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It doesn’t come quick, it comes slow and steady. Small changes inhabiting his mind and tainting his once bright memories with black ink. It’s soft, starts by ruining the edges of moments he once knew.
It gives them a soft porcelain and vintage type look. An old photograph, or maybe an old drawing. It creases the corners and stains them brown with age as the memories start to settle in his head.
The grief comes and goes so it’s easy to miss sometimes. Once bright, now doesn’t shine the same way. But he doesn’t notice, he’s too busy with his fast paced life that he can’t look back and reminisce. He misses him, but sees him in everything he does so he doesn’t really think about it. Tries not to.
But there’s only so much you can push away before it catches up to you. He finds his mind hesitant to bring up certain memories, not because they’re bad, but because the image is stained and old, bent and faded.
Once fond memories are starting to distort in his mind and suddenly the face proportions are just a bit off. Not by much, so he doesn’t question himself immediately, but when Erwins death anniversary comes up he starts to remember. He starts to doubt.
Small details, like how big the gap between each of his teeth were, or the crease settled comfortably between his big eyebrows. It pales in comparison to how bad it truly could potentially get, so he attempts not to think too hard about it. He’s just having a bad day, he knows he’ll remember soon enough.
Levi concludes he must’ve been having a lot of bad days when the details don’t come to him, not weeks or even months later.
He stares at the ceiling and finds himself thinking of the ridges on his lovers skin.
Calloused miles of skin adorning a broad and tall muscular body, covered with a light layer of blond hair thickening at his arms, chest, and legs. His normally slicked back hair resting messily upon his forehead, something only Levi got to really experience.
His hands were big and littered with tiny scars from years of use, a particularly bigger one shown on the palm of his right hand. They didn’t speak about that day, because Levi couldn’t handle the grief, but he gently traced the scar as a small apology for doing it, but not feeling sorry for why he felt the need to.
His eyes were piercing blue with- wait. How many lighting like rays filled his irises? He swears he’s counted them before when they both shared intimate moments just staring longingly at each other. He’s counted them, he’s sure of it, but why can’t he remember?
And that scar on his thigh, why was it there? What story did it tell on his lovers once glowing skin? He remembers hearing the story, but what was it?
It started out small right? But it got worse.
Time takes. From the moment we are brought into existence we start running out of time. We hurry to achieve everything we want because there’s an invisible clock on top of our heads that we can’t see, maybe cant even feel, but we fear of it and fear the numbers remaining.
Time took Erwin, from Levi and from life. He was doomed to die that fateful day the second he began existing. He lived with a clock and existed through time. But now he doesn’t exist in present time, only exists just in past times. Memories. And will continue to do so until the last person ever thinks of him. There will be one moment where Erwin Smith will cease to exist to the whole world as we know it, and that thought unsettles Levi.
That man had a such an important impact on him that it’s crazy to think that bystanders might just forget about him too quickly. Grasping and the little history books they have and searching for answers they’ll never find because no one in this world knew this man inside and out like Levi did.
But everyone falls victim to their own faulty brains stricken by grief and age. He’s starting to forget too, just like all the people around him. And he shouldn’t, because he loved the man and lived with said man for so many years. He thinks if he were a better lover he would’ve remembered how Erwin liked his coffee. But that’s irrelevant when he can’t even remember the smile on his face.
Its with a sinking gut feeling that it hits him. He’s forgetting his lover and all the memories they made together.
His hand, which has caressed the skin on his partners body, now cannot recall the warmth they once felt. The skin that stretched over bulging muscles kept by rigorous training. He finds himself forgetting stuff surrounding his memories as well.
The stained edges aren’t just edges anymore, it fills more and more and only small fragments of memories remain.
He can’t even feel the edges, can’t feel his edges. They’ve blurred out and he feels like he’s melting away with them too. He’s losing the memories and is scared one day he’ll lose himself too.
If people who have passed only live on by memory, what will become of him if he can’t remember? What will be of Erwin if he can’t remember ? What about his mother? Uncle? Friends ? Squads?
He grasps at these broken fragments of memories and his hands are bleeding because these edges aren’t faded anymore, they’re broken and chipped like fragile china. They’ve been teared off so violently due to his own denial of his deteriorating brain that they’ve completely vanished and have ceased to exist once and for all.
“What will I do if I can’t remember you Erwin?”
What will he actually do? It’s more of a matter of what can he do.
What can he do when he can’t remember the weight of his hand? When the blond hair in his memory is off by a few shades but can’t seem to find the right one? When the blue in his lovers eyes fade just like his own edges and ridges?
Once so in love, they’ve seen to have merged as one. Lose one, lose both.
Losing his lover and himself has to be the worst pain Levi has ever felt.
It squeezes his lung but settles quietly beneath his rib cage. It burns at the back of his eyes but blurs them just enough to make life more bearable.
It’s a dark snake coiling around his broken heart and sleeping gently. The snores making the pieces rattle against his bones, making him painfully aware of the dreadful grave he’s dug himself right next to the one that belongs to his lover.
He’s dying, he can feel it.