The Quiet Fragrance
Category: Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: Teens
Summary:
“It’s tea. You ever had tea, boy? It’s an above-ground drink. People down here ain’t allowed to touch it.”
Or,
Levi, tea, and the watersheds in his life.
Notes:
Yes, I know Levi drank tea before he met Hange. No, I do not care.
The Erwin/Levi in this fic can be read as platonic or romantic.
Work Text:
Two figures stand shadowed in the doorway, one in suspenders, the other in a coat.
Levi rubs his eyes. He is loth to leave the warmth of his blanket, but before he realises it, he has been ushered outside, his grubby toes curling against the chilled floorboards. His mother has to work, but he wishes it could be at better hours.
One of the men - the one in the coat - has remained outside. “C’mere, boy,” he says, in a conspiratorial tone, sitting down on one of the chairs by the wall and patting the seat next to him. His coat smells of old sweat, but fits him well, like he got it made at a real store where they take your measurements, and it wasn’t just stolen or handed down to him. He opens a flask that had been at his hip, and Levi considers kicking him in the balls because grown-ups offering him drinks never ends well, but the man says, “It’s tea. You ever had tea, boy? It’s an above-ground drink. People down here ain’t allowed to touch it.”
He pokes it beneath Levi’s nose, and the smell is earthy and rich and a bit sour. It’s a drink but it’s not a drink . From behind the door, his mother lets out a sharp little scream. Levi grabs the flask with both hands and sips, and the tea sears the inside of his mouth.
“Here,” the man says, with a breezy smile, “how’s that, boy? Make you feel like a real little lord?” He pokes Levi’s chest. There will be a bruise there the next day. “This where all the taxes go - tea for the military. Boxes of it, barrels of it.”
Levi’s head hurts, worse than usual - but, for the briefest moment, there is a stove inside his chest filled with glowing coals, and his fingertips are warm. “Tastes weird.”
“Ah? Give it back, then. Every sip you take is money wasted.”
***
They are stripping the things off a man Levi knifed when Kenny finds the pouch: deep blue, gold-lined, with a label that Levi cannot read. Kenny rips it open and checks the box inside, says, “Feh,” and tosses it onto the table.
Levi opens the box. Shrivelled-up leaves stare up at him. He stares back. Takes a sniff. Earthy and rich and a bit sour. “Tea,” he breathes out, clutching the packet. He looks up at Kenny, waiting for the order to start boiling the water.
“It’s a drink for pussies,” Kenny says, leaning back in his chair and kicking his knobby legs up on the table. He looks at Levi and his dark eyes glint in the miserable candlelight. “You wanna drink it, Levi? Are you a little pussy?”
Levi’s cheeks burn. He hastily puts the box down.
They sell the tea and Kenny buys himself a new gun and gives the change to Levi so he can get his shoes mended.
***
“What, what? You’re not drinking your tea?” Hange points at the untouched mug beside Levi’s plate. The mess hall’s noise is giving Levi a headache, and Hange is making it worse.
Levi scoffs. “It’s for pussies.” He says the words but they are not his. Their weight in his mouth is wrong. Beside him, Farlan gives him a funny look. His own mug is empty; he had gazed into it mournfully after licking the rim clean.
“Oh?” Hange puts their chin in their hand. “Is it that you drink tea if you’re a pussy, or you become a pussy after drinking tea?”
Levi stares at them. Everyone in the Survey Corps is, from what he has seen, a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but Hange is the only one who seems to be well and truly insane.
“Do you have any idea how expensive tea is? I mean, you’re from the underground, so I guess you’d have no idea, or maybe you’d have an idea of counterfeit prices, but Erwin really has to fight the higher ups to get this stuff on our tables. I watched him negotiate it once, it was nuts, I thought one of those guys was going to throw a chair at Erwin’s face - ”
“If I drink it, will you shut up?” says Levi, desperate. “Please shut up.”
Farlan chortles, and Levi feels betrayed.
