Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There hadn’t been much point in attending the Scouting Legion’s public announcement of the expedition; Eren was already aware of all the pertinent details. But he’d gone anyway and dragged Armin with him to the square (not that Armin had needed much persuading.) The Scouting Legion rarely made grand declarations, but this was a moment for all of humanity to be proud of. For the first time since the fall of Maria, the Scouting Legion was going beyond the Walls. And not just for a brief survey—they were going to properly explore the outside world. Of course, the first few ventures were mostly going to be for setting up supply lines, but eventually they’d move farther and farther away from the Walls. It was everything Eren had dreamed of ever since he was a kid, when Armin first showed him and Mikasa his family’s books. So what if he already knew what the announcement was. He was going to hear it for himself!

But, as it turned out, Eren was not as well-informed as he thought.

After the speakers finished their statements and the crowd began to disperse, Eren kept his eyes pinned to the familiar figure retreating through the masses. Armin followed his line of sight and understood immediately.

“Meet me back by the south fountain?” he suggested.

Eren nodded and then began weaving his way between all of the people, careful not to lose sight of the small green cloak. He silently thanked the goddesses for the extra centimeters he’d grown in the last few years that allowed him to see over the crowd. It didn’t take him long to be within shouting distance of his target.

“Cap—” Eren began to call out. Levi glanced over his shoulder as Eren realized his mistake. "Ah, Major," he corrected himself, quickening his pace to narrow the gap between them. Levi crooked one finger and moved out of the flood to stand against a building. Eren joined him. The crowd was thinning but still quite noisy; Eren stepped close to Levi so they wouldn't have to yell at one another. Even still, Eren had to lean over slightly to hear him.

"What is it?"

“You're not going on the expedition?” Eren blurted, then winced. It was a dumb question, after all—no, not even a question. The fact that Major Levi was staying behind had been made quite evident during the announcement. From his slightly arched eyebrow, Eren could tell that Levi was thinking the same thing, so he amended his question to what he'd really meant to ask.

“Why aren't you going?”

Levi scoffed. “Have you ever known me to leave a mess for later? Maria is a catastrophe right now; someone has to stay behind to clean it up.”

Eren supposed that made sense—although the reconstruction of Wall Maria’s interior was more closely aligned with the Garrison’s duties, the territory was still under the Scouting Legion’s authority. Since it was foolhardy to send the entire legion out beyond the Walls on such a long-term expedition (from which, frankly, they may not return), a portion of the scouts were staying behind to team up with the Garrison. Still, Eren had never considered that Levi would be tapped for such an assignment or that he would volunteer for it, as it sounded as though he had.

“But...don't you want to see everything beyond the Walls?”

It was hard to tell with all the noise, but Eren thought he heard Levi sigh. “Maybe after someone else has paved the way.” Levi frowned, gazing off into the crowd. “I'm too old to be a pioneer.”

Eren wasn’t going to argue the “old” part—most scouts never even reached their thirties— but he had to point out: “Hange is older than you and they're going.” Hell, Hange was the fourteenth Commander of the Scouting Legion—they were leading the expedition.

“Yeah, but that four-eyes has way more energy than I do.” Levi leaned against the building behind them, folded his arms over his chest, and stared down at his crossed feet. He was silent for a while, but Eren waited patiently for his next words. Eventually, he murmured, “I need a break,” and Eren took another step forward. Levi peered up at him through his bangs. “I'm tired, Eren.”

Eren knew. Killing Titans had always been a difficult, nasty task, but after the discovery made at Ragako Village...the years since had been hard on everybody. Perhaps Levi more than anyone. It was a shock to some and Eren had been somewhat surprised too when he realized, but Levi truly valued human life. Soldier or farmer or thief, it didn’t matter—Levi mourned them all in his own quiet way. The sick knowledge that the monsters he had been slaying so skillfully were unwilling human victims weighed heavily on him. It hadn’t stopped him from doing his job or being Humanity’s Strongest, but it kept him up later at night and made him linger longer when cleaning. Eren knew that Levi was tired; he’d seen it for himself.

“I'm going,” Eren said finally.

Levi shifted his weight ever so slightly and turned his head. “I figured you would.”

Eren hesitated, but in the end he spoke. Levi appreciated bluntness, after all. “…I'll miss you.”

Levi’s face was still turned away, but Eren had served with Levi for almost four years so he knew what to look for: tension seeping from his shoulders, chin dipping just a bit, a slight loosening in one cheek. Eren didn’t need to see the minute softening of his expression to know that Levi was pleased.

Levi pushed off the wall and stood straight. “This first expedition is only for three months, right?” Eren nodded, though it hadn’t really been a question. Levi tapped him on the chest with his knuckles. “Stay safe and when you get back you can tell me about everything you saw.”

“Yes, sir!” He glanced up at the large clock face that loomed over the square. “I need to—Armin is waiting for me.”

“Go.”

But Eren ignored the dismissal. “Could I see you before I leave, Major?” he requested.

“Fine. Dinner, two days from now. Seven o’clock. Meet me at my office.” Levi waved one hand at him, as though shooing a dog. “Now go on. I’ve got shit to do.”

Eren snapped a quick salute, then pressed back into the crowd. He headed south, feet taking over while his mind spun. The idea of riding out on an expedition without Levi was somewhat…disquieting. Eren hadn’t required a keeper for some time, but even after the court order was lifted Levi always kept Eren at his side whenever possible. “I like routine,” he explained once. It'd been at one of the many bases they'd visited—a frigid night after a terrible mission. Eren found Levi still awake despite the hour, drinking tea at the table beside the fireplace. “Change is troublesome.”

And maybe that was true. But as Eren had gotten older, he’d not only grown taller but also better at picking up subtleties. Eren didn't know how many comrades Levi had lost during his military service (or even the years before he joined), but he knew from his own experience that even a single person gone was too many. So he'd sat down on the bench with his right side gently pressed against Levi's left, claiming to be cold and that Levi was hogging all of the warmth from the crackling flames. It was a weak excuse—Levi was well aware that Eren's Shifter body poured out heat like a furnace—but Levi allowed it.

Despite Levi’s confession of being tired, Eren was surprised that Levi wasn’t itching to spread his wings beyond the Walls like he was. Most everyone who joined the Scouting Legion did so at least partly out of a thirst for knowledge. But if the rumors were true, then Levi’s circumstances for enlisting might have been completely different.  

Besides, Eren knew better now than to try to fit his way of thinking onto everyone else’s. For Eren, the world beyond the Walls meant freedom from the prison he’d been trapped in since birth. If he could see the ocean or the fields of ice or mountains churning out fire, then his spirit could finally fly from its cage. However, Eren had sensed before that for Levi, freedom was not such a simple thing. What Levi’s freedom was, Eren had no idea. But apparently it wasn’t to be found outside the Walls.

His feet carried him through the mass of stragglers and down the blocks to where Armin waited at the fountain. His bright blond hair was easy to spot, especially with fewer people around. From across the courtyard, Armin locked eyes with him and Eren raised his hand in greeting, still pondering Levi’s assignment.

Deep in thought as he was, he didn't notice the shadow passing over the rooftops, tracking his progress along the streets. No one noticed. No one saw the sharp glint of sunlight reflecting off the metal of a rifle. When the bullet ripped through Eren's head, he didn't even feel any pain. He did hear the gunshot, a loud unmistakable bang that echoed through the courtyard. That wasn't anything special though—everyone heard the gunshot. But only Eren saw Armin's blue eyes widen in horror as his legs crumbled beneath him, blood and gore striking the street.

Then the world went white, and Eren knew no more.

This is more of a prologue than anything else. If this chapter left you with any questions, I promise that all will be revealed in time.

Please note that the rank structure of the Scouting Legion doesn't make much sense to me (just what exactly does "Squad Leader" and "Commander" equal to??? and, seriously, they allow their highest ranking officer to fight in battles, what???) but I'm doing my best to work with it. If anyone with more military knowledge would like to help me out, please let me know.

Posted late at night and un-beta'd, so I apologize in advance for all the typos and general shitty-ness.

Chapter Text

Before Eren even opened his eyes, he knew that he was in an infirmary. The mixed odor of herbs, chemicals, and blood had been imprinted into his mind since childhood. It smelled like his father’s work bag, his mother’s hands before she washed.  It reminded him of home.

Eren forced his heavy eyelids open and scanned the room, confirming his location: a military infirmary. But what was he doing in a hospital? He felt fine— exhausted and confused, but fine. Had he gotten hurt? But he usually healed up right away; he’d grown back entire limbs before with no problems. There was even that one time when his gear had malfunctioned and he broke his arm bad— the snapped bone had punctured through the muscle and skin, but Mikasa and Sasha helped him push it back and hold it in place. It healed so well  that by dinner time you’d never guess anything had happened.

The door opened and the most miserable Armin Eren had ever seen slumped in. Armin’s face lit up the moment he registered his best friend blinking at him. “Eren!” he exclaimed. He took a step forward as though to rush towards Eren’s bed, but first he turned around and called out the door, “He’s awake!” After that, there was no stopping him; he pressed up against the bed, hands fluttering over Eren like he wasn’t quite sure what he meant to do with them, talking so quickly and emotionally that Eren couldn’t follow most of it.

Armin’s hands finally settled on helping Eren sit up. He slowed down, voice breaking, and Eren could finally understand what the other young man was saying: “I thought I was ready for anything, but Eren, I can’t lose you too...” His nails dug into Eren’s shoulders and he reached up to cover one of Armin’s hands with his own.

"Ah—" Eren rasped and then coughed, throat incredibly dry. He rubbed his neck in irritation. Armin shot up and poured him water from a pitcher at his bedside.  He sighed as the glass filled, frantic energy visibly dissipating, and passed it to Eren.

"Drink; you've been unconscious for a while. Don’t you dare ever do that to us again..."

Eren drank a long gulp, draining half the glass. His throat cleared up almost immediately.

"What happened?" he wanted to ask first. It was the most important question. But when he began to talk, the words became garbled and what finally eked out was "...Loud."

"What?" Armin moved closer, perching on the edge of the mattress. Eren sipped more water and tried again.

"Last—" No, that wasn't right. "...Wh-what..." That was closer, but every sound he meant to make struggled to emerge from his lips. He clenched one hand tight around the glass of water. "What happened?" he thought. “What is happening?"

A string of syllables spilled out instead. Eren clamped his mouth shut, hands trembling so much that water splashed onto the sheets.

"Eren..." Armin whispered. He reached out clasped Eren's hand, steadying the glass. "It's okay. Just—"

The door swung and a nurse bustled in. "How is everything, Warrant Officer?" she asked briskly, glancing up briefly and then back down again at her clipboard.

"Something's wrong," Armin answered. "He isn't making any sense."

That got her attention. She lowered the clipboard and addressed Eren again. "Officer Jeager, how are you feeling?"

Eren tried, but before he'd even made a single noise he knew the words were twisted. "No... bed. Bad. I... c-c-ca," He stammered on the sound of the "c," repeating endlessly until he broke off with a meaningless shout. He flung the water across the room and the glass shattering expressed himself better than any word he could produce.

Armin and the nurse both flinched. Armin apologized to her, rubbing Eren’s heaving back in an attempt to calm him down, and apologized again when she bent to gather up the pieces of glass.  

“It’s fine,” she answered. “I can’t really say I’m surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“Considering the damage his brain underwent, it’s incredible he recovered at all, Titan or not. It’s a bit much to expect he’d pull through with his sanity intact too.”

Eren froze, not sure if he’d heard the woman correctly. He focused and managed to finally get his breathing and banging heart under control. Armin’s hand stilled.

“You’re saying that he’s insane?”

She straightened up and held out the base of the now fractured glass. “I’ve seen behavior like this from scouts that make it back home after a lot of trauma.” She dropped the pieces of glass into the small trash can at the foot of Eren’s bed and continued, “So many of them returned with their lives, but with their minds gone.”

Eren’s gut lurched. People had always said that Eren wasn’t right in the head. As a kid, it didn’t bother him. Even being called “suicidal” in his trainee days hadn’t really fazed him. But hearing those words now stung in a way he could never have imagined. Eren shook his head from side to side, one hand clenched in his hair. “N-nuh!”

The nurse jotted something down on her clipboard and pointed at Eren with her pen. “See how agitated he is? There are some medicines we can give him to keep him calm, but—”

“—No, hold on just a minute!” Armin demanded. “Eren isn’t crazy! He was responding to me normally when he first woke up. I mean, he seemed kind of dazed, but who wouldn’t be?”

“Lieutenant Arlet, I know this type of behavior—”

“And I know Eren!”

“Shut!” Eren shouted.

The two of them quieted immediately and stared at Eren. Armin shifted around to face him. “Eren,” he said slowly, each syllable careful. “You understand me, right?”
Eren opened his mouth to pronounce a loud “Yes!” but sealed his lips when he remembered how disjointed all his speech had been. Instead, he settled for a firm nod.

“See! He’s not insane! He’s just having trouble speaking!”

“And listening,” Eren realized. He’d struggled to follow Armin’s speech earlier and it had taken way more concentration than normal for him to piece together the meaning of their argument. He twisted his bed sheet between his fingers. What if he couldn't write or even read properly anymore?

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” the nurse murmured, tapping her pen against the clipboard.

“Just because you’ve never heard of it doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” Armin snapped.

The nurse glared at him over her board. “Do not take that tone with me, Lieutenant. I’m only trying to do my job. This facility specializes physical trauma, not mental trauma. We’re don’t have the resources or the know-how to deal with this sort of affliction.”

Armin shrank back a little. “Is there any place that does?” he wondered.

Her expression was not promising. “Let me report to my superiors. For now, we’ll just keep him here for observation. Perhaps this is only temporary...” Her eyes flicked over Eren’s face and she wrote down a few more notes before making her exit. “In the meantime, why don’t you try to answer his questions; no doubt he has plenty,” she said over her shoulder as the door shut behind her.

Armin cast a worried glance at Eren and removed himself from the bed to sit in one of the room’s two chairs instead. “Ah, let’s see...” he muttered. Then he launched into a rapid-fire sequence of sentences that left Eren feeling somewhat dizzy. Eren held out both of his hands, palms facing forward and Armin stopped.

“Sta—,” Eren shook his head, cutting himself off. “Slu—, er...” He trailed off, heat rising in his cheeks at his own voice. Why was it so hard to say something so simple? He sounded like an idiot! He clenched one hand into a fist and concentrated. “S-Slow.”

“Slower?” Armin verified. “Okay. You’ve been unconscious for four days. Do you remember coming to meet me at the fountain?” Eren nodded— it was the very last thing he could recall. Armin wiped his palms against his uniform trousers and gripped his knees. “Someone tried to assassinate you, Eren. They shot you right through the head.”

The “Why?” that Eren was burning to ask must have been plain on his face because Armin chewed his lip and answered, “I’ve been here with you the whole time, so I’m not up to date with all the details, but… I do know that it was someone in the military police and that she said she did it to rid humanity of the last of the Titans.”

Eren suddenly felt... cold. After years of dedicated service, public opinion concerning him had swung towards more optimistic and less apprehensive. However, there had always been and still were vocal opponents of him, especially in the military police. It seemed that no matter what he did, he would never be human to some people. But he hadn’t thought that even now, after all he’d help accomplish with the Scouting Legion, he would still generate enough fear to provoke action like this. But what about—

He sat up and gestured frantically, poking at his cheeks over and over. “Yi—, you...” he demanded.

Armin blinked and his face fell. “Sorry, I don’t understand.” Eren groaned in frustration and mimed writing. “Oh! Why didn’t I think of that?” Armin admonished himself, reaching into his breast pocket to draw out the Scouting regulation notepad and pencil.

Eren snatched them from him and flipped to a clean page. He brought the pencil to the paper and was relieved to find that he could still write.

YMIR?

“Ym— ah, sorry! Of course you’d— Ymir is safe. After you were shot, she was placed in protective custody. The assassin was caught fleeing to scene, but they didn’t know whether she was working alone or not and, if she did have help, whether they’d be coming for Ymir too.”

It took Eren a few moments process all of that information, but when he was sure he’d understood everything, he leaned back in relief. Ymir was safe… that was good news. Historia would have been absolutely devastated if anything had happened to her. Eren remembered the horror that had passed onto Armin’s face at the fountain and quickly scrawled out another short message.

I’M SORRY I SCARED YOU.

Armin read it and sighed. “You really did, you know? I was sure you were dead. Your head was...” He trailed off, covered his eyes with one hand. “Don’t die on me, okay, Eren? Not you too.” Eren reached out and squeezed Armin’s free hand tightly. He squeezed back and managed a smile. “You better apologize to everyone else as well. Especially Major Levi. He’s been terrifying the last few days.”

Eren released Armin’s hand to write again.

HAS HE BEEN HERE?

Armin nodded. “He usually stops by in the evening,” he explained. "He doesn’t trust the MPs to handle the situation, especially since it was one of their own that tried to kill you. So he’s been keeping an eye on them and breathing down their necks.”

Eren could imagine that easily and it made him scrawl out several more questions, filling one page of the notepad and then another. Armin did his best to answer each one until he exhausted what little information he had on the situation and then the one-sided conversation turned to the other visitors he’d had (Eren learned that Historia was responsible for the flowers brightening up the end table, Sasha for the box of chocolates that he and Armin picked through along with lunch) and everything else that had unfolded during the four days Eren had been unconscious. Eren discovered that if he tried to write longer, more complicated sentences he encountered difficulty, having to cross out words and write them again. Armin reported this to the nurse when she stopped by again and to the doctor that checked on Eren, though neither had anything helpful to say about it. The nurse did suggest that he try walking around and so the two of them made several slow laps through the halls of the hospital. Eren was somewhat unsteady on his feet at first, but he quickly regained confidence and the exhaustion passed before they’d completed even one rotation.

They were eating the infirmary’s sorry excuse for dinner when someone rapped on the door. Armin called for them to come in and Levi entered, looking unusually unkempt and even more foul-tempered than was typical. Eren took in the furrowed brow and the wrinkles creasing his shirt and understood right away what Armin had meant by “terrifying.”

“Welcome back, Major,” Armin greeted, setting his tray of food aside. He took Eren’s too, though the food was mostly untouched. Eren was too worried to have an appetite.

“Armin,” he returned. He pulled up the other chair and shrugged out of his jacket, folding it neatly and examining Eren from head to toe. “So you finally decided to grace us with your presence, Eren.” Levi’s words were gruff, but the slight crinkling at the corners of his eyes betrayed him. “How are you feeling?”

Eren reached for the notepad before remembering that he’d already filled the small thing up. Armin realized the problem right away and cut in. “Sir, Eren’s fine, but he can’t--”

“—I’ve been informed,” Levi interrupted, setting his folded jacket across the back of the chair and finally sitting down. “I asked him, not you.”

Eren’s eyes darted across the room, wondering if there was anything else he could write on, but it was a hopeless endeavor. He bit his lip and shook his head.

“Answer the question, Eren. Let me hear it: how are you feeling?”

“Devastated. Lost. Humiliated. Afraid.” Eren didn’t even know where to begin and he didn’t want to speak, to sound like an idiot. Especially not in front of Levi, whose approval he craved more than anyone else’s. But Levi was waiting, so Eren stared at his knees and muttered, “I… tir—. Fuh…fork. N-no. Ba-bad.” “Bad"  was completely insufficient, but it would have to do.

“Not so good?”

Eren sighed. “Y-yeah.”

Levi shifted in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. “From the report I got, it seemed that the doctor didn’t think there was much that could be done for you.”

Eren shook his head and Armin added, “The nurse said that this wasn’t the right sort of facility.”

“This is a military hospital— you come here if you’ve got a gaping hole that needs closing up. They’re good at that.” Unconsciously, one of Levi’s hands brushed against his side, over a large scar that Eren had glimpsed once. “One of my first expeditions,” had been the only explanation offered. “They can handle outbreaks of disease too, if necessary,” he continued. “Whatever is going on with you, Eren, is completely beyond them.”

Eren wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees. Since soldiers represented most of the injured, all the hospitals were military— though they accepted civilians that could pay too. Independent doctors like his father took on whatever patients could not afford treatment at a hospital or who could not travel. Grisha had been in contact with a good number of such doctors, but Eren could not recall a single one that treated anything like his problem. Eren knew that in Sina there was an asylum for the mentally afflicted, a category that Eren supposed he belonged in now. But he wasn’t crazy. He decided not to bring up the asylum in case somebody thought it was a good idea.

“Which is why Hange is coming by tomorrow.”

Eren’s head shot up and Levi raised an eyebrow. “You got a problem with that, brat?”

Eren wrung his fingers. Hange was the Commander of the Scouting Legion, about to leave on the most massive expedition ever undertaken in a couple of days. She didn’t have time to deal with his problems.

“What is it?” Levi asked and Eren glared at him, though it did little to intimidate the man. He was dead-set on making Eren talk; he stared back at Eren stubbornly and added, “Well?”

“She, uh, tick—, took… no, no.” A hot flush rose in Eren’s cheeks and he rubbed the back of his neck, almost ready to growl out of aggravation. He squeezed his eyes shut and finally forced out a sensible word. “B-busy.”

“She’s busy,” Levi agreed. “But not too busy for this.” Eren shook his head and Levi uncrossed his legs to lean forward, his posture and expression demanding Eren’s full attention. “The four-eyes is weird, but she cares. And even if she didn’t care, you’re her favorite research subject and you just underwent something completely unprecedented. Of course she wants to come and see you. She was going to come tonight, but she said she had to get some shit together first.”

It was almost too much at once for Eren to handle, but after a moment the message sunk in. Levi was right; Hange was probably in her element right now, dreaming up all sorts of strange experiments to try out on him. And if anyone could unravel whatever was twisting Eren’s words and making it hard to listen, it was Hange. Even if someone tried to stop her, they couldn’t bar her from coming.

Eren made a soft noise of assent, which seemed to satisfy Levi because he sat back and crossed his legs again. Armin glanced between the two of them and then asked Levi how it had gone with the military police, sending the major into a frustrated explanation that Eren could only understand small snatches of. Eren did his best to listen at first, but eventually gave up, mind wandering dark paths. What if this wasn’t temporary? Could he still go on the expedition in his condition? Armin had been careful to not bring up the expedition all day, which did not bode well… what was he going to do if he got left behind?

Eventually, Levi stood and announced that he had to leave. Eren panicked and grabbed a hold of one of his jacket sleeves before he could put it on. “Wat— wait.”

Levi waited. Eren turned in bed to face him properly, fabric still fisted between his fingers. “You, I, er… I… blood. No.” He was blushing again, but he made himself look Levi in the eye. “Y-You…came and…I fra— fright.” Each syllable was a battle and Eren was losing every fight. But Levi’s expression never changed; he remained still, patient, for what had to be at least a full two minutes, if not more, before Eren finally managed a shaky, broken “S-sorry.”       

Eren hung his head when he was finished. This had to be temporary—he couldn’t work like this. He wasn’t sure he could live like this. Eren knew that he should just be grateful that he was even alive to be embarrassed, that his heart was still pumping out the blood that was so unpleasantly warm in his cheeks. But it was hard to think that way when he’d just humiliated himself in front of two of the most important people in his life.

He felt a hand touch the top his head and glanced up. “Apology accepted,” Levi said and his fingers carded once through Eren’s hair before drawing away. “But don’t do it again.”

Late night update, so I imagine that errors prance cheerfully through these meadows.

Now is probably a good time to mention that this is largely inspired by gin_tonic's snarry fic No Words, No Sleep. It struck a chord with me because I have some personal experience with aphasia and had never seen it represented in fanfiction before (or any kind of media, for that matter.)

Chapter Text

Levi and Hange showed up right after breakfast, the latter carrying a tall stack of books and chattering excitedly. Eren couldn’t follow any of it but he wasn’t going to interrupt the commander, so he just kept his expression open and tried to nod at the appropriate places. Armin picked up on his confusion soon though. “Um, Commander—”

Levi elbowed her sharply in the ribs, making her drop the books to the ground. “Calm down before you piss yourself.”

“Ow…” Hange moaned, one hand clasped to her side. “Levi, how are your elbows so pointy?”

Eren bent over to pick up the books, glancing at their spines. Fiction ranging from fairy tales for little kids to a high-brow novel currently popular in Sina, a collection of poetry, a slim technical manual on 3D maneuver gear maintenance and repair, an ancient text about ocean creatures that was surely still blacklisted… none of it had anything to do with the brain or language.

“Ah, Eren! Don’t get started without me!” Hange exclaimed, grabbing the second chair and digging around in her bag until she emerged with two pencils, a large pad of parchment paper, and a journal Eren recognized as being strictly for notes on Known Titan Shifter Number One—himself. “You can read the titles no problem, right?” she confirmed, passing the parchment pad and a pencil to him. Eren accepted them and nodded. “Great! I figured that since we already have some idea of your current limits for speaking and writing, it would be best to start off with testing your reading and listening.”

Eren had never before realized how quickly Hange talked; even when she was calm (or, at least as calm as she got when she was in full-blown research mode) her sentences still flew from her lips and spun about. It was somewhat dizzying, but he could tell that she was trying to slow down for him so he was determined to follow her. He nodded again and she beamed.

“Let’s get started then—Armin, could you hand me that red one over there? Thanks.” She gave the worn book to Eren. “This is my primer from my first year of school,” she explained. “It’s really simple, obviously, but we’ll begin here.”

“You still have something that old?” Levi remarked. He was leaning against the wall, nose wrinkled. “And from when you were a grubby little kid. That’s kind of gross.”

“Mm. I fell asleep in class a lot too, so I probably drooled on it at some point.”

“Disgusting.”

Eren was used to this sort of banter between them, so he ignored them and flipped through the primer curiously. There hadn’t been a school in Shiganshina—he’d learned to read from his mother—so he’d never used a primer like this before. The beginning was mostly just a run-through of the alphabet and lessons on combining sounds. The middle was all simple words and sentences. Finally, near the back, there were short passages accompanied by illustrations. Hange stopped him on one of the final passages.

“You can read it?” she checked. Eren nodded. “All right. Please read this story from beginning to end. I’m going to time you; look up when you’re done.”

Eren waited until Hange was ready with her watch and then began to read. None of it posed him any difficulty and he finished quickly. Hange recorded the data and then waved her hand at Levi. “Okay, now you.”

“Hn? Why me?” Levi asked.

“I need a baseline. Armin reads way too quickly—you’re closer to average.”

“Fine,” he muttered. “But I am not touching that thing.” He sat down on the bed next to Eren and Eren positioned the book on his knee so that the major could see. Eren had gotten the impression before from watching Levi slog through paperwork that the man was a bit of a slow reader. He’d never been able to tell if his slow pace was out of disinterest or if it actually was just his ability. But Eren peeked as Hange scribbled down Levi’s time and saw that he had indeed taken just a little longer than Eren.

“Now, Eren.” He jumped a little and redirected his attention at Hange. “Could you tell me what the story was about? Aloud, I mean.”

“Ah, um. …C-Catch.” Eren shook his head and started over, brow furrowed. “Kitchen and…” He groped at the air in a formless gesture. “Fruit. Ah, a-apple. And…”

“That’s enough.” Hange wrote something and then pointed at the pad and pencil she’d given him. “Write what it was about.”

This Eren knew that he could do. He picked up the pad and wrote confidently before holding it out for Hange to see.

A BOY AND A GIRL ARE BAKING AN APPLE PIE. THE GIRL PEELS AND CUTS THE APPLES. THE BOY MAKES THE CRUST. THEY ARGUE ABOUT WHO IS DOING MORE WORK.

“Good, very good!” Hange commented, an excited flush rising in her cheeks. “So you definitely understand what you just read.” She made a note. “Now, one more thing: read the summary aloud.”

Hadn’t he already tried that? What he had written was exactly what he’d wanted to say. However, Eren stared down at the parchment. “A… ba-boy and a… girl b-bake…” His head shot up in surprise but Hange gestured for him to continue on. He did so eagerly. “Baking pie. The girl… knife, no, c-cuts… apples. Boy makes… the crust. Ah… argue who is did, um, doing m-more work.” He looked up, triumphant, and met Armin’s bright smile with one of his own. Hange looked ecstatic (though that probably was at least half because her theory, whatever it was, had been proven correct.) Even Levi seemed pleased.

“You sounded so much better, Eren,” Armin said. “Commander, why is it easier for him to read aloud?”

She rubbed her neck and laughed a little. “Ah, honestly, I have no idea. This isn’t exactly my field…” She tapped her pencil against the journal. “I just thought that maybe if the words were out and ready for him, his brain would do a better job since it doesn’t have to hold onto the words at the same time he’s speaking them. Or maybe it’s just because it’s his third attempt.” She shrugged her shoulders, then reached for the book of fairy tales. “Let’s do the same thing again, but with something from here this time.”

They repeated the steps with every book Hange brought in order of a scale of difficulty she’d determined. Eren worked his way all the way up through the maneuver gear manual without any difficulty in reading. His speed even stayed above Levi’s until then, though as the material got more complex he had a harder time writing out summaries without making any mistakes since they required longer sentences. He did not falter significantly until they reached the higher-level novels and the sea creature tome. At that point, Levi’s times overtook Eren’s and Eren became increasingly unsure of the meaning of what he’d read. The first time it happened, Levi laid his hand against the small of Eren’s back for just a second. The brief gesture went unnoticed by Armin and Hange, but it sent it a jolt through Eren, making him sit ramrod straight and warm up a little. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that Levi did not repeat the contact.  He wondered if perhaps it'd been just his imagination.

They ended the experiment with several poems, the last of which completely lost Eren. He knew what each word meant when he read it separately, but when he tried to making a meaning out of the words he came up with nothing. When Hange asked him to summarize the poem, Eren just shook his head in defeat.

“All right…” Hange mused, scratching the back of her head with the pencil as she examined her notes. “So you can read at a normal pace and comprehend everything so long as it isn’t too advanced. It’s better if the text is more literal too. The hardest was the rambling ones and the abstract ones…”

“I didn’t even understand that one poem,” Levi grumbled.

“Yes, but you had an idea, didn’t you?”

Levi huffed and stood up, returning to the wall. “Some bullshit about water flowing and letting go of… something.”

“Did you get any of that from it, Eren?” Armin asked. Eren bit his lip and answered no.

“Well, let’s try your listening comprehension now!” Hange announced, flipping to a fresh page in her journal.

“Commander, we’ve been at it for a while. Could we take a break first?” Armin suggested. “Eren’s probably getting worn out…”

Actually, Eren was burning up inside to plow onward. The more they understood about whatever was wrong with him, the more Eren could fight it, after all. Not to mention Hange and Levi and even Armin probably had about a dozen other things they needed to be doing; Eren didn’t want to take up too much of their time. But Hange glanced at her watch and shouted in alarm and it was decided that they would stop for lunch.

They all ate, except for Levi who said he’d rather go outside and get some fresh air. He rarely ate in the middle of the day anyway, so Eren wasn’t surprised. He finished his own food quickly so that he could walk around and stretch his legs too, even going so far as to lightly jog down the hospital halls until a nurse yelled at him to cut it out. Soon enough Armin came to find him and he returned to the room where Hange and Levi were already waiting and they started again.

Whatever glimmer of confidence Eren had gained during the reading testing he quickly lost while listening. It started off fine enough; Hange would state a simple task for Eren and he would perform it to demonstrate that he understood. Stack the three thickest books. Draw five circles. Do jumping jacks until she told him to stop. No problem. But when she began issuing commands faster—more accurately, when she began talking at the speed normal for her—it took him longer to process orders and sometimes he did the wrong thing. She upped her speed again—still within her regular range, the type of talking she did when she was excited or frantic—and all Eren could do was shake his head.

Speed wasn’t the only problem. Hange tested how much speech he could accurately comprehend at once, giving him a series of commands to follow that he had to listen to before acting. Walk to the door and back, then make your bed, then draw a tree with a nest and a bird on one branch. Just two was easy. Even three orders was all right, though Eren had to take a moment to process what she said and was never one hundred percent sure he’d gotten it all correct until she would smile at him. Armin and Levi were under strict orders not to react to his actions in any way and thus influence him, so it was no use gauging their expressions for help. Four items seemed to be his limit. When it was four, Eren would only be able to remember a couple of the things Hange had said by the time she’d finished talking. When she pushed it up to five, he was completely baffled.

Hange shifted gears and tried mixing in directions for Eren with comments meant for Levi or Armin. Eren could do okay with that, so long as whatever she said was short. Any longer than one or two sentences and the directions became too muddled for him to follow.

The last test was more than one person speaking at once. That was the most difficult of all for him. He could only focus on one person at a time and even with all of his concentration honed in on that one he still got distracted by the other voice and lost whatever snatches he’d caught. They gave up on that test almost right away.

By the time Hange said they were done, she was frowning just as much as Eren. She chewed on one end of the pencil, eyes narrowed as she stared down at her notes. She glanced up at him over the journal, back down again at her notes, and sighed heavily. “I still don’t have enough information to make any definite conclusions about what this is…” she muttered.

“You’ve clearly come to some sort of conclusion, so let’s hear it already,” Levi growled.

She shut the journal with a firm snap and hunched over to prop her elbows on her thighs, folding her hands. “The good news is that I think Eren will improve with practice. I don’t know how much, but I know that Eren has the determination and persistence to reach his full potential, whatever it is.”

Eren blinked and sat up a little straighter, a fire lighting inside him. She was right; he wasn't the type to sit around feeling sorry for himself. This entire… thing had completely blindsided him, but so long as the possibility for recovery existed Eren would dash toward it with all his might.

“The bad news?” Armin prompted.

“The bad news…” She pinched her nose just below the bridge of her glasses and then met Eren’s stare. “Eren. I can’t clear you for the expedition.”

It was like somebody had dumped a tub full of frigid water over him.

“Unless this turns out to be temporary after all and you’re suddenly better by the ninth, I can’t allow it,” she continued. “This expedition isn’t going to be a field trip—there’s no telling what we might face so far outside the walls. We can’t even be totally sure that there isn’t a whole horde of Titans still surviving beyond the radius we’ve surveyed.” She paused, making sure that he was still following her words. “We need all of our scouts in top form. Right now, you’d be a danger to yourself and everyone else.”

Eren wanted to shout that she was wrong. He wanted to beg her to change her mind, to give him a chance. But he couldn’t, literally could not. She wasn’t wrong; she shouldn’t change her mind or give him a chance. Everything the commander had said was correct and Eren fucking knew it.

Frustrated tears welled up in his eyes and he swiped his arm across them before taking up his notepad and writing.   

THEN WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME?

Hange hesitated, shooting a quick glance between him and Armin who seemed to be brimming with just as much disappointment as Eren. “Once I submit my report, the higher-ups will probably push for you to be discharged. Honorably, of course, but…”

“Discharged?” Armin blurted out. “To do what? The military is Eren’s entire life!”

“I understand, however—”

Armin cut her off, his words swift and incensed. Hange’s own temper crackled into life and soon the two of them were exchanging words like loud, incessant cannon fire.  Eren watched the two of them, fists clenched. Discharged? He’d considered it as a possibility, but—discharged? Since so much time and expense was put into each soldier’s training, the military did not like to let people go. Usually, the only ones that received an honorable discharge were soldiers that suffered massive injuries with no hope of recovery—limb loss was the most common reason. But Eren had both of his arms, both of his legs. He could still run and maneuver and fight. He just couldn’t…

He couldn’t understand what Hange or Armin were yelling at each other. He couldn’t jump in and defend himself, speak his mind. He couldn’t—

“Both of you, shut up!” Levi barked. Hange and Armin quieted immediately. Levi pushed off the wall and stood at the foot of the hospital bed. “Eren, tell me: do you want to be discharged?”

“Na— …no.”

“That’s what I thought. What about this: do you think you can still be useful to humanity?”

Eren met his gaze head-on and spoke as firmly as he could. “L—, y-yes!”

Something like a spark passed through Levi’s eyes and the tense lines around his mouth softened. “Good answer.”

“Then…” Hange butted in. Levi shot a glare at her, but she continued on undeterred. “Do you have something in mind, Levi?”

He frowned and turned away from her slightly, facing Eren again as he crossed his arms over his chest. “My new post has a lot more administrative duties,” he told him. “It’s annoying and really time-consuming. I could use an adjutant.”

Eren connected the dots. “…Me?” he managed.

“You’re of sufficient rank and, based upon what I just saw, none of the work should exceed your capabilities. It’ll save me the trouble of breaking in someone new,” he explained.

Eren thought about it. While the military produced colossal piles of paperwork every day, the reports and forms themselves were typically brief and to-the-point; Eren could definitely read them and he was decently confident that he could write them too. He’d assisted Levi with paperwork before— everybody that had been in Levi’s squad had at one point or another out of sheer necessity. Levi was notorious among the officers for having the worst turnaround on paperwork in the entire Scouting Legion. He never explicitly demanded anyone’s help with it, but everyone offered in an attempt to get the work done (and their captain in bed) by a reasonable hour.

Eren heard Levi’s voice and stopped his contemplation to focus.

“—not what you want to be doing. But it’s meaningful work and a hell of a lot better than being discharged. When you improve later on, then you could join a future expedition.” He inclined his head toward Hange. “Right?”

“Oh, I’m allowed to talk now?” The cold stare he gave her could’ve frozen an entire pond over, but she just chuckled. “Sorry, sorry.” The commander turned to Eren, more sober. “He’s right—if you improve enough, we’d certainly welcome you, Eren.”

“Between me and four-eyes, we have enough pull with the higher-ups to keep you from getting the boot if we have a proposal ready for where to transfer you.  Do you want to try it, Eren?”

He didn’t see any better solution. He absolutely could not go on the expedition and he absolutely did not want to be discharged. The thought of Armin and everyone else going out beyond the Walls while he was left behind was a bitter one, but being able to stay with his old captain and help with the restoration of Maria, where he was born and lived for so many years, certainly wouldn’t be awful. Really, it was something that he might’ve picked for himself if the expedition had never been an option. Levi was important to him, after all, and so was Maria. He could help the major rebuild and practice and get better and one day join everyone else in the world outside the Walls. Maybe he’d even be able to convince Levi to come with by then.

Levi and Hange were both waiting on his answer. Eren nodded. “Pi… please.”

There's something else that I wanted to work into this chapter, but I ran out of time. So I'm going to re-work it as an interlude and try to post it on January 1st instead. I hope everyone has fun and stays safe on New Year's Eve!

