Archive of Our Own

Note: snippet from alternative timeline where Morely was the ultimate bad guy. Warning for implied sexual assault.

“You came alone, then,” Morely asks.

Erwin nods, once. He lets the maid take his coat. He lets an MP pat him down for hidden weapons. Once satisfied, Morely holds out his hand, indicates he should sit on the couch. “Please,” he says, “be my guest.”

“About guests,” Erwin starts, as subtle as he can be. 

“He’s upstairs. He’s sleeping,” Morely says, smiling agreeably. “You wouldn’t want me to wake him, would you?”

“You thought you were smart,” Morely says, pulling open a gold-brushed cigarette dispenser. “Would you like one?”

Yes, desperately. “No, thank you,” Erwin says, and indicates he should resume.

He watches Morely light up, blow smoke through his nose. “Levi doesn’t like this,” he says, lips twitching, and then continues. “You thought you were smarter than me, Captain. Do you know why this rankles, so much? Because it’s all so utterly pointless. You’ve killed yourself in pursuit in the stupidest of goals. Although I suppose you think you’re noble,” Morely adds, brows raised. “I just wish someone had taken you aside earlier and knocked your ideas out of your head. You’re such a waste of good potential.”

“My apologies,” Erwin tells him. “I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”

“Operations will resume, eventually,” Morely tells him. “We’ll find a suitable successor for Shadis. Someone who continues to cull the stupidest of our soldiers, and remind the rest of us to be grateful the king lets us hide behind these walls.” He jerks his chin. “Get the boy,” he orders. “Be gentle.”

Erwin watches Morely stub his cigarette out in the ash-tray, light a fresh one. He hears the doors open but refuses to turn and look. Morely is watching him. He keeps his leg folded on his knee, his hands flat on the couch. He thinks, he’s too still – Morely will know he’s faking. He doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction, or even more leverage than he already has.

The guards drop Levi on the carpet, the space between the two couches. He’s wearing one of Morely’s robes, ruby red, too big. All Erwin can see is the back of his head, the soft hairs of his nape, and for some reason, the only thing he can focus on are his bare feet, soles pointed at the sky.

Someone has taken his boots. He doesn’t know what he expected. Blood, and a torn uniform, and bruises. Levi lies there like he’s dead.

Morely braces his foot on the back of his head. Levi’s fingers, half-obscured by the billowing arms of the robe, curl into fists.

“I’ll admit,” Morely begins, “out of everything, this is the one thing I don’t understand.”

He grinds his foot into the back of Levi’s head. Levi grunts.

“Do you fuck him?” Morely taunts, “Is that it? It’s okay. Don’t be ashamed. We’re all men here, Erwin. We all have our tastes.”

Morely crouches and reaches beneath the neck of Levi’s robe. Erwin realises – there’s something wrapped around his neck. Morely tugs it – Erwin will not call it a collar – and drags Levi, wheezing, up to sit. He stares at his face, can’t help it, feels a compulsive need to assess damage. His cheek is swollen, his lip is split, there’s bruising in a perfect circle around his throat where Morely has been pulling at the thing tied there, choking him. Worse than that, he barely moves; his limbs flop, uselessly, his head rolling back onto the couch seat, legs spread out beneath him.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Morely is saying, his nails leaving crescents in Levi’s chin. He’s twitching, involuntary, and Erwin is reminded viscerally of a rabbit he once found caught in a trap while on a walk with his father.

“Stop it,” he hears himself say, quietly.

Morely raises his brows. “Stop it?” He repeats.

“Please. Don’t.”

Morely squeezes Levi’s jaw until his mouth falls and is held open. He’s straining his eyes desperately upwards, as if he can pre-empt the assault if he can see it happen. He gargles, and his spit is slightly pink-tinged. Morely holds the cigar above his open lips; some ash falls on his tongue. “Doesn’t he have a small mouth?” He remarks. “Well. Small everything, I suppose.”

Levi kicks his leg, but it’s ineffectual. Even if Morely was on the receiving end, it would be too weak. “Please,” Erwin tries again, “please, don’t hurt him. Councillor. Please.”

Morely raises his brows. He ducks his head to draw on the end of the cigarette he’s holding above Levi’s mouth, and exhales the smoke into his eyes. “Beg, then,” he prompts.

Erwin has never begged for anything in his life. He doesn’t think Levi would want to see him beg.

He clasps his hands in front of his stomach, like he’s praying. “Councillor Morely,” he says, “please do not hurt him. He’s suffered enough for my stupidity. Please. Councillor, please.”

Note: alternative telling of Levi’s interrogation by Jansen when Clay was supposed to be worse than he already is

The man is straddling a chair. There’s an apple in his hand, half-eaten. He’s stocky, Levi thinks there’s muscle on his shoulders, despite his age. He’s built like a ring-fighter, short and quick. He has a thick moustache. Levi almost doesn’t recognise him. Almost. Maybe it’s the eyes, maybe it’s those ears, too big for his head. But he knows who he is.

