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He wakes up with a sharp sting in his palm. His fingers tighten; there’s blood dripping down his wrist when his confused mind snaps from dream to reality.
The knife’s blade is nestled in his hand, its silver reflecting Levi’s face when he lifts his hand to stare at it. He always keeps it on his body, preferably under his pillow during night. Just in case. Just in case that something, anything, happens while he sleeps.
Knives don’t help against nightmares, though.
The memory of Isabel’s smile fades when he opens his eyes. Air burns like dark smoke in his lungs, his throat tightening around nothing. He swallows, moves his muscles one by one. The nightmare is long gone when he finally, slowly sits up.
His fingers drop the knife onto the sheets, careless. The bed underneath him is soaked, sweat dripping down his forehead. The salt on his lips is too heavy, wet and warm. Thick, dense heat curls around his limbs, the nightmare fading to nothing.
His head spins and Levi presses both fists to his eyes, knees pulled close, and he cages the world away from the broken mess roaring behind his skin.
Minutes drip by as his body cools down. The bedroom they gave him is quiet. It lies away from the soldier’s rooms, closer to the higher-ups.
He’s alone. That’s a good thing.
Nobody disturbs him. Nobody hears the loud scream that he wakes himself up with every other night. The Survey Corps sleeps underneath a starless sky, and nothing crosses the silence of the endless corridors.
Levi glances through his fingertips, eyes wandering to the window. There’s no moon outside, only clouds ghosting over the firmament. He tries to regulate his breathing, and when the air screeches and howls inside his lungs like a wild animal, he lets go.
He falls onto the bed. Both arms curl against his chest, morphing him into a bundle of shivering bones. His teeth are gritted, a wolf grimace in the bed sheets. And there’s the blade that he grips by the handle and doesn’t let go anymore. A long time ago, when Levi still had a stupid brave heart, it served to protect her smile.
It’s just a knife now.
---
Morning comes with warm light against his window, Levi’s body a hundred ton weight. Of course he didn’t fall asleep again. He never does. Instead, he spent the night curled up and shaking, staring into the black corners of his room where anything could wait for him, a memory or an enemy. Nothing can lure him back into dreams and shadows after nights like this. Sunrise seems centuries away then. Sometimes, he feels like he’s forgotten what fire looks like and how to spell the words warmth or hope.
Levi picks at the dried blood on the sheets, hour after hour, and ends up ripping them off, leaving them in the laundry room where they can soak in bleach. His fingers are burnt from the chemicals, clean and sterile.
It’s been like this for two weeks.
His body will break, maybe soon, and he goddamn knows it.
Nothing helps.
He falls apart, piece by fucking piece, and the walls he’s built up crack under a quiet storm.
-----
Levi leaves his room when the sun rises and runs around the quarters.
It’s all he can do, the last straw to keep his body fighting against his mind. There will be training in the afternoon, sparring and maneuver gear exercises to keep the soldiers alert and wake, but it’s not enough for him.
He needs to run, run and hunt and chase himself away.
His hands are balled into fists, the knuckles white as snow while he tries to pierce the ground with the heels of his feet, digging them down with a far too soft thud for his taste when his muscles twitch, carrying him forward.
Nothing’s endless, not even the burning fury in his veins that drives him forward. Not even the blood-red lion biting his legs and roaring faster, faster, revenge and death and freedom.
Winter isn’t far away anymore, Levi notices during his fifth round. There’s frost dripping on some of the windows, lights shimmering behind glass where soldiers just now wake up. The morning air is a good kind of cold. Wind grabs his hair and tears at it as his feet carry him away.
Only a few soldiers cross his path as Levi makes his way back to his room, mouth pressed into a thin line – he refuses to show his exhaustion. They won’t get to see his cracks.
Everyone makes room for him as he passes, one of the soldiers stiffens and salutes. They don’t exchange words, and Levi closes the door to tear his clothes off and slip into something comfortable. He knows he should mind the darkness in their eyes, how they jump away from him and give him space to pass by without being in danger of having him pour his black growling anger over them.
The underground taught him that being feared is power, and being loved is pain.
----
He goes to breakfast with still sweat-damp cheeks and gasping breath caught in his lungs, silence radiating from him.
Nobody pays any obvious attention as he sits down beside Hanji and Mike, reaching for the bread and spreading butter over it. All of them know better than to say anything too loud, but they still whisper.