Chapter Text

Hange was composing her report as she walked, scrawling quickly with her head bent over. Levi waited for her to trip or at least stumble, but her movements were fluid—sidestepping passersby and other obstacles that came too close and trotting down stairs with ease. She’d always been talented at multi-tasking; her multitude of official assignments and pet projects required it. Levi, on the other hand, could only grapple with one problem at a time, only see so far ahead. It was one of the reasons he’d declined Command, letting it get passed down to Hange instead. No matter what the propaganda touted, he was simple soldier. He didn’t have a mind for large-scale tactics or schemes that were laid out weeks, months, or even years in advance. Erwin had been good at that sort of thing—probably one of the best—and Hange was decent.

She was running herself ragged trying to get everything for the expedition cleared in time though. He could tell that she hadn’t washed her hair in at least a week and while that wasn’t the worst Levi had ever seen it, it was pretty bad considering that they weren’t out in the field with limited access to water. She didn’t smell very good either, a fact that Levi had let her know first thing when he’d met her earlier.

“It’s strange…” she muttered.

“What?” he replied, shooting a glare at a pair of whispering civilians that looked as though they might be considering approaching him and Hange. He was never in the mood for that sort of thing, but he especially wasn’t today.

Hange continued her scribbling. “Of all things to not recover completely, why the parts of the brain dealing with language?”

Levi widened his stride to avoid a muddy puddle. “Reminds me of when he’d try to talk as a Titan. Ymir too.”

The movement of her pencil halted. “Ah! You’re right, it is kind of similar.” She shuffled the papers she was holding until she came up with a clean sheet and started writing on it furiously. “Now that I think of it, their listening comprehension was a little impaired as Titans as well, wasn’t it? I never experimented with that specifically in mind, but— and most of the Titans never talked at all… What does that mean then? Since Titans’ language comprehension and production isn’t fully comparable to humans’, Eren’s brain couldn’t regenerate properly? But, no, that doesn’t make sense… Or…? Hey, Levi, do you think if we cut off Eren’s ears, they’d grow back pointed like his Titan’s?”

How did she get there? “You are not going to cut off his ears,” he told her, fixing her with the stern stare he usually reserved for new recruits.

She waved him off. “I wasn’t going to actually do it--I don't even have the time to. I was just wondering.” She frowned at the notes she’d just poured out for a moment, then switched back to her report. “I never got to do as much research into Shifter regeneration abilities as I’d wanted to since the hardening thing took priority… it’s amazing though, isn’t it? That Eren could recover from a shot like that, I mean. I read Armin’s account of it— Dempsey made a solid shot, massive damage. There’s no way an average human would’ve even survived, but Eren is pretty much fine.”

Levi had read Armin’s carefully clinical description. He’d read Dempsey’s records and listened to her bragging as well—top of her trainee class in marksmanship and, for an MP, diligent at maintaining her level. But he’d also seen it. Not like Armin had: not up close, not right when it happened. But he saw it when they first brought Eren into the hospital: steam rising thick from the gaping hole, shirt brown with drying blood, body completely still without even a flicker of life besides the rapid knitting of the wound. It had brought Levi back to those long, hazy hours when Erwin had lain deep in fever, one arm gone, no one knowing whether he’d make it through the night. Levi had thought he’d never have to go through that with Eren, but apparently he’d been wrong.

Hange paused her report-writing and gnawed on one end of her pencil, musing “I wonder what it would take to actually kill Eren?”

It was a good question. Braun and Hoover had been killed while in Titan form, put down like any other Titan would be with a clean cut through the neck. It was strange to consider that Eren might be more vulnerable as a fifteen-meter Titan than he was as a human. What would it take for Eren to die a human death? Levi wasn’t the type of person to put any stock in wishes or prayers, but he hoped that he wouldn’t be around to find out the answer.

“I don’t know. But he’d probably have to be willing to die for it to work.”

I usually don't like to post something this short, but it's just meant to be a little interlude so I guess it's okay.

I meant to have this up on the 1st, so I'm a little late. But whatever, it's still the 1st somewhere.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t temporary. On the ninth, Commander Hange Zoe, Armin, and about three quarters of the Scouting Legion departed for the world beyond the Walls. Armin nearly hadn’t gone. Up until the night of the eighth, Eren had argued with him about it, scribbling furiously that Armin was an idiot and wasn’t this something he’d always wanted to do and that the Legion needed him while Armin shook his head and repeated stubbornly that he wasn’t leaving. Eventually, Armin muttered “Mikasa would’ve stayed here with you,” making Eren blink at him and sigh. He wrote, WE CAN’T KNOW THAT FOR SURE and IT DOESN’T MATTER ANYWAY BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT MIKASA and SHE CARED ABOUT YOU TOO, YOU KNOW, SHE WOULDN’T HAVE WANTED YOU TO SACRIFICE YOUR DREAMS and I’LL BE FINE, underlining “fine” until Armin finally, reluctantly, agreed.

The afternoon and evening of the ninth was spent riding out to the southern sector of Maria, to what was once one of many Garrison bases but was now the headquarters of the restoration effort. Staffed by a mixture of members from both the Garrison and the Scouting factions, it was somewhat cramped but serviceable. Fortunately, none of the buildings had suffered significant damage during the Titan occupation, so once the base had been restocked with supplies and staff it was ready for business.

“Still needs cleaning,” Levi remarked as they stabled their horses. Eren struggled to keep a horrified expression off his face, mentally estimating how long it would take to get every room in every building of the base up to the major’s standards. Even with a group of fifty, it would be at least—

“It’s not a priority though. Let’s wash and find something to eat.”

Saved, for now.

Dinner had long passed so the canteen was empty. They startled the group of young soldiers cleaning up the kitchen when they barged in. The whole pack of them jumped to attention, asking eagerly if Major Levi or Officer Jaeger would like something to eat and some other stuff that Eren didn’t catch. Levi fended them off with orders to finish cleaning and an additional “How long has it been since someone scrubbed that sink basin? It looks disgusting.”

A quiet battle waged over who would get the honor of washing the sink while Levi poked around in the cabinets and icebox. Eren watched the soldiers with amusement and secondhand embarrassment, wondering if he’d ever been that bad. If he was being honest with himself: probably. He’d idolized the entire Scouting Legion when he was younger, Captain “strong-as-an-entire-brigade” Levi especially. He was tempted to ask Levi if he’d ever been annoying, but knowing Levi he’d probably say that Eren was still annoying.

This group was still fresh from the Training Corps; they hadn’t seen any genuine action yet, most likely had never seen a friend disappear down the throat of a Titan—if they were lucky, the new batches of soldiers never would. Eren knew there was probably only a few years difference between him and the six kids cleaning, but it felt more like decades.
 
“Hey, get your ass over here and chop.”

Eren dutifully cut up onion and carrots while the major shelled beans for a simple soup. Eren was used to cooking with Levi, but usually there were more people helping out. Cooking with just him was weirdly… intimate. He quietly mourned the fact that it would be a long time before he could eat Sasha’s cooking again—if ever. She knew all sorts of ways to make practically anything delicious. Eld had been a really good cook too, though Eren had been too anxious at the time to appreciate it back then. Eren and Levi were both perfectly capable of feeding themselves, but it wasn’t the same. The highest level Eren could hope to attain was “Does it taste all right?” and Levi was only ever concerned with “Is it safe to eat?”

The group of young soldiers finished their work, saluting and waiting to be dismissed. Levi was standing over the soup pot, staring down into it and occasionally stirring. Eren stopped slicing the loaf of bread he’d found long enough to tap Levi’s shoulder. He looked up, saw the waiting soldiers and told them to leave, muttering something under his breath as they exited.
“The new recruits from the 117^th Training Corps arrived here two days ago,” he explained. “The expedition has really caused a stir. We got forty-seven new members from the latest graduating class, most of their top ten too—the MPs are going to be pissed if that keeps up.”

Eren blinked. That really was significant. Not that long ago, the Scouting Legion was lucky to get five per graduation. The number had risen a little when the tide of the war looked like it was turning in humanity’s favor, but even then the Scouting Legion was still publically considered a refuge for risk-takers, adrenaline-junkies, and general madmen. Forty-seven recruits and the majority of the top ten too.  As far as Eren knew, his graduating class was the only precedent for the majority of the top ten becoming Scouts, but the 104^th was a unique case for many reasons. Forty-seven…  and unless the expedition went horribly wrong, the number of new recruits would only continue to climb.

“They’re probably all itching to go see the world, but until the rest of the Legion gets back they’ll be helping with the restoration and doing the usual Scout training. No one has any idea how many people will be needed for the next expedition, so don’t be surprised if they try sucking up to you to secure a position.”

Sucking up— oh. That was right; Eren was an officer. Eren had spent nearly his entire career in Levi’s Special Ops Squad which didn’t have much internal hierarchy to it beyond the fact that Levi was at the top. He and Ymir had both suddenly been issued the rank “Warrant Officer” one day, which Eren had thought was a rather arbitrary promotion. Ymir had laughed at him and said “Warrant Officers are specialists; it doesn’t get more specialized than us, does it?” Since then, Eren hadn’t given his rank much thought. It didn’t feel like he’d earned it, after all—not like Armin had, at least.

But here at this base, his rank would actually mean something. That was… intimidating.

Levi started putting out the stove’s fire. “Go find the bowls,” he ordered. “I’m fucking starving.”

Eren located the bowls piled high on a shelf that must’ve been well over Levi’s head, making Eren suspect that the major had seen them there earlier while he was surveying the food choices. He smirked to himself as he took two and Levi narrowed his eyes at him when he brought them over. Eren quickly put the bread away while Levi dished the soup out.

They ate in the canteen, which Eren found somewhat creepy—the room was huge, empty, and the single lantern that Levi lit didn’t do much to penetrate the darkness. In between mouthfuls, Levi explained the various tasks that the headquarters was overseeing and thus Levi (and by extension, Eren) was responsible for. Eren listened carefully, offering monosyllabic responses every now and then to show that he was still following. The soup was surprisingly good, but that might have just been because his most recent basis for comparison was the infirmary’s lackluster fare. He used his bread slice to sop up the last dregs in his bowl, making Levi wrinkle his nose at how soggy it became.

When they finished, Eren scrubbed down the table they’d ate at while Levi washed and dried the dishes. It was very late by the time they left the canteen. Levi stopped in front of a window that was still lit to dig through his satchel, eventually pulling out a large envelope. “Your room assignment is in here,” he said, passing it to Eren. Eren opened the envelope to check the papers. He saw something else that looked like post assignment details too. “You saw where the officer barracks are, didn’t you?”

“…Yes.”

“Go find your room and sleep. Your belongings should have already arrived there.” He closed up the satchel and re-shouldered it before heading off in a direction that Eren was positive did not lead to any of the barracks.

“Wat— ah…” Wrong, but Levi had stopped walking at least. “Night, no…” Levi was waiting and Eren was getting nowhere, so he reached for the notepad in his breast pocket.

“Don’t.” Eren froze. Levi was frowning at him. “If you want to get back to the field, you can’t keep using writing as a crutch. I’m not reading anything you write unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Eren’s hand dropped back down to his side and he clenched it into a fist. Levi was right, but talking was so much harder than writing. Well, it wasn’t like anything had ever come easily to him. He did his best to marshal all his remaining scraps of focus and energy together; it’d been a long day.

“Why— ah, no… l-late. You, you and bed…”

“Sleep?” Levi verified. Eren nodded. “Not tonight—too much to do. I’m going to the office to work.”

Too much to do. The major never let work accumulate if he could help it, so if he was behind it was undoubtedly because of Eren. He was probably due at the base days ago, but instead he’d been visiting Eren at the hospital and stalking the military police like Armin had said. Eren swallowed.

“Eh… ho— help. Me. Help.”

“No. Go to sleep. There’ll be plenty left when you report to shift in the morning.” He walked off, quick stride carrying him away before Eren could make any more protests. Eren grumbled incoherently to himself, but did as he was told. If he followed, Levi would probably physically remove him from the office anyway.

He found his room—the largest and nicest he’d ever been allotted in the military, though really that wasn’t saying much—but he barely looked around it before changing out of his uniform and collapsing on the bed. Anyone that was going to last in the Scouting Legion had to get accustomed to riding on horseback, but that didn’t change the fact that it was exhausting. The ride out to the base had felt endless.

Even still, Eren had a hard time getting to sleep. His head felt like it was crammed full of thoughts and maybe it really was. He’d never considered himself a talkative person, but now that talking took actual effort he was noticing how much he was used to speaking whenever he wanted to. Maybe all of the thoughts that he would’ve said, wanted to say, were blocked up inside his brain now, never to be released.

He must have fallen asleep at some point though because next thing he knew his room was glowing with soft morning light. He dug his clock out of his belongings to check the time. He had exactly half an hour to get ready if he wanted to eat before going to the office. Apparently not even almost dying could throw military-regulation circadian rhythms out of alignment.

Breakfast was awkward. Practically everyone in the room stared at him—some openly, some not. He avoided meeting anyone’s eyes and left as quickly as he could. He got a little lost finding his and Levi’s office, but despite that he was still significantly early.

The office was pretty large for just the two of them. Eren wondered if at some point they were going to bring in assistants. Levi’s desk was at the end of the room, covered with six neat stacks of papers, envelopes, and folders so tall that he could barely see the man past them. When Eren closed the door, Levi glanced up and crooked one finger at him. Eren could tell from the slight slump of his back that he really hadn’t slept at all; it wasn’t an unusual state for him. Stories about waking up in the middle of the night to piss and discovering the captain doing some strange chore had been so common among Squad Levi that they ceased to be interesting. There was a name for people like that—Eren’s father had treated several—but Eren could not currently remember the right word for the life of him.

Levi rubbed the bridge of his nose and pinched by the corner of his eyes before picking two folders from the top of a stack. “This is what I need you do first,” he said and Eren focused, he really did, but he was kind of nervous and Levi said so much. He brandished the folders at one point and Eren stared at them determinedly, as if he could force his brain to readjust itself out of sheer willpower. It was a useless effort though and the words streamed past even as Eren tried to grasp onto them.

Suddenly, Levi was holding out the folders to Eren and asking “Understand?”

Eren swallowed and bit out a single word: “Yes.”

But as he accepted the folders and retreated to his own desk, he began yelling at himself in his head. Yes?! Why the hell had he said that? No, he didn’t fucking understand. He didn’t want to admit that now though, not on the very first day. Levi had brought him onto this project as his adjutant because he believed that Eren could still be useful; Eren wasn’t going to prove him wrong on his very first task.

He took a breath. One folder was empty and the other was full. Eren opened the filled folder and examined the documents inside. He was supposed to read them—he definitely heard Levi say that. What else had Levi said? Something about the empty folder, he was supposed to put something in there…

Eren pulled the documents closer to him and scanned the top one, hoping that Levi's instructions would become evident from the task. But the first document was a requisition form for concrete while the second was a week-old assessment of building damage in the northwest sector of Maria.

He flipped through the papers, panic rising and burning in his chest like vomit. I can't do this. But if I can’t do this, then what can I do? Across the room, the soft sound of Levi's pen scratching along stopped.

“Eren.”

His shoulders hunched up, but he still raised his head a little in acknowledgement.

Levi tapped the pen against his desk. "Is there a problem?"

“Prob-problem,” Eren agreed.

“Tell me. And look at me when you speak.”

Eren dragged his eyes up from the woodgrain of the desk and addressed Levi. “...D-d-don't...” He flushed; it was a hundred times more humiliating to be stammering like a complete fool when looking someone in the eye, but Eren refused to disregard the only order he'd been given that he could actually obey. "Don't... letter." He closed his eyes and raked one hand through his hair before opening them again. "Levi...uh, un-understand."

“You didn't understand?”

He shook his head and Levi stood up. Eren shrank away as Levi approached, wishing that he could melt through the floorboards and vanish. After several years of working under Levi, he knew that although the man did not often yell, his cold disappointment and even more frigid anger burned worse than any Titan flesh could possibly manage.

But Levi just stopped beside Eren and leaned against his desk as he redelivered his explanation—this time with shorter sentences and punctuated with more gestures. “Look over all these forms. Read them and decide which are most urgent. You know what I think is bullshit, right?”

Eren nodded; he'd heard Levi complain about unnecessary paperwork many times.

“Sort them into three piles.” He pointed across the room at his desk. “Anything I need to complete by the end of the day, bring to me.” He reached down and tapped the empty folder. “Three days, put it in this folder.” He laid his other hand down on the folder bulging with papers. “If I don't need to see it soon, leave it in here. Got it?”

Eren nodded again and went to pick up the first document but Levi caught his wrist.

“Don’t let me do that. If I’m too fast or whatever, tell me.” Eren managed an affirmation, but Levi still did remove his hand. “I’m not going to coddle you. You don’t need it. But repeating myself isn’t coddling— it’s making sure mistakes don’t happen for completely preventable reasons.”

Completely preventable. Eren relaxed back into his chair, the panic and tension rolling away. Completely preventable. Levi didn’t believe that Eren could still be useful; he knew it. And if Levi knew it, then…

Eren grinned a little and Levi let go to return to his desk. He was still smiling when he brought the folders and papers back over to the major fifteen minutes later, sorted to order.

He could do this. He could do whatever Levi needed him to do. And he would get better at listening and talking, and then he could do even more— whatever he wanted to do. Eren knew it.

Whoa, extremely late night update. It's pushing 4 a.m. here. I'll proofread one more time when I wake up.

My grandmother had insomnia and whenever she couldn't sleep she'd find chores to do... even if the house was already 99.9% clean, she would find something, anything, that could use cleaning because she said it was better than lying awake in bed doing nothing. One time, I woke up and went downstairs to get water and she was standing on the counters and polishing the top of the high, wood cabinents... the top where no one could ever possibly see whether or not they were polished. This is where I imagine those dark circles under Levi's eyes come from.

Chapter Text

Eren settled into a routine. Every day he’d wake up and perform a brief exercise regimen and his morning ablutions while talking aloud to himself about whatever. He’d narrate what he was doing or describe the things in his room or recite the long list of tasks that had to be completed by the end of the week. Anything, aloud. It was awkward to talk to himself so much, but it was a lot less embarrassing to be the only one hearing all his mistakes.

During breakfast, Eren would sit with the most difficult book he had in his small collection. It was a very old and very thick text about human anatomy— bones and muscles and organs and nerves… everything known at the time about the human body. A little over two years ago, Mikasa had found the book in a crumbling building deep in the western sector of Maria. She’d shown it to him, saying “Wasn’t there a copy of this in our house?” She’d been right. His parents’ copy had been red and this one was brown, but the contents were the same.  He’d held on to it as a memento, but now he put it to use. He’d read the book as he ate, working through the long sentences and complicated vocabulary over and over until he was sure he understood all of it. Usually he could only get through a paragraph before he needed to leave, but that was fine. He was positive he was getting quicker.

Sometimes Levi would join him for breakfast; other times Eren would eat alone and arrive at the office to find Levi at his desk with a large cup of tea. Eren preferred it when Levi ate with him, not only because it was nice to have company (though Levi didn’t talk much in the mornings— he mostly just scowled suspiciously at the food and ate slowly) but also because Eren was less conscious of people staring at him when he wasn’t alone.

It seemed like everybody was constantly watching him. Whether he was eating in the canteen or walking across the base or visiting a construction site or sitting in a meeting, Eren could feel people’s eyes on him.  It was even worse when he spoke, to the point that Eren avoided talking to anybody except Levi and a few of the other officers he was familiar with.

The staring was annoying, but it was the whispering that he really hated. He couldn’t discern every conversation that was muttered behind furtive hands, but what he did hear was… Some of it was familiar to him— uneasy speculation about his Titan abilities.

“I heard that his brain got blown all over the courtyard and it crawled back into his skull like slugs.”

Some of it was essentially true, but still insulting.

“So, is he mute now or what?”

“No, he talks, just really badly. It’s like he’s a toddler.”

And some of it was just plain wrong and really pissed him off.

“Hey, if his head is all messed up, it can’t be safe for him to be here, right? He could turn into a Titan any moment.”

“Maybe that’s why they stuck with the major again—so he could kill him if he gets out of control.”

“They should have just let him die when Dempsey got him.”

Eren wasn’t sure whether Levi knew about the staring and the whispering—not until one breakfast when Levi suddenly said “What did Fennick do?” and Eren realized he’d been shooting the Garrison officer dark glares over his oatmeal.

Eren had just shrugged—partly because he didn’t think he’d be able to explain properly (though he knew Levi would listen to every awkward syllable of his rambling) and partly because he didn’t want to complain to Levi about it. It was just rumors and rude remarks. Levi had probably overheard way worse about himself when he’d entered the Legion.

His noncommittal shrug hadn’t satisfied the major though; Levi ate one small spoonful of his breakfast— he was barely a third done with it, though they’d sat down over fifteen minutes ago— and asked “Is he one of the asses that’s been spewing shit?”

It took Eren a moment to sort out the metaphor, but when he did he chuckled a little and nodded. He stirred his oatmeal around in its bowl to stop it from congealing and when he glanced up Levi was watching him with an expression Eren had never seen before. His eyes were hard but his brow was un-furrowed. The lines around his mouth were smooth despite the stiffness of his shoulders. Eren lifted one eyebrow in question and Levi set his spoon down.

“I could make them stop, but it wouldn’t solve anything in the long term.”

“I… understand.”

“Then there are two things you can do.” He raised one finger. “You can either do something to justify the shit they’ve been saying.” He paused for a beat so that Eren could absorb the words, then raised another finger. “Or you can keep doing your job until they shut their fat mouths. Which is it going to be?”

“Two.”

“I know you can say a better answer than that. Aren’t you working on longer sentences?” Levi grumbled, but Eren recognized his current expression very well— it was one of approval. Levi swallowed another spoonful then pushed his chair back. “You done eating? Come on, let’s go.”

They dropped their bowls, cups, and spoons off at the dish return station and once they were alone in the hallway Eren said, “First… uh, you eat food the, uh, morning… more time.”

He didn’t think that Levi could have possibly understood that and was about to try again, but somehow Levi got it. “I should eat breakfast more often?” he confirmed.

“Yes… important.” The major usually ate plenty at dinner time, but he always skipped lunch and he missed breakfast often enough that it couldn’t be healthy.

“I will once I’ve met them all.”

Eren wasn’t sure who “they” was—frankly, wasn’t sure he’d even heard correctly—but he knew from the way Levi’s fingers curled into his palms that he would resist any attempts at prying. So he left it alone because even though he didn’t understand everything Levi said, he understood Levi pretty well.

After that breakfast, Eren did his best to just ignore the staring and whispering and not let his temper get worked up. It was easy enough to do. Most of the day was spent in the office, alone except for the company of Levi, the occasional visitor, and stacks of paperwork that never seemed to go away. Eren would sort what came in for Levi by order of priority and then divided the reports up again by what just needed a signature and what needed an extended response. He compiled and summarized data from damage reports and construction estimates for each zone of Maria as the information came in. He signed off on everything that he had authority over. He took note on what supplies had been sent where and how much and when. He drowned in paperwork and the deeper he sank, the more alarmingly clear it became how understaffed the entire project was. It wasn’t a new problem— the Scouting Legion was almost perpetually understaffed due to the high mortality rate and low enrollment— and they probably had a large enough labor force, but they were in dire need of experienced officers.

“I’m trying to get more Garrison officers transferred to us, but they’re being real pissy about it,” Levi explained.

Eren wondered what in the world Levi would have done if he hadn’t gotten removed from the expedition. Find someone else to be his adjutant, Eren supposed, but who was a complete mystery.

Work filled every minute of the day except for lunch break, which only Eren took. Levi would either keep working or use the meal time to lie down on the couch in the office. Eren wasn’t sure if Levi was actually napping or if he was just closing his eyes, but either way he would make himself scarce and go to the canteen to eat and read his book.

Despite the amount of work and his own slow pace, Levi was determined to stay far enough ahead that at least one day of each week could be spent out of the office personally supervising the construction occurring in their local zone. (“I hate sitting at a desk. And it’s stupid to try to understand what’s going on and what needs to be done just based on reports.”) Eren liked those days best too, even though it meant having to deal with more strangers gaping at him. It was exciting to see the roads being re-paved, buildings being repaired… Maria was slowly becoming a place fit for humans again.

But no matter if the day was spent in the office or outside, Eren’s favorite time was evening and nights. They would work straight through to dinner time and then, rather than eating, he and Levi would take advantage of the nearly empty gymnasium to work out and just plain move.  After washing up, they would then proceed to the nearly empty canteen and take over part of the kitchen to cook their own dinner. Eren wasn’t sure if Levi was on some sort of campaign to avoid being around people as much as possible or what, but it was fine with him because he currently wasn’t fond of socializing. Besides…

“You can go eat dinner now if you want, you know,” Levi had said on the ninth day of this routine when they set out for the gym. “There’s no rule saying you have to follow me around. Work’s done for the day.”

“Er… this, ah, all right.” He liked having Levi all to himself without even reports or forms taking up his attention. There was no one else on the base that Eren had known for longer or got along better with. And although Eren did not mind being alone, being with Levi was definitely preferable.

A thought occurred to Eren. “Le— if… I do not… follow, want th-that, I can… uh, not come.”

Levi rolled his eyes at him. “If I wanted you to go away, I’d tell you. I’m just saying— you’re already stuck with me all day in the office… what are you grinning over? It’s weird.”

But Eren just shook his head and kept smiling to himself even as the major grumbled at him. Levi was equally stuck with Eren. Telling him that he didn’t want him to go away when work was over was almost the same as saying that he enjoyed Eren’s company. At least, that’s what Eren allowed himself to think.

After the late dinner and the subsequent clean up, they would part ways for their own rooms and Eren would head straight to sleep so he could get up early the next day and begin it all again. His routine remained more or less unchanged for a few weeks, until the fourth week when an addition to the schedule was made in the form of a cat Eren named Ugly.

Eren spotted the cat on his way to the canteen for lunch. Its fur was a muddled brown that blended well with the building it was crouched in front of. Eren would have missed the cat entirely if it hadn't turned its head and directed large golden eyes straight at him. Eren stared back at the cat. It had to be a stray. There had always been plenty of feral cats in Maria and their numbers had only increased after the disaster. Eren had seen plenty of them sulking around the constructions sites, but usually they all scattered once a human was spotted. Eren had never seen a cat on the base though— people were moving around constantly so this cat had to be pretty bold to be sitting so contently right in the middle of it.

The cat blinked slowly, yawned, and turned its head. Eren smiled and went on his way.

He ate lunch quickly, even though he wasn’t expected back in the office for at least another half an hour. Before he cleared off his tray, he saved a small piece of cheese and tucked it into his breast pocket. If the cat was still there, it could have a snack. If it wasn't, Eren would have to be sure to remember to dispose of the cheese before Levi found out he'd put food into his uniform pocket. He didn't know how Levi would discover such a thing, but just imagining his disgusted face if he did somehow find out was enough to worry Eren.

Fortunately, the cat was still there, rolling around on its back. Eren approached it cautiously, doing his best not to frighten the small creature, but the cat just glanced at him and sat up. Eren squatted down beside it and the cat flicked its ears and bent in half to wash its genitals. A male cat, Eren noted, also taking in his somewhat mangy coat and visible scars all over his bony body.

"You're... kinda… ugly, huh?" Eren muttered. The cat stopped licking himself and stared at him. "Wa— in l-lots of fights... yeah?"

The cat meowed at him as though in agreement and Eren laughed. "…Thought so." He meowed again, a surprisingly deep sound for such a scrawny cat.  "Fa— easy to... chat… to though," he mused. Maybe because he wasn't as nervous usual. You didn't have to worry about cats judging you—they'd already judged you, so if you made an idiot out of yourself it didn't matter. Out of everything, Eren struggled with speaking the most and that probably was partly because he practiced it the least. He always felt silly talking to himself, but it was embarrassing to speak in front of other people— even Levi, who Eren knew didn't think any less of him.

Eren dug the cheese out of his pocket and held it out the cat. His nose twitched in definite interest. "I feed... you listen," he offered. The cat made an imploring noise and Eren dropped the cheese in front of him. The cat sniffed and prodded the chunk with his nose and then got down on all fours to eat it.

“Th-this morning,” Eren began, his voice low so it wouldn’t carry over the courtyard. “Ma— Levi did a thing… a little cute.  Don’t tell… I tol— said was ‘cute,’ he… hate that…”

And so the number of Eren's friends on base rose to two.

You guys have my sincerest apologies for this chapter being late. The only excuse I have is that life happened and unfortunatley life will probably continue to happen. I'll try to stay on top of updates though!

This story has cats because cats are my favorite and also because cats make good listeners when they aren't being assholes.

I promise more actual stuff and less exposition will happen next chapter; this one was kind of a transition...

Chapter Text

"Fucking Pixis," Levi growled. Eren looked up from the requisition form he was initialing and took in the sour expression on the major's face.

"...He didn't yes... approve... t-transfers?" Eren asked.

"No, he did— finally." It'd been nearly five weeks since Levi had first sent a request in. He propped his chin up on one hand and narrowed his eyes as he re-read Pixis's letter.

"Th... what?"

Levi glanced at him over the parchment and then back down again. "The old bastard knows my reading is piss-poor, so he always slips in words that nobody ever uses to annoy me. He has to be doing it on purpose; these are supposed to be military documents, not novels for smarmy, fat pigs."

He read a sentence over again, lips moving silently with the syllables, and leaned back into his seat. "Come here." Eren approached him and he laid the letter flat on his desk and pointed to a sentence. "You know what this means?"

Eren squinted at the flowing, ornate calligraphy, a type of script rarely seen in the army. As usual, your request was quite pithy. Pithy. Eren recognized that word, but where...

He'd been nine. He must've been nine because it was just after he'd convinced Mikasa to meet Armin for the first time and one of his selling points had been that Armin's house had lots of cool books. She hadn't seen many books before and her curiosity (and possibly Eren's continuous pestering) overrode her apprehension of strangers.

So the three of them had been pulling books from their shelves, Eren and Armin exclaiming over neat things they found while Mikasa remained quiet until she finally spoke up with a soft voice. "What's p-i-t-h-y?"

Neither Eren nor Armin knew, so Armin dashed off to ask his grandfather. He returned barely a moment later and after he explained she thanked him, returned to what she was reading, and didn't say another word for the rest of the visit. But it'd been a start.

"It means..." Eren began, being careful to go slow to ensure better accuracy. "Not... mul-- many words... short... but strong. Full... for— no. Forcefully worded."

Levi snorted. "Asshole," he muttered, but he did so almost fondly. Eren had only rarely seen Levi together with the Garrison commander, but they seemed to get along well enough through mutual antagonizing.

Levi set the letter aside and stared at him. Eren restrained the urge to fidget under the close examination. Finally, Levi sat forward in his chair and asked, "Explain how to get to the stables from here."

What was this about? Levi knew full well where the stables were. His expression was serious though, thoughtful even, so Eren took in a breath and started.

"Leave entrance, fa-front entrance... go left... past, ah, the canteen and... keep going pack, no, past, ah, second adminis... administration building. Go right and blo— no, walk... the three buildings, beyond them all. Maintenance and... all. You can see the, uh, stables fuh— from there. Walk... some more minutes... and done."

It came out like molasses and in an awkward, halting manner, but at least he hadn't forgotten what place he was at in the explanation. He had a tendency to get lost in his own words and say something he'd already covered earlier or skip forward accidently when he was saying something longer. He was working on it though: reciting different drills step by step to himself in the morning, telling Ugly the Cat little anecdotes about work during lunchtime, and sharing stories with Levi in the evening about his trainee days or growing up in Shiganshina or even fairy tales. Levi had apparently never been exposed to any fairy tales and he seemed to derive some sort of strange amusement from them.

Levi listened to his directions and nodded when he was done. He tapped a finger against his desktop and said, "Penda Nichols is pregnant."

Now Eren really had no idea what was going on. "That... is nice?" Penda Nichols had been leader of team five for the previous three expeditions and was highly skilled in both maneuvering and handling nervous, fresh recruits. She'd elected to not go on the beyond the Walls expedition, allegedly because she wanted to spend more time with her husband. Based on this news, Eren expected that "spend more time with her husband" really meant "try to expand the family."

"Yeah, it's good news. However, it does cause some wrinkles that need to be ironed out. Her administration duties won't be affected, but she was also the person running the advanced maneuvering clinics for the newbies." Levi massaged his temples briefly with one hand, peering at Eren through his fingers. "I know jack shit about babies, but even I can figure out that demonstrating techniques while pregnant is probably not very safe. So we're going to need someone to fill in for her until she can return."

Eren saw where this where leading and he wasn't sure he liked it. "Me?" he asked, just to be sure.

"Yes. It's only a few hours twice a week; I can spare you that much." There was still more paperwork than should ever be allowed to exist, but things had calmed down a little since the project had successfully gotten under way.

Eren scratched the back of his neck, conflicted. He was happy that Levi considered him qualified enough to lead such a difficult clinic, but Eren did not know if thought himself qualified. Sure, he could do all of maneuvering techniques being taught— he wasn't a natural like Jean or Connie and he definitely wasn't a genius like Mikasa or Levi, but he'd pulled his weight on the Special Operations Squad for years as both a Titan and a human soldier. But the instructing part...

"I, I don't na— know," he mumbled, shifting his feet.

"Why not?"

Eren glanced over to check Levi's face. He didn't seem angry or even annoyed. Eren sighed, wondering where Levi was finding this seemingly endless patience. Eren got frustrated with himself at least three times a day just listening to his own halting speech. Not that Levi had mellowed out or something; Eren had overheard Levi deliver an absolutely vicious dressing down to a soldier just a couple days ago, though he hadn't been able to decipher what the guy's infraction had been.

"My watch... what if bod— somebody get hurt... and..." His hand drifted up to cover his mouth in an unconscious gesture. "Talking... it's emba... embarrassing."

Levi frowned and suddenly stood. "Here, sit down and stop hovering. I'm fucking tired of craning my neck to look at you." Eren made a noise of protest, but he pushed him until he folded down onto Levi's chair. Levi drew himself up to his full height and crossed his arms over his chest. "First, safety. This isn't the field. There's not nearly the same amount of danger. Clinics are... shit, what does the four-eyes call it... a controlled environment. Accidents happen, but all of the soldiers here passed training— they know what to do if their gear malfunctions or if they miscalculate. Understand?"

Eren nodded, though it felt a bit like his head was whirling. Levi was talking quicker than usual and he wasn't used to it; it wasn't often that the major got worked up. His nod must've conveyed some of his hesitation because Levi closed his eyes for a brief moment and when he spoke again his words were more deliberate.

"The embarrassed thing. If you're embarrassed, then you're embarrassed. But if you want to get out of here, you're going to have get over it. That's all there is to it."

Eren looked away, staring at all the paperwork covering Levi's desk. That was easy enough to say, but a lot harder to actually do. He didn't like being embarrassed whenever he opened his mouth; it made him feel like a kid. But it wasn't as though he could just turn it off. He could hear himself. He knew what he sounded like. How could he expect anyone to take him seriously?

"Brat, stop making that face and tell me what you're thinking."

Eren didn't know what face he was making, but he tried to clear his expression and lifted his gaze to Levi again. "Res— they... won't respect me."

Levi cocked one eyebrow. "This is the military and you outrank them. They have to respect you. You stand in front of them, rip a loud, nasty fart, and they have to pretend they don't smell shit." Eren grinned at the mental image and Levi's posture relaxed just a hint. "If they don't show you the respect your position deserves, punish them as you see fit until they learn to keep their mouths shut."

Eren really wasn't used to being an officer yet. The idea of having the authority to punish somebody was odd. But Levi had a point. It was unlikely that anyone would challenge or mock him outright. "All right."

"You'll do it?"

"Ah, I'll do it."

"Then get the hell out of my chair and go get the details from Penda."

Eren did. He knocked on her office door, which was only a few doors down from theirs. She called for him to enter, smiling when she looked over a stack of folders at him. "Good afternoon, Warrant Officer. What do you need?"

Eren liked her. He always had, but he'd especially begun to appreciate her after he'd been shot. She had a kind face that put him at ease and a no-nonsense attitude that reminded him of his mother (never mind that he and Penda were around the same age.) "The major... he, ah, asked me to... ta— fill in... for you," he explained.

"Oh, excellent. I was worried he'd pick that ass Howden. Don't get me wrong— he great with the gear, but I wouldn't trust that man to watch a crate of potatoes, let alone a bunch of kids. Hold on just a moment..." She dug around in one of her desk's drawers and produced a folder. She flicked it open, checked the contents, then handed it to Eren. "The times and locations for meetings are in there. I wrote out everything that I've already covered and what still needs to be practiced and descriptions of the drills they've been doing. You can deviate from the agenda if you want, but I figured I'd let you have it."

"Th-thanks," Eren said as he scanned the page. It all looked familiar to him; he didn't think there would be any reason to change things around.

"I also wrote down my impressions on all of the people that come to the clinics. There's the forty-seven new recruits, but the clinics are also open to any Garrison members that want to take them— there's about a dozen or so regulars."

Eren nodded and flipped through the pages. She had strengths and weaknesses for every one of her students in the folder. Eren wondered how long it'd taken her to compile all of the information. It was a good thing that she was staying on at administration. It would be a hard hit to lose her efficiency.

"That's all I could think of... do you think you'll need anything else?" she asked.

"No. Tha— this... is p-plenty," he answered, shutting the folder and clutching it against his chest.

She smiled again, a gentle dip of her lips, and shifted backwards in her seat. "Thank you for filling in. I'm sorry you had this dumped on your plate all of a sudden; I know the major keeps you busy enough already." She hesitated, then continued. "I don't think any of them will give you trouble, but... will you be okay?"

"I wat— was worried," Eren admitted. "Levi... the major con... convinced me... not be."

"He surprised me." Penda tucked a piece of her tight, curly hair behind one ear. "When I went to tell him, I thought for sure he'd... well, at least scold me or something." Soldiers becoming pregnant was heavily discouraged. Once pregnancy did occur, there was nothing the higher-ups could do to prevent it from coming to term, but the people involved could expect anything from a reprimand from their commanding officer to discharge depending on the circumstances. "But he didn't. He just said... well, I think he was trying to congratulate me, but it was kind of weird." She laughed a little, warmly. "He's nicer than he seems. Maybe it's not surprising for you; I guess you'd know him best. But it shocked me."

Eren didn’t really know what to say to that. He’d known that Levi could be kind in his own stiff, awkward way for years, so it was strange to hear people talk about it as though his kindness was some sort of recent revelation. Eren offered up a nod so at least she’d know he’d understood her.

She stood up and saluted him and Eren returned the gesture. “Thank you again for doing this. Please let me know if you need anything.”

“You too.” Her eyebrows rose in confusion, so he tried to explain. “My parents… mom was a ma— mid, midwife. She… I learned… some things.”

