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When Levi wakes up, his entire body is sore, and the thin whine of a soldier's voice is sharp in the shell of his ear.
"Sir, with all due respect. He's the fucking Lance Corporal, not a bloody messenger boy. We can't just make him disappear when we're through with him."
"I never said we had to." Boots click on steel tile, a good ten feet away by Levi's muddled estimation. "He's alone inside Sina, squad leader. Garrison confirmed it. The rest of the Scouting Legion doesn't arrive until this morning."
"No squad? No lackeys? That's damn unusual. I don't like it."
"Makes sense that Erwin would send his number one bitch."
There's something wet and warm trickling down his temple; he tries to touch it—check the wound—and finds he can't. The room is spinning so quickly it takes him a moment to figure out why. His wrists and ankles are cuffed together, tight enough to bruise. He's gagged, as well, with what tastes like a wad of cloth; a lingering chemical scent suggests that his headache is more than a minor concussion.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
"Sir, there was an airtight perimeter around this entire warehouse. Hourly shifts. No guards reported missing, either, the hour the boy escaped."
"Wherever Levi hid him, it can't be far."
"You really think he —"
"I think it's convenient, don't you? That Eren Yeager pulls a vanishing act less than twelve hours before his bloody trial. That if the military police doesn't find him before then, the king is going to have our balls on toast for breakfast. Wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air? The MP a laughingstock in its own goddamned domain because their pet titan shifter took a lark out his own private fortress. I'll bet you ten grand that the second our approval ratings plummet, the Legion rides in with Yeager on a silver platter."
"Conspiring against the court," the first voice murmurs. "That's full-on treason."
"They want custody of the shifter. They weren't going to get it from the brass, not after that train wreck of an expedition. The court was going to give us this one, squad leader. We'd have Erwin running off with his tail between his legs. We'd have the brat's heart in a jar on my fucking desk."
Levi's heard enough. He moves - slowly, carefully - to a sitting position, wincing at the stiffness of his muscles. Tries to find a wall to place his back against. His skin crawls; the floor is fucking filthy. Surely it's familiar somehow.
"We still can't interrogate Levi. We've no warrant, sir, no proof. He's in Sina legally on military business. When the Scouting Legion arrives in the morning—"
"—he's out of our hands, and the boy with him." Footsteps, and the screech of an opening door. "Ten hours, squad leader. Make it count."
And Levi's eyes are flooded with light.
Ten days before Eren Yeager was set to stand trial, Levi entered his Commander's office and set a neatly folded memo on his desk. Erwin flipped it open with one hand and read two items: the first an address to a rental in the interior; the second a set of directions, complete with landmarks and street names. Both were penned in Levi's immaculate hand.
"I'm leaving tonight," said Levi without preamble.
"Your squad?"
"Will follow the day after in civilian clothes, entering Wall Sina by means other than the main gate." He paused. "Arlert and Ackerman will accompany them."
"If it suits your needs." Erwin frowned, his free hand flat to his forehead. "Levi, I've mentioned this before. It would be wise to have at least one other soldier with you."
"You said it yourself, Erwin; the less people we trust, the better."
"Take a member of your squad."
Levi raised his eyebrows and Erwin sighed, tucking the paper away in his pocket. "You can't possibly think they'll be safer breaking into an MP compound than strolling through Sina with you in broad daylight."
"If one of my men gets pinned during Eren's escape, the Legion can't be implicated. Having them enter the Wall in my company is out of the question."
"You'll be alone. Alone and injured." Erwin saw him stiffen at the mention of that; even here, with no pretenses to maintain, he refused to limp on the twisted ankle. "I don't trust the MP not to take advantage of your vulnerability."
"Bullshit," said Levi levelly. "You won't risk me, but you'll have me risk my squad."
"We're all at risk in this operation."
"I've got to pack, Erwin. Are you giving me an order or not?"
The familiar lines of Levi's face were taut. Erwin had been present when the MP bound Eren's arms behind his back and floored him with a club to the knees—Levi beside him, standing so straight they all thought he'd snap, his fingers fisted by his blades. This was not a good time for him—for any of them. Sleepless nights and swallowed grief were etched into the hollows beneath Levi's eyes. The female titan. The bodies they'd had to peel off trees.
"I'm asking you to be careful. For Eren's sake."
Levi snorted, gesturing at his injured leg. "If I were careful where that pissy brat is concerned, we'd be having this chat over his week-old corpse. We may still be, soon, once I've got my goddamn hands on him."
It did not escape Erwin's notice, how Levi's words left no room for the alternative.
"Find your way back by dawn before the trial. I need you here when we ride into Sina."
"Consider it done," said Levi. "Don't get any grayer while I'm gone."
Damn Erwin, he thinks dizzily, damn him to hell. That relic. That reasonable son of a bitch, how fucking dare he be right.
His eyes still adjusting, he blinks as the room comes into focus. It's vast—large enough to store a garrison's worth of provisions—yet strangely, eerily empty. The walls are reinforced in steel; the vaulted ceiling is supported by a grid of metal beams and paneled with glass that admits no light. A warehouse.
The warehouse.
Levi starts, whirling to his right—and sure enough, there's a bare mattress below a pair of manacles bolted into the far wall. A set of spare clothes serves as a pillow, wrinkled and worn but folded with military neatness. Nearby is an empty chamber pot, just within the reach of the prisoner who should have been chained to the bed.
"You don't seem surprised to see he's not here."
Levi jolts—turns—and the kick splits him open like an axe to the ribs.
His lungs empty in a white-hot rush. A moment later he hits the ground, his headache exploding in a spray of fireworks that paints the backs of his eyelids red. He retches, chokes for air around the gag, and lies there heaving as the squad leader—the thin voice from earlier—steps into the square of his blackening vision.
"Something you'd like to share with the class, Levi?"
Fuck. Shitfuckdamn. Stall. He had to stall.
Ten hours until the trial put the time at two AM; shit he'd been out for a while, that chemical tang must be the tail end of something strong. Two AM meant a few more hours until Erwin reached the wall; two AM meant his squad had come and gone—
Breathless, face down on that disgusting floor, Levi tastes a small trill of triumph.
