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The knife has a wooden handle and a slightly jagged edge; a gift from Kenny, if you can call it that. Something Kenny slams down on the table with a gruff, “It’s yours,” with no preamble or further comment. But Levi knows by now that the look Kenny gives him means so take care of it and so keep it on you . And he knows to sleep with it under his pillow, because you never fuckin’ know .
Kenny has a habit of disappearing for days sometimes, and maybe that’s what makes Levi do it the first time, at eleven years old, the fact that he’s fucking lonely and really fucking hungry too. Doesn’t help that the room smells like sewage and he can’t quite get the dirt from under his fingernails; it all adds up to it, the filth, the hunger, the cold that seeps in from under the door. So he stares at his knife and, very slowly, presses it to his skin; nothing more than a slight nick.
Blood beads at the top of the small line. It should disgust him, as any bodily fluid does, but he feels nothing, just an emptiness where the anger had been. Experimentally, he presses a bit harder, drags the blade across a bit faster, and watches blood pooling from the wound. It calms him somehow, the action and the result; watching the red trickle down his arm and pressing harder still to really make it hurt . He feels numb, fingers tingling, something akin to consolation pressing in his chest at the sight of his own arm bleeding and stinging; a buzz in his brain making him light-headed.
He belatedly remembers he needs to contain the bleeding somehow when the drops drip on the floor, and he presses an old shirt against his arm. He’ll figure out a way to wash it before Kenny comes back.
After a particularly bad fight with some thug one day, Kenny’s patching him up, muttering around his lit cigarette, something about dumbass brats and whatever else; Levi’s not really listening outside of his own fuming. He could’ve taken that asshole, he swears he could’ve.
He presses the cloth Kenny’s thrust into his hands to his bleeding nose, and his sleeve rolls up slightly, revealing his bony wrists. He doesn’t think anything of it until he sees Kenny pause and take a hold of his arm roughly, lifting it up to eye at it.
“This what ya been usin’ the knife I gave ya for?” he asks, not kindly; pushing the sleeve up further to look at the thin cuts climbing up all the way to Levi’s inner elbow. Sudden embarrassment floods him, makes him squirm against Kenny’s grip and try to pull his hand back -- but his grip is relentless, and the longer he looks, the redder Levi can feel his face coloring. The revulsed scrutiny in Kenny’s face burns him and etches itself into his brain.
He releases Levi’s arm eventually and stands up, blowing out cigarette smoke. “Just make sure not to press too fuckin’ hard. Runt.”
He was careful after that, but when Kenny leaves and doesn’t come back this time, he doesn’t have to be. He cuts up his arm, worse than he’s ever done before, and spends the night wrapping it in gauze he’d stolen.
--
Farlan and Isabel don’t ask about it, because Levi doesn’t let them. He wears long sleeves and makes sure to hide his special knife well, anything to keep him from feeling that shame and judgement again about the habit he’s accumulated. And it is a habit; something he just needs to do, something that helps ease his mind and lessen the pressure and tightness in his chest that he can’t control otherwise. His forearm is covered, some thick and deep and some less so, some pink or deep purple and some long white. A lot of them not treated properly.
But they don’t need to know that.
(He can see Farlan looking at him sometimes, though, out of the corner of his eye. But he pretends not to notice, pretends to keep doing whatever it is unbothered, whether it’s brushing Isabel’s hair or cleaning their living space, or polishing his other knives he doesn’t use for this . It’s not like it’s anything to worry about, anyway, it’s not like it’s anything serious -- and it’s none of their business, either way. Who cares what he does to himself, as long as he still does the things that need to be done? But it’s just that burning embarrassment he remembers, that disgust, that keeps him from ever showing his wrists, ever letting them touch him too much.
And when life takes them Above, to the Survey Corps, when his family dies on their very first expedition and Erwin Smith tells Levi to fight for humanity, he climbs on the roof that night back inside the walls; gripping his shaving razor tightly. He once again goes against what Kenny told him all those years ago, presses too hard and goes too deep, doesn’t keep track of how many times he swipes the razor against his arm, quick and methodical.)
--
Levi’s so used to his wounds that, sometimes, he doesn’t even think about them anymore. That’s why he slips, why he absentmindedly pushes up his shirt sleeves when he’s cleaning Erwin’s office one day (because the bastard doesn’t do it himself) and sliding a soaped sponge across the dirty floor. Hange’s leaning against the wall next to him, ranting to him about some experiment or another, some titan theory of theirs that they’re yet to bring up to Erwin.
They stop abruptly and Levi doesn’t register the silence at first until they speak up again. “What’re those?”
Automatically, Levi yanks his sleeves down. “What.”
“On your arm. Are those scars?”
“No.”
