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It’s been a month: thirty whole days and thirty whole nights, and yet it feels like no time has passed at all. Not in the way Scouts— people —usually mean it, but this benign passing of time gives you a queerly odd sense of unease. Much has happened since Shiganshina, so you ought to remember much , or at the very least a little .
It’s alarming to be entrapped by the present like you are. Recovery inside medbays and infirmeries between Trost, Klorva and the like drifted past and waned, as did those endless meetings with the brass. Only they need to know about that dreadful, cold truth, at least until a new plan is had. You’re not sure how worthwhile it’ll be however, without…
The point being, all that’s transpired since then escapes you. You’re a soldier though, and a Scout at that; everyone has something that’s killing them. You’re not special for losing your squad, or even for getting nearly crushed in that mountain of rubble when Bertholdt transformed.
At the very least, you’d lived through it; no one can say the same for Moblit, or even Hange, who survived only because of Moblit. They have to take up Erwin’s responsibilities now. They—in conjunction with you and Levi as the last of the upper echelon of the Scout Regiment—must figure out what to do about your new, much more human enemies. It is very clear just how little your suffering matters in the greater scheme of things. Much less…
“Levi,” you call, again , clear your throat, and suddenly begin to feel very foolish. He’d been very clear earlier that he’d rather be left alone, and normally you would too, but you—in some vague, faraway sense—have found a dramatic change within yourself. When you were deemed well enough to be discharged, you found an innate restlessness in aloneness. “Hey! I know you’re in there, you asshole.”
It’s not just the festering quiet that’s been irking you lately though, or even your declining memory. If there’s anything at all you know about Levi, it’s that he despises the depressing winter, and that he cares— cared , you inwardly chastise yourself—a great deal about Commander Erwin. You’d caught him in the early hours of the morning the night before, dusting down his old office like a madman.
You’re not blind. Levi needs a lending hand, or a shoulder to cry on, if only he’d let you in. Quite fucking literally.
Levi curses. You pick up on his worn tone through the oak. It opens eventually, but the man who greets you certainly doesn’t look welcoming. There’s not a hair out of place or a single wrinkle messing Levi’s pressed button-down, but his eyes—and the bruised rings underneath—say everything he himself doesn’t need to: ‘I slept like shit and all that’s keeping me upright right now is copious amounts of tea and the mountains of paperwork I still need to get done.’
“Leave me alone,” he grunts. “I used to think you were smart enough to take a fucking hint.”
Something like acid knots in your throat, but you go on anyway. You’re a man, for gods’ sakes, and a Scout at that. It being Levi saying these things shouldn’t take away from that. Regardless, you’re well-aware he’s being dragged through the mud too. Lashing out is how he deals with it.
“I don’t want to be alone,” you start, ever the better communicator between you two. Levi’s venomous glare falters. “You’ll have to say crueler shit than that to drive me away. Let me in . You’re going to take a damn break and let me help you with the letters.” The condolence letters for all but the seven of –
“..It’s not a good time,” Levi ventures, and his gaze darts away from you.
It’s easy to feed your festering annoyance; you can tell he’s lying, but you don’t dare bring up your relationship. It’s a minor issue in comparison.
“I can’t be alone,” you insist, quietly. It’s the best you can manage in lieu of the acidic dam in your throat snapping. “This isn’t fair.”
“Nothing ever is.”
“Levi, I know you’re you’re having trouble–”
“Shut up,” Levi snaps, and in a flash the venom in his expression is back with a vengeance. “I don’t have the time or energy to deal with your angst—I have work to do. There’s others besides me around here. Go find Mikasa or Jean.”
Your jaw clenches, “if you’d take the iron rod outta your ass for one moment and listen –”
There’s an acute sense of deja vu you feel when the door is promptly slammed in your face, so firmly the old iron hinges buckle. It seems you’ve quite literally been shut out.
Dumbly, you idle in front of Levi’s door for moments on. As the silence drags, the hurt in your chest calcifies like ice before slowly melting into numbness.
You aren’t sure what you expected to change—this animosity between you and Levi has grown routine—so you don’t have the right to feel surprised. But you never feel quite prepared, it seems—for the one you love most to push you away.
You vaguely recall Hange explaining to you how Levi had acted similarly in wake of his first expedition, years ago, and when his original squad was wiped out. Levi’s losses far outweigh yours, so you have no right to hold it against him. You’re the issue here.
Get a grip , you tell yourself.
A part of your mind protests with the look of utter relief that flooded Levi’s features once you’d come to after the battle. He was right above you when you woke, hands marred with grit and his own blood; all from fighting through the rubble of some collapsed homestead, searching for you.
You, or your body. You can’t recall if Levi’s eyes had been glassy or not, but out of all the things you’ve forgotten from that day, that image persists. It persists.
You finally step away just as your ears begin to ring. Maybe the forgetfulness is a gift—you don’t want to remember what you saw, or what you heard. You don’t want to relive the overwhelming, dark feelings.