He tries to jerk forward. What does he think he’s going to achieve? Rip out the man’s throat? He’s tied to a chair, rickety beneath him – he thinks he could break it, if he tried. He blinks sweat from his eyes, knows it’s the come-down from the ice-dust. It gives you the shivers, makes you dump water, gets your head sparking like a switch. The man watches him with the same level of disinterest he did all those years ago: boredom, laced with disgust.

He takes a bite of his apple, swallows. “You look like your mother,” he says. “Did you know?”

It knocks the wind out of him. The man is wearing officer’s uniform. Military Police, then, still. This isn’t a grudge; it’s official business. He has a red bolo tie, same as Erwin’s, even, the same tie he’d – he’d wrapped his fingers in, a few hours earlier. Hours? He doesn’t know. He has no idea how long he’s been here. He tips his head back, squeezes shut his eyes to stave off the sharp pains behind them, the hazy colours at their edges.

“Mmm,” the man says, mouth full of apple, drawing his attention. He waves his hand, carelessly. “Take out a tooth. One of the back ones, no need to make him ugly.”

Levi rocks back, instinctively. There must be someone behind him, he realises, because they catch his shoulder, set him back against the floor gently. “Do I look like your dog?” They say. Clay, he thinks, and scrunches up his face, tries to think. Goddamn, is the only coherent thought floating through his head, whether it’s the drugs or – or something like panic. He’s not a coward, but he is a human, and he doesn’t like pain. It’s one thing, breaking a wrist, get your thigh chewed by a titan, bruises and cuts from battle. That’s – that’s pain with a purpose. Pain in pursuit. This is – this is nothing but pain for the sake of pain, and this man – these men, who hate him so very much, even though Levi doesn’t know why – 

The man rolls his eyes, slightly, irritated. “So long as you’re on my payroll, Clayton. The tooth,” he urges.

Clay’s hand wraps around the bottom of Levi’s chin. It’s familiar, if anything; his hands are still huge, like the rest of him, a titan of a man. Levi can mean that, he thinks inanely, now that he’s really seen titans: Clay is a monster. His face is swimming in Levi’s vision as he tips back his head, digs his cheeks between his thumb and fingers. “Hey, little one,” he grins. He’s older. Levi wants to say, who took your eye? But he can only manage to blink up at him, swallow reflexively. “Wait,” he hears himself say, Clay picking out pliers from his back pocket, “wait, stop – “

He has to press his lips together to stop Clay from shoving the pliers between them. He hums out his protest, Clay’s nails digging into his skin, straining his eyes at the officer, that cunt, that sadistic sack of shit, who’s had it in for him since he was a kid with no damn good reason, who – who did those things, to his mother, just because he could. He tears his wrists against the rope that wraps them to the back of the chair. He kicks his legs.

“Wait!” He cries out, as Clay slips the metal past his lips. It scratches his tongue, accidentally, knocks against his gums. He doesn’t want to think where else it has been.

The officer holds up the hand holding the apple. “Hold on a moment, Clayton,” he says, levelly. “What is it, Levi?”

Levi blinks sweat from his eyes. He stares up at Clay’s face, the stubble, the gnarled eye, nose that never set right. He swallows around the pliers. “Questions,” he says, although it’s muffled.

“Let him talk,” the officer orders. “Again, son.”

The pliers recede. Levi feels weak, shuddery, his heart thumping in his throat. “Aren’t you – aren’t you gonna ask me questions?” He manages.

“Well, that depends,” the officer replies. “Will you answer them?”

A beat. Levi’s head is working slowly, like crawling through honey. “I don’t know,” he says. “I mean – I won’t know. Until you ask them.”

The officer nods. “True,” he agrees. He jerks his chin. “The tooth,” he prompts.

Levi feels his eyes widen. “Wait,” he tries again, his bare toes scraping against the dusty floor. “Wait, wait – “

Clay’s palm is back, wrapped around his throat. “Shh, shh,” he soothes him, like you would a nervy horse. “No use makin’ this hurt worse than it needs to, kid,” he tells him, although he’s grinning, like he very much would like Levi to try. He squeezes his cheeks until Levi is sure his jaw will pop, forcing the pliers between his teeth. He feels them get a good grip on a tooth at the very back of his mouth – it’s a new one. It only came in a few years ago, and it had given him hell, aching for weeks. It feels like it takes just as long coming out. Stubbornly, he does not scream. Even when it’s pulled from him, root and stem, he doesn’t make a sound, save for his panted breath, raspy with blood from the back of his throat.

Clay knocks his head forward to let him dribble his blood onto the stone floor. He drops the tooth into the palm of the officer, who holds it between his thumb and index finger. “A good tooth,” he says, approvingly. “You must take care of them. God knows, that’s a rarity down here. No offense,” he must add, for Clay’s sake, watching him move back behind Levi’s chair.

