Chapter Text
2 months later:
It wasn’t often that Petra saw their captain dressed down, but one night, she found she couldn’t sleep and had wandered down to the kitchens for some tea; she found Levi sitting at the table in a loose shirt and pants, quietly reading a book and sipping on some tea of his own. Peppermint, she knew, even though she couldn’t smell it like Levi would have been able to from this distance. She just knew Levi and that was the type of tea he most often drank.
He didn’t even look up as he greeted her – didn’t need to, because Levi knew what everyone sounded and smelled like around here, could sense them coming from meters away.
“Petra,” he said quietly, inclining his head in her direction without taking his eyes off the pages.
To someone else who wasn’t as familiar with Levi, it might have sounded cold or rude, but Petra was familiar with the subtle, warm note in his deep voice as he greeted her. Levi wasn’t a person who openly showed emotion; but if one looked deeper or listened a bit more closely, they’d be able to tell that when he greeted her, he spoke her name with deep affection buried there.
Levi cared deeply about everyone on his squad, regarded them almost as a little family. Although he appeared deeply engrossed in his book, Petra knew that she wasn’t a bother to him in the slightest.
“Hello, Captain,” she replied brightly, and comfortable silence fell between them as she went about boiling water for her own tea. Then a thought struck her as she was pulling out the kettle – Eren had been absent during training all of today. Eren wasn’t the type to skip out on training without good reason but over the past couple of months, there had been a few instances where he was absent for two or three days straight.
It had started when the rogue moonkin had bitten and turned him, Petra recalled. She wondered if the two were related. Curious now, she decided to ask. The worst Levi would do was just change the subject, his own little way of declining to answer without outright refusing.
“Where was Eren today?” she asked, filling the kettle, glancing over at the cupboard while deliberating over what sort of tea she wanted. Peppermint, like Levi’s, maybe – it sounded nice. “I rarely see you two apart these days.”
It was true, too. Ever since Eren had been turned into a moonkin, he seemed to never be too far away from Levi and vice versa. She’d been assuming it was because the Titan shifter was now also a supernatural being as well and they had bonded over the fact that they were the only two in the Corps to be so.
Levi didn’t reply and Petra turned to look at him as she placed the kettle full of water onto the stove, turning it on. She leaned against the counter, crossing her arms and tilting her head a bit as she waited for Levi to speak. She was patient and sometimes the man didn’t respond right away.
Levi’s pale eyes flicked up from his book and over to her, then to the window, lingering there for a moment before returning back to his book. “Eren was here,” Levi replied, turning a page. “He’s just been running out and about all day.” There was a subtle shift to his voice that Petra couldn’t put a finger on. It sounded almost like humor? Petra wasn’t sure. Even after being on his squad for so many years, he was still so hard to read sometimes.
But she did know her captain enough to know that this was about all the information she was going to get on the subject of Eren's whereabouts and what he’d been doing all day.
Weird. Maybe he was out doing moonkin things, whatever they were. She didn’t know much about the lore and Hanji had been pretty reluctant to share information about it when pried, strangely enough. All Petra basically knew was that it had something to do with wolves and maybe the full moon, based on Levi’s questions the night she had gone to fetch him from his office. The whole Eren-being-bitten incident had taken place a couple months ago and her memory of the event was a bit clouded with time.
The vampire shifted slightly in his seat, catching her attention.
Petra saw his shirt slip a bit at the movement, baring a bit of his pale shoulder. That was strange - now that she looked more closely, she could see that the shirt looked too big to be the captain’s; the sleeves were rolled up to not drape over his hands and she could tell that even while sitting, the bottom of the shirt reached past his mid-thigh. None of the shirts she saw Levi wearing during the day ever slipped like that. Levi was always neatly put-together.
All of his shirts were tailored to fit his small frame nicely – the ones he wore under his uniform, the dressier ones he wore when he went into town, even his buttonless, casual ones he wore while off-duty. It didn’t look like one of the plain ones he wore, either – this one had a “V” shape cut in the collar with a bit of string lacing it. It looked oddly familiar, especially the color of it but Petra couldn’t put a finger on where she might have seen someone wearing a similar one; she dismissed it as unimportant.
Besides, given the time of night, Petra figured that maybe the captain liked to sleep in looser, more comfortable clothes and she’d just never noticed because she’d only ever seen him at night in the headquarters like this a handful of times.