Stripes of shadow break the light as more men file into the room; Levi cranes his neck but can't quite see to count. A slow-burning cold alights in his aching belly. Why send so many? Even if he hadn't been injured, his bindings are so tight they rub his wrists raw—and if the twinge in his muscles is any indicator, they'd been slapping him around while he was still out cold.
It's almost flattering, he thinks, as the squad leader grasps his collar and hauls him to his knees.
"Listen, sir, we're on a tight schedule. It works out best for both of us if you sing sooner than later. Of course, we all know your orders from Erwin are to kiss the brat's ass every time he passes wind, so give the Commander a message when you crawl back to the Corps."
A fist collides with his stomach, and Levi gasps.
"We will find Eren Yeager."
A second punch to the same spot.
"We will find him soon."
A third. Levi writhes, kept from slumping to the ground only by the iron grip on his collar; the urge to vomit is rising, and his jaw works desperately around the gag.
"Have I made myself clear, Corporal? If you don't turn him over, you will fucking regret it. And so will the man after you, and the man after that. As many of your tight little recruits as it takes. Give him to us now, and we can go back to business instead of playing games. Trust me, your Commander doesn't have the balls to win."
They don't know Erwin, clearly. And they don't know Eren either, if they think the brat will just lie down and die.
The squad leader tugs the gag free to hear his answer, and Levi spits in his face.
The man simply looks at him for a moment. Doesn't jerk away; doesn't even move to wipe himself clean. Levi stares back, impassive despite his shaking shoulders, and watches his own bloody saliva drip in a slow stream down his captor's cheek.
"That's what I thought." The squad leader breaks into a slow smile. "Dibs on his jacket. You boys string him up."
When the Corporal isn't back by dawn, Erwin sends Hange across the wall.
She finds the rental wrecked, windows smashed, the unicorn of the MP nailed over every entrance. Her nerves braced for catastrophe, she pulls her hood over her hair and changes direction.
Hange bursts through the door and immediately sags with relief. The shelter Levi prepared is unbroached, and Eren—looking no worse for wear—is perched on a stool while Mikasa pats him down, ignoring his protests about personal space and regenerative abilities. Armin laughs at the fussing, but the sound is raw with relief.
Levi's squad is seated at the table, still warm with the afterglow of their success.
Three hours tucked into the eaves of the warehouse where Eren had been kept for two weeks. Rooftops were child's play for the maneuver gear; it was cutting through the glass that caused most trouble, but Auruo, for all his boasting, was as clever with his blades as he was clumsy with his tongue.
Three seconds for Erd to drop to the floor in the brief lull between shifts—startling a shriek out of Eren, who then looked up at the ceiling to see Auruo, Gunter, and Petra waving from their wires like cheerful spiders. Erd made quick work of Eren's shackles with a key the size of his little finger. It was Levi who had obtained the copy; hell if anyone knew how.
Three weeks, by Erwin's best estimate, for the shitstorm in Sina to die down once the breach became public knowledge. They'll move Eren if they can risk it, but chance is a great and terrible thing.
"Oh, God. You're all alright. Listen, guys, Levi didn't come back this morning."
All heads swivel to face her. All talk in the room stops. Eren locks up as though a string through his spine has pulled taut.
"Erwin sent me to town. The MP have been to his rental."
Petra is on her feet before the end of the sentence hits the air. Her hands twist in practiced motions to lock her blades in place at her belt, Auruo and Gunter following suit. Mikasa's hand rests protectively on her brother's shoulder, rubbing his back in small circles. Erd turns to face her.
"Stay in the shelter at all costs. Hange, keep them safe."
"We have to get word to the commander." Armin's face is pale; he's worked out the implications.
"The commander will carry on," says Erd, and the squad is out the door.
By sunrise, they've traversed the rooftops of half of Sina—checking first the rental that Levi should have left last night; then the closest MP garrison; then the closest after that.
It's Gunter who suggests they check the warehouse that formerly served as Eren's prison—large enough to enclose him even in Titan form; out of sight and out of mind to the general populace of Sina; easy to guard and empty of all prisoners but one.
"You're lying."
"Confirm it with the Garrison." He knows they already have. "I came to Sina alone."
He hears the hiss as the whip parts the air, then the crack. The new stripe blazes across his shoulders and pools into those below it—wet at the edges, searing with heat. Levi's teeth crash down so hard they rattle, biting back the scream.
"Don't waste my time, Levi." The silhouette of the squad leader doubles in front of his eyes. "I don't give a shit what grand titles they've got for you in Rose, you didn't just pirouette into an MP base and bag the brat in a burlap sack. Hell, I wager you weren't directly involved at all." A pause. "Who was it, then? Your personal squad?"
Levi swallows, thick mouthfuls of spit and bile. His back burns with bright black bands of pain, one bleeding into the next, a ragged lattice of shallow wounds. It's getting hard to count how many.
"My squad is occupied with the aftermath of the expedition."
"Way I heard it, your boys were out cold in bed after the female-type got done fucking them. That dirty bitch, she didn't even finish them off."
Levi's lip curls in contempt. "Sorry for not providing you with a hot titan date."
"You're telling me your squad had no part in this move on Yeager? That's the bullshit you're trying to sell?"
"I haven't laid eyes on that shitty brat since you took him into custody." The whip whistles, a warning, but he doesn't stop. "Remember that? Taking Eren into custody? Three armed squads and an armored wagon for one kid, and you still had to do it while I—"
Crack. Levi collapses in a silent scream.
While I watched.
"Come on, Corporal. Where's the shifter hiding?"
His lungs ache; they're full of lead.
"Maybe you would know that, if the taxes you took from Sina went to feed men instead of pigs."
The squad leader's fist swings in like lighting. Levi tenses—not fast enough—and the blow lands across his face with blinding force. Pain drills through his skull, a javelin in one ear and out the other. The room lurches; flickers; spins.
"I'm not supposed to do that." For a moment, the man looks almost remorseful. "But guess what, you insufferable little shit? I really don't care if you go out in front of your men today looking like you had a fight with your fucking pimp."
