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The ground was freezing over and he was feeling guilty again.
It wasn’t right to make the horse go with Levi back to Shiganshina, but there was no other way. There was no reason to waste its life like that. He snorted at the thought that maybe it would be the last life ruined by the war. Unlikely. If he knew anything, he knew the stains blood left on people, dead or alive. It would follow them for generations. Still, Levi was selfish, he always had been. He had managed to ruin more lives than he should have been capable of, bared blood and skin to the raw air, cut flesh to ribbons and brought death wherever he went. If I hadn’t wanted it , he thought, if I really never craved violence and reveled in it, then why does it keep happening? Why does destruction come at my call? Why can’t I stop it? He wanted to outrun it for once, to turn his back against what he could only believe was some part of himself. That led him here, mounting his horse at dusk in the bitter end of the year, hoping he wouldn’t return.
When the horse was packed, he set out towards the gate straight away. Nobody would question his leave, he had made sure of that. No one dead nor the few left alive could stop him now. The snow beneath them was still untrodden and unblemished, having only fallen that afternoon. It stuck to his boots as he mounted his horse and marked a darkened path behind them. The snow gave way to dead grass beneath, dark enough in the evening haze to give the impression of blood. Levi looked away, disgust roiling in his stomach. He wondered if the ground remembered those who walked on it, who died on it, who mourned on it. If no one else remembered, perhaps the earth would. That would be enough.
The movement of the horse felt natural beneath him, the horizon freed to his vision once he had left the fort gates. Levi looked to the stars, the stars that astounded him in their sheer numbers every time he left the walls. It seemed the instant the walls had passed behind him the sky opened up and revealed itself to him, new darkness with new light. He had thought that the first time he had seen the free sky outside Wall Rose- the stars never seemed any different, not dulled by everything that had happened below them.
He refocused on the path before him though he was not nearly as used to traveling this sort of distance on his own out here; normally it would have felt wrong to be out like this without a group of jittery soldiers beside him, but tonight nothing felt like anything at all.
Every landmark he passed reminded him, reminded him of him , and all too fast the oxygen seemed to drain from his lungs, and suddenly the sky that had felt so perfectly open just a moment before was closing in on him. The blackness of the night only accentuated his white-knuckled grip on the reins, tight enough to block circulation.
A muddled combination of memories and nightmares seemed pulled taught in his brain as the freezing fresh air set in. The war was over, wasn’t it? But there were still plenty of monsters to deal with, still work he had to do. And yet. And yet here he was, panting clouds of breath to the moon as though it could tell him something, give him some sign that what he was doing wasn’t wrong. Would he care if it was? Would that stop him? Could anything stop him? He had always been too stubborn to be persuaded out of things. Levi hadn’t generally been the more stubborn one between them, though. You’re still the most stubborn person I know. He had laughed then. Before you, no one competes. Levi couldn’t remember how it sounded anymore, not really, just how it made him feel. He couldn’t remember his voice, could he? He was forgetting.
Something hot and angry started to rise in Levi’s throat at the memory, so he slowed his horse a bit alongside old oak and reached for his flask. He wasn’t generally much of a drinker, but he could use the heat if not the distraction. He knew this tree, he realized, heart dropping. Today it was December 24th and the tree was bare and skeletal, thin brittle fingers reaching for the sky in desperate strokes of the wind, but in summer this tree was beautiful. Back when they had still been based in Emrich (god, that seemed like eons ago), the corps had managed a huge mapping expedition towards the Karanes and Krolva regions just a few months after Trost was secured. He had brought Levi here because of its vantage straight across to Wall Maria.
“That close. You can nearly see the gate to Shiganshina, just southwest. We’ll make it there soon, I can feel it. Can’t you?”
They had stayed below that tree for nearly an hour while the others settled at camp. He had collected acorns from the tree while Levi watched, rolling his eyes as he planted them in the surrounding few meters.
“They can’t be too close or they won’t be able to grow under the other tree- it’ll block out the light. There could be a small grove here in half a century.”
Levi could see a few of the straggling little saplings now, bent under the weight of the snow. They had made it. He almost smiled at that. He looked out across the hills towards the wall, nearly able to see that seemingly untouched grass leaning softly with the breeze, almost able to feel the sunlight melting through the trees onto his face.