–
It’s unfair how the body will mend all wounds, as if they’d never been there at all. In the very least, you’ll be left with scars that tell the tale of your survival. The mind however is not so determined to heal—in fact it’s inclined to resist it. The brain does what it must in life or death circumstances to ensure that the body survives. It’s protective in that way, but what the hell are you supposed to do when the battle’s over and you’re left to yourself?
Normalcy becomes horror when one has dragged themself in, through, and out of the depths of true horror—that’s the cold, hard truth of it, you gather.
You’ve had a lot of spare time to think in any case, while the Survey Corps licks its wounds and those who know the truth reel from its chilling reality. Besides, Mikasa is always there to listen to you muse and Connie is a surprising source of wisdom on loss. Sasha not so much, but she’s great for a laugh.
You haven’t lost everything. That should be enough, shouldn’t it? So then—why do you constantly feel so tired, so worn, and why are you being so selfish?
“It’s not selfish to mourn,” Armin solemnly chimes in from beside you; he must put forth effort at times to keep up with your strides. You’re more Mikasa’s height, who keeps up effortlessly. “Even Eren is feeling the way you are.”
As the three of you cross the threshold into the courtyard, you hiss a sigh through your teeth.
“He’s acting strange anyway,” you counter. “He was odd at the medal ceremony.”
“Eren’s fine.”
You know better than to argue with Mikasa. She’s only fifteen after all, but regardless of how young she is, you get the feeling she’ll always defend Eren, no matter what happens.
You inwardly decide to stop opening up to these two; something profoundly sensitive is jabbed at every time you do. Instead, you ask Armin how he’s holding up. He’s just as traumatized as anyone that lived through Shiganshina, if not more.
Armin clears his throat awkwardly as he brushes his hair out of his eyes. At this time of day, the sun bears down on everyone, regardless of the coming winter chill. “I’m.. I’ll make it. Mikasa is very reassuring.”
You’re inclined to agree, but your footsteps subconsciously falter near the iron-clad gates of Trost HQ. Beyond it lies the district proper, but you came here for a reason.
Mikasa grunts her thanks to Armin and pauses as well, a few steps behind you. “What’re we waiting for?”
Pia , you think, but neglect to answer. For a mangy furball, she might as well be the Scout Regiment’s resident therapist.
“Piaget,” Armin answers—the cat’s full name—and the bag of food he holds crinkles in his arms; you hear it. The sound oddly puts you on edge. “She’s the cat that likes to roam around HQ from time to time. Patches of hair missing, grey fur? It’s strange you don’t know, Mikasa.”
Not as weird as Pia not being here. Gods know where she gets off to in the mornings and evenings, but for as long as you’ve been with the Scouts (what, 4 or 5 years now?), she’s been an ever-present part of life at Trost HQ. You’d opted to be stationed here once just to get away from the hell that was setting up.. what was it, supply points outside Karanese district? It’s suddenly hard to recall.
Mikasa says your name. “–she’s not here. We should leave some food out and come back later.”
You roll your shoulders back—your body has since begun healing, but the aches that warp your spine have lingered—and your nerves flutter worse.
“It’s fine,” you say. “I’ll stay here. You two don’t have to wait up for me.”
You aren’t looking at them, but the worry is evident in Armin’s voice: “Are you sure?”
You’re sure. With a nod, you heft the bag from his arms and wander closer to the gates. The makeshift benches there are of a rugged sort of stone that makes for a literal pain in the ass, but it’ll do. You plant the food between your knees. Mikasa has begun to stalk off, but Armin lingers.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up,” he encourages, and despite everything manages an uplifting smile. “Pia’s done this before, hasn’t she?”
“When Trost was attacked, yeah. How’d you know?”
Armin explains that Sasha took a liking to her, as did Eren.
You don’t need any more context than that; Armin and Eren tell each other everything. It’s strange to imagine the latter ever taking a liking to a slow, docile animal. Maybe you misjudged Eren, or Pia just has that effect on people.
Armin takes his leave, and you’re left to yourself once more. With a slow start, your heart sinks at the growing rift in your chest. Once alone, it always seems to come back, never with a vengeance but always and invariably with that firm, dark lurch.
Thickly, you swallow. Only now do you realize the gravity of the frigid air, which chills your palm once you press it to your cheek. You try to recall—in your days since arriving in Trost—whether you’d come out to feed Pia, or even visit her, but your recollection is flimsy at best. You doubt you have, and ever so softhearted, your heart aches with the worry that Pia might have felt neglected and took herself elsewhere.
It’s not as if she’ll die without your meager offerings—the gritty cat food was Levi’s contribution some time following the coup, you think—but Pia has learned to expect it. Always friendly, she’d taken to rubbing up against the legs of anyone meandering in the courtyard in the afternoons and mewling for attention.
Levi was indifferent at first, while naturally you’d worried whether she was injured or hungry. Her plump belly contradicted that way of thinking, but Levi took a trip to the market a day later and bought the food anyway. He was easily convinced, oddly, but that must mean he cares. If Pia doesn’t come around today, you ought to tell him.
–
You wait until dusk. Pia never comes.
