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“Mikasa,” Levi knocked lightly on the open door of the girl’s room and peered in. Mikasa was still dressed in her day clothes, save for the burgundy blazer that she had since removed and had draped over the back of her chair.
She turned to him in surprise. “Levi?” The word was awkward on her tongue. This was a new development afterall. He had told her to address him plainly outside of official meetings and work. Family didn’t need to address each other by military ranks, at least, that’s what he thought.
“Come have some tea.” He said without further explanation and took off. He heard her abruptly get up and call out after him that she would follow in a little bit, and he waved at her nonchalantly without turning back and headed to the kitchen.
The Azumabitos had provided a rather generous allowance on top of the free accommodations that they currently resided in, though most of the allowance thus far had been for their transports and food, which even Levi had to admit was rather pleasing to try. Marleyan cuisine was certainly more indulgent than regular Paradisian cuisine, much more akin to the sort of things one might find at a noble’s ball in Mitras during the social seasons.
Levi still remembered the first hor d'oeuvre that he had tried so very long ago. It was rather a simple one relative to all the ones he had later tried: toasted sliced bread with tomatoes, cheese and some sort of dressing and herb that he never learnt the name of. He remembered Erwin giving him an exasperated look as he handed him the tiny morsel.
“You might be less grumpy if you ate something, Captain.”
That had been so long ago, over a year after he had joined the Survey Corps. It would be another four years or so before the 104th Cadet Corps were to graduate.
Levi lifted the whistling kettle of the hob and poured it into the simple china teapot that came with the furnished apartment. Inside the pot, he had already placed some loose leaf tea that he had picked up on one of his stroll with Onyankopon and Hange, smelling faintly of chamomile and houjicha. He tried not to think about how this also reminded him of nights Erwin practically shoved a chamomile tea blend at him to stop him from drinking his usual black, heavily caffeinated tea.
Mikasa was already sitting at the sofa set when he arrived with his tray of tea and ceramics. She picked up the teapot without needing his introduction, poured two generous cups, handed him one on a saucer, and stirred a spoon of sugar into the other.
Most of his soldiers had spent too many nights drinking tea with him and knew well that he never added much to his tea, save for perhaps the occasional splash of milk where he found himself getting hold of some. But Levi noticed that Mikasa always took sugar in hers, so he had brought the jar from the kitchen for her.
“What was it that you wanted to see me about?” She asked, blowing lightly on the surface of her tea. With Eren’s disappearance and sudden letter, they were all slightly panicking at the prospect of going to war against Marley. Mikasa had actually been rather patient in recent days, attentive and waiting on his and Hange’s call instead of going off on her own. He found it was an improvement from the spontaneity of her younger self - growth in a good way.
Levi mulled over the words on his tongue, trying to process the topic he wanted to address into coherent words. He wasn’t eloquent, or at least he believed himself to not be eloquent even when Erwin told him that he was anything but eloquent.
“I wanted to ask if… your parents had ever told you about the Ackerman bloodline.” He took a sip of tea, letting it warm him from the inside and flood his nose with its light fragrance.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Has anyone ever told you about - our capabilities - a gift that is given to our bloodline?” As the words left his mouth, he grimaced. Gift was perhaps the wrong word to use. It was more like a curse, and Kenny certainly had called it a curse. But it was what his Mama had called it when she first told him about their blood.
“We are gifted, darling. It is a gift from the Goddesses of the Walls.” She didn’t tell him what it was, but Kenny eventually did.
Mikasa shook her head in confusion again. Levi placed down his teacup with a soft clink. “I need you to listen to me, because I will only tell you this once.”
One.
Levi heard the word replayed over and over in his throbbing head.
One.
He took a breath in, then released a breath out.
One.
The determining number that seemed to plague his entire existence. For it describes a singular thing or person, and Levi had always been alone, hasn’t he, and it seemed that he was still destined to be alone.
He stared at the blood-stained grass and white flowers that grew untamed in this part of titan territory. They had ridden out early that day. The expedition was supposed to be routine. They were only supposed to restock a nearby base and they were so close to the nearest town from Trost that it was almost tragic that a bunch of abnormal titans had come for them.