“No,” says Hange. “I mean, you should drink it, tea is amazing, have you ever stayed awake for four nights in a row? I never could till I joined the scouts, it just gave me that little extra push - ”
Levi flees from the table. Behind him, Hange and Farlan’s uproarious laughter intermingles and gets lost amid the din of the mess hall.
By the end of the week he’s stolen Hange’s personal stash of tea.
***
Erwin’s office is disgusting. It’s got big windows that let in more sunlight than one person should have any right to, not one but two tables, both suffocated by piles of books, a cushy sofa, and floor-to-ceiling shelves, also filled with books. There are even books on the floor. Who does Erwin think he is?
“Sit,” says Erwin, gesturing to the sofa.
“Is that an order?” says Levi. Erwin’s hair is neatly parted and the kind of golden blond people describe in fairy stories. Levi wants to tear it out by the roots, smash Erwin’s head against a wall, scream, There, are you so perfect now? Do you know exactly what to say now?
Erwin looks at him evenly. “If that’s what will get you sit down, then yes.”
Levi sits. On the table there’s a tea set with a teapot, a ceramic affair with a carnation pattern and painted gold edging that Isabel would have gone crazy over. A lump forms in his throat, and he blinks rapidly.
Erwin takes a seat opposite him and pours two cups, and his posture remains immaculate; he looks like an illustration on a paper advertisement. Levi hesitates a moment in taking his cup - it’s so pretty, and Levi has never held something so pretty in his life. He sits uselessly with the cup held in both hands while Erwin sips his tea without a sound. Ew, you slurp your tea , Hange had said with a laugh to Levi in the mess hall. It’s really loud, too. They had not meant it unkindly. They hadn’t.
“Why am I here?” says Levi. “Am I being punished?”
Erwin smiles against his cup. “Is my presence that intolerable?”
“I meant for attacking you, back - back then.”
The silence stretches, and Levi takes a sip of his tea just to lessen the awkwardness. It is the same tea they serve in the mess hall, but this one is brewed better, with a rich, almost malty taste.
“No.”
“Well, then, don’t keep me waiting,” snaps Levi.
Erwin sets down his teacup in its saucer with barely a rattle - this grates on Levi’s nerves - and says, “How are you doing?”
“Huh?”
“How are you doing?”
“How am I - ” Is this Erwin’s idea of humour? Levi takes deep breaths, till the red splashed across the room has faded. Where is he supposed to begin? “Are you mocking me?”
“No. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.” Erwin’s face is sombre. Levi cannot tell if he is lying. He slumps, setting down his own cup and putting his face in his hands. His jacket has grown too hot and stuffy, and he wants to rip it off. He thinks of Isabel turning somersaults in the air and laughing, of Farlan insisting on buying shady nondescript alcohol just because he heard it would burn a hole through his throat. Of his mother, brushing his hair back and saying, Just a little while, Levi. He’ll stay for just a little while, and then I’ll play with you .
“I’m sorry,” says Erwin quietly, “about your friends. Truly, I am. Loss should not be something you get used to.”
Levi raises his head at the bitterness in Erwin’s voice. It is barely there, threading through it thinly - but it is there. That is probably what prompts Levi to lift his cup and say, as if in a dream, “To absent friends.”
Erwin stares at him with shock, before smiling and lifting his own cup. The sunlight has shifted now, falling on them both. Erwin’s hair all but glows, and the dark circles beneath his eyes are suddenly prominent.
Levi still wants Erwin’s head on a plate.
But he wants it less than before.
***
It’s a bright sunny day when Henri Hoffman is murdered.
Levi never liked him - Henri spent half his time leering at women and only stopped calling Levi a street rat after Levi was promoted to Erwin’s second as senior team leader, and since then, they ignored each other.
So when he was told that Henri started a fight with one of the newer cadets and tried to choke him, he thought, Of course he did.
Levi is not needed for the investigation, and he can’t say this bothers him. He does not think an investigation is required. He only wishes Erwin were here to help with training the recruits instead of wasting time on the Henri case - Levi is not the best teacher. (“It’s because you’re so used to not having to think about it,” Hange had once told him.)