He wraps a hand in Levi’s hair and pulls back his head. “None taken,” he says, flatly. Clay was missing half his teeth when Levi knew him; he imagines it’s more, now. He watches the officer flick his tooth aimlessly onto the floor. It rolls somewhere Levi cannot see, one of the dark corners of the room, forgotten.

“Now,” the officer says, cracking his knuckles. He chews the end of his apple core. Levi used to do that, when he was starving. It’s a habit he wasn’t sorry to leave behind. “Son,” he says again, the way older men in Mitras like to patronise him, “I’d like you tell me why you think you’re here.”

Levi spits blood. “I liked that tooth,” he says, instead.

“I’m sure you did,” the man agrees. “You only have a limited number. I’d rather not have to take anymore. So, I ask again: why do you think you’re here?”

Levi probes the empty spot at the back of his mouth, winces. “I don’t know,” he mutters, and it’s half-true. He has ideas, obviously. But he doesn’t know why now. He can’t understand why this man, who has been haunting his nightmares since he was a child, has to be here, too. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Hit him,” the officer orders. Clay pulls back his head and beats him, fist closed, across the cheek he lost the tooth from. Levi groans; at least he wasn’t wearing his knuckles. “I don’t think you should be asking questions, Levi. I’ll have Clay discipline you until the message gets through.”

“You know me,” Levi says instead, and it’s not technically a question. “I know you.”

The officer raises his brows. “Yes,” he agrees.

“You’re an officer,” Levi continues. “You were in the police then, but you would have been new, or at least, newer. You sound like old money,” he huffs, “I didn’t know that then, I know that now. What – what the fuck was old money like you doing lurking around a cheap whorehouse – “

“Again,” the officer says. This time, Clay hits him twice on the same cheek. Levi can feel it start to swell. He spits more blood. “And you really shouldn’t talk about your mother that way, Levi.”

“Goddamn,” he breathes. “You cunt. Keep her out of your mouth before I rip out your tongue.”

The officer blinks at him, impassively. “Mmm,” he says, which is neither agreement nor disagreement. “You’re angrier than I expected.”

“You need to give him another dose,” Clay warns, and fuck him, damn him. Levi’s coming for him, next. “I’ve seen him get out of tighter chains than this.”

The officer looks irritated. “It’ll scramble him,” he dismisses, “I haven’t even asked him any questions.”

Clay kisses his teeth. “Don’t care,” he says, in that short, careless way he has. “I don’t have any interest in havin’ this bitch’s hands around my throat when my backs turned. Trust me,” he snorts, “I’ve seen him kill men twice his size and twice as strong-lookin’.”

“Commander,” Levi blurts. “You’re the Commander, aren’t you? Jansen. I saw you. Last year. At that party, when Nile asked me to join the MPs.”

Jansen looks at him approvingly. “Well, you’re not stupid,” he says, like that pleases him.

“Wait,” Levi tries, “we could – we could come to some accord – “

“Are you afraid of pain, Levi?”

Levi shuts his eyes, tries to think. “I hate him,” he lies, “Captain Smith, I hate him. I tried to kill him, you know that, don’t you? He – he killed my friends, I want him dead, too.”

Jansen looks amused, or at least, his approximation of it. His smile doesn’t really reach his eyes. “Is that so,” he says.

“He’s – he’s a patronising bastard, he said – he made me – I didn’t have choice, in any of it, he said he’d have me arrested if I didn’t – “

“Jump in front of a titan, for him?” Jansen says, mildly. “Risk your life for his?”

The words die in Levi’s throat. “It wasn’t like that,” he manages, tries to start again. 

“Nothing!” Levi screams, “It was nothing! Goddamn, there was nothing – nothing – “

Jansen pulls back the poker. Levi retches onto the floor, tries to crawl away, nails scraping against the stone, propelling himself like a worm dredged to the surface with the rain.

“Ah ah,” Jansen warns, dispassionately. He holds the end of the poker, no longer red, but still burning, beneath Levi’s chin. It does not touch him – yet. He can feel it singeing the stubble on his jaw. “Continue. Or I’ll let Clay stick this where he wants to, understand?”

Levi is shivering. Jansen kicks his shoulder, sends him sprawling on his back. He puts the poker back beneath his chin, warning. “Levi,” he says. “You said, it was nothing. Why?”

He hears himself mumble it. The truth. It is the truth, after all, isn’t it? He thinks anything could be the truth.

Jansen sighs. He sticks the end of the poker against Levi’s ribs. It’s stings, then burns, cutting and searing in equal measure. He screams again, and his back arches off the ground. “Speak up, boy,” he orders, irritated.

“It was a bluff!” Levi tells him, hears himself say. “It was a bluff!” He insists, remembering it so clearly in his mind, the two officers, the body in the bags. “Just a – bluff,” he mutters, trailing off. “A bluff,” he whispers, thinking about Lobov, and Farlan’s guts in the mud.

“I see,” Jansen says, giving away nothing. “Why?”

