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Levi knew the way.
It was a path he’d traveled many times in his dreams. The streets were still empty, the homes and businesses still housed only by the ghosts of those that had been eaten in their midst. The remains of the city’s fall—years ago, now—had softened over time, as had the wreckage wrought in its reclamation. Dust and mud had settled, wildflowers and golding grasses overtaking the rubble, soot and smoke long since washed away by the rain. Any remaining bones had long since been bleached or settled into the earth beneath them. But Levi didn’t see them, not really. He wasn’t here for them. The sun was warm on his skin, even though it was passing swiftly over the horizon. He felt an itch in his chest as he and Pepper rode through the streets. They’d had a long ride. She was getting tired. And as bitter as she was after most long rides, she wasn’t complaining. She seemed to know.
He found it with little effort. He tied Pepper at a patch of what must have been a garden, once, and he felt his body moving as he opened the door to the small house. He watched the floor as he took the steps to the upper room. Looking at the unfinished wood beneath his feet, here and there he saw the dark of long-dried blood, maybe every few steps. There was a boot print in one dried puddle—small. His. He remembered.
Yes, he knew the way. The door opened before he realized he had touched it, and as he walked through the doorway, he felt heady with unreality, suddenly unsure that he was really there. Miraculously, he was, he realized. He took a breath. The lilies, the lilies Hange had picked, had sagged and died and were now thin brown crisps of stalks in their makeshift vase on the sill of the window, petals fallen and curled in a halo beneath. His eyes turned again to the floor. Dark stain had soaked through the mattress and had once pooled around and beneath it, rivulets thick and dark running in long lines along the grain and slats of the floorboards to soak through the floor beneath and stain the ceiling below. Levi had expected this. Levi had hoped for this. He felt the grip of tension in his throat let go, just a little. Nothing had been moved. There were no marks of footsteps on the floor. There were no animal tracks. The window was still shut. There was no change to the resting place Levi had cleaned so carefully, set so purposefully, but for the telltale, graceful marks of slow, undisturbed decay. Levi sighed let out the breath he hadnt known he was holding. Perhaps it was relief. This was something he knew. It was one of his earliest memories, of course: watching his mother for days as her own body succumbed. In retrospect, perhaps he was glad for it. He didn’t see her, like so many others, torn to pieces by the desperate underground dogs and rats and worse. It seemed that here, he was much the same.
There was precious little that remained here of the room’s solitary occupant. He was lit softly in the slatted sunlight falling into the room: the lines of once strong legs laid strait ending in nearly intact boots, flowing up into sagged swathes of a cloak, mostly black and partly disintegrated but still green at the farthest edges. As his flesh had fallen away, his shroud had settled ever closer. Ever more tender, til there was little, or no, separation between them. Perhaps it was fitting that the last embrace they’d shared was the too-large cloak around Levi’s own shoulders and the one far too small now curved and settled over what had once been such a solid frame. Levi remembered it’s texture in his hands as he smoothed the wrinkles, as his hands trembled as he slowly draped the hood over his face, beautiful, so beautiful, but too cold and skin too slack and too unyielding and so empty of the flush of life that Levi had sworn himself to, had vowed to protect, before he shut the door. Even though now he could remember nothing of the weeks after, or of much else that day: not what he saw, not what was said when he saw the body brought back to the roof. Back to him. Back to what should have been safety. He remembered nothing of that day but for the way his own skin burned, how he could barely see beneath the blood, how he was ready, so ready, to drag him back to the hell they lived in, his last smile, the weightlessness that had seemed to envelop him as they had said goodbye. The peace in his eyes that Levi hadn’t seen in years. The fondness in his voice as he promised.
Nothing will keep me from returning to your side.
“You’ve never left,” Levi told him as he stepped forward. He settled beside him and didn’t mind as he sank into the deep burgundy brown that had soaked into the sheets and the mattress and the floor. For a moment he was afraid, hand hovering at the hem of his cloak. But he was here. They were here together. As he gently pulled it back, he felt relief flooding through his veins. He felt whole, just for a moment.