It is late evening, past dinner, when Erwin gets back, his face pinched and a few strands of hair falling over his forehead. “So?” says Levi, as Erwin collapses at his desk and rubs his eyes. “Did they let the kid go finally? Leon’s his name, right?”
A knock sounds at the door and one of the kitchen boys comes in with hot water. Erwin thanks him in a raspy voice and makes tea and stares at the pot while it brews. “It seems Leon was the one who started the fight.”
“What?”
“Henri fought back, and when he did, Leon stabbed him with his sword. At least, this is what Leon said. There will be a trial.”
“That’s wrong. Henri was a bastard, I wouldn’t be surprised if he - ”
“Can you guarantee it?” Erwin says, looking up at him with quiet intensity. “Would you stake your life on it?”
“I would stake my life - ”
“Would you stake mine?”
Months ago - weeks ago - Levi would have said yes. He would have staked Erwin’s life on anything. He wants to kick the table.
Erwin pours the tea. “Henri - I’ll be the first to admit he wasn’t the most pleasant of people. But he was never violent. And, even if he were, he would still deserve a trial.” Levi stares at the flickering oil lamp. Erwin sighs and slumps in his chair. He does that sometimes - frays at the edges. It always stuns Levi a little. “Senseless. A scout lost - for what?” He waves a hand in a gesture that seems drunk. “Drink the damn tea, Levi, I made you a cup.”
Levi drinks. It is bitter. He does not want to swallow it.
“Is it bad,” Erwin asks, looking at the ceiling, “that I cared? About Henri? When you spend time with people, they just. He liked stewed apples. And he talked about his sister a lot. She’s training to be a medic.”
I’m all muscle , Levi had heard Henri say once, when they were camping out beneath the stars. Levi had gotten the impression that he was bragging.
“I wanted to see him - grow. He was my responsibility.”
Levi finds himself thinking, He was mine too , before he can stop himself. And then, Kenny would really hate me now.
***
Levi hears a clink, and he knows Hange has put a cup of tea down for him. He does not open his eyes.
“Levi.”
Did he make the right choice? It’s too late to start thinking about it now, but he does. And he knew he would start, after he handed in the reports and stripped off his uniform and couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. His hands are empty. There is nothing to do but sleep. He will not sleep tonight. He will not sleep tomorrow, either.
“Levi.”
He keeps thinking of the way Erwin’s hand flew up and smacked Levi’s fingers away. It had been a spasmodic gesture, shocking in its strength, and Levi’s stomach lurches at the memory. Erwin’s hand had been cold. Levi had held it, after. After.
“ Hey .”
Levi finally looks at Hange, who is frowning at him, their elbows on their knees.
“I said, how are you doing? ”
How are you doing?
“Fine,” says Levi, and takes the teacup and throws it against the wall. Hange does not flinch at the shatter. They watch as Levi gets up, opens the cabinet, and yanks all the books out. They tumble to the floor and a cloud of dust rises up. When he picks up a chair he is restrained by strong callused hands, and he crumples, going to his knees. He does not recognise the shrill animal noise coming from his throat. Hange’s arms are around him and they chant his name, Levi, Levi , and it changes nothing.
They rock together, clutch at each other. Levi is six and hungry enough to eat the world. He is fourteen and sleeps with Kenny’s gun. He is thirty and his only wish is a kill.
At length Hange lies down on the sofa with their face pressed into the pillow, and Levi drags out a blanket from a cupboard and drapes it over them. He curls up at the other end of the sofa, wrapping his arms around himself, until sunlight filters through the window and reminds him, again, that the world is getting on whether he wants it to or not.
Everything hurts. There is a hollow in his chest.
He stands up and begins to clear away the broken ceramic.
***
Levi has taken to fidgeting.
He has never lived a more comfortable life. His house - house , not apartment - used to belong to an aristocrat in the previous century. It has a little back garden where he keeps his succulents and grows tomatoes and peas. He does not have to wake up before daybreak anymore, or file endless reams of papers, or watch out for titans on the horizon.