“We…” Levi is so exhausted. He doesn’t know how his mouth is still forming the words. “We were… stopped, we…” he coughs blood.

Note: this is a snippet from when counterpart was just one story, after the fall of wall Maria, and erwin + Levi and others have been sent to lead the cull to retake wall Maria

Erwin stares down at the beast, it’s snapping teeth. These people were not soldiers. None of them chose this. None of them were as blind, or foolish as Erwin, to think that a dream is worth so much death.

“Erwin!” Levi is screaming. He’s screaming. It’s not an order, or a curse – he sounds terrified. Erwin hates when Levi is scared, he wants to tell him not to be, that his only real threat is Erwin and soon that will be finished. When Erwin’s gone, Levi will be free too. He knows this. He was the one who dragged him into this hell, wasn’t he?

He stares at the gaping maw, the wide-open jaw, a set of neat teeth. The saliva is coating the titan’s tongue; it’s breath smells like rotting meat, warm and viscous. Jonas, Merkel, Lena. They had spent three years sleeping at each other sides, swapping stories at night, watching the stars, tossing snow. All three of them had died that first expedition – young and inexperienced, all three were ripped apart. Is this what Jonas saw? The dark, pulsing tunnel of flesh, the scent of shit and churned guts. Erwin is sorry, he’s so sorry. He can’t face this, he can’t go back through the gates knowing that tens of thousands of his people are rotting in the fields. Let someone else shoulder the burden. It’s too much to bear – 

“Erwin,” Levi is pleading, body stretched out across the thick branch above him, straddling it like a pole. He reaches out, arm straining. “Take my hand.”

Erwin stares up at him. He wants to remember his face, commit it to memory. The dark bangs, the upturned nose, the careful, sharp eyes. He stares and stares and drinks his fill. His legs, loosely dangling from the branch, are snapped at by the titan; he doesn’t flinch, he never does. To lose a leg, an arm, an eye, what does it matter? He’ll be dead soon. He hopes he will be.

Levi’s eyes widen with panic, like the truth is setting in. “No,” he breathes, panting, “no, Erwin – please. My hand, I can pull you up – “

Erwin just watches him, dazed. He presses his hand to his temple, and it comes back bloody. There is only one titan, but his body is telling him there are hundreds, thousands. They’re all around him. If Erwin doesn’t do this, they’ll eat Levi – they’ll tear him apart, limb from limb.

Erwin shuts his eyes, rubs them with the heels of his hands. No, no, no. Don’t think about that. Levi’s head rolling in mud, his guts in grass – 

“Stop it!” Levi screams at him. “Snap out of it! It’s not real, it’s not, Erwin. It’s just a dream, a soldier’s dream. Please, take my hand – “

A soldier’s dream. Another one of those waking nightmares. He’s been having them more frequently recently. If he keeps living, they’ll consume him, won’t they? Every second will be a waking nightmare. 

He looks up at him. He doesn’t want to remember Levi like this, eyes wide with fear, mouth twisted, bloody and bruised. “You’re being selfish Erwin!” Levi begs, “You’re selfish! Don’t you – don’t you dare. Take my hand, please! Please, Erwin!”

Levi should not beg. He should never beg; it is beneath him. Erwin shuts his eyes. He thinks:

It’s snowing. Levi’s head is tipped up at the sky, isn’t it? His nose is red, his eyes watery with the cold. He laughs at him, childishly, freely, half-hiding behind a tree. “Don’t you dare,” he warns, because Erwin is holding a compacted ball of snow. “Don’t you dare, Erwin – “

“I’m sorry,” Erwin whispers. He’s always been so selfish. He lets himself loosen, his thighs sliding off the branch.

The air around him shifts. The branch beneath him trembles. He frowns, opens his eyes; a flash of green cloak, it’s tips whip against his face. Levi is falling. Has fallen. No – that sounds accidental; Levi has dived. 

And Erwin watches as his feet disappear, the titan’s mouth closing around him. He watches its throat swallow once, twice. And Levi is gone. The titan starts its rumble, feet pounding laboriously from beneath the tree, Erwin forgotten.

And Levi is gone. 

“Levi,” he says, but not sound leaves his mouth. Just empty shapes. “Levi?” He asks again, voice hoarse. He blinks. Trembling, he digs his fingers into the tree’s trunk, knees weak. What has he done. Oh, God, what has he made Levi do – 

The titan seems to stagger, disordered and uncoordinated. Its head is tipped back, arms smacking at its chest. The titan that killed Levi, that ate him – Erwin feels his fingers engage his blades, his hook soaring to the tree just before the beast. He flies, propelled through the sky. He is numb. He feels nothing. There’s no revenge to be had – just his duty. Soaring, he readies himself for impact against the trunk of a tree, feet first; he swings his body, positions himself to bear down on the creature’s nape – 

And the titan splits. Blood and steam and gore spill from its stomach in a cloud of red mist – the thing groans, a great, cow-like sound, its skin torn from stomach to chest, it’s mismatched organs and bones rolling against the dirt, torn from within. No – there is only one way –

Erwin drops, slitting its nape in a spray of blood. The entire thing has collapsed forward, steaming and limp. He lands on the dirt, stumbles. “Levi,” he is breathing, “Levi – “

He tears at the titan’s skin, his fingers burning. There are others in the trees, staring down at him, watching. He lifts his head and screams, commands. “What are you doing?!” He demands, “Help!”

