Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The humans were back again.

I sniffled the air, catching the scent of sweaty horses and the sweet fragrance of honey and smoke lingering in the afternoon breeze.

Why were they back?

The humans never learned, they always came back, and I didn’t know why. They were soft, squishy, and broke so easily, not to mention that for some reason they could not heal their injuries, and yet they loved venturing out here. I could not figure them out for the love of anything.

I was sitting near my forest on the grass, when I heard the stomping of hoofs on the ground from a good couple of miles away. Knowing already what was coming, I ran back inside the nearest forest, from where I hoped to catch another glimpse of the fascinating creatures.

Humans hated titans, and I couldn’t blame them. I hated titans too; they were messy and brutish, devouring everything they deemed edible and smelled awful. Their scent was the opposite of the human’s intoxicatingly beautiful fragrance.

There was probably something wrong with me for not wanting to devour them when they smelled so delicious. Other titans went crazy when they caught the scent of a human within a five-mile radius, while I never had the urge to get his fangs anywhere near them. The smell was too beautiful to be ruined with the howls and screams, and the stench of blood and mud.

The chirping noises were becoming louder and clearer as the humans got closer, the wind carrying the sound of their voices far away. They always moved in packs, like wolves hunting their prey, which was smart considering their disadvantage in their size.

My eyes roamed over the flat, grassy field where the pack of humans collided with a small herd of mindless titans. Many of them died and got devoured within the first seconds, but they still embodied an enchanting grace with the way they flew across the sky, swirling around their prey. I often wondered why they remained so close to the ground and didn’t fly away. If I could fly, I’d probably go as far away from here as possible.

Except – my eyes locked onto the figure I’ve been hoping to sight since the moment I knew the humans were coming here again – I wouldn’t be able to see my favorite human again if I left.

All humans looked kind of the same to me, but over the years I’d been watching them, I managed to recognize one of them fairly quickly, and I would recognize him out of a thousand humans.

A swirl of excited, high-pitched sounds left my throat as I watched the little human with the black hair do the spinny thing with the tiny sharp things, a movement that first caught my attention years ago. He was strong, something I never expected him to be when I saw him for the first time.

I was standing behind a giant tree a few months ago, the same way I did now, watching in awe and fear as the first group of humans I ever saw cut through the land.

I was smart enough back then to hide and even smarter that I climbed high up on a tree where the humans could no longer see me. My warm caramel skin tone blended in perfectly with the bark on the trees shimmering in the afternoon sunlight. As I was watching them, I quickly learned that the humans attacked every titan they saw without hesitation, and they always went for the kill. My little one killed three titans all by himself.

Had I been naïve enough to run to them, beaming with excitement and curiosity, I probably would’ve ended up in a steaming pile of disintegrating flesh within a matter of seconds. How such tiny things managed to kill titans so much larger than them, I didn't know, and I was baffled. That was also the moment I knew that I wanted to know more.

Today was a similar late afternoon. The humans entered my forest maybe a solid two miles away from me, leaving me safe in my hiding place. The titans followed them inside, making me angry that they dared cross my territory, but I stayed quiet, not wanting to draw attention to myself. I followed my little human from a distance, letting out short sounds of huffs that resembled giggling. My human was always going for the largest, nastiest titans, and he always defeated them too. It made me happy to watch him claim victory like he was the tiniest, most vicious titan.

I yearned to take a closer look at his face, but my heart ached a little every time I thought about how he would attack me. He had no reason to think that I wasn't going to attack him, and though I learned fairly quickly that humans were intelligent creatures, they also trusted no one but other humans. My human would cut me down before I could somehow make him understand that I was no danger to anyone’s safety apart from those titans who came after him. So, I knew I had to be sneaky. I didn’t know how, but I was determined to make my human understand that I was only curious.

There have been only a couple of times that I was sure that the little human noticed me. When we looked each other in the eye for the first time, I became so overwhelmed that I could not move a single muscle. I just stared at the human standing on one of the nearby branches, those sharp little eyes boring into my skull. We were maybe ten titan arms’ length away from each other, but I knew that the human was looking directly at me. With the sharp things in his hands, ready to jump, he was the most beautiful creature I ever had seen. My life was probably saved by that idiotic titan that tried to climb up to the human to stuff its dumb face. While the human cut the titan down, I managed to flee.

Ever since then, I’ve been ecstatic every time I heard the noises of hoofs and shouting in the distance, knowing that my human has come to him again.

They were deep in the woods now, humans and titans fighting everywhere. I stood in awe on a thick tree branch, watching the efficient way those humans killed titans; they used the sharps sticks again to cut through the napes of the titans and flew in the air, swinging from one tree to the next. It was a lot less bloody than biting or stomping on the titans’ heads.

I followed the dark-haired creature across the forest from a safe distance. A five-meter titan was coming their way, but the little one acted like he didn’t notice it. My sense of smell and hearing was ten times better than the humans, and I immediately noticed him, thinking that my human did too. The titan was sneaking in the human’s direction, but the human suddenly swung towards me with the speed of lightning.

I was confused. The other titan was only a few meters away from him.

No, no, no, no, no, I thought, what are you doing, don’t look at me, look behind you, he’s…!

The titan was hidden within the dense undergrowth, and the human had no way of noticing that sneaky bastard reaching for him. Thick fingers latched onto the human’s leg.

I felt a violent shudder overtake my body.

My eyes widened in rage as I watched the titan swing him in the air and smack him against a thick tree trunk. The human’s body went limp.

Something snapped inside me, glowing red rage overtaking my body. I launched forward, plunging my hand into the belly of the titan, my pointed, sharp nails cutting through the flesh like it was soft, fresh soil.

The titan choked, those dull eyes lazily focused on me, not understanding that I was about to kill him. I reached behind and ripped its nape into shreds with a single slash of my claws, and the chunky fingers let go of the human. The titan fell, and I stomped on its head for good measure before it started steaming and disintegrating.

It was then that a second wave of panic washed over me when I realized that the human was nowhere in sight. He must’ve fallen to the ground, but the bushes reaching up to my calves were too densely packed for me to see.

Terrified to stomp on him, I used my sense of smell to sniff him out and pushed aside a few branches of greenery when I was sure I found him. He was laying on the ground on his side, and I didn’t know at first if my human fell asleep or died. I didn’t know anything about human nature, but the sun was already setting, the shadows were getting longer, and I felt myself get tired as well.

Still, I willed myself to stay awake, because the little human was right here, unable to defend himself, and I needed to protect him.

I placed my palms on the ground on each side of the human, careful not to touch him, and I leaned closer to thoroughly inspect him.

The human laid on his side, his adorable little hands were still reaching for the shiny sticks that scattered across the ground. With a single finger, I reach to brush the dark hair out of his face, and I was as fascinated by how soft it was as I was terrified of accidentally crushing him.

I didn’t have any more time to marvel at the human. Two titans came running towards us with their arms reaching out towards us, and once again I was furious. I easily demolished them, kicking them on the ground and then snapping on their necks, but my rage could only be soothed by the fragile figure of my human still on the ground.

That’s what anyone gets who want to hurt my human. I couldn’t leave him there while he was unconscious. Speaking about hurt, I had no idea if his human was injured. I remembered how that one titan grabbed him by his leg.

As gently as I could, I lifted the human into my hands by forming two cups with my palms and scooping him up. I smiled sheepishly when finally had him in my arms, though my frozen in place grin could not express my happiness.

The human was barely the length of my palm, fitting in my hands just about comfortably. I organized my fingers in a way that my fingertips would hold the human’s head in a position that I hoped was pleasant, and with the gentlest brush of my thumb that I could manage on his shoulder, I rolled the human onto his back.

His angelic little features were calm and blank, almost looking like a titan, but a lot more beautiful.

Beautiful, and very dangerous. How could something looks so sweet and kill so easily at the same time?

And the smell, that sweet, intoxicating smell! I had never experienced a scent quite so delicious in my life. It was like walking across a never-ending field of blooming flowers and rivers of honey.

I wanted to touch his skin to see how soft it was, but I didn’t want to cause any more unintentional damage. It was already my fault that this human got attacked because I distracted him from the real danger. I had to make this right.

My precious little flower, my human, had blood trailing down his forehead, and I saw a dark patch forming on his right leg too. The heavy, rusty smell snapped me out of my vision and I focused my attention on more pressing matters.

It was getting darker and darker with each passing second, and I felt exhaustion crashing over my body, but I couldn’t let myself fall asleep as long as the little one was not safe. The sounds of the horses and the other humans were distant now. We were deep in my forest. The little human must’ve gotten too engrossed in hunting down the titans.

With him lying on my palms, I felt happier than ever in my life. I never had a companion, I lived alone ever since I was aware of my own existence. Tomorrow, I promised myself reluctantly, I will bring him back, I would sneak him back to the humans before they woke up. But for now, all I wanted was to make sure that Little One was safe for the night.

Levi groaned when the darkness began fading.

Fucking hell, everything hurt. It was all pure, excruciating pain, and Levi wanted nothing more than to fucking die already. Life was fucking shit.

His head was splitting in half, he could not think straight. He drifted in and out of consciousness, dreams, and nightmares haunting him constantly. He didn’t know what was real and what was a hallucination anymore.

Gods, he must be dying, but then why the hell was this confusing shit happening? Why did that darkness not swallow him for good, why did he still feel pain? He just wanted to be done with this, he wanted to pain to go away.

When he wasn’t unconscious, he saw teeth and a pair of green eyes blazing with fire. Those fucking eyes that he knew too well. He did not want to go with that abnormal being the last thing on his mind before he died, and yet regardless of whether his eyes were closed or not, all he could see were those blue and green gems.

My little one was acting strange, and I was getting worried.

For the past two days that we spent up on my tree, he’s been making pained little sounds, and he was sometimes moving, crawling around like a maggot, but then he fell asleep again. I brought him water in large leaves from the nearby pond, and fruits I picked I knew were edible, but the human was acting like he didn’t even know I was there.

I was terrified that he would die on me.

Deciding that I must find the other humans to get the little one help, I listened and sniffed the air in search of them, only to realize that they were gone. Why did they leave the little human behind? Did they not know that he was still alive?

At night when the human was shivering, I clumsily wrapped my arms around him, and that’s when I noticed the black patch on his leg. Leaning closer, I sniffed his body and instantly recoiled. The stench of blood and dirt scorched my sensitive throat, making me gag.

Little One was sick. That must’ve been the reason why he was acting weird.

When the first light of morning touched my face, I woke up and giving the shivering creature one last worried glance, I set out in search of something that would cure him.

He woke up to the sound of birds chirping, and the gentle touch of a light breeze on his face.

There was something giant and blue handing above him, and it took his hazy mind a good couple of minutes to realize that he was laying on his side, and the thing in front of him was the sky.

It was bright and painful to look at, so Levi closed his eyes.

His leg hurt like hell, his throat was burning, and he was nauseous, but he was no longer shivering, and his fingers weren’t freezing like they were ready to fall off any minute. All things considered, surprisingly, he was alive.

Holding onto the lucid moment he had, he tried recollecting what happened.

He remembered setting out on the expedition and running into the swarm of titans. There were a lot more of them in one herd than usual, but nothing they should’ve been able to handle. It was getting dark, they shouldn’t have stayed outside the walls for so long, but the titans just kept on coming and coming.

There were black patches in his memory, and the things he remembered were hazy and wobbly like dreams. He wasn’t sure how much of it happened.

He remembered getting near a forest where that one fifteen meters tall abnormal was always lazing around. A toothy grin, brown hair, and green, strangely calm eyes that were always just… watching. Unblinking, unwavering, almost humanlike. It creeped him the fuck out, the thing never did anything other than watch them. Levi was quite frankly obsessed with the titan that he named Stalker. He wasn’t the type to get attached, but the titan kept haunting his nights and days alike. Every time they set out on an expedition outside the walls, he felt like those glowing green eyes were watching him.

They headed for the forest to seek refuge. There was shouting and screaming, the sound of tearing flesh and the thud of blood and intestines splattering on the ground. He remembered sighting the Stalker, and he was determined to kill it once and for all.

He swung from tree to tree, blades in hand, eyes zeroing in on the tall figure when something yanked on his foot, and the world was spinning around him. He hit his head on something hard, and he blacked out.

That still didn’t explain where he was now.

Looking around he saw brown wood and tree branches, but the moment he tried lifting himself up to lean on his elbows, there was such an intense pain shooting through his body from his leg to his head that he almost blacked out again.

He shut his eyes tightly, waiting for the pain to subside before trying again.

“Shit,” he growled and hated how weak he sounded.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself into a sitting position and examined his surroundings. He was sitting in some kind of cave carved out in the side of a giant tree, about the size of his office back at the headquarters. At the opening of the wooden cave, he saw the blue midday sky and some branches, and the wind howled madly, indicating that he must’ve been pretty far up. He didn’t know how he got here, or how he was still fucking alive.

His right leg was a bloody mess from the knee down. Biting down on his lower lip to hold back a painful scream he tried to pull off his boot to inspect the wound better, but there was too much pain. He reached for the dagger he kept tied to his thigh and cut the brown leather open, not caring about ruining it. He worked his way through the boot, then the trousers, until his wound was freed.

“Fucking fuck!” he hissed through his teeth. There was a giant cut running down his calf, but what concerned him was the obvious way his leg was twisted in the wrong direction. It was broken.

Hissing through the pain, he grabbed the edge of his green cape where it was still somewhat clean and bit down on it. Inhaling sharply through his nose, he started probing his leg, trying to feel for the fracture. The pain was almost too much to handle.

At some point, when he grabbed his knee with one hand and his shin with the other, he was on the verge of passing out from the white-hot burning that was scorching through his body. Biting down on his cape with the last of his strength, he pushed the bone in place, and he let out a muffled, guttural scream.

He spat out the fabric and fell on his back, cursing his life and everything in it. He was laying there for about half an hour before he was somewhat sure that he won’t puke his guts out if he tried moving. He wrapped the remainder of his cape around his leg to steady it in place, creating a makeshift bondage.

He pulled himself to the edge of the cave, his legs trailing after him languidly. It fucking hurt but he needed to understand the situation he was in if he wanted to survive, and that he was set on.

He poked his head outside, and immediately pulled back, cursing heavily under his breath. He must have been at least thirty meters above ground, and his barely alive body did not take well the sight of the dizzying height.

Did the others find this place? There was no way they made it, that much he knew. He couldn’t imagine what kind of equipment one would need to carve out a cave this big.

“Erwin?!” he meant to shout, but his voice was barely above a whisper. There was no way the sound carried far enough through the screeching of the wind. “Four eyes? Fucking anyone?” He wouldn't even mind Hanji right now, that damn crazy woman could at least give him something for the pain. How on earth is he going to get down from here with a broken leg alone? Not to mention the titans that separated him from the walls.

This day couldn’t get any worse.

And then, because fate was a lousy fucker, set out to make Levi’s life miserable, he heard the thumping of giant footsteps. Groaning, he instinctively reached for his blades, but they were not there. He looked around, searching for the blades, but found none. Well, it should be fine. Titans could not climb trees, and he was high enough that probably nothing could reach him.

He crawled back to the entrance to see how many were coming, but he only spotted one.

His heart skipped a beat when he recognized the pointed ears and the brown mop of hair. The Stalker was here, and it was coming right towards his tree. Levi clenched his jaw, watching with piercing eyes as the titan reached the trunk, and then lifted his head, looking right into Levi’s eyes.

Fate truly was a miserable, evil son of a bitch.

Levi watched as the Stalker sunk its claws into the bark, and with the agility of a stray cat, it slowly started climbing up towards him.

Chapter Text

The titan was climbing alarmingly fast, something Levi has never seen any of them do before.

He was so fucked.

The Stalker adeptly placed one hand on a branch to pull itself, while it wedged its claws on its feet on a bump on the side of the tree, effectively running towards the cave. Each time it put a hand or foot down, the tree began violently shaking under its weight, making Levi quickly grab onto the ledge before he fell out. Those green eyes locked onto Levi, glowing with the bestial, raw strength, which was everything Levi did not have right now to protect himself.

Cursing under his breath, he pulled back but then screamed as he felt the burning pain shoot through his leg. He was panting heavily, fighting to stay conscious, and gritting his teeth he crawled back to where he left the dagger. He wasn’t about to let that fucker devour him without first putting up a fight. His blade wasn’t long enough for it to properly cut through the titan’s nape, not even if it willingly presented its neck for him, but he could still stab it in the eye.

Would that kill it? No.

Would that make it scream? Possibly, and that was just about enough for him.

Levi wasn’t someone who got emotional about the thought of his own death. Living was shit and dying was shit, there was no point in crying over either. The only thing he hoped for was that he was going to give this titan a proper fucking stomachache.

The thunderous shaking of the tree intensified, and Levi clenched his jaw as he waited with his heart pounding for the inevitable death with a single dagger in hand. A giant, clawed hand appeared at the entrance of the cave, grabbing onto the ledge, and the shaking subsided. Each claw was about the size of Levi’s head and could easily impale his stomach with a single stab.

Slowly, the face of which Levi had caught glimpses of over the years appeared, blocking the sunlight from pouring inside the cave, covering the place in darkness.

Levi knew what the Stalker looked like but had never seen it from this close before. And fuck, it was big. Its head was as big as a grown man standing. It was flashing him its eerie grin, each tooth about the size of Levi’s hand, while the canines were as long as his forearms. Its hair was in its face, the long, dark brown strands were gently waving in the wind. Soft hair like that did not belong on such a frightening monster, Levi’s feverish brain thought.

The Stalker locked its emerald green eyes on Levi, who didn’t even flinch. From this close, he noticed that the titan’s irises weren’t all green, but there were different shades of blue splattered around the pupils like small sapphires.

Levi shook his head to snap out of it. The adrenaline pumping in his veins was enough for him to temporarily forget about the excruciating pain in his leg, and his hands gripping the dagger were now shaking from frustration.

“What is it, you fucking bastard?” he hissed and searching for the smallest indications in the titan’s mannerism of just when he was going to throw itself on him, he noticed the way its ears perked up when he spoke. Gritting his teeth, he spat, “Not in the mood for human? C’mon, fucking attack me! Just make sure you bite down because if I land in your stomach alive, I will cut you open and stuff that fucking mouth of yours with your insides!”

The titan blinked, and Levi had never wanted to carve a titan’s eyes out as much as he did now. If the sly bastard was smart enough to know how to play innocent, it could do it to its heart’s content, it could play with him like a child played with his food, but those eyes would still end up mushed in two bloody holes in its skull.

Levi watched as the titan slowly climbed inside and raised the dagger. It made no attempt to grab him. Instead, it crawled back to the far end of the cave on all fours, and laid down on its side in fetal position, only to continue staring at Levi like that.

As the minutes and soon hours went by, the adrenaline slowly drained from Levi’s system, and the pain and fatigue began crashing down on him again. Bit by bit he started losing his touch with reality again. First, his arms lowered themselves from the defensive position without his permission, then his eyelids became droopy, and soon the dagger slid out of his hands. In an hour he no longer had the strength to keep an eye on the titan, who never made a single movement, just laid there like a stone statue.

By the time it began getting dark outside, the fever was back.

Levi was laying on his back, his teeth chattering, and his hands rigidly grabbing onto what remained on his cape, desperately trying to preserve as much body heat as possible. The wood was uncomfortably hard under his back, and something was digging into his hip.

How did it get so cold so quickly, he wondered? Wasn’t it still summer when they set out on the expedition? Tossing and turning between reality and the nightmarish visions of him getting stuck here for years or getting eaten by the Stalker, he realized somewhere along the line that he must have been dying, this time for real.

Fuck this, he thought.

He was Humanity’s Strongest; he didn’t need to be humiliated by dying of fever like a sickly old man. That fucking titan didn’t attack him purely out of mockery, that bastard.

His head was splitting in half from the pain, his whole body on fire. It felt like ants were crawling all across his skin, biting down and injecting him with their burning poison before crawling under his skin to march up and down and make him gag. If there was hell, Levi was sure that it couldn’t be any worse than this.

He didn’t remember when the violent shuddering of his body began calming down, but it felt like an eternity has passed. As his muscles began relaxing, it felt like there was nothing left of him. He was a shell of a human, he was tired, he couldn’t breathe anymore, it was just too much work.

He was so fucking tired.

Years’ worth of exhaustion crashed down on him in a single, infinite moment.

If people could feel what he felt then, they wouldn’t have been so afraid of death. Dying was easy, it was calm, it was sweet, like falling asleep, and Levi was ready to sleep off his shitty life for the rest of eternity.

He was weak.

The thought found him like the last epiphany on the verge of death. He’s been Humanity’s Strongest for so long now, he had to be strong for so long, but now he was weak, he was finally ready to put that weight off his shoulders. Would that be so bad? He never asked for the burden of being the strongest. Was it so bad that now, when he had the opportunity to shed that role, he was ready to do it?

He carried that torch long enough. He deserved some peace at least in death.

He would die in this cave with no one to bury him. Fuck if he cared. Maybe in a hundred years, some adventure-seeking, suicidal brat will find his skeleton and wonder who he was. He was fine with that. He wanted that.

He would die as he was born: a fucking nobody.

Except – he didn’t die.

It could’ve been days later, he didn’t know, but when his eyes opened on their own account again, he saw the pale blue sky littered with pink and orange clouds. He was drenched in his own sweat and smelled absolutely foul.

He was exhausted and weak, he couldn’t move a single finger for the love of anything, but felt oddly clean like he was scrubbed from the inside out. Notably, he was also not in the boiling pits of a titan’s reeking stomach, something that confused him, but could not care about it for too long when thinking in two-word sentences was still exhausting.

There was a growl echoing in his ears, drawing his attention to the aching in his stomach and his throat. He was starving, but could not think of a single dish he had an appetite for. He had to be still sick. This was just another bump before the real slope came, with death waiting for him at the bottom.

So, death was just as much of a lazy fuck not wanting to do its job as everyone around Levi, he thought. Good to know that laziness knew no boundaries. Death could go fuck itself for not doing its job properly.

Though his body stayed limp like a ragdoll, his mind was clearing up.

Then he felt something nudge his back. Giant fingers wrapped around his body, and Levi yelped in pain when his leg moved a single inch off the ground. “Oi, put me down, you stupid fuck!” he cussed, hating how his words were barely whispers of pleading, but titan halted its movements. Those wide, blue-green eyes watched him almost like it was… worried.

It could go fuck itself, Levi had a hunch he was hallucinating that the thing felt a single thing besides hunger. Fucking Stalker.

He shooed his pain-ridden, irrational thoughts. This was a titan, and the only reason he was still alive, was because its abnormal brain did not tell it to eat Levi. Not yet anyway. With some of his rational thinking back in business, Levi was painfully aware of just how fragile his current state of– ‘still alive’ was. One wrong movement, or hell, one wrong tick in that thick skull of the abnormal, and it could turn vicious, shredding Levi into pieces.

Part of him almost wished that the thing acted with malice like a normal titan. Mindless desire to devour was easy to predict, one knew what to anticipate. This… constant state of uncertainty drove Levi angry and insane, two things he did not have the energy for.

He glared at the still unmoving titan, looking at him for the first time since his fever kicked in. The titan pulled its hand back and sat on its ass with a thud that shook leaves off the tree.

“I will fucking die here,” Levi deadpanned with wide eyes as he waited for the tree to stop shaking.

The titan’s ears perked up and it blinked a few times, those fucking eyes never leaving Levi’s face once. It tilted its head back and opened its jaws, then with a hand it reached behind the monstrous teeth.

Levi expected it to barf up some half-digested human limb, but instead, the titan lifted its tongue and grabbed something. He reached for Levi again, who immediately tensed up, but instead of grabbing him, the titan put two pieces of tree bark in front of him, both shaped like some kind of primitive bowls. One was filled with water, while the other held some sort of thick, clear yellow fluid. Levi crinkled his nose, his stomach already turning from the thought of anything that had been anywhere near a titan’s mouth, but then he recognized the flowery, sweet scent of the thick fluid.

Overcome with curiosity, he pulled the makeshift bowl closer and inhaled the smell of honey.

“Ah, what the fuck,” he breathed out; he was more surprised than disgusted now. He wasn’t a big fan of anything sweet, but the sheer absurdity of seeing a small bathtub’s worth of honey in one place was enough for him to reconsider his relationship with sweets.

Where did this titan even get this much honey? And why did it give– oh, there were questions better not answered. Maybe it knew what it was doing, maybe not, but…

Suddenly he remembered something that Hanji told him a long time ago. He was only listening with one ear since he was trying to block out the annoying noise that flooded from the woman’s lips non-stop, but a detail caught his attention: honey had healing and cleansing properties when applied to flesh wounds. She explained how it worked back then, but Levi neither remembered nor cared.

Fuck it, Levi thought, if death wasn’t going to do its job, Levi wasn’t about to wait around for it patiently.

Through fits of hisses and grunts, he pulled the bowls closer and inspected the water. He irked from the idea of washing his wound with the water the titan brought, but fucking hell, anything was better than mud and grass in raw flesh.

He washed his leg as carefully as he could, and there were many moments where he was torn between wanting to scream and wanting to plunge that dagger in his own neck for this shit to finally end. Still, he carried on, and after he deemed the wound clean enough, he scooped a generous amount of honey on his flesh with his hands.

The honey was pleasantly cool, easing the pain a little bit. He worked the thick, gooey substance across the wound, and shred the cleanest parts of his cape into lines with which he bandaged his leg back up.

When he was done, his body went rigid. He was so engrossed by the task at hand, that he completely forgot about the titan. Glancing up, he saw it sitting across the cave, which was just barely enough for the two of them to fit in. The thing was watching him as always, and a shiver ran down Levi’s spine. He tried digging up his fiercest glare, but it was hard to look intimidating without his blades and the ability to stand. The titan made no movement that could’ve helped Levi figure out what was going on inside that thick skull, or why it brought him these things. There was no way a titan knew about such things as healing; after all, they could regenerate almost any part of their bodies within minutes. So, what the fuck was this? Cover Levi in honey so he would taste better when it devoured him? The thought made him scoff. He never knew a titan to be a picky eater.

He laid his back against the wall, accepting the fact that he was probably going insane for trying to figure out the motives of a titan.

He knew he was a dead man anyway. Even if the titan didn’t eat him just now, he was stuck in this big ass tree with a wound that did not seem to be nice enough to heal by itself or the magic voodoo honey from the titan. His stomach rumbled as if to mock him and add another possible cause of his death. Starvation. They said starving to death was one of the worst ways to go. How fucking amazing.

The titan soon left, and Levi was laying with his eyes closed and jaw clenched as he felt the shaking of the tree finally stop when the titan reached the ground. With the abnormal out of sight, sleep quickly took over his body.

He must’ve slept at least a couple of hours because he woke up, the land already covered in darkness.

Confused and still feverish, it took him a few aggravating minutes to remember where he was. With the dreamless bliss of sleep gone, he became aware of the pain again, and he let out a frustrated groan.

A sound came from the dark depths of the cave, and he whipped his head in its direction.

The titan was lying in the corner, its eyes closed and looking completely dead. Levi wanted to scoff when he thought about how many people Hanji could murder just to switch places with him now. That insane maniac. She would probably figure out how to train and ride this thing like a giant puppy.

Something else caught his attention.

At arm’s length away from him to the right, there was a pile of something that was not there when he fell asleep. He couldn’t see what it was in the dark. Grabbing his dagger, he poked into the pile and was surprised when he lifted something with the blade.

Scooting closer to the entrance, he examined the thing in the moonlight and realized that it must’ve been some sort of peach-like fruit. He glared at the fruit for a moment before glancing at the titan again, but he was too hungry to think about it for long. At this point, a poisonous fruit was just another thing on the list of ‘Possible Causes of Death.’

He sunk his teeth in the soft, pale flesh, and grunted in relief when the sweet flavor exploded in his mouth. He devoured one fruit after another, relishing in the taste and the weight that filled his stomach, while the juice quenched his thirst. Gods, he must’ve looked fucking disgusting with the juice running down his chin and fingers, but he ran out of fucks to give a long time ago.

Now that his hunger was satisfied, sleep hit him quickly, and he slept through the night.

The next day the titan left at sunrise, and Levi let out a relieved sigh once the thundering steps faded. He unwrapped the bandages to examine the wound. It was swollen and red, but he couldn’t tell much of its state, and probably it was too early to say anything anyway. He’s seen countless of his men begin healing after a nasty injury, but halfway through they got an infection and died within hours.

He washed the wound and reapplied the leftover honey from yesterday, then ate the rest of the fruits. Healing consumed most of his energy. He dozed off somewhere along the line while watching the forest, trying to figure out his exact location – without much success. The cave only gave him a limited window to the outside world.

He woke up from his disturbed sleep to the distant sounds of the giant footsteps coming in his direction, and he couldn’t help the way his stomach turned at the sound. His grip instinctively tightened on the handle of the dagger, wishing it was his sword, which he no longer had.

He wondered why he hadn’t seen any other titans around yet. It was unusual for a forest this large to be so void of titans apart from the abnormal one of course, and he was sure he hadn’t heard any other steps that didn’t turn out to be the Stalker’s.

The titan climbed up the tree, its green eyes locking onto Levi’s grey ones, and so their silent battle of staring began as it had a few times since Levi was injured. He watched distrustfully as the titan crawled over him, careful not to touch Levi, but it made no attempt to scurry away to the other side of the cave like before. The cheeky bastard probably caught on that Levi couldn’t hurt it for the love of anything.

The titan sat down, eyes never leaving Levi for once, and it let out a long huffing noise in two grunts. Levi ignored it and continued watching it from the corner of his narrowed eyes. When he heard another grunt, reluctantly he turned his head back to the abnormal, who was still gaping at him.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” he barked, his mood foul already as it was, but the choking sound that the titan made, which closely resembled a human giggle, did not help either. “Fucking brat,” he growled.

The titan made that noise again and reached out, this time with its palm facing upwards. It opened its fingers, revealing five of those pale, peach-like fruits Levi ate yesterday. Levi glared at the titan and slid away a little using his hands, but immediately regretted the movement when pain shot through his body.

Grunting, he closed his eyes, and yelled, “Get your dirty hand out of my fucking face!” Oh, why was he bothering, the stupid twat didn’t understand anything he said.

The titan crinkled its nose like a confused kid and placed the fruits on the ground near Levi. This time it brought water in a large leaf (thankfully carried it in its hand) and poured it into the wooden bowl. Once it was done, it sat down, looking at Levi like it was expecting something, and the man scoffed.

“What?” he rolled his eyes. “Want me to thank you? You can fuck off with that if you don’t want me to shove this dagger up your ass. I don’t know what your game is, but I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”

The titan tilted its head to the side, its ears perking up every time Levi spoke. At least it listened to what he had to say, unlike those fucking bratty cadets that arrived not long ago at HQ. Only problem was that this one’s brain was probably the size of a chestnut.

Living with a titan was… one hell of an experience that Levi wished he never got.

His leg was healing painfully slowly, but it was making small progress each day. Once the surface wound closed, Levi had a lot more hope that he would make it and wouldn’t die of some nasty infection. That is if the Stalker didn’t decide to snap his spine in half on a whim.

Levi hated how comfortable he got near the beast after spending about a month with him around. It was the result of him slipping in and out of his fever that just didn’t want to go away, and that he became so used to the daily possibility of him getting eaten or stomped on any minute. At some point, he just stopped caring that the Stalker was around. He even started referring to the titan as a ‘him’, and not an ‘it.’

The titan brought him water and food every day, and each time he brought back something new, Levi felt like he was gambling with his life. Did the titan have any idea what was edible or poisonous? Levi made the educated guess that he probably had no fucking clue. These were the types of questions he was thinking about when he was not tormenting himself with thinking about what happened to Erwin and the rest of the expedition. He hoped they got the fuck out from here and didn’t look for him.

Regardless of the Stalker’s questionable knowledge of human feeding, Levi continued waking up in the morning, and slowly he made peace with the way things currently were. He didn’t have high hopes of surviving this shithole that Hanji would’ve called a ‘magical experience’, but he grew up and lived with a mentality that was always closely entangled with death. He learned never to expect kindness from the day after today.

Dying he was okay with, but sitting in one place for a month? He was slowly but surely losing his sanity. He wanted to get up, walk around, and stretch his rigid muscles, but the pain in his leg still didn’t allow him to stand. The swelling was mostly gone after about twenty days, but it still hurt like a bitch.

When he was bored out of his mind, he resigned to watching the Stalker from the cave entrance. Not because he was interested, no, he just had nothing better to do. The titan had this creepy thing that every time Levi looked at him, no matter if he was up in the tree and the Stalker on the ground, he always whipped his head up to gaze at him. Like he had a sixth sense that told him if someone or something was watching him.

The Stalker was… something else, to put it simply. Sometimes, after he left in the morning, Levi would hear him roar and scream in the distance in an unnervingly human way. At first, he hoped that he was attacked by his scouts who came back for him, but he had to give up on that dream when he remembered why he named the abnormal a ‘stalker.’ He never attacked a human, nor got anywhere near them. He hid, fucking hid, so that he could watch them from a safe distance.

And so, the roars continued, scaring the living soul out of Levi every time he heard it, before they died down after echoing through the forest a few times. The titan made lots of different noises too, much like a human would use language to communicate, and those wide, curious eyes created the illusion that would’ve made one believe that he really was trying to communicate. Levi reluctantly refused to believe this at first, but then as boredom and loneliness started weighing him down, the thought of the titan communicating with him did not bother him that much anymore.

Gods, he never thought that one day he’ll miss being able to talk to someone.

One time the titan climbed back on the tree around midday but didn’t enter the cave. He was hanging onto the tree by the entrance, properly giving a fright to Levi. “What do you want?” he asked sourly, trying to mask his discomfort of staring at those giant fangs from barely an arm’s length away.

The titan made that sound, that long, two-part growl that resonated through Levi’s bones, the one that sounded similar to a chuckle. He reached out for Levi, who immediately began to protest, but there wasn’t anything he could do other than yell the foulest insults he could muster up. The titan lifted him into his warm palm, and as angry as Levi was, he did not miss the gentle way the titan handled him. Like Levi was made of glass, which was not far from the truth when one considered the differences between the human and titan body.

When he was safely seated in his palm (as safe as one can be in a titan’s hand), the titan slowly started climbing downwards, all the while making sure that Levi in his hand was close to his chest, and no branch scratched him. He was a lot slower now that he only had three limbs to work with, but eventually, he made his way to the ground, and started walking.

“Oi, you fuck, put me down!” Levi yelled and glared angrily, but the titan just glanced his way and made a few chirping noises. Accepting his fate, Levi stopped fighting and instead focused on holding onto the thick fingers so he wouldn't fall. He couldn’t go far with his useless leg even if the titan put him down anyway. He was still weak and got tired easily, and he also did not want to miss this opportunity to observe his location from the titan’s height.

They were deep inside the forest and he couldn’t see the grassy fields anywhere nearby. He was officially the princess kidnapped by the big bad dragon, who kept him in a high tower. The only reason he did not dare say ‘this couldn’t get any worse,’ was because fate had its way of making him eat his own words.

They reached a large lake, and Levi grabbed onto the titan’s thumb when he suddenly and too quickly started lowering Levi to the ground. The abnormal must’ve noticed this because he stopped and looked at Levi with a huff and a questioning tilt of his head.

“Slow down, you fucking idiot!” Levi barked, and the titan responded with a quiet whine. “My brain will turn mush if you whip me around like that!”

This time a lot slower, he lowered Levi onto a rock next to the water and sat on the ground not too far from him. Levi glared at him belligerently.

“Tch,” he shook his head but didn’t complain. It would’ve bothered him a month ago that the bastard wanted to treat him like a pet and bring him on walks, but after he spent countless nights cramped up in that fucking cave, he swallowed his pride.

He crawled to the water using his hands and started taking his clothes off. He was fucking filthy, not being able to take a proper bath since the day they set out on the expedition, and he was ready to scrub off all the blood, dirt, and sweat from his skin.

Feeling the titan still watching him, he turned to shoot him another murderous glance, but then just rolled his eyes. “Fucking pervert,” he mumbled, and discarding the last of his clothes, he washed the filth off his body. “You know, you’re creepy as fuck, watching me all the time. Maybe if you had some fucking manners I would’ve named you something nicer.”

He hated the thought of putting back his dirty clothes, so he soaked them as well, and washed them as best as he could without any soap. He was weary of being out in the open wilderness with not a single proper weapon or a pair of usable fucking legs, but the titan beside him seemed calm, which he hoped meant that there weren’t any other ones nearby. Just in case though, he looked around every couple of minutes.

The titan must’ve picked up on his repetitive motion, because his ears perked up, and mirrored what Levi did, turning his head side to side.

“You look stupid when you copy me, you know that?” he grunted, and the titan made that signature sound again, which Levi figured was something between a greeting and a sign that he had the titan’s attention. It became a norm for them to have one-sided conversations with each other.

Feeling good about his bath and his clothes drying in the sun, he wanted to test his luck with what the titan was willing to do in terms of copying him.

“Oi!” he grunted to get his attention, and the titan’s eyes were glued on him again. “Do this!” He raised a hand and pretended to swing it at his own face, halting it just before his palm collided with his cheek.

The titan chirped, lifted his hand, and slapped himself across the face so hard that he sent himself flying to the ground.

Levi just stared, something beginning to hurt his chest, then he erupted into fits of laughter. The titan whined and looked at Levi with a betrayed look in his eyes, which continued to fuel his laughter. “Fuck me, you’re such a stupid brat!” he dried the tears from his eyes with his hands, and for the first time in forever, his voice lacked the sharp edge he always kept up when addressing the titan.

Was the laugh worth the threat of getting smashed into a red mush under the palm of the titan if he got angry? Absolutely but the titan did no such thing. He just lifted a palm to his steaming face and continued whining for a little more. He really was such a brat.

Levi put his clothes back on, and picking up a large stick, he slowly managed to push himself up on one foot. Using the stick as a walking cane, he made sure not to put any weight on his broken leg, and it felt so fucking good to finally not feel like a useless git.

“Oi, Stalker!” he raised his voice, but he had to repeat himself two more times before the titan started paying attention to him. “You need to get your ears checked or what? Or you just don’t like the name I gave you,” he scorned, but then struck by sudden inspiration, he looked at the titan, and addressed him with a curt “oi!”

The titan looked up again, ears perked up and listening.

“Do you have a name?”

Maybe it was completely and hopelessly irrational, and this was just the demonstration of Levi losing the last remaining bits of his sanity, but how the fuck should he know if titans had names?

The titan tilted his head to the side and made some whirring noises.

“Yes, very funny, shithead. I hate it when I’m ignored though, so how about I name you something other than ‘stupid fuck’, huh?” he said, and the titan let out another one of those long ‘chuckles.’ It made Levi think. Maybe the titan really had some sort of language he was using, even if it was primitive. “Ungrateful brat, not responding to the name I gave him. What should I call you then, oh your highness?” He was rather thinking aloud than talking to the titan, something he’s been doing a lot more since he lost all human contact. He sighed. Spending a month alone with nothing but a dog-like titan was hard in its own way.

The titan chirped and chuckled again, which gave Levi another idea. Testing the sounds on his lips, he started putting syllables together that resembled the titan’s chuckles the most. “Eh-eh? What a lovely name,” he snickered. “Suits your dumb face.”

The titan grunted and huffed, then made the sound again.

“Eh-gen? Eh-ren?” he tried, and the titan continued chirping along like he was enjoying himself. Levi narrowed his eyes and waited until the titan turned away, then quickly called out, “Eren!”

The titan immediately whipped his head around and looked at him with a waiting, eager expression.

“Huh,” Levi wondered if the noises really meant something or if it was just something the titan liked to vocalize. “Eren!” Another wiggle of the pointed ears. “We should go back, it’s getting dark. Oh, fucking hell,” he mumbled to himself realizing that he half-expected the beast to understand him.

He started limping towards Eren with the walking stick, and first pointed at himself, then at Eren, then back at the trees where he suspected the wooden cave was. Eren, understanding what he wanted, placed his hand in front of him, and Levi reluctantly crawled on his palm but poked the titan's skin with the stick as hard as he could when Eren chuckled again.

“Don’t be too smug about it, brat, or I’ll knock your teeth out,” he growled, and Eren seeming able to read the meaning of his words from the cool tone, remained quiet on the rest of the way back to the cave.

Chapter Text

Levi missed tea.

No, ‘miss’ did not describe the lengths he could’ve gone to get his hands on some tea. He could’ve murdered someone for it. He would’ve even drunk that nasty sewer water that Oluo made. The bastard somehow ruined quality tea with a touch of his finger. Eren didn’t have any tea blend or the equipment to brew the drink itself, but Levi let that pass. Eren by far wasn’t the worst roommate Levi was ever forced to have. Hanji was certainly a lot worse.

Throughout the months Levi got to know more and more about the titan, though the answers to some of the most important questions remained a mystery.

Eren was shockingly successful when it came to keeping Levi alive in the long run, even though he couldn’t have had much knowledge of how to take care of a human. He brought Levi food every day, and a lot of it too, different kinds of wild vegetables and fruits, sometimes birds and smaller rodents that he caught, mostly alive. After Levi almost threw up when Eren shoved a fat, dead rat in his face, Eren made some chirping sounds, and he never brought Levi another dead animal or a rat again.

Levi knew that Eren was studying him as much as he studied Eren. The titan remembered what foods he liked most, watched him as he lit a fire at the cave entrance on some rocks with two sticks of wood, and sometimes tried recreating the motions he saw.

Eren picked up basic commands, such as a finger pointing somewhere meant ‘look there, jackass,’ pointing up meant ‘pick me up, now,’ pointing down meant ‘put me down, you stupid fuck,’ and pointing in the direction of the cave meant ‘I’m tired of looking at your dumb face all day, bring me back.’ Eren always tried to do as he asked to the best of his abilities. It was almost comical to see a fifteen-meter giant watching Levi with bright, obedient puppy eyes.

When Levi was not observing Eren, he was thinking about ways to get home. It was the impossible question with a non-existent answer that plagued his mind day and night. If he was relatively close to the place where he lost his consciousness and this forest wasn’t too large, maybe he was around five hours of ride from the wall. That’s how long they came that day on the expedition when suddenly those titans attacked them.

Five hours on foot in deep titan territory was suicidal. Five hours on foot with a broken leg was… he might as well just cut his throat to spare himself the pain of getting torn into little shreds of flesh within five minutes of setting out on the road. He tried not to think about the scouts too much, to wonder what happened to them, if any of them made it back to the Wall. He could only hope that they didn’t stay to look for him and made it back safely.

But Levi was a soldier, and a clean freak of that, and he was just as efficient at keeping his surroundings orderly as his mind. There was no use brooding. No use regretting. Instead of slowly breaking down his motivation to survive by wailing over the seemingly unsolvable problem, he gave himself small, reasonable tasks, such as focusing his energy on healing his broken fucking leg.

For months Levi still never came across a single titan. It was especially confusing after that massive herd that raided them on his last and still ongoing expedition. Every time he thought about it, noticed how quiet the forest was, his stomach twisted.

By the time the leaves on the trees began changing colors and the ground was covered in rusty oranges and red, Levi regained more of his strength, and with that, his frustration to sit around doing nothing grew tenfold. He slept through most nights without the fever shaking him up every half an hour and every day he challenged himself to try standing up once the pain was not so excruciating that he would faint within the first second of putting some weight on his leg.

Each day around midday Eren brought Levi out to the lake. Once his leg got better, Eren even put him down at the bottom of their tree and let him walk alongside him until Levi got too exhausted from limping and leaning onto his makeshift walking stick. When he got tired of pushing his way through the piles of fallen leaves, which sometimes reached the height of his hips and gave Levi an almost irresistible urge to rake the whole forest clean, Eren placed him back on his palm and continued the journey carrying him.

The water was getting colder with every passing day.

One time while they were down at the lake, Eren watched Levi wash his hands in the water after gutting some fish. The lake was packed with small, silvery fish, and Levi figured he should catch as much as he could before winter came and the lake froze.

He sighed, thinking about getting stuck here for the entirety of winter, but he didn’t have much choice. He pulled up the primitive traps he made from thin, bendable sticks, and put the fish in a basket to bring them back ashore.

Sitting around in a cave for almost three months was enough time for anyone to figure out how to weave basic household equipment, okay?

Eren watched with bright doe-eyes as Levi washed the blood off his hands and lightly shook the excess water off once he was done. Eren looked at the water, then back at Levi’s hands, then back at the water again; he knelt, carefully, because Levi was always yelling at him when he threw himself on the ground with a loud thud. Then he submerged his hands and clumsily started flapping around, creating giant waves.

“Oi, what the fuck is wrong with you, shithead?!” Levi barked as a giant wave of water barely missed him and splattered on the ground about a meter away from him. Eren batted his ears and apologetically looked back at Levi with a whine.

The man groaned and went back to the water. “Tch. Have you never washed your hands before, you filthy idiot?” he snapped, once again forgetting that Eren was a titan. He waved at him to get closer, and Eren brought his always-grinning face up closer to watch as Levi repeated the motion in the water.

Once he was done, he lightly shook off the excess water from his hands and dried them on his cape. Then he looked expectantly at Eren, waiting for him to do it properly this time.

Eren huffed, seemingly nervous, before submerging his hands again, and this time he did something that could almost be called washing hands. Levi took pity on him, and inching just a little bit closer, he poked the titan’s hand with his stick where he saw dirt, signaling him that that is where he should be focusing. Eren understood, and a delighted sound came from deep within his throat when he finally understood the purpose of the strange human practice. Though he still didn’t know why exactly it was so important to do it.

When he was done, he lifted his hands from the water, and Levi raised his cape in front of his face just in time before the shower of tiny droplets hit him as Eren violently shook his hands.

Feeling Levi’s death glare on himself, Eren cooed, fucking cooed at Levi like some kitten. The man stared at him for a moment, barely an arm’s length away from the vicious fangs. He became so used to them during these past months that the sight no longer fazed him.

“Now that you’re a proper fucking gentleman, I’ll teach you how to say ‘sorry, I’m a good-for-nothing idiot’ next time,” he scorned.

Once they got back to the cave, Levi placed half the fish in the sun on a flat rock, which he cleaned in the lake water five times before sighing and making peace with not being able to sanitize it any better than that.

While the fish were drying, he lit a small fire on the ledge. He stacked smaller, flat rocks on top of each other in three columns around the firepit and placed a larger, rather thin rock on top of them to create a tiny oven of sorts. He placed the fish on the flat rock, which was scorching hot from the flames underneath, and while they were cooking, he checked on his leg.

The wound was healing nicely, and the swelling was almost completely gone now. Some painkillers couldn’t have hurt, but he had to endure worse before. He had to thank his lucky stars for getting this far along without an infection, and Eren, who showed him where he got the honey after Levi waved that wooden bowl in front of the titan’s face for half an hour. That was one of the first times he brought himself to communicate with Eren properly, and though it didn’t go smoothly, eventually Eren took him to a tree with a giant (now half smashed) beehive. The bees started buzzing louder just by Eren standing near them, so Levi urged him with a few kicks to get him the fuck out of there before he got stung.

Unlike Eren, he didn’t magically heal just any injury. Bones healed slowly, and he wasn’t that young anymore either. Well, define young, but the human body did not give a shit about what society or anyone else said about age. One day Levi just woke up and boom. He felt old. His back hurt, everything hurt, which was his body’s way of asking him: ‘fuck, you’re still alive? Not for long, you’re not.’

“You’re lucky, Eren, that you don’t age,” he groaned as he rebandaged his leg, and earned a curious whirr from the titan. “Or who knows, maybe you do, but you can still regenerate. Fucking cheater.”

The fire hissed, and Levi cursed loudly when he noticed that his dinner fell face flat in the fire. His little structure has betrayed him. He awkwardly limped closer to try poking the meat out from the ash without much success.

“Shit, come on!” he growled. Eren noticed that he was struggling, and before Levi could stop him, Eren reached into the fire, but immediately jerked his hand back with a whine. “Yeah, what were you thinking is going to happen, you imbecile?!” Levi snapped as he was eyeing the titan’s quickly regenerating skin. Fuck, the things he could do for his ability to heal.

Eren huffed and reached for the fire again, but this time a silvery blue shimmer was coating the tips of his fingers. Levi’s first thought was saliva, disgusting, filthy titan saliva, but as he watched Eren grab the piece of meat between his fingers that looked impossibly tiny in his grasp, Levi realized that Eren did something else.

Forgetting about the meat, he waved his hand at Eren with a curt “oi!”, making the titan think that he was demanding his dinner, but when Eren gave him the fish, Levi set it aside and motioned him closer again.

Eren’s eyes were twinkling with confusion but reached out his hand towards Levi when he kept pointing at it. When he was close, Levi grabbed his dagger, carefully, so he wouldn’t accidentally cut Eren, he tapped the flat surface of the blade against the hard, shy surface that grew on Eren’s fingertips. It almost looked like a thin layer of transparent skin, but incredibly strong.

Noticing the frown of deep concentration on Levi’s face, Eren hardened his skin across his whole hand and most of his forearm. He eagerly watched as Levi’s eyes went wide. Eren quietly chuckled, finding the human’s awestruck expression endearing. He loved it when he could impress Levi; he was trying so hard every day to show the human new things that if Eren had basic social skills, he would’ve found his own behavior extremely embarrassing.

Levi curiously raised the dagger and placing the pointed tip on Eren’s thumb, he looked up questioningly, asking for his permission. Eren, who became a lot better at reading his nonverbal communication over the shared weeks, huffed in approval, somewhat curious himself. Levi swung the dagger, but instead of penetrating Eren’s skin like the blade should’ve, it slid off the shiny surface with a glassy creak.

“Fucking hell, how do you do that?” Levi mumbled, his mind already racing far ahead of himself, brainstorming ideas about the ways they could use Eren’s abilities for humanity’s interest. Gently patting Eren’s finger to signal him that he was done, he sat down to resume cooking his dinner and watched with narrowed eyes as the shiny surface faded, then completely disappeared.

Fuck, the things Levi could do sometimes to make the damn titan talk.

The scent of the rain was still present in the air, the grass and trees dripping in freezing cold water, but Levi was dry. They were sitting by the lake when suddenly it started raining, though Levi wouldn’t have noticed if not for the sound, because no drops fell on him.

When he looked up with brows furrowed in confusion, he flinched from the surprise of seeing Eren’s outstretched hand above him. This would’ve been a terrifying sight for any human, if not for the fact that Eren was deliberately shielding him from the rain.

One of the things Eren picked up was just how much Levi hated anything dirty and wet. In Levi’s opinion only water was allowed to be wet (stop that, you dirty-minded bastards), everything else, clothes and tools, needed to be properly dried and wiped down before the water did any damage.

Eren chuckled at Levi’s momentary surprise, but the man said nothing, just continued tying the stacks of dry firewood that he collected. Winter was near, he could tell by the chilly mornings and the distant smell of snow in the air, and he needed to be prepared. He still had to collect more wood, probably gather as much of those vegetables Eren dug up from the ground as possible, check the traps he placed around the forest, and–

And next day he woke up to bright white snow clouds crowding the sky and a thick layer of snow covering the ground and trees.

Eren came back from the stroll he always did in the morning and the afternoon and handed Levi a struggling wild turkey. He quickly finished it off while wondering where the titan always went during the mornings other than to get him food. As he began pulling out the feathers, Eren was watching him quietly.

Eren wasn’t all that bad for substituting humans. Levi’s urge to kill him shifted into something more like wanting to understand Eren more, maybe even figure out a way to use him for the good of humanity. Eren was full of potential. The way he was so eager to learn, Levi could maybe teach him things a lot more useful than how to wash his hands or slap himself across the face. He wanted to teach him how to slap others across the face, preferably titans. He only needed to figure out a way for both of them to get back to the wall, and then of course convince everyone that studying this titan wasn’t a completely suicidal idea.

But who was he trying to fool? Even if he wasn’t completely mad for wondering how he could train Eren, and there was a chance that he lost his mind a long while ago, even then there was no way that Eren would be given access to go inside the walls and not get all his limbs nailed down to the ground.

While preparing the turkey, he noticed how the titan watched him more intensely than usual. Levi gave him a confused look when he noticed that one of Eren’s hands was still behind his back like he was hiding something. Eren made some chirping sounds, and his eyes were shining brightly with delight. Cheeky brat.

“What is it?” Levi grunted and continued struggling to cut up the meat with his dagger. The blade was getting dull. When Eren stayed quiet, he scoffed, and put the dagger down, knowing that Eren won’t ‘tell’ him shit unless he was giving him his full attention. He really was such a brat. “Tch. Out with it, I’m not a patient man!” Levi ordered.

Letting out his ‘Eren’ chuckle, the titan lifted his closed fist in front of Levi and opened his hand.

Levi could barely believe his own eyes.

In Eren’s palm laid both the swords he lost when that titan grabbed him and broke his leg. One of the blades was broken in half, but the other was completely intact. He put the meat aside in a hurry to grab the swords, careful not to cut Eren. They seemed to be in good condition considering that they must’ve been laying around for quite some time now. They were made of the best quality metal they got inside the walls, not even rust could damage them.

Eren watched quietly as he inspected the blades with the tiniest shadow of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. This was the first piece of his life that he got back ever since he was stranded in this forest, the first beacon of hope.

His eyes snapped back to Eren, and he hated the way that those green eyes lightly tugged at his heart. “How did you find these?” There was no way Eren just stumbled across them. He had to know that these were Levi’s.

Eren softly grunted, allowing Levi to interpret the answer the way he wanted to. Eren had a lot more class when it came to civil communication than most people that Levi knew.

“Thank you,” he said as softly as he could, wishing the titan could understand what he was saying. Eren must’ve picked up on something from Levi’s tone, because he gently cooed at him, a sound that he made more and more often as the weeks went by. Sometimes Levi could swear that he saw genuine, almost childlike affection in those blue-green eyes.

Trying to think of something he could give the titan in return, he waved him closer, and Eren complied without hesitation. Levi started teaching him how to light a fire, though on second thought maybe showing an intelligent titan how to start fires was not one of his best ideas.

Still, he talked him through it while demonstrating each step, and he made sure to stress the importance of the stones he put underneath the pile of branches and logs, so the whole tree wouldn’t catch on fire. He also explained why he lit it so close to the cave entrance, so the ceiling didn’t get burnt either, and though Eren had no way of understanding his words, using softer, more serious, and then harsh tones, Levi was somewhat convinced that he got his message across.

Eren was chuckling and huffing throughout Levi’s lecture, which may have made the man smile a few times.

With winter arriving, the temperatures dropped quite a lot.

Since Levi didn’t want to risk burning down the tree they lived in, he always put the fire out once he was done eating and went to Eren for a source of heat during the night. He was reluctant at first to get so close to him, not to mention scared that the titan might shift in his sleep and squish him, but Eren slept like the dead, and Levi got colder each night.

He sewed the furs he collected throughout his dinners with ropes of Eren’s fallen out strands of hair, creating a large sleeping bag. Once that wasn’t warm enough anymore, he started sleeping next to the titan’s nape. He tapped the warm skin lightly to let him know even in his sleep that he was there. It was almost touching that the titan trusted him enough to let him so close to the only vulnerable place on his body, and Levi never once thought about cutting Eren with his newly reclaimed blades.

The thick layers of snow prevented him from joining Eren outside. When he got bored, Levi carved out a primitive version of a chessboard on a larger piece of wood and decided that he would teach Eren how to play. He was about as successful as a blind man killing titans on one foot, but it was also a day when Levi didn’t feel like smashing his head against the wall. Eren was by far the worst opponent he ever faced, which was probably mainly because Eren did not understand a single word Levi said about the rules. He saw nothing but a piece of wood with tiny pebbles on it, and Levi pointing erratically at random places on said piece of wood. At some point, Eren began chuckling, and Levi threw one of the pebbles at him.

As the nights got longer, Eren stayed asleep more too, which meant more warmth for Levi, though less food. The forest was sparse during winter, and with Eren running on significantly less sunlight, he was slower too, meaning that he was less successful at hunting prey.

Levi guessed he lost quite a few pounds over the months, but he kept exercising his healing leg throughout winter, determined to get back to his top shape. When he was not walking around in circles like a caged animal, he was sewing furs together to make warmer clothes. It wasn’t perfect; he didn’t have a needle and had to plunge holes in the fur with his dagger to then knot pieces of them together with Eren’s hair, but it kept Levi warm, so it was good enough.

Eren was always calm and affectionate, not showing a single sign of anger even when Levi outright smacked him, except when Levi tried to leave the cave. He spent winter cramped up in the small cave next to Eren’s almost always sleeping body, which took a larger toll on his mental health than the fright that Eren gave him during those first few months.

No matter how many times he tried to tell Eren through words, tone, or movements that his leg was almost completely healed, Eren was always reluctant to bring him down during winter, eyeing Levi like he was a fragile flower petal, ready to collapse and die from a stronger gust of wind.

When Eren was awake during the few hours of sunshine they were blessed with, Levi spent his time breaking his walking sticks on any body part of Eren that he could reach.

“What don’t you understand you shitfaced moron?!” he yelled, and Eren’s benign whirrs just made his anger boil even hotter. “I’ve been sitting around for weeks, I haven’t taken a shower in gods know how long, I haven’t jerked off in ages because I’m either too tired, in too much pain, or you’re watching me like a fucking psycho, and I might just try to murder your shitty ass in your sleep if you don’t let me out!”

Eren chirped, putting his hands on the ledge to block Levi’s way, and gave him a look that roughly translated to ‘even if I let you, where would you go?’ The snow was reaching up to Eren’s calves, about three meters high. It would swallow Levi in whole to never let anyone see him again, but fucking hell, nobody ever saw him now anyway, he will fucking die here, with no purpose to his death, absolutely useless. He wasn’t in his right mind, but at the same time he knew he was right: he wasn’t going anywhere. Eren was looking at him softly too: you’re not going anywhere.

And if things couldn’t get any worse, he caught a nasty cold when the first snow fell. He woke up to the violent shuddering of his body and the icy weight of the thin layer of snow that fell inside the cave during nighttime. He knew he couldn’t afford to get sick again. His body was still weak from that fever back… fuck, back then, he lost track of time when the snow came, and it was practically always dark. He had no idea how much time had passed.

If he thought about it, it was kind of ridiculous that humans became such a powerful species. They were so ridiculously helpless by themselves when thrown out into nature, even if there were no titans. Levi used to think he was strong, he was still Humanity’s Strongest after all, and yet he was falling in and out of deadly situations, such as the terrifying, awful beast known as the common cold.

Giving up on what pride he had left, he spent the nights curled up to Eren’s throat, where the skin was the thinnest and the titan gave off the most heat. He noticed that Eren stayed there hours after the sun was up, but he wasn’t about to complain of the abnormal behavior of an abnormal titan when his fingers were numb from the cold. When Eren left to get some food, Levi snugged himself into the deepest corner of the cave, debating whether burning down the entire fucking tree was worth the risk of not freezing to death.

When Eren got back, he gave Levi a curious look. Levi just scoffed and forcing his teeth not to chatter for long enough to say a single sentence, he growled: “Don’t you fucking dare think I’m always this sick. It’s just that your caveman lifestyle is a little too barbaric, even for me. Uh, fuck," he murmured, pulling his cloak and furs tighter on his shoulders. “I suppose you don’t have any tea. Fuck, I would cut off my left arm for some,” he mumbled, and Eren huffed. Levi took that as a ‘no.’ “What are you looking at me like that, shitty brat?” Eren whined like a puppy like he was expecting Levi to say something, and the man couldn’t help an amused snort. “I bet I could teach someone even as useless as you how to brew tea. Though based on how my squad fails every time, maybe not.”

Eren laid down on his stomach, the snow on his hair quickly melting into water from his high body temperature, and his eyes remained on Levi as the man began telling him amount the art and witchcraft of tea making.

“First you boil the water, but you don’t sit around on your ass waiting, because you need to prepare the teapot; it’s the most important step, but the lazy fuckers always skip it. You need to put some hot water in the teapot, just a little to warm it up, so the walls don’t crack. Then you put in the tea leaves and pour the water on top, and then you let it sit for four minutes sharp. Not a single minute more or less. Most idiots are either too impatient to wait or they outright forget about it, so they end up with some shit that tastes like sewer water at best, and then they of course try to fix it with sugar and milk. If you ever make some tea Eren, and you think ‘oh, maybe the sugar and milk will help,’ just spare me the time and cut your head off because there’s no fucking hope for you. Got that?” he raised a serious brow at the titan, who chirped along. “Good. You better remember that.”

If nothing else, I can at least say that I taught someone how to make proper fucking tea. Even if it’s a titan. That’s my fucking legacy. Shit, I really must be going insane. He glanced over at Eren, who quickly fell asleep the minute the sun set behind the hills, and Levi sighed. Or maybe I’m not completely insane yet because of him.

The forest was slowly beginning to come back alive. The evergreens changed their color into a more radiant, bright green, other trees were blooming flowers, the snow was melting, and the whole forest was completely empty, void of titans. Something about this made Levi feel… uneasy all the time. An enemy that could not be seen could not be predicted. Not one titan came their way, ever, not even when Levi was on the ground and the wind was blowing, carrying his scent far away.

Until the first warm spring afternoon.

They were sitting by the lake, as they often did during the afternoons, but this was the first time Eren brought him outside after the first snow fell at the beginning of winter. The sun was still high up in the sky, casting its golden rays of warmth on the small piece of undisturbed nature, melting the remaining white patches of snow on the ground.

Levi was sitting on a rock next to a pile of thin, agile branches, which he collected earlier to craft a primitive broom. (“Honestly, how can you live in such a pigsty?” he barked at Eren as he was inspecting the gunk and dirt on the floor of the cave. Eren whined, but Levi cut him off with a stern gaze and a finger pointing at the titan’s face. “Being a titan is not an excuse! Filth is filth, and I won’t tolerate it any longer!” Eren was looking like he just realized that saving Levi was a mistake.)

Eren insisted on helping him find branches too, mainly, as Levi suspected, because the titan didn’t want to let him out of sight, but his fingers were too big to pick up anything smaller than boughs that looked heavy enough to swat Levi with one wrong swing (“No, Eren? Eren! Put that fucking thing down! Now! Don’t make me go there! I know you think I can’t beat your ass just because I got a broken leg, but– there you go, good boy.”), so the titan ended up just following him around until he gathered enough.

As Levi was working, tying and braiding the twigs around the straightest stick he could find and which he declared to be the broomstick, he watched Eren from the corner of his eyes. He had to be sneaky because of Eren’s unnerving ability to sense it when someone was watching him. The titan was sitting about twenty meters away from him with his eyes closed, chin tilted up, basking in the sunlight. These were the only times when Levi had a chance to observe what Eren was like on his own because otherwise the titan did nothing but glue his green eyes onto Levi.

It was known that the titans’ main source of energy was sunlight, and they fell into a sleep-like trance in darkness, therefore their consumption of humans was a mystery. That was one of the reasons why Levi felt such loathing toward them. Not standing on top of the food chain as a human, having another species be stronger and more advanced than them, that Levi could accept. Nature was a constant cycle of eating and getting eaten, with predator and prey both fighting for their survival. What Levi couldn’t stomach was the violence and murder that served no purpose in the grand scale of surviving. If titans ate humans because they were the only things their bodies could use as fuel for energy, he wouldn’t have had more resentment towards them than bears or wolves, which animals were known to occasionally attack people. Eating, killing to live another day was part of the cycle of nature, a cycle which titans cheated. They could not starve to death, and they vomited up everything once they ate too much. They stood outside of nature’s laws just like they stood outside the Walls. They were the abominations of nature that should never have happened.

And then there was Eren. Bathing in the nourishing light of the Sun like a giant cat, never taking more than what he needed. No mindless eating, no unnecessary deaths. Levi chuckled quietly to himself when he thought about how much Eren resembled a houseplant; just watching Levi or sitting in the sun as he did now.

His small smile faded when he thought how in some aspects Eren was better than humans.

Was he losing his mind or was he on the verge of some spiritual epiphany that his new hermit lifestyle brought? The former, probably, but it made sense to him at that time. Humans, just like titans, always took more than what they needed, which was what made them so different from other animals. So, if he was following his logic, Eren was a more organic part of nature than Levi was.

Well, who would’ve fucking guessed that getting yanked by a titan and breaking a leg in the process would result in him being terrified of himself for being so much like Hanji? She would be head over heels if she could’ve read his mind just now.

Levi shooed the thoughts away, vowing to never enter Hanji’s titan-obsessed cult. He would sooner break both of his legs with his own hands than do that willingly.

Tying the last knot on his brand new broom, he stood up, wincing a little as he carefully put weight on his freshly healed leg. He was still limping a little, maybe not even noticeably for someone who didn’t know about his injury, but he tried not to put any unnecessary weight on it while walking.

“If you know about a witch living somewhere in this forest,” Levi spoke up, making Eren’s eyes pop open upon hearing his voice, “tell me, yeah? Maybe they would enchant this broom and I could fly away.”

Eren chuckled innocently, not having a single clue of what Levi was talking about.

“What, you don’t think I’d look good on a broomstick?” Levi deadpanned and playfully smacked the titan’s elbow with the bushy end of the broom (that was the highest he could reach while Eren was sitting.) “Tch. Shitty, disrespectful brat.”

He limped back to the water to wash off some mud from his hands when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water.

“Fuck me,” Levi muttered, absolutely horrified. His hair grew to a disgustingly unkempt length; the dark strands were long enough to brush against his shoulders, but at least he didn’t grow a beard. He never knew he couldn’t. Shaving was part of his daily routine just like taking a shower or wiping his ass. Still, the image that greeted him on the wobbling surface shocked him. Then he noticed a pair of green eyes reflected on the water and heard a quiet coo. “I know, I’m starting to look like your useless ass.”

They were halfway on the way back to their tree when suddenly Levi heard voices shouting in the distance. It was almost too quiet to be noticed, but Levi heard it all the same. He stopped, turning his head to the side with wide eyes, then he spun around. His mind went into a frenzy.

“Eren! Lift me!” he yelled and pointed towards the sky, and the titan, though a little surprised, complied without a grunt. Levi climbed up into his palm, hissing a little because his leg was still a little tender, and once he was safely seated, Eren climbed up on a tree. He held Levi high so he could see above the forest.

And there they fucking were.

In the distance, there was a small cloud of dust, and though he could not see the green capes waving in the heavy wind, he knew they were there. Talk about wings of fucking hope, Levi couldn’t remember the last time he felt so happy to see anything. He wanted to shout, scream, or set the whole forest on fire to let them know that he was here, but there was nothing he could do quickly enough that would for sure grab their attention. And with that, his smile faded into a somber expression as he watched his only hope in months ride away in the distance.

They must think he was dead. No one in recorded history survived outside the wall by themselves, let alone with a severe injury such as a bone fracture. He couldn’t do anything, not even Eren could catch up with them before they arrived at the wall. They would also probably kill Eren the moment they saw him running after them.

“Fuck,” was all Levi could mutter.

Eren was watching him quietly, occasionally glancing at the riders as he slowly pieced together what must’ve been going on in Levi’s head. His Little One wanted to go home. The thought alone was enough to make him whimper a little, but Levi was too busy watching his men ride past the forest without ever knowing that he was there.

Was it so bad that Eren wanted Levi to stay? They had fun together, at least Eren did, and he became too attached and too comfortable way too quickly. Having Levi around was easy, it made him feel warm, even when the human was yelling at him in his incomprehensible language.

He knew that Levi’s leg would heal eventually, and he never had any intentions to prolong the process, but he never thought about what would happen after Levi could stand on his feet again. Eren was a titan, he never had to think about anything other than the here and now, he never had to worry about anything at all. He wandered around when there was sunlight, slept when it was dark, but didn’t care which one was it; he was fine either way.

But now, for the first time since he became conscious of his existence, he was afraid of what would happen the next day or the day after that. His Little One was brave and strong. He wasn’t like Eren, who was happy with sitting in the sun all day. Little One never sat with him just for the sake of it. He always had something to do, he was either preparing food, washing in the water, or trying to teach something to Eren. He never sat around at one spot for long, so why would he want to stay with Eren forever?

The titan quietly whined, fixing his gaze on the quickly disappearing pack of humans in the distance. If he roared loud enough or started running with Little One in his hand, maybe he could catch up with them. But he didn’t. He watched them go.

“It’s fine, it’s gone,” Levi muttered quietly, and Eren felt like he just witnessed what heartbreak looked like. Levi exhaled shakily, and quickly wiped the moisture that collected in the corners of his eyes. “Put me down,” he said pointing to the ground to help Eren understand, and the titan did as he was asked.

Eren always enjoyed the quiet, peaceful moments he shared with the little human, but now the silence was deafening. They walked alongside each other, but Eren knew that Levi was somewhere far away from him. His stormy grey eyes were looking somewhere Eren could not follow him. Eren never felt hurt for anyone else before, not when the titans tore the humans to pieces, but now he felt hurt, it hurt him to see his little human in pain which Eren couldn’t help ease.

They were both engulfed in their own gloomy thoughts, and perhaps that’s why neither of them heard it sooner, why Eren didn’t catch the scent of rotting flesh before it was too late. A soft waft of air brushed across his face, still carrying the scent of the melting snow and the early blooming flowers when he noticed that bitter, disgusting smell.

He abruptly stopped and raised his head high, a low growl bubbling up from his throat. Levi whipped his head up to look at Eren, the chilling, threatening noises he made instantly pulling him back to reality.

Then Levi heard them too.

Rumbling, giant footsteps.

Thud…

Thud…

Thud…

His mind instantly shifted from the mentality of a hopeless, homesick, pathetic bastard to one of a soldier’s. Judging by the direction and the speed of the oncoming footsteps, he had about six minutes to get back to the cave, maybe eight if he was lucky; which, ever since he broke his leg, he knew he was anything but. Finally, the mystery of this titan-less forest, the one question that bothered him most was being answered by a horde of titans swarming the goddamn place.

Adrenaline washed over his body. The sound of his heart beating was too loud in his ears. He was injured. The cave was too far away. He had his blades but one of them was broken in half and he had no wires. He needed to climb as far up on a tree and as fast as he could.

He drew his swords, and turning to Eren, he quickly yelled, “Up, quick, now!”

He pointed up, waving the titan closer, but then froze when he saw something all too human in Eren’s bright green eyes. Eren was panicking. His eyes went wide, his jaws slightly ajar, then before Levi could cuss at him for not doing what he asked, Eren quickly lifted him in two hands like a doll, and ignoring Levi’s taken aback yelps, he began running towards their tree.

His thundering footsteps were so heavy that the impact shook the trees nearby. Levi was bouncing around on his palms uncomfortably, and he cut Eren by accident more than once, but the titan didn’t seem to notice or care. From the position Levi was held, he couldn’t see the titans chasing them, but he heard them getting closer. He could use this position to his advantage, from Eren’s height he could slice through at least a few of them, but without his wires, the impact of jumping from this height and landing on the ground would probably break his leg again. He also had no way of getting back to the higher ground once he was on the ground.

Looking far ahead, he caught a glimpse of their tree. Of course, Eren’s abnormal brain would tell him to bring Levi back here; maybe he wasn’t entirely unlucky. If Eren was quick enough, he had a small chance of escaping almost certain death for a while, until other abnormals learned how to climb.

He was cornered like a rat in a forest fire, the ropes around his neck getting tighter the more he wriggled.

They reached the tree and Eren began climbing, but the titans were onto them. Reaching with their chubby, dirty fingers for Levi, they jumped on Eren while they were still only halfway up. Levi groaned and gasped in Eren’s hold upon the impact. The titans sank their teeth into Eren’s body and tried to wedge their fingers between the slits of the wounds to tear his flesh apart. There was blood gushing from Eren’s back and legs, pouring down his skin like a scarlet river.

Eren put Levi on the highest branch he could reach, and they caught a glimpse of each other’s eyes. Levi’s stomach dropped in dismay. Eren was begging for him to go, to climb higher.

It seemed so irrational, and yet made so much sense. The titans were after Levi, not Eren. It shouldn’t have bothered him to see Eren like this. He was a titan, he could regenerate in a few minutes. And yet he couldn’t help but feel compelled to protect him.

You’re being irrational, he told himself. He’s not a human. He will be fine. You spent so much time with him that you forgot what he is, but that doesn’t change shit.

So, he grabbed ahold of the branch, pulling his weight off Eren’s palm, and he saw relief wash over the titan’s face before a painful whine was ripped from his throat. Levi watched with clenched jaws as two large titans bit into Eren’s torso under the ribs, and for a confusing second, he wondered why they were attacking Eren instead of pushing him aside and trying to climb up to reach him.

“Oi, Eren!” he shouted, meaning to encourage the titan to shake off those crazy bastards and climb up with him, but for the first time since Levi met him, Eren did not respond to his name. Gritting his teeth, he turned his attention back to the cave entrance high above, and the distance he had to climb to get there. What came after reaching the cave was not his problem right now.

Only when a roar so loud hit his ears that he had to forcibly shut his eyes and press his palms against his ears, still grasping his blades, only then did he look back. He knew what it was, he heard it before coming from the distance during the mornings and early evenings, the one he recognized to be Eren’s voice, but never knew why the titan made those sounds.

Eren pushed himself away from the tree, landed with both his feet steady on the ground, then he turned his face towards the sky, and opening his mouth wide, he gave another demonic, bloodcurdling howl. That’s when the pieces of the puzzle clicked in Levi’s brain.

The titans turned away from the tree, their lifeless, dull eyes zeroing in on Eren’s figure. It was chaos, Levi couldn’t follow what was happening, he couldn’t believe that what he heard, that what he saw was real. That roar, whatever it was, turned the titans’ attention away from Levi to Eren. Almost like he challenged an enemy to fight; like Eren challenged the titans.

There were eight of them that Levi could see, all standing in a circle around Eren. One of them leaped forward, mouth wide open, and Eren, the sunbathing houseplant, the purring, wide-eyed giant swung his leg and shoved his foot in the titan’s face. Blood and fist-sized teeth were flying in all directions. The shriek of the wounded titan keyed up the others, and they all jumped on Eren at once.

The fight was brutal and animalistic, like the stray dogs in alleyways fighting for scraps, the sound of jaws snapping and teeth sinking in muscle and flesh loud and disturbing. Every time Eren kicked a smaller titan off himself, another one jumped on his back, scratching and biting bloody wounds into his body, and Eren muffled a painful scream bubbling up from the pit of his stomach by biting a titan’s nape and ripping off the head with a loud crunch. He threw the head to the ground and stomped on it until it was nothing but a flat puddle of steaming gore.

The titans shoved Eren against the tree with their joined mass; biting into his calves and ankles, Eren lost his balance. The tree shook violently as the heavy, naked bodies smashed against the trunk, and the branch got yanked out from under Levi. He was too engrossed watching the fight and pinching himself until he bruised to see if he was dreaming or hallucinating, but then the branch shook violently, and he lost his balance.

For a terrifying second, he was falling from twenty meters high. Grunting, he managed to wedge the shorter, broken blade of his sword into the thick tree bark just deep enough for him not to fall further. Cussing and panting, he looked down, his legs wobbling in the air while the titans fought underneath.

Shaking from the struggle to hold himself up with one hand, he spotted a branch not too far down from where he was hanging. His grasp was becoming weaker and weaker on the grip with each thundering shake coming from beneath, and he knew he only had seconds before he was about to fall right in the middle of the brutal fight.

Gritting his teeth and focusing only on getting on that branch he saw, he pulled out his broken blade, and kicking himself away from the trunk, he jumped.

He fell hard on his stomach and immediately hugged the tree close to his chest, determined not to let go until the shaking subsided.

At that point, Eren managed to push the titans away. His jaws never stopped working as he tore wounds into the titans, forcing his fingers inside the crescent-shaped bite marks and ripping their bodies apart with terrifying strength. His movements became slower as he lost gallons of blood with each new gash torn in his body, but he didn’t stop.

Levi crawled closer to the edge of the branch and watched with wide eyes as Eren roared, kicked, and stomped, and the titans gulped down his flesh like it was human meat. One of the bastards noticed Levi high up on the tree and tried to reach for him, but Eren’s clawed hand grabbed its head, tilted it to the side to bare its neck, and tore the nape into shreds. Steaming, dark drops of blood fell everywhere.

One by one Eren snapped each titan’s neck and brutally smashed their heads against the ground with such force that shook Levi’s shocked, unresponsive body to the bones. There was blood and steaming piles of body parts littered across the small glade around the tree. Eren grabbed the last remaining titan by the arms, and pushing it face down into the grass, he sank his teeth deep into its nape before ripping out the chunk of disgusting flesh, finishing the titan instantly.

Eren spat out the bloody, rubbery piece of meat, before claiming victory with a dreadful roar. His raspy voice echoed across the forest, letting any nearby titans know that death was waiting for any one of them who dared to approach.

The silence that followed was deafening.

A sunbathing, peaceful houseplant – yeah, no shit. Levi couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chapter Text

Levi could only hear his own shallow panting and the roar that echoed through the forest before slowly dying down.

The thin veil of cloud that had momentarily covered the forest in its shadow had lifted, allowing sunlight to breach through the blue sky and bright green leaves. Blue and green. Soothing, peaceful colors that should’ve gleamed brightly in the lazy afternoon light, and not in blood.

A warm breeze gently tugged at Levi’s cape, but he couldn’t feel its touch on his face. His body was rigid and cold, numb to the outside world, leaving him feeling empty and confused. His heart was beating so quickly that it hurt, but the pulse wasn’t strong enough to carry the much-needed oxygen to different parts of his body. He was lightheaded and defenseless.

With wide eyes locked onto the titan below, he felt as of the world was crumbling around him. He didn’t even tremble. He was staring from within his own body like he was stuck inside a stone statue.

He saw Eren crouch down, letting out painful whines and whimpers, then the titan fell on all fours, the last of his strength fading. There was so much blood gushing from his stomach that it didn’t all evaporate before hitting the ground.

Then the cogs in Levi’s brain snapped back to their right tracks, and the chilling numbness was replaced by the feverish race of thoughts, all too loud and incomplete for him to understand any of them. The only thing he knew, the only clear purpose he saw burning brightly in his mind was getting back to the Wall. He had no choice now but to get back and bring Eren with him.

Clenching his jaws tightly, he willed himself to get up on his feet. Letting go of the branch which he’s been holding onto, he wedged his broken sword and dagger into the tree, and he began climbing to the ground. His landing wasn’t graceful; his legs were trembling from the sudden impact, but he forced his body to stay present.

There was blood everywhere, staining the grass red under his boots.

Glaring at Eren, who was still laying on the ground, he noted that the titan looked like he was having trouble healing. Only for a moment, he contemplated Eren being dangerous towards him right now, but he pushed the thought aside. He spent about half a year now with that thing, and he was pretty sure that… it looked like… It almost looked like Eren was fighting those titans for him. To protect him.

The thought was absurd, but then again so was everything else ever since Eren took him back to the cave.

Eren had always been very protective of him, but Levi couldn’t believe that his presence was the factor that kicked in this another abnormal behavior. He heard those chilling roars before, during those times when Eren was gone, and now he knew what they meant.

Eren had been fighting titans ever since Levi woke up in the cave, and there was no telling of how long he’d been doing it. Perhaps for his entire lifetime, Eren had been enemies with the titans.

And talking about being enemies…

Levi traced his gaze on the torn muscles, bleeding wounds, and bruising bitemarks on Eren’s tan skin. A titan that killed other titans was fucking unheard of, shocking, and bizarre, but titans that were not abnormals attacking another titan and devouring it like it was human? Levi’s brain began aching when he tried to wrap his head around it.

He needed to get Eren out of here before he was fatally injured and lost forever. Eren was worth more than all the gold those fat swine of merchants had inside the Walls, he was fucking priceless.

“Oi, Eren!” he called out from a few meters of distance, though based on what he saw Eren do just a few minutes ago, he had to acknowledge just how much more he’d been at the mercy of the titan than Levi ever thought. With full gear, he could take Eren down no doubt, but he didn’t have that, plus Eren was a lot more useful alive than dead. “Do you recognize me?”

When Eren just groaned and hissed with his forehead pressed against the grass, Levi walked closer and roughly patted the titan’s bony cheek. Levi preferred not touching the titan skin-to-skin; he always used sticks or his dagger, and especially he never went anywhere near Eren’s face; but now he forgot to be bothered by it, since he had bigger issues. Eren was a lot warmer than he usually was. Having body temperature this high no doubt would mean certain death for a human. Eren's whole body radiated steaming hot air like a fucked up beehive oven. Levi guessed it was the result of the intense healing process. 

Feeling Levi’s touch on his face, Eren flinched and turned his head to the side, strands of hair falling on his face. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and Levi was surprised to discover fear lurking in those turquoise gems. He saw it only for a moment though, before Eren’s eyelids became droopy like he was about to fall asleep.

“Dammit, you shitty brat, you can’t fall asleep here!” Levi hissed and whipped his head around, looking for potential threats.

Eren’s warning roar seemed to have worked because Levi couldn’t hear any footsteps, meaning that they were left alone, for now at least. Still, he couldn’t just let the brat fall asleep here, risking him getting eaten by an adventurous titan.

“Eren, look at me!” he commanded, pushing his hand harder against Eren’s cheek, which seemed to have caught the titan’s attention for another second, but not long enough to keep him from dozing off.

Cursing under his breath, Levi looked back at the enormous body of the titan, all torn and leaking blood which now covered Levi’s hands too. He couldn’t give less shit about that right now though. The fight took a toll on Eren, and he was clearly having trouble regenerating.

Dread suddenly struck him.

He limped around Eren’s head as fast as his leg allowed, pushed aside the thick cape of brown hair, and sighed in relief when he saw that the nape was unscratched. Eren probably just needed rest then; in the middle of a titan-infested land.

Grunting in frustration, he put away the dagger and the broken blade and began climbing up the nearest tree that wasn’t as tall as a fucking mountain. From there he could see farther away, though he doubted it would matter in the large scale of things if titans were coming their way.

He went through his options of protecting Eren one by one.

He had nothing left of his maneuver gear he could use and make a difference. He needed the wires, gas, the harnesses, which he already found torn when he first woke up in the cave; they probably ripped when his maneuver gear was damaged during his fall by the hand of that shitty titan. The only thing he got left was one good blade. It was better than nothing, but still not enough to kill a titan.

So, even though he had some advantage from above the ground to spot the titans, his worth in combat was nonexistent. His best shot was staying close to the ground and cutting the titans down by their ankles, hoping that they would fall obediently on their faces so he could slice their napes before they reached Eren. It was pitiful, at best.

Waiting for the enemy knowing damn well that he was underequipped was not Levi’s favorite free time activity. Sitting high up on a branch, searching for titans with his one good remaining blade in hand and occasionally checking on Eren, his frustration quickly overboiled. The eerie quietness of the forest that always creeped Levi out has returned after Eren was done with his rampage, not helping his mood at all. It was beyond belief to think that Eren’s territorial behavior was so strong that it would warn off titans for good, but the fact that the forest remained empty spoke for itself.

Fucking hell, the things humanity could use this power for!

If only they had Eren with them, maybe they wouldn’t have to suffer casualties during their expeditions ever again, or they could build another fucking circle of walls outside Maria.

By the time sunset came, and the land was covered in the cool, bruise-like shadows of the evening, Levi felt the weight of everything that had happened crash down on him. With the sunshine gone, he climbed to the junction of two sturdy branches and slept a few hours. He was infamous amongst his soldiers for always running on barely a handful of hours of sleep, and with his body being back to most of its strength, his insomnia also found its way back to town.

It was still pitch black when he woke up.

After climbing down, he crouched and grabbed his fire lighting kit (his broken blade, a fist-sized chert he found not too long ago, and some dry shreds of wood). Quickly he lit one of the makeshift torches he always carried around while he was outside, then went to check up on Eren one last time before setting out. He wanted to know where they were, how far exactly from the most southern gate, and he also wanted to explore the forest further before sunlight came.

Wandering alone and marking a tree every so often with an X to not lose his way, he still felt baffled about what happened. Just a few hours ago he was convinced that Eren was nothing but a naïve, peaceful giant. A rare, conscious piece of nature; and then he saw him shift, turning into an unresponsive, violent beast, that brutally snapped necks left and right. Not that Levi had a problem with anyone who had a talent for killing titans.

At times he caught himself looking behind his shoulder in the direction of where he left Eren, wondering if he was alright. Was he worried? He didn’t know, and he for sure didn’t want to simplify his… relating to the titan with poor descriptions and cheesy expressions anyway. Humanity needed Eren, and so his job was to worry about the titan’s condition.

Levi’s gut told him not to doubt Eren’s adherence to him.

One had to be crazy to trust a titan enough to be sure that it wouldn’t give them the same treatment it gave to other titans, but Levi remembered that deep, lurking panic shimmering beneath the surface of Eren’s gaze when he realized that titans were coming their way, and then how he begged Levi with his eyes to climb higher on the tree, not wanting him to get caught up in the fight. Eren looked at him with real human emotions.

It was truly fucked up abnormal behavior, that much Levi knew.

“Hanji, you’ll kiss my fucking boots clean, if I manage to bring him back to your crazy ass,” he scoffed to himself.

He stopped every once in a while to turn his head and listen to the sounds of the forest but he never heard anything but his own breathing and the gentle cracking of the fire on the torch.

When he left, Eren was still fast asleep and his wounds were steaming profusely, so Levi figured he probably had a good few hours before Eren came back to consciousness. Knowing the titan, he would probably freak out if he woke up without seeing Levi anywhere near, so Levi wanted to get back before a braindead titan trashed the whole damn forest. Also, maybe – just maybe – he didn’t want Eren to have a small heart attack because of him.

By the time he got closer to the edge of the woods, the sky was already changing its color from black to dark blue, so he knew he needed to hurry. He climbed a tree using his dagger, blessing the gods for his freshly healed and finally not so fucking useless leg. Walking from branch to branch, he slowly made his way to the fringe of the forest, when suddenly a dark shadow caught his attention from the corner of his eye.

He immediately ducked behind the trunk of the outermost tree with his heart skipping a beat inside his chest. His grasp on the dagger tightened until his knuckles went white.

A four-meter-tall titan was standing just on the edge of the forest, close enough to Levi that if he had his maneuver gear, he could’ve easily cut it down for good. Its eyes were half-lidded, staring at nothing.

It took Levi only a split of a second that the titan wasn’t moving. It was standing a few feet away from him like a statue in a strange pose, like the sunset caught it with its balance just right for it to not fall. Did titans fall when they slept, or they just turned into statues whenever darkness came? Eren always laid down before sunset, and Hanji’s experiment subjects were tied down until they couldn’t move, therefore they didn’t know too much about the sleeping cycle of titans.

Pressing his back tightly against the tree and peeking his head out just enough, Levi watched with his breath held back as the first hue of pink appeared in the sky behind the hills, and he made the educated guess that he was properly fucked. He stood motionless, observing the titan in complete silence as it slowly began blinking under the fresh ray of soft sunlight.

It let out a grunt, but it didn’t do anything other than creepily staring at the forest. Levi was baffled why it didn’t move or how it didn’t notice him yet. Contrary to popular belief not only the titans’ sense of smell and hearing was better than the average human’s, but their eyesight was also far superior. Levi was about six meters above ground, not low enough for the titan to reach him, but definitely low enough to notice him.

Then, as if on cue, the direction of the wind changed.

A subtle gust of air blew from the direction of the forest, carrying Levi’s scent right under the titan’s fluttering nostrils. In the corner of his eye, Levi saw black strands of his hair gently waving in the air.

However, the titan didn’t approach him. It growled, sniffing the air with the feverish desire to devour burning in its blue eyes, but instead of ambushing Levi, the titan let out a pained whine and started walking in the opposite direction of the forest.

Levi’s lips parted, staring daggers into the titan’s back with furrowed brows, wondering if it was another abnormal, but then something else caught his attention. Carefully edging around the tree, holding onto the trunk and pulling himself closer to a broken branch, he leaned closer to what seemed like spider silk, but darker. He reached out, gathering the object and folding it between his fingers when he realized that it was a thick, auburn strand of hair.

“Fucking hell,” he mumbled, once again baffled. Eren's scent had to be not only strong but meaningful enough too for that titan to turn its back on easy prey and leave.

On second thought it might’ve missed the human scent completely. Levi spent months with Eren, he probably reeked of him; not that he was fucking complaining now. This might just be the trick he needed to get back to Maria, though he had no other proof that it could work other than this single incident. Everything outside the walls was a gamble one played with their own life, something Levi was used to, but it was still frustrating.

With the titan’s thundering steps behind his back, he hurried back to the glade, hoping that Eren was in better shape than he was when Levi left.

He followed the marks he left on the trees, and the sky hasn’t shed its pinkish dusk yet when he spotted Eren laying safe and sound on his stomach. Levi let out a small sigh of relief. He had no idea what he would’ve done if he found nothing but a quickly melting skeleton with a couple of titans munching away on steaming flesh. That part he still didn’t understand, why the titans wanted to eat Eren, but it wasn’t like he could just ask them for an answer.

Examining Eren’s body, Levi quickly noted that he was in a lot better shape. The wounds were almost completely closed up, leaving only swollen, red cuts where there used to be craters of missing flesh. Most of the blood evaporated too.

“Eren,” he spoke up, but he kept his tone soft, knowing how well that worked on the titan when Levi wanted him to do something.

Eren’s eyes popped open, but he still clearly had trouble focusing his vision. His pupils were blown wide, and he was rolling his eyes in lazy circles until he finally found Levi standing a few meters away from him. Once he locked eyes on him though, Eren didn’t let him go again.

He was cooing, his voice raspy. If Levi didn’t know any better, he would’ve said that it sounded like an injured child whining to their mother. The last thing he fucking needed, he sighed internally, was a titan imprinting on him.

“Eren, you shithead, you need to get up,” he tried again, this time with more edge, and he reluctantly nudged the titan by the shoulder. The skin was a little cooler now too. “We can’t defend ourselves here. Eren!” The titan grunted, and Levi pointed towards the sky, lifting his whole arm to make the motion more noticeable. “You have to get up!”

But Eren only huffed, like the spoiled child he was, and Levi was starting to lose the patience he never had in the first place. “Listen, brat, you might be humanity’s last fucking hope, but I will kick your shitty attitude out of you if you don’t do as I say! Get up before I knock your teeth out!”

He kicked the titan’s shoulder again with his boot, and through a series of unappreciative grunts and hisses, Eren slowly managed to push himself up to all fours. His limbs were still weak, steaming, and shaky.

While Eren was struggling to stand, Levi gathered his things from the ground that he forgot to look for yesterday on the chaotic wasteland of the fight. Fish, the vegetable roots, and most importantly his broom, which was miraculously spared from getting stomped on during Eren’s rampage.

Once they safely made it back to the cave – Eren’s movements climbing the tree were worryingly wobbly, but he kept his grasp gentle and steady on Levi -, the wounded titan curled up into a tight ball on the floor and fell asleep immediately. While he was taking his time to heal, Levi finally had time to sweep the ground.

As he was working, he kept his gaze on the floor, his eyebrows drawing close to each other in a deep frown. Cleaning always helped him clear his mind and organize his thoughts, but now even that didn’t seem to help.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the ways they could use Eren in the fight against titans, and how much valuable information they could learn about them through Eren; the possibilities seemed endless and unreachable at the same time.

Why did fate, that fucking whore, throw hope at him only to then remind him that he was trying to solve a near-impossible problem, which was getting back behind the walls?

Setting out alone on foot was about the equivalent of buying a ticket to the afterlife at a discount price, so scratch that. If he could somehow get Eren to bring him back, he would most likely be shot down by the cannons the moment he gets too close. If Eren only brought him to a forest near Maria, where he could still stay hidden, Levi would have a fairly easy job making the rest of the distance on foot, but there was no assurance that there won’t be titans between Maria and said forest. Or that Eren, that idiot, would understand what Levi wanted from him in the first place.

He noticed the half-lidded, bright green eyes watching him, and an eerie shiver ran down his spine. Eren was looking at him, but Levi suddenly felt like someone else was staring at him from behind those emerald-tainted glass windows. Was this her way of telling him off? Staring from the depths of Eren’s eyes with sad disapproval?

Levi exhaled a deep sigh and hung his head low. “What are you looking at me like that for, huh, idiot?” he grunted under his breath, not able to shake off the unnerving feeling.

So far, he hadn’t given a thought about what would happen to Eren if he brought him back; or more like he wasn’t willing to. It made him feel all kinds of weird. If he managed to bring Eren behind the walls, he felt like it would be his responsibility to make sure that the freedom Eren had in this forest wasn’t completely taken away from him. It was so incredibly stupid, but Levi couldn’t help it.

Eren was smart, smart enough to figure out so many things about humans, but he didn’t seem to have the brains to realize that humans were dangerous creatures. He had to know that giving the blades back to Levi meant that he could cut through Eren’s nape during the nights when he was unconscious, yet it seemed like Eren never considered that possibility.

He trusted Levi with his life when Levi never gave him any assurance that he was safe to be trusted. When Eren brought him back to the cave, the only reason Levi didn’t kill him was that he physically wasn’t capable to do so, not because of the kindness of his heart. If he had the chance, Levi would’ve killed him without a second thought.

Eren was too kind and too curious for his own good.

And he was such an infuriating, stupid idiot for trusting Levi.

It tugged at Levi’s heart to know that such naivety existed, and in such a simple, filthy creature too. Eren would probably follow him to the Wall like a puppy without ever doubting Levi’s intentions, only to be nailed to the ground and gagged the moment he was captured. He would spend the rest of his eternity suffering as the subject of Hanji’s insane experiments. Caged, like Levi was for most of his life underground.

Did it matter that Eren was a titan? Should it matter? Should he be judged by his species and not his actions? Could Levi take away someone’s freedom after fighting for his own freedom for years? Was Levi, who was once considered to be the scum of society, a rat, a cockroach, and who had proven through strength and skill that he was worth as much as any man, did he have the audacity to think lowly of someone like once he was thought of? Even if the one in question was a titan?

Levi slammed the broom against the wall of the cave and pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t stop the stream of his overflowing thoughts. This was so unlike him.

He turned to look at the sleepy-looking titan. The sight somehow comforted him.

If Eren was human, Levi wouldn’t have hesitated to vouch for him and his freedom, security, or whatever basic rights a human deserved.

He shouldn’t have been so conflicted to sacrifice one person to save thousands. Eren’s suffering could be the key to the thriving of humanity, and so Levi could not afford to be led by murky sentiments.

They needed Eren. Eren would follow him, protect him, and help him. It was a simple equation.

He killed so many and watched so many die over the years. What was another one? Levi wasn’t a saint, he knew hardship, and he knew how sometimes to stay alive he had to be greedy. They couldn’t all live on sunlight and rip titans apart with their bare hands as Eren did, therefore they didn’t have the luxury to always choose the moral high ground if there even was such a thing.

But would he still sacrifice them if it was someone else? If it wasn’t Eren, but her. They were so much alike, Eren and Isabel. Childish naivety, the desire to help, to impress, something pure resided within the depths of their hearts that should’ve been tainted a long time ago.

Green eyes from a time long gone were staring at him through Eren.

Regret nothing.

What would he regret more? Leaving Eren here, never to use his powers, or bring him back to the walls, and live knowing that Levi corrupted such a pure, unblemished heart by throwing him to the vultures?

He had no choice but to choose the latter and risk Eren’s safety; however, that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to protect him. He owed him this much. He had a duty to use Eren for the good of humanity, but he had the choice of not abandoning him completely.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Levi said quietly, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if he was talking to Eren or the dead.

Eren looked at him with questions in his eyes, always so eager to try to understand him, no matter how many times they failed to communicate through words.

“Don’t look at me like you want to cry, brat. If you get your disgusting snot all over the place I will rip you a new one. In a weird fucking way, you’re part of my squad now,” he said flatly, his mind far away from here. “You also probably earned to call me by my first name dozens of times. Oluo would be so fucking pissed, that useless bastard.”

If he could get back to the Wall by himself, he would have the time and opportunity to convince Erwin of Eren’s true nature while the titan was still at a safe distance, he thought.

He clicked his tongue, something he did when he was annoyed or deep in thought, and grabbed the broom again.

Get back to the Wall by himself, huh?

So far he didn’t know how the fuck he would manage that. They were riding for hours before arriving at the forest, but he was done sitting around. He’s been waiting for months, first for his leg to heal, then for winter to pass; he was done waiting. He needed a plan to get home.

Chapter Text

A week went by, and Eren was still gone hours after Levi woke up.

Strange nightmares of foggy landscapes and flashes of crimson eyes, the cries and deadly silences of bygone days haunted him in his sleep. Green eyes, pale blue eyes, red eyes, blood on his hands, the suffocating smell of iron.

When he was startled out of sleep by the vivid images, the sky was still dark and the stars were shining brightly. His head was still cloudy from the dreams.

He used the last of his water to wash up, but no matter how hard he kept rubbing his hands, the stains were still there, between the small wrinkles on his palms and under his nails. He didn’t have a hard brush so he started using his nails to get rid of the blood, scraping and scratching his skin until it was bright red, but his hands remained dirty all the same.

It was exhaustion that finally got to him, and he gave up on trying to clean his hands. The events of that afternoon a week ago were still raw in his memory. He spent day and night planning his escape home, leaving him dead on his feet and more irritated than usual. He knew Eren noticed how he snapped at him more often, though Levi doubted that the titan understood or cared about the reason.

Levi spent most of his days on the edge of the forest, observing the nearby titans from a safe distance, trying to guess how far Eren brought him from the forest in which they were ambushed. He kept on planning and guessing, but if there was one thing he learned, it was that no matter how much he planned or trusted his own abilities, in the end, nobody ever knew the outcome of anything. He could spend every waking moment planning his escape, but he had no way to predict his chance of survival, not even if he racked his brain from thinking too hard. He would only know that he succeeded once he was inside the walls; until then, nothing was certain.