 Penda’s expression settled. “Thank you,” she said again. “Hopefully we’ll both be okay so long as I stay on the ground. I never would’ve even considered having a baby just a couple years ago, but now…” She looked out the window of her office and laid one hand against her stomach. “It feels like an exciting time to be alive. I’m thinking about all kinds of things I never thought before.” She turned back to Eren, suddenly looking a bit shy. “Sorry, does that make any sense?”

Eren thought about how sometimes— only late in the evening and only very rarely— Levi would bow his head and laugh, something Eren had never heard until just a few weeks ago, and it did make sense. He thought about the odd fluttering he felt each time Levi’s chin dipped to his chest to conceal his face as he laughed and what Penda said made a lot of sense.  

It was an exciting time to be alive.

This chapter doesn't include everything I'd originally intended it to. But I've had a kind of crappy week, so I'm just glad I managed to update at all. As always, I apologize for the typos and general bad-ness. See you guys again soon. Hopefully, this time next week I'll be feeling better.

Chapter Text

Levi hated paperwork. He really hated sitting in an office doing paperwork. And he especially hated being stuck in an office for an unscheduled, allegedly urgent meeting because a dumbass lost some paperwork.

Tension mounted in his neck and shoulders as his irritation grew, paying only the requisite cursory attention as the two soldiers tried to foist blame upon one another while their direct supervisor reprimanded them. Was his presence really necessary for this? Levi didn’t fucking care how it happened or whose fault it was or how the problem got solved so long as it did. What he did care about was the fact that he could’ve been outside twenty minutes ago. He’d sent Eren ahead to keep the appointment with the head of construction, a burly Garrison officer called Murphy. Lucky bastard got to stretch his legs and enjoy the sunshine while Levi was trapped in this hellhole.

After five more minutes revealed no resolution in sight, Levi decided that his presence was not necessary, kicked them out of the office with an order to submit a report—one more thing for him to read and sign—and made his escape.

The tight, aching sensation eased up the moment he stepped outdoors and some of his foul mood soothed with it. The job really wasn’t that bad. He was ill-suited for it, but it wasn’t nearly as… stressful as other things he’d done that he had been well-suited for. On the downside, reading all day gave him headaches (Eren had suggested that he might need glasses, but Levi refused to look into it) and sitting all day made his back stiffer and sorer (the years of using 3D maneuver gear had not been kind.) On the upside, staying off his feet so much meant his left ankle was less aggravated. Not to mention the company was decent. But that hadn’t changed much.

Speaking of which, where the hell had Eren gotten off to with that bear Murphy? Levi was at the third stop, the construction site of what would eventually be a school and where they should’ve been by now if they were following the schedule. Maybe he’d missed them on the way, though it would be difficult; Murphy was a beast and Eren had gotten indecently taller and broader in the shoulders over the last few years. Still, they couldn’t possibly have already gone by here.

Just to check, he called out to the first person he saw, a gangly new recruit by the name of Hector Torres that worked the morning kitchen shift every second day. “Hey. Have Jaeger and Murphy been through?”

Hector hurried to set down the bag of cement he was carrying to salute. “No, sir!” he barked, cheeks flushing as his voice cracked between words. “I haven’t seen them.”

Levi tsked. Behind schedule already. Hector somehow became even redder and it took a moment for Levi to figure out why. For fuck’s sake, how could it possibly be his fault?

“Back to work,” Levi dismissed him. Hector acknowledged the order with an overly loud “Sir!” and dashed off so quickly that he forgot the cement and had to double-back for it, face ablaze. Sometimes, Levi could not believe how young the army recruited. Maybe it seemed that way to him because he entered relatively late, but Levi doubted it was actually a matter of age.

Moaning about aches and pains and disparaging the youth. Levi really had become an old man. Well, it was fine with him. It meant he was still alive.

Levi headed back to the second stop, passing a brick building with a gaping hole in its west wall. A mixed squad of fresh scouts and Garrison members were busy spreading mortar and laying down new bricks. He’d nearly cleared the building when he heard.

“Haaah, ermm, no. Naaaaaa-no. Erm.”

It was a young woman’s voice lowered to a shaky baritone. Levi began mentally reviewing every tedious chore that needed completing (if this girl had time to do shitty impersonations, she couldn’t be doing her work properly), but before he could startle the squad another voice spoke up.

“Would you cut it out? It’s rude, it’s not funny, and he doesn’t sound like that anyway.”

A hush followed, as though every member of the squad suddenly stopped breathing. The moment broke when the first voice laughed.

“Lighten up, Akbari. He probably wouldn’t even understand me if he were around to overhear.” Wrong. “Besides, it’s just a joke.”  

Akbari’s reply was cold, unyielding. “It’s cruel.”

The other girl snorted and her voice took on an annoying, teasing lilt. “What—you got a crush? I’ll admit, he’s pretty cute so long as he keeps his mouth shut.”

“No, I just think he deserves respect. Even a sack of shit like you, Kindler, should be able to recognize that.”

Sack of shit? Not bad. Levi recognized the name Kindler—Etheline Kindler. Scout with a single long braid, assigned to morning kitchen shifts every first day of the week and usually arrived late.

“Oh, I get it. This is about your sister, isn’t it? I heard she—agh!” Whatever Kindler had heard was lost when she broke off in a loud yelp of pain caused by what sounded like a well-landed punch. The fight turned physical and Levi was forced to round the corner and intervene.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Everyone in the alley froze. Two of the Garrison members had their arms around the scouts, trying to pull them apart. They removed themselves when Levi flicked his eyes to them, leaving the women to slump to the ground. Etheline’s nose was bleeding from both nostrils. Akbari’s bottom lip was split, blood welling up. Both were messes, hair and uniform in disarray. Neither answered his question.

Damn it. Now he had to punish both of them.

“Since you two have so much extra energy...” He pointed at Etheline. “I hear the stable is short-handed today. When the job here is done, go shovel the horse shit and do whatever else needs to be done.”

“She—” Etheline thought better of whatever she’d thought to say and shut her mouth with an audible snap. She glared at him, then lowered her eyes to the ground, muttering, “Yes, sir.”

Levi turned to Akbari “And you.” She met his gaze head on, unblinking, and finally Levi was able to recall her name from the roster. Azra Akbari, no kitchen duties. “Report to the second Records room. I was in there yesterday and it was filthy. Don’t leave until it’s spotless.”

Some members of the work squad shot Azra looks of sympathy; the second Records room was massive, three times as big as any of the other Records rooms. Azra saluted and answered with a firm “Yes, sir” before picking herself off the ground and returning to the mortar and bricks. The rest of the squad followed her lead (Ehteline sniffing loudly in a useless attempt to suck the dripping blood back into her nose) and Levi departed.

Azra Akbari, huh? She hadn’t tried to justify herself or protest the punishment. Levi didn’t often see that kind of maturity in people her age. Well, she was in for a surprise when she reported to the Records room. He’d cleaned every square centimeter of it last night.

Another little bonus update for y'all. I'll probably keep having short Levi POV interludes every fourth chapter. Right now, I'm aiming to finish this fic with a total of twenty chapters, but we'll see how this story ends up unfolding.

Yes, Levi has memorized all of the staff rotations for the morning kitchen shift. He has his reasons.

Chapter Text

“C-Colt!” Eren yelled. The soldier looked Eren’s way, twisting around because of the awkward position he was suspended in. Eren pointed to the platform he was standing on. “Get here!”

Colt obeyed, maneuvering carefully around the other people practicing to stand beside Eren. But when he got there, he muttered, “I’m fine, it’s fine, it was nothing.”

Eren wasn’t having it. He’d seen the nasty way that Colt had been snapped back by the misplaced force of his attempt. Human necks weren’t meant to do that. He took the soldier’s head in his hands, and gently tilted it forward, back, right, left. Colt hissed and hunched up his shoulders when Eren turned his face left; Eren quickly released him. Colt’s hand went up to massage the sore area.

“Co— you… sit out, stay,” Eren told him. Colt nodded glumly. There was only about twenty minutes of practice left anyways. “When get back, put… ice. Something cold.”

“Yes, sir.”

Across the field, someone whooped in excitement. Eren looked towards the noise to see Torres pumping his fist in the air, beaming. Eren smiled; he must’ve finally gotten it. Well, it may have just been luck. Being able to complete techniques successfully and consistently was what really mattered. But Eren knew full well how exhilarating it was to finally do a technique right after dozens of failures.

“I’m never going to get good, am I?” Colt asked. He’d sat down on the platform and drawn his knees to his chest. He peered up at Eren, but Eren didn’t know what to tell him. The techniques the Legion recommended were difficult; plenty of people never learned them all. Of course, that was partly because many people in the Legion died before they could get enough practice in. Almost as though he had read Eren’s mind, Colt added, “I was mad when I got passed over for the second expedition, but I guess it’s probably a good thing, huh? I wouldn’t survive...”

The first expedition beyond the Walls had accomplished enough of its goals to secure further funding, but it hadn’t been an unmitigated success. Once they’d travel a certain distance away from the Walls, the Legion had encountered Titans. Not very many, but Armin had speculated that the further out they went, the more Titans they would find. He’d shown Eren on a map the locations where they’d killed the stray Titans, tracing the direction where he thought they’d come from.  “Who knows, there might be other cities out there where humanity is hiding,” Armin had said. “If we follow the trail of the Titans, maybe we’d find another civilization. For now though, staffing and protecting the secured ground is priority. We’ll expand bit by bit and keep looking outward.”

The news that the Titans had not been completely eradicated had upset many, but did not surprise Eren. Sure, the Legion had killed every Titan within a wide radius of the outmost Wall and thanks to the vaccine created from the notes discovered in Eren’s basement, no human in their immunized population could be turned. But for all they knew, there could be a massive colony of Titans just a couple hundred miles away. If such a colony was found, the Legion would have to choose between risking another eradication campaign or settling for whatever territory they’d gained.

Colt sighed and removed one arm from around his legs to rub at his neck again. “I want to get stronger so that I won’t die but… I think I’m at my limit.”

Eren could not let that go.

“Strong…” His voice was steely and Colt froze in surprise, his eyes widening. “Strength… ca— not always… will not save, all the time.”

Mikasa had been strong, possibly even stronger than Levi when she was in her top form. But it hadn’t been enough to save her. Sometimes you need dumb luck. Sometimes you need to make a decision you’d never forgive yourself for. Sometimes…

No one could win all the time.

“Sorry, sir,” Colt apologized. “I didn’t mean to bring up… I’m sorry.”

Most scouts’ deaths were unknown to the general public with only the family learning the details if there were any to be shared with them. Mikasa, though, had been something akin to a living legend. Everybody that paid any attention to the battle against the Titans knew about her. Knowledge of her final fight (small as it had been in the scope of things) was widespread, second only to Erwin’s.

“It’s fine.” Eren nearly patted Colt on the head, but decided against it; he didn’t want to come off as patronizing. After all, he was only four years older than him. Suddenly, he thought of something that might make Colt feel a little better. “You… do you ca— know of, uh…” He had to really focus to get the next word out, carefully shaping each syllable with his mouth. “Lieutenant Arlet?”

“Of course, sir.”

Eren’s lips lifted in a small grin. Armin would like that “Of course.” “He… half… he can’t do, uh, half of the dif— legion’s… special te-techniques.”

“Really?”

He nodded. He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the platforms and training field. “This… not only thing in— that… matters.”

Colt blinked at him, then stared out over the field thoughtfully. Eren checked the time; dinner was approaching.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, something he was still getting used to doing again. “Heading back!”

The next day, Eren left lunch early with food tucked away for Ugly as per usual. However, when he arrived at the cat’s favorite sun-bathing spot, he was greeted by not one grungy stray but three.

“Brought… friends, huh?” he remarked, squatting down to examine the cats. He amended his three grungy strays thought —one of the three, though very skinny, had sleek black fur unhampered by mange or old injuries. The other new cat, an orange tabby, was just about was ragged as Ugly but much more curious. The tabby approached Eren and sniffed him daintily before brushing himself against Eren’s knee. However, the tabby jumped back when Eren reached into his pocket for the food, hiding behind the other two.

“Relax,” Eren muttered, unfolding the handkerchief that he’d filched from Levi’s stock. The cats were in for a treat. There’d been fish at lunch today and Eren had saved his entire portion for Ugly. Growing up through food shortages had made Eren an open-minded eater by necessity, but as a kid he’d gotten extremely sick from fish once and ever since couldn’t stomach it.

When the fish was revealed, he had all of the cats’ complete attention, their noses twitching simultaneously. He spilt the fish into three pieces and laid them out, wondering if the cats would fight over the food. But each one ate their allotment and no more. They looked to him expectantly, but Eren spread his empty hands. “Out.”

The black one and the tabby starting washing themselves. Ugly meowed at him loudly.

“There would… be more i-if just you, one. Brought friends, ma— must share.” The black one started washing Ugly, but Ugly batted the cat away with one paw. “It is… good… though. Having, uh, friends.” He watched as the black one pinned Ugly down with the help of the tabby and both cats starting scrubbing Ugly with their tongues. “M-my friends…” Eren began, but he let the sentence trail off. He didn’t know what he’d meant to say.

He started over. “Armin… the expedition, he ca-came back.” He pointed at Ugly. “I… told you. Before.” The cat blinked at him. “But, a while. Ja— just a while. He left. I… it’s… uh, hard… very miss him.”

He told the strays a little bit about Armin’s visit as well as everyone else’s. Hange, despite being busy as ever, had stopped by to assess his progress. Connie had lunch with him one day to regale Eren with tales of “all the cool stuff Armin wouldn’t think to tell you.” Historia, with Ymir in tow, came and checked on his health.  Even Jean showed his ugly mug around the office, though briefly. The only person that didn’t visit was Sasha, though that wasn’t unexpected. Eren was kind of thick, but he wasn’t so thick that he hadn’t noticed that Sasha avoided being alone with him ever since Mikasa’s death. He didn’t really get it, though he could guess why.

When Eren left the cats and returned to the office, Levi was still on the couch, sitting up. This in and of itself was strange. Levi’s lunch naps were so impeccably timed that he was always at his desk when Eren came back. Never once had Eren been forced to rouse him. Even stranger, Levi was staring at a sheet of parchment with an intense focus he never granted regular paperwork.

Eren figured that whatever was preoccupying him must be pretty important, so he decided to leave him to it. But before he could even reach his own desk, Levi patted the space beside him.

“Come here.”

Eren had never actually sat on the office couch before. Occasionally, a visitor would sit there while waiting for Levi or Eren to finish with something, but for all intents and purposes the couch was labeled Levi’s in his head. And while Eren was willing to steal one of the many handkerchiefs in Levi’s desk drawer for the sake of maintaining a clean uniform (something he was sure the major would approve of), he did try his best to avoid intruding on Levi’s personal space. He attempted not to reveal his hesitation as he perched on the couch, hyperaware of the arm Levi had thrown over the back of it.

Levi passed the parchment to Eren. “This just arrived.”

He recognized the letterhead and format to be from the military court. The legal language was difficult for him to decipher, but he was able to glean the crucial information. Jennifer Dempsey had been sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.

“I-I thought… uh… ask, no—”

“—She should’ve got execution,” Levi interrupted. Though it did not show in his body lanaguge, Eren could tell he was agitated; he rarely cut Eren off. “I knew that fucking trial was dragging too long.” The rest of his icy tirade was lost on Eren, in part because of the quick, choppy way he delivered it and in part because Eren was no longer paying much attention.

Eren didn't know a lot about law, but from what he’d understood Dempsey had been practically guaranteed a death sentence.  Assassination cases weren’t often tried in the military courts because usually when they occurred it was a subordinate striking a superior down under the cover of battle. It was hard to conclusively prove anything under chaotic circumstances like that. But Dempsey’s actions had been public and bold and she denied nothing. It was no accident; it was assassination and, whether it was successful or not, the punishment for that was execution.

A life sentence…

Should Eren have attended the trial? When it had started, he hadn’t seen much use in going—it would’ve been too difficult for him to testify. Even now, at his current skill level, it would be frustrating for both him and the court. Not to mention he’d wanted to start working, do something tangible and productive, rather than spend hours and days in a courtroom brooding and trying to control his temper. So he’d submitted a written testimony instead, not that there had been much to say. Yes, he’d been shot. Yes, he was brain damaged now.  Yes, he’d most likely be dead if he was any other person. Levi had been summoned as a witness or something a couple of times throughout the last few weeks, leaving Eren to hold down the fort. Eren hadn’t wanted to attend; the entire matter made him frustrated, angry, and a little bit sick just thinking about it. But should he have tried to testify in person?

“I…” Eren began. Levi immediately stopped his growling to listen. “I test, er, if I testify… she could have… not life?”

“From the way things look, it wouldn’t have made a difference.” He jabbed one finger at the parchment. “Did you see this part?”

Eren read it aloud. “Not in… fa— full… faculty… of mind?”

“They’re claiming that she can’t be held totally responsible because she’s insane.”

“…Is she?” Eren asked. He didn’t know Dempsey— had never met her, had never even seen her. He didn’t want to. But surely if she was insane that would’ve come up when Levi had related to him the details of the trial.

Levi huffed. “It’s bullshit. I talked to Dempsey. Extensively. That woman knew full well what she’d done and the consequences of it.”

“Then… how?”

“It means she has friends in high places. I don’t know if they were working with her to begin with or if they just agree with what she did. But someone is allied her and whoever it is has some serious pull.” Levi closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck,” he muttered, so low that Eren wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear. “Erwin should be the one dealing with this shit.”

Eren stared at the parchment in his hands, considering each word carefully. He didn’t know how to feel. It wasn’t like he’d been hell-bent on seeing Dempsey dead. Sure, he’d expected it and he thought she deserved it. But lifetime imprisonment was still pretty awful. What really bothered him was...

He knew that some people still had their doubts about his loyalty to humanity, but they were in the minority. After all, besides that one time with Mikasa, he’d never done anything to hurt his fellow soldiers. And the Titan eradication campaign could never have been completed without his help. Most people understood that and accepted him. Dempsey represented a small, essentially meaningless, group of outliers.

At least, that’s what he had thought. If there were enough powerful, like-minded people to sway the outcome of Dempsey’s trial, maybe he was wrong.

Levi clasped Eren’s shoulder with one hand and squeezed tightly, interrupting his dark thoughts. His face had cleared of its frustration, though his eyes were narrow, intent. “Eren. Maybe nothing else will come of this. But be careful.”

Eren nodded. Regenerative abilities or not, he did not want to take his chances with another bullet.

Very, very busy, no time for proofreading. My apologies for the late update-- in penance, I offer up this prize: if you need some more Levi/Eren to read, check out the rec list I posted on tumblr.

At some point, I will explain how Mikasa died. All y'all get to know for now is that Sasha feels guilty about it.

Chapter Text

Levi had been acting oddly all day. He’d barely eaten anything at breakfast. That in itself wasn’t too unusual; he never seemed to have an appetite until dinnertime. But today he didn’t even finish his cup of tea, ignoring it and the rest of his food in favor of scrawling something in his regulation notepad and scowling at it. Eren left him to it and just worked with the medical textbook, peering up occasionally at the major’s furrowed brow.

Besides reminding Eren about his upcoming absence the next evening, Levi was quiet. Again, not really that unusual—nobody would ever describe Levi as talkative and they didn’t really have time for idle chit-chat. There was a lot to be done since Levi would be leaving for a quick trip to a training camp in Rose, cutting tomorrow’s work time short. The 119th Training Corps was graduating and since Levi was the highest ranking Scout on hand he had to go and give the recruitment speech.

So even after the weird breakfast, Eren didn’t think much of Levi’s silence until he left for lunch without Levi lying down for a nap. Levi rarely skipped his noon nap, even if they were really busy. When Levi pulled out his notepad again instead of relocating to the couch, Eren had to wonder what was up. He didn’t ask though. He had the impression that Levi hated being pressed to explain himself.

Late at night, when dinner at been prepared and they were sitting down at a table in the empty canteen, the notepad reappeared. Levi took up his pencil instead of his fork and Eren decided that this had gone on long enough. He nudged Levi’s plate closer to him until it was pressing into his chest. “First eat.”

Levi’s expression was sour, but he didn’t call Eren out on the near-insubordination. He switched to the fork, jabbing it into a potato chunk. “That shitty four-eyes,” he muttered. “She couldn’t put off the expedition for two weeks?”

Eren did some calculations in his head. If the commander had stayed in the Walls for another two weeks, she would’ve been around for… there was only one thing.

“Re— grad, uh, graduation?”

Levi made a noise of affirmation as he chewed on the potato. No other comment seemed forthcoming, so Eren bent over his own dish to eat, sneaking peaks at the closed notepad. Had he been drafting the recruitment speech? Now that Eren thought of it, he didn’t think Levi had ever done recruitment before. Erwin had always done it when he’d been alive and Hange had taken his place afterward.

“Too bad you can’t do it,” Levi remarked suddenly, spearing another potato.

Eren lacked the sufficient rank, not to mention the fact that eloquent, stirring speeches were far from his strong suit right now. Still, the comment struck Eren as strange, so he asked, “Wha— why me?”

“Didn’t you convince a bunch of people in your class to join the Legion?”

A handful would be more accurate than a bunch and most of those people had died at Trost. “Where… how did you hair, uh, hear that?”

“Connie told me.”

Connie? Eren should have suspected that. Levi got along with him surprisingly well. Maybe it was some sort of short guy affinity, though Connie had sprouted up to a fairly average hundred and sixty eight centimeters one summer. He would say that Connie was Levi’s second favorite from that incarnation of the  special ops squad. Eren wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was Levi’s first favorite—not that it curried him any favors or special treatment. At least, he didn’t think so. Jean would probably argue otherwise, but Eren didn’t particularly care what that guy had to say about it.

“Ah, I… did not… intended. Intend to. Just…” Eren scratched the back of his neck, trying to explain. “I was… pissed and… say some things.”

Levi propped his chin up on one hand. “Didn’t intend to, huh?” Eren nodded. “Doesn’t that mean you are a natural then?”

“…I don’t know.”

Levi pushed his food around on his plate, making a clear divide between the potatoes, peas, and small cut of meat. “I’m better at intimidating than inspiring. I could make them all piss their pants if that’s what I needed to do. That’d be easy.”

Oh. Was that what this was about? Eren had never seen Levi act nervous before, so of course he wouldn’t be able to recognize it. But the silence and the strange, almost frantic focus seemed to point  in that direction. The idea that Levi—a thirty-something (maybe forty-something, Eren wasn’t sure exactly how old he was and honestly he didn’t think Levi knew either) solider that could make people who stood head and shoulders over him quake in their boots— would get nervous about a speech  was kind of funny. However, Eren knew that fears weren’t always rational. The very idea of needles pricking his skin put Eren a little edgy and he’d bitten through his own hand dozens and dozens of times.

Eren did his best to speak casually, though it was difficult when you had to focus on each sound you wanted to make. “Could… can I c-come?”

Levi leveled him with a skeptical state, fork-tapping gently against the rim of his plate. “It’s going to be a long night. The camp is at least an hour and a half away on horse one way, probably more.”

“Is fine,” Eren said dismissively.

“Don’t you have a clinic to lead the morning after?” Levi asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“It’s fine.”

“And it’s probably going to start snowing on the trip there.”

Eren shrugged. “Fine,” he repeated.

Levi snorted, returning  to his food. “You know,” he drawled. “I’m not some snot-nosed brat that needs to have his filthy hand held.”

That was… really specific. “I didn’t… no. Did I… need… snotty hand holding?”

“Hm.” Levi chased some peas around his plate with the fork, finally succeeding in scooping them up. “Not since I’ve known you.” Eren had been expecting to be teased or insulted in Levi’s patented one-part frustrated, one part-friendly manner. He hadn’t even considered receiving a serious answer like that—especially not an answer that was, essentially, a compliment. Before he could think too much on it though, Levi swallowed the peas and added, “But you did have filthy hands.”

Eren rolled his eyes, thrusting his fork-free hand at Levi and wigging his fingers.

“Yes, now you wash your hands properly—I’m so fucking proud,” Levi sneered. “Get that out of my face.”

But Eren leaned over to move even closer, making Levi snatch his hand out of the air and pinning it to the table with enough force to rattle their dishes.

“Bastard,” Levi growled.

Eren chuckled quietly, not attempting to take his hand back from Levi’s tight grip. Instead, he twisted his wrist around so that he could brush his fingertips against Levi’s palm. Levi’s hand was small and rough with callouses and scars— the complete opposite of Eren’s. Eren stroked his palm once, twice, savoring the contrast and the fact that Levi was letting him.

All right, maybe being first favorite did come with certain privileges.

“…Can I?” Eren asked one last time.

Levi sighed, a sound so soft that the flickering of the candles nearly drowned it out. He lifted his hand away, picking up his fork, and Eren withdrew his arm across the table back to his side.

 “Do what you want.”

It did snow, though fortunately it held off until they were nearly to the camp. Eren pulled his hood up so his hair wouldn’t get wet, admiring the falling flakes. One of Armin’s books had described a place in the distant north where winter lasted almost all year and the sun only shone a few hours a day. It sounded like a fantasy to Eren; how could anything live in those kind of conditions? Maybe some animals could survive, but humans? As uninhabitable as it sounded, Eren wanted to see it. He wondered how many weeks it would take to travel that far north. Or would it take months? Years?

Another book of Armin’s had described the size of the earth and told tales of humans that had sailed across the salty seas all the way around the world. As a kid, the scale had been impossible to comprehend and even now he couldn’t wrap his head around it. It sounded… far, but the greatest distance Eren could imagine was from Shiganshina to Sina and he knew that must be nothing compared to the rest of the world.

“What are you thinking about?”

Eren glanced over at Levi who seemed to have a lot more snow sticking to him than he did. His higher body temperature must be melting some of the snow that landed on him. His white puffs of breath were bigger and lingered longer too. “Wouldn’t… can’t esca— explain right.”

“Try me.” Levi brushed some of the snow from his horse’s mane with one gloved hand. Eren watched, lowering his chin so that the high collar of the winter uniform would conceal his smile. Levi loved that horse. It was obvious, despite his attempts to pretend otherwise. Eren knew that Levi was attached to all of the horses he’d had, but this particular one had him lasted nearly three years—pretty impressive for a Scout’s mount. While the average Titan never targeted horses, plenty got trampled by Titans or broke a leg or went missing. Eren had pestered Levi to tell him the horse’s name, but Levi always said that he never named his horses. Bullshit. Eren had definitely heard Levi whispering to the horse on several occasional and if you talked to a horse you definitely named it.

“Eren,” Levi prompted.

“Oh. Um… just… it’s big.”

“What’s big?”

“World… outside.” Levi was still waiting, listening, so Eren continued. “Has… icy, d-dark places. Seas. Lots of… seas.” Eren sighed, tugging his collar down to let his breath puff in front of him. “Did you hear? Armin told me… found a… hole. No. Cave. Unda— underground. Big… they went, climbed down, but… couldn’t know… how deep. Really big. New, it wasn’t… on the map. Any of them.”

“Yeah, I heard. Hange was saying that she wanted to get a team together and check that there aren’t any Titans… hibernating or whatever down there.”

Eren hadn’t heard that part. It was kind of a scary thought—Titans underground? If there were any down there, they shouldn’t be active since the cave had to be extremely dark. But one thing Eren had learned was that it was dangerous to make any assumptions about what was and wasn’t possible when it came to Titans.

“Yeah…” A snowflake landed on his cheek, melting instantly. He rubbed away the bead of water dripping down his face. “I want to… see it. I mean… all. Not just ha— the cave.”

“You’ll get there.”

“When I do, will you come with me?” he wanted to ask. But before Eren could try to form the words, the camp came into sight and Eren knew it wasn’t the right time.

Apparently, they’d arrived a little bit late—not that it mattered. The Scouting Legion always went last since it was the youngest division of the military. The recruitment for the military police was already underway. The top ten were lined up, listening to a slim, dark-skinned woman that Eren did not recognize.

Eren pointed discretely and asked with his voice lowered, “W-who’s that?”

“Nile’s new second-in-command. I’ve seen her name, but I’ve got no idea how to say it. Never met her.” Levi answered.

Ah, that was right. Eren had heard that Dawk’s former second had been paralyzed in a rather suspicious accident. He didn’t know any of the details, but rumors concerning the incident had reached them all the way out in Maria.

“Why… where’s Dawk?”

“His wife just had their fourth kid. Apparently there were complications, so he’s taking some time off from non-essential duties.”

Commander Pixis was present though. Eren spotted him standing off in a corner opposite of them, smiling that strange little smile as he listened to an aide. Pixis met his eyes and winked at him, slipping out his omnipresent flask from a hidden pocket.

Levi was shrugging off his outer coat, folding it over one arm. The back of his neck was exposed and Eren suddenly found himself restraining the urge to sneak off, make a snowball, and stuff it down his collar. I’m an officer, a professional, he reminded himself. Besides, he was certain that Levi could soundly defeat him in a snow fight and he didn’t want to risk humiliating himself in front of potential new recruits.

Maybe later.

“I’ve… never… been here,” Eren commented to distract himself.

“You’ve never been to a recruitment?” Levi clarified. Eren shook his head; he’d missed his and there had never been another opportunity.

“I came with Erwin to a few. They’re pretty fucking boring. As far as I can tell, Pixis says the same shit every time.” The top ten had been joined by the rest of their peers after the representative from the military police finished. Pixis was now slowly pacing the stage, arms tucked behind his back. The moment Pixis began speaking, Levi huffed. “Yeah, it’s the same.”

Eren wondered what Levi was going to say. Knowing him, he’d probably start off with all the reasons why people shouldn’t join the Scouting Legion. But what would come after that, Eren had no idea. He hadn’t tried to see Levi’s notes, wasn’t sure if Levi even planned to use any of them. He was sure that no matter what kind of speech it wound up being, everything would be fine. Levi may not consider himself very inspiring, but Eren thought he was wrong.

Though, he had to quietly acknowledge— if only to himself— that he was probably a little biased.

I swear, when this semester is over I am going to go back through and properly proofread this whole thing. I just don't have time for it right now. Please fill free to bring errors to my attention.

Suddenly, it is a different season. I'm only vaguely tracking time in this fic. Just now that there it is entirely possibly for entirely weeks and months of "story time" to go by between chapters.

Chapter Text

Technically, all military personnel had the day off, but that hadn’t stopped Levi. The only concession Levi had made to the holiday was move the paperwork that needed to be done to his quarters and remind Eren that the day was his to do with what he wanted. If Eren didn’t have anything else in particular that he’d rather be doing, then Levi couldn’t complain if he joined him in signing off reports and requisition forms. Levi’s lack of protest when Eren followed him into his quarters told Eren that he’d been right in assuming that Levi should not be left alone on this day.

Eren was surprised that Levi had been able to get out of attending the official ceremonies this year. Last year, the year the holiday had been established, Hange, Levi, and all of the team leaders had been called to Sina to participate in the formal declaration of the holiday and the unveiling of the statue and the… public mourning, Eren supposed. The major had gone along with it, though not with any enthusiasm. This year, Hange and the team leaders were beyond the Walls, but Levi had no such excuse. Even so, he’d somehow managed to fend off the summons. There had been a steady stream of one insistent letter after another, culminating in the arrival of a messenger all the way from the capital, but if Levi was unwilling then no force would ever move him. He’d gotten into it with the messenger, roused into a fierce display of temper the likes of which Eren had only rarely witnessed before; Eren almost would’ve felt bad for the messenger if she hadn’t been giving back just as good as she got. Eren had only understood segments of the argument, but he knew from the absence of any further letters after the messenger’s departure that Levi had gotten his point across. Whether or not they’d leave Levi out of the ceremonies next year too would remain to be seen.

Eren knew it wasn’t the holiday, Scouts’ Day, that Levi objected to. He was repulsed by the politics that fueled its origin, the hollow sincerity with which some officials celebrated it, but he couldn’t hate the sentiment behind the holiday. The living scouts deserved to have their accomplishments honored and the dead more than deserved to be mourned for their sacrifices.  No, it couldn’t be the day itself that Levi objected to; it had to be the date.

Three years ago exactly, Erwin Smith died amidst the largest battle ever fought by the Scouting Legion, the battle that wound up being the turning point in their eradication campaign.

The officials in charge could’ve picked any arbitrary date on the calendar to establish a Scouts’ Day. They could have picked from dozens of other significant dates, such as the founding day of the Scouting Legion, the birthday of the first Commander, or the final day of the eradication campaign if they really wanted something recent. But the chosen day was the anniversary of the death of Erwin Smith. He was the most controversial Commander in his lifetime, but in his death he'd become the most celebrated. It was a calculated choice, aimed at attempting to erase the government and military police’s history of working against the Scouting Legion, to pretend that cooperation and favor had always existed where it hadn’t. That was what made Levi edgy whenever the holiday was brought up, why he’d opposed the creation of the holiday when it was first conceived.

Eren understood. He’d be pissed too if some officials decided to use Mikasa’s death to catapult their agenda. What confused him was when Levi withdrew his dissent and agreed to lend legitimacy to the events by being present the first year. He’d asked Levi about it before he left for Sina and Levi told him that he decided he was being selfish.

“Bullshit like this happens and all I see is pigs pretending that there's no mud splattered all over their filthy hide. But where I see insult, he would see a victory for the Legion. The Legion has a lot of public goodwill right now, so we should try to keep that going for as long as we can. Besides, even though he always said that he didn’t care if he was remembered as a monster or a martyr, he definitely would have preferred a result like this.”

He added that he was staying out of the whole mess after the first year, a promise he’d kept this year. Eren got the feeling (back then and now as well) that all Levi wanted to do was remember the Commander in his own way. One part of the argument with the messenger that Eren had understood was her accusing Levi of not mourning Erwin Smith. While it was true that Levi had no interest in visiting the Commander’s official (empty) grave and that he hadn’t burst into earnest tears during the first year’s ceremonies like Hange, Eren recalled with a razor’s blade precision Levi’s pale face when the news first reached them, knew that Levi still kept the last letter he’d received from the Commander though it didn’t contain anything more personal than a warning for Levi not to take unnecessary risks. Levi hadn’t reacted much to the messenger’s accusation, but it had taken all of Eren’s restraint to hold himself back from crossing the room and decking the woman.

Eren did not comprehend how anyone could think that Levi did not mourn. Even if one disregarded all the rumors concerning the former Commander’s relationship with his Captain, the stiff, heavy set of Levi’s shoulders and red-rimmed eyes the days following Erwin Smith’s death should have cleared anyone’s doubts about his grief.

“Hey. Stop daydreaming and read this.” Levi brandished a sheet of parchment at him. It slapped Eren on the nose; Levi’s quarters only had one small desk, so they were both working on opposite sides of it. “Make sure I didn’t misspell anything.”

It was a report headed for Zackley, which explained the extra care Levi put into writing it; he’d spent the last two hours bent over the paper, making each letter neat and clear. Eren read it through two times and didn’t notice any errors. What he did notice was a strange sense of… familiarity? No, that wasn’t the right word.

“…Similarity,” Eren muttered.

“What?”

Eren looked up from the parchment, realizing too late that he’d spoken aloud. “Nothing.”

Levi laid his pen down, folded his arms. “What?” he repeated.

He wasn’t going to let it go, huh? “The Commander… his… your handwriting. Similar… they look the si— same,” Eren explained. He’d thought so a couple times before too, though those times he passed it off as just being his imagination. But the similarity was much more obvious when Levi took his time on his script, did more than just quickly scrawl out the words.    

Levi snorted, tugging the parchment away from Eren and glancing at it briefly before setting it aside. “That’s probably because he’s the one that taught me.”

“…To write?”

“And read.”

Levi went back to work but Eren was counting backwards in his head, trying to remember how many years Levi had been in the Legion— at least a decade, maybe closer to a dozen years? Still, that would place him at being older than Eren was right now when he learned how to read. Well, there hadn’t been any schools in Shiganshina; it was kind of silly to imagine that the Underground would have had schools. If there hadn’t been anybody to teach Levi how to read like Eren’s mother had for him, then it made sense for him to have never learned as a child. And it wasn’t in Levi’s character to admit vulnerabilities, so he wouldn’t have asked just any random person to teach him when he got older.

It all made sense, but Eren couldn’t wrap his mind around how Levi could have possibly graduated from training illiterate. While there were no literacy tests to apply for training, it was assumed that potential cadets could read— something that kept the most impoverished, unfortunate people from ever hoping to attain military earnings and food rations. In training, there were required readings and written exams (which definitely could not be easily cheated on.)

“Training…?” Eren asked tentatively. Levi shot him a look that Eren knew too well, an I know you can do better than that stare, so he tried again more firmly. “Le— if… how did you… pass training?”

“I was never a trainee. I got taken straight into the Legion.” The casual way that Levi explained it told Eren that he was leaving out several key details, but it wasn't a story that Eren wanted to push on. Eren understood that Levi did not like discussing his life prior to becoming a scout. At least now Eren knew why he had never been able to find out Levi’s graduating class number.

There were about a dozen questions that Eren did want to ask, desperately. Levi never talked much about himself. The things that Eren knew about Levi were mostly the result of rumors, (and Eren knew not to put too much stock in those) stories he’d heard from other scouts, and years of close observation. But Levi was working, bangs hanging over his face as he scanned a requisition form, and Eren had developed a considerable amount of restraint since he was a kid. So Eren pulled a new report towards him and tried to focus on reading it.

“I can hear them,” Levi said suddenly, not looking up from the desk.

“…Huh?” Eren replied, certain that he had not understood.

Levi pointed his pen at Eren’s head. “All the nosy questions rattling around in that skull.”

Eren flushed. Apparently, he was still just as obvious as he’d been as a kid. “Sorry.”

Levi looked up when Eren apologized. “Why?”

Somehow, Eren kept himself from fidgeting in his seat. “Levi… doesn’t like, uh, explaining. Himself.”

Levi examined him for a long moment, his narrow eyes pinning Eren down. “I don’t,” he responded finally, gaze returning to the form. There was another agonizing pause and then: “But I don’t mind telling you.”

Eren had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but the permission was equally thrilling and terrifying. Thrilling because he had permission, something very few people seemed to receive. Terrifying because he wasn’t sure what the permission’s limits were, the caveats. “He… the Commander taught you the time, uh, no… when you joined?”

“No. Not until I was made an officer. I told him that if he was going to saddle someone like me with so much responsibility, the least he could do in return was teach me to read and write.” Eren nearly missed it because Levi turned away, but there was definitely a smile tugging at the corners of Levi’s mouth. “His face was great; he had no idea. That was one of the few times I ever managed to surprise Erwin.”

Later, Eren would wonder how Levi had managed to dodge paperwork prior to becoming an officer (even new recruits had to write some reports, though not a lot.) But at the moment, he was hung up on that little smile, the barely there, fond inflection in Levi’s voice. Before he could stop himself, he began to ask, “You and the Commander…”

He froze, quiet horror coursing through him.