Petra lands gracefully by the titan’s splayed-out hand. “Commander,” she’s gasping, “is he – is the Captain still – “

“Lift!” Erwin orders. Others join him, each of them bracing their weight against the titan’s side. They’re always lighter than you expect, but not so light as to be weightless. “All of you, lift!”

He leads the way, his bare hands singing against the titan’s skin. Even if he’s alive – this burning, what will be left? What could be left but bone? What had he been thinking, what could he have – hoped to gain, jumping like that, diving straight down it’s gullet. He must be alive, he has to be – if he was alive to split from the inside out he’ll be alive now – 

“Commander,” Mike heaves, his shoulder pressed to Erwin’s left, Hange on his right. What had he been thinking – a moment of madness, just madness. “There – there!”

Two hands outstretched, arms bare. The fingers are clawing in the mud, the thick viscous slime that coats the inside of titans. “Hold!” Erwin orders, “Hold it steady!” He drops to his knees, grips Levi’s thin wrists with his hands and pulls, and pulls, and pulls.

He comes out easily, lubricated by the slime and wet mud. He’s covered in it – vaguely pinkish, like jelly. His uniform has singed nearly clean off; all that’s left are the boots on his feet, the leather of his harness, still strapped to his naked, shivering body. The metal clasps have left deep burns in his skin atop the old friction marks. And when Erwin turns him over, frantic, his eyes welded shut with the muck, an ugly, moist, rasping coming from past his lips. He cannot breathe. He claws at his face with his fingers, his throat, blind and burning.

Erwin grips his jaw in his fist. “Open your mouth,” he orders, but Levi does not hear him. He tightens his fingers until his jaw loosens, stuffs his fingers into his mouth, drawing out muck – other people’s blood, hair, thick titan mucous. It is wedged in his throat; good. It will not burn his internal organs.

“Captain – “ Hange starts, their voice thin, unsure. “He’s not breathing.”

“Turn him over,” Erwin demands, starting to flip him back onto his front. He smacks his back, hard, enough to leave red bruising in the shape of his palm. Beneath him, Levi coughs. “That’s it,” Erwin urges, “that’s it, Levi, keep breathing. Cough, cough it up.”

He coughs again, this time his stomach arching off of the ground, his hand smacking into the dirt. His shoulders shudder; there must be something lodged in his throat. He gags, beating his chest with his own fist, head thrown back. 

“Move,” Erwin orders, casting his arm back, forcing the others to give them space. He wraps his arms around Levi’s middle, works his balled-up hands just beneath his ribs. Diaphragm, his father had explained to him. So if there is water trapped in their lungs, you can trigger a – it’s like an automatic response, Erwin. Do you understand?

Erwin pushes the air out of Levi’s body, arching him against his own chest again, and again, and again. Levi coughs, splutters – something expels itself from past his lips, scatters and rolls into torn up grass. And Levi breathes. With great, gulping, healthy breaths, he breathes.

Erwin feels himself sag. “Shh,” he soothes, wiping the worst of the gunk from his eyes with the tip of his cloak, Levi’s head pressed to his stomach. “It’s alright, Captain. You just focus on breathing.”

The rest of them stare. “Did he – “ Petra stutters, “ – do that? From the inside out?”

They’re muttering. Erwin doesn’t care. Levi, he thinks, pressing his burnt palm to his wet cheek. His skin is strangely cold; the slime seems to cool rapidly. Levi, he thinks again, and it’s all he can think. It’s all consuming.

Hange picks at the thing Erwin dislodged from his throat, drops it with a hiss. It’s a finger, or half of one. Likely one of their comrades; it’s not uncommon to lose fingers using ODM gear, Erwin reflects, distantly, calmly. He covers Levi’s ears with his palm. He doesn’t want him to hear that it was inside him – he knows how much that will disgust him, terrify him. He resists the urge to press a kiss to his temple, to gently rock him here, safe and warm in his arms. He shuts his eyes.

Mike’s hand is on his shoulder. “Commander,” he says, lowly. “We need to move.”

Erwin blinks at him. He can see it in his eyes, the pleading. Erwin is their leader, isn’t he? Didn’t he want this? He asked for it. This is a hell of his own making, so he should own it. Other men are allowed to clutch their lovers close – Erwin is not other men.

“Take him,” Erwin orders, even though it pains him, Levi’s limp body being prised from his arms. He hands Mike his cloak, tells him to wrap him in it, to deliver him home safely. He stands, holsters his gear to his hips, inhales, deeply, and releases: “Retreat!” He bellows into the sky. “All forces, retreat!”