He raises his hand again, and Levi flinches, waiting to be struck. Instead, deceptively gentle fingers smooth his hair away from his forehead, then move to flick his rapidly bruising cheek.
"Crying shame, it's not a bad face. I've got big plans for this talented mouth of yours."
Levi tastes blood in the back of his throat.
Eight men in the room, including the one with the whip.
Crack.
"Two for each of us," says Auruo in a harsh whisper. "One per blade hand, easy."
The members of Levi's squad are perched in the rafters in the same positions they had held the night before, looking down at the steel floor an easy drop below. They're all thinking the same thing. As surely as the sun rises over Sina; as surely as that's Levi in the center of the circle of soldiers, strung up by his wrists and stripped to the waist.
Crack.
There are bruises darkening over his bare chest and ribs, visible even from this distance against the pallor of his skin. The frame he's tied to is clearly meant for men taller than he is. His bare feet are just barely braced against the ground, legs taut with the strain of supporting his weight. If the state of his back is any indicator, he's been holding that position for some time.
"We can't," says Erd, even as he stares.
"Of course we can. I could put down all eight of those swine myself."
"That's not what I meant." Erd's usual calm is scattered, his eyes darting back, forth, back, forth, from Levi on the ground to Auruo's disbelieving face before him. "We're not supposed to be inside Sina. It's a few more hours till Commander Erwin enters the gate with the Legion."
For a moment, Auruo simply gapes. Then he speaks slowly, deliberately, as though to someone deaf or lacking in wits.
"What the hell are you going on about, Erd? So what?"
Another crack from below. They both stiffen; Auruo's features warp with rage, his hand twisting on the grip of a blade.
"Auruo, think. Eren escaped just a few hours ago, we shouldn't even know yet. If we interfere now, it's stone cold proof that the Legion is plotting against the MP."
"We don't have to leave witnesses," says Gunter. His eyes are like chips of flint, fixed on Levi's shivering form below.
"But we do have to leave bodies. That's as good as an admission of guilt, with murder charges to boot."
"Just snatch him, then, like we did with Eren. He's smaller, and he's about the same weight."
"There's a quarter-mile perimeter around this place and every inch is crawling with MP. You think we'd get out in a chase, carrying the Captain while he's injured?"
"Then what's your brilliant suggestion, Erd?" Auruo snarls. "Shove our hands up our asses and watch?"
In the tense moment that follows, it occurs to him that Petra hasn't spoken. He glances over to her and sees that her stance is rigid, her gaze fixed, her mouth slightly parted. Dreading what he might see, he follows her line of sight.
One of the men in the circle—a squad leader, he guesses, from the marks of rank—is trying on the jacket of Levi's uniform. It's too small for his thick shoulders, and he tosses it aside. A small white envelope dislodges from the pocket and flutters to the ground.
Petra cries out.
She clamps her hand over her mouth, but it's too late. Levi's entire body stiffens. His eyes shift, barely perceptibly, to the rafters; for the first time since the squad arrived, Auruo sees fear in his face.
"What the hell is this?"
The squad leader has picked up the envelope and extracted a folded piece of paper. He glances it over, then snorts.
"I'm curious, Corporal Levi, do all your squad members write you sugary letters before you set out on expeditions? Or just the ones you keep on for their tits instead of their kill counts?"
Gunter catches Petra's eye—shakes his head—but Levi's voice is already rising from below.
"Funny I should hear that from someone who's never seen a titan except in his wet dreams."
Auruo watches as the man explodes across the room, his hand swinging up in a vicious arc and hitting Levi in the fucking face, once, twice, and the only reason he's not plummeting to the ground with blades in both hands is the sound that Petra makes, a little cry that roots him where he stands. Erd and Gunter are still as statues. Helpless. He's helpless, he realizes, and his knuckles are white around the hilt of a blade he can't use.
Levi's eyes are dark with tears of pain.
He coughs. Once. Twice.
"God, I could get used to doing that. Do you want to hear something interesting, Corporal?" The squad leader's voice is pleasant. "Turns out I do know a few things about the Special Operations Squad. I expected that line of bullshit you gave me about them not being involved, and it just so happens that I did my bloody research."
He steps forward to seize Levi's chin, his fingers digging into his throat with cruel precision. Levi chokes, the blow having left him with no time to catch his breath; he struggles to pull away, but the man tangles a hand in his hair and yanks him to the tips of his toes. The letter drops to the ground, a crumpled ball between their feet.
"Erd Gin. Gunter Shulz. Auruo Bossard. Petra Ral. All elite soldiers tasked to protect Eren Yeager." The softness leaves his voice then, and he looks straight into Levi's widening eyes. "All with families inside the walls."
Levi's mouth is full of salt, and he's drowning in the open air.
His pulse is a wingbeat in the wall of his throat. The grip on his neck isn't strong enough to suffocate, but he still can't quite bring himself to breathe.
A moment.
A moment.
A man in the crowd.
I thought I'd come talk to you before going to find my daughter. She sent me this letter, you see—
"My Corporal. Do you spend a lot of time with your squad?" The man is speaking—slowly, sweetly—and his gaze on Levi's face is that of a circling beast. "Do you consider that investment wise, when thirty percent of the Legion's recruits are killed in their first expedition?"
—five shitty brats at your legs every time you get up to piss, made joining the Corps an outright relief—
"Do they tell you about the loved ones they leave behind to follow you out the walls, battle after fruitless battle?"
—my old man's still waiting, Captain, swear he sits up all night just to spite me—
"Do they trust you to bring them home, despite the fact that you alone have nothing to lose?"
It's for my girl, do you think she'll like it? She's cried at every wedding since I went off to war.
The squad leader's nails are black with dirt, and they dig into his neck hard enough to draw blood.
"It's a sad thing, for sure, but we can't all aspire to the heights of Humanity's Strongest. A stray that Erwin carried home because he liked the way it licked his boots. Do you even have a family, Levi? A loved one, miles away?"
(Eren's legs are limp in his arms; his eyes are green and dull; his hands reach out as he falls, as he falls as he falls as he falls.)
The man releases him, and his throat constricts.
"Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't give a damn. By all means, let me know. I'll call in the hits and we can go back to beating you senseless."
"You can't." His voice is so quiet that even he can barely hear it. "You can't order hits on civilians, you psychopathic piece of shit."
"Not officially, but life outside the interior is a difficult thing. Tragedies happen, eh? Fires. Slavers. Thieves."
"They're not soldiers. They're grandparents, children—"
"Until he graduated from the 104th last year, Eren Yeager was a child as well. Or had you forgotten?"
"You can't," says Levi, and he's shaking with something more than fatigue now, more than cold. "My squad has no part in Eren's escape. No part whatsoever."
"I don't believe you, and it wouldn't make a difference if I did. Now shut your mouth, smartass, before it slips and causes an accident." The squad leader steps back. "You've sure been talking a lot, for someone who isn't telling me what I want to know."
Levi is losing air, and he doesn't know which way to swim.
"Please. Please, don't."
"Don't what?"
"I'm the one assigned to guard Eren. The Special Operations Squad was a temporary escort." He takes a painful breath. "There's no need to involve them. I'll cooperate."
There's a long and deadly silence. He doesn't look at the man in front of him—this vulture with his thin voice and thin face, so capricious in his cruelty. He doesn't look at the blurred faces of the soldiers in the circle. The whip still wet with blood. The letter, balled up and forgotten on the floor.
He doesn't look at the rafters. It takes every last ounce of will he has.
There's a click, and Levi feels himself falling.
He expects it when his injured ankle gives beneath him like a snapped stick. He expects it when he hits the ground face-first, unable to catch himself with bound wrists. What he doesn't expect—and is completely incapable of preventing—is the soft whump of the squad leader's knees hitting the steel on either side of his hips, the full weight of his body pinning Levi's legs to the floor.
The blood runs cold in his veins.
"That wasn't so hard, Corporal, was it? But you sure did take your fine sweet time." The man draws back his fist. "Yeager's got you collared and leashed. Thought it was meant to be the other way around."
Crunch.
"I was there, you know, at the first trial. You think you're fucking invincible. Clopping around in boots too big for you, calling us names in the middle of our own court. What was it you said? Something about pain being the best way to teach discipline?"
CRUNCH.
"I know why you failed to break that boy, you mouthy little mutt." The words bite deep through a red cloud of agony. "It's because you're both the same breed of bitch. You've no respect for superior men, no right to lecture the MP about discipline. Nod for me, Levi, I'm going to teach you a thing or two."
Hands constrict around his throat, and Levi's head jerks.
"You're going to give me your pet shifter brat, wrapped in a ribbon with an apple up his ass. You're going to give me details as to how he escaped this compound. Nod."
Another squeeze. Another forced gasp as he jerks his head again.
"And if, by unhappy circumstance, we should kick in that door and find him gone—if, God forbid, you leave us unsatisfied after being a fucking tease all night, well. I'd say you're in an ideal position to learn that desperate men do desperate things. Aren't you, Levi? Nod."
The punch connects with his battered ribs, and Levi finally screams. His spine arches against the steel, but his arms are pinned above his head, unable to block the blows. The light blinds his eyes; it burns his skin and lays him bare.
"Now, this." There's a hand locked around his wrists; a hiss of hot breath by his ear. "This is the part that I like. Look these gentlemen in the eye, Corporal. They're going to do you a favor."
Levi's lungs are empty, and he knows he's out of time.
"We have to go." Gunter's face is utterly hollow, utterly unrecognizable. "We have to get back to the shelter and move Eren someplace safe."
"No." Petra, her teeth clenched. "We need to make our move on the Captain. Now, while he still hasn't given it away. Let the MP investigate if it comes to that, the Commander will find a way to throw them."
"It doesn't matter which of those we do. They're going to call in the hit." Auruo's voice is rising, strained with the need to stay quiet. "Our parents. My brothers. Your father, Petra—"
"Don't," says Petra with such deadly quiet that they flinch, even as they see her eyes are full of tears.
There's a spot of cold sweat in the small of Erd's back; a low and insistent screaming that fills his ears and threatens to split the seam of his lips. He watches without sound as the man atop Levi straddles his hips and begins to unbuckle the belts around his waist.
Levi snarls, a sound almost inhuman in its desperation, and struggles to push off the ground despite his his bound wrists. Erd hears the sick thud of a boot hitting flesh, and when his eyes open next Levi is choking on blood against the tile, curling in agony with the force of the kick.
The squad leader unfastens the pants of Levi's uniform and plunges his fingers amidst the folds.
"Damn, he's tight. Maybe Erwin's not fucking him into the desk after all."
"Maybe Erwin's got a tiny dick."
"Lay back, Corporal, you'll like this." He glances over his shoulder. "Hey, bastards, one of you got a blade?"
"Erd, say something." Gunter is staring in his direction. "Say something, you're his second-in-command, give us an order."
A soldier in the circle steps forward with a knife. Erd takes a shaky breath.
"Stand your ground."
Blood blooms red on Levi's thigh. The first of the belts to his gear falls away, taking a strip of the uniform with it.
"Erd, for fuck's sake, don't look at him, don't just stare—"
"I said to stand your fucking ground." The words are caught on his tongue like thorns. "Once the Captain gives them Eren, we track the squad they send to fetch him and wait just outside the perimeter. Between the buildings, where we can use our gear. We'll put those fuckers down before they so much as set foot out of the district, out in the streets where it can't be pinned on us. Buy us time to grab Eren and hightail it out of Sina."
Another flick of the knife. Another white tongue of cloth. Bare skin on Levi's thighs, slashed with shallow cuts where the blade glanced between belts. His lips cracked, his toes curled. His eyes squeezed shut.
"It's morning, so the Commander should be camped just outside the wall." Erd is wavering as he speaks, but he's beyond the point of caring. "He'll be able to hide Eren. Send scouts to fetch our families out safe."
"What about the Captain, Erd?" Petra's eyes are wide and wet. "What about Levi?" she says, and her voice cracks on the name.
"They'll let him go in a few hours. When the Legion gets here." And then he's breaking, the words running through his fingers as easily as water, as useless as the blades at his side and the promises in his mouth, the nights the days the quiet salutes across open space, the pride in Levi's eyes. "When they're—when they're finished with him."
