Work Text:
Nightcall
Erwin Smith had to be many people at once.
The charming high-ranking officer at dinner parties, to ensure proper funding for the Scouts.
The fierce ally to humanity, for every living soul inside the walls.
The trustworthy Commander to all the Scout regiment.
And the attentive lover to Humanity’s Strongest.
The first two made rare appearances nowadays. The Scouts didn’t really mingle much with the civilian population, and dinner parties were no longer seen in a good light after the fall of Wall Maria, two years ago.
The third one was who Erwin had always been and who he was for most of the day. The last one was quite new all things considered, but very much in conflict with his duties as Commander. It was a part of him that constantly threatened to sneak through the cracks of Erwin’s hard exterior, even during the day now, surrounded by their colleagues and subordinates.
But Erwin thrived on control, prided himself on it. And every time he’d ruthlessly push this side of him down, far away from prying eyes, because the last Erwin Smith was also a secret.
Erwin had been successfully keeping that secret for years, keeping his Commander duties firmly separate from his longings as a lover.
But in the end, all it took was a few seconds for his efforts to come crumbling down.
A few seconds in which Levi Ackerman trusted the wrong tree branch, and when his whole weight was on it, it cracked and it broke and Levi ended up in a titan’s waiting palm, much too quickly for anyone to reach him in time.
Erwin shot his grapple towards Levi’s ankle, hoping to snatch him away, but the titan’s fist closed just as the metallic hook reached him and it bounced away.
Levi’s team was on the titan in a second.
Eld slashed the titan’s nape with a yell, while Gunther aimed for the hand tendons. The titan’s fingers loosened their grip around Levi and Petra immediately darted forward to catch him before he fell.
Erwin kicked his horse forward towards Petra, ignoring the tightening in his chest.
“Is he breathing?” he shouted at her as soon as he got close enough.
She had landed on her horse and now was holding Levi in front of her. He looked deadly pale and sweaty.
“Yes,” Petra sounded very close to tears. “But he’s struggling. I think his ribs are broken.”
Erwin quickly looked around. The losses were as expected and the small group of titans they found was almost completely wiped out by now. Only two titans were left and Levi’s team was already on one of them — except for Petra. The mission could go on.
The mission should go on.
He watched as Levi took a ragged breath and his face crumpled in pain. Even then he was quiet, almost as if he knew that letting any sound would make Erwin call off the mission.
In the end, that made the decision much easier.
“RETREAT!”
-
Erwin wanted to take Levi from Petra’s care, wanted to hold him in his arms and actually feel him breathing against him, but he knew he couldn’t. It was already obvious to anyone that Levi was the reason he’d called off the mission. For now he could still claim it was to protect Humanity’s Strongest soldier, it could still pass as a calculated strategy.
So they rode all the way back to Trost without stopping once. Erwin couldn’t quite help the way he kept turning to steal a quick glance at Levi, finding him paler and paler every time he did.
Hanji was already waiting for them when they arrived. They’d stayed behind to finish some of their experiments and since this was supposed to be just a simple recon mission, Erwin had decided to go ahead with it anyways.
“Erwin! So soon? What—”
Petra surpassed the front line and Hanji immediately went pale as soon as they saw Levi. Erwin dismounted his horse and quickly passed the reins to Mike, then went to help Levi off Petra’s horse. He obviously wasn’t in the condition to walk, so Erwin said fuck it to himself and took him in his arms, one holding him behind his knees and the other around his middle.
Levi’s breath hitched as he was moved and Erwin felt his stomach drop a little more.
“Come on,” Hanji said, showing Erwin to the infirmary.
The scouts had a little outpost in every town on the edge of Wall Rose, Trost being the most important as it faced south, and luckily the infirmary was big — which was a sad requirement every time they went on a mission — and well equipped.
Erwin laid Levi down in one of the beds as Hanji quickly ran in the backroom and came back holding a stethoscope. They listened to his lungs as Erwin held his back up, then checked his head. They told him Levi’s head was swelled behind the ear and he had a fever.
“His lungs sound intact, but I have to relieve the pressure in the skull. It’s best if you wait outside.”
Erwin nodded, and went to wait in the corridor, hating himself a little more for every step he took further away from Levi. He stood there, right outside the door, guarding it against ghosts and unwelcome thoughts, eyes unfocused.
His mind was split in two.
His duty as Commander screamed for him to go file mission reports, to plan the next expedition, to come up with another motivational speech to deliver that day after dinner. He knew his soldiers were in dire need of hope, but Erwin had none right now, all of his hope was aimed at the other side of this wooden door pressing against his back. His duty as Levi’s partner was freezing him on the spot, taking over his body, was inevitably eclipsing Erwin’s identity as a Scout.