“What happened?” Mike asks him, later. Their sad, pathetic forces trooping through the gate of Trost, humanity’s new last stand. “Why did he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Erwin lies. The orphans on the street are watching him, he thinks. All their hostile eyes. “I hit my head. I was dazed.” He nods, repeats the lie to himself. “Yes,” he mutters, “yes, that’s what happened. I hit my head. I wasn’t myself. I just wasn’t thinking.”

Note: from Erwin’s POV after the fall of wall Maria. He is struggling and mentally unwell and scared on Levi’s behalf but also resentful of him too, and doesn’t quite know why

He’s thinking about his mother, this evening, in a way he rarely does. The long months, after his father had died, her sitting in her chair. It had scared him. The fear had turned into something else, eventually – resentment, anger. Disgust. He couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t just… how she couldn’t just…

There are people relying on him, now. Not children, thank God, but other people, real people, who chose him, who need him. There’s a whole world that needs him. They look at him like he has answers. He doesn’t have answers. He’s never had answers. Fraud. Charlatan. Freak. Man with ideas too big for his head, that’s what he is. Like a child. All this time, pretending, playing at war. It’s what he wanted, isn’t it? War? For people to see, to understand. And he would – would charge heroically into the fray...

He thinks about an old man he’d seen, armed with a pitchfork. It was a waste of tools. The order had been to try and salvage as much scrap metal as they could, after. The metal is still worth something. The humans not so much. This old man, with a limp, had run yelling into the leg of a titan. Stuck it in the knee. Goddamn, what did he think? That he would be a hero, too? Erwin had screamed at him, from atop his high horse. He’d lost him in the scramble. He didn’t see what happened, really, but knows he’s dead.

Hero. What is a hero? No, Erwin doesn’t need to think about it, he knows the answer. A man who dives head-first into a titan – that’s a hero. Fearless. Strong. Selfless. Levi. His Levi, yes? Maybe Levi should be Commander. Maybe… maybe…

The sun slips lower in the sky. These halls are empty. Oh, Erwin is fortunate – he still has his Levi, and Mike, and Hange. They still have Nanaba, and Moblit. There are other survivors: little Petra, Oluo, some others. There is much work to be done. They need to build up their ranks, as a matter of priority. Erwin needs to start lying, and lying well: devote your heart! Humanity needs you! Yes, yes. He bores himself thinking it. What was it, he had told Levi, all those years ago? Lend me your strength! Hah. Levi must be – he must be as stupid as the rest of them, to believe him. To still believe him, or in him, or whatever it is, exactly.

Erwin doesn’t want to be believed in. He would like to be loved, like a normal man, like a real human.

He stares at the framed portrait, mother and father and little Erwin, all three are dead now in their own ways. Erwin is dead, his body doesn’t know it yet, but he’s dead. “You stupid prick,” he tells his father. “You stupid fucking prick, putting those ideas in my head. You selfish bastard, you – you – how hard would it have been, to say, I don’t know. I don’t know, Erwin. Perhaps we can think about it when you’re older. Loving the sound of – the sound of your own voice,” he sneers at the portrait.

“And you,” he spits at his mother. “You — you — lying there, like a dead thing, like a washed up animal, you — drinking, and dying, and staring, and — giving me your — both of you, giving me your sickness, and — “

There’s something in that, Erwin thinks. Levi is — Levi is so fortunate, to have nothing, and he doesn’t even realise. No one poured their sickness into Levi intentionally. Even that rat bastard Kenny had the good sense to leave him before it was too late, before he sunk his teeth in the way only family can. Levi is so very lucky and he doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t even know it!

Erwin needs to save him. Levi. He is Levi’s only family, yes? Well, he needs to — stop it, before he rips and tears into Levi’s skin and fills up the holes with himself, with his sickness, his — addictions, and melancholy, and guilts. Levi doesn’t need that. Levi needs… he should be free somewhere, happy somewhere, doing something, or nothing, subsisting. Levi would like to subsist, Erwin thinks — he might think he was just surviving, instead of living, and then he wouldn’t feel so damn guilty about enjoying himself all the damn time. Hah, Levi would be happy if he could just… some farm, Erwin thinks. Oh, the lake. He would like a lake. A red door, which is so… innocent, Erwin thinks. Green sheets. How could Erwin give that to him? Well, he’d have to give him up. But Erwin is dead — dead men can’t have anything. He gave Levi up the moment he set foot outside the wall with thousands sick and starving men and women and watched them eaten alive.