It was stupid. Erwin was stupid. Erwin wanted to be in the vanguard without Levi because he thought the influx of new recruits would need him more. That was perhaps a bit true, but the weather had been poor as of late, and the grounds were wet and soft, making it difficult for even seasoned horses and veterans of the Corps to ride through.
Things always went wrong with the rain.
Erwin had learnt it the hard way that the long-range scouting formation wasn’t applicable in shitty weather, and so ever since the very first expedition that Levi had been on - the one with rain so heavy one could barely see - Erwin had always checked for clear weather and planned around that.
Light rains were more manageable, and they have had successful expeditions with light rains before. But this expedition was, without a doubt, the biggest disaster that none of them could ever see coming. And not even Erwin and his stupid big head and his stupid chivalrous heart and his dumb caterpillar eyebrows could predict how terribly this could have gone.
“Levi, come sit down.” Hange tugged at his arm, but Levi practically wrestled himself from her grip, just so he could keep kneeling there on the grass to look at that muddied blond hair that still shined so much like sunlight. And that still, unblinking blue eyes stared back at him: empty, haunted, and surprised. Erwin hadn’t seen this coming. None of them had.
“Levi.” Mike sighed beside him. “Let me handle this, okay?”
“Don’t touch him!”
“Levi…”
“Don’t touch him.” He gritted out, calmer this time. “I’ll do it. I’ll cover him.”
Hange and Mike exchanged worried looks, but they were both tired and processing the carnage of this battlefield, too. They left him kneeling there with hopes he might follow through on his words.
Levi was motionless all the while feeling so strung out that if anyone were to even touch a hair on his or Erwin’s lifeless body, Levi would snap right then and there and kill them without hesitation. He hadn’t even registered when the rain had begun to fall again, or that every other dead soldier had already been wrapped in their cloaks and placed into the wagon.
Hange came back after a while, speaking gently. “He’s getting wet, Levi. Let’s cover him, yeah? Let’s cover him and take him home.”
Levi finally nodded and went through the motions of taking Erwin’s cloak from his neck to wrap his body up. The cloak was dirty from both the rain and from Erwin rolling in the dirt during battle. Levi shook out the damned thing to get rid of the dirt, but he could still spot the gritty grains on it, smudging up the white and blue wings emblazoned on the fabric.
He shook again, and again, and again, and it still won’t come off. He almost thought about putting it on Erwin as it was, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Because this was Erwin and he can’t put something so dirty on Erwin .
He turned around to see Hange looking at him with pitying, sad eyes. “Hange, help me.” Please , he almost said. However, if he had to plead, then he knew that he would break down to pieces on the spot, and then he would be too much for both himself and Hange to handle.
He had her hold up the cloak while he tried dusting it down with his fingers and his cravat. It didn’t do anything about the stain on the wings of freedom, but it made Levi feel a bit better, at least. It looked a tad cleaner without all the leaves and clumps of dirt on it, and when he deemed that it was good enough, he wrapped it around Erwin and heaved him into the wagon with Mike holding Erwin’s legs.
He rode on a horse beside the wagon the entire ride back. He doesn’t remember much of what happened during that time, or what reactions the people of Trost had at the news of Erwin’s demise. All he knew was that dull ache in his head and a pull towards the unknown - towards some existence where Erwin’s eyes still shined with wonder and his blood still flowed with life.
Levi closed his eyes and turned his face up to feel the sun warm his cold, pale cheeks.
One .
He heard a voice whisper in his ears.
One .
He opened his eyes to see the endless, blue sky, and felt it calling him upwards and away.
Sometimes when he was running drills, he saw Erwin’s ghost still walking across the field outside headquarters. Mike took that as a bad sign. He snapped his fingers before Levi’s face and graced him with a worried frown. “What are you looking at?”
“That’s-” Levi pointed towards the field, where Erwin’s ghost had sat down at one of the benches and was reading some book. He didn’t dare to blink, because blinking meant Erwin would disappear again for a while.
Mike followed his finger to the bench. “What? There’s nothing there.”
“It’s nothing.” Levi blinked, and as he expected, Erwin’s figure was gone, leaving behind only sun-faded wooden benches.
One . The wind seemed to whisper, pushing at his back.
Beside him, Mike’s frown seemed to only worsen, so Levi rolled his eyes and slapped him gently across one cheek and told him to bugger off.