Hange doesn’t say anything for a long time, enough to make Levi uncomfortable, so he keeps scrubbing, mindful of his sleeves now lest they get wet.
They hesitate for a moment longer and then lean down closer to him, just slightly, lowering their voice. “...Are you suicidal?”
Levi can’t keep his scoff down, not with that idea; has he not been fighting tooth and nail to stay alive, to get out of that hellhole he called a home once, to get out of these walls? Has he not eaten out of trash cans and drunk sewage water just to stop his stomach from eating itself, even considered eating the fucking diseased rats just to have something substantial? He is not suicidal ; his nature is to survive, to fight and fight until you physically can’t anymore, to walk through fire just because someone’s pointing a gun at you and the former is a better option. His body is stubborn and it refuses to die.
No, this is -- this is just relief. The brief absence of something ugly inside of him that keeps clawing its way out of his throat.
He’s silent for too long because Hange grabs his shoulder to stop him from scrubbing the same spot over and over. “Levi.”
He closes his eyes for a second before dropping the sponge and leaning back on his heels, not looking at them. “I’m not suicidal.”
Their hold on him falters before tightening again, determination in their grip. “Then what is this ? What--”
“It’s not a big deal,” Levi interrupts. He wipes at his face with his forearm. It’s hot in here, he’s not even done with this room. “It’s just something I do. Did. Whatever. It’s not a big deal,” he repeats, with finality.
It’s not enough for them. “Have you told Erwin?”
That makes him finally look up at them incredulously. “Why the fuck would I tell him?”
Hange looks at him, contemplative, worrying, pitying , and Levi hates to be pitied. “Have you told anyone ?” At Levi’s continued silence, they fix their glasses and run a hand through their messy hair, probably filthy too, and Levi tracks the motion with his eyes just to have something else to look at, to do.
“You know,” they start, “there’re doctors for this kind of thing.” Levi bristles. “I could--”
“I am not going to some fucking shrink , Hange.” He turns back to his scrubbing, squeezes out dirty water out of the sponge and tries to direct his anger at the floor, at the same spot he had been so focused on before. “I’m fine. Just forget it.” A thought occurs to him. “And you are not telling Erwin.”
He’s snapping purely out of his embarrassment and the slight panic simmering in his chest, voice harsh and unforgiving even though Hange doesn’t deserve it. But he can feel the way they keep staring, can imagine the revulsion in their eyes now that he’s not looking; how they think that he needs a shrink and that he’s unreliable, unstable. He can almost feel the ghost of Kenny’s fingers gripping his wrist, that iron-cold stare and deep disdain.
He doesn’t need a fucking doctor .
He hears Hange inhale slowly, feels their hand squeezing his shoulder one more time before slipping away, standing next to him in silence as he keeps cleaning.
He stands in his own bathroom later that night, in his own room he was granted after being promoted to Captain, gripping the basin with one hand and swirling the razor in the other. The stress is making him indecisive, unsure, the conversation with Hange replaying in his head. What if they do tell someone? What if they report him? Drag him off to some hospital and he gets locked up for life--
He returns to his bedroom and slips the razor back deep under the mattress, digging his nails hard into his scarred arm.
--
Three weeks pass and Hange doesn’t say another word about it. But the different way they look at him, the way their eyes stray to his covered forearms puts Levi on edge, makes him antsy and more irritable than normal. Even the other soldiers keep stealing glances at him and asking what’s wrong, and he just waves them off, goes to scratch at his arm furiously.
Who the fuck cares? That’s what he’s been saying for years. Isabel and Farlan, they could mind their own business, as long as he himself was careful. But he doesn’t know it up here. And that’s what Kenny told him, taunted him with -- a stupid thing to do if you ever went Above. People get locked away for even smaller things. Not that he should listen to anything that old fuck had to say, but -- it doesn’t hurt to be careful. That’s why he still sleeps with a knife under his pillow. Just in case.
But it’s been over a month now and he feels itching under his skin, this prickling sensation that doesn’t go away, that restlessness he’s been trying to ease by training. He feels like crawling out of his skin, that too-familiar tightness inside his ribcage suffocating him, that pressure in his head.
So he sits against the bed in his room, once again twirling his razor around, watching, thinking. Looking at his arm that has no traces of fresh wounds anymore, most of them purpling or fading now. Can’t even explain why that makes him angry.
(Hange could, maybe. But like hell he’s going to them about this.
Their words echo in his head again. Suicidal .)
He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there, just contemplating, when there’s a knock, and that’s when he realizes he didn’t remember to lock the door.
He rips the razor away from his skin just as Erwin steps into the room, brows furrowing immediately as he takes in the state of him, sitting on the floor shirtless with his knees up to his chest and probably as white as a sheet as he feels like he’s been doused in cold water.
“Levi?”