Tears are frozen to Petra's cheeks. Auruo turns and pulls her away.
(It goes on for a long time — goes on for seconds, thirds — and somewhere in the midst of it, Levi slips away.)
"Come on, brat. I don't have all day."
Eren's hands are fisted at his sides. Larger than Levi's own, but unworn—his palms stripped of callouses, his fingers smoothed of cuts, the marks of his own teeth fading time and time again as his shifter skin re-knits and heals. He wraps the wounds anyway, the open, bloody bites—sometimes so deep the boy can't hold a spoon.
(Hands on his wrists, on his hips, in his hair. Such small hands; they're everywhere he turns.)
"Captain," says Eren, "are you sure it's okay?"
"Would you rather wait outside? Or should I carry you in past the threshold, like a bloody blushing bride?"
"No! No, I just—I don't want to cause trouble." Eren flushes so easily, gets hot at the littlest things—was he ever like that, a boy who could tell no lies? "I do want to see them. I just thought they might mind."
"Then quit asking stupid questions." Levi turns to the door and reaches for the handle.
(His knees hit the ground—hit the ground and scrape raw. His arms wrench from their sockets; his spine curves like clay.)
"Oi, shitty brat, who said you could—oh. Sorry, Captain, can't stand up to salute."
"You came all this way to see us? They told us—your leg—"
Eren pushes past him and flings his arms around Petra's chest, pulling her close with his clumsy strength, her head of ginger hair coming to rest just below his chin. Levi sees a brief wince cross her face; then her hands lift up and fold over Eren's back.
"Aw, Petra, are the rest of us not pretty enough for you?"
"Don't be jealous, Auruo." A movement from the far bed. "There's two of us over here, if you're waiting for a kiss."
"Piss off, Gunter. I'll break all the ribs you've got left."
"I'll pass," says Erd. "I'm a promised man."
"Not yet, you aren't."
"As soon as I get home. God, that was too fucking close."
There's a silence, then, in that room full of sunlight and stifled air; the smell of starch and buried blood a ghost that clings like sticky sheets.
(It hurts, the grip in his hair; the fullness, slick with spit, in his mouth.)
"I'm leaving tomorrow," says Eren as he fidgets. "The MP will be here to lock me back up."
"Not for long, kid, don't worry." Erd sits up with a grimace, looking to where Levi is propped against the wall. "Does Commander Erwin have a plan, sir?"
Levi studies him: the unpinned hair and waxy skin, the way he's arranged the blankets to cover his bandaged chest. He hooks one leg behind the other in an attempt to take the weight off his bad ankle; it must be less subtle than he imagines, because Petra frowns and bites her lip.
"That depends. How are you feeling?"
"We're fine," says Auruo, a little too quickly. "We didn't get knocked around too serious. What do you need from us, Captain?"
"For you to not come back as corpses would be pretty damn nice."
"Captain, sir, you'll have to try a little harder if you want to get rid of us." A tiny smile is playing at the corner of Erd's lips. "Send us on vacation. Another mission, maybe."
"You'll never get any rest otherwise." Gunter leans back on his pillows. "We'd never leave you—"
(—alone, Levi. No one's coming. No matter how he spits and writhes; no matter how he stalls, how he struggles to clamp his thighs together—no one's coming.)
"I don't want this," Eren snaps, and everyone turns in surprise; Levi's glance flickers just far enough to see his strained shoulders, his eyes dead-fixed to his feet. "I don't want anyone else getting injured because of my shitty decisions. I don't want sacrifices so that I can sit in a cell and stay safe."
"We're soldiers, Eren." Petra tears her eyes from Levi's ankle and folds her hands in her lap. "If we don't sacrifice, no one else will."
"I want to be in battle with the rest of the Corps." Eren's voice rises, then breaks in strangled frustration. "I want to be useful, I want to fight."
(Traitor. Cur. Soldier's slut. They wipe sticky hands on the skin of his stomach. Look me in the eye when I'm talking to you.)
"You are fighting. It's just that you can't see the enemy."
(Look me in the eye when I'm fucking you.)
"We gotta play nice with the red tape, brat. You're not going to be of any use to humanity if the MP dissect you for classroom decorations." Auruo sighs, as though the thought is somehow nostalgic. "Look, quit fucking fussing, the Commander is doing his best. We're pawning our kneecaps to keep you in one piece, the least you could do is—"
(—trust us, Corporal, it'd hurt less if you relaxed. Relax, I said. I feel like I'm screwing a corpse.)
"I said I would," says Eren, and his eyes lift to Levi, large and steady. "I said I wouldn't let you down."
"It won't last forever, Eren. We make you vanish, we make you reappear. Cards up the Commander's sleeve. That's the plan." Erd raises his eyebrows inquisitively. "That is the plan, right, Captain?"
(Levi bites down until he bleeds, then he bleeds until he screams, then he screams until he's spent, ruined, scooped out and soiled at their feet. All his skin is stripped away; all his nerves are adrift in the air. He is boneless, spilled across the surface of his own skin. And still, still, it seems that all time has stopped to stare—because it doesn't end. And it doesn't end—and it doesn't end.)
"I need some water. Who's got water?"
"I've got Vine."
"Even better. Give it here, Farraday."
Levi isn't moving. He's stopped clawing at the bodies against his, stopped crying out. There's a small patch of crusted blood in his hair, but Gunter is too far away to make out the wound; too far away to think of seizing his Captain by the shoulders and shaking them both awake.
He watches as the squad leader stands up, uncorking the bottle with one hand. Levi's shoulders give an almost imperceptible twitch at the sound. His face shifts against the floor; his lips dart open, dry as bone.
The man looks down, considering. Then he empties the bottle onto Levi's back.
Levi jerks to life like a puppet on a string. Gunter sees the moment the pain hits, the moment his eyes snap open and the scream snags in his tattered throat. He turns away as Levi crumbles; turns to see Petra with her face in Auruo's shoulder and her fingers in her ears, Auruo's tongue bloody with biting, his eyes huge and dark. Nobody looks at Erd.