Levi has long since decided to push them into the furthest angle of his perception, ready to attack, yes, but not minding their presence. In the end, it requires Mike’s dark glare to shut up the murmurs and whispers that rise behind Levi’s back.
He’s the new monster that their commander brought home to fight the old beasts. Interesting, thrilling to look at, death to the touch. They treat him like his glares could kill, and Levi wishes they were right.
He usually doesn’t mind them, forces himself not to care. Instead, he busies himself by letting his eyes wander around the dining room. He doesn’t know what he’s searching for until his glance is back down at his plate. The food tastes normal. It takes a few more moments for his mind to wrap itself around the missing puzzle piece.
Something’s missing – someone.
The thin thread of copper that ties together the parts of an engine and vibrates from the roar. Levi sees the emptiness by Mike’s side, the chair standing lonely, with a twitch in his fingers.
His grip tightens around the butter knife.
The commander isn’t here.
Levi licks his lips before biting into the bread and wonders why his heart beats like a thunderstorm. Is that disappointment that raises its head, that runs a claw along the insides of his throat?
“How’d you sleep, Levi?”
It’s Hanji who interrupts his pleasant, silent meal. She’s always active and sparking with ideas and fire, with her gleaming eyes and loud mouth, asking questions for her weird scientific shit. She was the first to come talk to him after –
It doesn’t matter. She’s only pretending to care, a tiny whisper in the back of Levi’s head says.
(Pretending, yes, because it’s most definitely a farce and not real; nobody really cares about him.)
Hanji’s smile is unwavering. Levi is caught, unable to slip out of the daily questioning without having to skip breakfast. He’s hungry, always feels like he’s starving whenever a meal doesn’t come at the hour he’s memorized it. There’s no way around his.
“Fine,” Levi says.
It’s not a lie. He’s okay.
Hanji tilts her head and makes a face like she’s looking at a beaten puppy or a homesick new recruit crying for his mother during training. “Hmm. I see.”
Levi bites back a snarl, swallows the bitterness on his tongue before it breaks out. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. You don’t look too good. How many hours did you get?” Hanji examines him with her usual blunt curiosity, then points to his hand. There’s a shimmer of blood in his palm where he holds the knife. “You’re bleeding. How did that happen?” Her eyes are wide behind her glasses.
“Stop asking stupid questions.” He shifts in his seat, one leg on the edge of the bench. Mike and Hanji watch, silent, their shoulders sharp from nervous tension.
“We didn’t have training yet,” Mike says, stoic as usual. “And there weren’t any missions. How did you get hurt?” His voice is clear and low, and even though he seems uninterested most of the time, Levi knows that Erwin’s fucking mutt notices everything.
“Aren’t you observant today. Like I said, ‘s fine.”
“Levi,” Hanji says.
“I’ll be back for training.”
“I think it’s about time that you start to trust us-”
Mike cuts Hanji off with a quiet, “Erwin will return in the afternoon. Go talk to him.”
Levi pushes his plate away and whirls around on the bench, up on his feet in one fluid twitch of his muscles. The whispers behind his back snap into a surprised gasp, and all soldiers stare at him like he’s a beast. A fucking animal.
“Wait!” Hanji’s hands hit the table, she moves to stand up.
Mike catches her arm before it can reach Levi’s shoulder, before he can bare his teeth and unleash war on Hanji’s innocent skin. “Let him,” Mike says.
“But – come on, this has got to stop!” Hanji says, her hands flying up. Levi’s fists clench, his knuckles burning from the need to defend, to let go of the growl that lurks in the gnarling darkness behind his ribs. He doesn’t move, just breathes. Hanji says something. He doesn’t understand.
“Go. Go, if you need to.” Mike’s words thunder in the room, calm like a storm’s eye.
Levi stares at the ground when he walks away, and he wishes could hate them, just a bit.
If the commander hadn’t put him under the collar of the military, if Erwin hadn’t given him wings and a weapon molten together with a leash, they’d make sure his death would be slow and painful. Trust. His chest goes tight around the mere thought. Trust means vulnerability he cannot afford, and fucking shit – Erwin owns what little faith Levi’s got left.
He won’t give them all he has.
His blood surges, crashing through the narrow paths of his skin. He brushes past the recruits and leaves the room in quick, long strides. Hanji shouts something after him once more. He slams the door shut behind him, makes sure it echoes through the dining room even after he’s around the next corner and pressing his forehead against that cold stone wall.