It should upset him, it should be wrong, but somehow Erwin didn’t care right then. Not when he could lose— no. He wasn’t going to finish that thought. Couldn’t. Levi wasn’t called Humanity’s Strongest for nothing, he will survive this. There could be no other alternative.
Erwin knew himself too well to think he could survive the unthinkable alternative. He knew that he’d crumble and he’d push to prove his father right, but wouldn’t think about humanity anymore.
Because if Levi were today, Erwin’s humanity — what little remained — would die with him.
Erwin counted it a victory that the thought made him afraid for humanity’s sake.
-
Erwin sat beside Levi’s bed.
Levi had bandages around his torso and his head, thicker right behind his left ear. He was pale — he’d always been pale, but it was too much now, he looked almost translucent — and had a thin layer of perspiration on the exposed skin of his shoulders and chest. That was a good sign, Hanji had said. It meant the fever was going down.
Hanji had covered Levi with a blanket reaching the bandages on his ribs, and it covered Levi’s hands too. Erwin selfishly wished it didn’t. Wished he could just reach beneath the fabric and hold his hand, letting Levi borrow his strength through the contact — as if the opposite wouldn’t also be true. But, somehow, in Erwin’s mind, that blanket was an added layer that made it harder to just reach out. Then a terrible thought occurred to him, this truly could be the last time he held Levi’s hand and he was going to let the opportunity pass because he was too much of a coward.
So, Erwin took Levi’s damn hand and held it tight.
He held it for hours, even while he checked Levi’s bandages. Even when his eyelids started falling shut from exhaustion. Even when holding it became unbearingly painful.
Sometime during the night, a voice called his name. Softly, then more clearly.
“Eyebrows.”
Erwin’s eyes shot open and he startled awake. The first thing he became aware of was a sharp pain in his neck and he winced, but then he saw Levi staring at him, amused and very much awake, and all thoughts about neck pain went straight out of the window.
“Levi,” he rasped and Levi’s hand twitched in his grasp. “How are you feeling?”
“What do you think?” He said through clenched teeth.
“That bad, huh?”
Erwin checked for a fever with his free hand but Levi’s temperature seemed normal, thankfully. He still looked much paler than his normal complexion but was coherent, which was a godsend with a head injury. Erwin looked out of the window and saw it was almost dawn, so several hours had passed since Hanji had operated on him. Still… for Levi to have recovered that much was truly remarkable.
Levi didn’t answer out loud but it was all there, in his tightly controlled breathing and the way his eyes squinted rhythmically, as if he was experiencing waves of pain, which was very likely both for the head injury and the broken ribs.
Levi never showed when he was hurting. An outsider would say Levi wasn’t showing much of a reaction now, but Erwin knew him better than that. His anxiety kicked up a notch, but he did his best not to let it show. It wasn’t what Levi needed right now.
Still holding on to Levi’s hand, Erwin grabbed a damp cloth and gently wiped Levi’s face. There was old blood and dirt still crusting on his skin and Erwin knew how much Levi hated that. He cleaned him in silence for a long time, not really knowing what to say now that Levi was awake, but still feeling like the responsibility to break the silence laid on him.
“You have something to say.”
In the end, it was Levi that talked first. And it really shouldn’t have been, but Levi had always been brave in a way that Erwin never could be. Strong in a way Erwin found too painful to imitate.
“How do you know?”
Levi’s lips twitched. “It’s in your eyebrows. They always betray you.”
Erwin gave a faint snort. “Maybe they’re a more reliable source than me, if you want to know what’s on my mind.”
“Oh, that they are,” Levi agreed, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. “You still need to spit it out, though.”
Erwin frowned, initially trying to rinse the dirty cloth, but letting it go pretty fast. The water was too dirty for Levi’s taste, no doubt about that.
“Hanji said you have three broken ribs and you also managed to crack open that thick head of yours.” Levi gave him a half smile that disappeared just as quickly as it had formed. Erwin continued, giving him a brief rundown of what Hanji had told him before going to sleep, “Your fever is gone, your ribs will heal slowly and you have to be monitored for the head injury, in case the swelling returns.”
Levi didn’t react. He didn’t even blink and Erwin knew he was used to risking his life to follow his Commander’s orders, but god fucking damn it, Erwin couldn’t handle it. Not right then, with a long road of recovery ahead of them.
But still, Levi’s stare didn’t waver. His eyes were deep blue, two midnight suns that pierced flesh and bones to get to a person’s soul, whether that person was willing or not.