“What?”

“Ne-ne-never, uh, never mind,” Eren stammered. He didn’t have any right to ask, not about the most private part of Levi’s life. The permission certainly did not extend that far.

“Eren,” Levi said flatly. Eren shook his head, holding up the report to shield himself. Levi leaned forward and pushed the paper away. “The fact that you’re so flustered only makes me want to know more. Brat.”

Eren sighed. He might as well finish what he started; the worst that could happen was Levi getting mad at him, closing him off again. “Y-you and Commander Smith… two, were you… together?”

The question came out vaguer than he’d intended and he worried that he’d have to repeat himself, but Levi sat back slowly. “Why are you asking?”

Honestly, Eren didn’t really understand why himself, other than that he wanted to know everything about Levi— whatever Levi would tell him. “Just… want to know.”

Levi crossed his arms and looked at Eren in a manner so intense that Eren was sure Levi could see straight into him and was inspecting his buzzing swarm of thoughts, all the things that Eren never said because no one was listening or because he wasn’t sure he was allowed or because he just couldn’t give them voice anymore. Eren stared back at him because he knew Levi valued courage, considering how even after all these years he still wasn’t used to seeing Levi out of uniform, how pale his skin seemed when contrasted with a black shirt, how sharp his collarbones looked when they peeked from the wide collar. The shirt was too large on Levi and Eren was nearly certain that it wasn’t his.

“Yeah,” Levi answered. “On and off, for years.” He stopped, and then unfolded his arms from his chest, placing his hands atop the desk almost delicately. “Sometimes we could be good for each other. Sometimes we couldn’t.”

Eren nodded, not knowing how else to respond. Really, he couldn’t believe he actually got an answer and he wanted to say “Thank you,” but Levi would probably ask “Why?” and Eren doesn’t know what to say to that either. So he didn’t say anything at all, just laid the report down and started initialing it

Somehow, eventually, the awkward moment passed and Eren relaxed enough to remember a promise he’d made earlier.

“Ni— Penda, yesterday, invited us… to dinner. Tonight.” Last week, the former team leader had discovered that he and Levi had been cooking themselves dinner every day rather than eating what the canteen served. She lived off the base and usually ate at home, so apparently she hadn’t noticed them missing from dinner time. Eren had tried to explain why, but found that he couldn’t-- not a definite answer, anyway. He suspected that Levi did not trust the food made in the canteen kitchen for some reason. He would eat breakfast at the canteen but did so slowly and in tiny portions. The breakfast staff was always much smaller, closer in size to that of the various Legion headquarters they’d stayed at. Eren wasn’t sure if the lack of trust was a hygiene thing or if Levi was worried about being poisoned or what, but it hadn’t escaped his notice that Levi always knew exactly who was on staff during breakfast. Penda must have thought that he and Levi were not eating well because yesterday she extracted a promise from him to relay the invitation to the major.

“Oh?”

“She said, ah, she— her husband is… a good cook.”

Levi propped his chin up in one hand. “I’ve met him. Decent guy.”

“What’s… he like?”

“Few years older than you. Huge— probably about as tall as Mike. Kind of quiet.” Levi spun the pen in his hand deftly. “What did you tell her?”

Eren shrugged. “That… would tell you. She told me… come over before the sev— no, fourth hour… if we were gonna come.”

Levi glanced across the room to the clock sitting at his bedside. “Did you want to go?”

“…If you do.” As promising as dinner by a “good cook” sounded, the idea of being alone with Penda (who was nice, but Eren did not know well) and her husband he’d never met was a little overwhelming. Besides, despite all of Levi’s claims that he just wanted to spend the holiday working, the man could probably use a distraction.   

They went.

The Nichols home was just barely within Wall Rose, a short horse ride from the base. Short as the distance was, it was enough to make Eren wonder whether it was all right for Penda to be riding a horse every day. She was pretty far along; was it safe for a pregnant person to be on a horse? Obviously, it would be dangerous if the horse got spooked and bolted all of a sudden or if Penda fell off or something. The Legion’s horses were extremely well trained though and Penda was a good rider. But what about just the riding? Eren couldn’t remember his mother ever saying anything about it and he doubted the answer would be in the medical textbook he was forging through.     

Before Eren knew it, they’d arrived. Penda emerged to greet them as they secured their horses, delighted that they’d come and ushering them out of the cold and inside to be introduced to her husband.                       

Eren learned three things about Trevor Nichols within three minutes of meeting the man. First, huge was an understatement. Not only did he tower over everyone else in the room, but also he was broad, corded with thick muscles earned through years of working as a blacksmith. The very sight of Levi standing next to Trevor made Eren grin. Second, Trevor had a pleasant smile and kind demeanor that matched well with Penda. When the baby was born, they were sure to have a good pair of parents. Third, he was deaf, a fact that Levi had apparently missed when he’d met Trevor before.

Trevor had plenty of scars— mostly from burns and cuts— but he also had patches of scarring that Eren recognized as being from something completely non-work related. Eren had a hazy memory from years ago of his father and mother leaving Eren at Armin’s house so that they, along with some other doctors, could converge in this region of Rose and treat a severe outbreak of meningitis. He wondered if that was how Trevor lost his hearing. It wasn’t any of his business, so he didn’t ask.

Trevor could still hear. He would turn towards the sound of Penda speaking like a flower tracking the sun through the sky. And when Levi pointed at the kitchen and asked if he could watch Trevor cook, Trevor nodded and beamed that bright smile. Eren wasn’t sure if Levi was watching him for his own peace of mind or because he was trying to pick up some culinary tips— both Levi and Eren really could do with improving their cooking. Either way, Penda drew Eren away from the hearth to discuss the clinics, listening with interest as Eren described the progress of the old students and told her about the new ones. He did his best to give her a detailed report; the baby was due soon and it wouldn’t be long after that Penda would return to her full duties. The thought of the imminent due date made him disclose his concerns about horseback riding. Penda laughed— a noisy, bright sound that had Trevor glancing over his shoulder to check on them— and assured him that she was being extra careful.

The conversation turned to other things. Penda was easy to talk to, Eren found. He’d never chatted with her before about anything that didn’t have to do with work. He didn’t really chat with anyone. Most people didn’t have the patience to wait for Eren to process their words and listen to his slow replies, got annoyed when he asked them to repeat themselves because they spoke too quickly for him to follow. Levi and Penda were rare exceptions. Eren didn’t know where Levi’s patience came from, but Trevor’s careful answers to Levi’s questions about what he was doing gave him a fairly good idea where Penda learned hers.

Dinner, when it was finished, was unbelievably good. Better than Sasha’s cooking. Better than anything Eren had ever eaten, including the handful of banquets he’d attended in Sina. Eren dearly hoped that Levi had been paying close attention, wondered if either of them could come close to reproducing it if Trevor wrote the recipe down. Trevor accepted Eren’s babbled compliments with a gracious smile. Penda chuckled at Eren’s effusive praise and then admitted ruefully that everything she cooked burned.

“I’m lucky I met Trevor,” Penda said, reaching over to take her husband’s hand and turning so he could see her speak. “It’s important to find someone that complements you. Who knows what I’d be like without him.”

“Five kilograms lighter,” Trevor answered. Penda smacked him playfully on the shoulder.

It had gone dark by the time they left; Eren had to focus to stay awake and upright on his horse. Even though he had not worked as much as usual that day, he was strangely exhausted. It didn’t help that his full, content stomach was trying to lure him off to sleep too. As he blinked slowly, a thought occurred to him.

“I… never before… knew, met… married scout.”

“There aren’t many. But there are more now than there used to be,” Levi responded from beside him. “Before… it wasn’t a very smart idea."                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Eren nodded, humming sleepily. It wasn’t just marriage. Many scouts had avoided romantic relationships all together. The mortality rate was so high that allowing feelings to develop was viewed as almost foolhardy.

“…Brave though,” Eren mumbled.

 “What?”

“You’re brave.”

Levi did not reply, just reached over, jabbed Eren, and told him to stay awake. Eren wondered if, had it not been so dark, he would have seen the tips of Levi’s ears turn pink, the only tell Levi had for embarrassment. Probably not—he didn’t blush easily. But if Levi was embarrassed, the night kept his secret for him.  

As an apology for the late post, here's a longer-than-usual chapter. This probably reads really weirdly because I wrote sections of it ages ago and also I am no where near on top of my game right now. Even though this chapter was awful for me to write, it may be my favorite so far.

Midterms are coming up, so if you have those beasts in your life too, I wish you good luck.

Chapter Text

Maria had been a complete disaster when the reconstruction started, but things were improving at a decent pace. Both the necessary money and materials were easy enough to come by for the project and there was a massive labor force at their disposal too— between the Scouts waiting their turn to go beyond the Walls, the Garrison soldiers willing to work on something more interesting than routine Wall repair, and the thousands of civilians eager to labor for pay, there was never a shortage of ready hands. Northern Maria was slowly being repopulated; it had experienced the least amount of damage, so it was the quickest to reach habitable condition again. People would probably be able to start moving back into the Western and Eastern sectors by the end of summer if everything went well. Even Southern Maria, the zone that faced the longest and largest Titan occupation, was coming along.

Shiganshina, however, was still a fucking mess. The reports that came in from the district’s supervising officer, a willowy man named Heimer, were simultaneously empty and dripping with bullshit, a frustrating combination that would have prompted Levi to immediately replace Heimer with someone else if officers weren’t the only thing they suffered a shortage of. 

There was no reason for progress in Shiganshina to be as slow as it had been. Snowfall had been a minor issue in some areas, but as of yet this year’s snow had been relatively light. That was the only potential problem that Levi could think of. If there was something else, some legitimate reason why Shiganshina was still in such disrepair, it hadn’t been reflected in Heimer’s reports.

So Levi made a visit. His arrival was supposed to be unannounced, but somehow Heimer caught wind of it and met Eren and him at the gate.

“Gentlemen,” he greeted them. Heimer nodded to both of them respectfully, hands fluttering at his sides. He was as tall as Eren but not nearly as broad; his skin and hair had a permanent, greasy-looking sheen to it that made Levi think the only reason he’d survived so long as a scout was because if a Titan snagged him from the air he’d slip right through its fingers. “My apologies, I was not expecting you.”

Sure, Levi thought. That’s why you were waiting to spring on us the second we passed the gate.

“Is there something I can do for you, Major Levi?”

“Don’t jerk me around. You know full well why I’m here.”

“Ah.” The man pursed his lips, forehead wrinkling. “You’d like to assess the district’s progress, I assume?”

“What progress?” Levi asked flatly.

Heimer chuckled nervously. “Yes, of course. I’m afraid things having not been going as well as I would like…” He trailed off, eyes darting from Levi, to Eren, and to the far distance before clasping his hands in front of him. “Well, I can certainly show you around, give you a tour of all the developments.”

“I know my way around.”

“I’m sure you do, Major. I did not mean to insinuate otherwise. However, I could provide you with information about the ongoing projects.”

Levi could feel pinpricks in his skull, the prelude to a headache. He hated this slippery sort of shit and it appeared that Heimer was well-versed in it. “Fine. Let’s get going then.”

“Certainly. Just a moment.” He turned to a waiting aide and Levi crossed his arms. Since Heimer was so keen on showing them around, it could be because he wanted to make sure they did not see something. While Heimer was distracted by speaking with his aide, Levi tugged on Eren’s arm to make him lean down so he could whisper to him.

“Go check around. This feels fucking shady.”

Eren nodded and slipped away. It was probably an unnecessary precaution; Levi could usually sense the aura of malevolent intent on people straight away—it was a skill that had saved him several times in the past. While Heimer certainly had never made a favorable impression on Levi, he’d never gotten the feeling that the man was capable of anything especially sinister. Still, Heimer’s twitchy, anxious behavior was suspicious.

“My apologies, Major,” Heimer said, turning back to face him. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Ah, where did the Warrant Officer go?”

Levi was a miserable liar and he knew it, but it was easier when he told a half-truth instead. “Officer Jaeger is from Shiganshina originally, so he wanted to visit some particular places.”

“Oh, is he really? How unusual.” Heimer did not seem overly perturbed, so perhaps he really was just grossly ineffectual. Well, it couldn’t hurt to be cautious.

Levi endured two hours of Heimer blabbering and gesturing vaguely and pulling aside random workers to ask pointless questions before he finally discovered the root of Shiganshina’s slow progress.

“Rocks.”

“Not rocks, sir,” Heimer corrected. “Rubble from the Wall.”

Levi glared at him and Heimer’s face drained of color. Levi pinched the bridge of his nose so hard that his nails nearly broke his skin. “You’re telling me that construction has been at a near complete halt for the last month because of some shitty rocks?” he growled.

“Over a dozen, Major. Very big ones. There were some smaller ones too, but we were able to break those up into manageable pieces. The remaining… rocks, however, are too large for us to break with the tools available and of course we don’t have anything to move them with either. So I—”

“—Why didn’t you mention this in any of your reports?” Levi demanded.

Heimer blinked slowly. “I… I did, sir.”

“When?”

“I… believe that I wrote about the trouble clearing the rubble in every report I’ve submitted thus far. Sir.”

Clearing the rubble. Unbelievable. Now that Levi thought about it, the Shiganshina reports indeed all mentioned “rubble”—a fairly common problem at any construction site— but none of them had bothered mention that by “rubble” what was actually meant was gigantic, big-ass rocks. Heimer wasn’t up to anything suspicious; he was just incredibly incompetent.

“Let’s see the biggest rock you’ve got.”

Heimer took him there and Levi walked around the perimeter of the rock, examining it. It was huge. He wasn’t surprised that they’d been unsuccessful at trying to break it apart. The material that the Walls were made of was unnaturally hard after all. However, as huge as this rock was, it was only about two thirds the size of the boulder that sealed the hole at Trost. If Eren had been able to move that rock he could certainly handle all of Heimer’s rocks.

Levi pointed at the aide accompanying Heimer. “You go find Officer Jaeger and tell him to come here. Get everyone to clear this area too.” The aide glanced at Heimer, then nodded at departed. Levi pulled a map of Shiganshina from his documents and unfolded it. “Heimer, I want the location of every shitty piece of rock in this district marked down.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, drawing a pencil from his pocket and getting to work. Levi stared down at the map while Heimer wrote upon it, considering all of the empty areas. The rocks would have to be moved somewhere after all, someplace where they wouldn’t get in the way of the reconstruction anymore. Since all of the rocks came from the Wall, most of them were near the once-devastated gate. It would probably be simplest to just have the gate opened and dump Heimer’s so-called “rubble” outside the Wall.

“Rubble?” Was he fucking serious? No. Levi let loose a sharp breath, startling Heimer. There was no reason to keep getting angry over it. The time had already been lost; being pissed wouldn’t bring it back. However, Levi was still sorely tempted to have Heimer replaced by someone that actually had the sense to write decent reports. There really weren’t any available officers though since the majority of them were currently beyond the Walls. The only potential candidate was Eren. Eren was only one rank behind Heimer, who was also a Warrant Officer (though of the veterinary variety, not the Shifter.) Levi was reluctant to station Eren out in Shiganshina though. Partly because Levi really did need an adjutant to handle all of the paperwork that came through his office. Partly because even though Eren was technically an officer, he still did not have much experience actually functioning as one and it would be almost cruel to put him in charge of supervising an entire district on his own, sink or swim.

And also partly— selfishly— because Levi wanted to keep Eren near him. He could admit this, if only to himself.

The aide returned with Eren faster than Levi expected. Levi took the marked map from Heimer and held it out to show Eren. “As you might have noticed, there are a bunch of rocks lying around,” Levi drawled, pointing over his shoulder at the massive hunk of Wall resting behind him.

One corner of Eren’s mouth quirked up briefly. “I… saw some.”

“Well, this one is apparently the biggest of them all. You can move it, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s try to have you move all of them then. ” Levi explained about relocating all of the rocks outside the Wall and Eren agreed that outside was probably the best place for them.

Eren reached out to touch one edge of the map.  “There’s… about a dozen. I can’t be, uh, won’t be able to… remember. Ah, all of them.”

Levi rolled the map up. “That’s why I’m coming with. All right?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Heimer, who had been hovering nearby wringing his hands, suddenly spoke up. “Major Levi, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why? You suddenly think of something better after dragging your ass for months?”

“No, sir,” Heimer admitted. "But is this, ah, safe?” Levi narrowed his eyes at the weedy officer and he tugged at his shirt collar. “I mean, he hasn’t been a Titan since he got shot, has he? His brain is damaged. What if he… loses control?”

Levi would never understand why idiots like Heimer spoke about Eren as though he wasn’t standing right there listening. He’d never understand how people could be so stupid. “Officer Jaeger, you tell the man. Are you going to lose control?”

Eren hesitated. Oh hell, he wasn’t actually giving Heimer’s words consideration was he? “No,” he finally answered.

“And if for some reason you do, what will happen?”

“Major will… stop me.”

“You got any more objections?” he asked Heimer. Heimer shook his head frantically.

“Are you ready then, Eren?”

 Eren confirmed that he was and Levi backed away a safe distance, muttering “Move it,” to Heimer when the man did not budge. When a wide enough area was cleared, Eren lifted one hand to his mouth and Levi closed his eyes. Even through his eyelids, he could see the bright stroke of light. The rush of steam followed right after and Levi raised an arm over his face to shield against it. Once the heat passed, Levi checked that Eren’s Shifting had been successful—full fifteen meters, strong limbs, standing still and waiting docilely—before firing his grapple hooks and maneuvering to land on Eren’s shoulder.

“Everything good?” Levi asked. Eren nodded, the movement careful so not to knock Levi off balance. “All right. Let’s deal with that first big-ass rock.” Eren started to step forward, but froze when Levi yanked his hair.

“Don’t you dare fuck up any streets or buildings,” he growled. Eren snorted through his nose, the burst of air noisy and hot. “I’m serious. If you break something, you’re fixing it.” Eren hummed in acknowledgement, chest rumbling so loudly that Heimer and some other soldiers below flinched and stepped even further back.

Dumbasses, Levi thought. It was obvious that Eren was completely in control and mindful of his surroundings. He approached the chunk of Wall cautiously and kept his back rigid as he bent at the knees to pick it up so that Levi wouldn’t be thrown. Levi hopped off Eren’s shoulder and maneuvered to the top of his head so that Eren could move his arms freely.

Hopefully they would be able to clean up this mess quickly so that Levi could escape from all the idiots.

It is truly ridiculous how much trouble this chapter gave me, but whatever, it is done now. Sorry that this is nearly a week late... next update should be coming between late Saturday and early Tuesday. The next batch of chapters will likely be the most exciting for y'all shippers, so look forward to that. 

Thank you for all the well wishes on my midterms; I'm nearly done and so far everything has gone decently.

...I'm going to look at this chapter in the morning and spot a million typos, aren't I?

Chapter Text

Penda and Trevor’s baby was born on the very tail end of winter. Neither Eren nor Levi were present for the birth, but a message arrived the next day that there had been no complications and both baby and mother were doing well. Eren wrote back his congratulations (and breathed a sigh of relief that his fears of miscarriage or stillbirth due to horseback riding or something else entirely hadn’t come true) and Levi wrote back that he had better not see Penda on base for the next month unless it was urgent. All paperwork that could be rerouted to the Nichols household was sent there and anything that couldn’t was brought up to Levi’s office for either him or Eren to take care of instead. It meant a lot of late nights working, but Eren didn’t mind and Levi’s only comment on the situation was “Babies are fucking important.”

On the day before Penda was due to return to full duties, she disobeyed Levi’s order and visited in the morning with the baby bundled up in her arms. “This is Desta,” she announced.

Desta was awake but blinking sleepily with a full head of hair and skin lighter than either parent, though Eren supposed the child would likely get darker over time. Eren pressed one of his fingers into the baby’s palm and five little fingers squeezed around it in a surprisingly tight grip. Well, with a soldier for a mother and a blacksmith for a father, it would make sense that the kid would be strong.

“Looks... healthy,” Levi remarked in a almost hesitant tone.

“Do you want to hold Desta?”

“No,” he answered, too quickly to be considered polite. Penda didn’t take offense though; she just turned to Eren with inquiry on her face. Eren held out his hands and Penda passed the baby to him. He carefully settled Desta against his shoulder with one hand supporting the baby’s heavy head. Levi watched the exchange warily and Eren grinned to himself, thinking that the major must be the type that got nervous around small children. The idea was kind of adorable.

“Do you like babies, Eren?” Penda asked.

He shrugged the shoulder that Desta wasn’t resting on. “I guess… used to ci— them,” he replied. He’d gone with his mother on house calls a lot and had even assisted with some births. Eren had spent a great deal of time around babies and toddlers; while he’d always struggled to play nice with the kids his age and older in Shiganshina, he got along well enough with those younger than him. The older kids always made him angry—picking on Armin or saying something stupid or whatever— but the little ones didn’t provoke him. Some of them even liked Eren enough to call him “big brother.”

He wondered what happened to those kids. How many died in Shiganshina? How many fell victim to starvation and exhaustion toiling in the wastelands? How many were killed by some belligerent Rose citizen that resented the refugees taking up resources? How many were healthy and happy right now? He wondered if any had joined the military; Eren had never run into any new scouts that he recognized from Shiganshina, but from what Eren understood it was somewhat rare for refugees from Maria to join the Legion. Plenty of refugees entered training for the food, but after already facing the terror of the Titans and other hardships, most opted for the relative safety of the Garrison instead.

Desta, Eren thought, was fortunate to have been born into a kinder time. He gently stroked the back of Desta’s head, fingers carefully carding through the thick hair.

“Do you want to have kids?”

“…Prob-probably not.” Eren fully intended to stay in the military for as long as he was capable and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his service behind a desk. It was one thing to start a family when you mostly worked Administration, like Penda was doing now. But Eren wanted to go back out into the field and stay there until he died or was forced into retirement— whichever came first.

Levi, apparently tiring of the baby talk, asked Penda a question about some report and Eren sat down so that he could hold Desta better. He listened to the quiet sounds of Levi and Penda discussing the details of her return, not bothering to actually pay attention to the words. Instead, he focused on the gentle rise and fall of the baby’s back as Desta breathed. It had been many years since he’d last held a baby; he’d forgotten how warm they were, how relaxing it could be.

He wondered if Levi had ever considered having kids. He didn’t seem like the sort; Levi was a lot of things, but “family man” was not a very good descriptor for him. But Desta made a mumbling noise and kicked Eren restlessly until he petted the baby’s neck gently with one finger and something tugged at his memory.

He was pretty sure this happened.

It had been early in the eradication campaign: before Ymir had returned but after the entirety of team seven was wiped out and Jean was pulled from their squad to assume the position of the new team seven’s second-in-command. It had been a rough battle, but Eren had spent most of it (too much of it) in Titan form so many of the details were hazy for him. Somehow he and Levi wound up separated from the squad and the rest of the formation and surrounded by Titans. He and Levi managed to defeat all of them, but Levi was dangerously low on fuel and Eren had been completely exhausted, emerging from his Titan missing his gear and barely able to keep his eyes open. Levi made him stumble along with a hand shoving his back and a stream of insults in his ears until they reached a jutting rock they could hide under, forced to wait for either the slightly safer nighttime or for someone to come for them or for a Titan to discover them. It was obvious which option Levi was pulling for— “Mikasa won’t let them leave until they at least fucking attempt to search for us and Armin should be able to figure out which direction we got pulled in so long as he puts his scary brain to use,”— but Eren was too tired to even think, only blinking blearily whenever Levi would growl “Don’t you fucking dare fall asleep,” because if Eren fell asleep he would likely be out for at least a full day if not more.

Which is why Eren couldn’t be sure whether he remembered those hours correctly or if his fragmented recollections were nothing but dreams and hallucinations. But he was pretty sure… Levi kept talking to him to keep him awake, talking about some damn good tea he’d had once in Sina at some stupid banquet Erwin brought him to and the color and shape of his shit that morning, among other things. It was mostly all meaningless stuff, but Levi insisted on responses from him, squeezing Eren tightly against his side and digging his nails into his arm if Eren failed to at least mumble something.

It was mostly all meaningless stuff, but… Eren was pretty sure that, after a minor tirade about the neglected condition of Hange’s hair, Levi mentioned that he used to brush the hair of a younger girl he’d known long ago. Eren hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, just grunted his requisite grunt, but later on it occurred to him that people (especially Levi) didn’t brush just anybody’s hair and he wondered who that young girl had been. A good friend? Maybe even a sister?  

“Oh!” Penda exclaimed, startling Eren from his thoughts. “That reminds me.” She reached into her bag, emerging with a covered basket. “Trevor sent a gift with me for you two. He just finished baking it this morning.” She pulled back the cloth to reveal what had to be the most delicious loaf of bread that Eren had ever seen— the crust was perfectly crisp and crackled and the smell wafting from it made Eren’s stomach rumble. “Well, it’s part gift and part bribe,” she admitted.

Eren didn’t care what it was a bribe for; Levi had better accept that bread.

“A bribe?” Levi prompted, raising one thin eyebrow.

Penda pursed her lips. “Trevor works in the forge most of the day and it’s not a very safe place for a baby,” she began. “I’m usually just in my office all day, except for the clinics but a neighbor agreed to watch Desta on days that I have clinics. Actually, she could watch Desta all week, but…”

“Are you asking if you can bring the baby to work?” Levi cut in when she trailed off.

Penda straightened her back. “Yes, sir.”

Levi’s eyes flicked over to Desta who was yawning and clutching the fabric of Eren’s uniform jacket in one hand. “As long as it doesn’t become too much of a distraction, I don’t have a problem with it. If some asshole gives you shit, tell them they can take it up with me.” Technically, children weren’t allowed on military premises besides the barracks, but Levi was the highest ranking officer on the base and could set his own rules to a certain extent.

Penda smiled broadly and her arms lifted a bit as though to throw them around Levi in a hug, but she wisely restrained herself and thrust the bread basket at him instead. “Thank you, Major. I assure you, it won’t be a distraction at all and—”

But then Desta shifted in Eren’s arms, made an odd little noise and spat up on his jacket. Eren rubbed Desta’s back gently until Desta was done, repeating “Fine, it’s f-fine,” as Penda, flustered, rummaged in her bag and came up with a rag. She took Desta from Eren, passing the cloth to him, and Levi watched with a wrinkled nose as Eren cleaned the white, milky vomit off of his uniform best he could.

“Eren, just go down to Laundry,” he ordered, expression strained. “Now.”

Penda apologized again, but Eren just shook his head—it was far from the first time he’d been spat up on— and laughed quietly as he shrugged out of his jacket and left the room. She’d never be able to get Levi to hold Desta now.

All three of the cats were waiting for Eren when he arrived at the courtyard. “Hey,” he greeted them, kneeling and setting down his leftovers. The orange tabby meowed back at him, but the others immediately began eating. Eren held out one hand and the tabby approached cautiously and rubbed his head against him twice while the black cat watched with wide, alert eyes. She still hadn’t allowed Eren to touch her, though she would sit closer to him than she used to. Only the patchy brown one, Ugly, would let Eren pet him, tolerating a few strokes along his scarred back before slipping out from beneath his hand.

The tabby crouched down beside Ugly and Eren noticed that Ugly had acquired a new rip in one of his ears. “You were… fight another, yeah?” Eren asked. “Ina… in another fight?” he corrected himself. Ugly glanced up at him briefly as though to say So what if I was? and Eren grinned. “Need to be… careful. No trouble.”

Suddenly, the black one’s head shot up, tail flaring. “What’s ma— wrong?”

“Have you seriously been giving away military rations to strays?”

Ah. He’d been caught. Eren straightened his back and looked over his shoulder at the major. “I’m not… giving away,” he said. “It’s p-payment.”

“Oh? For what?”

Now that he actually had to explain it to someone, it felt a little silly. Well, he doubted that Levi would give him a hard time over talking to cats. No matter what Levi claimed, he definitely spoke to his horses, so he didn’t have any right to pass judgment. “There’s… a deal,” he started. “I’ll… I bring something, feed, and they have… to listen. To me.” Levi was making a strange expression— it wasn’t quite angry, but it was close enough that Eren was compelled to add on, “Just my rations. Not… only mine, okay?”    

“Fine. But make sure you get enough to eat.”

That was rich coming from Levi; he didn’t eat lunch at all. “Today no nap?”

Levi narrowed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “No,” he replied in a tone that permitted no further inquiries. He gestured at the cats and asked, “Do they have names?” in a very transparent attempt at changing the subject.

Eren indulged him. He pointed at the black cat, who had calmed down but was still watching Levi closely. “Princess.” Next was the tabby, washing behind his ears. “Sunshine.” Finally, he pointed at the mangiest of them all, who was sniffing Levi’s boots. “Ugly.”

“Ugly? Really?”

“Y-yeah.” Eren squinted up at Levi; he was standing in the sun, so it was hard to be absolutely certain, but Eren was sure that Levi’s mouth was twisted into an odd smirk. “What’s… that face?”

“Nothing.”

That was definitely a smirk. “Tell me,” Eren pushed, not understanding why Levi was being evasive over a cat of all things.

He kicked his foot slightly to get Ugly away from him. "I was thinking it looked like you," he explained.

Eren stared at Ugly, trying to understand in what way a grungy street cat resembled him. "Ma— messy?" he guessed.

"No, its coloring. Especially the big-ass eyes."

Ugly blinked up at them with two golden eyes. He did have big eyes. They were kind of pretty, probably the beast's only redeeming feature, in Eren’s opinion anyway. Wait, was Levi implying that he thought Eren's eyes were pretty? Between that and his weird reaction to the cat’s name… was he flirting?

Eren had never actually witnessed Levi flirting with anyone, so he didn’t have a point of comparison to work with. If Levi was, Eren certainly wasn’t adverse to it. He’d had a ridiculous crush on the man when he’d been younger and while his feelings had matured and transformed, they had never gone away. But he knew better than to pursue something unnecessary that had no chance of happening. Fighting for the survival of the human race when all odds were against them was necessary. Romance, while nice, was not. And even when Eren wasn’t sure whether or not Levi and Erwin were involved, it had been very clear that Levi was strictly off limits so he set his feelings aside, messed around with some people that were not off limits, and gave up on it. But there were fewer ranks in-between them now, Levi was unattached, and if he was interested…  

No. He couldn’t be flirting. As cagey as Levi could be when it came to himself, he was straight-forward— blunt, really— when it came to other people. Eren had never seen Levi flirt, but he imagined that when Levi did he was a lot more direct. Coyly complimenting Eren via cat didn’t fit him at all. He was reading too much into it. Besides, Eren did not look like Ugly.

“This cat is na— mange, messed up, and... lots of scars.”

Levi shot him a surprised glance. “Just means that he's survived a lot of fights.”

Eren knew that. He hadn’t meant to imply that he thought scars were ugly— he didn’t. Eren frowned, frustrated with his limited speech for the first time in a while; usually Levi got what he was saying without Eren having to struggle to elaborate and while Eren spoke regularly with more people than he used to, he still talked with Levi far more than anyone else. “Yes,” he agreed, putting extra emphasis on it. “But I... have no scars.”

Levi stared at him and— despite the glare of the sun— Eren found himself utterly unable to break away from the gaze. The moment stretched on infinitely and Eren began to wonder if this was how mice felt when caught by the eyes of a snake. But this gaze wasn’t threatening; it was something else entirely. A little bit fond, a little bit melancholy, a little bit… Eren didn’t know.

Levi was the one to finally break the stare, looking down at Ugly who was now clinging to and play-fighting with one of his boots and gently dislodging the cat. He murmured, "Not where anyone could see."

Eren understood each word that Levi had said, but he had no idea what the man was saying. Levi sure was acting strange today. Of course, just as Eren had that thought, Levi grumbled, “You better not bring any of these shitty cats inside. I fucking hate fleas,” which was such a Levi thing to say that Eren had to laugh. The major scowled at him, only making Eren smile more. Levi swatted the back of Eren’s head and stalked off, calling over his shoulder, “Come on. I’ve got a pile of paperwork, just delivered for you, that’ll wipe that grin off your face.”

Somehow, Eren didn’t think it would.

I don't know if you guys have ever had a baby spit up on you, but it's completely different than when a grown person does. A grown-up vomiting on you is pretty disgusting, but when a baby does it, it's just kind of like, "Oh, dear, I'm going to be smelling that later." That's my life philosophy anyway...

I hope you guys enjoy chapters 13 through 15 because Whoa Nelly! they are going to be some of the toughest for me to write.

Chapter Text

“Good morning, Major, Warrant Officer.”

Eren glanced up from the medical textbook, pressing his finger down in the spot where he’d been reading. Etheline Kindler was standing on the other side of the table, tray in hand, and uncharacteristically nervous.

“Morning,” he returned. Levi just nodded.

“May I eat with you, sir?” she asked.

As the higher ranking officer, Levi should have been the one to answer. Eren waited several beats and nothing but silence came from him. Either he hadn’t heard or he was leaving it up to Eren, so after a long, awkward moment Eren answered, “Yes.”

Kindler sat down, focused determinedly on her tray as she fidgeted with her dishes and cutlery. Eren wondered what she wanted. Scouts and even Garrison soldiers from the clinics sometimes sought him out to ask him things or occasionally just chat, but Kindler had never been one of them. Eren had always gotten the sense that she didn’t like him much, which was fine with him. It wasn’t his job to be liked—as long as she listened, Eren didn’t care what she thought about him. Kindler had been somewhat uncooperative when he first took over the clinics, but it stopped being an issue pretty fast, probably because she figured out that she wasn’t going to ever leave on an expedition if she didn’t learn from him. The legion could afford to be picky now, after all.

They all ate quietly (actually, Eren was the only getting any eating done; Levi was just drinking tea today and Kindler kept pushing her food around her plate) until Kindler finally spoke up. “Are… are you really not doing the clinics anymore? Sir?”

“No. Not… un-unless there’s a need.” Maybe in the future the class sizes would get big enough to necessitate two instructors, but for now Penda had everything under control.

“Oh. That’s, uh, that’s too bad. Lieutenant Nichols— I mean, you were all right, sir.”

Eren grinned down at his breakfast. Eren was pretty strict and worked them all hard, but from what he’d heard Penda was a true taskmaster. When he’d announced that she was returning, the soldiers that had been on base long enough to remember her teaching style all groaned quietly. However, it wouldn’t make much of a difference for Kindler; another expedition was coming up soon and she’d improved enough for him to put her on the short list for it. Eren wasn’t allowed to tell her that yet though, so he didn’t say anything but “Thank you.”

Kindler kept picking at her food, occasionally casting quick glances to her right. After three such glances, Eren gave into his curiosity and followed her line of sight to the table where Azra Akbari was eating. Eren should have known. Those two always seemed to be together, though as far as he could tell they mostly just argued— or more accurately, Akbari would remain silent while Kindler ran her mouth until finally she would snap. Eren had figured that they just stuck together for the sake of familiarity (they were from the same hometown) but last week he’d accidently spotted them sitting close to each other, holding hands, and whispering, so there must be something more between them.

After managing to put a small dent into her breakfast, Kindler stood up, looked over to Akbari one more time, and said in a voice that carried far beyond their table, “Officer Jaeger.”

“Y-Yes?” Eren responded, mystified.

“I’m— I’m sorry. Really.”

'For what?' Eren wanted to ask, but before he could she saluted in an abrupt but a sincere motion. Then she snatched up her tray and hurried over to where Akbari was, blood like a beacon on her pale cheeks. As she sat down beside the other soldier, Akbari leaned over and murmured something to Kindler that made her cheeks even redder and a tiny smile cross her lips.

Eren looked to Levi, who was also watching the exchange. “Do you na— know that, no, what that was?”

Levi’s eyes slid over to him, traveling up and down him appraisingly. He took a long drink of tea before setting the mug down and answering. “I know that she was saying some rude shit about you before. Seems like Akbari’s made her reconsider.”

Eren blinked. “Oh.” He’d overheard plenty of people talking about him, but Etheline Kindler had never been one of them. However, it didn’t surprise him; she was catty and didn’t seem to have any filter between her brain and her mouth. To her credit though, she was the first person on base to apologize to him for it.

Eren was tempted to press Levi for the details on exactly what kind of rude shit she’d been saying—was it his speaking, his Shifting, or something else entirely?—but Levi was frowning into his tea like he was contemplating drowning himself in it. He’d been looking awfully exhausted the last couple of days. Of course, Levi never looked particularly well-rested, but the sparkling state of the hall outside their office and the gleaming condition of every surface inside their office told Eren that Levi was probably sleeping even less than typical.

He could guess at the cause too. Levi wasn’t drinking the canteen’s usual breakfast tea. Instead, what he was sipping was from his personal supply, one of the few luxuries he spent his pay on. Eren recognized the tea from the scent—it always made him feel like he might sneeze, but more importantly it smelled like a root his father kept stocked and recommended to patients for various reasons. Eren couldn’t recall all of the ailments that his father claimed the root could alleviate, but he did know that muscle and joint pain were some of them.

Eren’s suspicions were confirmed when Levi’s rose out of his seat, the movements stiff and slow. His left leg was hurting him again and probably his neck, shoulders, and back too. Using maneuver gear wrecked your body over time, even if you were skilled at it and practiced caution. Levi had been maneuvering for a lot longer than most people, so he’d surely accumulated plenty of damage. Eren thought back to the last few nights in the gym; Levi had been going through his routine with a pinched expression and spent a lot more time on stretching than he usually did, never quite reaching his typical level of flexibility.

“You done eating yet?” Levi demanded, one hand cupped against his hip in a gesture that was possibly meant to convey impatience but all Eren saw was the major’s slouched shoulders. Yes, definitely Levi’s back too.

“Yeah,” Eren replied, piling his spread out dishes onto his tray and tucking his book under one arm. He followed Levi to the dish return and then up to the office, scheming silently. If Levi was having trouble sleeping because of pain, then obviously his usual tea remedy wasn’t cutting it.

Eren tried to plot a way to get Levi to take something more potent. The problem was that Levi hated anything that would make his body numb or his thoughts foggy and anything stronger than tea was likely to do both. He could try nagging Levi— Eren could be a terrific nag when he set his mind to it— but it would be like a clash between an unstoppable force and an immoveable object. Attempting to appeal to Levi's sense of logic would turn up the same result. No, it would be impossible to convince Levi to willingly take something. Levi had been unconscious for the one and only time that Eren knew of Levi consuming a painkiller and his foul disposition upon waking had been scary even in his drugged state. He'd demanded to know who'd been the one to give it to him, but the squad banded together and refused to rat out the culprit (Mikasa) and eventually Levi just had to accept that they'd done it in his best interests and hadn’t meant any harm.