Erwin does return in the afternoon. He walks past Levi’s quarters, talking to Mike, a few words about the maneuver gear and a new training for the recruits flooding into the emptiness of Levi’s room.
He lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling, fingers extended into the dark void of an old memory. There’s nothing he can grasp.
All that Levi owns, all that life let him keep are a pair of wings on his back and a steel chain that leads from his neck into Erwin’s warm hand.
Combat training gets cancelled due to the grey wall of storm clouds rising on the horizon. Thunder and lightning follow soon after, ripping the sky open and smearing white across it. Nobody’s allowed outside until the weather changes.
Levi doesn’t join Hanji and Mike in their card game in the dining hall, even though Hanji comes up to his room and invites him. He thinks he declined in a polite manner, but the crease between Hanji’s brows only deepens after his reply. “Are you sure?”
He is. He tells her that, and that he’ll just read a book, he’ll be fine. That is, if he can focus, but Levi keeps that part under his tongue and swallows it back down. “I’m good. Thanks for the offer.”
Hanji nods, slow, and reaches out. Her hand stops in front of his shoulder, and pulls back before his forever seething instincts to break her fingers kick in.
“Well, um. Just in case you – I mean. You know where to find us.” She bites her lip, eyes warm under the light that reflects in them, too soft for someone who could betray him.
Maybe it’s time for something new, or dangerous. A risk that he’s been too afraid to take. After all, she’s here again, doesn’t flinch away from him like he’s got more teeth than sanity.
“Yeah, sure I do. I ain’t stupid.” And then, somehow, Levi adds something else. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Really?! That’d be great!” Hanji’s eyes light up like a fireplace, goddammit. How can someone be so excited about a nothingness like his attendance at meals? Levi doesn’t make an effort to understand.
Instead, he says, “Don’t hope too much. It’s just a maybe.”
He always eats alone, simple and effective, even though Erwin keeps on telling him that it’s not good for morale and other shit. Fuck Erwin, is what Levi thinks back at him, and sometimes he says it out loud when he’s in the mood for being stared at, when he wants fire and strength.
When he wants to see some dominance flare up in that dark, blue eyes of the oh-so-admirable commander. It’s irrelevant that his heart starts to thunder as soon as Erwin’s lips pull into a sharp curve, and he scolds Levi with words that feel like they belong only to him.
But Hanji, that weird alloy of attentiveness and gentle eyes and insanity, still beams at him even after the shit he pulled in the dining hall. “Alright! I’ll see you. Join us anytime, Levi.” His name is strange on her tongue, but it’s not too bad. Nothing he couldn’t get used to, if he must.
“I think it’s going to rain for a bit longer,” Hanji says as she walks down the corridor, turning halfway back to Levi. “Looks like it’s been piling up for a while.”
“Yeah,” Levi says, “it seems so.”
“We’ll be able to continue training after it’s all rained down. Don’t you think that a thunderstorm has something cleansing, and the fascinating science behind it-”
“Don’t you have a game to attend?” He closes the door before she comes back and locks it up from the inside.
Hanji laughs, quiet through the wood’s thick barrier, and the echo of her footsteps melts into the soft pattering of the rain as they fade, slow, until they’re gone.
---
Levi closes the book and sighs. It’s no use. He slides it next to his pillow and lies on his back, arms crossed behind his head, and stares at its dark green cover. He can’t focus on anything. The golden letters of the title blur into a smudge of light when he blinks. He shuts his eyes.
The book just appeared on his nightstand one day, with a note from Erwin attached to it. Levi threw the note away after reading, but he kept the book. It’s not a bad one. It’s still the same words as back then, yet he rereads it when his mind buzzes too wild and strange.
The story has captured his attention for about half an hour. It’s a detailed depiction of a world outside the walls, a novel spun from someone’s fantasy about how everything could have been if fate had pulled its strings in a gentler manner. But Levi can’t focus, the words swimming and blurring before his eyes – he’s not good at reading yet, anyways.
Erwin taught him. Of course. It’s always the fucking commander, he’s got his hands all over the chains that hold Levi in place within the legion.
It’s always Erwin.