–
You never tell Levi, either. Partly because you failed to remember, but majority-part because it’s become clear just how hard he’s trying to avoid you. He seldom leaves his quarters but to eat you’ve found, once or maybe twice a day. A diet (to your chagrin) not befitting of a soldier, let alone Humanity’s Strongest.
You took his hint, though. That is, leaving Levi alone to grieve, but regardless of who it is you’re not about to let him go hungry and waste away. It’s just not in you, no matter how much Levi wants to push you away and force you not to care for him.
You know Levi, and you know—especially after Shiganshina—that he doesn’t want any more deaths to tear him to shreds, including yours. Maybe after getting a taste of it, that’s when he decided. You aren’t sure what you’d do if you were the one to dig Levi’s dead weight out of a mountain of collapsed wood and stone.
But that didn’t happen, and this hurts you too. It jams a knife in your chest, through the brunt of your rib cage, and twists the blade. You can deal with the uneasy isolation, the constant exhaustion and even the repetitive, unwanted memories. It’s not like there’s much you can do in that regard, but you can care about Levi. Damn him for forcing you not to.
As such, you start bringing Levi dinner from the mess hall. Farmland can’t be cultivated until the remaining Titans outside Wall Rose have been purged, but the portions are good. Better than what the Survey Corps is used to, anyway. You bring tea too, and the nights go like this: you collect an extra tray for Levi—tossing in some of your own portion if your appetite is nonexistent—Hange will smile gratefully at you while you pretend not to notice, and you trek to Levi’s quarters on the 3rd floor. You set the meal down, tray and all, knock, and you’re on your way.
That said, Levi knows it’s you—has to. This was years ago, but since you’d begun coming to his quarters for more personal matters, you noticed the lack of tenacity in Levi’s tone in his beckon to come in. After a certain point, you didn’t even have to knock anymore—he entrusted you with the spare key.
You still have it, but you can force Levi to open up to someone just as much as you can eat a bowl of soup with a pair of chopsticks. That is, not at all, and you’ve wasted your time.
Levi knows your knock, your footsteps, and you assume other minute details most lovers wouldn’t pay a bit of mind to.
He hasn’t spoken of the dinners, not during mandatory militarial meetings anyway, which is the only time you’ve seen Levi at all lately. To say it’s depressing wouldn’t cover half of it. Sprinkle the overcast, freezing weather on top of that, and that’s the current state of things.
It’s so damn cold , you think, and bundle yourself deeper into your pullover like a turtle retreating into its shell. The makeshift bench—the one made of that terrible stone—is where you sit now. Like before, you cradle the crinkly bag of cat food between your legs and keep your gaze set low to the ground. The wind is too biting to watch out for Pia, and while your ass went numb a couple hours ago, your hands have recently joined it. Your cheeks feel like blocks of ice.
You think, offhandedly, that this is some demented form of self-destruction. It’s not so cold indoors by a fire or kerosene-lamp, but it’s somehow worse inside. Lately, socializing has felt like a chore, and so you sit alone and try to occupy yourself. But then your mind is blank, so you lay down, draw your blinds and try to rest. When— if —sleep drifts over you, the terrors come.
So you sit there in the center of your bed in your lonely quarters and try to fill the quiet with your breaths. And yet hearing yourself snivel with all those swift, choked gasps for air make you feel worse. That was last night— every night since Pia turned up missing.
Of course Commander Hange doesn’t know. You don’t expect them to add a missing cat to their endless list of priorities, next to recover the corpses left in Shiganshina.
You had come to detest the fact that you survived that day. Of the hundreds that died at Shiganshina, every one of them—every naive, hot-blooded recruit—had a right to life. But they don’t have that now, and by the way of things, you’re not sure if you even want it anymore.
What kind of piece of shit would think that way? How selfish of you.
You lived only by taking refuge in a building, and it was bound to fall on top of you, collapsing like a towering house of cards. You lived by hiding, and then you got lucky. Levi . But he doesn’t want to see you right now, does he? It’s not a good time .
Tears crowd at your lashline, threatening to spill. You squeeze your eyes shut, hoping to will them away, only for stubborn droplets to stick to your lashes.
It’s so damn cold.
It’s ridiculous to wait outside in the freezing winter for a cat, reason tells you. But you don’t feel like talking to Sasha or Hange, and as tempting as it is to barge into Levi’s quarters and demand he get a grip, you know what he’ll say; or what you think he’ll say: It’s not a good time , or worse, I can’t do this anymore .
You’re not sure how likely that is, but he’s probably thinking it, right? He hasn’t confronted you because the wounds are still too raw. No one wants to hear any more bad news.
You just want to see that old furball. It’s too cold out for her anyway. Hange wouldn’t mind it if you brought her indoors. They’re still Hange, regardless of the new title.
A while ago, the endless shivering and teeth-chattering stopped. It’s a warning sign of hypothermia, but you really don’t care anymore. You want to see Pia.
“Hey.”
The harsh voice comes out of nowhere, and your heart leaps to your throat—you can’t help it. Levi speaks your name.
From the waist-down, you see he’s only adorned in baggy loungewear and slippers. You don’t trust your voice, so without looking up you grunt a little. Huddled into what few layers you don (it hadn’t been so frigid in the late afternoon as now, nearly midnight), you suddenly feel very hot all over.