The visions started the night they came back to Wall Rose. Levi woke up the first day and almost threw up when he saw Erwin’s figure sitting by himself in the empty mess hall, reading reports and eating a bowl of porridge as if Levi hadn’t just handed his body over to a mortuary to be embalmed the day before.
Erwin looked up at him with a smile on his face. “Good morning, Levi.”
Levi blinked twice, and then the figure was gone and the mess hall was empty again. He pressed himself against the wall, reminding himself to breathe despite the panic clawing at his throat. He was seeing things that weren’t real, because Erwin was dead and there were no such things as ghosts. He repeated the mantra to himself as if saying it enough would stop him from dissolving into insanity.
He kept seeing Erwin after that, though, and no amount of meditation could will Erwin’s ghost away.
He found Erwin everywhere he went, doing the most mundane things. He found Erwin sitting outside to enjoy the sun, or sometimes he saw Erwin simply greeting him as he walked down the hall. One time he walked into Erwin’s empty office and almost fell over because he could see Erwin sitting at his desk, writing with his left hand and looking more haggard than ever. It was strange, because Erwin was right handed and would always use his right hand to reach out to tuck Levi’s hair behind his ear.
Erwin looked up at him with tired eyes and greeted with endearment. “Is it time for tea already?”
Levi studied his figure. He was wearing a cardigan over his usual button up, but his right sleeve was loose for some reason, as if there was nothing actually underneath the fabric.
“What happened to-” Levi began, pointing at his arm, but Erwin seemed to not hear him. Erwin got up, and Levi couldn’t breathe when he saw how the right sleeve folded in on itself from Erwin’s mid-bicep and below. He didn’t have an arm. When had he lost his arm? Where is his arm?
“Nile kindly sent us some homemade biscuits. I thought you might like to try them.” Erwin said.
Levi could care less about Shitbeard’s shitty cookies. He moved swiftly across the room, his hand reaching out to try and grab the empty sleeve but his fingers passed through nothing. “Erwin, what happened to your arm?”
He watched Erwin retrieve a tin jar from the shelf and chuckled. “I know you don’t like Marie, but if you give her a chance, I think you two would get along splendidly.”
Who the fuck is Marie?
Levi looked at him incredulously. “What the fuck happened to your arm?”
“Yes, yes, I had the kitchen use the good tea, I promise.” Erwin shook his head, amused and looked across the room as if he was staring through Levi to some other invisible Levi. “Could you open the lid for me, Levi?”
“Fucking answer me, goddamnit!”
“Levi?” A knock on the door made Levi jump. He turned around to see Nanaba poking her head through the doorframe, studying him with a frown. “Was that you yelling?”
His mouth hung agape. He turned around to search for Erwin’s figure again only to find an empty space where Erwin was previously standing, and the shelf empty of any tin cookie jar.
Seeing his utter confusion and perplexity, Nanaba sighed, pitying. “Mike’s looking for you. Finish up whatever you have here and come join us in the mess hall, yeah?”
She left him standing there in question of his own sanity.
One . The room roared loudly into his ears, pulling on his hand. One .
Angrily, he stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut after him to drown out the same voice. He rubbed his throbbing temple and told himself to never return to the room lest he find the same Erwin with one limb less who he could not talk or hold onto.
“Your mama called it a gift, Levi. But don’t you be thinking that you’re mightier than anyone for it, because it ain’t actually a gift.”
“Then what is it?”
“A curse.”
“Mama doesn’t like that kind of talk, Kenny.”
“Well your mama ain’t here. Now listen closely, Levi, because I’mma only tell you this once, and you only ever get one ticket for this your entire life, you hear?”
“Yeah, I hear.”
“How many tickets do you have?”
“One.”
“How many?”
“One.”
“Good. Remember that.”
“We think you should take time off, Levi.”
“Fuck you, Mike.” Levi turned to Hange. “You’re seriously agreeing with him on this?”
“You’re unwell, Levi.” Hange sighed. “It is understandable that you would need time to process all that has happened.”
“No, fuck the both of you. I don’t fucking need time off.”
“Yes, you do. You’re not okay, Levi.” Mike towered over him. “You’re a fucking mess most days and frankly even the greenest recruit can tell that something’s up with you.”
“You can’t make me take time off.”