[Levi hasn’t heard from Erwin in a while; comes to his room to clean him up]

“Are you – are you stupid, Levi?” He slurs, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth. “Is that why you’re here? Hmm? You think – you think I’m somethin’ special, somethin’ worth saving – “

Levi pulls open his shirt, briskly. “Shut up,” he tells him shortly, “you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“You must be stupid,” Erwin sneers. “You must be, throwing yourself in front of that titan, nearly getting your leg bit off. And – and Jansen,” he mocks, and it’s gratifying to see him flinch, slightly, so Erwin knows he’s not some fearless wonder, “staying with me, after what I did, after what I practically let him do to you, goaded him into it. Then that damn titan,” he hiccups, “jumping into it’s belly. What was that? You wanted to – to play hero? You should’ve let it eat me,” he gets out in a rush. “We’d all be happier for it – “

Levi is just angry, he thinks. He turns away and starts to drag the tub out of Erwin’s closet. “I don’t appreciate self-indulgence,” he tells him, shortly. “Keep it to yourself.”

“To my – myself,” Erwin whispers, scrubs his hand over his face. He tries to think of something else. “Y’ know – “ he says, lurching up onto his feet, taking one, unsteady step forward, “ – he told me, what you did. Crying out my name like that, like a – like a baby,” he scoffs, head spinning. “Like you thought I could help you, how could you think that? Why would you think that? Why – “

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Levi mutters, thickly. Erwin can’t see his face, eyes covered by his hair. “Just get in the damn bath.”

“You did,” Erwin tells him, losing his balance as he tries to pull one leg into the tub. Levi props him up, rights him. “You cried and cried and cried, didn’t you? Like a damn – like a damn baby. Crybaby Levi,” he sneers, “Like I could help you,” he says, incredulously. “You would do it after, did you know that? When you were sleeping. Erwin, please, help me, Erwin, don’t leave me, Erwin,” he mocks, and stares down at his knees, lifts his bloody hands in front of his face. “That was my fault,” he says, absently. “And I never told you. I didn’t want to… to upset you, I…”

Levi tips the bucket of water of his head. It’s warm. He definitely doesn’t deserve the trouble Levi has gone to, getting him warm water. The things he’s saying, all these things – and Levi is still here. Why won’t he leave? What would it take?

“Maybe you are my whore,” he tries. “Is that what this is? Maybe – maybe they were right, all along.”

Levi starts with a rag, wipes up the worst of the sick on his chest.

“Whore,” he tries again, tauntingly. “Doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’ll always come back. Worse than a whore.”

Levi tips more warm water over his skin.

Erwin tries to think of something worse, something he could never think, something that will kick him far away. “Like – like mother like son,” he sneers.

He starts to scrub at the sick in his chest hair.

“Idiot,” Erwin tries. “Stupid little idiot. Stupid – stupid, couldn’t read, couldn’t spell, didn’t know anything about anything except – “ he hiccups “ – how t’kill.”

Levi takes Erwin’s wrist and dips a brush in the soapy, cold water. He starts to scrub, starting under his arm. He needs to – to search deeper, Erwin thinks. Things Levi has never said but he knows he thinks. “Maybe that’s why he left,” Erwin rasps. “Took one look at you and thought, stupid – stupid boy, didn’t he? Left you for rat food.”

Levi drops Erwin’s arm, abruptly, lets it smack against the rim of the tub. Erwin thinks he might have won – but Levi just soaps up the brush again, moves round the other arm. There’s something sick growing inside him, he thinks, worse than sick: it’s like putrid mulch, sewage, bile that spreads out from his heart through his veins, infecting him.

A beat. “You’re not yourself,” is all Levi says, bluntly. He seems to resolve himself.

Erwin beats his own thigh with frustration. “Idiot,” he barks, “stupid idiot.”

“Shut up, Erwin,” Levi says, wearily. He’s started to scrub at his shoulders.

“Pathetic. Desperate. Staying with me, why else would you stay with me – “

Levi wrenches his head down, brutally, pours water over his hair. It drips down Erwin’s face. He realises, he thinks he might be crying, but the water hides it. He tries to think of something else. “So you – you think you’re a hero?” He croaks. “You think you’re better than me? You think just because – because…”

He’s running out of things to say. What other insecurities does he have left? What other gaps in Levi’s armour? He tries to imagine someone else saying these things and it makes him want to tear out his hair. Pathetic, worthless, he thinks about himself. Spineless coward. Just tell him. Tell him: go. Leave me. Never come back. But he won’t do that, will he? PATHETIC! He thinks. COWARD! WORTHLESS! He won’t say to him, leave me, because he wants Levi to never leave. He’ll push and push until he finds his limit, test him, scare him away. But he’ll never tell him to leave, will he? Because he’s selfish. A selfish, tiny excuse of a man, who hasn’t got the balls to say, go, save yourself, Levi, before I destroy you too.

Too selfish. Too selfish to let him go, cowardly enough just to push him as far as he can.