But he couldn’t. It was gone now, a memory fading like every other. Still, he couldn’t seem to tear himself away.
The air was cold and dry as old bone and the dark before dawn was deadening. The cold razed his nose until it bled. Levi cursed as the blood trickled down his face, grabbing a handful of snow to soak it up. Once the bleeding was stopped and cleaned up, he took another swig from his flask, not looking back out towards Maria. The liquor burned. It reminded him he was still alive, for however long that would last. Pain meant life. It always had the comfort in it, a truth that couldn’t be faked, and if he deserved nothing else Levi figured he could give himself that one truth.
—
Hours passed as he rode on. His hands grew numb and then beyond numb and Levi felt some slight concern that he might not make it to Shiganshina at all. At this rate he would freeze to death. This time of year wasn’t meant for long travel or expeditions, but this year was warmer than the last at the very least, so he had taken his chance. And he was so very selfish, how could he have passed up such an opportunity?
The more he drank the more the world began to fall silent. Nothing here for him but whitewashed land and the stars for miles and miles. Nothing here for him. He finally felt warm. Not that kind of physical warmth that comes from a fresh fire but a dull burn working through his core. It burned and burned until he could feel it in every tensed nerve and muscle, bringing back some feeling from the crippling cold.
It was good at first, despite its gnawing at his heart, the warmth seemed worth it. He wished the fire was real so he could get some light from it as the moon waned above him and left the route before him bathed only in shadow. He thought about that tree, about the look on his face when he had looked out at the wall. The hand that had pulled Levi closer through the dappled light, the feeling of his laugh while Levi was pressed against his chest. That stupid fucking tree.
He wanted to see the sun more than anything at that moment, to feel warmth rather than this fire. The stirring inside him had grown to a painful roar, no longer the liquor’s comfort but some panicked twisting of his own body fighting against what he wanted. He wondered if it knew somehow, if it knew what he was going to do. Why would it fight? But it did. It was strong, too strong, stronger than him. He wanted to see the sun, to abandon this self-lit flame that was tearing him apart. Levi wouldn’t last long like this. A new lash of grief broke across him at the thought he might not see the sun again. This was what he deserved, he supposed. To die in darkness. To be born in darkness, to die in it. It seemed to be where he belonged. Besides, what good had come of the light? What good had come of him?
He tried to push it down, control it, but it only seemed to absorb the desperate attempts at control. He couldn’t breathe again. Everything was silent, oppressively and perfectly silent, a hard noiselessness filling his head. Am I drowning? Levi thought thickly, clawing at his chest as if he could rip that fire out of him. I can’t fix it, it's in me. It's in me, it is me now.
Levi brought his horse to a stop with the little energy he could muster, but everything was spinning and he couldn’t see straight and he couldn’t see and he was falling. His wrist caught in the reins for a moment, sending a shock of pain up his arm. With a gasp he managed to yank it free, tumbling towards the frozen ground. He was falling and it hurt and everything hurt and it was cold. It was so fucking cold.
And then he stopped falling. The ground slammed against his back, forcing his lungs to open up again to gasp for air. The relief that the fall was over hit him harder than anything physical ever could. The stars filled his vision, perfectly solid in the sky, the packed earth perfectly solid under his back, and Levi knew he couldn’t ever be whole like that. Not anymore. He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry and scream and break something and hurt something but he didn’t. He just laid on his back as the wind exhaled through the grove of trees off to one side of him, dragging his matted hair off his forehead. Pathetic. Pathetic. Get up, you’re pathetic.
Levi curled onto his side, the snow burning against his too-hot cheek. His horse snorted and paced in confusion at his back, but he couldn’t find the energy to stand again. He turned his eyes to the horizon, tilting the black sky behind him into an orange haze as the sun rose. The stars faded as he lay there, too slowly for him to identify when he couldn’t see them anymore. They just slipped from his grasp as easily as they had come. Once the sun gazed brightly at him above the low treeline, Levi took a deep breath and sat up. The guilt of dragging his horse into this welled inside him again as he remounted, taking a moment to get his bearings in the new light. There were worse things for the animal; many were hurt or killed in battle. He’d always felt they deserved better than people, certainly better than him. His horse had never hurt someone, never betrayed him. His horse had been one of Levi’s favorites; Miche had always joked that it liked Levi more than its owner. It was a beautiful animal with a bright white coat and an entirely unflinching demeanor, not dissimilar to its owner. It had died with him, he assumed. Levi’s own horse had made it, as had he. He wished he hadn’t. No one else would suffer from him.