He could try tricking Levi into taking something— sneak it into his dinner or tea. Eren could get away with it. Levi preferred to watch people prepare his food, but if he couldn't watch Levi would instead smell it and eat it very slowly, waiting to see if any ill effects occurred. Eren was among the small group of people that Levi would accept food from without suspicion. He could excuse himself, make a quick trip down to the Infirmary to pick up a drug, and slip it into the major's next cup of tea. Levi would drink it and probably wouldn't notice any difference until the drug kicked in. However, the very fact that Eren could do it meant that he simply would not. Levi trusted Eren and Eren would not break that trust for anything— or, at least, not over something like this.    

Levi went through one pot of tea before lunch and another pot after, Eren slipping out of the office each time to fetch the requisite hot water. It wasn’t a very productive work day for either of them since both were distracted— Eren by his scheming and Levi by his pain. When they finally called it quits, Levi stacked the remaining high-priority documents into a folder to finish later that night. Just as he had the evenings before, Levi still insisted on going to the gymnasium and Eren kept one eye on him as he stretched, hissing slowly between his teeth. Like Mikasa, Levi was awful at taking it easy (though Eren supposed he didn’t have much room to talk.) Still, he kept it short and Eren breathed a sigh of relief when Levi announced that he was done.

They washed up a little and went down to the canteen where Eren was able to persuade Levi to sit down and do paperwork— not that Levi took much persuading. When Eren emerged laden with two trays, he found Levi surrounded by parchment with his left foot propped up on a nearby chair and his forehead propped on one hand while he scrawled out a report with the other. He glanced up when Eren approached and shuffled the papers back into the folder, murmuring a “Thanks” as Eren laid the tray down in front of him. Levi rotated both of his shoulders, kneaded the back of his neck roughly, and suddenly Eren knew what he could do.

He just needed Levi’s cooperation.  

Eren insisted on doing all the cleaning himself (on the pretense that Levi should finish working on the report, though surely Levi was on to his true motives) so it was pretty late by the time they headed for the barracks. When Eren didn’t turn down the corridor to his room, Levi raised an eyebrow.

“You need something?”

“I…” The words he’d lined up in his head were somehow whisked away and Eren frowned, trying to collect his thoughts again. It had been a long, uneventful but tiring day. His brain just wanted to sleep, but Eren did his best to kick it back into gear. “Favor,” he bit it out. It was close enough.

“What is it?”

Eren raked his hand through his hair in frustration; it was too much to explain at whatever unholy hour they’d managed to breach. “Ca— come on,” he muttered, ushering Levi towards the major’s quarters and taking the folder from Levi as he unlocked the door.

“Sit on… the…” He stared at the bed. He knew the word, it was a bed, but he couldn’t seem to get the sound to travel from his brain to his mouth. Finally, he settled for pointing and saying, “Sit there.”

Levi sank down on the bed, strangely compliant, and just watched as Eren shut the door, deposited the folder on his desk, found his matches and lit the lamp that rested on his nightstand. He didn’t say anything, not even when Eren knelt down at his feet and asked, “Shoes, no…” He ground the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Tired,” he mumbled, partly as an explanation and partly as a complaint.

“What about shoes?” Levi prompted.

Eren closed his eyes, trying to picture the words written down and speaking extra slowly. “Can I… take off y-your… boots?” Boots. That was the word.

Levi lifted his left foot off the ground slightly in permission and Eren shucked the boot off, careful not to tug unnecessarily. He removed the other and then arranged the pair at the end of the bed where Levi usually set them. He loosened the harness enough to remove it up to the knees and then rolled up the trousers neatly to the knee as well. The entire time Levi didn’t question what in the world Eren was planning to do; he didn’t do anything at all besides shift his weight when needed and watch with bright, alert eyes. It was kind of weird; Eren had figured that the major would at least make Eren explain why he was invading his personal space.

When Eren was satisfied that the trousers wouldn’t get in the way, he shifted his attention down to Levi’s feet and stopped. It wasn’t like Eren had never seen Levi’s bare feet before. Of course he had. But he’d never really looked at them.

Levi’s feet were pale, scarred on the top from the gear harness and on the soles from some even older injuries, and small, which shouldn’t have been as remarkable as it was. Levi was small, the smallest man Eren knew. Eren had known that ever since he’d first stood beside him and it registered in his head that the famous captain was shorter than himself, Eren, who wouldn’t even have been considered particularly tall at that age. Regardless, he was Captain Levi— Humanity’s Strongest— and his height certainly crossed nobody’s mind when he made Titans topple one by one like dominos. His stature was actually an advantage in some ways. Many of the maneuvering techniques that Levi was famous for simply did not work if you were too tall, limbs too long. Out of the last Special Ops Squad, the only soldier that Levi instructed in all of his techniques was Historia since he'd accurately predicted that Armin and Connie would hit a growth spurt and shoot out of the proper height range.

Maybe that was it. The bulk of the Scouting Legion was so young and Levi was so smooth-faced that it was easy to take for granted the fact that he was done growing. Over the years, Eren had gotten taller and taller and Levi had stayed exactly the same—the only mark of time on his body was new scars.

Eren marveled at the little feet that had, despite all the odds, carried Levi through all these years toward this moment. It was a reminder that while the legendary soldier as real, there also just Levi, the Levi that clung to his odd habits like a lantern in the night and was somehow just as capable of endearingly awkward kindness as he was level-headed violence. They were both real but Eren knew which man held his loyalty, which man he cared for.

Levi said something but none of the words registered with his tired brain. Eren looked up at him, gathering together the remaining vestiges of his concentration. “Huh?”

Without a single trace of impatience, Levi repeated himself. “Do you have a foot fetish or something?”

“No,” Eren chuckled. “Only… th-thinking.”

“About what?”

There wasn’t any point in lying. “You… your feet. They’re small.”

“We can’t all be giants,” Levi countered, swinging his right foot up to kick Eren in the chest. There wasn’t much force behind it, but it still hurt a bit.

Eren winced as he laughed, grabbing Levi’s foot before he could kick him again and forcing it back down. “No. Hold… hold still.”

Eren released the right foot and picked up the left, elevating it and rotating it in a circle. The ankle made a grinding sound, as though there was sand trapped inside. Eren watched Levi’s face for signs of sharp pain, but the ankle rolled in three rotations without Levi giving anything away. Eren traced a firm line around the fibula. The area felt inflamed and looked a bit swollen. He ran his thumb around it again, harder, and asked, “Is this… okay?”

Levi's eyes flicked over to the flickering lamp. “You’re fine,” he answered.

“If… tell me if it, ah, no… if something hurts. Ma— more,” Eren instructed.

Levi nodded and Eren set to work. He massaged the inflamed joint thoroughly but was careful not to cause any additional damage. The poor ankle already had enough damage piled on to it; Levi had never let it heal properly after the 57^th expedition. He should've stayed off of his feet for some time afterwards, but he'd insisted on walking around as though nothing was wrong. He'd even returned to combat far too early, though at the time officers had become scarce and Levi hadn't had much of a choice. His ankle had been prone to injury ever since. Eren wasn’t sure if the original injury had been a torn ligament, a torn tendon, or even a bone fracture. Honestly, he didn’t really know much about any of the options. But swollen ankles were very familiar to him; he’d watched his own mother give gentle massages to many expectant mothers complaining of sore feet.

When he was satisfied that he’d done all he could for the ankle, he shifted up to Levi’s calf which was also stiff and sore. When he dug into one large knot with his fingers, Levi sucked in a sharp breath. It was the first noise he’d made and Eren looked up in alarm, worried that he’d hurt him, but Levi shook his head.

“No. Keep going.”

Eren did. By the time he switched over to Levi’s right leg (the muscles were tense from carrying extra weight) Levi’s eyes had fluttered shut and his breaths were coming in deep and slow. Eren wondered if the major had managed to fall asleep while sitting up, but when Eren finished and stood Levi opened his eyes again.

“Back?” Eren suggested, flexing his fingers. “Okay?” He’d given up on full sentences for now. Usually Levi would press him to elaborate and not cop out, but apparently he was too relaxed because all the man did was nod.

“Okay.”

Neither of them said anything as Eren fetched some sleepwear and then helped Levi undress. He folded and put away the uniform into Levi’s stack of dirty laundry and hung up the harness as Levi pulled on a soft pair of slacks and then collapsed onto his bed, face burrowed into his pillow. Eren settled beside him, rubbing his hands together briskly even though he knew they probably already felt pretty warm thanks to his high body temperature.

Levi’s back and shoulders were crisscrossed with the trademark scars left behind by the three-dimensional maneuvering gear, along with a myriad of other wounds. Eren spotted the large, silvery scar on Levi’s right side that ran from his back to his front (“from one of my first expeditions”) and fingered it gently before running his hands over Levi’s entire back, seeking out the tight, knotted sections. He decided to start at the neck and shoulders and worked his way down. He pressed his thumbs into the base of Levi’s neck and began stroking ever-widening circles. When Eren finished with his neck and proceeded down to his shoulders, Levi turned his face away from the pillow to speak.

“Eren.”

“Hn?” he muttered. He was kind of distracted by how broad Levi’s shoulders were.

“You said you wanted a favor?”

Had he? Eren thought back to what he’d said in the corridor, separating what he’d meant to say from what he’d actually spoken. “Dough… ah, don’t worry. A-about it. Not, ah, not what I man… meant.”

Levi stared up at him with one bleary eye. Eren caught his gaze and smiled. Levi buried his face in the pillow again.

Eren kept working on Levi’s back, falling into the familiar, rhythmic lull of it. He'd given (and received) more massages than he could even recall during his training years. Training pushed everyone’s body to the limit— especially getting acclimated to the gear— so it was a common practice in the barracks to rub each other down. There wasn’t really anything intimate about it.

This, however, felt intimate, though not necessarily in a sexual way. Maybe it was the quiet, sighs that Levi occasionally breathed into his pillow. Maybe it was the way Levi’s fingers twitched against the sheet. But than likely, it felt intimate just because it was Levi. Levi, who guarded himself so intently and rarely allowed anyone close.

Eren wondered when was the last time someone offered to do this for Levi. He wondered when was the last time Levi accepted.

By the time Eren sat back on his heels, finally finished, Levi was dead asleep. He didn’t stir when Eren rose off the bed, nor when he spread the blanket over him and tucked it down. Eren was dearly tempted to run his fingers through the buzzed portion of Levi’s hair, but resisted. Levi had given him permission to massage him, not to mess with his hair. Before he could be tempted further, he pocketed Levi’s door key and snuffed out the lamp. Eren crept through dark room and out the door, freezing when the door creaked a little. But Levi slept on, so he locked the door behind him and then slid the key back under the crack.

Mission success.

Wow, this should have been up two weeks ago. I’m really sorry, y’all. I got awfully sick, got better, threw out my back, got (mostly) better, and then had to catch up with school and life and what not. But here it is, the long awaited chapter 14. I hope it didn’t disappoint. I’m hoping to get 15 out on time, but I’m also staring down this tall pile of homework… I’ll try my best.

I’ve never been in love, but I think the closest I’ve ever gotten is when I torn a ligament in my right ankle and had to go to physical therapy and this one guy there would use this electronic pulse thing on my ankle and holy crap that felt good I should buy one of my own. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the ereri is nigh. See you guys next time.

Oh, I’ll be playing catch-up with all the un-replied-to comments tomorrow. Sorry for keeping you guys waiting and thank you for waiting for me!

Chapter Text

Knocking shocked Eren awake at a little after four thirty. He was immediately alert (a skill required for any soldier) but confused about what he could possibly be needed for nearly three and a half hours before his shift. He shuffled over to the door, running his hands through his hair in a futile attempt to correct the massive bedhead he knew he had.

It was Levi, strangely in full uniform—cloak and maneuver gear on. He cocked an eyebrow at the state of Eren’s hair, then asked “Do you want to go back to sleep? Or do you want to go out?” He tapped one of the gear sheaths, making it evident what he meant by “out.”

Eren was definitely game. Since Penda had taken over the clinics again, it’d been many weeks since he’d last had an opportunity to fly about and it wasn’t like he’d had the time or leisure to savor it at all during the clinics either. The only problem was gas; since they weren’t in the field, they were only allowed to keep on hand a single set of small-sized canisters for emergencies—not nearly enough for a worthwhile trip. For proper fuel, they had to put in a request to Supply.

“Gas?” Eren inquired. Maybe Levi had fudged a request form or something.

“That’ll be the first stop,” Levi answered cryptically. “You coming? Get dressed.”

“Yes.” Eren changed and brushed his teeth in what had to be a new record time for himself. He stole quick glances at Levi as he secured his gear on his waist, wondering if Levi had woken up ridiculously early or if he’d never gone to sleep. Eren knew he couldn’t have been working; they were right on schedule, ahead of it even. He couldn’t help but feel a little personally invested in Levi’s health since he taken to giving Levi rub-downs on a fairly regular basis. Levi looked well enough at the moment though, so Eren decided not to worry about his sleep habits too much.

Levi caught him staring, but didn’t offer any comment. “Ready?” He waited for Eren’s confirmation before turning. “Let’s go.”

They crept across the base, avoiding the paths of the Garrison members on guard rotation. Eren didn’t think the stealth was necessary (Levi was the highest ranking officer on base—who was going to stop them?) but he played along. They reached the main Supply warehouse without incident. Levi must have done some reconnaissance earlier because he led them straight to the back of the building and pointed up at a small window. Between the full moon still hanging in the sky and the flickering light of the lamp post, Eren could see that it was cracked open.

Levi removed his gear and then nudged Eren until he was standing with his back a few inches from the wall. “Give me a boost,” he ordered and Eren bent and netted his fingers together so that Levi could get one foot in them. Levi balanced before adding, “Straighten up.” Eren lifted and stood at his full height. For a brief moment, Levi placed one foot on each of Eren’s shoulders and then he was gone, fingers gripping the window ledge. Levi pulled the rest of his body up, pushed the window higher, and dropped down inside in one fluid motion.

Eren had no clear idea of what Levi had done to earn his reputation in the Underground, but he was now one hundred percent sure that breaking-and-entering had factored in at some point.

Eren waited in the dark, watching his puffs of breath dispense into the cold air. It was properly spring now, but the nights still reached pretty frigid temperatures. Eren hoped that Armin and the others were staying warm. A few years ago, Jean lost a couple of toes to frostbite and ever since Eren had become somewhat leery of the cold; after all, it was hard for him to distinguish how cold was too cold for regular humans.

He could only assume that everyone was fine; the last letter Eren had received from Armin hadn’t included any reports of illness or injuries. What it did include was a detailed list of all the new kinds of flowers Armin had spotted in their current location, complete with sketches, and some speculation about an unfamiliar type of fruit-bearing tree that had just started to bud. Eren was trying to dream up a new kind of fruit (what would that even taste like?) when he heard Levi at the window again.

“Catch,” he called and then tossed four canisters one after another. Eren caught them all and got out of the way so that Levi could leap down.

“Remind me to submit a report to Supply about their shit security,” Levi remarked as he re-attached his gear. They both loaded the canisters into their sheaths and then headed to the second stop: the stable.

The stable was empty of people, but they hurried as they prepped their horses anyway to accommodate Levi’s apparent need for sneaking. The fact that they were taking horses told Eren exactly where they were going for the third and final stop and he was proven correct: they rode out to the forest east of the base. It was a relatively small one and Eren fancied that he knew every meter of it like the back of his hand— where all the rotting, fallen logs were, the exact size and shape of the clearing near its center, and which branches could not be trusted with any weight. Some of the clinics were held out there, so Eren had logged significant time hanging from the forest’s trees and perched in its branches. Even still, he was glad that the sun had started to rise by the time they arrived at the forest’s outskirts. No matter how familiar he was with an environment, he’d rather not try maneuvering around in the dark.

They left their horses with enough length in their tethers to get their fill of the dewy grass and activated their gear, zooming up and into the trees. Eren started off doing simple, lazy loops through the trunks, trying to get back into his rhythm. When he felt certain that he wouldn’t be making any stupid mistakes, he sped up and began to truly soar, whooping over the howl of wind rushing past his ears. Three dimensional maneuvering gear may have been developed as a necessity of war, but it was also a joy— once you were capable enough to no longer constantly worry about breaking your neck.

Eren swung from the branches high and low, never landing for longer than it took him to push off again. Levi had vanished into the forest almost as soon as they’d left the ground, though Eren had occasionally caught flashes of his pale skin or the white and blue insignia on his back out of the corner of his eye. For all that Levi claimed to be out of practice and rusty, it didn’t show at all in tight turns and smooth spins. It’d been a while since Eren had last spotted him, so he began circling the forest— not with any urgency, but just to see where the major had gotten to and maybe if he could be drawn into a game of chase.

It took some time, but Eren finally found Levi again standing on the branch of a tree close to the perimeter of the clearing. Levi must have heard the whirring noise of his gear because he stuck out one hand low, palm facing downward in a Scouting signal for stealth approach.

Eren’s heart, already racing from the adrenaline of flight, jolted. There wasn’t— there couldn’t be Titans, right? Not inside Maria, not now. But Eren knew the Titans and his mind flashed through a dozen paranoid possibilities in the mere seconds it took him to maneuver (quietly as possible) to Levi. His landing, gentle as it was, rocked the branch and Eren’s left hand shot out to grasp the branch above them so he could secure better footing.

“Wha— What is it?”

Levi pointed to the far end of the clearing. “Deer.”

“De—” Sure enough, there were three deer grazing serenely on the clover below. Eren took in the sight of them, heart still pounding in his ears, and had to lean his temple against his raised forearm to laugh weakly in relief. Levi raised an eyebrow, bemused.

“You… scared me,” Eren explained. “I thought a Titan or s-something.” Levi’s face lit with understanding.

“No,” he replied and there was the barest hint of an apology in that one syllable. Levi turned back to face the clearing again. “Just deer.”

Just deer.

They watched them, Eren’s heart slowly winding down to a restful pulse. There were two does, both of which seemed pregnant, and a buck with a handsome set of antlers he had yet to drop. The way that they ambled about seemed almost carefree, but their ears flickered toward each and every noise. Several times, one of the deer would lift his or her head to stare at a source of noise or a strange smell until the possibility of danger was dismissed. At one point, all three of the deer suddenly gazed up in their direction and Eren and Levi simultaneously went rigid, thinking they’d been caught and the deer would bolt. After a few tense seconds, however, the deer return to their eating and didn’t look their way again.

“If Sasha we— was here,” Eren said, voice low. “She’d be moan about… letting such e-easy prey away.”

Levi snorted. “We’re hardly equipped for hunting right now. Unless you want to go after one with your blades and then lug its nasty corpse through the forest.”

Eren tried to picture carrying an entire deer while maneuvering and grimaced at the image he conquered. He’d carried unconscious people before and that had been difficult enough.

“Besides,” Levi continued, eyes locking with Eren’s. “Sometimes you shouldn’t pursue something because it’d be too easy.”

For a moment, Eren thought that Levi somehow knew that Eren had briefly considered lacing his tea with a painkiller a few weeks ago. But then Levi’s jaw tightened, he turned away again, and in a flash like lightening everything Eren thought he knew flipped upside down.

A paradigm shift is what Armin would call it— a major change in your understanding of the world. Like the discovery of Titans speaking human language. Or the horror of humans turning into Titans. Or the possibility that maybe Major Levi harbored romantic feelings for Eren Jaeger.

Eren had always figured that Levi was the type to be blunt about his intentions. Since Levi hadn’t made any overt advances, he’d thought that Levi didn’t consider him in that light. But if Eren made the assumption that Levi was secretly interested in him and went with it, he quickly bumped into the fact that Levi absolutely would not make the first move.

While Levi had no problem with defying rules he thought were pointless, there were some rules that he took very seriously. Eren was Levi’s subordinate. Their interactions may be pretty relaxed and informal, but the fact remained that Levi held a lot of authority over Eren and Levi hated people who abused their authority.

Which meant that if— if –Levi reciprocated, it was up to Eren to make the first move.    

He knew better than to pursue something unnecessary that had no chance of happening. Eren didn’t really have any evidence that Levi might return his feelings, but…

“Levi.”

Levi looked towards him.

If there was a chance, no matter how slim, Eren would dash after it until his legs collapsed.

“C-can I kiss you?”

Levi blinked, then slowly turned to face Eren, arms crossing over his chest. “Why do you want to?” he asked.

Eren straightened his back until the top of his head banged against the branch hanging above them. Eren winced as the tree’s leaves rustled. “You—” There were too many sentences clamoring in his mind and Eren bit his lip, trying to enforce some order on them. “You’re in— important t-to me. So I want… to.”

“Oh?” Levi drawled. “You want to kiss Armin too then?”

“That’s… that’s diff— different,” Eren insisted. He could tell from Levi’s expression that it was an inadequate answer, but he didn’t know how he could explain. Maybe he’d be able to if he wrote a letter, but he wasn’t sure Levi would agree to read it. Levi was still standing there though, listening as always, so Eren gritted his teeth and just talked.

“Because he, you, you work hard for everything, try… do your best. All of it… Titans, work— paperwork, wash floors, and you take c-care of people, they’re… important. Levi treats… you treat me like priority, ah, feel like a priority, like Le— you have… all the time in the wa— world. To spend on me. And…” Eren lost track of his own words, not knowing what ideas he’d tried to vocalize, which he hadn’t yet, and which ideas his words simply could not describe. “And… and when you da— don’t like something your nose… wrinkles,” he finished awkwardly.

“My nose.”

“Yes,” Eren said, voice firm. “It’s cute,” he added, though he knew Levi wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment. Sure enough, Levi’s nose wrinkled up just a bit and Eren fought a losing battle against a smile.

Levi made a short, abrupt noise that could be interpreted (optimistically) as a laugh. “You’re a shit, you know that?” Eren nodded in agreement and Levi sighed and unfolded his arms, letting them hang loose at his sides. “Tell me: how long have you been thinking about kissing me?”

Eren had to consider that. One answer would be around four years, way back when Eren first realized that his feelings for Humanity’s Strongest went a little beyond plain hero worship. But that’d been desire for an idol, not a man. Not Levi. He’d tucked all those feelings away for a long time. He left them as a sapling and had been almost startled to discover one bloody afternoon during what would turn out to be the final week of the eradication campaign that the slender thing he’d turned his back on had grown into a thick, towering oak.

“About… year and a half?”

“A year and a half? It’s not like you to be so patient."

It really wasn’t, but Eren had hardly been sitting around pining the whole time. There was always too much work to be done and, besides, what was the use in feeling sorry for yourself? “I… thought you couldn’t…” But it felt strange to be uttering his own speculations about Levi’s feelings when he could just get an answer from the man himself. “Can I or can’t? Kiss you.” he repeated.

Levi’s mouth pressed into a thin line and his gaze skimmed over Eren, examining him from head to toe. But then the stiff set of Levi’s shoulder broke and his expression relaxed. He raised a hand, crooked one finger, and murmured, “Come here.”

For a moment, Eren wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. But Levi drew himself up to his full height, head angling back slightly— expectantly— and Eren’s body kicked into gear, crossing the one stride-length separating them.

Eren leaned over, tilted his head so that they wouldn’t bash their noses together, and that thought set off a squadron of ridiculous concerns, chief of which was ‘Fuck, I better not fall out of this tree’—he kept one hand clenched around the overhanging branch. But Levi’s gaze on him was steady and it drew him down until Eren could feel Levi’s breath stirring the morning air. Eren closed his eyes, then closed the last sliver of distance between them.

Levi’s lips were chapped from the wind and a little cool. Eren could actually feel them heating up from the press of Eren’s hotter mouth. Eren took Levi’s bottom lip between his own to get rid of the remaining chill, then release it to nibble and Levi hummed, hands slipping under his jacket to trace the harness belts up and down Eren’s back. Eren’s free hand cupped Levi’s nape, fingers sliding greedily into the shaved part of his undercut. Levi tightened his arms around Eren, tugging him down, closer, and breaking away from the lip lock to brush his nose along the curve of Eren’s cheek and over towards his ear.

“You don’t need to ask permission.” His breath washed over the sensitive skin of Eren’s neck, making him shiver, and Levi stepped back, removing his hands from beneath Eren’s jacket. “If you want to do something, just do it.”

The ‘I trust you’ went unspoken, but Eren was familiar enough with Levi to read it in the soft gleam of his eyes, the subtle upward slope of his mouth. The sight of it made Eren’s face split into a wide grin and Levi muttered something before yanking him down again by the chest strap and planting a kiss on his brow.

“We need to head back,” Levi said, letting him go. Eren reluctantly extracted his fingers from Levi’s hair and peered down at the clearing. The deer had left at some point. When he looked up again, Levi was pulling his handsets from their holsters. Eren grabbed his arm, stilling him.

“You g-got to ask. So. For you… how long?”

“Longer than a year and a half,” he answered.

“Eh?” ‘Since when?’ was on the tip of his tongue, but Levi fired his grapple hooks and zoomed off. Oh well. He could get it out of Levi later. Eren dug out his own handsets and leapt off the tree, smiling at the promise of what “later” could bring.

Wow, no way, I'm updating this fic while the sun is out. Shocker!

If you have no idea what playground song I'm talking about in my chapter summary, check this out. This song/taunt is very common in the States and I understand that there are also Spanish and Germany variant, though I have no idea how well known they are. I did not mean to reference this song at all, but okay, whatever you say, subconcious mind.

We are three quarters of the way through this story! I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone that has left comments and kudos (over 300!) and bookmarked this fic. It keeps me going, especially when I am stuck or feeling down. So thank you!!! Seriously.

I don't think I've mentioned this since the first chapter notes, but if you are interested in following me on tumblr, I'm here. My blog is about 95% Attack on Titan and 5% fanfiction talk. And feel free to message me! I love talking to other fans. That's all, have a great week!

EDIT (03/31/14): Tumblr user and all around beautiful person ruuari drew fanart for this chapter and you should go check it out because it is lovely and precious and amazing.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t often that Levi was so soundly defeated. But Desta had been crying for at least a ten full minutes and Levi was all out of ideas for how to stop the wailing.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened. Penda had come by in the morning to ask if “they”—just Eren, really—could watch Desta until lunchtime. There’d been a bad accident at one of the construction sites and she needed to head out to the scene immediately. Not a problem. These things happened and besides it was obvious that that Eren liked to dote on the kid.

Sure enough, Eren sat at his desk with Desta propped up in his lap and maintained a constant stream of chatter about the paperwork he was doing while the baby gurgled and cooed back. But apparently status reports and requisition forms were just as boring to babies as they were to everyone else because before long Desta fell asleep. Desta was still fast asleep, bundled up in the portable crib Trevor had built for Penda’s office, when Eren got called away to placate some merchant pig whining about the slow progress in the southern sector of Maria.

“Tell him that if he wants the construction to go faster, he can get out there and pave some fucking roads himself,” Levi muttered, pushing his piles of papers around in order to make room for a new stack.

“I’ll be back… half hour,” Eren assured him.

Levi waved him off, unconcerned. Desta would probably just nap the whole time. Besides, Desta was an infant, a simple-minded creature for whom the entire world was naps and breast milk and shit. Levi could handle thirty minutes alone with a sleeping infant. He wasn’t that incompetent.

However, it turned out that he’d severely underestimated the power of babies.

Eren had barely been gone for fifteen minutes before Desta started making some distinctly unhappy noises. A nightmare or something, he thought (babies dreamed, didn’t they?) but when he peered into the crib to check on the infant, Desta was wide awake and pouting up at him.

“What?” Desta, of course, didn’t answer. “If you’re hungry, I can’t help you. Not properly equipped for that.” The baby couldn’t be hungry though; Penda had said that she’d fed Desta just before she left and seemed confident that she’d be back before it became an issue again.

Desta continued to whimper, arms and legs flailing. Levi cautiously checked the baby’s bottom for piss or shit. All clear, to his relief. Desta was far from relieved though, becoming more and more distressed by the second. It seemed that Levi had no other choice left.

“You better not vomit on me,” he warned. Then he carefully, very carefully, picked the baby up.

The moment Desta left the crib, the baby began to cry in earnest. Levi froze, wondering if he’d somehow done it wrong, but no— he’d picked the baby up exactly the same way he’d seen Penda and Eren do it. Maybe Desta didn’t want to leave the crib. He began to lay the baby back down, but Desta only cried harder. So Levi held the newborn with Desta’s head resting in the crook of his left arm and asked, “What do you want? Your mother? She’s coming back soon.”

But Desta was crying so loudly that even if the baby could comprehend his words, Levi didn’t think they’d been heard. He tried everything he could think of to appease the baby— rocking, singing, different type of hold, rubbing the baby’s back and actually hoping that some vomit would come up if it meant the crying would stop— but Desta continued to wail, face red and scrunched up so tightly that it looked almost painful. Levi was just beginning to wonder, a bit panicked, if it was possible for a baby’s lungs to get damaged from crying too much when Eren finally returned.

Eren must have been able to hear Desta out in the hall, but he still paused in the doorway to take in the situation, that familiar soft smile playing about the corners of his mouth. Usually, Levi would savor the sight of it, but right now all he could do was grind out, “Eren. Help.”

“You d-doing fine,” he insisted, though he scooped up Desta all the same, turning the smile to the cradled baby and making shushing noises until the Desta’s wails became little gasps and then silence.

“How the hell did you do that?” Levi demanded as wiped Eren wiped snot from Desta’s nose with a handkerchief that was definitely one of his.

“Not stranger, like you.” Eren rearranged Desta so that the infant’s head was resting against his shoulder. Desta fisted Eren’s jacket and sighed contently. “Plus… babies are sensitive… like horse,” he explained. “You were sca—… making a scary face, and so Desta scared too. Look.” He shifted so that Desta was looking at Levi. “If you smile, D-Desta will smile too.” Desta blinked at him, cheeks still flushed red from exertion. Levi managed a weak smile. In return, Desta flashed pink gums at him.

“See? Not scary,” Eren murmured, though whether it was directed at him or the kid, Levi didn’t know.

Desta reached out towards Levi and Eren stepped closer. Once Levi was in reach, Desta grabbed at his bangs. Levi grimaced at the thought of sticky, saliva-covered baby fingers, but Desta was too preoccupied with yanking at his roots to notice. Oh well. It was better than blood or vomit.

“Yes, pretty hair too. But have to play nay— nice,” Eren admonished. “Nice,” he stressed, demonstrating by stroking Levi from forehead to nape like he was a cat or something. Desta cooed in response and started to run clumsy fingers through his bangs.

“Do you both have a fixation with my hair?” Though Levi supposed that for Desta, the interest made some sense; his hair was the same color as Penda’s and Trevor’s, but a completely different texture.

“Mm.” Eren’s fingers had nestled into their favorite spot at the base of Levi’s skull. “Desta can… keep front, long as I g-get the back.”

“You know, you could just shave your own head.”

“But my hair, uh, isn’t…” He bit his lip, searching for the right word. “Silky,” he declared finally. Levi didn’t know how his shaven hair could possibly feel silky considering how short it was. But Eren added, “I like this,” fingers carding through Levi’s hair so gently that Levi had to close his eyes momentarily, all dissent washing out of him.

“I like ‘this’ too,” he admitted. He opened his eyes to see Eren smiling again and this time Levi looked his fill. Not too long ago, there hadn’t been much to be happy about. Smiles were not nearly so uncommon nowadays but…

“Cherish” felt like too sappy of a word, but Levi wasn’t good enough with words to come up with another one, so all right: he wanted to cherish every joyous thing, no matter how small or short-lived. If he didn’t, what was the point in being alive after all these years?

Desta had grown bored with his hair, squirming around now in Eren’s grasp, so Levi held out his hands. “Give me Desta.”

“Sure?”

“I’ve got to stop being a stranger, don’t I? If any shitting happens though, you’re taking Desta right back.”

Good news: I managed to update on Eren's birthday, cool. It's just a silly little Levi interlude, but better than nothing!

Bad news: The next update will probably take a while. These next four weeks are my last weeks of undergraduate ever, so I am horribly, horribly busy and can't manage to maintain any kind of fic updating schedule. I graduate on April 25th, so y'all can expect regular updates to resume sometime around then. I might be able to put another chapter out sometime between now and then, but if such a chapter does happen it will be a surprise for you and me both. So please hang tight and if anyone else is pushing through finals right now like me, I wish you the best!

P.S.: My blog will continue to run on its never-ending queue, but I won't be logging in as often so I apologize in advance if you contact me and it takes me forever to respond.

P.P.S.: A lovely, lovely person drew fanart for this fic, but I'm waiting on permission to post a link. :) Okay, here it is, go look at it immediantly, it is fantastic! Thank you, thank you, thank you, ruuari!

Chapter Text

“Tell me if this makes any sense.”

Eren cracked his eyes open. The room was dark, illuminated by a single little lamp glowing, but Eren located Levi standing with his arms crossed, scowling down at the stain on the floor that had resisted every cleaning supply on base. Eren himself was tucked neatly into Levi’s bed— interesting, since he definitely remembered falling asleep with his head on Levi’s desk. “What may… makes sense?” Eren mumbled, squinting at the clock on the nightstand. He’d been asleep for maybe an hour, no more than two; he wasn’t sure when exactly he’d nodded off.

“We’ve been assuming that Lieutenant Colonel M is the one behind this ‘inspection’ since she’s the one here.”

Eren waited, but when nothing else seemed forthcoming, he prompted with “Yes?”

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. “What if it’s Nile?”

“N-Nile?”

“He’s her commanding officer. She could be supervising the ‘inspection’ on his orders, but really he’s the brains behind it.”

Eren groaned and sat up in bed. The soldier in him was fully capable of being roused and alert at unexpected, unseemly hours, but without an immediate emergency or any clear objectives directing him, he was fading fast. “Sounds…” What was the word? “...Paranoid,” he finished. Levi raised an eyebrow at him, so Eren tried to elaborate. “Command… Commander Dawk...” Eren scrubbed at his eyes. “He’s helped the Legion… before. Why would… do all this?”

“Nile’s helped us out before because of Erwin,” Levi returned. “I’m not Erwin.”

“No,” Eren agreed. “But why he… what would he want? With the in-inspection?”

“I don’t know.” Levi began pacing. Eren watched him, noting that even in the dim light, the floor seemed a lot shinier than he remembered. He could smell the cleaner that Levi favored for his own barracks too. That answered the question of whether Levi had slept at all yet. “Maybe he doesn’t have a reason and he’s being forced. He’s got a family, he’d be easy to put pressure on.”

Eren thought it still sounded kind of paranoid, but it was certainly possible. The problem was that possibilities were all they had to work with.

The base was swarming with military police. They’d arrived earlier that day (yesterday, actually, Eren realized as he glanced again at the clock) for a surprise inspection— supposedly. Neither Eren nor Levi were thick enough to think that was the real intent of the visit. For one thing, why would a surprise inspection of one base require an entire company of MPs? Eren didn't know exactly how many MPs had arrived the day before, but it was way too many. Everywhere that Eren turned, there was a MP there. "Like roaches," Levi had muttered when they'd shown up and sure enough they would scuttle away just like frightened bugs whenever the major turned to glare at them. For Eren though, the MPs were more like a circling flock of vultures. They weren't frightened by him. When Eren stared at them, the MPs stared back— some with open curiosity, some with bright hostility, and some with an empty, flat look in their eyes that unnerved Eren more than anything else.

His nerves were not helped by the fact that every single one of the MPs had been granted clearance to be armed with battle-ready three-dimensional maneuver gear for the duration of the visit. There was no logical reason for each and every MP to be allowed field-sized fuel canisters and a full stock of blades for an inspection. Unless, of course, it wasn’t an inspection at all.

But what was it then? That was the question Eren and Levi had been struggling with since the military police company has shown up yesterday morning. There were plenty of things that it could be— the possibilities ranged from extremely dangerous (the set up for an assassination attempt on Eren or Levi or someone else on base) to not-good-but-not-a-threat (some sort of intimidation tactic to remind them of the military police’s power) to completely benign (the military police are rich idiots that like to waste resources.) They’d created a long list of things that the inspection could be, but were struggling to narrow it down to a short list of things that they could prepare to defend against.

Part of the problem was that the person heading the inspection was Commander Dawk's new second with the hard to pronounce name, "Lieutenant Colonel M", someone that they knew essentially nothing about. Was she sympathetic to the Scouting Legion or not? Was she closely connected to someone that had a grudge against one of them? Eren’s Titan Shifting and combination of a short-temper and a loud mouth hadn’t earned him many friends among the military police and Levi had plenty of enemies as both a scout and a former denizen of the Underground. What kind of schemer was she, if she was one at all? Did she have a nasty personality or was she more straight-forward? Who was she?

Eren had tried to dig up some information on the woman, but came up with only the barest of scraps. None of the other scouts on base were old enough to have trained with her, so during lunch Eren chatted up some of the Garrison officers and found one from the same training class as her. The details he was able to provide, however, were sparse— she was solid soldier, adaptable and quick-witted, and ranked eighth. Originated from an unremarkable village within Wall Rose. Mostly kept to herself, though not unfriendly. That was it. He wasn’t even sure how to pronounce her full name. Apparently, she’d gone by the initial “M” during training as well.

Levi also spent lunch break pumping for information, though not in the canteen. He vanished and returned an hour later more frustrated than before. Eren didn’t know who exactly he’d talked to, but apparently whoever it was could neither confirm nor deny the rumor that Lieutenant Colonel M had had a hand in the accident that paralyzed Dawk’s former second. Nor, apparently, did Levi’s contact have anything useful to say about the lieutenant colonel’s strange ascent through the military ranks. She’d done her time as an MP rookie and got re-assigned to a relatively unknown military police squad. After several years she was made leader of the squad and then suddenly about a year ago was promoted to second-in-Command of the military police with minimum fanfare and even less explanation. Such a massive leap wouldn’t have been too unusual in the Legion with its high mortality rate and constant lack of officers, but among the military police it was unheard of. No special commendations in her record, no reprimands either. On paper and in people’s memories, it was like Lieutenant Colonel M barely existed.

But she did exist and they had no idea what she wanted.

She was on base for the inspection, but neither Levi nor Eren had been able to speak to her or even get close to her. Thus far, the lieutenant colonel had communicated with Levi entirely via messenger and when Levi requested a private meeting with her (hoping to at the very least get a feel for her character and, at best, to drag an explanation out her), she declined.

With so little information, all that could be done was guess and brace themselves for the worst. Or rather, that was all that they could do. If Armin was here on the base instead of beyond the Walls, he could’ve piece together all the tiny minute details that few other people would have even noticed and fitted them into a clear picture of what was going on. If Commander Smith were alive, he probably would’ve seen the social machinations behind this inspection churning weeks ago and had a plan and two back-up plans in place before the military police even came knocking at their door.