"Aw, squad leader, we could've drunk that."
"Sorry, fellas. Didn't seem like much to go around."
"Could say the same of our friend on the floor, but I seem to recall us managing just fine."
There are blades at his sides. Two full fucking canisters. He could stroll up to that bastard right now and ram six inches of steel down his throat. Why doesn't he, again?
My old man's still waiting, Captain. Swear he sits up all night just to spite me.
Gunter swallows, hard.
The squad leader hoists Levi up by the armpits and props him up against the metal rack. Levi is still shaking, his head hanging heavy, his knees loosely bent as he tries to pull them up to his chest. Then his legs go slack, and he slumps.
"Wake up, little bird. It's morning, time to sing."
No response.
"Come on, fuckhead. I don't feel like having to hit you."
Nothing.
"Don't feel like arranging an accident, either. Not before I've had my coffee."
Levi lifts his head with visible effort. His eyes are hazy, heavy-lidded; his voice is so hoarse it can barely form words. But he speaks, and Gunter would know that voice on any battlefield.
"Let me tell you something, squad leader, you've got three types of men. Those who can be blackmailed, those who can be bribed, and those born with beer guts instead of brains, which means your airtight perimeter is worth the exact sum of a sloppy shit."
"I changed my mind." The man steps back. "I liked you better with your mouth full of cock."
"You asked me how I got to Eren. If you don't want an answer, by all means, pull out your dicks and have another go."
In that moment, Gunter wants to scream. Wants to put his fist through the nearest window, because the Captain right now is too weak to stand; is bleeding and bruised and very nearly broken; is facing those swine still slick with their filth and lying through his teeth. Not a word about Erwin, he thinks hollowly. Not a word about Petra or Auruo or Erd; about Ackerman, about Arlert. Not a word about Gunter fucking Shulz, the most useless man alive, or his little old grandfather in a corner of Rose that Levi's never seen.
"Don't embarrass yourself with an angle you don't have." The squad leader's tone is sour; nobody, MP or not, can deny that its business reeks like an open sore. "Doesn't matter whose brat they sold or whose wife they screwed, none of it looks as bad as a bullet to the head for treason. Which is, coincidentally, what you'll be getting once the brass catch wind of Yeager's escape."
"They won't."
"Beg pardon?"
"They won't find out."
"And why the hell not?"
"Because Eren Yeager never left this room alive." Levi looks up, his face bloodless beneath a sheen of sweat, and there is something there—a spark of his old contempt—before his eyes empty out. "He's dead, you bastard. Has been this whole time. I killed him with my own two hands."
Gunter's thoughts careen to a halt.
"You did what?"
"Put a blade in his neck. Dumped the corpse in a sewer. Well, I suppose the guards I paid off did that part for me."
The pig is stunned, completely and utterly stunned beyond words, and Levi is laughing because it's funny, even as his hair is yanked from his already aching scalp and a knee slams him back against the steel.
"You're raving." It grates in his ear like powdered glass. "You didn't put Yeager in a fucking sewer."
"That's what I just said. Too damn unsanitary, but I guess swine are used to it."
His head cracks against cold metal, and Levi laughs harder.
"You're barking mad," says the squad leader, but there's a note of hesitation in it. "You're trying to tell me you accessed a guarded military compound so you could assassinate Eren Yeager, the ward you were sworn to protect, and then sit through a ten-hour interrogation for shits and fucking giggles."
"Erwin was going to give him to you."
"What?"
"I said Erwin was going to give him to you, you wet-nosed imbecile." Levi quiets, drawing deep, practiced breaths, speaking as evenly as his parched throat and bloody mouth will allow. "Hear of the 57th Expedition? Did your research tell you why that failed? It was because the female-type honed in on Eren like a bloody bitch in heat. She tore through entire squads to get him whole, then put him in her mouth and tried to prance into the sunset." Deep breaths. Deep breaths. "She's still out there, maybe more like her. They'll come for him again, smash more of our men like mosquitoes, maybe get away this time. What weapon is worth that? What one soldier is worth the lives of a whole expedition?"
The squad leader is silent for a long, long moment. Maybe, maybe, he's actually considering it. Or maybe he just likes the view he has from this position—remembers shoving him down while he strained his tied arms, ducking, thrashing, struggling with all his strength. He's not struggling now. He has no weapons left but words. And even those, he thinks bitterly, are being granted to him.
"Erwin didn't send you." A statement, albeit a surprised one.
"No. He thinks I'm here on a private errand."
"Your squad isn't with you. You came to Sina alone."
"Good job, detective. I've only said so fifty times in the past five hours."
A hand seizes his jaw, nails digging into his bruised cheek. Levi winces, but he doesn't pull away. The grasp lasts a few seconds before the man turns back with an irritated snap.
"That doesn't explain why you crawled all this way when you could have sit back and let the court sign his execution warrant."
"Of course." That part is easy, because he doesn't need to lie. "Of course, it'd only take you a couple of months to work up the balls. That drug you slipped me, you think it'd get him to lie still while you cut him up? What else could you do to him without getting in range of his teeth? Starve him? Take his warmth, his water?" He wishes he didn't have the distraction of his own desperate thirst; his own head still clouded, swirling and sick. "You'd have to tie him down to keep him from biting. That's how he shifts, by drawing blood. How long would you wait for him to weaken before you dared to break skin? Before you could be sure you'd be safe within ten feet of his neck?"
The grip in his hair tightens.
"If he were here, I'm sure he'd be starry-eyed to hear his superior officer had such noble intentions for filling his back with blades."
"You were going to dissect him. That boy grows back entire limbs. He'd last for weeks, maybe months. In pain."
"And some ill-attached chunk of your feverish brain thought the solution was to kill him in cold blood."
"It was the only thing I could do, understand? And I'm the one fucking man who can do it." Levi speaks through gritted teeth. "Put me on trial if you don't believe me. The brass, the merchants, the nobles, the priests. See if even one of those swine will have me hanged for putting Eren to the edge of a knife."