“Hange can. She is Commander now.”
“She won’t.”
“I will if I think you need it, Levi.” Hange said. “Look I don’t know what you’re going through-”
“Exactly, so leave me the fuck alone to deal with it.”
“Levi, you were screaming Erwin’s name in the field the other day. I don’t think that’s normal, even if you are grieving.” Hange grimaced. “Grieving people don’t see ghosts of their dead friends.”
“People grieve differently. Maybe this is just how I do it.” Levi scoffed. “You’re really telling me how to feel and think, Hange?”
“No, that’s not what I’m trying to-”
“Fuck you.”
“Hey, listen to her, asshat.” Mike growled. “She’s just trying to look out for you.”
“Yeah well, maybe all of you should back the fuck off. I don’t need you two to tell me how to fucking think on top of all the shit that’s going on in my head right now. So take your two cents and shove it up where the sun doesn't shine.” Levi pushed past Mike and made for the door despite the protests behind him.
He fumed on his walk to the field, where he retrieved his ODM gears and then raced off into the woods nearby.
He felt his eyes burning, which could be either from the wind drying his eyes or because he felt so overwhelmed and hurt that there was no way to articulate it besides through frustrated tears. But the tears never fell, and Levi shot off through the trees, letting the feel of the wind and his flight calm his beating heart.
It was only when the anger had dissipated and left behind a hollow ache that Levi stopped himself on a branch to rest. His thighs burned and his body ached slightly from the amount of twists and turns he had done in the air. He closed his eyes and relished the ache in his muscles, reminding him that there were other things to life than just constant headaches and a pull that he couldn’t explain.
The only other time he had felt this shit was perhaps back when Kenny had first found him with his dead mother.
“You let her go, you hear me? You let her go right now or you’re gonna waste your one ticket, boy.” Kenny had said.
One . The air whispered in his ears.
Levi opened his eyes and saw the leaves rustling in the breeze.
One . The leaves said. Finally, Levi remembered and understood what it meant.
“You think about where you want to go. You think about that one moment that you’ve been through, and you think hard about every detail that you can. It can be about what’s in the room, who was with you, what the weather was like. You think hard about the date - the hour and seconds - if you have to. But the point is that you have to think about who you’re going back for. You think about that person more than anything. You think about their hair, their face, about everything you could possibly think of about that person, you understand, Levi?”
“I understand.”
“And then you close your eyes and go to sleep. If it works, you’ll find out. If it doesn’t, you do it again the next day, and the days after that until it does.”
“But why would I want to go back ?”
“Don’t ask me why you would want to do it. You’ll just know why one day. I’m just here to teach you how to do it.”
“You’re vague as fuck, old man.”
“You be careful, you hear? I don’t want you wasting your ticket like your mama. You waste your ticket, you’ll fuck up your life.”
“Whatever you say, Kenny - ow! What’d you hit me for?”
“Don’t waste your ticket.”
“I won’t, geez!”
Levi doesn’t go back the first night he tries to.
He doesn’t go back the second night either.
He doesn’t go back until the fifth night when Hange had knocked on his door after dinner and stayed to chat with him about her initial proposal for his temporary leave. He succumbed eventually, telling her that he would take the leave if only to get her off his back and get some peace and quiet for himself to fucking go back .
He laid down in Erwin’s bed that night, hoping that it would help even if Erwin’s smell had long since left the sheets and pillows. He thought about the day he spent on a picnic with Erwin, some time between the moment when they had confessed their affections to one another, and their second anniversary. Erwin had always glowed - that was his general state. But in the sun, he shined like the Goddesses themselves had graced him with an unearthly aura.
Levi remembered Erwin’s fingers combing through his hair like it was yesterday. He remembered how Erwin was reading a stupid report that he held above Levi’s head as to shield it from the sun’s onslaught.
“Your arm is going to tire in that position.” Levi said sleepily at the time, his head pillowed on Erwin’s lap.
“It’s fine.”
“We could just move to a different spot with more shade.”
“But I like sitting here.”
“Fine, suit yourself, then.”
Levi closed his eyes tiredly. He barely remembered the moonlight streaming through Erwin’s window that painting patches of light on the yellow faded walls as the last thing he saw before he fell into slumber.