Accepting this he gave himself ten days’ of time to gather enough food and other necessary supplies he could craft from what the forest had to offer before setting out. He still had three days left until that evening came. The stress had already poured into a boiling pool of bubbling acid inside his stomach, knowing that the day was getting closer.

He dosed off, his hands still wet and pink from the scrubbing. Small beads of sweat were glistening on his forehead. A couple of hours later he woke up to the sound of Eren shuffling around and leaving the cave.

He’d always been a light sleeper or rather a no-sleeper. His insomnia never let him doze off for longer than a couple of hours except when he was so exhausted that he passed out face down on his desk or in a chair. He took quick naps throughout the day, an hour at most, and among other things he was notorious in the regimen for running on an average of four hours of sleep per day, hence the dark circles under his eyes.

He never slept for too long even back when he was still living underground. It was a habit he picked up early in his childhood. The threat of getting his neck slit at any unguarded moment was always there, even back when he was a no-name that nobody gave a shit about. Shadows and raised daggers were lurking in the darkness, ready to strike the second he lowered his own blade. Life was always messy and unpredictable. He learned how to live from one day to the next, never looking years or even months ahead into the future. When people had their eyes on something far away, they easily tripped on something that was right under their noses.

Levi never had the luxury of sleeping through the night until he was stranded in this forest. Since he’s been living with Eren, his life has been strangely predictable. He had a simple routine; get up, eat, wait for Eren to get back, go to the lake, wash up, find food, go back to the cave, cook while Eren is gone, sleep, repeat. Back when he was still sick, his body needed all the rest it could get, so he began sleeping through the nights instead of taking quick naps every so often, and slowly his body got used to this new order.

Because of this quietly solidifying routine did Levi notice that Eren did not get back from his morning patrol around the same time he usually did. He knew by the length of the shadows and the color of the sky that he was late. The sun was already crawling high up in the sky, and Eren was nowhere in sight.

After a few hours, Levi began pacing around in the cave, his irritation of not being able to wash up in the lake slowly turning into worry. Did something happen to him? He heard no roar that signaled that Eren was in a fight, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t attacked.

Push it down.

Don’t let worry overcome you, it’s no use. Keep your head clear, let it out later.

He scoffed at himself, half amused, half irritated at just how much space Eren began taking up in his thoughts. He was acting like a sap for a damn titan.

He went to the entrance of the cave, peeking down from the dizzying height, and he tried to think of a way to get down on his own. He could climb from branch to branch and descend using his dagger and the broken blade, but even with his leg back in order, it was still a suicidal mission. But if something happened to Eren, he needed a way to get around, to make sure he can still get water and food.

So he waited around, and still heard no footsteps nor a roar.

If something happened to Eren, he was absolutely fucked. Titans would swarm the forest, and he might as well drop dead before he becomes titan food for the first bastard abnormal that learned how to climb.

Waiting was the most excruciating thing in life. He hated staying still, doing nothing, feeling helpless, left completely to the mercy of nature.

Waiting was cruel.

He fucking hated waiting.

To keep his mind at bay, he swept the cave clean the second time that morning until there wasn’t a single particle of dust left on the ground, and then began sharpening his blades. The metallic, cold sound of rock gliding across the silvery blade and the repetitive motion eased his mind, though not for long.

He decided that if Eren didn’t come back by sunset, he would set out on foot that day. Without Eren’s help to get him around his food supply would run out quickly, and he needed to make a move while he still had the strength. There was no point in staying here, and if he was walking at a quick, steady pace, he might have a chance to get close enough to the wall by sunrise for someone to notice him.

It was the type of gamble he had to make countless times before.

Suddenly rising to his feet, he walked to the corner where he kept most of his things; food, clothes, sacks sewed from the same furs he wore.

And then he realized: even if Eren did come back, he would leave at sunset. He had to, he needed to. He could forever find reasons as to why he shouldn’t leave, and there won’t be anything that would encourage him to do so. There won’t be a time when he would say: that’s a clear sign that I’ll make it back alive.

He will most likely die, but he had to leave anyway.

It was then, when he made his decision, that Levi heard the familiar, thundering footsteps in the distance. He hurried to the entrance and let out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding once he caught a glimpse of the brown mop of hair through the leaves.

What a fucking brat, disappearing on him for hours like that. Well, not like Eren had any way to tell him if he had something to do, but still, what could come up for a titan in a goddamn forest that kept him away for hours?

“Oi, you shitty brat!” he yelled before Eren even made it halfway up on the tree. The stupid idiot perked his ears like he always did when Levi was talking, and the man hated how quickly his anger faded every time. He was angry. For a time. Until he saw Eren again. “Took you fucking long enough.”

Eren chirped at him, the sound so sweet and nothing like that terrifying roar. His wounds healed fully two days after the fight, though he was patrolling the forest and gathering food for Levi by the afternoon of the day after, no matter how many times Levi tried to make him understand that he was able to get his own food now. But old habits died slowly, that much he knew.

Once Eren was close enough, he reached out, palm facing up, and Levi let him carry him down to the small meadow. He started walking towards the lake (he had hit Eren with various objects enough times by now to teach the titan that he no longer needed to be carried around everywhere like a useless newborn), but then noticed that there were no rumbling footsteps following him.

He turned back, eyeing the titan, who stood watching him. “What?” he asked a little annoyed. Yes, Eren was here, but since he already made the decision, Levi was set on leaving that evening. He had enough food and he still needed to wash up one last time and gather the fish from the traps if he truly meant to leave.

So far he hasn’t thought about how he’d make Eren let him go, though. Would the titan try to follow him or hold him back, like those times when he was throwing a temper tantrum in the cave during winter? If Eren was set on keeping him like a fucked up little pet, then there wasn’t too much Levi could do. Without his gear, he was still hopelessly weak against a titan of his size.

Eren just blinked at him slowly, unmoving. Levi was about to snap and then leave him behind, but then he caught a glimpse of something in the green eyes that he’d never seen before.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it; it was almost too complex, too difficult to read compared to all the emotions Eren had expressed before. The surprise of this unknown feeling that Levi could not decipher was enough to make him forget the rude comment about Eren treating him like a dog when in reality Eren was the one who acted like a giant puppy.

Curious to see what the titan wanted, he walked back to him, his sharp gaze observing those green gems quietly. Once he was close, Eren turned around and started walking in the opposite direction of the lake. Levi followed him.

Eren was unusually quiet, barely chirping something back to Levi when he said something, which made him feel uneasy. He kept an inquiring eye on the titan’s nape, wondering what this was all about. Eren leaned away from the branches in his way, sometimes dragging his palms or shoulders along the trunks, probably to leave his scent on them. Levi no longer recognized this part of the forest.

“Eren, where–” his voice trailed off when ahead he saw bright green and blue twinkle through the densely packed trees, and he realized that they were near the edge of the forest.

Looking up at the titan with furrowed brows, he reluctantly let Eren pick him up and place him on a tree branch, something Eren always did when he had to leave Levi unattended outside the cave. It was oddly endearing, though nonetheless annoying.

Levi watched Eren walk along the edge of the woods, then stop and reach down for something. Levi narrowed his eyes, trying to see what it was, but it was too far away. When Eren got back, he a hand hidden behind his back. Levi snorted, wondering what the titan decided to get him now. Eren loved showering him with little gifts, whether it was food and water, a sharp tooth of some animal, or a shiny, absolutely useless rock. Levi would never tell you, but he did keep that one stone that looked like the sky before a thunderstorm broke out, which also peculiarly resembled the color of his eyes. It was an oddly thoughtful gift, so childish and attentive at the same time. He carried that stone in the inner pocket of his worn-down military jacket.

When Eren was back, he helped Levi down from the branch and kneeled in front of him, looking at Levi like he was expecting something. There was a noise of some sort coming from behind him, and Levi narrowed his eyes.

“What is it, brat?” he asked. “Want me to stare at your crotch or what?”

Eren chuckled and then pulled out his hand from behind his back.

Levi’s eyes went wide.

Pinching the reins between his fingers with the gentleness that Levi never understood how such a massive titan could possess, Eren led a huffing, little malnourished but definitely living-breathing horse in front of him.

The horse didn’t look nervous to be around Eren like most horses were around titans like she was already used to his presence. She still had the standard military saddle and other necessary gear strapped on. Eren reached out, wanting to hand the reins to Levi.

He grabbed the leather with cold fingers, his eyes wide and his breathing shaky. He stroked the horse’s neck to make sure that this was real and gasped a little when he felt the warm, fur-covered muscle under his palm. The uncomfortable uneasiness in his forearms began to calm.

He turned to Eren with a million questions in his eyes, and Eren, the smart thing he was, pointed towards the horizon with a clumsy finger.

Squinting his eyes, Levi saw some dark patches on the grass far ahead of them. For a moment he was confused, but then it hit him, that he was looking at the wasteland where they saw the scouts pass by only a week ago. There were small bumps on the ground and gently flapping cloth covered in mud, and he no longer needed to ask where the horse came from.

Still…

He glanced back up at Eren. “Did you get this” he slowly said pointing at himself to help Eren understand, “for me?”

Eren let out a short grunt of affirmation. He watched with sad, adoring eyes as Levi walked around the horse to check the straps and buckles, occasionally petting her neck. There were still two flare signals in the saddlebag, though no pistol to fire them.

Levi’s mind was in a state of shock.

He had a horse.

Eren got him a fucking horse.

If Eren had lips, Levi could’ve kissed him then and there, and he was almost, almost tempted to place a small peck on the titan’s fangs, if it wasn’t so incredibly filthy and disgusting.

Levi’s heart ached a little. Eren was helping him get home.

And finally, he understood what he saw in the titan’s eyes back at the bottom of the tree. Eren brought him here knowing that he would be going back to the cave alone, that they will part ways and say their goodbyes– maybe to never see each other again. What Levi saw was that quiet, bittersweet happiness one felt when they made someone else happy at the cost of one’s own happiness. Eren was hurting.

His eyes, those giant emerald and turquoise gems were cornered by small wrinkles of the smile he could not express on his face otherwise, but Levi saw that it was there anyway.

Levi clicked his tongue and looked away. He was turning into a sap because of a titan.

“Gods fucking dammit, Eren, this is your fault” Levi murmured, but his tone was gentle, and the titan sweetly cooed back at him.

Then Eren reached out, and as light as a feather or a summer breeze, he touched the top of Levi’s head, only for a moment, before standing up and taking a couple of steps back.

Dumbfounded, Levi silently mounted the horse, and he even forgot to be mad at Eren for touching him so self-indulgently. He was nothing short of lost for words, something he rarely experienced. How was he supposed to say thank you or farewell to a titan who tended to him for months and was also the sole reason he was still alive?

“You should’ve left me where you found me, you dumb beast,” he told Eren. Take care of yourself. “I have to continue this shit show of a life now because of you.” I’ll come back for you.

He guessed there was no way to thank him anyway. He could only hope that Eren knew, and Levi had a feeling that he did.

It shouldn’t have been this hard to leave this godforsaken place behind him, but Levi still found himself struggling a little, now that his chance was right in front of him. Before he could think of anything remotely as stupid as missing this damn forest though, he wedged his heels in the sides of the horse and encouraged her to pick up a steady pace.

The bright blue sky above him, the warmth of the sun on his skin, the harsh bite of the cold wind on his face, and the smell of fresh, green grass surrounded him. It felt like the first time he set out on an expedition in the unknown, back when he only heard about titans.

From the corner of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of something in the sky. Turning his head, he saw two white doves flying high above the sky.

Galloping on the grassy field, he looked over his shoulder. Eren was standing by the edge of the forest, still watching over him from the distance like he always did. Levi was too far away now to read his expression.

Then the titan turned away, his back facing Levi, and the forest cast a green shadow over him before slowly swallowing him. Long after he was out of sight, his thundering steps faded too, leaving behind no other proof that he ever existed than Levi’s memories of him.

The sky was covered in an ash-colored blanket of clouds and Levi’s face stung from the bitter coldness that rained down on him.

His clothes were pulling down his shoulders under the weight of the water that soaked through them. Freezing water was running down his face in thin creeks. He shook his head to get the dripping wet hair out of his forehead and he spat out the water and sweat that ran down his lips and into his mouth.

The ground was still frozen from the chilly spring morning, but the top layer of the soil was turned into a muddy death trap, slippery and unpredictable under the hoofs. Levi split his attention between the path where he led the horse and his surroundings covered in light fog, not having the luxury of taking his eyes off either. So far he hadn’t encountered any titans, the decreased amount of sunlight possibly making them less vigorous.

He'd been riding for a while when he first started noticing some familiar parts of the land, making it possible to roughly guess his location. When he left, he guessed his heading based on the direction in which the group of scouts was heading and the position of the sun, but up until now, it was all but the most dangerous gamble of his life. If he set out in the wrong direction, he might never find his way back.

He'd been riding for about four hours when he reached the forest which he knew for certain was just outside Shiganshina. He recognized the path on which he was riding, though the rain and the winter snow before that somewhat rearranged the features of the forest. Up ahead he already saw the plain field that stretched out across the land in front of the southern gate.

Pulling on the reins he halted his horse and turned his head sideways so the wind wouldn’t mess with his hearing. There was only the sound of rain, and he didn’t see any titans anywhere either.

Riding on a field was a two-edged blade. For one, spotting oncoming titans was easier and a horse could run faster; however, one was also more easily spotted by titans, and the flat ground was disadvantageous for the use of the maneuver gear. The latter didn’t matter much to Levi now, since he didn’t have one on him.

He grit his teeth, bracing himself for the racy ride and wedged the horse’s side. Through continuous signals of his heel, he encouraged her to pick up her speed and leaned on her neck to shift the center of balance and gain more speed. The rhythmic clopping sound would inevitably gain the attention of titans nearby, the only question was how far they were.

Through the see-through curtain of grey fog, he caught the first glimpse of the pale wall, and his heart skipped a beat. If those lazy bastards in the Garrison were playing cards and drinking beer the way Levi suspected they did, they won’t notice him until he was right under their noses. It was raining heavier with each passing minute, and the visibility worsened at an alarming rate.

That was when he noticed it from the corner of his eyes, the sound of trees breaking in half coming only a second later.

On instinct, he yanked the reins to the left, missing the set of fist-sized teeth by mere inches.

Gritting his teeth Levi squeezed the sides of the horse with his calves and rose out of the saddle to increase the speed. The poor soul was nervously laying her ears back nervously, listening to the thundering steps of the titan that launched after them.

Levi glanced behind over his shoulder only for a second. It was a four-meter class titan with a giant head and a wide, creepy smile that was nothing like Eren’s. It was crawling after them in all fours.

He cursed under his breath and faced forward.

The titan was fast, and it was catching up to them a lot more quickly than Levi would’ve liked it. Those teeth that could crush a grown man’s skull like grapes came too close to the horse’s behind one too many times, almost taking a bite out of it in hopes of getting a taste of Levi too.

They were fully out in the open now, but when Levi wanted to hear people on the wall shouting and cannons going off, he only heard the erratic growling of the titan and the sloppy sounds of the mud under the hoofs of his horse.

He swore that if he was about to become titan shit because of some drunken Garrison fuckheads who were too lousy to do their jobs, he would come back to haunt all of them until they went mad.

Keeping his eyes ahead on the gate and ignoring the bloodcurdling sounds the abnormal titan was making behind his back, he reached for a signal flare, not even caring about the color. Glancing behind, he threw the small container at the titan, hoping it would break. It landed in the mud under the crushing step of the giant foot, but the color of the smoke was dulled by the heavy rain and mud, making it impossible for anyone to see it from the distance of the walls.

Push it down.

He reached for the saddlebag again, grabbing the only other signal flare. If he couldn’t make good use of this one then he was left out here with no other tool of signaling his arrival. Fucking typical.

His muscles were aching from the long ride and no doubt the horse was exhausted too. White puffs of steam were leaving her nostrils and mouth, and there was a creek of blood and saliva running down on her mouth where the bridle bit cut into the soft flesh.

They were so close now, only about sixty meters from the gate, but the titan was closer.

Levi grabbed the signal flare and threw it in the air far ahead of him, then in a flash of a second and with perfect aim, he threw his dagger right into the container.

A red cloud of smoke exploded ten meters above the ground, and with that, Levi was out of options.

He drew his blade, ready to cut off anything that the titan dared to reach out with. That’s when he noticed movement on the horizon to the right.

Two titans were running towards him. The abnormal made such a mess, that it probably attracted every titan’s attention nearby.

Fuck everything, Levi thought, tightening his grip on the sword’s handle.

“Oi!” he shouted at the top of his voice until his throat began to hurt. “Open the fucking gates!”

It was no use; the rain muffled his voice. There was no way anyone heard him.

A shiver ran down his spine, an eerie feeling.

He raised his blade and yanked the reins to the side just before a giant hand came down to crash him from above. The titan wedged its heels and palms in the mud, showering Levi in wet, dirty soil, the teeth barely grazing his left leg. Four giant bloody fingers fell in the mud.

He was riding parallel to the walls now, the sudden turn giving him a good ten meters of advantage over the titan.

There was no point though. More titans would come. Soon his horse would be too exhausted to run, or she would trip and injure herself, possibly Levi too. After that, there would be no way he could stay alive for too long.

Letting go of the reins, he drew his broken blade too, ready to fight the only way he could. He was no stranger to the rush one felt when facing death.

If he was about to die, he was determined to bring that filthy titan down with him.

Isabel, Furlan –

– I’ll see you in a minute.

White-hot pain in his ears, a moment of complete silence; no rain, no wet, smacking sounds of mud under the hoofs, no growling titan.

Disoriented and in shock, he faintly registered the rocking of the horse’s body underneath him.

Through the numbing silence, a faint ringing began slowly breaching through his senses, which was all he could hear now. Enduring the nauseating pain throbbing in his skull, he looked over his shoulder and saw smoke.

The titan was gone.

The first cannon firing was so loud that Levi only heard the echo that resonated across the land. He looked to the wall, catching the bright flash through the thick curtain of rain just before he heard the explosion again, this time more distant.

Then there came more, and Levi finally pulled on the reins, giving the horse and himself a chance to breathe. There was shouting coming from the wall, and more canons went off, littering the field in large chunks of body parts.

“Took you long enough,” Levi growled and clicked his tongue a few times encouragingly as he led the horse back to the gate.

The sound of cannon fire died down by the time he reached the entrance, however, the thick wooden gates were still closed shut. Cursing out loud Levi looked up to see one of the wooden elevators begin to descend, but halfway along the wall, it stopped.

Levi narrowed his eyes in annoyance. “Fucking idiots,” he muttered with a murderous undertone. He didn’t intend on getting stuck out there for any longer than he already did and getting attacked by another titan stumbling by while he was waiting for those dumbfucks to lower the elevator was not something he felt like dealing with right now.

“Oi, you’re taking a shit up there or what?” he yelled loud enough for his aching throat to begin hurting again. He saw two dumbfounded, wide-eyed men leaning out of the elevator. Levi didn’t have the time nor the patience to deal with their idiocy. “Open the fucking gate before I grow old here!”

“Hey, you!” he heard one of the men, the fear palpable in his voice. “H-how did you get past the wall?! What are you doing out here?”

“It’s illegal to go outside the wall without permission!” shouted another man, squinting to take a look at Levi’s face, but the fog and rain didn’t help him much. “You’re under arrest! State your name and– and…!” a man stumbled on his words like someone who was already past his second round of drinks. Levi was glaring at them like he was just about ready to massacre them both.

“How long are you fuckheads plan on chatting in the goddamn rain?” he spat. “Or are you just waiting until a couple more titans come?”

“Shut up, you smart ass! Who are you?! Where did you–”

“I’m Captain fucking Levi, who do you think I look like?”

“You fucking liar, tell us who you are, or we’re not letting you back!” The first one shook his head. “Do you live under a rock? Captain Levi is dead! He’s been dead for almost a year now!”

That couldn’t be right, Levi thought, but then again, he didn’t expect useless shitheads of the Garrison to know how many months were in a year. “Open the gate before I shove my boot so far up in your ass that you won’t be able to take a shit again. Or you’d rather see how easily a dead man can gut you like a fish?”

Suddenly, there was a rustling sound, and Levi held back a frustrated sigh of relief when the gates finally opened up just enough for one horse to fit through.

He rode forward, and the rain finally stopped pouring on him once he was underneath the wall. The soldiers in rose-decorated jackets inside gave him wide-eyed looks, and he firmly ignored them. He had to look ridiculous in his botchy outfit but shit, it was cold as hell, and he wasn’t about to shed warm clothes for the sake of looks. He was dripping in water and mud, his lips probably turned blue, and he couldn’t wait to finally get inside a warm room and peel those rags off himself.

The gates shut behind him with a loud bang, and the rain-soaked sight of the Shiganshina district invaded his vision.

After months and months of fighting for survival, he was finally back.

Something weak, soft to the touch began fluttering inside his chest, but he pushed it down and put it aside for later. He still had a long ride ahead of him before he was at headquarters.

There was a ring of Garrison soldiers waiting for him at the other side, some looking more flushed than wary. Levi carried his piercing gaze from one face to another, until it settled on a blond man with rosy cheeks standing in the middle.

“You almost kicked the bucket out there, little fella’,” the man slurred out his words with a dumb smile, which froze on his face when he saw Levi’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Heh, what were you doing out there? I thought only scouts were dumb enough to leave the walls.”

Levi had enough of small talk for that day, and murdering these idiots was not worth wasting any more of his energy. Everything in his body hurt, fatigue assaulting his consciousness, but he kept his stern gaze on the man. He ignored the distrustful way the other soldiers were eyeing him, and he tore open the fur coat that he strapped onto himself with the remains of his maneuver gear harnesses.

His military jacked was worn down and had lost its color, but the badge of the Wings of Freedom was visible enough on his breast pocket to be recognizable. “I am one of the dumb scouts,” he grunted.

“Heh, well,” the man scratched the back of his head, “what were you doing out there without the others, then? We must file a report on you, report you for, uh– what’s it called, you-know-what, and–”

“You do that, and I’ll be on my way.” Stupid, drunken, filthy, disgusting people whom Levi didn’t want to be near any longer, he didn’t have the patience for this crap.

He nudged the horse to move forward, but the drunkard held out a hand in front of him, blocking his way.

“Hold on, we need to escort you to the dungeons until your respective officer arrives, and Commander Pyxis–”

“You tell that eccentric nutcase to send all of you to court martial for being drunk out of your minds on duty. Now get out of my way if you don’t want a broken leg.” The sharp edge in his voice and his whole presence radiating authority was enough for the soldiers to stumble out of his way. He didn’t waste any more time asking for fresh clothes or a new horse; he wanted to be at headquarters as soon as possible.

He galloped through the deserted district, the rain finding most people at home. Familiar smells and sounds invaded Levi’s senses: the smell of freshly baked bread, dogs barking, children crying and laughing. It’s been so long since he’d been surrounded by these things, it almost felt foreign.

In the early evening, the rain settled down, leaving only a drizzle behind. The sky was covered in unfriendly, grey clouds, that let through only grim, cold light. The roads were slippery from mud, forcing Levi to slow down in some areas while a few times he had to unsaddle and lead the horse by the reins to avoid any injuries.

Not many people came across him, and those who did, unlucky merchants with their wagons or shepherds with completely drenched sheep, were too busy cursing the weather to pay him any attention.

The castle slowly appeared far ahead in the fog like a pale ghost, and when he finally saw it, suddenly it wasn’t only the wet clothes that weighed his shoulders down.

All the harsh ordeals he’d been put through these past months have crashed down on him in a single moment. His muscles were tearing and burning in feverish fire, and his head was pulsing like it had been continuously smashed against a brick wall, but he barely noticed until now, when he was finally out of danger and close to home. His body must’ve been running on pure adrenaline for at least the past five hours now.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his jaws as he focused the last of his remaining bits of energy to hold on tightly to the saddle. The guards on watch duty probably noticed him by how. He was so close.

Then there was shouting, and Levi closed his eyes for a second, feeling just a little like he could turn religious hearing those voices. Gods bless Erwin for keeping his men in line, unlike those useless Garrison officers.

He saw the gates open, his vision turning blurry, and the horse galloped inside the main courtyard, carrying his exhausted body without losing stamina. He was going to appoint this damn horse captain, Levi thought absently.

People were coming his way, some running, some with a hand on the grip of their blades, which he would’ve been mad about if he hadn’t struggled with keeping his body up straight.

Everything hurt, inside and out, and the rhythmic sound of blood pulsating in his head was too loud. There were dark patches ripped in his vision, which he knew meant that he was about to faint soon.

He struggled to push himself off the saddle, his fingers frozen into the grip with which he held the reins. His head was feeling woozy, and he absently noted how he was falling. Everything was weightless for a moment before he felt a body against his, gentle hands on his sides.

Whoever it was, he wanted to reprimand them for putting their dirty hands on him, but then he remembered how he was probably a lot more filthy than whoever caught him, and he sighed.

Fine.

He just wanted some tea and a warm bath.

“Man, I hate it when it’s raining,” Petra complained and let out a long sigh. She put down the rag with which she was polishing the propeller of her gear and pinched a strand of light ginger hair between her fingers. “Makes my hair frizzy.”

A short, content laugh erupted from Oluo that sounded more like an amused snort. The cold weather made his nose runny more than anything. “Frizzy hair positively makes you look more dangerous.”

“You know, your compliments are always so half-assed,” Petra rolled her eyes, not sounding particularly annoyed or offended. She’s been more accepting of Oluo’s clumsy advances for some time now; one could say she accepted reality and moved forward.

“Aha, but they're working, aren’t they?”

Gunther scoffed and continued cleaning his gear. “They’re working all right. You could chase me off to the underground with them just by forcing me to listen.”

“That’s because my charms only work on beautiful women!”

“The hell they do,” Petra chuckled, but she didn’t sound particularly happy. More like she was indifferent, something they all learned how to be.

It was an unfriendly day. They’ve been stuck outside for hours in the rain on shitty errands, neither their clothes, gear, nor mood taking the weather happily. By the time the four remaining members of the Special Operations squad got back to the castle, their gear was leaking water from places they didn’t know was possible. After they stood for a solid ten minutes with their gear turned upside down and the water was still flowing steadily from between the different metal parts, Oluo came up with the theory that their gear was sweating.

They were sitting near the stables on the main courtyard under the overlapping roof, where they sought shelter from the hideous onslaught of weather. Their gear was thoroughly soaked, and they each used up a small pile of rugs to drain the water from between the tightly compressed metal pieces, and they haven’t even got to the greasing.

Through the thick curtain of rain a hooded figure appeared, who upon reaching the small patch of the dry hideout, proceeded to take his cape off and cover all three of them in water. Petra flinched when the cold drops of water hit her face and held back a rather unfriendly comment. Her hair barely got time to somewhat dry before an idiot came along, ruining it all over again. The other two just blinked at their gear with mild annoyance, which now were covered in raindrops again.

“Well, there goes half an hour’s work,” Gunther noted, earning a playful scoff from the man of the hour.

“Why clean them while it’s raining then, idiots?” Eld asked and shook the remaining water off his cape, this time away from the rest of the squad.

“That’s the only time we have since you work us to death whenever it’s not raining, captain,” Petra bickered, her words unintentionally earning small flinches and lowered gazes. Memories and habits lived longer than people did, and if it was hard to let go of people, it was even harder to force old habits to die.

Oluo and Gunther looked aside to hide the bitter expressions that they all learned to push down over the months. But in moments like this, the hardened shell on the surface cracked, and something sour bubbled up from between gaps. Petra held back a sob and pierced her lips together to stop them from quivering. Still, she forced herself to use the word every time she felt it needed, knowing that in time the pain will subside, leaving behind only the dull aching of remembrance.

“Yes, well…” Oluo muttered awkwardly, trying to break the uncomfortable silence.

Luckily for them though, there was no need.

Their thoughts were interrupted by shouting coming from above, the bitter bubble bursting around the four of them as the outside world forced itself to be noticed by them. A few scouts on watch gathered above the gates on the wall walk, one of them pointing somewhere in the distance. Then there was more talk, and two guards ran to the gates and opened them up.

“What’s this about?” Gunther asked.

“Hey, Thomas, what is it?” Eld raised his voice to grab the attention of one of the hooded men standing on the castle wall.

“A stranger on horseback, sir!” came the answer. “Looks non-military.”

“What the hell is a civilian doing here?”

“No clue, sir!”

The horse trotted through the gate only a few minutes later, heavy muscles covered in a wet coat of hair, the poor thing bone-tired. A small figure was hunching over in the saddle and looked equally exhausted. His feet have slipped from the stirrups, leaving his legs hanging limp on each side of the horse’s steaming body. It was clear that he was either unconscious or close to it. He wouldn’t keep himself from falling for much longer.

“He looks like he’s about to fall!” Petra gasped and jumped to her feet. More people appeared, most coming from the mess hall, and they were all regarding the stranger with furrowed brows and slightly agape mouths.

“Petra, don’t go any closer to him!” Oluo warned with a hand held out protectively, while Eld went closer, ready to draw his blade.

The visitor was sure an unusual sight to see. His coat looked like it was patched together from all kinds of materials, fur, leather, and cloth alike, but he was also wearing a sword strapped to his side with harnesses that looked like remains of those from a maneuver gear. He was wearing a hood, which covered his whole face in a dark shadow.

“Ay, who are you?” Eld asked sternly, but there was no answer.

Then Petra yelped and launched forward when she noticed that the man tried lifting his leg to unsaddle but began tumbling over dangerously fast. She ran, her arms reaching out, and she caught the man just in time before he hit the ground. She grunted under the sudden weight of the body, which was probably a lot heavier now with all that fur soaked in rainwater.

“Someone call a medic!” she shouted, her squad members rushing to help her.

The courtyard was buzzing in chaos. Questions and orders were flying out in every direction.

“–is he dead?”

“–who is it?”

“Where did you come from, huh? Answer me, dammit!”

“Oluo, stop yelling, it’s not helping!”

“Petra put him down, he could be dangerous!”

“–isn’t that horse owned by the military?”

“–yeah, look at the tack–”

“Shit,” Petra cursed when she felt the man beginning to slip out of her fingers, the weight getting too much for her. “Oluo, help me keep his head up! Gunther, check his pulse! He’s not moving!”

Gunther stepped closer with a deep wrinkle running across his forehead and hurriedly started peeling the various items of clothing aside on the man’s neck. Once he reached skin, he noted how sickly pale it looked. Gunther tried reaching a little more down to get a proper feeling of the man’s pulse when something caught his eye.

It was a dirty white, worn-down piece of cloth wrapped around the man’s throat, standing out from the chaotic mess of fur and leather which was the rest of his clothing.

More people were coming, the news of the unknown rider traveling quickly, and Petra was desperately trying to shoo off the new cadets who were beaming with curiosity.

“Stop gawping and get a medic, we need one, right now!” she yelled, and Oluo couldn’t help a proud smile stretch across his lips as he listened to her boss everyone around. “Gunther, how’s that pulse?”

“I-it’s weak, but I can feel it. He’s still alive.”

“We need to carry him to the infirmary! We can’t have him out in this weather. Where’s Eld?” she asked, looking for the man, who had already taken off to get the commander. This was pure chaos.

“Will you cunts shut up already–”

The voice was so quiet that it almost got lost in all the shouting and the rhythmic sound of raindrops hitting their coats, but all three members of the first squad froze, their eyes wide. The voice was raspy and weak, barely audible, but they knew who it belonged to, they would’ve recognized it even in their sleep. They thought they would never hear it again, and if not for seeing each other’s stunned expressions, they would’ve thought that they were imagining things.

With trembling fingers, Petra reached for the hood, and pushed it down, casting light across their long-lost captain’s face.

He was pale as a ghost, his cheeks sunken in, and the purple, bruise-like circles under his eyes were more prominent than ever, but it was undoubtedly Levi. Petra reached for his forehead, brushing a gentle, trembling finger across the white skin, and gasped when she felt how cold it was. But it was still real. She brushed a few strands of long, wet hair aside.

The touch stirred Levi out of his semi-unconscious state. He slowly opened his eyes and saw dark grey sky that matched the color of his irises, and the blurry edges of a human face. Was it Petra holding him? Gods bless that woman, he thought.

He felt her whole body shake beside him. “C-Captain?” she choked out, but she couldn’t say anything else, just kept silently gaping at him, her eyes wide and overflown with tears.

He saw another face with dark hair. That had to be Gunther. “Captain, is it you?” the man struggled.

Levi scoffed, but he was so weak that it sounded more like a sigh than anything. “If I knew you’d all forget me so quickly, I would’ve made sure that you scrub the hallway floors until your hands were bloody,” he mumbled.

He lifted his head out of Petra’s hold to glare at the useless scouts gathered around them, who fell quiet and were now staring in dead silence.

There was more shouting in the distance now, people getting closer, and shit, they were so loud. It hurt Levi’s ears which became so used to the relative silence of the forest – well, until they were blasted by those fucking cannons. Still, he couldn’t remember the last time he was so relieved to hear a human voice.

He grabbed onto Petra’s shoulder and what he thought to be Gunther’s arm to pull himself up from the humiliating position which was laying in his subordinates’ arms. Slowly he struggled to stand on his feet. Everything hurt and based on his men’s faces he knew that he didn’t hide it very well, but no one was brave or idiotic enough to stop him.

Glancing around he saw a ring of people around them, all too shocked or confused to do anything but stare and whisper. Levi felt an urge to curse all of them back into their mother’s wombs for lazing around, but he barely had the strength to stand on his two legs.

“Gunther, bring my horse to the stable and make sure she has double portions of everything,” he said and saw the hesitation in the man’s eyes, clearly not wanting to leave. One sharp look was enough to make him get a move on though.

“C-Captain…”

He turned to Petra, but before he could ask what it was that she wanted, he was interrupted by a familiar voice, one he never thought he’d ever been so relieved to hear.

Erwin effortlessly pushed through the crowd with that abnormal tree-like height of his, his face wearing an expression of well-disguised confusion. Then his eyes found Levi’s worn-out figure, and all pretense melted away in the early evening rain. Those bright blue eyes widened at the sight of him, lips dry and parted.

Hanji arrived a second later, babbling and chatting about something that was probably way too crazy or boring for anyone to listen but Erwin, but then the grin faltered on her face, and something similar to horror took its place. She looked so sincerely pained that it even made Levi’s bitter heart melt a little.

He hadn’t thought much about what he would do if he found none of the people he knew alive, if he was greeted by some unknown commander and not his old friends.

However, shock embraced relief was short-lived, and Levi quickly grew tired of the intense staring session he was regarded with.

“You both look like you couldn’t take a proper shit for weeks,” he growled, his patience wearing thin and his annoyance bubbling up from under the thick coat of fatigue.

Hanji’s shoulders began shaking violently like she was yanked back and forth by an invisible force, and when she lifted her goggles, a river of tears poured out from underneath.

“L-Le-Leviiii!” she screamed at the top of her lungs and without further warning, she knocked him to the ground, squeezing him into an iron-gripped hug. She was crying and sobbing loudly into Levi’s ear. “Levi, what… How…?”

“Get off, you’re strangling me,” he barked, but he only made her wail louder.

“Yes, because I’m not sure if this is really you or you reincarnated or I don’t know, you’re the first physical evidence of ghosts, or maybe you had a secret twin, and you look like a caveman, I mean, wow, the hair…!” she was babbling now, and with joined forces, some of the soldiers were able to peel him off Levi.

“You’ve got some serious fucking issues, shitty glasses.”

“Oh, it really is you!” she ugly-cried and let herself be pulled back by a brunet man Levi didn’t know.

Erwin quietly said something to Petra, who ran off after giving Levi another shocked, yet warm, teary glance. Levi tried taking a step by himself, but he was embarrassingly weak and needed Erwin’s help to stay on his feet. He supported Levi with an arm around his back, who was getting seriously fed up with being manhandled through the first fifteen minutes of him back at headquarters.

“I suppose we have a lot to talk about,” the commander said quietly, and Levi just scoffed.

“Not until I get a proper fucking bath.”

Erwin wanted to protest, saying something about escorting him to the infirmary, but Levi cut him off. “Erwin, I’m about ready to kill and dump the remains in the latrines of anyone who stands between me and clean, warm water, so if you would fucking excuse me. Oluo, you shithead, where are you? Come here and give me a hand,” he waved the man closer, who jumped right at his feet with tears in his eyes.

“Yes, Captain!” he saluted with a loud sob before awkwardly letting Levi lean against him.

The castle was in a frenzy.

Rumors about the return of the famous or perhaps infamous captain quickly spread on the wings of hushed whispers and the claims of those few lucky ones who supposedly saw him. Soon there wasn’t a single cadet in the castle who hasn’t heard the rumors, though nobody had actual confirmation apart from those closest to Levi.

Thanks to Erwin’s quick orders, he didn’t have to wait long before he was walked to a secluded bathroom with a tub of water already prepared. The warmth that hit Levi in the face upon entering the dimly lit room was almost enough to make him tear up a little.

There was a large mirror in the corner of the room next to the fireplace, and he flinched when he looked at his reflection. He could barely recognize himself. Hanji wasn’t far off when she called him a caveman. His fur clothes were a chaotic mess at best, his raven hair was shoulder-length and unkempt, and he was so fucking dirty, the months’ worth of mud and dust that he couldn’t wash off with plain water in the lakewater covering every inch of his skin.

Once he was left alone he quickly shed his rags and moaned in the pure bliss of pleasure that was sitting down in the scorching hot tub of water. His whole body was aching, especially the skin on his toes and fingers, but he knew that the tingling pain was a good sign of his limbs warming up again. The ride was so freezing that he had genuine concern that a few fingers might not make it.

He submerged in the water almost completely, and he just let himself have the moment. His mind was numb, no thought crossed his mind, only pictures from his memory; trees, Eren’s figure in the distance, mud, the injury on his leg, his Squad members’ faces, then water, warm fucking water. Finally, he was in heaven.

Reluctantly he sat up and began thoroughly scrubbing himself clean until the foam from the soap was so tall on top of the water that it almost overflowed. Once every inch of his skin was burning and red, he put some soap on his hair too, but quickly became frustrated as the tangled mess of black strands tried to make his life a little more miserable.

“So fucking filthy,” he groaned, and almost instantly there was a knock on the door. “What?” he barked and untangled his fingers from his hair along with some thin strands that he accidentally pulled out.

The door opened, and Petra poked her head inside, though mind you, she was eyeing the floor with the determination of a warrior. She looked like she was about to throw up from the confusing mess of emotions swirling in her stomach, and Levi did not want to deal with that shit right now.

“Is everything alright, Captain?” finally she managed to say, her fingers clamping onto the doorhandle rigidly.

“Have you been eavesdropping at the door this whole time?” Levi asked accusingly, and Petra blushed a furious red color. Some things never changed.

“The Commander ordered us to stay on watch.”

“The Commander’s afraid I’m going to vanish into thin air?” he scoffed, but when heard no further answer, his mood went sour. It seemed like a valid concern. Levi’s also been wondering if this was just some cruel dream too good to be true, or maybe Eren brought him some colorful mushroom not knowing what it was, and he was hallucinating the shit out of his mind right now. If there was a cruel awakening waiting for him in that cave–

He cleared his throat.

“Petra, get scissors, will you?”

Ten minutes later he was sitting in the tub with his back leaning edge, and Petra was quietly working her way through his hair. His fingers were still too numb and swollen from the sudden warmth of the water to properly use them, so he silently handed the scissors to Petra, telling her through a single glance that if she messed up, she wouldn’t see another dawn.

The scissors were snipping away quietly, the monotone, repetitive sound and the weight taken off from Levi’s scalp calming him. “The squad?” he asked quietly, breaking the long silence.

“We’re all still here. Eld took charge after…” Petra’s voice trailed off, and Levi didn’t need her to finish the sentence. The last thing he needed right now was Petra breaking down and getting emotional. A few minutes later she started speaking again. “Captain–”

Levi could tell that she’s been mustering up her courage to ask whatever she was about to ask since she entered the room, but he quickly shut her down. “Not now.”

After that, Petra stayed quiet while finishing his haircut. She neatly gathered the long strands of hair on the floor with a broom before throwing them in the fire. Long after she left, Levi found himself staring outside the window into the night, his body soaking in warmth. He couldn’t help feeling weird about not having Eren around, and he wondered what the titan was up to that afternoon. Did he hide from the rain? Or was he splashing around and playing in the puddles like that one time?

He seemed happy in his forest, never having known anything else, but Levi suddenly wished Eren could have a nice bath like this. He would enjoy it, right? Eren loved sunlight, and assuming he felt different temperatures on his skin, he probably enjoyed warm weather too. With such a high body temperature, was there anything that felt warm to Eren? Or did he live in a forever unchanging, freezing world?

Levi sighed and reached for a towel. This is why he never went on vacations like some of the lazy bastards in the higher circles; since he got back, he has barely thought about the changes that must have happened while he was gone. His mind was still far outside the walls, talking to Eren like he always did.

For a lingering moment, he wondered if Eren was alright.

“Tch. Why the fuck wouldn’t he be,” he growled and then let out a content sigh when he put on some fresh, clean clothes. Gods did he miss this smell, the touch of clean linen brushing firmly against his skin. This was where he belonged, where he wanted to be.

Eren belonged to where he was born, in the wilderness; the thing probably fucking raised himself, he didn’t need some human worrying about him.

Finally warm, dry, and clothed, Levi looked at the furs laying on the chair where he placed them. Eren really did turn him into a sentimental fool, and he couldn’t have that. Sentimental people made stupid mistakes, and not only did they die, but they also let others die too.

Pressing his lips together, he grabbed the clothes, the smell of damp fur and wood still on them, and threw them in the fire.

Chapter Text

Eren didn’t exactly have a concept of morality.

He did everything according to his instincts, and he never questioned anything he did. He sought out things that made him feel pleasant, such as sunlight, and avoided or killed the things that made him feel uncomfortable.

He liked the way the sunlight made his whole body relax and tingle with energy at the same time, how warm it felt on his skin even on the coldest days. He liked the scent of rain and that heavy smell of grass and late blooming flowers in the summer, and he liked watching the colors and light dancing on the surface of the lake, because it was pretty.

Little One was also one of the things that made him feel pleasant.

Every time Eren watched the human do something seemingly pointless, such as splash water on his skin only to wipe it down with his other detachable skins immediately after, or flay other animals to make himself more of said detachable skin, or when Eren finally understood what the human’s hand gestures meant, something warm began fluttering in his stomach, like his body was soaking through with sunshine from the inside out. Eren didn’t know and didn’t question why it was happening, he simply wanted more.

On the same principle, Eren hid from the rain because it was cold, and killed titans because they smelled bad and tried to bite him, which hurt. Eren avoided pain to the best of his abilities. In general, nothing ever hurt him beside titans, and even when he got injured, he quickly healed. He didn’t know what hunger was, he was never sleep-deprived or exhausted; sleepiness greeted him in the dark with its gentle touch on his eyelids, and he gave himself over to the peaceful state of semi-conscious hibernation until the light came back.

Though Eren felt pain, he never felt it for others. He was aware that pain existed all around him, even when he couldn’t feel it himself, but he didn't feel sorry for anything. The screeching coming from fighting squirrels simply bothered his ears, and he understood how those humans getting devoured by titans felt the same kind of suffering he did when a titan bit a chunk out of his flesh. When he found Little One and saw the wound on his leg, he knew it will be painful for him, and he wanted to help ease it, but not because he felt empathy for the human. He simply resented pain, therefore he tried ending it.

Pain was such a simple thing to deal with. There was a cause and a way to end it; one could ease it or make it more intense, the latter never being Eren’s goal.

That’s why it confused Eren so much when he suddenly started feeling pain in his chest for no reason he could detect. It started after they spotted the group of humans on the horses. Eren had never felt anything like it before; sharp, ice-cold claws dug into his chest, torturing him, and what was even more strange, these claws twisted agonizingly in his flesh whenever he looked at the Little One.

It was only when he realized that the emotion he saw in the Little One's eyes was a need to join his kind, did Eren start to understand what was happening to him.

Up until then, Eren never thought about the future. He lived in the present, and in the present Little One was always with him. That was all that mattered to Eren. But at that moment, as he watched the human stare into the distance longingly, Eren was forced to grip the concept of something he never knew of before, the concept of a moment which haven't arrived yet, and those sharp claws sunk into his chest.

The reality of Little One wanting to go home, wanting to leave him slowly sunk in, and Eren felt unsure for the first time in his existence. He felt conflicted because he’d never been in a situation where the source of his happiness also became one of his sadness.

For one, the thought of Little One leaving him left him in agony. Once he tasted what it was like not to live alone, what it was like to come back to someone, give small gifts, and have someone who didn’t want to sink their teeth into his flesh, Eren didn’t want to let them go.

He liked everything about living with Little One. He liked how he was no longer guarding the border of the forest only for himself, and how he could show the lake to someone who could appreciate its beauty, Eren didn’t know why, but he liked it. Little One gave him sunshine, and Eren wanted to continue feeling this warmth.

But slowly that sunshine began mixing in with cold, harsh drops of ice, and Eren didn’t know how to banish this infection. Whenever he thought too much of the Little One leaving, the pain in his chest became so unbearable that he began tearing the skin and muscle on his chest with his own claws. Warm blood pooled down on his abdomen, but it always evaporated before it ever hit the ground, and the wounds healed before the Little One could notice them. No matter how deep he dug his fingers, he could never reach the source, and the shards of ice bloomed colder.

Eren was so absorbed in his own buzzing, confusion-crowded mind that he only noticed the intruding titans once it was almost too late. And it was almost too late.

Among other things such as pride, envy, and disgust, fear was not something Eren had ever experienced before. But at that moment, an unfamiliar, choking sensation overcame him. Blood ran cold in his veins, and a fist started squeezing the insides of his chest and stomach so hard that he thought he was about to vomit up his own flesh and bones.

When he heard those rumbling steps, Eren was forced to imagine every single way his Little One could fall prey to those titans running their way. His human body was so small that, unlike Eren, he wouldn’t be able to withstand a single bite. He would be snapped in half like a twig, his angelic face sunken in and bloody. The titans would snatch him from Eren to swallow him whole, or worse, Eren would accidentally crush him in his hold or drop him and step on him while fighting.

Something from within the depths of his gut commanded him to grab the Little One and run. He felt a sharp pain in his palms, but it was nowhere near as painful as the stinging he felt in his chest. All he could think was getting Little One out of there, get him to the cave, keep him safe–

Keep him safe. Protect him. Protect him at all costs.

His entire body was shaking as he tried to keep it together. Something barbaric and instinctive was begging for him to disregard everything and turn around to fight the titans right then, but something else, something cool and levelheaded that began developing in him after he met Little One, commanded him to keep running and get the human to safety.

It was almost too much for Eren to bear, he almost gave in to his instincts and turned around, but one glance at the human in his hands was enough to make him get a hold of himself. His desire to keep Little One safe was greater than this unknown fear or the disgust he felt towards the titans, and so he ran and climbed.

Only when he placed Little One on the highest branch he could reach, did his mind turn blank from the burning rage that burst out from the depths of his gut and spread its fiery venom through his limbs.

He knew that it was his fault that his human was thrown into this pit of hell. He was too selfish to let him go and join his kind. He could’ve picked up Little One, he could’ve run and caught up with the human herd, but he chose not to because Eren never wanted to give up anything that made him feel good, not sunlight, not the colors reflected on the lake water, not Little One.

As the titans sunk their teeth in his flesh, for the first time he was grateful for the pain because it was him suffering, and not his human. In the middle of the chaos and harsh sounds of growling, overwhelmed by both pain and the relief that it brought, Eren decided to help Little One get home if they both survived this. If being separated from each other meant that the human was never forced to be in such a dangerous situation again, was never exposed to the pain that Eren was feeling at that moment, then it was worth letting go of something as good as Little One. Eren promised himself that once the fight was over, he would bring him home.

But then the last titan had melted into ash, Eren’s wounds had closed up, and he still hadn’t fulfilled his promise. With the titans out of immediate sight, he no longer wanted to let Little One go and Eren turned selfish again.

It was easy to forget why he wanted to do something so self-harming such as letting Little One go, once the direct threat was gone.

He thought things would be back to normal, and Little One would be as happy with him as Eren was. After all, Eren proved that he was capable of taking care of a human; he could gather food, he could protect him, and he had everything a little creature like Little One could ever want.

And for those exact reasons, the titan was baffled by why Little One no longer wanted him to hunt food, why he insisted on walking around the forest alone, and why he stared into the distance with such longing in his eyes. Those shards of ice wedged themselves deeper into Eren’s chest, and his source of sunshine was tainted by darkness.

He noticed how Little One didn’t talk to him as much anymore, how his voice sounded more flat and unbothered than it usually did, and worst of all, those sharp, silvery eyes no longer turned soft when they looked at Eren.

Little One was in pain, and though Eren had ways to help him, he chose not to out of selfish reasons. Because of this, Eren was now a cause of Little One’s suffering. Of all the things Eren hated the most, causing pain to his human was what he dreaded most.

Eren was conflicted, not knowing how to ease this newfound feeling inside his chest, which he could not remove by force. His instincts battled with his awakening humaneness. He began spending more time guarding the forest but being away from Little One was just as painful as watching him suffer, and not even killing titans eased his mind anymore.

Why do you want to leave me, Eren wanted to ask. Is there a better place than this?

That day when Eren found the horse, he was tempted to stomp it to death like an angry child.

He went to the field where they spotted the humans to sulk and wallow in self-pity when he noticed the animal cropping the grass under a nearby tree. It was the only one still alive.

When Eren saw it, the first thing he felt was fear. With Little One spending so much of his time by the edge of the forest, he could see the horse, and then he would leave Eren. His instincts overcame him, and he rushed to the animal, wanting to rip it in half and crush it under his palms until not a single bit of it was recognizable. But as he lifted his arm, his fist halted in the air.

Shades of greyish silver flashed before his eyes; some cold, that made shivers run down his spine, and some warm, gentle like the early morning sunlight. At that moment it felt like killing that horse was killing sunlight. He simply couldn’t do it.

He sat down and grabbed the dangling string that was somehow attached to the animal, to keep it from running away. It was making high-pitched, whining little noises, but Eren stayed until it got used to his presence and no longer wanted to flee. With a gentle brush of his fingertip, he carefully touched the fur-covered muscles on its neck and marveled just how soft it was, kind of like Little One’s hair.

Not knowing what else to do, Eren grabbed the squirming animal and hid it on the edge of the forest, hoping that Little One wouldn’t find it just yet. Maybe this could be Eren’s last present to him, but Eren wasn’t ready for that yet. He wanted to spend more time with Little One by the lake, he couldn’t be alone again so soon.

The next sunrise Eren opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Little One laying on his side near the cave entrance. Fearing that he would roll over and fall in his sleep, he gently scooped up the tiny body and placed him a little further away from the edge. Seeing Little One sleep reminded Eren of the first time he lifted him in his hands, unconscious and more beautiful than anything Eren had ever seen.

Little One was still beautiful; his skin pale, silky smooth, and cold to the touch, like everything else in this world. The only warmth Eren could feel was coming from above, and he never questioned this, never cared until Little One came around.

Those silvery-blue eyes always awakened something pleasantly warm in Eren’s chest. It was like Little One had his own sunlight which he gave Eren so carefreely through his eyes. Every time Little One looked at him after Eren did something good, he would give this sunlight to Eren with a single glance, and from then on Eren felt cold every time the human wasn’t with him.

Little One shared his sunlight with Eren so selflessly, and now Eren was killing Little One slowly from within, bit by bit, choking him until he no longer had any warmth in his eyes.

He figured that had to be the reason for the human’s odd behavior. Little One was getting cold because he no longer had his sun to warm him from the inside, and Eren had no choice but to let him go if he wanted to keep him alive. Eren only found out how terrible it was to be cold all the time after he brought Little One back to his forest; it was the most terrible, crushing feeling anyone could ever experience, and Eren never wanted Little One to be cold again.

As he was watching him sleep, trying to decide on what to do, Eren noticed the small, bleeding scars on the human’s hands. Something sharp began stinging in Eren’s eyes when he saw them. Did the Little One do this to himself? Eren couldn’t take it any longer. Didn’t he bring the human here to keep him out of harm’s way? He fought those titans in relief, knowing that his pain was his and not Little One’s, but now it seemed like there was nothing Eren could do anymore because he became the reason for Little One’s suffering.

He was trembling all the way to the edge of the forest, that strange stinging behind his eyes returning. He couldn’t look at Little One because he was afraid of his instincts coming over him, he feared that he would change his mind about this. This was all too confusing and foreign to him. He was hurting and feeling good at the same time, cold and warm battling with each other, but never mixing into something lukewarm and bearable.

The horse was still there, where he left it the day before, carefully tucked away in between trees and bushed, tied to a large branch. When Eren left it there, he still wasn’t sure what to do with it, but now he was certain. Enduring the eternal coldness was just as pleasant as getting torn into pieces by titans if it meant that Little One didn’t have to suffer the same fate. Eren would endure a world without sunshine if it meant that Little One was never cold.

And when his Little One looked up at him after staring at the horse for so long that the titan started worrying that it might not be to his use, Eren saw those grey eyes melt into silvered honey again, and he knew that it was worth it, that he did something good.

It wasn’t the type of good he was used to; it wasn’t the like the smell of grass or the sight of colorful flowers. It was more complicated than that, but it was good all the same. And suddenly Eren no longer minded the cold, the numbing pain of loneliness, because the Little One lit something within Eren’s heart that resembled a small, unwavering strand of sunlight that kept him warm from within.

As Eren watched Little One become smaller and smaller in the distance, that small flame of sunlight stayed with him. Warmth was mixing in with bitter sadness, but Eren could finally breathe, free from guilt and his selfish instincts. And Little One was more beautiful than ever as he was riding out towards his freedom in the plain, open land, his wings no longer tied down.

Eren turned and walked back to the forest, but he was no longer tempted to chase after the human and force him to stay against his will. He felt peaceful. That small, tingling sunshine in his heart reminded him of the afternoons they spent together by the lake.

When Levi opened his eyes, the first thing he thought was how strangely soft the ground was.

Even with his furs on the floor, it was never this comfortable to sleep in the cave. Searching for Eren’s warmth, he turned to his side, but instead of finding the titan’s body there, his forehead bumped into something cold and hard, which awakened him from his slumber.

Groaning and pressing a hand to the aching spot, and he opened his eyes only to be immediately blinded by the bright, white walls around him. He rubbed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to arrive.

Right. He was at headquarters in a small room, miles and miles away from the cave. Erwin insisted that he slept here tonight instead of in his chambers so that the medical staff could monitor him throughout the night, but Levi thought it was perhaps because someone else took his room. That was just how things went in the military. If they kept the room of every fallen soldier empty, they would’ve run out of space pretty quickly.

The sky has already shed its pinkish hue by the time he woke up.

Levi fondled the duvet cover between his fingers absentmindedly, his senses dominated by the comfort of the clean linen covers and the soft touch of the mattress underneath him. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept in a bed, but it felt like the first time after coming up from Underground all over again. Clean, soft beds were one of the best things the surface could offer.

A lazy shiver ran down his arms and legs, though it wasn’t cold in the room. He got used to Eren’s warmth, and now his body noticed its absence. He kicked off the duvet, forcing himself to endure the cold.

A new set of the standard military uniform was prepared for him on the chair next to the bed. Levi wanted to kick the bastard’s face who folded the clothes so messily, but then a thick coat of grime caught his attention on the window glass, and he no longer knew what he should be more pissed off about.

“Tch. Damn bastards stopped cleaning the moment I was gone,” he muttered under his nose.

The light coming from outside was dull and grayish from the lingering clouds from yesterday. Levi guessed that he slept in by quite a few hours. Eren was probably still on his morning patrol, and he wouldn’t be back for about another hour. Somewhere far away from here Eren’s steps were shaking the ground down to the roots of the trees, though no human was there to hear it.

He felt like he was putting himself together piece by piece as he began dressing, each item of clothing finally at its designated place and in order. While he was strapping himself up in the set of harnesses, he glanced outside the window and watched as a group of cadets began unloading a heavy cart full of gear, such as heavy cans of gas and rolls of strong metal wire. Erwin sure had been busy while he was gone.

As Levi pulled on his boots, a fidgeting, visibly nervous brunet man came in, stammering something about checking Levi’s vital signs. Levi replied to this with something along the lines of the man clearly having sheepshit in his skull instead of a brain if Levi standing in front of him was not proof enough that he was alive. The man muttered his apologies and stood around awkwardly for another couple of seconds before Levi dismissed him with some colorful words. That was when that menace named Hanji Zoe decided that Levi’s first morning back in human society should be permanently ruined.

“Rise and shine, Leviii!” He could hear her voice from the hallway minutes before she barged in with the widest grin on her face. It would’ve put even Eren to shame. “Missed me?”

Levi raised a thin brow in annoyance as he finished buckling up. “Barely.”

“Sounds like a lie to me!”

And maybe it was a lie just a little bit.

“Tch.”

“Way to introduce yourself to my newest right-hand officer! The poor boy looked like he was about to cry! He’s worth gold though, he’s nothing like the other stammering idiots, so please accustom him to your butterfly personality gradually, m’kay?”

The brunet seemed like a stammering idiot to Levi. “I don’t really care who you’re screwing after dark, Hanji. What do you want?”

“You could at least act like you missed me,” she chirped, throwing a heavy bag on the chair on which Levi’s clothes were only a minute ago. “Just kidding, I know you did! Erwin sent me to do your check-up on you because he knew that I’m the only one you love enough to let me do it!”

“The only thing I would love about you is cracking your skull open to see if you have a brain,” Levi deadpanned.

“Oof, that’s a little dark,” Hanji chuckled, and snapping her fingers, she pointed to the bed. “Sit down, Captain! You have no say in this. I won’t stand down until I know that every teeny-tiny bit of you is healthy!”

A deep frown of disgust appeared on Levi’s face, but he sat down anyway. “You’re mental. What day is it today?”

“Tuesday. Eld does most of the paperwork on Monday like you did, so no need to worry your grumpy little head about that!” she beamed but then she caught onto what she just implied, and she quickly pressed her lips together as if to prevent herself from saying anything else.

Thankfully Hanji made quick work of the examination, barely speaking, and never asking the question they probably all wanted to know the answer to, which was about how Levi survived for so long by himself. She only halted when she noticed the white scar starting beneath the left side of Levi’s right knee, going down to the right side of his angle in a neat line. Gently pushing her fingers along Levi’s leg, she tried feeling for what remained of the old injury.

“Huh,” she hummed to herself when she found the barely noticeable bump on his shin. “Well, you can thank your lucky stars, because you look all clear. Your blood pressure is a little low, and you’re also malnourished and dehydrated, but nothing that can’t be fixed! So, don’t exhaust yourself, make sure you eat your vegetables and drink plenty of water,” she winked at him cheerfully, “but apart from all that, you’re all good to go!”

“Does that mean you finally have enough material for a year’s worth of jerking off? Because I just about had enough of your groping for a lifetime.”

“Oh, Levi,” Hanji sighed with a smile, and reaching under her glasses she wiped away a single tear from the corner of her eye. “I missed you so much. No one is quite as creative around here as you!”

After the crazy scientist was gone, Levi finished getting ready. His stomach was already growling, demanding proper food and clean utensils after eating with his hands while sitting on the ground for so long. But before that, he had more pressing matters in hand.

He went to the small kitchenette that most of the rooms upheld for higher-ranking officers had and he filled a kettle with water. His need for a warm cup of tea was stronger than hunger or the pure disgust he felt when he looked inside the dusty cabinets littered with smudges of questionable origins.

There was a knock on the door just when the water started boiling. Levi cursed under his breath, annoyed that his morning tea-brewing routine was interrupted. He went to tear the door open, only to be faced by a tall, annoyingly handsome blond man. Levi never knew which was more infuriating about Erwin: those baby blue eyes or the fact that he was taller than Levi by what felt like a whole meter.

“Are we having a veterans’ reunion or what?” Levi asked with a mask of emotionless expression on his face, and he let the man in. His throat was still hurting a little from yesterday when he was shouting at the Garrison soldiers, and all the talking this morning didn’t help his sore vocal cords either. He hadn’t been used to talking this much for a while now. “First Hanji, now you, is Dhalis Zachary standing in the hallway too? Pyxis? Might as well call them all in.”

A soft smile spread on Erwin’s lips, almost one of relief, and he sat down by the small table. “You’re popular, but I’m afraid not that popular.”

“Always wondered why,” Levi scoffed and got another cup and saucer from the cupboard. There was a brief moment of silence between them while the water boiled and Levi prepared the teapot with a splash of hot water. It was hard to define whether it was a comfortable or uneasy pause.

Levi took this time to observe the man in detail. Erwin was a little slimmer, the skin underneath his eyes a little darker, and his blue eyes reflected a little less light. The change was probably barely noticeable for anyone who saw him every day, but it stood out to Levi like a sore thumb.

“You look like shit. Being commander taking its toll on you?”

Erwin chuckled, and Levi noted how the man was examining him just as intensely as Levi was watching him a second ago. “There’s a lot of work to do.”

“So, I’ve seen,” Levi said, thinking of the loaded wagons he saw in the courtyard.

“How are you feeling?”

“Do you want me to report to you now?”

Erwin silently regarded him before speaking up. “No. You can do that in my office after lunch. Until then, rest, take a walk, gather your thoughts. We all need some time right now to adjust to this new situation. But I am curious about how you’re feeling.”

Levi squinted his eyes at him, hating how Erwin was still almost taller than him even when he was sitting and Levi was standing. The tea leaves tinted the hot water with their color, and when it was just the right shade, Levi poured the brew into the cups, just like he taught Eren.

“Hanji said I’ll live,” he said, keeping his tone void of emotions, already feeling uncomfortable with where this conversation was heading. Levi hated every bit of the sorrow and guilt he felt in the air, oozing from the commander. Those emotions were not only useless, but they also took up too much space. They suffocated other, more important emotions, such as the will to live and fight.

Levi had a pretty good guess of what kind of thoughts must’ve kept the commander up all night. Losing soldiers and leaving their bodies behind was hard; finding out months later that a soldier somehow survived and was abandoned by his comrades? Well, there was no point sulking about that now anyway. Levi never had any resentment towards his comrades. If anything, he was glad that they didn’t waste more energy or resources to find him.

Erwin seemed to understand this too, because he shifted his gaze elsewhere, no longer torturing Levi with his inquiring glances. Levi placed the cups on each side of the table, then sat down as well.

The strong smell of bitter tea invaded his senses, and he could feel his shoulders relax from the tense hold of muscles. He lifted the cup holding it between the tips of his fingers, and slowly took a sip, savoring the taste.

The rustling of paper brought his unwilling attention back to reality. Erwin pulled out a pale piece of paper folded in half from under his jacket and placed it in front of Levi.

“What is this?” Levi asked, eyeing the paper distrustfully.

“I wanted you to read it.”

Levi sighed and unfolding the note he quickly read through the lines. It looked like some sort of official announcement of his return, only it wasn’t an official document, but a piece of paper with text on it written by hand. “I still don’t understand what the fuck this is supposed to be.”

“Word got out about you,” Erwin explained as he took a sip of tea. “We need to say something to the reporters.”

“Since when did we ever bother with them?” It wasn’t their job to deal with things such as publicity, Levi couldn’t give less shit about nosy news agencies.

Erwin chuckled and cocked a brow. “Since there’s a large herd of them banging on our front gate. News travels faster than men. It was inevitable that rumor got out of the castle, though I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. Then some Garrison soldiers from Shiganshina confirmed that–”

Levi grunted. “Gossiping pissheads.”

“Well, it’s not like they were wrong,” Erwin mused. “You are here, after all. This is the statement we prepared for the reporters. Hopefully, it will be enough to keep them busy for a little while. Until the official paperwork of your reinstatement is complete, anyway,” Erwin added quietly.

Levi read through the text again and noted how it didn’t say anything specific about the circumstances of his survival or return. It was plain and onto the point, providing no substrate for gossip; meaning that people would create their own outrageous fairy tales of what they thought happened out of thin air. The thought irked Levi.

Erwin watched him get lost in his thoughts for a minute, but then averted his gaze. He gently cleared his throat and Levi blinked, quickly snapping out of it.

“I would prefer for now if you kept a low profile. Not that you ever proved to be difficult in that regard. Your return will most likely cause an even larger uproar than your– well, disappearance did.”

Levi nodded, not needing to hear the details. He was sure that Hanji would fill him in on them regardless of whether Levi asked or not anyway.

“We will also release new propaganda art.”

Now that made Levi stop mid-sip. He shot a blank glance at the commander. Putting the cup aside, he took a moment of silence to keep his impulses in check. “What’s wrong with the current one?” he asked, his voice ragged, not being able to hide his irritation completely.

There were only a few things he hated more than overly-emotional, cheerful, unrealistic representations of the life of a soldier. Bombarding young minds with bright colors, flying capes, and hopeful or brave facial expressions was the easiest way to get the younger generation’s attention, and it was also the easiest way to obtain a garrison’s worth of soldiers who thought that life in the army was all fun and glory.

Even among those who joined the Survey Corps, the notorious branch with the most amount of deaths, Levi saw bright, excited expressions on the faces of the new cadets. Levi sometimes wondered what the fuck they were teaching them back in the training camps. Those wide-eyed, snotty idiots thought they knew enough about titans to kill them, or they thought it was an easy job.

Even if they survived their first expedition, which sixty percent of them did not, nothing could ever prepare them for the sorrow and guilt that was being a veteran soldier. Those damn posters didn’t prepare them for what it was like to live as a cripple after losing a couple of limbs, or for the pain of seeing their friends die and then living out the rest of their days knowing that they were either too weak, too slow, or too much of a coward to save them. And then the light would fade in those bright, young eyes.

“We have to use every opportunity we get to make the Survey Corps more popular,” Erwin’s matter-of-fact voice seeped through the murky clouds of his thoughts and brought him back to reality. “During these past months, the regiment barely survived dissolution. We’re short on supplies and we haven’t got a single recruit, which is a new low even for us. Who would want to fight titans when even Humanity’s Strongest got killed?” Ewin asked the rhetorical question, and Levi held back a frustrated sigh. “My point is that this opportunity is too important for the Corps to miss.”

“Damn, if I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you think I'm just another shiny tool, Erwin,” Levi murmured, not meaning any offense to his friend. That lingering tension was heavy in the air, no matter how quiet it was, and Levi knew that they both felt it. The room was crowded with held-back emotions – relief, confusion, disbelief, happiness –; emotions Levi was not ready or willing to express, and he was grateful to his friend for not pressuring him.

And so, Erwin chuckled at his remark, and kept his emotions to himself, knowing that Levi was aware of them anyway. As annoying as Eyebrows could be with his moral high ground and impeccable manners, Levi had to admit that the man always knew what Levi needed. Erwin wasn’t a friend of his by accident; unlike Hanji. Levi still didn’t understand how that happened.

“I’m happy, you’re back, Levi,” Erwin said softly. “With you, our fight for freedom can continue.”

Levi didn’t respond, just nodded.

His tea went cold. What a fucking pain in the ass.

Soon the commander left, and Levi cleaned up the cups and kettle. Finally having a bar of soap in his hands was nothing short of a religious experience for him. With his hands clean, his hair back in its proper order, and wearing the invigoratingly clean clothes, he felt like a man reborn; later, to his annoyance, he found out that that was exactly how everyone else saw him too.

The castle was relatively deserted. Lunch was about to be served, meaning that most scouts were sitting in the mess hall, eating.

The large room was packed with soldiers, familiar and new faces alike. Levi didn’t look for the faces he didn’t see. He had time to learn about the people they had lost while he was gone later. He grabbed a plate and some food, painfully aware how the loud, idle chatting in the hall first began to quiet, then died down completely.

He didn’t have to look to know that he was being stared at. That itching, uncomfortable feeling on his skin, like ants were marching up and down his spine, was impossible to ignore. In the crossfire of stupefied looks and gaping mouths, he walked to the leading officers’ table and caught Erwin’s glance for a moment.

Eld, who was sitting in his chair, discreetly stood up, and after giving Levi a welcoming nod, he started walking farther down the table to join the other Special Op. members, but Levi’s voice halted him.

“Eld, sit your ass back,” he curtly ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Eld replied, and sitting down he resumed eating his food.

Levi sat between the brunet man he met that morning and Mike while glancing at his squad. Petra and Gunther both looked like they’d been constipated for months, while Oluo’s eyes were unmistakably bloodshot from crying. Levi made a mental note to kick them all in the ass for looking so miserable and out of touch.

Once he sat, the room slowly began coming back to life, though the cheerful aura was permanently killed by his arrival. Even Hanji was more quiet than usual.

It was awkward, the air was tense. And Levi was Levi.

“Oi, lover boy, who are you?” he barked at the brunet guy flatly, his voice the type of monotone that he knew scared people.

“Moblit Berner, sir,” the man blurted out with flaming red cheeks. His hands were fidgeting nervously under the table, but his voice was kept even, something Levi could respect. “I’ve been made a team leader in squad four by Squad Leader Hanji after the 28th expedition.”

Right after Levi’s last and prolonged expedition then. Now that Moblit started talking, Levi started remembering faint images of a brunet man always ending up somewhere near Hanji, and now he was somewhat certain that he joined the Survey Corps before Levi. Oh, well.

The moment of remembrance was gone, and he was all too aware of the piercing gazes directed at him again. He focused his attention on the food on his plate, though the tense atmosphere was hard to ignore.

He began eating and had to force himself not to down the whole bowl of stew and loaf of bread in one go. Yesterday when he arrived, he was so exhausted that even the thought of food made him nauseous, but now the pit of his stomach was burning a hole through his body, the lack of proper food for the past months finally catching up with him.

He wondered if Eren would enjoy some food. Titans didn’t need to eat, but Eren presented with so many odd behaviors, so maybe food would be something he would try. He would probably just vomit it out after a while though. Levi frowned. It was a weird fucking thought, not to mention pointless too.

Eren was most likely sitting by the lake right now, basking in the fresh sunlight. If it wasn’t cloudy above the forest. Levi wondered if it was.

“Woah, did you see that?” Hanji whispered excitedly, biting down on her lips until they almost bled so she wouldn’t start screaming. She punched Erwin’s arm probably one too many times. “Shorty just went somewhere with his eyes!”

Levi groaned and muttered a few curses under his breath, damning Hanji’s eagle eyes. He had to get used to living around people again who were far more perceptive, or at least more expressive than Eren was.

“Look, look, he did it again!”

Deciding that that much of being a local spectacle was enough for one day, Levi stood, the chair creaking on the stone floor painfully loudly. He left his plate in the kitchen and headed out, all the while the stares kept burning holes through his back.

It felt like those first few months when he arrived at the castle, back when he was nothing but a criminal from Underground with no surname, no surface residency, no prestige, nor the power that came with it. Out of place, searching for a territory yet to be claimed. It wasn’t even two years ago, that that happened.

Then Erwin came, appointed Levi captain on the very same day he became commander, and Levi obtained all those things at once, residency, prestige, and power, only he no longer had the people he wanted to protect with these privileges anymore. So, he grasped for something else to fight for. He fought for freedom; something abstract, maybe even unreachable, that could not be shaken or damaged like humans.

His feet brought him to Erwin’s empty office.

The desk was littered with official documents in semi-orderly stacks, and Levi restrained himself from sorting them out immediately. As he walked closer, he noticed that one of the documents was a supply list for the 31st expedition. Levi’s brows drew closer to each other, small lines appearing on his forehead.

So, two other expeditions have been executed since his disappearance and now there were plans for a third one. Erwin was sure not wasting his time or men. Not that he could blame him. The average lifespan of scout was barely over two years, commanders included.

The fireplace was cold, the ash and chunks of burnt wood still not cleaned up. He clicked his tongue and went to grab the metal bucket and the fire-iron with the small handheld shovel, when the door opened behind him.

Not looking back, he began gathering the larger pieces of blackened wood, careful not to stir up too much ash in the air. Footsteps behind him, four people. He didn’t need to turn to know who they were: Erwin, Hanji, Mike, and Dita. He started picking up the wood, slowly lowering them into the bucket.

They all sat down, Erwin behind his desk, the squad leaders on the couch around the coffee table. A ‘clink’ of ceramic sound drew his attention to a set of teacups on a tray placed on the table. Holding back a sigh of relief, Levi put down the shovel and reached for a cup, lifting it by the rim, only to immediately frown in disgust after taking a sip.

“Fuck, this tastes like horseshit,” he choked out after spitting the liquid not worthy to be called tea into the bucket of ash.

“Oluo insisted,” Erwin chuckled. Hanji and Dita picked up a cup each, while Erwin set some paper aside on his desk. Mike remained silent.

“I told him never to go near a kettle in his life again,” Levi grumbled and resumed cleaning the fireplace.

“I believe these circumstances are special,” Erwin pointed out calmly.

There was silence between them, which Levi used to slowly fill the bucket with the wood. “Stop looking at me like that, shitty glasses,” he deadpanned and was rewarded with the sound of Hanji choking on her tea.

“Wha…! Like how?”

“Like I’m going to disappear in a puff of smoke or some shit, it’s disturbing.” He forgot just how annoying humans were. “How long was I gone?”

“Seven months,” Erwin said, his expression as hard to read, even for Levi, as ever. His voice was calm, and collected, not showing an ounce of emotion apart from the curious glow that powered those bright blue eyes.

Levi started shoveling the ash, the small particles of gray powder dirtying his hands. He reached far out to the back of the fireplace, scraping the ash into a pile with the shovel with efficient, practiced movements. “I suppose you finally want my report.”

He thought about the smartest way he could approach this. His promise to Eren that he would not put him in unnecessary danger still stood, no matter that the titan didn’t understand that. A promise was a promise. He reached for the whisk broom.

“During the 28th expedition we set out to build a new base in the forest south to the Shiganshina district, but we were ambushed by titans before we reached the destination.” He clenched his jaws, trying his hardest to remember everything that happened during the battle before he lost his consciousness. He brushed a pile of ash on the shovel and dumped it on the rest. “I went ahead to check the terrain, see if there were more coming. I killed maybe five titans before deciding that I should regroup with my squad and command, but I got…” he furrowed his brows, remembering the crystal-clear image in the middle of hazy chaos when he spotted Eren. He was watching Levi from behind a tree.

He had always felt uneasy annoyance towards the titan, hating how he never made a move, never attacked. Aggression was predictable, even if not always easily handled, and Levi loathed unpredictable bastards. It was strange thinking back to that time when he still felt malice towards Eren.

Realizing that he’d been silent for almost a minute, he cleared his sore throat and went back to work. His fingers were numb from the cold, missing that radiating heat they got used to over the past seven months.

“I got distracted. I spotted the fifteen-meter class titan, the one I gave you, Erwin, my report on three months prior–”

“That one abnormal you’re so obsessed with that you named it?” Hanji chimed in with heated cheeks, her hands clenched into tight, shaky fists. “Oh, my gods, I’m so jealous that I never get to see him! What did he do? How did he look? Healthy? Tell me everything, don’t you dare leave out anything!”

“You want me to tell you what happened or not?” Levi barked. “If you do, shut up. Yes, that one. I went for the kill, but another titan sneaked up on me, grabbed me, and broke my leg. I fell and blacked out for fuck knows how long.” He could feel the glances cast on his legs without looking, but he ignored them. Using the edge of the broom, carefully gliding the strands through the corners, he swept the whole fireplace clean. It felt good. “When I woke up, I was alone in a cave carved into a tree southwest of the place of the ambush. At that time, I didn’t know where the hell I was. Long story short–”

“Oh, no-no-no, go into more details, don’t cut it short…!”

“One more word, shitty glasses, and I will stuff your mouth with this piece of coal–”

“Let him talk,” Erwin rushed to calm the atmosphere. His eyes were permanently glued to the back of Levi’s head. “Levi, continue.”

“I was probably out for a few days, I had a fever, my fucking leg was snapped in half, and I probably would’ve died if not for this… boy.” He wondered if it was the best way to describe Eren without giving away too much. He always thought that Eren was young just because of how he behaved: like an oblivious, obnoxious, cheeky brat. Come to think of it, Levi didn’t know anything about Eren. He didn’t even know his age, or if titans aged at all.

He set the bucket aside, the fireplace swept immaculately, and he reached for the fresh logs placed next to the wall in a basked.

“I assume he was the one saving me from becoming titan shit, he was the one who brought me to the cave which is also his home, and he took care of me when I could barely stay awake for a few hours.”

The mood in the room was so tense that if Levi reached out, he could’ve plucked the air like the strings of a lute. He placed the fresh logs into a pyramid in neat lines; they were flaky and dry, nothing like the damp wood he had to get by with during fall and winter.

“Eren successfully kept me alive while my fever was burning and continued to take care of me afterward too. As frustrating as it is though, I can’t tell you how long he’s been out there, where he came from or how he survived on his own because he couldn’t speak nor understand anything I was saying. I doubt he ever had human contact before, but regardless, he managed to keep me alive, he was hunting and gathering for me to eat and drink, and he killed the titans that wandered inside his forest.”

He stood and walked to the commander’s desk, taking the box of matches, then knelt in front of the hearth again. Erwin’s eyebrows furrowed, sensing the withheld information but deciding not to point it out before Levi was finished talking.

“If he never had any human contact before, how did he have the weapons to kill titans?” Dita asked, seemingly not convinced of Levi’s story at all.

Levi lit a match on fire, and shielding the flame with his palm, an instinctive action at this point, he watched as the burning orange flakes started eating up the smaller shreds of dry wood. “I’ll tell everything in due time. Eren can’t speak, but he has above-average intelligence and he also has sharp eyes. He was always ready to learn, to observe, and he adjusted to my needs and preferences just by means of watching me and then drawing conclusions. He’s also–” an inch-sized flame came to life “–vexingly kind and naïve.”

“That could be explained by his lack of socialization!” Hanji gasped, finally adding some valuable information to the conversation for the first time since it started. “Research shows that individuals who grew up in isolation have a higher tendency of being selfless towards others since they lack the knowledge of selfish, shitty human nature! That’s why these people get taken advantage of so often and have a hard time adjusting to society!”

Levi could see that. He was also feeling something unpleasant growing in his chest when he thought about Eren trying to fit into this shithole of a place, with even shittier people in it.

The fire spread across the logs, and Levi pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his hands. “Yes, that would make sense,” he said quietly. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t bring him back.”

“Oh, shit, so many things are happening inside my head all at once that I almost forgot~” Hanji hissed through her teeth, then switched to a high-pitched scream: “Why didn’t you bring him back?! He could be so valuable, he must know so much about the titans, damn you, Levi!” she fisted a hand in her hair, her cheeks turning a furious red. “Erwin, we must go get him! If he dies before we…!”

“Calm the fuck down,” Levi barked with cold eyes and arranged the cleaning tools in a neat order beside the fireplace. “He will manage.”

“But he could answer so many of our questions, we need to teach him how to talk, we need to understand how he survived for so long, we need to study his mannerisms, we need data, we need…!”

“Hanji!” Erwin raised his voice to snap the scientist out of her frantically spinning treadwheel of thoughts. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Levi, why didn’t you bring him back?”

“I told you, he probably didn’t understand horseshit of what I told him, so me dragging him back here would’ve been good old-fashioned kidnapping.” Erwin gave him a look that roughly translated to ‘like that ever stopped you,’ but Levi ignored him. Just get it out, push it down, get it out. “I also didn’t bring him back because I suspected that he’d be killed the moment we reached the wall.”

“Why?” Erwin asked, confused.

Levi held back a sigh and finally turned to face them. “Because Eren is a titan.”

The room went dead quiet.

Hanji’s jaw dropped, and she was ogling him through her glasses with such intensity that it seemed possible for her eyes to fall out any minute. Dita’s eyes widened in disbelief and horror, the other two men showing similar reactions too. Erwin was the one who recovered first, his rational, level-headed thinking never leaving him even under the most unforeseen circumstances.

“This boy, you’ve been describing…”

Levi nodded and pressed his lips tightly together. “Eren is the abnormal I reported before. He’s the Stalker.”

“What the…! How is that even possible?!” Dita finally managed to blurt out, only to be immediately silenced by Hanji’s palm slapping onto his mouth.

“An intelligent titan capable of learning, adjusting to human behavior, and showing compassion!” Hanji screeched frantically, her mind already a thousand miles behind the walls, searching for Eren. “This is extraordinary, never ever seen before, totally incredible…!”

Levi was watching Erwin from the corner of his eyes, searching for signs that might give away his opinion, though he already had a hunch about what the commander’s plan would be. Erwin was ready to use everything and anything when it came to freeing humanity from the cage they were confided in; he also didn’t hesitate to sacrifice the things that needed to be given up for achieving this goal.

But when the commander kept sitting in silence, his blue eyes trained on the hard surface of the desk, Levi felt the acidic, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach rise again, and he couldn’t help feeling like the shitty human he was for putting Eren’s safety on the line like this. He didn’t have a choice though.

“I didn’t tell you about his identity right away for a reason,” he said, carefully picking out each word before saying them. “Eren could be our most valuable asset or most dangerous enemy yet, but I want you to judge him by his actions first, rather than his species. He’s conscious, and he acts like a child.” What was he saying? Why was he making such a fool out of himself? Were they not all judged by their rank and appearances? Did life not treat them harshly regardless of age? Eren wasn’t special in this regard, he didn’t deserve any more protection from the cruel reality of life than anyone else.

Levi’s only job was to make sure nobody killed Eren, so he could do humanity as much good as his abilities allowed him, and more. It took Levi months to understand that Eren didn’t want to hurt him, or rather that he wanted to protect him, and Erwin didn’t have those months to spare. They needed to act quickly and turn the odds around in this war.

With Eren on board, maybe no human ever had to die again at the hands of a titan.  Eren’s suffering was a small price to pay for a world with no more titans.

“Abnormal or not seven months of an unchanging pattern of behavior is enough time to safely say that he can be trusted. I’m confident, that it’s safe to bring him behind the walls and use him however it serves our cause.”

“You almost sound like you’re trying to defend him,” Erwin glanced at him, and Levi’s jaw muscles tightened. Meanwhile, Hanji was walking in circles in the office, mumbling to herself and occasionally shaking the other squad leaders by their shoulders.

“With good fucking reason,” Levi said. The warmth from the fire on his back somewhat eased the pain in his muscles, but it wasn’t nearly as pleasant as Eren’s crazy warm skin. “His potential might sound unbelievable, but I’m not someone to exaggerate for the sake of dramatics. But as valuable as he could be as a weapon, he would also make the most dangerous threat humanity has ever had to face. As I said, though complex and abstract ideas escaped him, Eren is capable of learning extremely fast. If he was somehow made an enemy to this country, he could do a lot more damage than kill a few of our soldiers. That’s why I’m telling you how important Eren’s nature is. He’s… kind. Like a child, who’s uncorrupted by this world. We need to make sure that he stays that way and keep him on our side.”

“And he killed titans?”

“He did. A few weeks ago, a small herd invaded the forest. We were quite far away from the cave, and my leg was still weak. I guess he knew I couldn’t fight, because he picked me up and started running towards the cave.”

“This is the most important day in the history of science!” Hanji choked out, looking like she was about to cry, and quickly smacked a hand on her face when her nose began bleeding. Levi flinched in disgust.

“I watched Eren kill the titans with my own eyes,” he continued. At this point, Hanji was fisting her own bloodied hand inside her mouth to keep herself from screaming in excitement. “Those titans,” Levi furrowed his brows, remembering the ridiculous scene, “also ignored me to attack Eren instead. They were trying to eat him like he was human.”

Hanji pulled her hand out from her mouth with a disgusting pop! “Cannibals! Holy fucking shit, Erwin!” Hanji shrieked and punched Mike’s arm hard enough for the man to groan in pain. “We need to capture this titan! Right! Now! Right-now!”

“Eren is no cannibal, and the titans eating him were not abnormals either,” Levi shook his head. “My gut tells me that they attacked him for the same reason they attack us. Something in Eren resembles a human closely enough for the titans to perceive him as one, and so they attacked him.”

“All the more reason we have to get our hands on him as quickly as we can…!”

“No!” Levi snapped at her, letting out his frustration only for a second, but long enough for everyone in the room to see that he was not playing around. He didn’t care if he was being selfish. “Even if we manage to convince Eren to cooperate, the news of an intelligent titan would travel fast, and there’s no telling of the consequences. We need to make it seem like we captured him on one of your whims, shitty glasses, and not make a huge fuss about it that will only attract unwanted attention.”

“Are you saying we should keep this titan’s existence a secret from the world?” Dita asked sternly, his voice coated in a thick layer of disapproval. “Keep a titan to ourselves that could change the course of the war and the lives of one million and two hundred thousand people? Also, a titan that could kill just as many people if we mess this up?”

“I am,” Levi replied coldly. “For now.”

“I have to agree with Levi here,” Erwin said slowly, his voice deep and contemplative. “The titan is no use to us if he’s taken and killed by the Military Police, which I’m sure they would do. We need to make a plan on how to reveal his identity to the public without raising any doubt about his… intentions. Or that we can control him,” he added, looking at Levi. “And the first step would be convincing this titan to come back with us. Capturing and transporting a non-willing fifteen-meter class titan is not something we have the equipment or manpower for, so he has to come willingly. Do you think you could do it, Levi? Get him to cooperate with us?”

“I told you, he might as well be deaf, he doesn’t understand shit,” Levi said, but Erwin just tilted his head to the side with a small ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

“That’s not how I heard you talking about him.”

“I’m only holding back the information I don’t have if that’s what you’re referring to, eyebrows,” Levi narrowed his eyes.

“Of course, I’m not. But you do seem like you’re fond of this titan. You’re rather protective of him.”

“Awww,” Hanji cupped her cheeks with her palms. “Shorty fell in love with his adorable little pet titan! I want to meet him, please, Erwin, can I, can I?”

Levi glared coldly. His head began hurting, not to mention his aching throat. “Your assumptions are ludicrous.”

“Then maybe he’s just fond of you,” Erwin pointed out. “Do you have any assurances that you’re not an exception? That he would treat all humans like he treated you?”

Levi clenched his jaw and turned back to the fire. “I don’t. Just like I don’t have an assurance that you won’t stab me in the kidneys with that letter opener on your desk or that I won’t push your face into this fire just because I want to. Both could happen, but my gut tells me it’s unlikely.”

A small smile lingered on Erwin’s lips, but his gaze remained stern, calculating. “Very well. Nobody here doubts your judgment.”

“Is that a yes to capturing the abnormal?” Hanji beamed, and there was a small, tense moment of silence between the five of them.

“It is,” Erwin finally said.

Hanji jumped in the air screaming with happiness, and she immediately started jabbering about new expenses on weapons and transportation devices, while Dita, Mike, and Erwin engaged in a conversation about officially keeping the objective of the 31st expedition, while in reality it would be delayed onto the 32nd one, to concentrate their efforts on Eren now.

Levi listened to them with only one ear and remained silent. His mind was only half present, unconsciously wandering outside the walls in a quiet forest, far from the hectic noise of the office. He felt a gaze latching onto him, and lifting his head, he saw Dita turn away from him just before their eyes met.

Soon he left, the planning of strategies for expeditions never being his job.

He headed to his office, ignoring the deafening silence that infested each hallway he walked through, no matter how many scouts occupied the room. He was used to people being wary of him, he was used to the nervous awe the new cadets regarded him with before bitter disappointment and fear took over, but this was on a whole new level.

There was a boy, maybe fourteen of age, who first dropped the papers he was carrying when he saw the captain, and when Levi barked something at him that was far from the unfriendliest thing he’d ever said, the boy went into some kind of shock. He paled to a sickly color, his eyes went wide and mouth hung wide open, then he turned his back on him and ran away. Levi was caught off guard so much that he could only blink and stare at the corner in the hallway where the boy disappeared.

Luckily, this was the most dramatic example of the behavior of those who didn’t know or see him prior to his little vacation.

Those who did know him from before– well, that was perhaps even worse. Levi couldn’t bear to see another sap with either tears or some kind of strange pride in their eyes that was far too personal for his taste. As the day went by it became increasingly harder to fight the urge of wanting to strangle anyone who simply dared so much as to look at him.

His office was pretty much left the same way it was before Eld took over his role. The thought still made him feel somewhat strange. It wasn’t discontentment or childish resentfulness; he was the one who made Eld his senior team leader and gave him the responsibility of taking over as captain when he wasn’t present, but Levi was never meant to see what that would look like. Seeing someone taking his place made something shift uncomfortably in his stomach.

Everyone was replaceable, but no one was supposed to witness the aftermath of their own death.

He took a few steps inside, looking around like he was expecting something to jump at him or the floor to cave under his feet, but none of that happened. The room was quiet and organized, with no personal items that would reflect the officer occupying the space.

It was dusty, clearly whoever cleaned here made a shitty job, so Levi gathered an arsenal of brooms, mops, buckets, and soap from the closest closet room, and started working. He was dusting off the bookshelves next to the desk when the door was torn open and Hanji barged in with the widest, most insane grin on her face.

“Do you even know how to knock–”

“Leviii, you have to tell me more–”

“– you crazy ass maniac or do you just–”

“– about your precious little titan or–”

“– enjoy making my life miserable?”

“– I might die from curiosity!”

Levi angrily began scrubbing a dark spot on the hard wooden shelf, while staring daggers into Hanji’s muddy boots, wondering which cleaning tool he should choose to break the squad leader’s legs.

“Then go and die in a ditch somewhere. I have better things to do than tell you bedtime stories.”

“But Levi!” Hanji exclaimed, slamming both her palms on the desk, the sound startling even him a little. Hanji’s face was glowing in some morbid blend of excitement and pure madness. “I need to know more about your adorable little wife before I meet him!”

Levi narrowed his eyes angrily at the scientist. “My fucking what?”

“C’mon, you two lived together for half a year, you’re basically married!” Hanji beamed while Levi considered the fact that Hanji had seriously lost the plot. He always joked around with Hanji being insane, but this time he had no doubts. “I can see you two in my mind’s eye so clearly! You, cleaning your little love-nest, while Eren goes out to hunt dinner~ Oooh,” her voice dropped an octave and her eyes lit up with something that made Levi want to grab a sword in his defense. “It’s the other way around, isn’t it? You’re the stay-at-home housewife! Gosh, shorty, I never took you for one to bottom– Ouch!” She yelped and reached to protect her head when Levi slung the rag so violently in her direction that it made a whip! sound.

“Are you actually fucking insane?” Levi raised his voice, but unlike any normal person, Hanji just grinned instead of tucking her tail between her legs and scurrying away. “Tell me honestly, because if you are, I have the legal right to sedate you and lock you up in the basement!”

“Ha! And for those exact reasons, I would never tell you!” Hanji giggled and leaned out of the way of the next vicious attack.

“Are you just here to make sure my headache lasts for days, or what? I’m this close to throwing you out of the window!”

“Of course, I’m here for something important!” Hanji threw herself on the couch next to the fireplace and grinned widely at Levi. “It’s you! I wanted to ask you, how’s my favorite short-tempered captain doing, back in action, back in society, far away from his dear little titan? I bet he’s missing you…” she wondered with a faint blush on her cheeks from the excitement of just thinking about Eren.

Levi however, barely heard her words now. He was standing in the window, looking at the cadets in the yard. They were running laps and throwing glances in the direction of Levi’s office. It awakened a quiet rage within him.

“All those shitty accidents are looking at me like some sort of circus freak,” he hissed the words through his teeth, too annoyed and proud to turn away from the window. He wasn’t about to flee and hide from a couple of nosy brats who didn’t have anything better to do than rape him with their eyes. Instead, he wondered if those brats would still gawp at him so eagerly when he was breaking their legs.

The memory of a pair of strange, greenish-blue eyes flashed in his mind.

Hanji looked up, furrowing her brows. “Hm?” She walked next to him to see what Levi meant and sighed when she noticed the cadets shooting glances at them. “You’re awfully oblivious sometimes, you know that?” She sounded a lot more calm and mature now, her tone dropping lower. “They’re looking at you like you’re a god. You literally returned from the dead! If that doesn’t prove that you’re Humanity’s Strongest, then I don’t know what does.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “You’re stupidly over-dramatic today.”

“Well, my bestest friend in the whole world did return half a year after his presumed death, so, I can’t blame myself if I am!”

“I sincerely fucking hope you didn’t do something stupid like arranging a funeral for me.”

Hanji lightheartedly chuckled, their banter becoming a lot less vicious. “I thought about a giant statue on the main courtyard, but then I realized that erecting any statue taller than your actual self would be historical negationism, so I ended up canceling those plans.”

“How responsible of you,” Levi hummed absentmindedly.

This enthusiasm and patronizing awe that he was welcomed with back in the human field was something that began to eat him away. He was used to the attention; he’s always been followed by disapproving or scared looks even before he came to the surface and joined the military, but this was worse, and Levi hated how uncomfortable it made him feel. He wasn’t good at all this stupid fuckery, inspiring the plebs and encouraging them to fight, like what Erwin was expecting from him. He was a soldier; he knew damn well that inspiration and encouragement weren’t enough to survive in a fight against the titans.

His return was also not his accomplishment, and while he wasn’t particularly keen on telling everyone how he would’ve died if not for a puppy-natured brat, he hated more to withhold the truth or lie about it.

“It’s no thanks to me that I’m here,” he said plainly. He never liked it when people looked up to him for things he didn’t do, because it made him feel like the trust he got for his real accomplishments was no longer deserved either. Like somehow he became a fraud.

“Does it matter?” Hanji knew that it didn’t and so did Levi. At the end of the day, Levi remained a hero who gave hope to people. Even if the mighty stories about his return weren’t true, giving this fairy tale to the people would make them feel better. More people would come to the Survey Corps, more talented soldiers would be discovered, more people would fight for freedom, and more people would die at the hands of titans.

“I suppose it doesn’t,” Levi said and turned his back on the window.

There was a beat of comfortable silence between them before Hanji made the executive decision to ruin it.

“Oh, I wanted to ask, where are those prehistoric-style clothes you were wearing yesterday? Petra mentioned them in her report.”

Levi frowned. “Why would you ask? They were just furs from all kinds of shitty animals. It’s a fucking miracle that none of them had rabies or some other nasty illnesses.”

“Yes, just shitty animals,” Hanji rolled her eyes, “that a titan caught so you could eat something! Honestly, Levi, I love you with all my heart, but–”

“Please, don’t ever say something so disturbing like that again.”

“– but sometimes I think you want to cause me deliberate pain!” she whined. “This is mind-blowing shit right here! Those clothes are proof of the time you spent with Eren!”

“Now you’re just making it sound even more creepy than it was.”

Hanji, deliberately, didn’t listen to anything she didn’t want to hear. She tapped a finger on her chin, the cogs turning behind her eyes so loudly that Levi could hear them. “How did you sew them together?”

Levi sighed and accepted defeat. Not many things could force him to stand down, but Hanji was one of those natural (or unnatural) disasters. “I used Eren’s hair as thread.”

Another beat of silence.

“Levi, where are these clothes?” Hanji asked calmly, the madness shining brightly in her eyes.

Levi grabbed the rag again to resume cleaning, but for good measure, he made sure that the letter opener on his desk was within reach. “I threw them away, of course. They were filthy, I wore them all winter, it was a fucking health hazard.”

“Where are they?” Hanji whispered, her voice trembling and her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Levi had to commend her for keeping this calm.

“I threw them in the fire yesterday. Why is this even so fucking–”

But he couldn’t finish the sentence, because Hanji rushed out of the office, not even bothering to close the door behind her, and Levi could hear the whole hallway echo Petra’s name as Hanji screamed for her like a banshee.

Levi clicked his tongue and continued cleaning, only to be interrupted again a few minutes later.

“Before I forget it!” Hanji peeked inside, her cheeks pink and forehead sweaty. She was holding a book with thick, dark leather covers and she threw it on Levi’s desk.

“What’s this shit?” Levi asked as he flipped through the blank pages.

“I want you to write down everything you remember from the past seven months!” she grinned. “I need details, even the tiniest ones like how many times you jerked off, you’re not allowed to leave out anything!”

Levi omitted a long, pained sigh. “You know that you’re not my fucking superior to order me around, right?”

“Please, Levi, please-please-please, pretty pleaseee! It’s my compensation for you stupidly throwing away precious scientific evidence! Also, I’ll do anything, anything you want!” Hanji pleaded with her palms cupping her cheeks, no doubt trying to create some puppy-look effect, but Levi stared at her, unaffected. He’d been exposed to a certain someone else’s puppy eyes for so long now that he practically became immune to it.

“Anything?”

“Aaanything!”

“Fine. You won’t bother me for the rest of the week.”

“But you just came back, I have legal obligations to bother my long-lost friend…!”

“You’re either leaving me alone or I’m not writing a single damn word in this shitty diary,” Levi said with a content little smirk, already knowing what the scientist’s answer will be.

Hanji fisted her hair and threw her head back with a dramatic sob. “Fine, I’ll leave you alone for one day and you’ll write down everything you know?”

“Try again. One week.”

“Two days!”

“Three.”

“Deal!” she beamed, the pretend sobbing long gone, and she held out her hand. Levi raised a skeptical brow.

“I’m not touching you. You probably still don’t wash your hands after taking a shit.”

Hanji cackled and giggled her way out of Levi’s office, not noticing the man’s softening gaze following her.

Once she was gone, Levi resumed cleaning, but from time to time, his eyes found their way back to the book on the desk. He didn’t yet know how he felt about giving out all the information about the months he spent with Eren. For some ridiculous reason, it felt too… personal.

