Work Text:
“There,” Hange announces, lifting the mission slip—or rather, the very flimsy excuse for two surviving soldiers to ride past the gates together—between two fingers. “Resource collection mission.”
Levi stares at them. You stare at Levi. The silence lengthens enough for Hange to clear their throat and stare back expectantly.
“Resource collection?” Levi repeats, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Yes,” Hange says brightly. “Very important resources. Grass. Air. Possibly dirt. Emotional vulnerability, if either of you happens to stumble across it.”
You smile before you can stop it, and Levi’s eyes cut toward you so quickly that you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from laughing outright. He’s not embarrassed—not entirely. But you still see the faintest color creeping up his cheekbones.
“This is a waste of time,” he says.
“And yet,” Hange replies, leaning back in their chair with a grin, “you asked for permission two days ago.”
Levi almost kills Hange with his glare. Meanwhile, your heart stumbles as you look at him. You hadn’t known that part. You thought this was mere happenstance. You didn’t realize that he had listened and remembered when you talked about the idea of exploring the open plains now that they were finally free. You didn’t know he’d made plans.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Levi mutters, though he doesn’t look at you when he says it.
“Like what?” you ask, too gleeful already. Levi just scowls and looks away.
Hange slaps the paper into his hand. “Try to be back before dark. Collect responsibly. No dying. No making me file paperwork. And Levi?” He pauses at the door, already halfway to escape. Hange’s grin widens. “Have fun on your date.”
“It’s not a date,” Levi says immediately.
You follow him into the corridor, smiling, and hear Hange call after you, “That’s exactly what someone on a date would say!” Levi doesn’t respond, but the tips of his ears turn a deep shade of red.
Outside, the horses are already saddled. Levi checks the girth on your saddle, then the stirrups, then the girth again.
“You checked that already,” you say.
“Then it won’t kill me to check it again.”
“I survived Shiganshina. I think I can survive a saddle.”
His hand stops for a brief moment, his eyes lifting to yours. You hate when you forget that these jokes have ghosts attached to them. You see the faint worry in his eyes, as if recalling the memories of that fateful day.
“I know,” he says at last. Not the most comforting words, but you know he means it. He knows you survived. He knows what it cost. He knows survival doesn’t always mean the same thing as being alive afterward.
You mount before you can overthink it. Levi swings into his saddle with grace, gathering his reins. The ride out of Wall Rose is silent. Once, the Scouts rode through gates and fields under flares and orders and screams and the knowledge that enormous beings waited beyond them to devour them. Now, everything feels almost ordinary. The smell of the damp earth. The grass swaying. The sound of hooves striking the road.
When you pass through the outer checkpoint with Hange’s mission slip, the guards barely glance at it before waving you through. You look over at Levi, the wind catching your cloak as the road opens into the wide, reclaimed stretch of Wall Maria’s fields. You find him looking ahead with his mouth set into a straight line. But you know under the apathy, Levi is afraid. Afraid the world will come back to blow out the flame of hope he’s been guarding.
The fields are greener than you remember. They shouldn’t be here, some grieving part of you thinks. After everything that happened here, after the blood soaked into the soil and the screams vanished into the sky, the grass shouldn’t have the audacity to grow this bright, this alive. And yet it does.
You grip your reins a little tighter. Levi draws his horse closer. You don’t look at him when you say, “I keep waiting to hear footsteps.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and you know he understands what you mean. “You won’t.”
You ride until the road fades into grass and the horses grow impatient beneath you, eager for open land. Maybe you should be cautious. Maybe you should ride slowly. You know better than to trust an empty horizon. But you lean forward, press your heels in, and your horse surges ahead. Behind you, Levi makes a sound of disgust.
“Seriously?” he says.
You look back. “What? It’s a resource collection mission! I’m collecting joy!”
“Joy isn’t a resource.”
“Says who?”
“Says anyone with a working brain.”
His horse catches up with yours. Your laughter breaks free, echoing into the field as the horses run side by side through the grass.