---
The corridors are empty as a graveyard at night, and only one door at the end of the hall is shining from a light. It’s Erwin’s office. Levi passes by every night, his steps forced into a strict, nervous beat, one two three four. Tonight, he stops in front of the door, rubbing the deep cut in his palm. It hasn’t bled since morning, but the pain is there, dull and dark.
He doesn’t knock, just steps forward onto the threshold.
“Come in.”
Erwin sits on his desk, the feather in his hand sliding over the paper with a rasp, and he smiles. His eyes, Levi swallows at the colour of a free sky, are cast down, not caging Levi with their piercing glance.
“Why would I?” It sounds too rough, too broken to conceal the shadows that a lack of sleep weigh down on him.
Erwin chuckles. He lifts the feather, drowns the tip in black ink and wipes it off on the inkwell’s rim. “You walk around every night. Maybe a little talking would help with your insomnia.”
“I can sleep if I want,” Levi says, his knuckles curling into fists. And because Erwin’s smile makes him feel naked, he spits, “Fuck you.”
“Take a seat. Just a change of your surroundings could-”
“Shut up.” He knows he’s tense, that the lack of sleep cracks his core open and something old, dark creeps out of it.
“You can stay, if you’d like. I would appreciate your company.” Erwin says it like it’s a given that Levi belongs here, sitting on that stupid couch and talking to him. Somehow Levi finds himself sitting down, arms crossed and legs sliding crossed on the worn-out leather.
If he can’t sleep, he might as well stay. Fuck, fuck it, it’s Erwin. It’s his presence, and the fact that Levi can let the anger out of his bones and muscles without fear of being stabbed in his fucking back.
“What’re you doin’ this late at night? Can’t sleep either? Or is work biting your ass?” Levi tries to be subtle in his attempts to catch a glance of what’s on Erwin’s desk, but Erwin rearranges the files on it and starts writing on a fresh white sheet of paper.
“It’s the latter, sadly. It seems that military these days is more about filling out forms instead of fulfilling our actual mission.”
Levi snorts at that and arches a brow. His arms sink down, hands tangling into a nervous nest of bones in his lap. “Yeah. Those idiots in Central don’t get it. Bet they’re too uptight from the sticks up their asses.”
“Ah, that may be one reason,” Erwin says, and this time he looks up to smile at Levi, tired around his eyes, but gentle in the dark nook between his lips and jaw.
Shit. Levi bites his mouth, looks down at his hands, swallows. The scratching of the feather continues, and he doesn’t have to see Erwin to know how gentle his fingers hold the quill, how fucking amazing his handwriting looks. Levi can read and write, but it looks clumsy and skewed, worse than a child’s.
Erwin shifts his weight, the chair creaking. He’s only in his white shirt, the bolo tie loose around his neck, green jewel glinting in the faint light of the candle on his desk. “I think I’m almost done for tonight.”
And then – “Hanji talked to me, about what happened in the dining room.”
“Hm.” Levi bites his lip harder, can almost taste the blood. His arms cross over his chest again. “What’d she say?”
Erwin smile is soft when Levi dares to glance at him, and there’s something like fucking forgiveness in the way it reaches his eyes. “Not much, but that’s not what I wanted to say.”
“So I’m here for a reason, after all.”
“Maybe. I think that you need to sleep properly before we can work on your trust issues.”
“I said I can fucking sleep, if I want. And did you just say that I have issues? What the fuck.”
Erwin hums and leans back. “And when was the last time you slept for more than four hours, consecutively?”
Oh come on, Levi thinks, and grimaces until his gritted teeth show. “Fuck you. I don’t know. I – it’s not that easy, I can’t-” He doesn’t even address the trust thing, because it’s true, and Erwin knows so well that it’s annoying. “It’s not that I stay awake because I fuckin’ want to.”
Erwin waits, patient, fingers folded together over the quill he’s set down. He watches while Levi struggles for words, and in the end Levi just chokes out, “I’ll find a solution,” and clams up.
Erwin is silent for a while, rubbing his thumbs together. Levi picks at the rim of his boots’ sole, smoothes invisible dirt off of them with his fingertips. Then, Erwin gives a low hum and sits up straight, eyes lifting into brightness.
“Well, if it tires you, I could read you the rough drafts of my reports?”