“The fuck are you doing, barging in here,” he rasps, that freezing panic rising up and making his throat tight. Erwin’s eyes roam across his body, fixing on his mangled arm that he presses to his side tightly as he grabs his discarded shirt from the bed.
“...I thought I should talk to you-- about choosing your own squad members.”
“Oh yeah?” He pulls his shirt on, doesn’t miss the way Erwin’s voice is calm and placating, as if Levi’s some cornered animal ready to fight or flee. It pisses him off, it makes him nervous all at once. And his arm is covered; but Erwin’s already seen him, has already looked at him with a face so unreadable that Levi’s sure he’s already planning on discharging him, shipping him off to some facility for being this much of a disgrace -- he can hear Kenny’s mocking voice as if he were here; the greatest weapon, Humanity’s Strongest slicing himself open like--
His heart is pounding and he has no idea what the fuck to do.
Erwin’s quiet for a moment, and it reminds Levi of that confrontation with Hange, of their careful silence and that silent judgement Levi knows is there.
Then: “Are you cutting yourself?”
“What kind of a fucking question is that,” he snaps immediately, mumbling, gritting his teeth, everything falling apart on him and that stifling embarrassment threatening to overtake him. His face feels hot. And it’s not-- he shouldn’t care , because this is nothing. People down Below would cut off their own limbs if their existence became too much for them. What is this in comparison? He still does his duties, he trains, he kills titans. He does everything he’s supposed to and he does it well.
He’s taken off guard when Erwin sits next to him on the floor, enough to turn his head to look at him. He expects what he always does: disgust, revulsion. Maybe anger, even. Distrust. Levi’s ready to snap at him again for it -- but Erwin’s eyes have nothing of the sort in them. Just emotions Levi can’t begin to name. Compassion, maybe? …But that’s too out there to be the case. Not understanding, either. Just something that makes him shift uncomfortably, makes him avert his eyes again.
“The fuck are you staring at.”
“The medical team has treated a few people who do this,” Erwin says, and Levi presses his hand to a fist. “When they’re in pain.”
It makes something unpleasant churn in Levi’s stomach, that ugly thing howling and gnawing on his insides. “It ain’t pain ,” he spits in spite of it. In spite of not knowing whether that’s even true or not.
Erwin’s not deterred. “I’m just saying, you’re not the first, Levi. It gets to you. Doing and seeing what we do.”
“It’s not the titans . Fuck. I just--” He takes a deep breath, exhales harshly, “-- do this.” He goes on, face still too hot, “You don’t have to fucking analyze it.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Alright.”
Maybe it’s the quiet that gets to him, how Erwin’s just sitting there, just waiting patiently for something . Like he knows Levi’s going to break eventually, because he knows Levi can’t stand the silence. But-- he’s never talked about this with anyone, how the fuck could he? How could he begin to explain what this is? That relief and calm he feels all over his body when he does this, the only time he really doesn’t have to think at all.
“I just do this , alright?” he says then, not looking at Erwin, not doing anything. “It doesn’t affect how I do my job. So just-- forget it, yeah? It’s not a big deal anyway. I told Hange--”
“Hange knows?”
“Not by my choice , but yeah. But I told them , just forget about it. It’s fine. So you don’t-- you don’t have to just keep sitting there.” He chances a look at Erwin’s face, finds him looking down at him with that same expression from moments before, that maybe-not-compassion but not-quite-understanding either, just something else. “And I don’t-- I’m still capable of doing my shit,” he adds quickly. “I can handle my own squad. You know, if you say no to that now then it’s gonna be a fucking problem--”
“I’m not doubting your abilities,” Erwin interrupts him. “Not at all. And I’m sitting here, not as your superior but as your friend.” He pauses, like he senses that Levi needs time to absorb his words. “And as your friend-- I’m saying, you can talk to me. If you’d like.”
There’s silence again. Levi’s clenching and unclenching his fists, probably visibly uncomfortable, because he doesn’t do this either. He doesn’t do talking. Not about his feelings, or--
Isabel, she talked a lot, she was an open book and they helped her whenever she was in trouble or feeling too much. Farlan opened up to him too, sometimes, when it was late at night and they lay in bed together. The Underground wasn’t a place for feelings, but at night, they could pretend they were somewhere else, like maybe some one else.
Could he do that with Erwin? His friend -- he didn’t have many. Never did. Farlan and Isabel, they all just fell into each other naturally, it made sense to stick together. And then they were family. It feels foreign to think of that with Hange, or Erwin now. But Erwin’s still looking at him with those eyes, gentle almost, patient, that Levi feels his shoulders relaxing, just a fraction. He digs his nails against his arm again, subtle but not unnoticed by Erwin, and looks up at him once, quickly.
“...Okay.”