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Hange sees Levi sleeping. He doesn’t react to her presence even when she’s inches away from him breathing the same air. It’s the first time she’s ever seen it; every other time she found him watching her after a moment or two, lips pulled down, skin furrowed between his brows. Somehow she had almost allowed herself to believe that Levi only needed to rest his eyes to keep going. It’s relieving, somehow, to know that his body requires sleep like everyone else’s, that he is no different from her in that way, that they are most limited by the flesh that encases their souls, if they are to believe in souls.
What is strange is knowing, logically, that they need more than this, more than a brief respite of dreamless sleep now and again; will they ever find it? She doesn’t know; there are too many things she doesn’t know but should—and would know if she wasn’t just as limited by her body as Levi is by his.
She doesn’t cover him with a blanket though the night promises to be cool; perhaps it’s silly to be afraid that the action will startle him, will ruin his delicate rest, but he rarely allows himself to sleep deeply enough that he doesn’t feel her breath on his cheek. So she leaves, making an effort, for the first time in ages, to make her footfalls light.
Levi sees Hange sleeping. She’s slumped over her desk, the side of her face pressed to a leatherbound book as though it’s a suitable substitute for a pillow. It isn’t, but if she can find even a spark of restfulness tonight despite the flickering candlelight and the nightmares that lurk just around the corner, then that’s what really matters. Most people stare at the ceiling from their bed until they fall asleep, but Hange’s never been good at doing that. She gets restless after expeditions, agitated and antsy; she has to read, has to take notes, has to feel that she has some control—like maybe if she learns enough she can take care of everyone and keep them safe forever.
It’s not a bad sort of dream; Levi can admit that, behind all the walls he’s built to protect himself, he’d like to help make it happen.
He lifts Hange’s glasses from their precarious perch at the very end of her nose and sets them aside. The candle catches his attention from its place at the corner of her desk where it sits, lopsided and still burning, bending slightly in the breeze that comes in from the window. He leans over to blow it out, and takes note, in the instant before the room grows dark, of how the light plays differently across the planes of her face when her glasses are not there to reflect it.