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There's something hyper-satisfying in hearing the sound of teeth crunching underfoot.
The same can be said of the sound of bones breaking with a well-aimed kick—or the squelching of blood with a step in any direction after a job well done.
Maybe that’s a fucked up thing to think, but it's true. Plus Levi wasn’t one to feel guilt. Anguish? Remorse? Sure, maybe if you stretch it a bit. But at the end of the day, he wasn’t plagued or haunted by his choices. Sure, he would carry them to his grave, but they were his.
And if he carries a few burdens that weren’t meant for him, just to spare those kids, then that was his business and his alone.
Morality aside, that doesn’t change the fact that this was the fourth pair of boots he’d fucked up in a month. It—it's hard to keep these in shape. The average scout goes through one pair every three months. With all the running and jumping off shit. Not to mention that the newbies all die anyways, so its not like their boots last more than a week.
However, with his affinity for kicking real people in the face—or elsewhere—it would be nice to not fuck up good shoes four times faster than everyone else.
Not to mention what all of the obsessive cleaning and chemical exposure does to the leather. It’s not even like he fucks up the part by the ankles—or his knees. Just the tips. Which…he can't decide if that's worse or not.
Because he can’t use them if there's no toe part. His feet would just stick out. It's not helpful. But he wastes so much good leather just because they decided to overthrow a corrupt society. It's not really his fault! Hange doesn’t know how to torture people. He’s just stepping up to do what needs to be done.
Of course, no one needs to know that he really, really, likes the sound of bones breaking. Music to his hell-worthy ears.
He’s glaring at the paperwork in front of him, turning the issue over in his mind when Armin slams the door open so hard he knocks a hole in the wall.
“CAPTAIN!” the moron shrieks.
Levi blinks slowly to keep his face clean of any emotions. “What, have the titans gotten through Wall Maria again?” he doesn’t… ask …as much as he flatly states.
Armin shifts nervously but shakes his head. It’s nothing life-threatening then. Otherwise, Armin would be deadly calm. It's why he only lets Armin come through without knocking—well, him and Hange. But Hange would come in anyway. Armin has a good head on his shoulders, and he’s built to be a strategist.
“Then what. I have more paperwork to get through than you can imagine and more people to…interrogate.” Armin—as predicted—pulls a face. Armin is still a diplomatic person at heart, and while he doesn’t disapprove of Levi’s methods, he doesn’t agree with them either.
“Actually, it’s about your interrogations—”
Levi holds a hand up to silence the boy—man? He’s been through so much, man it is then.
He silences the man he watched grow up. “We’ve been over this, I will not change my methods, but you are free to—”
It’s Armin who cuts him off this time. “No! It’s—it’s not that…I—I mean sure I don’t like your methods—but you cannot continue the way you’re going. It's not sustainable!” he stutters out. It's been so long since they first met, yet he still struggles with his confidence.
Levi inclines his head to signal for Armin to keep talking. “You—you need something stronger than what we’ve been giving you—but well, we don’t want to give you the sword steel we use. It’s too difficult to mold without a mold, so Eren and I— we uhm…” he turns to the door and waves someone in.
Eren Yager steps in and stiffly presents what are…a pair of shoes. With titan crystal over the toes, the knee, and the heel. It looks strangely like the socks they’re all wearing.
But what's surprising about the gift itself (not to mention the gift period) is that the crystal has been smoothed out. With what looks like sandpaper.
“How did you make these?” Levi asks once he has a moment to collect his thoughts.
Surprising again, it is Eren who speaks up. “Well, sir, I figured out that the swords—if we chip at it slowly—can erode the crystal.” Yager pulls a face. “It's not something we can use against them. It takes too long, but it worked in this case…and we can make weapons out of the crystal now! Uh, when I learn how to make more.”
Eren. Eren is…a good kid. He talks big, and can’t win a fight to save his damn life, but he tries so damn hard.
With a sigh, Levi takes the boots. “Thanks, kid. Now go back to Hange before she skins me alive for ‘stealing you from her,’” he says with a slight half-smile.
God, he’s going soft. But the looks on their faces when he praises them even slightly makes him think maybe being a little soft isn’t the worst thing that would happen to him.
It's two weeks later when he realizes how nice the boots are. He’s going through and questioning the nobles they captured. And kicking at the bars—and all he can think is how he’s already ruined another set of boots with how much he’s kicking the bars.
Until he looks down at his shoes to see if he can salvage them.
And he can .
Because the thick shiny coating on the toes hasn’t so much as scratched. Huh.
He doesn’t read into it too much, but this…will be helpful.
He looks at the key ring on his belt, and then up at the lock to the fat nobles' cells. Fuck it. He’d been too nice already.
He unlocks the door, steps through, and smiles as he can finally relieve some of the tension that comes with overthrowing the government.
A knee to the face would be too kind this early into the session. It would knock him out—-or send him into shock too fast. So a few kicks to the rib cage first.
The third and fourth ribs for the heart, sixth and seventh for a memory that won’t fade, Kenny whispers to him. He knows as well as Levi that the lessons Kenny pressed into him are the only things Levi could do without thinking.
He aims for the seventh rib. Four kicks in and he can hear the crunching of bone against his toe. The fat pig’s cries are music to his ears. God, he’s going to hell, isn’t he?
Well at least this ugly bastard is going with him. What’s the phrase? I’m not stuck with you, but you’re stuck here with me?
Yeah, that summed Levi up pretty well. Not a good person, but better than some of the fuckers out there.
It's an hour before he leaves the cell, his boots dripping red, and making the pleasing squelch of fresh blood and gore.
With every step he hears the remnants of bones crunch beneath his heel.
What a nice sound that was, maybe he would give the kids a thank you. The boots seemed to hold up nicely against the body. “Maybe I should try cleaning in them…”
These boots might be too perfect. He cleaned his entire room, and office. And theres no damage. The soles look more damaged than the rest of the boot.
That does however make him wonder what all he could do if the full shoe was encased…..
Maybe he could convince Hange to let him borrow Eren so he could do this to the full shoe.
A captured six meter for her to experiment on should be enough for a few hours.
God, he might actually be getting excited. What a weird feeling that is. Especially over a pair of shoes . They have a war to fight, for god’s sake.
But damn were these shoes nice. Good quality leather, nice and firm, broken in already from his usage of them. Sturdy soles good for his knee, and now they were reinforced in some places to be virtually indestructible.
God, he was talking about a pair of shoes . He sounds like Hange talking about her stupid pet titans.
There are worse things to sound like, he supposed.
With a firm set to his shoulders, he stalked off to find Hange. He had a deal to strike, because
god
these were nice.