During his time with Eren, he went through some of the lowest of lows he’d ever experienced, but also, when he thought about the forest and the afternoons he spent by the lake, he felt a rose-tinted veil of nostalgia dull his memories.

There had never been a time before when he had time to indulge in such a simple life he lived in the forest, and Levi couldn’t deny how he wasn’t completely opposed to the idea of such a life. Take away the titans, his broken leg, and the lack of tea…

“For fuck’s sake,” he growled and ordered himself not to play around with such idiotic thoughts any longer. He was daydreaming like a featherbrained little girl.

He forced himself not to think about the lake, how the light bounced off the fluttering surface, spewing out all kinds of colors; blue, green, purple; and he forced himself not to acknowledge how the walls of the castle had been slowly caving in on him, strangling him from the moment he woke up that morning.

Chapter Text

Standing model for a painting was an awful enough event for someone to experience once, and Levi was not exactly thrilled that he had the misfortune to go through the misery twice.

The first time he stood model for a propaganda painting was not yet a year ago when he was made captain. He was kicking and cursing like an untamed foal, ready to bite anyone’s hands off who dared to touch him. With joined forces, Dita and Mike pushed him inside a large room, where he was locked up with of an old man covered in oil paint stains, and during the next three hours, Levi came close to murdering said man at least four times.

Now, a year later, he still didn’t understand what the fuck was wrong with these so-called artists.

They had the weirdest obsession with staring at different parts of his body like they were hoping to find the meaning of life somewhere printed on his skin or clothes, or how they couldn’t seem to stop themselves from wanting to touch him.

For some reason, they must think that it would be easier to push him around like a doll, rather than describe how they wanted him to stand or sit or whatever weird, kinky position they were into. And Levi wasn’t even allowed to call it perverted or sick, because it was ‘art’.

Levi was thoroughly annoyed before the shitheads even began drawing. It was a constant ‘turn your head up, sir, a little lower, more to the right, a little more, no, too much!’ What the fuck did a few inches to the left or right matter? In Levi’s opinion artists had too much time on their hands, which is why they bothered with such useless things.

He was standing in a bright room on a podium, the curtains on the window pulled aside to let in the most amount of sunlight the late afternoon could offer. He was looking at the upper right corner of the room, his head turned in a perfect hundred and twenty-five degrees angle to the right and about ten degrees tilting up, a position with which the commissioned artist fucked around for the past half an hour or so. Levi needed all his self-control not to jump on the man’s throat when he began complaining for the hundredth time that Levi moved his head slightly.

The artist’s name was Baumann, a dull name for the dullest man Levi had ever seen. He vaguely resembled those slimy creatures that lived under rocks and began squirming once put out in sunlight. What a waste of fucking time, standing in a room alone with a chubby, middle-aged man who looked Levi up and down like he couldn’t decide if the sight of the captain made him want to puke or jack off.

Levi wondered which would be worse, getting railed by a titan or touching Baumann’s dick with a single pinky finger.

Just when the question crossed his mind, he saw Baumann squinting his giant, saucer-like eyes at him, his pink loaf of a tongue sticking out a little at the corner of his mouth, and the sight helped Levi make the quickest decision of his life yet.

Titan. He’d rather choose the titan.

Oh, gods, why did he think of Eren just now? Stop it.

Eren didn’t even have the equipment to– I said stop, for fuck’s sake!

Horrified, he scowled and tried to wipe the uncalled-for, vile image from his brain as quickly as possible. Suddenly he felt a little pity for those who had to tolerate his crude, deadpanned remarks on a daily basis, having just witnessed the horrors of it himself. Never again.

“Captain, sir, could you please fix your face for me?” Baumann slurred his words, a paintbrush sticking out of his mouth. Filthy. Also, couldn’t he have said that any more personally?

Levi’s frown deepened.

“This is my face, fucking moron,” he growled, flicking his piercing gaze on the man. “If you wanna keep yours as it is, you should stop making comments about mine.”

Baumann visibly trembled, yet he exhaled deeply which suspiciously sounded a lot like ‘lowbred scum.’ But the painter refrained from asking him to smile anymore, which was progress, and in return Levi let the comment slip. They both wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, and he wasn’t about to prolong the time they had to endure in each other’s company by starting a fight.

Admittedly they made a lot of progress since the first time they met.

Baumann learned on their first session a week ago that Levi had two default modes: staring daggers into you and throwing daggers into you. Hanji conveniently forgot to mention it to Baumann (supposedly for a laugh, but then again, who knew what the hell went on in her mind) never to touch Levi. The oblivious man nearly lost two fingers when he reached out to position Levi’s arm with his filthy, chalk coated hands. After that, Baumann, though about as sharp as a butter knife, learned rather quickly about his client’s boundaries, and he remained seated behind his pieces of paper, making do with muttering cliché insults under his nose whenever he thought Levi couldn’t hear.

With all the talk about him skyrocketing since he’s been “back among the living”, old gossip regarding his background surfaced too. Was he a secret love-child of a high-ranking officer? Did he grow up in a secret military cult that the Crown tried to hide from the public eye?

It was laughable how much bullcrap the human mind could muster up.

If any of the fucking morons who spread gossip about him had actually been Underground, there wouldn’t have been a single question left unanswered about where he came from, especially now. Seven months was enough time for him to get unused to talking, and the small tricks and habits he picked up in the military regarding above-ground customs and language faded a little too.

His Underground accent was a little more prominent now, which would’ve been a dead giveaway of his birthplace if not for the uncrossable bridge between the two worlds. Hanji was kind enough to point out his slightly changed pronunciation while she was furiously taking notes about his latest slip-ups. His words were spiced with a touch of foreign taste, something unusual enough to hit one’s ear but not strong enough to be obvious how exactly it differed from the standard spoken language.

His way of speaking had softened over the couple of years he spent above ground, but even if Levi spoke the language rough back in the days, Isabel’s accent was a godforsaken disaster compared to him. The small redhead’s accent was so strong that for the unfamiliar ear it almost sounded like a foreign language, and when she got excited, sometimes it was hard for even Levi and Furlan to follow her jabber. It was an odd combination, the thickness of her accent and her high-pitched, cheerful voice.

Furlan, on the other hand, was an anomaly. He spoke with a simple but unmistakable oddity; the softness of his vowels and the way he slurred different syllables than the rest of them. It was something that caught Levi’s ear the first time they met, but he was always either too hungry or too busy raiding warehouses to ever care to ask Furlan about it.

Levi faintly remembered how his friend once mentioned something about him coming from the northernmost part of the Underground, though he never elaborated, and thus Levi never quite figured out the reason for Furlan’s lack of accent. Not that he cared too much back then. Lately, though, Levi wondered if it was a custom of the area or maybe his parents were from above, and they carried their surface accent to the pit of darkness, which they passed onto Furlan.

Levi was sure these modeling sessions would result in excellent new raw material for gossip by the grace and discretion of Baumann. Levi didn’t care much for gossip or being ‘found out’ as a former Underground resident, nor for the obnoxious lies and tales people told about him in taverns and brothels. Even if he went screaming the truth into the night, still no one would’ve believed him, because people were happier with their made-up, unrealistic stories about him.

And who was Levi to deny them?

He knew that these debates would always surface from time to time, and he was not about to waste his time on crap like this. He wasn’t about to validate any outrageous claim by giving it attention. The gossip would bloat and spur on without him anyway, and he wasn’t stupid enough to try to stop it. Unlike those nasty brushes in Baumann’s mouth, human minds could not be cleaned with a set of sponges, rags, and soapy water, so there was no point trying.

Levi groaned and adjusted his right leg, which went numb while standing for half an hour without moving a single muscle in his body. They really didn’t pay him enough for this shit. He had to stand with one leg stepping on a wooden box, the box later to be replaced by the head of a titan on the painting or something dumb like that.

“Alright, sir, I’m finished with you for today,” Baumann mumbled and Levi stared daggers into the man’s skull, wondering if it was a habit of artists in general to talk in such an infuriatingly personal way. “I will return with the finished piece in…”

“Talk to Commander Eyebrows about that, I couldn’t give any less shit about your finished pieces,” Levi grumbled and hopped off the podium without waiting for the man’s affirmation. “You’ll have plenty of time for idle chatter with him when we return.”

If we return, he thought, but he wasn’t about to share his concerns about the upcoming mission with this frog-like creature.

He left the room, only to immediately bump into Hanji in the hallway. Levi let out a long sigh.

“Not again, shitty glasses,” he growled in an almost pleading tone. He was tired of Hanji’s inquiries, both mentally and physically. She’s been constantly nagging him ever since he returned, which was three long fucking weeks now.

Every day the Squad Leader found something unimportant to nag him about only to soon reveal her true intentions, which was asking him about the smallest, most random details regarding Eren. Sometimes Levi wondered how many times was Hanji dropped as a baby, because there was no way in hell that a normal person could muster up a question such as ‘on average how many times does Eren blink per minute,’ and ‘does his saliva contain any healing or poisonous properties?’

Hanji had a hard time understanding why Levi actively tried avoiding Eren’s mouth, which contained giant, head-sized teeth along with the mentioned saliva.

It was also a hundred percent Levi’s mistake telling her about Eren’s weird hardening ability. It was very late, Hanji might have convinced him to get a few drinks with her and Mike, and so he might have mentioned the incident with the fire and the glass-like substance that spread on the titan’s fingers.

After that, there was no hiding from Hanji.

“How was your date with Baumann?” the Squad Leader beamed way too brightly for Levi’s foul mood. If he had the opportunity, he would’ve retreated to his office with a large cup of tea and stayed there for the rest of the week.

“We both actively tried to make each other’s lives miserable, we both survived, the end.”

“C’mon, he’s just doing his job,” Hanji bumped her shoulder against his teasingly. “Trust me, trying to pick a fight with you is above his pay grade. Man, nearly cutting his finger off was a little too much,” she sighed, but she couldn’t mask her amused tone. “The poor man makes a living with those fingers!”

“Now that just sounds wrong.”

“You’re making it sound wrong! Honestly, if people knew how much of a filthy-minded old man you are, they wouldn’t dare to worship you!”

Levi scoffed and rolled his eyes. Hanji was only a few years younger than him, but she loved to rub it under his nose whenever she got the chance.

“Maybe I should start going around punching people in the face and spitting in their drinks more often then.”

“You’re just a little baby, Levi, hissing and fussing about the smallest inconveniences,” Hanji said, immediately feeling the cold chills that ran down her spine when Levi shot a nasty side glance at her. She couldn’t stop smiling though.

“I’ll let that comment pass because we’ll need you tomorrow,” Levi warned, “but I can’t promise you anything after that.”

Hanji ignored the threat and instead looked dreamily into the distance as they walked down the stairs on the way to the courtyard. “Do you think he would let me do a family background check on him? Baumann I mean.”

Levi narrowed his eyes and gave her a suspicious side glance. The air around them immediately cooled down. “You don’t trust him?”

“What?” Hanji snapped out of her daze and stared at Levi for a moment before snorting back a laugh. “Oh, I’d just love to see his parents! I want to figure out where he got his~ fascinating facial features from!”

“I know you have this morbid fascination with him–”

“Gosh, he’s just such an interesting looking man!”

“– but maybe just stop?” Levi rolled his eyes, frowning. “It’s getting disturbing. He looks like the result of one of your fucked up science experiments.” Hanji cackled loudly, the sound nowhere near attractive, but it warmed Levi’s heart. “Stop snorting, it’s disgusting.”

“He looks like a human crossed with a frog. Did he catch any flies with his tongue? That would be a dead giveaway– Woah!”

A firm hand snatched out for his arm, and Levi caught onto Hanji just before her legs slipped from under her and she smashed her head against the cold stone stairs. He yanked her to her feet from the awkward position and gave her a disapproving look.

Hanji laughed and dusted off her pants, trying to play it off. “I’m all good!”

But Levi wasn’t having it. He was eyeing his friend like she could spontaneously combust any moment, and he didn’t know if he should grab a bucket of water or take three steps back. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Hah! You are not to give anyone lectures about sleeping!”

“You need it, I don’t. You can’t be this distracted before an expedition, you’ll get yourself killed.”

“Almost sounds like you’re worried about me!” she chuckled weakly and winked at him. “Don’t worry! I can’t die before I see our precious little Eren! I’ll crawl out of my grave and haunt him for the rest of his days if I don’t!”

Levi watched her with a calculative gaze before firmly saying, “Good. So get a fucking hold of yourself.”

The courtyard and the stables were busy; scouts were marching and rushing around, orders flying left and right. Everyone was busy with the preparation for tomorrow’s expedition.

There was still a hushed whispering every time Levi crossed the path of a group of scouts. It was a nervous, faint noise, like the buzzing of bees, that settled onto Levi’s days like a thin veil of fog.

His skin crawled uncomfortably whenever he was outside his office or private rooms, but he began to accept this new type of attention since it didn’t seem to go away. Eyes still followed him wherever he went, though people no longer fell quiet when he entered the mess hall; he could still hear new cadets gossiping about him behind his back, though they no longer became mute when Levi barked a question at them.

Emotions began to settle down about his return by the second week, and life slowly continued as it was before. Levi couldn’t say that he wasn’t relieved. The attention was getting exhausting.

On the far right side, in the shadow of the castle wall, there was a wagon with heavy, rope-like cargo that caught Levi’s attention. Walking closer, he realized that it was a giant net, the ropes interwoven with strands of metal wire. He traced his slender fingers along the thick strands and couldn’t help the way his stomach dropped a little.

“What’s this?” he asked, making sure to keep his voice even and bored.

Hanji leaned against the cart as she surveyed the working scouts with watchful eyes. “They’re for Eren,” she explained lightheartedly. “For the sake of secrecy, we can’t bring too many people, and some might question how a handful of scouts were able to capture a fifteen-meter class titan. Also, the idea to transfer him on a cart for the last two hundred meters outside the walls is kind of out of the window too; it just wouldn’t be feasible. We can’t bring that much equipment or material outside the walls, blah blah blah. So, I worked out this sneaky little plan! We’ll lure Eren close to the bottom of the wall, our guys on top will drop the net on him, and boom, done!” she exclaimed, hands in the air, but Levi didn’t reciprocate her excitement.

His eyes widened slightly, his gaze going back and forth between the net and Hanji’s face. When she noticed the horror turning the grey eyes a shade darker, her cheerful grin faded, and she cleared her throat.

“I mean, obviously, we wouldn’t want to scare him. It would just be a show for any Garrison soldiers who might witness Eren’s capture. And I’m sure he will be lovely and cooperate with us either way, so there won’t be a need to use… uh, you know.”

“To use force,” Levi finished the sentence impassively.

“Yes,” Hanji agreed reluctantly, lightly stressing the ‘s’ sound at the end of the word. Silence enwrapped the two of them that was only occasionally broken by a distant ‘yes, sir’ or ‘right away, sir’.

Levi had to admit that it was the most sane and resourceful plan they could’ve come up with.

They had no wagons that could transport Eren for longer periods of time, not to mention tying Eren up before reaching the walls would mean a significant loss of their combatant force. Eren could help them get back safely by fighting off any titans coming nearby, and they needed that advantage.

With him running closely behind them, it would be easily believed by anyone standing on Wall Maria that Eren was chasing them, therefore the use of nets would be seemingly justified. It was also worth mentioning that with this plan Erwin conveniently solved any problems that might occur if Eren’s docile nature turned out to be only directed at Levi. There was no need to prepare for a violent titan chasing after them when ‘plan A’ already treaded Eren as such.

Well, Levi couldn’t argue with the strategy or the distrust.

Sometimes he caught himself in a weird daze when neither his life in the military nor the time he spent with Eren felt real. Whenever he was too tired or had just woken up, the terrifying sensation of not knowing what was real and what was another horrible dream. It made him feel vulnerable and helpless. He hated every fucking minute of it.

“But I’m sure it won’t come to that.” Hanji’s voice grounded him back to reality, and he looked up, blinking a few times to focus his vision. Right. Eren. Nets. Using force. “It’s just a precaution,” she continued. “Besides, we’ll have you there to calm down sweet baby Eren if anything goes wrong!”

For once, Levi wasn’t completely aggravated to hear Hanji talk, but rather felt a little reassured. He silently nodded, signaling to her that he understood. His job was to make sure that things didn’t turn out to be violent regarding Eren.

Later that day he went to the stables, as he often did these past couple of weeks. He kept a watchful eye on his Lady Savior’s recovery, reading her weekly medical reports and sometimes even taking her out on a lazy ride around the castle so she wouldn’t get bored of the stables. It also helped Levi to stay sane when life in the castle became a bit too hectic and loud for his taste.

Upon entering, a chestnut colored head popped up from one of the stall doors, and Levi’s features immediately softened. Juno, as he nicknamed her, was munching away on a healthy sized tuft of hay, her pinkish nostrils fluttering.

“Missed me?” Levi chuckled and stroked that silky soft skin of her muzzle. He let her sniff his wrists and the cheeky thing even nibbled at the sleeve of his uniform jacket.

With her inspection done, Juno huffed and continued eating. A couple of her ribs were still too visible for Levi’s preference; he was very particular when it came to her diet. Once he even struck a boy when he noticed how he was cutting down on her portions, and it was safe to say that after that Juno always got her complimentary pile of hay.

Levi found comfort in watching the horse eat. There was a hint of the smallest smile in the corner of his lips, something of which he was unaware. There was something incredibly soothing about watching animals eat. Whenever Levi fed them, he suddenly understood the obsession old ladies seemed to have with feeding young kids. It felt nice to take care of something so innocent.

This also must’ve been what drove Levi to such ridiculous lengths when it came to protecting Eren’s reputation. Those puppy dog eyes and that clueless nature could melt any heart.

“You, animals, should be rewarded for not being people,” he muttered.

As he was leaning against the stall door with his elbows on the railing, something soft and blunt nudged his side and shook him up from his thoughts. Turning around, he was met with Rosebug’s dark brown eyes, and he could practically see them narrowing at him.

“What is it?” he snickered but stroked her forehead with the same affection he showed Juno. “You’re not jealous, are you?” Rosebug huffed and Levi responded with a quiet scoff. “Don’t worry, you’re still my precious girl. Have you eaten yet?” he murmured as he leaned over the door to peek inside.

He gave a little scratch to Rosebug’s neck when he found all the hay gone. “Good girl. I’ll need you to give me your best tomorrow,” he sighed, his fingers absently beginning to rake through the black mane. “And don’t steal Juno’s food. I know you will try, you slag.”

Rosebug blinked at him innocently, pretending like she didn’t keep an eye on Juno’s portion the whole time. Levi spent a few more minutes with them, wondering about stupid things, like whether Eren would remember Juno.

Or if he would remember Levi.

The sun was shining through a purplish gray fog in the early morning when they set out.

The anxious excitement and fear did not yet dominate completely the mood of the riders, but they all felt the tension that accompanied every scout when they set out on a new expedition, knowing well that it might be their last.

Levi buried his chin deep within the folds of his warm, green cloak. The morning chill painted his cheeks and nose a soft pinkish color, reminding him of those winter days he spent cramped up in the small wooden cave. Fucking hell, it was cold then, it’s cold now, why did everything always have to be so cold? His leather gloves did nothing. The blood circulation in his fingers was about as good as in an old grandmother’s toes.

He inspected his gear multiple times that morning before getting on his horse, but he kept unconsciously checking on his blades and gas tanks on his sides throughout the ride to Wall Maria. A slowly building uneasiness settled in the narrow cracks on his heart; it was the type of fear that he never felt before, not even before his first mission, when he watched those heavy metal gates open for the first time, revealing bright green fields of grass.

Separating himself, the rational part of his mind, from these emotions was something he was forced to learn how to do from an early age, but he knew that disregarding them completely would make him weaker and less focused later. Dissecting the beast and examining it piece by piece might’ve been Hanji’s expertise, but Levi found the method more than useful when it came to his emotions.

He methodically took them apart, searched for their cause, and then treated them accordingly until they went away; sometimes it was easy, other times he had to make do by bottling them up and shoving them out of sight, deep-deep down. Over the years the bottles slowly piled up.

Right now, multiple things made him feel uneasy.

For one, the human inside him, the instinctive animal, feared that something would go wrong the same way it did last time, and he would be stuck outside again, only this time for good. He still remembered how he stood on Eren’s palm, watching his comrades ride by, unaware of his existence. He was useless, unable to reach out, shout, do anything.

That helplessness often haunted him in his dreams. He woke up to the violent beating of his heart and the twitching of his face as he was trying to yell after the riders in his sleep, but he could never make any sound. In his dream he was mute and unable to move, a mere spectator of the lives of those around him; like he was dead, but a small, useless piece of him was stuck in the world of the living.

The other thing that made him nervous about the expedition… was everything else. So many things could go wrong that there wasn’t even a point in making a list about them. And so he commanded himself to acknowledge his emotions and then put them aside on a shelf, to leave space for trustworthy, rational thinking. They would all need that if they wanted to survive these upcoming few days.

The mission was officially scheduled to last two weeks; not the longest one by far, but they all knew that the real plan was to return in about a week at most. Expeditions often got aborted, sometimes only mere hours after they set out, so there wouldn’t be anything unusual about them returning after a few days. Well, they would return with a giant titan, but that was a problem of a future in which they survived the outside land first.

When they reached Trost, the city was still in a slumber, but by the time they were at the gates of Shiganshina, there was a large crowd waiting for them on each side of the main road. It wasn’t an easy job to catch Levi off guard, but he was confused when he saw people stopping in their tracks to take a look at them. Some even waved. Didn’t Erwin say that the scout’s popularity had dropped drastically over the past months?

The streets were packed with people. Cheering and screaming children pushed the adults aside to catch a glimpse of the marching soldiers, their gap-toothed smiles bright and excited. Some even waved small flags with the royal crest printed on them.

“Commander Erwin!” Levi could hear from multiple directions at the same time, voices of men and women alike.

“Look, they’re here!”

“Kill all the titans for us!”

“Yeah, show ‘em what we got!”

Levi scoffed. “Don’t they have anything better to do?” he asked and ignored the soft chuckle that came from Hanji by his side.

Then someone shouted Levi’s name, and he flinched. His head jolted to where the sound came from, his hand instantly finding the handle of his blades, ready to fight. He’d seen Erwin being approached by members of the crowd before, but it was never him.

More and more people began echoing his name.

“Captain Levi!”

“Is that him?”

“He really is alive!”

The buzzing noise was an uncomfortable pressure in Levi’s ears. He frowned a little every time someone too close to him began shouting their words of encouragement or simply just his name. He locked eyes for a couple of awkward moments with some young men and women, all cooing, pouting and batting their eyelashes at him like he was a free meal, ready to be devoured.

“Captain Levi, marry me, please!” one particularly brave girl screamed, the decency of her clothing questionable, and Levi had never felt more horrified by the attention of a rent girl.

Gods, he wished they would all just shut up, stop touching him with their eyes, and get on with their miserable lives.

He couldn’t help wanting to sew the razor blades back under the lapel of his jacket like he used to do back Underground. It was a useful trick when one had to constantly fight off pricks who dared to grab him by his clothes and lift him until his legs were dangling in the air. It was also the quickest and easiest way to cut said pricks’ fingers off without having to touch them.

Levi felt uncomfortable in his own skin. The instincts that have been beaten into him over the years told him to stay hidden, stay unnoticed, and never let anyone remember him if it wasn’t in his interest. But he was no longer an underground criminal, nor the leader of a group of thugs. Well. That last one was up to interpretation; he supposed one could technically call his squad that, only a legal one.

Still, this was something entirely new to him. He caught himself anxiously scanning the faces of people who called out to him, looking for any threat or danger, but he was only met with bright eyes and wide smiles. He was dumbfounded by them. Was this all one had to do to gain the public’s attention and dare he say– admiration? Get stuck behind the walls for a few months like a proper idiot?

“Don’t look so bitter, Captain!” Hanji beamed next to him as if she sensed his mood. “They’re all here to see you!”

That was exactly the reason why he felt bitter. He bit back a snappy remark and faced ahead instead. The sooner they were out of this noisy shithole, the better. He felt like he was the virgin whore on display and not the actual whore leaning out of the window of a brothel to wave her handkerchief at the passing soldiers.

When they reached the outermost gate, Levi glanced behind his shoulder, immediately locking gazes with Petra. The small brunet girl was watching him with quiet tenderness, something Levi caught her doing almost every time she was near. It wasn’t intrusive like the way everyone else was keeping an eye on him. He gave her a small nod, both to signal that he was fine and that she should concentrate on what was ahead of them.

There was a trembling squealing noise coming from Levi’s side, and he pinched the bridge of his nose while praying for the gods to give him patience during this expedition.

“Are you alright, Squad Leader Hanji?” Moblit asked softly, concern written all over his face.

“Yes, never better, I’m just so freaking excited to finally meet– I-I mean discover new potential places for an outpost and write mouthwateringly detailed notes about it and–”

“Sir, it’s almost time,” someone addressed Erwin up front. “We’ve driven away any nearby titans. Thirty seconds until the gates open.”

Erwin began his usual motivational speech about freedom and taking a step closer to victory, but Levi tuned out his voice. Instead, he focused on the bright stripe of golden light that appeared between the wings of the gates.

He tried not to think too far ahead, how if everything went right, and usually things didn’t, then about three days from now they would be back at the castle with Eren on their side. First, though, they had to get to the forest, Levi had to figure out a way to make Eren understand their plan, which he had no idea how he would do, and then they’d still have to get back in one piece.

But all in due time. Right now they were still at Wall Maria, and on Erwin’s command, they wedged their heels into their horses’ sides and began racing.

Every time Levi left the walls it felt like he did it for the first and last time. They never knew what would meet them on the other side of the gates. It felt like there was a completely foreign, new land ahead of them each time they ventured out.

The wind began singing loudly in his ear once they reached traveling speed, and the cold blowing in his face reminded Levi of that awful, foggy, rainy day on which he set out and left Eren behind.

Scouts really must be crazy, he snickered to himself as he scanned the forest-littered horizon with his eyes. After escaping death’s grip so many times and barely managing to get back behind the walls in one piece, any sane person would kick and scream if they were told that they’d have to leave the safety of the walls again. Yet here Levi was, probably the biggest fucking idiot on the planet, finally feeling like he was alive again, and worrying about a giant puppy in titan skin not remembering him.

They rode for half an hour without encountering any titans.

Around midday, two abnormal titans crossed their path, but they quickly finished them off before they caused any trouble, and they swiftly moved on in Erwin’s carefully designed formation. Without the good-for-nothing cadets slowing them down, and only the best and most trained scouts on the team, they managed to travel across the land without any casualties or major issues.

When Levi was yanked into the air on his wires, he felt like he was returning from the dead all over again. No matter how good he was at killing titans, he didn’t enjoy it; but flying was different.

During the first few days back at the castle, a suffocating sense of dread often crashed down on him. It was terrifying, and not just because suddenly he felt like the whole damn building was about to crush him, but because Levi was never one to lose his composure. As embarrassing as it was, he needed Hanji to tell him that he was probably suffering from panic attacks.

When Hanji first came up with this idea, he was tempted to hit her just for the mere audacity of assuming something so ridiculous, but then she began listing symptoms, and Levi no longer felt like ridiculing her.

She said it was most likely because he got used to not being in a room with all four walls closed off, and his body was unconsciously reacting to the sudden change of environment. Dense ceilings, and a sense of inescapable captivity; these were all familiar things to Levi from his childhood, something he didn’t have to endure in the forest.

Whenever this sense of uncertain dread came to him, he went to the training grounds or to the forest on the headquarters property, which after spending months in Eren’s wild, untamed forest, seemed like a couple of skinny trees huddled together. He relished in the comforting weight of his maneuver gear on his side and pulled himself high above the ground on the wires.

When he sliced through the nape of a real titan, and not just a wood-board cutout’s, he felt like it was the price he had to pay for finally feeling whole again; with both blades in his hand and high up in the air. When he was flying, the tension on his shoulders shifted as he began moving his muscles. He was no longer restrained by the silent pressure of the castle, the people in it, and most importantly by himself.

All he needed was this: flying through the woods, the wind running its fingers through his hair and whispering in his ear about freedom as he cut down yet another titan.

Yes, freedom.

When he was stuck underground, he thought that freedom was above. The outside world, where the streets weren’t covered in mud, shit, and blood, where people didn’t have to kill and cheat or sell their bodies to survive, where one didn’t have to sleep with a knife in hand; Levi thought that’s where freedom was.

Then Erwin brought him into the Survey Corps, and Levi had the sky above his head and warm food on his plate, but now there were fifty-meter high walls around him, and he was itching to break them down. So, instead of fighting local thugs, he switched to fighting titans. It was better than killing humans because it had a purpose that carried interest in the future, not just the immediate, shitty present. Kill all the titans, break down the walls, and live freely; or that’s how Levi thought it would be until he was introduced to something called bureaucracy and politics.

These were the worst ones yet; it was an invisible wall, a smiling thief that wedged itself between Levi and freedom with its hierarchic social structure and endless stream of paperwork that in time drowned every man who was unfortunate enough to wander nearby. This was probably the worst and most frustrating of all the challenges he faced; men with their shitty, privileged attitudes and obsession with noble blood. They were harder to get rid of than titans.

But, for seven long months, he got away from all of it: the claustrophobic air of the Underground, the walls, the corrupt society of the inner walls; and Levi was still fighting to get back to it all. He didn’t know what else he was supposed to do back then, especially since humans were not fit to survive in the wild on their own with no equipment.

But now he was trying to get back to the forest. It was ironic as fuck, really.

He was chasing freedom like a madman since he was a kid, yet it seemed like he didn’t have the faintest clue what it was. It was too much even for his cruel sense of humor. How far would he have to go, how much would he have to fight to finally set humanity free?

But set them free from what? Titans? Themselves? Or maybe freedom was never something they were meant to experience because their tiny brains couldn’t even comprehend what it was.

What was Levi supposed to fight for when the only time he felt alive was while fighting? Or when in that forest with Eren he probably came closest to what freedom must be like, and it still wasn’t good enough? Because when his environment didn’t come at him with a threat, his own body’s natural weakness betrayed him.

But I never felt trapped when I was sitting by that lake, the thought silently whispered in his ear. Those afternoons he spent by the water with Eren were the few memories that stood clear and spotless in his mind.

Levi clicked his tongue in annoyance and felt the ground shake with another approaching titan behind them. This really wasn’t the time for him to get philosophical. Push it down. Bottle it up.

They spent a full afternoon and evening trying to pinpoint the location of Eren’s forest to the best of their abilities, but when Levi caught a glimpse of it, he had no doubts. These were the same colors, same shapes behind which Eren disappeared when Levi last saw him.

“Erwin!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, trying to breach the noise of hoofbeats and the titans’ angry growl behind them. He saw a flash of blond hair. “Up ahead!”

“Soldiers, advance!” came the order. “Switch to maneuver gear upon reaching the woods!”

Levi looked over his shoulder. There were three chasing them, but one, a seven-meter class, was getting a little too close to Gunther. Levi could feel the thundering of its footsteps shaking his bones.

The forest was within the reach of their wire hooks now, and people up front began switching to their gears, abandoning the galloping horses.

Levi looked left and right but saw no sign of Eren. Where was he? He felt something sharp and cold shot at his lungs. Did Eren not sense it in advance when a titan was about to invade his territory? Is that why he was nowhere to be seen? Or did something happen to him while Levi was gone?

No, he refused to believe that. Fuck this titan. If it dared enter Eren’s forest, Levi thought, it would get what it deserved. Then a sudden, crazy idea occurred to him, along with a memory from weeks and weeks ago. He began searching the edge of the woods with his eyes.

“Captain!” he heard Petra’s choked voice from next to him. His team was preparing to take off, blades in hands, reins only held by a few fingers, but Levi was nowhere near ready. His mind was filled with adrenaline-infused anger. “Captain! Your orders!”

They were only about ten meters from the edge of the forest now, the green shadows looking almost black as the night from outside the bright field. Levi caught the glimpse of a broken branch on a tree.

“Follow the Commander’s orders, idiots!” he snapped at her. “Go!”

He saw the hesitant glances they exchanged between each another, but the titan was catching up to them fast. Just when they raced past the first line of trees, the hooks of his squad members shot far up above, and they were yanked out from the saddles.

Only then did Levi violently pull the reins towards his abdomen and sat down on the saddle to throw off the horse’s steady balance. She neighed in protest, her instincts telling her to keep running from the titan, but her rider had other plans.

Hoofs rived up the soft soil, and Levi turned the horse around to face the titan head-on. He heard shouting from above, people calling out for him, but he braced his nerves with steel and stared the titan dead in the eye, his hands steadily grabbing the reins, and not the handles of his blades.

He didn’t have much time to contemplate his suicidal gamble.

The titan reached the forest, and in a matter of seconds, Levi’s fate was sealed.

The titan reached out with dirty, chubby fingers, but just as it was about to step under the green shadows, it planted one foot steadily on the ground. The soil crumbled and piled up in front of its food, grass flying everywhere as the titan came to a sudden halt.

Levi’s heart was racing as he never once broke eye contact with the hellish creature. They were standing mere ten meters away from each other, the titan looking Levi up and down like he was dessert. Those dead, muddy brown eyes revealed no emotion. It took Levi all his self-control not to draw his swords, but he clenched his jaws and pulled on the reins harshly to stop the horse from backing down.

There was a tense silence surrounding them that was only broken by the titan’s grunting and Levi’s racing heartbeat. For that single moment, anything was possible.

But then the titan straightened its back, losing its threatening pose, no longer looking like it would jump on Levi any second. It whined, almost like it was frustrated, unable to cross the invisible wall of which only Levi and the titans knew.

Only when it turned its back on him and slowly started walking away with the other two titans that stood a good few meters away from the forest, did Levi let out a deep sigh. He mentally cursed at himself. He had officially gone mad for doing what he just did. He had to be crazy to trust Eren and his unpredictable, titan ways so blindly. But then he turned around and looked up to see frozen figures and wide eyes; green ones, brown ones, and baby blue ones; and he knew that showing off at the cost of his life like a complete moron was worth it.

He locked gazes with Erwin. The man was standing on a thick branch not too high above, and when the shock drained from his eyes, something else took its place that Levi only ever saw when Erwin’s mind was racing feverishly, excited about the possibilities of the future.

Good, Levi thought. Let them see what they were dealing with. This was just the first glimpse of what Eren could be, the first reason why they should protect that damn brat at all cost.

Chapter Text

Before setting out on the expedition, there was a short, unofficial briefing among Erwin and the members of the Levi and Hanji Squad, where the objective was explained.

It was clear that the scouts had a hard time comprehending anything Erwin said. They listened with solemn expressions, their true emotions only revealed by the occasional furrowing of their brows or their eyes going a little wider and their gazes flickering onto Levi.

The captain didn’t feel like repeating his story twice, and he for sure did not have the patience to answer all their questions. Levi withdrew to a dark corner in the room, arms crossed, his hawk-like eyes scanning the soldiers’ faces. He was looking for anything that could potentially be a threat to the mission or be dangerous for Eren. Erwin chose these people carefully based on how trustworthy they were but verifying never hurt anyone. They needed open-minded people for this mission, and apart from Hanji and maybe Erwin, the number of people like that wasn’t too high.

There was no amount of beforehand explaining one could do however that could’ve prepared them for what they were about to encounter.

The stunned silence was heavy in the air, almost as heavy as those rumbling yet slowly fading footsteps on the grassy field behind them. It was the type of silence that settled on the skin in a thick, hard shell, freezing your joints in place, and clogging your lungs. The one that makes you want to gasp for air, breathe and break that deafening silence, but your body is out of your reach, and you can only watch.

Not surprisingly, Hanji was the first one to come back to her senses. She was the only one who sported an excited expression, a huge contrast to the pale faces and wide, terrified eyes that gawped at the retreating titans.

“Moblit, where’s my notebook!” she screamed as she flung herself to the ground. Her loud screeching was enough for the others to slowly regain some of their composure. “Oooh, god oh god, I’ll need witness reports on that from every one of you! Remember what you just saw people, don’t you dare forget anything!”

“Squad Leader Hanji!” Moblit jolted after her, notebook already in his hand. “Please, don’t go so close, they might come back!”

Levi felt numb as he watched them. He looked down and saw his hands frozen in place by his sides, his skin cold. He wasn’t shaking.

Right. He held a staring contest with a titan with no blades in hand to prove a point. Eren, the worst I thought you could do to me was turn me mushy but look at me now. Absolutely fucking crazy. He wasn’t sure if he could call Hanji a moron anymore without being a hypocrite.

There was a muffled thud behind him. He quickly rearranged his facial expression, placing everything back in its bored, nonchalant order, before turning to face Erwin.

“I haven’t seen something so reckless of you in quite some time,” the commander said quietly. The scolding was layered so thickly in his voice that even Eren could understand it.

“It saved me gas, didn’t it?” Levi glared back at him and lifted his chin to compensate for the difference in their height.

He watched as Erwin’s lips parted slightly, the only indication that he was taken aback, and Levi quickly turned back to where Hanji was currently observing the invisible wall that separated the forest and the field.

“Captain!” he heard Eld calling out for him. He was the first one to land from his squad, having somewhat pulled himself together after the unexpected turn of events. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t ask me stupid questions, Eld. Unless you’re inquiring about my mental state, which I highly advise you don’t, you can see that I’m still alive and kicking,” Levi replied coolly.

“Captain!” came another shout, this time from Oluo. He jumped from the branch, a very distressed Petra and Gunther behind him, and all Levi could think was ‘gods, what now?’ Oluo had stress tears glistening in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Captain, I should’ve jumped in to sacrifice myself…!”

“Oluo, stop embarrassing yourself,” Petra gained the momentary strength to speak up. Her face was ashen, and her hands were visibly shaking, but out of all four of them, she appeared to be the most levelheaded. “Captain Levi had everything under control.”

“Levi,” Erwin drew the man’s attention back to himself. “Explain.”

Before he could open his mouth though, there was a shriek coming from behind them, one that competed even with the scream of a titan. “Erwiiin!” Hanji shouted and began running back to them. She had a hand raised and she was holding something in her fist. “Look at this!”

When she reached them, she opened her palm, revealing a thick strand of brown hair.

“I found it on a broken branch just there! It’s all over the place, Erwin, every tree is damaged a little, some have broken branches, some other trunks are missing a good chunk of tree bark, and the damage goes high up as well! About ten, fifteen meters!”

Erwin regarded the strand of hair from a distance with a contemplative look, then he turned to Levi with his brows raised.

“This is Eren’s territory,” Levi explained, and he might have raised his voice just high enough for the whole mission team to hear him. “Most titans don’t dare to step a foot in here. I think Eren’s scent…”

“His scent masks ours!” Hanji gasped and pointedly ignored Levi’s cold glare. “Is that why you never saw any titans while you were here? He patrolled his borders and fought the titans that got in his way, but he also left his scent behind and scared off other titans! Oh, I can’t wait to meet your adorable baby boy!”

“Don’t call him that,” Levi growled, rolling his eyes. “He’s a giant fucking titan, not a puppy.” Technically true. In reality? Not so much.

“And you’re sure that it’s alright for us to cross his borders without permission?” Erwin asked. The nervous tension radiating from the scouts was so dense that Levi could’ve cut through it with his blades. Levi had his doubts, like any sane man who understood that nothing in life was certain, but they were past the point where they had the luxury of caring about the risks.

“I am,” he said plainly. “You guys stay here, where it’s safe. I’ll go find him.”

“You won’t, not alone. We’re coming with you,” Erwin persisted, and Hanji scooted closer to him, nodding enthusiastically. Erwin turned to the rest of the mission squad, who saluted with stern faces. “Soldiers! The three of us will go find the abnormal. Keep an eye out for titans on the outside. Use flare signals if any of them come too close. If something goes wrong, each group is to survive on its own until we regroup here, at this very same place.”

“Yes, sir!” came the answer from all directions.

The three of them mounted their horses to face whatever that might be waiting for them in the deep woods. Though the sun was high up in the sky, the forest cast an unwavering, dark shadow on the ground, and the eerie silence that greeted them rightfully sent shivers down the scouts’ spines.

“Any idea where he could be?” Erwin asked.

Levi nudged his heel to the side of the horse. “I have one.”

It was strange to come back to this forest after wanting to get away from it for so long, and even more strange to recognize parts of it. A weirdly shaped tree here and a large rock with a particular pattern of moss there. He spent so much time wandering around here, cut off from the world and human contact, that it almost felt like this place was in a bubble, outside of space and time, untouched by any government or authority.

Levi wasn’t an emotionally overcharged person but his heart was doing weird things in his ribcage now. He felt strangely nostalgic. It was a fucking struggle to stay alive here, he was often confused, frustrated, and scared shitless, and he had also never felt as tiny and weak before as he did during the months he spent here. And yet there were fragile, short moments, like those afternoons spent by the lake, which he could see through a rose-tinted veil.

He also couldn’t deny that he missed the brat. He spent so much time with Eren, and the titan saved him so many times that he couldn’t help but forget sometimes that Eren wasn’t just an overly eager, naïve boy and Levi wasn’t just any man, unbound by duty, who had the luxury of keeping a promise made on a whim.

I wouldn’t do that to you.

That’s what he told Eren. I wouldn’t put you in danger, I wouldn’t use you, I wouldn’t exploit your abilities for the good of humanity. And yet that’s exactly why he was here, riding across this forest in search of him, feeling conflicted and filthy. He told himself that Eren didn’t understand him, so it didn’t matter what he promised.

He led Erwin and Hanji through the familiar hills and stone-crowded valleys. They crossed a small water stream and a meadow, everything around them blooming in bright green colors. It was almost a shocking contrast to how this place looked during winter; frozen, dead, uninviting.

Levi searched for familiar shapes and features of the nature around them, and he estimated that they were probably somewhere between the lake and the cave.

He glanced behind over his shoulder, only to see Hanji carefully rolling up the strand of titan hair and putting it in the inner pocket of her jacket.

“Don’t tell me that you’ll keep that,” Levi scrunched his nose.

“What do you mean? This is valuable scientific evidence! I mean, why doesn’t it evaporate, hm? Is it because Eren is still alive? Or does titan hair work differently than titan bone and flesh? Ah, so many questions! It fuels my thirst for knowledge! Also,” she added with an accusing glare, “you burnt your clothes, remember? So I’ll take what I can get!”

Levi opened his mouth to snap back at her when suddenly a sharp ray of sunshine blinded him. He grunted and lifted a hand in front of his face until the pain went away, then he looked for the source again. It had to be here somewhere.

Navigating his horse through the thick undergrowth, he guided them towards the place where the light bounced off the flat, reflective surface far ahead behind the trees.

Once they were close, Levi stopped.

“Give me twenty minutes. You can come looking for me if I don’t return after that,” he said as he dismounted and tied the reins to a nearby branch. He could hear Hanji’s forcefully held-back whimpers of excitement, while Erwin’s glare burnt a hole through his back.

When he reached the lake, he felt his heartbeat quicken its pace. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint why he was feeling anxious all of a sudden, after all, he spent more than half a year with Eren. It had only been a few weeks since he left the forest, and Eren remembered the smallest things about him while they lived together, so he couldn’t have forgotten Levi so quickly.

He pushed the uneasy feeling aside. He didn’t need it, didn’t want it.

There was a large rock which he remembered that ended in a cliff right above the water, and he quickly climbed it. When he reached the top, he squinted his eyes so the golden sunshine wouldn’t blind him. He needed a couple of seconds to get used to the brightness.

The image of the lake immediately overpowered his senses.

Bright, warm sunshine dancing in the air, cicadas chirping eagerly in the green shadows, the smell of fresh grass, a gentle breeze tugging at his hair. Small insects and dust-like particles flew around lazily in the air, illuminated by the sun, glowing like flakes of gold above the water.

It was an overwhelming experience that greeted Levi like an old friend. It almost felt like he never left.

He was still just a small flick of a brush in a giant, mesmerizing painting, but he wasn’t so helpless anymore with all his gear and weapons on him. It almost made him feel like he was an intruder, an outsider at a place that he was once a part of.

With his maneuver gear strapped to his side, the forest seemed less threatening, the silence less nerve-racking, and Eren–

His heart kicked against his ribcage with a single, heavy beat when his eyes found him.

The titan was sitting with his back against a tree, head tilted to the side. The light reflecting on the lake flickered across his tanned skin, the shadows cast by the leaves above coloring it green. He was motionless as if he was just another piece of nature.

Eren’s eyes were closed, looking peaceful and harmless, unbothered by the world around him. Someone who didn’t know him would’ve thought that Eren was asleep, but Levi caught the lazy quivering of his ear and the barely noticeable fluttering of his nostrils, meaning that he was very much awake.

Levi sighed, feigning annoyance while trying to hide the small quirk of his lips. Pretending not to notice him was such a damn bratty thing to do.

Something warm flooded his chest, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever want to stop it from spreading. He hadn’t felt something like this since he left the Underground and lost those most important to him.

Back at headquarters, there wasn’t a single time when he thought about Eren and wasn’t reminded of the day when the titan gifted him a horse. Levi had a hunch that Eren got somewhat attached to him, and letting him go had probably hurt Eren in more than one way, but Eren did it anyway because that’s what he was like. Good and uncorrupted by humans.

A ridiculous thought occurred to him: if he left now, and told everyone that he couldn’t find the abnormal titan, then this peaceful shelter would never be touched by the ugliness of the world.

Eren could stay here, live in peace, and Levi would know that he did something that wasn’t achieved by threats or bloodshed, that he did something… good. Selfless, even.

And maybe, when the titans were one day wiped out, Levi could come back here. He could live a life of peace in a small house, far from all the shitty, annoying people and the filth of the city. He could sit down by the lakeshore every day and do absolutely fucking nothing but enjoy the warmth of sunshine on his skin until he’s bored out of his mind.

And who knows, Eren could still be around too. Levi could complain to him on and on about how incredibly dull his life had become, and he’d love every second of it.

As he took in the view of the lake, he knew that Eren belonged to this place. Like a flower, he was connected to this ground, blooming beautifully here and nowhere else.

He was tempted to leave, but then Eren opened his eyes, that marvelous sea of colors shining brightly through the core of Levi’s soul, and all his reasons to turn around went straight out of the window.

Levi found his breath hitching upon looking back at Eren. He saw how the green irises, littered with a thousand shades of blue, went wide upon noticing him on the other side of the lake. Eren wouldn’t have been able to hide his emotions even if his life depended on it. Shock washed over his features, and Levi wondered why he’d be so surprised. Their human scent no doubt had reached Eren long before they stepped inside the forest.

What Levi couldn’t have known was just how many tricks Eren’s nose played on him over the past few weeks. He memorized Levi’s scent to the extent that he could’ve recognized him among a thousand other people. He often recalled his scent even when Levi was far away, completely out of reach, just to feel a little less lonely.

Many times Eren thought he caught the scent of him, but when he rushed to the edge of the woods, he was met by no one. He was still, as most of his life, alone. He wandered around, looking for the Little One, fearing that the human might’ve come back and was searching for him, but they hopelessly evaded each other. The first time Eren caught this ghost scent, he walked around the forest and searched for Levi all day, until he passed out on the ground when nighttime came.

After it happened a couple more times, he slowly came to understand that catching the scent did not mean that Little One came back. He learned how to ignore it, though it wasn’t always easy. He fought the urge to rush looking for the human every time he remembered his scent or the sound of his voice because setting himself up only to be left disappointed was more painful than a titan biting a chunk out of his flesh.

Now Eren sat up straight, all his attention focusing on the single most important figure in his life. Was he real this time?

Levi shot his grapple hooks in a tree not far from Eren and effortlessly flew over the lake. The titan stared long and hard, and Levi saw something similar to fear or nervousness in his eyes. At least Levi could understand that. He was doing his best to ignore his heartbeat picking up and the dull ache it created in his chest.

Eren seemed healthy. There were no injuries on his body that Levi noticed, and his skin was practically glowing in the sunshine. Those thick, dark eyelashes fluttered, and the most stunning greenish blue eyes locked onto Levi’s. Cold steel melted into liquid silver.

Eren reached out with a hand, his palm facing the sky, and Levi rolled his eyes.

“Tch,” he murmured. “Cheeky brat.”

He gracefully landed on the titan’s palm, and he immediately noticed how they were not as dirty as he remembered them.

From here, Levi was about in height with Eren’s face.

“Is this what you’ve been doing while we were out there, almost getting a chunk bitten out of our asses?” he scorned and kicked Eren’s thumb just a little to make a point about who was in charge now. No more shitty broken bones. “Lazing around like a fat pig?” His words had a sharp edge, but his voice stayed soft, and he wasn’t sure if he could change that even if he tried.

Eren hummed and chirped with his ears perking up. Those tiny wrinkles danced happily on the outer corners of his eyes. His thoughts could easily be read through his irises. I missed you. I’m happy you’re here now.

Levi scoffed and averted his gaze momentarily, unconsciously surveying the part of the forest where he left Hanji and Erwin. “You’ve got issues, you lazy piece of shit. I bet you haven’t done anything useful since I’ve been gone. You’ve probably been laying around for days.”

Eren raised a brow and hummed in a deep tone as if to say, ‘you could’ve done the same if you hadn’t left.’

Levi clicked his tongue again. He forgot how densely packed Eren’s gaze was with emotions, and he was once again taken aback a little. Trust, adoration, devotion, all the things he didn’t deserve shining brightly at him. He had to remind himself not to stare for too long, or those bottomless pits of green and blue might just swallow him whole.

Seeing his dazed expression, Eren chuckled a little, a familiar sound Levi didn’t know he missed so much. The titan reached out, slowly, as if he was worried about scaring Levi, and gently reached for his ink-black hair.

“Oi, don’t do that!” Levi barked, slapping the clawed finger with the flat side of his blade, careful not to cut him, but the brat was persistent. He cooed affectionately as he brushed aside a few short strands of hair on the side of Levi’s head, and if possible, his eyes went even wider. “What is it? Stop staring, you’re creeping me out–”

A high-pitched noise coming from within the woods stirred them.

Levi grabbed tightly onto the handles of his blades for a second before closing his eyes and praying to the gods to give him patience. Eren turned his face towards the direction of the sound, looking curious more than anything, and chirped quietly.

“Ignore that, it’s just shitty glasses,” Levi said flatly and jumped off to the ground. “Don’t let anything she says fool you, she’s bat shit fucking crazy. Now, come along,” he waved a hand and walked to the lakeshore, searching for a patch of wet sand.

His plan would either work or not, and for his sanity, Levi hoped it would, because he was already out of ideas before he even started explaining shit. He could only hope that Eren would be able to wrap his head around what he was about to tell him. If this proved to be as difficult as teaching him how to play chess then Levi was fucked.

He picked up a large stick and pointed to the ground not too far from him. Eren’s eyes beamed with curiosity and following Levi’s order, he sat down. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a disaster after all. As long as Levi didn’t have to resort to dragging Eren back to the walls on a leash, they were all good.

“You better open your ears, because I’m not explaining this twice.”

Crouching down, he began sketching out an oversimplified side view of a forest, a field, and then the city with walls around it. Above the forest, he drew an exaggerated version of Eren with pointy ears and large fangs, and next to it he put himself in a cape and with angry eyebrows. To his silent delight, this made Eren chuckle.

The titan leaned closer to the picture, and with the very end of his claw, he pointed at the drawn titan and then pointed back at himself.

“Yes, that’s you, dickhead. I made you look prettier than you are, so be grateful. That’s me,” he circled the figure and pointed at himself. Eren hummed. “Three weeks ago,” he drew a long arrow pointing from himself towards the sand walls, “I went back to the city, which you helped me with. Now,” he first erased his own figure and redrew it above the walls, but this time with two additional people, one with oversized eyebrows, and the other with glasses, “I came back with more people.” He once again circled the three figures and drew another arrow, this time pointing at the forest.

Eren quietly listened, and Levi watched from the corner of his eye how the titan carefully inspected the image. Once again, he erased the figures above the walls and redrew them next to the titan.

“What we want,” he continued, forming each word slowly, and he circled all four figures this time, including the titan, “is for you to come back with us.” An arrow pointing at the Walls. The tread of his boot was gliding on the sand, erasing the figures from above the forest only to be redrawn again above the city.

With the image complete, Levi set aside the stick and inspected Eren’s face in detail. He had a hunch that maybe it was too much to ask from the titan to understand abstract concepts such as a drawing referring to a real person or object, but then Eren carefully pinched the stick between his fingers, and clumsily pointed at Erwin’s and Hanji’s drawn figure. Levi’s lips parted a little, taken aback by Eren’s intelligence.

Then Eren looked up at him and grunted, his pitch getting higher at the end as if he was asking a question. Levi wondered if Eren picked this up listening to him talking, or if it was instinctive.

Just then, another screech came from within the woods. “Woohoo! Come out, come out, wherever you are, Levi! Time’s up!”

“Right,” Levi growled and went through the mental list of all the ways he could flay that scientist, just to calm himself. This was going to be a long day. “Get up your ass, we don’t have the time,” he said, pointing at the sky like he always did when he wanted Eren to either get up or lift him. Eren complied. “Don’t stomp on Hanji when she starts putting her dirty hands on you. Though I would completely understand the urge,” he added.

Hanji nearly fainted upon seeing Eren for the first time. The titan was trailing behind Levi with a careful watch of his steps, his eyes shining like green lanterns.

“Oh, my goodness gracious, Erwin, can you see this?!” she whisper-yelled and grabbed onto the man’s arm with a force that almost tore his cloak. “Look how he’s following him!”

“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Erwin warned, though it was hard not to stand in awe at the sight of the giant titan with bare teeth and glowing green eyes following a human so obediently.

Unsurprisingly, his warning found deaf ears; Hanji’s heart was beating so loud in her ears that she could barely hear anything else. Levi just rolled his eyes when he found Hanji visibly trembling in her boots, her eyes fixated on Eren the way a child looked at a candy shop.

Eren curiously glanced from one human to the next, and his eyes ended up resting on Levi’s figure.

“Levi, can I please say hi to him?” Hanji whispered, her voice shaking from suppressed excitement.

“He’s not my dog, shitty glasses,” Levi grunted as he stepped aside. “Do whatever you want.”

Biting and chewing on her lips, Hanji leaped forward and the widest grin stretched across her face when Eren’s mesmerizing eyes found her. Eren knelt down to get closer to her, and Levi didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered onto the blades that both Hanji and Erwin were wearing. Still, the cooing sound he made was one of pure innocence and trust.

“Oooh, hello, you sweet angel baby!” she sang with a glossy haze covering her eyes. Her voice made Eren’s pointed ears flutter. “Yes, hi there, beautiful! Aw, look at that gorgeous smile you have!”

Eren let out a high-pitched chuckle, and Hanji gasped for air. “Levi, that sounded exactly like ‘Eren’! Did you teach him how to talk? Eren, little fruitcake, can you say Hanji? That’s my name, Haaan-jiii~”

“Don’t be a moron,” Levi said and leaned against a tree with his arms crossed. He kept an eye on the scientist while also carefully observing Erwin from the corner of his eyes. So far the commander just watched Eren with a hand resting on the handle of his blade. “I gave him that name because he wouldn’t shut up about it.”

Just as if Eren wanted to prove Levi’s point, he chuckled again.

“Aw, Levi, look at those heart-eyes he gives you! He’s so in love with you!”

Levi sighed, pointedly ignoring Eren’s intense stare, and instead turned to Erwin. “You’re quiet.” He refrained from commenting on the hypothetical creature that crawled up in the Commander’s ass and supposedly died there, just for the sake of not making Eren’s introduction less pleasant.

Erwin gave him a side glance and a small smile. “I don’t know what you think I am, but even I’m not immune to a sight like this. Your story seems to be more true than I could ever have imagined.” He stepped forward and raised his voice. “Hello, Eren. My name is Erwin Smith, I’m the commander of the Survey Corps. This is my subordinate and friend, Hanji Zoe.”

“It’s not like he knows what you’re saying,” Levi eyed them from a distance, only to be immediately shushed by Hanji.

“That doesn’t matter! He’s going to spend a lot of time with us, he deserves a proper introduction! …Wait. Have you never introduced yourself to him?” she asked, her tone shocked and reprimanding.

“When would I have done that? Before or after I broke my leg and found myself in a cave with a giant fucking titan? I was a little too busy shitting my pants at the time.”

Hanji rolled her eyes and whipped her head back to Eren, who’s been watching the incomprehensible exchange with bright wide eyes. “I’m so sorry, Eren, that you had to endure this ill-mannered guy for so long, it really must have been such a hassle!” As if to answer, Eren hummed along with her. “Oh, I know, I know.”

“Oi, Eren, you traitor,” Levi scowled, “are you siding with her now?”

“Of course, he is! You no longer get to keep him all to yourself, Shorty!” Hanji shot him a wink, and Levi frowned, not just because of her cocky attitude, but also because he felt his stomach drop a little.

He tore his gaze from the two, and instead looked for the sun in the sky.

“We should start setting up camp,” Erwin said as if he read his thoughts. “We only have a couple of hours left before sunset. Hanji!” he raised his voice. Hanji reluctantly looked up while she was in the middle of trying to get Eren to say his name again. “You have plenty of time for that later. We need to get a move on.”

“Ah, fine~” she whined with her head thrown back. “We’ll come back to this later, Eren, okay?”

They mounted their horses, with Levi being the last one. Eren was watching them with devoted attention. Levi called out for him, and the pointed ears perked up, while Hanji was losing her shit a little watching the interaction.

“Come on,” Levi waved a hand, motioning him to follow them, and Eren slowly stood up.

“Did you teach him that?” Hanji screamed. “Does he understand hand signs? Why didn’t you tell me?! What else does he know?”

“All in due time,” Erwin cut in, those blue eyes never losing sight of Eren. A curious expression ruled his features, which Levi had given up on trying to decipher a long time ago. Erwin’s thinking was an enigma that only made sense to Erwin and no one else. “Levi, you stay back with him by a hundred meters. Hanji and I will go and inform the others.”

“There’s this big ass tree east from here, about two hundred meters away or so. It should be the safest place to set up camp.”

Erwin nodded. “We’ll meet you there, then.”

Introducing Eren to the rest of the crew went about as smoothly as one would expect.

The vibrations created by Eren’s heavy footsteps could be felt from miles away, putting the scouts on high alert even in the presence of their Commander and Squad Leader, who warned them not to draw their blades. It was a precaution on Erwin’s part in case Eren reacted badly to the threat.

Nothing could prepare them, however, for the sight that greeted them: Eren stepped out onto the small forest glade, his eyes glowing from the depths of the sunken eye sockets in a deep emerald shade, his grin all teeth, and on his shoulder stood Levi with a blade drawn in one hand while he was holding onto a chunk of Eren’s hair with the other.

Hanji couldn’t hold back her excited cackles, and she squeezed her palm on her mouth to keep herself from possibly startling Eren. “You gotta give it to him, Commander,” she whispered, “he knows how to make an entrance.”

“What the fuck!” someone gasped, and as if a spell was broken, the scouts began nervously fidgeting and murmuring. Their bodies radiated pure confusion and distress, some even shouting out for their commander, begging for orders.

“Everyone, calm down!” Erwin’s deep voice cut through the heavy air. The thundering sound became louder with each step, making even the most battle-hardened veterans grip their blades nervously. “Do not engage!”

“B-but Commander…!”

“It’s okay, guys!” Hanji gave them a grin that looked more unsettling than reassuring. “Eren doesn’t want to kill any of us, he’s a real sweet treat!”

“Maybe don’t use the word ‘kill’, when they’re one wrong move away from attacking,” Erwin murmured, and Hanji’s smile faded.

“Right, sorry,” she said with a nervous giggle.

When Eren got about twenty meters from them, Levi gently pulled on his hair and pointed downwards. Eren obediently raised a palm to help him down, just for the sake of the show. Levi hated every minute of it, the whole theatrics making him cringe, but it seemed necessary.

When he stepped onto the titan’s palm, he noticed how some scouts instinctively pulled their blades further out from the scabbard, but something also shifted in their eyes. The fear and anger mixed in with a droplet of curiosity, and that was just about the most they could ask for now.

Eren slowly lowered him to the ground, first getting on one knee, then pressing his hand onto the ground while keeping his fingers stiff and outstretched. Levi stepped off and the shoulders of his squad members lifted a little in a relieved sigh immediately.

 “Captain, please, don’t stand so close to it!” Petra pleaded with a mortified expression. “It’s too dangerous!”

That ‘it’ made Levi’s eye twitch, but he held back. People would be surprised how often he did that. Most of the time everyone just assumed that he always acted on anger and impulse, but that could not have been farther away from the truth. What gave strength to a real soldier was keeping control over their anger and using it as a weapon. If he acted out on impulse every time he wanted to, he would’ve gotten executed at least twenty times by now.

“Stop acting like scared brats, goddammit,” he growled. “You’re all soldiers here, start acting like them. This one here,” he pointed behind himself, “is Eren.”

Hearing his name, Eren bent down to get a little closer to Levi, ready to do whatever he was asked, but the action sent the scouts into a frenzy. Their blades were drawn in a blink of an eye, except for Hanji’s, and through a shower of threats and frustrated yells, they were all ready to jump.

Eren flinched and growled which could be easily interpreted as threatening, but Levi read him well; it was a sound of confusion and fear. He raised a hand in front of Eren to halt him in case he was about to do something stupid, while he drew a blade at his own men.

“Oi, oi, oi! Everyone, back off.”

“Soldiers, stand down!” Erwin ordered. “Do not attack!”

“How do we know that we can trust it?!” someone yelled.

“We know because he kept me alive for seven months, dipshit.”

“Sir! If he was smart enough to do that then he could also be smart enough to play tricks on us!” Oluo insisted through gritted teeth. “It can’t be trusted!” He swung a blade in Eren’s direction, pointing it at him as a warning, but the sudden move ticked Eren the wrong way.

Sensing the sudden shift of emotion in the air, all Eren could think of was sharp and Little One.

His hands shot out before he could think it through, ready to create a barricade of his own flesh in front of Levi to protect him. He couldn’t finish the action though before all twenty scouts yelled and flung right at him, ready to cut off his hands first and then his head.

Oluo was the first one to reach them. He jumped in front of Levi, ready to cut through anything that got too close to him. “Get your filthy hands away from him, you beast!” was all he could scream before Levi leaped into action.

Hunching down he wrapped both his arms around the man’s hips while planting his feet steadily on the ground. Using Oluo’s momentary confusion, he twisted his torso in a way that allowed him to fling his elbow right up in the scout’s face while still holding him in place with his other arm. It was a move that he learned back in the Underground as a child when his height put him at a larger disadvantage than his thin, boyish arms. It was also Kenny’s only legacy to him.

Oluo fell backward from the impact, and Levi finished him with first a knee to the groin and then a brutal kick across the jaw that sent him flying to the ground. The man’s face was a bloody mess, but nothing that wouldn’t heal in time.

Levi regarded him with a disapproving look before turning his attention back to the scouts, who were all staring at him in horror.

“Tch. Have you already forgotten why we’re here, shitheads?” Levi raised his voice. “You better listen up, everyone! This big ass fucker here is our objective, and Oluo just demonstrated what is the least that happens to you if you mess with him. You try cut him down, you lose the arm. Are we clear?”

There was a wave of nervous whisper among the group, there were wide-eyed glances exchanged, but at least now they looked more afraid of their captain than Eren.

Erwin stepped up with raised hands, the action trying to calm the ruffled nerves of the soldiers. “Remind yourselves once again, why we’re here! Our only way to defeat the titans is by learning about them! As long as we stay ignorant, they will keep eating us! Nothing will ever change if we’re not brave enough to question our beliefs and stick to the old ways! This right here is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to learn something crucial! From this day on, this titan here is government property and our most valuable asset. Until his identity is revealed to King Rod, it’s our responsibility to make sure he doesn’t get damaged! We will set out camp here. Everyone, get to work!”

No one dared to disobey after that.

“Gunther, come here,” Levi called out, making the man jump a little in the middle of unloading a heavy bag from the cart.

“Yes, sir!”

“Get this idiot out of here,” Levi pointed at Oluo with his foot, who started groaning and whimpering as air slowly began entering his lungs again.

Gunther rushed over and hooked his arms under Oluo’s armpits, dragging him out of the immediate proximity of Eren as fast as possible. Once they were both out of sight, Levi turned back to the titan.

“Oi, what the fuck was that?” he growled, making Eren flinch and pin his ears back. “Don’t get all jumpy because of a few shitheads, Eren. I can’t look out for idiots on both sides. So behave, yeah?”

“Look who’s getting overprotective~” Hanji sang as she skipped closer to them with a bag in hand, filled with various items, probably related to the science stuff she was about to make Eren suffer through.

“I’m not overprotective,” Levi said only to immediately contradict his own words when he began eyeing that bag mistrustfully.

“Sure,” Hanji waved him off. “But he is! Don’t scold him too hard for it! You just love your Levi very much, don’t you, little dandelion?” she babbled at Eren, whose ears immediately fluttered and he cooed back at her. “Aw, you do, don’t you? Say, Eren, can I borrow you for a little? We’re going to have so much fun! I’ll bring you back to your favorite little human in a tad bit, m’kay?”

Levi watched with a face of disgust as she continued baby-talking. “I don’t need this in my life,” he mumbled and turned around to see how he could make himself useful. “Don’t break him if that’s not too much to ask.”

However, before he could leave, Eren’s worried chirping halted him, and he turned back to see what was wrong. His thought right away was that Hanji already poked him with something, but instead he found Eren sitting on his ass, looking at him pleadingly.

“What?” Levi barked, and another sound left Eren’s throat, his intense stare not softening even the tiniest bit. “Spit it out, brat, I don’t have all day.”

“Interesting,” Hanji mumbled as she began taking notes. Her hand was gliding across the paper with an impressive speed. “You seem to forget that he’s not human and can’t understand you, did you notice? I wonder if it’s the effect of you lacking human contact for half a year and losing your mind a little or if this is just how you display your affection for Eren.”

Levi sighed like a man who no longer hoped for his life to get any better, and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m too fucking exhausted to argue with your crazy ass.”

He was about to leave again, but Eren whimpered louder this time, drawing the attention of the uneasy scouts nearby too.

“No, Eren, stop it! Stay with Hanji!”

The answer he got was another whimper, long and high-pitched. Levi regarded him with a death glare, but Eren was a little shit, and he held eye contact with him, determined to get what he wanted.

“You are a fucking brat, d’you know that?” Levi fumed, accepting defeat and giving in to the whims of the titan. “Fine, I’ll stay. Hanji, do whatever the fuck you want, just hurry up!”

“Your wish is my command!” she grinned and pulled out a tape measure from the bag.

Looking around, Levi noticed the many pair of eyes trained on them, and suddenly he was annoyed with how easily he was bribed with the puppy-eyed look. “What the fuck are y’all looking at? Unless you’re lining up to suck my dick, get the hell back to work!”

His words as usual worked wonders, like fine oil on rusty, old gear. The soldiers tore their gazes from them to mind their own business.

Hanji could barely hold back her delighted giggling. “Stop slipping up, I can only pay attention to so many scientific wonders at a time.”

“Fuck you,” was the answer she got, and though she had the witty response on the tip of her tongue already, she was smart enough to keep quiet and turn her attention back to Eren.

She worked her way from the tips of Eren’s fingers down to his legs, and by the time she reached his head, there was barely a single bit on him which wasn’t measured in all three dimensions. Eren let her climb up and down on him however she pleased, and once Hanji realized that Eren seemed to have no other trigger points than Levi’s safety, she abused this knowledge to the full extent.

Levi couldn’t help the silent sigh of relief every time Hanji pushed and pulled Eren around however she wanted him to stay, and Eren let her without a single noise of protest. Levi already trusted Eren, but this was the kind of reassurance he needed right now, knowing that Eren was as patient with everyone as he was with Levi.

Maybe not with Oluo, he thought when he spotted the man high up on the tall tree, still limping a little from Levi’s demonstration. He had a hunch that Eren wouldn’t take too kindly to the man, but even then, he doubted that Eren would do anything unprovoked.

Levi’s breath suddenly left his lungs as two strong arms snaked around his chest from behind, squeezing like there was no tomorrow.

“Oi, what the fuck!” he gasped out of breath, his hands immediately finding the handles of his blades, ready to cut through whatever they could reach.

“Levi!” Hanji whined in his ears, the proximity making him cringe. He was quite sure Hanji just smeared snot all over his cape. “This is the most amazing day of my entire life! Thank you so much! Eren is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined!”

“Stop being so mushy! We can still die on our way back.” He tried wriggling his way out of the awkward hug, but Hanji was persistent. She held onto him even more tightly and wedged her chin between Levi’s neck and shoulder. “Dammit, let go!”

“No,” she shook her head, the sharp bone of her chin painfully digging deeper into Levi’s flesh. “I’m not letting you anywhere until you know how grateful I am!”

The captain let out a resigned sigh and stopped struggling. He had a hunch that the only way to force his way out of this would be by cutting Hanji’s arms off, so he accepted his fate and decided to wait it out. “Fine, fine, I know you are. Happy now?”

Hanji hummed and nodded again, making Levi grit his teeth in pain. “Yeah~”

“Then let me go, idiot,” Levi scowled at her, and she finally did. Yup, his cape was covered in nasty snot and the residuals of Hanji’s eccentric personality. “Fucking hell…” he mumbled as the scientist skipped away, ready to get some new equipment from her saddlebag. Levi was going to have to wash his cape now. He could only hope that the disgusting fluids didn’t stain his jacket.

There was a low chuckle coming from behind him, and Levi shot a cold glare at Eren over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare laugh, or I’ll sic her on you again!”

Something in his tone must’ve suggested what Levi said, because needless to say, the chuckle was abruptly cut short.

“The patrol reported zero titans in the surrounding area,” Erwin told the two of them once they were all settled down for the night.

The sleeping bags were skillfully stretched out between the thick branches of the tree, and a net made of strong ropes underneath, so not even the morons who moved around in their sleep would fall. It was the type of temporary housing that was most efficient when the sky was clear and they didn’t plan on sticking around for too long.

The three of them were standing on one of the large branches, almost at the exact same spot from where Levi watched Eren fight those titans about a month ago.

“This scent marking of Eren’s seems to be more efficient than I expected,” Erwin continued.

“I feel like it’s not just the titans we have to worry about, though,” Hanji said, her voice a shade deeper and lacking her excited high-pitch. “I’d trust any of our men with my life, but I wouldn’t trust them with Eren’s.”

“They are, understandably, agitated,” Erwin nodded and regarded Levi with a calculative gaze, who’s been watching over Eren in the meanwhile. The titan was sitting on the grass by the edge of the forest glade, following the movements of the humans like a hawk. “Levi.”

“Hm?”

“Make sure he’s up and ready by tomorrow to leave. I don’t want us to wake up to the sight of his nape sliced out. He’s far too valuable.”

Levi nodded with a little wrinkle between his eyebrows.

After Erwin dismissed them, Levi swung up along the trunk of the tree, shooting and releasing the grapple hook as he climbed higher on the branches. His heart did weird things in his chest again when he reached the cave. It looked the same way it was before he left. This seemed to be a common theme in this forest; it was as if time didn’t reach this place. It was frozen in its wild perfection.

There were a few places he didn’t intend on showing to anyone while they were here, namely this cave and the lake. He didn’t know why, but it just felt too… personal. He didn’t want to share these places with anyone; they were only his and Eren’s.

Stepping inside, memories flooded his mind. The wooden ground was a little darker here, where he used to lit the fire to cook his dinner, and over there was an indent on the wall, which was most comfortable to lean into while sitting on the ground.

How many times did he feel like a bird trapped in a cage here, living from one day to the next, with no hope of ever returning home? With his wings on his back again, this place was no longer as claustrophobic as it was before. It was just a simple hole dug in the side of a tree.

Something at the back of the cave caught his attention. He went closer and realized that there was a new, smaller indent on the wooden wall, about the size of Eren’s cupped hand. The wounds torn in the wood by sharp claws were still very much visible.

Inside the smaller cave, he found some of the furs, baskets, and the broom he made and left behind. Why did Eren stash these away? It wasn’t like a titan had any use to them.

He heard a quiet, shuffling noise coming from outside, which soon became louder, turning into a familiar crunching sound, accompanied by the slight shaking of the wooden ground beneath Levi’s foot. He walked to the entrance of the cave just when Eren reached it too.

Bright green eyes smiled at him like the titan wanted to tell him something, and Levi was once again frustrated that he would never know what went on inside that brat’s head. Maybe Hanji could figure out one day how to make him talk.

“It’s not nighttime yet, what are you doing here?” he asked with a deadpan expression, but his voice was light with amusement. Eren grunted at him and continued waiting patiently, which made the man scoff. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I in your way?”

Something eerily familiar to a soft laugh could be heard coming from Eren’s throat, though it wasn’t entirely human. It sounded kind of like a human who was trying to communicate through the vocal cords of an animal.

Only distracted for a moment, Levi didn’t immediately notice the figure standing not far from them on a branch, and he jumped a little when he heard a squealing noise. As to be expected, it was Hanji with her notebook in hand.

Levi had to give it to her, it was quite impressive how she was staring at them and simultaneously writing down notes without ever looking at the paper. Yes, impressive, and terrifying.

“This keeps getting better and better,” she mumbled with a manic grin. “Hey, Levi, did he just understand what you said?”

Levi raised an unimpressed brow. “Have you been standing there this whole time?”

“Of course! Is this the mythical love-nest you told me about? How cozy!” she cooed before she swung closer and landed next to Levi. “Eren, little marshmallow, can you understand me? Blink once if you do!”

Eren blinked noncommittally.

“Look, he did it!”

“Are you sure you’re a real scientist?” Levi crossed his arms in front of his chest, tilting his head to the side. “He’d have to blink at some point, that didn’t mean anything.”

“But he did understand something!” she kept insisting, chewing on the tip of her pen. “Your sassy ass is hard to understand even for us sometimes, people. It’s quite extraordinary that a titan picked up on it.”

“Well, it’s all about the tone though, isn’t it?” Levi asked.

“It’s much more than that! Detecting emotions and intentions based on sound is a fairly common ability in the wildlife. Most animals communicate through tone, you know like how a cat will hiss if it’s angry and will purr when it’s relaxed. Those are sounds that any kind of animal will understand instinctively, not just other cats.”

“So?” Levi asked, his brows furrowed. He still didn’t understand what was so ‘extraordinary’ about Eren acting like a sassy brat. He’d always been perceptive of Levi’s mood.

“So! Sarcasm is not a simple thing, like anger or satisfaction!” Hanji jabbered excitedly, waving the notebook dangerously close to Levi’s face. “It’s something that often gets missed even by people because you not only need to have a good understanding of the tone of one’s voice, but you also have to be good at reading facial expressions, and it doesn’t hurt to know the person either! Not to mention that you’re sporting a very advanced type of sarcasm!”

Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t… “Meaning?” Levi grit the words through his teeth.

A proud grin spread on Hanji’s face. “Your sarcasm makes you a tragic, brooding hero, Shorty, because nobody knows that you don’t mean half the things you say! Therefore people are afraid of you even when you’re joking!”

“Oh, like when I say, ‘push that notebook in my face one more goddamn time and I will break your arm’?” Levi deadpanned, his eyes turning a shade darker as said notebook flapped by his forehead again.

“Exactly!” Hanji exclaimed. “Your tone is flat and your face is scary, so people think you’re serious, and they shit their pants every time!”

“I wish you’d shit your pants,” Levi murmured.

“But our cutie pie Eren seems to be able to pick up on it perfectly! This means that he not only knows how to read the tone of your voice and facial expressions, which is huge by the way, but he also understands that people are capable of disguising their real emotions with a fake display! Just like with sarcasm! Do you get it now? Like how does he know? Supposedly he never met another human before you, but how can he still read you so flawlessly? Isn’t that amazing?”

To be honest, Levi had never questioned that he was the first person to ever come across Eren. The titan seemed a little wary of humans from the beginning, always watching them from afar, never coming close enough to be within reach.

Levi thought Eren was smart enough to figure it out by himself that humans were dangerous and not to be taken lightly. Hell, Levi had proven that to Eren many times himself. But there were just a couple of things that didn’t fit the picture. Like how Eren was so fine-tuned when it came to emotions or how he seemed to know that a wound treated with honey had better chances of healing. These weren’t things one could piece together by themselves, they had to be taught.

Then again, if anyone had ever encountered Eren before, a kind-natured titan who didn’t eat humans and attacked his own kind instead, Levi was pretty sure he would’ve heard of that. This wasn’t something that could be kept secret for too long. Even if it traveled the lands as gossip or an urban legend, Levi would’ve at least heard about it. But there were no such stories. Eren was as good as dead to the people behind the walls.

Levi lifted his gaze onto Eren, who climbed a little further away from them in the meanwhile and squatted down on a thick branch.

“Oh, what’s he doing?” Hanji whispered excitedly.

“He hasn’t been on his afternoon patrol yet,” Levi explained, following Eren’s gaze to the western horizon. There were no titans he could see. “He’s been with us all day, so it’s not like he had the time.”

“It’s so adorable that you know his schedule from the top of your head!”

Levi just rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like a titan’s so-called schedule was terribly complicated, also he had nothing else to do for months other than watching Eren.

“Do you think it will be okay for him to miss a day? I want to know how long his scent keeps the titans away! Oh, we absolutely have to go with him on one of his patrols, I want to know everything about this scent marking! Do you think he would let us go with him? Oh, what if we catch him fighting titans? We absolutely must go with him!”

Levi sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you’re planning on drawing the titan’s attention to you just to see him fight–”

“I would never!” Hanji gasped a little too quickly.

“You’ll have plenty of time to get yourself killed on our way back, you suicidal idiot.”

After setting up camp and eating their field ration dinner by the fire, everyone went to their designated spots to get some sleep. Despite the relative safety of the forest, they assigned two scouts on watch, who were replaced by a new pair every two hours. They still didn’t know much about the effectiveness of Eren’s territorial behavior, and even the smallest lapse of judgment could doom them when they were out on the titan’s land.

The mood was tense, and Levi was keenly aware of the distrustful, disgusted, and most often hostile glances the soldiers were eyeing Eren with. Levi knew that their feelings for Eren came from more than justifiable prejudice, but he still wouldn’t give them a chance to act out on them.

After Eren fell unconscious, Levi physically kicked Hanji out of the cave so she wouldn’t try to run tests on the titan even in his sleep. He sat down by the ledge to keep an eye out, but his caution was not directed at Hanji this time. As weird as it sounded, for once the scientist was the strongest ally he had, and not just the biggest thorn stuck up in his ass. What kept Levi awake were his own men and the rest of the group.

Realistically he knew that none of them would dare to hurt Eren. Levi made sure multiple times even before they left the city that they knew that discharge was the least they had to worry about if they dared to hurt Eren in any way. The titan was government property, with all the pros and cons that this brought. Threats, however, never ensured that there wasn’t a single person who thought that the punishment was worth the cause.

As Levi leaned further out from the entrance and carried his gaze across the sleeping bodies, he knew that they were just as confused as he was before he decided that he didn’t give a fuck that Eren was a titan.

There wasn’t a single person here, who hadn’t lost someone to the titans. They all wished that they could bring the fallen ones back somehow, that they could kill the titan again which took their friends and family from them. The killing didn’t make living any easier, but it dulled the pain even if just a little bit.

They got vengeance by killing more of the same species, which Eren was part of. In a soldier’s mind, killing Eren would mean avenging their comrades and protecting more of them from getting hurt in the future. The sentiment was simple: kill it not before it kills you, but before it kills any more of your friends. Levi could understand.

Whenever they were out on the field surrounded by titans, a small part of him always wanted to abandon the mission altogether and just slaughter them all, abnormals or not. He would’ve killed a thousand titans if that meant that Furlan and Isabel would rest in peace.

Images from years ago flashed across his mind’s eyes; grey fog, pale shadows, blood dripping everywhere. A pair of glowing red eyes.

If that titan was here right now, Levi would kill it again without a second thought, no matter the consequences. He would take the capital punishment willingly just to kill that beast one more time. And so, he understood why some of these scouts would play around with the idea of hurting Eren regardless of what might come.

He turned around to look at Eren over his shoulder and took a moment to take in the sight of the giant titan, sleeping on his side and curled up in a bowl like a newborn baby. A small smile crept up on his face before he could catch himself and stop it. He was still baffled by how someone so incredibly dangerous could look so innocent and harmless in their sleep. He wanted to edge closer to the warmth that radiated off the tanned skin, but something held him back.

Levi’s smile faded. If nothing went wrong, they’d be back at the walls by tomorrow, and yet unknown to Eren, this would be his last night as a free person.

The next time he falls asleep, he would be bound by ropes, and– would he be nailed to the ground too? Levi didn’t want to think about how uncomfortable that made him feel. He teased Hanji about being an emotional mess all the time, but jokes on Levi, it seemed to be the other way around.

He wished he could say he had nothing to do with this, and if he was a lesser man, he would’ve apologized to Eren for what he was about to put him through. But that apology wouldn’t mean anything, because he would still do everything the same way; he would report to Erwin about Eren, he would tell them about his potential, and he would lead them here again because it was his duty.

He could apologize and hope the titan would forgive him one day for tearing him from his piece of heaven and dragging him into hell, but even then they would still need Eren, and Levi would still choose humanity, no matter how every bone in his body irked from the thought. It was either sacrificing Eren’s innocence once or sacrificing the lives of people like Furlan and Isabel over and over again in the fight for freedom. Levi couldn’t save his friends, but he could save others at the price of Eren’s innocence.

Levi was going to deserve every bit of Eren’s hate after bringing him back to the city. Part of him wished for Eren to hate him, just to make it easier. He knew he wouldn’t be able to bear the sight of Eren watching him with those affectionate ocean eyes even when his head was nailed to the ground and his mouth was forced open by metal rods.

“Fuck,” he hissed and squeezed his eyelids close to force the images out of his head.

He promised Eren that he wouldn’t let people hurt him unnecessarily and that he would protect him to the best of his abilities. Though this wasn’t nearly enough to redeem him, he wasn’t willing to break that promise.

Making up his mind, he stood and walked up to Eren. He placed a pale hand on the skin of the titan’s nape, and let that familiar, calming warmth spread over his tired arms.

Without thinking too much about it, he gently stroked Eren’s nape, careful not to disturb him in his sleep. He sat on the ground again, and leaning against the warm body of the titan with his back, he allowed his racing mind to finally settle down.

Chapter Text

Levi woke up to the shaking of his own body from the chilling temperature that penetrated his clothes, his skin, and reached down to his bones.

His mind was confused from having just woken up, and the traces of a dream still lingered in front of his eyes, making it hard to differentiate reality from his imagination. He fell in and out of consciousness throughout the night, sometimes woken by an owl’s hoot, only to be immediately dragged back to sleep by the comforting sensation of Eren’s warm skin pressed against his own. Somewhere along the night, he began dreaming; memories of fresh, green grass, the touch of his mother’s white robe on his cheeks, and he even dreamt about Eren, though it was undoubtedly the weirdest dream Levi ever had.

In his dream, he was still leaning onto Eren’s nape, but instead of the titan’s bulky vertebra pressing into his back between his shoulder blades, he felt a hand there instead. The sensation was faint and disappeared quickly, hiding under the layer of thick flesh, but when Levi woke up, freezing and his muscles all stiff, the patch of skin on his back was still tingling.

Groaning in annoyance, he furrowed his brows and squeezed his eyelids harder together while trying to shuffle around to find Eren’s warm body again. It took a moment for his sleepy brain to realize that something was wrong. He opened his eyes only to be met by the dark and empty space of the cave. The ground was cold, he was alone, and Eren was nowhere to be seen.

His blades were out of the sheath before he was on his feet. He flung himself out of the cave and into the air, only using his hooks to control the direction but not the speed of his fall. The ground shot a painful vibration up his legs when he landed a little too recklessly, but he didn’t pay attention to it.

The blood was pumping loudly in his ears, and though he didn’t know what or whom he was looking for yet, he was ready to shed their blood.

It was only when his eyes found Eren sitting on the ground by the edge of the forest glade, did his heart settle in pace. Eren was sitting cross-legged by the fire with Hanji walking up and down waving her hands and pointing at different kinds of things, while the titan was quietly listening to her.

Levi glared at them for a passing moment or two before the adrenaline drained from his veins and instead an overwhelming sense of anger washed over him. He firmly tossed his blades back in the sheath.

“Fucking shitty glasses,” he mumbled. Droplets of dew smeared across his boots as he crossed the grassy field, most of the camp behind him still asleep. The sun was barely up yet, and the sky was still a little greyish. As he got closer, Hanji’s overenthusiastic chirping became louder in his ears.

He could feel getting more irritated by each step he made, ready to tear that beast of a woman in half. Levi never just slept through the night and would certainly never sleep through a giant titan crawling out of the tree right under his nose.

“Oi, Hanji!” he barked, his voice still a little rough from having just woken up, but his eyes were glowing in bright red, no trace of sleepiness to be seen.

Hearing his voice, Eren immediately looked up and gave Levi a welcoming blink and a long, gargled coo.

“Ah, Levi! Good morning, sunshine!” Hanji waved at him. “I wondered when you’d wake up!”

“Did you drug me with some of your bird shit?” he growled at her, his tone a threat in itself. It happened enough times in the past that the crazy scientist chose him as a test subject, and Levi thought he got a pretty good hunch about when his tea was smelling weird, making it likely that he was chosen yet again. He tried to think of what he ate and drank after they set up camp, but suddenly everything he consumed the previous night seemed suspicious.

Hanji blinked, her lips parting a little in surprise, and it almost, almost seemed like the sentiment was genuine. “Huh! What an accusation! I would never do that! To you… On an expedition.”

Levi’s glare shot daggers at the scientist, and she quickly raised her hands in defense before those metaphorical blades turned into real ones.

“Hey, I didn’t do anything! I fetched Eren when the sun came up, it’s not my fault that you didn’t wake up! Or that you sleep as sound as a rock next to him,” she added with a contented half-smile.

Levi’s eyes went a little wider, almost unnoticeable to someone who was not well acquainted with him, but Hanji noticed it alright.

“It had nothing to do with him,” he protested, but the soft heat crawling up on his neck said otherwise, and suddenly he felt like he was a child caught with a hand still in the cookie jar. Eren was just warm. Of course Levi would sleep better next to him than on the cold ground.

“Mh-hm~” Hanji chuckled. “I can’t blame you, it must be so nice to sleep next to this giant ball of warm fluff! Higher temperatures relax the muscles, which makes you feel protected and loved, which helps you sleep through the night, which consequently means that Eren helps you sleep through the night. Proof of that is the way you marched out here, ready to go on a vicious killing spree until you saw that Eren was safe and sound here, with me. It’s sweet, no need to be ashamed!”

Levi’s eye twitched, and he crossed his arms rather childishly. “Nothing anywhere near you can ever be safe and sound.”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, wanna see what we’ve been up to?” Hanji asked with an enthusiastic grin and plucked a dandelion from the ground. “I’ve been observing Eren’s motor skills regarding small objects, and look, no wonder he’s been so exceptional at keeping you alive!” She raised the flower towards Eren and smiled at him. “Little fruitcake, can you show Levi what we’ve been doing?”

Levi sat down on one of the large rocks around the cold fireplace and watched with a contemplative expression as Eren slowly reached out, and with the very tips of the claws of his thumb and index finger, he pinched the flower and took it from Hanji.

The scientist screeched with her hands clasped together, and he turned to Levi expecting him to share her excitement. He would’ve lied if he said that it wasn’t impressive. Eren had always been gentle to him but holding something so small such as a dandelion without accidentally snapping the stem in half was outright ridiculous. It was as if Levi had to pick up a single strand of wool fiber without damaging it.

“Isn’t he amazing, Levi?” Hanji beamed, and Levi tilted his head down a little in a half-nod. “I mean he’s just so gentle! Hey, Eren, you want to try plucking the flower now?”

Eren blinked at her innocently, not knowing what the scientist wanted from him. He held onto the flower with his pinky finger sticking out and Levi had to suppress a small smile at the sight. Hanji knelt and pointed at a flower first, then tapped her thumb and index finger together, then pointed at Eren again.

“Do you understand, baby? Can you hand me this flower here?” she watched as Eren regarded the flower on the ground with a contemplative look in his eyes, and she scooted closer to Levi. “He’s been having trouble with this one,” she whispered to him while furiously taking notes.

He fumbled around in the grass, twisting, and turning his hand to try to get a grip on the stem of the flower, but his fingers seemed to be too thick to grab anything. He let out an annoyed, breathy grunt.

Meanwhile, the camp slowly began to wake up. While completing their morning chores and duties, many of them had their eyes on the strange trio by the fire pit. Erwin, who’d been leading the first round of patrol around the forest at dawn, arrived with a small pack of scouts on horseback, his attention immediately drawn to his right hand, Levi, and his second in command, Hanji.

“It’s okay, don’t give up!” Hanji encouraged Eren and pouted when the titan continued to miss the flower by inches.

“Is this even important?” Levi watched Eren struggle with something so minuscule with a bored frown.

“Of course, it is! His motor skills are extremely useful scientific information!”

“He’s going to fight titans and build outposts and walls, not arrange bouquets to be sold for pennies on the main square of Trost.”

“Oh, wait, I got an idea!” Hanji gasped. “Levi, go help him!”

“What, why me?”

“Uh, duh, because you’re his favorite person? I can’t offer him any treats, because he doesn’t have a drive for food – trust me, I tried – so you’ll have to do!”

The Captain glared at her, the casualness of the way she was talking about the strange attachment Eren seemed to have towards him making him feel both embarrassed and a little happy. He cleared his throat. “I won’t get the flower for him, there’s no point that way.”

“No, just go and motivate him somehow! You still know him the best out of all of us. Is there something that makes him work harder?”

Levi thought about it. Eren’s motivation was always fascinatingly persistent when it came to smashing the heads of titans into a pulp, but he figured that luring titans into the forest just so Eren would be motivated to hurry the fuck up, pluck the flower and then fight the titans was probably not the best idea.

Clicking his tongue, he stepped forward and called out Eren’s name. The titan looked up, locking eyes with him, the struggle to get the flower immediately forgotten. Eren cooed as if to ask what Levi wanted, and this unintentionally made the Captain’s chest swell with pride. It made him feel a little better to know that Eren still prioritized him over everyone else, even though fucking hell, it was so stupid.

Levi raised a hand in front of him with his palm facing the sky.

“Eren, can you please give me the flower?” he asked his tone the softest silk that he could conjure from the depths of his heart, where he kept the remaining bits and pieces of his kindness.

Eren’s pupils swelled up, and his eyes darted between Levi’s face, his hand, and the flower. A shine of determination flashed in his eyes and leaned down until his nose was almost touching the ground.

Hanji jumped from one leg to the other, recording every single movement of Eren’s in her notebook.

Eren carefully pinched the flower stem between his claws, and after minutes of clumsy attempts, he finally severed the dandelion from the soil. The yellow little flowerhead bobbed back and forth, and Eren turned back to Levi to offer it to him. The gesture was so pure and so much like Eren. It reminded Levi of the countless afternoons they spent together, and how the titan seemed to find joy in giving him all kinds of small gifts. Levi’s lips, unknown to him, curled into the smallest, most gentle half smile, and Eren carefully placed the dandelion on his palm.

“Good job, brat,” Levi told him, his voice soft, and Eren quietly purred back at him. He then turned to Hanji, who’s been watching the affair with her jaws hanging wide open and his mouth curling upwards. “Got what you wanted?”

She feverishly began nodding before she finished her notes, her facial expression hiding a knowing smile. “Oh, honey, you don’t need to get me anything for my birthday for the next three years.”

“Wasn’t planning to anyway.”

“If only the rest of us would be lucky enough to experience your soft side,” a smirking voice came from behind them.

They turned around, their eyes locking on Erwin’s approaching figure, and Levi’s squad behind him. Eren grunted curiously, and when he got bored of watching them toddle over on their tiny legs, he started searching for another flower.

“Stop dreaming, Erwin, our Levi doesn’t have a soft side~” Hanji chuckled. “He has soft spots, three of them to be precise. Cleaning, drinking the tears of his fallen enemies, and Eren!”

“You can keep the tears, that shit is nasty,” Levi scrunched his nose.

“But you don’t deny then that you have a soft spot for Eren,” Hanji winked at him.

“Stop projecting your abnormal kinks on me, shitty glasses. I’m not the one with the titan fetish.”

“Who said anything about kinks? I thought your love for Eren is purely platonic but correct me if I’m wrong. Are you hiding some deep, dark desires in that twisted little mind of yours?”

“The only thing I’m hiding is the many thought-out plans to murder your ass and then dispose of your body. I have seventy-three of them so far but right now I could think of a few more. If you play nice perhaps I’ll let you choose how you want to go.”

“Ah, seventy-three? You flatter me!”

“Um, what’s happening?” Petra whispered to Eld, who’s been watching the banter along with everyone else with a rather concerned expression.

“I have no idea but it’s better if we don’t question it,” he replied just as quietly and glanced at Oluo standing next to them, the bruises on his face still prominent.

“Levi,” Erwin called. “Come with me. We have a few things to discuss before we leave. Hanji?”

“I’m sorry, Erwin, but science calls for me! My place is with Eren until I die a horrible death by Levi’s tiny hands, I have to use every minute I have left!”

Erwin held back a rather frustrated sigh, but this wasn’t anything he didn’t expect. Hanji was the most eccentric person he had ever met, and it was no surprise that meeting Eren made her titan obsession ten times worse. He locked eyes with Levi, the shorter man’s message clearly being ‘told you this would happen,’ and then simply shrugged and let Hanji play in her favorite sandbox.

Levi glanced at Eren over his shoulder, and he felt a sense of dull anxiousness crawl up his spine that he had to leave the titan. It felt like something was wrong, or could go wrong any minute, but he couldn’t point out what it was. He knew he could trust Hanji to watch over Eren, and though he didn’t expect his squad to share the scientist’s affection, they were dutiful soldiers who followed orders to the letter. He told himself that he was being overly paranoid, and the reason he felt this way was because the adrenaline from this morning’s scare was still not yet completely out of his system.

“Stay,” he said with a hand lifted when he heard Eren shuffle around behind him. Erwin turned around to walk back to the camp, and Levi followed him along with the members of his squad, except for Petra, who stayed with Hanji.

Eren’s eyes were trained on Levi’s back, and a trembling whimper bubbled up from his stomach.

“Don’t worry, sweet angel baby, he’ll come back,” Eren heard the human with the messy brown hair coo something at him, but he couldn’t understand what she said.

Eren liked her, because she had a similar warmth in her eyes to Little One’s, and she was the only one who touched him with her cold little fingertips. Eren found the sensation funny, and he liked the way those hands slid across his skin, touching him like she was afraid to break him or like he was the most interesting being ever to exist. Eren could understand her enthusiasm; he felt the same way about Little One.

He went back to trying to pluck the dandelion. He didn’t know why they asked him to do it, but Little One seemed to be content with him when Eren placed the flower in that small, pale hand, and that was enough for him to keep trying.

Another yellow flower got pinched between his claws, and the brown-haired human squealed in excitement. She held out her hands, gesturing for Eren to give it to her, and he complied.

“Isn’t he amazing?! He’s learning so quickly!”

The human next to the brown-haired one looked a little different. Her hair was brighter and the color was like the sunlight just before the sky turned dark. She was eyeing Eren cautiously as he reached out to place the dandelion in the human’s hands.

“He’s sure… no ordinary abnormal,” the sunset-haired human said. Her voice was like the color of her hair too, soft and airy, and it lacked the hostile tone with which most of the humans talked to Eren. “Do you have a theory about why he’s like this, Squad Leader?”

“I haven’t the faintest clue! This is an incredibly exciting discovery for science, and I feel like the answer may be more important than we can imagine right now!”

Eren watched the two of them, noting how the sunset human flinched a little every time Eren looked at her, but the more he did, the less she seemed fearful. Eren liked the way the coldness slowly drained from her eyes and was replaced by just the faintest hue of warmth.

He noticed how four people, sunset human included, kept closer to Little One than the rest of the pack. They followed him around and watched over him whenever he was with Eren, and he had the strangest urge to shield Little One with his palms again, to cover him from their eyes. He didn’t like the way they were looking at him, and he still didn’t trust that grumpy one who tried to jump at them the other day. When Eren saw that sword swing in the air, he was mere seconds away from tearing the grumpy one in half.

“Oh, look at the way he’s watching him!” he heard a faint whisper from below, the sound making his ear twitch. “Oops, he heard me, but look, he’s not even paying attention to me! He’s only focused on Levi! Fascinating!”

“The Captain seems to have a lot of trust in him. It’s strange to see him so relaxed.”

“Don’t be jealous, Petra dear, Eren is thirteen meters taller than all of us here, so naturally he’s easier to notice,” the brown-haired woman smiled.

Eren’s head whipped back to them when he heard his name mentioned and saw the skin on the sunset-haired human’s cheeks change color to pink.

“I’m not jealous. I’m actually happy that he’s finally so relaxed around someth–, uh, someone. It’s a little strange that out of all of us he’d trust a titan the most, but then again, the Captain is no ordinary man either. I can’t imagine what he went through while he was here.”

While she was talking, the same warmth seeped through her amber-colored irises with which sometimes Little One looked at Eren. She was watching him over her shoulder, the same way Eren did. Thankful to this human for giving her sunlight to Little One, Eren let out a gentle sound.

The noise attracted the human’s attention, and Eren saw that sunlight directed at him for a moment too before it faded. It wasn’t meant for him, it was only directed at Little One, but Eren knew that he could trust this person. From the way she watched Little One with her sun-kissed gaze and from the softness of her voice, it was clear that this human wanted to protect Little One just as much as he did.