“What’re you doing?” Levi asks, a tinge of annoyance creeping into his tone. “For hours you’ve been out here on that shitty bench.”
Levi would only know that had he been periodically crossing the hall to check on you out the bay window. His quarters are on the opposite side of HQ from where you’ve sat—indeed, for hours. The thought springs more tears to your eyes.
When you don’t respond, you watch Levi shift on his feet. “You do know it’s colder out here than the ass-end of Orvud this time of year, right? You’re not dressed for the weather, either. You’ll freeze to death before that cat ever shows back, tomorrow afternoon or the next.”
Levi rambles when he’s nervous. At the mention of Pia, you stir a little.
Willing your voice not to falter, “‘You’re not dressed for the weather’, s-says the man in the f-fuckin’ slippers.”
Levi shifts his weight again, and part of you—the part that’s dead-set on finishing the job that collapsed homestead never did—thinks he’s about to turn and go. You swallow the growing lump in your throat.
Rather, Levi stoops down and for the first time since—well, it can’t have been that long since a meeting with the brass, but it feels like ages since you’ve seen his face. Really seen.
Levi’s cheeks are blown pink like cherry blossoms, and his eyes are dark and stormy. With an odd sense of deja vu, you fixate on how Levi’s irises shine, despite the dim light of his lantern. He sets it on the frozen ground, and it sounds like a gavel coming down—like a goddamn sentencing.
“Are you really so determined to die out here?“
“I…” You swallow hard. “I don’t know.”
Levi watches you for a moment, gauging your words, and then stands. “I won’t let you.”
Your dry lips part to reply, then close again. You feel Levi’s arm sliding around your waist, and like a stupid baby deer you start to rise to your feet. Though it hurts your heart, you mind the hulking bag so you don’t trip over your feet. By touch alone, you can tell Levi’s lost some weight.
“Sorry,” you mutter, without giving it much thought. The frozen grass crackles under your boots, and it comes like shattering glass. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Yeah,” Levi agrees, then tightens his hold and adds, “but not for this. You just wanted to see the cat.”
You’re too cold to muster a thoughtful response to that. Rather, with Levi guiding you to the wide entrance of the enormous headquarters, you offer a small grunt in response and focus most of your energy on your steps and willing your legs not to give out. Levi effortlessly picks up your slack.
–
Despite the fireplace roaring away in the main room, you’d liken Levi’s whole damn place to a campfire; it’s like stepping into a freshly laundered quilt. He offers you the rest of his tea—chamomile rather than his preferred black, you notice—while he retrieves a change of clothes from your own quarters. Most of Levi’s clothes aren’t your size anyway, and he insists what clothes do fit you need to be laundered. It’s not hard to figure why, but the thought makes your head spin anyway.
While you wait, you huddle before the fire with three of Levi’s spare blankets wrapped snug around your frame. They’re all thick (Levi’s blood has always run cold) and quickly you begin to shiver again—a good sign.
Levi’s still away when you give in and press your face into the fuzzy cotton. Whatever smell is natural to him resides deep in the fabric. You pick up on musky pine needles, and a hint of detergent.
Of course it smells like Levi, that’s why you hesitated. You aren’t sure whether or not he’ll ask you to leave after he ensures you’re physically alright, albeit hesitantly. Relationship or no, you’re both still deeply in pain.
A fresh barrage of tears spring to your eyes, and a wilted sob is wrenched from your throat. You hate crying, but you can’t stop it once it’s started, so you bury your face in Levi’s scent and cry your eyes out.
–
With fresh clothes on your back and a warm drink in your belly, the brunt of your exhaustion returns with a vengeance. Your limbs are leaden and your eyes feel weighted by stones, but you don’t want to sleep yet. It’s not guaranteed it’ll come anyway, and if it does it’s bound to be fitful. Besides, you and Levi have things to talk about, and it’s about time.
You dab at your swollen eyes with a sopping wet cloth, a trick your mother taught you as a child. Despite the twist of anxiety in your gut and the boulders pressing into your back, you look a little better.
“I’m sorry,” Levi says, and that’s the first thing he says when you reenter the warm living room. “I shouldn’t have said the things I said to you.”
You huff a little—out of relief or exasperation you don’t know—and idle in the entryway. Levi sounds so blithe, but he hardly ever means it that way. With the fire casting moving shadows over his sharp, worn features, he almost looks his age.
Levi’s larynx bobs a little as he swallows. “Are you leaving?”
“Do you want me to?”
You’re mildly startled by the sight of Levi shifting his footing again, regardless of his seat on the plush sofa. You remember fifteen or so minutes ago and feel uneasy. Strange how you forget so easily, but in hindsight it feels like more of a dream.
It takes Levi a moment more to respond, and he sounds resigned: “I’m tired of being alone.”
You roll your shoulders—your back feels like hell—and approach slowly while waiting for Levi to continue. He takes his time.
“I’ve hurt you,” he ventures, and you watch his expression twist into that look he always gives when he’s disgusted with something. “Things have changed, and everyone’s feeling shitty.. even Hange. Normally, nothing cracks ‘em. Not enough to see on the surface, anyway.”