Levi felt a laugh rise through him. He felt at ease. He felt something like joy as he peeled the cloak away and revealed the whole of him laid cleanly, laid serenely, in what little remained of the clothes Levi had watched—had helped—him dress in on that morning. What remained of the straps of ODM gear draped across him and followed the contours of the man Levi could remember beneath his lips. In the deep of the darkest, luckiest nights, he could remember the taste of it. He could remember the ripple of the muscles beneath its skin. The gentleness of his calloused hands. He could remember the flush of ecstasy and the cool of moonlight as it flowed over him and settled in the hollow of his throat, lit the apples of his cheeks, turned his golden skin silver in the night. He traced his hand across his chest, remembering the rise and fall as he’d slept and his overtaking laughter that had become so rare at the end. He traced the shattered edges of what remained of his left side and followed the arc of each rib as they’d collapsed beside each other. Each link of bone up his spine had settled smoothly into line. And in the warm rust and gold of his bones, Levi found purpose. He realized that he had taken his hand only when he felt the roll of a knuckle knocked loose where his hand had settled in between his ribs in the now black sheets. Levi felt himself smile. He bent down, leaned and kissed the blackened silver band around his ring finger before it too came loose. He traced his thumb across the arc of bone where his cheek had once been, kissing him on the other, on the forehead, and he didn’t feel any disgust at the texture, at the smell, now only faint and earthy-sweet. Even through the dark of decay, his hair was still sun-gold in the few locks that remained. Walls, what beauty laid beneath him now. How could he be revolted by the state of him? I’m here, Love, Levi told him now in the reverent silence of the room. His voice was warm. It hung in the warm stillness surrounding them, safe in the near solitude of the upper room. I came back for you. He stood. He had work to do.
He removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Carefully, he peeled the cloak away and took it downstairs. Pepper watched him as he came outside with the half-rotten fabric draped across his arm and he made his way to well nearby—the one that saved Hange, he figured absently—where he drew water. As gently as he could, he washed the shroud. He wasn’t that surprised that it was still deeply stained but he was pleased that much of the black and thicker residue came free, much of the fabric’s structure remaining. He laid it out between the chairs in the dining room to dry. Levi looked outside to the dimming sky. He sighed. It was too late to do much more now.
He drew water for Pepper and took off her tack, deciding that instead of tying her up outside, she might be safer with them in the house. It was only practical. He led her in through the door and (knowing she would otherwise get up to no good) tied her in the living room. He scratched her on the cheek and bade her goodnight. He himself sat down at the desk in the upper room to try to eat the rations he had brought, hopeful he would end up with more of an appetite than he had. He couldn’t get much down He glanced over at him, smiling sheepishly, apoligizing—He wasn’t sure why, he told him. It’s a bit of a change for me not to be bossing you around, but I forget to do it myself. The sun had set. He was tired. He took off his boots, unbuckled his ODMG straps and draped them over the chair. He wouldn’t need them. It was safe here. They were safe together. Levi laid down, relaxing into the mattress beside him. He heard the quiet settling of his bones as again as they settled against each other—of his love embracing him, one more time—and in the remaining warmth and dim of the upper room, he slept.
He woke with the first rays of dawn, breathing deeply the earthy sweetness of the room around him. He opened his eyes to the sight of the man beside him, smiling as he saw how little he had shifted little overnight. He reached forward, kissing his shoulder, tracing his fingers across his collarbone, across his jaw. He sat up. He had work to do.
Pepper seemed to have done fine overnight and Levi was glad that the cloak had dried. He led his mare back outside, letting her graze again as he gathered up his supplies. He drew water for Pepper and for the washbasin he’d found, taking out the soap and rags he had brought. He went back upstairs with their basket. It had been Nanaba’s, he thinks, but it ended up passing through all of their hands freely. Carrying stacks of papers, tea and honey from the capitol, experiments and ledgers, food and blankets for rare picnics where they were all younger and a little freer. It carried bandages. It had been full of flowers and music for Moblit. It had held gear and casualty reports. It carried the bottles of wine to their wedding. Back in the upper room, Levi began to gather him up.