He dreamed of an endless desert and eternal night sky that night. In the distance, he saw a tree of light that shoots to the sky and splits out into billions of iridescent branches. And from that tree, a young girl in tattered drabs approached him with a blank, tired gaze.
“One.” She said, placing her small, calloused hands above his heart. Levi felt the world giving out beneath his feet as something tugged at him, and then he was pulled away into the darkness.
When Levi opened his eyes again, he saw green grass and a pair of dark cotton trousers under his head.
He turned his body around, gazed up, and saw blue eyes and golden hair.
“Had a good nap?” Erwin asked, his hand trailing affectionately down Levi’s jaw - the touch real and warm against his skin. On his other hand, he was still holding the report over Levi’s head to shield him from the sun. Levi had a very sudden urge to tear up under Erwin’s hands, simply because he could feel the warmth in those fingers instead of empty air.
He sat up slowly and moved closer so he could rest his body against Erwin’s chest and feel that life under his hands and hear that heart beating loudly in his own ears. He kissed the pulse on Erwin’s neck and tucked his head under the man’s chin, hearing Erwin chuckle in surprise. “You’re strangely affectionate after that nap.”
“I had a bad dream.” Levi said.
Erwin’s hand rubbed tenderly on his back. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
Levi shook his head, burrowing closer to breath in the scent of Erwin’s skin, to feel those two whole arms wrapping lovingly around him and reminding him of this reality. “No, it’s okay. It’s not real anymore.”
And it would never be real again; this, Levi swore to ensure.
On the expedition where Erwin had died the last time, Levi made sure he was in the vanguard with Erwin. He broke formation the minute that the first abnormal titan had been spotted, heading for Erwin despite Mike cursing at him. Levi had already made sure to add Oluo to his squad this time as a precaution to help Mike take down the Abnormals, so he was sure they should be fine. He raced towards Erwin’s squad and made it just in time to rip the Commander from the grips of a titan.
Levi sprained his wrist from slicing the titan's nape with an awkwardly angled arm. But it got the job done, for the titan fell swiftly and was steaming away in seconds.
“That was stupid of you.” Erwin told him as he wrapped it in a temporary brace.
“I saved your sorry ass.” At the detriment of three others who had died from the squad he had left, which was three more than the number that had died last time. Mike had spat acrid words at him, Levi couldn’t bring himself to care. And even Erwin couldn’t say anything about it because it was his life that Levi had saved.
“I know.” Erwin sighed and tied off the bandage. “Thank you.”
Levi tugged lightly on Erwin’s bolo tie, and Erwin let himself be pulled down slightly for Levi to place a chaste peck on the corner of his lips. Then the Commander got up to tend to his duties and left Levi to rest his hand.
Levi studied the forest in the distance, watching it sway in the wind and change between light and dark green in the brightening sky. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling an immense relief from the danger finally passing.
One. The wind whispered for the last time in the voice of the little girl in the desert before forever silencing.
“Have you done it?” Kenny asked, choking slightly on the blood that was dripping in rivulets from his mouth to his chin.
“Have I done what?”
“Have you gone back?”
Levi put down his rifle and kneeled next to this man that had been both family and enemy. “Did you?” He asked back.
Kenny snorted painfully. “I did - a long time ago. Didn’t make a difference though. Couldn’t save anyone or anything.”
“Maybe that’s where we’re different.”
Kenny shook his head tiredly. “No. It’s a curse, you see. You can’t save them . Whoever you save is destined to die.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I, boy?” The man grinned wryly, his bloodied teeth making his already pitiful state even more gruesome. “You saw an alternate path before you went back, so you ran for it. But the shitty thing is, you can’t see that whole alternate future. So the only thing you did was delay that death to a later date. That’s why I called it a curse on our names, Levi.”
Levi processed his words, syllable by syllable. “What were you to my mother, Kenny?”
Kenny chuckled weakly and breathily. “Stupid. I was just her older brother.” Then he thrusted the box into Levi’s chest and slumped against the tree, his chest stilling as the last bit of air left his lungs.
Levi felt his throat closing and his heart turning painfully in his chest. He fell onto his ass, too stunned to move and somehow heartbroken, too, as he clutched the box and Kenny’s cooling hand to his chest. There was no pricking at his eyes despite whatever fucked up familial affection he still held for Kenny.