It aches. Everything aches and they're all looking, eyes crawling up and down his bare body like insects too small to see. Just the weight of those eyes makes him want to rip off his skin with jagged nails, want to close his eyes and dissolve into dust, but the simple fact of the matter is that he can't, can't lie down and let it go; not with the weight of the shadows in the rafters hanging around his neck like a millstone; not with Eren's name heavy, heavy, heavy in his mouth.
And then he sees it, the boot heading for his side—connecting—scattering all his carefully collected breaths—and as the impact folds him in two, doubled over at the waist and retching, he knows he's finally won.
"Clean up this mess and dump it." The boot takes one last dig in his ribs, then taps away across the bloodstained tile. "Get him a set of clothes, we can't have anyone else being tempted."
The last Levi sees of him is the emblem of the military police on his back, blurring in his vision as the man leaves the room.
"I'm making my report to the sergeant. It's been one hell of a long night."
There are strong arms around Levi's waist, pulling him near in a tight embrace. Puffs of breath tickle his closed eyelids—his split and bleeding lips. He jerks, back arching, knees-to-chest to make him smaller, to escape—the hand on his forearm tightens to keep him still, Captain hold still it's okay it's—
"Don't touch me," he chokes, and the hand goes slack.
He half-turns away, waits for fingers to close around his throat, hold him down and slap him across the face, again and again as he twists and gags and his hips buck up beneath the weight—
The weight—
The weight of the hand is gone.
Levi opens his eyes in surprise.
Petra is kneeling before him, her hands hovering in the air as though burnt, her shoulders heaving with silent sobs.
At the sight of her face, something simply gives. He's been running on fumes for what feels like the past ten years; his entire body throbs every time he so much as blinks; his clothes are too big and his skin is too small, stained with spit and semen and crusted blood, with their touches, their laughter. Like an old coat he wants to throw out and burn, but can't. He can't fucking cope with this. He doesn't need to see this. He can't. He can't.
"Petra." He reaches out, takes her hand in his—recalls too late that he bit it bloody to keep from crying out, that he's getting the smell of those men on her skin. "Petra," he starts again, to tell her that he hadn't realized, that it isn't her fault; but his voice bubbles, catches, cracks.
She responds at once, tipping a canteen to his lips, and it's all he can do not to drink so fast he chokes—like a proper sloppy bitch—but it doesn't matter, in the end, when Petra's hand trembles and they both make a mess.
"I'm sorry, Captain." She puts the canteen down, and Levi can't help a small sound of protest. "Sorry," she says, her voice hitching as she tries to wipe his face, her mantle coming away red. "Sorry. Sorry."
And then she's crying again, her hands smeared with Levi's filth, and god but he'd thought he was all out of aches, thought it was finally fucking over and that he was done—
"Petra, move your hands a little. There's blood in his hair."
"It's fine," he whispers as Erd crouches beside him. From the corner of his eye, he sees Gunter and Auruo close behind. "Just a little cut."
"Can I—is it alright if I..."
If I touch you. Levi resists the urge to close his eyes.
"It's fine."
Feather-soft hands brush back the matted hair, taking care not to scrape the tender area on his scalp. "I'm not concussed," he mutters. "They used some kind of knockout drug."
"I know." Erd's voice is small. Unsteady. Unlike him. "Forgive me, Captain. I held them back. I'm the one who let you down."
Levi wills his face to blankness with every ounce of strength he has left. He hadn't imagined it, then. That little cry, those slender shadows darting just outside the sphere of his dazed eyes. Later, he orders himself, think it through later; not right now with Erd staring as though at a ghost, speaking as though of the dead.
"Where's Eren? Is he safe?"
"He's back at the shelter, sir."
"Then you have done no such thing."
His second-in-command flinches as though struck, and Levi looks away.
"It's seven or eight in the morning, sir. The Commander should be camped just outside the gate." There's a cloak being pulled around Levi's shoulders; he looks up to see Gunter, pulling the cloth smooth to hide his discolored throat. "It's daylight, so we'll have to be careful where we use our gear, but we'll be back with the Corps in half an hour tops."
"Just hold on, Captain, okay?" And then he's being lifted off the ground, his legs dangling in midair. Auruo, he thinks to quell the panic; calm down, calm down, you know this voice, these hands. The arm at his back is gentle, careful to stay clear of the welts left behind by the whip; the other wraps gingerly around his knees. "Erd and Gunter can report, me and Petra'll get you set up comfy and fetch you a doctor. Don't you worry for a damn."
"No, don't." Levi coughs. "Not to the Corps. Take me back to the shelter."
"The brat's fine, Captain. Hange's with him, she won't let him do anything more stupid than usual."
"I won't allow my men to see me like this."
Nobody mentions that they already have.
"You have to let us get help." Petra is tense, pleading. "We need to get your ankle looked at. Check for internal bleeding."
"Glasses can do it, if she's there."
"Sir—"
"When Erwin rides into Sina at noon, I will be at his side." Levi speaks slowly, evenly, measuring his breath between twinges of pain. "I will be present at this sham of a military trial, or at its lack thereof, since the MP think their prize cut is floating facedown in some slum-sitter's water supply. I don't give a shit if you amputate my foot and tie a beer bottle in its place." His voice drops, then, so low that even he can barely hear it. "I need a shower. That floor was fucking disgusting."
In his mind, Erwin's eyes are on his, and Levi has been at his side long enough to know how his brows crease and his jaw locks, signs of warm blood in a man who takes casualty reports with breakfast. But Erwin looks him in the face without flinching away—with pain, but without remorse.
And Levi looks back, because what alternative is there?
Let Auruo and Gunter and Erd bear the blows of the military police? Let Petra lie down and bleed for them? Let Eren rot and writhe and cry, buried alive in an MP lab?
No fucking alternative at all.
"At least let us take care of you, Captain. It's the least we can do. Please."
Petra's hand is hovering, looking for an unmarked place to land. It flutters, fists, and falls dead to her side.
Levi is so dirty he wants to die.
The last thing he wants to see when they walk in is Eren's dumbfuck face, so of course the brats are waiting up at the wooden table, and of course that's Eren sitting closest to the door, muss-haired and heavy-eyed as he dozes beneath Ackerman's cape.