—
The dawn grew into morning and the morning grew into just past noon before Levi reached Shiganshina.
The gate stood identical to every other gate, every other wall, every other rubble sheathed monstrosity between here and the rest of the world. He couldn’t seem to find anything to feel about it; the gnawing pit the fire had left in the bottom of his stomach seemed to be rapidly pulling at him more and more, drawing Levi in on himself. He wondered if he could die from this alone, folding in on himself.
One time he had made Levi a paper crane, small enough to have fit threefold in Levi’s palm. He had teased him about wasting time on it then, but his thanks had been sincere. Levi hadn’t dared unfold it at all, half out of fear he wouldn’t be able to refold it correctly and half out of reverent preservation of the effort that had gone into it. It was long lost now. Just like him. Levi wasn’t entirely sure who that thought referred to anymore.
He couldn’t decide where to leave the horse. He could leave it before the gates (probably the best thing for the horse), but then he would have to walk his way to that house. The idea of that didn’t fully sink in, reduced to a pinprick of confusion compared to the swelling tide of memory. He was standing in a vision exclusive to his nightmares after all these years. That bright, blood-soaked day he had been the one to decide it was a good enough place for him to rest. All he could see was his blood. Levi never could clean it off himself, it was still stained onto his palms. He could almost see it.
He decided he could walk, for the horse. When he was younger, most of his time had been spent walking. Before ODM gear, before horses and open fields and the sun on his face, he would sit on the roofs of crumbling grey buildings in the underground and look out across the dark subterranean horizon. “I like looking out at where I need to go, and then saying, ‘that’s not a far walk,’ and then just walking there, ” Levi dimly remembered drunkenly explaining to Furlan during one particularly late night on the roof of their apartments. Levi missed how the light from the street lamps would reflect in Furlan’s pale eyes when he turned to him with that challenge of an inquisitive look, a smile only moments away depending on how Levi responded. He missed the scowl that Isabel would give him when he pulled her away from every animal she found on the street (all of which she was impassioned to save). Levi missed the constant bickering between the two of them from the main room, he missed the hair ties he had gotten used to wearing on his wrist for Isabel, he missed the scattered documents and pen ink that always seemed to trail in Furlan’s wake no matter how many times he was reminded to clean it up. He missed them. Levi wondered if they were out there somewhere, if they knew what he was doing. If they cared. If they were disappointed.
Watching the horse run off into the distance made everything feel real. It was just Levi and the perfectly empty city now, and it was just as quiet as he had dreamed it would be. Crossing the gate itself was easy enough, the low gap through the base of the mechanism that should have lifted the gate was a hole big enough to fit through without going over or through the wall- he realized how stupid it had been to go in without ODM gear. He was sure the crews had cleared out all the titans, but hell knew how long it would take him to walk now. He brushed himself off, glancing around the wreckage that had burned into his mind so perfectly years ago.
The city was just as it had been left. From the gate there was a direct shot of leveled land down the center, torn up brick and remnants of buildings grown into each other, laced together with snow-coated vine and grass. Two shrikes eyed him from their perches in a deadened rose bush that had been just missed by the destruction. The only signs that the bush would produce flowers were the raw, spindly thorns the lushness had left in its wake. One of the birds had impaled a small mouse in a thorn, limp and white against the grey of the dead shrubbery. The arches of stone and wood that remained around the rows of destroyed houses stood like pale ribs clawing up towards the grey sky.