Eren plucked another flower, and this time he did it a lot more quickly and practiced. He slowly lifted a hand, pausing when he saw the human flinch, and he offered her the dandelion.

The human looked up at him with wide eyes, and Eren tried to purr at her encouragingly, hoping that his voice wouldn’t scare her away. He noticed how easily humans became stiff whenever he tried to vocalize his thoughts and emotions; except for Little One and the brown-haired human. Those two always looked at him like they were just as frustrated as Eren was that they didn’t understand each other.

The sunset-haired human struggled to suppress the trembling of her hand when she reached out. She was careful not to touch Eren when her fingers pinched the stem, and Eren slowly retracted his hand. The small human looked absolutely dumbfounded.

Petra hesitantly glanced at Hanji, who glared back at her with a wide grin that roughly translated to ‘what are you waiting for?!’

“Um… thank you?” her words were hesitant, but not lacking in some sort of careful fascination.

“Ah, beautiful!” Hanji clapped. “Petra, I have to go and get my mirror because I want to see how Eren would react to his reflection! I’ll be back in a minute, just watch over him, okay?”

“Wha– but Squad Leader! I-I can get it for you!” Petra looked at her with pleading eyes, however, Hanji was already halfway running back to camp.

There was a small grunt coming from behind her, and she jumped a little when he was met with Eren’s inquiring gaze. Her hand was itching to draw her blades or at least grab the handles, but Levi specifically ordered them never to turn a weapon against Eren, unless they would want the Captain to do the same to them. Levi was the only one who was allowed to kill Eren in case the titan started acting out of the ordinary, and Petra was not too excited to get the treatment Levi gave to Oluo.

With the flower still in hand, Petra forced her body to stay put and watched as Eren turned his attention back to the flowers.

There was a sudden, loud shriek coming from the camp, and they all immediately jumped to attention, Eren looking especially startled. His eyes were looking for Levi, and he only settled down when he saw that he was still talking with his squad and Erwin.

Petra felt her heartbeat settle down a little when there was no warning of titans coming, and it was just Hanji telling something to Moblit way too excitedly.

She turned back to Eren to see how the titan’s ears were still twitching nervously, looking out for any noises that could indicate a possible threat.

“Poor thing, you must be pretty overwhelmed,” Petra chuckled shyly, and a wave of trembling washed over her body when Eren’s deep green irises darted back to her. His eyes were gentle, but she couldn’t get over the horrific fangs that stared down at her. She continued talking to keep herself from caving in and giving herself over to fear. The Captain trusted this titan, so she wanted too. “We’re a crazy group of people, huh? But, uh– thank you for helping him stay alive, Eren,” she said and smiled at the titan genuinely. “We’re all grateful to you. I certainly am,” she added quietly.

Eren blinked at her silently, then gently chirped back at her, and Petra found the sound oddly comforting.

“You’re certainly what?” a low voice came from behind her. It was the one voice that she always wished she could hear, no matter how she instantly became a ball of nerves the moment she did.

Petra jumped and squealed a little, her cheeks immediately flooding with warmth. Levi raised a questioning brow at her.

“N-nothing, sir, I just told Eren how thankful I am that he helped you come back to us alive, sir!” she rambled, and her embarrassment flooded her cheeks more and more with each uttered word.

Levi didn’t look impressed. “How the hell would I have come back dead?”

“Sir?”

“You said ‘come back alive.’ Is there a way to come back dead?” he asked, his voice as cold as ice, and Petra looked plain mortified now. Seeing this, Levi’s stern expression softened a little bit. His squad had only been made official four months before he went missing in action, which wasn’t nearly enough time for everyone on his team to get used to his way of talking. “At ease, soldier, I’m just messing with you. I don’t always bite when I bark.”

“Yes, sir!” Petra quickly nodded, looking a little more relieved, but still mostly confused. Eren snarled at Levi with an unimpressed grunt, looking back and forth between him and Petra.

“What?” Levi frowned.

Eren made another sound, still rather annoyed, and he vaguely motioned towards Petra with his head.

“Tch, cheeky brat,” Levi rolled his eyes and glanced at the flower she was holding. “Here, watch over mine, yeah?” he gave her the dandelion that he’s been holding onto, and Petra’s eyes positively sparkled when she accepted it.

“Found the mirrooor!” Hanji shouted obnoxiously as she ran across the grassy field with said object raised high up in her hands, her volume startling all three of them. “Oh! Did I interrupt something?” she cocked up a brow.

“Leave the mirror,” Levi told her. “Erwin says we’re going. There are some clouds to the east and we shouldn’t risk getting caught in the rain outside. We should’ve brought Mike, the bastard can smell a storm hours before it starts,” he added more just to himself. The last thing he wanted was not only splitting his attention between Eren and the other titans but the worsening visual conditions too.

“Aw, I really wanted to see Eren look at his reflection though!”

Levi regarded her with a stern look. “You’ll have plenty of time for that later. Uh, fine, do it quickly,” he waved a hand, dismissing her even though he didn’t have the authority. “Petra will get your horse, just be ready to leave when it’s time.”

“Yes!” Hanji sang gleefully and threw a kiss at the Captain. “You’re the best, short stack!”

“Whatever, shitty glasses. Come on, Petra, before I change my mind and decide to leave this idiot behind.”

“Yes, sir!” Petra quickly followed, and carefully put the two dandelions in the inner pocket of her jacket.

“You’d never leave me behind, Levi, you love me too much!” Hanji shouted after them, her voice shaking with laughter.

“Don’t tempt me!” Levi answered without turning back, and there was a quiet smile on Petra’s lips as she caught up with her captain.

The two riders slowed down by the edge of the forest and halted the horses just before the hooves touched the grass. The vast, open field was painted yellow by an eerie light that was soon to be overshadowed by the dark purplish clouds gathering on the eastern horizon.

“If the wind direction and speed doesn’t change, it’ll be here in just about the time we would arrive at the Wall,” Erwin said.

The weather in titan territory was always as menacing of a threat as titans themselves. A little fog that blocked the signal of flare guns and left everyone to fight on their own could mean the difference between life and death while getting caught in a rainstorm was an outright death sentence because titans could still move around just fine even in those conditions. On average one out of ten scouts survived a rainstorm.

Levi squinted his eyes at the far away bruise on the sky. There was always a chance that those clouds evaded them or simply dried up by the time they reached them, but there was never a way of telling. It was always a gamble.

“We could wait it out,” Levi proposed just to list off another course of action they could take.

“No. We tempted faith enough by staying here as long as we did. I’d rather not test out the effect the rain could have on the efficiency of this scent marking protection.”

“That’s a pity. Hanji would build you a shrine if you did,” Levi said flatly, earning an amused side glance from Erwin.

“I’d do with her finally following my orders to the letter for a month.”

“Dream on,” Levi snorted and turned his horse back to the forest. “If there’s nothing else.” They were just about ready to leave, the few carts they had already packed, and all their equipment was checked three times to make sure that no malfunction happened on the field. Four lives were saved already that day before they ever set out simply by noticing a snapped wire and a broken belt buckle.

“Wait a minute, Levi,” Erwin called out after him. “I wanted to ask you about something. How are you getting along with your squad? How’s your relationship with them?”

Levi furrowed his brows, not having the faintest clue where this sudden question came from. “What relationship? What are you implying…?”

“Oh, nothing like that!” Erwin quickly waved his hand dismissively and chuckled. “I’m asking about your mindset and the way they’ve been treating you since your return.”

“They’re soldiers, Erwin, they’re doing their job. What the hell are you on about?”

“I noticed that you’ve been rather distant with them.”

Levi lifted his brows and felt genuinely confused. Has he been distant? He wasn’t any different from how he usually was, and from what he could tell, his team didn’t act any different from the way they did when Levi picked them out half a year before he went missing. Eld was still calm and collected, Gunther was still helpful and a quick-thinker, Oluo was still a hot-headed idiot with an impressive kill count, and Petra was still a confusing mix of fierce warrior and blushing mess. Nothing changed there. Did Levi miss something? Erwin wasn’t trying to warn him of a fledging mutiny, was he?

“What I mean,” Erwin spoke, “is that I understand that you still don’t know each other that well, and you might not have gotten too attached to them, but they certainly did. Losing you took a toll on them, and now they have you back, but you’re very cold with them.”

“Do you want me to mother them?” Levi snorted and averted his gaze. He tasted bitter stomach acid on his tongue. “That’s not my job as–”

“It is your job as captain to keep your team together, Levi, just like any leader. I’m not asking you to babysit them, but I am asking you not to push them away. Spend time with them. Bond with them. You’re more than capable on the field by yourself, but if you want to walk far, walk with others. You’ll reach further.”

Has Levi been pushing his squad members away? He did beat up Oluo, but that wasn’t exactly out of character for him. That was very in character for Levi. And as for keeping a group of people united, he knew all about that back from the Underground when he had a fairly large organization on his hand, though Furlan was without a doubt more charismatic than he was, kind of like Eld.

His stomach tightened, and suddenly he felt extremely uncomfortable under Erwin’s gaze. Furlan was nothing like Eld. None of them could ever be compared.

Oh, this was it, wasn’t it? The fear of replacing his family with another one. Levi wanted to chuckle when he realized this, and that out of all people it was Erwin who helped him to this depressing epiphany.

He sighed and clicked his tongue. Fine, he thought. He would play mother for a group of people once again for the sake of surviving this hellhole, which was the outside world.

“Alright, Erwin. I’ll trust your judgment.”

The man smiled, and gave him a curt, but not unfriendly nod. They rode back to the forest in comfortable silence. When they got closer to the clearing, Levi noticed Hanji running toward them, and his heart skipped a beat, immediately fearing the worst. With a hand grasping his sword his eyes began searching for Eren. Only when he spotted him by the tree, watching the uneasy soldiers, did he emit a soft sigh.

“Hanji, what happened?” Erwin asked, and Levi heard the same kind of relief in his voice that Levi himself felt.

“You… need to…” she was panting so hard that she could barely breathe, but the manic grin that she wore spoke more than her words. She probably discovered something about Eren that no one but her found interesting. “Oh, for the love of Sina, you have to see this!”

She led them to Eren, who greeted them with a friendly grunt, and Hanji quickly climbed up on his palm.

“Eren, can you do it again?” she whispered with her hands clasped together. “Can you say it again?”

Levi raised a brow, now his attention fully trained on the two. Did Hanji manage to teach Eren something? Could that even be possible? Eren’s brilliant eyes were focusing on the small human’s frame with pure adoration.

“Eren, listen, can you say Hanji? You know, just like we talked about it, Haaan-jiii. Haaan-ji!”

Eren opened his mouth, his tongue rolling around clumsily in his mouth, but a sound was yet to be heard. They all watched in dead silence, the anticipation making everyone tense when suddenly Eren let out two short grunts. One that sounded like ‘hah’ and the other one ‘eh’.

“Yesss!” Hanji erupted in screaming laughter, and she began clapping. “Amazing job, Eren, you’re such a good titan! Hey, Levi, Erwin, did you hear that?” she spun around. Her face was about as red as a girl’s who’s been flirted with by her childhood crush for the first time.

“How eloquent,” Levi finally managed to say, and his remark was immediately rewarded with one of Erwin’s scolding glares.

“Hah!” Hanji laughed. “I think you’re just jealous, sourpuss, that Eren’s first word is my name and not yours!”

Now that made Levi scowl. “It wasn’t even a word, and it certainly wasn’t your name. And we don’t have time for this, a big ass storm is coming our way. You can play babysitter later.”

“It’s true,” the Commander stepped in. “Hanji, we need to get moving before the rain arrives. Let’s hurry up, everyone!”

They all quickly got on their horses and accompanied by the shaking of Eren’s footsteps behind them, they rode past the last line of trees and out onto the open field. Though it was still just around noon, the land was lit only by a dim light from above. It painted the grass and the leaves of trees a strange, rusty color as if there was something in the air that tainted the sunlight.

Levi urged his horse to gallop faster, but they haven’t gotten far yet when Hanji’s yelp grabbed their attention: “Ah, Erwin!” she sounded distressed, though she didn’t warn for titans. She halted her horse and looked back. “Something’s wrong!”

They all stopped and turning back they saw that Eren was standing on the edge of the forest, on the border where the field was separated by a line of trees. He was watching them but didn’t step any closer.

Levi tilted his head to the side, feeling genuinely confused about why Eren wouldn’t follow them.

“Oi, brat, what is it?” he raised his voice and Eren grunted, the sound trembling and uncertain.

Something that Levi hadn’t thought about before crossed his mind. Was Eren afraid of the world outside the forest? He never considered it, given how Eren was taller and stronger than most titans Levi had encountered during his career in the military.

“It’s alright, come!” he motioned towards the others with a tilt of his head.

But Eren just hummed, those beautiful eyes widening a little. Levi was slowly becoming more and more frustrated. They couldn’t fail now when they were so close to success. They had to get Eren to follow them. He wanted to know what Eren meant, he needed to know what went on inside that head of his, because that was the only way to protect him from the things he was afraid of.

“Captain!” Petra rode up to him, her eyes trained on Eren.

“It’s fine, I got this.”

“Sir, perhaps he needs your encouragement,” she contemplated and touched the place on her jacket where the dandelions hid inside her pocket.

“I am encouraging him, dammit!”

“No, sir, the way you did before!” she insisted.

Levi regarded her with an expression of consideration, then he nudged his horse forward, and rode up to the titan. He only stopped when he was a couple of meters away.

“Eren,” he spoke and searched for the softest, most reassuring tone his voice could manage. He raised a hand, palm facing the sky. “Will you come with me?”

Eren’s ears twitched, and he let out a small whine. Levi didn’t break the eye contact with him, but the tension was getting almost too uncomfortable. It couldn’t end like this, they can’t just turn around and let Eren go back, not after everything they’ve done to get here.

“Eren, please,” he sighed softly, his gaze almost pleading now. “Come with me. I promise nothing will happen to you. I’ll protect you.”

Eren blinked, and those small wrinkles around his eyes reappeared. He looked down on the grass, still a little unsure, but when he glanced at Little One again, warmth flooded his chest. Those cold, grey eyes melted into a pool of inviting sunshine, and Eren took his first step on the field outside the forest.

“That’s it, good boy, come on,” Levi kept talking as Eren slowly emerged from within the murky green shadows, his ears constantly turning, looking for possible threats, but his eyes zeroed in on Levi. “Just follow me, brat!”

He wedged his heels in the sides of his horse and dictated a comfortable pace while Eren slowly started gaining speed.

He heard Erwin’s orders from up front, and the group started moving again. Levi constantly kept looking behind him to make sure Eren was still there.

“Good job, Petra!” he raised his voice to talk above the wind that began whooshing in their ears, and the girl smiled back at him.

“Yes, sir!” she shouted, her voice unwavering and not showing a single ounce of fear for the titan running behind them, and Levi thought that taking Erwin’s advice maybe wasn’t the worst idea.

Eren was running at a steady pace now. Much like a human would, he bent his arms by the elbows and kept them close to his sides, swinging them fluidly to keep up his balance and speed. It was a mesmerizing sight. With the cramped-up space of the forest gone, Levi could finally see Eren from a little more afar with nothing blocking his view.

Eren’s movements were almost identical to a human’s, but he possessed a certain fascinating brutality, something animalistic and raw. His muscles flexed and relaxed in beautiful harmony as his body moved, and Levi felt his breath halting a little every time he looked at him, wondering how something as huge and heavy as Eren could run with such fluidity like he was made of air.

Meanwhile, Eren never once took his eyes off of his Little One. He knew that the small human was strong enough to fend for his own, after all, he was still alive, yet Eren’s empty stomach twisted every time he caught the distant scent of a titan.

All of his senses were on high alert. He never left the forest before, and the only reason he resisted the urge of turning back and seeking comfort in the shadows of the trees was because he would’ve had to leave Little One behind then. He wasn’t going to do that, not when the human came back to Eren on his own accord with all his weird human friends. Eren liked to watch Little One interact with them, he liked to see the sunlight shining through his eyes when he was talking to a friend, and he wanted to keep seeing them, no matter the price. He felt warm when he was around Little One and the screaming brown-haired human, and the one with the sunset hair who spoke to him quietly, and he wanted to keep feeling warm.

He heard the first yell at the same time when a gust of wind brushed against his nose and he caught the scent of a titan. The humans were riding in a tight pack, not like how Eren sometimes saw them in the past when they kept a distance between themselves, and instead of using sounds, they talked through a language of colored clouds.

A threatening growl bubbled up from his stomach when he caught sight of the titan far away to the left. It was walking towards them with its head tilted back and mouth hanging open, and Eren was overcome with the urge of grabbing that jaw and ripping the top part of its head clean off, but the sound of Little One’s voice stopped him.

“Eren!” That was all he understood, and the rest of the words rolling off of Little One’s tongue was carried off by the wind, undeciphered. Eren whined in frustration, wanting to know what the small human wanted from him so he could make him happy, but the barrier was too large between them, and Eren’s nerves were twitching in disgust at the sight of the titan.

He flexed the muscles in his calves and pushed himself with greater force from the ground, ready to gain speed and meet the titan halfway, but the sound of his name once again held him back, like there was an invisible hook attached to his neck, and the end of the rope was in the human’s hand, who kept yanking him back.

“Eren!” He looked back and saw a single, pale hand reach out for him. They were too far away from each other for Little One to touch him, but Eren recognized the gesture: follow me. He didn’t need to be asked twice. He took a deep breath and huffed to clean his respiratory track from the rotting smell of the titan and kept running.

Levi exhaled a shaky breath when Eren changed course and instead of going straight for the titan, he started following them.

They evaded the titan from a safe distance and rushed past it before it could ever dream of snatching any of them from their horses. Their luck, as expected, didn’t last much longer.

The first rumbling of thunder came around an hour after they set out. It was a deep, threatening sound, not close enough to be an immediate threat, but the volume increased with each clap, and the time passing between two rumbles became shorter and shorter.

The sky increasingly turned color, first from light blue to purple, and now almost the whole thing was tainted with a deep greyish-blue. There were only a few faint patches of orange clouds left on the western horizon.

“Titan!” someone shouted just a second before two abnormals burst out of the nearby woods.

Levi cursed to himself and drew his blades in a blink of an eye. Eren’s footsteps were too loud and too close for them to hear any other approaching titans. This was a considerable blind spot, which he hadn’t foreseen.

Erwin, however, didn’t seem phased. “Soldiers, scatter and continue riding forward!” he shouted, and the riders fled like a flock of birds right before the first titan crashed into the ground with its mouth wide open, ready to devour anyone who was too late.

Chunks of rocks and grass showered down on them, and not just from the impact of the titan pursuing them.

Eren roared; it was a sound that made Levi’s blood freeze in his veins even after hearing it countless times. The vibrations of the terrifying sound shook his body down to its very core. Eren hunched down and jumped, dirt flying everywhere, and launched a vicious attack on the first titan.

The scouts glared with wide-eyed looks at Eren, who flung an arm at his opponent, and with a slash of his claws, he almost severed the titan’s whole head off. Blood splattered across a set of white fangs.

The other two titans caught up to them, a seven- and eight-meter class, and they were now heading dangerously close to Eren.

“Come on, shitheads!” Levi yelled above the deafening sound of the wind and heavy footsteps to his squad members and shot his grapple hooks into one of the titan’s chests. “Protect the brat no matter what!”

The wires yanked him out of the saddle, and he flew at the titan with the speed of a bullet. He raised his blades, one held in a reverse grip, and he cut through a set of fingers reaching out for him. Blood squirted everywhere, and the severed limbs fell on the grass with a wet thud. He used the titan’s mutilated hand for leverage, and kicking himself in the air he flew right at the titan’s nape, cutting out a bleeding chunk of red.

There was a giant hand coming for him from behind. A second later it was gone. People were shouting, and Levi caught the flash of orange and blond hair on the titan’s nape, which was about to devour him just a second ago.

At the same time, Eren wedged his hand in the gaping hole on the titan’s throat, and with a bloodcurdling crunching sound, he tore the whole head off. Raising the bloodied body part high in the air, he swung his arm and smashed it against the ground. Only crumbs of bone and a puddle of steaming blood remained.

“Holy shit!” Gunther choked out as he landed on the grass, a smudge of blood still steaming on his cape. “Did he really just do that?”

“I’m starting to understand what the whole fuss was about,” Eld mumbled, and Petra nodded after a moment of shocked silence.

“Let’s move before we get any more attention!” Levi ordered and hopped back on his horse. “Eren!” he raised his voice, and those vibrant eyes, now soaking in glorious bloodlust snapped at him. “Let’s go!”

This time he didn’t need to say it twice. They quickly caught up with the rest of the team, and Levi saw Erwin turn back in the saddle to take a look at them, his eyes bright with satisfaction. Everything Levi told them about Eren seemed to be true and even more.

The clapping of thunder was almost constant now.

The wind started assaulting the group with an alarming force, throwing dust in their eyes. The thundering sound from the sky was harsh, like logs of wood being snapped in half, and they were now coming from practically above them.

A gust of wind blew in their faces, carrying the scent of rain.

The dark clouds above them could burst any minute, but there was a faint chance that they made it out from underneath them before the rain would pour down on them.

The last of the hopeful, golden stripe on the horizon faded, and they were now surrounded by patches of different shades of grey and deep purple.

There was a violent clap coming from above that echoed across the land, and as if on cue, the first droplet of water fell on Levi’s hand. It was barely the size of the head of a needle, but the icy spot of coldness was proof enough. It began raining.

Far up ahead the pale body of Wall Maria was almost visible now on the horizon. Levi grit his teeth, the last of the titan’s blood evaporated from his clothes, and he urged his horse to run faster. It wasn’t long now until they reached it.

They were targeted by five more attacks. It would’ve been less if they didn’t have Eren with them, since a smaller group of people attracted less hungry eyes, but what disadvantage Eren brought upon them he made it up in brutal punches and merciless bites. Levi never let him out of sight for too long, nor did he prefer Eren to fight every titan that came across them, fearing that Eren might tire himself out, but there was little to stop him when his instincts kicked in and he threw himself on a growling titan.

Densely packed raindrops began falling down on them, and it was clear that visibility will soon drop to a worryingly low quality. They were only about five hundred meters from the walls now, and Erwin quickly changed their course of path. He led them away from the gate to Shiganshina and the prying Garrison eyes. If Levi squinted, he could make out the outlines of the heavy bundle of nets that have been prepared on the western side of the wall by a few of their men.

He peeked at Eren from the corner of his eyes and wasn’t surprised to see that the titan was doing the same thing. Those emerald eyes never let him out of sight. Levi had no doubt that Eren trusted them enough to tie him up for the sake of appearances, and with a little coaxing, it wouldn’t be too hard to calm him in case the nets made him anxious; he just hoped no one on their side would fuck it up.

They rode through a small forest and reached the plain field that stretched out between them and the pale wall. The trees in this area weren’t cut down too far out like they were around the Shiganshina district, since there was no need to see far ahead if there were any titans lurking nearby. Just in case though, Erwin sent out ten of his men to guard the other side of the forest while they were getting ready to transport Eren inside.

There were two dozen people in green capes waiting for them on top of the wall, ready to take instructions. They watched with pale faces as the group of scouts emerged from within the shadows of the forest, followed by Eren, obediently trotting behind them.

Levi heard Eren let out a long, gargling hum, and looking up he saw the titan’s eyes go comically wide when he first took in the sight of Wall Maria. Eren slowed down, and tilted his head up, looking at the humans above with childish amazement. It made Levi scoff in amusement.

“Not used to being the small one, huh, brat?” he asked, his voice drawing Eren’s attention back to him and the people waiting for them. “Come on, we gotta hurry!”

With a roll of his hips, Levi encouraged his horse to move forward, and Eren walked up to the wall with a few of his heavy steps. He inspected the wall closer, and reached out with a hand, but didn’t touch it immediately. He yanked his hand back just before his fingertips would make contact as if he was expecting it to burn him, or how wild animals didn’t immediately touch something that smelled foreign.

“Lower the net!” came Erwin’s order, and the scouts above started lowering the rolled-up net on thick ropes.

The Special Operations Squad kicked themselves out of their saddles and shot their grapple hooks into the wall, pulling themselves up until they were about Eren’s height. With his feet standing against the smooth, off-white surface, Levi was closest to Eren, who upon noticing the movement from above, started nervously growling.

“Hey, brat, it’s okay!” Levi quickly said, aiming for his voice to be smoother, and the usual raspy undertone almost completely disappeared. “Eren.”

The titan snapped his head towards him, the uneasiness still clear in his eyes, but it was less prominent now. Levi maneuvered himself closer and waved his hand at the titan to get him to step next to the wall. Eren didn’t hesitate to come up to him until his face was only about three meters away from Levi’s.

“I know you don’t understand any of this shit, but it’s going to be fine. This is our only way to get you inside the walls, so please, stop fidgeting.”

Meanwhile, Erwin shot his hooks far up ahead and pulled himself almost halfway along the wall. “Mike, give me a quick report on our status!”

“I sent Nanaba and three of my men to ready the cart when we spotted you, sir!” the squad leader said, his eyes trained on Eren’s head like a hawk’s. “They should arrive in about fifteen minutes!”

“And the Garrison?”

“A round of patrol should arrive in about half an hour once they let the cart pass. There’s no way they won’t want to see the capturing of a titan. A patrol went by about twenty minutes ago, but I doubt they spotted you or us in this goddamn rain. We stood below the wall before your arrival, as you ordered.”

Erwin nodded. “Thank you, Mike. Everyone, focus on the task ahead, let’s get this done, and let’s go home! Levi?”

“We’re all set,” Levi said standing on Eren’s shoulder because he found out that that was the amount of closeness the titan needed right now to stop fidgeting and backing away. “Start lowering that ugly ass net!”

As the metal entwined web of ropes was slowly lowered onto them, with Levi barely fitting through one of the holes, Eren let out a nervous whine. Petra swung closer to them, her face showing clear signs of discomfort.

“Captain, is this really necessary?” she asked. “He’s not doing anything.”

“Don’t be stupid, Petra, we can’t bring him inside untied,” Levi said plainly, though he wasn’t much of a fan of this plan either, and he was even less fond of the idea that from this day on, Eren won’t be spending much of his time without some sort of restriction. For the good of fucking humanity, he kept repeating to himself.

“How is he holding up?” Hanji pulled up next to them. Her cape was almost black now from the amount of rainwater soaking her cape, and she had to put her goggles on her forehead because they kept fogging up.

“What do you think? He’s getting wrapped up in this shitty net like he’s some fucked up stuffed cabbage roll.” Levi was thankful that Hanji didn’t push it any further and instead went to help her men in the arrangement of the net while cooing to Eren about all kinds of things to soothe him.

Eren didn’t like the way the strange web slowly enwrapped his body, but he was too afraid to move a muscle despite his discomfort while Little One was still standing on his shoulder. The presence of the small one calmed him down, and he trusted that the human would stop something bad from happening to him like he always did.

There was a sound coming from the left, and he snapped his head up, immediately fearing that they were in danger. He started growling a little when he noticed the new group of people breaking through the endless walls of heavy rain, and the moment of excitement was enough for his instincts to kick in.

His heart rate was picking up, and his fingers started tingling like they did every time he got the urge to get his claws into warm flesh and blood, but the threatening sound seeping through his teeth immediately stopped when a human flew in front of him and stood against his nose like he was some wall too. It took him a moment to refocus his vision and realize that it was Little One hanging right in front of his face.

“Eren, calm your ass down, it’s all good,” Levi reassured sternly, making sure that the titan understood who was in charge. There was a strong wind coming from the north, but thankfully they were mostly shielded by the walls. “I won’t let them hurt you, so just let us do our job.”

Eren blinked at him, not understanding a single word, and Levi’s icy gaze softened. He reached out to touch his palm against Eren’s forehead and heard the titan quietly hum at him. The contrast between Levi’s cold, rigid fingers and Eren’s blazing hot skin was just incredible. Levi was surprised that the water didn’t instantly evaporate the moment it hit Eren’s skin.

Once Eren seemed to calm down and Nanaba arrived with the second and third team of Mike Zacharias’ squad, Levi jumped to the ground to inspect the monstrous cart, which was specifically made for the route from here to back to headquarters. It was quite the sturdy thing, but Hanji told him before they left that even this one won’t be able to carry a fifteen-meter class titan forever. They could only hope that Eren didn’t stock up on carbs and gained weight on sunlight while Levi was gone, otherwise, they had a fucking problem. The last thing they needed was a broken cart with a titan on it in the middle of Shiganshina.

Speaking of which.

Erwin landed next to Levi and acknowledged Nanaba’s salute with a nod. “How is the situation inside?”

“Squad Leader Dita managed to get the MPs to cooperate with us and they’re now evacuating the main roads along with the houses and smaller streets that have a direct view onto the road,” Nanaba said in her professional, matter-of-fact way, which earned a surprised look from Erwin.

“How much did they ask for?”

“Didn’t ask for anything, sir, apart from that we don’t demolish the whole district by accidentally letting loose of the captured titan.”

“That sounds too reasonable for the MP,” Levi pointed out sourly. Rarely did it go well when the Survey Corps and the Military Police made a deal, and even when those bastards accepted the scouts’ requests, the price they had to pay for it was plain outrageous.

“Dita and the new regional captain are apparently childhood friends,” Erwin said. “Still, we better keep an eye out on our savings in case they get in the mood of good old-fashioned blackmail.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Levi growled.

Eren watched them in quiet, his eyes never leaving Little One’s figure. He made Eren feel less afraid, less lost in this strange, human world. He wondered what would greet them on the other end of these tall, white rocks.

There was a cold shift in the air, and the direction of the wind suddenly changed. Capes were pulled at violently, and the humans with their feet against the rocks next to Eren lost their balance from the unexpected push. The small, sunset-haired human yelped, and before the others could help her, one of her wires snapped, and she began swinging against the rocks at a dangerous speed.

Eren’s hands launched after her before he could even think about it. Forming two cups with his hands, he swiftly caught her mid-air, though the web of ropes entangled around his body made this significantly more difficult than it would’ve been otherwise.

The human in his hands gawped at him in stunned amazement. Others began to shout, no doubt fearing that Eren would hurt this person; they had this obsession with Eren wanting to hurt them, no matter how many times Eren tried to tell them that the thought of eating any of them made him sick to his stomach.

Little One was shouting something too, and the humans around him quieted down.

Then Eren caught the scent of rotting flesh.

His body instantly tensed up, making the human in his hold whimper a little, but he no longer paid attention. The smell was so strong that it burnt Eren’s throat even when he wasn’t breathing. Flesh rotting in the pool of acidic liquid, a scent so awful that made Eren gag and want to rip his own insides out.

Titans. They had to be so close if their scent was this prominent, but the direction of the wind and the forest hid their presence up until now, while the sound of the rain and the humans shouting orders at each other masked the thundering of their footsteps. The humans were about to get attacked, and they had no way of knowing it in advance.

Eren’s low, threatening growl was the only warning the scouts got before hell was let loose on them. Eren dropped Petra, his eyes no longer on any of them, and Oluo caught her just before she hit the ground.

“Oi, what the fuck was that!” he shouted, outraged with the titan’s sudden recklessness, but he didn’t get to say anything else before he was almost crushed into a bloody puddle by Eren’s left foot.

The titan stumbled backward, and Levi for a moment thought that maybe the nets were too tight around him and somehow he lost his balance, but then he saw the clawed hands making jerky motions, and how Eren tried to rub his back against the wall. He was trying to tear the net off himself.

“Eren, stop it!” he bellowed, rushing to get to the titan before any of the idiots began to panic. He swung himself in the air, but one of his wires was almost trampled over by Eren, and he escaped crashing into the ground only by a hair’s breadth.

Eren was constantly growling and screaming now like a feral animal, and Levi only watched as for a moment he was too stunned to do anything. He had never seen Eren act like this before.

Blades were quickly drawn, but Erwin’s commanding voice stopped the scouts mid-track of going for the nape. “No, don’t kill him! Tighten the ropes around him, now!” he yelled before jumping into action too. Levi quickly followed.

Eren’s staggering height never seemed to be more intimidating as it was now, stumbling and swinging his upper torso in all directions to tear away the ropes from his body. He looked like he was having a full-blown fit of rage, his throat probably bloody from the way he was screaming. They needed to secure him before Eren could hurt himself or anyone else. It was better to apologize later for the rough handling.

“That guy said it, it’s been playing us for fools all along! He’s been waiting to attack us!” Levi heard, and his body immediately flamed up in anger.

“Everyone shut the fuck up and do your fucking jobs!” he shouted through the rain and the screeching of the icy wind. It was so fucking cold that he barely felt his fingers and toes anymore. He maneuvered himself near to Eren’s head, but he couldn’t land anywhere on his body, because he was moving too much. He grunted in pain when another one of Eren’s screams ripped from his throat. “Eren!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Eren, calm down! It’s okay, no one will–”

Glowing eyes of emerald locked onto his, and all the blood suddenly froze in his veins. With newfound strength, Eren wedged his claws in between the holes of the net, and with a belligerent cry, he started tearing it apart. The ropes and wires snapped with a metallic sound, and the people holding onto the lead line screamed when the resistance was suddenly no more, and they fell back. It was chaos.

“Hanji!” Levi roared until his throat screamed for him to stop. “As an expert on titans, your insight on what the fuck we should do would be very fucking much appreciated!”

“Don’t you dare fucking kill him!” Hanji yelled back, her words directed at her and Levi’s team. “Hold him down!”

“Soldiers, brace your hearts and hold on!” Erwin joined in, and launching himself into the air, he used the headline of the net to wrap around Eren’s torso in hopes of limiting his movements.

However, when it came to a raging fifteen-meter class titan, no number of humans could prevent it from doing whatever it wanted, unless it was chained to the ground. You either let go or kill it, there was no other option.

Hanji shot her grapple hooks, aiming for the top of the wall, and pulled herself up into the dizzying heights. From there she could see members of the Garrison approaching from both sides. She cursed out loud; this was the last thing they needed right now.

Levi tried to get close to Eren once again, tried to get his attention, but it was no use, the titan was completely out of it. “Eren, stop this already!” he bellowed and attempted to maneuver himself in front of the titan the same way he did only about ten minutes ago, hoping that his touch would do miracles again. “Eren! Have you gone completely mad?!”

“Levi, don’t go close to him!” Erwin yelled, ignoring the burning pain on his palms caused by the ropes.

“Commander, he’s slipping away!”

“Commander, your orders!”

“Commander, permission to attack!”

“Do not fucking attack!” Levi screamed back at the faceless voices in outrage, but he knew well just how little a captain’s words meant when they went against a commander’s orders. He felt a slow numbness beginning to crawl up on all his limbs, and his heart was shaking; the confusion and rage started to settle in as the most vicious poison of all: panic.

That was when Eren tore a hole large enough to fit his body through the net, and warm fingers wrapped around Levi too tightly. His breath hitched painfully. He heard his name and then Eren’s screech, then there was blood everywhere.

At the same time, Hanji’s eyes went as wide as saucers on top of the wall. From there she could make out the pale, wobbling figures of the ghostlike shadows; the rain and the thick canopy of trees made it almost impossible to notice them. Titans this close could only mean that their first line of defense, the men posted on watch, were completely obliterated. There was no way of telling how many of them were coming.

“Shit! Titans!” she screamed, but there was no one to hear her through the hellish noise of chaos. Her eyes darted back in horror onto the sight that presented below.

Eren was wailing now, his whole right hand missing, and dark blood flooded from his steaming wrist, drenching anyone in red who stood too close. Levi fell onto the ground from ten meters above, Eren’s severed hand muting the impact, but there was still a paralyzing wave of pain shooting through his body when he crashed down. He dropped his sword, the blade covered in blood. All air forcibly rushed out of his lungs, and all he could do was gape breathlessly, while Eren tore the last of his restrains. He saw Eren’s vicious snarl, and the green capes flew in the air in his direction.

He rolled onto his stomach. His ears were ringing and his head was threatening to split in half. He must’ve had a mild concussion from the fall, but he tried to push his body up, stand up, protect Eren, you promised to protect him…

He was only distracted for a single minute. Between one heartbeat and the next, in the midst of shouting and whooshing grapple hooks, there was a flash of blue followed by red.

Levi’s head whipped around, the sudden silence and the quiet, surprised whimper sending shivers down his spine.

He knew it before he turned around like he always did. He had an intuition for these things; out of all the talents human nature got to offer, his was knowing without doubt when something awful had happened. When he was unsure, only feeling a sense of dread, then there was a chance that things would turn out fine. But when his body went cold and no sense of fear clouded his judgment, he knew that the worst had happened. He always knew.

Eren stood with his back arched, jaws slightly hanging open, his arms looking as if they meant to reach upwards, but they were still tied to his body by rounds and rounds of ropes. He was frozen in motion for a second before his knees buckled.

Levi watched with his feet rooted to the ground as Eren fell forward, people jumping out of the way, yelling, and screaming their lungs out. There was a trail of gray smoke in the air, and Eren crashed down onto the field with a force that shook the ground beneath Levi’s feet.

“Titans!” shouts suddenly came from all directions.

“Watch out!”

“Get out of the fucking way!”

“On your horses, move, move, move!”

“Soldiers!” Erwin’s voice bellowed across the field and echoed by the flat surface of the wall, but Levi didn’t hear any of it.

The world around him was a mush of buzzing noises and foggy images.

He stared down at Eren with wide eyes. A nauseating sensation was burning his throat, yet everything else in his body felt ice cold, making him feel sick to his guts.

Eren laid on his stomach, his head resting on his chin, and jaws dislocated. His eyes were searching Levi’s face in a hazy fire as if he was trying to see something that wasn’t there. Those green irises washed over with pure terror and agony, and they were begging for Levi to help in any way, it didn’t matter how, just please, don’t leave, tell me what’s happening, don’t leave me, help me, please…

Levi stood and watched motionlessly. The life was draining out of Eren in front of his very eyes, like it was water, gushing out of the cut made on his nape. Levi was powerless against the speed with which Eren’s body started to steam and smolder.

His brows furrowed.

Wait, it was happening too fast.

He had to fix this.

Eren came here with him, he promised that he would protect him, he needed to fix this. He just needed a minute to think, Eren wasn’t about to die, Levi wasn’t going to allow that. The brat still had to endure Hanji’s bullshit worth of experiments, he still had to learn how to talk so Levi would finally hear what he was thinking, and Levi still had to bring him back to the forest, where they would never be bothered by humans again. Levi still had to fulfill these promises.

There was a quiet, exhausted grunt, almost like a sigh.

Look at me…

And Levi did.

A single trail of tears ran down each side of Eren’s face, mixing in with steaming blood and the dirt smeared across his cheeks. You did this, Levi heard his own voice echo in his head. Look at what you did. You did this.

His heart felt cold and numb.

Levi still saw all the things in Eren’s eyes that he was not. Someone to admire, someone to follow, someone to save, someone to love.

He was none of that. He did this. You did this.

Monster.

There was a fragile moment when the last beacon of light shone brightly over the horizon and through the dark clouds. The rusty trail of gold defied the laws of nature for only a fickle of a second before dying, and the land was covered in grey and left cold. The flower bloomed and then withered, as it was meant to.

The ocean blue freckles in Eren’s eyes glistened one more time before the tears dried up and his pupils blew wide. And just like that, whatever it was that made this titan Eren, whatever made him kind, caring, and compassionate; his soul, his consciousness, or maybe his spirit; it was all gone.

Levi felt like he was trying to swallow oil, his throat was covered in a thick, slimy substance that clogged his lungs and numbed his tongue. That dread that assaulted his body the moment he knew something was wrong, had died down, and his heart was left in empty silence. The hundreds of daggers cutting into the flesh of his chest and arms were gone, leaving his wounds to be flooded by ice cold air, with no warmth to ease the pain.

He heard distant voices but nothing reached him, not even their touch. He was once again experiencing the world through a soundproof sheet of invisible fabric. The throbbing in his head made it easier to bear, it shut down most of his senses, except those which helped him kill.

Fucking kill them. They’re all worthless pieces of shit. Kill them. And yet he knew that no matter how many skulls he bashed in, how much blood he shed, the one guilty for Eren’s fate would never be punished as long as he, Levi, was standing. You did this.

There was a voice coming from not too far from him, the words seeping through the filter which now separated him from the rest of the world. “Who. Killed. Him?!”

That had to be Hanji. No one had an answer for her.

It didn’t fucking matter who did it, Eren was already lost. Everything was so cold. He couldn’t let go of his blades, he had to hold onto them tighter.

The ground was shaking from the approaching titans, and Levi turned to swing at them, wanting to obliterate them all into steaming chunks of flesh, just kill something, anything, but a strong arm curved around his chest, stopping him from taking off.

“Levi, we’re retreating!” Erwin said firmly, and Levi didn’t struggle. He felt cold, he wanted to leave here. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have a choice! It’s too late!”

Why? Why did this always have to happen? Why was everyone around him destined to die? Why was he always too weak, too late, or too helpless to save the few closest to him? His mother, Furlan, Isabel, and now Eren. Why was his presence a sentence of death?

He found himself leaning against Erwin’s touch, and he tore his gaze from the incoming titans to look into Eren’s hollow, dead eyes.

Levi was pushed and pulled, multiple hands on him, and when his palm touched the warm, wet body of his horse and the hard leather of the tack, he crawled up on the saddle on autopilot. There was shouting and a cascade of harsh sounds coming from all directions, but Levi didn’t hear and didn’t remember any of that. His horse was galloping, a steady motion rocking his hips, and rainwater pouring down on his face. There was sunlight. It shone with its fiery rays through the drops of diamonds and illuminated the riders’ bodies in a golden halo.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the titans chase after them, their opaque, disgusting bodies bright in the sunlight, begging to be kissed by cold blades. There was a muted sound, cannon fire, and a titan’s knees buckled.

Through the gap, which was opened between two titans by the one that just fell, Levi could get one last glimpse of Eren’s slowly crumbling figure. Then a gust of wind stirred up the smoke that poured onto the ground, and the grey cloud absorbed the slowly disintegrating remains of Humanity’s Last Hope, forever hiding him from Levi’s eyes.

It happened again, he thought numbly. Why does it always have to end like this…

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed in the hall. It was pitch black outside, the moon currently hiding behind a thick sheet of clouds, depriving the land of its faint blue light.

The young girl who jumped off her horse only a minute ago was panting and sweat glistened on her forehead, but she kept running, hoping to find the person she was looking for before dread completely took over her.

She burst into a room, almost tearing the door down in her momentum. There was only a single lantern burning on a table that was covered in medical equipment and thick, moth-eaten books. Behind them stood a man by the window, his features covered in darkness.

“Why do none of you know how to knock?” came the rhetorical question, the voice deep and monotone.

“They killed him,” she cut in, and she could no longer hold back her emotions. The words spoken out loud opened a gate that she couldn’t lock back up, and they all came out, flooding her features. Her face was a sickly color of grey, but her cheeks burnt in a feverish red, and her eyes were glistening with tears. “They fucking killed him!” she yelled when the man didn’t answer, her voice shaking with anger and begging for him to say something.

The man put down the book he was holding, and with both his hands on the windowsill, he hung his head low. “Did you see it happen?”

A mixture of shock and pain flashed across the beautiful blue eyes of the girl as the memories came back to her, and she felt her throat tighten. Not trusting herself with speech, she bit down on her lower lip hard and nodded. “I uh– I watched it from the wall. I couldn’t stay there much longer, but I stayed long enough. If he…” stayed intact “he would’ve come out.”

There was silence between the two for a moment only broken by the bitter sounds of sobbing.

“Ah,” the man muttered under his breath. “I see.” She didn’t need to tell him anything else. She came back empty-handed, and that only meant one thing.

“Maybe…” the girl sobbed and roughly wiped her face down with the sleeve of her shirt. “Maybe the notes were wrong… Maybe it wasn’t him–”

“The notes are never wrong!” the man suddenly snapped, causing the girl to jump a little and then take a step back.

“But then why didn’t he shift?” she asked, tears filling her eyes again, but her voice was steady this time. Her posture changed, she straightened her back to stand taller, and she wore an expression of fierce determination. “Those fucking monsters… they killed him. We must make them pay for it! We have to avenge him!”

The man said nothing. He dragged his slender fingers on the covers of the books in front of him, then reached for his glasses to wipe them. “If only we had a little more time,” he mumbled to himself. “We could’ve found him before they did.”

The light of the lantern flickered, and the room was illuminated by a sudden touch of gentle blue. Rays of moonlight shone through the windows, painting the two figures in ghostly pale colors. When the man looked up again, his eyes looked hollow and devoid of emotion.

“We’ll fast forward the plan,” he declared. “Tell Reiner and the others. I want them to be ready.”

Cold.

That was the first thing he felt.

There was a flash of white, burning pain across his back, before freezing air flooded in.

He never felt anything like that before. Something awakened inside him, the harsh temperatures ripping him from the dreamless sleep, and suddenly he was aware of his whole body. His muscles were tingling uncomfortably like his skin was peeled off and someone rubbed dirt in his raw, bloody flesh.

A thick, rapidly cooling substance covered him, but soon it was no more. It melted off his body like the drops of water that ran down his skin when it rained.

Then Eren was free, and he began dreaming.

Chapter Text

April 5th, 845, Shiganshina

Reporting Officer: THOMAS WEISS

On March 30th, 845, at 0530 hrs, I was dispatched to the south of Wall Maria, 4.3 kilometers west of the gate of Shiganshina district in reference to a sighting of a person outside of the walls. The report came from a member of the Garrison Regiment by the name of private ANKA RHEINBERGER. Upon arrival of private LUKE SISS and myself, we were met by a male individual around the age 14-15 at the scene.

Cold.

That was the first thing he felt.

There was a flash of white and burning pain across his back, before freezing air flooded in.

He never felt anything like that before. Something awakened inside him, the harsh temperatures ripping him from the dreamless sleep, and suddenly he was aware of his whole body. His muscles were tingling uncomfortably like his skin was peeled off and someone rubbed dirt in his raw, bloody flesh.

A thick, rapidly cooling substance covered him, but soon it was no more. It melted off his body like the drops of water that ran down his skin when it rained.

Then Eren was free, and he began dreaming.

He was standing in a forest.

It looked like his forest but he couldn’t tell for sure. He was standing, and he watched the human in front of him getting closer. The image was blurry, like the scent of rain when the sky hasn’t turned dark yet, and there were only short moments of clarity. Eren felt a hint of fear crawl up his spine because he never experienced trouble with his vision before. What was happening to him? Did his eyes get injured? Was he going blind?

The human was blurry and small, though not as small as Little One. Eren squinted, wanting to see the man’s features, but he was a prisoner in his own body, as if it was only a memory. He felt like he was watching the scene unfold in front of him through a wild animal’s eyes. This wasn’t him, it felt foreign.

Eren wanted to ask the man if he knew where Little One was, how he got back to the forest, but his jaws remained sealed and all he could do was watch.

One of his hands reached out against his will, and the man crawled onto his palm. From there, Eren could see how the second skins he was wearing were different from those of Little One’s.

The man looked strangely familiar, though Eren would’ve sworn that he’d never met him. He wasn’t one of Little One’s friends. His hair was brown and the long strands touched his shoulders, and he was also wearing that strange object on his face that Eren had seen before. High-pitched, excited screams echoed across the forest, and Eren remembered a head covered in messy brown hair. That woman with the humans, she also had something like this, a round, see-through sheet of ice in front of her eyes.

Eren wanted to ask the man who he was and where did everyone go; Little One, the messy brown hair, the sunset colored human, and the tall one with blue eyes; but then there was a shout, and Eren shivered. A small, metal object fell from the man’s hand when he whipped his head around, and it fell onto the ground. Eren felt nauseous.

His eyes popped open, and the forest was gone, but not the fear.

Instead of warm sunlight, bitter coldness enwrapped him, and he began shivering like never before. He was confused, there was a line on his back that felt like his skin was burning, and there was a strange, strangling sensation inside his guts that he never experienced before.

A pitiful whine was emitted from his throat and he turned to his side in fetal position. He had never felt pain like this before. Was he dying? He squeezed his eyelids close together and waited, but the pain only increased. He felt damp grass pressing against his side and cheeks, and another shiver shook his body. Then memories from what felt like ages ago slowly began flooding his mind, and he immediately forgot his pain.

The titans were coming. He tried to warn the humans, but no one listened. He probably scared them, they thought he wanted to kill them; they were so obsessed with Eren trying to hurt them, and he simply didn’t understand why.

Little One probably also thought that Eren wanted to eat him; that he was a monster. Did they cut him with their sharp sticks? Is that why it felt like his whole body was on fire?

He opened his eyes a second time and looked around. The pain clouded his senses.

Dawn was already upon him, and the sky changed color from dark blue to greyish pink. There was not enough sunlight yet for him to fight titans, but he had to get up, he had to protect Little One. He rolled onto his stomach and tried to push himself on all fours, when–

Pain.

He screamed when the lightning bolt struck across his back and he fell on his stomach. For a minute or so he could do nothing but lay there and wait until the aching subsided a little. It felt like someone was flaying the skin from his back with every breath he took. Swallowing the salted water that poured down on his face, he gritted his teeth and tried again.

This time he was prepared when the horrific sensation ripped through his body. It must’ve been a fresh injury.

Pushing himself up and then looking around, he saw no one and nothing apart from strange, tall grass, the woods ahead, and the stone behind him. A few patches of dirt smoldered on the ground around him in a circle, emitting faint, grey smoke. Titans must’ve died here, but it also had to be some time ago, otherwise their corpses would still be visible. He didn’t see blood or small, disfigured bodies anywhere.

It was a relief to know that the humans survived, but fear still settled deep inside his heart. He was alone, and he wanted to know what happened. It also didn’t help that he struggled to remember anything that happened before he fell asleep and met the strange man in the forest. He could only remember dull colors, muted sounds and pain.

Water began flowing from his eyes and dripping down on his chin, and he felt like he was drowning. His breathing was uneven, and he struggled to fill his lungs with enough oxygen.

As he was hunching over on all fours, trying to catch a breath and blink away the foreign wetness from his eyes, he noticed that his hands looked different from how they usually did. This momentary confusion enabled him to get a grip on his slowly disintegrating collectedness, and his awakening curiosity pushed the fear out of his mind.

He lifted a hand to inspect it from closer. Instead of his long, sharp claws, he had short, stubby fingernails that felt soft to the touch. His hand was also spotless; there wasn’t a single smudge of dirt anywhere on his skin, even though he faintly remembered falling face first onto the ground.

He tapped two of his fingertips together and hummed, when he noticed that something was stuck to his teeth. It was warm and soft. He lifted a hand to clumsily brush off whatever was there, but he was left confused when he realized that the thing covering his teeth was his own flesh. He plucked at the skin and flinched a little when his nails dug into it too deep. He ran his tongue along the line of his lower lip and he was left amazed by the strange feeling. There was too much on his mind right now to care though.

Using the ground as leverage, he pushed himself up on his two wobbly legs and took a few steps forward. He felt dizzy and his eyes hurt like they could pop out of their sockets any minute. Though he was tired, he couldn’t remember a time when he was able to get up this early. He could already feel the burning desire to soak in the warm sunlight of the morning; without it, his limbs felt stiff and useless.

He wandered around aimlessly for what felt like hours, but the sun was still hiding stubbornly behind the forest. Eren felt a desperate need to run through the woods and greet the first ray of sunlight, but he didn’t dare venture out too far, fearing that Little One wouldn’t find him when he returned. Whatever made him leave, no matter how angry he was, Eren had to get back to him. Even if Little One hated him now and thought he was a monster.

The depressing weight of the small human hating him and the pain of his disappearance crashed down on Eren’s shoulders. It was too much, he was scared, confused and his stomach and back were in pain, and he had no idea what to do. He fell to the ground again, exhausted. He was terrified of not remembering what happened, because then he had no way of making it up to Little One.

It was then that he felt the ground shake beneath him, and instinctively his head snapped up, looking for the titans. He could immediately tell that the trampling of feet came from the left, and they were coming fast, a lot faster than what Eren was used to.

Ignoring the way his whole body trembled under the pain, he pushed himself to his feet. He almost fell back from the sharp daggers that shot through his brain, but he caught himself just in time, and he turned to face the titans.

What he didn’t expect, however, was just how huge they were. Eren’s eyes went wide, and his face twisted into an expression of pure horror. There were two of them, and Eren had never seen titans of this size before. He had only ever met titans that came up to his chin at most, and that was the largest he ever fought. These ones were almost twice as tall as Eren, and they were coming abnormally fast on their four legs.

Their lower bodies were brown, while their torso was mainly green, and their faces light flesh-colored. And they were heading straight in Eren’s direction. They must’ve caught his scent.

Eren felt a pang of absolute terror pierce through his heart. Whatever these monstrous titans were, Eren had no way of killing them, especially with his claws gone. At least he still had his–

He licked a line along his teeth, and if possible, his eyes went even wider. …How? His most precious weapons, his sharp fangs were gone. There were only flat-edged, small teeth in his mouth now, absolutely useless against regular titans, not to mention the ones coming for him right now. He had no choice but to flee.

Eren began running in the opposite direction, but the moment he took the first step, he knew he was dead. The grass felt strange underneath his feet, the sensation throwing him off, his feet tingled painfully like they had just regrown, and he was still dangerously exhausted. He barely had any sunlight yet, and a sharp sting at his insides almost sent him to the ground again.

Gulping for air and with a hand on his belly he placed one foot in front of the other, but it was no use. The terrifying thundering of steps was right behind him now, and he heard their growling, the awful, hungry sounds. However, he didn’t smell them. There wasn’t even a single hint of that rotting, disgusting stench. They almost smelled like humans instead.

The realization threw him off only for a second, but it was enough for his legs to get tangled, and with a small yelp, he fell face first onto the ground. The steps behind him slowed down, and the fear was layered so thickly onto Eren’s body that he couldn’t move a single part of his body. He waited, his whole body shaking, as another set of footsteps, this time lighter, came closer to him.

“What in the name of…”

Eren whipped his head up.

The sound was coming from above, right where the titans stood, and though their voices sounded unfamiliar, Eren immediately recognized it to be the same vocal language that Little One used.

“Finally you stopped runnin’, dammit! Who are you and how did you get outside the wall? And where the hell did you leave your clothes?!”

“Gods, do you see that nasty injury on his back, sir? What on earth did that to him? Some animal?”

It was the same language, Eren recognized the sounds. This realization gave him enough courage to turn on his side and peek up.

Though they were certainly similar to titans, Eren still couldn’t say for sure what they were. Upon a closer look, he saw that they really did only have two legs and two arms like regular titans and humans, and their faces were fairly normal, no horrifying grins and most notably no gut-wrenching smell.

“Sir, he looks terrified. What in the name of Sina happened to him?”

The creature continued making noises, of which Eren understood nothing. They came closer to him, but he immediately backed up, crawling backward with his behind still on the ground. The creatures looked at each other, their foreheads lined with deep wrinkles and their eyebrows close together.

Eren’s eyes slid across the two figures and then behind them, where he noticed the fur-covered, four legged creatures. Seeing how they were not attached by flesh, Eren realized that they were animals on their own, very similar to the ones that the humans rode. Humans sat on their backs and for some reason these animals, horses, let them.

Eren recognized them because he once had the opportunity to observe an animal like this from up close, the one he later gifted to Little One. These horses looked exactly the same, only they were ten times as big.

One of the titan creatures stepped closer to him, to which he frantically began backing up again.

“Hey, easy there,” the creature said, and this time his voice was softer, which made Eren’s racing heartbeat slow down a little. “We will take you back to Shiganshina. The titans are still sluggish at this hour, but soon they will wake up, and we don’t want to be out here when they do.”

“Sir, permission to speak freely!”

“Granted.”

“Maybe don’t mention the titans to him? I think he’s already freaked out as he is.”

“Well, do you have any better ideas? We have to get him back before we get ambushed or he bleeds out of that nasty injury.”

The other creature now stepped forward, and Eren’s panicked glare immediately flashed onto him.

A grunt resonated through his vocal cords, but with his unfamiliar lips closed, it came out only as a pathetic whine. His eyes were no longer watering, but he felt a sharp pain stabbing his head from the inside still. He was so confused. He wanted Little One. Eren never felt lost when he was around, not even when he was sick and slept for days in the cave.

“It’s okay, we won’t hurt you. Can you tell us what happened to you?” the other creature said.

Eren stared and didn’t dare move a muscle. A strange thought started budding in his mind, but it seemed too unreal and absurd to even consider it; he pushed it away. These creatures were appearing to be more and more similar to humans, even though their size said otherwise, and Eren had no idea what this meant.

When the creature unhooked the green second skin from his body, Eren watched attentively. He was no longer scared to death but a little curious.

“Here, wear this. You must be cold. How long have you been out here?”

Eren flinched when the skin touched his back, not just because of the pain but also because it was an entirely new feeling to have something cover his skin. He pinched the thick layer between his fingertips. It felt nothing like his own skin and a lot more like Little One’s.

“You don’t want to tell me? That’s alright. But you need to come with us now, okay? It’s not safe here.”

The creature reached out with a hand, but instead of touching Eren, he turned his palm towards the sky, and looked at him with a hopeful, encouraging expression. Eren inhaled a shaky breath when he recognized the gesture: follow me. His eyes shot up to meet the creature’s soft gaze, and an overwhelming sense of relief and trust washed over his heart.

This creature, this man who was somehow similar to a human, had to know Little One to use this very same hand gesture.

Did Little One send him for Eren? Is that why this man wanted Eren to follow him? Because he would bring him to Little One?

Reaching out with ice cold fingers he grabbed the man’s warm, rough hands, and Eren let him pull him up. He was barely on his shaking feet yet when the man already wrapped the second skin tighter on Eren’s body. He quickly hooked his arms under Eren’s armpits and lifted him onto the horse.

“How old do you think he is?” the other one asked.

“I don’t know, sir. Could be anywhere between thirteen and sixteen I think. I have a seventeen-year-old brother who’s about the same height, but his face,” he pointed at Eren, who flinched and leaned away, “makes him look a lot younger than that.”

The first man sighed and got back on his horse. “Writing a report on this will be a pain in the ass. Let’s just hope his parents are already looking for him.”

The second man mounted the horse too, sitting in front of Eren, and the titan instantly snaked his arms around the man’s torso for warmth and comfort. He felt the heavy heat radiating off his body, and soon the first sunlight shone above the line of trees.

Eren still felt the burning pain on his back, but he no longer cared, because these creatures would take him to Little One, and everything would be alright. He let his forehead bump against the man’s wide back and held tighter onto him when the horse flung into motion.

It was a strange feeling to be carried like this. Eren had never been the one getting lifted from the ground or carried by something so much bigger than him. It was always him who picked up titans and ripped them apart like they were twigs, and he carried Little One around like a delicate flower. This wasn’t too terrible though.

Around the time the sun came up, and Eren began to relax into the rocking motion beneath him, he noticed a strange opening on the bottom of the tall, pale rocks. It looked like a cave, dark and too deep for Eren to see where it ended, and he clutched tightly at the giant man’s sides with his claw-less fingers. His heart was beating so quickly that it caused him physical pain, like his ribs were about to crack and punch a hole through his chest. He whimpered and buried his face into the man’s shoulder.

Only when the cold shadows drew a blanket over his head and a strange smell greeted his nose, he opened his eyes and saw that it wasn’t a cave where these human-like titans were going, but a tunnel. In the darkness there was a small patch of vibrant light ahead that blinded Eren when he first looked at it.

There was an unfamiliar, buzzing noise coming from the other side. Eren tried to squint his eyes to see what it was. Then a moment passed, and they were under the blue sky again.

Many things happened at once. Eren flinched when the most confusing, overwhelming mixture of stimuli hit his sensory organs; the smell of smoke, all kinds of sounds from animals, bright colors, the scent of humans, and a smell so vile that Eren almost threw up in his mouth when he first noticed it.

He scrunched his nose and closed his eyes to stop his stomach from dry heaving, when another sharp sound caused him to jump in his seat and open his eyes.

Eren’s jaws dropped without him noticing, and his eyes went wide with disbelief. Inside the large, white stones there was a confusing, noisy paradise for these large titan-like creatures. He had never seen a place like this before and he never knew so many of these creatures existed.

Eren never felt so small before.

A swarm of these people flooded the open space between structures that seemed to be made of stone, and there were even holes on the sides of these caves. Some of the giant titans leaned outside from there to talk to someone on the streets.

Everyone was shouting and talking to each other in their foreign language. Smaller titans, the natural-sized ones were running around like ants, quick and agile. Eren had never seen them move like this. Their movements weren’t sluggish at all, and suddenly Eren began to get anxious. He had no idea how to defend himself from these creatures, and he seemed to be hopelessly outnumbered too.

Upon a group of titans reaching the horse on which they sat, Eren scooted closer to the man in front of him and snarled at the small titans. Their eyes went wide, but they didn’t run. They just stared at Eren, which confused him even more. Then he remembered that he lost his fangs, and probably no titan would ever fear him now.

One of the small titans launched forward, but Eren yanked his legs up just before the vicious hand could grab him and pull him down to feast on his flesh. Eren mustered up his most threatening growl, but as he found out, even his voice wasn’t as menacing as before.

At the same time, the man on the horse snapped: “Get out of the way, boys! Didn’t your mother teach you not to jump in front of a horse?”

The titan’s face flushed red, and he lowered his gaze onto the ground submissively. Eren’s jaws dropped. He’d never seen a titan show such gestures before; it almost seemed human. Was this giant creature so dangerous that even normal titans feared him?

“We don’t have no mother, sir,” the titan said, and his voice was a lot more high-pitched than Eren thought it would be. “We’re orphans.”

The creature made a sound again, and he tossed something round and shiny to the titan, who caught it with a wide grin before running away with the others.

Eren watched with hungry eyes, thinking that this trick might be useful one day. He just needed to find another one of these shiny, round things and the titans would leave him alone? This was just another trick that proved that these giant people were to be trusted.

The titans took off, but Eren saw many similar ones running around. He was still uneasy whenever they came close, but none of them showed any signs of aggression, and no one tried to eat him either. Slowly Eren hung his legs on each side of the horse again, and he no longer jumped in his seat whenever someone came close to him.

The noise hurt Eren’s ears. Compared to the peaceful quiet of his forest or the occasional fight with a titan couldn’t have prepared him for this explosion of sounds. It constantly bombarded his ears from all directions without a single beat of silence.

There were wooden structures under the stone caves with all kinds of fruits and vegetables displayed that Eren recognized, and then even more things he’d never seen before. They smelled spicy and smoky, but whenever Eren caught the scent, his stomach began protesting with a rumble, ordering him to do something. Eren was exhausted by the third time he caught this delicious smell, but he was also scared. He never felt like this before, he never knew this desperate urge to fill his stomach with something. He wondered if he was sick or if this was some side effect of his injury, which still hurt like hell. Even when they left the cold shadows of the tall stone walls, and the sunlight began to warm his body up, Eren felt like something was missing, something that couldn’t be soothed by the beautiful golden rays.

Soon they reached a large, flat space, kind of like the forest glade under Eren’s tree, except this one had a stone object in the middle and a lake around it with turquoise water.

The men dismounted, and before Eren could protest or even think about what was happening, he was once again lifted in the air, and the man placed him on the stone edge of that lake. Eren inspected the water from closer. It smelled funny and nothing like lake water.

“What do we do with him now, sir?” asked the one whom Eren rode with.

“We have to notify the Military Police. They will help him get home and fine the parents or his caregivers.”

“Fine them?”

“It’s illegal for civilians to go outside the walls, Luke. You stay with him here and get him some clothes. Maybe food too. I’ll go get someone.”

The man hopped back on his horse, and Eren followed him with his gaze, trying to guess where he was going. The creature who stayed with him sighed, and Eren took a cautious step back when he looked at him.

“Do you know where your parents are?”

When he didn’t get an answer, the man smiled. It was something that Eren saw on Little One’s face before, and he was no longer suspicious of this man even the slightest. Though this human-titan was very different from Little One, their similarities gave Eren some hope that he would see the small human again soon.

“Listen, did someone leave you out there? Or did you go there alone? Are you an orphan? I need to know these things to help you. I just don’t want you to get in trouble,” the man said, his eyes pleading, and an involuntary coo escaped Eren’s mouth. He found himself wanting to comfort the man because he was in clear distress, even though Eren didn’t know why or what he was talking about. “Do you… do you understand what I’m saying? My name is Luke. Luke Siss. I’m a scout at the Survey Corps. What’s your name?”

Eren couldn’t give him an answer, and the man soon gave up. He went back to his horse and returned with things that looked similar to the second skins he and everyone else seemed to wear too. He gave them to Eren, who took them obediently, but when he didn’t move, the man drew his eyebrows closer together.

“It’s okay, you can put them on. You probably don’t have any money, but I wouldn’t charge you for them anyway. Put them on, they’re yours.”

They looked each other in the eye for a passing moment before Luke realized that Eren likely had no idea what was expected of him.

Baffled by the boy’s strange behavior, he offered his help to get dressed, and when Eren said nothing again, he decided that he wouldn’t leave a naked boy with a single cloak on his back on the main square. He could only give the boy the military assigned white pants and a faded, green shirt, and he didn’t have any boots to offer, but he figured this was better than nothing.

“Oh, your back is no longer bleeding. Here, I’ll wash it down a little, okay? Tell me if it hurts.”

Cold water ran down his spine, and Eren arched his back both out of surprise and discomfort. His injury had been tormenting him on and off, and now he was once again reminded of it. It should’ve healed by now, he thought.

“How did you get this? It almost looks like it was made by a… um, wait, I think I have some bandages in my saddlebag. No, it’s okay, it goes around your chest like this, you see? So your wound won’t bleed through your shirt if it opens up again. It keeps it clean too. I should really find you a doctor. Here, let me help you get into the shirt.”

Eren watched attentively as the man slowly helped him into the second skins piece by piece. It felt strange to have something cover his body like this, and it was even a little uncomfortable at first, but he learned to appreciate it when a colder breeze brushed across his back and he shivered. He felt a lot warmer with these extra skins on.

“Listen, I don’t have any food on me so I have to go and buy you something, okay? Can you stay here while I do that?” the man then asked, and bit his lip out of frustration when Eren continued to ogle him with those wide, green eyes. “Just stay here!” Luke lifted a hand, palm facing towards Eren, and finally that he could understand. It was exactly how Little One told him to stay put. His face lit up, and Luke immediately felt relief lighten his stiff shoulders. “You can understand this? Thank Sina! Stay here, I’ll come back in a second.”

And with that, the man left. Eren watched him disappear in one of the stone caves, and not about a minute later he reappeared, holding something brown and oval-shaped in his hand.

“Here,” he handed Eren the object.

Eren eyed the strange thing for a moment before deciding that it was probably safe to touch, but the second his fingertips brushed across the flaky, hard surface, he snatched his hand back. The thing was warm, something Eren didn’t expect. It was rare that he came across something pleasant in temperature, and this thing was even warmer than sunlight.

He slowly took the thing, and carefully turned it around in his hands. He wondered how these titan creatures managed to lock a strand of sunlight into this loaf of squishy something. Whatever it was, though it smelled nothing like sunlight, it made his stomach growl.

Meanwhile Luke watched Eren in the silence of confused awe. He’d never seen anyone be so fascinated with bread. His heart ached for this strange boy who observed this basic food like he’d never seen anything like it before.

Though the boy didn’t look malnourished, Luke still tasted something bitter in his mouth, and suspected that Eren was probably a victim of neglect. He doubted that anyone would willingly leave the walls, not to mention without any clothes on. He wanted to find the person who did this, with or without the help of his superior, Thomas Weiss.

Eren bit a chunk out of the loaf of bread, and saliva immediately flooded his mouth. If he still had his pointy ears, they would’ve perked up in interest, but now only a pleased growl bubbled up from his throat.

“Is it good?” The man asked but Eren didn’t bother to pay attention; instead he began to devour the bread like his life depended on it. The texture felt foreign on his tongue, and he bit his lips out of clumsy eagerness multiple times, but the warm weight that slowly began to fill his stomach was worth every little bleeding wound.

He was chewing on the end of the loaf, his stomach no longer aching, when the other man on the horse arrived.

“Luke, on your horse! We’re going back to headquarters,” he barked.

“But sir, we have to find the parents of this boy!” Luke protested. Eren picked up from his tone that he was upset, but no matter how closely he observed their faces, he couldn’t figure out what they were talking about.

“Will you forget about the runt already? I told the local MP captain, he said they will come get him. A messenger boy just arrived, said everyone’s expected back at headquarters.”

Luke paled to a sickly white color. “Are they reopening the interrogations, sir?” His voice was flat, but Eren heard the slight tremble in his words.

“Apparently they found the one who cut down that stupid beast. Or someone who knows who it was, I don’t know. If you ask me, this is a shitty way to waste the corps’ time.”

“Oh, thank Sina, if they found the culprit! I really wouldn’t want to be interrogated by Squad Leader Hanji again.”

“As if any of us would.”

“But sir, we still can’t just leave this boy here. You know how he MP is, I doubt they will come looking for him…”

“It’s none of our business, Luke!” the man snapped. “Our job was to get him inside, the rest is not our concern. Or do you want to stay behind and later explain to that murderous midget why you didn’t show your face? He’d probably have your guts for breakfast.”

Seemingly that was enough to convince the younger man, because his eyes went wide with pure terror, and he looked at Eren with an apologetic frown.

“I’m sorry, but we have to leave. Someone will come to get you, okay? Or maybe you can go home on your own?”

“Luke!”

“Coming, sir!” the man flinched, and he quickly got back on his horse. He gathered the reins in one hand and waved at Eren with the other. “Good luck, kid!”

Eren watched the two green capes slowly disappear behind the sea of strange titans and stone caves. He sat down, waiting obediently for them to return, however, the minutes turned to hours, the sun climbed higher and higher up in the sky, and they still didn’t come back.

He tried not to panic, hoping that the two creatures would soon return with Little One because that had to be the reason why they brought him here, why they left. He spent his time observing this strange place to keep himself busy, and he soon decided that these creatures could never be titans. They moved quickly, none of them tried to eat Eren, and they certainly looked like Little One and his friends; they were, in every aspect, like giant humans. Where the real humans were though, Eren had no idea.

The stone-framed lake, as he sadly discovered, was nothing like his lake back at the forest. This one didn’t have any green moss or silvery fish that would paint the surface of the water in all kinds of beautiful colors in the sunlight.

Leaning closer, he saw an unfamiliar portrait dancing on the surface. His heart immediately picking up a fast pace, he whipped his head around so quickly that he almost fell into the water. There was no one behind him though.

Carefully he leaned above the surface again, ready to run or fight whatever it was that stared back at him from the water, but when he noticed the two shining green dots on the surface, he quietly gasped.

He looked at his own reflection in the lake water enough times to know what he looked like, and he remembered that he had very similar eyes to this one.

The thing looking back at him was nothing like him, except for the color of his eyes. The creature had long, brown strands of hair, pink lips, and he looked more similar to the giant titans. But then again he also… moved exactly the way Eren did.

Experimentally Eren lifted his right hand, and the reflection copied him. Then he turned his head, and the figure followed. Eren was smart enough to piece together the confusing load of information that had been dumped onto him since he woke up on that field.

He met human-like titans who lived behind stone walls in stone caves. Somehow he now looked nothing like himself and more like these unfamiliar, human-like titans. The grass was taller and sparse, he felt strange new sensations, like the pain in his stomach, and these human-titans wore the same second skins and behaved the same way Little One and his friends did.

He either discovered a completely new species of titan – or Eren somehow shrunk in size and he was now inside the humans’ world.

As he looked around he was both excited and terrified: he was a titan disguised among the humans, the creatures that seemed to fear and hate him most. He could only hope that Little One was coming to get him soon.

Chapter Text

On the night of Eren’s awakening as a human, approximately a hundred and seventy kilometers away Levi sat by the fireplace in Erwin’s office at the Survey Corps’ headquarters.

They rode all afternoon and night, but Levi didn’t remember much of what happened during that time; if anything happened at all. It was still dark when someone hurdled him inside the cold room and pushed him down onto a leather couch, but by now the bottom of the sky began to lighten in color.

The fire was idly crunching on the logs of wood, spitting its warmth across the room, but it wasn’t nearly warm enough for Levi’s frozen joints to loosen up, and he was left with a painful aching in his body. Someone placed a glass full of a clear, opaque liquid in his hand, which he held onto like it was the last remaining solid element in his life.

People were talking behind him, maybe next to him, or maybe just inside his head; all he knew was that they were way too loud for his comfort. He tried to disassociate himself from those voices as best as he could until they were nothing but a faint, buzzing noise and he could drown himself in the dull bliss of the emptiness of his mind.

Erwin was sitting behind the large, worn-down desk with his hands on the many written reports that they had collected over the past hours. Since they arrived, barely any of them had a bite of food or a minute to rest their eyes, and the reason for that was right in front of the Commander.

Hanji slammed her palms against the hard oak surface, startling the man even though this was the third time that evening that she did that.

“I want everyone to revisit their testimony, I want more details, and if I have the slightest doubt that one of them is lying, I swear to Sina, Erwin, I will execute them myself!” Hanji hissed the words through her teeth; her voice was raw and her throat sore from all the yelling she did the last past hour or so.

“You know you can’t do that,” Erwin said, his voice dark and hollow.

“Watch me!”

“Hanji…”

“Let me go back! We only have a few more people to interrogate!”

Erwin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. His headache had only been getting worse since it began throbbing in his temples a few hours ago. “I’m not letting you go back there, because you don’t seem to understand the difference between listening to your subordinates’ reports and interrogating them.”

“But my methods are by far the most effective at…”

“At scaring our soldiers into saying what you want to hear! I’m not letting you hit another poor private out of frustration!”

Hanji crossed her arms and turned her face in the other direction, hiding the blush of anger and embarrassment that began to spread on her cheeks. “Okay, that happened, but only once, and also that little shit wasn’t taking any of this seriously! I promise never to do it again, can I go back now?”

“No.”

“But…!”

“Hanji, that’s enough! The questioning has been going on for four hours straight, and we all need some time to rest. We still have twenty people who haven’t given their reports yet, and we cannot let ourselves jump to conclusions out of exhaustion!”

Had they been back for four hours? Levi glanced at the glass in his hands and then back at the fire. Someone was lying, he thought because he remembered sitting down only a minute ago. No wonder his head was pounding if he’d been listening to Hanji’s screeching voice for four hours.

“So let’s go back and continue! Twenty people will be done in a blink of an eye!” Hanji raised her voice again, but her tone was more pleading than angry this time. Her eyes were burning with a fatigued but bright flame, and she was showing no signs of backing down until she got what she wanted. “No one will rest in this castle, Erwin until someone owns up to what they did!”

“Hanji…” Erwin sighed and buried his face in his hands, a gesture rarely seen by him. “Yes, one of them did it, but I doubt they’re lying about it out of malice. We all had blades in our hands. There’s no way of telling who it was, they were flying at him from all directions. I’m just as frustrated as you are for missing a chance like this, but for the love of god, please, compose yourself!”

Levi furrowed his brows and wondered what they were talking about or why it was so freezing in this room and why none of them said anything about it. He blamed the cold glass in his hands and his smaller body for not being able to keep warm for too long, but he was too proud to admit to the latter. He got cold more easily than anyone else he knew, though he was also better at tolerating harsh physical conditions. At any rate, his hands were trembling, something which he couldn’t deny.

His comrades’ voices were painfully sharp in his ears and Hanji was talking loud enough for something to pop in Levi’s ear canal. Why couldn’t everyone just shut the fuck up? He closed his eyes and concentrated on the quiet cracking of the fire. This was one thing he hated about people. They always got carried away by their emotions, and what was left of them could not be negotiated with or convinced of anything. They closed themselves off from the world and shut everything out.

“Mike and I will continue collecting the reports while you and Levi go back to your rooms and rest,” Erwin stated implacably and glanced at Levi with genuine worry in his eyes. The Captain hasn’t said a single word since Erwin dragged him away from the disintegrating titan corpse. “Go rest, this is an order for both of you.”

“But…!”

“Enough!” Erwin raised his voice, and Hanji immediately closed her mouth, though the fire didn’t quiet down in her eyes. “I have no use of you in this investigation if you’re half dead from exhaustion!”

Levi closed his eyes. Gods, he was so sick of this.

He was tired of all the shouting and emotions and accusations. He just wanted some peace, and he wanted to go see Eren because even the company of a titan would be more pleasant than a hyperactive Hanji and the rare natural occurrence called frustrated Erwin.

Silently he put down the untouched drink on the table by his side, and he stood from the couch. He was turning to leave, but the voice calling out his name stopped him in his tracks.

“Levi. Where are you going?”

He opened his mouth to say he was going to check on Eren because no doubt one of the fuckheads managed to do something on stupid while guarding him, but the words got stuck in his throat.

There was screaming. Blood and tears.

Right, he thought numbly. For a second he forgot. Memories flooded his vision, making him feel dizzy on his feet, and the tolerable dullness in his chest was replaced by the sudden pressure of a titan’s jaw. He felt like he was drowning in his own lungs. His body went rigid, cold like stone, and he couldn’t do anything but stare ahead into the fire.

“Nowhere,” he heard himself say, but he barely recognized his own voice. It sounded dead, the hoarse rattle of a corpse.

Two hands were on his shoulders, and he was pushed back into the couch. The cold glass was once again in his hand, and it made him start shivering. Someone lifted the rim to his mouth, and he drank. The alcohol burned his throat, but at least there was something to warm him a little from the inside now.

“Drink it all, dear,” Hanji sighed. “You need it.”

“I don’t need it, I’m fine,” Levi closed his eyes and forced the words past his lips. He was fine. He knew death, the loss of his subordinates wasn’t new to him or a rare occurrence; he wasn’t some snotty cadet who shed tears over every snapped blade. He knew Eren was killed but didn’t share Hanji’s emotions; no anger, no despair, just the pain in his chest that he knew would soften over time, even if it would never go away completely.

His glass became heavier as Hanji refilled it, and he didn’t have the energy to protest and ask for tea. Hanji was shit at brewing tea anyway. “We all need it right now.”

She threw herself onto the couch next to him and poured herself another glass of rum. She offered one to Erwin, and when the man declined, she just shrugged and downed his portion too in one go. Erwin regarded her with a worried look but didn’t say anything. None of them said anything for a while.

“Goddamn titans,” Hanji mumbled, her voice so quiet that it almost got lost in the sound of the cracking fire. “He was trying to protect us, and we…”

“Hanji,” Erwin warned quietly, something dark and remorseful looming over his features, and his eyes darted onto Levi like he expected him to break any moment. “I’ll go back to Mike,” he murmured. “I don’t want any more of my furniture broken when I come back, okay?”

Hanji glanced in the corner where the remains of the unlucky chair that got in her way when they arrived still laid, and she looked away with a guilty expression. “Sir, yes, sir,” she saluted flatly.

Erwin left, and obeying his unspoken order, Hanji spent the rest of the night with Levi by the fire. Levi didn’t know nor care enough to ask why they thought he needed babysitting, why they were so worried about him all of a sudden. It was frankly a little insulting to his ego. They all needed to calm the hell down.

Hanji kept quiet except for when she got up from the couch to pour more rum into their glasses.

Levi stared into the fire, but he couldn’t feel the warmth on his face. He furrowed his brows. “I wanted to show him what warm water felt like,” he quietly said out of the blue, as if he just remembered it.

Hanji looked up at him in surprise, and Levi firmly kept his gaze on the orange flames, fearing that he would drown in her emotions if he turned his face. Fucking shitty glasses, always so… whatever she was. Levi didn’t care to find the words, he was too tired, too cold. He was shivering again and his lips felt numb.

A twig on one of the logs first twirled around itself in the fire, like a snake that had been shot at with an arrow, then it blackened and broke in half. Levi watched and didn’t particularly feel anything.

He heard a quiet sniff from next to him, and when he turned to look what it was, he saw Hanji blink away tears from her eyes. He averted his gaze, suddenly feeling uncomfortable because of not knowing what to do. Comforting people was never his strongest suit; he usually ended up making people cry, even if he tried his best at consoling them. They usually started crying even more then.

Hanji stopped on her own accord after a few minutes.

They drank and kept quiet, but no matter how much rum disappeared from the dark green bottle, Levi couldn’t get drunk enough to ease some of that aching in his chest. It was a stubborn patch of ice that no fire could melt. As time went by, it slowly spread to different parts of his body until he no longer felt like it was his. And with the coldness spreading, his thoughts slowly began to awaken.

Eren had so much to his future, he thought; he had so much to experience, new things to learn, see for the first time, feel, taste, and try. There must’ve been things he looked forward to, things he wanted to do, whatever a titan would want. And there was so much he could’ve been too, so much more than just a friendly beast. But now it was all gone, and the worst thing was that there was no longer any point thinking about it.

What Eren could’ve been didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter. Eren was gone, almost like he never left the forest; forever out of reach. Levi could tell himself this, that he never went back to him, that Eren was still safe and sound by the lake, and Levi never murdered the only good living thing on this godforsaken planet; Levi could’ve told himself all this if not for the pair of eyes and a trail of tears that haunted him in his wake.

Stupid, shitty brat. Levi wanted to hit him hard and grab a fistful of his hair to pull him down so he could properly shout in his ears for losing his cool. It was such a stupid, childish, innocent thing, to get scared of a few shitty titans. They could’ve handled them, even with the surprise attack, they could’ve managed.

It strangely fit Eren to freak out about something so simple as Levi being in danger, because he knew that that was what made Eren lose his mind. His actions were motivated by the same fear that Levi saw in his eyes back in the forest when the titans ambushed them for the first time, and later when he tried to shield Levi from his own men. Why didn’t Levi recognize that fear in his eyes when Eren started acting up? If he paid more attention, maybe he could’ve…

He closed his eyes and drank. There was no point in cashing in regrets. No point in thinking about Eren either. He was dead, let go.

The fear he saw in Eren’s eyes when he fell was different from what he saw before though. It was a quiet, slow-burning fear, none of that full-blown, hasty panic. Levi saw this fear in so many of his dying soldier’s eyes before, but those giant, gemstone eyes thrust this emotion onto him more intensely than anyone before him. Eren had no filter for deception; he could never lie nor he could ever detect one; his eyes were channels leading straight to his heart. What Levi saw was the pure and instinctual fear of death. Eren was begging Levi to help him, and he did nothing.

Levi watched in disgust as his fingers smeared a smudge of blood across the surface of the glass in his hand. It must’ve been from some injury that he didn’t notice, or perhaps it was someone else’s blood.

With slow, experienced strokes he started wiping the smudge from the glass with a handkerchief he kept in his pocket, but no matter how vigorously he rubbed it, new patches of red appeared, making Levi groan in frustration.

“Levi?” Hanji questioned nervously but he once again refused to look at her.

“What? Fucking hell,” he mumbled quietly and scrunched his nose as he looked at his hands, trying to figure out where the blood was coming from. His hands looked clean, but whenever he touched the glass, he seemed to leave bloody fingerprints all over it.

“Levi, it’s clean.”

His hands stopped. He held the glass so tightly that it almost shattered into pieces. Blinking rapidly, he tried to see where the patches of blood were a second ago, but he could no longer find them.

“Maybe you should get some rest…”

“I’m fine, stop acting like my nanny, shitty glasses,” he murmured and slapped the glass onto the coffee table. He was done with drinking and waiting around aimlessly with Hanji. He wanted to get on with this; be done with the questionings, read through the reports, find the one who did it, and then move on.

His eyes settled on the stack of paper on Erwin’s desk, and he went to get them. Reading shitty reports was still better than doing nothing and letting regret eat him up from the inside. As long as he kept busy he was fine.

The reports were almost all identical. The same formal language with the same events written down from almost the exact same perspective. He read through countless accounts of ‘Arriving at Wall Maria,’ ‘Around 1500 hrs we approached Wall Maria,’ ‘5,7 km away from the gate to Shiganshina district,’ and he read about the net being lowered onto Eren thirty-seven more ways before ‘taking advantage of the momentary lack of attention, the titan began violently tearing at the net in hopes of…’

“Fucking amateurs, who taught them how to write reports?” Levi growled and threw the paper on the desk with the other ones. He didn’t want to read through the many different ways people misinterpreted that idiotic brat like they knew anything about him.

He should’ve known that it would come to this. What the hell, he knew it would come to this. They were all fools, bound by tradition and their fears, afraid to risk their beliefs for the good of humanity, and now apparently they were so fucking smart that they could tell Eren’s intentions by a single glance. It made Levi’s blood boil when he thought about all the contented shitheads who felt relieved when the mission went south.

“I don’t think anyone felt that way,” Hanji tilted her head to the side, and Levi’s whole body tensed up. Had he been talking out loud this whole time? He needed to get it together, he just needed something to distract him. “But they are fools. It makes me want to rip their heads off. To strip humanity from such discovery!”

Levi clicked his tongue and shot Hanji an aggravated glare, though he couldn’t disagree. “Would it be lawful to execute them for this?” he asked.

Hanji stayed quiet for a little before sighing and taking a sip from her drink. “Punish them? Maybe. Take out our frustration on them? Probably not, no matter how appealing that sounds. He did grab you rather carelessly. The medic said you’re lucky that none of your ribs are fractured.”

Levi couldn’t remember getting a checkup, but he guessed he didn’t remember a lot of things that happened on the way back. In moments like this, it still felt like this whole ordeal could turn out to be nothing but a bad dream, and Levi hated it, he hated how hopeful it made him feel. He thought he would’ve learned by now that the cruelest nightmare out there was always reality.

“I think I cut his hand off,” Levi said with a small frown on his lips and a crease between his eyebrows. His voice remained flat, unmoved.

Not much else was needed to be said. Maybe Erwin was right and the guilty person would never be found. Maybe it would be better that way. Levi didn’t trust himself enough at the moment to be sure that he wouldn’t treat that person with some special care if they were in front of him right now. It wasn’t unusual for him to use violence as a means of discipline or punishment; after all, violence was what he knew most of his life. It was the first thing he learned after hunger, and Kenny taught him well how to use it. However, he doubted Erwin would look kindly on him if his discipline resulted in the death of a scout. Levi hadn’t killed another human in a long time, and though his palm was itching to grab his dagger and just throw it into anyone, anyone, anyone…

He hunched over, suddenly feeling like the weight of the whole world was on his shoulders, and he was so tired of this all. His hands combed through his hair and he rested his forehead against his palms.

“I cut his hand off,” he repeated, and suddenly a river of venom pooled down into his stomach, urging him to spit it out or tear a hole into his stomach to get rid of it.

Quick-paced footsteps were coming from the hallway outside the office, and their heads snapped up just as someone began to bang on the door. “Squad Leader Hanji, Captain Levi!” came Moblit’s shouting through heavy panting.

Hanji practically flew out of her seat, and not a second later tore the door wide open.

“What is it?” she blurted out eagerly.

“Commander Erwin sent me, sir, he’s asking for both of you in the officers’ common room!” he hastily said. He nervously glanced from Hanji to Levi, who still sat on the couch with his back facing the door and looked like he didn’t even hear the words.

When Hanji noticed this, she quickly yanked him to his feet by his arm and pulled him away from the cold fire.

The sky was beginning to turn a murky greyish color by the time they left the office; Hanji stomping on the lead, a few steps behind her Levi. The common room wasn’t too far away, yet it felt like it was the longest few corridors Levi had ever walked in his life. He was frustrated with the way Erwin summoned them because the urgency of it all gave him hope that perhaps the culprit was found. Just when Moblit barged in, he was ready to let it go, accept that they would never find the one who shed Eren’s blood, that they were all guilty, most of all Levi. He didn’t need false hope of justice or revenge. He wanted to be done with this and get on with his life.

But now a tinge of red flashed in his heart, and his hands were no longer trembling from the cold. He pushed his awakening anger down for now, but he kept it within reach for the warmth it gave.

Erwin was waiting for them by one of the large windows inside the common room, his arms crossed on his chest and a deep frown twisting those otherwise always composed lines of his face. The early morning light framed his profile in a dull, silvery halo. By his side stood Mike, his back against the wall and a stack of paper in hand.

 “Erwin!” Hanji did not hesitate to stir the Commander from his contemplation. “What happened? Did you find them?”

Levi stepped inside with his sharp gaze quickly scanning every corner of the room. It was an old habit he could never quite lose.

“I wish I’d had better news, but the answer to that is no. We do have a lead, though,” Erwin said as he glanced at Mike, who sniffled the air and nodded wordlessly. To Erwin’s signal, he opened the door that led to one of the office rooms.

A short, nervous-looking girl waited on the other side of the threshold.

“Private Gerda Friz, at your service!” she spoke up, but not even her forcefully loud voice or the firmly clenched fist on her heart could mask the tremble in her words or the barely visible shaking of her hand. Levi’s eyes zeroed in on the small droplets of sweat on her forehead, and the way she refused to look at any of them, even after Erwin accepted her salute.

“Please, private Friz, sit down,” the Commander gestured at one of the armchairs, and everyone took a seat too, except for Levi, who remained standing by the door. Gerda’s wide blue eyes flickered onto him only for a second, and they immediately flooded with fear before she quickly nailed her gaze onto the floor.

Levi studied her with narrowed eyes. He supposed a reaction like that from a younger soldier wasn’t too out of the ordinary, but he couldn’t help the overwhelming sense of suspicion he felt the moment Gerda opened her mouth for the first time. Was it only because he wanted her so desperately to be guilty? No, he told himself and closed his eyes momentarily to regain some composure; he couldn’t let his emotions out of control. Push it down.

“Please, would you mind telling Squad Leader Hanji and the Captain the same thing you told us?” Erwin asked with his voice remaining encouraging and friendly, but there was a faint undertone of impatience hidden in there somewhere.

All eyes were trained on the young scout now, who appeared to shrink half her already small size under the attention. “Wha– was there something wrong with what I said, sir?”

“No, there’s no need to worry about that. But this is an investigation of the destruction of government property, and the more ears listen to the reports, the more quickly we can put this behind us.”

“W-well, the morning before the expedition Team Leader Marton summoned me and the team…”

“Oh, it won’t be necessary for you to start over completely,” Erwin cut in with a polite smile, yet he still managed to startle the skittish girl. “How about you continue from when we arrived at Wall Maria.”

“O-of course,” she muttered and quickly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her left ear. “When we arrived at the wall, I kept close to my team because it began to rain and I have been lost on an expedition during a rainstorm before, and I’ve been terrified of that ever happening again since then,” she spoke hastily while firmly keeping her eyes on the ground.

Levi stared daggers into the girl’s face as he tried to unveil the real reason Erwin called them, called him here. Of course, the damned bastard couldn’t just tell him. Watching how the scout’s face twitched in anxiety and something more artificial though, Levi started understanding fairly quickly where this was going.

Over the years in the Underground Levi encountered and had to get through many kinds of people, but if he had to choose the single crowd he came across the most as an outlaw, it would’ve been liars.

Liars were bred in the dark shadows of the Underground the same way rich lords bred racehorses on the surface, and after getting fooled by a few of them when he was still young, Levi developed a frighteningly accurate ability to point out dishonesty. As anyone who lived in the Underground would tell you, the first reason most people feared Levi back then wasn’t just his lack of hesitation to use violence as a means to solve a problem, but his sharp eyes that caught even the smallest hint of a lie. And Levi never tolerated liars. After a few stories caught wind about the way he punished those arrogant enough to attempt deceiving him, people knew better than to try to fool him. No one knew how many of these stories were real, and no one asked Levi either, probably for the better.

Levi never recoiled when it came down to physically squeezing the truth out of someone, but he wasn’t a cruel man, and he respected those brave enough to admit to the truth. He rarely punished those who were honest with him, and even when he did, he never let his rage take over him, not even when the confession made his blood boil. When someone stubbornly refused to tell him the truth, though, that was a completely different story.

To Levi it didn’t matter who the liar was; the leader of a rival underground gang who murdered his men, a cowardly supplier who thought he could get away with pocketing the spare change, or a fat politician who shat gold and wiped his ass with silk robes; the telltale signs of a liar were the same regardless of rank, money, or gender.

“Well, um, when we arrived back at the wall it started raining, so I kept close to my team and Team Leader Marton, who was leading us at the time. It was him, then Jesse, then Mikhail, or maybe Flora, I can’t remember which one of them was first. I was last because Jesse’s horse had a loose nail on his horseshoe and he couldn’t gallop that fast, so we surrounded them to look out for them…”

Over explaining. It wasn’t necessarily a sign of a lie, it could be just a nervous or bad habit, but in most cases, it was an indicator of deception. It was also a way to buy time. A team leader who was leading a group of people was a piece of pretty self-explanatory and unnecessary information, not to mention some guy’s horse with a nail in its hoof.

“…As I said I got lost on my first expedition during a hailstorm and since then I’ve been terrified of getting separated from everyone.”

Levi’s eyes narrowed. Again, not necessarily a lie but it had nothing to do with the investigation at hand.

Gerda looked down at her hands, brows furrowed. “Um, when the net was lowered, I was standing by the wall with the others, Mikhail, Jesse, Flora, and Team Leader Marton. We were watching the… the, um, titan in case it showed any sign of aggression. Before that it only seemed to want to hurt titans like himself…” she gulped nervously and looked aside, clearly uncomfortable by the many pair of eyes watching her.

“So we were standing by the wall, I mean I was standing by the wall with, uh–” Gerda wrinkled her forehead and licked her lower lip. Levi followed the motion with his sharp gaze like a hawk ready to strike. “I was with Jesse and Mikhail, we were standing close, and Flora was about seven meters from us. Team Leader Marton was three meters above us, I remember this because dirt from his boot kept falling on my hair…”

Too much detail. Levi looked away and forced his annoyed grunt not to slip past his lips. The amateur behavior of this girl pissed him off to no extent. She shared way too much detail; no one would remember the exact positions of their teammates or at least no one would deem it important enough to mention it, yet for some damn reason she felt it to be necessary. All this garnishing only made Levi wonder where the lie was really hiding.

The right side of Gerda’s mouth twitched and she quickly brushed the underside of her nose with her palm; grooming behavior, facial expression asymmetric, covering of the mouth. The mouth, in Levi’s experience, was almost as expressive of a body part as the eyes. A simple twitch, let it be a smile or a frown, could change the meaning of a sentence or the look in one’s eyes. Covering the mouth or making gestures that temporarily hid it from others was usually a sign of deceit.

“While the net was lowered I told Jesse my concern about how much gas I had left in my tank, but I didn’t talk with anyone else until the titan started roaring…”

Lie.

A cold, triumphant light flickered across Levi’s storm-ridden irises. There it was, the moment Levi had been waiting for ever since Gerda started talking, and he knew that he was right. It seemed like Erwin had caught on to it too because his whole figure went stiff, he tilted his head to the side and reached out an expecting hand towards Mike.

“Have you only talked to…” he looked over the paper which Mike handed him, “Jesse Byrer before the titan’s abnormal behavior started?” he asked, his voice curious but reassuring, careful not to scare the girl or make her feel accused of anything. “We have a report here from Flora Debrunsky, she says that– yes, she reports that you ‘briefly exchanged word’ with Marton Kugler. We haven’t yet interviewed other members of your team, so perhaps Ms. Debrunsky remembers wrong.”

Gerda eyed the paper with furrowed brows, then quickly reached for her forehead as if she was suddenly having a headache, and nodded. “Wait, no, yes that’s true, I’m sorry,” she said with her eyes closed, and Levi had to hold back a bitter snort. She was bad at this. “I did speak to him, but it was nothing important.”

“We have all the time in the world, Gerda,” Hanji assured her by Erwin’s side. “Don’t leave out anything, no matter how minuscule it seems.”

Gerda quickly began nodding again, her wide eyes trained on Hanji like she was trying to hold on to her. “Yes, sir. We only talked about the weather, like how long he thought the rain would last, and I asked him about the way the titan would be transported back to…”

“Lie.” Levi’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the air like cold steel. Gerda’s face paled to a sickly ash color as her head snapped up to meet Levi’s piercing gaze. She could only hold it for a moment before looking away. Another sign that Levi was right.

“I-I uh– Sh-shortly after that the titan started acting all strange,” Gerda continued with a trembling voice and a desperate look in her eyes with which she was pleading silently to the others. “He was growling and roaring a lot, and he began tearing the net with his claws…”

Levi watched with lidded eyes as Erwin continued to regard her with an impartial, yet encouraging look, and he wondered what kind of liar Gerda would turn out in the next ten or so minutes; when the web of her lies had entangled so tightly around her neck that she would choke: the one that cries, or the one that becomes angry and starts shouting as if that would convince anyone, or perhaps the one that simply goes silent and refuses to say anything else. His bet was on the first one.

Levi had a way of dealing with all three types of liars, though most of these methods would never be officially allowed by the military nor the law of the surface; they were, however, methods that Levi was willing to dig up from his past if that’s what it took to serve justice.

“It was all very chaotic, it was raining too, and I lost sight of my comrades multiple times while we tried to keep the titan from escaping. We held onto the edges of the net and tried to hold it down, but it was very strong and kept yanking at it until my hands began bleeding,” she said and true to her word, she lifted her shaking hands so they could all see the large blisters and bandaged wounds on her palm and the underside of her fingers.

“Where were your comrades at this time?” Hanji asked.