“I can’t believe you planned a date!” you laugh.
“It’s not a date,” he says.
“What is it, then?”
“A route.”
“A route with food.”
Levi glances down at his saddlebags. “Soldiers eat.”
“With no squad.”
“Squads are loud.”
“With me.”
He doesn’t have anything to say at first. The wind rushes between you, blowing through your hair, stinging your eyes. Levi looks at you for half a second before he faces forward again. His silence is warmer than it should be.
You stop near a low hill overlooking the fields, where the grass bends in long ripples. The wall is far behind you, though you can still see it. Still, it no longer feels like a prison. Levi chooses the place, because even now, he wants a clear view of the land around you. The lunch is simple when he pulls it out after sitting down: bread, cheese, dried fruit, and tea in a flask. It’s still warm.
“You made tea for a fake mission?” you ask.
Levi unwraps the bread. “Civilization didn’t survive this long for us to drink garbage.”
“You’re saying the tea is patriotic?”
“I’m saying shut up and drink it.”
You take the flask, your fingers brushing his. His hand doesn’t pull away right away, and neither does yours. You don’t speak. He doesn’t speak. You exist in silence for a few lengthy moments, but it’s not empty. It’s full of everything you can’t say. The names of the dead. The impossible fact that you’re both here. The miracle of sunlight on your skin, warming you and softening Levi’s face until he looks younger.
“I didn’t think we’d get this,” you say eventually.
Levi looks toward the field, the flask clutched in his hands. “A fake mission?”
You huff a laugh. “This. Quiet. Bad flirting.”
“My flirting isn’t bad.”
You look down at the cheese in your hand, smiling a little. “I didn’t think I’d see Wall Maria like this from the outside again.”
Levi’s expression shifts, just slightly. “You said something like that once.”
“I did?”
“After Shiganshina. You were half conscious in the infirmary. Kept mumbling about open fields.”
A flush rises to your face. “I said a lot of embarrassing things in the infirmary.”
“You asked if you could use my cravat as a cast.”
“It could be.”
“It’s not.”
“I was wounded. You can’t hold that against me.”
“I can do whatever I want.” Then he looks at you, and his gaze softens ever so slightly. “You kept looking at the gates after we came back.” His thumb shifts against the flask, a small nervous movement from a man who would rather face a Titan unarmed than say something sweet. “Thought you should get a chance to see it.”
You feel your heart crack open. Levi must see the ache inside you, because he looks away immediately. “You’re crazy,” you whisper.
He frowns. “That’s what you got from that?”
“No.” You set the cheese aside and reach for his hand in the grass, giving him enough time to pull away if he so wishes. He doesn’t. His palm turns upward beneath yours, calloused and warm, and when your fingers lace through his, he exhales softly. “This is a date.”
“Tch.”
“...Resource collection date?”
“I’m leaving you here.”
“You’d miss me.”
He grips your hand tighter. The answer comes after a long pause. “Yeah. I would.”
You lean against his shoulder. He stays still beneath you, his body tense for only a moment before he relaxes. You could stay in this moment forever, this safety, this romance, this peace.
The sun lowers by the time you get back on the horses. The grass looks touched by fire, golden and bright. Before mounting, you look at the empty saddlebags on your horse and smile.
“Hange is going to ask what resources we collected,” you say.
Levi adjusts his reins. “Tell them dirt.”
“We didn’t collect dirt.”
“There’s dirt on your boots.”
You swing into the saddle, laughing. “That’s your official report?”
“My official report is going to say the mission was uneventful.”
“Uneventful?”
He looks at you across the narrow space between your horses. His eyes are silver-blue in the evening light. For a moment, you think he might say something that neither of you are prepared to hear, but he guides his horse closer and takes your hand for a brief second.
“Successful,” he corrects.
“Successful,” you repeat.
Levi doesn’t look at you when he answers, but you see the small twitch at the corner of his mouth when he says, “Yeah. Worth the paperwork.”