They were Eren and Levi though, and while they both were perfectly capable of coming up with a viable plan when they knew what the situation and objective was, neither of them were any good at this mystery solving. They’d spent the entire day and late into the night on their toes and scribbling down any idea that seemed remotely possible onto their lengthening list, but Eren was beginning to think it was a fruitless expenditure of their energy. They couldn’t figure this out. They just plain didn’t have enough information to work with.

It would almost be nice in a way if Commander Dawk was the mastermind behind this whole thing— they knew a lot more about him than they did Lieutenant Colonel M— but it just didn’t seem to fit. Still, it was certainly possible.           

“Dawk, put it…” Eren broke off to yawn. “Paper, list, put it on… the list. And then sleep. Sleep… it’s in… important.”

“I don’t think I can,” Levi admitted, not looking up as he scrawled out the Nile Mastermind theory onto the parchment collecting all their best guesses.

“Then rest. Lay… lie down. Rest’s also important.” Eren patted the space beside him as he lay back down. “C’mon. We need to… two hours, we need to be… awake then.”

“Bossy bastard,” Levi growled, but he finally started to change out his uniform. Eren scooted over to the very edge of the narrow, regulation-size mattress so that Levi could slide under the covers. Military bed weren’t really large enough to encourage sharing, but Eren had no complaints about spending nights pressed up against Levi if Levi didn’t. It wasn’t very comfortable for either of them (Levi was built like a brick wall— not exactly soft and cozy— with razor-sharp elbows and icy feet, and for his part Levi had grumbled more than once that sleeping with Eren was like sleeping with a clingy furnace) but it was nice and Eren would much rather sleep with Levi than without him, never mind his pointy elbows and cold feet.

When Levi finally put out the lamp and got into bed, Eren prodded him to roll onto his side, back towards Eren, so that Eren could rub out some of the tense knots in his shoulders. Levi had done a pretty good job of looking unruffled and unfathomable in front of the MPs, but stress always seemed to settle into his shoulders and back and— for Eren, at least— spotting it was as simple as walking outside, looking up, and finding the Wall. It wasn’t just the pressure of a potential attack either; it was the anxiety of finding yourself inadequate.

Maybe it was because Eren had grown up comparing himself to powerhouses like Armin and Mikasa, but he knew that he couldn’t expect himself to be as brilliant as Armin or as strong as Mikasa. He’d accepted that long ago. Besides, there had always been things that he was better than them at. That was how the world worked— some people were good at some skills that other people weren’t and it all balanced out somehow in the end. Eren knew that and he was sure Levi did too, however…

Commander Smith had left behind a vast void that no one person could possibly fill, but Levi couldn’t seem to stop himself from trying. There was no doubt that Erwin Smith would’ve been better at dealing with this entire "inspection" business, but he wasn’t here and the only person Levi could be was Levi.

Eren dug into a particularly stubborn knot until he felt Levi sigh, then smoothed his hand gently down Levi’s back. “Hey.”

Levi tensed up again ever so slightly. “What was that you were saying about sleep? Something like it being important?” he drawled.

Eren ignored his complaints. “Y-you’re not Com-commander Smith.”

“We already established that.” His voice was brittle with irritation, but he was still listening so Eren continued.

“I’m not Armin.” He traced a circle gently on the small of Levi’s back with his fingertips. So… no point try, trying to think like… we’re them. We… it’s impossible.”

Levi did not reply, quiet and almost completely still. Eren thought that he’d maybe made Levi angry— treating him like a “snot-nosed brat that needs to have his filthy hand held” or whatever— so he pulled his fingers away. But Levi rolled over to face Eren, one arm raised in an open invitation. Eren crossed the few centimeters between them so he could rest his head against Levi’s chest and Levi wound his free arm around him. After a couple moments of nothing but Levi’s slow inhale, steady exhale, and strong heart, Levi began to stroke the back of Eren’s neck.

“The MPs are going to try something,” he murmured. Levi’s voice sounded louder, deeper with Eren’s ear to his chest. “Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. And we won’t be prepared for it because we’re too fucking stupid.”

The petting was making Eren tired again. He fought back another yawn. “Suck— sucker punch.”

“What?”

“There’s no... smart. Somebody… t-takes a swing at you, you don’t think, just… move. Ra… no. Reh—, re—, what’s that word…?” It was way too late for words and Eren had had way too little sleep. Eren didn’t think he could manage to be coherent right now even if he’d never been shot. He had no idea how Levi could operate like this all the time, though he supposed eventually a person’s body would somehow adjust. “It begins… ‘re’ something.”

“React,” Levi supplied. He was good at filling in the blanks.

“React. Yeah. This is… it’s like a fa— fist fight. Both… we’re good at fist fights.”

Levi did not respond right away, which made Eren wonder if perhaps he hadn’t explained well enough. But the hand on Eren’s neck broaden its range to include his back, scratching between his shoulder blades in just the right way to make Eren’s toes curl. He rather liked being marked up by Levi, though no scratch or bite or bruise ever lasted longer than a few minutes— even when he tried to concentrate on not healing them. Eren sighed contently and slipped one leg between Levi’s so he could tuck himself closer to the man, shutting his eyes to nap until his shift started. Maybe Levi would manage to catch a few winks too.

Levi’s heart thumped loudly in Eren’s ear. He counted each beat as he waited for sleep to find him again. We’re fine thump. We’re fine now thump, we’ll be fine today thump, and tomorrow we’ll be fine too thump. Probably thump. At least one of them had to be an optimist if they were going to get through this inspection and Eren didn’t think Levi was capable of it.

He was just starting to nod off when his brain finally finished processing what Levi had said earlier.

“Hey.”

“What?”

“You’re… you’re not stupid.” He wanted to elaborate, say that Levi was a good judge of people’s character, and great at figuring out how to get from point A to point B alive, and brilliant when it came to determining the fastest, surest attacks for bringing down Titans, but he was too tired. Besides, Levi knew all that already, so Eren settled for repeating, “Not stupid.”

Levi squeezed him around the back once. It felt like an apology. “You’re not either.”

Eren hummed, grinning against Levi’s chest as he closed his eyes once more. His heartbeat was slower now, more restful, and the sound of it drew Eren gently towards the very edge of sleep.

“Eren.”

He didn’t open his eyes, but he managed a “Hm?”

“You’re… I…” Levi trailed off and sighed in quiet frustration. Eren felt Levi press a kiss to the crown of his head before burying his face in Eren’s hair, giving up on words for now. That was okay. Eren smiled; he was good at filling in the blanks too.

Just before noon, two MPs strode into the office. “I am Sergeant Major Villarreal,” announced the older one with a scar across his nose. “This is Master Sergeant Feulner.” He gestured at the solemn-faced, blond MP beside him, who nodded once in greeting. “We need Warrant Officer Jaeger to come with us.”

“What for?” Levi drawled, not even pausing his writing. His voice was level, seemingly unfazed, but Eren could see that his knuckles were white around his pen.

“Interviews, sir,” Villarreal responded.

Eren exchanged a glance with Levi. The MPs had been pulling random people aside for interviews since yesterday— officers, regular enlisted soldiers, and civilian laborers alike— so it seemed innocent enough. The very fact that Eren Jaeger, Titan Shifter, had been “randomly” selected stank of bullshit though. Still, they could hardly refuse them without looking suspicious.

“How long is this going to take?” Levi finished signing a document with a loud flourish, before glaring up at the MPs.  “Some people have got real jobs to do around here.”

Eren watched as Villarreal’s throat bobbed in a distinct, nervous swallow. Behind his back, he was fidgeting with his hands. “About an hour and a half, Major.”

“You’ve got an hour.” Levi stared briefly at Eren as he rose out of his seat, then returned his gaze to the next document. His right hand still had a tight grip on the pen, but his left curled into the scouting signal for reconnaissance and then the signal for caution, both signs hidden from the MPs by his tall stacks of paperwork. “Understood, Officer Jaeger?”

Eren squared his shoulders. “Yes, sir.” This interview was almost definitely a trap or ploy of some sort, but it could also be an opportunity for them to uncover new information. Eren would have to be on high alert, both for potential intelligence and his own safety.

He followed them out of the office, taking note of the MP standing nearby in the hallway and rather obviously watching the door— making sure Levi didn’t leave, no doubt. Once they were out of the building, Villarreal let loose a loud sigh and laughed nervously. “That Levi’s one scary bastard. Ain’t he, Feulner?”

The other MP did not offer any answer— he just turned rigidly and began walking down the step and into the courtyard. On the far end of the courtyard, Eren spotted another MP hanging around, gaze locked on the window of Levi’s office. They didn’t want him leaving from there unnoticed either, huh? Something was definitely up.

“C’mon, man, don’t act like you weren’t ready to piss your pants when he glared at you!” Villarreal called after his partner. “Not too friendly, that one,” he confided to Eren, though loud enough that Feulner could surely hear. “Ah, well, we’d better hustle so we can return you to the Major on schedule. Hey, you think he’s scary, don’tcha?”

It was a kind of ridiculous question. Sure, Eren didn’t like disappointing Levi and he had a healthy fear of his wrath like any sensible person should (Hange being the obvious exception), but Levi himself just wasn’t that scary to Eren. It was difficult to be scared of someone you’d worked in close quarters with for over five years, especially when “work” primarily consisted of keeping each other alive. It was public knowledge that Eren had spent the vast majority of his service under Levi’s command— how could anyone possibly think Eren was scared of Levi? They’d have to think that Levi was an absolute horror.

Sometimes, Eren got the feeling that a lot of people questioned Levi’s humanity more than they did Eren’s.

It was even more difficult to be scared of someone you were sleeping with (in both the platonic and completely non-platonic sense), but that wasn’t any of these guys’ business.
There was no use in pointing out how stupid of question it was though.

“Not par… ticular… particularly.”

“Really? ‘Cause, I mean, his face is always, like...”

Villarreal, Eren quickly realized, was the type of person who would happily just chatter on and on with no real expectation of response to anyone willing to stand near him. It was tiring for Eren to listen to, but he kept himself tuned in on the off chance that Villarreal let slip something useful. By the time they’d crossed half the base, all that Eren had managed to glean was that Villarreal thought Levi was terrifying, that Feulner had a stick up his ass, and that the food on base was shit compared to what he got in Sina. He was in the middle of the tale of the origin of the scar across his nose— an accident during his trainee days, apparently— when Eren finally interrupted him.

“Wa— where… are we going?”

Villarreal blinked. “Oh, ah…”

“Interviews are being conducted in the third administration building,” Feulner supplied, speaking up for the first time. He didn’t even look over his shoulder at them.

“It would… m-much, be faster to go west. Through ma— main courtyard.”

Villarreal clapped him on the back. “Well, you can show us the fast way on the return trip, ‘kay?”

Right, Eren thought. The fact that the convoluted route they’d traveled took them to the most secluded part of base, in between the rows of unused warehouses (the tallest buildings on base)— that was just a coincidence. The sound of a boot scraping overhead— just Eren’s imagination.

He resisted the urge to look up and instead started quickly tallying his options. The two MPs walking with him, Feulner in front and Villarreal beside him, could be easily taken out. The problem was the person or people up on the roof. It could be one person. It could be twenty. Probably not twenty, though; he’d be hearing a lot more noise up there if that was the case, especially if they were all wearing gear. Ten on the roof? Ten might be too much for Eren— he was good at hand-to-hand, had a higher-than-average pain tolerance, and could heal quickly, but he could still be overpowered and knocked unconscious just like any other person.

It would be a lot more difficult for them to overpower him if he Shifted, but he wouldn’t have much room to move around and it would only take one strong blade swing to kill him. MPs didn’t have the Titan-slaying experience of scouts, but they were all top of their graduating classes. One of them could easily do it and Eren would be cut through just like Reiner and Bertolt.

If he could get out of the narrow alley they were in and Shift in the upcoming courtyard, he’d have more room to move around. They were probably hoping he’d do that though. If he Shifted, there would be a known, sure-fire way to kill him and they could probably make up some excuse about how he’d gone rogue or something and get off scot-free. No Shifting then, not if it could be avoided.

He could try to make a run for it, get to a populated part of the base for help and witnesses. But Eren wasn’t especially fast and someone with gear could easily snatch him up if it looked like he was escaping. No, better to stay in the close quarters of the alley where they wouldn’t be able to swarm him all at once.

He could feel anger mounting up in him, fierce outrage that someone was trying to kill him when he hadn’t even done anything wrong, but he did his best to squash it down. Mikasa had told him so many times that he fought better with a clear head rather than letting his temper control his body, but it wasn’t something that came naturally to him. He measured his breaths carefully, keeping a close eye on Villarreal and Feulner’s positions and—

from up high, the unmistakable sound of a gear handset locking into a blade rang down into the alley—

and Eren moved.

He lashed out, kicking Villarreal in the side of his knee with a horrible cracking noise and ramming his elbow into the man’s neck. Before Villarreal had even finished collapsing, someone had seized Eren from behind, blade biting into Eren's throat, deeper and deeper until he managed to shove it far enough away with his right hand to smash his left elbow into the man's nose.

Blood pouring from his neck and palm, each of his motions sending pain through his body, Eren filled his mind with a constant litany of Don't Shift, Don't Shift, Don't Shift as he was tackled to the ground by the next attacker. He grappled with her, twisting to keep her blade away from his neck and to escape. Suddenly she was gone, knocked away from Eren by Feulner, though Eren had no time to process this information as he scrambled to his feet and yet another person rushed him. His blade swung out in a wide arc, slicing away Eren's right arm with all the ease of carving out Titan flesh.

The lancing pain rocked Eren like an earthquake and his internal chant morphed to Don't Shift, Don't black out, Don't Shift, Don't black out. While the blade was still away completing the arc, Eren seized the man by the shirt collar and yanked him into a headbutt, smashing his noise against the crown of Eren's head. He'd barely un-fisted the shirt before the next attacker took advantage of his unbalanced body and slammed him into the wall, his skull cracking loudly against the bricks. His vision swam— Don't Shift, Don't black out— but Eren shoved back and knocked her off of him. As she stumbled, Eren punched hard and fast, his left fist colliding into her temple. Her head jerked awkwardly and she passed out in a heap. Lucky.

When no one else immediately began assaulting him, Eren swept his eyes over the alley and discovered Feulner securing handcuffs on the man that cut off his arm. On the other end of the alley, a small, ponytail-ed MP was kneeing another in the groin. Eren's chest heaved as he slowly came down from the adrenaline, counting up the attackers— eight including Villarreal. All of them adorned with the military police unicorn and all of them either unconscious, handcuffed, or both.

Safe enough for now, Eren braced himself against the wall, pressed his remaining hand to his slit throat, and tried to concentrate on making the stump where his right arm had been seal up. He wasn't very skilled at prioritizing his healing though— despite all of Ymir's efforts to teach him— and he was even worse at it now with his head pounding something fierce. He imagined that if he felt around on his skull, he'd find blood coming from there too.

“Will you be all right?" Eren snapped his eyes open (he hadn't realized that they were shut) and saw Feulner assessing him while cuffing yet another person. "You're not going to bleed out, are you?”

Eren squeezed his throat and managed to grit out an answer. “N-no.” The bleeding was already slowing and he could feel the strange, slight thrum that he knew meant his body was trying to rapidly replace the lost fluids. His head throbbed more and his vision swam again. Might black out though. His knees buckled and he allowed himself to slide down to wall until he was sprawled on the ground.

The ponytail-ed MP squatted in front of him, eyes gleaming despite her split lip and the massive bruise that was slowly coloring her face. “Okay, I know that this is probably wildly inappropriate since you’re bleeding everywhere and all. But it is so cool to meet you! And the healing thing? That is so awesome! Is the steam hot? Can I put my hand in it?”

Eren blinked at her, more than a little dazed. He wondered if perhaps he had a concussion. His vision was going fuzzy around the edges and his ears were ringing and he felt really light-headed. Definitely going to black out.

“Carmen,” Feulner groaned in exasperation. “Stop fangirling and finish—”

He was in an infirmary again. He was a little tired and he could feel the sore, itchy sensation of his arm growing back, but his head was clear enough to follow the argument Levi was having with… someone.

“—person, not a piece of meat to dangle in front of filthy, slobbering dogs,” Levi snarled.

“Please,” the other person drawled. “Don’t even try to act like the Legion’s never used him as bait. I’ve read the reports.”

“There’s a huge fucking difference between the Legion using one of their own for bait with his permission, or, shit, at least his CO’s permission, and you setting him up for assassination without so much as a goddamn memo.”

Eren cracked his eyes open in time to catch Lieutenant Colonel M waving one hand dismissively. “Relax, he’s fine.”

Levi’s shoulders were taut with tension, hands clenched into tight, trembling fists. “His arm got cut off! He feels pain, you shit-eating—”

“—Ah, he woke up,” M announced.

Levi spun around, eyes raking over him as Eren poked cautiously at his neck with his left hand. The cut had already sealed shut with only the slightest residual tenderness remaining. Someone had stripped him of his dirtied uniform jacket and shirt and scrubbed away all the blood from his torso up. Eren spotted the now rather gruesome-looking clothes folded neatly and set aside on the floor, even though they were probably ruined beyond repair.

“Laundry’s sending up some clean stuff,” Levi said and Eren had to hold back a snort at how Levi-ish it was to be concerned with cleanliness even in this sort of situation. Well, he reflected, casting a glance over at the lieutenant colonel, Levi wouldn’t have allowed her into the room if she actually posed an active threat— he was sure of that. So everything was probably okay. “How are you feeling?”

Eren stared at his healing arm, steam rising from it lazily as fresh flesh slowly emerged, and tried to get his thoughts and words together. There was a chalky taste in his mouth and a memory from years ago floated into his mind.

“Like, ah, a lizard,” he answered, voice rough as it crawled from his dry throat. Healing always left him somewhat dehydrated.

Levi blinked, then huffed a single ill-disguised laugh. “Disgusting,” he returned, some of the stress seeping out from his shoulders though they shot back up when the woman stepped forward.

“Officer Jaegar, I apologize that we had to meet under these circumstances.” When she’d spoken to Levi, her voice had possessed a bold, teasing lilt to it; now, she was all business. “My name is Saoirse Mwaruwari, but just call me M. It’s easier on the both of us.”

Ah. That was how it was pronounced. “Hello,” he croaked. Levi pressed a cup of water into his left hand and Eren drank from it gratefully. “Gonna ess… explain what, what the hell just happened?” he demanded. Usually he wouldn’t speak so rudely to a superior officer he’d just met, but he figured that under “these circumstances” it was permissible.

“Of course.” She dragged a chair over to Eren’s bed and sat down, crossing one leg over her lap. “You’ve just been through an ordeal, so I’ll keep this brief. I’ll submit the full details to you— or as much as I can disclose, anyway— to you both at another date if you so desire.”

“We do ‘so desire,’” Levi growled menacingly, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the way he was hovering at Eren’s shoulder and carefully refilling Eren’s cup.

Mwaruwari checked with Eren, who nodded firmly. “Very well.” She leaned back in her seat, the fingers of one hand running briskly over her short, tightly coiled hair. It was the closest thing to a nervous gesture Eren had seen her do thus far— rather impressive considering she was in a small room with a Titan Shifter and very pissed Major Levi. Despite himself, Eren was beginning to like her.

“The short version is this: shortly after Jennifer Dempsey’s attempt on your life, Commander Dawk tasked me with heading an undercover operation to identify and remove radicals within the brigade with agendas similar to Dempsey’s. Today, we captured eight such individuals— the men and women who attacked you. While I have no illusions that those eight account for every extremist dissident in the brigade, it is my hope that at least one of them will be more forthcoming with details concerning their other allies than Dempsey has been.”

Eren listened closely, trying to piece together what she was saying with everything that had been going on lately. “Then… the, the trial—”

“I requested that Dempsey be kept alive so that we could continue interrogating her.” She tapped her fingertips on her knee. “I also hoped that her light sentencing would encourage any allies or like-minded people— lure them out, so to speak.”

He nodded, though he felt somewhat mystified. He’d never even considered that perhaps Dempsey’s sentence was meant to benefit him. By extension, anyway. “And today,” he prompted. “I… I’m bait?”

Mwaruwari bowed her head slightly. “Again, I apologize. It was not my intention that you be hurt.” Levi snorted derisively beside Eren, but she pressed on. “I do acknowledge that this was a very high risk operation. I wanted to nail the dissidents with damning evidence, so I created an opportunity that they simply could not pass up. Unfortunately, placing you at the center of it all was necessary.”

“If you’d ax… as… requested me, my help, I would’ve… yes,” Eren pointed out. Finding the words he wanted was a little tougher than usual— probably because he’d recently been knocked unconscious. The blood loss could’ve helped either. He was feeling somewhat woozy still. Mwaruwari didn’t bat an eye at his awkward speech. He definitely liked her.

“Any contact with you would’ve run the risk of compromising the operation. Aside from two fellow undercover agents and a handful of others in-the-know, everyone else is under the impression that I’d love to personally wipe you and Warrant Officer Ymir off the face of the face of this earth.”

“Ah.” Fair enough. “Well, t-thank you.”

Mwaruwari stopped tapping and went very still. She sat up fully, slim frame radiating earnestness. “Do not thank me, Eren Jaeger. Humanity owes you a debt that won’t soon be repaid. The least someone like me can do is stand with you.”

Eren really didn’t know what to say after that. Despite himself, he flushed. “Um. Thanks? I mean… all right?” he ventured. It must’ve been the right thing to say because her face split into a bright smile that looked like it belonged on a woman half her age.

Levi passed the fresh cup of water to Eren and turned on Mwaruwari. “You’re still a shit-eater. And I want that full report before you leave tomorrow. And follow-ups after you make those vermin squeal.”

“That’s no way to speak to a superior officer, you know. Especially one that’s bending security clearances just for you.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Levi replied, though the words carried only a fraction of his earlier anger. Probably, Eren thought, because he decided to follow Eren’s lead and let the offense go.

Mwaruwari treated Levi to a smirk. “You’re just like I thought you’d be,” she announced. “I’m glad.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Levi demanded. But the lieutenant colonel just chuckled and rose from her seat.

“Your arm will be all right, yes? I really am sorry about that.” Despite her flippant comments about his arm earlier, Eren could read genuine concern in her posture and tone. Eren was beginning to suspect that she simply got a kick out of riling Levi up. He wasn’t sure if that made her a sadist or a masochist.

“I’ll, uh, be fine.” The new arm had already extended another couple of centimeters since he’d woken up. It’d likely be back normal before the end of the day. New fingers always seemed to take a while.

“I’ll be off then; my work isn’t done just yet.” She paused when her hand touched the door knob though and looked back over her shoulder. “Oh. It may interest you to know that we’ll likely have no further use for Jennifer Dempsey once we get these fresh nuts cracked. If that’s the case, she’ll receive her execution after all. That’s all. Have a nice day.”

She waved once and began to step out the door, but Eren blurted out a scratchy “W-wait!”

Mwaruwari raised her eyebrows expectantly. Eren gulped down the water and cleared his throat, lining up the request he wanted to make in his head.

“Dempsey. If it’s po… possible, before the ex-execution… I… I’d like to… speak. To her.”

Mwaruwari stared at him. Eren could feel Levi’s eyes on him too, as well as his fingers covertly wrapped around Eren’s elbow. Finally, Mwaruwari nodded.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I have a lot of notes for this update, so I broke it up for y'all.

DUDE, MAN, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? IT'S BEEN FOREVER!

I know, sorry. First I was really busy (graduating, working a shit job, hunting for a less-shit job) and then the moment that I became less busy, my health, quite frankly, went down the toilet. After the buzz of graduation dissipated, my usually-work-through-able depression hit me like a sack of bricks. And when my depression amped up, my pain condition (that is most likely CRPS but there's no simple diagnostic test for it) amped up too. CRPS usually affects a single limb and for me it's my dominant arm and when it's bad, it's bad. I'm talking no-pain-medication-for-this, don't-touch-me-don't-even-stir-the-air-around-my-arm bad. I've been spending a lot of time either asleep or curled up on the couch and moaning all pathetic like or typing with my non-dominant hand so I can complain on twitter (I complain a lot...) BUT! I've been feeling better lately both emotionally/mentally AND physically, so I was finally able to finish working on this chapter. And for that, you can thank my non-dominant hand since about 80% of this chapter was typed with just my non-dominant hand. Thanks, right hand! You're a real bud, unlike that shitty left hand of mine. (I also imagine that means there's a lot of typos, but oh well. If you notice any, I'd appreciate if you pointed them out to me!)

I'M NEW TO THIS FIC, SO THERE WAS NO WAIT FOR ME.

Cool! Nice to meet you. I also post my fic to my tumblr blog, which is 95% Attack on Titan. So if you want to follow another AoT blog (or if you want to follow me!), there you go.

WHAT'S WITH THE SECOND LIEUTENANT'S NAME?

When I mentioned Dawk's new second in chapter 10, I really wasn't planning to do anything with her (to be totally honest, I just didn't feel up to the task of writing Levi-Dawk interaction and she was created for my convenience) so I didn't even have a name in mind for her. I had a lot of fun looking up possible "hard to pronounce" names for her. Saoirse is an Irish name and you can hear its pronunciation here by clicking the play audio button. I got the family name Mwaruwari from Zimbabwean footballer Benjani Mwaruwari and you can hear it pronounced here. Why does she have names from two totally different continents and cultures? Because she's just that awesome, that's why. And also mixed. (Most of my OCs wound up being people of color... I didn't mean for that to happen, but somehow it did. Probably a good thing-- Attack on Titan could use more racial diversity. I know it's supposed to be in "sort-of-Europe-maybe???", but come on, Europe has plenty of racial diversity. I refuse to believe that 99% of the people that survived the Titans were white. That's just ridiculous. All right, shutting up now.)

IS FEULNER THAT ONE GUY THAT WAS INTRODUCED WITH HITCH AND MARLO?

Yes. Well spotted!

ABOUT JENNIFER DEMPSEY-- WOULDN'T DOUBLE JEOPARDY APPLY? SO SHE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO GET A NEW SENTENCE.

Let's just imagine that particular procedural defense doesn't exist in the Attack on Titan military courts.

ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT'LL BE FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER?

Noooooo idea. No idea at all. As soon as possible, I can tell you that much. It definitely won't take as long as this chapter did though! I am really determined to finish this fic and we are getting close to the end. All  that's left is 18 and 19 with Eren, a quick chapter 20 with Levi, and maybe (maybe!) a bonus chapter from a surprise POV.

THIS FAQ FORMAT IS SILLY.

Yeah, it kinda is. Just one more time, let me thank everyone for waiting so patiently and sending me such nice messages. I'm not the best at updating regularly, so I've gone long stretches without updating before and WCD is the first fic where I've had that happen and have NOT received an mean message. You know what that means? It means that y'all are literally the best. Thank you so much!

Chapter Text

Jennifer Dempsey was held in a high security prison deep in the west end of Sina. It was the fanciest-looking prison Eren had ever seen—long manicured lawns surrounded a grand building which was accented with a gleaming marble archway stretching along the entrance. If it weren’t for the guard towers and the high barbed wire fence, Eren might’ve mistaken it for some aristocrat’s estate.

A familiar-looking MP was waiting for him at the main gate. She stood with her hands behind her back in a perfect parade rest, but when she spotted Eren approaching her stern demeanor broke and she waved to him.

“Hey! Hello!”

Eren saluted her, though it felt rather silly to do so after her enthusiastic greeting. Regardless, he could tell from her insignia that she was an officer and so a certain measure of decorum was due. “Good af-afternoon.” The MP beamed at him and Eren finally recognized her, though she looked different without her lip split and her face bruised. “You were… with Feulner. That day.”

“Yep,” she chirped. “Second Lieutenant Carmen Márquez at your service. I’ll be your walking security clearance, so to speak.” She thrust out her right hand and Eren shook it. Her smile somehow widened even further. “It’s nice to meet you properly. You know, with you fully conscious and not dripping blood everywhere.”

“R-right. Thank you… agreeing to co— escort me.” When he’d been informed earlier that morning that someone would be taking him around, he’d thought it’d be a MP rookie or someone working at the prison, not an officer. Surely she had something more important to be doing.

“Heh, are you kidding? I volunteered!” Márquez looked up and signaled the soldier in the nearest guard tower before sliding the gate open. “I’ve been wanting to meet you since the Female Titan capture in 850. That was brilliant work by the Legion. Messy, but brilliant.”

Eren followed her inside, bemused. “You… you’re the one, first MP. First MP I’ve met… that wasn’t… pissed,” he said. The plan to capture Annie had resulted in dozens of civilian casualties, hefty property damages, and more questions than answers— even now, Annie was hibernating unchanged in her strange crystal, just as unfathomable as she’d been in 850. On more than one occasion, Eren had been berated by an MP who knew one of the victims or whose house had been destroyed.

“Well, obviously it would be better if it’d never happened at all, but it was necessary. Besides…” She smiled at him ruefully over her shoulder as she secured the gate shut. “I’ve never been much of an MP. I wanted to be a scout.”

“Ja— why didn’t you… j-join? Enlist.”

Márquez started along the path leading through the lawn, hands behind her back once more. “Well, my older brother got sick and couldn’t work anymore. He was the one that took care of me when I was little, so I wanted to make sure he had enough to eat and was comfortable and all.” She shook her head slightly, ponytail swaying. “Much as I would’ve liked to join the Legion and fight the good fight, I graduated in 843. The Legion was a death wish then. So I went to the military police. It had the highest pay and the lowest likelihood of me dying and leaving my brother all alone.” She paused and a loud, shuddering sigh emerged from her slight frame. “Of course, it wound up being him dying and leaving me all alone.”

Eren posed the question as delicately as he was able. Usually, he wouldn’t have even dared to ask, but Márquez seem liked the type who hated formalities and would rather get familiar right away. “He… got sicker?”

Márquez pressed her lips into a thin line. “No,” she answered flatly. “We’re from Maria. When the Wall fell, he couldn’t run.”

It was a story that Eren had heard dozens of times, but every time it still made him think of her mother’s tear-streaked face, her out-stretched hand. “I’m sorry.”

Márquez frowned at him, then clapped him heartily on the back. “Ah, don’t be like that! You didn’t have anything to do with it.” Any remaining somberness disappeared from her features as she grinned slyly. “That wound up being a good cover story though.”

“What?”

“I had to have a reason for wanting you and Officer Ymir dead, didn’t I?” She stopped abruptly on the path and raised two trembling, tightly clenched fists. Face twisted in anger and grief, she growled, “Fucking Titan Shifters killed my brother! I’ll bring them all down to hell even I have to drag the bastards there myself!” It was such a sudden, grotesque transformation that Eren instinctively took half a step backward. Márquez chuckled. “Pretty good, right?”

“Y-yeah.” They’d finally reached the entrance of the actual building and Márquez rapped some sort of coded knock against the door. “Your acting, was that how… recruit for undercover?”

“We’re not supposed to talk about it. Whole thing is very hush-hush, you know? Most MPs aren’t meant to know that the brigade has an undercover division, never mind soldiers from other branches.” On the other side of the door, Eren could hear a heavy bolt being drawn back. “Best not to mention it once we’re inside, okay?”

Eren nodded as the door finally opened enough to admit them. They both submitted to a pat down for weapons and other contraband before being allowed to pass into the building proper. As affluent as it seemed on the outside, it was a proper prison on the inside. It was a lot bigger than its outward appearance suggested as well. They bypassed the main section of the facility and were waved through another security checkpoint once the guard caught sight of the second lieutenant and then yet another. Deeper and deeper they went until finally they arrived at solitary confinement where they once again underwent a body search. Once it was finished, Dempsey dismissed the two guards for a lunch break and they left without any hesitation.

“Right then,” Márquez said, rubbing her hands together briskly. “You’ve got fifteen minutes. It’s not a lot, but that’s all we could swing for you. Dempsey is just beyond there.” She pointed to the heavy, reinforced door on the far right. “I’ll be locking you in, so holler if you need something. Technically, I’m supposed to go in there with you, but I think that this is a private matter and I don’t believe that you’re going to hurt her.” She folded her arms over her chest and frowned sternly at him. “Am I wrong?”

“No.” Eren was just here to talk. He wasn’t interested in personal revenge against her. Not much, anyway. He’d spent the morning killing time at the small and ridiculously over-priced Sina boutiques in an attempt to smother his temper and establish a firm equilibrium for this visit. It was a successful operation in that curiosity was his main driving force at the moment. (He’d also found presents for Armin and Levi, so there was that success too.) Besides, he figured it would probably be more devastating to her to face execution at the hands of the military police. The date was already set: six more days.

Márquez nodded and opened the door for Eren, revealing a long, empty corridor. With a final, “Remember, fifteen minutes,” the door sealed shut. The sound of it locking echoed down the corridor and Eren was alone with Jennifer Dempsey.

No point in wasting time. Eren squared his shoulders and strode down the lengthy, dim hall until the blank stone walls turned into iron bars. And there, curled up in the darkest corner of her cell was Eren’s would-be assassin.

Jennifer Dempsey was staring into the wall beside her, knees pulled up to her chin and unkempt hair concealing most of her face. Her cell was outfitted with a basic bed, but she’d seemingly rejected it in favor of the floor. She didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way and might have even appeared catatonic if Eren didn’t know— somehow— that she knew he was there.

He watched her for a while, drinking in the few details he could glean from the dark. He’d been preparing for this meeting for days, but he still wasn’t sure what to say. Or, rather, he didn’t have anything to say to her; he only had things he wanted to hear from her. Still, he had to start somewhere. Eren licked his lips. His mouth was suddenly very dry. “You… recog— recognize me.” It was a statement, not a question, and as such Dempsey did not answer it. “I w-wanted to… see you.”

What for? would’ve been the appropriate response, but Dempsey apparently wasn’t interested in what was appropriate. She still did not look towards Eren, but she shifted her body weight slightly, head leaning further away from him. “It suits you.”

Her voice was hoarse from disuse, but higher than Eren had been expecting. Eren remembered, with a slight tinge of astonishment, Armin remarking that she was two years younger than him. He stared at her curled frame, the facts he’d heard from Armin and Levi about Dempsey slowly returning to him: she was from a fairly affluent sector of Rose, the youngest of four children. Her life prior to shooting Eren had been rather uneventful, unmarked by any outstanding trauma. No known family or friends that died when the Wall fell or from other Titan encounters. She hadn’t even lost any close comrades during her training years. All around, an ordinary person. The only remarkable things about her were her graduation rank (sixth) and how incredibly fortunate her life had been in the midst of a cruel world.

When Eren had first heard these things, he could only wonder what in the world motivated her to kill him. Plenty of people were suspicious of him, but usually the people that outright hated him had some sort of concrete reason. That’s what he’d come here to ask her: Why do you hate me so much? But seeing her in front of him now, Eren focused on something else entirely: Jennifer Dempsey was a child. Or, at least, she had been. Hidden as she was, Eren could still see that imprisonment and interrogation had not been gentle on her.

“…What suits?” Eren asked, since she was clearly waiting for a reaction.

“The way you speak now.” She finally faced him, just enough that Eren could see one corner of her mouth pulled up in a smile. “I heard about it. Even in here, you hear things. It suits you.”

“What da— do… you mean?”

Her lip curled higher until her teeth were bared ever so slightly. “You pause and you stumble and you misstep,” she said, voice lilting in a way that Eren supposed was meant to imitate his own uneven tone. Dempsey chuckled, though it might have been a cough. “The words don’t come naturally to you anymore. It’s inhuman. Just like you are.”

Anger rushed through Eren until he was nearly choking on it. His speech was inhuman? Just because language was harder for him than most people— that was inhuman? What about deaf people like Trevor or blind people or people who had seizures or all the former soldiers missing arms and legs or… or… fucking anybody who was put together differently than most? They were all less than human?

Eren wanted to smash Dempsey’s face into the ground, crush her nose into her skill and break her teeth. He wanted to kick her until she spat out blood and her chest crumbled beneath his blows. He wanted to—

He’d told Márquez that he wouldn’t though. And he wouldn’t give Dempsey the satisfaction of provoking him into a berserker rage. Eren clenched his hands around the bars of Dempsey’s cell and swallowed down his blazing anger until it was just an uncomfortable churning in his gut. He’d come here to talk. He couldn’t do that if he let his temper run his mouth. He had to calm down, at least a little bit, if he wanted his words to come out right.

Besides, he reminded himself, Jennifer Dempsey would be dead soon anyway. Lieutenant Colonel Mwaruwari had assured it.

Eren eased up his grip on the cell bars. He exhaled, soft and low. Carefully, he spoke. “Nine. Wa— when I was nine… my sister and I. We killed three men. T-they—”

“If you are trying to appeal to me about your humanity,” Dempsey interrupted, “this is probably not the story to do it with.”

Eren ignored her. Telling stories wasn’t nearly as hard for him as it’d used to be, but he refused to let her distract him at all. “Slave traders. They were… selling humans. And killing. Not to… not to survive. For profit. They were— no. I called them beasts. I-inhuman. Monsters.”

“So you killed them. A baby monster killing monsters,” she sneered. “Your mother must’ve been so proud.”

The rage pushed its way back up Eren’s throat, hot and painful, but he managed to force it back down before it spewed out. She had been proud. Once she’d cleaned Mikasa up and put her to bed and finished yelling at him about the ridiculous risks he’d taken, she had hugged him so tightly he’d thought his ribs would snap and whispered, “That girl is alive because of you.”

Eren focused on his mother’s words rather than his assassin’s and somehow managed to project serenity as he asked, “That… is that what… you are, then? Baby monster killing a monster?”

Dempsey jerked backwards like he’d jabbed her with hot iron, hissing. “Do not compare me to you, Titan.” She spat on the floor and tucked herself even further into the cell until all Eren could see of her was her pale neck and the toes of one foot.

“Titan?” Eren repeated. “So I’m monster because… what I am? A monster because I’m Titan S-Shifter. Not because… nothing I did?” However, Dempsey would not be drawn out from the shadows of the cage again. Eren persisted, trying to goad her into at least snapping an insult or something at him, but then Márquez was suddenly knocking on the door at the end of the hall and he knew his time was up. Somehow, it’d simultaneously been the longest fifteen minutes of his life and also the shortest. Either way, he had nothing to show for it except a face to a name and the urge to punch something until his knuckles bled.