“Jesse was with me, but I didn’t see anyone else from my team, and I didn’t look for them either.” Gerda’s eyes swelled up with tears, and she quickly wiped them away before they would roll down on her cheeks. Erwin reached out with a soft handkerchief between his index and middle finger, and she took it gratefully. “I was so very scared. I was standing right next to the titan’s feet, and he almost crushed both of us on many occasions. I just kept thinking that maybe it already stomped on the Team Leader, and uh, everyone else too…”

Interesting, Levi thought as he mentally flipped through the reports that he superficially read in Erwin’s office. He couldn’t remember seeing this Team Leader Marton’s name anywhere there. Usually, the superior officers got their hearing before lower-ranking soldiers, but for some reason, Gerda and that other girl, Flora were put first on the list. Levi didn’t know this Marton guy personally, but he wondered if he would also be a liar, and a sloppy one too, just like his subordinate.

“When the titan tried to kill the, uh–” Gerda’s eyes flickered onto Levi, but she immediately turned back to Erwin when she saw the dark, threatening shadow looming over the steel-grey irises, “when it grabbed the Captain, Captain Levi I mean, we all did the same thing,” she rapidly blinked as if plagued by memories, and Levi grit his teeth, searching for the crack where the lie was hidden. She was making general assumptions, a sign of wanting to relieve one’s responsibility, yet Gerda, as naïve as she was, didn’t look like she was concerned with herself becoming a suspect at all. Levi realized that she didn’t look like she even considered that she could be charged with Eren’s murder if she didn’t stop lying.

“I remember that when I drew my blades and shot my grapple hooks to the titan’s nape, I saw blades everywhere around me. We were all going in for the kill,” she continued with a distant fog over her eyes, and a muscle above her brow twitched. “But then–” she blinked away her daze and to Levi’s astonishment, she rapidly sped up her speech, “–it was over before I got there. The titan fell, and then someone warned us of more coming in our direction. I got back on my horse and rode after our main force with um… I think it was Jesse and Mikhail, but I could be wrong. I was still in shock and I was exhausted.”

“Is your testimony complete?” Erwin asked and looked at Mike, who’d been writing down Gerda’s words this whole time.

“Is it what, sir?”

“Have you nothing else to say?” Erwin clarified with a gentle but lopsided smile.

Gerda quickly nodded and wiped her hands on her dirt and rain stained pants, clearly eager to leave. “Nothing else, sir.”

When the silence stretched out and no one dismissed her, she gulped nervously and glanced over to Mike and Hanji. The trembling of her pale throat as she swallowed was a welcomed sight for Levi’s predatory gaze.

“Y-You think I had something to do with it, don’t you?” she then asked rashly.

Erwin looked up from Mike’s notes which he’d been reading, or as Levi suspected, pretended to read to draw out the pause. “We have reasons to believe that you’re holding back incriminating information, yes. Whether or not that information reveals involvement of you killing the titan, you are still committing a crime that will be judged in court.”

Gerda’s eyes swelled with a thin coat of tears. “I didn’t kill it, I swear.”

“But you know more than you say.”

“Sir?”

“You saw something, and you don’t want to tell us,” Erwin clarified, his words making the air in the room feel twice as heavy as before. “Withholding information is just as much of a blameworthy crime as the destruction of government property. Several details from your recollection don’t add up to the many reports we collected beforehand. If we can’t find the culprit, we will have to charge you as our main suspect.”

Levi had to resist an impressed scoff. Talk about liars and the contrast between these two. Of course, they wouldn’t have to charge Gerda with the crime, in fact, it would be highly immoral, but Gerda was too scared and confused to recognize this, and Levi wasn’t the one who would enlighten her.

Erwin leveled her with an unforgiving, stern look. “Are you ready to take the blame, private?”

“I don’t know who it was, sir, I told you everything.”

“Have you found someone suspicious in our regiment then?”

“Suspicious as in… if I think that someone premeditated this…”

“Exactly. Do you have any knowledge of someone who openly vocalized his dislike against the titan, more so than the others, or someone who said something about planning to kill him?”

“I-I don’t know, sir, we all said things like that,” she stuttered with wide eyes. “I’d probably have to list the entire mission team. We were all afraid, angry, and confused.”

“Alright, we appreciate your help. Does any of you have more questions for private Friz?” Erwin asked before his eyes inevitably found Levi’s impassive face in the badly lit corner of the room. “Levi?”

All eyes darted onto him, and Levi took a moment to consider the ways he could do this. Erwin was giving him a chance to pull the truth out of Gerda, however, his options and equipment to do so were highly limited to say the least.

“Leave,” he found himself saying in a dark voice and his ice-cold gaze pierced through Gerda’s whimpering figure like a sharpened spear. “All of you. I’ll have a word with her alone.”

The silence following his words was nothing short of dumbfounded and aghast. Hanji’s lips parted in a silent gasp, and Gerda’s face drained of the little color that remained on her cheeks and lips. Erwin regarded him with a scandalized glare.

“That’s out of the question,” he said and Gerda’s shoulders visibly sank as she exhaled a shaky, somewhat relieved breath.

“Tch,” Levi rolled his eyes and unfolded his arms on his chest. “The hell do you take me for? Send out Mike and Hanji then.”

“But…!” Hanji meant to complain, but Erwin silenced her with a single lift of his hand.

After scrutinizing Levi’s face and all the intentions that he might be hiding behind those composed features, he finally gave in, no doubt curious why Levi thought this to be necessary. “Hanji, Mike. Please wait outside.”

The two soldiers reluctantly left the room, and Erwin stood up to give his seat over to Levi, symbolically giving him the space to take charge. Levi stepped closer, yet he didn’t sit down. Instead, he walked to the fireplace and reached out toward the pleasantly warm flames. Behind him, he could feel Gerda’s concern grow with every little cracking of the firewood, the way her anxious eyes invasively bored into his back and nape. He resisted the urge to scrape his nails along his scalp to relieve himself from the filthy sensation.

“Do you know what I hate more than liars?” he asked calmly and didn’t care to look over his shoulder to see if Gerda gave any kind of response. “Bad liars. They infuriate me because they are stupid pieces of shits who are far too up in their asses to recognize that they’ve been busted. They all think they’re geniuses and have a tendency to get innocent people in trouble.”

Gerda took a shaky inhale, and she shook her head. “Sir, I’m not…” she began with another shitty excuse, but Levi silenced her with his low, steady voice.

“You know, before I joined the forces,” he began, sounding almost pleasant like he was chatting over a cup of tea in the afternoon, “amongst other things, my job was to expose liars. I was good at it, but one time, as ironic as it was, the stupidest man I’ve ever met nearly drove me to insanity with his lies. He was a proper fucking cunt,” he spat the words, the venom of his fury flooding his mouth like bitter acid just from the thought of that man. He wasn’t the only bastard he ever had to encounter in the slums, but this particular memory still haunted his dreams sometimes. Even now he could hear the flat, echoing sound of blood dripping onto the floor. Drip, drip, drip, on and on and on.

He could feel Erwin tense up by the door where he’d been standing, no doubt wondering where this was going, but Levi promptly ignored him. “He was a merchant of sorts, a rich one too which is always a pain in the ass. You see, they’re so entangled in their entitled bullshit and privilege that they can no longer tell which of their holes is for eating and which one is for shitting.”

Erwin loudly cleared his throat. “Levi, I fail to understand how this chatter adds any value to our investigation.”

Levi scowled and turned back to face them, though he made sure he didn’t look at Gerda. He wanted to give her an opportunity to look at him, really look at him, and see for herself that he wasn’t lying about the things he would say next.

“I’m in a talkative mood it seems, take it or leave it,” he scorned. Early, dark mornings like this always awakened the memories of an unsettled mind. “Anyway, I had the suspicion that the bastard was responsible for killing a group of my men, which I never looked kindly upon. Luckily,” he gritted his teeth, and the sounds coming out of his mouth were nothing short of a growl now, “I had experience with interrogating little shits like him, and because he was a stupid cunt, he talked a lot too. Though never about the things I wanted him to.

“The more he said, the more people got involved, people I had to verify one by one. I interrogated him for three months, and he never talked enough, not for me to be sure that my job was done. In the end, more than thirty people got involved, and not all were guilty. If the bastard had confessed when I started questioning him, if he only mentioned those who truly had to do something with the murdering of my men, he would’ve saved a lot of suffering for a lot of people.

“But he thought that I wouldn’t be able to make him talk, and by the time I broke him, he was so far out of his mind that he no longer cared if he took innocent people down with him too,” Levi said quietly and he finally looked up. Gerda didn’t turn away this time. She held his gaze, though not out of bravery but the simple inability to do so. Levi acknowledged with cold satisfaction that she was frozen in place out of dread. “A few people whom he accused I could clear of all suspicion, but not all, and not without any suffering. Still, the merchant finally broke and that’s what mattered. D’you want to know how I did it?” he asked calmly, and the girl couldn’t open her mouth to answer. Levi shot her a pitying side glance.

“As I said, he didn’t respond well to traditional methods of interrogations, so I had to get creative. In the end, I dug up every single living relative of his – family, friends, dear acquaintances – to get him to talk. I explained to him all the ways I could use those people to make him quit his bullshit. I didn’t want to hurt them when they had nothing to do with the murders, but I was… ready to put an end to it. I told him what I could do to them, and because he was a jackass, he didn’t believe me.

“So I ripped every single nail from his father’s fingers one by one and made the guy watch. I didn’t feel too bad for the father. He was a rapist, pimp son of a bitch, but he was still innocent of his son’s crimes. When all the twenty nails were on the ground, I told the merchant that his daughter would come next,” Levi said and his voice was no longer calm; it was low and venomous, and he made sure to stress each word by itself so Gerda would understand. “Then, he finally confessed.

“Things didn’t get this far because he was a coward, but because he was arrogant and thought that he was smart enough to talk his way out of my hands. To butter me up with sly words and slip out of my fingers.” Levi walked around the couch and stood right in front of the girl. Her head was hanging low, no longer able to meet the captain’s dangerous eyes.

“You look stupid, but not as stupid as that bastard. The military would never tolerate me using such barbaric methods to force the truth out of you, not the Commander or the squad leaders. They would have me court-martialed and hanged before I could scrub the blood from underneath my fingernails. But make no mistake,” he warned as he looked down on the trembling girl with hollow eyes, devoid of any sympathy or emotion, “punishing those who hurt my subordinates is something that I’m willing to pay the price for with my life.”

The room fell silent and for a long pause no one existed in the world but the two of them.

“You know who killed Eren, don’t you?” Levi’s voice was quiet and dark, the one he knew made people tremble in fear.

Gerda hung her head lower as if she tried to hide between her silently shaking shoulders. Levi waited, knowing that she was finally past her breaking point, and the real work could begin.

“Yes,” she merely whispered, the sound almost too quiet to be noticed, but Levi heard it alright.

“Was it you?”

“…no.”

“Then who?”

She sniffed and reached up to wipe her runny nose in the sleeve of her jacket. The tears were now pouring from her eyes like a river of salted water. “Team Leader Marton,” she choked out, sounding absolutely defeated.

Levi clenched his jaws tightly together, and a flash of murderous wrath struck root in his heart. That’s all he wanted to hear, a name, an anchor that would give him purpose again. “It wasn’t so fucking hard to be smart for once, was it?”

The door opened with a loud creak and two sets of footsteps approached, followed by Erwin’s hushed words. “Mike, take it into the record that Gerda Friz had revealed the identity of our prime suspect as Marton Kugler.”

“Marton did it?” Hanji gasped silently, and Levi could feel her inquiring gaze first rake through Gerda’s disheveled, though unharmed frame, and then his. He turned his back on her and pressed down the ugly emotions that began to surface in his heart.

“Private Friz, why hide the truth from us?” Erwin asked, and when the girl didn’t answer, he continued with a reasonable assumption. “Did Marton force you to lie to us?”

“No…!” Gerda’s head snapped up, and her yelp was nothing short of desperate. Her eyes were puffy and red from the tears she shed, and her whole face was glistening in a cold sweat. “I was just,” she choked out, “I don’t know, I got scared and…”

“Is court martial not scary enough for you, brat?” Levi hissed with a menacing glare, ready to take her apart piece by piece if she started again with her lying bullshit. “Answer the damn question, why did you lie?”

“Levi…!” Erwin warned, but he didn’t listen.

“Is someone else involved? Did he have an accomplice?”

She shook her head continuously with sobs that were torn from the very bottom of her lungs. “No, no…!”

“Speak up for fuck’s sake, you lying son of a bitch!” Levi growled with such ferocity that it made Hanji and Mike take a step back, and even Erwin looked startled by the sudden bestial rage that hid in the murky depths of Levi’s voice.

“I’m not lying about this, I swear, I didn’t…!”

“Then tell us the fucking truth!” Levi snapped.

“I’M MARTON’S LOVER!” Gerda screamed before violently choking on her tears, and she buried her face in her bandaged hands.

For a long couple of seconds, the only thing that could be heard in the room was the sound of Gerda’s heartbroken wailing and the idle cracking of the fire.

Levi’s heart was racing from the adrenaline that rushed through his body, he felt lightheaded and his libs were heavy like lead. The cloud of red rage slowly lifted from his mind, and he wiped the droplets of sweat that collected above his upper lip with a white handkerchief.

“Doesn’t he–” Hanji muttered hesitantly and exchanged a look with Erwin that answered her question before even asking it. “Doesn’t he have a wife?”

Gerda gulped back a pitiful cry and wiped her bright red cheeks with her sleeve. “No one’s supposed to know. He promised me we would be together, that he would leave her after this mission. I thought– When I saw him, he was ahead of me, the closest to the titan. I saw him cut through the nape,” she sobbed. “I recognized him because of the initials of our names I sewed into the bottom left corner of his cape. I-I don’t know why he did it, but I thought that if he’s found out, he would be charged, and then he’d get executed, and then we’d never be together…”

“Where’s Marton right now?” Erwin cut in, his voice perhaps intentionally lower than usual in an attempt to calm the frantic girl and focus her on the task still at hand.

“I don’t know, sir,” she sighed in defeat. Her tears had mostly dried up by now, leaving only sticky patches of wetness on her cheeks. “Haven’t seen him since.”

“Mike, send out people to search the barracks with the remaining soldiers waiting for questioning. If he’s not there, search the entire castle.”

Mike hummed and left the room in a hurry.

“Thank you, Gerda,” Erwin turned back to the girl, “for telling us the truth.”

She no longer looked in his eyes and exhaustion had made her impassive to the consequences of her lies. “What will happen to me now, sir?” she asked flatly.

“Hanji will escort you down to the cells, where you can wait for your trial. I’m afraid no matter what decision the court makes, we cannot have you back within our ranks.”

Gerda nodded and silently walked out on Hanji’s side. When they were gone, and only the two men remained in the room, Erwin finally had a chance to breathe. Levi had been standing in front of the window, staring outside, since Gerda reached her breakpoint.

Though it wasn’t shocking to see that Levi was in his element even at his lowest, the sight still made Erwin feel the unsettling astonishment he experienced when he first watched the man fly through the dark, cold air of the Underground. It also shouldn’t have surprised him that Levi’s past held more secrets than the catacombs beneath the royal castle inside Wall Sina, yet to hear him talk about it so freely, so viciously without sparing much detail, Erwin still felt taken aback.

Levi once told him how everyone carried their loyalty in a single fingernail. When Erwin asked him what on earth he meant, the captain casually explained that ripping the first nail from one’s finger will tell you all you need to know about their character; people who talk will talk after one. Those who don’t, ripping off more won’t make a difference. Erwin never asked how Levi knew this.

When Levi entered the Survey Corps, the two of them made a deal that wasn’t per se unheard of in the military. For their service as a soldier, a person’s past crimes were often pardoned, swept under the rug like they never existed. Erwin made a deal like this with Levi two times, first for his crimes below the surface and then once again for conspiring with Nicholas Lovof, for attempting to steal official documents, and for attempting to murder a high-ranking official.

With anyone else, Erwin wouldn’t have bothered to give so many second chances, but Levi was worth every pardon he was granted and even more. Up until now, though, it had been an unspoken rule between the two that neither of them would ever talk or ask about the past. Levi bringing it up himself was a testimony to how deeply the passing of the gentle titan scarred him, even when his demeanor showed no sign of this.

“Was that story with the merchant true?” Erwin broke the silence that settled onto the room, dragging Levi out of the memories which he kept trying to push down to the back of his mind.

He dragged a finger along the windowsill and frowned when he saw the disgusting, grey patch of dust on his fingertips. He wiped it down. “He wasn’t a merchant,” he said shortly, and with that, he closed the topic.

A single, yellow flowerhead bobbed up and down in the gentle breeze that danced across the main street of Shiganshina.

Through the crack between the fountain wall and the edge of the cobblestone pavement, a patch of grass reached high up towards the sky, defying its unfortunate birthplace by growing stronger each time it rained. The small seeds from which the grass spurred were carried to that thin slice of dirt by the wind, and against all odds, it still managed to strike root. It even became the home of a single dandelion.

Eren watched with his chin rested in his palm as the flower bowed back and forth under the touch of warm air. When he first noticed it by his feet, he was baffled by its gigantic size; he’d seen flowers all his life, but never from this close, not even when he was laying on the ground. A new world had opened its many gates in front of him, and it hadn’t even been a full day since he woke up as a human.

Once Eren’s shock wore off and he got a little more used to just how huge everything around him suddenly was, his curiosity awakened, and he was eager to discover this unseen world in which humans lived. He was painfully aware of how much he didn’t belong here, and he was terrified that at any moment this strange fever dream would end and he would turn back to his true form in the middle of the busy street, but time went by, the color of sunlight turned from gold to rusty orange, and he still looked human. No one tried to kill him.

While he was waiting for the green capes to return, Eren spent his time watching the humans going on with their daily lives. Everything he saw, he saw for the first time, and watching even the most minuscule, boring activities filled him with overwhelming excitement and curiosity. He wanted to know everything; why the humans wore their second skins, how they communicated with each other, where they were going and where they were coming from.

A few times Eren was tempted to follow some of them, but he never dared to venture out too far away from the fountain, fearing that the green capes would come back with Little One and he wouldn’t be there to greet him.

He realized that now that he’d shrunken, Little One would probably be a lot larger too, frighteningly large even. Would he recognize Eren? Would he be surprised? Was he worried for him? Eren felt giddy happiness bubble up in his chest whenever he thought about the grumpy human, and the anticipation made it even harder for him to sit still by the fountain doing nothing. With all these new smells, sounds, and sensations on his skin not even the pleasant rays of sunlight was enough to keep him distracted for long.

When he discovered the dandelion by the fountain’s wall, he recognized it immediately. It looked exactly the same as the flower that the human with the messy brown hair wanted him to pick up, and out of curiosity, he leaned down and pinched the stem between his fingers. The soft, green body snapped easily by the tiniest applied pressure, and Eren chuckled in amusement when he realized just how ridiculously easy it was. He remembered how much trouble he had with it yesterday morning, and now it was as effortlessly done as breathing. No doubt he looked a little funny before, trying to pluck a flower with his giant, clumsy fingers. The image made the sides of his mouth curl involuntarily.

Eren lifted the flower to inhale the sweet, grassy scent and decided that though it was a little scary to wait around alone in an unknown world, being human still had its advantages.

As the hours slowly ticked by, the sky first went from soft blue to bright azure, then to purplish, and his stomach slowly awakened too. It had been silent for the better part of the day, and even when it began rumbling a little bit as the sun was highest in the sky, it was still quickly soothed by the sweet rays of light that soaked through Eren’s skin.

With the sun beginning to crawl on its descending curve, however, Eren started feeling the familiar twist in his guts. Luckily though, he now knew how to solve the issue.

The house in which the human with the green cape disappeared before was oozing with light and that sweet smell that was so unlike the flowers’ but it was still equally as pleasant. Carefully approaching the place, Eren struggled to take in the heavenly view that waited for him on the inside. Many humans were coming and leaving with brown bags of different shapes and sizes in their hands, and above their heads hung an orb made of ice, inside which was a single yet breathtaking flame of sunshine.

Eren stood and watched with his mouth hanging open, his eyes unable to leave the blinding, golden little ball. The people passing by him either regarded him with a perplexed or an amused look, and some even chuckled. Eren could not understand how all these humans were walking around with something so incredible hanging right above their heads, and they didn’t even give it a second glance like it was absolutely nothing.

Humans were truly amazing, he thought. If they were this good at trapping something so elusive as light in such simple things as ice or the small, delicious packages of which one Eren had already eaten that morning, he couldn’t imagine what else they were capable of.

The stomach reminded him of its existence with an impatient growl. Looking inside the cave Eren was a little surprised to see how it was a lot smaller than it looked from the outside. On the wall where the entrance was, there was a neat, rectangular hole, which seemed to be covered by the same ice-like material with which the humans kept the light from escaping on the ceiling, and it was also the thing that the messy brown haired human wore on her face.

Curious about what it could be, he carefully bypassed a few humans so he wouldn’t touch them, and laid the tip of his index finger on the surface. He almost jerked his hand back in surprise when he made contact, because contrary to what he was expecting, this ice wasn’t cold at all. It was a little cooler than the air and solid too. Eren experimentally pressed his palm against it.

“Hey, you little rascal!” a harsh male voice startled Eren and he recoiled. He quickly recognized the source of the sound to be a wide human with gray hair, something which once again astonished Eren. He had never seen gray hair on any titan before. According to his observations, humans had a much wider range of colors and shapes, and almost anywhere he looked he always found a human with features he’d never seen before.

“Step away from my windows with your dirty hands!” The human continued barking at him. It was a harsh sound, and though in its nature it was similar to the way Little One talked to him sometimes, this human’s eyes were cold, completely lacking the pleasant light that should’ve shined from within. Still, Eren’s hunger was a new and strong drive, one he was still inexperienced with, and so he stepped inside the cave.

There were large wooden structures with flat surfaces on the walls and in front of the gray human, the latter with long, wooden legs. They almost looked like brown horses. The thought amused Eren, and he chuckled.

“What’s so funny, eh? Got any money to pay? If not, get out!” the human continued and Eren noticed a second pair of cold eyes staring into his face. It belonged to a younger-looking human with soft brown hair, who stood by the gray man.

On these wooden horses laid mountains of delicious smelling things of all sizes and colors; some were almost white, others bronze, like Eren’s skin, and he even saw a basket full of round, stone-like things that were almost as dark as the soil between the cobblestone on the street. Eren wandered around the cave, his mouth flooding with saliva at the sight of delicious food, and he simply couldn’t decide which one he wanted most.

Finally, he decided on the beige, palm-sized bundle of something, the one he recognized from earlier. It was the same kind the green cape brought him, so he decided that it must be the safest option to go with.

He grabbed the bread and lifted it to his mouth, but before he could even take a single bite, harsh yells were coming from two directions, and not a second later a blow to the side of his face. The bread fell from his hands back into the basket, and Eren jumped back with a pained whine.

“You little son of a bitch! Here to steal, aren’t you? And you don’t even have the brains to hide it!” the gray human bellowed with a nasty scowl. “This is why I stopped letting snotty kids like you into my shop! Tommy, get him the hell out of here!” he barked, and before Eren could as much as prepare for the attack, he was grabbed by his nape and thrown out onto the street.

He was so stunned by the sudden act of violence that he didn’t even think about fighting back. He landed hard on his side and the air rushed out of his lungs, leaving him gasping for air. Before he could recoil or understand why he’d been treated this way, his lower abdomen burst out in flames when a vicious kick came down on him.

Eren choked out a pitiful cry of pain and pulled himself into a fetal position to shield his most vital organs. Drool dribbled onto the stone pavement from his mouth, and he saw droplets of red in it too.

“Don’t fucking dare come back here again, you scum,” the bored voice came from above, and Eren didn’t need to understand the words to know what the message was.

He whimpered, fearing the time when the human would start attacking him again, but the blow never came, and he realized that he was left alone. Quickly scraping himself up from the ground he stumbled away from the dangerous cave and turned left on the first crossroad that he found, fearing that the human would change his mind and still come after him.

The street which he found was more narrow and had fewer people than the one he was walking on before. The cool air in the shadows of the houses above him soothed his aching lungs. He leaned against the stone wall and sunk to the floor. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself a moment to catch his breath.

Everything was hurting. Actually, never before he woke up as a human did he hurt so much in such a short amount of time. Now not only his stomach was in flames, but everything else in his body too, his muscles, the skin on his abdomen, his face. He wondered what he did wrong for trying to eat that bread. He thought what sunlight was to Eren, it was food to the humans. They needed it to feel good, just as Eren’s new, human body seemed to need it too besides the sunlight. But Eren would never attack anyone for bathing in light next to him, after all, there was enough light for everyone.

He shifted in his seat, but a ragged shriek was immediately ripped from his chest when the violent pain flamed up both on his abdomen and his back. He felt something warm and sticky running down his spine, and soon he caught the scent of blood in the air. The wound on his back must’ve opened up again when he took that fall.

Never had he been as scared as he was then when he realized that he was simply not healing with the same speed as he did before. The fear wedged its claws into his guts, twisting it painfully until he was reduced to a trembling, whimpering ball of anxiety. If he couldn’t heal anymore… he didn’t want to know what that would mean for him. Healing was as natural for Eren as breathing or walking, he didn’t know how to get by without it. He couldn’t heal, he couldn’t get food, he couldn’t be human.

He exhaled sharply to calm himself down and looked down at his left arm, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. He had to know just what was happening to his body, or at least where his new limits were. Without testing his new borders, without conquering his fears, he wouldn’t be able to survive in this human world and see Little One again. Clenching his jaws he dug his fingers into the flesh of his forearm. He meant to tear the skin open until it bled, but halfway through when only the burning pain came but none of the blood, he realized that these worthless human nails couldn’t even breach his skin.

He growled in frustration but it seemed he still managed to create some damage. He watched as four long stripes of bright pink appeared on his forearm. The color first turned angry red and looked like it had no intention of healing, but then perhaps due to Eren’s scrutinizing stare and the muffled, frustrated sounds that he emitted, the blood vessels slowly began to join back together, the damage was fixed, and in a second or so Eren’s arm looked as if it was new. He twisted and turned it in the dim light, but it was healed just perfectly. He was about to exhale a sigh of relief when his breath hitched, and the agonizing pain struck across his back again.

He bit back a series of pained growls, wondering what this new discovery meant for him, when he got distracted by a whirring sound coming from deeper within the narrow alley. He whipped his head around, looking for the source and possible danger, but when he saw what it was, Eren’s eyebrows shot far up on his forehead behind his bangs. There was a four-legged animal that was edging closer to him in the shadows. Eren had never seen anything like it before, but then again, most things in this human world were like that.

It was small compared to everything else, but still, the largest animal that Eren would ever come across back in the forest as a titan. It reached the height of his calf, just below his knee. It had the most stunning white fur that Eren had ever seen, littered with patches of orange on its head and triangular ears, and on the whole of its long, bushy tail. Its large, hazel eyes were watching Eren with a mischievous glint that made the titan feel warm and intrigued.

Eren greeted the animal with a short, friendly huff, and it responded with a similar sound after a pause of consideration, though its voice was a lot more high-pitched. Eren took this as permission to approach the animal, and got up on his feet; the pain in his abdomen and libs was almost completely gone by now.

The animal quickly turned around when it noticed the movement, and began trotting deeper into the alley on its soft, delicate paws. As Eren followed it, his attention was quickly grabbed by other things around him. He traced his fingers on the walls on each side of the alley and gaped in amazement when he felt the touch of damp, dark moss in between the cracks of the cold rocks. He plucked at the little threads of green, finding them similar to hair or animal fur.

There were ropes stretched out between the windows on the two sides of the alley, and large, white fabrics hung from them. They smelled like fresh water and something unfamiliar to Eren, earthy and flowery at the same time, but pleasant, clean. A playful gust of wind made them flap in the air like the wings of giant birds.

The sky above was beginning to turn darker in color, and by the time the animal led him outside the alley onto a different street, there were hundreds of glass orbs with light inside them hanging on the houses, illuminating the night in a soft, golden hue. Eren gasped seeing the beautiful sight. He looked at the animal and hoped that it could see in his eyes how thankful he was that it led him here. The animal meowed at him and first jumped onto a windowsill, then a flowerpot hanging from the wall, and soon it disappeared above the roof.

Eren wandered around on the street, not even noticing how the sun was already hiding behind the tall buildings, and the insuperable fatigue that came over him in the dark still hadn’t taken him off his feet yet. He felt a little tired, but the hunger kept him alert and encouraged him to look for something that would fill him up.

He passed a house that particularly caught his attention, because it was by far the loudest on the street, and the light hanging above the entrance wasn’t yellow like on the rest of the houses, but red. He wondered how the humans managed to do this when a roar of laughter coming from the inside startled him. Hoping that more people meant more food, he stepped inside.

It was a wide, dimly lit space with the same, red lights hanging from the ceiling, and there were people everywhere. They were sitting by round tables with wooden bowls in their hands, and they were making a lot of strange noises too; some were talking normally, but others had their mouths wide open and an uncontrolled, wavering yell came from their throats, while the others around them clapped their hands in a pattern which was unfamiliar to Eren. Perhaps it was another system of human language.

Something that caught Eren’s attention more than the yelling, however, was the delicious-smelling food on the tables and in some young-looking humans’ hands. The latter were dressed in flowy, red seconds skins that hugged their bodies tightly. These humans, as Eren observed, gave the food to the people sitting by the tables, and none of them got beaten or kicked for it.

Eren’s face lit up. Is that all he had to do to get some food then, just sit down?

“Hey, look at that one over there,” a human sitting at a nearby table said, and Eren jumped a little as the man flashed a toothy grin in his direction. “Looks like a lost kitten.”

Eren regarded him with a curious, albeit uneasy look. The place smelled cheap and dirty, sweet and bitter at the same time, and the confusing combination made Eren’s empty stomach twist. The scent forcefully invaded his nose, making him wonder why so many people were willing to sit around in this stench.

“Look at those eyes! Eh, but I can’t even tell if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“Who cares, I’d still fuck ‘em. Oi, little beauty, come here!”

A hand snatched out no doubt to grab his arm, but Eren’s reflexes were as sharp as a blade, and he quickly stepped back before those large, rough hands could entrap him. The men laughed at his skittishness like it was the funniest thing in the world. Eren didn’t like the way they were looking at him; their eyes were flooded with the same kind of hunger Eren always saw on the face of titans. They looked like they wanted to devour Eren. It made him both scared and angry, ready to tear their guts out.

Eren quickly decided that he didn’t like this place. It was filthy, it smelled weird, and titan-like humans lived in it. His instincts told him to attack, clean the world from the ugliness that burnt in those drunken eyes, but as more people’s attention in the cave was turned towards him, he was once again reminded of how hopelessly outnumbered he was. He was small compared to these humans, and he had no chance of winning against a horde of them, so instead of fighting, he turned around, ready to leave.

He was almost at the entrance when he accidentally bumped into a very wide human standing by one of the tables. He yelped out of surprise rather than of pain and bounced off the large human like a pebble. She was soft and smelled sour, and her clothes were damp with sweat no doubt due to the murky air of the cave.

“Hey, who let you in here, lad? This is no place for kids.” She had a deep, raspy voice as if her throat was permanently stained by years’ worth of shouting, and Eren shuddered under her heavy, commanding gaze.

Her face was strangely colorful, which was something that added to her intimidating aura; her chubby cheeks were red, like petals of roses were mushed on her skin, and her eyelids glowed in an unnatural blue color, making Eren think that she was possibly sick. He gawped at her, his eyes darting between the exit and those thick fingers and arms that could no doubt crush his ribcage if she tried hard enough.

Suddenly a tall man with a fat belly appeared out of nowhere, pushed her aside, and Eren jumped back with wide eyes as a set of yellow, crooked teeth flashed inside the man’s mouth. “Oi, get the fuck away from me wife, you scum! You touch her like that again, and I…” he was talking differently than the others, his words were slurred and felt heavy on his tongue like a sea of entangled syllables.

“Uh, remind me why I ever agreed to marry you, Roger! You useless son of a whore, you’re ruining my business,” the woman groaned and pushed the dizzy man back into his chair. She turned back to Eren, her eyes running up and down on his figure with expert eyes; she didn’t share the same hunger those other men did by the table, but Eren still felt uncomfortably exposed. “I’ll give it to you, though, you’re a pretty one.”

“Hey, Daphne, how much for that girl?” someone shouted from the other side of the room, and laughter followed.

The woman rolled her eyes and made an unimpressed sound. “And to think that men are running the government! No wonder why we all live in poverty. They can’t even see what’s right in front of them.” She lifted a hand and imperiously pinched Eren’s cheek between two fingers, firmly but not with the intention to hurt. Eren went frozen under her touch, and all he could do was stare and wait.

“What brought you here, huh, puppet? It’s rare to see such a gorgeous young man like you, and you’re so young too. No doubt you’re still tight in all the right places. You could make a fortune working for me.” When Eren didn’t answer she let out a boisterous laugh, one that emerged from the core of her belly and made her breasts jiggle in the tight corset like a stormy sea of flesh. It was a bizarre sight, and the noise began to make Eren’s ears sting. “Cat got your tongue, sugar? There’s no need to be so shy, plenty of boys asked to work for me before. What do you say?”

Eren felt cold. A slow-burning, steady wash of terror slowly began to soak through his body, not because he understood what the woman said, but because he realized that what shone in her eyes was far scarier than all the titans he ever faced in his life. This woman was hungry, hungry for him, but it wasn’t a physical need to sink her teeth in his flesh. Eren didn’t understand how or in what way she wanted to devour him, and that terrified him.

He desperately wanted to get out of this place and get as far away as possible.

“Are you mute or simple in the head?” the woman chuckled. “It doesn’t matter, darling, you won’t need brains for this job. Come, how about I give you a nice, juicy meat pie as your payment for tonight? You look like you’re hungry.”

She reached for the pile of beige packages on the table and picked one. It didn’t look appetizing by any means, but the sour, spicy flavor that steamed from within the thing made Eren’s stomach growl impatiently. Saliva flooded his mouth, and for a blink of an eye, he completely forgot how alarmed he was mere seconds ago. The hunger in the eyes of these humans be damned, Eren’s stomach acid was ready to burn a hole through his guts.

He reached out for the pie, his eyes never leaving the small droplets of orange oil that dripped from between the cracks of the overbaked pastry, and because his vision narrowed down like a hungry animal’s, he completely missed the way the madam’s eyes sparkled in greedy triumph.

Eren’s fingers were just about to curl around the warm pocket of aid for his stomach when out of nowhere two delicate hands slapped onto his wrists. He jerked back with a startled gasp, pie forgotten.

“Ah, there you are!” The voice was delicate like the fingers wrapped around Eren’s wrists. It was high-pitched, making Eren guess that it belonged to one of the female humans. She sounded relieved. “Cecil told me she saw you, bad little boy! Didn’t I tell you not to come here?”

Eren locked gazes with a nervous, amber-eyed woman. Her face was framed by long, brown locks of hair and a warm smile that matched the tone of her voice. Relief washed over Eren when he recognized this consistent sparkle of light, though the sudden scare was still pumping blood in his veins quickly enough to make his head feel dizzy.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” the madam asked, her eyes piercing sharp and her voice freezing, and Eren was suddenly nauseous when he looked at the pie in her hand. He didn’t know what the woman wanted, but he was glad that he didn’t take the food from her. If there was one thing that he learned so far, it was that most people didn’t give away their food as generously as the man who gave him the clothes. Looking back he probably should have expected that the woman was up to no good when she offered Eren free food. Because of this, he decided not to tear his arms out of the hazel-eyed woman’s hands.

“I’m so sorry, Missus Daphne, forgive my cousin for intruding! He knows he’s not supposed to come here, but he’s too curious for his own good, and he’s been dropped on his head one too many times as a baby.”

“Cousin, eh? I never knew you had family here,” the madam’s eyes narrowed at the girl accusingly. “What’s his name? I’ve never seen him around before.”

“His name is Elias. And you haven’t seen him because my uncle travels a lot, and he always takes him on the road with him. Eli gets in all kinds of trouble on his own if someone doesn’t watch him. I’ll be back at work right away, madam, just please let me see him out! My uncle will turn this place upside down if he finds out he’s been here.”

Whatever the newly arrived human said, it seemed to be effective, because the large woman’s face went pale and an unpleasant frown pulled the right side of her upper lip. She sighed and lifted a hand, dismissing them both.

“Fine, get out of my sight. Know this though, that boy could earn three times as much as you could ever in ten lifetimes. If he ever wants to live the life of a prince, he knows where he can find me.”

The young woman, whose grasp began to loosen on Eren’s arms, quickly nodded and flashed a sweet smile at the madam. “Yes, Missus, thank you. Come on, Elias, the back door is this way. We don’t want your papa seeing you coming out from this place through the front door.”

Eren let himself be led away from the woman, happy to finally put distance between themselves, and his heart began to slow its pace once he noticed how the deeper the young woman dragged him into the cave, the fewer people he saw with hungry eyes. Through the dimly lit air, Eren had a chance to observe this human who snatched him.

She was wearing red clothes, though the color was so faded by now that it was more like a light brown or pink rather than crimson. Her brown hair was a little disheveled, her figure thin and almost sickly looking, yet Eren couldn’t help but be amazed by her beauty. She reminded him of the red lilies that grew by the southern side of the lake in the forest. They were bobbing gracefully in the gentle breeze the same way this human’s hair bounced up and down as she walked.

“That wolfish monster of a woman,” Eren heard her mumble under her breath, and though her voice was still sweet like sunlight, he immediately felt the shift of her emotions, the fury that she held back while she was talking to the madam.

She opened a door that led outside to a dark alley, and Eren found himself pushed outside into the cold night. He was startled by the sudden change in the human’s otherwise gentle way of handling him, but when he looked over his shoulder in confusion, he caught the sight of the pale, oval shape of her palm, and a simple word on her lips.

“Stay!” she whispered before she disappeared behind the door.

Left alone and cold, Eren took a few wondering steps in the alley, though he didn’t go very far. The smoky air invaded his lungs, but after spending some time in the stench-soaked rooms of the building, Eren gladly gulped down the city air.

‘Stay’ was a word that he heard many times before, and one that he understood by now. The humans said it when they didn’t want Eren to follow them around, or when they wanted him to stand or sit somewhere without moving too much. Little One always came back when he told Eren to stay somewhere, unlike that friend of his, who gave Eren food and clothes, who never came back. Or hadn’t so far.

Eren wondered if this woman would return too, or if he was once again left on his own when he heard a noise from behind him.

“Psst! Hey!”

Eren snapped his head up and begin to look for the source of the sound. It was a strange, hissing noise but it also sounded like it came from a human and not an animal. Soon he noticed a dark figure illuminated by the red light coming from behind them, and Eren carefully stepped closer, only to immediately lighten up when she realized that the young woman came back. She was waving him closer in a hurry, and Eren quickened his pace.

Once the human was only a couple of steps away, Eren could see that she had something in her hands.

“I’m sorry, but this was all I could get,” she said in a hushed voice and pushed the bundle of paper into Eren’s hands without giving him a chance to protest. Eren blinked at the small package, wondering what the girl wanted him to do with it, but then he caught the delicious smell of food, and he realized that it was coming from underneath the wrapping.

“We saw you walking around today, me and the girls. Take this, but stay away from this place, or they will trap you here.”

Eren’s ears perked up enthusiastically when he heard the command again, and he made sure that not a single muscle in his body was moving, hoping that by following the human’s orders he could show her his gratitude.

“I’m sorry, but you need to get out of here!” she arched her brows worriedly and glanced back inside with her teeth scraping her lower lip. Small dots of red coloring smeared onto her teeth, and Eren became fearful that she might be bleeding, however, he didn’t have a chance to make sure that she was unharmed. The young woman gently grabbed him by his shoulders and pushed him towards the main street. “Go, go on, please don’t come here again! Go!”

He looked up at the woman, and she kindly smiled at him in response to his stunned expression. She opened her mouth to say something again, but a harsh, unpleasant yell from inside stopped her.

“Carla, goddamn you, get back to work! Where the hell are you?!”

The woman’s cheeks paled under the red paint, and she quickly gave Eren an apologetic, yet loving glance with those emerald eyes before hurrying back inside and disappearing behind the thick wooden door. Eren looked down at the food in his hands and inhaled the sweet and sour scent that comforted and pained his stomach at the same time. He securely hugged the package close to his body and ran as far away as he could from the horrible-smelling house.

After wandering through the dark streets for what felt like hours, he finally found his way back to the fountain. He was disappointed to see that no one was waiting for him there, but at least he had food now until they returned. He sat down by the fountain, his eyelids droopy from exhaustion, but he had a hunch that he wouldn’t be able to pass out before the aching in his stomach was appeased.

He sunk his teeth into a round, fist-sized fruit that his fingers first found in the paper bag, and he groaned in satisfaction when the flavor of the honey-like juice flooded his mouth. He ate quickly and messily with the juice running down on his chin and dripping onto his shirt, but he couldn’t have been less bothered by it. As his hunger was satisfied, he could already feel the familiar sensation of his fatigue taking charge of his body.

With the bag of the remaining food still hugged close to his chest, he laid down on his side on the ground, and the blissful waves of sleep washed over his mind.

Chapter Text

The second time Eren dreamed, he thought he might be going insane.

It’s a confusing flash of familiar shapes, colors, and emotions, yet they’re distant and contorted, somehow off, like he’s watching everything through a veil of fog and water. It feels different. His body is less of his own. He’s simply watching through an animal’s eyes, and passively observes the trembling of the vocal cords that are not moved by his own will.

He’s standing by the lake in the forest, this time his surroundings are more clear. He’s looking at something or maybe someone, or maybe no one in particular, but he does remember hearing voices. There’s shouting and angry growling, and he gives his own frustrated huff in response. He doesn’t know where the sounds were coming from, he only sees a series bright strikes of green lightning and dismembered splatters of color.

“Don’t make me force you,” a voice says, and Eren doesn’t know what it means. “Drop the serum, doctor.”

Eren doesn’t know what dreams are, but the disorienting nature of them makes it even harder for him to wonder what is happening for more than a few seconds. He’s confused and it makes his hands itch, wanting to tear the threatening unknown apart.

Through bits and shadows of green, he recognizes a figure he’d seen before; it’s the man with brown hair, glasses, and clothes that are unlike Little One’s. There’s someone else with them too, a tall man with blonde hair and he’s yelling about something, but Eren can’t understand any of it. The words he hears are just a complicated pattern of sounds, the memory of its melody sinking down into the shadowy depths of Eren’s mind. He doesn’t understand them, but doesn’t forget either. In his dreams he remembers.

The brown haired human is holding an object that shines like silver, and Eren has an instinctive urge to protect his nape with a hand quickly covering the sensitive area. The nape is sacred, the humans can’t touch it, Eren won’t let them. He snarls at them and a low growl emitting from his throat is enough to let them know that he would rip them apart if they tried to touch his nape.

The humans are fighting, he observes. The small metal object falls out of the man’s hand, but it never reaches the grass, the glass never shatters. It’s a tube with a metal thorn on one end and there’s some blue liquid inside it.

Eren stares long and hard, trying to memorize the blurry image before the sharp sound of a painful scream grabs his attention. He looks up, but he’s left confused when he realizes that the humans have disappeared into thin air like they never existed. He wants to cry out to them, ask them why they were here, what was happening and why it was so hard to remember, but to no avail. The humans were gone.

Instead, there’s a sharp pain in the back of his neck, and he’s terrified.

Sharp, ice-cold thorns are raining down on his face, and there’s something much hotter running down on his cheeks. There’s a dark, blurry figure standing in front of him whom Eren recognizes, and he wants to scream, make him go away because there was danger heading their way. Eren wants him to go, and at the same time, every part of his body is vehemently protesting against it. Please, stay, he thinks, don’t leave me out in the cold.

He doesn’t want to be alone, he wants to stay with the human with the beautiful eyes.

He’s afraid. He’s alone and he knew he would stay alone.

It’s a pity. He would’ve liked to spend a little more time with Little One. He’s alone now. There’s plenty of time for him to get used to it. If only he didn’t feel so cold.

Cold, cold, cold…

He’s sitting by the lake, threes and stone walls gone, and it’s the same as always, only Eren is no longer the size of a titan, but a human. It’s just like back then, the countless afternoons they spent together, and Eren feels like he never wants to let go, not when the memory of sunlight breaches through his skin and warms his heart through the beautiful stormy eyes.

Little One is tall, almost as tall as Eren, and he doesn’t know if he should laugh in giddy relief or shriek in shocked surprise at this sudden change. They’re sitting next to each other like it was the most normal thing in the world, and because Eren is so confused, he doesn’t question why Little One was not reacting to the way Eren looks now, or why Eren can’t seem to remember how they met again. Did the green capes come back to the fountain with Little One? And how did they get back to the forest? These are all questions of secondary importance; what matters to Eren most is the way Little One looks up at him, chin lifted, and a smug twitch on his lips that almost looks like a smile. Warmth radiates through those molten silver eyes in bold waves.

He doesn’t need more than this, he decides. Little One is saying something to him, but Eren just leans in, lost in the touch of the caressing rays of that gentle flame that lives inside Little One and the one he decided to share with Eren.

Only… Little One raises a hand, and his voice is firm now. Eren sees concern hiding behind the abysmal pupils, and suddenly he feels nauseous; there’s something wrong.

“Wake up, brat,” he hears Little One say. They aren’t alone, and Eren feels like his body is turned inside out. People watching them. Protect the nape.

“Wake up!” Little One warns and flicks Eren on the forehead, “you’re not alone.”

The pain on his forehead was sharp, though Eren could only feel the featherlight touch of a ghost on his skin when he came to his senses. He woke with a jolt, his muscles tense.

His nose was cold and pink from the early morning chill, and he snuggled his face deeper into the crook of his arm. Eren heard faint, shuffling sounds from around, but his mind was still too fuzzy from sleep to pay attention to it.

There was a noise, louder than the buzzing in the back of his unconscious mind, and he slowly opened his eyes. He recognized human voices. They were talking, standing close to him. He could see the dark shadows fill his vision while everything around him was still greyish blue.

Rough hands roamed up and down on his chest and legs, patting him like they were searching for something, and Eren suddenly snapped out of his sleep-infested stupor.

The hushed talking suddenly stopped.

“Shit! He’s awake! C’mon, let’s go!” Eren heard someone hiss, and when he managed to prop himself up on an elbow, he saw three dark figures running down an alley, their outlines still wobbly in Eren’s vision due to his sleepiness.

He looked around, finding himself to be in the same spot where he fell asleep by the fountain. The forest was gone with the lake, the two strangers and Little One with it, but though he distinctly remembered the pain slashing across his nape, he was somewhat relieved when he found the skin unharmed on the precious body part.

What didn’t ease his feverish mind was his mind itself and whatever made it flash these strange images across his eyes.

When he saw them they felt so real that he completely forgot about the fountain and his body that was aching for sunlight. He forgot what happened, and he was disappointed beyond belief that when he woke up, the first thing he saw wasn’t Little One, but the cold ground instead.

He yawned, some wetness coating his eyelashes, and he felt his stomach growl in anticipation of some food. Eren couldn’t help a desperate whine, wondering just how often he’d have to feed his body from now on. It was a lot easier when his body got around only powered by sunlight.

That was when he noticed that the bag of food was missing. Baffled, he looked around, his eyesight staying crisp even in his human form and at night, but the bag was nowhere near in sight. He frowned in confusion and started debating if he’d gone crazy and he never actually got the food from the kind woman in red. Then the pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked in his mind, and he spun around in the direction where the dark shadows of humans had disappeared.

Did they take the food from him? They had to, there was no one else around, and though the human world held many surprises, even Eren doubted that the clever creatures could make things disappear into thin air.

Standing to his feet he felt the effects that the low-quality light had on him, but he willed himself not to succumb to sleep again. With his stomach empty and his skin cold, he felt like he was a titan again after sundown, entirely useless and exhausted. He leaned against the cold stone brim of the fountain to gather some of his strength, and then pushed forward.

Following the scent of humans in the air, he wandered around the city for hours, but couldn’t find the ones who took his food. Getting more frustrated and confused with each corner he walked down on, he wondered how he’d ever be able to figure out the confusing rules of this world. These humans took food from him like it was their own, but when Eren assumed that he could do the same in that one house with the gray human, he was beaten for it. Not to mention the incident with the large woman at the house with red lights; Eren still didn’t know what that was about, but he was thankful for getting away from there in one piece.

As the sun was beginning to rise above the Wall, more and more people began walking on the streets, and Eren couldn’t find the thieves. Walking down unfamiliar roads and alleys, Eren was about to turn back and try to find the fountain again when the scent of fresh water caught his attention. Relieved by the familiar, cold smell he quickly began trotting down the alley until he found the small creek.

The morning sunlight bounced off the ever-changing surface of the water, spluttering pale droplets of color across the shore. Though it was still early, there was someone in the water already, standing in it knees deep, and Eren’s face lit up when he recognized the faded red robes. The young woman was alone, and a delicate pattern of different sounds caught Eren’s attention when the wind changed direction.

“~  Don’t sleep in my ears

Where I locked your melodies  ~”

He didn’t know what these noises meant, but they sounded similar to human speech, only instead of the irregular, chunky outbursts, this one was like a constant, soft river of sound. Eren had never quite heard something like this before.

“~ Take your things and leave

Roam the darkness in my dreams  ~”

His feet were driven by something out of reach yet not something he wanted to fight; it was an urge to move closer to the human who made him feel warm, and all he knew was that he wouldn’t mind being near this young woman again. He wasn’t afraid of her. His instincts drew him closer, unbothered by where they might lead him.

The woman was standing in the creek hunched over, and she had a red piece of clothing in her hand that she fluttered around under the water like she was trying to make sure that it was wet all the way through. Eren reached the shore, and when the woman didn’t notice him, he decided to go closer, where he could observe this strange human ritual in more detail.

Though the harsh coldness of the water surprised him when he stepped in, his skin was warm enough to take away most of the bite of the temperature. It was a little tricky to walk in water; before, he never had to bother navigating around the slippery rocks, since he was big enough for every stone to feel like small pebbles under his feet. That was exactly why he thought he could carelessly step on a white, oval-shaped rock, and slipped. The rock tilted to the side dangerously quickly, and with a large splash, Eren barely managed not to fall on his ass right in the freezing water. He glared at the small wave underneath which he suspected the rock to lie. Traitor.

The singing stopped, and the young woman spun around with a startled expression when she heard Eren’s attempt at almost drowning himself. The tense lines on her face immediately softened when she recognized who it was.

“Oh, hello there!” she said, smiling in surprise. Eren waited, not knowing what else he could do, and a moment of concern washed over the human’s features. “Are you all right, kiddo? Sorry, I didn’t catch your name last night. Are you okay, though? You haven’t been back to that house, have you?” her eyes raked through Eren’s appearance attentively though not invasively, and noticed how the boy was still wearing the clothes from yesterday, while he also didn’t have any shoes on.

Eren was a little sad that she stopped singing, so he vaguely pointed at the human, who tensed up a little at the sudden gesture, then he turned his finger back to himself and pointed at his mouth.

“Oh, um… is it that you can’t talk, or…” she regarded him with a puzzled yet affectionate look in her amber eyes. “You were so quiet yesterday, I thought that maybe… oh!” Eren startled a surprised chuckle out of her when he stepped closer and pointed at her mouth again, then made some clumsy gestures towards his ears.

“Oh! You heard me sing?” she giggled, blushing faintly, and Eren thought that it was an absolutely beautiful sound. “My sincerest condolences. I didn’t know anyone would be here this early.” Eren saw the way her eyes flickered back onto him with recognition, and there was a faint crease between her brows. “Say, shouldn’t you head home, young man, before you give your parents a scare?”

Eren was listening to her, though he was no longer paying attention. He crouched down to examine the human equipment she had with her in a basket. It was stored on a larger rock that breached the surface, no doubt to keep its contents dry. Curiously he grabbed the object that emitted the most interesting smell, a palm-sized, dirty white rock, and he recognized that it smelled the same as those white sheets he saw hanging in the alley just yesterday. His eyes flickered onto the red robes the human was holding, still dripping in water and small bubbles.

Wanting to know what the small object did, he held it up to the young woman, who’s been watching him with masked amusement. “Oh, you like the soap? It’s a rather nice scent, isn’t it, fresh soap? The girls and I pooled our money to buy it, it’s a little hard to come by good soap that is still affordable. They like scented soap, but I prefer non-scented ones. My clothes always smell bitter after I wash them with scented soap, no matter how lovely the bar smells by itself.”

Eren didn’t understand any of the gibberish that came out of the woman’s mouth, but it didn’t bother him. The constant flow of chirping sounds was pleasant to his ears. He lifted the soap closer to his face and sniffled it, then out of sheer curiosity, he touched the tip of his tongue to it, only to immediately grimace in disgust. That had the be the foulest tasting thing Eren had ever came across. Definitely not food.

The woman was caught so off guard that she didn’t know if laughing or frowning would be the more appropriate reaction. Seeing the boy’s face though, she couldn’t help the giggles that bubbled up in her chest.

“It’s not for eating, silly! Look, I’ll show you,” she said, and fighting the wide smile from reappearing on her face again, fearing that she might offend the boy, she crouched down again and began washing the clothes. “See? It’s for cleaning.”

Eren watched attentively, and his eyes sparkled up in bright light when it hit him that this human was doing the same thing that Little One always did by the river. He remembered how sometimes the small human would also take his second skins down to the water where he would use the same kind of rubbing and fluttering motions to get the water soak through the layers.

With his hands in the water, Eren wondered if the purpose of this ritual was similar to this other thing that Little One insisted on teaching him. Unsure of what he was doing but determined to find out, he reached for the soap and tapped it a little with clumsy fingers, then he submerged his hands in water again and rubbed them together as Little One showed him. When he was done, he looked up at the woman, seeking her approval.

She couldn’t help but wonder where this strange yet adorable boy was from. The way he was looking at her without uttering a single word or giving her any indication that he understood or cared about what she told her, it made her feel somewhat uneasy. It was bizarre that he was looking at her now too with such hope as if he wanted her to tell him if he washed his hands right. It was bizarre, yet when those beautiful, blueish green eyes flashed onto her with wide adoration, she was weak against the warmth that flooded her whole body.

A smile of sunshine spread on her face, and the moment Eren saw that, his lips curled too. So the soap was for hands and clothes. He wondered if this process was mandatory every time humans rubbed their hands or clothes together underwater, and how Little One felt like he couldn’t use any for so long. Though Eren didn’t know what this soap did, he suddenly felt guilty for not being able to provide it to Little One. The human must’ve missed such an important object.

“What’s your name, darling?” the woman asked, and her fleeting suspicion seemed to be proven when Eren looked up at her upon hearing her voice, but there was no recognition in his eyes. He looked as though she was asking him about what his favorite color was or how he stumbled upon a brothel last night. Determined to help him, she pointed at herself. “I’m Carla. And you?” The finger now facing him.

Eren stared at the finger with mild suspicion, the more animalistic part of him wanting to step aside from the direct fire line of the unknown gesture when he realized that it wasn’t unknown at all! His face suddenly lit up when he remembered how the messy-haired human used the same gesture only a few days ago, and after countless failed attempts to give her what she wanted, Eren finally understood that she was asking for him to repeat what she said.

Back then, his titan mouth and tongue couldn’t wrap themselves around the word ‘Han-ji,’ but now that he was like a human, Eren hoped it would be easier.

Closing his eyes and focusing all his might on the useless additions of flesh around his mouth, he struggled to mimic the sounds he just heard. He felt the pair of eyes watching him on alert, and he was all the more determined not to let this human down. Perhaps if Eren could make her happy by repeating the words back to her, she would know how thankful Eren was for the food. He would never tell her that half of it was stolen, but then again he couldn’t speak her language anyway.

His tongue was a messy, useless piece of muscle in his mouth that frustrated him to no end, and every time he was ready to make some sound, those flapping flesh things on his teeth got in the way. His impatience growing with every failed attempt to make a sound that was remotely close to those that the human made, he decided to stick with the part of her speech that he remembered most.

“Ah– I–” he hummed, or more so growled, wondering how the humans talked so effortlessly when he had trouble with a single sentence. Gritting his teeth he tried again, choosing not to stop until he could make her happy. “I’m… Ka– Kha– argh, I’m Ca-la, an’ you.”

That wasn’t even so bad, he thought cheerfully.

The sounds tasted foreign on his tongue and he positively had no idea what he just said, but the messy-haired woman would’ve probably screamed at him and then tried to squish the skin on his cheeks like she did whenever Eren managed to do something that, as he guessed, was remotely human. Or also when he didn’t manage to. Or when Eren was simply Eren. He missed that human, he realized with a cold tingle in his heart.

When he noticed how the young woman in red remained quiet though, he became very nervous very quickly. She was just staring at him, and Eren’s happiness from his first semi-successful human sentence was quickly overshadowed by doubt.

That’s not the reaction I was hoping for, he cringed internally. Did she… what does she want then? Think, think, think…

Slowly a tentative smile spread on her face, and Eren exhaled a shaky breath, relieved that maybe he didn’t fuck up too much. “Very good,” she then said, her voice shaking a little from the weight of all the questions in her mind. “That’s my name though. Carla,” she pointed at herself again and repeated the word over and over until Eren understood that she wanted something else.

Alright, he thought, something else he can work with, as long as she wasn’t mad at him for not understanding. What she wanted though, didn’t come to Eren as easily as it would a few weeks later. Right now he was still uncertain and a little self-conscious too with all his new, weird body parts.

Trying again, he opened his mouth and gave Carla the only thing that he had in mind. If this was not what she wanted, then he was out of depth.

“Eh–, Eee…” Well, this was a lot easier when he didn’t have to focus on trying to make the sound. He always just did, and then Little One repeated it to him. He became so fond of Little One mimicking the sounds he made that he unconsciously began responding to it as if it was a call for him from the human: Eren. That’s what Little One always said, and that’s what he was trying to say now. It was a lot easier said than done or in this case a lot easier thought than said. “Eeeh– Eh-ren. E-ren.”

“Eren?” the young woman asked, and the titan’s ears would’ve perked up within a split second if not for his new, human ears. The sound she made though, was hauntingly similar to how Little One used to say it, and suddenly he felt like he was home again, with the familiar word still ringing in his ears. Surprised by his sudden alertness, Carla chuckled a little. “Is your name Eren? It’s a lovely name. And it’s very nice to meet you,” she smiled, and Eren was beaming like the sun.

He was happy to laze around for some more time to watch how Carla washed the basket of clothes, and he even joined in to help her after he was more confident about the execution of this riverside activity. But soon enough the sound of his stomach trying to digest itself reminded him of how he ended up here in the first place. Searching for the scent of the thieves again, he started wandering around, and though Carla regarded him with a protective look in her eyes, she didn’t ask him where he was going, mainly because she had a hunch that Eren wouldn’t answer anyway. What a strange boy, she thought. Strange but very sweet.

By the time Eren realized that he was walking in circles and got right back to the fountain, he completely lost the scent that he was following. He began searching for it again, but the judgment of his nose was clouded by the many different scents that forced themselves on him, and he had to admit defeat.

He plopped himself down onto the fountain brim and huffed in frustration. The tight twisting in his guts first became uncomfortable like before, and though soaking in sunlight did help ease the aching a little, Eren had a hunch that by nighttime it would be very painful. He was angry with the thieves, but he couldn’t blame them, after all, it was Eren who didn’t understand the rules.

It seemed like people were very protective of their food, and until he figured out a better way, taking it by force was the only way to get some. Eren wondered where food came from and how he could obtain some without having to leave someone else hungry, but right now he had no way of finding that out. He decided that if he had to take away someone’s food either way, he’d rather pick a human who had plenty and wouldn’t go hungry without it.

The first human that popped into his mind was the gray man from yesterday. He had more food than Eren could imagine anyone eat in one go; it was a little strange, now that he thought about it, how that human had a cave full of food while other people seemed not to have any.

Eren jumped to the ground and headed towards the now familiar house. He no longer felt fearful of the humans around him, even though it was strange that he wasn’t the tallest creature around. There were many people towering over him by a good couple of inches, but then there were also humans much smaller than him. One time he even saw this tiny human on a woman’s arm, barely the size of the cat that Eren met yesterday.

When he entered the shop, he felt the way he was stared at with distrust, and he returned the gesture with his head held high and a warm glint in his forest-green eyes. He walked up to the counter where the angry grey human stood with his arms crossed.

“Well? What do you want, rat?” the man spoke and held out his hand with his thumb and index finger rubbing together. “Stolen enough money yet to pay for my goods?”

Eren blinked at him, carefully studying the other human from his peripheral vision, the one that beat him last time. Without a second thought, his hand shot out with the speed of a viper, and he grabbed the first bread that he reached.

He didn’t give the shop owners a second to react before he hugged the bread close to his chest and barged out of the house at full speed.

“Hey! Thief!” He heard the voice shout after him and there was a shuffling noise like someone was trying to forcefully make his way after him, but Eren didn’t look back.

A flash of electricity jolted through his body, and he felt his muscles spring to life under the excitement of the rush. He only ever felt this way when he fought titans, and he welcomed the adrenalin flooding his veins like an old friend.

He was pushing himself through the sea of people on the street, ducking and jumping out of the way while the yelling behind him became louder. He bumped against someone, a cold leather jacket against his face, and he had to put a hand down to the ground so he wouldn’t fall when he bounced off. Whomever this person was, their body was like stone.

“Watch where you’re going!” a flat, yet soothingly feminine voice called out.

“Mikasa, are you alright?” someone else said. He sounded distressed, and when Eren looked up, he saw two young humans, a short blonde boy and a lean girl with black hair, the one who stood completely unphased by the collision. They were wearing Little One’s clothes, the ones Eren started to suspect belonged to some human cult, but he noticed how they didn’t wear the green cape, and instead of the white and blue scribbly lines on their shoulders, they had an emblem of two white stripes crossing each other on gray background.

Eren couldn’t waste time on making sure if she was okay, and by the aching that he felt in his side which slammed against the girl’s steel body, he had a hunch that out of the two of them, he was the one who took most of the damage. Scurrying to his feet, he bolted towards the nearest house, already fearing how close his pursuer got.

Heads turned to see what the commotion was about, but before any human could catch on to whom the shop owner was yelling after, Eren had already held onto a rain gutter by the side of a house. He bit down on the bread to free his hands, and he quickly began climbing.

He reached up and pulled instinctively like he was climbing just another tree in his forest. A hand reached for his ankle, and he looked down to lock gazes with the brunette human who was with the grey man. There was a feral snarl twisting his features into an expression that resembled titans too closely for Eren’s taste, but he wasn’t tall nor quick enough to yank him back.

With practiced movements, he found himself on the rooftop within seconds, and he heard some humans below gasp in shock after seeing a badly dressed youth climb up the side of a house like an acrobat.

“Hey, someone stop that kid! He’s a thief!” the shop owner was screaming, and Eren felt a warm sense of pride flood his chest when he looked down at the man. “Someone call the Military Police, that scum just robbed me!”

The man’s eyes bore into the boy crouching on the rooftop out of his reach, and upon realizing that the human wasn’t coming after him, Eren felt a wide grin stretch the corners of his mouth. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but he couldn’t stop it from plastering onto his face like his muscles were moving of their own accord.

Eren grabbed the bread, which was still safely hanging between his teeth, and tore a bite out of it. He decided that he shouldn’t wait around for too long, not even when grinning down on this guy’s stupid face was so satisfying. The street was buzzing with noise and people were pointing at him. He remembered the strange equipment Little One and his friends wore, the one that made them fly, and he guessed that it would be smarter to disappear before any humans show up with gear like that.

The clay tiles were warm under Eren’s feet as he began running. He jumped from roof to roof, hissing a little every time the landing came harsher than he expected. These tiles were as hard as rocks compared to the softness of the soil and tree bark that Eren was used to, but he still managed to move quickly.

After he got used to the sensation he realized that this human-built forest was very much like his own in its foreign shapes and figures, and it was easy to find handles to pull himself up in the direction he wanted to go. Once he made the connection between his forest and this human rooftop world, he also realized that perhaps he wasn’t as unfit to survive in this world as he let himself to believe yesterday.

With the bread under his arm and the wind coming through his hair, he found himself unable to stop smiling. He didn’t understand why this was happening to his face, after all, for most of his life he lacked any expressive ability on most of his face, but he decided that he liked the comforting feeling that came with smiling.

Without even thinking about where he was heading, he turned left above a street that he recognized, and stirred a few unexpecting pigeons from their morning slumber when he ran along the spine of the roof. Flapping their wings they took off to the sky making cooing and whooshing sounds and Eren smirked coyly. Those birds would have to get used to not being the only creatures ruling the world above the streets.

The houses soon began to clear up ahead, and Eren could smell the scent of fresh water before he saw the idly gurgling creek.

His face lit up when he noticed that the young woman in red was still there, and he swiftly jumped into the air. He fell from about three meters and landed perfectly balanced with only a little bit of tingle in his feet.

Carla gasped and whipped his head around when the loud thud startled her. She was a little shocked to see Eren return, especially since he seemed to fall right out of the sky, but she couldn’t help the warm smile that slowly crept on her face. This boy, though in some ways acted like he was from a completely different planet, still had the most beautiful and kind eyes Carla had ever seen.

Eren trotted towards her, and ripped the bread in half. He gave the piece to Carla which hadn’t been in his mouth when he climbed the first house. She looked down at the food in surprise, but the way Eren was pushing it in her face, she just knew he wouldn’t let her refuse. It was Eren’s way of repaying her for her kindness the other night.

“Um… Thank you, Eren, this is very thoughtful of you. You didn’t have to get me anything though, you know,” she smiled gently as she accepted the bread. Eren smiled back, enjoying the soft waves of her voice when a sound undisputedly less pleasant caught his attention.

He turned around, noting how the shouting and yelling came from the street from which he came from. Two men in Little One’s outfit emerged from the shadows, both wearing the white pants and the light brown jacket, but they didn’t have any green capes on.

“Oi, is it that one?!” one shouted with a finger pointing at the two figures standing in the creek, and Eren decided not to wait around and see if these men had good intentions. He figured that the way humans could communicate with each other, these people were likely sent after him by the grey human, and they were no doubt here to punish him.

“Um, Eren?” Carla asked with equal amounts of concern and suspicious reproach. “Why is the Military Police… Eren!”

Not wanting to risk the well-being of the young woman in red, Eren quickly took off despite the worried shout that came from her. More of the angry people arrived, and when they noticed Eren running in the other direction, they started chasing him.

“Sir, he’s running this way!”

“Go get him, boys!”

Eren easily climbed back onto a house while he still had some advantage, and looking over his shoulders he saw how these humans indeed had the gear that made them fly like birds. Eren watched in awe only for a little as they jumped high up in the air and swung forward, before focusing all his attention on shaking them off.

The roof tiles were hard and hot against the soles of his feet, connecting him to the ground he was running on and making him feel his surroundings. Just like he was back in the forest, suddenly everything clicked into place. He didn’t know this world, but his intuition filled in the blanks of his lack of knowledge of the city.

Eren was fast, smart, and opportunistic. This playground of human architecture gave him a lot more things to hold onto and climb than the forest did, and Eren didn’t run for five minutes yet when the harsh yells from behind him already began to fade. He heard the whirring of the gear, and some of the bird-humans did come close to catching him; their fingers grazed on his shoulder, one time the sleeve of his shirt, but every time they were about to reach him, Eren wedged his feet into the roof tiles and threw himself into a narrow alleyway.

They couldn’t reach him fast enough, and whatever was making his pursuers fly, the machine didn’t allow them to change directions drastically in a split of a second, or as fast as Eren could. Once he realized this, it was surprisingly easy to get rid of them despite the humans’ advantage over him with their gear. He went even far as smugly noted how they seemed far less skilled at using it than Little One.

The tiles beneath his foot cracked with each step, no doubt making the people living inside the buildings whip their heads up and wonder what kind of monster was lurking above them.

When a sharply falling slope of the roof was threatening to swallow the footing from beneath him, Eren held onto his precious bread and jumped. The fall to his side was muted by a stack of dirty hay, and if Eren’s mind wasn’t high on adrenaline right now, he might’ve questioned his sanity and why he thought that breaking his body was worth the risk in case he landed on flat stone. Right now though, he didn’t have time to worry about that.

He saw hooks and wires shoot through the sky above him, and he knew he had seconds before he was discovered. Keeping his stomach close to the ground, he launched forward and under a dark alcove that was just next to the pile of hay. He backed up right against the door, which the indent on the wall was hiding, and pressed his back against it until he couldn’t see the sky. Then, he knew that the humans wouldn’t see him either.

Heavy bodies rushed by above, and Eren listened to the nerve-racking zipping sound.

“Shit, where did he go?!” Eren heard them yell and he could only imagine what they were saying. He waited for the sounds to die down before carefully taking a peek outside, and a contented grin spread across his face. He decided that one day he wanted to fly just like that, or even better.

Out of caution, he waited around for some time after his pursuers were gone. He sat down by the doorway, the adrenaline-flushed grin still on his face, though it faded a little while he was waiting.

With the immediate danger out of sight, he quickly devoured his bread and relished in the pleasant feeling that caressed his stomach. From his experience of living as a human these few days, it looked like he didn’t need to eat much more than this a day, and even if he didn’t have any food right away, the sunlight seemed to keep him in functioning order while he went out hunting.

He didn’t even know how relieved he was by this discovery until he fully processed the thought. He could do this. He could survive on his own, and that meant that he could live long enough until Little One found him, or who knows, perhaps Eren would be the one who finds him first.

In the meantime, he wasn’t too bad at playing human.

He stepped outside and into the alley, when he noticed a hunched over figure standing in the middle, his body eerily illuminated by the lighting coming from a less busy street behind him.

“…Eren!”

The titan froze in his tracks. The strange voice belonged to a strange, yet not quite unfamiliar face. Eren watched as the disturbed-looking man scrambled towards him, and his brain all but screamed to him: run, run, get out of here!

The human was not someone he knew, but someone he distinctly remembered seeing before. His hair was pale brown, the strands brushing his shoulders and there were hairs on his chin and jaw too. He was wearing those round objects of glass in front of his eyes. Eren’s brows pinched together as he concentrated on remembering where he saw this man before, but he couldn’t tell. He’d seen many people in the human world these past two days.

One thing was sure though: he never told this man what his name was.

Chapter Text

“…Eren!”

It was barely a gasp, a muttered, silent word. Those turquoise eyes widened in shock like they recognized him but hadn’t expected to see him, not here, not now.

After that first word, only an eerie silence remained that covered the alley like a heavy coat of snow.

Eren took a step back but braced his feet against the ground as he eyed the man with an uneasy feeling blooming in his chest. Every instinct he had told him to turn around and –no, don’t show him your nape, he cannot get close to the nape–

Eren stood with his feet firmly planted into the ground, not willing to flee just yet but ready to defend himself.

He felt like he knew this man, but every time he tried reaching for the memories that would explain this strange situation, they slipped out of his grasp and he was left empty-handed. He’d met many people and saw even more during the past few days, and everything was too new and exciting yet to remember it all.

“Eren!” the man said his name again, this time with more vigor, and he didn’t look so tired anymore. Though his clothes were dirty and torn by the edges, his hair unkempt and there was dirt under his fingernails, there was a certain way he lifted his head high up and straightened his back that held remembrance of what this man might’ve been before… whatever made him look so disheveled.

Words fell from the human’s lips quicker than Eren could ever hope to understand them, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by the attention. The man reached him with surprising speed even though he clearly limped on one leg. He grabbed Eren by the shoulders, tearing a surprised yelp out of the titan.

Those bony fingers dug too deep into Eren’s flesh for his comfort, and the sudden closeness of the human startled him, making him want to shove his hands away and growl like the titan he was, but the way the man looked at him stunned him into silence. This human was looking at him with wide, amazed eyes, his hands were touching Eren’s hair and face; not intrusively like the madam’s, not affectionately like Carla’s, but they still held a certain gentleness and awe that did not match the feverish fire that burnt in the green eyes behind the glasses.

Eren caught the man saying his name multiple times, repeating it over and over again. Then his hands stopped, and the astonished expression on his face slowly began to droop, like it was melting off his skin, and with it, Eren’s anxiety returned.

Something was wrong here.

Why did this man know the name that Little One gave him? Why did he look so relieved to see him one moment, and in the next, he was staring at him with furrowed brows and a stern expression cooling the gentle hues of his irises?

Eren’s ears perked up when he picked up traces of distant shouting and hurried footsteps. The man seemed to have heard them too because he whipped his head around in the direction of the street to which the alley led. He was still mumbling something under his breath, a never-ending flow of words spilling from his mouth. He quickly began fumbling around his neck and yanked a small, metal object from underneath his shirt that was tied to his neck with a thin strap of leather.

“Eren,” words, words, words, “Eren,” more words. He didn’t dare move as the man lifted the object above him. With the leather strand now hanging loosely around his neck and the metal object hidden beneath his faded green shirt, Eren waited for where this was going.

He watched dumbfounded as the man hung the weird object on him like he was some tree to hold whatever he needed to stash away at the moment, when two people appeared by the entrance of the alley. The frazzled human’s eyes went wide with fear.

Eren looked over his shoulder, wondering who these new humans were that began running toward them when the brown-haired human suddenly pushed Eren by the shoulder in the other direction. Then he finally said something Eren could understand: “Go!”

Snapping out of his daze, Eren didn’t need to be told twice.

He bolted off in the opposite direction to where the humans were coming from, and grabbing onto some stones bulging out of the walls, he quickly pulled himself onto the roof. From there, he carefully peeked out just in time to see the two humans, two men to be precise, who tackled down the weird one that knew Eren’s name. They pushed him onto the ground, twisting his arm behind his back at a painful angle no doubt, but the man on the ground didn’t move a finger in protest; he looked strangely relieved.

The other two looked a lot younger, though Eren couldn’t tell how old they were. The concept of aging was unfamiliar to him, and he could only notice how some humans looked more tired and wrinkly than others. He couldn’t associate his observations with any previous knowledge or experience of the passing of time. He only very recently discovered the concept of past and future, namely when he decided to let Little One go. The memory was still painful to him.

These men, as Eren observed, didn’t look exhausted, but very angry. One of them had a bulky, muscular frame, and he had short blond hair and a strong jawline. The other guy, though a lot taller than the blond, wasn’t as muscular, and he had brown hair and soft features. His gaze was anxiously flickering between their human prey, the blond one, and the shadows of the alley. Eren realized that he must be looking for him, with his hands full with the first human though, he couldn’t set out to search the place.

Eren’s heart was beating so loudly in his chest that he half-expected it to crack the roof tiles on which he was laying. No matter how much basic human behavior did he not understand yet, he knew that he just witnessed something that he shouldn’t have.

The metal object pressing against his collarbone felt a lot heavier.

Talking between themselves, the newly arrived humans seemed to have reached a conclusion, because they quickly lifted the man by his arms, and he let them, body limp and no doubt weak from some sort of illness or fatigue. The two humans quickly carried him out of the alley and disappeared around the corner.

Only when they were gone, did Eren let out a deep sigh. He didn’t even notice how his lungs were burning from the lack of oxygen this entire time from holding in his breath.

He fished the metal object out from underneath his shirt and gave it a quizzical look. He couldn’t make any sense of it. It had the color of the setting sun, golden and mesmerizing. A straight metal stick with a flat, dull blade on one end that was no doubt useless in a fight, and a weird rectangular shape on the other end, to which the leather string was attached to.

Eren decided that all in all, it didn’t lack some charm. It was neat, small, and its unknown purpose had Eren’s curiosity.

Crawling on his stomach towards the street, carefully so he wouldn’t be noticed by any people on the road, he followed the three men. When he reached the edge of the roof, a narrow, dark little street came into view that was almost completely empty. Following the sounds of struggle, he carefully peeked down and saw just in time how the brown-haired human with the glasses was pushed inside a small framed door, strong hands manhandling him with such force that made Eren’s skin itch uncomfortably.

While the blond human disappeared with the captive inside the house, the tall one went back to the alley. He looked under the alcove and behind the stack of hay, and even walked to the other end of the alley, where he poked his head out and looked left and right multiple times. Eren watched in silence, afraid to move a single muscle that would draw the human’s attention to him.

The door opened again, startling Eren a little, and the blond man joined the tall one.

“Where is he?” he asked in his deep, rumbling voice.

“He’s gone,” the tall one said with a hint of nervousness trembling in his core. He was cracking his knuckles anxiously as he looked around. “Should we– should we go out, try to find him? Did you get a look at his face?”

The blond human was quiet for a moment before he seemingly came to a decision and turned around. “No. There’s no point. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack and it was probably just some snotty brat anyway,” the man said as he began walking back towards the sparse street.

“But he saw him…!”

“And we better make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” the man warned. “I don’t want the doctor to find out about this, and I doubt you do either.”

The two men soon retreated back inside the house, and Eren didn’t move for several couple minutes before finally letting out a shaky breath. There was one street he knew for sure now that he never wanted to come anywhere near again.

Weeks went by and he didn’t see those three again for a long time.

Levi smashed his fist for the third time on the old tavern’s door when finally he saw the flickering light of a candle through the small glass panel.

“Fucking finally,” he grumbled under his breath as he pulled the cloak lower onto his face in a hopeless attempt to shield himself from the never-ending rain that poured down on them from the sky. He cursed Erwin internally for it; no doubt the Commander had to have something to do with this hell-on-earth weather too that tortured them for nearly a full week now.

The reason why Levi and his squad were standing outside a tavern after sundown in the middle of a rainstorm with all their clothes soaked through and with still a good couple of kilometers waiting for them on the road, was simple and went something like this:

Erwin’s blue eyes burned in the cold flames of a quiet rage. He sat by his office desk, listening to the soldier standing in the middle of the room.

“He’s dead?”

“Yes, sir,” the young scout said, still panting from the long journey behind her. “He was found in the interior inside a forest next to Wall Maria, not only a kilometer away from the scene of the incident.”

After Gerda Friz’s confession and the futile search for Marton Kugler inside the Survey Corps’ headquarters, Erwin sent out messengers to summon all known scouts who had already left the castle after going through their fair share of interrogations. There were about fifty of them, and suddenly they were all needed for a second testimony. This time they were to recall Marton’s behavior before and during the incident, as well as his possible whereabouts at the moment.

All efforts were barren, however, as no one knew or remembered anything about Marton’s last known location after the incident with Eren.

Erwin held back a frustrated sigh and glanced at Levi, who’d been standing by the window since the messenger arrived. Hanji was still sitting by the fire reading through reports, looking for any mention of Marton which missed their attention the first time they read them, but the scout’s arrival grabbed her attention.

“And the cause of death?” she asked.

“A clean stab to the heart, sir,” the scout replied diplomatically, without showing much of her emotions, but the hint of tremble in her voice suggested that the crime scene was more unsettling than she let it known. “The time of death is unknown, but the body and the injuries looked fresh. Sir, if you don’t mind my opinion…”

Erwin regarded her with an intrigued look, ready to hear something else other than his own web of entangled thoughts. “What’s your name?”

“Ilse Langnar, sir.”

“Speak freely, Private Langnar.”

The scout scratched the back of her neck, and a small crease appeared between her brows. “The Team Leader’s clothes were almost dry by the time we found him, but the blood looked completely soaked through his shirt, and the color was faded too. When I opened the shirt to inspect his wound from closer, I found the skin around the cuts completely clean as if it had been washed down.”

“So he had to be killed… before or during the rain,” Erwin murmured and his eyes went wide. The papers fell out of Hanji’s hand, and she turned to face Erwin with an equally pale expression. Levi didn’t move. “The blood soaked through his wet shirt, and the rest was washed away by the water.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I thought too,” the scout said.

“The rain started before we made it back to the wall,” Hanji recalled with a dazed expression, “and there are mentions in the reports of Marton being there before Eren was startled by the approaching titans. But in the chaos that followed, none of us would’ve noticed a single person disappearing.”

Erwin pinched his chin between two fingers and started walking up and down in front of the desk, not wanting to dismiss the scout who found Marton just yet in case she had any more important observations or opinions. “Seems plausible. But the question remains, who…”

He was interrupted by the heavy pounding of a fist on the office door that startled all three of them. The Commander wasn’t expecting anyone; two of his best men were in the room with him, while Mike and Dita were out there still, searching in vain for the Team Leader.

The knocking however was impatient and stubborn, and Erwin’s headache was far too painful for him to bear another second of the awful sound. The train of his thought be damned.

“Enter!” he raised his voice, and immediately, a red-faced boy tore the door open, the impact of his arrival almost sending him face flat on the floor.

Regaining some of his lost composure, he saluted with a heavy fist slammed against his ribcage, right above his heart. “Commander Erwin, apologies for the intrusion, but I believe I have important information regarding Team Leader Marton!”

“State your name and rank, soldier.”

“Private Jesse Byrer, member of Team Nine under Team Leader Marton Kugler and Squad Leader Hanji Zoe!”

“Jesse, pumpkin, come inside,” Hanji encouraged her with a tilt of her head, to which the boy of maybe sixteen closed the door and stepped within a comfortable distance of his superiors. “What do you have for us?”

“I apologize for coming before my scheduled testimony,” Jesse panted, his cheeks blazing with heat and a feverish glint in his eyes, “but I have heard of the accusations against our Team Leader, and please, sirs, you have to believe me that he’s innocent!”

Erwin exchanged a knowing glance with Hanji; with what they just found out a minute ago, they were ready to question every conclusion they drew from Gerda Friz’s confession.

“And what makes you say that?” Erwin asked.

“I know that he’s not guilty, sir, because I saw someone during the mission wearing the Team Leader’s gear. They aren’t in the Survey Corps, and they aren’t the Team Leader either,” Jesse blurted out in one go, looking like he was either ready to fight anyone to convince them of his truth, or pass out from running all this way to the office. “I remember finding it weird that they didn’t seem familiar, but we were in the middle of a fight, and a lot of my rational thinking was clouded by adrenaline. I only started remembering now when I heard that Team Leader Marton is the main suspect. This person I saw, they were wearing our cape and maneuver gear, but the more I think of it, they were not wearing the military uniform underneath it. I saw it when the cape was lifted by the wind when they went for the kill, they were wearing civilian clothes.”

Hanji jumped across the room with the speed of light, forcefully grabbed Jesse by the arms, and shook him. “Do you remember what they looked like?”

“M-maybe I would recognize them if I saw them again, sir, but they were farther away and it was also raining,” Jesse quickly said with his eyes so wide that they threatened to pop out of their sockets. “But they had blond hair, that much I know for sure, a little longer too, about shoulder length.”

“Private Langnar, did Marton miss any piece of equipment or clothing when you found him?” Erwin asked the young scout quietly.

“Yes, sir,” she didn’t hesitate to answer. “All parts of his maneuver gear had been disrobed of him, however, his cape seemed untouched.”

“So it seems we have a cape on our hands which appeared in two different places at the same time,” Erwin sighed, the frustration-fueled sarcasm not even hidden in his voice anymore. The lighting in the room only accentuated the heavy bags under his eyes. “Thank you, Byrer, Langnar. You’re dismissed.”

The two saluted and left the room.

“Well, this just got a lot more interesting,” Hanji sighed. Not even she had the energy to act as her normal, enthusiastic self anymore. “An intruder, huh? A premeditated assassination, it would seem. What in the world…”

Erwin hummed and sat behind his desk, eager to give his aching limbs some well-deserved rest. “Is the boy reliable?”

“He’s not a liar and he’s got a good head on his shoulders. If he says he saw someone, then I believe him.”

“We need to call back everyone for more information. If one person saw this intruder then there must be more, perhaps people who saw their face but thought it to be irrelevant at the time.” Erwin now turned to Levi and regarded him with open concern. The captain hadn’t moved an inch since Langnar arrived, but Erwin noticed the change in his posture, the way he hunched down and hung his head lower.

“Fucking shit, Erwin, whomever this assassin was, they’re probably long gone,” Hanji seethed and pinched the bridge of her nose as if to forcefully will her headache away. “If they have any brains, then they’re long gone because if I get my hands on them, I will rip them to pieces! I want to go back there. There has to be something we didn’t notice in the chaos, perhaps this person left something behind by accident, and… the question of how they got outside the Wall is still unanswered,” she added with the tone of her voice dropping as realization struck her. “Now that I come to think of it, how did they get outside?”

“There are places on the Wall that are less guarded by the Garrison,” Erwin offered, but the tentative furrowing of his brows revealed that he wasn’t quite satisfied with the answer either. “It should prove to be relatively easy to slip past the patrol if one knows their way around them. And let’s be honest, outside of the four main districts on Wall Maria where titans are not drawn in by the heavy population, the Garrison rarely takes the job seriously.”

“Yes, but think about it!” Hanji was now staring into the distance with burning passion, the clogs inside her brain steaming furiously. “If you follow the supposed line of events, something doesn’t add up. Marton has been with us for the entirety of the mission except for the last who knows how many hours, maybe half, one at most. He had his gear and uniform up until the last hour.

“If someone somehow managed to snatch him right under of our noses, first, how would the assassin get across the Wall in the first place if they had to steal Marton’s gear? Climbing it is nearly impossible and takes a lot of time too. Not to mention that Squad Two was waiting for us up there with the net.

“But if they did own a gear, then why did they take Marton’s? And most of all, why would they carry his corpse back behind the Wall? I mean it would’ve been a hell of a lot easier to hide his body somewhere outside and no one would ever find out. The assassin had to travel across the Wall, take Marton’s cape and possibly gear, cut Eren’s nape, and then carry Marton’s corpse back behind the Wall where they would hide it in the woods.”

“Unless they didn’t have to carry a corpse,” Erwin concluded, and Hanji’s face lit up with the same menacing grin that crowded her face every time she was on the verge of a new scientific discovery, or when she was about to do something unhinged.

“A lot of our questions would be answered if it turned out that Marton was in on the plan all along. Whatever reason he had, if he was an accomplice of this assassin then it would sure be easier for him to hop behind the Wall, shed his gear, give it to this person, and then I suppose get stabbed in the back because that’s usually the fate of those who conspire behind their superior officers’ and friends’ back.”

Erwin took a fleeting glance at the documents laying on his desk. Anything regarding cases outside of this investigation seemed like a waste of paper and time.

“One thing is clear,” he said. “Eren was our only and most valued asset to learn something important about the titans, and his murder was proof that we’re on the right track. Eren was special and someone finished him off to prevent us from learning the truth. Which is all the more reason why we have to continue this investigation and not rest until we find the person who did this. Levi,” he turned to the man who hadn’t abandoned his post by the window still. “Gather your squad, I need you on the hunt. In this case, I trust no one’s eyes nor intuition more than yours.”

Fucking Erwin Smith and his trust that forced Levi to stay outside in this god-awful rain. The last thing Levi needed right now was a proper case of pneumonia.

Marton Kugler, in Levi’s humble opinion, was too busy for his own fucking good; proof of this was his rotting corpse six feet below the cold ground somewhere. Levi wanted to drag the man back up to the surface and back to life so he could choke the truth out of him and kill him again.

Gritting his teeth Levi kicked the tavern door with his toe-cap a few more times, the force strong enough to create a small indent on the wood, when he finally heard the grouchy voice coming from inside: “Alright, I’m coming, I’m coming, god damn ya!”

The door was yanked open by a short, bearded man in a nightgown and a nightcap made of the same, striped material, candle in hand and cigarette between his chapped lips. Levi’s left eye twitched involuntarily at the sight.

“Who the f–” the man forgot to finish his sentence somewhere between noticing the murderous glint in Levi’s dead-beat eyes and recognizing the military uniform. “Ah, good evening, officer! How may I be of service to ya?”

“Stepping out of my way so we don’t have to stand in this shitty rain anymore would be greatly appreciated,” Levi deadpanned as he pushed inside unceremoniously, not bothering with the formalities; he got tired of dealing with this politely after the first two minutes the investigation started.

“Oh, make yourselves at home, gentlemen!” the innkeeper stuttered as Levi marched in, behind him followed Eld and Petra with apologetic expressions on their faces, while Oluo and Gunther stood outside under an overhanging roof and watched the horses.

“We’re sorry for the intrusion at such a late hour,” Petra rushed to ease the tense mood that seemed to follow their group around like a dark shadow. Levi wondered how she still had the capacity to worry about offending their witnesses after tracking down nearly fifty of them already.

“It’s no bother at all!” the innkeeper tried reassuring her with a nervous smile before he raised his voice. “Monika, where are ya, damn girl? We have guests!”

Shortly a young woman with a severe case of bed-hair came down from upstairs, her hands firmly clutching onto her robe in hopes of preserving her modesty. “Guests at this hour?” she asked with a sleepy frown and brushed a few strands of messy yellow hair out of her face, a gesture which Levi followed with his sharp eyes.

“Stop runnin’ your mouth and bring ‘em something to drink!”

“That won’t be necessary,” Levi shut him down, sounding thoroughly bored.

He walked to the table closest to the fire and threw his gloves on the hard surface. Though they were made from the finest leather he could get his hands on, they still managed to soak through after countless hours of steeping in the rain, leaving his hands cold and damp. In the dim light, the small, red lines on his skin were almost invisible.

Driven by an impulse, he shed his cloak and jacket too and unclasped one of the belts of the maneuver gear on his chest. He whipped out the dagger from his boot that he always carried around. Quietly observing the way their hosts (father, and his daughter no doubt) flinched at the sudden flash of silver, he slowly began dragging the blade up and down on the strap, as if it was cutting into his pectoral muscle and he had to soften the leather. It wasn’t an uncommon issue with new straps, though he had his for quite some time now.

“We have some questions for you, then we’ll be on our way,” he said plainly and fished out a crumpled-up piece of paper from the innermost pocket of his jacket. Miraculously, the ink didn’t get smudged too badly. He unfolded the paper and placed it in front of the innkeeper. It was a sketch of Marton. “Seen this man before?” he asked and never once removed his unforgiving gaze from their latest suspected witnesses.

“He looks vaguely familiar, yes,” the man murmured and his daughter nodded along. “Been here a couple of times. A quiet man, that one is, never had any trouble with ‘im. He usually sits in that corner there when he comes by, though we hadn’t seen ‘im in some time now, have we?”

“How often did he visit your establishment?” Eld asked when he noticed how Levi was preoccupied with thoroughly scrutinizing their two witnesses. The innkeeper, who appeared to have shrunken half his size under Levi’s heavy gaze, turned to the next in command scout with a somewhat relieved expression.

“Maybe once a month, I’d say, sir,” he complied. “I heard he has family here, visits them every once in a while when the army gives ‘im a leave, sir.”

“You seem to remember quite a lot about a customer who only turns up once or twice a month,” Levi commented and watched the old man’s face turn a shade paler, no doubt realizing that this visit was a lot more important than he first thought.

“Not at all, sir, but y’see we don’t get to hear much around this part of the kingdom, so we remember almost everyone who comes by.”

“Good, then you must also remember what kind of crowds this man was fraternizing with.”

Levi sat and listened in silence in his uncomfortably damp clothes as the two innkeepers started talking like it was the Sunday market and they were gossiping with their old friends. Countless names and semi-detailed physical descriptions were mentioned, all pointing in a hundred different directions that gave Levi an all too familiar headache. Drip, drip, drip, there’s blood on your hands.

He glanced down. His hand were still a little pink and scratched up, but at least they were clean now.

Petra dutifully took notes of everything worth reporting back to Erwin, every single person mentioned who have blond hair or who had a family member or close friend with that color. Needless to say, even though only every two out of ten were blond, the list of people suspected to be loosely associated with Marton seemed to have no end.

Quite frankly, Levi was aware that he was slowly losing his mind and was convinced that he’d never be able to look at a blond person the same way again.

Even now, when they were ready to take their leave into the hellish weather outside, he still eyed the innkeeper’s daughter like a hawk, probably making both the father and the girl reasonably uncomfortable, though the reason for his staring was not what they thought it was. He couldn’t care less about their discomfort; he had a damn job to do and an assassin to hunt down.

Though the girl looked rather young and skinny, it was never the bulky muscle heads who were best at using the maneuver gear. Not to mention that this girl had the opportunity to talk to Marton every month or so, which was enough for Levi to consider her a suspect.

“I think this will be all, right, Captain?” Petra asked as she wrote down the last sentence in her notebook, and Levi gave her a noncommittal grunt for an answer.

“ ‘Captain?’ ” The innkeeper furrowed his brows, and his eyes trailed down on Levi’s jacket and cloak before they met the harsh steel gaze. “Are you that captain from those looneys who go outside?” Levi narrowed his eyes dangerously but didn’t say anything. “I-I must say,” the innkeeper went on with a buttery smile that irked Levi. “We heard rumors about a recent attack on Maria not too far from ‘ere. It was all the rage a few weeks ago, they say a thirty-meter titan was trying to get through them walls, but that Captain Levi killed it! Is that true?”

There was a hopeful, yet hungry expression in the man’s eyes, and his daughter seemed suddenly more alive too, curious if the gossip was true.

Levi stared at the man with the surface of his porcelain mask cracked, and his outrage became visible in a single twitch of his lips. Disgusting. Fucking filth, all of them.

He didn’t have enough hands to count the times he was asked about the rumor while they were walking house to house. Each time he heard it, there was something different about it; it was more colorful, more exaggerated, more cruel. These rats called humans were hiding behind their walls and under their filthy beds, but the moment word came of an execution of a public figure, of a tragic death, or a ruthless assassination attempt, they whipped their heads up with bloodthirst in their ugly little eyes.

Noticing the dark shadows clouding Levi’s features, Petra rushed to save the ignorant innkeeper a slap on the face, or worse. “I’m sorry, but information on the missions of the Survey Corps is classified! Thank you for your time and apologies for disturbing you.”

The innkeeper, no doubt overjoyed that the scrutiny was over, chuckled weakly. “No trouble, miss, none at all. We’re glad that we could help.”

The two scouts rose to their feet and looked at Levi, wondering why he wasn’t getting ready to leave yet. His jacket and cloak were still on the table. Slowly Levi stood and leveled the meek-looking girl with his dead-eyed glare that made grown men tremble.

“Come here, brat,” he said and watched as the girl gave her father a wide-eyed, uncertain look, before reluctantly stepping in front of the captain. She was shaking like a fragile flower petal. They were about the same height, but the way the girl lowered her gaze onto the floor, she looked even smaller. “Buckle me up,” Levi ordered quietly but there was a firmness to his voice that tolerated no disobedience.

The girl whipped her head up and met Levi’s gaze for a short moment before her eyes trailed down onto his chest, and a furious blush flooded her cheeks. It spread on her ears and neck as well before it disappeared under her robe.

“What are you waiting for?” Levi pressured her coolly, and the girl let out a small whimper of sorts.

With trembling fingers she reached out for the straps, her fingertips brushing against the cold, wet material of Levi’s shirt, and she clumsily began working on the buckles.

The awkward silence was so heavy that it was impossible to ignore, and it seemed to be painfully uncomfortable to everyone except Levi, who observed the girl’s every movement with calm, impassive eyes. He could feel Petra shift her weight from one leg to another beside him, while Eld kept his composure and watched the scene without revealing his dismay.

When the girl was done, Levi regarded her with one more look before he silently slipped his jacket and cloak on, then he bid them farewell just as casually as he barged inside. Petra and Eld followed closely behind, and they walked across the street where the rest of the squad was waiting.

“Captain,” Petra’s slightly uncertain voice was muffled by the rain.

“What,” Levi grunted as he mounted his horse and gathered the reins.

“With all due respect–”

“There’s nothing ever respectful about the question following that, so you might as well just spit it out.”

Petra looked visibly anxious, but she raised her chin and replied with the determination of a woman who was ready to protect younger girls from any man of ill intent, “Well, it’s just… what was that? Captain, you made that girl and her father very uncomfortable!”

Levi hooked a finger underneath the loosely buckled straps to give her a better view. “She couldn’t do it right for shit.”

Petra blinked at him. “Meaning, sir?”

Levi fixed the straps on his chest and clicked his tongue. “Meaning that she can’t fly over the wall with gear to infiltrate our mission either, can she?”

Realization washed over Petra’s features, but then the light immediately faded from her eyes, and a small crease appeared between her brows. “Did you really suspect her, sir? She’s just a girl!”

And I beat up grown men when I was just a boy.

“If we have to endure this fucking weather either way then we might as well do a thorough job. Now enough chatter, let’s go.”

For the past four weeks, members of the Survey Corps had been sent across the land to seek out every place Marton Kugler had ever set foot on.

They didn’t have much to go by at first, only the Kugler’s family home and an orphanage where the squad leader spent most of his adolescent years, but the more people they talked to, the more information flooded in and onto Erwin’s desk in the form of written reports, the less coherent the investigation became.

It was tiring, confusing, and most of all frustrating.

It also didn’t help lighten the mood that mother nature seemed to be determined not to let them reach the inn where Levi’s squad would regroup with Hanji and Mike. The small village they visited was only about ten kilometers or so from Shiganshina district, but they were soon forced to halt their horses due to the rain and the utter darkness that the heavy clouds cast onto the land, making it impossible for the horses to travel safely. The roads have turned into a slippery sea of mud, and even with a lantern it was raining so heavily that they might as well not had a lantern at all.

Cursing out loud Levi halted his horse and turned back so the others could hear him over the constant noise of raindrops falling on their hoods. “Dismount and lead the horses on reins. They will break their necks in this shitty mud if we continue at this speed.”

“Captain, should we turn back to the village?” Gunther asked, or someone sounding similar to Gunther did because Levi could barely see anything other than three dark blobs through the curtain of water. Had it rained any harder, they would’ve drowned.

“No, we’ll take cover under that big ass tree over there until it clears up enough that we can continue riding,” he pointed at the mushroom-shaped shadow about thirty meters away by the roadside. The crown might be thick and dense enough to keep them mostly dry; or more so, it would keep them from becoming more drenched than they currently were.

“We shouldn’t’ve set out in the first place,” he then muttered just to himself, damning his decision to lead his team straight into a restless evening without shelter. He couldn’t have known that the roads would change phase of matter, but it was also his job to prepare for the worse.

