before Levi could reply, they dropped the book and stared at the window, the weather outside was turning gloomy, with dark thick clouds obscuring the natural light that came through the glass. “Maybe once this is all over, I can start a garden…” They whispered, voice longing.
“Like you can stay still for too long…” Levi replied, returning to his book. He didn’t know when the fiction novels turned into poems collections, but he somehow ended up with the works of a foreign poet. Those words could easily, maybe too easily, capture what Levi didn’t yet know about his feelings.
“I opened, curiously, the sky.
Just like that, pulling back the curtains slightly.”
“What do you mean?” Hange asked with one brow raised as if to challenge Levi to explain himself.
“I wanted (I only ever wanted)
to perceive the unseen
in the light breeze that it flew over.”
“It’s just hard to imagine you settling down.” It’s hard to imagine there will be a place to come back to and call it home when all of the fighting is done. But he didn't say the last part.
“I wanted to catch a piece
of the infinite light that merged together with me.”
Hange giggled, but it sounded fake and distorted, almost making Levi regret telling them that. “I guess if I had someone with me, it’d be less lonely.”
“I wanted to catch the unnoticed
in the smallest moments of space
naked and full”
Their disguised invitation did not pass unnoticed by Levi. He narrowed his eyes, his own form of a challenge, and then he promised to himself: Survive and we just might. Survive and then we dream.
“I did not know just yet
that to turn inside out
was a deadly experience.”
Summer was hot and humid in the place Onyankopon found for them to settle down. Levi liked the peacefulness and the large distance between the houses in that neighborhood. Their home was small, but the backyard was big, the atmosphere was always calm but never silent, he thought those were things Hange would’ve liked.
Well, it was almost impossible for the silence to remain when two overgrown teenagers paid him regular visits after school. But Levi enjoyed their loud screams and unashamed laughs. Sometimes, he secretly enjoyed their shared teasing too, it was something familiar to what he once had.
Levi appreciated the light summer breeze that ran through the trees and how it always carried the warning of rain, he liked the singing of birds and the barking of dogs that sometimes appeared on his property. He was almost happy there, almost content.
He was old and tired, but not so broken as to be refrained to spend his afternoon kneeled in the crops outside, knuckle deep in the soil while dealing with the Heliotropes.
There wasn’t a grave for Hange nor a monument for the commander who dedicated their life to humanity. There wasn’t a headstone, no, but Levi liked to imagine that Hange was lying there with his flowers, peacefully sleeping while in a bed of infinity purple and green that decorated their rest.
Gabi and Falco decided to stop their usual and useless banter to go play on the makeshift swing that Onyankopon attached to the big elm tree outside, years ago, when they first moved in. They were older and taller now, the risk of the ropes breaking and both falling to the ground was real and feared, but Levi decided to let the kids regain a bit of their stolen childhood.
The tree provided decent shade from the sun, but Levi found out he quite liked the tingling sensation of staying under the heat for a little while. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine that their brown hair, tanned skin, and wild aura were still present.
“You were right, Hange.” He murmured, turning his gaze away from Gabi and Falco to focus his attention on fertilizing the soil. He never thought he would enjoy such work, but there was fulfillment in carrying on with his fallen friend's wishes. “It is less lonely like this.” He looked at the vibrant Heliotropes, he never dared to plant anything else. “The flowers grew big and healthy…”
Are you proud of me? He wondered.
The flowers didn't answer, but he knew Hange listened and smiled in return.