Eren was exhausted by the time he finally rode back onto base. From Sina to Maria (even if it was just inner Maria) was a long trip no matter how one traveled it, but alternating between boat and horse had been an especially bad idea. It would’ve been faster to just take the boat all the way like he had on the journey to Sina, but being aboard them always made him feel ten years old and utterly broken again. He’d managed to tolerate it on the trip there, but after leaving the prison he was already agitated before he’d even set foot on deck. By the time they were halfway through Rose, Eren wasn’t sure if he was more likely to burst into furious, frustrated tears or to punch the next person that spoke to him. So he disembarked and borrowed a horse from the closest Garrison base before either possibility happened—or both. It hadn’t helped much though because now he was in a foul mood, saddle-sore, and soaked thanks to the thunderstorm he’d ridden through on the last leg of the journey.

But he was back on base now and that was what mattered. He just wanted to crawl into bed (his or Levi’s, he was too tired to care which) and try to put this entire thing behind him. The trip, the visit, the shooting— everything. First though, he had to stable the horse.

He went through the motions of it half asleep, blinking heavily as the other horses snorted softly around him, alert but peacefully accepting of an unexpected late-night visitor. His daze was disrupted when he tripped over something, yelping as he righted his balance before he could hit the ground. His startled noise wasn’t loud enough to drown out the yowl down by his feet. Eren peered down at the dark floor until he finally made out exactly what he’d tripped over: the black cat, Princess.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t… didn’t know. You were there.” Princess flicked her tail back and forth irritably, but her ears were no longer pressed close to her skull so Eren supposed that he was forgiven. He looked around the poorly-lit stable— where one of the strays was, the other two were sure to be close by. He spotted Sunshine’s blue eyes gleaming down at him from the hayloft, uncannily bright in the darkness. Ugly was harder to locate, but Eren’s eyes finished adjusting and he found the cat silhouetted where he sat on a window sill, attention so captured by whatever he was watching outside that the mangy cat had yet to croak a meow in Eren’s direction like he usually did.

“W-what are you staring?”

Ugly didn’t answer of course, but Eren’s curiosity was sufficiently piqued that he forgot about sleep for a moment and moved to stare out the window too.   Most of the view was taken up by the enlisted rank barracks, every window unlit while its occupant slept, but rising high from above the building was the distant shapes of the maneuver gear training course. Eren gazed out at the base and saw nothing in particular. Perhaps Ugly was just being weird. Cats were prone to do that. His thoughts drifted back to how lovely a mattress would feel, but just as he began to turn away, a flicker of faraway movement stilled him. He squinted and his eyes focused on the figure flitting about the gear course. Eren groaned, resigning himself to wakefulness a while longer. Maneuvering at night was extremely dangerous even in a familiar setting with nothing trying to eat you. If some newbie had gotten it into their dumb head to risk their neck for the sake of squeezing in a few more practice hours, it was Eren’s solemn duty as an officer to go yell at them for being an idiot.

He quickly finished with the Garrison horse and trudged across the base to the gear course, rehearsing what he had to say in his head so he wouldn’t sound too ridiculous while dressing down the soldier. He needn’t have worried though; as he approached, the figure swung up high in the air and executed a nauseatingly fast set of spins that only one living person could pull off: Levi. And if Levi felt comfortable enough maneuvering at night, Eren sure wasn’t going to stop him.

Eren scaled the ladder running up the side of the nearest structure to get a better view. Levi didn’t seem to notice him, absorbed as he was in ricocheting off every surface of the course. Eren wasn’t sure if Levi was navigating by just the light of the full moon or if he’d simply learned the layout the course well enough to pull this off. Probably a combination of both, Eren concluded, although Levi was definitely maneuvering slow than usual. Just as he stood atop the platform, Levi flew by him so close that Eren could’ve reached out and touched him— so close that Levi’s fingers just barely brushed the top of Eren’s head, ruffling his hair for a split second as he zoomed past.

Levi had already crossed half of the course by the time Eren managed to calm his startled heart. “Show off!” Eren yelled after him. Levi made some sort of gesture in return. The darkness and distance made it impossible to distinguish, but he knew for certain it was a rude one.

Levi completed a few more cycles through the gear course before finally landing beside Eren with a solid thump. “You’re late,” he greeted.

“Yes. Sorry.” Eren’s return had been projected as yesterday afternoon, but transferring from boat to horse had cost him a lot of time. He knew Levi wasn’t interested in an explanation though, so he left it at that. “We… not too behind, are we?”

Levi tucked his handsets into their holsters. “No. Penda came by and helped out. She’s fucking fast.” The slightest hint of envy colored his voice and, despite how weary he was, Eren felt a smile spread across his face—of all the things to be jealous of… “And Desta vomited on your desk.”

“Spit up,” Eren corrected automatically.

Levi snorted. “Doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s still gross. Almost everything babies do is gross; there’s no point trying to pretend it’s cute.”

Eren shook his head tiredly, more amused than exasperated. As much as Levi liked to despair about Desta’s many disgusting features, Eren knew he liked the baby. He wouldn’t allow Desta into his surgically clean office otherwise. He certainly wouldn’t let Desta play with his hair.

“You look like shit,” Levi observed. Whether he was referring to his wet clothes, his utter physical and emotional exhaustion, or both was unclear. Levi crooked a finger. “Come here.”

Eren sighed as he stepped forward until he could lean on Levi, sagging against him heavily. Even with the sun long gone, it was hot out and the air was sticky from the recent storm. Levi had worked himself up into a sweat, tiny beads of it collecting along his skin. He smelled good; Eren inhaled deeply, slowly unwinding. “Feel like shit,” he mumbled into Levi’s neck.

“That bad?”

Eren had to work out what he meant, though that was probably the fault of Levi’s hands rubbing circles into the small of his back and distracting him rather than his sleepiness. “About… what I expected. And…” Eren frowned as he forced the word out of his mouth. “Clam— clim… no. Anti. Anticlimactic.” Damn, that was such a chore to say.

Levi hummed, turning his head to press a kiss just below Eren’s ear. Eren smiled for what felt like the first time in days; he’d been missed. That was the most public display of affection Levi had ever indulged in with him—if one were generous enough to count the base empty of everyone but the night watch as public. “Didn’t get what you wanted?”

“No. I…” Eren straightened up so that Levi wouldn’t have to keep bracing so much of his weight, though he kept his arms looped around Levi’s shoulders. “I wanted to… un-understand that— why. Why. But… she’s just said— m-monster. Because I’m a monster. And… the meaning. Her meaning of monster… and my. It’s too d-different. I can’t get it.”  

Levi nodded, unsurprised. He’d met Dempsey, after all. And while he hadn’t exactly tried to discourage Eren from seeing her, he had said that he didn’t think Eren would get anything worthwhile out of her. Eren hadn’t been dissuaded though and while he certainly wasn’t glad to have made the trip, he didn’t regret it either. It was just too strange, walking around never knowing the face of someone who had tried to kill him. Especially since he hadn’t exactly escaped the attempt unscathed.

Eren ran his fingers up and down Levi’s shoulder blades, hunting for new knots. The bed was still calling for Eren, but at the moment he was reluctant to move from where he was. He found a knot and dug into it, grinning when Levi groaned quietly and dropped his head down to rest against his chest. Yes, he’d definitely been missed. He finished with the knot and smoothed his hand down Levi’s back. Once. Twice. “There’s… something. Something I wanted to a-ask,” he said, addressing Levi’s hair.

Levi did not lift his head. “What?”

“Le— what do you think… a monster is?” Levi drew away just enough to peer up at him with eyebrows raised and Eren started rambling, trying to explain. “When I… I used to think I know… knew… for sure. When I was a k-kid. Knew monster. But now… I don’t. Them… ev-everyone thinks something else. So. W-what is a monster?”

“I’m part of ‘everyone’ too, you know. What makes you think I’d know any better?”

Eren frowned. He wasn’t looking for a definitive meaning—he just wanted Levi’s. He couldn’t be bothered to attempt expressing that though, so instead he dove straight into the crux of the matter. “On the fifty… fifty-seventh expedition,” he began, careful to keep his tone neutral. He didn’t want to come across as upset. “You said I bac— I was a monster.”

Levi’s hands stilled, then slid back to cup Eren’s hip bones. “Yeah. I remember.”

“You said didn’t have… anything to d-do with Titan. Me being a Titan,” Eren continued. Levi nodded, eyes heavy-lidded and unreadable. “So, what… what did you mean?”

Levi furrowed his brow and was silent a while. Gathering his thoughts, Eren supposed. Levi wasn’t very good at explaining abstract concepts, which Eren was beginning to suspect was part of why Levi was able to be so patient with him back when Eren struggled to finish even just a sentence. Finally, he spoke. “The people you saw in Sina—not the MPs, just the regular assholes walking around—how many of them do you think could be scouts?”

“I don’t know. If they ho— had training…”

“But a lot of people don’t make it through training. Some die or give up because they can’t handle it, right?”

Eren remembered all of the people that had left his training cohort on just the first day alone. “Yes.”

“So only some people make it through training and only a few decide to become scouts. And those few that enlist, how many actually survived their first expedition and become full-fledged scouts?” Eren hesitated and Levi clarified with “I’m talking about before, not nowadays.”

“Not many.”

Levi pressed his thumbs into Eren’s hips, hard enough that they’d probably bruise. “The people that survive the first expedition… what makes them different from the others?” he asked.

“Luck.” More than anything else, it was good fortune that carried a scout to safety on their first expedition. Eren thought a moment and added, “S-skill.”

“It’s not just how lucky and how skilled you are though, is it? Maybe for your first expedition, but you won’t get far with just that stuff. Not without losing your mind.”

It dawned on Eren suddenly what Levi was trying to say; Armin had talked about this before. “Being able to… give things up. Make con— decisions people…. shouldn’t be m-making.”

“Yeah.” Levi looked down at the ground far below them, a bead of sweat rolling slowly along his neck. “How many ordinary soldiers can I sacrifice to protect a single essential one before the entire effort becomes pointless? Which pretty morals can I toss like trash for the possibility of getting answers I need?” Levi lifted his gaze to meet Eren’s eyes again. “Do I stick to the mission, save myself, and abandon someone I love to certain death or do I risk it all on the slim chance one of us might make it out alive?”

Ah. Eren swallowed, throat suddenly tight. Mikasa.

Levi squeezed Eren one last time, then let his hands drop away to his sides. “In Titan territory, there’s almost never an option that isn’t fucking awful,” he muttered. “The people who freeze up and can’t decide and the people who do make a decision but then drown in regret afterwards… they never last very long as scouts.”

“The best scouts… all monsters?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Levi tugged a handkerchief out of his pocket and scoured his damp hands with it. “It’s not only scouts. That’s just an example. It’s serial killers too and…” He trailed off, the harsh motions of his cleaning subsiding. “Anyone who can do things that most people couldn’t do without losing their mind. That’s what monster means.”

It was such a broad definition that Eren wasn't even sure where exactly he fit into it. But what really caught his attention was how… neutral it was. Levi certainly didn’t sneer the word like Dempsey did. “Levi doesn’t think… monsters are bad?”

Levi shook his head. “No, being a monster definitely isn’t good. I mean, no sane person wants to give up just being a regular person. But in a shithole world… sometimes monsters are the only ones that can change things.” He paused for so long that Eren thought he was done explaining, but then Levi’s shoulders lifted with a silent sigh and he went on. “Erwin was a monster, but if I ever thought he wasn’t working towards the right cause, I would’ve struck him down. I’m the same. If Erwin hadn’t thought I could be useful, I would’ve been put away or executed.”

The war for humanity was won by monsters. Armin had said that, on the one of the long, quiet days right after the eradication campaign. Eren had thought he’d been referring to the part Ymir and him had played, but now he was sure that Armin’s definition of “monsters” was a lot more inclusive. Even still, part of Levi’s explanation didn’t quite sit right with him. “So… so as long as you… a-agree with the monsters, they're okay? That’s… ah, arbitrary.”

Levi pressed his lips into a thin line. “My world has always been filled with monsters. Whether or not I agree with what they're doing is as good a way to distinguish between them as anything else.”

Eren supposed that was fair enough. He didn’t know if he could completely agree with Levi’s definition of a monster, but it made a lot more sense to him than Dempsey’s. He knew that eventually he’d have to decide for himself exactly what a monster was, but for now he was sick of thinking about it. “I b-bought you tea,” he announced.

Levi raised his eyebrows at the abrupt subject change, but didn’t comment on it. “You bought me tea.”

“Fancy Sina tea.” Eren unbuckled his satchel and dug through it to where his small packages for Levi and Armin were buried safe from the rain. He withdrew the two tin canisters from the tea store and thrust them into Levi’s hands. “Black and ka… chamomile,” he said, tapping each respective can. Both of them were outrageously expensive, but if Sina tea was as good as Eren kept hearing it was, he supposed it was worth it. It wasn’t like he had better things to spend money on.

“What the fuck is chamomile?”

“Looks like a… a daisy. Helps people fa-fall asleep.” According to his father and the tea store owner, anyway. Eren had never tried it himself.

Levi cracked open the chamomile canister and sniffed it. “Does it actually work?”

“Can’t hurt,” Eren answered noncommittally.

Levi snapped the lip shut and stared up at Eren. “You went all the way to fucking Sina to see the idiot that shot you and you bought me tea to help me sleep.”

Eren shrugged awkwardly. It did sound kind of weird when you put it like that.

“You’re such a shit,” Levi said, his own strange brand of affection coloring the words. Levi stacked the canisters atop one another so he could hold them in one hand, grabbing Eren’s hand with his freed one. “I’ve got a present for you too. Sort of, anyway.”

Eren blinked. “What?”

“I submitted Shiganshina for re-occupation approval today.”

Eren stared at him, the message slowly sinking in. He’d known that Shiganshina had been getting close to inhabitable the last few weeks, but… “Today?”

“Yeah. Should hear back from the capital in a week or so.”

Shiganshina had been the last remaining region on the reconstruction list because of how damaged it’d been. “…We’re done?”

“Almost.” Levi started listing the various tasks that still needed to be completed, but Eren was no longer listening. People could start moving into Shiganshina again soon. Reconstruction was finished.

What was Eren going to do now?

I'm unsatisfied with how this chapter turned out, but I figured you guys have waited long enough.

Wow! We've finally broken 50,000 words! The last time I managed that with a fic was 2008!

Surprisingly, I don't have much to say about this chapter right now other than that I'm glad it's finally done. Only a couple more chapters left now. Hopefully, I'll be able to get 19 out for y'all in a reasonable span of time, but we'll see. I've started teaching full time and so my free time has been utterly decimated. Students of the world who may be reading: please be kind to your teachers.

(Students in my first period were shocked to find out that I know what Attack on Titan is. Ahahahaha, if only you knew, young children. If only you knew...)

Anyway, let me know what you think and continue be awesome! I'll try my best to have 19 out by the end of the month, but that's just a rough ballpark estimate. I'm really excited about 19 though, so... maybe!

Chapter Text

Despite the reconstruction being complete, there was still plenty to do just as Levi had said. They'd already written up a proposal for an incentive program to motive people to move into Shiganshina (border districts had never been popular and, given Shiganshina’s recent history, people were understandably reluctant to make their lives there) and were currently bullying the capital to fund it. They still had to finish organizing and planning for the relocation of the main Legion headquarter from its current home in the borrowed Garrison base to its new one in Shiganshina (because if the Legion wasn’t confident enough to settle there, why should anyone else be?) Other than those two major priorities, they were also busy with unraveling all the snags that occurred with mass migration. There was a tall stack of reports on Eren’s desk detailing such snags in northern Maria, but Eren’s attention was utterly sucked up by what was going on in the courtyard outside the window.

“Eren,” Levi said and Eren snapped his head away from the view guiltily. “Just go.”

“You sure?” Eren asked, although he was already rising out of his seat and putting his pen and inkwell aside.

“You’re obviously going to be useless until you see him.” Levi waved his hand like he was shooing a dog. “Go.”

So Eren went.

He restrained himself from running though the building, but by the time he was in the throng of soldiers outside he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. He scanned the crowd of scouts, just returned from the longest expedition to date, seeking out a familiar head of golden blond hair. He spotted Armin’s team members rather quickly, but there was no sign of Armin himself. Eren bit his lip and went deeper into the crowd, still looking even as his gut twisted in worry.

A rudimentary mail route out beyond the Walls had been established so that some level of communication could be maintained while the majority of the Legion was away, but the messages that came through were often brief and always infrequent, with actual letters from scouts arriving even more rarely. The last letter Eren had received from Armin had been from two months ago. The last general communique had been a week ago and it had only reported that there had been a few injuries, eight separate Titan encounters, and that they would be returning today. Eren had no real reason to believe that Armin was among the injured, but he wasn’t with his squad mates and Armin had always been—

“Eren!”

Eren whipped around to face the voice hollering at him. Jean was waving him down from head of team seven. “Armin’s helping with the supply wagons!”

“Thanks!” Eren bellowed, already pushing his way to the back of the crowd where the wagons were. He distractedly acknowledged the greetings coming his way with nods and mumbled “Welcome b-back’s” until finally he emerged from the masses and found Armin instructing a rookie in some matter. Eren waited impatiently for him to finish, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and by the time the rookie finally saluted and ran off, Eren was ready to burst.

“Armin!”

“Ere— oof,” Armin grunted as Eren slammed into him; the only that kept him from being knocked over was Eren’s arms squeezing him tight. “Hey, Eren.”

“Don’t’ ‘hey!’ You wa— were gone for, for months!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Armin laughed and thumped Eren on the back. “I’m just tired. I missed you too. How’s the base been? I got the message about the MP attack, somehow. You’re okay, right?”

“Fine. Just b-busy.” He needed to tell Armin about him and Levi, but the courtyard while it was flooded with other scouts was far from the best time and place for it. The news would keep a while longer. The tale of his frustrating visit to Dempsey could wait as well. Eren released Armin so that he could step back and properly examine him; aside from a mild sun burn and requiring some quality time with a shower, Armin looked well enough. “You? How was eh— expedition?”

“Good. Other groups had some Titan encounters, but no casualties.”

“I heard… injuries?”

“Nothing too awful.” His face darkened though, a frown dragging the corners of his mouth down. “But…”

“What?” Eren did not like that expression.

Armin crossed his arms. “Sasha was one of the injured. Broke her leg apparently, so she’ll be assigned a desk duty until she recovers.”

“Hap— what happened?”

“I don’t know all the details,” Armin sighed, fingers of one hand drumming against the opposite arm. “What I’ve been hearing is that her team encountered a trio of stray Titans and she bolted out alone to deal with them.”

That didn’t make any sense. Sasha was skilled, but she wasn’t skilled enough to take out three Titans at once solo and she knew it. Why would she take a risk like that when her team was right there?

“This was about two weeks ago,” Armin added, each word weighted with significance— and Eren understood. About two weeks ago would’ve been around the second anniversary of Mikasa’s death.

They stood silently for a moment, heads bowed close together with the noise of all the scouts milling around filling in the lull between them. Finally, Armin dropped his hands down to his sides heavily. “You need to talk to Sasha. I’ve spoken to her, but it’ll mean a lot more to her if it was you.”

“I’ve tried,” Eren muttered. He had, loads of times. But after Mikasa’s death, Sasha had taken to avoiding him, even going so fall as to actually run off if Eren cornered her. He hadn’t been alone with her in a room for two years now; rather impressive considering he’d been working with her on the same small squad for several months of those two years. “Sas— she keeps… running away.”

Armin huffed. “Well, her leg is broken now, so she won’t be running anywhere for a while.”

Eren considered that for a moment because all of Armin’s ideas were worth consideration, if not immediate implementation. “Now— where, eh, is she?”

“The base infirmary, I think, but— wait, you’re going right now?”

Well, there certainly wasn’t any reason to wait. Except for maybe the fact that Levi was probably expecting him back soon, but Eren could just work late and, besides, he knew Levi had been concerned about Sasha’s behavior too. “Later, find you again,” Eren promised Armin as he strode away.

“Wait, hold on!” Armin called after him. Eren turned. “I’m supposed to tell you: Hange wants to see you first thing tomorrow morning.”

Eren nodded once in acknowledgement and continued on his way to the infirmary. It was long past due to settle this matter between him and Sasha and if settling it meant harassing a tired soldier with a broken leg, well, Eren hadn’t survived this long by only ever fighting fair.

The story came from Connie for he was the only one left that remembered everything.

It had been near the end of the eradication campaign, out in a southern Maria town. Jean and Armin had both left the squad for other teams, but in exchange they’d gained Ymir, a true boon to their squad’s destructive power. With two Shifters among them (not to mention the living legends, Levi and Mikasa) they were usually the first squad to enter a new zone to wipe out as many of the Titans there as they find.

A routine had been worked out, one that was dangerous but was also the most effective strategy they’d tested. Eren and Ymir’s Titans’ presences were usually enough to begin drawing any Titans in the area toward them, but there were always stragglers as well as abnormal Titans that seemed to have enough intelligence to not attempt eating a Shifter. That being the case, the other squad members would go out to lure the remaining Titans to where Eren and Ymir were battling. The main risk was that abnormal Titans were unpredictable and therefore tricky to deal with and the squad could only expend three members to go out on round up duty since two needed to remain behind with Eren and Ymir to pass information, help kill Titans, and ensure their safe retrieval from their Titan forms after exhausting themselves. For Ymir, that person was always Historia as she was the only person Ymir trusted. For Eren, the role shifted between Levi and his two best friends; with Armin gone, Levi and Mikasa had been splitting the duty evenly. Eren had never asked, but he’d gotten the impression that while Levi would’ve been fine with just letting Mikasa do it all the time, he wanted her to get some leadership experience in other aspects of the Special Operations Squad so that one day she could succeed him in the event of either his death or retirement.  

That day, it had been Mikasa’s turn to direct Sasha and Connie on the round up crew.

Connie said that everything had been proceeding like usual. They killed two six-meter Titans with no problems, but had three twelve-meter Titans and one fifteen-meter Titan tailing them that they’d collectively decided to lead to the rest of the group rather than risk striking. Pretty much any Titan that was still standing at this point in the campaign had some sort of craftiness to it and it was becoming harder and harder to tell which ones were abnormal and which weren’t— better to play it safe and let the Shifters rip the bigger ones apart. Everything was under control.

And then the entire situation changed in the blink of an eye.

Connie said he wasn’t sure where the abnormal seven-meter Titan had appeared from, but he guessed that it must have leaped out of hiding from between some buildings. It swatted at them and managed to knock Sasha out of the air like a moth. She crashed into some of the ruins below. Mikasa and Connie evaded the seven-meter and circled backwards only to discover Sasha unconscious and skewered through the gut on an exposed, broken wood beam.  

The seven-meter and the other four Titans were converging on them, smiling placidly and reaching out with fat fingers.

“I’m not smart. I’m not. But anybody would’ve known that we had to leave her. I didn’t want to, but I knew it was the smart thing to do. Mikasa wouldn’t leave though!”

Instead, Mikasa fired off an emergency signal flare to get the rest of the squad’s attention and ordered Connie to tend to Sasha and slice the fingers off of any Titan that tried to touch her. And then she launched into the air, blades drawn.

“I told her that even if we managed to pull Sasha off the beam, she’d probably bleed out before we could get her medical help and who even knew if she could survive with all the damage she had, but Mikasa wouldn’t listen to me. She just kept yelling at me to stay by Sasha until you guys got here, even as… even as the Titan swallowed her.”

Mikasa slaughtered the grinning seven-meter that downed Sasha in a furious frenzy. She tore through the three twelve-meter Titans like they were paper. But she didn’t cut deep enough into the fifteen-meter Titan and it managed to grab hold of her— squeezing, crushing— and when Connie moved to come to her aid, she commanded him not to leave Sasha unguarded, that the Titans could not have Sasha.

She vanished into the Titan’s mouth. The Titan turned towards Connie and Sasha and Connie took to the air because if he didn’t, they’d both die too. He managed to complete the cut that Mikasa couldn’t finish and the fifth Titan fell.

From the time that the seven-meter appeared to when Connie killed the fifteen-meter, earning Mikasa the last assist of her career, couldn’t have been longer than five minutes. It was another five before the rest of the squad managed to break away and find them and by then the Titans were halfway dissipated and Connie, in a rare stroke of brilliance, was attempting to carefully cut the wood beam with his blades so that Sasha could be moved without dislodging the only thing keeping her guts inside her.

Somehow, Sasha survived her injuries. She hadn’t been the same afterwards though and if things kept up as they had been, she might not survive the guilt.

Sasha visibly paled the moment he walked into the room.

“Oh, ah, Eren, it’s you. I mean, of course it’s you. It’s so nice to see you, yeah, hi,” she fired off, rambling and quick and tough for Eren to follow. “But, sorry, I think a nurse or somebody, I don’t know, I think they are going re-do the cast or something like that. They’re coming by now, so, yeah, sorry, you’ll have to go.”

Eren had already foreseen this though and taken measures to prevent it. “I know. I talked, told them… I was visiting. So she is… seeing other pat-patients first.”

“Oh.” Sasha’s eyes darted to each corner of the room, looking for some form of escape. “Well, thanks, but I’m really tired. And it’s good to sleep, to heal, you know? So I guess I’ll take a nap, sorry.”

Eren sat down beside her bed. “It’ll be fast.”

Sasha’s gaze was caught by the window and she stared it longingly, even beginning to rise from her bed as though she was prepared to dive out of it. But Eren snapped “Sasha!” at her so firmly that she lowered herself back to the mattress, looking as though she hoped to keep sinking into it forever until she drowned.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, bowing her head so that her bangs would conceal her face.

Eren sighed. “Don’t… ab— apologize. I… I’m not mad. About anything,” he clarified.

Sasha didn’t respond, though she fisted her bed sheet in both her hands. Eren took the opportunity to examine her, take in all the haggard details. She looked awful. Never mind the broken leg, she’d picked up even more scrapes and scars than the last time Eren had gotten the chance to see her. Her face was thinner than he remembered, like she hadn’t been eating well at all. The worst thing though was her defeated demeanor. Even when the eradication campaign had been at its lowest point, Sasha had always been able to find something to laugh about, some reason to smile and be optimistic.

Eren had no way of knowing for certain because he’d never really asked Mikasa about it, but he was pretty sure that was why she had loved Sasha.

He briefly considered starting in with some small talk (“What the hell were you thinking going for three Titans alone?”) but in the end he decided to just cut to the chase. He’d never been good at small talk and it was especially annoying now that everything took him longer to process and say. “You… why do you think tha— I am mad? At you?”

Sasha shifted in the bed uncomfortably, either from her leg paining her or from the line of questioning. “Your sister’s dead,” she answered. “And I’m not.”

If Sasha was just going to continue on pointing out the obvious, this talk was going to take forever. “That… why would I be mad? I’m not.” Well, he was mad in the same way that pretty much every loss to the Titans made him mad, but anger was far from the prevailing emotion he had when it came to his sister’s death. “I’m… I’m sad, sad because she’s da— dead, but… there’s no wa— no sense to mad at you.”

Sasha wouldn’t look at him. She kept her gaze fixed on the toes of her immobilized leg, hands still crumbling the bed sheets. “I—” She broke off and chewed her bottom lip. When she started again, her words were hardly above a whisper. “I shouldn’t be here. I was the one who…” She trailed off, then gestured her in direction of her torso where her impalement had left massive scarring on her front and back. “I shouldn’t have even survived that. And M-Mikasa…” Sasha’s voice cracked and she swallowed thickly, eyes starting to glint with tears. “Mikasa was so much better than me. At… everything. She...” Sasha released the blankets to scrub at her eyes, rubbing them even redder. “She should have left me. I wish she’d left me. I should be dead.”

Even though Eren was used to crying all the time, he never had any idea what to do when someone else started crying. Should he touch them? Should he tell them that things would be all right? When he was crying, he usually just wanted to be left alone for a while, but that wasn’t really an option. If he left this conversation now, who knew when he’d have a chance again? So he waited for Sasha to stop raking her hands over her eyes and then said, “I can’t… I won’t lie. I-If I had to… I was one to pick, I’d… of course I’d cha— pick my sister. Even if… she hate me f-for it.”

All right, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to tell a crying person. It was true though. Sasha was nodding in agreement, eyes squeezed shut, and Eren sighed. She was missing the point. “Not mine though,” he added firmly. Sasha had to understand this part. He concentrated, wanting to make sure he was as clear as possible. “Not my da— decision. Mikasa… it was Mikasa’s decision. You were… in— immediate danger. And really… probably should. Be d-dead right now. But… Mikasa had hope. For you.”

Mikasa hadn’t had very many people that were important to her. She’d lost too many people before and had been wary of opening herself to the possibility of losing anymore. But for those select few that Mikasa loved… she could never give up on them. While it may have been her weak point, leading eventually to her death, Eren had always thought it was her greatest strength as well.

“For me,” Sasha echoed hollowly. “So it is my fault.”

Eren breathed loudly through his nose. Maybe it was a bit much to expect to completely fix this mess in one conversation, but… Eren couldn’t remember Sasha ever being so thick and stubborn before all this happened. “No,” he said, voice firm as he folded his arms. “Connie’s.”

That got her attention. She stared up at him, looking at Eren properly for the first time since he’d entered the room. “What?”

“Connie. If Connie do— didn’t protect Sa— you, instead if he helped Mikasa—”

“But that doesn’t make any sense, she told him, she wanted—”

“—Captain’s fault then,” Eren interrupted. “He, Levi should’ve done, gone for round up that day.”

She shook her head, ponytail swaying. “It was Mikasa’s turn to—”

“—Not their fault, r-right? No reason for mad, right?”

“Of course not.”

“So why wa— should I be mad, ah, at you?”

Sasha opened and closed her mouth soundlessly a few times. Eren stayed silent as well, perfectly content to wait for an answer. Finally, Sasha sighed and smoothed the wrinkles out of the bed sheet surrounding her. “I don’t know,” she admitted. Her voice was thick with her recent tears and heavy with her accent. “I’m mad at me, I guess.”

“Well… I’m not. So. Stop avoiding me.” The words came out harsher than he’d wanted them to, so Eren rubbed his brow and tried to elaborate. “Mikasa… would be sad if… if we couldn’t see each other. We ar— were her family.” Sasha nodded once and Eren relaxed. It seemed like she was actually listening to him this time. “And stop… doing s-stupid shit. Like this,” he added, swatting her leg cast gently. “Mikasa made… choice she’d r-regret least. You shouldn’t either. Re— regret it, I mean. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sasha repeated quietly. Eren hoped she’d actually take it to heart. At the very least, she wasn’t cowering away from him anymore.

“I’ve go… need to go. Major’s waiting.” Sasha grimaced at the mention of the man and Eren snorted. “Yeah, he’ll… probably b-be by later. Good luck.” No doubt once Levi heard about how exactly Sasha had been injured, he’d visit and chew her out for being so stupid.

Sasha groaned. “He’s going to kill me. He’ll break my other leg!” She suddenly sounded so much like the old Sasha that Eren smiled and laughed a little, prompting her to scowl at him. “Don’t laugh, Eren, save me! Put him in a good mood for me; clean all the spots he can’t reach or something.”

Eren shook his head, but he made a promise to see what he could do before finally departing. Sasha would be fine. The worst Levi would probably do was treating her to his frostiest “What the fuck were you thinking, you fucking idiot?” speech and assigning her some hideously boring work for while she was stuck with desk duty.

And if she could worry and complain about that happening, then Sasha probably really would be fine eventually.

“Eren. Eren!”

Armin elbowed Eren in the side and he sat up with a jolt. “Pay attention.”

“Sorry,” Eren mumbled, though he didn't think he could really be blamed for losing focus when Hange and Armin had spent the last half an hour poring over data and mumbling numbers to each other like they were some sort of lost language.

Hange turned her notebook around and jabbed at a bunch of hastily drawn graphs with her pencil. “You see this, Eren?”

“...Yes?” He certainly did see it, though he didn't really know what it meant. It'd been a long time since he'd done any kind of math more complex than just adding up digits. The fact that Hange's handwriting was narrow and jagged and hard to read certainly didn't help.

If Hange noticed the hesitance in his answer, she didn't comment on it. She traced the curved line of one of the graphs. “I've plotted your data from each time I've tested you. This is your reading times for simple texts and these are intermediate texts and advanced texts and over here is errors in speech, which I've separated out into what kind of errors...”

Her voice was settling into the dangerous lecture mode that meant it could be hours before she finished dumping information and Eren would be left a blinking shell of a man. “Uh, w-wait,” he interjected, but Hange took no notice.

Fortunately, Armin saved him. “Commander, I know you've got a busy day ahead of you, so why don't I give him the full briefing later?” He said it so smoothly that it didn't even sound like the rude interruption that it was.

Hange paused mid-sentence, checked her watch, and then snapped it shut. “Yes, good idea, Armin, thank you.”

“It's really no problem at all,” he insisted, casting a side glance at Eren. Eren covered his mouth with his hand to conceal his grin.

"Anyway, you'll have to give me a day or two to draw up the official documents and get everything in order and, if we have time, I'd like to do some more assessments while you're Shifted— I don't think it'll make a difference though.” She paged through her journal devoted to him, speaking rapidly around the pencil clenched between her teeth. “Did everything seem the same when you Shifted in Shiganshina? Levi submitted a report to me, but he never puts in the details I want, the bastard."

She stared at him expectantly, pencil already poised over a new page to record notes, but Eren was far more concerned with the first part of her word spew. "You said o-official document. For— am I cleared?"

Hange blinked, eyes large behind her glasses. "Yeah, you're re-approved for field duty. Sorry, did I forget to say that part?"

Eren's chest filled with a fluttering feeling of joy and relief that left him tingling all the way down to his toes. Re-approved for field duty. He could finally, finally, go beyond the Walls, see the world he'd been yearning to see since he was a child and Armin filled his head with images of places so fantastic that he hardly dared believe in them. He did believe in them though and he wanted to go out and find them, to escape the cramped, dingy hole of a world that the Titans that pushed them into. Armin squeezed his hand and Eren couldn't help but beam at him.

We're finally going together, Mikasa.

Hange twirled the pencil between her fingers. “The next expedition won't be for another two months, at least,” she explained. “There's a lot of restocking to be done and plus Levi said that if the rest of the Legion didn't stick around long enough to help move our headquarters to Shiganshina, he'd personally ensure that everything left behind in my lab gets tossed into the trash. That's valuable research!” She huffed indignantly. “I'd like to think that he's kidding, but... Ah, Eren! Do you think Levi is finally ready for the field again?”

“I... I don't know,” he admitted. Levi hadn't said anything going on the expeditions since he'd told Eren on that fateful day that he wasn't. “I need a break. I’m tired, Eren.” “But he's been... better.”

It would be hard for Levi to not be doing better though considering how run down he'd been by the end of the eradication campaign. They'd all been put through the wringer, of course, but Levi had been in especially bad condition. Eren didn't think he'd been sleeping at all near the end besides tiny naps caught in the lulls between traveling and slaughtering. (Though there had been one memorable occasion during the last month of the campaign when Levi fell asleep in the middle of dinner. Or perhaps he’d fainted. No one in the squad could figure out which it was but they didn’t dare disturb his rest, no matter how sudden it was. Cleaning up after dinner had never been so quiet.)

Hange hummed in agreement. “I saw him yesterday and he seemed well— definitely in a better mood than I’ve seen him in years. I figured something nice must’ve happened since I’d last seen him. Or someone, if you know what I mean.” The words themselves were innocuous enough, but the gleam in her eyes was anything but. Despite himself, Eren felt his face flush bright red and Hange cackled. Armin laughed too, the traitor.

“Could you be any more obvious, Eren?” Armin chuckled.

“Shut up,” Eren muttered. He thought he did a pretty good job of keeping their relationship subtle. But Hange was his boss, the Commander of the Scouting Legion— of course he was going to be embarrassed if she started… making implications or whatever. Favorite research project or not, it was too weird to hear her boss talking about his sex life.

Hange clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. Actually, I wholeheartedly approve. Levi needs—” She thought better of whatever she was going to say though and cut herself off. “Well, anyway, I’m hoping that he is ready for field duty again and that he’ll follow you back out there. We’ve been making due without him, but if we want to expand further we’re going to need the Special Ops Squad back up and running properly. I mean, Ymir and Historia are fantastic, but…” She shrugged; Ymir was quick but they couldn’t risk her on the bigger Titans— they over-powered her too easily. And while Historia had grown into a right terror, she was no Levi. “Just having you back will be a great help when we start coming across more Titans again, but I’d feel even better if we had Levi in the field too.”

Eren knew exactly what she meant. Just for himself, he’d feel better if Levi was matched up with him. He could work with Armin easily enough, but he didn’t want to pull him away from the technical team since that suited his talents so much better. Jean was more than skilled enough for the role and Eren trusted him enough, but Jean was firmly situated in team seven and their personalities clashed too much for such close, long term collaboration. He supposed Connie would be fine if he was willing to leave the prestigious team one for the job and Eren could even get accustomed to someone new entirely, but… it would be best with Levi.

And as a whole, the Scouting Legion would far be better off with Levi among their ranks when they set off to expand their Titan-free radius even wider. Not only was he a morale booster, but also there was simply no one else that could come close to matching his skill or experience.

No one still living, anyway.

“I’ll… do my best t-to convince him.”

“What? Of course I’m going.” Levi raised one eyebrow. “Why the fuck do you think I’ve been busting my ass to make sure the headquarters relocation is finished before the next expedition starts?” he added, jabbing one thumb over his shoulder at the stacks of parchment piled on his desk.

Eren hadn’t really noticed Levi “busting his ass”; since he put one hundred percent effort into pretty much everything he did, it was hard to tell when he was working extra hard. “But you si— said… you were tired. And too old to p-pioneer.”

“I am too old to be a pioneer. But I’m also too…” Levi paused to search for a word, but apparently he came up empty. He huffed and waved one hand in a brief frustrated gesture. “Too whatever to be on a desk duty forever. And I’m complete shit at reports and meetings and all this other administrative bullshit. The only thing I’m good for is killing things.”

Eren folded his arms over his chest. “And tired?” he challenged.

“I needed a break, not a permanent career change.”

Eren hadn’t really thought that Levi intended to stay in administration for the rest of his career (it really did not suit him, though Eren privately disagreed with that “only good for killing things” comment), but this still felt too sudden. “Then… then how come you ver— never said anything, anything about… joining the expeditions?”

Levi prodded him in the chest. “Because you couldn’t go, shithead,” he explained. “I know how much the expeditions mean to you. I’m not so much of an asshole that I’d just ditch you halfway through and leave you with all the paperwork. ”

Maybe it was just a tad bit pathetic, but Eren was pretty sure that was the most romantic thing Levi had ever said to him—because it sure sounded like what he was really saying was “I wanted to wait for you.”

“But… what if never re-approved?”

“Of course you’d get re-approved. It’s you. You’re too vital to the Legion to be behind a desk forever and too stubborn to let that happen in the first place.”