Levi knew he wasn’t in his best form, and it annoyed him to no end that he seemed to be unable to fix whatever problem was making him so… not like himself. Disorganized, and quick to get riled up. He showed his anger too; he raised his voice more often and he allowed his personal issues to momentarily corrupt his work. Keeping his emotions under check hadn’t proven to be so difficult since he was a child, and he did not like how he felt himself thrown back into the mindset of a hormonal adolescent. He needed to get a grip on things, push it down, before it caused any more trouble.

If only he wasn’t so fucking tired.

After he tied his horse to a large branch of the oak tree, he sat down with his back against the trunk and his squad did the same, though they all knew that none of them would get much rest in this weather. It was cold, they were tired, aching for a warm meal, and they were soaked through to the bone. Levi loathed the feeling of the heavy garments sticking to his body; he felt trapped, like he was buried alive. He sat with his freezing fingers clenched into a tight ball on his thighs as he tried to ignore the sickening feeling.

For four fucking weeks they’ve been doing this, constantly on the road, constantly talking, asking, probing, meanwhile their only concrete lead was a vague description of hair. Levi wanted to strangle someone, and he’d been fighting the urge to squeeze out the life of the first person that got in his way ever since they set out from headquarters. He was exhausted, frustrated, and worst of all a small beacon of hope still lived in his heart that this desperate investigation would bring something to the table, that he could avenge the – say it – murder of Eren.

Murder.

A heavy, unpleasant word that violated the ears the same way the action itself violated the body and soul.

Ah. How he knew this feeling. The boiling rage that threatened to spill and burn everything in its way but gave no comfort after unloading it onto the world. There was only emptiness that remained because no matter how much blood he spilled, the dead couldn’t be revived. Decisions were made and then came the consequences, and at the end of the day, one could only either accept reality and move on or shed their sanity bit by bit and drown in regret.

Decisions, decisions…

In reality, Levi was just as clueless and useless as every fucker around him, as he used to be when he was still a child, sitting on the floor and looking a tall, fox-faced man straight in the eye. The man who taught him how to keep those alive who mattered by letting those die who didn’t.

A life for a life. A simple exchange. And when it failed, he could still try to set that fucked up cosmic balance back on track by taking revenge. Maybe it was rewarding back then to avenge the dead, but Levi guessed that was no longer the case, it hadn’t been for a while. What remained was rage, and once that boiled off, only emptiness.

Right now, Levi was nowhere near empty yet.

Gray eyes, green eyes, blue eyes, and now green again, all perished. The resolve they left behind fueled his body to keep going.

 During the winter of 836, Kenny the Ripper – known serial killer, and leader of the most vicious gang in the northern region of Underground – disappeared without a trace, and two adolescent thugs began fighting to fill the void that he left behind. The son of a merchant, Ulrich Breck, age twenty-five, an arrogant, headstrong, sly man; and Levi, son of a prostitute with no family name, date of birth unknown, a feral, skinny boy who barely spoke, but when he did, only profanities spilled from his mouth.

Kenny hadn’t disappeared for a full day yet when the thugs had already taken their sides by the two most known members of the frayed gang, and such was the law Underground. No one searched for those who didn’t turn up, because they were either dead or simply not worth the effort. Everyone was replaceable, and loyalty shifted in a blink of an eye.

Kenny was never per se the most sociable person. He never put too much effort into gathering people around himself and he always reiterated how much he hated all of them, yet he had a terrifyingly accurate sense to know what drove people. He knew their flaws and addictions after a single look at them, and he knew where he had to tighten his hold to make them spill whatever he wanted, money, words, blood. The people he didn’t kill or frighten off remained by his side, they began working for him and because he was a power hungry bastard, he let them. Slowly, an unofficial yet cohesive group began to form.

At the golden age of Kenny’s rule, which was the same year he disappeared, there were approximately two hundred members of the gang, and only two of them remained by Levi’s side. No one would’ve bet their money and lives on a small, gaunt boy who was barely tall enough to reach the shelves in the kitchen while standing on a chair. Levi never boasted about his accomplishments either. Those who were close to him knew what he was, but to the gang, Levi No Name was just a strange kid who followed Kenny around like a shadow. But none of them knew what he was truly capable of, not Kenny, not Farlan or Isabel, perhaps not even Levi; none of them knew until the war of thugs broke out.

When Kenny disappeared, Levi didn’t intend on getting wrapped up in the shady business of a fight within the gang. He removed himself from them completely and no one paid much attention to him at first. Ulrich, who seized power, even went out as far as to offer a job to Levi in hopes of saving himself a conflict, but Levi wasn’t a fool. He refused the offer and made it known that he had no intention of staying in contact with any of them. He took Farlan and Isabel with him when he left, determined to keep those two alive and he didn’t care about the rest. They lived in poverty like everyone else, took what they needed to survive like everyone else, and Levi never cared to oppose Ulrich and his boastful thugs.

For a time they lived in relative peace, with neither of them interfering with each other’s business, but one thing about the Underground was that space was limited, and people by nature always wanted to expand their territory.

It didn’t take long until small conflicts arose, claims were made and knives were drawn, and soon came what Levi had been anticipating from the moment Ulrich took charge: the first attempt of getting rid of him for good.

A man armed with a small packet of rat poison, which was intended to be dissolved in Levi’s drink, visited a tavern where the three of them often hung out. The poison landed in a cup full of red wine, but since Levi didn’t like drinking alcohol, Farlan took a sip instead. That night while his friend was tossing and turning in agony on his near death bed under Isabel’s anxious care, Levi was out hunting down the assassin, and with three stabs to the guts, he started a war that lasted for four years.

He always knew that Ulrich would one day be out for his blood, and the possibility of a fight never made him anxious. Violence was the first thing he experienced in life. He saw from the dirty window how his mother’s customers sometimes beat her, or how Kenny opened bleeding red lines on his victims. The world was cruel, and the part of him that was horrified by it was quickly suffocated and pushed down under a heavy mask of apathy that never cracked.

Had he been poisoned, he would’ve either died or lived and sent back the assassin dog to its owner with maybe a few teeth missing, but he wouldn’t’ve killed him. However, when it was his friends’ lives that came in direct line of danger, he never once hesitated to take an eye for an eye.

By then Levi was known as the prodigy of the Underground with his raw strength, his bluntness that made even men blush, and yet he possessed a surprising and unshakeable sense of moral justice, which he never hesitated to inflict upon anyone. Word spread, thugs were sent out on a hunt and then got beaten by a boy half their size, and Ulrich began to lose his men at an alarming rate.

Half of the members of the original gang died at each other’s hands, a quarter of the rest disappeared and were presumed to be dead, a few left the gang altogether, while the rest pledged themselves to Levi, until no one else remained by Ulrich’s side but his family. With most of his power gone, Ulrich could only watch and fume as Levi became the most well-known thug of northern Underground.

Though Levi held a grudge against the man for almost killing Farlan, he decided to call it even after countless of Ulrich’s men died during the fights. He wasn’t about to hunt for a man like a frightened, wounded beast, anxiously clasping onto his figurative throne, and he was ready to let the man live out the rest of his miserable life, until that one raid that made him determined to end the man for once and for all.

Such a waste of life, a waste of good, able people. Levi hated it.

He still hated it. In war, people died knowing that they will face the enemy in a life or death battle, but betrayal or taking someone’s life by poison was one of the few things Levi couldn’t stomach without a bitter scowl. Death was an integral part of life, but dishonesty and cowardice were a choice.

People died by his side even back then, when they chose to fight following his orders, but rarely did they die because of him. Levi always tried to protect those who chose to stay by his side.

But those guys who got poisoned during the raid as one of Ulrich’s last attempts to oppose Levi, they died because of him. He should’ve known that something would go wrong, not because it was physically possible for a mortal human to predict something so unpredictable as the future; Levi couldn’t do that, but he should’ve because those people trusted him enough with their lives.

The only person he could save that day was Isabel. She always begged Levi to let her lead one of the raids by herself, but he never gave in. Not because he didn’t trust her abilities, but simply for the reason that he woke up with an eerie sense of uneasiness that morning. He told Isabel that he wouldn’t let her go because she spilled tea all over his shirt a week ago; it was a weak but all the more believable reason when it came from him. When Isabel looked up at him with those wide, green puppy eyes, he almost gave in.

He considered it. Perhaps he could have fate in others for once, he could hope. But he chose to break Isabel’s heart instead because he knew how life in the Underground worked, and had he not done that, Isabel would’ve ended up lying on the cold ground that day, choking on her own blood and spit the same way Farlan did years ago.

In the end, Farlan and Isabel both survived, and a few months after the failed raid Levi had Ulrich in a basement with his fingernails removed, his father tortured, and a steaming cup of tea infused with rat poison waiting for him. The bitter irony made it seem like the perfect way to end the war.

That night when Levi went home, he couldn’t bear the sight of their shared bed. Underground was always cold, especially during the night, and because of this and the lack of space in their one-bedroom home, Levi shared a bed with Farlan and Isabel. The three of them were like siblings, and they had cuddled each other for warmth even while they were still spending the nights in the freezing mud in one of the filthy alleys.

That night Levi couldn’t stand the idea of lying next to his friends, touching the same sheets they touched. Farlan was squished against the wall while Isabel splayed out on the middle of the cheap mattress, all lanky arms, and legs of a teenager. She’d grown quite a lot these last few years, which filled Levi’s heart with silent pride. He wanted to believe that he had something to do with that, but the short moment of joy quickly passed.

Levi watched the stubborn, headstrong girl sleeping so innocently with her mouth slightly open, and he knew that he was a monster. He couldn’t touch them, he couldn’t touch anything that they might touch. He didn’t want to dirty them with the filth that stuck to his skin.

Though the blood that he washed from his hands was long gone in the sewers, he could still feel the hot, thick fluid dripping from his fingers right onto the polished floor, and when he reached to pet Isa’s messy red hair, he yanked his hand back like he touched white-hot iron. How dare he defile such a pure person with hands that were made for the foulest job on this godforsaken land?

He washed his hands over and over and over again, but there were still small particles of red between the small cracks on his skin and underneath his fingernails, blood that only he could see. Blood that would never come off no matter how many times he scrubbed his hands, and blood that he never wanted anywhere near the people he cared for the most.

To this day, Ulrich’s words were still ringing in his ears when a room was quiet enough. “You son of a bitch, you broke my nose!” The scream irked Levi, the nasal undertone, his throat no doubt flooding with blood. Back then Ulrich still hadn’t realized that he was in no position of throwing insults at Levi. “Are you fucking insane?”

That was always the question they asked. They seemed to be convinced that asking this would make Levi realize something and then let them go with a pat on the back and some nice words of apology.

“Are you insane?”

First, the answer was, “you want another fucking punch to the face, shithead?”

Then, it was, “maybe.”

Then, before he noticed it, the answer became a pause of tired silence and the glance of emotionless, dull eyes.

What was wrong with him? Why was he like this? Contrary to popular belief, Levi was more than aware of his own emotions, he knew that he had them, he wasn’t as incapable of empathy as everyone thought he was. So how was he capable of such cruelty? Something was wrong with his brain, he was missing something and there was nothing that could ever make up for his lacking because he was hardly aware of it. It was embedded in his nature.

Was it part of him? Was it a result of his upbringing by Kenny? Did it even matter? It hardly did, facts were just that, facts and nothing else, something to deal with, something to live with.

He used to tell himself that it was the Underground that made him do the things he did, and in time he could live differently. The surface would give him the chance he needed to shed his old habits and instincts, that he could live there as a law-abiding citizen, that he wouldn’t be able to stomach violence so effortlessly once he was no longer forced to use it.

But the blood of the tortured seemed to follow him like a crimson red viper, crawling after him, and no matter how fast he ran, it always caught up with him. While they were in the Underground, Levi stole, threatened, and murdered to get to the surface. He told himself he would stop once they were there. But the first time he ever stepped outside and into the sun, the Underground finally left behind, he did because he promised he would kill a man. Just one last time, he thought, then he would be done with that life, he would settle down, live a boring life.

You don’t own me, he used to think. You don’t know me, you won’t rule my life forever.

The more he said it, the more his voice turned desperate and pathetic, the pleading of a child, no, you don’t own me, I’m not like this, I’m only doing it because I have to!

He never had to. He was never forced to. He always had the choice to give up hurting others in favor of getting hurt, stop the circle of violence, and die already. But Levi was a stubborn bastard even as a child, and he refused to give up fighting. He was truly a monster. No force was ever strong enough to tame him, no tragedy that kept him from pushing forward, no amount of pain; not when it was inflicted on him, not when he was inflicting it on someone else.

That cruelty, that willingness to cause suffering was always there, and it never left him. When he was finally bathing in warm water and ate on a regular basis, when he was dressed in soft clothes and smelled of fresh soap, he was stupid enough to believe that he fully left the Underground behind. It was in moments like this, when he was kneeling in the rain with his hands burning and bleeding, did he realize that the monster was always just a couple of inches below the surface.

He looked above his shoulders and saw his squad dozing off underneath the tree on the dry patch of land. Eld even managed to light a small, smoky fire to keep them somewhat warm. It was cold outside in the rain, but Levi’s hands burned. Slowly he peeled off his gloves and stared at his scar-littered hands; there were old and fresh ones alike, red lines that were burnt into his skin by the rough hairs of a nailbrush.

He remembered the raid when he saved Isabel’s life by a hair’s breadth because he refused to trust the world and the people in it. When they left Underground, he wanted to believe that things were different above and he could finally let go of his antics that no doubt painted him as a savage to everyone who lived on the surface and who never knew the hardships they had to face. He hoped that the world up here was different.

That’s why Levi lost the only two people he had left because he decided to put his trust in fate like a stupid child. It was a moment of weakness, and that was all it took to lose the few he had left. And now Eren was gone too, because Levi never learned, and he was just as bad as those airhead cadets he always mocked for their childish ideas of freedom and hope for humanity.

Hope did nothing but murder.

Hope lowered his guard once again, and the second he showed weakness, someone took the opportunity and attacked.

The surface was no better than the Underground, and it was time that Levi finally accepted that. He tried keeping the people close to him alive by playing by the rules of the surface, but he was done with that. There were no rules, only strength and power, like Kenny taught him.

The water fell from the sky in a never-ending deluge, and that small flame of warmth inside Levi’s heart was extinguished by a single raindrop. A thin trail of smoke lifted towards the dark sky before it was washed away too.

The scent of a distant rainstorm had cleared up overnight, but the air remained colder than it was usual for an early May afternoon. The sky was bruised on the northern horizon, the clouds purplish black that promised rain for the evening. From the roof, one could get a perfect view of what was waiting for them behind the Wall, but the scenery was hardly something that the thief was paying attention to right now.

Quick-paced footsteps echoed on the crooked roof tiles, startling a flock of birds into the air. The rushing of blood thumped loudly in Eren’s ears, his breathing heavy, muscles alive and burning, and he jumped high. His naked feet dangled in the air like a cat’s that trusted the fall, lean and agile as if staring at the dangerous depths waiting below was second nature to him.

He landed with ease on the rooftop across the other side of the street and spared a second to take a glance behind above his shoulder.

“What the fuck are you waiting for, go get him!” came the shouting from the group of Military Police that flew across the air with deep frowns on their faces and teeth bared in frustration. “Oi, don’t let him get away again!”

Still as clumsy and slow as ever. Well, as most of the time.

Hugging the package wrapped in brown paper tightly to his side, Eren didn’t give them more time to catch up, though he was never above teasing them a little, not even when the risk was getting a beating. Rarely did the soldiers get their claws in him deep enough to yank him down from his feet, but sometimes he got too cocky as every teenager would, and then there was no mercy.

Eren didn’t learn how not to tempt fate, but he did have a splendid sense of how far he could push things without getting killed or imprisoned, and the gods knew how much he loved pushing the MP’s buttons.

“He’s right there! Go fucking get him, idiots!”

There was a deep murmuring sound coming from below. The people walking on the street noticed the commotion high above their heads and stopped to see what it was about. Some stared and pointed, but most of them just took a short glance at Eren before shaking their heads in disapproval and clutching onto their purses as they said something about the incompetence of the police.

Lately, a savage boy hopping from roof to roof became an increasingly frequent sight in Shiganshina district, and those who had the misfortune of coming across him would tell you that he was a good-for-nothing thief, who would steal your eyes out their sockets if you weren’t paying attention for a single second.

The newspapers offered a vague description: height estimated to be around a hundred and sixty to a hundred and seventy centimeters, around the age of fourteen. Medium-length brown hair, no facial hair, eye color varied between green, blue, and golden in different reports. He came and went by quickly, never spotted stealing in the same shop twice, and he had a tendency to bilk the wealthier class of the city. It was also reported that he was often seen with a white Turkish van cat with an orange tail, but there wasn’t too much information available about the animal to the public just yet.

As the news began to spread, Eren had to get craftier to avoid getting caught too.

He would spend most of the day hidden above the rooftops, bathing in sunlight and befriending his accomplice, the orange-white cat, while he hunted for food around sunset and sunrise, while it was still somewhat dark. He was eager to discover his new, human body and push it to its limits, but even when he spent all day sunbathing and ate proper food, he couldn’t stay up too late after the sun went down. He became sluggish and extremely fatigued, and soon if he wasn’t careful, he would fall asleep before his muscles went limp, and he fell right onto his face.

After that happened once, he decided not to push his luck and instead nestled himself into a comfortable corner before his body gave up on him. Every night he slept someplace else.

As for today’s stolen goods… he might’ve been a little too ambitious.

It was broad daylight and he didn’t even attempt to be subtle about his craft. He just couldn’t resist it. When he found the small building that emitted the most amazing smoky, spicy scent, he knew that he had to get his hands on some of the meat that they were smoking there. He wasn’t above stealing the small bits and pieces that got thrown away, but today he wasn’t getting food just for himself, and he wasn’t about to give trash to others, not even if it was mouthwateringly delicious trash.

He crouched behind a heavy box near the shop entrance on the street and waited for the opportune moment. Then, when the shop owner lifted the brow paper-wrapped package and the customer in the undoubtedly very soft coat and top hat reached for it, Eren launched himself from his hiding spot, and pushing his body between the two humans at the speed of light, he tore the package from the owner’s hands.

It was still warm as he pressed it securely against his ribs, and made his escape. The MPs never chased him for too long, and after messing their gears up a little with a few hairpin turns, Eren could rile them up to a point where they would yell hideous profanities at him and then just quit chasing him out of frustration.

Not today, it seemed.

The soldiers kept relentlessly following him no matter how many quirky turns he took, how hard he tried to shake them off by jumping into tight alleys, and then reappeared on a rooftop several streets away from where he slipped out of their hands just in time; they kept shouting at each other and they kept coming.

Eren gritted his teeth, his eyes darting from building to building in search of something that would give him enough advantage to disappear for good. He was getting close to the brothel now, and the last thing he wanted was to lead the MPs there. It seemed like he was pushed into a tight corner though. He knew this part of the town well enough and he needed to make a decision quickly.

A hook flew by his head near inches away from his left ear, and he ducked down a second before the heavy body would’ve yanked him off his feet. He dropped onto his stomach, the air knocked out of his lungs, and he rolled to his side until there was no more ground under him, and he fell.

By pure chance, his hands caught onto one of the ropes that were stretched out between the windows of the many houses facing each other. A damp, white tablecloth got tangled between his legs. The rope snapped, but it slowed the speed of Eren’s fall enough for him to gather some control over the situation. Instead of landing on the dirty cobblestone, he swung himself onto one of the balconies.

Eren pushed the elegant french windows in with his shoulder and barged inside the home with the grace of a herd of angry cattle.

There was an awkward moment of silence as the family of four all turned around from the dining table mid-bite, and with wide eyes and jaws hanging open they watched as Eren straightened his back and looked around. Without paying any attention to the humans and the lunch that he just interrupted, Eren shrugged off the drying tablecloth that he accidentally collected. He spotted the window across the room that was the key to his freedom, and he jumped across the small dining room.

Plates and bits of food were scattered across the table, there was screaming and shouting, silverware falling onto the floor. It didn’t last longer than a second, though. Eren pushed through the room and into the kitchen, and jumped out of the open window above the sink before any of the humans could question what just happened.

Rapidly scanning his surroundings, Eren climbed up on the wall on a sturdy rain gutter. He grabbed onto the roof and pushed himself to his feet, only to look up and have his heart skip a beat.

Grapple hooks connected to hard wires flew dangerously close to his head, and attached to them came three humans. He was so stunned that he didn’t even feel the way one of the hooks scraped across his left temple and drew a few droplets of blood. Had the hook come any closer, it would’ve pierced straight through his skull.

Eren had a split second to decide what to do. Gritting his teeth he grabbed onto one of the wires, ignoring the burning pain that flared in his palm, and pulled at it. The human yelped in surprise as she lost her balance, and Eren charged them head-on.

He avoided fighting the MP, mainly because whenever he did, he rarely escaped with only a few cuts and bruises. They had sharp blades and thick clothes that Eren’s nails couldn’t pierce through, and while they seemed like they knew what they were doing, knew where to hit for it to hurt, Eren only had his experience fighting titans. His animalistic outlashes that lacked any self-discipline worked only for so long before he ended up on the ground. Today though, he had no choice.

Eren saw the flinch of shock on the humans’ faces when instead of running away from them, he sprinted straight towards them. They pointed their blades at him, ready to cut through flesh to stop him, but at the last moment, before his skin was sliced open by cold steel, Eren bucked down and slid right underneath them, the blades only nicking a single strand of brown hair.

Before the MPs could so much as turn their heads around to see where he was going, Eren jumped off the roof, his vision zeroing in on the stone house on the other side of the street. It was the backside of the building, where no prying eyes were watching him.

Eren kicked in the familiar shutters on a small window and landed on his side on the hardboard floor with a muffled whimper of pain. His head was spinning and hurting from all the blood pumping in his veins.

The loud bang of his rather hideous entrance tore a choked-out scream from the tenant of the room, but Eren paid them no mind as he hastily jumped back on his feet and shut the wooden boards before he was noticed.

“Eren!” came the distressed squeal from Carla, who looked pale enough for the both of them as she jumped to her feet from the dresser. She was folding clothes before the unexpected visitor flew through her window. “You scared the living soul out of me!” she complained and went to open the shutters again, baffled by the sheer force Eren was determined to turn the room pitch black. He didn’t want to let go. “What on earth–”

She couldn’t finish the sentence though when opening the window to a crack she saw the sky crowded with the jackets of MPs’. Gasping for air she quickly shut the window and yanked Eren down to the floor with their backs against the wall, hoping that they weren’t seen.

“Eren, what have you done?” she hissed through her teeth, her eyes wide and questioning.

Eren’s cheeks were dusted rosy pink from all the excitement of the past half an hour, and suddenly he felt an overwhelming urge to comfort the young woman. He lifted the package with a sheepish, apologetic smile.

Carla’s face fell as she understood what this was about, and the look of concern was quickly replaced with one of reprimand. Eren’s smile faltered.

“Have you been stealing again?” she demanded. “Eren, I can’t believe you! You’ll get in serious trouble!”

“MP, idiot,” Eren rolled his eyes with a frustrated sigh and poked his collarbone with a slim finger. “No catch.”

“Why do you always learn the swear words more quickly?” Carla pinched Eren’s cheek between her thumb and index finger and didn’t let him escape from her hold. “And they do catch you, they just haven’t put you in prison yet!”

She let him go and Eren rubbed the aching spot on his face with a sulking pout. “No catch!” he insisted. He lifted the stolen package and pushed it right under Carla’s nose, who reluctantly took it.

She unwrapped the paper and shook her head with a shaky sight. Though she worried herself sick every time Eren was out there alone, which was most of the day, she couldn’t deny how happy everyone was in the brothel when Eren brought them something. She still wished that this mischievous boy looked for trouble elsewhere though.

“It’s ‘I won’t get caught.’ If you want to be a smart ass about it, you might as well do it right. Come on, repeat it after me: I won’t get caught.”

“I won’t get caught,” Eren complied absently with another roll of his eyes that earned him a playful ruffling of his hair. “Happy?”

“Yes, very happy. And it better be a promise!” Carla made quick work of unwrapping the package when she suddenly stopped and a choked-out little gasp got caught between her lips. The noise startled Eren, fearing that he might’ve done something wrong. “Oh, Eren! Did you… did you bring cooked meat?”

Eren scurried next to her and carefully inspected the food. It looked okay to him, it was brown and a little black in places, but he had eaten this kind of thing before and he thought it was delicious. It kept his stomach from going hungry for a lot more time than simple bread did.

“Cooked? No good?” His voice was laced with anxiety, but all his fears melted away the moment Carla wrapped her arms around him and placed a quick peck on top of his head. She often did this, and Eren guessed that it had to be some kind of expression of affection for the humans.

“It is good! I can’t remember the last time we had… oh, don’t even listen to me!” She quickly sliced off a large chunk and gave it to Eren, who began chewing on it with a healthy appetite. “We’ll give the rest to the girls, okay? With the way Timea’s pregnancy is progressing…” Carla began wrapping the meat back into the paper.

Eren quickly shook his head and stomped his heel against the hardwood floor. “You, eat!” he growled with a sudden rasp to his voice, frustrated by how Carla always seemed to save food for everyone but herself.

Eren had seen different kinds of people in the city, and he understood how the width of one’s arm and other places of the body was an indication of their strength. He had a chance to test this theory first-handedly that one time when an MP twice his size lifted him by his collar with a single hand. Carla and the girls in the brothel were skinnier than most people Eren saw, and they were certainly a lot skinnier than the fat madam who always lurked downstairs, trying to lure in customers. Eren just wanted Carla to be strong, and for that, she needed to eat.

“I already ate something during…”

“Liar,” Eren rolled his eyes, and tearing a healthy portion of meat from the shank, he shoved it in Carla’s hand. He put the rest of the meat aside to be later brought to the other workers, and Carla took a bite of the meat. “Stupid,” Eren mumbled, but he was happy to know that she was finally eating.

“You know how much I hate it that you go out there all alone and steal food… but Yvette recovered because of you. Even though I don’t like you risking your safety, it’s very kind and admirable of you to help us. Thank you, Eren.” She let out a long sigh. “I should really teach you about money though. Come on, now, it’s time for your lesson!”

“Lesson?”

“Learning. Talking,” she tapped her index finger to her lips.

Eren’s face dropped. “No,” he whined and shook his head when Carla began nodding in encouragement. “No want lesson.”

“Aw, great, you just gave me something to teach you right now!” she beamed and locked Eren’s hands into a gentle but firm prison of her palms. She popped onto the bed and made Eren sit next to her. “When you don’t want something, you say ‘I do not want.’ ‘I don’t want.’”

“I don’t want lesson,” Eren parroted with a sarcastic tilt of his head, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Though he became much better at understanding human speech (Carla and her stubborn goal to teach Eren deserved most of the recognition for that), and his vocabulary was expanding each day, Eren still felt alien when he pronounced the words. He didn’t understand most of the things he repeated after Carla even though he always fought hard to understand her, and he grew frustrated with not being able to express himself properly very quickly.

Sometimes he felt like he was better off not talking at all, because then he wasn’t any different from any other ordinary human. He was just a normal kid then, but the moment he opened his mouth, it was painfully obvious how there was nothing ordinary about him. The syllables were too heavy on his tongue, more often than not the sounds he pronounced were closer to growling or a dog bark than the gentle sounds that Carla made, and using his lips still felt awkward.

Speaking left Eren incredibly insecure and frightened too.

Now that he had Carla around, he once again began fearing if he might have to let her go too one day like he had to do with Little One. He was afraid to choke the warm sunlight out of her, feared that she thought he was weird or that there was something wrong with him, and then she would leave him. And what if she discovered his secret of why he didn’t know how to talk, let alone read, why he stared at everything with wide, wondering eyes like he saw things in the human world for the first time? No, she could never find out what Eren truly was.

Carla seemed to be fond of him right now, but there was no telling how she would react if she discovered the horrible secret that laid beneath Eren’s shimmering green eyes.

Sometimes he wondered if this was the reason why Little One never came back to him. Living in the human world taught Eren many things, and one of them was just how much humans hated the titans. Eren couldn’t blame them, he hated them too, but that still didn’t change the fact that Eren seemed to be one of them. He never thought about this before he shrunk and his appearance changed, but now that he did, it made no sense why Little One was always so friendly with him.

Was it just because he needed to survive? Eren knew that wasn’t true, after all, Little One came back to him with more of his kind, and he always gave him sunlight through his eyes, but then where was he now? It had been many-many nights since Eren turned human, and Little One was still nowhere in sight. Shouldn’t Little One be happy that he was now a human? How could Eren…? What should he…?

He had too many questions, and he didn’t understand the human mind enough to know for sure what they were thinking. All he knew was that Carla wasn’t allowed to know where Eren came from. No one was, because they would be scared, they would want to kill him.

Sensing his troubled thoughts, Carla lightly brushed the tips of her fingers on Eren’s cheeks. “What’s wrong, darling?” Eren shook his head and looked down on his naked feet to avoid her gentle gaze. “Aren’t you a little cold? You sure you don’t want my boots?”

“No!” Eren’s head snapped up at a comical speed. It sure would’ve made a few people chuckle if they saw a young boy react with such passion at the mention of footwear. “No boot,” he reiterated, then noticing Carla’s brow lift slightly, he closed his eyes shut with a quiet growl. “I– I don’t want boot,” he ended up forcing the words through his lips clumsily.

“Good job!” the woman smiled. “You see how easy that was?”

It was anything but easy, but Eren left her be just so she wouldn’t make him wear the damn boots again. It happened a few weeks ago that Carla began insisting that he needed to wear these strange, hard leather things around his feet and calves, and because Eren was curious by nature, he was eager to try it.

The moment those brown skins of the devil enwrapped his legs, however, Eren felt like his feet were chopped off and they were replaced by cheap stacks of wood that were meant to mock his dissevered limbs. It was incredibly perplexing to see the floor beneath his feet yet not feel it, as if he was looking at food without smelling it or seeing the sunlight shine on his skin but not feel its warmth seeping through his pores. In one word, it was disturbing, and Eren would rather have cold feet littered with small scars than have those awful things entrap him again.

“I must say though, you look a little down today,” Carla petted his head in an attempt to bring some order to the messy strands of hair. “I don’t want this, I don’t want that… Is there anything you do want? What do you want, Eren?” she added to help him understand. She tried keeping her sentences short and not talk too much at once, because if she said too many things at once, Eren would become overwhelmed and visibly uncomfortable.

“Want you sing,” Eren ended up saying, and Carla’s smile widened.

“That was very good, Eren! Very good! It was a very nice sentence. Where did you learn that word, ‘sing?’ Did one of the girls teach you?”

Eren’s brows furrowed as he concentrated on the river of words. He tried separating the sounds from each other, guess where one word ended and the next one started, but he could only hear those with which he was more familiar. The rest was still just an unhinged buzz of noise.

“Where learn?” he shyly asked, somewhat comforted by Carla’s encouraging smile. “You sing. You say,” he closed his eyes again to try to remember the words he heard a long time ago when they were standing in the river, “you h-hear’ me sing, my con– my conlo– conoladences,” he finally bit the words through his lips with a small, triumphant grin.

“Huh,” Carla chuckled weakly, not sure what Eren was talking about. She certainly didn’t remember what she said all those weeks ago. “Well, you did an excellent job learning that word on your own. It’s not that hard, you see? You’re already doing so good!”

Eren hung around by Carla’s until nightfall, listened to her sing, and watched her play on the strange instrument that was made of wood and looked like a raindrop. It made sounds that Eren never heard before; it was as if rivers could sing, and he quickly became enamored with the instrument, especially when Carla sang while playing it. It reminded him of the sounds of the forest by the lake.

They sat next to each other on the bed with Eren’s head on Carla’s shoulder until the sky turned purplish and Carla insisted that he should go. She never allowed him to stay overnight, and Eren thought it was for the better. He didn’t want her to think that he was weird for passing out like a dead man the moment the sky was dark.

Though he was reluctant to let go of the warmth that Carla’s entire presence radiated, he took off into the chilly night to find himself a safe place to sleep. The MPs seemed to have moved on, but Eren snooped around a little, just to make sure that they were truly gone.

There was an old house on the main square by the fountain with a thick canopy of ivy running up on its walls. The greenery was so densely packed that at first glance, you wouldn’t even notice the false window that was hiding behind it. The branches of the ivy were thick enough for Eren to climb them, and the indent on the wall was just deep enough for him to sit down and sleep in relative comfort. He didn’t move around much while sleeping, and the ivy would’ve caught him anyway if he rolled over in his sleep.

It was the white cat that showed him this place a few days ago when–

“Meow.”

Eren’s lips were pulled into a sweet smile when he heard the familiar greeting of the fluffy animal behind him, and he pulled his knees up to his chest so they could share the small space. Eren returned its greeting with a short huff because he noticed how the cat was a lot more accepting of him when he was talking more like an animal and less like a human. At least he had this cat to accept him for what he was.

“Eat?” Eren asked and pulled out a small shred of cooked meat that he nicked from the shank. The cat meowed again and started eating with a thankful purr rumbling in the back of its throat. Eren marveled at the sight of its tiny, almost opaque fangs and the roughness of the pink tongue that cleaned his fingers eagerly.

Once the cat finished eating, it took the liberty of curling up in Eren’s lap. He relished in the pleasant feeling of the warm little body breathing against his stomach. Carefully he placed a hand on the cat’s back, making sure that he wouldn’t touch its nape, and an even wider smile spread on his face when the cat started purring again.

His fingers absently began tracing the outlines of the metal object hanging from his neck. Since that day in the alley with the strange humans, he had neither seen them nor figured out what the object was for. He liked to play around with it, admire the way it shined in daylight, but other than that, he didn’t pay too much attention to it.

He could already feel the titan’s familiar exhaustion slowly overpower his senses and muscles, when he heard sounds from below.

Opening his eyes he curiously began eavesdropping. The voice sounded vaguely familiar even though he didn’t know where he heard it before. He was keen to ignore it and let sleep drag him into that strange world of colorful images that human minds seemed to be plagued with, but another sound came from below, this time louder, sounding like a high-pitched shriek of some sort, and Eren’s curiosity won.

He gently held the cat against his stomach so it wouldn’t move, and lifting a few leaves of ivy, he peeked down onto the street.

There were four horses tied to a rod by the entrance of the building, and a small group of humans was standing nearby, presumably talking to whoever opened the door. It was dark, but the light of the torch in one of the human’s hand cast enough of its yellow light onto them that Eren could make out some of the shapes and colors.

His breath hitched in his throat when he realized what exactly he was seeing.

Green capes. Goggles. And a messy, brown mop of hair.

Chapter Text

There were four horses tied to a rod by the entrance of the building, and a small group of humans was standing nearby, presumably talking to whoever opened the door. It was dark, but the torchlight in one of the human’s hands cast enough of its yellow light onto them that Eren could make out some of the shapes and colors.

His breath hitched in his throat when he realized what exactly he was seeing. The green capes were back. That was Eren’s last thought before the surprised, giddy happiness was repressed by something much heavier. His eyelids began to droop, and his mind was getting foggier with each passing second. It was getting too dark, there wasn’t enough sunlight for him to stay awake anymore.

No, no, no, no, no, not now, please, not yet…!

“No,” Eren whined, but his vision blurred and his tongue merely flapped around in his mouth like a dead fish, useless in pronouncing even the most simple sounds. Sleep took over his body faster than ever before, and Eren’s body bucked forward, the ivy being there to catch him from the dangerous fall.

Can this…

Does this…

…mean that…

…Little One…

…came back for me?

Eren’s mind went numb, and the world around him drifted into darkness.

That night he wasn’t dreaming. Eren waited limply in his own body with his senses blind to the world around him. It was the most bizarre experience, lying awake in his own unresponsive body with his mind only tuning in with a couple of conscious thoughts every other hour.

When finally morning came and the pale sunlight shone through the ivy in warm patches, Eren came to with a startled flinch of his muscles.

His eyes snapped open, and unlike all those other times when he woke up, he wasn’t confused about where he was. He knew exactly whom he saw yesterday, and with his limbs still a little rigid from the chilly temperature of the night, he quickly carved himself out of the ivy.

The mud sticking to the cobblestone was freezing cold, but Eren sensed no rain in the air. The smell of the humans was prominent all the more. It was familiar, though not too strong as it was somewhat masked by the warm scent of the horses and grassy fields. Following the lead of his curiosity and his fluttering heart, Eren quickly climbed down the building and ran to the door.

The building on the inside looked similar to the brothel where Carla lived, except that here the workers didn’t wear red, and the people drinking and eating didn’t touch them. Eren watched them through the cracked open door. His eyes wandered from wall to wall, checking every table, but there were no green capes.

Feeling a tinge of panic sting his heart, Eren ran back outside, but his worries were quickly sedated when he found the horses with the military tack in the stables. There were four of them, so the humans couldn’t have left yet. Perhaps they were still asleep? Then again, the sky was already above the Walls, and most people by then started getting on with their daily lives.

Eren decided to skip that day’s hunt. He would have to improvise a little when his stomach gets grouchy, but this was too important of a chance to let it slip. Eren felt both anxious and excited as he snooped around the building, trying to catch a trail of scent that might lead him to the green capes.

His guts fluttered with butterflies when he finally found a lead that was strong enough for him to follow. He didn’t catch Little One’s scent in the mix, but he found that his nose was a lot less sensitive in this human body, and he supposed that most humans’ had an even harder time picking up on small traces of odor. Their noses weren’t too perceptive of Eren’s titan scent after all.

Bowing his head, he tried keeping a low profile as he walked around. He much preferred jumping from roof to roof where he could hide better from prying eyes, but there was no way of following the scent from there. He made sure to duck down or turn in the other direction whenever he spotted an MP.

Eren was overjoyed every time a fresh breeze stroked his cheeks, and a new, stronger wave of the familiar scent washed over his senses. His vision was filled with memories of that afternoon that he spent with the humans, and it felt like he could relive them all over again, he could bring back those days. He could figure out why he turned human with Little One and the screaming lady, and they could have fun again. Eren could show them that he was able to pick up flowers now.

The scent led him to the busy market, where people set up their wooden carts and wagons and exchanged their belongings. Eren remembered well the first time he visited this place. He was still scared and very much alone when he stumbled upon it. He followed the noise that could be heard from many streets away, and once his nose caught the scent of the delicious food that they had here, he knew that he was at the right place.

Every time Eren stepped inside the market, he exited with at least a couple of MPs running after him, but today he had a far more important smell to follow than that of freshly baked bread.

Eren walked around for what felt like ages, his eyes never pausing on a single face for more than a second. Though the scent was stronger here, there were also a lot of distractions that occupied his other senses. He still remembered how overwhelmed he was when he first came here; the hundreds and hundreds of colors of all the different fruits, vegetables, and clothes, the sound of constant talking, and the smells. There was even a human man with only one leg who played music on a stick-like instrument, and the passersby threw shiny pebbles at his feet that he eagerly collected.

Not surprisingly this was the place where Eren first learned about money and the exchange of goods. It seemed like taking things by force wasn’t the only way to obtain things in this human world after all, though it was certainly the easiest. Eren spent hours one afternoon just watching and trying to figure out how the creatures carried out their food-related transactions. He felt like he was getting a hang of it, though admittedly he was still very much rough around the edges.

Humans exchanged an item for an item, that much Eren understood, though the ratio of this action was still a mystery to him. One time he tried to exchange a half-eaten loaf of bread for a tasty-looking, steaming round thing, but instead what he got was a wallop behind his ear that still stung hours later. It was good bread too, he stole it that morning.

After that incident, frustrated with his ignorance, Eren continued observing the strange human ritual with more determination, and soon he realized that what he forgot to notice was that though there were a few places where food was exchanged for food, most only paid with those yellow, shiny pebbles.

Seeing how no one ever got whacked on their heads for paying with those tasteless, stinky metal things, Eren was both rejoiced and very confused. He couldn’t wrap his head around why the humans were so happy with accepting this useless thing but they didn’t want his bread, when clearly the latter was more valuable. No wonder why Eren was sticking to stealing the food he needed, people seemed to be way too possessive of their shiny pebbles anyway.

As Eren walked around the market, he started to feel despair weakening his will to search the city. There were too many humans after all, and it was possible that he was following the wrong lead from the very beginning. But then, something wonderful happened.

The cheerful cackles of a high-pitched voice caught his ears at the same time when he noticed a flash of green and warm brown. Eren’s eyes widened, and he halted his steps when the two figures across the market, not even too far away from him emerged from the sea of people. It was her, the one with the unruly hair and the goggles, the one who was so excited to see him and climbed all over him like Eren was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen in her life. She wasn’t afraid of him, not for a single second.

Eren struggled to remember what the human’s called her, the excitement of seeing her again leaving him a bit lightheaded. It would come to him though.

The other person standing by Goggles was that meek-looking man with pale brown hair and kind-hearted eyes. He was watching over her like she was at risk of getting injured at any moment by doing something rash, and given how she wasn’t hesitant to shove her hand between Eren’s teeth, maybe his worries were justified.

The sight was comforting, and Eren only now realized how much he truly missed these people.

He was a little nervous to approach them, given how he had no way of explaining himself and he wasn’t even sure if it would be smart to reveal what he was, but he trusted them because they were Little One’s friends. Eren had no reason to doubt their intentions. He began walking towards them, the chatter of H– something, a name beginning with H, her chatter becoming louder and more clear, when from the corner of his eyes Eren spotted the one person he didn’t want to see right now.

Turning back sharply on his heels he started walking the other way, away from H and her friend, and away from the damn MP who marched down on the market like some royalty, not giving a damn about Eren or how he was so close to finally reunite with a friend.

He found refuge behind a tall man who was haggling over some apples with an old woman. Peeking out from behind the man’s wide shoulders, Eren watched as the MP passed by H. What’s her name? Does it even begin with H? I have to remember, I can’t lose her…!

Then it hit him.

“Hanji!” he exclaimed triumphantly the same time a warm hand slid on his nape. He tensed up, but only for a moment, as he recognized the scent belonging to the touch almost immediately.

“Eren, what a lovely surprise!” Carla beamed and shoved a heavy basket full of peaches in his hands. “Just in time when I need a pair of strong arms! You don’t mind helping me a little, do you?” she pinched Eren’s cheeks, who whined both out of the struggle to hold up the heavy basket and of the momentary distraction. He would’ve helped Carla any other day, but right now he had more pressing matters.

“What’s wrong?” Carla’s brows furrowed when she noticed the distress on Eren’s face. She was wearing plain clothes outside the brothel, and her face was not covered with the paint either which made her look a little ill in Eren’s opinion. “You better not be in any trouble, young man! Were you looking for someone, or…?”

Though Eren didn’t understand what she was saying, he blurted out a panicked “No!” when Carla began turning her head left and right.

He couldn’t imagine what would happen if Hanji recognized him and spilled something while Carla was still there. His confused mind couldn’t imagine how he would explain that he knew Hanji, or even worse, how he would explain to Carla why this woman was asking him about him turning into a human. In the foggy mindset of his panic, Eren automatically assumed that Hanji would recognize him, and then the perfect balance that he had with Carla would be destroyed.

“We go,” he said and it pained him to turn his back on the green capes. “I help.”

“Okay, then let’s go! I still need to buy some flowers. I might as well teach you about money as I promised,” she ruffled Eren’s hair, but the softness of her voice hid deeper meaning behind her seemingly carefree tone. “Your payment for helping me will be a nice, sweet slice of pie, hm? How does that sound?” she winked at him and Eren let her guide him through the market, away from Hanji and her friend.

Eren looked behind over his shoulder, but he could no longer spot them.

Hanji was in the middle of explaining why it would be an amazing idea to make a titan eat a bunch of ginger root and then climb inside its stomach – her theory was that ginger root would calm the stomach acid (true) enough for a human to safely travel inside the guts without getting scorched to death by the high acidic level (debatable) – when she heard her name.

“Huh?” she turned around in search of the source, but no eyes locked on to hers.

“Squad Leader, are you okay?” Moblit asked.

Hanji stirred. She could’ve sworn she heard something, but then again, she was quite a few hours of sleep behind the healthy schedule.

“Yes, ignore me please!” she chuckled, though she struggled to take off her eyes of the sea of people. The skin on the back of her neck still tingled a little, like she was being watched just a second ago. “Let’s go! I bet Nifa will be a little cranky when she wakes up.”

“Is she going to be okay, sir?”

“Awe, Moblit, don’t worry about her,” Hanji grinned and dropped a few coins into the shop owner’s hand in exchange for the herbal tea she just bought. “Nifa had survived worse than a little bar fight.”

They started making their way back to the inn, and Hanji could no longer feel any prying eyes lingering in the dark alleys.

Carla watched attentively as Eren pealed the peach the size of his fist on the other side of the table, while she was kneading the dough for the pie. She dug up the largest pie pan the brothel’s kitchen owned, but still, she could only hope that there will be enough dessert for everyone. They weren’t exactly used to getting permission from the madam herself to roam around freely for an entire day, but some things were even more sacred than money.

“Just cut it up into small pieces, Eren,” she said as he held up two fingers to show the boy what exactly she meant. Those beautiful, lively green eyes flashed onto her hand, then began cutting up the peeled peach into the desired sizes. “Yes, good job, just like that!”

Ever since Eren showed up on the doorstep, quite literally too, Carla noticed more and more often how her lips curled up into a small, involuntary smile that she didn’t even notice until someone pointed it out. She couldn’t help it though, not when Eren was around.

The boy was strange, there was no doubt about it. He began showing up near the brothel more often after they met again by the creek, always with either a small loaf of bread or some fruit that he insisted Carla would take. He went as far as to push it into Carla’s hands when she didn’t want to accept it, and that was one of the first things that she learned about Eren: he was the most stubborn kid Carla had ever met. She could see it in his eyes, whenever that small flame ignited in the green irises, she knew there was no stopping him.

Though he couldn’t talk very well, which both baffled and mortified Carla at the same time, Eren was very expressive and sharp. At first, Carla doubted that he didn’t understand what she was saying, because those bright eyes of his were full of so much wit, compassion, and mischief, but soon she learned that Eren didn’t feign his ignorance. Carla couldn’t wrap her mind around how a boy of maybe fourteen or so could not only not speak but didn’t understand speech either. It made Carla feel uneasy and worried for Eren, and though she knew it wasn’t her place, she wanted to tell the boy’s parents herself that they were monsters for neglecting such an adorable little kid like this.

That was until Carla began suspecting that perhaps Eren didn’t have any parents to take care of him. There was always a lingering uncertainty, some strange fear in the boy’s eyes like he expected Carla to chase him off at any given moment, but once he realized that this wasn’t going to happen, he was almost always hanging out with her. He stuck to her like glue, which only made Carla even more confident that Eren was an orphan who was probably abandoned at a young age. Her heart soared for the poor, kind boy, and from then on she always made sure to save a little of her food for him.

Perhaps Carla was more forgiving than a responsible parent should’ve been, but then again Carla had a heart of gold and she never had a child to look after before either. As it turned out, Eren was a little kleptomaniac. It wasn’t surprising for children who grew up on the streets, and so Carla could never stay mad at him for long when he turned up with something he stole. She didn’t have the heart to punish Eren for a behavior that was taught to him by the sins and cruelty of their world. She doubted anyone had ever shown too much kindness to Eren, otherwise, he wouldn’t have turned to criminal activities to stay alive. She could only hope to teach Eren and show him how there was a better way to live, show him how to live with decency and respect for the law.

“Eren, what do you have in your pocket?” Carla asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. When Eren looked up questioningly, Carla pointed at the small bulge in the pocket of his pants, and the lines on Eren’s face went stiff. “Did you steal again?”

“No…?”

So far Carla wasn’t too successful at making Eren understand why it was important to follow rules.

She sighed and pinched Eren’s ears until the boy whined a little. “Your ears always get pink when you’re lying,” she scolded him lightheartedly, her smile hiding the nervousness she felt.

Eren was smart, and by the looks of it he got around in the city by himself just fine, but later on, that might not be the case. Children who got abandoned and left to fend for their own were often spared from harsh punishments, but the same could not be said for adults. If Eren didn’t learn how to stay out of the way of the Military Police, he would be hanged as a petty criminal very soon. If only she had a way of helping him, but with her job eating up most of her time, her nights especially, she had no way of doing so.

Sometimes she thought about getting out of this place, buying a house, and growing her own fruits and vegetables. She could offer a place for Eren to stay. She wouldn’t mind having him around, and she could sleep better knowing that Eren had a comfy bed to sleep in, and he wasn’t spending his nights without a roof above his head.

Then again, neither of their lives was easy. Right now the best they could do was take care of each other in the little ways that were given to them, and hope for a better future.

Eren reached in his pocket, but instead of pulling out a piece of fruit or some other edible loot that Carla was expecting, he held the head of a white lily in his hand. Eren walked around the table and tucked the flowerhead between two strands of Carla’s hair above her left ear.

“Pretty,” Eren quietly said and the gentle smile hiding in the corner of his lips made Carla’s heart melt. This here was the reason why Carla found it so hard to scold Eren. Every time he did something worth reprimanding, he counteracted it by doing something that shined a light on that golden heart of his.

It was a special day, one they rarely experienced.

One of the workers at the brothel, a young girl named Timea entered the last month of her pregnancy that day, which called for celebration. They did everything in their power not to get pregnant by their clients, and there were certain methods to clean the body from an unwanted pregnancy, but every once in a while, maybe once out of a hundred cases, the fetus survived. These babies were considered to be kept by the grace of the goddesses, and therefore anyone who tried to hurt or abandon these children after birth were considered to be monsters, the lowest of society.

When despite all efforts a baby remained by the fourth month of the pregnancy, they were meant to be treated as something far more sacred than any other relic in the Wallists’ altars. Though it was considered to be a pagan celebration, tradition kept the belief strong that a baby as such should be protected and cherished. All people were born by the will of humans, but only very few of them came to this world by the will of the goddesses.

Timea had been on maternity leave ever since she started the fourth month of her pregnancy, and tonight Carla and the other workers were allowed to take the night off to hold a celebration in Timea’s and her child’s honor. The madam might have been greedy, but not even she was brave enough to deny the goddesses of their celebration. This also meant that Carla could let Eren walk around in the brothel freely, finally not having to worry about the madam catching him. Carla didn’t want to risk Eren’s safety by letting him anywhere near that woman, therefore she made sure that Eren understood that he was only allowed to visit her through the window and he always had to stay in her room, even when she wasn’t around.

Shortly the other workers began returning from their day out too, all packed with different foods and gifts for Timea. They grouped around Carla, who was the oldest among them, and they asked for instructions on what she still needed help with. There was Anna, a short, lively girl with thin, brown hair;  Cecil, a quiet and tender woman who made the best holiday fruitcake; Gilly, a loud, bratty girl who never refused a dare or a competition; Jolene, a blond girl who often accompanied Timea to the market, and who also took over the kitchen once her friend’s pregnancy progressed; and Roman, a tall, handsome man with mischievous blue eyes.

The seven of them, Carla included, formed a small but devoted family, and they were all incredibly excited about the new addition to their group.

“Guys, look what I found!” Anna could barely hold back her excited giggles as she showed around a tiny cardigan as soon as she entered the kitchen. “How incredibly cute is this? I can’t wait to see what Timea thinks!”

“Yeah, like she’s gonna like your gift best!” Gilly sneered as she walked past Carla and Eren to get a bowl for Cecil, who was washing the fruits for the cake that she’d serve later that evening.

“Huh?!” Anna whined. “What’s your problem, idiot? This is so cute! There’s no way in hell you got something better!”

“Heh! Wait and see then,” Gilly shrugged with a content smirk, which was immediately wiped off her face when the wooden spoon in Cecil’s hand found its way to the back of her head. “Ouch! Hey, what was that for!”

“No fighting on this day, please,” Cecil sighed and Carla laughed a little.

“You might as well ask the sky to rain gold. Yes, that’s very good like that, Eren, thank you.”

Anna pouted and stuck out her tongue.

Gilly reciprocated the gesture. “Whatever. I’m gonna beat all of you anyway. I got the baby a porcelain doll.”

There was a loud thud as Anna dropped the basket full of potatoes on the kitchen counter, and she stared at Gilly with wide eyes full of pure horror. “You’re joking!”

Eren looked between the two of them with eager curiosity. These two always fought about something which he found incredibly entertaining. It reminded him a little bit of Little One and the messy brown– and Hanji, he corrected himself internally.

At first, they were all a little distrustful when they found out about Eren and his visits to the brothel, after all, it was more than a little suspicious for a teenager to always lurk around such a place for nothing but the ‘good company.’ But they watched how Eren was clinging onto Carla like a newborn baby to her mother, listened to them communicating in their broken flow of speech, and slowly it became a new unspoken norm for Eren to hang out with them. The workers of the brothel all had their hardships, they all had their reasons for working at a place like this, and they welcomed Eren to their small community with open arms.

The extra food that Eren stole for them was also something that helped them form a positive opinion of the strange boy.

Carla sighed and began kneading the dough for the pie, probably accepting the fact that they would yet again miss an opportunity to have a nice, quiet afternoon of preparation for the party.

“Gilly~,” she looked at the young girl with disapproval, who had the audacity to grin back at her. Carla had a hunch that most of Eren’s sassy responses were something that he learned from this girl.

“What?” she shrugged. “It’s true.”

“But those are super expensive!” Anna complained with her cheeks flushed and eyes a little watery, looking like she was about to burst into tears. She stared at the little purple cardigan like it was the most despicable traitor she ever came across in life.

“Yeah, and I got a discount. The guy I bought it from?” A sly half grin stretched across Gilly’s face. “He was my client a week ago.”

Now Anna was fuming. “You bitch!” she gasped and raised a potato to throw it at her head. “That’s cheating!”

“Hey, leave the food out of this!” Cecil snapped and stripped Anna of her weapon.

“But this… fucking whore cheated!” the girl stomped her feet against the hardboard floor.

“Language!” Carla and Cecil hissed simultaneously, while Carla’s palms flew in the air to cover Eren’s ears, but she was much too late.

Eren blinked up at her curiously, then a wide smile brightened his features. “Fucking whore!” he exclaimed victoriously, finding the words vaguely familiar. He felt as if he’d heard these words before separately; if his memories weren’t faulty, Little One loved using these two words.

“Oh, great, as if two of you weren’t enough!” Carla sighed defeatedly and grabbing the dish towel that he fastened to her waist with her apron, he flung it at Anna. The girl shrieked and leaped out of the direction of the attack.

“Good job, Eren!” meanwhile Gilly grinned at the boy encouragingly, her face plastered with the pure pride of someone whose goal in life was to corrupt the innocence of the world. “Now say it again with more passion! You fucking whore!”

“Gilly!”

“You fucking whore!” Eren yelled with both his arms in the air, and he giggled as she ducked away from Carla’s fingers that were ready to pinch his ears again. His facial muscles began to hurt from the constant laughter. “Fucking whore!” he yelled again through his cackles.

“Oh, look what you’ve done!” Carla pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed in defeat. “I’m never making a gentleman out of this boy with you sitting on his shoulder like the devil!”

Anna clapped her hands together, the loud sound bringing the attention back to her, and she groaned, “can we go back to how this idiot totally cheated? This is not fair! Now I feel stupid for buying that cardigan!”

“It’s a lovely cardigan,” Cecil offered softly.

“But I could’ve whored myself out for something better to my regulars too like this one did! I could’ve gotten something a lot more expensive!”

“I didn’t cheat,” Gilly sneered. “It’s called being resourceful.”

“Money isn’t everything, Anna,” Carla scolded her lightly as she resumed filling the pie. At this rate with all the bickering and arguing, they would never be ready in time. “The most precious gifts are the ones that are given with love,” she said and her fingers absently found the white lily in her hair. Eren noticed the little gesture, and though he wasn’t sure what the talking was about, his heart was still flooded with warmth.

“Uh, lame,” Anna rolled her eyes and Gilly took the opportunity to bump into her with her shoulder, and absolutely not let this go.

“Look who’s a sore loser,” she rubbed the salt a little deeper into the cut on purpose. That shit eating grin on her face didn’t help either.

“Oh, I’m gonna kill you now–!”

“Any of you wanna tell me why I can hear the both of you on the other end of the street?” the voice came from the common room just a second before the ginger mess of hair appeared at the kitchen door. Roman stepped inside with his usual, friendly expression. He was carrying two buckets of water that they would use for the soup later. “Let’s not wake up Timea though, yeah? She’s exhausted, and none of us will be spared if Jolene comes down to complain about the noise.”

“The girls are throwing a hissy fit,” Carla informed him and pulled Eren closer to show him how the dough was supposed to be folded on the edge of the pie tin.

“Jolene’s not here,” Cecil said. “I was out with her at the market, selling our herbs when two soldiers asked her to treat one of their own. Someone got injured and Jolene offered to help. Her herbal tea is still the best in town.”

“Huh,” Carla furrowed her brows a little, the worry clear on her face. “You let her go alone with MPs?”

“I couldn’t leave the shop. And they weren’t MPs anyway. Or didn’t look like them. They were wearing those green capes of the scouts. One of them was a woman too, she looked nice.”

“Alright… well, she better come home by six, otherwise I’m teaching those soldiers a lesson myself, MPs or not!”

“You go, mama Carla,” Roman chuckled and placed a quick peck on the woman’s temple. Gilly snorted and elbowed Anna suggestively, who however did not appreciate any physical contact right now from the other girl, and she responded with a slap to Gilly’s forehead. Needless to say, the fight broke out once again in the crowded kitchen. “Oi, oi, girls stop it already! You’ll seriously wake Timea!”

“It’s Anna’s fault~”

“Gilly started it~”

Roman rolled his eyes and ruffled Eren’s hair while passing by him. “Hi, Eren!”

“Hi, Roman,” Eren happily smiled back at him, his thick, strange accent making everyone in the room either openly coo or smile. “You fucking whore!” he added proudly.

The room went still as Roman turned back to Eren with a comically confused smile frozen on his face. Gilly and Anna began cracking up with quiet giggles in the corner, while Cecil continued working like nothing happened. Carla just buried her face in her hands.

When Stefan Auerbach received word that nine veterans of the Survey Corps would stay the night in his inn, he certainly didn’t expect to be bombarded with a long list of rules that he was now suggested to follow.

The soldiers arrived in two groups, the first one just after nightfall with a very loud, cheerful woman on the lead, who was also the reason why Mr. Auerbach and his personnel spent the better portion of their night on all fours, scrubbing the floors and other horizontal surfaces with warm water and soap.

Hanji Zoe, her name was, kindly warned them of just who was about to arrive that night at their humble establishment and what exactly his standards were. If it was anyone else, Mr. Auerbach might have told Miss Zoe that if they didn’t like the rooms, they could leave and spend the night somewhere else, but this was Captain Levi they were talking about. Hence their bruised knees and bloodshot eyes which served as reminders on their soaring bodies of the all-nighter they pulled.

It was quite the uproar in the inn that the famous soldier, Humanity’s Strongest, was going to spend a night in their establishment. Many tales were going around on the grapevine about how the man survived on his own for a full year outside the Walls and how not even a month ago he single-handedly stopped a titan that tried kicking down the gate of Shiganshina. There were countless rumors that one could hear in markets and taverns, and everyone working in the inn was eager to finally get a closer look at the mighty hero, especially the girls. The old innkeeper didn’t have enough fingers to count how many times he had to shoo a flock of girls who were too busy gossiping about the Captain to work.

One could imagine Mr. Auerbach’s utter astonishment, however, when he finally laid eyes on the man.

Based on the descriptions and that illustration that appeared in the papers he expected someone of staggering height and built, a man of solid muscle and wide shoulders. Perhaps his face was littered with scars, but as intimidating as he would look, he would still nod at the old Auerbach respectfully and place a platonic peck on Mrs. Auerbach’s hand.

The only reason the innkeeper didn’t doubt Hanji Zoe’s word of their special guest's identity was because Mr. Auerbach had caught a glimpse of the Captain before, when the scouts were riding out one time.

He remembered the neatly cut ink black hair and the pale skin, but what he couldn’t see of the man who was on horseback at the time thoroughly shocked the innkeeper.

The Captain looked surprisingly young, even with the deep crimson circles under his eyes and the fatigued dullness of his expression; he looked almost too young to be a soldier, let alone a captain. And while Mr. Auerbach expected someone in his late thirties, he could still get behind the fact that the mighty Captain was this young boy who barely looked like he was past his mid-twenties. But then there was the size of the man, which Mr. Auerbach struggled with.

The man who jumped off his horse with a blank, emotionless face that conveyed neither approval nor disdain, barely came up to the height of the innkeeper’s youngest son. Auerbach himself wasn’t a tall man either, his age has taken its toll on his body after all, yet the last thing he expected was Humanity’s Strongest Soldier to have the physical appearance of a boy who was barely past his adolescent years. He looked even less threatening in the company of the four other soldiers towering over him, and with his heavy, damp clothes hanging off of him like they were about to swallow him whole.

“Good afternoon, sirs!” Mr. Auerbach spoke up standing in the main entryway, and he sent one of his boys to help the weary travelers with the horses. “It’s an honor to finally meet you in person, Captain Levi!”

Levi’s eyes narrowed and darted onto the hand that was reaching out for his. Realizing in a split second that he was waiting for the captain to shake his hand in vain, Mr. Auerbach politely dropped his hand like he never offered it in the first place. He didn’t show the faintest sign of being offended.

Taking a look at the captain from closer, the old Auerbach observed those bored, silver eyes that probably had seen enough horror for ten lifetimes, and the small shoulders, that the innkeeper now saw that they not only carried those soaked through, still dripping clothes, but also the weight of what it meant to be 'humanity's strongest.'

Auerbach, who was a garrison soldier himself before his right leg below the knee was blown off by a faulty canon, recognized a fellow soul and soldier. He had a hunch that the man in front of him, no matter how much younger he was, had seen things behind those Walls that were far more hideous than Auerbach could ever imagine.

But even though the letters of war were written across that pale face with straight, plain strokes, Mr. Auerbach knew that this wasn't the first thing people saw when they looked at him. It was instead exactly what he saw at first too: that Captain Levi was shockingly young and short, and his complexion almost sickly pale. An unjust world this was, where the achievements of a man were overshadowed by his appearance.

A soft, apologetic smile tugged in the corner of Mr. Auerbach’s lips, and stepping out of the way, he grandly gestured towards the inn’s front door.

“Come in, son,” he said, the affectionate title slipping past his lips involuntarily. Te captain either didn’t care to mention it or had far more pressing matters than to waste time on him. “We prepared the rooms as instructed.”

Levi gave the man another look, his gaze blank and not particularly focused on anything, almost unseeing. Wet clothes, mud on the boots, get warm; these were all he could think about right now.

The rooms were fine. Nothing more could be expected of an inn in Shiganshina than the plain, simply furnished rooms, but Levi wasn’t expecting anything in the first place. The world was a gray, tasteless mush around him, static noise that barely got his attention enough to keep track of it.

He was shown to his room where he stripped bare with the nonexistent bashfulness of a soldier, and barely acknowledged the blushing boys who hoarded warm water into the bathtub while he absently folded his clothes.

“Apologies, sir,” one of them said meekly, “but we didn’t know when to expect you, and so we couldn’t prepare you a bath in advance.”

What a foolish thing to apologize for, Levi thought. He made a noncommittal sound and the boys left.

He made quick work of bathing, eager to finally get the days’ worth of dirt, grime, and sweat off his skin. He scrubbed every inch of his body with a hard brush until it was pink. The soap wasn’t the best quality, but it was good for its main purpose. Once Levi was done, he dried himself off and changed into a clean shirt that he’d been storing in his saddlebag. It was a little wrinkly for his liking, but it was a miracle in itself that the leather bad didn’t get completely soaked through, thus ruining the shirt.

On his way to the common room of the first floor, which was taken entirely by their group of scouts, Levi dropped off his soiled uniform by the laundress and strictly explained to her how he wanted it to be cleaned. Levi wasn’t above washing his own clothes, he by far preferred doing it for himself the way he knew was best, but according to the innkeeper, Hanji would arrive soon from her little sightseeing trip, and Levi wanted to get over with the official business as quickly as possible.

Tomorrow morning they would ride out to the place where Eren was killed to gather any evidence they could get their hands on.

Levi didn’t think he felt in any particular way about it. He half-expected himself to be wary of the idea of seeing that place again, with the memories still fresh in his mind–

...a single trail of tears ran down each side of Eren’s face, mixing in with steaming blood and the dirt smeared across his cheeks, youdidthis…

– but he was wrong.

It felt like it happened ages ago. The memories were dulled by a gray curtain of fog. He could only feel the drive that pushed him forward, find them, make them pay, make them regret, find them. As long as he had something to work on, he was fine. He didn’t have to take a look at what was inside. He could leave the broken pieces in the dark as they were, they were fine as long as he didn’t look, as long as he kept moving forward.

Hanji and Moblit arrived a few hours before sundown.

“What took you so long to get here?” the scientist screeched when she barged into Levi’s room without knocking, and an obnoxiously wide grin spread across on her face. “I was getting lonely!”

“The roads were shit. And do you ever knock?” Levi frowned by the fireplace where he was trying to warm up his always freezing hands. He cursed Shiganshina for still being so cold despite it already being spring. “I could be jerking off or something.”

“That’s just another reason for me to never knock!” she winked at him.

Levi leveled her with a deadly glare before turning away. “You’re beyond saving. That girl of yours?” he asked, remembering the message they received a few nights ago about a commotion in a pub not too far from the bait city.

“Nifa? She’s stable. She got a clean stab but it didn’t cut deeper than the abdominal muscles. I patched her up. Nothing that she can’t sleep off.”

Levi shook his head in disbelief. “Crazy fuckers,” he muttered. Even drunk, to think someone would have the audacity to attack military personnel. “The attacker?”

“They’re all taken care of,” Hanji assured him. “Probably passed out in some cold cell, and Nifa has a fun new scar she can tell stories about! It’s a win-win situation, everything’s fine!” she showed both her thumbs but Levi only regarded her with a narrow glance.

She was awfully cheerful, that was for sure, he fumed quietly. If she said it was fine, it was probably nothing to think too much of. Fights broke out in pubs all the time, and they just seemed to be unlucky enough to get tangled up in it – yet Levi couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that–

“– it wasn’t just an accident,” Hanji said, startling Levi out of the murky depths of his thoughts. His head snapped up and his eyes went ever so slightly wider, perhaps wondering if he officially went insane and he was thinking out loud without even noticing it, but Hanji was there to swiftly ease his mind. “That’s probably what you’re thinking right now. I doubt it, honestly. Though I can’t blame you, I feel like I’m looking for enemies left and right too.” She sighed and roughly patted Levi on the back. He let her. “Come, I wanna check up on Nifa.”

“You don’t need me for that,” Levi grumbled.

“I don’t,” she grinned. “I just want to order you around now that Erwin left me in charge while he’s gone. Let me enjoy my temporary position a little!”

“You mean you want to abuse your power while you can?” Levi rolled his eyes but followed her out into the corridor anyway.

“I couldn’t abuse my power when it comes to you even if I really tried,” Hanji cackled as she stepped inside a room, following behind her Levi. “You’d probably just kick me!” Well, she’s not wrong, Levi thought almost lightheartedly, a split second before he surveyed his surroundings inside the room, and all color drained from his face.

His instincts kicked in faster than anyone could grasp what was happening.

Nifa was laying in the bed, her torso bandaged up in white gauze, and above her hovered a dark shadow with a knife in hand, inches away from the injured scout’s chest. That was all he saw before he launched forward.

His right hand whipped out the dagger from his boot, while the other was flying in the air and clasped firmly onto the woman’s shirt. There was a shocked sound torn from the assassin’s throat which immediately turned into a breathless gasp as her back hit the floor. Levi’s fingers grabbed onto her throat, clutching at it like a viper. Levi saw red, his murderous intent written across his face.

“Levi!” he heard Hanji scream from somewhere behind him, but he didn’t bother. He looked into the blond woman’s eyes with unaltered murderous intent.

The woman, or more like the girl, didn’t try to fight the captain. She was built like those peasants who worked all day on the field, lean and though strong, not nearly strong enough to push Levi off. Her features were painted with colors of shocked surprise, her long, blond strands of hair splattered across the dirty floor. The blade of the dagger dug painfully sharply into the dimple above her collarbone.

“Levi, stop!”

The scalpel, which Levi thought to be a knife, hit the floor with a soft, metallic thud, and the girl’s hands were raised to her head, showing that she meant no harm. Levi followed the seemingly innocent gesture with cold eyes that believed nothing.

That was when strong hands snaked around Levi’s arms, and he was yanked backward with the combined strength of two people. Levi let them pull him away, Hanji and no doubt Moblit, but the dagger remained in his hand and he refused to look away from the murderer even for a split second.

“Ne, Levi, how about you don’t kill the person who’s been keeping an eye on Nifa for the better part of the day, huh?” Hanji chuckled nervously as she tried to tighten her hold on Levi’s wrist enough to make him drop the dagger, but it was no use. When she saw that Levi wasn’t backing away but didn’t attack the girl again either, she slowly released him. “I’m so sorry, my dear Jolene, he’s not always like this! Well… he kind of is, but never mind that, are you hurt?”

The poor girl managed to lift herself onto her elbows, which allowed her to crawl a few feet backward, not that it would’ve mattered if she was attacked again. That man with furious, glowing grey eyes was glaring at her like he was ready to cut her up into pieces, and she had a hunch that a few extra feet between them wouldn’t have made a difference.

“Th-thank you, Miss Zoe, I’m unharmed,” she breathed weakly and pushed a few strands of hair out of her face with trembling hands. Her brown eyes flickered onto Levi again momentarily, but she turned back to Hanji too swiftly for Levi to read her emotions. He was too tired, he felt dizzy. “Though he almost scared the soul out of me.”

“Yes, he likes doing that to people,” Hanji scratched the back of her head and shot a stern look at Levi. “Levi, this is Jolene. Thanks to her herbs and treatment Nifa will be well enough by tomorrow to travel back to headquarters. It would be nice of us not to pay for her service with a stab wound, eh?”

“What the fuck, four eyes,” Levi demanded, his deadpan expression not suggesting in any way that a couple of seconds ago he was holding a girl down with a dagger pointed at her throat. His even tone gave away nothing, but Hanji saw the rumbling fury inside ready to burst out.

Hanji reached for the girl, who accepted the helping hand with a grateful smile. She then shyly glanced at Levi. “My name is Jolene Fischer, sir. It’s a great honor to meet you, Captain Levi.”

Levi’s eyes narrowed and darted back onto Hanji. “How does she know who I am?” he asked coolly, not caring enough to address the girl personally, despite her standing right in front of him.

“Right, um!” Hanji clapped her hands together with a wide grin before the tension in the room created a real sparkle and lit the whole building on fire. “Levi, if you would excuse me for a teeny tiny second!” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him out into the corridor. Moblit remained in the room with Jolene and Nifa, and only for that reason, Levi allowed Hanji to drag him down into the empty common room.

“Okay, I know what you’re thinking–” Hanji raised both her hands, but Levi’s words unapologetically cut through whatever the scientist wanted to say.

“Yeah, no fucking way you do.”

“You’re thinking about where you could hide my body once you’re done chopping me up, don’t you,” Hanji tilted her head sideways as she idly guessed. “I know you, Levi honey, but–”

“How the fuck did she know who I am? And can you honestly tell me one good reason why you hired her? You’re a doctor, you can take care of Nifa, why let an outsider…” Then an even more frustrating thought crossed Levi’s mind, and Hanji paled when she saw the murderous glint return to his eyes. “She’s a witness, isn’t she? Is that why you keep her around?”

A single bead of sweat rolled down Hanji’s forehead. “Listen, it was pure luck that we met and she works magic with those herbs too. I’m not very good at stitching up humans, you know, my hands are made for titan-sized patients, and then by pure chance, I discovered that she treated Marton once, and–”

“You let a possible suspect infiltrate our investigation?” Levi hissed and cornered Hanji against a table. No matter how he was one head shorter than her, perhaps that’s exactly why he looked even more intimidating.

“She’s not a suspect! Honestly, what do you take me for?” Hanji pouted and pushed herself up onto the table until she was sitting comfortably. “I did an investigation on my own, I questioned her, checked her background, she’s clean. Do you know her or something? Or did you try to slit her throat because~?”

Levi scoffed and took a step back, realizing how he was standing only a few inches away from the scientist, way too close for his liking. “I don’t trust her,” he replied.

“And you don’t trust her because~?”

“It’s a gut feeling!” Levi snapped at her.

“Is it because she’s blond? Levi, you’re starting to talk like you went a little cuckoo.”

“I’ve been dreaming with blond fuckers for weeks on end and you’re surprised that I’m losing my mind?”

Hanji sighed and pushed herself off the table. She went to the kitchen to get themselves some drinks, and once she was back, Levi was somewhat pleasantly surprised that she was holding an old tea kettle and some cups in her hands.

“You don’t trust me and my team, is that it?” she asked lightheartedly when she pushed the equipment in his hands, knowing that Levi only drank tea that was made by Levi and no one else. Hanji sat down and rested her chin in her palm. “I know you’re exhausted,” she sighed and Levi’s hands stopped as he was about to pour the tea into the two cups. “I think I barely slept four hours last night, but you look even worse than I do.”

Levi left the comment without a reply. She was probably right. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept through the night either and though this was more or less usual for him, his insomnia had been torturing him on full power ever since Eren.

Pouring the tea in the cups waiting, Levi sat down by the fire and dragged a hand down on his face. Hanji followed his movements from the corner of her eyes. While they were back at headquarters she had excuses to keep an eye on him, just to make sure that he ate enough and maybe catch up with sleep, but now they haven’t seen each other since that one time in Stohess district two weeks ago.

Levi was so pale that ghosts would’ve looked bright and flushed next to him, his skin looked dry like paper, and the sickly ash color of his face only drew more attention to the dark circles under his feverishly burning eyes.

Hanji held back a sigh. If they were going to continue with this investigation at this speed, and speed was their only hope left to find the assassin, it was going to kill Levi. It pained her to see him like this and it pained her even more that she knew that the man blamed himself for what happened.

“How does she know who I am? Or the innkeeper for a matter of fact?” Levi asked coolly, his gaze sharp enough to cut through the surface of Hanji’s confident façade.

It unnerved Levi to no extent that people seemed to recognize him out of the blue while he wasn’t on horseback and by Erwin’s side, the latter being so far what gave away his identity most of the time. But now, people were popping up left and right, saying his name like they knew him. To a criminal born and bred underground, getting recognized was not something he considered to be an advantage in life.

Hanji bit her lower lip, hesitation written across her face, but then she stood up, and a minute later she returned with a newspaper in hand. She dropped it on the table, the front cover staring Levi right in the eyes.

“What is this?” he spat out the words bluntly and unimpressed, though he knew exactly what he was seeing.

“I told Erwin that we should get your opinion on it before it was sent to the publishers, but he said you wouldn’t like it anyway, so we might as well just get on with it,” Hanji said quietly.

On the paper there stood proudly his cheesy, overly dramatic self with his cape blowing in the wind, blades in hand, and his eyes looking towards the sky with a stern, yet hopeful expression. Above his head, the large letters proudly announced:

“Captain Levi, Humanity’s Strongest Soldier – Join the Army Today and Fight by His Side for Freedom!”

Levi didn’t waste more than one glance on his face an the text, however. What caught his attention was the slain head of a titan on which his propaganda-self was victoriously trampling on. A titan with long, dark hair and a skeleton-like grin, all teeth, and no lips.

Levi’s hand twitched, and the porcelain cup fell onto the paper in broken shards. The tea spilled onto the table and soaked through the pages. Droplets of blood fell onto the remains of the cup from the small cut on Levi’s finger.

Hanji bowed her head low to tear her gaze from Levi’s empty, emotionless eyes, still staring at the paper.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to tell you,” she murmured weakly. “Some scouts must’ve talked and the descriptions probably got back to that Baumann who drew this… Levi, listen…”

“If talking is your idea of foreplay then skip it,” Levi mumbled and threw the soaked-through newspaper in the fire. He absently started cleaning up the pieces of the broken cup. His fingers looked bony in the eerie light of the fire, like that of a skeleton’s. Hanji often wondered how such a small body held so much raw strength. “I’m not in the mood for your fuckery.”

“I’m sorry but that’s hardly relevant,” Hanji said, her voice quiet now and lacking in energy. She felt exhausted to the bone herself. She didn’t want to argue with Levi about this. “Erwin put me in charge of the investigation while he’s in Sina.”

“This ‘investigation,’” Levi mumbled with a scornful frown twisting his lips. “It’s a fucking joke. We have nothing and it’s painfully obvious. Absolutely nothing, no major lead, no more theories, no physical evidence. Even fucking Eyebrows knows this, no wonder why he’s not here.”

Hanji regarded him with a silent stare, and Levi returned it with daggers of steel.

“No, I’m genuinely curious, shitty glasses, what the fuck is he doing while we’re rolling around out here in the mud? I’d like to ask Erwin to share his wisdom with the class after he preached so fucking nicely about truth and shit, but he doesn’t even show his face,” he continued while keeping his attitude calm on the surface, but the slight tremble of anger in his voice told a different tale.

“Erwin is in the capitol, trying to raise our funding, you know that,” Hanji warned softly. “We’re all trying to do our best–”

“Well, it’s not fucking good enough!” Levi snapped.

Hanji licked her lower lip anxiously and gulped. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t concern you anymore.”

Levi regarded her with a dead expression, the quiet rage flickering away from those cold steel irises, and there was something hollow now there instead. A void that nothing could ever fill. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m taking you off the case.”

Levi paused. “Why?”

“Because you’re not fit for service.” Hanji cursed herself internally for not presenting this with a little more grace, but then again Levi hated when people tried to sugarcoat the truth.

“Bullshit. Didn’t Erwin say that he trusted my judgment in this case more than anyone else’s?”

“He did, but Levi this is eating you away,” Hanji sighed and buried her face in her hands. She shouldn’t have shown him the picture, she should’ve brushed him off, make him a little angry but at least he wouldn’t have had to see it. “You might be the strongest, but you’re useless if you’re not in top shape.”

Levi huffed and threw the last remaining pieces of the cup into the fire. “Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry but it’s true. You look like shit. Do you even remember the last time you slept? Or eaten? Erwin sent you here because he knew that you…” Hanji closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, not wanting to say what she was about to. “He knew that your personal connection to Eren would strengthen your desire to find the killer, but it’s unhealthy, it’s destroying you.”

“No, fuck you,” Levi shook his head, his jaws clenched and eyes staring into the fire.

“I’m sending you home, Levi,” Hanji declared softly, but her voice held a firmness to it that made it evident that this was not up for debate. “Eat, get some rest, visit a brothel, god knows you need it.”

“Hanji…”

“I have already decided,” the squad leader raised her voice and turned her face the other way. “Tomorrow I will ride out with Moblit and your squad, and you will go back to headquarters with Keiji and Nifa, where she can get proper treatment. I’m worried about you and so is your squad.” I don’t want to send you out there where it happened, the slight tremble of her voice said, but Levi no longer listened.

“What did they tell you?” he hissed, his glowing eyes boring into Hanji’s skull.

“This is not a mutiny,” she said after a few seconds of silence. “It’s the exact opposite, this is an intervention to stop you from exhausting yourself to death.”

Levi abruptly stood and marched to the fire. Hanji half expected him to kick one of the burning logs hard enough to scatter ember all across the floor, but instead, Levi just stood with his arms crossed, head hung low so she couldn’t see his expression.

When he spoke again, his voice was resigned. “I’ll do better.”

It was a plea of the defeated, of the exhausted, of the hopeless. He sounded weak, but Levi was already too full of self-hatred to get any angrier with himself for this. He didn’t care how pathetic he sounded, how lost and weak he looked, he wanted to go, he wanted to have something to work for. He needed a purpose to keep going because without it, he was afraid that he would stop and never get going again. Not this, just don’t take this away from me, he thought, let me have this, let me do something, I’ll go crazy if I can’t distract myself from this emptiness, this cold…

“This investigation was doomed from the start,” Hanji’s voice seeped through the barricades of his consciousness like fog. “There are too many possible suspects, too many holes in the story, and not enough proof. I’ll ride out tomorrow and then suggest Erwin to rule the case unsolved. I’m sorry, Levi. It’s hard for me too. I know that you think he meant nothing but a test subject to me but that’s not true. He was sweet and pure, and it hurts to…”

Levi didn’t wait for her to finish.

He bolted out of the room like he was scorched by fire, and not a minute later he was marching out onto the streets, unknowing of where he was going. The only thing he knew was that he needed to get out, away from that small room, away from Hanji, away from everything. He let his feet carry him wherever they wanted to take him. He shut out everything. He wasn’t paying attention to anything on the outside nor inside, he didn’t want to hear any of it.

It was getting dark, and the air was chilly. The sky was a purplish gray color, and slowly the lanterns on the streets were lit one by one. Levi only stopped to look around when he no longer knew where he was. He was thoroughly lost. That’s when under the orange light of one of the lanterns he spotted the blond girl from earlier, whose throat he almost cut.

His fury, that passionate hate that burned brightly in his lungs for all these weeks was no more than a quiet, simmering ache inside him now, yet he decided to follow the girl. His gaze bore into her nape with such disdain that it was almost impressive that she didn’t notice she was being watched. He kept a distance from her as she walked across the town with a basket hanging from her arm.

Levi didn’t know what he was expecting; his experience in life taught him never to expect anything and always be prepared for everything; yet when the girl entered a building with a red light hanging above the front door, Levi admitted that he was taken by surprise.

Not knowing what came over him, Levi slowly approached the building that was oozing with light and cheerful music. As he stepped closer from across the street, the outlines of the dancing figures slowly solidified behind the foggy windows. The door was closed and the lantern made of red glass panels was not alight, but Levi would’ve recognized that it was a brothel anyway.

The little hairs stood up on his nape in disgust when he first saw the building, but he couldn’t deny how the sweet tones of the music coming from the room drew him in. It was soft and lively at the same time, and the beautiful voice of the woman singing was a soothing balm to Levi’s ruffled nerves.

Before he could stop himself and ask just what he was doing, he closed his eyes and shivered when his ears were filled with that honeyed voice. It was bitter and sweet at the same time.

It dug up forgotten memories from is past, those very rare days when his mother was singing. She was always sad, but when she was singing, Levi saw something shift on her face that changed her entire person. The little wrinkles on her forehead disappeared, the sharp arch of her brow softened and the smile tugging at the corners of her lips was no longer just a distant memory. Her voice was like sunlight, bright and warm, and she looked free.

By now that was all that Levi could remember of her. Flickering images and soft shadows of the days long gone, but as Levi stood by the roadside across the brothel, he felt as if the sound of the music breathed life back into the soul of his dead mother.

His eyes snapped open, suddenly startled by what this voice did to him, how his chest felt tighter and a small amount of moisture coated his lashes. He wanted to be angry with this woman for making him feel this way, so naked and alien in his own skin, but then he caught the glimpse of two figures by the window, and all his unfinished thoughts melted into ash.

The woman had her long, brown hair down her shoulder. The soft strands of hair flew in the air like gravity had no hold on them as she spun around. There was a white flower tucked above her ear. She was holding the hands of another whom at first Levi took for a girl because of his long hair and that feminine grace that his movements possessed. Mother and son perhaps, Levi thought numbly as he observed the way they held each other with gentle, affectionate hands.

Levi couldn’t see either of their faces because the strong, yellow light from behind them hid their profiles in a dark shadow, but even then he could still see how they were smiling at each other. They were singing too, or at least the woman was while the boy gawped at her in pure amazement.

Levi felt like he had a glimpse into something that he shouldn’t have been allowed to see. They looked like they were floating above the ground instead of dancing on it. The light of the candles cast an ethereal glow around their figures.

Levi watched them with his lips parted. In the moment of weakness, all he could think of was what he could’ve given as a child to dance with her mother as that boy did. If there was a devil, he would’ve sold his soul for this in a heartbeat.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth as he watched someone live through a childhood memory that he never had. Yet seeing those two floating in the air like angels, like they were out of this world, he thought that even if he couldn’t have this, could never have this, at least there was someone out there who did.

That had to count for something, didn’t it?

That meant that perhaps the world wasn’t fucked up by default. The world was both cruel and beautiful, and though some got more of one than the other, right now Levi was looking at the embodiment of beauty. If faith decided to bathe Levi’s life in cruelty, then perhaps that was the price he had to pay so that this other boy could have this moment with his mother.

It wasn’t fair, but nothing ever was. Though he was too abominable to ever be part of a moment like this, even a monster like him was given a chance to at least see something beautiful every once in a while.

Come to think of it, Eren was just like this too; a passing moment of beauty. The titan wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, but his soul shone brighter than a hundred suns. And he was never meant to stay with Levi for long, was he? That was not something Levi deserved, to experience the kindness of that pure soul again, but he was lucky enough to see him, touch him, just be around him for a little while. And Levi could never have kept Eren around for any longer than he was meant to stay.

It wasn’t the comforting answer he needed, but that was all he had left; the total trust in letting go, as he knew that nothing ever in life was meant to stay forever. Just let it go.

It was cold, but there was warmth out there somewhere, even if it was not meant for him to feel.

He glanced at the dancing figures one last time before he turned around and the outlines of his figure melted into the shadows of the evening.

Eren turned his head to look at the dark street outside. His skin was damp with sweat from all the dancing, and the wide smile simply didn’t want to wither from his face.

The music was loud in his ears and the laughter even louder. Carla nudged him to join her again in the next dance, but Eren excused himself with a smile and a shake of his head. He tried sneaking out a couple of times in hopes of resuming his search for the green capes, but after the third time Carla caught him, Eren simply gave up. The food was too good, the dancing was fun, and he enjoyed spending time with these people too much to leave so abruptly. He could continue searching for the green capes tomorrow.

Eren opened the front door and curiously stepped outside. He had this weird feeling that he couldn’t shake off like he was being watched, but when he looked around, he couldn’t see anyone.

The streets were empty and dark, the effects of the latter already taking a toll on his body. Perhaps he was just tired then, and his senses were messing with him, he thought.

He yawned, and knowing that his fatigue wouldn’t give him a second chance, he sat down by the wall and leaned his head against the rain gutter. He wished he could’ve stayed up longer to dance with everyone and eat more of that delicious bread thing with the pieces of fruit inside. His and Carla’s peach pie didn’t turn out half bad either. A droopy smile pulled the corners of his mouth when he thought of Timea’s face the first time she took a bite. She looked like she was about to burst into tears.

As he closed his eyes, a gentle breeze stroked Eren’s cheeks with its cold little fingers, and his nose was tickled by a familiar scent. He barely had enough energy to crack an eye open, but he would’ve recognized it anywhere. The streets were empty, but Eren wasn’t angry with that liar ghost-scent for tricking him again like it did the first time Little One left.

Back then Eren clung to that scent in desperation, trying way too hard to seek out the source only to be left disappointed and depressed when he couldn’t find the human. A lot of time had passed since then, and a lot of things had happened too. Right then, as Eren was dozing off by the sidewalk, knowing well that his senses were playing tricks on him, he was still happy to have this little reminder of the time he spent together with Little One. Maybe one day they could be like that again, he thought before he drifted into sleep.

Carla went looking for him not long after, only to find him by the entrance, sleeping like a log with the faintest of smiles still on his lips. Gently gathering him into her arms, Carla carried him upstairs, where she put him into her bed. She tucked him in with the worn-out blanket and brushed a few strands of hair out of his face.

Sleeping like an angel, she thought with a small smile.

The sound of glass getting broken could be heard from downstairs, and Carla sighed, making a well-educated guess that Anna and Gilly had something to do with it. Luckily Eren didn’t stir.

Chapter Text

Heyyyyy! How are you my darlings, how is everyone? ♡ ♡ ♡

This week will be different from what you're maybe used to by now. There's no update this week, boo! I thought I'd let you know a day before I usually post the new stuff, just to take away the edge of the disappointment. I'm sorry that I didn't make it this week, but my life became very chaotic and stressful very quickly and I simply couldn't keep up with the schedule. I'm a uni student and this year will be a pretty important (shitty) one, I'll have lots of exams and one long ass essay I'll have to write, so I promise you that I won't be slacking off while I'm not writing! Howevah this lil hiatus is perfect because I do have some stuff to discuss with you!

Right now I'm planning to change the schedule, I'll be posting every two weeks. I would absolutely abandon my studies to write a fic about 2D boys like the responsible person I am, but that won't pay me the bills any time soon. I'm trying to compromise with myself because there's a lot of pressure on me rn but I also really don't want to abandon this fic either. I hope you understand! I know that it's scary when an author posts about a hiatus because there's a chance that they'll just poof disappear BUT I'm trying some adulting techniques here such as ☆open communication☆!

Now then, the other thing! I'll make a small note on the lore in this fic because things are getting heated over here! I'm gonna spoil some minor things here, nothing too drastic, but if you don't want to know aaanything anything about the lore, then close your eyes babes!

So, there's no outside world in this fic! I'm telling you this because as I promised, I'm changing a LOT of canon lore, and I don't want you to put in loads of hours of reading just to end up disappointed. If this is already something you don't like, this is your warning! I have only recently watched season 4 (I knew that it would only cause pain and lo and behold I was right) and I mean it's genius, it's beautiful but there's no chance of the happy fluffy ending that I want as long as the outside world exists so boop I'm deleting it! Even the last few episodes of season 3 traumatized me (like holy shit I’m still not over that scene at the beach with depressed Eren). I’m a pretty pessimistic bitch myself, so when something is more depressing than me, I get scared. We will spend (most of) our time in idyllic, sunshiny sceneries in this little fic and we will be happy. This feels like a lie rn but it's not I promise! ToT

Now of course season 4 still inspired me in ways and it's very important regarding the character's backgrounds and motivations so I'm not disregarding it completely. I'm changing some stuff but the characters will still have the same heart and motivations, even tho it might not look like that at first! Remember that luvs because there will be a few people I will villainize here at first for story purposes but then we'll learn more about their motivations and it'll all make sense. We won't have any exaggerated one-dimensional Disney villains here.

I think that's all I want to say. I’m sorry if my ostrich policy is not for your taste but meh either take it or leave it!

I hope you're all doing well! Thank you for the amazing feedback I've been getting, I mean fucking hell we're past100k words and1000 kudos which is insane!! Thank you so much for being so supportive and kind even tho I'm probably annoying the heck out of you by not reuniting our babes already! There are a lot of you here who take your time to comment on each new chapter, and I just hope you know that you're the reason I'm still writing this! Even tho I have pretty bad anxiety, I'm not afraid to post anymore because you make me feel so appreciated and loved. It feels amazing to know that you guys are out there!♡♡♡♡♡

That's enough mushy stuff for one day, now I'm just embarrassing myself but I still mean what I said! Be good guys, I hope you're having an amazing day, but even if you don't, it's okay! I'm telling you this because I don't think I hear it enough myself so I'm saying this now, be kind to yourself and be patient! The goal is never to fix everything right away because that's impossible and you'll just exhaust yourself. We have valid reasons to feel the way we do (even if people try to convince us otherwise), and first we have to accept it instead of beating ourselves up for it. You can't force yourself to 'get better' or change. So let's not be afraid to embrace our problems and let's learn how to live with them, okay? That's the first step, everything else comes second. That was mama author for you!

Do take care of yourself please, I love you all so so much, and (hopefully) I'll see you next week! ♡ ♡ ♡

Chapter Text

That night, when Eren fell asleep in Carla’s bed and Levi wandered on the streets by himself, the moon was hiding behind a blanket of thick clouds, covering the land in ominous darkness. Far out at the border of Shiganshina, the outlines of three dark shadows on top of the Wall could barely be noticed. Patrols were rare at these parts of the Wall, and the sky was pitch black, making it impossible to spot them from the ground.

“We should go after her,” the tallest one of them whispered meekly. His eyes trailed down onto the four remaining wooden cups on the ground, one of them still full. “Maybe we can convince her to come back…”

“She’s not coming back, Bertholdt,” a deep voice interrupted him before he could go any further. Reiner observed the cups with his arms crossed and eyes squinted, as if he was thinking the same, yet he wasn’t allowed to put his feelings into words. He pressed his lips together until they formed a thin, hard line. “She said it herself, and Ymir never changes her mind. We will continue the plan without her.”

“I say we call it off.”

The two boys fell quiet as the third figure spoke up for the first time since they’d been sitting out there.

“What?” Reiner asked, the stunned disbelief clear in his voice.

“I said,” Annie lifted her head and a pale ray of moonlight illuminated her equally pale face – one could wonder if it was her natural complexion or if the departure of their friend was responsible for this –, “we should call it off. The doctor shouldn’t be too far yet, we can catch up and…”

A large hand wrapped around her wrist as she was about to turn her back on them, locking her into place. The air shifted around them from pleasantly cool to ice cold. Reiner gritted his teeth as he tightened his grip on Annie’s thin wrist. He tugged at her until she had no choice but to take a step back to save herself from falling.

“Tell me, Annie,” Reiner forced the words through his clenched jaws, but beneath the surface of anger, there was genuine fear lurking in his voice. “Do you have a shred of feeling hidden inside that cold heart of yours? Ymir just left us, and you listened to her, you didn’t even try to make her stay, and now you want to call off the mission? What is wrong with you?”

Annie’s eyes flickered onto the ground as if she was pleading for it to swallow her whole, but neither Reiner nor Bertholdt saw this. “Losing your cool won’t do us any good. Stop acting like a child and man up. We planned this for months, we can’t butcher it just because of some personal feelings,” she stated coolly.

“This is personal,” Reiner insisted. “Or is family nothing to you? Was Eren nothing to you?! Is that why you did nothing but watch while–”

There was a painful yelp ripping into the quiet fabric of the night, and a muffled scream that was torn from Reiner’s lungs as his back smashed against the cold surface of the ground. Annie twisted her arm out of his hold and kicked Reiner’s face as hard as she could.

The impassive expression on her face cracked ever so slightly. She glared at the boy at her feet with disgust. “None of you were there when it happened,” she seethed.

“Stop it, please!” Bertholdt jumped to his feet, his gaze flickering nervously between his two friends. “Both of you!”

Annie stepped on Reiner’s throat, pushing her foot down and watching as his complexion turned from white to pink and then to bright red. His hand grabbed onto her ankle, but Annie kept herself firmly planted where she stood.

“We all know that it was your fault, Annie,” he choked out with his eyes slowly watering up. “Everyone knows. If you hadn’t called those titans on them–”

“I did what I was told to do!” the girl gritted her teeth and wedged her heel deeper into the dent below Reiner’s Adam’s apple, earning a breathless gasp from him. “I didn’t know that he would panic!”

“It makes no difference!”

“Guys, please!” Bertholdt pleaded with tears trailing down his cheeks.

“Shut your m–” Annie was distracted only for a second by him. Reiner quickly pushed her foot out of his face and tackled her to the ground.

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Reiner grunted as he had her in a tight headlock, and pushed her on her stomach onto the ground with all his strength. “We will do the job with or without Ymir! And if you had the brains, you would’ve realized that this is your only way to redeem yourself!”

“Reiner!”

At the sound of his name being called, Reiner snapped out of the crimson shadows of his rage and looked up. Bertholdt stood in front of them, his eyes burning with tears and his expression frightened.

“You’re choking her,” he whimpered and only then did Reiner’s mind registered the faint sounds of coughing that were coming from below him.

Annie’s eyes rolled back, the tiny blood vessels bursting and painting the white of her eyes bloody. Reiner released her from his grip and shoved her onto the ground as he stood. Annie took a painful intake of breath as air rushed back into her lungs.

“We should get a move on,” Reiner said quietly with a tinge of guilt tucking at his heart. “Let’s get this done.”

The next morning Eren was up before the sun rose above the Wall. He was shaken up from his sleep by a quiet sense of dread that tickled the back of his neck. It was an eerie feeling, he didn’t quite know where to put it, but he was quickly distracted by his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed was how soft the ground was. He was thoroughly confused before his head cleared up a little and he realized that he was in Carla’s room, in her bed. He poked the squishy surface of the mattress with a bony finger and giggled a little. Every day he discovered something new.

Memories from the day before quickly found him. He was bubbling with excitement to set out and find the green capes – Hanji – again, and he was so distracted by the promise of the adventure that he barely spared a thought for the aching pain in his stomach.

The building was quiet except for the faint noises of someone talking in the kitchen. The brothel was usually still empty of customers at this time of the day. Eren rushed down the stairs and towards the front door. His hand was already on the door handle, eyes on the people walking by on the streets, when Carla’s voice reached him.

“Good morning, Eren! Did you sleep well?” She stood at the kitchen door with her hands fumbling around with her apron, drying the small droplets of water from her skin.

“Morning, Eren!” came the loud and rather throaty sound from inside the kitchen.

“Morning, Roman!” Eren raised his voice so that it would reach the man in the other room, and he laughed a little when his ears picked up on Roman’s pitiful whine.

“Gods, don’t yell,” Eren heard him murmur. “My head is killing me.”

“I told you not to drink that much,” Carla shook her head and sighed to emphasize her words.

Roman grunted again. “It seemed like a good idea yesterday,” he mumbled, and Carla turned back to Eren.

“How are you, darling? My goodness, you were sleeping like a log yesterday. I hope it wasn’t too tiring for you. Would you like some breakfast? Would you like some food?” she added helpfully, seeing the boy’s blank expression.

“No food,” Eren shook his head quickly. “I go.”

Carla’s face dropped and she let go of the apron. “Oh. Are you sure? You’re not sick, are you, Eren?”