Levi rambles when he’s nervous, but he does it when he’s upset too.
Knowing you’re walking a thin line here (between Levi letting you in and shutting you out again), you sink into the cushions beside him. He’s right of course, but you let him speak.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Levi swallows again, and his expression twists again. It’s as if he’s just now realized he’s been speaking as if debriefing you. “When I came to the window that last time and saw you still sitting there, I…”
Struck by guilt, you angle your head a little and press your face into Levi’s broad shoulder. It’s like the blankets from before, except the smell of him is as intense as a sleet compared to raging snowstorm.
“…That day—I couldn’t help but think of it again,” Levi continues, a drudging murmur so small that it seems fit to collapse; like Levi is bearing his heart, and it is so, so fragile. With an utterance of your name, “do you remember waking up?”
“Ye-Yeah.”
Your voice breaks like shoddily-made plywood, and at the same time Levi’s shoulder goes stiff and he shifts to meet your startled gaze. Like before, it feels like some sensitive bundle of nerves has just been punched; mortified, you blink rapidly and again feel hot all over.
“You’re crying.”
“I am?”
It’s a genuine question—you hadn’t noticed, but the hot mess you’ve made of your lashes and the apples of your cheeks prove it. Another sob builds in your throat, but as much as you smother it, it just won’t go .
“Stop that,” Levi orders, but without force as he tugs your wrists away from your face and glances away, looking around. Without a handkerchief or cloth, Levi turns his attention back and smooths his thumbs across your cheekbones. Your eyes flutter from the callouses you feel on them, then Levi’s breath flitting across your face.
“Always so emotional,” he comments, softly, then tuts when you bow your head. “Don’t hide from me, you need to be cleaned up.”
You want to act smart—as is your nature—but with Levi padding the remnants of the dampness off your face with his sleeves, the dam finally breaks in your throat. A half-smothered, crooked sob turns into two, then three, and then Levi’s arm is over your shoulders and pulling you into him.
The rushing, violent flood—the worst of your crying—goes on enough for Levi to begin speaking in muttered tones against your temple. Sweet nothings, as they say. He’s a bit too small to speak into your hair. You’re sobbing too hard to make fun of him for it.
It won’t stop. It’s too damn heavy to stop, but you’re tired of fighting grief. Before Levi came back with your clothes, you’d managed to stave it off just in the nick of time, but now that he’s here, you’re not bound to calm until grief has wrung you dry.
Into his arms Levi takes you, speaking softly and gently hushing you when the tears recede; your chest goes on shuddering and wracking vacantly in their absence.
You feel like Levi holds you to his frame like a man who’s just lost everything and a little more, but found again what’s most important. It makes you imagine him desperately clutching at a bundle of teabags like he now does you and the floodwaters ease a little.
The world outside of your hot tears and the feverish, sweltering skin of your face and Levi’s throat drifts away. You don’t try to pull away in its absence, but instead snake your arms around him too.
Levi is warm. You can’t think of much you’d clutch at desperately, like he with tea or a bottle of bleach, but you hold him like that, too.
–
You and Levi never finish that conversation. It’s probably for the best, anyway—at least for now.
Once the raging flood that is your tears has receded into a docile, steady stream again, Levi fetches you a glass of water, then refills it twice more. That’s when he kisses your knuckles, and you’re the one to ask if you can stay the night.
You’re exhausted beyond mortification, but your heart leaps with Levi’s prompt nod, one that comes reluctantly upon your asking. He may be sick of being alone, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less scared.
It’s all trudging and easy movements to Levi’s bed, which it seems you missed missing . You tell that same old joke, how his cushiony mattress must’ve been forged by the gods of sleep just to curse Levi’s insomnia, and he rolls his eyes at first, as always. And as always, Levi buries his hand in your hair, patting your head.
Being in bed together again feels tense at first, and a little awkward. You’ve read your fair share of romance and it’s always like this the night after the couple argues, though you don’t know what to call what you and Levi have gone through.
He relaxes a little when reach to massage the back of his head, just where his undercut meets the prickly hairs at the nape of his neck. Levi relaxes further when you spread your palm over the expanse of his back and dig the pads of your fingers into the metal baseboard that might as well be his overworked muscles.
Levi grunts a little, sighs, and you’re overcome with the urge to hold him. Your eyes are drooping more by the second, but you tell him so.
“…You’re embarrassing.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“When have I ever said I was?”
You scoff a little. “Well, I have some news for you, in case you’ve never heard this before—an observation I’ve made ‘bout you.”
At this Levi perks up, peering at you through half-lidded eyes. Before, he’d been molding his face with your chest.
“Levi, I think—compared to most men your stature and age—you’re a little on the short–”
“ Tch .”
Levi glares, then turns over, his back to you. Despite having poured your pain out like a gallon jug tonight, a stubborn smile prods at your cheeks.
From behind, you drape your arm around his waist and curl into his back. Your chest gives a small flutter at the feeling of holding him once more, and for a brief moment you feel you may cry again. You press a chaste kiss to his shoulder as thanks.