“Are you serious? I’m going to die of boredom.” Levi almost doesn’t flinch when Erwin stands up, takes the stack of paper in front of him and walks over to the couch Levi’s made himself as comfortable as possible on. He sits down by his side, and instead of sliding away, Levi stays where he is.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“You sure this is gonna work?” Levi says and eyes the ink-filled documents in Erwin’s hands. He ignores the question. They both know the answer damn well, and maybe it’s that silent agreement that drives Erwin to lean deeper into the cushions and make himself comfortable, groaning as he stretches his arms and rolls his head to crack the joints.
The couch is just big enough for them, and his shoes touch Erwin’s hip. Neither of them pulls away.
“I don’t know, but it could be worth a try. I’ll read them and you tell me if you notice any mistakes?” Erwin is still smiling, that fucker, like he owns the whole world. Maybe that’s not true, but he owns enough of Levi.
But still, Levi grins. “You want me to criticize you? Bad fucking idea, Smith. That’ll only keep me up.”
“I doubt that. They’re really boring.”
There’s the faintest trace of a real teasing smirk on Erwin’s mouth, and he chuckles before leaning back and resting his ankle on his knee, boots encrusted with dirt and grass. So he hasn’t even cleaned himself up after the trip, Levi thinks. He wonders how much Erwin sleeps.
Erwin pulls out a particularly ink-filled page and flattens it against his leg. “Do you want to try it?” he asks, tilting his head in a fluid motion that would look vulnerable on anyone else. The strong vein on his neck pulses. Levi holds the stare of dark blue eyes, oceans and skies without walls.
“Fine.”
He sighs and positions himself, facing Erwin so he can lean his neck to the side against the headrest, and glares at Erwin with an attempt of annoyed doubt on his face.
“Go ahead, blow me away.”
Erwin smiles wider, and reaches to his neck to pull at the bolo tie and stretch it until it falls to the center of his chest. “I will put all my abilities in the art of boring reading into it, that I swear-”
“Holy shit, shut up and start reading.”
Levi finds out that Erwin has a nice reading voice. It’s not too fast, and whether he makes it monotonous to help him fall asleep or if it’s always that slow, calm stream of words that melt into each other, Levi doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care.
But in the end, it’s not the everlasting cascade of Erwin’s lips curling around words that has Levi’s mind slowing. It’s the warmth of a safe body thrumming besides Levi, another life chiming close to his heart, a bell he knew before all good memories faded.
Levi closes his eyes when Erwin starts the second page, and on the third, his stupid muscles give in and let him sink down by Erwin’s side in a bundle of tired skin over his pale mind. Erwin reads and reads, and Levi listens. His body is warm, his lungs breathe free. The wound in his palm is soft and quiet.
The low darkness of Erwin’s voice hums through his head, vibrating, echoing, and never letting go until Levi does.
This time, falling asleep is easy and silent as death.
---
He awakes after four hours, and swears in the morning light dancing over his face. There are speckles of gold in Erwin’s hair, Erwin who sleeps besides him. His fingers are wrapped around Levi’s waist, loose and delicate. Levi stares. He counts Erwin’s breaths, searches for freckles on his temples and finds dark, purple shadows underneath his eyes, dug into his skin like ghosts of his life.
Then, Levi notices – oh. Goddamnit. Damn Erwin Smith. He hadn’t even asked.
The hand on his hip slides down, and Erwin nuzzles his face into Levi’s neck. He sleeps silent, peaceful, and that’s somehow a surprise. His warm mouth slides over Levi’s skin, rivals the sunshine in warmth and light, and then he stills. It’s quiet.
This smells like mint and old, cracked leather, like ink and sleep’s sweat.
Levi’s head is empty, and his thoughts pulse with a white rhythm.
He hasn’t dreamt anything.
---
The couch in Erwin’s office stinks like aftershave and old books. It’s uncomfortable, his back hurts every fucking morning, and waking up with warm arms around his waist shouldn’t feel like he’s safer than he’s ever been in his stupid life.
Somehow, he still returns. Erwin doesn’t say anything about it, so neither does Levi. They fall into a tranquil rhythm, coordinated by an unspoken offer from Erwin and a soft obedience from Levi.
One night, the couch becomes Erwin’s bed, and the warm embraces morphs into a hand on his cheek, the other melting into the pale nook between his shoulder blades. The heat that radiates in his bones has Levi’s heart thundering in his tight chest, and something flares through his blood.
Levi sleeps, and his nightmares have become pure, and white, and silent.