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There wasn’t much luxury to speak of in the old castles outside the walls, fortresses nearly barren after having been deserted for probably hundreds of years. Only a few of them were still inhabitable, and it was those places which served as a safe haven for the military’s Survey Corps. The deepest, most fortified rooms of the castle were reserved for the commander and his immediate men—the lance corporal Levi and squad leader Hange among them. Space was limited, even for the Corps veterans. One room for strategizing and other business, and down the short, stone hallway one or two more spaces for beds to be made—that was all the luxury they were allowed while the cadets huddled together on the ground floor, mostly in the same main room where supplies were stored. The stone floors were less comfortable than the earth outside, but at least in here the soldiers were safe from the elements—and those aberrant Titans who still found themselves hungry when the sun went down.
As usual, Erwin and Levi were occupied in the room set up as a makeshift office, maps and Hange’s open journals spread out over a board serving as an equally makeshift table. As they tended to do, the two of them sat in contemplative silence while pouring over the notes—that is, until Hange burst through the door with all of her typical enthusiasm.
“Levi—“ she called, drawing out the last syllable and wearing a grin on her face that could only be described as maniacal.
He grunted in reply, barely turning his head to eye her over his shoulder.
“Come down the hall with me. I’ve got somethin’ to show you!”
She watched him look subtly to Erwin for permission, who nodded with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
Levi sighed, then pushed back from the desk and strode towards the door where Hange waited. It was nice to watch him down here, more at ease than he could be anywhere else while outside the walls. His cravat hung loose around his neck, flapping beneath his collar. She followed the white arch of his throat to the little hollow between his collarbones, let her gaze linger too long on the skin that teased her beneath a shirt half-unbuttoned.
“What, Four Eyes?”
The question brought her back from what she lovingly chose to call her “observations.” Her smile only widened, then she turned out the door with a little wave to Erwin before letting the heavy wooden door shut behind them both.
“Is this worth my time?”
“Mmmhm,” Hange assured.
She pushed open the door to one of the private rooms, where blankets lined the floor’s edges by the walls. In the middle was a metal tub, rusted a bit but full of water. A blanket of steam hovered above the surface.
“Cadets would kill for a minute or two in this,” Levi droned.
“Well you’re not a cadet. Don’t have to kill for it. Get in!”
Levi glanced down at his clothes, then back up to her.
Hange laughed. “What? You thought I was going to leave?” Instead, she lifted a cloth and little brown package wrapped with a string. Even through the paper, Hange could smell the strong scent of lavender.
“That’s?”
Her smirk was probably much too smug, but she felt she had the right to be. “Yep. Soap. Snuck a bit in with the supplies, just for you.”
“That’s excessive,” Levi quipped. “Wasteful.”
Hange rolled her eyes. “Get the hell in, Levi,” she deadpanned, clearly exasperated. She wondered how long it had been since someone had given Levi an order like that. He deserved to know what it felt like, every now and then. Erwin was too easy on him.
It was no great feat to find the conflict in eyes which feigned boredom. Hange knew him too well, had seen him open, honest, and undone too many times to be fooled by the facade he most often chose to wear. Besides, one didn’t have to know Levi well to understand how much he valued hygiene. His inability to bathe on a regular basis while on military excursions was perhaps his least favorite part of the missions.
The thing about Hange was that, when she wanted something, it was almost impossible to deny her. An attitude usually bubbly and eager could give way so quickly to something fearsome. Of course, she wouldn’t be holding Levi by the throat over a fifty-meter wall any time soon, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t scare him just a bit. That fire in her eyes, hidden behind lenses smudged with the day’s filth, gave way from passion to something else that demanded control. She embraced fully the intensity of her stare and made sure that not even Levi could escape her spell.
The cravat was the first to go.
Hange watched him slip the fabric from beneath his collar and drop it to the floor, his fingers nimbly turning to the buckle pulled taut across his chest and then drifting south to his waist and the straps on his thighs. When everything was loose, he pulled his shirt out from his pants and unfastened the remaining buttons down the front before shrugging the harness from his shoulders and stepping out of it with the practiced grace only a veteran could manage.
She smiled to let him know that she approved, but his only response was a little grunt and a sneer.
“Enjoying this too much, aren’t you?”
“Not too much,” Hange said while she watched his shirt fall to the floor and the white fabric of his pants slide down thighs abused by the strain of the harness around the delicate skin.
The sound of crinkling paper accompanied the sloshing of water, sounds that made Hange fondly remember the safety of home. Well, perhaps safety was not the best word to describe even life within the walls nowadays, but relative to their position out here in a crumbling castle deep within Titan territory, it sure seemed comfortable.
As much as he may have tried to hide it, Hange heard the little contented sigh Levi puffed out between his lips. His back was to her as his naked body slid down into the bathwater and he perched his arms on the sides of the tub. “Good, yeah?” Her words leaned more towards a statement that oozed “I told you so” rather than an actual question concerning the water’s temperature.
Levi hummed, and Hange knelt on the floor behind him. When she leaned forward to smell the sweet, coppery musk of exertion and campfire and blood on his neck, it was only a short move to reach her arms around him and dunk the cloth into the water. The other hand joined in a circle around Levi’s neck, lathering up the hunk of soap she had snuck in with her belongings, and she rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“You think I’m not capable of bathing myself, shitty glasses?”
“First,” Hange replied, sliding the soapy cloth over his arms and chest, “it’s not fair to call me that when we’re out here and I can’t even keep them clean. Second, maybe you should let me do something for you for once.”
She couldn’t see his face anymore, the way his eyebrows undoubtedly creased in the middle of his forehead and his lips turned down into a little frown; but observation was Hange’s specialty, and that was what she did now. She watched with great care as the tensed muscles of his back relaxed, little by little, beneath the massage of the cloth and her hands. Fingers that worked against the tightness in his shoulders explored and prodded their way up to his scalp—he leaned back into her touch, and she grinned.
“You are enjoying yourself.”
“Hm.”
Hange slicked his bangs back, gathered the dark and oily hair to the top of his head, and washed the grime away. Levi slid further into the tub, relaxed, and Hange wore a shameless, triumphant grin that she had no qualms flashing when the door to the private room creaked open and the commander poked his head inside.
“Levi,” he began, his voice holding his usual deep-toned urgency. “I’d like your—“
He locked eyes with Hange and with his lance corporal, and Hange’s eyebrow twitched up. Full of mischief, she said, “He’ll be there in a minute. You’re welcome to the water when I’m done with him.”
“Don’t answer for me,” Levi protested, but he silenced himself when Erwin smiled knowingly and disappeared from the doorway.
Hange let her lips brush against Levi’s ear. “I’ll answer for you if I like,” she whispered hotly. “You’re just embarrassed.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“It’s not like he doesn’t know.” Sometimes, Hange felt that Levi was even closer to Erwin than he was to her, at least in some ways.
“Obviously,” Levi answered.
Hange giggled and splashed lavender-scented water in his face. “Because you talk about me all the time?”
Levi twisted himself in the tub to retaliate. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not a romantic.”
“But you are mine.” Hange pushed a single finger beneath Levi’s chin and pressed her nose to his. She didn’t expect a kiss, didn’t plan to kiss him—not now, not here on an expedition when they could only focus on the surrounding dangers rather than each other. RIght then, in that musty castle and an old metal bathtub, it was the closeness that mattered.
“Guess so.”
Levi’s admittance was all Hange needed. To Levi, “guess so” was just as good as “yes.”