That’s when you remember something.
“Pia’s food?”
“Will be fine,” Levi finishes, nearly muffled by a pillow. “In fact, leaving it might just lure her out.”
“You think...” It stings, getting your hopes up. “..she’s alright?”
Your doughy soft side—that part that always makes you question the reason Erwin once promoted you to Section Commander—surprises even Levi now.
He cranes his neck to cast you a quick look, then moves in to gently kiss you. Soft and swift, and yet the moments feel like they dawdle before Levi pulls away and idles to gaze into you, or through you. Yes , the look communicates, without need for words. Yes, I think she’s alright.
“She’s a fighter,” Levi murmurs, and turns back. You hold him and splay your palm across his chest, right over his heart. “I think it’s the case that Pia goes to Sina when she's not around Trost. Noblemen may not feed the people, but they’re happy to feed stray animals.”
Into Levi’s nape, you smile a little.
“With so few of us left, she prob’ly missed the welcoming committee and still thinks the Scouts are on expedition. It’s equally likely she got overfed and keeled over, but we’ll save the bad news for when it comes. If it does.”
You smile a little wider, and close your eyes.
–
It’s Levi’s birthday.
You know this because you specifically marked it on your calendar, regardless of how little Levi himself speaks of it for the explicit goal of everyone forgetting. He never saw what the big deal about birthdays were, not that the 25th of December is the actual day of his birth anyway.
“Is this really necessary?” he snarks, upon your padded return to the living room. With snow coming down outside, the fireplace is roaring. “I don’t need another gift.”
“It’s only your third,” you correct him, and grin a little as you toy with the scarlet bow, then set it down on the ottoman next to Levi’s tea. It’s still steaming.
Levi glares up at you through his lashes, but it’s offset by the white sweater—his gift from Hange—which pools in his lap and falls over his wrists. You watch the sleeves sag when Levi snags your forearm and tugs you down to the seat beside him.
It’s just you two. While Hange insisted the two of you take the morning to yourselves for Levi’s birthday, it’s not so simple for them. They had Jean play messenger boy to deliver their own gift (along with a month’s ration of black tea, a gift courtesy of the 104th), not that it bothers Levi much. After all, if he had his way you wouldn’t be celebrating his birthday at all.
“What is it?” Levi asks, and has asked for every other gift you’ve placed in his lap. “Let me guess. More tea?”
“Lifetime happiness.”
Without a glance, Levi arches a thin brow as he gets to work unwrapping, a slow and methodical process for him. “Sounds expensive.”
The gift is from you, and you’d put a lot of effort into it. In the week since Levi found you nearly frozen outside, you’ve dedicated almost all of your spare time to working on it in Levi’s quarters.
You two don’t speak much, and there evidently remains a rift between you that leaves Levi distant and easily irritated, but it’s best to work slowly with these things.
Besides, he's trying so hard. Levi lets you in, and he listens intently when you feel the need to speak on what’s weighing on you; mainly, the survivor’s guilt.
Levi recovers the small box within the ornate wrapping paper, and inspects it with his hands.
With impatience bouncing in your fingertips, you urge him to hurry up before wedging yourself closer and manhandling Levi into your lap. He makes an unhappy noise but doesn’t struggle, only worms around in your arms to get more comfortable. Still, he remains tense.
You watch Levi’s hands over his shoulder, opening the box to reveal an ornate band of fine crystals, its circumference roughly the size of a plate. In its center—meticulously carved by your hands—is a glass insignia of the Wings of Freedom. You’d feared accidentally shattering it to carve out much detail, but now your heart hammers away in your chest for different reasons.
“I got into the old books in the library,” you explain, a tad quickly. “It’s called a dreamcatcher, but I made some changes. With all the crystals leftover from underneath the Reiss church—” You pause, cursing your rambling. “—It’s supposed to help nightmares.”
Levi’s gone much stiffer in your arms now as one of his hands hovers over the crystals, perhaps wary of breaking them. Or perhaps he finds it stupid, or offensive.
“Levi, do you like it?”
“..I, it’s...” Levi keeps his head intentionally ducked, and his voice comes as little more than a gruff. “I don’t know what to say.”
By his stifled reaction, it’s safe to assume you’ve made an impression. It’s not so safe to assume if it’s good or bad.
Levi clears his throat, sets the box back on the ottoman and shifts back into your arms. He goes on, quietly, “You went to too much trouble. It’s too.. well-made. I’d have no idea where to put it.”
Your anxiety deflates a little, though needless irritation continues to set you on edge.
Where you can catch a whiff of Levi’s woodsy shampoo, you kiss his temple to catch his attention. Levi’s eyes are a little glossy when he finds you, lips set in a straight line and his brows pinched. It reminds you a bit too much of that day, but you smother a spike of panic by pressing your lips to his forehead.
“Do you like it? Yes or no. Or maybe.”
“I think it’s obvious.”
You swallow a little. “Rate it out of 5?”
“Idiot,” Levi says, voice just above a whisper. Tears threaten to spill over his lashes before he wrenches himself around in your arms and surges forward to wrap his arms around your shoulders.