“What do you mean they got someone else to do it?” he says blackly.
Onyankopon pours the tea. He had said that someone had given it to him specially, for being a war hero. His smile had been sardonic. “They probably didn’t want to trouble you.”
“That’s bullshit. I’m going there and telling them I’m doing it anyway.”
“If you feel that strongly about it.”
Levi wants to break his cane in half, but he does not, because Gabi had bought it for him.
It’s stupid. There are no consequences of him not going to the camp. No one will starve in their bedroll, or get their arm chewed off, or die by shrapnel to the stomach. He will only be there to hand out candy and food and clothes, and this can be carried out by a hundred other willing, healthy bodies.
A distinctive smell distracts him enough to make him look up. “Is that tea spiced ?”
“Ah, yes,” says Onyankopon, rubbing the back of his neck. Levi’s expression must be incredulous, because he adds hastily, “I didn’t buy it! I don’t have that kind of money. Not anymore.”
“Where did it come from?”
“A merchant I met at one of the goodwill events last week. She was mainly supplying black tea.”
“I hate that you people say ‘black tea’. It’s just tea.” Levi crosses his arms and when he closes his eyes he is accosted with the memory of Hange saying, I mean, you’re from the underground, so I guess you’d have no idea . His nails dig into his forearms. There will be no lump in his throat today. He will not allow it. He is fine. He lives in a house. He grows tomatoes and peas. He is drinking expensive tea with a friend and he does not know when that friend will die -
“It’s not just tea when there are so many different kinds of tea!”
Levi opens his eyes and tries not to look too closely at Onyankopon, at the softness of his gaze. Onyankopon would have been eaten alive within the Walls, and not by Titans. It is a thought Levi has little love for. He wonders what Erwin would have been like without the threat of the Titans, if he would still have had that manic glint in his eye, if he would still consider making a mountain of corpses and scaling it.
Does it matter now? Levi thinks, sipping his tea. It is perfectly brewed, the spices bright and warm, but he finds little enjoyment in it.
Imaginary Erwin takes him by the shoulders and says, Everything matters.
Levi blinks himself back into his living room. The light slants differently here, not impeded by fifty-metre walls. But there is something else. Back home (and it is home, even if it has a name he did not know, even if he does not live there), the light inside the buildings seemed hazy, thick, almost a kind of mist. He remembers Erwin in that light, human yet removed from humans.
“ - and you should have seen this thing called blue butterfly te - Levi?”
Levi , says imaginary Erwin, with an imaginary smile.
“Sorry.” Levi puts down his teacup with a rattle, blames his missing fingers. “Let’s go to the camp. No, finish your tea first, there’s no need to rush on my account.”
They take the tram to the camp. This one is near the outskirts of the city, buzzing with over five hundred refugees. There are no houses, just tents and latrines, and no gardens, just dirt and shrubbery. A bunch of people are gathered near a still dark pond fringed with silvery grass, and sway to the sombre singing of a tall man with a neatly cropped beard. The song is not in a language Levi understands, but he stops by. He does that, sometimes, when people sing.
After it ends, he and Onyankopon continue their walk towards the supply station. Every time Levi puts weight on his knee, it is like a hundred little knives going through his leg. He wishes he had brought his wheelchair, as much as he wants to burn the thing.
At the station, he collapses with a pained grunt on one of the chairs, tells Sabina behind the counter that she cannot get rid of him so easily. She frets and hovers around him and asks him if he’s rested enough, if he’s drunk enough water, if she can get him anything. Levi waves away her concerns.
He opens the box of candy placed on his lap and wait as children line up, pushing at each other, craning their necks to get a glimpse of him. For a moment he is surrounded by people saying, Lance Corporal Levi , and talking about how he has the strength of a hundred men, and it is grating, and his anger spikes. But then he breathes and he is in the camp again, with Onyankopon cutting open another box, and a girl, a little girl, in front of him, waiting eagerly for her candy.