“No,” he said even though he didn’t understand what ‘sick’ meant. He just wanted to get to searching for the green capes again, as quickly as possible. “I go,” he repeated himself once more before rushing outside.

The air was fresh and cool outside, and the cobblestone even colder beneath his feet. Though it was uncomfortable, Eren had to endure harsh winters without these comfortable second skins before while he still lived in the forest, and so he was used to the cold.

But now that he thought about it, if he was too cold he’d probably be able to light a fire just like Little One taught him, now that he had these small, human hands.

You’ll need dry wood, some smaller twigs, or dried grass. Pinecones work too but those smoke like a bitch so I wouldn’t recommend them. See these rocks? It’s called chert. They’re good for making fires, and using them is easier than rubbing sticks until your hands fall off. You just smash the rocks together and… I said you… Fuck, why isn’t it working? Oi, stop looking at me like that if you know what’s good for you! The twigs are damp, but these were the best ones I could find. Laugh away, asshole, but you will wake up tomorrow to me lighting your hair on fire! Now pay attention, brat, if you burn down your cave after I’m gone, don’t complain to me.

Eren missed his voice.

Little One was often harsh and he yelled a lot too, but there were moments when he sounded gentle. His pitch then dropped and the wrinkles around his eyes smoothed out. Maybe Eren could ask Carla to translate what the human told him. Eren could try to repeat the words from memory and if he was lucky, Carla would pick up on them even if he couldn’t reproduce the sounds perfectly.

Eren inhaled the air deeply, and then froze. Yes, the air was cool and smelled like it always did, but there was something else to it… Eren didn’t dare to put his finger on it. He knew this scent, and he recognized it even though it was barely there. It was faint and fragile, as if a stronger gust of wind could erase all evidence of it.

“Wait, Eren!”

Startled, he whipped his head around to see Carla running towards him with a bundle of red fabric in her arms. When she got closer, she wrapped the soft cloth around Eren’s neck and dropped the very end of it across his head, covering Eren’s hair as if it was a hood.

“Here,” she smiled. “So you won’t get cold. I wanted to give you this yesterday, but I didn’t want to wake you.”

Eren curiously pinched the fabric of the scarf between his fingers. He was amazed at how pleasant it was to the touch, but he couldn’t express it in words. He looked up at Carla with bright, pleading eyes.

“Mine?” he asked, and the disbelief clear in his tone made Carla’s heart ache a little.

“Yes, it’s for you.”

Eren didn’t understand why he was getting such a nice gift all of a sudden. His skin already began to warm up underneath the touch of the smooth, fluffy material, making a pleasant shiver run up his spine.

“Soft?” she offered and Eren experimentally repeated the word after her.

“Soft. No Timea?”

“We did throw the party for her and the baby, but we celebrated the lives of our children, Eren, and those whom we’re thankful for,” Carla explained softly, her golden eyes shining gently. “Some children are born out of miracles. And I don’t need to know everything about you to know that you’re a little miracle yourself. Now c’mere!”

She pulled Eren into a warm hug, and he happily wrapped his arms around her waist. When they let go of each other, Carla placed a small peck on Eren’s hairline before he waved her goodbye.

Eren sniffled the air again. It could be his senses playing tricks on him, but…

He shook his head and climbed onto the rooftop once he reached an empty alley. He started making his way on the roofs in the direction of the house with the ivy and the false window, where he hoped the green capes were staying. He spent the better part of the morning searching for them, hanging around the inn and the square nearby. He tried sneaking in, however, after receiving a few narrow-eyed, suspicious looks, he decided not to push his luck. The last thing he needed right now was someone alerting the Military Police. He would be snatched away and beaten, maybe even killed, when he had come so close to finding Little One.

Eren let out an annoyed huff as he shifted in his seat, trying to ease the numbness in his muscles. The clay tiles were uncomfortable to sit on, but for the better half of the morning Eren had stayed on the roof of the building that was across the street from the inn. He couldn’t afford to miss anyone who entered or exited that house.

As he was surveying the street, his heart beating a little faster every time the door to the inn opened, a pair of humans caught Eren’s attention. They were too far away for him to take note of their outfits or the details of their faces, but Eren was far too taken aback by the sudden nervousness that gripped his heart. He was too excited to consider the emblem of two crossed swords on the human’s jackets. When his eyes caught the sight of the short human with black hair, he didn’t think about his nose not picking up on the sweet flowery yet smoky scent, or that he didn’t know whom the second person standing by them was; he wasn’t thinking about any of that.

He jumped off the roof and neatly landed on the ground, which drew a couple of people’s attention around him, but Eren frankly ignored them as he searched for the pair of humas in the crowd. His heart was beating in his throat from the rush of adrenaline.

“…Grandpa says there will be a shortage of food this winter. The drought ruined most of the harvest. The soil is too dry.”

“Hm.”

Eren saw the two of them turning right on the next corner and walking into a less spacious street. He began running towards them, his ears picking up on the unfamiliar voices, but his heart was too overwhelmed with ecstatic happiness to care about any of that.

“I don’t like leaving him all alone here.”

“He took care of us by himself for years. Besides, next month we get to leave for another day.”

“If I made it to the ten, we could join the Military Police and then all three of us could move to Si–!”

Eren ran, arms wide just like his smile, and he collided with the person he thought to be Little One. His arms wrapped tightly around the lithe figure, and he didn’t even care how his whole front was tingling from the pain of the sudden impact. I didn’t know Little One would be this strong! He’s like a rock, he thought as he tightened his hold and felt the muscles come alive under his hands.

“Um, excuse you?”

Eren froze.

The sound very obviously came from somewhere near, but it couldn’t have been from the person Eren was hugging, because that person was Little One, and that was not his voice.

Carefully he peeked out from underneath his bangs and saw a pair of grey eyes almost identical to Little One’s bore into his own, but this one lacked any warmth. It was cold and scary. This was a young woman, Eren concluded with a considerable amount of mortification. The similarities were almost uncanny – black hair, fair skin, angry scowl -, but this was someone else.

Not Little One.

Letting go of the human like he touched molten glass, Eren stumbled backward. Next to the human he just hugged stood another, slightly shorter and this one had blond hair. His eyes were round and blue, full of surprise and a hint of curiosity. The both of them looked vaguely familiar, though Eren couldn’t tell when exactly he saw them. His eyes trailed back onto the girl who looked disturbingly similar to Little One, and he couldn’t stop himself from openly staring. He felt a little betrayed for being set up like this.

“I hope for all our sanity that Jean doesn’t find out about a guy hugging you,” the blond boy giggled with a petite hand covering his mouth. “He wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks.”

“He can’t act jealous when he doesn’t even have the courage to ask me out,” the girl said very matter-of-factly while not once taking her eyes off of Eren.

“Cut him some slack,” the blond boy said softly, then turned to Eren with a shy smile. “Um, hi! Sorry, are you looking for someone?”

Eren couldn’t reply. He hesitantly glanced back and forth between the two.

“Why are you apologizing?” Even her voice sounded a little similar now that she was scowling at him angrily. She looked Eren up and down with unveiled distrust. “I recognize him. You’re the one who stole from that bakery a month ago. Aren’t you?”

It wasn’t Little One, but he had to be nearby.

The scent was even stronger now, and he knew it was real. It made him both incredibly nervous and excited, and he couldn’t stop making up scenarios of how Little One would react to seeing him again. He spent his empty hours thinking about the small human while he was sunbathing, trying to remember his scent, his voice, everything. And he was here! The evidence was in the air, and Eren had to be so close to him.

Ignoring the two, he looked around to gain some inspiration on where he should continue his search when his gaze fell upon the small crowd by the crossroad. They were loud as if they were calling out to someone, and Eren curiously began walking towards what he guessed to be the main road.

Someone grabbed his wrist. Eren automatically yanked his hand away, driven by the encounters he had with the Military Police, but he was shocked to find that his hand didn’t move an inch.

He stared at the girl who held him firmly like her hands were made of iron, and she glared back at him. She had those steel grey eyes that distracted Eren just long enough for the girl to get an even tighter grip on his wrist.

“Mikasa, what are you doing?” the boy squeaked and gently held onto the girl’s arm.

“He’s a criminal, Armin.”

“Yes, but…” The boy’s gaze slid from the girl’s to Eren’s face, and he gulped. “He doesn’t even look older than us.”

“Armin, soon it will be our task to catch him,” the girl stated with cool indifference, and a bead of sweat rolled down on the blond boy’s forehead as his glance flickered onto the girl. They were staring at each other as if they were having a silent discussion, and as much as Eren was drawn to this girl because of her similarities to Little One, he didn’t have much time. He didn’t know when the green capes would be leaving, and now he knew for sure that Little One was close. Eren couldn’t mess up his first chance in months to find him.

Taking advantage of the humans’ momentary distraction, he twisted his arm until his wrist popped out of the girl’s hold, and ran. The noise coming from the street was louder with each step he took, and from the shadows of the alley, he could see the crowd standing in the sun. He still heard the two humans arguing behind him, but he ignored them. Bursting out into the light he came to a sudden stop.

Eren needed a moment until his eyes got used to the sudden brightness. His heart was kicking against his ribcage painfully hard from the overwhelming flood of emotions and the running. On the middle of the street rode two people on horseback, a man and a woman with soft ginger hair, and there was a cart behind them, driven by another. Hands were waving in the air, some words shouted in the crowd, no doubt trying to catch the attention of the three people in green capes.

Green. Black hair. Angry scowl.

It was almost like time had stopped and everything around Eren halted too. The sun peeked out from between two clouds, illuminating the street in its golden light.

It was him.

He was sitting on a black horse and he was as beautiful as the first time Eren saw him. Just like in the forest when Eren lifted the human from the ground, and later when they spent those afternoons together; Little One hasn’t changed a bit. His skin was pale and shining opaquely in the bright daylight, and though his hair was black like the darkest winter nights, the way the light hit the soft strands, it almost seemed like it was a beautiful blueish green with just a tinge of purple in it. It was a mesmerizing sight.

Eren was lost. He pushed through the crowd without regard to whom he was smacking in the face; he could only see Little One, who was… well, not so little. Seeing him as tall as everyone else, no longer the size of a twig, made Eren’s chest tremble with giddy excitement. It was strange looking up at him, but Eren didn’t mind the change of scenery one bit. He wanted to laugh and giggle and scream after him, take a look at his face from closer. There must’ve been so many details he missed when he was still the size of a titan.

Eren pushed people aside left and right, ignoring the outraged yelps and curses thrown after him; his eyes were glued onto Little One’s profile. He looked the same as ever, still so beautiful, and ethereal, though he looked a little tired. Those stormy gray eyes were firmly looking ahead, the dark shadows beneath them suggesting that the human hasn’t had proper sleep in a while. He looked almost as exhausted as the time he first woke up in Eren’s home. Still, there was something about the way he carried himself, strong and proud, and the way his pale skin was glowing in the sunlight that made it impossible for Eren to tear his gaze from him.

“Oh, my gods, isn’t he handsome?” he heard a feminine voice not too far away in the crowd. “I would do anything just to have him look at me!”

“Uh, I know, he’s so dreamy,” someone else whined. “It’s unfair, really. I took one look at him and he ruined me for all the other men; or more like he ruined all the men for me. I can’t marry anyone as long as I know that Mr. Perfection is out there.”

“I heard he was a criminal before he joined the army,” another voice a little further away caught Eren’s attention, and he whipped his head around to look at the man. He was standing in a small crowd of similarly dressed people, all men, and all shooting unpleasant glares in Little One’s direction. Eren was taken aback by the hostility their whole bodies radiated.

As he looked around, he found more and more people with distrustful frowns and muttered words on their lips, or people like those two girls, who outright looked like they wanted to eat Little One. Eren was shocked. He knew that light in those eyes. It was the same, dull hunger that burned within the titans and the madam of the brothel. The need to own, the need to devour.

Eren looked around with apparent disgust. He might’ve been lacking in vocabulary, but even someone as inexperienced in human behavior as him could read the emotions of their speech.

His eyes darted back onto Little One’s lean figure, and Eren felt something dark bubble up from the very pit of his being, something animalistic and almost possessive. Little One was his. Eren didn’t understand this sudden feeling of – envy – because he had never felt this way before. He remembered that meek-looking girl with the sunset-colored hair, how she look at Little One over her shoulder with wide, adoring eyes, yet Eren never felt like he wanted to shield the man from her. The people gathered on the side of the road, however…

Eren suddenly felt hopelessly outnumbered. He wanted to run after Little One, which he did, he pushed himself through the crowd, but when he meant to yell after him, the sounds got stuck in the soft flesh of his throat. He threw himself onto the road, the carriage still not too far away. Eren’s hand reached after them, and they were so close. Eren saw the way the wrinkles on Little One’s green cape moved around a little with every step of the horse, he saw the metal equipment on his side twinkle in the midday sunlight. He was so close that he saw how some thin, unruly strands of black hair broke away from the other strands and they wiggled around in the gentle breeze.

Eren would only need to say one word to grab his attention, make him turn around, and look him in the eyes; but Eren stood speechless. He stood with his eyes wide and teary, his lips parted, his body unable to move.

All these people, yelling all kinds of different things at his Little One had one advantage over Eren that separated fantasy from reality, a broken wish from the truth: they had a voice. They might even knew the man’s real name, while Eren couldn’t even pronounce the nickname that he gave the human. Even if he knew the words, even if he could say the words little one, the human would never pay attention to him. Those words meant nothing to the man, he never heard Eren call him that.

He didn’t know that Eren had been running after him silently this entire time.

All he would see was a skinny kid in dirty, torn clothes and no shoes on, who also couldn’t say anything but a few random words. The realization was almost as painful as the bite of a titan. He was still too barbaric to be considered human.

As Eren was standing on the road, watching as the human he’d been dreaming about walked further and further away from him, Eren made himself a promise: he would never give up on Little One, no matter how impossible it seemed to get back to him. He would go back to Carla, go home, and demand that she teaches him every single word she knew, teach him how to talk like any other person, teach him how to be human.

Eren promised himself that from now on he would never give up on learning the ways of this world. He would learn how to earn food without getting yelled at or beaten up, and he would repay that old shop owner whom he’d robbed on the second day of his awakening. He would even wear shoes.

Eren promised that he would turn into a proper human for Little One.

But until then, he had a lot to le–

“There you are!” someone yelled triumphantly behind him, and not a second later came the harsh blow to the back of his scull that made his teeth clash together.

Eren winced in pain, the force of the blow strong enough to send a jolt through his body and make his legs give out, but before he fell to the ground, two strong hands grabbed him by his shirt and yanked him up.

Shit, Eren’s mind screamed. He desperately tried to tear himself from the man’s hold, but it was hopeless. He was tackled to the ground with his face pressed against the cold stone. He saw the people around them gasp in shock as they watched the MP kick a young boy onto the ground while spilling profanities at him.

“Do you know how many people you have ruined?” the man hissed and there was another one running toward them, a woman with the same Military Police uniform, who handed the soldier metal cuffs. “But we fucking got you now!”

Eren was dragged off the street and thrown into a small, cold room with only a tiny window. He curiously trailed his fingertips over the rough, damp surface of the stone wall, and leaned his forehead against the metal rods that separated him from the outside and the rest of the building.

Hours went by since he’d been locked up in there. He guessed that there could have only been a couple of hours of sunshine left. No doubt Little One was far away by then too, he thought glumly.

“I can’t believe we finally fucking got him,” he heard a rough voice echo through the dark hallway. “When’s the trial gonna be?”

“Tomorrow I hear. They wanna get over with it, the runt has been an embarrassment for our department long enough.”

“Losing a hand?”

“Hanging.”

There was a short grunt coming from just outside Eren’s vision. He couldn’t stick his head out between the rods enough to see the humans. He sighed and sat down in the corner, wondering what the next step would be. He was equally as anxious as excited to find out what would happen to him now. He never knew where the MP came from or what they wanted to do with him, and it was a bit of a disappointment to find out that they would just stick him in a small room.

He wandered to the small window, and jumping up high he barely managed to catch the bars. They were somewhat thinner here than on the other wall, and Eren experimentally tried pulling on them. He could feel the metal bend in his grip just the tiniest bit, but he was left exhausted by the time he jumped back on the floor.

Carla was going to be so pissed at him.

“…that’s unusual. Since when do they waste the gallows on thieves like this one?”

“Since feeding them is more expensive. That brat would go back robbing people the minute we set him free. Whether he loses a hand or not, it makes no difference. People like him are animals, they can’t be fixed. Better to get rid of them.”

Eren huffed at the window angrily and went to kick the rails on the wall. They made a dull, vibrating sound. The talking by the end of the hallway went mute.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” said the voice, and Eren heard some ruffling sounds before a man walked up to him.

Eren blinked at him with frustrated, wide eyes, and the man scoffed.

“Angry, are we? Well, you have until tomorrow to do that. Think about how you ended up here, scum. How many people you made angry.” When the boy didn’t answer, didn’t even flinch or show any signs of understanding what was said, the man furrowed his brows. “Are you stupid or something?”

The mocking tone of his voice was enough for Eren to comprehend though. He didn’t know why this man was so annoyed, why he was venting his frustrations on Eren out of the blue. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen this man before, but then again he had been chased by quite many soldiers.

“You know,” the human said with a cold light flashing in his eyes that made Eren hold back his breath, “my father is one of those whom you stole from.”

A hand plunged out between the bars and grabbed Eren by his shirt before he could recoil. The boy grunted as his face was smashed against the cold rods, his hands scratching the wrists of the soldier. He didn’t let go.

“You don’t defend yourself, huh? I thought about kicking the shit out of you just for fun, maybe that would force some sense into you,” he gritted his teeth. “Maybe I will. You’ll be dead at first light tomorrow anyway.”

 He released Eren as harshly as he could, pushing him onto the floor.

Eren scurried to the other side of the room, the sound of his heavy panting echoing off the walls. His eyes bore into the man’s in fear, and for a long moment, he was terrified that the man would open the jail door and come after him. Eren hadn’t eaten since last night and barely got enough sunlight in the morning, which began to show its effect on his body. He was weaker than usual, not feeling like he was up to a fight with an adult human. Bending those rails in the window took the last of his strength.

The man glared at him for a moment longer before he spat at Eren’s feet, then walked off, finally leaving the boy alone. Eren still didn’t move when the talking picked up at the end of the hallway.

So they would not let him out of here. He was walking in circles in the small room, trying to figure out how he could get out of here (and while he was at it he also started thinking about how he would explain his absence to Carla) when his ears picked up on a faint sound coming from outside.

The hair on the back of Eren’s neck stood up, and an eerie shiver washed across his body.

He knew something was wrong the moment he heard that distant rumble and saw the green flash across the sky. He could only see the faint discoloration on the clouds through the small window, but his guts told him that whatever that light came from, it was trouble. The ground was trembling beneath his feet.

Eren rushed to the small cell window and gripping onto the iron rods, he pulled himself up so he could see what was going on. There was an ominous bellow coming from far away, then something snapped, and the ground began violently shaking.

Eren lost his grip on the rods as the whole building trembled, and he fell on his back with a pained gasp. His blood ran cold and diluted with adrenaline from the panic of not knowing what was happening, and at the same time knowing exactly what it was, no matter how unbelievable.

The idle chatter in the officers’ common room died, and instead, it was replaced by an eerie silence.

“What the hell was that?!” Eren heard one of them, the fear as clear as daylight in his voice. They didn’t have time to contemplate for long, however, when a deafening explosion shook the ground even harder than before.

There was screaming and shouting, but not for long. Driven by pure instinct Eren barely had time to scurry to the corner of the cell when he heard the whirring, rustling sound from above, and the next moment something crashed into the prison house.

Eren whipped his hands to his ears to protect them from the hellish sound of the giant boulder demolishing the building above his head. His heart was beating like a frantic bird in his chest, desperate to break free. There was so much screaming. The air was heavy with the smell of dust and blood.

Rubble and chunks of wood fell on Eren’s back, but the quick death of the building crashing down on him never came. Instead, bright warmth fell on his face, and his eyelids were painted a lively coral color. When Eren opened his eyes, he saw the sky above him and rays of sunshine that seeped through the fluffy clouds.

Eren stared at the sky as he tried to regain control over his body. His muscles were aching, but he quickly noted that he wasn’t injured, or at least the shock still kept him from feeling any severe pain. He tried rolling over onto his stomach, but it took considerable effort to push himself up on all fours. His arms were shaking beneath him, and it felt like his lungs were both on fire and drenched in ice-cold water at the same time.

The prison building was slowly crumbling above him, and Eren knew he had to move or his luck wouldn’t last for much longer. Somehow he avoided the pitiful fate that he knew most people in the building could not. The southern wall of his cell was no longer standing, as did most of the walls behind Eren.

Gritting his teeth he stood and ran towards the large hole in the wall. As he climbed through it, he scraped his knee on the rough stone and looked back over his shoulder. He caught the glimpse of a bloodied hand under a pile of debris, the rest of the body crushed underneath no doubt.

Eren gulped and forced himself to look ahead. The ground was still shaking, but it was no longer one long, rumbling explosion. It was multiple tremors that Eren felt in the soles of his feet, and he knew far too well what this meant.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Only one time had Eren felt terror like that before, and it was when he was still in the forest with Little One. And once again, they were coming for the people Eren cared for the most.

Annie stood in front of the heavy door, her shoulders flinching a little every time there was a sound of a loud crash coming from outside, which was always followed by distant, muffled screaming. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to be here, she would be in serious trouble if someone found out…

Don’t let them find out then, a voice spoke in her mind. It was only fair what she was doing.

She pushed the door open, struggling a little under its weight. It was dark inside and the air was damp, musty. Clearly, it hadn’t been aired out in quite a while. The thick walls somewhat muted the sounds coming from outside, but the shaking of the ground could still be felt.

Heavy chains rattled in the dark.

“Annie?” came the raspy, weak sound of her name from within. “Wh-what are you still doing here? Is it happening?”

Annie didn’t bother to answer the voice, instead, she hurried to the cell to open the door. She fumbled around with the heavy keys and it took her three tries until she found the key that opened the lock.

In the corner sat a dark, lean figure with his wrists and ankles in chains. He looked even more roughed up than the last time she saw him. A tinge of guilt squeezed her heart, but she clenched his jaws tight and kneeled next to the man. She could feel his gaze searching her face through the darkness; no doubt his eyes were more used to these conditions by now, considering how long he’d been down here.

“Shit,” Annie hissed when she realized that none of the keys fit inside the lock on the chains. There was a loud bang coming from outside that shook the whole building above them. Dust and dirt fell on them from the ceiling.

“Annie…” the man pleaded.

“Shut up!” she barked. “I’m doing this for you, now shut up!” He wasn’t going to survive anyway, something told her. He was as good as dead by now, too weak to run and he never had a chance to fight in the first place, not even when he was still healthy. He was just human, he was going to die.

Green eyes observed her with a gentleness that she didn’t feel like she deserved. “Did Reiner and Bertholdt go through with his plan?”

“We all did. Stop talking like we’re not in this together! Shit, I shouldn’t have come here…”

“Annie, please, I know you’re better than this–”

“You don’t know shit!” Annie burst out and threw the keys away. None of them could open the shackles. She closed her eyes to focus, and not a second later an opaque, shiny surface covered both her arms.

The weak man’s eyes flickered onto her hands and a feeble, yet proud smile twitched in the corner of his mouth. “Oh, look at you,” he muttered as Annie grabbed the heavy iron chains and tore them in half like they were made of paper. “I’ve never seen you manifest them so beautifully.”

Annie paused. She looked down at her hands, her skin hard like diamonds. She didn’t want it to end like this, and she didn’t want to admit how good the praise made her feel.

“Are you doing this to ease your conscience?” the man asked quietly. She whipped her head up angrily, but the guilty tears swelling in her eyes betrayed her. The man reached up and gently stroked the apples of her cheeks with his skeleton-like hand. “It’s okay. I’m not angry with you.”

Annie slapped his hand away and abruptly stood. “Don’t waste your breath. My conscience is clean and you’re not in the position to forgive anyone!” she snarled. “You deserve to burn in Hell for what you did!”

“Annie, listen to me, is my son in on this? Did he tell you to do this? Is this what–”

“He’s not your son!” Annie yelled and the glare he leveled the man with was nothing short of murderous. “None of us are your children! I don’t care what you were trying to do, I’m sick of listening to you!”

The man slowly blinked as he processed her words. “Then why are you here?”

That’s what Annie’s been asking herself on her way here. Hell if she knew. She told herself all kinds of things, how she was taking the moral high ground, how it wasn’t fair to rain fire down on a man who was in chains, yet nothing Grisha ever did to them was fair. He certainly didn’t deserve to be treated fair either.

Another rumbling from outside tore her from her unsettled thoughts. She gulped and said the only thing that didn’t feel like a lie. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Ah,” Grisha breathed and smiled at the girl with bright, sad eyes. “Annie… thank you.”

Far ahead by the gate that led to the outside, there was a thick column of greyish smoke and dust. Whatever happened, however it happened, the stench of titans was evident in the air.

Carla…

Eren snapped out of his daze as he stood beside the ruins that was left of the prison house. He had to get back to the brothel, he had to find her, find the others too. They didn’t know what was coming for them, humans couldn’t smell the titans like he did. All of them right now, they were like oblivious, tiny field mice, ready to be devoured, unsuspecting of what was coming for them.

Without a second thought crossing his mind about how in this body he was far inferior to titans in strength, Eren began running towards the brothel. His lungs were burning and his head felt light from the heavy smell of blood in the air. It was everywhere, that thick, crimson smell. People screaming, running, lying on the ground, and crushed under the chunks of stone, all red.

Please, let her live, Eren pleaded silently and willed himself to quicken his pace. Please let Carla and the others survive!

Eren chanted the words in his head like a mantra as he ran. His senses were overpowered by the chaos around him; all that screaming, the smell of rotten guts, and burning wood, but he kept going, focusing on nothing else but what was ahead of him. The streets were flooded with people, all running for their lives and screaming for their loved ones. Eren pushed through, wincing a little every time someone collided with him as he was running in the opposite direction most did.

“The titans are inside, run for your lives!” Eren heard them shouting.

There was a loud, whistling noise coming from above, and the roof of a house only about ten meters from Eren was blown off and shattered into pieces. A hand grabbed onto Eren’s shoulder as the mass of humans trembled and screamed as one under the impact of the explosion. Some got injured, the pieces of the collapsing building crushing them. There was a child crying loudly somewhere.

Eren grabbed the hand that was clinging to him and yanked the young woman onto her feet. She would be stomped to death, Eren thought, if she remained on the ground any longer. The woman looked confused and terrified out of her mind, her eyes wide and expression hollow. Once she was on her feet, she pushed Eren aside so hard that he almost lost his balance.

From the corner of his eyes, Eren saw the top of a giant head above a taller building a few streets down from where he was. If they were this far inside already, then that meant that they had to be past the brothel by now. Trembling tears stung the corners of Eren’s eyes. If he was a titan, if he was that size then he could fight these monsters off, he wouldn’t be so useless…

He was shoved against a building by the fleeing mass of people, and Eren took this opportunity to quickly climb on top of the roof. He would reach the brothel that way more quickly.

He grunted and hissed through the pain as he pulled himself higher and higher on the wall. His hands and feet were scraped bloody, but he no longer remembered when he got the injuries. The broken roof tiles that were always so warm in the afternoons now cut through his palm as he pushed himself onto his feet.

Eren stood, and the sight of the city suddenly crowded his vision from all directions.

There was smoke and fire everywhere. Those houses and their roofs which Eren by now had known almost as well as his forest, they were all covered in thick blankets of dark smoke and illuminated by the orange flames. It was a wasteland. There were no bright colors anymore, only the dull shades of many painful deaths and flashes of murky red.

Up ahead, giant heads were moving above the buildings. They were a thousand times more terrifying like this, now that Eren was tiny and weak. He began running straight towards them, where he prayed that the brothel still stood.

Gods…

An old man was lying on the street, the crowd running across his broken body without even noticing that they were trampling on someone.

Is this what it was like for him?

He saw a young man struggling in the hands of a titan far ahead, his screams muffled by the noise of the chaos on the streets.

Is this what he saw?

The titan lifted the man and opened its mouth wide, each tooth the size of the man’s head. Eren wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He was transfixed by the awful sight.

When he looked at me?

There was a pitiful yelp before there came a crunching sound, and then there was no more screaming anymore.

When I looked at him?

Is this what you saw?

The brothel was so close now.

Eren had to take detours to avoid the invading titans nearby, but most of them were drawn to the crowds, where the chances of filling their bottomless stomachs were higher. How many people would die today? Eren wondered with tears in his eyes. He could see the street now, the familiar buildings, that one flat that he broke into one time while he was fleeing from the MP. But the brothel…

“Carla!” Eren screamed until his lungs hurt as he jumped down from the roof and ran towards the pile of rocks and wooden boards that was once the brothel. Eren’s heart sunk to the pit of his stomach.

The house was crushed into chunks of steaming rubble by a boulder the size of a titan’s head.

“Carla!” Eren continued chanting her name, uncaring about the titans he might attract. There was so much debris on the ground, a pile as tall as himself, and there could’ve been anyone crushed beneath it.

There were bits and pieces he recognized: a chunk of wood from the main entrance door and something that looked like the tile from the fireplace. Everything else was covered in thick layers of dust and grime.

“Carla!” his voice was no longer strong, but it was broken by a desperate sob that was pulled from the pit of his lungs. “Carla! Carla!”

His eyes raked through the ruins, desperate to notice something, a patch of skin or piece of clothing, and dreading to do so at the same time. He knew it was impossible to rummage through the ruins but he couldn’t leave without knowing for sure whom he was leaving behind. He couldn’t live with not knowing where Carla was.

As he was frantically floundering across the remains of the building, a sound almost too quiet to be heard by human ears caught his attention:

“…help.”

Eren whipped his head around, his eyes wide and mouth agape, and he ran towards the spot where he heard the voice. “Carla?!”

His heart was beating inside his throat, blood rushing in his ears when he spotted the figure below the debris. He recognized them by their bright orange-colored hair. Shit, Eren cursed himself silently over and over again as he knelt beside Roman. There was blood trailing down his forehead and the corner of his mouth. His eyelids were half closed, but Eren could see his blue eyes flicker and fog up with tears.

“Roman!” Eren cupped the young man’s face with his trembling hands, but almost immediately retracted them when he noticed that Roman’s whole lower body was crushed by rocks. He must’ve been in a tremendous amount of pain. Tears began trailing down Eren’s cheeks. He never wanted to know what Roman’s blood smelled like. “Roman, wake! I Eren!”

Ginger eyelashes fluttered weakly, but Roman’s eyes finally found the boy’s face. “Eren?” he whispered hoarsely. “What are you still doing here? Run… run, Eren. They’re here…”

“I help!” Eren hiccupped through his tears. He tried pushing off the weight from Roman’s feet and stomach, but a sharp cry was torn from the man’s lungs, which startled him. Was it painful for him when he tried removing the rocks? But then how would he get him out of there, he had to help him escape before…

“Eren, wait, stop…” Roman breathed out through his teeth and more blood gushed from his mouth. “Listen to me,” his eyes briefly found the boy’s.

“But how–,” Eren cried. “Why–? Roman?”

“Cecil was in the kitchen when the house collapsed. I don’t think I’m… shit, it hurts so much… You need to run, Eren, okay? Run…”

“But Carla, where?”

Roman coughed up more blood, and his face contorted into a painful frown as he did. His gaze no longer focused on anything, but it wandered around aimlessly, trying to hold onto something.

Eren grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him a little, trying to get his attention, but it was useless. The light in Roman’s eyes faded, and it took Eren a minute to understand what happened. He was clinging onto the man desperately, the body becoming colder under his fingers with each passing second.

“No, wake!” Eren sobbed but no one answered anymore. “Roman!”

He had seen people die before when he was still in his titan body, but always from far away, he never saw their eyes when it happened. It was so cold. Eren stared at Roman’s pale face, the smears of blood so bright in contrast to his ash-colored lips.

Blinking through the fog of his tears, Eren gently wiped down the dirt and blood from Roman’s face with the corner of the scarf that he got from Carla. Has it only been this morning that she gave this to him? It felt like it was ages ago, far away from all this horror, when the most he had to worry about was getting enough sun and stealing the food he needed.

He thought a human’s life was all fun and games. Sure, he got beaten a few times, he was afraid of being discovered, but he also had Carla and her gentle hugs, the roof tiles warmed up by sunlight, the cooking of Cecil, and Roman…

Now, what was left of it all? Smoke in the air that burned his lungs, the distant sounds of screaming, and a cold body in his arms.

Chapter Text

Eren sat by the fireplace with his head in Carla’s warm lap and listened to the gentle music that filled the brightly lit room. His cheeks were flushed against the rough fabric of her apron, the fire painting his skin rosy.

Carla’s soft voice melted into the pleasant afternoon, and the sound of the lute accompanied her so perfectly that one could believe that it was not her fingers, but her voice that played the instrument. Eren’s eyes fluttered as the sun slowly descended on its route in the sky, and the rusty-colored light shined through the thin glass windows, illuminating the whole room in a golden shimmer.

“~ Don’t sleep in my ears
Where I locked your melodies ~”

He closed his eyes and inhaled Carla’s scent. It was a mixture of flowers, cloves, nutmeg, and something that Eren couldn’t put his finger on. It was sweet and comforting, making Eren feel safe enough to close his eyes and let himself drift off into a semi-conscious state as he listened.

The song was content and serene, yet melodic in tune. It was heavy with a foreign longing that Eren didn’t quite understand. He wasn’t familiar with a yearning that couldn’t be salved; the titan boy took what he needed, returned what he wanted, and did what he had to achieve his desires.

Burying his face in Carla’s apron, he could almost feel her smile as she sang. A barely noticeable, fragile smile that gained reason to live only in the moment, and was kept in memories the same way the fresh spring soil preserved the smell of the winter breeze.

“~ Her lies leave scars on me
And you know that they will all disappear ~”

In the air lingered the scent of freshly baked pie and fruit bread. There were faint sounds of chatter coming from the kitchen, but Eren’s memory was too foggy to remember who exactly was talking to whom.

He cracked an eye open just in time to see Roman sneak out of the small room with a hand behind his back, and the mischievous smile he wore immediately caught Eren’s attention.

“~ Tell my mother I died
On a dark and cold night ~”

Keeping an eye on the kitchen where Cecil was no doubt still busy, Roman quickly rushed to the two of them and revealed the treasure that he hid behind his back. It was a handful of steaming, cooked slices of peaches. They were light brown in places and some edges were almost black, yet they were still glistening in the sunlight like pieces of gold.

“~ Abandoned under streetlights all alone
Tell her that I’m all right ~”

Roman winked at Eren and placed a finger in front of his lips, which the boy had learned meant that he was supposed to stay quiet. He eagerly nodded, showing that he understood, and accepted the piece of caramelized fruit from the young man.

The way the light touched Roman’s ginger hair, it almost looked as if his face was framed by a gentle rim of fire, a halo of burning feathers.

Eren chewed eagerly on the slice of peach, while Roman quickly popped a piece in Carla’s mouth. The two adults smiled at each other with the excitement of children who just played the funniest prank on their mother.

“~ Her lies leave scars on me
And you know that we will all disappear ~”

The gentle breeze that stroked Eren’s damp cheeks was oblivious to the bloody disarray around them.

It scooped up traces of ember and bits of grey, flaky ash from the ground. Toying with them a little, the wind carried them in the air for a while before growing bored and discarding them. It was blind and ignorant, everything Eren wished to be as he knelt on the ground with Roman’s quickly cooling body in his arms.

He could still almost feel the sweetness of the peach on his tongue, but the flavor turned bitter from the blood in his mouth.

Dry trails of tears entrapped his face in their stiff embrace. On his lips, Carla’s name still echoed, but he found no ears that would listen. The wind carried the mute sounds far away.

‘Why are you crying?’

Eren whipped his head up to look for the eerie, hushed whisper, but the action made his head spin and ache, the tears he shed still weighing down his mind.

There was no one around except for the breeze that whistled through the holes and cracks of the ruined buildings. With narrowed eyes, he looked for the source, but the memory of the voice had already faded as if it was nothing more than a promise made two thousand years ago.

He saw no one, only a piece of wood sticking out between two large stones that looked like the painted top rails of one of the chairs from the kitchen. It was blue with a delicate pattern of white and green flowers painted on it.

Eren sat on the counter in the kitchen, legs dangling in the air, emerald eyes following Carla as she was moving. Her face was hardened in a pale mask of worry. She thought she was good at hiding her emotions, but Eren could always sense when something was on her mind, and so could everyone else.

Cecil watched her from the corner of her eyes as they peeled potatoes. The woman glanced up at Eren, and though they couldn’t really communicate through words, they both knew that they were thinking about the same person at that moment.

Putting the peeled potato in a pot of water, Cecil considered Carla with furrowed brows.

“Are you all right?” she asked. Her voice was deep and warm, radiating safety and experience.

Carla looked up with a startled expression when the silence that had enwrapped the kitchen was suddenly broken, and she stared at Cecil with such a distant gaze that Eren wasn’t even sure she knew what the other woman asked.

“Yes,” she muttered quickly, forcing a reassuring smile on her face as she reached for another potato. “Yes, thank you, I’m okay.”

Cecil clicked her tongue and resumed working. “You always say that,” she reprimanded quietly.

Focusing his hazy attention back on the present, Eren sniffled and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his dirty shirt.

He knew he couldn’t stay there for long, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to let go of Roman’s body.

His gaze was plastered onto the horror and destruction ahead, the crumbling houses and bloodstained cobblestone; he’d rather watch that than lower his gaze and look into Roman’s empty eyes.

As he let go of the stiff body, Eren felt empty and exhausted. The reality of what happened slowly started fully manifesting itself in his mind. Roman was gone. Who knows how many others were lost to the attack… Who knows if Carla–

Eren looked over his shoulder as if he tried to memorize the rocks and the shattered pieces of furniture, like that would help anyone, like that would change the fact that he would never know who got trapped underneath. He spotted a round object covered in grey ash and flinched in pain when a bitter pang in his heart squeezed his chest.

He lifted the lute and his trembling fingers carefully curled around the instrument’s neck. By some miracle, it hadn’t been shredded to pieces when the house collapsed. Eren brushed off the ash from the strings rigidly, and the lute made a melancholic sound like laughter.

Timea, a small girl with a heart-shaped smile and a round belly, sat by the fireplace in a rocking chair that was padded by a ridiculous amount of cushions. She sat there for most of the evening, never really engaging in conversation for long, but always following the other workers with her sky-blue gaze. She hummed along to the music that Carla and Anna made, and stroked her belly affectionately, something that made Eren feel very protective very suddenly.

It was a confusing thing for him, given how he had no knowledge of what pregnancy was, but something within the very depths of his nature told him that Timea should be protected at all costs. She looked tired and far too fragile for this harsh world, and Eren was afraid for her safety.

Carla caught him watching her nervously multiple times that night, and wondered what was going on inside the boy’s head.

“Eren, have you said hi to Timea yet?” she ruffled Eren’s hair, guiding the boy back to reality from his thoughts. Eren looked up at her with wide, blinking eyes and cooed questioningly. “Go on,” Carla smiled and tilted her head towards the pregnant girl. “Be nice.”

Eren carefully walked up to the girl, who kindly smiled at him and reached out, silently asking for him to give her his hand. Eren hesitated only a little, searching for answers in Timea’s eyes about her intentions before a tingle of warmth reached him.

He let Timea guide his hand to her belly. Eren frowned, confused as to why this girl would want him to touch her when suddenly he felt a little bump press against his palm before disappearing.

Gasping for air, Eren stared down at his hand and then at Timea, whose smile widened. Seeing the boy’s shocked reaction, she silently began shaking with laughter.

Holding back a wet sob, Eren held the lute close to his chest.

He stumbled onto the street and didn’t look back. He had to guess where the street probably was because the ground was covered in rubble everywhere he looked. Barely any house stood untouched by the disaster.

The streets were empty, a stark contrast to how they looked only this morning. Humans exiting their homes and going to work, their faces lit bright yellow from the first rays of sunlight peeking above the Wall. Women with their hair braided and pinned in buns, their aprons fresh and clean, a hand of a child clinging onto them. Baskets full of fruits and vegetables, the white coifs on the children’s heads slipping off a little, waiting for a motherly touch to fix them back in place.

There would be noise everywhere. The morning rush would die down a little and would be reborn again around noon when everyone goes back home to have lunch. There would be laughter and bickering and children chasing each other down the street, adults cussing them out for almost pushing that old lady over, and while everyone was distracted by the commotion, a thief would pickpocket one of the fishmongers.

“…I met a friend today from when I was younger.” Gilly’s quiet voice carried across the hallway in the early morning hour. “I bumped into her in the market.”

Eren peeked out from Carla’s room, spotting the woman sitting with Gilly in the window. Carla’s hand was gently combing through the girl’s locks “Yeah?”

“Hm. She looked good,” Gilly said, her voice pale and on her face, there was a far-away expression. She lacked any vigor that she normally always displayed so unforgivingly during her time spent with the other workers. “I met her in the orphanage. We came from the same place, so I guess that’s why I was so… surprised to see how well-off she is. Has a husband and baby and everything.”

Eren leaned his head against the doorpost, the quiet atmosphere warning him that this wasn’t a conversation he should interrupt. It was worrying to see Gilly like this. Eren wanted her to smile and cackle again while trying to dodge Cecil’s dish towel snapping her way.

“I just got so jealous,” Gilly gasped and buried her face in Carla’s apron in shame, who never stopped stroking her hair. “I feel like I’m missing out on so much! I want more than this. Like I know I could do better…”

Carla sighed and turned her face towards the window. Eren couldn’t see her expression. “I understand that, more than you can imagine. But good things come to those who can wait, right? You’re so young, honey, your fate isn’t carved into stone,” she whispered. “It’s always hard to see clearly where we’re going while we’re still in the middle of the road. And not long from now, you’ll get out of here, you’ll have a loving husband and a fat little baby to keep you busy,” she pinched Gilly’s cheek affectionately, which made the girl gasp out a breathless chuckle. “You’ll get out of here. It’ll be fine, I promise you, okay?”

“Okay...” Gilly mumbled, no longer sounding so under the weather.

“You’re seventeen, honey, not seventy. You’ve got plenty of time.”

There was faint laughter.

Now there was silence and fire and blood and death.

Eren stopped and looked around, having lost track of where he was going. The constant rumbling of hundreds of footsteps never faded in the near distance. Looking around, he couldn’t recognize which part of the city he was in anymore.

His ears were ringing.

There were humans, just a few of them running, while others tried to hide in their homes. Looking around Eren noted that most buildings stood intact around here. Perhaps the news hasn’t even gotten here yet. Perhaps no titans made their way this far. Maybe these humans don’t even believe the news of the breach.

Eren stood in the middle of the street, looking around but not really seeing anything. He had to find Carla. He had to. If they were all to die here, Eren wanted to see her one more time, he had to thank her for always giving him food and teaching him how to talk.

The constant buzzing in his ears just became louder and louder, and that was when he realized that it wasn’t his ears. It was a loud, sizzling sound coming from above. He didn’t have time to look up.

First, there was a deafening explosion of sound and darkness as dust and stone pulled a solid veil above the street. Then came the screaming and the revolting stench of blood mixing with dirt.

Pain shot through Eren’s body, and the ground began speeding towards him dangerously fast. He didn’t have time to brace himself before the cobblestone collided with his head, and everything went black.

‘Why are you crying?’

Because they’re in pain.

‘They deserve it.’

Eren came to with a raspy groan and the feeling of his lungs being on fire.

The world was crumbling around him in flames. Hot beads of blood were trailing down Eren’s forehead, momentarily averting his attention from the dome of burning hell around him. Everything hurt in his body, yet all he could think of was Carla.

The lute lay in pieces next to him under a square-shaped stone.

He looked up to see the crumbling structure of a building on top of him. By some miracle, a sturdy pillar fell in a way that prevented most of the rock from falling on him, but by the looks of how a thick crack was running up on the body of the pillar, ripping apart burning hot stone, Eren knew that it wouldn’t hold out for much longer.

There was only one little patch of greyish-blue sky peeking through burning wood above, and Eren’s eyes zeroed in on his only escape route from getting crushed or burnt to death.

He started climbing up on the remains of the building, screaming through the pain every time his skin made contact with the hot stone. It felt like a myriad of needles were jammed into his palms and feet, straight through skin, muscle, and bone. He gritted his teeth and tried to think of Carla, knowing that if he couldn’t make his way out of this burning pit of hell, he would never see her again, and would never see Little One either.

Eren choked out in pain, but this time it wasn’t the temperature of the stone that made his tears resurface. It was the memory of pale cheeks flushed from the cold, a rainbow of colors playing idly with black strands of hair, and eyes that changed color from cold grey to playful blue every time they looked at Eren.

The patch of sky began to expand as he climbed, promising Eren a new afternoon he could spend by the lake with Little One sometime in the future, and that was all he could think of. If he gave up now, there would never be a new afternoon for Eren, and Little One would have to sit in the sun by himself, alone and cold.

“No…!” Eren choked out through a river of tears and ordered himself to only think of the next step, the next stone he would grab, the next piece of burning wood he had to lean away from.

He wasn’t dying on this day. He won’t die before telling Little One everything that happened to him since they parted from each other. And he won’t die before the human told everything that happened to him either.

His foot slipped and nearly fell on a sharp stone that would no doubt break his spine when he reached for the edge of the sky. A sharp pain shot through Eren’s arms as his feet gave up beneath him, dangling in the air, and he caught himself on a rod of burning wood.

Eren grunted and whined in pain as he forced his muscles to pull his body upwards. He could see the grey clouds in the sky. He was so close.

Eren.

The wood cracked under his weight.

I know you don’t understand any of this shit, but it’s going to be fine. This is our only way to get you inside the walls, so please, stop fidgeting.

Gritting his teeth the boy pulled himself up, willing himself not to pay attention to the way the cracking sound began to increase the more he struggled.

Eren, calm your ass down, it’s all good.

The smell of burning flesh made his stomach nauseous.

I won’t let them hurt you, so just let us do our job.

He reached up again, grabbing whatever he could touch to pull himself up.

That’s it, good boy, come on. Just follow me.

A cool breeze brushed across the back of his hand.

With the last bit of his strength, Eren lifted his upper body above the pit of burning stone and gasped for air. Cold, fresh oxygen flooded his pained, overheated lungs, and Eren collapsed on his stomach above the blue sky.

Knowing that it was not yet time though to rest, Eren pushed himself up on his trembling arms and legs, and lifting his face towards the sky, he closed his eyes. His limbs felt tired and light from the overwhelming exhaustion, yet a newfound strength was keeping his body up, and Eren barely noticed the small chuckle that slipped past his lips. Adrenaline flowed heavily in his veins. His heart was still beating in his throat, his senses heightened like that first time he ever sank his teeth in a titan’s nape.

The euphoria of escaping death was short-lived though.

Panting and tasting blood in his mouth, Eren looked around as if it was the first time he ever opened his eyes. The world was still burning up in the flames of chaos.

Screaming, blood, a woman crushed to death by a large boulder.

Screaming, blood, a dog left behind.

Screaming, blood, a blond boy pulling at a large wooden rod.

Eren frowned when he noticed that the boy who seemed to be struggling wasn’t trapped himself, but instead, he was desperately trying to pull someone else out from underneath another collapsed building.

Underneath a cave of stone, the human looked fragile and pale. Angry grey eyes flamed as she struggled to wriggle out from beneath the weight, and her raven black hair was almost grey from the ash falling from the sky.

Eren’s blood ran cold when he saw them, and he didn’t hesitate for a single thought before he started sprinting toward them.

As he got closer, Eren could hear the boy’s cracking voice, the short grunts and panicked sobs that left his mouth as he tried to lift the heavy timber beam. Blood was running down between his fingers, the rough edges of the wood cutting open his skin.

“Armin, go!” the girl with the icy grey eyes yelled. “Leave me here, you need to run!”

“Shut up!” the blond boy cried with his jaw clenched tightly together. “I won’t leave you, Mikasa! I won’t run!”

The girl – Mikasa? Eren remembered that word from before – opened her mouth to rain another set of protests down on the boy, but her face scrunched up into a painful frown when a set of smaller boulders rolled down on the side of the pile covering her. She had to be in an immense amount of pain, and the sight was painfully similar to the one Eren just witnessed Roman go through.

But he would go to hell if he let another human die in agony like that.

He ran up to the boy and immediately pushed him aside. The boy almost tried putting up a fight, no doubt fearing that the newcomer would try to separate him from his friend, but when he saw that Eren instead grabbed the heavy log, his eyes widened.

Armin recognized the boy immediately, the one who was a known thief and troublemaker in Shiganshina, and the one whom Armin had last seen as he was dragged off the street by a couple of Military Police officers. Armin wonder what happened, how and why he was there, but the log suddenly moved when the boy started pulling on it, and there was no time to waste.

The heavy beam didn’t even bulge while Armin was alone, but his combined strength with the thief’s was enough to make a change. If only they could hurry, they already lost so much time for nothing. The gates to the inner territories could already be locked, stranding them here in this wasteland of death.

From the corner of his eyes he could see the thief wearing a solemn, yet determined expression. His eyes were bloodshot, perhaps from tears or the dust in the air. His whole body was shaking under the weight of the beam, and soon there was blood running down his hands too, but the thief didn’t let go. He gritted his teeth with an animalistic growl that sent shivers down Armin’s spine.

Armin squeezed his eyes shut as he braced himself for the pain, and he grabbed onto the timber beam again. His hands were burning from the intense pain.

“Mikasa, hold on!” he cried desperately, fighting off the urge to scream when the sharp edges of the wood cut through the flesh of his fingers. “I-I think it’s moving!”

Mikasa grunted in pain but stayed quiet, not daring to hope that she would get out of this alive when her chances were already so slim. If only Armin would listen to her and run, why didn’t he run? She wanted to cry, cry for Grandpa Arlert whom they came back for and whom they found crushed inside the crumbling building, and for Armin, who was such a kindhearted fool for staying back to help her. But she held back, no tears stained her cheeks.

Underneath the rubble, which fell on her while she was trying to retrieve Grandpa Arlert, she couldn’t see more than four shadows ahead, two pairs of feet. She was so tired and in so much pain. She tried pushing the debris off herself several times, but it exhausted her, and now she had no more to give.

It felt like the weight was beginning to lift from her body – or perhaps it was just the tempting rest one felt on the brink of death.

Then there was a flash of light invading the tight, dark space, and suddenly there was air everywhere. Her body felt light.

Eren grunted out in desperation to lift the wood. The moment he felt it give into his hold and he was able to lift it, at the same time his hands began to slip. He knew that if he dropped it now, the sudden impact would surely kill the girl.

Noticing a few people not too far and still in a condition that they were able to run, Eren cried out to them frantically:

“Help!” he shouted after them, seeing how two of the three people were men with strong arms. The humans barely glanced at them before they continued running. Eren stared after them, dumbfounded. Why in the world did they run away instead of helping another human in danger?

“Mikasa, we managed to lift it!” the boy next to him gasped. “Can you crawl out?!”

“Armin…” came the withering whisper from beneath the beam.

“I know, I’m here,” the boy cried and carefully yet firmly began to pull Mikasa out from underneath the crushing weight. Eren growled in pain as he was now the only one making sure that the beam remained lifted. He watched with pleading eyes as the blond human helped the other crawl out into the open air, and not a second later that he saw the girl’s foot leave the shadow of the beam, he stepped back and dropped it to the ground.

His whole body was shaking and blood trailed down on his fingers as he turned towards the two humans. The blond one, Armin, the small, meek-looking boy held the barely conscious girl in his arms like she was his most prized possession, and large beads of tears rolled down his cheeks.

Eren’s heart squeezed painfully in his chest as he observed the scene. He was so confused by this desperate boy’s attempt to save this girl when those others didn’t even spare a second glance at them. They left them behind to die, Eren knew, and suddenly rage flared up in his stomach.

An eerie scream of a titan echoed across the streets, and the source had to be close.

It reminded Eren that they were still not out of danger. It was a miracle that they weren’t attacked while he was trying to help the girl, but Eren could not rest yet. He still had to find Carla.

Eren knelt beside the humans and placed a finger on the girl’s ash-colored forehead. She stirred from the boy’s arms, her expression hostile and panicked, like those of an injured animal’s, but when her gaze found Eren’s, she froze. Her dark, silver eyes widened, and she stared at Eren with astonishment.

“Hurt?” Eren asked quietly. He didn’t want to waste too much time here, for he still had to find Carla, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave them like this.

Mikasa’s brows furrowed just a little bit, but she was quickly distracted from Eren’s mesmerizing green eyes by the pain that shot through her legs.

“I–” she began, her voice trembling from the effort of trying not to pass out from the excruciating pain. She tried moving her legs around, but even the flinch of her toe made her see stars. “I think I broke my leg.”

Armin let out a whimper, and he looked around with a panicked expression. Eren didn’t understand what the girl said, but observing the human’s attitude, particularly Armin’s, he guessed that it couldn’t be anything good. They had to carry the girl themselves, otherwise…

There was a deafening sound of a huge foot stomping on a building behind them. Eren’s whole body shivered.

There came a moment when one was so afraid that they couldn’t get any more terrified. They experienced a strange calmness and they no longer got surprised by anything. One would simply just observe their surroundings as if they weren’t really affected by the dangers ahead.

Eren looked up and met the eyes of another. Dull and lifeless.

Not dead, but not alive either.

That smile that held no kindness was wide above, and a hand came reaching out for them, fingers covered in blood. The stench of rotten flesh made Eren’s feet take root in the ground.

Eren heard the blond boy’s screaming as if that would scare off the titan, but he wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. As the hand was reaching out to them to grab them, stuff them in that grinning mouth, Eren’s eyes trailed down onto the city.

He saw how the titans picked up the humans by their heads, their limbs, or hair, and holding them in their fists they crunched them tightly until the screams stopped. Then they lifted them into their mouths and chewed, drank, swallowed.

But Eren also saw how a human pushed another to the ground to save their own skin and how they stomped each other to death to escape, and he felt bitter stomach acid and rage fill his mouth.

None of them stopped to help each other. There wasn’t anyone who gave a hand to that woman whose leg just got shattered by an incoming boulder or that boy who stood by the roadside next to his demolished home, crying and screaming for his mom.

‘Why are you crying?’

Such a cruel world, Eren thought. So cruel, all of them. He wished he could see Little One and Carla one last time, just to know what happened to them, whether they managed to escape or died, and their bodies now laid somewhere underneath a pile of rocks. He just wanted to know. He hated not knowing what happened to the people he held closest to his heart.

Or were they not crushed by a house, but instead were pushed to the ground by the panicked mob, where they were stomped to death? Eren saw red when his mind flashed images of Carla’s soft body lying on the street, broken and bloody.

Eren filled his lungs with air out of desperation to scream at the titan, hoping that his battle cry that he always used to warn off titans would be meaningful enough. There was no reassurance, but he didn’t know what else to do, he was hopelessly weak in this human form. Why did he ever want to be human…

‘They deserve it.’

Eren stared the titan square in the eyes, his pupils burning in feral green flames, and the giant hand in the air stopped. The titan’s brown eyes were staring at them, and though there were two more with him, Eren knew that the titan was looking at him only.

It made no move to recoil, though it almost seemed hesitant as its hand hovered in the air. The puffy, purplish lips moved, and the titan opened its mouth. There was a sound coming from the very depths of its core, deep and rumbling.

“Ym… Ymm…”

Eren watched in silence as the titan struggled around the sounds, much similar to how he did sometimes. The titan was trying to talk to him, and Eren stood frozen in place, horrified and creeped out by the grotesque sight.

There was a dark shadow flying by above them at such speed that one could miss it if they blinked at the wrong time.

The air was frozen in place, and the moment passed by in a heartbeat.

A bright flash of silver and green flickered across the sky. Then there was a sound that made shivers run up Eren’s spine, being all too familiar, and blood gushed from the nape of the titan.

Shit, shit, shit –

She watched with eyes wide with horror as the titan reached for the boy, and all she could do was pray that she would get there in time.

“Fuck!” Hanji gasped out as the cold air blew in her face, her skin tingling uncomfortably, as she readied her blades for the kill.

The gear hissed and whirred under the sudden and plentiful exercise that it’s been exposed to. The wires were running with such speed that they began steaming, yet the seconds seemed to slow down as they ticked by. There was never gear fast enough when one was rushing to save someone from getting devoured by a titan.

Hanji’s eyes zeroed in on the target, a bony nape covered in opaque, yellowish skin.

Just a little while longer–

There was no telling if she got there in time. The blades sliced through steaming flesh, and Hanji forcefully pressed deeper into the titan to make sure that she cut deep enough.

A raspy groan was pulled from her lungs when the pressure on her arms disappeared. The blades were free, quickly disintegrating blood sprinkling everywhere. The titan growled but the sound was cut short when it fell to the ground, leaving behind a cloud of dust and steam.

Hanji quickly released her grappling hooks. Looking over her shoulders a heavy sigh left her lips when she saw the three figures unscathed by the titan.

“Shit, are you all right, kiddos?” she yelled before abruptly landing in front of the kids. She slipped on the blood-covered cobblestone, making her entrance even clumsier than how they normally went.

Through the thick wall of steaming blood, she had a hard time making out the figures in front of her. There was that boy or maybe girl with the long brown hair whom Hanji saw right before cutting down the titan, and behind her remained the two others. She quickly recognized the military trainees’ jackets that they were wearing.

“W-we haven’t suffered any lethal injuries, but I think my friend broke her leg!” the small blond boy crouching over his comrade raised his trembling voice, and the unnatural way that the trainee’s leg was sitting immediately caught Hanji’s eye.

It was fractured at best, but broken most likely.

“Shit, shit, shit!” she cursed under her breath as she pushed aside the two boys and hurried to kneel next to the pale girl. She was obviously in shock, and Hanji gave her credit for being able to stay conscious even after almost getting eaten by a titan.

“What’s your name, sweety?” Hanji asked with a forced smile plastered on her lips, hoping that asking the girl trivial questions would help her focus on staying with them.

“Mikasa… Ackerman,” the girl choked out, her wide, dark grey eyes searching Hanji’s features as if she was looking for something to hold onto.

Hanji slid her hands underneath her jacket to feel her ribs, trying to determine if they got any injury on them, which in turn made it hard for her to speak. She couldn’t be sure, but the way Mikasa gasped when her fingers brushed across her collarbone, Hanji knew that they had to take their chances and run while they could.

“And you, cadet?”

“A-Armin Arlert, sir!”

“Alright, Armin, we need to get her out of here, now,” she turned to the ghostly pale boy with the blond hair. “The titans have swarmed the city, and–”

“Squad Leader Hanji!” came the sound of her name from above, and Hanji whipped her head up to see Eld standing on the remains of an obliterated rooftop. His blades were steaming with red.

Thank heavens, that most of the Special Operations Squad stayed here, Hanji spared only a second for gratitude, before the cogs in her brain began to turn again at a high speed, trying to figure out the most optimal solution to this ungodly situation. Damn me, Levi, for sending you away when we need you the most!

“Eld, who’s with you?!” she shouted. She was well aware of the thundering steps coming their way, and the volume of her voice was probably attracting more titans, but shit, she had to get these kids out of here. She wasn’t willing to watch any more of them get crushed under buildings or giant sets of teeth.

“All here, sir!” came the reply, and thank fuck for that.

“Byrer, Pere, where are you?! You take Cadet Ackerman here, her leg is broken and it’s possible that she suffered other internal injuries, so be careful!”

“Sir, we can’t…!”

“Get a move on!” Hanji snapped at the exhausted soldiers.

The two men scurried to the ground to take Mikasa from Armin’s grasp, who hesitantly let go. His whole body was trembling.

“Armin!” Hanji called out again, and the boy flinched. “You go with Eld! Gods, I wish they gave trainees maneuver gears,” she mumbled just to herself while she turned around to gather the third kid, but when she looked around, he was nowhere in sight. “Shit, where did he go?!”

Eld helped Armin climb on her back and he pulled them onto the roof, Hanji following closely behind. “Squad Leader, three titans incoming on the West!” the man warned. “We need to go!”

Hanji bit her lip as her gaze searched the ground, the boy with the brown hair nowhere to be seen. It was just one more person, part of her mind whispered in her ears, knowing well that staying here meant certain death to most of her and Levi’s Squad, but she didn’t know how she could ever live with herself knowing that she left a child behind in this hell on earth.

All eyes were on her figure, the brave faces masking their true feelings, hiding just how scared they all were. The Wall was breached, Shiganshina was destroyed, hundreds of people dead…

Hanji shook her head before despair could take over her. She had time later to think about what happened here; that is if she lived. “Listen up, everyone, we’re retreating! Follow tight formation until you reach the gate and don’t leave anyone behind! I’m staying behind to find that boy!”

Moblit’s eyes widened and he stepped forward. “But Squad Leader! There’s already too many, alone you don’t stand a ch–”

“I’m only staying behind for five minutes,” Hanji promised. “If I don’t find him, he stays behind. I’ll meet you all at the gates, now move!”

“Yes, sir!” the reply came at once, and grapplehooks shot far up ahead.

Hanji didn’t watch them take off. A titan already got too close, and Hanji did intend on keeping her promise about not watching another child suffer the gruesome death that the wasteland called Shiganshina offered. If only said children weren’t such idiots to take off when help arrived!

She raced with the wind above the empty streets of the southern part of the city, her eyes desperately searching for anyone still moving. From above the sight was perhaps even more horrifying than from below.

From the rooftops, one could see how much blood was smeared across the roads, and pale limbs were sticking out of large piles of rocks that once were part of a family home. Many people didn’t get to live to see the horror of the titans flooding through the streets. They died on impact, innocent and unknowing when the roof suddenly crashed down above their heads.

Hanji bitterly wondered how those three even managed to stay alive. Most titans have already barged through this area and were halfway through the district.

Hanji wondered with bitter tears in her eyes if the Garrison had already closed the gates. Scouts and military personnel could fly over the wall as long as they had gas, but all those people getting stranded behind the walls that were supposed to protect them, not lock them in a place of their certain deaths, they were to die by the hand of titans.

Blood smudged across her left cheek as she violently slashed the nape of a three-meter class titan as if channeling her anger and fear in her blades could make it white-hot and obliterate any titan that got in her way.

She landed on the ground with the titan laying out dead behind her. She felt her lungs burn in shame, as the reality that she won’t be able to find the boy started seeming more like a fact and not just one possible outcome of the many. She had already wasted so much time as it was, she had no choice but to retreat with the others.

She switched blades, discarding the used ones on the ground. Looking around one last time before aiming her hooks at the tallest intact wall she could see, she silently prayed that the young boy had a quick and painless death, even though she knew that the last thing that he would remember was crippling fear as the titan shoved him in its mouth.

From the corner of her eyes, she spotted movement right when she was about to launch in the air, but the sudden flicker of hope was met with a flood of relief and panic when Hanji spotted the boy.

His long hair was flowing in the air and he ran across the wide road, his cries of a name carried off by the wind.

Hopeful that maybe everything would turn out okay, a wide grin began stretching across Hanji’s face, but it didn’t reach her eyes before it already began to fade quickly.

The boy squeezed his eyes shut as he howled silently, tears running down his cheeks and a large cloud of dust and rocks erupting behind him, framing the apocalyptic picture and sealing the boy’s fate.

Hanji didn’t hesitate to scream and shoot his hooks toward the titan. It was at least ten meters tall, but it was hard to tell as it was crawling in the child’s direction on all fours, devouring brick and stone on its way.

“Fucking run, get out of the way!” Hanji heard herself yell until her voice cracked and she could taste blood on the back of her tongue.

The boy whipped up his head, facing the titan head-on, and made no effort to escape. Hanji watched with clenched jaws and eyes wide with terror how the titan sped up. She tightened her grasp on her blades as she was yanked into the air and flew right at them at maximum speed. She hasn’t felt this much at the sight of a titan since her first expedition outside.

The abnormal titan jumped and his mouth hung wide open, ready to eat, destroy, swallow in whole. Hanji could feel the radiating warmth of the boy’s body as she flew by above him; she was so close that he could’ve touched her shoulder if he lifted a hand.

She lifted her blades, the tip pointing at the titan’s open mouth.

The growling became deafeningly loud in a split second, and she saw a wet, red tongue and white teeth before the world around her went black and boiling hot.

It was over in a second, and though later on in her report she would say it was one hell of a bumpy ride in hopes of joking away the situation, that didn’t come close to reality.

The burning temperatures flushed tightly against her skin, her blades ripping through chunks of meat and cartilage. She felt incredibly tight for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, the muscles clenching down on her body as if they wanted to crush her.

When light finally filled her vision after a second of terrifying darkness, Hanji was once again flying in the air, and there was a sound of a loud crash coming from behind.

She clumsily maneuvered herself back to the boy, her body still shaken from the horrifying experience of shooting through a titan’s throat like a bullet. She reminded herself that she would have to precisely take notes on everything that happened while she was in the titan’s mouth.

She landed on top of the titan’s head, covered in steaming blood from head to toe, and this time she didn’t slip.

As soon as the relief of seeing the kid wore off though, frustration immediately took its place.

Why would any sane person run away from rescue, wander around in a city under attack, and then almost get eaten by a titan – but she quickly put those thoughts aside for the sake of the boy’s safety. Who knows if he would run off again if Hanji looked at him sideways.

“Are you okay, kiddo?” she put on her cheery voice that she often used to ease the tense atmosphere of a situation.

The boy was hunched over, his arms cradling his head. No doubt the last thing he saw was the titan jumping towards him. Peeking out from underneath his messy strands of hair and his long, tanned fingers, he hesitated only a little before standing up straight and raising his gaze.

Glassy, teal colored eyes lifted from the ground, meeting hers, and Hanji froze.

She never thought she would see such intense green eyes ever again, not after everything that had happened. For a second she didn’t know if she was imagining things, but seconds ticked by, the boy blinked at her, fluttering long, chocolate brown eyelashes, and his eyes remained still as breathtaking as they were when Hanji first saw them.

And breathtaking did not describe this boy properly. His complexion was warm and sunkissed, and not even the blood smeared across his face would hide the gentle curves of his cheeks and the almond-like shape of his eyes. Even his hair, which was messy from the wind and dirt, looked healthy and was almost the exact same shade as…

A lesser man would’ve perhaps tried to link the two pairs of green eyes, one from the past and one from the present, but Hanji was an advocate for science and she knew that there was no way that this boy was in any way connected to Eren. There was simply no way that it was possible, no matter how disappointing that was.

Snapping out of her stupor, Hanji grabbed the boy’s hand and began pulling her towards where she could take off with the maneuver gear. “Come on, we need to go!”

“No!” the boy choked out and tugged on Hanji’s arm. She turned around to snap at him or simply just pick him up and leave. No doubt his mind was clouded with fear and his body was stiff and useless from the trauma he had to live through.

But when she turned around, that mesmerizing gaze stared at her in such honesty and clarity that Hanji once again froze on the spot. She couldn’t take her eyes off the boy’s face, and she wanted to count how many emotions flashed across that expressive, emerald surface in the time of just one heartbeat.

“What?” she blurted out, though not for the reason the boy would think. Staring at his eyes for a couple of seconds was more than enough for her brain to momentarily forget what they were talking about.

“No,” the boy repeated, and Hanji could absently detect some strange flavor in the way he was forming his words. “I stay. Find Carla.”

“Who’s Carla?” Hanji furrowed her brows and looked around as if she expected someone else to stumble across the remains of the road, chased by titans. “Look, kiddo, even if I knew whom you want me to find, we don’t have the time! I’m so sorry,” she added with a sympathetic look before picking up the boy without warning and throwing him over her shoulder.

The boy yelped in protest and didn’t hesitate to lunge his tightly balled up fists into Hanji’s lower back. He hissed and growled and made sounds that Hanji had never heard anyone make before, not even Levi, but she only tightened her hold on the boy as she released the grapple hooks and let the wires pull them into the air.

“No! Carla!” the boy screamed and Hanji could hear the bitter tears that ran down his face.

“I’m sorry,” she kept repeating under her breath, wishing that she could do something for the boy but knowing that it was impossible to find whomever he was looking for. “I’m so sorry, honey, I couldn’t leave you there! Whomever you were trying to find, I’m sure they wouldn’t want you to stay behind, right?”

It was as if the boy didn’t even understand what she was saying. He kept hitting her and growled until his voice gave out. One time he almost slipped out of Hanji’s grasp, and then he would’ve fallen onto the cold, hard ground with a titan picking him up and eating him not long after.

“Hey, stay put!” she hissed as she tried keeping both themselves up in the air and the wriggling boy on her shoulder.

Was this kid not afraid of titans? He didn’t look fazed by them at all. When encountering a titan for the first time, people without exception reacted the same way, which was displaying signs of the most disturbed, horrified state of mind that could ever exist out there. They froze, and they stared in morbid fear, which often resulted in newbies getting eaten on their first expedition.

Even Levi wasn’t an exception from that, proving that her friend was human after all.

But this kid, who almost got devoured just minutes ago was dead set on making Hanji drop her and get back on the ground where titans roamed freely.

“I said–” Hanji hissed in pain when a particularly hard punch met her lower back.

She lost her balance, and wobbling a little in the air, she barely managed to put both of them down on a rooftop safely. She threw the boy onto the tiles perhaps more harshly than she should have. The boy glared up at her with fiery eyes.

“Listen to me!” Hanji pleaded while grabbing onto the boy’s shoulders. “We can’t stay here, do you understand? I’m trying to help you! Your friends, that boy Armin and Mikasa, they’re probably worried sick for you!”

At the mention of those two cadets’ names, the boy’s facial features softened up a little. He no longer pulled his lips into an angry snarl. The muscles around his eyes let go, accentuating his beautiful irises even more. Hanji once again had a hard time remembering anything she said or wanted to say when he looked at her, eyes wide with emotion of the purest form. Something Hanji only ever experienced around one person, and that felt like was a long time ago.

“Please, let me help you,” she whispered. “You’ll die if you stay here, but there’s a chance that whomever you’re looking for had already made it to safety. But you will only know for sure if you come with me.” She held out a hand, palm facing the sky, asking the boy to take it. “Just come with me, please. It’ll be alright, I’ll protect you.”

Eren? Come with me.

I promise nothing will happen to you.

I’ll protect you.

Eren looked at the held-out hand, Little One’s voice echoing in his mind. Tears began bubbling from his eyes, soaking his damp cheeks.

It’s been so long since Eren had seen him. So long.

He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and finally took Hanji’s hand. The human audibly let out a shaky sigh, and she continued talking to Eren about all kinds of things that he wouldn’t understand anyway.

She helped Eren climb on her back, and though he was almost as tall as her, Hanji had no difficulty lifting the lean figure off the ground. Eren buried his face in the crook of her neck, his vision filled with brown strands of hair, and soon the wind picked up around them as Hanji pulled them into the air.

So it happened again.

Eren was clinging onto a person he barely knew, and once again had to leave everyone and everything behind that he knew. The great unknown stretched across the horizon, making him feel uneasy and heartbroken.

He had to start all over. Find friends again. Find food again. Find warmth again in this cruel world filled with cruel creatures and cruel people.

Eren. Just follow me.

And most importantly, find his human.

Chapter Text

The office room was cold and dark from the grey clouds that prevented any sunlight from reaching the ground. The fire had died down hours ago, though the remains of the ash were still untouched in the hearth. A bucket and a hand shovel had been placed next to the fireplace. The room smelt of cold stone and wet horsehair.

The large casement windows were dimly illuminated by cold light, the iron grids dividing the dull brightness into diamond-shaped plates of glass.

A marble statue stood by the window, shoulder leaning against the wall, looking outside but not seeing anything in particular. As if those eyes were closed, made of stone, staring into the darkness, focusing on nothing.

You can never really close your eyes. Even when you do close them, you're still seeing something. Isn't that creepy, big bro?

No sound was to be heard apart from the careful steps halting on the other side of the office door. It was the first noise in hours that disrupted the silence. When the quiet knocking wasn’t answered, the door opened with an almost silent creak, and Petra peeked inside wearing a uncertain expression.

“Captain?” she asked.

Levi turned his head slightly to show her that he was listening, but he didn't look at her, as if he was too busy staring out if the window to spare her his time.

The angle of his head gave Petra just enough view on his face to see the circles under his eyes. They were even darker than usual, and the contrast of the purple, bruise-like bags gave his complexion a sickly pale color, as if it was drained of life.

“Sir, I brought you food. You didn’t come down for breakfast or lunch either, so I thought you’d like something to eat and drink. The boys were all too cowardly to bring it themselves,” she tried with a weak smile and placed the silver tray on the neat office desk. A serving of toast, oatmeal, vegetables, and a cup of tea.

Levi closed his eyes as he tried to tune out the sound of clattering plates and silverware coming from behind him, wishing that she was just gone already.

The cold that seemed to devour the room, radiating from the walls like an invisible disease, numbed the nerves in his hands. His fingers felt heavy and they were tingling uncomfortably, but it was almost like the pain didn't reach him. Someone else felt it, not Levi. He cut himself off from his body, looking at the world around him as if he wasn’t even there.

“Sir, you need to eat,” Petra’s words intruded his mind like vermin. Her voice was meek but full of soft, affectionate determination to which Levi was deaf. “You can’t starve yourself to death, I won’t–”

“Just get out,” Levi mumbled. His words were quiet yet strong enough to cut through the still air like an iron blade.

There was silence filling the room, settling onto the flat surfaces of the bookshelves and the desk like a thick coat of grime and dust. Levi felt the conflicted pair of eyes watching him, trying to decide what to do, touching his skin in a way that made him want to scrub his body until it was red and aching. There was a sound of shuffling clothes and another quiet, muffled thud on his desk.

“When Squad Leader Hanji sent us out to look for the fur clothes that she said you burned, I found this. It was in the fireplace of the bathroom to your private rooms. I, uh… the Squad Leader said you might want to have it.”

Levi waited until the door closed behind her before turning around and surveyed the fist-sized object covered in white cloth, laying on his desk. He pushed himself away from the window, and with rigid fingers, he slowly unfolded the small bundle.

It felt like the air was knocked out of him. His hand trembled, and the rock fell onto the desk. It shined dully in the cold light with a tinge of icy blue hiding between silver.

Levi stared at the rock that Eren gifted him not long before he first left the forest.

He was certain back then that he wouldn’t make it back to the city alive. It felt like it was years ago when he was stuck in that forest, worrying about his trip back home. Those times were an anomaly, a secluded bubble of memories outside the flow of time.

Sometime he felt like it was just a very long and very detailed dream, those many days he spent outside the Walls, but this was undeniable evidence that it was real. He could no longer wish it wasn't.

With pale, shaky fingers he lifted the rock to look at it from closer, which he never did before. Back then he didn't care, he didn’t think that one day this would be the only thing that he had left of Eren. A small rock that matched the color of Levi’s eyes.

Back then he thought Eren would be similar to this rock, untouchable, immortal. But now Levi held it in his hands with uncertainty, as if he could break it any moment the same way he broke the one who gifted this rock to him.

How much time did Eren have to spend looking for this? How many times did he have to study Levi’s eyes to match the color perfectly? How could someone display such tender kindness one moment and then in the next tear titans into pieces with raw strength?

Levi had to realize that he never came anywhere close to understanding Eren. He hadn’t got a single clue of what was going on inside that thick skull of his. Every time he thought he got closer to the answers regarding the mystery of the titan’s nature, he was just getting farther away from him.

Was it ever in the cards for him to figure out what made Eren behave the way he did?

He had to realize that he failed to understand the first thing about Eren. It was the same thing that Levi never got to figure out in Isabel either. It was this strange, unstoppable force of selflessness and curiostity, kindness that had no ulterior motives, benignity that was as foreign to Levi as a comfortable life.

He, who knew nothing but violence, could never understand someone like Eren and Isabel, and now he would never either.

Eren was gone and with him all the warmth left Levi’s world too. The only beacon of light he experienced in a long was Eren, and now he was dead too, shoved to the back of his mind, out of sight and his heart.

He watched so many of his friends and comrades die that he almost became immune to the pain of grief. It was like a scar that got cut open over and over again, each time a thicker layer of white tissue forming on the wound until the skin no longer hosted any nerve endings and became insensate. Eren would become one of the many scars he carried on his heart, no longer special, no longer distinguishable from the rest. A ghost in the land of forever darkness.

His grip on the stone tightened, his knuckles turning white. He wanted to throw the stupid token out of the window, he wanted to yell at Eren for panicking on that day, he wanted to find the person who cut him down, he wanted to break every bone in their body until they were begging for him to kill them– but deep down he knew that all he had to do was look in the mirror, and he would find that person.

Looking at his desk, his eyes wandered over to the pile of unread papers and documents. Work was waiting for him, his duties to be fulfilled, and personal problems to be put aside. The time to cry over what happened was over, and he was sick of wallowing in the murky depths of his heart and mind. He had to put his feelings aside before they killed any more people.

He walked to a chest that he kept in the corner of his office, tucked out of sight behind a bookshelf. He opened it, and after fumbling around a little bit, he found what he was looking for: a small, wooden box, covered in inches thick of grey dust. He never opened it unless he had to.

He placed it on his desk and wiped away the dust with a handkerchief, his fingers working gently like he was pampering a newborn baby. He kept the small, iron key to it in the inner pocket of his jacket.

Opening the box, he swallowed thickly. He took a moment to recollect himself before he started rearranging its contents. Half of the space was taken by stacks of emblems of the Wings of Freedom which they all wore on their jackets above their hearts. They were from the countless soldiers who didn’t have a family to keep their bloodied badge, who didn’t have anyone to remember them except for Levi.

He quickly rearranged the stacks in an orderly fashion. Next to them, he kept an emblem separate from the others, the first one he took. It used to belong to Farlan. He never found Isabel’s, and he didn’t have the time to look for it, so he kept a soft strand of her strawberry-red hair. He tied it together with a silk ribbon, so he wouldn’t lose the thin strands. He just couldn’t leave her without taking something from her back with himself.

On the other side inside the box, there was a tiny book, barely the size of Levi’s palm. It was old and the corners of the cover were ruined by dirt and humidity, but on the edges there was still a faint line of gold paint.

It was a book for children who were not yet able to read, full of pictures of people dressed in robes, some of them holding baskets of fruit, a sword, or even a lightning bolt. The figures had foreign names that Levi never heard before anywhere else. He didn’t care much for children’s stories, but the book used to belong to his mother. He faintly remembered her saying that she got it from her mother when she was just a little girl, who got it from her mother too. Levi wasn’t sure if this was true or if he just made it up himself.

He carefully picked up the book, and wiped down the dust from its cover, making sure that he didn’t damage the golden lining. It had to be the single most expensive item his mother owned, yet she always allowed Levi to play with it when he was little. It was also the only object he had left from Kuchel.

All these relics… they were people, in a way. What was left of them.

Memories that only Levi carried, but memories that were proof no less that these people had once lived. The lives of these people were in his hands. As long as he had them, as long as he remembered, he had no choice but to desperately stay alive.

“She won’t be the last one to die before you.”

That was what Kenny told him after he found Levi on the dark streets with blood dripping down from his lips and chin. He was small, angry, and started fights with people who were three times his size. It was a wonder how he didn’t get killed that day.

Kenny picked him up from the ground and brought him to a dry room where he roughly wiped down his wounds with hard liquor and then gave him some scraps. The old bastard could be strangely caring like that sometimes. Then again Levi only got those injuries in the first place because Kenny threw him out onto the street with the task to come back with bloody fists. In the end he did, though the blood was his own.

Back then, a child no older than six, Levi didn’t care how he got into a fight. Whether he came across some filthy, drunk men or a group of thugs, they always beat Levi up for provoking them, and he would always end up on the ground. He went into the fight with a glare, but he couldn't hit back while the harsh blows rained down on him. He was too weak both physically and mentally. Instead of seeing the faces of his attackers, Levi’s mind was filled with bitter images of his mother.

The guilt of her death was tearing him apart. He couldn’t understand why someone as good as her mother should have to die to let a filthy rat like him live. A beautiful, kind woman for a useless, hostile brat… he couldn’t bear it. Levi saw how his mother left her food untouched only to then give it to him later, and how she let those men hurt her just so she could provide a little more for him. It was too much. He just wanted her back.

“Don’t let your mother’s death go to waste, brat,” Kenny said, wiping the blood from the boy’s mouth with a dirty rag.

When he was done, he set the alcohol aside and slammed his fist into Levi’s face, splitting and reopening his bleeding wounds.

Levi fell to the ground with a whimper, his face burning in the shape of Kenny’s fist. He coughed, spitting blood onto the floor, but he didn’t say anything.

Several years later Levi thought of that pain as a wake-up call, as if Kenny had set something in his head right. Or perhaps wrong. Whatever it was, Levi was only still alive because of Kenny had done to him. He was always an angry child, but back then, when he was hunching over on the ground with Kenny’s foot slamming into his stomach, something else began to stir to life in him.

“If you don’t stop sulking around like a snotty brat, you won’t last another day, ya hear me? If ya don’t wanna to live, take a knife, go to the river and take care of it like a man. But if ya done being a wailing cunt, then fight back, dammit!

"Turn your grief into anger, use it to keep ya alive. Regretting not dying in your mother's place will kill ya. Do ya want your mother's sacrifice to be for nothing?"

Damn that old bastard, Levi thought. No matter how much he hated the man, in the end, Kenny was always right.

Lifting Eren’s rock, his hand was no longer shaking. He placed it between the stack of emblems and the book, making sure that it wouldn’t damage anything with its sharp edges. He looked over his handiwork, eyes hollow and void of emotions.

He felt guilty for never allowing himself to mourn them properly, but then again as a soldier, he doubted that he would ever have the time. When life was so unpredictable that people weren’t sure if they would make it until their next meal, they didn’t spend too much time remembering the dead.

Kenny used to say that he would have time to rest in the grave, but not before. Levi supposed that was true; until that happened, he just had to pull through.

He could hear quick-paced steps coming towards his office again, this time someone running. Levi sighed, knowing that his peace was always meant to be short-lived.

“Come in,” he spoke once he heard the frantic beating on the door, the sound hurting his ears.

“Sir!” Petra barged in with an unusually disheveled appearance, nothing like how she looked only an hour ago. Her hair was not sticking to her pink, sweaty forehead in wet strands, and her mouth was slightly agape as she panted. “Captain, your presence is immediately requested by Commander Erwin Smith in Trost! Th-they say that Shiganshina district was attacked by titans!”

Levi furrowed his brows, but he did nothing other than acknowledged Petra with a nod and told her to get his horse ready.

He closed the box. The key turned in the lock, and with it, Levi locked himself away too. He lifted the burden of the memories from his heart and placed them aside until the fighting was over.

There would come a time when he no longer had to empty his heart of what made someone human, and the box could stay open.

But that was a long time from now. The dead could wait a little longer.

Chapter Text

Lately, it had been too cold to walk on bare feet, so Eren preferred to run.

The late afternoon air burned his throat, and the weather was only to get colder. By the time nightfall would come, no doubt that the icy flowers of frost would be all over the cobblestone road.

The cold roof tiles were burning the soles of his feet like sharp needles poking his skin. It was a sensation he got more used to over the many weeks. It was going to be the first autumn he ever spent outside the protective heat of his titan skin or the familiar and safe forest.

Footsteps were echoing ahead and after him, but he concentrated only on moving forward. They were nowhere near catching up to him. His eyes zeroed in on his target below, about thirty meters down on the street, running. Eren picked up his pace. His lungs burned and his muscles vibrated with energy.

“Shit, he’s getting away!” the shouting came from behind him.

The man running on the busy street, now only about twenty or so meters from Eren, decided to turn left on the next street, and Eren smirked, his eyes lighting up with victory. Got you! The stench of the man was so strong that Eren could’ve found him hours later, but he wasn’t about to refuse an act of kindness.

The man, unknown to him, was now running in a dead-end alley.

Eren jumped across the narrow street and landed harshly on the roof tiles. The broken pieces of clay dug sharply into his skin, drawing blood, but he couldn’t feel it. His skin was numb from the cold and his mind was elsewhere too. He was running practically beside the shabby-looking human now, who yelped out in surprise upon hearing the heavy crash above him.

His back was a clear, easy target, and Eren got ready to jump. Eyeing the many ropes stretching out between the two walls with drying sheets hanging from them, Eren spotted an opening that he could fit through.

Just as he leaped in the air, a lean body appeared next to him out of nowhere. Eren’s eyes went wide when he realized that they would collide with each other before either of them could reach the target. The human mustn’t have seen him (or more like paid no attention), and now they were on a one-way lane to a hospital. There would be broken bones on both ends.

His hand shot out like a snake, catching onto one of the ropes, and barely grazing the kamikaze human’s shoulder, he slammed against the stone wall.

“Ah, shit!” Eren hissed, the air rushing out of his lungs under the sudden impact. His ears were ringing, and he faintly registered the splitting aching of his forehead.

“Hah! You thought you could get away with this?! I’ll teach you some manners!” he heard a loud, obnoxious voice in the background. It reminded him of the sound of two pots being smashed together on a quiet Sunday morning.

Cursing under his breath he let go of the rope and landed on his feet with the elegance of a drunk. It felt like he could puke his guts out any minute. Eren huffed, annoyed by the carelessness of the kids.

The human they were chasing fell onto the ground and was now pinned down by two small hands. Light amber-colored eyes stared cold daggers into the man’s chest. A fist was raised in the air, and underneath its shadow the man whimpered, embracing himself for the impact. Eren flinched only a little when the wet, muffled sound of the punch came.

Three more hits rained down on the man before Eren managed to walk up to them without his knees buckling. The girl stepped back to give him space, though not without some reluctance. Eren crouched down in front of the man to look at his face. Humans loved to lie, and they could hide the truth fairly well, but their eyes never stopped speaking the truth.

“Give here,” he told the man, who reluctantly stared back at him, and said nothing.

“Didn’t you hear him?!” the girl growled impatiently and dug the heel of her boot between his shoulder blades. He weakly grunted in pain.

“Gabi, told you no kick,” now Eren said warningly, the edge in his voice revealing that he was getting fed up. First being smashed against a wall and now this man’s refusal to cooperate with them. “I said, give here!”

The three other kids caught up with them too by then, the orphans from Madam Lydia’s brothel, Zofia, Udo, and Falco. “Does he have the money?” the blond boy asked in a hopeful tone, though a concerned scowl stretched across his face.

Eren patted down the man’s chest and legs until he found the heavy leather purse in the inner pocket of his torn and filthy coat. With the man’s heavy panting and whimpering in the background, Eren pulled opened the purse and let out a low growl that made even the kids a little uneasy. No matter how much time they spent together, the quick change of Eren’s attitude and his quirks could still catch them off guard.

The leather purse was filled with pebbles about the size of silver coins. Gritting his teeth Eren dumped them on the man, who winced under the small, hard little stones raining down on his head.

“Eren!” Falco gasped with a hand reaching for him, but Eren forcefully threw the empty purse away. It landed on the damp ground with a soft slap. “Why–”

“Stone,” he said and eyed the human with quiet disdain. This man walked into a brothel and bought a girl with pebbles only to run away when the payment was due. He flashed a stuffed purse in front of the inexperienced girl who didn’t think about collecting the money beforehand. Then the man ran, robbing the girl of her time and effort.

Behind him, Gabi gasped in outrage and kicked the man in the stomach again. “What do you mean stone? What the hell?!” Angry tears started staining the corners of her eyes.

Eren sighed, his anger still shaking his hands, but he refrained from channeling his frustration into physical violence. Kicking a poor man black and blue wouldn’t make him any richer, no matter how inviting that unbruised skin looked.

“We leave,” he announced flatly and began walking towards the main street. Falco, Zofia, and Udo caught up with him quickly, and after a few minutes Gabi, the feral sable in human skin, joined them too. Eren wiped the quickly drying blood from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He was lucky that his wounds no longer steamed while healing; his true identity would’ve been revealed a long time ago if they did.

Their stunt didn’t draw too much attention. Conflicts that resulted in bleeding cuts and dark bruises were anything but uncommon in the slums of Trost. People were sick and angry, and ever since the free rations from the Military Police stopped coming, people began to starve too. They had better things to worry about than a man getting beaten up in an alley.

On their way back to the brothel, Eren looked up at the gray sky. He wondered how Mikasa and Armin were doing. They should be back soon. The month was almost over.

They were sitting on a cart, Mikasa on the floor with bandages around her leg and forehead, while Armin was sitting next to her as if she could wake up any minute and ask for him. Eren watched the boy’s display of platonic affection with a blank expression.

The humans in the green capes were talking back and forth about something far too complex for Eren to understand, so he tune them out. Someone tapped his shoulder and Eren let them lift his shirt. It stung when the fabric reluctantly let go of the sticky substance oozing from the red line on his back. Eren almost forgot that he had that. He woke up with it outside the Walls and then that kind man who found him bandaged it. He also never came back for Eren.

Hanji hissed out sympathetically when she managed to peel off the olive green shirt from Eren’s back and was met with fresh blood. The wound sliced across the boy’s back from shoulder to shoulder, just a few inches below his nape. It didn’t look too fresh. It had already begun to scab on most of its length, but at some point, during the attack, it got torn open again.

Hanji estimated that a wound of this size had to be obtained at least half a year ago. She glanced at the boy, wondering how someone so young would go through something that resulted in such a nasty injury. It strangely looked like the cut was made by a soldier’s blade. She had gotten in trouble with the local MPs herself when she was still just a girl too, and though she was threatened by them not only once, they never resorted to violence such as this.

“Bastard,” she muttered silently to whoever dared to slice up such a quiet, adorable boy. Those eyes were truly something else. Hanji still caught herself holding her breath every time he looked in her direction. “Alright, sweety, this is gonna hurt a little, okay?” she spoke up while grabbing a bottle of alcohol and dipped a cloth into it.

Eren sluggishly acknowledged the meaningless words with a hum and a hiss when the cool liquid was dabbed onto his skin. It felt like his whole back was lit on fire. He grabbed onto the wooden side of the cart and let out a strained whine.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hanji kept repeating as she cleaned the wound. Eren bit down on his crumpled-up shirt to muffle the noises he made.

Not long after that, the unimaginable happened again when a bulky titan covered in yellowish, bone-like plates of armor broke through the inner wall. People gasped, their eyes filled with horror and shock, yet it almost didn’t come as a surprise to Eren. The world was burning up around them in a nightmarish fire. One more wall being punched through felt like a cruel, ironic necessity.

Eren sat on the carriage, his fingers digging into the wooden boards until his nails cracked and began bleeding. They listened to the faraway echoing sound of the deafening crash and watched as the land around the hole where the gate once stood was covered in grey dust.

They spent the rest of the journey in silence.

When they arrived at another gate, they had to abandon the cart and continue on horseback, because of how dense the crowd was. Everyone tried to squeeze through the gate at the same time. It was loud. Eren heard children crying.

The green capes brought them to a tent full of people, and Eren only now noticed the headache that felt like someone was stabbing daggers through his skull. He was pushed onto a chair in the corner while Mikasa and others with more serious injuries were treated on stretchers. The chaos and the noise were almost too much, it made Eren’s ears ring – or was that the memory of the Wall breaking down and echoing in his mind?

Needing some fresh air, away from the stench of blood and dirt, Eren wandered out of the tent and onto the crowded, dirty street. The body of this other Wall covered the land in an ominous shadow. There was crying everywhere, sounds of muffled screams from the injured, and orders yelled left and right by the people who had even the smallest knowledge of medicine.

Eren’s face paled and a thorn of anger wedged itself into his heart when he heard a burst of boisterous laughter coming from nearby. It stuck out amid all the wailing like rotten weed in a flower garden. There was a group of soldiers talking and joking around with each other, and those drinks in their hands probably weren’t the first ones that day either. It was like they didn’t care at all about the hell that surrounded them.

They wore the same jackets and shirts as Little One did, and they had the metal gear that made them fly in the air too, but when the titans picked up defenseless humans from the ground and tore them apart, Eren saw no soldiers from the police helping them. Not a single one of these people killed a titan, even though they were the only ones with the gear. Their clean blades were the proof of that.

He moved without thinking, and his foot swung into the soft flesh of the soldier’s leg hard. The laughing ceased.

“Ah, what the fuck!” the man cried out and grabbed the sore spot on his calf.

He awkwardly tried to balance himself on one leg. Eren was more than tempted to kick his other foot out too, but then a strong hand grabbed him by the nape. A friend of the soldier was quick to restrain him, making the boy snarl and struggle in his hold angrily.

“Who do you think you are, huh, runt?”

That was about when Armin noticed what was happening. He quickly jumped from Mikasa’s side and ran to grab Eren’s arm.

“Please, ignore him!” he rushed to snatch the boy out of trouble. “H-he hit his head pretty hard, he doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

When the soldier finally released his sensitive nape with an annoyed huff, Eren wanted to yank his arm out of the boy’s grasp, but Armin had surprisingly strong hands.

“Get the fuck out of here, trainee,” the soldier growled and pushed Eren aside with the butt of the rifle he was holding. “Before I bash your little friend’s skull in.”

“Yes, sir!” Armin quickly saluted and tugged at Eren’s arm again. “Come on!”

Eren bared his teeth at all of them with a threatening growl, telling the boy that he either released Eren now or he would have to deal with the consequences. Armin’s eyes widened for a second at Eren’s animalistic behavior, but it was quickly replaced by determination.

“We shouldn’t leave Mikasa alone for too long, now come,” he said and dragged Eren towards the tent, away from the soldiers. “What has gotten into you?” Armin whisper-shouted, his display of courage and strength quickly fading into worry. “You can’t just assault officers like that, you will get in serious trouble!”

Eren tried pulling out his wrist from Armin’s hold, but just like Mikasa’s, it was too tight. His frustration bubbled up to the surface in short grunts and angry snarls, the feeling of betrayal all too painful. Those soldiers deserved more than a kick. Why didn’t Armin help him punish those awful humans? How could they laugh, when so many of their species were in pain?

Baring his teeth again this time Eren sunk them into the boy’s pale hand, and Armin yelped.

“Ouch, that hurt! Did you just…?”

Eren didn’t waste any more time to make his escape. He twisted his hand out of Armin’s and leaped to the closest building on the other side of the street. He climbed and then ran until he could no longer hear the human’s voice below.

A cold breeze grabbed onto the sleeves of his shirt and tugged at him. The air smelled absolutely atrocious even on the highest building that he could climb. This city was much like the one which was now a bloodied wasteland; stone houses with clay roof tiles, a smaller tower here, a large tree poking through the roofs there. And closest to the wall, right below Eren stood hundreds of dull-colored tents, filled with wounded and dying humans. They were all refugees, those few who could escape from the inevitable death. There were so many of them… though they were barely a handful compared to those who were dead.

Eren’s heart contracted painfully at the sight. He couldn’t comprehend how the city that was so full of life just this morning didn’t exist anymore.

As he looked down, Eren saw a woman, her eyes red from crying. She held onto a boy with so many bandages that barely any skin was visible. She was hugging him like he was her sole reason to live, desperately praying that the world wouldn’t take him from her.

Around them stood a couple of people; some with medical equipment in their hands, others simply sitting on the floor with bleeding wounds. They all wore the same lifeless expression, their eyes bulging out of their skulls, unseeing.

A drop of tear rolled down Eren’s cheek as he watched them. He was silently shaking from anger and sadness. His heart was breaking for all the innocent who were suffering, and for all those who no longer did.

He wiped the tears as if he wished to wipe his memory clean from those blissful days he spent with the workers of the brothel.

It was okay, he just had to stay afloat, forget, and start over in this new city. He had done this before, he could do it again. It was just like the day he was first brought inside the Walls when he was still naïve and curious.

By now Eren knew how the human world worked, and after everything he saw during the attack, how people trampled on each other to save themselves, Eren couldn’t look at them the same way again. He didn’t want to start over with these people. The ones with kind hearths were left to be eaten, pushed into the titans’ hands by some of these survivors.

He wondered if one of the soldiers he saw were at the breach and if they came across Carla. Did they leave her behind? Decided to save themselves instead helping a young, defenseless woman?

How could Eren know if he was talking to someone like that? The person who left Carla, how could Eren know if he wasn’t looking at them right now? They could be anyone. He didn’t want to see them or talk to them. These vipers hiding in human skin.

If no one was willing to protect those who couldn’t defend themselves, then how was the world any better inside the Walls than outside of it? Where titans roamed the land and destroyed anything that still moved?

Eren gritted his teeth and glared at the group of soldiers who were still talking to each other like nothing was wrong in this world. Fine, Eren thought. If they weren’t willing to protect the weak, then Eren would. He might not have looked like a titan anymore, and he might have been the weakest he ever was, but if no one else was willing to do it, then he would use the last of his determination to eradicate all evil from this world.

Yes, he was limited to the body of a human, but Little One was human too, and only a fool would’ve called him weak. Eren remembered watching him back in the forest, how he flew across the woods with titan’s blood steaming on his beautiful face and a fierce coldness shining in his eyes. That was Eren’s first memory that he could dig up from the depths of his consciousness, he was the first person Eren remembered truly observing, not just seeing. It was as if the man had awakened something in him.

If Eren could become someone as strong as Little One then no other city would ever be attacked again. He would make sure of that.

“Miss Zoe said that she would send someone from camp to collect us, but with the way the roads are crowded and her hands are probably full with issues much more important than us, I don’t think we should be expecting outsider help any time soon,” Armin quietly murmured in a matter-of-factly tone. “We’re on our own.”

Mikasa silently listened to her friend’s hushed voice and nodded along.

“There are too many wounded, so I doubt the doctors will let us stay here for long,” Armin anxiously continued while eyeing Mikasa’s bandaged leg. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she said without hesitation.