Even as flustered as he was, the back-handed praise still registered with him and made him feel like he was glowing. But still, it wasn’t like Levi to just leave a project when it was technically still unfinished; someone had to continue supporting the Legion from within the Walls, after all. “And what, what about the ne— new base? Who will head?”

“I’m promoting Penda. I already talked to her about it and she agreed.”

Of all of the scout officers that were currently not taking part in the expeditions, Penda Nichols was the most qualified to run the administrative side of the Legion headquarters— not to mention she was more interested in staying with her husband and child than ever going beyond the Walls. She and her family would have to move because Shiganshina to southern Rose was way too far to keep commuting like she had been. Trevor would have to set up a new forge. But skilled laborers such as blacksmiths would receive very nice benefits to move Shiganshina under the incentive plan. Everything… everything fit together so neatly.

“So… that’s it?” Eren said slowly. “Finally, we’re both… really going?”

“Yeah. We’re both going.” Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, why are we arguing about this?”

“Not arguing. Just…” Eren rubbed the back of his head and shrugged. He could hardly believe that anything that had happened today was real and yet it was. “It’s too perfect.”

“Perfect?” Levi scoffed. “We’re going to be stationed on the front line of the expansion. Even if there aren’t so many Titans out there anymore, we could still both be killed in the first week.”

Eren couldn’t really explain it but, somehow, that was almost reassuring.

Levi furrowed his brow. “What are you grinning about?” he demanded. “You’re that excited to go out there and risk your neck again? And without any running water either.”

Eren laughed and felt his smile widen even further. “No,” he said. “I’m just... glad. Very, very glad.”

Levi stared at him for a long moment, eyes unusually wide, and then wordlessly reached out with both hands to tug Eren down just far enough so that Levi could lean in and kiss him. It was over before Eren could even properly respond and suddenly Levi was pushing him up again and stalking back to his seat with a muttered, “Weirdo.”

Levi's ears were pink. And, despite all the horrible things that Eren had had to carry himself through just to get to this one small moment (and all the boring paperwork he still had to finish before he could properly enjoy it), Eren truly didn’t think he’d ever been so happy.

Mikasa/Sasha is my preferred Mikasa ship, if this chapter didn't make that obvious enough.

Whew, another long chapter done! I got this one out sooner than I thought I would too. There's not much of WCD left-- just one final chapter with Levi and (maybe) an extra epilogue from neither Eren nor Levi's perspective. I don't really know when either of those will be finished, but hopefully it'll be soon. (I may post them both together. We'll see.) I guess just as a rough estimate... I'd like to finish this fic before Halloween.

Most of the remaining plot threads (LOL, plot, what plot? This fic barely had one!) were tied up in this chapter. 20 will focus on resolving a question poor Eren posed back in chapter 15 and never got a real answer to. Please look forward to it! And let me know if you see typos/errors... I always have so many.

Chapter Text

Despite all of Levi’s misgivings, Erwin made him an officer. Barely a month later, someone under his command died.

He was familiar enough with getting people killed to know that it never got less horrible, but he was completely unfamiliar with writing death notifications. Sara Brandenburg had a mother and two younger brothers back home and Levi had no idea what to write to them. It was all such bullshit— no amount of words could make someone feel better about the fact that their daughter or sister had been devoured by a Titan.

It would be worse to not do anything at all though, so Levi knew he had to try. But, fuck, he could barely string a complete sentence together on paper.

He briefly considered tracking down Mike and having him write the death notification. For months he’d been keeping Mike’s room spotless and stink-less in exchange for him secretly completing all of Levi’s paperwork and reports (though Levi was pretty sure that what Mike had really been getting out of their deal was the amusement of pulling one over on Erwin.) It didn’t sit right with Levi to take this to Mike though. Sara Brandenburg was his soldier, his responsibility. He’d write her death notification with his own hand, no matter how terrible and amateurish his writing was.

But no matter how many lines he crossed out, ruined parchments he crumbled, and swears he growled, he simply did not have the words for it. Even if he was speaking to her family, he did not think he’d be able to find the right words. He had none.

So he marched into Erwin’s office, interrupting him in the midst of his own paper-paved hell, and asked, “I’m your best weapon, right?”

If Erwin was surprised or confused by the question, it didn’t show. Rarely did, though the pure shock at learning Levi could only read and write his own name had been fucking majestic. “Yes,” he answered, voice low and level.

“And if I died, it’d be bad for the Legion, bad for the cause?”

Something about that made Erwin smile for the briefest of moments. “Levi, right now I do not believe there could be anything more devastating.”

There was a to me tucked carefully into the statement, hidden where only Levi could find it, but Levi neither had the energy to address it nor was he sure how to. “So if I got torn apart out there, what would you write to my family?”

Erwin didn’t do anything stupid like pointing out that Levi didn’t have any family or wondering aloud what Levi was going on about. He just laid a fresh sheet of parchment out on his desk and began writing. Levi loomed over him, watching as words fell on the paper and bled. Finally, Erwin leaned back again and tried to pass the letter to Levi, but Levi refused it. He already seen enough to know that he couldn’t even understand half of it.

“Read it to me,” he demanded instead. Erwin complied, running his finger just below the still-drying ink so Levi could follow along. Levi listened intently, occasionally stopping Erwin to make him explain exactly what a word meant. When Erwin finally reached the end, Levi snatched the letter up and folded it neatly. “Okay. I’m taking this.”

But of course Erwin wouldn’t let him leave with just that. He stopped him at the door with a quiet question.

“Is that for Sara Brandenburg’s family?”

Levi’s back stiffened, chest constricting, but he bit out his answer. “Yes.”

Sara Brandenburg had been a good solider and a reliable comrade, though not exactly extraordinary. For the Legion as a whole, her death was just another figure to add to their damn dismal statistics. Even still, there was only one Sara Brandenburg in the world and now she was gone. To her family and everyone that cared about her, she was irreplaceable.

Levi didn’t have the words to describe something like that though. Erwin’s letter would need some tweaking, but it would do.

He was half-expecting Erwin to chide him or something, but Erwin just nodded like it was totally normal to use your own death notification as a makeshift form letter and reminded him, “Don’t forget to switch the pronouns to female.”

Levi used that letter for every death notification he wrote. At first, he’d painstakingly copy it almost word for word. Later on, as he got better at reading and writing, he would reference it as a model while he was drafting. Eventually, all he needed to do was recite it in his head whenever he got stuck. After so many times, he had the damn thing memorized perfectly, all the way down to the exact shape of each of Erwin’s pen strokes. He hadn’t needed to take it out in years, instead keeping it folded up securely with his few belonging.

The night after Mikasa died, he took it out. Not to reference while writing. After all, Mikasa didn't have any family back within the Walls to notify. He took it out just to stare at. Because if there was any sense to the world, it would be news of his death spreading throughout the Legion like a virus. The old was meant to give way to the new and, shit, Levi was more than willing to pass the fucking torch. The candles burned low. The night stretched longer and longer. And Levi, too tired and too worn out and just too fucking done with everything to even stand up and clean, sat at his desk and examined the dim, dirty corners of his mind until—

—Eren Jaeger knocked on the door.

If Levi slept, he always woke up in the middle of the night. It had been that way for far more years than he cared to think about, but he didn’t know the reason why. It wasn’t noise or nightmares or a desperate need to piss. He just woke up like he was all done sleeping, though the headache and sore eyes that came with waking told him he was not.

Once he was awake there was no falling back asleep again, so he usually just got up and found something to do. There was always shit that could use cleaning. The mindless, repetitive motions of scrubbing and washing and polishing were soothing in a way that sleep rarely managed to be— a safe, productive balm against the rasping feelings of hopelessness, uselessness and just general fuck this feelings. (At least, that was what Erwin had theorized about his cleaning. He’d probably been on the mark, but Levi had told him to piss off anyway. He hated it when people tried to pick him apart.)

Recently though, Levi had taken to lying around in bed for a while before finally dragging himself out. And the reason for that was currently plastered to his back, snoring softly against his neck.

Eren generated enough body heat to light a forest fire. Sleeping with him got sweaty and humid and gross in summer, but during the winter months it was good. Levi was probably the only bastard with toasty toes in the entire encampment at the moment. But even when it wasn’t freezing outside, Levi was still reluctant to get up and leave Eren sleeping alone.

Eren was rarely demonstrative with him in the daytime. It was necessary due to their positions—no matter that their relationship was pretty much an open secret within the Legion, it would be damaging to both of their authority to be seen as cuddly. Levi’s own distaste for public displays also kept Eren’s hands off when other people were around. But he was fucking clingy in his sleep. Maybe it should’ve been annoying, but…

Levi had never had someone be clingy with him before. All of his past partners either lacked the affections for it or were Erwin and Erwin just hadn’t been the type. Eren was the type though, a fact he proved every time Levi woke up at some godforsaken hour and found himself tangled up with Eren like Eren was trying to fuse the two of them together into some sort of eight-limbed creature for Hange to study and coo over.

Maybe it should’ve been annoying, but with Eren Levi never had reason to question his sincerity. And while the world was slightly less of a shithole than it used to be, sincerity was still too damn rare. So even when things got so sweaty that Levi thought he’d never feel clean again, he laid around for a while to enjoy it—the hot press of skin against his, the arms and legs wrapped tight around him like he was something precious, something that needed protection. He wasn’t (he definitely wasn’t) but it was still nice to be treated like he was once in a while.

Eventually though, Levi would start getting fidgety with the need to be doing something and he’d untangle himself, leaving Eren to curl around the empty space he left behind. Eren never woke up during this process. The little asshole never had any problems sleeping the night all the way through. He fell asleep fast too, though Levi had been getting better about falling asleep normally.

Like usual, Eren didn’t stir at all tonight when Levi peeled himself away. He braced himself before he emerged from the oven Eren had created beneath the blankets, but he still hissed between his teeth and shivered when the cold air hit him. Levi got dressed in the dark, pulling on each and every piece of the winter uniform until he no longer felt like all his blood, spit, and piss would freeze solid inside him. Once he’d tugged his gloves securely into place, he gathered up the main unit of his maneuver gear and its maintenance kit to work on. He detached Eren’s unit too. It would be pretty shitty for Eren to have survived literally hundreds of Titans only to die because of some gear malfunction. Eren was pretty good about servicing his gear regularly and he was pretty damn death-proof, but Levi was allowed to indulge in paranoia at this time of night.

Once he had everything he needed in hand, he emerged from the tent, stepped out into the snow, and began crossing the camp. It was small and very temporary, just his squad and team four. They’d been out surveying in the south, but the sudden heavy snowfall had forced them to turn around and try to rejoin the main body of the Legion. Progress was slow, but there was nothing to be done about it besides try to stay warm and keep moving in the right direction.

He went to relieve whoever was on watch since someone might as well be sleeping if he couldn’t. Usually, watch was kept by the fire— especially when it was cold like this— but no scouts were there. Third watch should’ve started not too long ago, so maybe they’d gone to sweep the camp perimeter. Levi dumped the equipment in a dry spot before venturing out to find the watch, stepping high to trudge through the snow. It didn’t take long to find someone moving around on the west end of the camp. As he approached, the close-shaven head became recognizable even in the dark.

Connie was shuffling along with his hands stuffed up his armpits and dragging his feet so that the packed snow got knocked around. When he spotted Levi, he paused and called out, “Major, don’t step there!”

Levi stopped in his tracks and checked the ground. A few feet away there were trails of Connie’s disturbed snow. “What is it?”

“I’m drawing a horse,” Connie answered, resuming his snow kicking. “That’s the… Mia, is that the mane or the tail over there?”

Mia's voice rang down from the nearest tree. “It’s supposed to be the tail, but it’s just a lump.”

“Yeah, and whose fault is that? You’re the one giving the directions!” Connie shot back. He withdrew his hands from his armpits and rubbed them together briskly. “Are you taking watch, Major?”

“Yeah. You two can go back to sleep.”

Connie grinned broadly. “Told ya that third’s watch’s the best!" he called upward. "The major is always up for third watch.”

“You’re terrible,” Mia informed him, shimmying down the tree trunk.

“Terrible and well-rested. I’m a genius.”

Mia hopped off the tree and inadvertently sank knee deep into the snow. “Ugh,” she grunted, accepting the hand Levi offered to haul her out. “Thank you, Major.” She brushed the snow off of herself and told Connie, “You’re only a genius at cutting corners.”

Connie scoffed. “Whatever. Besides, Major Levi doesn’t care, right?”

Connie had started volunteering exclusively for third watch a few months into the eradication campaign, realizing that Levi would almost certainly wake up and relieve him. Really, Levi didn’t give a fuck. “I’m only disappointed that no one else had caught on to your scheme.”

“I think Ymir is on to me, but she always does watch with Historia anyway.” He yawned widely, not bothering to cover his mouth. “Well, bedtime for me again.”

With that, Connie sauntered away, leaving Mia gaping after him, stunned by his complete lack of ceremony. She saluted Levi with extra fervor, as though to make up for Connie’s unprofessionalism. “I am relieved. Thank you very much, Major Levi.”

Levi just waved her off, already turning back towards the fire where’d dumped his equipment. He’d never grown comfortable with all the rigid formalities of the military; he recognized their usefulness, watched as people like Erwin commandeered them to their advantage, but even now it was so foreign to him.

In many ways, he hadn’t changed much at all since the Underground. Shit, even gear maintenance could be included in that. Back then, if any part of the gear broke down or wore out, getting it fixed wasn’t nearly as simple as just filing a form and waiting a bit. Levi had figured out how to fix some minor problems with a lot of trial and error, but most of the gear mechanics were way beyond him. Better to just keep the gear in top condition and avoid fuck-ups as much as possible.

He chucked some more wood on the fire and then cracked open the wire reel cases of his unit, cleaning out the inside and checking for excessive wear on the wires. He peered into the casing, tilting it at different angles to make better use of the firelight. It was important to look for any irregularities in the metal that might rub against the wires or snag them. Even the tiniest flaw could eventually bring about a disaster.

Levi squinted inside both cases, searching every centimeter, but eventually he gave in and yanked off one of his gloves so he could feel around instead. Eren was right, the bastard— his eyes really were going. Faraway stuff was still crisp and clear, but close-up things were definitely blurrier than he remembered them being even just a year ago. He’d need to get glasses soon, for reading at least, but he had to put it off for as long as possible. When Hange learned about him wearing glasses, she’d never let him live it down.

Once he finished with the reel cases, he closed them back up and started carefully disassembling the fan for cleaning, motions automatic as muscle memory took over. His thoughts drifted to the remaining leg of the journey waiting for them once morning came. According to their (very rough) maps, they were still about seventy kilometers from the Legion’s main outside-the-Wall base. That was assuming that the snow hadn’t ruined their route somehow, but it’d have to be a pretty big-ass obstacle to waylay them. Two days ago, they arrived at a previously open pass only to find it blocked with snow and fallen rock. They’d resigned themselves to finding a way around it until Ymir pointed out that she and Eren could just Shift and clear it out themselves. It’d been a good idea, except for the part where they’d forgotten to account for exactly how much snow would be melted by the heat of two transformations. The resulting slush pond had been disgusting.

He was jerked from his musing by the sound of snow crunching nearby. Levi snapped to attention, already on his feet, but it was just Eren, bleary-eyed and hair a disaster on top of his head.

“It’s still early,” Levi told him, sinking back into his seat again. Eren grunted in acknowledgement and flopped down beside him. He didn’t have gloves or a hat on and his outer coat was unbuttoned. Levi felt cold just looking at him, but Eren yawned and leaned against him heavily and Levi could feel how warm he was even through all the layers.

“Think I had a… a ba— nightmare,” Eren mumbled.

“You think?”

Eren nodded, head burrowing into Levi’s shoulder. “I have… haven’t h-had a nightmare since…” He trailed off. Levi couldn’t tell if he simply couldn’t recall or if he’d lost his train of thought. He couldn’t see Eren’s face, buried as it was, so it was just as likely that he’d dozed off.

“Since when?” he prompted, voice low in case he was really was sleeping again.

Eren bolted upright, pointing at Levi accusingly. “You, you still haven’t told!”

“Told what?” he asked.

“Since when you l— wanted to ki-kiss me!”

“Ah.” Levi had hoped that Eren had forgotten about that, but he should’ve known better. He busied himself with wiping off the fan blades. “I told you that already.”

Eren huffed. His breath emerged thick and white in the frigid air. “Longer than, than year and half could mean a-anything. That’s… not fair.”

“You were pretty vague too.”

“Fine.” Eren crossed his arms. “Last week of… kah— campaign. I’d Shifted for too lawn, long, and you were… helping me get out. Right before, Le— you’d been… splattered by Titan blood and…” Eren rubbed up and down on both of his forearms. “I’d fused a lot. Arm skin coming off, blood ew— everywhere. You were… complaining about. All of the blood. And steam, cursing too.”

Levi hadn’t really been anticipating a romantic story considering it was the two of them, but what Eren was saying was still pretty from off base from what he was expecting. “And that made you want to kiss me?” he asked dryly.

Eren shrugged. “Your nose was wri— wrinkled,” he stated like that explained everything. “And…” He furrowed his brow. “You said… something. I d-don’t what, remember what. Complaining about s-something. It… made me laugh. It was just too… you.”

He realized what day Eren was talking about now. Eren had suddenly started laughing right in the middle of having his arms’ skin stripped away. Levi had thought he was delirious and chalked it up to battle stress.

Eren nudged him with his shoulder. “Done, ya— your turn now,” he announced. Levi finished with the fan parts and started reassembling it. Eren groaned. “Come on. It… it can’t be that. That eh, embarrassing.”

“It’s not embarrassing.”

“What’s problem then? Can’t be… weirder than mine.”

Levi stared up at Eren. Eren returned the eye contact full force, not backing down in the slightest. He really wasn’t going to drop it. Levi kind of wanted to be pissed, but Eren was so good about respecting his other boundaries that it didn’t seem right. Eren deserved to know anyway. He sighed and set the gear unit aside, wondering where to even begin.

“The first time I thought about it, it made me feel… gross. Shitty.” Neither of the two words were enough to completely describe the slimy awfulness of the memory, but he didn’t know any words that would. “I don’t like remembering that.”

“Why?” Eren asked. “I mean… why’d you feel… like that?” He was pressed against Levi’s side again, one arm looped around his back so that Levi wasn’t bracing all his weight. With the fire in front of him and Eren pouring out body heat, it almost felt like it wasn’t the most miserable season of the year.

“Because I…” Fuck, he was no good at this feelings bullshit. Talking about feelings was hard enough; trying to explain why he had those feelings was worse. Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. Eren lowered his head down to rest on top of his, apparently ready to wait for however long it took for him to sort out his shit. “This was just after Erwin died. Maybe a day or two later, a week, I don’t know— for a while, every day felt the same. I was… bad.” It was a woefully inadequate word, but Eren hummed softly in agreement. Levi didn’t need to explain “bad”; Eren had been there for it.

“What was… what was this?” Eren’s breath blew across the top of his head. Levi shivered and Eren shuffled until somehow even more of him was pressed against Levi’s side.

Levi licked his cold-cracked lips. “Everyone else was asleep, but you were awake, making me tea,” he began. “You were there and I just thought it’d be good to fucking forget for a while. Not feel so fucking… lonely.” The words tasted like dirt in his mouth, but Eren was so quiet and so still that Levi kept talking just to pull some sort of reaction out of him. “I thought you’d go along with it, that I wouldn’t even have to say anything—I knew you used to have some ridiculous crush on me. And even if you didn’t anymore, you’d want to be… helpful. It’d be—”

“—Easy,” Eren interrupted.

It wasn’t exactly the reaction Levi had been waiting for, but he felt something inside him loosening anyway. “Yeah. And then once that shit flushed through my head, I felt like trash. I don’t…” He couldn’t give voice to that though; it was an old, old wound that healed up wrong and ugly, but it had healed and Levi wasn’t willing to risk tearing it open again. He changed course to something safer, but every bit as true. “You deserve better than just being something convenient.”

Eren was slow to respond, silent. It was a thinking silence though, not an upset one, so Levi waited it out and eventually Eren sat up, staying close so that the cold air couldn’t rush in.

“That… that’s n-not what I meant,” Eren said.

The words were clear enough, but Levi had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

Eren made a short, exasperated noise, but he didn’t elaborated. “When did… it change?” he asked instead. “When? Because Levi wouldn’t… not for con-convenience.”

“I don’t know when exactly. I don’t fuck around all day analyzing my feelings.” His voice was harsher than he’d intended, full of brittle, bitter syllables. Levi drew in a deliberate breath, trying to clear out the parts of him that balked at exposing any vulnerability. This was Eren, after all. Levi didn’t have anything to fear from him. “I realized things had changed that night after Mikasa died,” he admitted.

Eren frowned, shoulders sinking slightly like they always did when Mikasa came up. “I was crying,” he noted. “With, you, you let me in-inside and… sat with me.”

Eren remembered exactly what he was talking about then. “Yeah.”

Eren scrubbed the back of his hand across his nose— gross— and grinned suddenly. “What, Levi, you… fell for my cra— crying face?” he teased, bumping his shoulder against Levi’s.

Levi snorted. “Something like that.”

Apparently Eren hadn’t been expecting him to agree; he flushed and looked away. “T-that’s my,” he said, pointing at the second gear unit beside Levi.

“I know.” Levi shoved it at Eren, perfectly willing to change the subject. “And since you’re awake now you can do your own maintenance.”

Eren grumbled, but he leaned over to dig through Levi’s maintenance kit. “Your— you need t-to put your… glove. Back on. Frostbit… your fingers will— AH!” He broke off up with a yelp as Levi pressed his uncovered hand against his cheek, trying unsuccessfully to squirm away from Levi’s touch. “That’s— that’s cold. Levi!”

Levi fanned his fingers to spread out over Eren’s warm cheek, following him as he leaned away. “You come out here with no gloves, no hat, and your coat all undone and you try to tell me about frostbite?”

Eren shuddered. “It’s too... too hot though, with all that. Besides, mine… mine just grow back. P-probably. Yours won’t.”

He was so fucking earnest. Levi lifted his hand off and flicked him on the forehead. “Yeah, but you can still get sick. Take better care of yourself before worrying about me.”

Eren prodded his assaulted forehead gingerly, fixing a half-hearted glare on Levi. “You know, p-people don’t. Don’t get sick, uh, just from con, cold. The cold, it doesn’t… have germ.”  

“You’re a shit, you know that?”

Eren snorted. “You, you’ve before s-said that.” He grabbed Levi by the wrist and yanked the abandoned glove back on Levi’s hand. Levi watched with amusement as he struggled to get the fingers right, not moving in the slightest to help.

“Hey.”

“What?” Eren muttered, head bent over his work. He doesn’t notice Levi leaning forward until Levi’s face was just a few centimeter away. Levi caught Eren’s surprise shifting into a smile just because he closed his eyes.

Maybe it was Levi’s imagination, but Eren’s lips were even warmer than the rest of him.

The knocking disputed Levi’s dark thoughts. He stared at the door warily, wondering if whoever was behind it would believe that he was asleep. Unlikely. All right. Enough sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, shithead. You’re not done yet. He dragged himself to his feet and crossed the tiny bedroom in five paces to answer the door.

“Sorry, Captain,” Eren croaked. His eyes were rimmed red and his hands were spotted with gray. He held up his stained fingers. “Can I borrow your ink? I kind of… threw mine.”

“You threw it,” Levi repeated flatly.

“Yes. I cleaned up the mess, but some of it wouldn’t come off. Sorry.”

It didn’t really matter. The place they were staying in now was just one of the many abandoned houses in southern Maria, a roof and walls to return to for as long as they were in the area. Levi didn’t care if there was a stain and the previous inhabitants were probably long dead so they sure didn’t give a fuck either. Eren was apologizing anyway in a wavering voice that threatened to collapse into sobbing at any moment.

Eren didn’t cry when they found a hysterical Connie, a barely breathing Sasha and no Mikasa; he didn’t cried as they worked to stabilize Sasha best they could and Connie babbled out the entire story; he didn’t cried the entire slow, agonizing ride back. Levi was… relieved to see evidence of tears now. He couldn’t really explain why, but somehow it felt like if Eren ever stopped crying for good, the war for humanity would be lost.

“It’s fine,” Levi told him. He felt like he should say something now that Eren wasn’t stone-faced and silent, something about Mikasa, but he had no idea what. “Come on. Don’t throw my ink though; that shit’s expensive.”

He let Eren in and went to retrieve his inkwell. He’d intended to pass the ink off to Eren, but Eren sat down at the dented end table Levi had been using as a desk. Levi set the ink in front of him instead. Eren ran both of his hands over his eyes—some of the ink rubbed off on his cheeks—and took a clean piece of parchment from Levi’s stack without asking.

“I have to write to Armin,” he explained, also claiming Levi’s pen. “About.. about Mikasa.”

Levi dragged the other chair over so that he could sit beside Eren instead of across from him. “You don’t have to. If Armin hasn’t heard already, he’ll definitely hear by tomorrow morning.” Even with the Legion spread out all over southern Maria, big news still traveled fast. Mikasa Ackerman getting killed in combat was very big news.

Eren sniffed, loud and wet. “That’s why I have to write to him.” He scribbled down the data, fingers wrapped so tightly around the pen that it shook. “If he doesn’t hear from me, he’ll worry. I have to let him know that I’m okay.”

His face was screwed up with the effort of holding back sobs, his lips thin and trembling as he slowly scratched out Armin’s name. Levi touched his back, palm flat between Eren’s shoulder blades, and Eren crumbled, crying loudly and dropping the pen to dig the heels of his palms into both eye sockets. “S-s-sorry,” he mumbled, the sounds just barely escaping between his heaving breaths.

“Dry yourself out,” Levi told him. “Armin won’t be able to read your letter if you get it all soggy.”

Eren nodded stiffly, back rigid under Levi’s hand. Levi withdrew his touch, but Eren snatched his hand and clenched it so tightly Levi felt the bones grinding.

“I just— I just need—” he choked out. “I don’t—” Eren shook his head, wiping his blotchy face with his free hand. A long, shuddering sigh emerged from him. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

Levi squeezed back. “You are.” Eren Jaeger may bend, but he’d never break. Levi knew that better than anyone. He was the same, after all.

“Yes.” When Eren said it, it sounded like a promise. Yes.

A warm feeling spread through Levi’s chest, pulsing and fucking glowing. Levi recognized it, though he hadn’t dealt with it often. There were plenty of things that Levi knew he’d never be able to describe no matter how many words he held, but this feeling—this stupid, shitty, sweet feeling— could be summed up well enough with just one.

Fuck, Levi was in for so much trouble.

Trivia that didn't make it into chapter: Mia Ward of team four is 18 years old and-- at a grand-slamming 142 centimeters-- the shortest person in the Scouting Legion. You'd never be able to get Levi to admit it, but he likes to find excuses to stand next to her. She's good at making precision cuts and knitting things, though she doesn't often get opportunities to show off the latter skill.

Trivia that didn't make it into the chapter: Levi didn't tell Mike that he couldn't read/write; Mike found out on his own and confronted Levi about it.

WELL, THAT'S THAT. I didn't get this chapter out as quickly as I would've liked and I'm not very happy with it, but whatever. I've been working on this fic for a long time (about 11 months!) so I'm pleased to finally see it DONE.

Of course, there's still the sappy, fluff-fluff fives years later epilogue chapter to follow this. "Chapter 21" is pretty much completely separate from the rest of WCD, but the idea took a hold of me and wouldn't let go, so I guess I'll write it. It's neither Eren nor Levi's perspective, so it'll be a nice change of pace. I wonder if anyone will be able to guess the POV... Anyway, expect to see that coming along in a little while.

I hope y'all have enjoyed this weird, not-very-romantic, slice of life fic thing.  To the people that have been reading since early on and hung in there for my impromptus hiatus, thank you for the support! You guys have been amazing! To any newcomers just now stumbling across this fic, hi! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Good night and thank you for reading.

Chapter Text

Desta Nichols (finally six and no longer five, thank you very much) had searched every centimeter of the house. The forge too, but the only person there was her Papa and he wasn’t the person she needed.

They couldn’t have left already; their stuff was still in the house. Maybe they’d gone up to the base with Mama, but Mama had been very firm about them being on vacation…

Ah! She hadn’t checked outside!

Desta ran around to the back of the house and, sure enough, she found them. Uncle Eren was sitting with his back propped up against the house, reading a boring-looking book, and Uncle Levi was lying down with his head in Uncle Eren’s lap.

“Is he asleep?” Desta whispered, crouching down to examine him. Uncle Levi had a scary face. He always looked mad about something and the long scar going from top to bottom on the left side was kind of creepy. He didn’t look so scary when he was sleeping though or when he put on glasses to read Mama’s reports. Besides, Desta knew he was actually nice. Mama always said so and Desta knew so because Uncle Levi would sit and listen while she read him the stories she wrote and he’d told her all of Eren’s secret ticklish spots so she could beat him sometimes at wrestling. “Isn’t he too old for naps?”

“Maybe naps bay— because he’s so old,” Uncle Eren suggested, turning a page in his book. He spoke funny, kind of like her Papa did, but he wasn’t deaf like her Papa. Mama said it was because words were harder for Uncle Eren. Desta didn’t really get it, but it didn’t matter. She could understand Uncle Eren just fine and he always played her favorite games with her when he and Uncle Levi visited after expeditions.

“Maybe,” Uncle Levi said, not opening his eyes. “You should make sure people are actually asleep before you start talking about them.”

“We have to go shopping!” she told him. “Right now!”

“What for?” Eren asked. He’d put his book down and was petting Levi’s hair. Desta kind of wanted to pet it too (it was very soft), but she wouldn’t be distracted from her mission.

“Uncle Eren can’t come,” she announced, crossing her arms like her Mama did when she really meant what she said.

“Soon, I’ve… got plans with Armin a-anyway.”

Levi cracked one eye open. “And Jean.”

Eren huffed, but he nodded. “Yeah, and Jean.”

Levi turned his head in Eren’s lap to look at Desta properly. “We’re going right now?”

Desta sprung out of her crouch. “Yeah!”

“Where’s your shoes then?”

So the search for Uncle Levi became the search for Desta’s shoes. She found them underneath the kitchen table and pulled them on before racing back outside. Her uncles had gotten up and were kissing. Desta waited impatiently, bouncing on her heels. When they were finished, Desta tugged on Uncle Eren’s arm. “Me too! I need a goodbye kiss too.”

Uncle Eren laughed, but he picked her up and kissed her forehead before setting her down again. “H-have fun.”

“Have fun with Armin and Jean.”

“Shut o— shut up, Levi.”

Desta tried to herd Uncle Levi towards the main road, but he insisted on stopping at the forge before they left to tell her Papa they were going. Even though Desta told him that Papa already knew! They couldn’t actually enter the forge— Papa was working, it was dangerous— so they stood within his line of sight and waited to be noticed. When he finally looked up and spotted them, he waved goodbye right away.

“I told you I told him!” Desta pushed Uncle Levi towards the road and this time he went. It was a busy hour with lots of people bustling around. It would get even more crowded the closer they got to the marketplace. Desta grabbed Uncle Levi’s hand. “So we don’t get separated,” she informed him when he glanced down at her. That’s what Papa always said when they went out.

Uncle Levi’s squeezed her hand. “If someone tries to snatch you, start screaming.”

“Who’s going to snatch me?”

“Someone who wants their legs broken.”

Desta didn’t think anyone like that existed. She didn’t tell Uncle Levi that though. Sometimes he said strange things.

They stopped at an intersection to wait for a bunch of wagons to roll by. Desta was busy watching the horses, so when Uncle Levi said something to her, she didn’t hear him. “Huh?”

“What are we shopping for?” he asked again.

Desta couldn’t believe he didn’t know. “It’s Uncle Eren’s birthday the day after tomorrow!” she scolded him. Really, he should know this.

Uncle Levi did not look properly scolded in the least. He just nodded. “Yeah.”

“So I have to get him a present!”

“He’s not expecting anything.”

“He always sends me presents, so I have to get him something.” Desta had been getting strange packages from “Uncle Eren” for as long as she could remember. Things from beyond the Walls, her Mama said. Some of the presents were really neat, like the big, kind of wooden ball thing that Eren claimed in his letter was actually a seed. IF YOU PLANT IT, A TREE MIGHT GROW. THE TREE WILL GROW THESE FUZZY, SWEET FRUITS. ARMIN SAYS IT’LL BE YEARS AND YEARS BEFORE IT MAKES FRUIT THOUGH. Papa had helped her plant it in a good spot and a while later something green sprouted. She made sure to water it when it started looking kind of dry and to write to Uncle Eren about how tall it grew.

Other presents, though, Desta didn’t really understand. Like the small box filled with nothing but white sand, shells, and a note that said THE OCEAN IS BIGGER THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE!!! She liked all the presents though, even the ones that didn’t make sense. Nobody else wrote letters to her, after all. Unless you counted Uncle Levi, who sometimes scribbled short messages at the bottom of Uncle Eren’s letters.

The last of the wagons finally went by and they crossed the road. “If you’re the one getting it, then why am I coming?” Uncle Levi asked.

Desta tugged him along by the hand, trying to get him to go faster. Why were all grown-ups so slow? “Because I don’t know what to get him.”

“You think I’d know? I’m terrible at presents. So long as it’s from you, he’ll like it.”

“Uncle Levi,” Desta whined. “You have to help.”

Uncle Levi thought a moment. “It’ll have to be something small and light,” he decided. “He’ll probably want to take it with him instead of leaving it behind. We can’t lug a bunch of big, heavy shit around.”

“Small,” Desta muttered. The marketplace was starting to come into view and she squinted at the stalls, wondering which to stop at first. “Did you get him something?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?” She couldn’t get Uncle Eren the exact same thing, but maybe she could steal Uncle Levi’s idea.

“Not telling,” Uncle Levi replied.

Not telling! Desta pulled on Uncle Levi and jerked his arm around. “Come on!” But Uncle Levi just shook his head. “What? It’s not something only grown-ups get to talk about, is it?” Desta hated that excuse.

Uncle Levi snorted. “No.”

“Then what is it?” She gave him her best glare, but he ignored her. His ears were pink though and hadn’t Uncle Eren told her something about his ears once? It’d been revenge for revealing his ticklish spots, he’d said… ah! “It’s something embarrassing!” Desta crowed triumphantly.

That made him look down at her. “You know a big word like ‘embarrassing,’ huh?”

“I’m not a baby! I can even spell it!”

“Oh? Not bad.”

Desta would not be distracted though. “If it’s something embarrassing, you have to tell me,” she told him.

“What kind of logic is that?” Uncle Levi muttered, nodding at a pair of soldiers that passed them.

“Uncle Leeee-viiiiii.”

Uncle Levi stopped suddenly and pulled her back upright when she almost tripped. “No,” he said, voice stern. Along with his scary face, that voice made Desta stop her whining right away. She must’ve looked pretty afraid because Uncle Levi sighed, hesitated, and then patted her twice on the head awkwardly. “I haven’t decided whether or not to give it to him yet, so I don’t want you blabbing to him about it,” he explained, voice softer than before.

That was fair, Desta supposed. Keep secrets was no fun anyway. “Why wouldn’t you give it to him?” she asked curiously.

Uncle Levi pulled a face—a grimace, that’s what it was called—and started walking again. It seemed like he was going to ignore the question, but after they’d gone a block he said, “I can’t explain why not properly. Besides, he’d probably lost it Shifting.”

“Huh?” Desta knew what “Shifting” meant. When she was four, she’d overheard people saying weird stuff about Uncle Eren and asked her Mama what it was all about. But she didn’t understand how Uncle Eren would lose something doing it.

“He messes up sometimes,” Uncle Levi answered. He stepped around a muddy puddle and wrinkled his nose when Desta paused to splash in it a bit. She couldn’t just ignore such a nice puddle though…

“What do you mean mess up?” she asked once she was done stomping.

“Like… he used to have this key.” He pointed to his throat. “It was important, so he wore it on a necklace. But then one time, he came out of the Titan missing it. We couldn’t leave without it, but we didn’t have time to waste either. So we had to start hacking up his Titan corpse looking for it. Fourth grossest thing I’ve ever done,” he declared. “I’m not digging through steaming Titan flesh ever again.”

Desta tried to imagine it. She’d seen illustrations of Titans in books before and she’d heard a few stories from people around the neighborhood that had lived in Shiganshina before the Fall and the soldiers at Mama’s base. Mama had seen Titans too, but she didn’t like to talk about them. Papa said it was because she’d seen too much of them, but that didn't really make sense. If you’d seen a lot of something, shouldn’t that make it easy to talk about?

None of the pictures were the same and every story was different, but everyone seemed to agree that the Titans were very, very scary. Desta didn’t see how Titans could be so scary when Uncle Eren was one too. He wasn’t scary. He got mad sometimes—never at her, of course— but most of the time he was just kind of goofy. Desta had only ever seen Uncle Eren when he was a person though.

“Is it scary?”

They’d finally arrived at the front of the marketplace and Uncle Levi was scanning the stalls and crowd. “What?” he asked, distracted.

“Uncle Eren’s Titan.”

Uncle Levi stopped his scanning and stared at her instead. She thought maybe he hadn’t heard her over the crowd, but after a moment he hoisted her up and started heading deeper into the marketplace. His voice was low and quiet by her ears. “We don’t know nearly enough about how it all works. There’s no guarantees. The healing can’t be limitless. Actually,” he said, tapping the side of her head with one finger. “We know it isn’t. Eren— and Ymir too— take way more damage than the rest of us. Someday, they might not just walk away from it. At least a regular person knows how far they can push it. This one time—” But he broke off and gave her a look that was almost suspicious.

“What? What?” Desta demanded, slapping his shoulder.

“You’re probably too young to hear about someone getting their torso torn open, aren’t you?”

“Am not! Papa says I’m precocious.”

“What does that mean?”

To be honest, Desta wasn’t completely sure. She wasn’t going to admit that though. “That I’m old enough.”

Uncle Levi hummed, unconvinced. “Whatever. I thought we were going shopping, not talking about gross shit.”

“You shouldn’t say that, you know.” It was the second time too.

Uncle Levi only grunted in acknowledgement. “You see someplace you want to start?”

Desta looked around over Levi’s back and quickly spotted their first stop. “That man has goats!” she exclaimed, pointing.

“You are not buying Eren a goat.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t look at them. And pet them,” she informed him, squirming to be set down. She was too old to be carried like a baby. Uncle Levi released her and she dashed over to the goat man, pausing only to check that Uncle Levi was following her. Maybe she couldn’t get Uncle Eren a goat for his birthday, but eventually they’d find something. And if they had to stop at all of Desta’s favorite stalls while they searched for it… well, she needed the inspiration if Uncle Levi wasn’t going to say what his present was.