Levi takes whatever his hand finds first, and reaches out.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: Teens
Summary:
“It’s tea. You ever had tea, boy? It’s an above-ground drink. People down here ain’t allowed to touch it.”
Or,
Levi, tea, and the watersheds in his life.
Notes:
Yes, I know Levi drank tea before he met Hange. No, I do not care.
The Erwin/Levi in this fic can be read as platonic or romantic.
Work Text:
Two figures stand shadowed in the doorway, one in suspenders, the other in a coat.
Levi rubs his eyes. He is loth to leave the warmth of his blanket, but before he realises it, he has been ushered outside, his grubby toes curling against the chilled floorboards. His mother has to work, but he wishes it could be at better hours.
One of the men - the one in the coat - has remained outside. “C’mere, boy,” he says, in a conspiratorial tone, sitting down on one of the chairs by the wall and patting the seat next to him. His coat smells of old sweat, but fits him well, like he got it made at a real store where they take your measurements, and it wasn’t just stolen or handed down to him. He opens a flask that had been at his hip, and Levi considers kicking him in the balls because grown-ups offering him drinks never ends well, but the man says, “It’s tea. You ever had tea, boy? It’s an above-ground drink. People down here ain’t allowed to touch it.”
He pokes it beneath Levi’s nose, and the smell is earthy and rich and a bit sour. It’s a drink but it’s not a drink . From behind the door, his mother lets out a sharp little scream. Levi grabs the flask with both hands and sips, and the tea sears the inside of his mouth.
“Here,” the man says, with a breezy smile, “how’s that, boy? Make you feel like a real little lord?” He pokes Levi’s chest. There will be a bruise there the next day. “This where all the taxes go - tea for the military. Boxes of it, barrels of it.”
Levi’s head hurts, worse than usual - but, for the briefest moment, there is a stove inside his chest filled with glowing coals, and his fingertips are warm. “Tastes weird.”
“Ah? Give it back, then. Every sip you take is money wasted.”
***
They are stripping the things off a man Levi knifed when Kenny finds the pouch: deep blue, gold-lined, with a label that Levi cannot read. Kenny rips it open and checks the box inside, says, “Feh,” and tosses it onto the table.
Levi opens the box. Shrivelled-up leaves stare up at him. He stares back. Takes a sniff. Earthy and rich and a bit sour. “Tea,” he breathes out, clutching the packet. He looks up at Kenny, waiting for the order to start boiling the water.
“It’s a drink for pussies,” Kenny says, leaning back in his chair and kicking his knobby legs up on the table. He looks at Levi and his dark eyes glint in the miserable candlelight. “You wanna drink it, Levi? Are you a little pussy?”
Levi’s cheeks burn. He hastily puts the box down.
They sell the tea and Kenny buys himself a new gun and gives the change to Levi so he can get his shoes mended.
***
“What, what? You’re not drinking your tea?” Hange points at the untouched mug beside Levi’s plate. The mess hall’s noise is giving Levi a headache, and Hange is making it worse.
Levi scoffs. “It’s for pussies.” He says the words but they are not his. Their weight in his mouth is wrong. Beside him, Farlan gives him a funny look. His own mug is empty; he had gazed into it mournfully after licking the rim clean.
“Oh?” Hange puts their chin in their hand. “Is it that you drink tea if you’re a pussy, or you become a pussy after drinking tea?”
Levi stares at them. Everyone in the Survey Corps is, from what he has seen, a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but Hange is the only one who seems to be well and truly insane.
“Do you have any idea how expensive tea is? I mean, you’re from the underground, so I guess you’d have no idea, or maybe you’d have an idea of counterfeit prices, but Erwin really has to fight the higher ups to get this stuff on our tables. I watched him negotiate it once, it was nuts, I thought one of those guys was going to throw a chair at Erwin’s face - ”
“If I drink it, will you shut up?” says Levi, desperate. “Please shut up.”
Farlan chortles, and Levi feels betrayed.