With your bodies snuggled together in an embrace, it takes you a moment to dispel your shock. Surely it’s the most effort you’ve ever put into a gift for him, but Levi’s reaction continues to surprise you. You don’t recall ever leaving him so emotional from something you made for him.
You return the embrace wholeheartedly, despite a small, festering sense of claustrophobia. It’s not easy to have Levi so close like this again. It’s good, but it’s so much.
“It’s good,” he speaks into the crook of your neck, then presses his lips to the notch where your jawline starts. “Thank you. But don’t ever get me a gift like this again.”
“Sorry, but I will. And next year’s will be even better.”
Levi flicks the back of your head, but you don’t lose your wide smile as you stroke his back in slow, easy circles.
That was a good day—you even procured rice and chicken for dinner. It’s better in hindsight that you didn’t get the news until the day after.
–
Levi takes the envelope from Hange, but not without regarding them with an odd look. “Bad news, huh?”
“Well–!” Hange heaves a sigh and falls back in their chair. It used to be Erwin’s, and the barren office they stand in used to be Erwin’s too. With Hange finally (properly) moving in, the boxes strewn this way and that leaves it nearly unrecognizable. “Armin asked me to look into something, and I asked the Garrison.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Hange flits their glasses up their face, and winces a little; whether due to the bandages or Levi’s tone, it’s hard to be certain.
“It’s not fair,” they murmur. Levi must consciously stop himself from crushing the letter in his palm. “Even if it’s small.. we’ve lost too much already.”
Levi can insinuate just what that means.
Without another word, Levi turns on his heel and exits Hange’s office. The clunk of the door shutting seems louder than it is, and he must double back to make sure he didn’t catch a glimpse of hot blood on his hands clinging to the doorknob. At any time where Levi isn’t bereaved by guilt lately, he feels he’s going crazy.
But there’s no blood on the knob, none staining his hands, and he’s not the last thing, either.
The stray cat—Piaget—must be dead. Levi hasn’t opened the letter, but doesn’t feel comfortable doing so without your presence (because, for all intents and purposes, she was your cat), but he just knows .
Levi begins making his way, and rehearses what he will say to you. While the news may not break you into pieces like that night weeks ago, Levi already senses his muscles tensing and breath rattling for a fight that doesn’t exist. For a cat , of all things.
The most Pia ever did for him was rub up against Levi’s legs after you got him to scratch behind her ears. You love her so damn much, he couldn’t say no. He never even held her.
Levi knows this, but like a faulty wire that’s been eroded and shaved down, his body can’t seem to catch up. He sees a life you loved that’s now gone, and suddenly he’s back on the battlefield.
Passing by an expansive window, Levi notes the snowflakes glittering in the wind, coming to rest on the pillowy-white ground. Usually, HQ would be clamoring around this time—turn of the year and all. But the Survey Corps won’t be inducting new members until spring.
Levi picks up on a pair of bootsteps approaching, but doesn’t turn; he can tell it’s you. You and your terrible proclivity towards forgiving those who deserve it the least. He can at times still feel grit and blood—your blood—caked underneath his fingernails.
“I had a bad feeling when I woke up this morning,” comes your low voice; you’re close, but not enough to touch. Levi thinks you can just read him that well—well enough to know when he can’t stand it. “I wanted to see you. What’s wrong?”
“News,” Levi replies, and nods to the letter clasped in his hand. “Let’s not talk out here.”
–
Back in the seclusion of Levi’s quarters, his gaze flitters over the letter’s contents—Pyxis’ signature jotted at the bottom—and scans it once more before handing it to you. Levi notes where your knuckles are still rough and scratched from that day.
It puts him at ease to know you weren’t so much scarred physically from the whole thing, but you tell him that made it worse somehow. Levi won’t pretend to agree, but he understands what you mean when you vent to him.
He thought at first that he was quietly relieved to be in your presence again, but like tearing away a bandage, every deeply-entrenched fear having to do with you came spilling out—like a festering wound.
Fear of loss— losing him , Levi inwardly corrects himself—makes him freeze up and lose his wits. He knows he can’t risk being rendered weak, not with all they still have left to do. But if Levi’s self-induced isolation is at the cost of your life, he couldn’t possibly stand to go through with it. Try as he might, as better off you’d both be in the end, he can’t .
As at Shiganshina and a few weeks ago overlooking your pathetic, frozen form on that bench, Levi told himself—and he told you —that he wouldn’t let you die. As for all the damage to you he’s caused in the process, it binds his chest in knots to think of it, especially now.
“…I see,” you say, and that’s all you say, before you gather your thoughts. Unshed, helpless tears sting your eyes. “Levi?”
Piaget was torn apart by dogs. A part of Levi wants to do something for it, but it’s a stupid, helpless wish. You can kill a dog, but you can’t teach it justice; it could never grasp the meaning of the word.
People are the same , Levi thinks. They can also mourn the loss of a helpless thing that died, and they will, but people put much more stock in mourning than preventing the loss in the first place.
“Levi,” comes your voice again, and it’s like a choir of angels coming down from heaven.
