Chapter Text
He writes them everywhere; on scraps of paper, receipts, the back of envelopes, on draft reports, on letters of condolence blotched and spoiled with ink and worse. Poems, verses, lines, fragments. The last vestige of the humanity he swore he’d set aside long since. Shadows and shards of the boy he used to be, the man he might once have become. It stops them from leaking through the Commander’s implacable façade. He writes them without thinking, the words tumbling from his mind, flowing out of his pen. He writes them to exorcize his pain and his humanity. Then he sets them aside, locks them away and never looks at them again. Their job is done and he turns back to his reports.
Levi finds the fragments, scattered among the papers littering Erwin’s desk, one or two, here and there, then more and more and more. He recognises the hand as being Erwin’s, though the lines, the words, make little sense. But somehow the voice is unmistakably Erwin. More Erwin than Erwin himself. Filled with pain and joy and hope, with love, despair, desire. All the emotions the Commander will not allow himself. And woven through them all black wings and white, cool grey eyes and fate that falls with the speed and grace of a diving hawk. The words filter into Levi’s memory and stick there, some like honey, some like splinters, some sharp and painful as shards of glass.
~~
Levi knows he is loosing Erwin. Has known it for months. He can feel him receding, slipping away as the realisation of his dream draws closer and closer, almost within reach. Levi can see the weight of it bearing down on him and when the strength of his arms can no longer hold Erwin and the heat of his body can not reach him, Levi begins to despair. He despairs that he has no words, curses his coarse clumsy tongue that only knows how to threaten and curse.
But Levi has other words, Erwin’s words.
~~
It’s the last night. They leave for Shiganshina in the morning.
Levi lies beside Erwin in the darkness and runs his fingers over the taught planes of his back. He will not turn to him. So Levi begins to speak, hesitant at first, stumbling over the words, familiar as his own thoughts, but foreign on his tongue. Words that crowd his every waking hour but which he never speaks. It’s odd to hear them now. Erwin lies motionless, still and silent. Then he curls his head forward on the pillow and his shoulder start to shake. Levi keeps talking, the words falling from his tongue, the only sound besides Erwin’s hitching breath.
Eventually the stream of words dries up and Erwin turns, gazes at Levi, eyes blurry in the dim light of morning, then he seizes him and holds him so tightly that Levi fears his ribs will crack. He can barely breathe, but Erwin holds on. Holds on like he is the last sold thing in the world, his last lifeline, his last hope.
~~
In the end all Levi has left are the words.
~~
They make it back. Against all the odds they make it back alive. Levi, Hanji and the tattered remnant of the 104th. They leave behind the flames of hope and the symbol of humanity.
When they return, Levi goes straight to Erwin’s office to clear out his papers. Hanji tells him to wait, to give himself time, there’s no hurry, but Levi insists.
He lifts the scraps of paper from the bottom drawer and lays them out in front of the hearth where he kindles a fire. He knows them all by heart but he reads each verse, each line, each word one last time before feeding them to the flames. As the scraps of paper curl and burn the fragile threads that are holding the broken parts of him together start to snap, one by one by one. He keeps a single fragment, about black wings and white. By morning the hearth is filled with cold grey ashes that settle and sigh in the grate as Levi leaves the office and closes the door behind him.
~~
It’s the evening of the following day when the fourteenth Commander of the Survey Corps realises the Captain is not coming back.
Hanji lets themself into Levi’s quarters. The room is pristine, immaculate as only Levi’s quarters could be. His jacket is hanging over the back of a chair. Inside the breast pocket a crumpled badge and a torn piece of paper covered with Erwin’s elegant cursive script.
The bed is carefully made, not a wrinkle in the sheets or covers and folded neatly on top of the pillow is a white shirt, old and worn soft as butter. A shirt too large for a man of Levi’s stature, with a single faded ink stain on the sleeve.