His hands are quite gentle as they scrub his scalp. What did he do to deserve such gentleness? He’s poked at every wound Levi has – he knows where they are, because he’s coaxed them out of him for years, wrapped them with soft bandages, tried to heal them, even, years upon years’ worth of trust. Why is he still being gentle? Erwin was never gentle. The first time they ever – Erwin did not want to treat him gently. He wanted to take him and possess him, tame him, even, that’s what he thought he was going to do. He was going to tame him, like a pet. And now – now he’s washing his hair, so gently, even though Erwin doesn’t deserve it, and it’s all the proof he needs that Levi is better than him, better than he’ll ever be, and you can’t tame someone who is so above you – 

“Hah,” Erwin says, absently, “what am I saying, why am I surprised? You never – never lied about it, I should have known from the start that you were – were desperate. All those words I use. You – you like it, when I call you sweetheart, darling, pretty, good boy. I should’ve known. Nothing I’ll do will kick you away. I – I killed them,” Erwin announces, “I killed the only friends you ever had, and even then, you still climbed into bed with me – “

Levi scrubs harder.

“Good boy,” Erwin mocks, “beautiful boy,” he sneers. “With your fucking — ears, with those strange little eyes, who could ever believe me but you? Why do you — believe me, always — “

“Alright,” Levi says, roughly, “yeah, you’re a real piece of shit, I get it. Stop twitching, you’re getting your sick-filled bathwater all over me.”

“But you would believe me,” Erwin muses out loud, cruelly. “You’d probably believe anyone, wouldn’t you? That’s — that’s what stupid people are like. Or desperate ones. And you’re both, I suppose, I’ve always known that. Worse than stupid — just a terminal lack of curiosity, Levi, don’t you think? It’s not even your fault. There’s just nothing in the world that interests you at all. No thoughts in your head, really.”

He hears Levi sit back on his heels. “Nah,” he says, “no, that’s not true.”

Erwin looks over his shoulder, meets Levi’s eyes. He’s frowning, slightly. Erwin watches the wrinkle between his brows, the slope of his nose, his flat eyes. Men have killed for those eyes, he thinks, and doesn’t know why he thinks it. The laughter starts in his stomach, burbles past his lips. He watches Levi move from confusion to anger. The tips of his ears are red. “Quit laughing,” he demands. “Quit that, Erwin.”

“Terminal — terminal — terminal lack of curiosity!” Erwin wheezes. “I should’ve known the day you sat there, stuttering out — sentences a child could read — “

“But it was alright,” Levi says, defensively, “people come from all over not knowing how to read, that’s what you said — “

Erwin laughs harder. “And you’re the only person who believes me! No one else believes me like you do!” He wheezes, uses his great barreling laugh, the one only Levi can provoke these days.

“I — wanted to know,” Levi insists, “I’m not — I’m curious, I can be. I wanted to know how to read. I want to know some things, just not all things all the time — “

“Because of me!” Erwin laughs, and spits. “God-fucking-damn, do you think I’m blind?!”

“No, I — don’t laugh at me,” Levi says: asks, in fact. “Don’t laugh at me.”

Erwin laughs, anyway. It’s funny. This is funny. Levi deserves it, in a way. Some — some great hero he is, humanity’s strongest, that’s what they all called him, they all saw it, but Erwin can still laugh at him. “Stupid boy,” Erwin laughs, “ugly boy, stuttering and stammering and not even having — words at all, and still being the only — the only little idiot in these walls to believe me, believe — believe in me — “

“Please don’t laugh at me,” Levi says.

Erwin runs through everything, all the worst things he can say. What more could he say? Well, he could say anything, everything, and it wouldn’t matter. Levi would never leave. People have said those things to him his whole life; he’s thought them his whole life. He’s done nothing but suffer and suffer and Erwin took him and make him suffer some more, but now it’s worse, now it’s willing, Levi is his willing supplicant, his worshipper. Now, Erwin makes Levi suffer — and he must save him, somehow, from all of it. From himself, if he can.

“She must’ve hated you,” Erwin croaks. “She was stupid for even having you, for making you suffer like that. I think – I think the only reason she had you was to watch you suffer, Levi. When you starved. Or in that closet. Or when Finch was beating on you. It must’ve felt good, knowing that the product of – of that was suffering just as much as she was.”

Levi drops the brush into the water, stands, and leaves.

Erwin exhales. It’s very quiet, suddenly. He can hear Levi’s footsteps as they go down the hall, the slight vibration as he walks down the stairs. In the distance, the sound of the door to the officer’s quarters opening and closing. Erwin braces his elbows on his knees, works the last of the soap suds out of his hair and scrapes them off his palm. There, he thinks, emptily. It’s done. Or at least, it should be. He’ll finalise the details in the morning, maybe oversee Levi’s transfer to the Garrison, or the MPs, if he’ll take it. Nile owes him a favour. MPs would be best. As far away from the walls as possible, something cushy, boring. Or maybe he’ll search out Kenny, or Kenny will search out him. Either way, Levi will live out a long life. Perhaps – perhaps he’ll find some other lips to kiss, some other man to hold him at night, when he cries out unknowingly in his sleep. Perhaps he will call that man ‘best beloved’, too. Perhaps that man will actually deserve it.