Erwin looked down at his hands, letting go of Levi’s comforting warmth. He was a brave man for many things, but not for this.
He stood, looking towards the doors.
“Hanji should give you more poppy extract. I should wake them up.”
“Later. Now talk.”
Erwin raised an eyebrow. “Are you giving me an order?”
Levi gritted his teeth. The guilt was crushing Erwin’s chest.
“I’m trying to get you to say whatever the fuck you need to get off your chest before you end up doing something you’ll regret.”
“Like what?”
“Like leaving.”
And there it was again. Levi’s words cut as precisely as his blades, slashing open Erwin’s anger, his guilt, his pain. His cowardice.
Erwin sat back down, closing his eyes and willing his feelings back under control, but it was too late. The turmoil was too great, Levi’s words had cut too deep, creating an avalanche of things that once were tightly locked inside the appropriate compartment.
He wasn’t all those people anymore, he was only one human, crumbling in front of the man he loved as easily as tissue paper under the rain.
Erwin’s voice was barely a whisper when he talked next.
“I’ve made my peace years ago that I could lose you during a mission. I am prepared for it, as much as anyone can be prepared for such a thing. But the mission was always vital for humanity’s sake, the key to our victory. An honorable death. This was—”
As always, Levi was the one to go where he couldn’t, not if he wasn’t guided or — in this case — pushed.
“Fucking stupid,” Levi finished for him, with a laugh that turned into a grimace. “Fuck, laughing hurts like a motherfucker.”
Erwin laughed too, bitter and rueful.
“A rotten branch,” Erwin said, not knowing anymore if he was still laughing or crying as his eyes began to sting. “I can’t lose you to a fucking rotten branch, Levi.”
Levi didn’t say anything. He offered his hand again, trembling and pale and blood stained, and Erwin took it like a lifeline, bringing their joined hands to his forehead.
For a while, they stayed like that. A moment frozen in time, except for the tears that ran down Erwin’s face and the controlled breaths Levi was letting out.
Erwin knew how selfish he was being, knew he’d always been selfish, but especially now for not controlling himself enough to fully be there for Levi when he literally was fighting for his every breath. Levi, ever the dutiful soldier, forcing his lungs to take the air they needed over and over again even though it hurt. And the pain will fade with time, but Erwin knew that if it didn’t, Levi would still fight tooth and nail against it because that was what duty commanded of him.
That was what his Commander wanted from him.
Erwin had never quite hated himself so much as he did in this moment.
“Always the one with a plan for every scenario,” Levi said. His tone was kind, much kinder than Erwin deserved. “Ever think that I might die of a stroke while taking a shit?”
Shocked, Erwin let out a little snort of laughter.
Then another. Then another and another, and then he was fully laughing at the absurdity of Levi’s words, at his typical crudeness and his bluntness. He raised his head, finally looking up at Levi again, and saw he was smiling too, and oh, how his heart ached at the sight.
“You can’t predict every variable, Erwin. You know that better than I do.”
Levi’s tone was much softer, though his words were still sharp with the truth they carried.
“I know.”
Erwin had always known that sooner or later he’d have to face the consequences of his actions, but he’d never thought they’d be at Levi’s expense. In his head, Levi had always been this infallible soldier that no titan could defeat, a version that made it much easier to put Levi in the front lines when he was also Erwin’s lover.
But Levi was just human, as was he.
And that was a painful truth that Erwin had to learn how to live with.
“Erwin, it’s okay. This was my choice,” Levi said and he truly was Humanity’s Strongest in every way there was.
Erwin nodded, bending down to kiss Levi’s forehead and then his lips.
Maybe the guilt would follow Erwin everywhere, a shadow that also carried each and every soldier that had ever died under his command, but it was okay. He’d learn how to shoulder it, to make it a part of him and grow with it, the way Levi did.
So for the next several weeks, Erwin decided to spend every free second he had by Levi’s side. He went to his meetings and then filed all his paperwork right there, beside Levi’s bed, and then helped with Levi’s recovery as much as he could.
It hurt. Some days were worse than others, but they both took it day by day.
The guilt made it impossible for his identity to still be fractured. He was just one person now, Erwin Smith, Commander and companion, and that would have to be enough. There was a rank to it, he still had to be Commander first, but they would make it work because when Humanity’s Strongest showed you how to be strong, you listened and learned.
Slowly, they rebuilt their strength together, Levi’s body and Erwin’s mind, leaning on one another and growing together and Erwin realized that maybe he’d never be ready for the possibility of Levi’s death. But, there really wasn’t a way to change that.
Maybe that was okay too. It would have to be.
For Levi.