It's Ackerman who wakes first. Shock registers in her face a heartbeat before she moves—a helpless, instinctive jerk to block the door from view—but Eren is already awake, shaking the makeshift blanket from his shoulders, scrambling to his feet.
His eyes fix on Levi with appalling relief. Then he sees the badge of the beatings on his cheek—the faces of his squad behind him—and he freezes halfway from his seat.
Levi limps past him without a word.
He sits in the shower until the water runs cold; until frenzied knocking at the door shocks him from the taut ball he has become by instinct. Expecting Hange, he bundles up and opens it, only to see Eren fucking Yeager with a small box in his hands.
"The squad told us what happened," he blurts, and Levi closes his eyes briefly—how much of what happened? "My father was a doctor, so I thought I could—maybe I could—"
Eren flinches at Levi's glare; looks away from the bruises black on Levi's shoulder, the collar of fingerprints around Levi's throat.
Fine, thinks Levi, fine, I don't give a flying fuck. Let him see.
He pushes past, sits on the bed, and turns to give Eren a view of his back. Almost regrets it at the small, startled noise—the sharp intake of breath. Definitely regrets it when Eren sits behind him and begins fumbling in the box, producing a bottle and a damp cloth, and the sharp scent of alcohol is the only warning he has before he—
(Pain like his bones are on fire and he convulses against the steel floor, sees his own scream coming like a roll of thunder in the distance, then their hands dragging him up laying him out layinghimout and he—)
"Shit, fuck, I'm sorry, Captain, I—"
He jerks, and Eren's hands stop a centimeter away from his skin.
For a moment, he mistakes the slow tremble in those hands as fear. Then Eren speaks from behind him, his voice low; not a whisper, but a growl.
"How many were there? I'll fucking kill them. Every last worthless piece of shit that did this."
"Eren," grits Levi, "I know Arlert is the one for bright ideas, but it's been five years and a few lost limbs. Surely you've realized the limited uses of that strategy."
"I'll hurt them like they hurt you. I'll hunt them down and make them beg."
"Like hell you will."
"They won't even recognize me." Pressure on his back to stop the bleeding. A bit too much, and Levi digs his nails into the mattress. "I won't get caught. I just need—"
"What you need is to shut the fuck up." His voice is more brittle than he intends, cold and thin as smoke. "Or is your personal vendetta so precious, that all of this was worth nothing at all?"
Eren crumples the bloody rag in his hand.
"They did this because of me. I should have been there, I would have—"
"Would have what, Eren? Shifted in the center of Wall Sina? Attacked the MP with hurtful insinuations about their mothers? My squad was there. Armed and able. They were watching when I—"
Levi stops dead in his tracks.
He doesn't look at Eren; he doesn't dare. How much had they told him? And how much could he guess, with every color of mark—from red to black to purple-blue—stark as day on Levi's skin? On his neck. His collarbone. The inner curves of his thighs.
He shouldn't have opened the fucking door. He shouldn't have come here at all.
"I'm sorry," says Eren. "I didn't mean—"
"My squad," Levi begins again, in a low voice that masks the trembling, "could have dropped from the rafters and put a blade to every man in that room. Thus incriminating the Scouting Legion in your so-called escape, which would then lead to the brass nailing all our fucking balls to the wall. Me. Erwin. Your friends, Ackerman and Arlert. Nobody gives a shit that you're all just brats. Fucking hell, do you ever think?"
Silence. The hands against his back have stilled.
"Corporal Levi, do you hate me?"
He sees then that Eren's eyes are damp. Stupid kid. Stupid, sniveling brat. Why this, now? Half his bloody face kicked in at the first trial and the boy hadn't spilled a single tear; not when his tooth had rattled from his mouth like a lucky penny, not when Levi's boot cracked his head against solid stone, not afterwards when Levi had dropped into the seat beside him and asked, demanded—
Do you hate me?
Does he?
"No," says Levi, in a short, harsh whisper. "I understand why it was necessary."
Eren folds in half like a paper doll, grabs crisp tangles of the sheets in his fists. He doesn't cry like a soldier, with bitten lips—he cries like a child, with low, animal sobs. God, thinks Levi, god, what do you do with crying children? He moves a hand behind his head, finds the curve of Eren's face, cups it in his hand. Maybe he was once that particular breed of beast—once, a long time ago, caught in the warm cage of Erwin's arms, the world narrowed down to the sweat and the sobs and the blood as Erwin held him still—
It's over, Levi, it's alright, it's—
"It's not alright," chokes Eren, and Levi blinks. He hadn't heard the words leave his mouth.
There are hands on his hips then, warm and rough, and he feels rather than sees the touch of the boy's lips: sloppy and tender on the sweet spot between his shoulder blades, right where the first of the welts begins.
"It's not fair." Eren's arms are wrapped around his chest; his face is buried in his hair. "They couldn't even help—you couldn't even fight back. It's not fair, it's—"
"Only fools fight fair." He stares at the ceiling to avoid turning his head. "Does it bother you, Eren?"
"Does what bother me?"
"Having a fool to protect you."
Another kiss to the nape of his neck, to the curve of his shoulder, to the tip of his ear. Eren's nose is buried in his still-wet hair. He doesn't care if it gets him dirty; it's not as though a little more would make a difference.
"I'll learn how to control my shifting." Eren bites the words out between sobs and fuck, as though kids crying isn't bad enough, this one is crying over him. "I won't stop until we've won and the Walls are gone. Then you won't need to protect me, then there'll be no war and it'll be soon, I swear."
Levi is so tired, and Eren still doesn't understand.
"Maybe the enemy is inside the walls. Maybe the enemy is inside our heads." He leans back, slowly, until his head comes to rest on the boy's chest. "You of all people should know that, Eren."
"I can keep fighting. Until every last one is gone."
Eren's mouth tastes the same as his own. Blood, rainwater, copper, salt. He is sunburnt and soft; sweaty and sniveling; miserable and safe and alive, alive. Levi matches his breaths to the heartbeat against his tattered back. He breathes it in; he swallows it down.
"We all will, brat," he says, and lets his eyes fall shut.