“No,” says Hange. “I mean, you should drink it, tea is amazing, have you ever stayed awake for four nights in a row? I never could till I joined the scouts, it just gave me that little extra push - ”
Levi flees from the table. Behind him, Hange and Farlan’s uproarious laughter intermingles and gets lost amid the din of the mess hall.
By the end of the week he’s stolen Hange’s personal stash of tea.
***
Erwin’s office is disgusting. It’s got big windows that let in more sunlight than one person should have any right to, not one but two tables, both suffocated by piles of books, a cushy sofa, and floor-to-ceiling shelves, also filled with books. There are even books on the floor. Who does Erwin think he is?
“Sit,” says Erwin, gesturing to the sofa.
“Is that an order?” says Levi. Erwin’s hair is neatly parted and the kind of golden blond people describe in fairy stories. Levi wants to tear it out by the roots, smash Erwin’s head against a wall, scream, There, are you so perfect now? Do you know exactly what to say now?
Erwin looks at him evenly. “If that’s what will get you sit down, then yes.”
Levi sits. On the table there’s a tea set with a teapot, a ceramic affair with a carnation pattern and painted gold edging that Isabel would have gone crazy over. A lump forms in his throat, and he blinks rapidly.
Erwin takes a seat opposite him and pours two cups, and his posture remains immaculate; he looks like an illustration on a paper advertisement. Levi hesitates a moment in taking his cup - it’s so pretty, and Levi has never held something so pretty in his life. He sits uselessly with the cup held in both hands while Erwin sips his tea without a sound. Ew, you slurp your tea , Hange had said with a laugh to Levi in the mess hall. It’s really loud, too. They had not meant it unkindly. They hadn’t.
“Why am I here?” says Levi. “Am I being punished?”
Erwin smiles against his cup. “Is my presence that intolerable?”
“I meant for attacking you, back - back then.”
The silence stretches, and Levi takes a sip of his tea just to lessen the awkwardness. It is the same tea they serve in the mess hall, but this one is brewed better, with a rich, almost malty taste.
“No.”
“Well, then, don’t keep me waiting,” snaps Levi.
Erwin sets down his teacup in its saucer with barely a rattle - this grates on Levi’s nerves - and says, “How are you doing?”
“Huh?”
“How are you doing?”
“How am I - ” Is this Erwin’s idea of humour? Levi takes deep breaths, till the red splashed across the room has faded. Where is he supposed to begin? “Are you mocking me?”
“No. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.” Erwin’s face is sombre. Levi cannot tell if he is lying. He slumps, setting down his own cup and putting his face in his hands. His jacket has grown too hot and stuffy, and he wants to rip it off. He thinks of Isabel turning somersaults in the air and laughing, of Farlan insisting on buying shady nondescript alcohol just because he heard it would burn a hole through his throat. Of his mother, brushing his hair back and saying, Just a little while, Levi. He’ll stay for just a little while, and then I’ll play with you .
“I’m sorry,” says Erwin quietly, “about your friends. Truly, I am. Loss should not be something you get used to.”
Levi raises his head at the bitterness in Erwin’s voice. It is barely there, threading through it thinly - but it is there. That is probably what prompts Levi to lift his cup and say, as if in a dream, “To absent friends.”
Erwin stares at him with shock, before smiling and lifting his own cup. The sunlight has shifted now, falling on them both. Erwin’s hair all but glows, and the dark circles beneath his eyes are suddenly prominent.
Levi still wants Erwin’s head on a plate.
But he wants it less than before.
***
It’s a bright sunny day when Henri Hoffman is murdered.
Levi never liked him - Henri spent half his time leering at women and only stopped calling Levi a street rat after Levi was promoted to Erwin’s second as senior team leader, and since then, they ignored each other.
So when he was told that Henri started a fight with one of the newer cadets and tried to choke him, he thought, Of course he did.
Levi is not needed for the investigation, and he can’t say this bothers him. He does not think an investigation is required. He only wishes Erwin were here to help with training the recruits instead of wasting time on the Henri case - Levi is not the best teacher. (“It’s because you’re so used to not having to think about it,” Hange had once told him.)