With a start, Levi looks at you—that helpless shine of tears, or stubborn hope behind your irises, maybe—and shrugs. “What?”
“It’s just a cat. I know it is, but–” your bottom lip wobbles, “–still. It’s almost just as bad. It even phases you .”
Levi doesn’t reply. He isn’t sure what to say.
“If Piaget dying upsets you like it does me, then what’d you think you’d gain outta pushing me away?”
That strikes a nerve. Shame burning in his chest, Levi looks away. What did he think? He’d gain an out from having to deal with all this terrible, deep emotion he doesn’t understand. But leave it to you to force your way back in and remind Levi just how weak he is for you.
It’s like falling and getting stuck between an unstoppable force and a brick wall—no matter how he struggles, it’s going to hurt.
You don’t give up: “I don’t understand. You save my life, then treat me like you hate my guts until I—” You don’t finish that thought, it’s too shameful. “Am I just another life to save to you? Are you guilty?”
Levi’s breath catches, and he sends you an incredulous look. Of course you’re not.
“Of course I am!” Levi explodes, and at once rises to his feet. His frustration comes like a blown fuse. “I have no idea what to do with myself when it comes to you. I’d never, never –”
Visibly seething, Levi turns his back to you.
“–I had no idea if you were still breathing. You looked dead , and I felt—I never want to feel that way again, but I can’t exactly order you not to get killed, can I?”
Stunned, you stand just as well, but leave Levi to rant. You knew it fucked him up, upheaving your buried body, sending his Commander to his death, but was it really so bad that Levi felt the need to shut you out entirely?
“So like a fool, I—” Levi is ashamed too. He doesn’t finish the thought. “But it was wrong, and you’re too damn stubborn . You’re too soft to see that relationships like this break people.”
“I didn’t do anything!” you cry, tears pricking, stinging. Levi’s words hurt. “If you truly felt that way, you’d be a coward! You would’ve let me die!—Fuck if it was in Shinganshina or the cold, or anything !
“It’s always going to hurt, Levi! No matter what! It’s cruel and it’s unfair, but that’s the hand we’ve been dealt.” You heave a breath; what you’re saying is cruel, but you can’t stop. “You can’t go on forcing yourself not to give a shit about people and expect your life to be anything but a sack of shit at the end of the day!”
You hear him sneer, but you’ve broken his argument. Only a stupid, blind bastard would dispute your words, and while Levi is a self-admitted bastard, he’s not stupid, or blind.
Breathing hard, you smear your tears away and gather yourself. A fiery knot in your throat wavers and threatens to snap, but you swallow hard. You have more to say.
“I can’t —do this without you. If you had to die…” You shut your eyes, cursing your words. You hate to speak of Levi’s death, as unlikely as it is. “…I could go on. But we’re alive , Levi, so that wouldn’t be fair. Only if you genuinely couldn’t stand me, but I know that’s not true.”
Levi hates your words. He hates the waver in your voice when you say his name, and he hates how right you are. If he were to turn and look at you now, he’d crumble and finally, truly waste away in your arms. Levi thinks it would be an honor—not these weak feelings killing him, but your stubborn care of him.
“Can’t you look at me?”
Levi swallows hard, and finally lets his shoulders sag in defeat. Looking up from the floor, the crystalline dreamcatcher you gifted him mocks him from the wall.
“…No. You’re right that I’m a coward.”
There’s a moment of quiet before he picks up on the approaching pads of your footsteps—you go slow.
“I only said that because I was pissed at you.”
“Well, you were right.” Levi’s chest shudders when he takes a breath. “You shouldn’t forgive me, regardless of how fucking sorry I am. I am sorry.”
Levi can be so dimwitted. There’s hardly a thing he’s capable of that could convince you not to forgive him. You don’t think you’re capable of hating him, either.
“Levi,” you murmur, right at his back, and press your forehead into his shoulder. You hear his swift intake of breath. “I'll always forgive you.”
Cautiously, you bring your hands up to encircle his waist. He says nothing, only lowers his defenses, relaxing. Levi’s head begins to bow again.
You don’t think he can help it, and you’re proven right by the throaty, choked sound of grief he emits, only to poorly disguise it with a cough.
“Losing you…” Levi ventures, then stops, and doesn’t go on for several, grueling moments. “…I’d go on too. But it’d be a nightmare I could never wake up from.”
Your hold around him tightens before Levi’s hands find yours, protectively interlocked around his waist.
Your tone is cautiously light, “is this life not a nightmare already?”
Levi huffs, halfway mirthful and halfway resigned. “Hell, then.”
Your heart swells. Levi’s new dreamcatcher plastered to the wall catches your eye, and you’re suddenly inclined to tell him you love him. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Levi shudders another sigh when you bring him flush against you and tuck your face in the warm crook of his neck. He says your name, and you sway him gently, humming.
“I love you.”
Your brief surprise shows itself by the stilted little huff you breathe against his neck. As Levi shivers, his head hanging again, you press a kiss there and squeeze his hands.
You say it back with your lips against the shell of his ear, still swaying underneath the dreamcatcher.