Levi knew his way there better than he knew himself; it was a trail he trekked nearly every night while he slept. He walked the path past the upturned church with the graveyard in the back- it had miraculously survived quite well besides the house beside it that had collapsed and scattered debris across it. He could make out the bumps of headstones in the snow. He was close now, another row of destroyed houses with picket roofs and destroyed terraces, past the school with all the windows blown out and chipping white paint on the siding. Well, it had been only chipping before, but it was nearly all gone now, revealing the bowing dark wood and the inwardly creasing roof. Levi stopped for a moment at the corner, staring straight ahead. Hange had been with him last time, helped Levi carry him across the room, pulled Levi back out to go home. He hadn’t wanted to leave. He’d hit them, hoping he could hurt them enough that they would just let him stay. It hadn’t worked then, but he was back anyway. They would be upset with him for this, at how fucking selfish he was being. Levi stared up to the unmoved sky.
It was still just after noon when he entered the house. Levi didn’t recognize any of the downstairs, he had been too blinded to pay any attention to the abandoned home. He stood just inside the door, looking at the dark stains on the stairs from the landing, visible in the light from the dusty windows. There was nothing to feel. There was nothing to regret. There was nothing to do.
He climbed the rotting stairs too slowly. He stopped again when he could see the bedroom door. The window at the landing let light soak down across the dust and stained wood, perfectly ignorant of the blood still seeping into the floorboards. Levi couldn’t hear anything besides his own breath, the faint rustle and creak of the ruined town around him muffled inside. He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t even feel himself breathing. He couldn’t feel.
The door was unlocked. The haze seemed to clear from his head as it clicked and swung open as though it had been waiting for him to come back. Levi could feel again.
Erwin. Everything hit him at once then, bright and sharp and hard as a blade. It smelled like blood and rotten flowers, only growing stronger as he stumbled closer towards the bed. He dropped his bag beside the bedframe and slumped beside it, shaking so hard he could barely breathe.
Everything happened too fast. The wood and mattress dug into his back as Levi curled in on himself, ducking his head between his knees. He realized he was crying. Levi had cried when he had left Erwin there, but not like this, not the desperate, terrible sobs that racked his whole body. He pulled Erwin’s cape around himself, shivering and trying to breathe. Erwin. Levi dug his fingernails into his scalp, pulling at his hair. If he hurt enough Erwin had to come back. He wouldn’t leave him like this, he wouldn’t. He’d been there before, why wouldn’t he come back?
—
He’ll come back, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to.
Kenny had him kill another person for the first time when he was ten.
He's dead. You killed him on purpose and he can’t come back.
—
Did you really have to?
He killed a man by accident for the first time when he was thirteen. He hadn’t meant to.
I didn’t know. I thought… I didn’t know.
—
Levi wasn’t a child, he’d hardly ever been. He knew Erwin couldn’t come back, that it wasn’t about him, that he couldn’t do anything. It didn’t make Levi want him back any less. He wanted him back more badly than any logic could refute. He wanted to hear his voice again, just one more time, one last soft conversation or passionate ramble about something he had read about the day before. Anything would be better than the silence Levi had been drowning in for five years.
Levi didn’t know how long he cried. He thought he was going to pass out, to die right there, but he didn’t. When he could think again, could see through his tears, he stood. Levi took a few breaths before turning toward the window, focusing intently on it. It was as filthy as the one on the landing but he could tell the sun had come out. He managed to push it open, shuddering at the grime slicking onto his hands. Disgusting. He half wished he had time to clean the whole room. The sunlight was beautiful. It poured into the window, casting a soft warm light across the room.
Levi felt the vase on the bedside table and picked it up, dumping the long rotted Edelweiss he had left years ago. The soft white petals had crumpled and fallen, one by one. Only the wilted stem remained now, grey and dehydrated.
Levi had made it a habit to point out the flowers to Erwin any time he’d seen them; they only grew in the hardest terrain, high in the rocky edges of hills or in dry basins, but they stood out fantastically like little white stars in the hellscape outside the walls. One time Erwin had found him something near a bouquet of them while they were on leave in a small town in the Utopia District, disappearing for half the morning with no explanation only to return with an apology and a perfectly tied bundle of the flowers. He’d refused to explain where he had gotten them, to Levi’s dismay, but had simply given them to Levi, restraining a proud smile. Levi managed to tuck one behind Erwin’s ear when he wasn’t looking later that day.