It is late evening, past dinner, when Erwin gets back, his face pinched and a few strands of hair falling over his forehead. “So?” says Levi, as Erwin collapses at his desk and rubs his eyes. “Did they let the kid go finally? Leon’s his name, right?”
A knock sounds at the door and one of the kitchen boys comes in with hot water. Erwin thanks him in a raspy voice and makes tea and stares at the pot while it brews. “It seems Leon was the one who started the fight.”
“What?”
“Henri fought back, and when he did, Leon stabbed him with his sword. At least, this is what Leon said. There will be a trial.”
“That’s wrong. Henri was a bastard, I wouldn’t be surprised if he - ”
“Can you guarantee it?” Erwin says, looking up at him with quiet intensity. “Would you stake your life on it?”
“I would stake my life - ”
“Would you stake mine?”
Months ago - weeks ago - Levi would have said yes. He would have staked Erwin’s life on anything. He wants to kick the table.
Erwin pours the tea. “Henri - I’ll be the first to admit he wasn’t the most pleasant of people. But he was never violent. And, even if he were, he would still deserve a trial.” Levi stares at the flickering oil lamp. Erwin sighs and slumps in his chair. He does that sometimes - frays at the edges. It always stuns Levi a little. “Senseless. A scout lost - for what?” He waves a hand in a gesture that seems drunk. “Drink the damn tea, Levi, I made you a cup.”
Levi drinks. It is bitter. He does not want to swallow it.
“Is it bad,” Erwin asks, looking at the ceiling, “that I cared? About Henri? When you spend time with people, they just. He liked stewed apples. And he talked about his sister a lot. She’s training to be a medic.”
I’m all muscle , Levi had heard Henri say once, when they were camping out beneath the stars. Levi had gotten the impression that he was bragging.
“I wanted to see him - grow. He was my responsibility.”
Levi finds himself thinking, He was mine too , before he can stop himself. And then, Kenny would really hate me now.
***
Levi hears a clink, and he knows Hange has put a cup of tea down for him. He does not open his eyes.
“Levi.”
Did he make the right choice? It’s too late to start thinking about it now, but he does. And he knew he would start, after he handed in the reports and stripped off his uniform and couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. His hands are empty. There is nothing to do but sleep. He will not sleep tonight. He will not sleep tomorrow, either.
“Levi.”
He keeps thinking of the way Erwin’s hand flew up and smacked Levi’s fingers away. It had been a spasmodic gesture, shocking in its strength, and Levi’s stomach lurches at the memory. Erwin’s hand had been cold. Levi had held it, after. After.
“ Hey .”
Levi finally looks at Hange, who is frowning at him, their elbows on their knees.
“I said, how are you doing? ”
How are you doing?
“Fine,” says Levi, and takes the teacup and throws it against the wall. Hange does not flinch at the shatter. They watch as Levi gets up, opens the cabinet, and yanks all the books out. They tumble to the floor and a cloud of dust rises up. When he picks up a chair he is restrained by strong callused hands, and he crumples, going to his knees. He does not recognise the shrill animal noise coming from his throat. Hange’s arms are around him and they chant his name, Levi, Levi , and it changes nothing.
They rock together, clutch at each other. Levi is six and hungry enough to eat the world. He is fourteen and sleeps with Kenny’s gun. He is thirty and his only wish is a kill.
At length Hange lies down on the sofa with their face pressed into the pillow, and Levi drags out a blanket from a cupboard and drapes it over them. He curls up at the other end of the sofa, wrapping his arms around himself, until sunlight filters through the window and reminds him, again, that the world is getting on whether he wants it to or not.
Everything hurts. There is a hollow in his chest.
He stands up and begins to clear away the broken ceramic.
***
Levi has taken to fidgeting.
He has never lived a more comfortable life. His house - house , not apartment - used to belong to an aristocrat in the previous century. It has a little back garden where he keeps his succulents and grows tomatoes and peas. He does not have to wake up before daybreak anymore, or file endless reams of papers, or watch out for titans on the horizon.