The wind roared around them with only the sound of rustling leaves. There was no calling to take him away, so Levi kneeled there for a long time.
Mikasa sat rigid, silenced by shock or perhaps horror, Levi doesn’t quite know. But her expression was definitely akin to fear as she realised the enormity of the things he had told her. The ceramic in her hands shook so hard that they made clinking noises and forced her to place them down.
“Back then… on the rooftop in Shiganshina…” She shakily muttered. “That’s what you meant - when you said that you had used up your ‘one chance’?”
Levi looked down to his tea cup, the tea long drained, leaving behind only bits of sediment that couldn’t be filtered out. He couldn’t look at her anymore, not when it came to talks about Shiganshina.
“I thought you had known.” He said. “And I was desperate, Mikasa. I couldn’t save Erwin again because I can’t go back twice. The serum was the only way I could save him.”
Mikasa gripped the fabric of her dress in her fists tightly. She opened her mouth as if to say something but then decided against it or perhaps found them unsuitable. He hadn’t noticed how much she resembled him before, but she was almost identical - not just in their blood and fighting prowess, but also in their mannerisms.
Don’t be like me, he wanted to say. I hope you aren’t like me.
“I’m sorry, Levi.” She spoke quietly, head hung in sorrow and perhaps shame from what she had done back then.
He poured her more tea and pushed the cup towards her. “It was my choice in the end, and perhaps also Erwin’s.”
Because Erwin was reckless like that. And no matter how much Levi wished to keep him close and from harm, Erwin was always going to head out beyond the gates of Trost to lose his right arm to a titan and his life to another titan. In the end, it was Erwin’s palm that cut through the air between Levi and himself like a proverbial string of fate between them cut into two. And hearing the whispers of a boy's dreams from his guilty, burdened heart, Levi let him go.
“Kenny had said that this ability is a curse on our bloodline.” He said. “Because we are doomed to never be able to save the ones we want to save, but only postpone their deaths to a later date.”
Mikasa looked stricken as she took another sip of tea. “Why tell me this if it won’t change the fact that someone will die?”
Levi shrugged. “Because at least if the time comes, you will have the choice to live a little longer with Eren by your side.”
“Doesn’t that make it more painful? To live and know that your time together is limited.”
“It does. But there isn’t a day in my life where I don’t regret going back to save Erwin the first time, just so he could die in Shiganshina four years ago. Because undoing his first death had allowed us to get here, and it gave me four more years with him.”
Mikasa absorbed his words with tentative sips from her cup, then she halted suddenly and jerked her bowed head upwards to study him intensely. He raised an eyebrow. “Mikasa, are you okay?”
She blinked several times as if to focus her vision, then she turned her head around the room to observe the various decors.
“Levi, what’s the date today?”
“Twenty-seventh of June.”
“What were we talking about?”
Levi frowned. “What- we were talking about going back. Were you listening to anything that I had-” He cut himself off as he realised that Mikasa was suddenly less like the stricken girl from minutes prior, and was instead more frazzled and confused than anything.
“Did you just… go back ?” He asked.
She turned her gaze downwards morosely and nodded her head.
“Did you come back here for Eren?”
She nodded again.
“I see.” He sighed and leaned back into the soft armchair. So Mikasa was just like Levi and all those before them, then, and Kenny was still right. Perhaps if he was more like Kenny, Levi would have laughed at the sick curse Fate had placed on them all. But he wasn’t that kind of person, so he mulled over the implications of Mikasa going back in silence.
After a long while, Mikasa finished her tea and got up. “Thank you for the tea, Levi.” She said before bidding him goodnight. Before she could leave the room, however, he called for her over the back of the armchair.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” He said sincerely. But there were no words that could truly comfort her about all this. And Mikasa merely nodded at him before leaving, as he expected she would.
Levi let himself rest on the armchair for a while longer as he looked out the window and watched the clouds’ slow movement across the night sky. He raised the now cold tea to his lips to take a sip, suddenly missing calloused hands stroking on his scalp and Erwin’s chamomile tea terribly. He found none of that here, but despite it all, he let himself be comforted by the fact that he had felt those hands and kissed those lips once, and that he had spent time cherishing those hands and lips once, too.
And that was never going to be enough for any lifetime.