His bones were beautiful. Even with the black and rouged film that coated most, they were smooth beneath his fingers and their weight was soothing in his hands as he took every single one. Carefully, he soaked and scrubbed and rinsed every piece of him, every inch of him. The day passed before he knew it and the night came quietly. He stopped to finally eat, unhitching Pepper and leading her inside again. Carefully, Levi laid him out on the kitchen table. He glanced over his face, frowning at the remaining film on the inside, and he drew one last bucket of soapy water to soak him overnight. Levi apologized as he gathered the last pieces of him from the upper room. He gathered what he could of the blonde hair plastered to the pillow, laying each lock in the portrait case he carried in his breast pocket, promising to clean it later. He knew he still had quite a bit of work to do. He knew also, though, that he was tired. He didn’t want to hurt him. “We'll finish in the morning, Love,” he told him as he laid out his bedroll in the kitchen beside him. He slept.
When Levi work the next morning, he looked over him once again, picking out any piece of him that needed one more quick scrub and rinse. He was pleased that his skull came out far cleaner after its soak. Levi was only a little frustrated at how carefully he had to rinse the inside, glad that he had brought smaller brushes than his usual ones to get into the smallest cavities. He was careful. He spoke to him all the while, telling him about all their time apart. Eventually, though, he realized that there was nothing left to do. He sighed. It was time. He didn’t want it to be time.
Carefully, tenderly, he lined the case—Erwin’s 3DMG case—with his washed cloak, nestling his body in its confines. He stacked his ribs cleanly together, settled his legs and arm neatly beside each other, each single vertebrae lined beside them, pelvis nestled along his collarbones and shoulders, and he sang to him, spoke to him, said his name like a prayer—breathed it like it was sacred, like it was the way they’d breathed together, wept together, bled together, like it could suffocate the silence that was every moment of his life now, his life alone, his life without Erwin, unable to sleep in his own cold bed, unable to stomach the weightless dark of every moment, unable to close his eyes, unable to hear his own name from other lips without the dark and deep crushing silence of his life, now, alone. He felt untethered, unbound from his own skin, as he wrapped Erwin’s fingers, toes, and all the little shards remaining of his shattered ribs in one of Levi’s own cravats. On a sudden thought, Levi went back up and gathered up the lily petals, sprinkling them within. He would tell Hange of this, he thought. They would smile.
Levi’s hands were gentle as he settled his jaw carefully within, reaching now to his skull. We’re going home, he said, and for a moment—the first time—he was suddenly repulsed by the emptiness of what he cradled in his hands. He had cleaned each tooth, the contours of each cheekbone, the ridges of his brows, but Walls, how could this be the face of the man he loved? There was no private smile on lips shared between them. There was no light in his eyes, the color of the sea and sky. The angle of his jaw looked too severe, the arc of his regal nose was gone. They had long since rotted away. This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him.
But it was. The panic that had risen so suddenly in Levi’s heart ebbed away. His flesh had fallen away with slow grace just like he’d left him, he reminded himself. He had waited for Levi to return. He always did. He always would. This was him. He breathed deeply. Carefully, he touched their foreheads, kissed his cheeks, kissed his brows, kissed his forehead, and he dreamed of kissing his warm lips one last time.
“Let’s go home, Erwin,” he whispered. He settled his skull into the case, hand lingering on the smooth creamy white for one long moment before he nestled Erwin’s wedding band beside it. Levi carefully folded his cloak on top. His hands shook as the last glimpse of him was hidden, and the latching of the case was deafening to his ears.
Pepper nickered as they passed, and Levi let her butt her head into his shoulder. He scratched her cheek. She knew. She always knew. Maybe Erwin had been on to something all those years ago when he had brought Levi down to the stables to introduce him to the fierce young filly, full of fire with a head as hard as Levi’s. She knew him as well as he knew himself. Levi smiled. “Time to go, girl.”
The sun was shining. The breeze was sweet. Fall was coming. Levi took one last look at the small house, where he had slept, where his love’s silhouette remained, settled dark and soft in the bed of the upper room and now ingrained into the fabric of the house, of himself, of the empty space at Levi’s side, and he closed his eyes.
They went home.