“What do you mean they got someone else to do it?” he says blackly.
Onyankopon pours the tea. He had said that someone had given it to him specially, for being a war hero. His smile had been sardonic. “They probably didn’t want to trouble you.”
“That’s bullshit. I’m going there and telling them I’m doing it anyway.”
“If you feel that strongly about it.”
Levi wants to break his cane in half, but he does not, because Gabi had bought it for him.
It’s stupid. There are no consequences of him not going to the camp. No one will starve in their bedroll, or get their arm chewed off, or die by shrapnel to the stomach. He will only be there to hand out candy and food and clothes, and this can be carried out by a hundred other willing, healthy bodies.
A distinctive smell distracts him enough to make him look up. “Is that tea spiced ?”
“Ah, yes,” says Onyankopon, rubbing the back of his neck. Levi’s expression must be incredulous, because he adds hastily, “I didn’t buy it! I don’t have that kind of money. Not anymore.”
“Where did it come from?”
“A merchant I met at one of the goodwill events last week. She was mainly supplying black tea.”
“I hate that you people say ‘black tea’. It’s just tea.” Levi crosses his arms and when he closes his eyes he is accosted with the memory of Hange saying, I mean, you’re from the underground, so I guess you’d have no idea . His nails dig into his forearms. There will be no lump in his throat today. He will not allow it. He is fine. He lives in a house. He grows tomatoes and peas. He is drinking expensive tea with a friend and he does not know when that friend will die -
“It’s not just tea when there are so many different kinds of tea!”
Levi opens his eyes and tries not to look too closely at Onyankopon, at the softness of his gaze. Onyankopon would have been eaten alive within the Walls, and not by Titans. It is a thought Levi has little love for. He wonders what Erwin would have been like without the threat of the Titans, if he would still have had that manic glint in his eye, if he would still consider making a mountain of corpses and scaling it.
Does it matter now? Levi thinks, sipping his tea. It is perfectly brewed, the spices bright and warm, but he finds little enjoyment in it.
Imaginary Erwin takes him by the shoulders and says, Everything matters.
Levi blinks himself back into his living room. The light slants differently here, not impeded by fifty-metre walls. But there is something else. Back home (and it is home, even if it has a name he did not know, even if he does not live there), the light inside the buildings seemed hazy, thick, almost a kind of mist. He remembers Erwin in that light, human yet removed from humans.
“ - and you should have seen this thing called blue butterfly te - Levi?”
Levi , says imaginary Erwin, with an imaginary smile.
“Sorry.” Levi puts down his teacup with a rattle, blames his missing fingers. “Let’s go to the camp. No, finish your tea first, there’s no need to rush on my account.”
They take the tram to the camp. This one is near the outskirts of the city, buzzing with over five hundred refugees. There are no houses, just tents and latrines, and no gardens, just dirt and shrubbery. A bunch of people are gathered near a still dark pond fringed with silvery grass, and sway to the sombre singing of a tall man with a neatly cropped beard. The song is not in a language Levi understands, but he stops by. He does that, sometimes, when people sing.
After it ends, he and Onyankopon continue their walk towards the supply station. Every time Levi puts weight on his knee, it is like a hundred little knives going through his leg. He wishes he had brought his wheelchair, as much as he wants to burn the thing.
At the station, he collapses with a pained grunt on one of the chairs, tells Sabina behind the counter that she cannot get rid of him so easily. She frets and hovers around him and asks him if he’s rested enough, if he’s drunk enough water, if she can get him anything. Levi waves away her concerns.
He opens the box of candy placed on his lap and wait as children line up, pushing at each other, craning their necks to get a glimpse of him. For a moment he is surrounded by people saying, Lance Corporal Levi , and talking about how he has the strength of a hundred men, and it is grating, and his anger spikes. But then he breathes and he is in the camp again, with Onyankopon cutting open another box, and a girl, a little girl, in front of him, waiting eagerly for her candy.
Levi takes whatever his hand finds first, and reaches out.