What really caught her attention, though, was the shoulder that the slipping shirt had bared. It was with much surprise that she saw a faint scar there that had been hidden by the soft material – the slightly raised ridges showed a neat, almost delicate imprint of teeth. The paleness of Levi’s skin had made the scar a silvery color that almost blended into his skin. What was even more strange, though, was that it looked almost like it had been carefully and deliberately done.
She knew it couldn’t have happened too long ago – she had seen Levi shirtless herself not even 3 months ago. He’d gotten cut with a recruit’s carelessly discarded blade across his back during a freak training accident. To keep his true nature a secret, she had taken the captain to the San and had the nurses stitch the cut and patch it up. Petra had then immediately followed Levi to his office and helped cut out the threads so he could heal himself. If he hadn’t, they would have sealed into his skin when it knitted itself back together.
So this had been done within the past couple months and without any of the squad knowing, because they would have definitely talked about it if something had actually been able to leave a scar on their captain. It was extremely weird and curiosity burned within her.
“Captain Levi,” she said almost hesitantly, getting his attention. Levi looked up, delicate black brow quirking in a silent question. She cocked her head, still squinting at the scar on the captain’s shoulder and said, “I thought your healing prevented wounds from scarring?”
It started out as a statement and ended as a question, because as she cast her mind back over all the years that she had been on Levi’s squad, Petra had never, ever seen him with a scratch or bruise on his body for longer than a day – in the aforementioned incident, he’d had her take out the stitches immediately after they were put in. So what had caused the mark that she was seeing now?
Levi paused for a second after she finished talking, before he took a small, deliberate sip of tea. Carefully, he placed the cup back on the saucer. “If I don’t heal them myself, my wounds will scar just like any humans’, yes,” Levi murmured. That was something she hadn’t known, but then she became still in surprise because… Petra thought he sounded almost… amused?
He turned the page of his book nonchalantly, offering no more information.
Petra’s auburn eyebrows furrowed. “Then why-?” she started, but suddenly, Levi looked up, grey eyes sliding past her to stare out through the window in the kitchen. His head tilted, almost as if he had heard something, as if something had gotten his attention that she couldn’t hear. Levi’s lips twitched a little in the beginnings of what Petra swore was a little smile and then Levi closed his book and tucked it under his arm as he stood.
“Moon’s full tonight,” Levi said casually, flicking his gaze up to the moon. Petra just stood there, feeling a bit off-kilter with the sudden change in topic. His head tilted a bit once more, this time towards the direction of his office and private quarters - and again, there yet again was that small twitch of his pink lips. Petra made a small, confused noise and he looked over at her.
Levi’s pale face was set in its usual, almost bored expression but Petra could have sworn there was something more, something different in his face now. Excitement, maybe, or anticipation? It was a look she had never seen on his face before so she still wasn’t sure. Levi was acting weird tonight and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
The captain gave her a single, short nod and then murmured in a somewhat strange, almost hitching voice, “It’s time to go feed the hound.” Then he turned and started walking away in that unnaturally silent manner of his.
Feed the… what? Petra wondered, absolutely at a loss. Levi was making no sense. They didn’t have dogs here at headquarters; pets weren’t allowed. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought the captain was ill or had a fever of some sort with the way he was talking.
“Captain, what-?” she tried again, raising her voice to call after him even though she knew Levi would hear her even if she whispered.
Levi didn’t stop, however. Instead, he just kept walking; in fact, he suddenly quickened his pace until he was almost jogging, what? She’d never seen Levi so obviously hurried like this. What was even going on? Was this some sort of weird dream?
Levi didn’t even pause as he called out a simple, “Enjoy your tea, Petra,” in a warm, fond voice over his shoulder before he disappeared quickly up the stairs; he left her staring after him, utterly confounded and at a loss.
A quick glance over to the spot Levi had suddenly vacated made her confusion only deepen until she was staring at the spot in shock, mind reeling.
Levi hadn’t even bothered to wash the teacup and saucer and put them away; something he never, ever failed to do. And there was still tea left. Levi never left his tea unfinished. Even if the captain was in a hurry, he still always took the time to at least finish it, though he’d told her once before that swigging down good tea was all but considered a sin to him.
To leave it there abandoned was…
Petra wasn’t one to curse, but what the hell had just happened?
Behind her, the teakettle whistled. Somewhere from within headquarters, (though it sounded like it came from the same wing that Levi's private quarters were in) Petra could have sworn she heard a low howl.