Levi dumped the remains of the flower out the window, placing the vase back on the end table. The sun blinded him for a moment as he looked out the window, steeling himself. It was truly almost beautiful out now. Somewhere, birds were calling back and forth.
He’d thought about this moment too much, dreamt it much more. More nightmares than dreams, visions of… this. Levi took one last breath out the window and turned towards the bed. The darkness of old blood. The deep, faded green of Levi’s cloak over his body. A glimpse of sun-bleached hair. Erwin had such lovely hair. It curled softly when it was wet and got so light in the sunny months. He felt lightheaded. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t scare him. It didn’t shatter the narrow bridge he had kept to life; coming here had done that.
Levi settled back beside the bed, pulling his bag towards him. He didn’t feel afraid or upset anymore, not when he was so close. He wondered if anyone had begun to question his absence yet. Maybe no one would, maybe he would fade out of the memories of those who still remained to remember him.
Levi unclasped the cloak from around himself, folding it so the fabric on which he had sewn Erwin’s patch faced up. It had been carefully protected, always kept on the inside of the cape just over Levi’s heart. Armin had helped him repair one of the edges the year before, not asking why Levi insisted on still wearing that retired part of the uniform in a size that was obviously too big.
“You’d be proud of him,” Levi said to no one, looking at nothing at all. “Arlet’s grown quite a lot. He still doesn’t understand that no one expects him to be you, though.” Levi smiled a little, his lips cracking from the cold. He let the silence refill the room, pulling the cloak tightly against his chest. It somehow seemed warmer than it should have, warmer than he was. Levi tilted his head toward the bag again, the sun from the window glinting softly off the metal inside.
He hadn’t used this knife since he had joined the Survey Corps, though he’d slept with it under his pillow for the first few years. That felt like another life, though maybe no less alone. Kenny’s first and only gift to him was as clean and sharp as if it had never been used, but Levi knew much better than that. He assured himself that at least it would be the last time.
“Why did you promise?” Levi whispered, staring at his lap, far too exhausted to cry and not nearly numb enough to recover. “Why did you promise to be alright?” He ran his hand delicately over the patch on the cloak, going over and over every plaited stitch. Grey, blue, white, grey. Grey, blue, white, grey. Grey, blue, white, grey. His mother had taught him patterns to whisper to himself while she was working. Not too loud, ignore the noise, stay in the other room until she comes to get you. Grey, blue, white, grey. She always sent him out for food after she was done; he had returned once before she had stopped crying. Grey, blue, white, grey.
Pain was a truth. The knife was hot in his skin against the cold that had penetrated the world around him. He sunk the blade into his stomach and it felt like being found again. It began to snow while Levi bled onto the floor. He smiled.
There was enough strength in him to stand at the window for a moment, not minding how the windowsill stained crimson under his hands. The snow bluffed softly against his face and arms, melting the moment it touched him. Levi wanted to see the sun one more time. He wouldn’t, he would have to wait. “It’s my birthday, Erwin.”
—
Levi could almost hear him laugh again now. He wondered if he would be upset with him for being like this. The snow burned. He was so cold.
He had already wrapped himself in Erwin’s cloak and sat shivering at the foot of the bed. It was hardly green anymore, blood branching up to stain the fabric. Erwin's bones looked surreal now that he really looked at them. He had less experience with skeletons than flesh and blood. It was strange to see Erwin looking so different. Still beautiful. Erwin had always been so beautiful. The pain had overridden his nervous system by now and it hardly hurt to stand again. It didn’t matter what it caused. This time he didn’t need to make it back; this time he didn't need to live for anyone. All those he’d ever lived for were dead. Blood dripped to the floor as he ran bloody fingers along the edge of his lover's cheekbone. He could still feel the warmth of him. Levi managed to lay beside him, fitting himself alongside his bones, flush with what was left of his only light.
“I missed you.” He wasn’t crying now. He was tired. With him, he could always sleep soundly. He had always felt tired. Rest now . Darkness and quiet enveloped him, a soft voice calling to him. He could remember his voice- no, he heard his voice. I missed you too. There was nothing but his voice, and then there was light, and then there was him.
There had always been him. There would always be him. There was light, and then an outstretched arm, and then there was him.