A flaming sensation burned her whole leg from the tip of her big toe up to the knee, but she didn’t want Armin to worry any more than he already did.

“Are you sure?” Armin’s wide blue eyes were full of repressed fear that was only muted by the tasks ahead that needed to be solved.

“Armin. Please don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Have they treated you yet?” She took the fragile hands in hers and shot Armin a scolding look once seeing how the bright red gashes on his fingers were still open and bleeding. Mikasa’s eyes teared up seeing her adopted brother’s hands all torn up, bleeding for her and their grandfather. “Armin, you can never do something like that again, I forbid you! You could’ve died!”

“I didn’t though, and neither did you,” Armin raised his chin defiantly. “I might be weaker than you…”

“You’re not weak.”

“…but I will always stay by your side!”

Mikasa huffed and turned her face the other way, but only to hide her tears. She blinked them away to regain her composure. A soft hand slipped on her shoulder, and soon she found herself in an embrace that she couldn’t shake off. Finally giving up, she leaned into the touch and snaked her arms around Armin’s waist.

“You’re always protecting me,” he whispered in her ear. “With grandpa gone, I don’t have anyone else but you. So please, don’t ever tell me to leave you behind.”

Mikasa slowly nodded, knowing the fear of being left alone all too well. In the warmth of Armin’s embrace, her attention trailed back to the memories of that awful eternity while she was stuck under the building. She remembered a pair of mesmerizing eyes, the bright and intense green and blue, so unlike the colors of destruction around them. She felt like she had seen those eyes before somewhere.

“Armin?”

“Hm?”

“Was there someone with us back there?”

Armin nervously glanced aside. “Yeah. He helped me lift that rod and then held it while I pulled you out.”

He purposefully didn’t say that he was the same boy whom she reported to the Military Police not only twenty-four hours ago. The officers no doubt threw him in jail. Mikasa was stubborn and followed the rules even more strictly than Shadis did, but she wasn’t heartless. Armin didn’t want her to beat herself up about the incident while she was still recovering. Now that the boy ran away, the chances of her finding out who their savior was…

“You!”

Armin jumped when the tent door was torn open. The boy with messy brown locks rushed inside, his eyes burning in a sea of green, eyeing the two of them like a hawk. Armin felt goosebumps running up his whole spine, his instincts warning him that something was… not quite right about this boy. The way he growled at those officers and then straight up bit Armin’s hand hard enough to leave a mark, it made him feel uneasy.

But Armin pushed these feelings aside. This boy saved both of them. Armin had no right to make a judgment.

The boy waded towards them with an almost scary expression, eyebrows pulling together and his whole presence burning up in determination, carrying the smell of… bread? Armin’s lips parted and saliva pooled into his mouth when he saw that the boy was holding a small loaf of bread in his hands.

When he stopped in front of them, he rather roughly shoved it under Armin’s nose.

“I food!” the boy declared. “You learn talk!”

“Ah,” Armin glanced at Mikasa. She was gaping at the boy with an expression of such shock that Armin genuinely got worried for her for a second. Expressing emotions was never Mikasa’s trademark. She no doubt recognized that this was the person whom she reported, though Armin wasn’t sure if she would remember him saving them out there. “I, uh–” he mumbled stupidly, trying to remember what was said. “What?”

The boy tilted his head to the side, and an impatient growl seeped through the barrier of his lips. He shook the bread in front of Armin to make a point. “Food. I give. You learn talk.”

“You want me to… teach you how to talk?” Armin tried helping him, while Mikasa watched them in silence. She didn’t try to hide her astonishment. Neither of them had ever met anyone who had this unusual accent, let alone anyone who couldn’t form proper sentences. “Help you?” Armin offered.

The snarl disappeared from the boy’s face, instead to be followed by a bright twinkle in those bottomless irises.

“Yes, help! Please?” he added hopefully, his fingers digging into the flesh of the bread rather desperately. His nails had an unusual, sharp almond shape.

Armin observed the strength in those hands, the wounds still visible from the struggle he put up while lifting that rod from Mikasa’s body. They were noticeably less red than Armin’s, even though between the two of them it was the boy who carried most of the weight of that burning wooden rod.

Armin knew that without this boy he would be alone right now, and mourning not one but two of his family members. The only two he had left. Gratitude suddenly flooded his body, warming him up like it was a blanket on his shoulders.

 “Of course, we’ll help you. We owe you this much. What’s your name?”

“Name? Eren,” the boy said, and finally having enough, he pushed the bread into Armin’s hands, who divided it into three pieces.

“Oh, nice to properly meet you. We’ve um… bumped into you before,” he cleared his throat and noted how Eren blinked at him with a waiting expression as if he didn’t quite catch everything Armin said. Well, perhaps he didn’t remember that time when they first met in the alley, or that one time before when Eren quite literally bumped into Mikasa.

Armin gave a piece of bread to her adopted sister, but when he wanted to give one to Eren too, the boy shook his head.

“No hungry. Morning eat.”

“You ate this morning?” Armin furrowed his brows. That was more than twelve hours ago, but then again they were all still in shock. Mikasa and he were only able to eat on an upset stomach because they had learned during their training in the military that one should always eat as if that was the last chance they ever got. “We’ll save your part for later then. How did you get this anyway?”

Eren blinked and didn’t respond. Mikasa quietly began eating, and Armin noticed how she struggled to raise her gaze from her lap. Ah, so she did recognize him in the end to be the one who helped them.

Armin lifted the bread and tapped it with a  finger. “How did you find bread?”

“Bread?”

“Yes, this is bread? How did you get it?”

“Oh,” the shadow lifted from Eren’s face once he understood. “Steal.”

“Ah. From… whom?”

“MP,” Eren shrugged and turned to observe Mikasa’s leg. “Hurt?”

Mikasa shyly glanced up at Eren, but upon meeting the bright gaze full of kindness and determination, she looked down again. “I’m all right. I uh– both of us are alive because you helped us. Thank you,” she added again in a hushed tone.

“Oh, um, sorry, I almost completely forgot! My name is Armin, and this is Mikasa,” Armin said and reached out with a hand, but the gesture seemed to fly over Eren’s head.

“I know,” he said. “Arm, Kasa. See before.”

“Right,” Armin furrowed his brows. “Eren, where are you from?”

“From?”

“Yes… Where do you come from? Where did you live before this?”

Eren’s cheeks heated up for a short second, but at the same time, something entirely different flashed across his eyes. It was dark and foreign. Armin leaned back on instinct for the second time since Eren appeared in the tent, suddenly wanting to create a much-needed distance between himself and those raw viridian eyes. But the moment passed on quickly, and Armin was left wondering what just happened.

“Carla,” Eren mumbled and looked away. “Carla with live.”

The way his features overcame with sadness, Armin felt compelled to reach out and comfort the boy with a hug, but he thought it was best not to. He was afraid that Eren might not appreciate it. “I’m sorry,” he offered instead. “We lost our grandfather too. Is Carla your mother?”

Eren frowned. “Mother?”

“Do you… not know what that means?”

Eren pouted and crossed his arms, offended by Armin’s dumbfounded expression. He obviously knew a lot less than everyone else. He didn’t want to be constantly reminded of how much less of a human he was. I bet I know a lot more about titans than you do, I just can’t rub it in your face without revealing my identity.

He also lacked the words.

Was ‘mother’ a word most humans knew? Did Armin find him suspicious for not knowing what it meant? Eren’s throat squeezed tight with anxiety. Shit, he had to be careful.

“I know mother. Now you learn!”

“You mean ‘I teach.’ I teach you. You learn from me.”

“You teach,” Eren tried his best to repeat the complicated chain of sounds. “I learn?”

A quiet smile pulled on Armin’s lips, and oh, Eren froze in place.

Warm. Armin had a warm smile and kind eyes, something worth protecting. Eren thought he’d never see another human with sunlight in their eyes after what happened to Carla and how he kept losing Little One, how he constantly ran and ran without ever reaching him, but this… this was nice.

This girl too, Mikasa, looked so familiar, her face and even her voice similar to Little One’s. She also looked just as cold as Eren’s human did, always trying to seem serious, which made Eren chuckle internally. They were similar in this too. Eren just had a hunch that these dark grey eyes of Mikasa’s could melt into silvered honey just like Little One’s.

Eren realized that perhaps it wouldn’t be too awful to stay with these humans for a little while. He picked up the piece of bread that he refused earlier and took a careful look at it. He was still full of sunlight right now, but learning burned up his energy quickly.

He wanted to stay with Armin and Mikasa, and for that, he had to watch them closely to learn how to properly act like a human. He took a bite from the bread in hopes of forever concealing the awful truth that he hid beneath his skin.

Keep busy. That was what made coping easier as Eren found out, and the world was eager to help him out.

Though he needed to eat much less than the average human like Armin and Mikasa, most of the hours of the day were consumed by the hunt for food. Just like on the first day Eren spent in the human world, he explored the city, looking for stores he could easily raid, and for hideouts where he could safely spend the night. He didn’t want to end up like he did on his first night at the fountain when he was stirred from his sleep by thieves. Luckily an old city such as this was full of small corners and overlapping roofs that made it easy to hide in the shadows at night.

Same old same old, yet nothing was ever like how it used to be.

There was no shop with that angry old human who first beat him up. No fake windows in the wall of an ivy-covered house. No white cat with orange patches and light green eyes. No cozy house with a red light above the door and welcoming people inside. Only strangers and unfamiliar places.

People were starving, and Eren soon realized that hunger turned these well-dressed and eloquent creatures into feral animals. He got into bloody fights numerous times over scraps that he didn’t even want for himself but for Mikasa and Armin. He felt like he was a titan again, biting hands and shoulders in street fights.

The two humans were spending their days in the makeshift hospital, with Armin sometimes trying to buy food with the few shiny coins he had. Eren never let him show those to anyone. He once saw a man getting stabbed in an alley and the murderer stole coins just like that from the body. Eren followed the bloodied man for a few streets. The man offered the dead human’s coins to a butcher, but he had to leave empty-handed. The prices went up higher every day, and it seemed that the murderer no longer had enough coins. Eren didn’t want Armin to get stabbed over coins that were no longer valuable.

Armin and Mikasa were nice, though Eren always noticed their lingering gazes on him. He heard them talk about him when they thought that no human ears could hear them. Eren grew anxious every time he noticed them murmur words to each other, words Eren had no way of understanding, and therefore he never knew when the last nail would be hammered into the coffin of his human existence.

Those two were nothing like Carla, who never bat an eye because of his strange behavior and lack of knowledge of basic things. Mikasa had a sharp gaze that made Eren feel like his nape was getting cut open again, making him unintentionally place his palm on the sensitive skin. Eren still remembered her from the alley when they first met, and how displeased she looked, though her attitude was different lately. She was quiet around Eren and never tried to grab him like she did in the alley. It was good enough for him.

Armin wasn’t nearly as rough as Mikasa, but that was the exact reason why Eren knew he had to be careful around him. He was gentle and never raised his voice, making Eren relax around him. When those crystal blue eyes were trained on Eren, he felt like he was stripped bare of his lies and secrets. As if Armin could read his soul, and the only reason he didn’t say anything to Mikasa was his kindness. And so Eren learned that though Mikasa was a lot stronger physically than Armin, it would still have been foolish to think that he was helpless.

Eren didn’t know how to feel about them. On one hand, he craved their company and the touch of their soft skin that radiated heat, yet Eren felt like he was dancing around a dangerous fire. Every day he fear that there was no way that he could learn how to be human without the two of them noticing that he was not human at all. He knew that Armin was watching him closely.

“Eren, you can’t just hit people whenever you’re frustrated.”

“Do you have a family? Siblings or cousins?”

“There are rules in society.”

“How are you feeling?”

Eren hated that question. He felt like he was constantly on the verge of exploding into a ball of angry fire and at the same time it was like he was drowning in a tub of ice, but he had no way of explaining this to them. No way of relieving the burden of his soul. He was struggling with Armin’s lessons on language more than ever before with Carla as if the words simply did not want to stick to his brain. They were repelled like droplets of water on glass. Armin was a patient teacher, but Eren’s insecurity grew stronger with each failed lesson.

He kept reminding himself that without words he would never be able to talk to Little One, so he had to continue. The man would think that he was a halfwit, and he would never look at Eren again, ever; but his mind was dulled by harsh cold, and the cruel laughter of soldiers who enjoyed kicking the weak.

Eren didn’t want to look at them. He wanted Carla and the others. He wanted Little One. He didn’t want this unfamiliar city, he didn’t want to grow used to it. He was terrified of warming up to it and forgetting his old life in the brothel. On the days he didn’t think of Carla, he felt guilty, and on the days he did, there was no salvation, only pain, and regret.

He could’ve done something to help her, find her, save her. There must’ve been something. After he ran away from Hanji he could’ve checked so many more places. That place where they sold Carla’s favorite green thread, the one she used to embroider her apron, or the fishmongers, maybe she was there, or maybe…

On the seventh night, Eren found an abandoned corner behind a gargoyle. It was on the roof of an old monastery that was set up as a shelter for children who lost their parents during the attack. The monastery stood on the edge of the city. It was poorly furnished, plain, and nothing like the ones Eren saw downtown, where priests walked around in golden robes and wore heavy necklaces with shiny stones. The monks here were missing either a limb or perhaps an eye, fingers, an ear. They wore dull, brown garments, and gave their heavy, green cloaks to the children as blankets. Above the gate of the small church there was a sign that said: Peace and freedom.

In the dark Eren sat, his side leaning against the stone creature, and he was watching the building on the other side of the road with brows pulled together in disdain. It was a barrack for the local MP. At night it was loud and alive, echoing with laughter and music, while from below Eren heard the coughing of children who caught a nasty cold from sleeping on the ground. He felt sick to his stomach by the contrast.

His nightmares became worse too. While before the attack he only saw those blurry images of the forest and people he didn’t know, lately the suppressed memories of the past began to surface. He dreamed of one day, in particular, the day he took on this human shape. He still couldn’t remember everything that had happened.

He remembered being terrified. Remembered the pain and the urge to protect his human and his friends. Up until now it never really crossed Eren’s mind why he no longer had the body of a titan. Everything was so new and confusing around him, and philosophy was the last of his problems back then. Did the humans somehow take his titan body from him? Did he always have a human body?

He remembered that white-hot line slicing across his nape, he remembered Little One standing in front of him, those human features scrunched up in pain. Eren wanted to know who hurt him, and where he was in pain, but by then he was too weak. He was so scared. He was afraid of closing his eyes and never seeing Little One again. He was afraid of closing his eyes and waking up alone. In the end, the latter did happen.

He never fell asleep during daylight, not unless he was in the aftermath of a fight with titans. But if the titans didn’t hurt him, it had to be the humans, right?

Eren remembered the sharp pain he felt when Little One’s blades cut him on that day in the forest when they were ambushed. He picked up the human disregarding those sharp weapons. Back then Eren didn’t have time to acknowledge the pain. But he remembered still.

When his knees buckled and his back felt like it was on fire, he knew that those sharp things digging into his nape belonged to one of the green capes.

He didn’t know why the things around him were happening, why Little One insisted on Eren following them, why that heavy net of ropes was lowered onto him. Eren’s instincts ordered him to stay in the forest and guard it. But the calling to do so was faint, lost in the distance of centuries, while Little One was in the here and now, asking Eren to follow him.

He tried to think through the events that happened between leaving the forest and waking up as a human, but no matter how many times he forced himself to relive the memories, they never made sense. He couldn’t understand why those humans tried to kill him after arriving at the wall and not before. He couldn’t understand, yet he couldn’t let go either. The more he thought about it, the more ominous his thoughts got.

He watched the MP officers from the rooftops, brooding over the past. He sat there for hours regardless of the weather. Rainwater poured down on his face, the red scarf drenched around his neck, the cold metal key making him shiver as it touched his chest.

His anger was quietly boiling beneath the surface, sizzling in the cold rainwater as it evaporated from his body. When a soldier looked up, feeling the uncomfortable sensation of someone watching them intensely, Eren was no longer to be seen. The only proof that he was there was the quickly darkening patch of somewhat dry tiles on the roof.

Humans are just like titans, he wanted to say. Hungry, greedy, cruel, and there despicable. But lacking the words, he could only say: “Human cruel.”

Armin looked up at him, concern shadowing his face after hearing Eren’s sudden declaration. He noticed how Eren tended to use ‘human’ instead of ‘people’ or ‘person’.

“Not all of them are,” he tried talking Eren out of the dark thoughts that hung over him like clouds. “There are a lot of good people. But the titans are all cruel.”

Instead of saying something stupid, like disagreeing with Armin, Eren bit down on his lips. He stood in silence, his face hidden beneath his scarf. “Yes,” he parroted monotonously. “Titans are all cruel.”

One morning, when the soldiers were still asleep, Eren visited the barracks. Remains of the previous night were still all over the common room. Food, drinks, and people sleeping so deeply that not even a nudge to their side by Eren’s foot woke them. They smelled like cheap alcohol and smoke, so different from Little One’s pleasant flowery scent.

These people were living here like they had no eyes to see the world around them. All this food, thrown out, half-eaten like there weren’t people out there getting stabbed for scraps.

A thought hit him out of the blue.

That morning Eren raided the barrack’s kitchen, and took as much food with him as his two arms and small pockets could hold. He only kept a little to himself, knowing that he wouldn’t need as much anyway. He hid the rest under the blankets of the sleeping kids in the monastery. Eren was sure that one of the monks had noticed him, but he mustn’t have told anyone, because no one came to look for him from the MPs.

Growing more ambitious, Eren started sneaking into the barracks more and more often, and though every time he felt like it would be the day he got caught, he never was. It just made him even angrier. These soldiers had so much food that they didn’t even notice that a handful was gone.

As he grew more frustrated, Eren started cutting himself off from Armin and Mikasa too. He was bored by their constant questions of his identity, the way they tried to find more out about him. They watched him when they thought Eren wasn’t looking, and exchanged glances whenever Eren regrettably slipped up.

“Are you okay, Mikasa?” Eren heard them speak once they thought he was gone. “I noticed you’ve been on edge. More so than it would be given,” Armin added quietly, referring to the nightmarish situation they’ve been thrust into.

Mikasa pressed her lips together, knowing well that Armin would spot her lie from a hundred meters afar. “Not really. I feel like we’re being followed by… shadows.”

“Shadows?”

She nodded, not feeling like elaborating. She knew Armin would respect her boundaries no matter what or when she decided to speak. “Eren had been acting weird lately. Even more than usual.”

“I’ve noticed,” Armin muttered. Mikasa was being very discrete, especially by her standards. She never tended to beat around the bush, and calling Eren weird was an understatement.

Armin shivered every time the topic of the strange boy was mentioned between the two of them, or even when simply the memory of the bright yet confused gaze flashed across his mind. He couldn’t imagine how Eren grew up, how he lacked even the most basic skills in socialization such as knowing the language or understanding what a handshake was. What kind of parents could isolate their child from society to such an extent? Eren had to be taken care of by someone for the majority of his childhood to stay alive, but if that was the case then Eren still should’ve had at least a basic concept of how interpersonal relationships worked.

And when Armin thought about the cut on Eren’s back, which he had seen while the Squad Leader from the Survey Corps bandaged it up, Armin felt his heart squeeze with worry. He had seen many wounds in the training camp, and that injury on Eren’s back wasn’t something he could’ve gotten without any human involvement. It was made by a blade, he was sure of this. It made Armin sick to his stomach, especially after seeing how oblivious Eren was to so many things.

“Armin?”

He raised his head and was met with Mikasa’s concerned expression. “Sorry,” he quickly said. “I’m just… I’m not sure how I feel about leaving him behind.”

“I know,” Mikasa’s voice was gentle, barely above a whisper. Armin could see how the guilt she still carried made her shoulders slump forward a little.

“I just don’t think it would be good for him? I-I mean he seemingly has trouble warming up to people, and it seems like he started accepting us. I uh… even thought about trying to bring him with us back to camp, just so we wouldn’t lose contact with him.”

“Eren is not a wild animal you need to condition to humans, Armin,” Mikasa reprimanded him lightly. She sighed and stood to exercise her still tender leg. “I agree with you though. I still have to apologize to him,” she added quietly. “And thank him.”

“You already did, though.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t understand it yet. I want him to understand. Even if I was right,” she added, unable not to defend her case, and Armin couldn’t hold back his chuckle. “I’m still mad at him for stealing, he won’t get away with it so easily every time. It might be years later, but it will come back and bite him in the ass.”

“I’m sure he’ll manage…” Armin sighed. “I don’t think we can bring him along. Even if we could, that wouldn’t mean he’d want to come with us. He’s very strong, so he might be bullied into joining the army, and I don’t want that for him.”

Mikasa hummed and this was something on which they both agreed. Meanwhile, Eren leaned against the wall in the other room, none the wiser. All snooping did to him was that he was now even more frustrated. He heard his name mentioned more than once.

It was a week later when out of nowhere Armin told him, “Mikasa and I are leaving tomorrow.”

At first, Eren thought he heard him wrong. It wasn’t unusual for him to misunderstand words, in fact, it happened more often than it did not.

His lips parted, his gaze trying to search Armin’s, but the human never said anything that wasn’t true. “Leave?”

“Yes. It means that we’re not staying here any longer–”

“I know what mean ‘leave’!” Eren snapped, glaring at the boy like he could jump on him any minute. “Why?” he demanded and crossed his arms.

“I’m sorry, Eren, but it was never in the cards for us to stay,” Armin pleaded. Eren squinted his eyes at him, trying to figure out the meaning of the words. “We’re trainees in the military and we’re only allowed to leave once a month. We used to visit grandpa, but… now that’s not an option anymore.”

Eren stood, his body frigid. He didn’t understand anything apart from the news that Armin and Mikasa, his only two humans were leaving him. And he didn’t even know why. The answer was there in the air, Armin’s clear voice, and Eren couldn’t grasp it. “But.. I…!”

“Eren?” Mikasa tried, but Eren only hissed at her, his hands fisting in his hair.

“No, I not explain, I…” he growled and pulled even harder on his hair. “Ugh, angry!”

“Okay,” Armin said carefully. “You’re angry? You’re angry right now, Eren. Why are you angry?”

Eren tried and tried, opened his mouth over and over again, but no word came to him.

He turned around and left them without a word, fed up with the world and himself. Tears were prickling his eyes but Eren willed them away, forbidding himself to cry. It was okay, he was always alone, he managed to survive by himself for an eternity of unconscious existence in the forest. He didn’t need these people, he didn’t.

Armin and his never-ending patience. It angered Eren to no ends. The way he watched the world with those unsuspecting blue eyes as if he was blind. Did he not see why Eren was angry? Did he not see how the soldiers were beating up children who dared to ask them for food, or how they bullied young girls into spending a night at their barracks? Eren didn’t know what was done to them in there, why they looked so pale and tired in the morning, but soon he found out.

On that same day Eren decided to pay a trip to the barracks, his anger shaking his whole body. The sun was already starting to set. Lately, he had been trying to stay up past sunset, and Eren found that sunbathing and eating beforehand could prolong his inevitable passing out by a few hours. He had never been up long enough to see the starry night sky, but it was good enough for now.

He climbed up on the side of the building using the rocks sticking out of the wall as leverage. It was easy to pull himself up to the second floor where he saw the only window that was slightly open. He grabbed the metal windowsill when he heard the noise of crying and grunting coming from inside the room. Curious about what it was, he pulled himself up completely and peeked inside.

Cheap candles illuminated the room, and the rustling of fabric and muffled whimpers coming from the bed drew Eren’s attention to the figures standing in the corner.

The girl’s face was stained with what looked like tears and spit. Her ash brown strands of hair stuck to her forehead. Her face was crunched up in an expression of pain and fear, and Eren felt himself grow breathless as he listened to the sharp intakes of breath. The one soldier above her tried to wrestle her into the mattress and was busy tearing the jacket off her shoulders. Two others stood by the headboard, snickering and watching the struggle.

For a short moment, Eren thought that perhaps he was witnessing some strange human practice that he was not familiar with, but then Eren noticed something else. A sharp, silver flash on the girl’s throat, and another silent scream.

“I said stay fucking put!” the first soldier growled. The girl stopped struggling beneath him when she felt the cold metal dig into her skin. The man snickered victoriously and started fumbling around with his trousers. “I’ll take care of you if you behave, I’ll make you feel so good you’ll come back begging for more.”

Eren’s eyes widened. He watched the girl frown in disgust, her fingers wrapped around the blade, drawing blood. Her body moved out of sheer desperation, trying and failing to kick the man between the legs.

It was a familiar sight, yet Eren could not put his finger on where he’d seen this before, where he’d heard these noises, the talking. Parts of a room he knew flashed across his mind, that bedframe that he had seen many times before, and those sheets that were always kept pristine white.

Two figures on the bed. Brown hair, golden eyes. A frown, a twitch on the lips, discomfort. Eren froze in place by the window.

He inhaled sharply when the puzzle pieces finally clicked.

That one time when he didn’t leave the brothel. When he tried to stay awake past nightfall for the first time despite Carla specifically telling him to go home. She never let him stay there for the night, and that day Eren’s curiosity got the better of him.

“Stop making a fuss, you bitch, or I’ll cut you! Alright, don’t tell me I didn’t fucking warn y–,” the soldier hissed, and the blade dug deeper into the soft flesh, but he never got to finish the sentence.

Eren jumped inside the room without hesitation, and seeing how the knife was so close to slashing the delicate skin, he charged at the man at full speed. Eren didn’t give him nor the other two a chance to understand what was happening.

He grabbed the man by his hair and yanked him off the bed, then punched his soft throat hard enough for something to crack. The man gasped and stared up at the titan in bewilderment, but Eren no longer saw a human but a hungry, despicable creature who destroyed and devoured everything it got its hands on.

The fight was over in a heartbeat. The soldier swung his arm at Eren’s neck, knife still in hand, but his deadly punch was met with cold fingers of steel. Eren dodged the attack without a single conscious thought, the years of fighting titans making his reflexes superior to a human’s.

He grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it, and swung forward. Fingers tight around the soldier’s hand, the soldier’s hand tight around the handle of the knife.

The man let out a surprised yelp, and the sharp blade swiftly dug into his neck, just above the collarbone.

The room fell silent as the soldier’s body went limp, and Eren looked up to see the two others staring at him in shock. Then one of them came to his senses and yelled out, but Eren couldn’t hear what was said. His head was clouded by the smell of blood.

By the time the two men were ready to attack him, Eren had already hunched down and launched forward the same way he used to do when he was faced with a titan taller than him.

Blades were drawn and swung in Eren’s direction like extended canine teeth, grazing his chest. The girl screamed and scurried to the corner of the bed, holding up the duvet to her chin.

The knife swung in the air and blood gushed from a soldier’s stomach, the handle still trembling as the blade ate away his flesh. Eren’s hand remained in the air. He was bleeding too.

With his manmade weapon now out of reach, he was knocked to the ground by the one remaining soldier, hands around his neck. Eren gasped when the large thumbs pressed against his windpipe.

You can’t heal, his mind whispered. He’s killing you.

Eren growled out in pain and instead of crawling at the man’s hands, he fisted into the greasy blond hair and yanked his opponent towards himself.

The soldier gasped and fell forward. Something snapped in Eren’s throat as the pressure increased.

He opened his mouth, sharp teeth revealing themselves, and using the last of his strength Eren leaned forward, biting into the man’s throat.

Blood and screaming flooded into his mouth.

Eren choked on the hot, heavy fluid. It was filthy. Forcing his jaws to close, he heard the muscles and cartilage snap under his fangs; it was a sound he knew well. It was strange how human and titan blood tasted almost exactly the same.

With his mouth full of flesh, Eren finally bit through, his teeth pressing into each other. He threw the twitching, gaping body off himself before spitting out the disgusting chunk of meat. He wanted to throw up, but he had more important issues.

Standing up, he felt warm blood trail down from his mouth and face. Some of it was his own.

The soldiers quickly bled out. Eren realized, somewhat surprised, that he didn’t feel sorry for them at all.

A quiet sob averted his attention from the bodies and back to the young girl. She scooted to the farthest corner of the bed, away from the bodies, but her large, amber-colored eyes couldn’t stop staring at Eren. The tears have dried on her cheeks.

He opened his mouth to ask if she was okay, but a sharp pain in his throat reminded him that the soldier must’ve injured something in there. He estimated that by tomorrow he could talk properly again. No healing smoke; no voice.

At least he was still able to breathe. He wiped the drying blood from his face.

“H-Holy shit, th-they’re gonna kill you,” the girl managed to choke out, her voice trembling. She was small, Eren noted, small compared to him and especially small compared to the soldiers. Of course that those rats would choose someone like her. She had no chance of fighting back to begin with. “The MPs will lock you up and hang you.”

Eren’s ears perked up. Those words were familiar, something he heard a long time ago inside a stone room with iron bars, or at least it felt like it was a long time ago to him.

If he was right about guessing what the girl said, the soldiers would probably try to find out who left these bodies behind, and if only one person had seen this girl enter the barracks with these men, then they would go after her. If Eren had seen anything of these soldiers, it was that they didn’t care much for justice. They would probably beat this girl to death without a trial.

There was a distant sound of laughter coming from below, somewhere on the first floor. Eren’s back straightened, his whole body standing straight in alarm. No one had barged in on them yet, meaning that by some miracle they weren’t close enough to hear the struggle of the fight. However, these bodies won’t be left unseen for long.

“How old?” he asked absently because in the moment of heightened senses Eren simply couldn’t remember how to ask for a human’s name. It was almost like he had been partly detached from his body and mind, and something else took control over him that was much too familiar. It was hard to think and talk like a human moments after lashing out at his prey like a titan.

Surprise knitted the girl’s brows hearing Eren’s strange phrasing, but she answered anyway. “Nine,” she said.

“You leave. I…” not knowing how to finish the sentence, Eren pointed at the corpses. The girl slowly nodded, and her face was colored grey with horror again as if she had forgotten for a moment what had happened.

She stood on shaky legs, but Eren growled out to stop her when she reached for the doorknob.

“No,” he warned and pointed at his ear. The girl looked confused, then Eren realized that her senses must’ve been a lot weaker than his. Her human ears probably haven’t picked up on the sounds coming from below yet.

Those soldiers might come looking for their friends any minute, and Eren still had to get the girl out of there and do something with the bodies. What does one even do with human corpses?

Showing the best route of escape Eren pointed at the open window through which he climbed in, and luckily the girl didn’t protest. She scurried to the window and skillfully climbed out, making Eren wonder if she was in a similar situation to his. Alone in a city full of strangers, left to her skill and wit to survive.

Once the girl was safe and on the ground of the narrow alley, she looked up one more time. Those wide amber eyes met Eren’s in pure awe. Her shy fear melted into something warm and determined that Eren didn’t understand nor thought he deserved.

“I-I won’t forget this! I’ll pay you back, crazy guy!”

Eren scoffed. Humans were strange.

He turned back to the bloodied room and took a moment to carefully listen to the sounds coming from below. His mind was occupied by strategizing on how to destroy the evidence of the filthy human’s actions when his eyes found the lazily blinking candles on a table.

Eren picked up one of them and then glanced at the bed. The crumpled-up sheets reminded him of what was about to happen to that girl just there. It made his stomach tighten uncomfortably. He didn’t know what exactly would’ve happened if he didn’t step in, but he decided that he didn’t want to know.

His mind was plagued by the disturbing images, wishing he could forget what he remembered. He couldn’t feel a single ounce of regret or sorry for these people who were now laying cold in their own blood. He only wished he knew the discomfort Carla was exposed to at night. He would’ve protected her too if he knew. He never felt like killing titans was wrong, and this was not the day when doubt found him regarding humans either. He felt nothing for these men, except for the simmering disgust and rage that kept marring his insides like acid.

Unfortunately or not, people could not be killed twice, and Eren didn’t have the luxury of time to curse these humans for much longer.

Ge grabbed a candle and held the flame to the dirty sheet that hung from the edge of the bedframe, and it was the first time he felt some sort of relief since he lost Carla. The off-white fabric first turned brown at the edges, then the flame began to spread until a tongue of fire the size of Eren’s arm began to dance on the sheets.

Eren watched, mesmerized. He felt helplessly weak compared to these orange flames. How fragile, how small they looked, the transparent colors of the sunset, yet they devoured everything in their way like Eren used to when he was still in his titan body.

He wanted to cry for how weak he was now. As he looked into the fire he thought, this is what I want to be.

As the room was slowly consumed by the bright flames and smoke began to cloud the edges of the room, Eren climbed down on the side of the house and walked to the front. From there he could see perfectly how the top right corner of the barracks slowly began to crumble and turn into smoke. He made sure to drop a burning candle on each of the bodies before he left.

For a few minutes, Eren was alone, watching the house burn down. Then people began to notice the smell and the grey cloud hovering above the building, and someone rang a bell. The soldiers started yelling out for each other, people ran out onto the street both from surrounding buildings and from inside the burning structure.

The flames quickly swallowed everything. The orange glow was bright against the evening sky, and for the first time, Eren wasn’t tired by nightfall. Watching this place of monsters melt into ash was the first thing that made his lips twitch in a long time.

The panic around him didn’t phase Eren. He couldn’t see nor hear anything but the cracking of the fire, and the beautiful music that echoed in his mind. Memories of an afternoon he spent in a warm kitchen, hiding from the madam, stealing honey apples from the baker down the street with Roman, placing his head in Carla’s soft lap.

That small smile faltered.

Something buried deep inside Eren’s heart began to surface, as if the fire was scorching away the last of his pretenses. The heat burned his face. The world around him was crumbling into pieces. Familiar things turned brown and black, falling into ash to be blown away by the wind, and no one was able to collect the pieces. Gone forever.

Armin asked how he felt, and this was Eren’s answer. This was him, telling the world what he couldn’t say in words, what he could never say in words.

Eren dropped to his knees, and the weight of everything that had happened these past weeks finally crashed down on him all at once. All the pain and confusion that he never learned how to cope with. His emotions melted into tears and he started sobbing, his palms pushing against his closed eyes, trying to numb the throbbing headache.

He was so tired. Tired of pushing through the crowd, tired of the cold, tired of being alone, of not being touched, of not laughing and bickering with someone. He wanted to be angry and he used this emotion to keep him on his feet, but he was exhausted.

A hand slipped on his shoulder. A knee hit the ground beside him with a soft thud when someone crouched down, and soon the same thing followed on the other side. Two pairs of arms wrapped around him. They were hesitant at first, but the more Eren leaned into them, the stronger the embrace became.

A cool droplet of water fell onto the overheated skin of Eren’s forehead. Then there was another. And another.

And another.

Those small beads of tears began to rain down on his quavering body relentlessly, but he wasn’t shaking from the cold. Those arms were holding him tightly, giving him the warmth of two hearts.

I’m sorry that I let you go. I wish I could’ve saved you. As if on cue, Armin choked on a quiet sob, and held Eren closer. There was no need to say anything. Eren cried until he felt empty of tears. He could smell the scent of the ash mixing with rainwater.

He later had a feeling that his two friends knew it was him who burned down the barracks, but he never admitted it and they never asked.

The soldiers began to look for the source of the fire, and one of them soon accused Eren of being the one who burnt down their lodging. By then he had the reputation of a local hellraiser. Eren didn’t know who the accuser was. He got beaten up by so many of the soldiers that he couldn’t remember all of them. After a while they started to look all the same, their faces blurring in Eren’s mind.

He was accused, rightfully so. They wanted to take him into custody and lock him up no doubt, but Mikasa stepped up. Later on, Eren was still baffled when he thought about that determined, almost threatening look on her face as she stood between the officers and Eren. She lied through her teeth for him, giving him an alibi that he did not have.

In the end, the soldiers backed down and busied themselves with extinguishing the fire. The bodies were not found, nor was Gabi, which was the name of the girl whom Eren saved. She lost her parents when a horde of titans ran down her village inside Wall Maria and was brought here by a squad of scouts who were out there evacuating the inner towns.

From then on things got better. Eren wasn’t quite the same as he used to be, and he guessed that he would never be again. The world shifted around him, constantly giving and taking away, but Mikasa and Armin were always there when he most needed them.

The two humans had to leave soon after the fire, but they always came back. Every thirty or so days Eren was anxious, fearing that perhaps this would be the time when the two finally decided to abandon him, but they never did. Slowly Eren began to count down the day until their return with excitement rather than fear.

…Excitement that quickly turned into fear again the moment Mikasa narrowed her eyes at him while reciting the latest news she heard about that one notorious thief in Trost that no one was able to catch.

Eren would smile sheepishly and play dumb, while Armin would try to ease the tension with his ever so diplomatic approach. It wasn’t how things used to be, but it was a start. It gave Eren hope; something he thought he lost in Shiganshina.

Eren walked the kids back to the brothel, where the madam was already waiting for them.

“Where the hell have you been?!” the woman howled with angry red patches on her cheeks and her blond hair looking more frizzy than usual. Small beads of sweat rolled down on her temples. “Gone without a word, huh? No note, no nothing, beds unmade!”

Udo’s face went pale and Falco gulped nervously as the madam stomped up to them. She poked all four of them harshly on the chest with her lean finger while glaring at them as if they were breakfast.

“But we were hunting that thief, Madam Lydia!” Gabi exclaimed bravely, only for her fiery stare to melt into a scared little sable’s glance when the woman shifted her attention to her.

“I told you specifically Gabi Brown not to stick your nose in adult business,” she scowled but it would’ve been hard not to notice the hint of concern in her voice. She then turned to reprimand the other three too when as if snapping out of her outraged daze she noticed Eren standing behind the troublemakers.

It wasn’t the first time the kids came home to the madam’s temper blowing off, and Eren reckoned it wouldn’t be the last time either.

Lydia’s frown turned into a bright smile in a split second. “Eren dear, would you like to come in for a cup of gin? I saved some for you.”

“She offers the gin to him but not to us?” Gabi whined to Falco, who was about ready to shut her up before she dragged them into even more trouble. “This is so unfair!”

Eren didn’t understand all the excitement for that foul-smelling drink. It burned his sensitive nose like rotten fruits and smoke.

“You don’t get any because you’re still too young, missy, so don’t you get smart with me! I don’t care what that drunken bartender in Maiden’s Hair says, alcohol is not for kids! Now get lost! I’m sorry about them, Eren, what did you say?”

“No money,” Eren showed his hands to emphasize what he meant. “Huma– man have stone, no money.”

The madam huffed and crossed her arms on her chest. “That lowlife. People these days have no honor. Still, come inside, Eren, it can’t be too nice walking bare feet all day. Freddie might have an old pair of boots that he outgrew…”

“No, it’s okay!” Eren rushed to stop her with a nervous smile before the woman would try to force him to wear those awful leather confinements.

“Are you sure? You can always stay here if you want,” the madam prodded gently. Her intentions were nothing but pure, yet her words made Eren’s stomach squeeze into an uncomfortable fist of nerves. The brothel, though he had only been inside once, looked similar to his home in Shiganshina, and so did the workers. Even the madam. It hurt him to be welcomed back to this place. He preferred not to be reminded of what he lost.

“It’s okay,” Eren said awkwardly. “Thank you,” he added because humans seemed to like that.

“Hm. You know, Freddie seems to like you a lot,” the madam said mischievously, which Eren didn’t understand at all. He had only been in the brothel once, but otherwise, he would always collect his payment in either food or a few silver coins at the backdoor.

“Why like me Freddie?”

“Love knows no boundaries, dear,” the madam cooed. “Now he might be a man but his affection is sincere… as unrealistic as that sounds,” she added with a regretful smile. “Freddie is a good boy.”

Eren blinked, the confusion as bright as daylight on his features. The madam sighed and lovingly patted Eren’s cheek.

“You’re so pure, you know that? Well, you might just be a little too young. I would never tell, you’re so handsome. Ah, I’m just babbling, don’t you pay attention to me! Stay away from fishy people, alright?” she smiled and Eren halfheartedly nodded.

“And stay away from trouble too! I know you, young man!” she yelled after him once he was safely on top of the roof. Eren waved her goodbye and took off.

The madam stayed only a moment longer to admire the way the young boy hopped from one house to another, the almost unnatural fluidity of his movements making her feel slightly uneasy.

She sighed and shook her head before heading back to the brothel to scold Gabi, whom no doubt was knee-deep in complaining to the other three. Those four brats would be the end of her, she just knew.

Eren lived in the same monastery’s attic that he found on the first week he spent in Trost. Behind that one gargoyle, which he used to use for cover, he discovered a larger gap between the stones of the wall, large enough to fit through. It led to a tight space above the common room. Eren never initiated contact with the people living here, but he knew that they were aware that he was there. He learned to accept that not every human was cruel and selfish.

Underneath the roof, he had a decent sized place, and it was dry too, which came as a blessing once the weather turned sour. Eren slept on the hardboard floor, not particularly bothered by the cold, and when he was not sleeping nor roaming the city, he spent his time fiddling with an old lute.

He found the instrument the day after he burned down the old MP barracks. Or as he sometimes liked to think, perhaps the instrument found him. Eren was impulsive and wanted everything when he wanted them, but for this once he didn’t rush it. He took his time, getting one-time jobs and hunting for silver coins the old-fashioned way that didn’t include theft. It would’ve been easy to snatch the lute from the old shop owner and run, but he simply couldn’t. He had a feeling that Carla wouldn’t have liked that.

Eren laid down on his back in the attic and listened in awe to the sweet sound of the strings below his fingers. He watched Carla play the lute many times, but he didn’t know how it should be done, so he simply played the sounds that he liked, the patterns of improvised songs that spoke to him.

When the world around him became too much and his words turned shallow, unable to express what he felt, he picked up the lute and played with it, looking for the tune that matched the color of his heart. The sound was familiar and calming, one that reminded him of the two homes he lost, one in Shiganshina and one far out behind the Walls.

I’m sorry that I didn’t find you, he wanted to say to Carla. I wish I saved you. I don’t want to lose anyone again, so please watch over Mikasa and Armin, and Little One too. He was probably out there, slaying titans, risking his life to save children like Gabi and the rest. Eren let out a shaky breath, the strings carrying a longing feeling under his fingers. Watch over him for me, please, while I can’t.

The sky rumbled outside, and a gust of wind that whistled through the cracks in the wall promised rain. Eren sniffed the air curiously. His instincts told him that he wouldn’t stay here for long. A change was coming, and Eren wanted to be ready when it arrived.

Blood gushed everywhere, and Levi only took a moment to admire his work before turning his back on the damned titan’s corpse. He whistled for his horse and swiftly encouraged her to catch up with the others.

“Captain! We’re ready to retreat! Everyone’s inside and safe!” Petra called out on horseback, blades glowing in red and face flushed.

Not everyone. Only those few whom we managed to warn in time. Casting aside his bitter exhaustion, Levi gave Petra a curt nod anyway. Four titans were heading their way from the south and two from the west, and both his team and their horses were tired. It would start raining soon by the look of the horizon too.

They’ve been outside of Wall Sina for about twelve hours, riding from Klorva to Trost, alerting the villages to flee north. The rest of the Survey Corps was busy delivering the news from Shiganshina to the other three outer districts. Compared to how sluggish most titans were, they had the most annoying ability to flood the inside of Wall Maria rather quickly.

Using his hips to rock the horse forward, Levi followed his team toward the gates of Trost.

Chapter Text

"Eeeh? What the hell is this?" Oluo whined upon arriving at their destination. Their lodging was anything but lavish on the outside, and their surroundings, the dirt poor district sure as hell didn't help lift the spirits.

"It could be worse," Gunther suggested though it was evident by his expression that no, he couldn't imagine worse. The building was practically falling apart before their very eyes.

"Quit bitching," Levi grunted and led his horse toward the stable.

Behind his back, he could hear Petra hiss something to Oluo, "we're lucky to have housing like this! One quarter of mankind lost its home, show some decency!"

Something snapped and Oluo whined, and Levi just tuned them out. They've been through some of the most stressful weeks of his life, and at the end of it all Levi felt was dull exhaustion. Interacting with civilians was never his forte. He didn't have what it took to deeply care for them, and he sure as hell loathed the idea that his soldiers died for pigs who were now busy trashing them behind their backs.

Anyway. Not much point dwelling on it.

The sun was still above the Wall, but the sky was already tinted with a light shade of orange.

Young boys who worked at the stables quickly fetched their horses. Levi tossed the reign to one of them and unbuckled the saddlebags, wanting nothing more than a tub of warm water and clean bedsheets. Dried blood was covering his clothes and patches of skin like infectious dust.

“I’ve heard that the rate of crime just in this district became seven times more frequent since the attack," Eld said while the rest of them followed Levi and began unpacking. "We should be mindful of where we leave our belongings.”

Levi hummed. Hunger and poverty did things to people that nothing else could, he out of all people would know that. Morals were only affordable when one had a full stomach. Otherwise, it was a luxury that only made people slow and vulnerable, something that killed almost as many people as the toxic dust that people breathed in Underground.

Fuck morals, honestly. Fuck living by the confinement of a myriad of rules. They do no good to anyone.

You should’ve killed a few.

His hands stopped in the middle of lifting the saddlebag off his horse. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his face paled.

Just a few.

What's this now?

Cold hands. Cold face. Screaming in the rain, hushed orders, the ground shaking beneath him. Fuck, shit, stop it, do you even realize what you just suggested–

Should’ve killed a few. Kill them, break free, fight your titans, prove your loyalty, stay alive. A few don't matter. It's worth it. Shrug them off, give up this stupid fucking disgust of human flesh and break free. Make them go away, kill humans then kill titans, it’s a fair trade.

There are no rules in this world. Kindness is a lie. Selflessness is a lie.

Kill them. Just don’t let them reach you, cover the nape, please…

“Captain?”

Levi winced. He let go of the saddlebag straps, which he had been grasping so tight that his knuckles went white. He cleared his throat. “What?”

What brought this on? He thought he stopped letting these intrusive thoughts reach him. It had been a while since they found him. Why now then, after weeks of silence?

He wiped the disgusting, sticky sweat from his forehead to stroll for time. He was so damn tired, his insomnia was at an all-time high.

Captain. Petra was standing in front of him, light brown eyes swimming in a pool of anxiety.

“Are you alright, Captain? You look very pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“Maybe some tea would–”

“I said I’m fine,” Levi barked at her irritably. She flinched, the uncalled for harshness pulling her lips into a startled frown. Levi sighed and turned his back to her, ready to leave this conversation behind. “Just tired.”

“Of course,” Petra nodded sympathetically, but Levi knew that he hurt her. He grabbed his saddlebag and went inside.

Perhaps he should’ve felt bad for snapping at Petra, who clearly only wanted the best for him. Maybe he should’ve regretted refusing to talk to someone who cared, but as he walked inside his cold room and shut the door behind him, locking himself away from any warm company, he felt exactly nothing.

That’s how it was for what seemed like an eternity. Cold apathy consumed his whole existence, the entirety of his being with only the occasional moments of happiness, an illusion that hurt more than helped. It was so much easier like this, nothing getting close enough to him to scrap the surface. There was an invisible shield between Levi and the rest of the world. The space in his heart left behind by people whom he let in was now occupied by that solid nothingness that was everywhere around him.

Even his dreams stopped coming after the breach at Maria, as if he willed them away. In those few hours of sleep he got, he used to be plagued by memories of paradise, only to wake up and realize that the world around him was still the nightmare he knew. Faces and voices of the past visited him at night, promised to him that losing them was only a bad dream, and they lied over and over again. And each time Levi tried to cling to them, he always woke up alone in his cold bed.

But that was the past. Even those false dreams left him behind in the end, and it was for the better. But then why did Levi just remember now, how did those torturous thoughts of guilt find their way back to his heart, when he was so meticulous about shutting them out?

Levi shook his head. His body moved on autopilot, not needing the constant distraction of his mind and heart. The noise settled down, slowly died, and rotted away, and Levi was empty, inspecting the dirtiness of the room with distant impassivity.

The place was decent enough compared to a night spent in a titan’s mouth, but there was still a lot of work to be done. No matter how long he would stay here, whether it was just one night or a month, Levi never left a single cobweb untouched. On his way upstairs he noticed that on the stairs there was something that suspiciously looked like mouse droppings; Levi wasn’t going to eat anything from this kitchen, that was sure.

Once they received their rooms, Levi spared no time and began cleaning. Normally he preferred to unpack his things first and get a shower, but not even the disgusting feeling of sweaty clothes clinging to his skin would’ve convinced him to step inside that bathtub.

Luckily enough the owner had an unopened bottle of bleach in stock, which was the first real ray of sunshine that day. Ignoring the strange looks he got, Levi made his way back to the room with the bleach in his tight embrace and began the mind-numbing process of drenching the room in cleaning products from top to bottom.

“Absolutely filthy,” he muttered while scrubbing the bottom of the tub so harshly that it was a wonder how by the end of the process the cheap metal didn’t have a hole in it. This is why he hated sleeping anywhere that wasn’t his living quarters. Even camping on the ground in a forest was better than this.

His anxiety was spiking up by the minute, noticing new and new patches of dirty surfaces weren't cleaned yet. He scrubbed the floor on all fours, a white handkerchief covering his nose and mouth. His hands were pink and irritated from the harsh chemicals, but it was either this now or in the middle of the night because it was as sure as hell that he wouldn’t be able to sleep if there was only a speck of dust anywhere near him.

The bleach had clouded the air in the room, a toxin most likely to anyone who wasn’t so accustomed to it as Levi was. Still, the smell bothered him, so he went to open a window. He groaned when he noticed the bird shit on the outer sill. How was this place still open when the rooms were covered in filth? He was just about ready to storm downstairs and scream in the owner’s face when he heard laughter coming from the street below.

Levi frowned, taking the stranger’s happiness as a direct offense towards himself and his Sisyphean task. He leaned out of a window to yell whatever profanities his bleach-clouded mind could come up with, but no words came to him when he looked down.

Across the street a few houses down east was a rather lively building, the lights already lit inside and on the exterior too, more notably a single red lantern above what looked like a back door.

Levi’s knuckles went white from the brute force with which he was gripping the dirty rag. Not getting stationed in the same inn with the rest of the returning scouts due to the lack of available rooms? That he was fine with. Getting a place at an old, dusty, and nasty inn? Fine, still better than sleeping in a titan’s non-existent asshole. But that snake, that Erwin motherfucking Smith put them next to a brothel? Oh, Levi was fuming.

The last thing he wanted after a week of non-stop slaughter, killing titans, and saving civilians, the last thing he needed now was a night crowded by the sound of people fucking like rabbits.

Was Erwin at fault for this inconvenience? No, and Levi didn’t sleep much anyway. But could Levi still blame him for it? Absolutely. Erwin and his perfect caterpillar eyebrows, Levi seethed. He will shave those one day. It was only a matter of time.

He spent the whole day cleaning, and when the sun started setting he felt like he accomplished absolutely nothing. He religiously scrubbed the floor over and over again, wiped every smudge off the windows, then sent for clean sheets but he was still unsatisfied.

There was noise coming from downstairs, and recognizing the obnoxious voice calling his name, he mentally tried to prepare himself for the brain damage that Hanji was about to submit him to.

“Aaah, bored,” Eren groaned and dropped his head against the wall. Who knew that getting a real job could be so damn boring? Since five o’clock that afternoon he’d been sitting by the brothel’s main entrance to assist the madam on this busy night, but if only he knew what was coming.

Eren was excited to have a job like a human - until about ten minutes after starting his shift he realized that being human was the most mundane thing imaginable. He didn't know how his evening could get any more uneventful.

He sat, watched the people who entered the brothel, and looked for the ones who were known troublemakers. The madam and the workers gave him detailed descriptions of the people he was supposed to chase away, and Eren was even excited to face off against these greedy, human-sized titans – except none showed up.

Eren only noticed that lean man with the grey complexion whom he and the kids caught yesterday. He was lurking near the entrance like a stray dog, beady eyes trained on the workers inside.

“Oi!” Eren growled, averting the man’s attention from the girls to himself.

The moment he spotted Eren sitting by the door, a wave of fear washed over his features. It made Eren’s fist twitch. Coward. He could easily deal with a human like that alone, could make sure that he didn't have working bones in his legs to walk anywhere near the brothel again, but Eren refrained from acting on impulses just this once.

He still needed to watch the brothel for other troublemakers, and he didn't want to do anything that risked his identity being revealed. After all, not many people walked around breaking bones.

Intimidation would never hurt though, and Eren wouldn’t lie, his hands were itching to slap something. He stood and took a step forward, his aura promising pain, and the man was smart enough to give up on whatever shady plans he had for tonight.

He spun around and run away as fast as he could. Eren narrowed his eyes irritably, unable to unsee the resemblance between titans and humans like that man. How disheartening it was to know that no matter where he went, there would always be titans in this world.

Kicking an empty bottle on the ground instead of punching the man, Eren sat down again and seethed by himself.

He would never understand why these people, mostly men, would go through the trouble of getting a beating or spending a fortune just to be in the company of some of these workers. Madam Lydia was polite enough not to go in on a detailed explanation when Eren asked what her job was, so Eren just didn’t get it.

Sure, the workers were nice, especially the Freckled Freddie, who always trailed after the titan with an eager smile, but Eren wouldn’t pay him just to do that.

Anyway, Eren sighed. It was getting dark, and he started feeling that familiar pulling. He made sure to eat something before he started the job, so resisting it was slightly easier than it would've been otherwise. Eren found that if he had enough sunshine and food, staying awake was really just a question of will. If he had enough sunshine.

Eren peered up at the black sky without stars, cursing the clouds for only letting through that cold, greyish light. He sighed, and thought, things could be worse. Little One could shove a tiny broom in my face and order me to clean. Or just smack my head with said broom.

A sheepish smile spread across his face, and he lost focus of the world around him, his memories guiding him back to a lakeshore. Back there the world around him was always bright and warm. If only there was a way to–

A noise coming from behind startled him, followed by a familiar scent, then a boyish voice: “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing,” Eren mumbled. He didn’t mind Freddie at all, but he was kind of in the middle of daydreaming, and pulling himself out of those dreams so abruptly was rather painful. He wanted to use the time he had left of the day remembering and digging up new words he heard. He would repeat those to Armin, who in turn explained them. Sometimes it was the funniest thing ever, seeing Armin get all flustered just from words.

"Armin, what mean ‘fucking'?"

Armin squealed and dropped the book he was holding. It landed on his toes and Armin had to bite back a pitiful whine. "Ow! Uh- well, um… W-where did you even hear that word?"

"Just h- person on street," Eren lied. "What mean?"

"Uh, i-it means when two people participate in the act of reproduction… When two people make a baby."

Eren gasped. "A baby?!" he cried out, unable to grasp why Little One thought of babies when he looked at Eren's titan form. "Screaming, tiny people? He wanted make baby with me?"

"No, oh, gods, at least I hope no one wants that with you. It doesn't really work like that. Between two men, I mean. It’s just a word. A bad word. Only rude people use it."

"Really? That make sense," he mumbled and didn't notice Armin's quizzical look. Little One did love kicking and hitting him, which was also something that Armin said was rude.

"Yeah. It’s sort of used as an expression of anger or frustration."

"So… people only make baby with people they angry with?"

"Oh, I’m really bad at this. No, usually babies… are born when a man and woman really love each other. So as a boy, you can’t make a baby with another man."

"Oh, good! I scared a bit. I no idea how take care of baby."

Freddie took a seat beside him, nimble fingers fidgeting with the hem of his clothing. Eren watched his hands but saw another’s. Freddie had a wide palm and sun-kissed, stubby fingers, while Little One’s were lean and pale. His hands were always cold too if Eren remembered correctly.

Only now that Eren felt the harsh weather through his human skin did he really understand how uncomfortable Little One had to be. It was a miracle that he didn’t starve to death or froze into a tiny icicle. The thought made Eren sad and angry – sad that Little One had to go through so much, and angry with himself for not taking better care of him. It was pure luck that his instincts hinted at what he was supposed to do. Otherwise, the human wouldn’t have lived.

“Eren?”

He looked up abruptly, realizing that he must’ve missed something the boy said. Freddie was looking at him uncertainly, and his fidgeting became more nervous.

“Sorry, what?” Eren said just as Armin taught him. “I uh–” he pointed a finger in the direction of his head, “lost.”

The tension melted away from Freddie’s face and he smiled at Eren. He had beautiful auburn colored hair that hung below his shoulders, and during sunset it looked like it was on fire. Roman’s hair used to be like that.

Eren looked away, his memories still too painful.

Little One’s hair though was so different from human's that Eren had seen, except for maybe Mikasa’s. It was black, but depending on the light that fell on it sometimes it looked a cool brown, and other times it was almost a beautiful and confusing mix of blue and purple. Eren had only seen a similar color on the shiny shields of bugs, but never on people…

“…don’t you think?” Freddie asked, expectant eyes locked onto Eren.

Shit. He lost track again. Quickly he hummed noncommittally, which he found was a good enough answer in most situations. Humans could interpret that any way they wanted to, and Eren didn’t have to feel embarrassed for not understanding half of the words they used.

“You know, you’re really brave for doing this,” Freddie sighed longingly, a tone Eren didn’t know where to put. This job was the most boring thing he ever had to do.

“Sitting?” he asked skeptically. Or did he refer to running on rooftops? Sure, it wasn’t always the easiest thing to do, but Eren eagerly pushed himself to remember as much as he could of Little One flying with his gear, and he tried to replicate his moves without the strings. Did he fall on his ass more often than not? Yes, but then he always got back up and tried again.

“No, I mean chasing away the bad guys,” Freddie laughed awkwardly, then the same laugh got cut off abruptly.

Eren, who had been watching the people in the meanwhile, turned back to Freddie to see what was wrong, and why he stopped laughing, but the human didn’t seem injured or unhealthy. His gaze was directed only at Eren, something that made the titan want to back off. “And, you know, protecting us.”

“I get money,” Eren furrowed his brows, not understanding where this conversation was coming from. “And chasing titan scarier.”

Freddie’s face fell, his mind immediately going to Shiganshina, and his cheeks burned up with embarrassment. Eren sighed internally. Damn him if he understood anything about humans.

“Oh, that’s not what I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“Eren!” Zofia leaned out of the doorway and threw a small leather purse at him. “It’s from Madam Lydia. She says thank you and you’re free to go!”

Eren caught the purse with a wide smile on his face and didn’t notice how Freddie was looking at him like a kicked puppy. "Thank you!"

“It’s okay, boo,” Zofia whispered to the boy with a sad smile. “He doesn’t notice anyone either.”

Eren was too distracted by counting those golden pebbles to notice the hushed conversation. By the look of it, he probably had enough to buy a nice present for Armin. His birthday was coming up in a few weeks, and Eren wanted to thank him for always teaching him. Armin liked reading, so Eren thought he could visit that shop where all the paper stacks are sold. Armin said they’re called books.

“I go now! Bye!” he grinned at the Zofia, and waved goodbye, leaving Freddie behind without a second thought. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He just had no fucking clue what the boy wanted. Humans were always so cryptic. If only they could all be like…

“Levi!”

“No.”

“Eeeh?” Hanji dramatically threw herself against the doorframe and pouted like she was freshly released from kindergarten. She had the emotional range of a toddler too, Levi thought. “You didn’t even hear me out! How would you know what I want?”

Levi rolled his eyes and continued folding his jacket into a neat rectangle. He was so eager to finally get out of his traveling clothes that he was willing to kill someone for it. Hanji probably should've been very careful of how she planned to annoy him. “You plan to convince me to go to a pub and then get me drunk.”

“Is… my plan working?” she smiled nervously.

Levi frowned. That store two streets from here should have lavender-scented soap, no? It looked like a fairly nice place when he and his squad passed by this morning. This inn better had warm water or there would be bloodshed.

“Get out of my room before I kick you out myself.”

“But Leviii! Please, please, pleaseee!”

“Fuck off, Hanji, I’m tired.”

“Hanji?”

“…Yes?”

“Why do you call me Hanji? That honestly frightens me a little, what did I do?” she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at her friend. “Um, my kneecaps are still safe, no?”

Levi mocked her constipated expression like the annoying shit he was and feigned ignorance. “Um, Hanji’s your name, no?”

“Yes, that’s exactly my point! Hanji, who’s Hanji, and where’s Levi with his cussing and shit jokes?”

"Do you want me to verbally abuse you?"

"I want you to pull that stick out of your ass!"

“I told you, I’m just tired,” Levi sighed, his thoughts trailing back to that lavender-scented bathwater. He was cold again.

“What have you been doing since you arrived about eight hours ago, hm?” Hanji demanded.

“I had to clean my room, you should’ve seen it, it was even in a worse state than your living quarters are, it was absolutely…”

Hanji groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’ve been cleaning for eight hours?”

“...What's wrong with that?”

“Oh, dear Sina, are you sure you're human? Fine, it’s settled then, I'm making the decisions for you from now on!” she exclaimed excitedly, frown gone, her mood flipping upside down in a heartbeat. “You’re coming with me. It’s my duty as your best friend to make sure that you’re still filthy drunk when you wake up tomorrow!”

“Hanji, I said no,” Levi’s growl is nothing short of a threat that promised a proper slap if he wasn’t let go at that instant.

“C’mon, please?” Hanji pleaded and pressed her palms together in front of her chest as if she was praying. “I wanna spend some time with you, it’s gonna be so fun!”

Levi clenched his fists and raised his chin, ready to kick that shitty glasses out of the room for good. “No.”

“So then I said,” Levi finally managed to squeeze the words through his lips between two fits of wheezes, “ 'I’m ‘ere to serve and protect!' ”

Hanji’s palm slapped against the table, barely able to hold back throughout the story, and laughter erupted around the table. The boisterous sound exploded in Levi’s ear through the cloud of alcohol, and it made his head feel fuzzy.

Hanji crashed against his side, head on his shoulder. The wine almost spilled out of her glass, which she held rather irresponsibly while she waved it around, making nonsense gestures. Levi frowned, but he couldn’t find the anger in him to push her off. The alcohol muted his constant frustrations and they faded away in the smoky room.

“All the– all the while you–,” she struggled through her cackling that was loud enough to hurt the ear. Tears were running down her cheeks from how hard she had been laughing at Levi’s story. “While you were still dressed like a maid?”

She was barely able the finish the sentence before she saw Levi’s face scrunch up in held-back laughter, and slamming a hand on the table she started howling again.

Levi almost followed, pursing his lips and covering his mouth to save the little pride he had left, but still looking like an absolute idiot. His head was spinning, and he leaned into Hanji. His body was shaking from his friend’s giggles. He didn’t tell much about that one incident in his teenage years, not wanting to reveal too much of his past, but he knew the parts he had to tell to make Hanji piss her pants.

The table around them was in a similar state. Squad Hanji and Nanaba's people who traveled with Erwin. The rest of the scouts were fuck all to be seen, but on the one night that they got free no one cared to keep track of all their subordinates.

“I can’t fucking believe that they fell for that,” Hanji chuckled when she came down from her hysterics.

“Duh, bitch, th’fuck does that mean? For sure they fell for it!” Levi slurred, offended beyond belief that Hanji doubted him.

“I just can’t imagine you fooling anyone with your hairy little legs poking out of a skirt.”

Levi scoffed. “I’ll have y’know, I look damn good in a skirt, so fuck off!”

Soon there was singing, mostly at Erwin's request and Hanji’s support, who was far too drunk to care about her god-awful voice. Levi was internally cringing at the singing, but if you dared to insult Hanji's voice, he would’ve beaten you into a pulp without question.

Well, friend!
Here's to your victory,

The tune continued to ring in Levi’s ears for the rest of the night, calming his ruffled nerves.

This is the first glory,
Oh, my friend!

“I remember one night I was playing cards with my grandfather,” Levi heard Nanaba whisper to a soldier with eyes as wide as a titan’s mouth. “And he only got red cards all night. And you know what happened next day morning? The smokehouse caught fire!” she kept hitting her index finger against the table, her expression wild and victorious as if the smokehouse had just confirmed... something.

Levi didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, but he was a little too gone to care. If the cards said it, then they said it. There used to be an old whore back in Underground who said she could read the future from the cards.

Let's celebrate this victory,
For the next fight!

He wondered if that was why she always knew where to hide him when the Military Police came to lynch him. Damn bastards, he thought, his hate for the MP never fading, only getting concealed with more finesse.

The alcohol diluted his blood and made him feel sentimental, so Levi spilled some of the wine onto the floor for the dead, then downed the rest in one go the same way Kenny taught him when someone died. Gods bless that old whore, Holly. She was probably long dead in a ditch somewhere.

“Hey, Levi!” Hanji popped into his view out of nowhere, making Levi cuss out rather loudly and jump back.

“What th’fuck, you freak, scared th’shit out of me!” Levi growled and clumsily shooed her away from the immediate proximity of his personal space. Gods, Levi was never drinking again, his head was already aching and he hadn’t even finished his fourth glass of wine.

Hanji cackled into her hand and smashed a piece of paper in front of him, which looked about as clean as a dog’s asshole. On the bottom of the paper, there was a wobbly line drawn with ink, and below the text said: Signed.

Levi narrowed his eyes distrustfully at the suspicious-looking paper, noting how Hanji conveniently covered the top half of it with her hand.

“The fuck’s this?” he frowned.

“Sign it!” Hanji insisted and Levi already had a pen in hand, though he was not sure where the fuck he got that from. “It’s like super secret super official captain business, Erwin told me to tell you to give it to you!”

Levi turned to Erwin, whose cheeks were dusted with pink. The commander raised his hands to assure Levi of his innocence, which only made Levi more suspicious.

“Ay, fuck no! I ain’t signing shit,” he clicked his tongue and his hand lunged forward like a viper, ready to expose this idiotic joke.

“No, don’t tear it!!” Hanji whined and tried to latch onto the paper, but Levi was quicker and he had a better hold of his alcohol. Or at least he thought so because the sudden headache that almost made him fall on his ass said otherwise.

He squinted at the text.

Certificate of Adoption

This is to certify that

Levi Zoe-Smith
has been formally adopted by
Hanji Zoe and Erwin Smith

On this beautiful Day of getting Levi’s ass drunk

____________         ____________          ____________

Signed                   Signed                 Signed

Levi’s eyebrow twitched, but to his absolute annoyance so did the corner of his mouth. Goddamn alcohol, this is what it did to an honest man’s public image.

“Erwin!” Hanji gasped. “Erwin, look, look, our baby boy is laughing! We’re gonna be parents, he loves us!”

“’m not laughin'!” Levi feigned anger and slammed the paper onto the table, making glasses clatter. “Fuck both of ya, this is–” oh, gods, another twitch– “this is fucking–” a gasp for air, and Levi swore it was not him who let that almost-laugh see daylight– “fuck y’both!” he finally managed to spit out a growl that turned into a wheeze at the end and oh, well, there went his reputation.

Hanji's laughter was unstoppable now, wine spilling from her glass everywhere as she threw herself onto Erwin, who was smiling along with her as well.

“Our son is growing up so fast!” she shook Erwin by the shoulders.

“Yes, as if it was yesterday that he hoarded half of HQ’s bleach stock into his room in secret!” Erwin chuckled into his glass, and Levi didn’t miss the opportunity to kick him in the ankle.

“Oi, I’m th’only one who uses that anyway!”

“Or when he threatened you with cutting off your eyebrows and wearing them on his belt as trophies.”

“Or when he wouldn’t stop making shit jokes at the table during lunch with high officials.”

“Or when he kicked that MP in the dick, the guy who wouldn’t leave me alone in that pub in Stohess,” Hanji sighed dreamily, clouds of alcohol floating around her head. “Ah, Levi, you’re so cute, y’know. Our smol son. We raised him well, Erwin.”

Erwin hummed, more distracted by the bottle of wine he was holding. It was hilarious to see Erwin-let’s-ensure-humanity’s-victory-Smith all red cheeks and hazy eyes.

“If I can no longer read the label of the expiration date, does that mean it’s gone bad?” he asked innocently.

“Drink it!” Hanji and Levi said at the same time.

“I never trust you two when you agree. That’s more rare than a blue moon,” Erwin raised one of those mighty brows. Levi followed the movement in both awe and horror. Physics should not allow such monstrosities to exist. Maybe that was where Erwin kept all his slyness.

“I swear to th’Walls, he’s like a nut,” Levi mumbled. “A bad walnut. Y’never know what’s under the shell.”

“A nut?” Hanji snorted.

“Did y’just shart out a cogwheel?” Levi gagged, one hand covering his mouth. “Sounded like a barf that got lost in the wrong hole.”

Hanji gasped, “Ew, Levi, you pervert!”

“That was th’worst sound I ever heard.”

“Don’t get too hard, I bet you have a potty-kink, that’s why you talk shit all the time,” Hanji grinned.

“That’s the most fucking disgusting...!”

“That’s enough, children,” Erwin good-naturedly put an arm between the two of them. “Hanji, our son is still a teenager, so of course, he would be embarrassed about...”

“Finish that sentence, Eyebrows,” Levi glared, “I swear to th’gods finish it and see what happens!”

Erwin took a sip of his wine, then cleared his throat. “He-would-be-embarrassed-about-his-potty-kink.”

“Y’see, a bad nut!” Levi yelled as he jumped, meaning to throw himself on the man and crawl his face up, but Hanji was quick to grab him by the waist.

“Levi, you talk so much about nuts that I’m starting to think you want some,” she giggled and forcibly pushed Levi back onto his chair. It was lucky they drank because otherwise stopping Levi would’ve been impossible.

“Whose nuts? Eyebrows’?" Levi growled. "That’s fucking gross, I bet he has old man balls.”

Erwin rather gracefully snorted into his wine and was now battling for his life in a coughing fit.

“What’s that like?” Hanji frowned.

“What do y’think? Disturbing.”

“Well, that’s a relief to hear,” Erwin gasped and dabbed the wine off his chin with a napkin, “because intercourse with you is the last thing on my list too.”

Hanji shivered. “Ugh, intercourse.”

“The big boys call it ‘fucking someone’s ass so hard they can’t walk next morning’, Erwin,” Levi rolled his eyes, earning a screeching cackle from Hanji. “And what’s wrong with you?” he continued and raised his voice, sounding offended. “Why would y’not fuck this?” He lazily gestured towards himself while also gaining almost everyone’s attention in the pub.

“Because you’re my adopted child?” Erwin said as if it was the most natural thing. “Hanji has the certificate. Also, you’re not my type. No offense.”

Levi crossed his arms and scoffed, “Unbelievable.”

Hanji covered her mouth in an attempt to hide her laughter. “Is this what sexual frustration smells like? Levi, when was the last time that something other than your own fingers stretched your little asshole?”

“It was this morning,” Levi hummed without a beat.

“Wait, wha-?”

“I took a really long shit.”

Hanji pouted. “So you only turn into a minx when drunk? My son, this heart can’t take the disappointment!”

“He’s just a happy drunk, let him be,” Erwin commented with his sly eyes trained on Levi, eager to take revenge.

Levi slammed his fist on the table. “I’m not a happy drunk! That’s public defamation.”

“You literally just said I have old man testicles.”

“Yes, because that’s probably the truth.”

“Ugh, testicles,” Hanji mumbled and took a long slip of wine. “If kids come from ball... then ball is life, no?”

“What,” Erwin sighed. “Hanji, no.”

“Ball is life.”

“That’s disg-”

“Ball. Is. LIFE!”

Eren whipped his head around, his ears picked up on a high-pitched screech.

There weren’t too many people on the streets right now. Most of them were sitting inside warm buildings, which Eren could only see through the foggy windows.

He wrapped the red scarf tighter around his neck and Eren resumed walking back to the monastery.

With his understanding of language growing, he spent his free time peeling back his memories to the earliest time he met humans. He tried deciphering the things he was told, mostly with Little One’s voice echoing in his head, but he found those to be the hardest to understand. Little One used a lot of words that either he never heard on the streets or simply made no sense.

There was that young man, the soldier who was so kind to him after Eren was found outside the Walls. He gave him food and clothes that he was still wearing now.

He said: “My name is Luke. Luke Siss. I’m a scout at the Survey Corps.”

Eren couldn’t wait until Armin came to visit him again, so he could finally ask what a 'survey corps' or a 'scout' was. Perhaps it had something to do with his green cape.

As he was wandering alone on the dark, poorly lit streets, Eren’s mind took its own steps freely too, trailing back to sunshiny sceneries and flickering, colorful surfaces. He tried remembering that day when he finally saw Little One again across the lake, the happiness he felt when the man landed on his palm with a stern face and warm eyes.

Eren shivered and pulled his scarf tighter around his neck, trying to cover his shoulders too.

There were so many new humans Eren met on that day, each with their own unique smell and voice, and they talked a lot too. Especially Hanji, who could never stop bothering Little One.

Eren smiled when he thought about his human’s friends, how he always pretended to be annoyed by them, yet when they were not looking, Little One always kept a caring, protective eye on them.

A lot of things could happen while one was drunk. Usually, a lot of things did too, which was by default normal and expected. The scary part was when things happened right in front of one’s eyes, yet one couldn’t remember how the fuck they got there.

This was like that one time when Hanji got drunk on booze with Erwin and the other cadets when they were still only trainees. They sneaked into the officer’s kitchen and raided the wine cellar, like the responsible teenagers they used to be. They got wasted and to this day Hanji didn't remember what happened between opening the first bottle and standing in an office full of angry instructors.

Even back then Erwin always took the responsibility and with it all the blame too. He received his punishment without complaining and dealt with the consequences. That was an easy thing to do with instructors, since they only punished them according to the training ground rules, and the wine was replaceable too. But those instructors who just wanted to get on with life, they were nothing compared to a storm that wreaked havoc, nothing compared to Levi.

Hanji stared at them with a dumbfounded expression, trying to remember how and through what words exactly did they arrive at this situation.

Erwin, sitting with his hands on the table, face impassive and calm; and Levi, his hand red from the wine that now lay on the floor, shards of glass poking out of the scarlet lake. It was by pure chance that he didn’t cut his fingers off when he broke the glass.

What was more concerning though, was Levi's eyes that right now terrified even Hanji. What the hell happened?

Levi stared, unblinking like a hawk, his gaze murderous. Hanji always thought that when Levi was angry, the closest thing she could compare what it was like to look in his eyes was staring into a gun barrel. Hanji wasn’t wrong. She was never wrong and now the whole pub froze in silence, waiting.

“You still haven’t forgiven me, have you?” Erwin asked, his calm voice making Levi shake with anger. His hands were trembling from the alcohol and his cheeks were angry red. He was clearly drunk.

“It’s okay, boys, don’t start bickering now,” Hanji leaned in between them to ease the tension, but that was a lot harder to do with two drunken men rather than sober ones. “Hey, hey, Levi, I was the one who told you to go home back then, right? And I was the one who said that it was useless to…”

“Hanji, I appreciate you trying to make it seem like you are to blame too,” Erwin said calmly. “But the reality is that if anyone deserves Levi’s anger, it’s me.”

Levi scoffed, the taste of a bitter sentiment flooding his mouth like venom. Even listening to a confession like that pissed him off when it was Erwin who accepted the blame. Ever the perfect soldier, never defending himself, always dealing with the consequences.

“Levi, my sincerest apologies, but the investigation was not good for you,” Erwin continued.

Good for me. Levi wanted to laugh. Was staying up all night, burning his hands with bleach and scrubbing every available spot like it was dogma, was that good for him? Feeling guilty, angry all the time, feeling left behind and purposeless, was that fucking good for him? Levi was fuming.

“I shouldn't have let you get involved in the first place–”

Levi’s fist landed on the table loudly, scaring the nearby drunks like a flock of birds. “You shouldn’ have? You had no fucking right–”

“I had every right as Commander,” Erwin cut in, his voice no longer soft like velvet, but stern.

“As Commander? Aren’t you supposed to be my fucking friend?!” Levi spat, knowing too well how pathetic he sounded, but the words were already out and he was not taking them back. Frustrations from months ago, the ones he thought he buried deep enough, surfaced again under the influence of alcohol. “That decision should’ve been mine! What else are you scheming behind my back, huh? Kick me out of th’Corps and lock me up in the shithole I came from? Or even better, hang me? Fuck you, Erwin!”

Levi stormed out of the room as if the ground burned his feet, unable to look at Erwin for one more second without spitting on his face. His pride was hurt and his heart bled, and a friend should've let him do what he had to.

Never mind if the investigation was doomed from the start. If Erwin cared about anything but the good of fucking humanity then he would've let Levi chase his ghosts.

The stunned silence enwrapped him but he didn’t care, didn’t care how everyone was openly staring at him either in fear or disapproval or that probably everyone in the whole inn heard him. He didn’t care. Fuck Erwin and his mighty brain that seemed to know everything about everyone and what was best for them. Fuck Erwin.

He kicked the front door open and the harsh winter cold slapped him in the face, somewhat sobering him up. It was really cold outside, and he cursed himself for not taking his cloak with him. Anyway, it was done, he wasn’t going back with his tail between his legs just to get that damn thing. Fuck Erwin.

Back inside the night slowly fell back on track, though a gloomy quietness hung above the room like a dark shadow. Erwin sighed and watched the door where Levi disappeared, blue eyes unreadable.

“It’s okay, Erwin, he’ll come around,” Hanji tried lifting the sour mood, but the sadness glinting in her voice spoke more than any word could. “I think he drank a bit too much.”

“He’s right to be angry with me. I miscalculated.”

“What do you mean?”

Erwin hesitated, something he never did while he was sober. Hanji felt her heart squeeze tighter a little, realizing that even though Erwin didn’t show it, he still felt bad for what happened. “I didn’t know Eren meant that much to him. I should’ve known though. I have never seen him be so protective so openly before.”

“Yeah,” she sighed.

To Hanji, it always seemed like Levi had to be the strongest soldier because he was the one who hurt the most. That man had such a gentle soul, so it was no surprise that he had to protect it with rude words and quick punches.

“Gods dammit,” she murmured. She would’ve been ready to throw out half of Sawney’s internal organs for Levi to find a little bit of happiness.

Oh, yes, Levi didn’t even know about Sawney and Bean yet. He would lose his shit no doubt, even though Levi desperately needed someone like Sawney and Bean in his life. He just didn’t know it yet. “I’ll go and try to get him to come back.”

As Eren flipped through the distant memories of human conversations in his head, suddenly he realized, that perhaps...

He stopped in the middle of the street not too far from a bright pub and slapped a hand on his forehead. How could have he been so stupid all this time? Absolutely idiotic. Excitement started shaking his hands.

How did it never occur to him that though he didn’t know his human’s name, and no one ever told Eren either, Little One's friends had to address him by it at some point! Little One would yank at his hair for being so stupid.

Scrolling through the events of the day on which they met again, Eren tried recollecting most of the things that were said and directed at Little One. Eren acted like a whining puppy all day, never leaving the human's side (something that very much made him cringe in the present), so he always heard when someone talked to Little One, even if he didn’t understand it at the time.

‘Levi, can I please say hi to him?’

‘Levi, that sounded exactly like ‘Eren’! Did you teach him how to talk?’

‘I don’t know what you think I am, but even I’m not immune to a sight like this. Your story seems to be more...’ something something that Eren didn't remember.

‘Of course, he is!' weird words again 'keep him all to yourself, Shorty!’

‘We’ll meet you there, then.’

‘Captain, please, don’t stand so close to it! It’s too dangerous!’

‘Yes, sir!’

Eren frowned, feeling that headache in the making at the back of his skull from all this thinking. This was more recollecting than he ever did before, and it was exhausting, to say the least. He had a much harder time trying to remember the things the other humans said and not Little One, whose words always came to him naturally.

Yet as tiring as it was and as hopeless as it seemed to pick a name out of the hundreds of words he heard, Hanji always seemed to be his savior.

‘Don’t scold him too hard for it! You just love your Levi very much, don’t you, little dandelion?’

‘Levi! This is the most amazing day of my entire life! Thank you so much! Eren is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined!’

‘Hey, Levi, did he just understand what you said?’

‘Your sarcasm makes you a tragic, brooding hero, Shorty, because nobody knows that you don’t mean half the things you say!’

‘Ah, Levi! Good morning, sunshine!’

‘Little fruitcake, can you show Levi what we’ve been doing?’

The word ‘levi’ seemed to come up in Hanji’s speech often. Eren couldn’t remember properly, but he also had a hunch that the tall blond man used it too. But that was only one of the words he didn’t understand. There was also ‘sunshine’, ‘shorty’, ‘imagined’, ‘love’, ‘sir’, and ‘captain’, just to mention a few.

What if none of these was his name? Were any of these names at all? What if Eren called out to him but instead of naming him properly, he would call him something rude, and then Little One would never look at him again?

The pub door was kicked open with a loud snap about twenty meters down the street, but Eren was much too occupied stressing over his flaky memories to pay attention to it.

Maybe Little One’s friends gave him some weird nickname, perhaps Eren’s way of trying to solve the mystery of the human’s name was completely hopeless, but…

“Leee-viii-eee~!!”

Eren froze mid-step. Levi? Isn't that what I just…?

“Fuck off, shitty glasses! I’ve had enough of this idiocy. I’m not going back!” that voice which Eren had heard so many times, always grumbling, always hissing and cursing, no longer echoing in Eren’s mind but on the cold street.

Eren couldn't believe his ears, but just as doubt was about to overtake him, they spoke again:

“But we’re having so much fun! C’mon, the night has barely started!” Wasn't that Hanji?

“It’s past midnight.” Wasn't that...

“Yes, but you never sleep anyway?”

Not too far up ahead on the candle-light soaked street stood two figures, one on the doorstep of a pub, the other standing by the snow-covered pavement. The sides of both humans' faces were illuminated by the orange light flooding from inside the building, and Eren choked on air.

That hair, that flowery scent in the air, he couldn’t believe this. No, there was no way that this is how they would meet again, by a complete accident, no, he couldn’t believe this. This couldn’t be happening - but it was.

Eren stood, gaping at the human's back, and he forcibly pinched his arm to make this vision go away. He wanted it to be true so badly, and the fact that it wasn’t made it so much worse. Eren flinched, his arm aching between his fingers, but the human was still standing by the road, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of the familiar jacket he was wearing.

Now that made Eren stumble out of his stupor. His human was standing outside in this awful weather with nothing but a thin jacket on, and Eren repressed an angry growl. Still as brave and irresponsible regarding his health as ever. Not that Eren wasn’t a hypocrite, his feet were red and sore from the cold snow after all, but Eren was a titan, while… Levi wasn’t.

Is that your name? Eren beamed internally.

‘Have you never introduced yourself to him?' he remembered Hanji’s words, and Eren’s lips pulled into a wide smile, because yes, Little One should have done it.

He still remembered what his comeback was: ‘When would I have done that? Before or after I broke my leg and found myself in a cave with a giant fucking titan? I was a little too busy shitting my pants at the time.’ His human was so annoying but so witty.

Hanji got back inside, and Eren was left alone with the human.

Though he could feel how his body trembled with anxiety, his mind was calm when he took the first step toward the man. The closer he got, the more he noticed about him.

The first thing that stood out was just how ridiculously tall Levi was. It made Eren chuckle. To him, Little One was always that small, fragile thing the size of his palm, and it was absurd to see how he now came up to Eren’s nose.

He was even more frightening like this. Eren knew that this human wasn’t to be messed with even back then, but seeing how the body of steel was not the size of Eren himself… yes, it was frightening, to say the least, but even more so it was impressive and beautiful.

The warm light of the pub radiating through the foggy windows touched the human’s hair with its golden fingers, shining a bright halo to embrace his face. As if he was the angel from the books Eren found in the monastery's attic, personified yet unreachable, the perfection everyone strived for.

Eren stopped when he was barely a few meters away from him; his lungs were shaking with excitement and his hands with the need to touch the human’s shoulder to see if he was real. The aching of his foot from the cold snow was long forgotten.

Little One sighed and combed his fingers through the black locks of hair. Eren noticed how he was a little unsure on his feet, almost like he was sick. It must have been because of how lightly he was dressed. Eren scoffed nostalgically, thinking about all those times the human snuggled up to Eren’s warm skin, and he barely noticed that the small sound escaped his lips.

Startled by the unexpected noise so close behind him, Levi’s hand flew to the dagger in his belt and spun around.

“Who th’fuck-“ he slurred when he saw the figure right in front of him, but his alcohol-clouded mind decided on its own that if he ever got mugged and stabbed on the streets while drunk, then this would be the day.

Before he even managed to focus his vision on the stranger's face, his head was suddenly split in half from the painful repercussions of the sudden movement, and he stumbled backward.

This is all your fault, goddamn Eyebrows, he thought as his body was speeding towards the cold stone ground.

He was barely in his right mind to comprehend that this fall could easily break his skull when two large and very warm hands caught his waist and head so that the whiplash wouldn’t break his neck. Still, his head hurt like a bitch. He cursed under his breath and struggled to properly grab onto the strong arms, the dagger no longer in his hand.

Eren was frozen in the spot, his body refusing to take any command that his brain was screaming at him.

He was holding Little One.

It was just like that first time when the human got injured in the forest and Eren picked him up. His palms were full with the leather jacket he was holding onto, above it the warm body, and two strong hands grasping his forearm and shoulder. Eren was half-convinced that this really had to be some sort of dream.

But then Little One– no, Levi, squirmed in his arms, his gaze struggling to properly hold onto something, and Eren knew that none of his dreams of the human could ever have this much detail. He wasn’t dreaming. This was real.

“Shit, I’m gon’ murder that overgrown cumstain, that fuckin' Eyebrows,” the human mumbled which made Eren flinch in surprise.

That voice which he knew like the back of his hand had never sounded so unfamiliar before. It was deeper and raspier than it was when Eren was still listening to him with titan ears. How strange, Eren thought. Was this also the effect of the change in his body?

However, Eren quickly forgot any theories he had the moment Levi’s eyes found him. A single glance knocked all the air out of Eren’s lungs, and all he could do was dumbly gape at the human.

His face, which had always been the size of Eren’s fingernail, was now everywhere, filling Eren’s vision as if nothing else existed but the two of them.

He had always known that the man was gorgeous, but Eren only now understood what he was missing out on when he was a titan. No amount of squinting could ever have given him such a detailed picture that he saw now, a picture he had no words for. No words could ever do Little One justice.

Those features, that youthful beauty that only porcelain dolls possessed, looking so fragile and yet unbreakable, forever the embodiment of brute strength and fascinating elegance. Little One was looking up at him with his small, pink lips parted, nose and cheeks flushed from the cold, and his beautiful gray eyes wide, expressing so many emotions that Eren felt like he had to sit down.

Still, he wondered if Little One was sick the same way many humans were after visiting pubs, and sure enough, the clouded eyes and the bitter smell of alcohol in the human’s short breaths were proof.

Eren sighed, annoyed with the man for not wearing proper warm clothes.

In a minute Eren managed to get himself back in functioning order and he helped Levi back to his feet. Still, neither of them seemed to realize that this was the part when they let go of each other.

Levi’s hand remained on Eren’s arms, while Eren kept holding onto the lean back in case the man was about to trip on his own feet again. It felt like neither of them dared to breathe.

Eren wanted to ask if he was alright, if he needed any help getting back to the place where he was going, but the titan simply couldn’t find the words. His stomach turned to jelly, and he just stood there with his lips parted, as dumb as the day he was born.

Levi was mute too, even though ever since Eren had known him, the man always had a few snarky comments up his sleeve.

“Okay?” Eren finally managed to squeeze the word through his clumsy lips. His voice was shaking and he had a hunch that Levi noticed it too, or would’ve noticed it if his eyes weren’t so busy mapping out Eren’s face. His eyes kept finding Eren’s as if he was unable to let them go.

Eren didn’t want to let go either. After running for so long, waiting for even longer, Little One was finally here, standing and not on horseback, not just a glimpse of him, but here in soul and body, solid and in Eren’s arms.

For a fragile yet infinite moment, it was only the two of them. The world around them ceased to exist, all the sounds and colors fading into nothing, except for them. But then Eren noticed that Levi’s body was trembling in his arms, and it started snowing. None of the flakes reached Eren’s skin before melting, but that was not the case with Levi.

No longer shaking with anxiety, Eren took off the red scarf he’d been wearing ever since Carla gave it to him, and wrapped it around Levi’s neck. He gently adjusted the fabric to cover the pale skin completely. Eren remembered just how quickly Levi could get sick and wondered why the human wouldn’t take better care of himself.

“Stupid,” he mumbled, his hands lingering on the fabric of the scarf, not wanting to let go. “Where sleep?” he asked, but he had to repeat himself to get Levi out of his drunken confusion. “Li– Levi.”

The man’s eyelids fluttered and his grasp loosened on Eren’s arm, probably noticing just how intimate the situation was, but he didn't let go.

“Where live?” Eren asked again and squeezed the man’s shoulder to make a point.

Levi’s brows drew closer to each other as he concentrated on forming a competent answer. “I uh– what?”

Eren wanted to chuckle but held back out of sympathy. He wasn’t sure how he was able to form words just now either.

That beautiful face scrunched up in confusion, making Eren’s heart soar with the urge to protect. He had never seen Levi so distracted and, dare Eren say, adorable.

“Where sleep?” he smiled, but then he realized that that was a rather unproductive move, for Levi’s eyes went wide and stared at Eren’s lips, pupils expanding, and even if he managed to conjure up a helpful answer, he forgot it entirely.

“Um…” Levi tried again and closed his eyes, which seemed to help. “It’s uh, Maiden’s something, Maiden’s Cunt or Hanji’s Glasses, I’ve no idea. It’s next to a whorehouse.”

Eren couldn’t hold back the small giggle now that bubbled up from his chest, and Levi inhaled sharply. To Eren it felt like it had been only yesterday that he heard Levi speak. “I help go home?”

He knew where the inn was, so Eren carefully wrapped the drunk man's hand around his waist to guide him.

“Help?” Levi frowned as if pulled out of his stupor. “Ey, who th’fuck you think y’are, shitface? Let fucking go!” he growled and tried to push Eren away, but the only thing he managed to do was that he almost sent himself to the ground again.

His drunken feet gave up on him, and he would’ve broken his skull this time for sure if Eren hadn’t caught him.

“Yeah, yeah,” the titan chuckled and gently pulled the man back onto his feet again. “I help go home.”

Harsh wind blew from the sky, but Eren barely paidattention the ice-cold touch on his skin. He could only feel the warm body pressed against his side, and every once in a while he took a moment to see if the scarf was still safely wrapped around Levi’s neck. He just couldn’t stop himself from tending to the human in any way he could, even if he knew that Levi only let him do this because he was sick from that bad drink. No matter the circumstances though, Eren would take care of him while it was needed.

Levi was very quiet. Eren stole a glance at him from the corner of his eyes, as if his whole person was driven to the human like a magnet, and every time he looked down he was always met with eyes so beautiful that it made him forget how to walk. Each time a strange hotness flooded his cheeks, even though helping Levi go home did not strain him physically at all.

The walk took a little while, especially with Levi becoming less and less lucid throughout. The inn really was only a couple of houses away from Madam Lydia’s brothel, and Eren couldn’t quite decide how he felt about it. It seemed like he was always only a few obstacles away from his human, yet they missed each other every time by a few inches.

When he thought about how easy it would’ve been not to stumble into Levi tonight, his guts churned in fear. If he decided to take a different route home, if he set out ten minutes earlier or later, they wouldn’t be here now like this. Levi would sleep soundly in his bed, and Eren wouldn’t even know just how close he was.

Based on Levi’s slurred words Eren was able to find the man’s room, and he was beyond relief that for once Levi was too exhausted to play tough. Not even someone made of iron would survive a night in this cold with all that alcohol burning his blood.

“Stupid, so stupid, think you titan, never get hurt, idiot,” Eren kept mumbling while helping Levi onto the bed. He pulled the boots off the small feet, internally pitying those innocent toes for having to suffer in the devil’s leather confinements, while Levi shrugged off his jacket. The moment his head hit the pillow, it looked like he fell asleep.

Eren gently folded the duvet onto the shivering body and tucked him in until barely anything but the man’s angelic face was seen. Eren couldn’t help the soft smile. He turned around to leave when a voice called out softly.

“Eren…”

He froze. The simple word made Eren’s whole body heavy and stiff like someone dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on him.

His name was quiet in the dark room, but in the silence, it was loud enough to make Eren turn his head back. He almost didn’t dare to do so.

A range of emotions fluttered across his heart. He felt all kinds of things all of a sudden – confusion, relief, fear, hope –, and cold fingers grabbed the hem of his shirt. Levi looked completely out of it, yet his impossibly strong fingers kept holding onto Eren.

He opened his eyes only a little bit, but wide enough for Eren to see his grey eyes shimmer with fear. Eren felt his heart sink at the sight of his human looking so distressed. Because of this moment of hesitation he let Levi pull him down to sit on the side of the bed.

Levi tugged at him like an insatiable child, and before Eren knew it, his face landed in a pillow, the air was squeezed out of him, and two heavy arms wrapped around his neck.

How strong can he get even when he's sick?! Eren screamed internally.

He didn’t dare move. His eyes were wide and chest heaving like he ran across Trost in one breath, because he was laying on top of his Little One, their hearts only a few inches of flesh apart. Eren could feel it beat against his own, the solid body beneath him warming up from Eren’s high temperature.

“Don’ go,” Levi mumbled and nuzzled his face into Eren’s hair. And thank god for all that alcohol, Eren thought, because if Levi was any less drunk then Eren’s surprised squeak would’ve surely woken him up. He could practically feel Levi's cheek radiating cold next ti his own, only separated by a barrier made of his hair.

Okay, this is probably so wrong, Eren thought, the quiet panic making his heart do funny things, Little One would never do this. If he knew what he was doing, he would beat my ass for letting him do this!

But I don’t want to go. He doesn’t want me to leave either...

It was so warm there and so soft, and Eren could feel the pillow get damp under his eyes, because he didn’t want this to end, didn’t want to go. He was only inches away from Little One, he could feel the human's skin on his nape as he held Eren close.

Eren had been chasing after this moment for so long, and now that it was here, he didn't want to let go. He wanted to laugh because of how ignorant and angsty he was this morning, not knowing that this was the day when paradise finally came to him again.

Levi’s arms loosened around his neck and his breathing settled as sleep slowly started pulling him away from Eren.

“I missed you,” the titan whispered, and a pearl of tear rolled down onto the pillow, where it melted into the fabric.

Levi hummed something in response, but it was no longer clear. Eren waited for only a few minutes to make sure the human was asleep before he gently unwrapped the arms from around his neck and tucked them back under the duvet.

Warm tears dampened his cheeks, bittersweet sentiments that tied him to Levi and yet warned him that it was time to go. People who were sick from the drink talked about all kinds of things and also forgot a lot; Eren learned that from Madam Lydia and later from Armin’s explanation.

So most likely, no matter how painful it was, Little One probably won’t remember him in the morning. He would also probably freak out if he woke up in the room with another person in it, whom he can’t remember from the night before.

However…

Eren readjusted the red scarf around Levi’s neck and his eyes lit up. He could easily just come back for this in the morning. Then Levi would be awake, and he would recognize him, and Eren wouldn’t have to leave his side again.

And now he had something else too, that he didn’t have the last time he saw Levi in Shiganshina: words.

He remembered words and words and words, the ones Luke Siss told him such a long time ago when he introduced himself, and told Eren what he was, a scout, the green capes had to  be 'scouts'. All Eren had to do was ask Armin what it meant, then those words could perhaps guide him back to Levi. He wouldn’t have to chase Little One anymore. All he had to do was follow the soldiers with the green capes, and he would find Levi again.

He made sure Levi wasn't cold before leaving and he managed to sneak outside without anyone noticing him.

On the way back to the monastery he could barely contain his smile. He repeated Levi’s name over and over again, whispering it, singing it, screaming it to the world and then only keeping it to himself; he said it any way he could.

It was a fitting name for his human, he thought. It was sharp and onto the point without much décor, yet to Eren, it was the most beautiful thing.

He was too tired to go home, so he climbed on top of a house and laid down behind a smoking chimney’s warm body.

It wasn’t as comfortable as it was hugging his human in a real bed, but it didn’t matter. Eren fell asleep, and soon he was holding onto Levi again in his dreams.

Chapter Text

The cold breeze lifts the fallen flower petals from the forest ground, and Levi knows he’s no longer alone. The fog lingers near his knees, but further ahead it’s like the pale body of the Walls, blocking his sight.

Something is out there,  someone  is watching. They’re in front of him, or perhaps all around him, embracing his fragile, mortal existence like the silent Death itself.

Golden sunlight bathes the earth and illuminates the quiet forest in a green hue, but the air tastes like ice; warning, a scent that makes one look over their shoulders, searching the shadows, making sure none of them moved.

Then, there are creatures ahead, appearing in two bodies. Make no mistake though; they surround him with eyes he can’t see, and fingers that touch the soil and give birth to monsters, such as themselves.

Though they have the shape of humans and for now they still stand like stone statues, Levi’s instincts tell him that they are dangerous. Swords and daggers, manmade weapons, they’re bitter jokes compared to creatures of the fearful goddesses, immortal and wise.

The creatures, one of them short like a child while the other is more of a beast, stand in silence, but the voice that invasively touches Levi’s soul, raking the tendons of his heart the same way the wind raked through his hair, it whispers in his ear with an ancient voice…

‘If you could make one of your dreams come true, what would you wish for?’

‘What would you wish for?’ the wind echoes, and the hairs on Levi’s nape arch in fright.

He blinks, startled by the question that seems to seep into his consciousness from all directions.

‘What kind of a person do you want to become? Or… do you just want to erase your existence?’

It’s cold. The sunlight no longer reaches Levi’s skin. He’s wearing metal.

The taller creature then moves, and Levi watches tensely until a face takes shape. Long strands of brown hair hang in front of tanned cheekbones and bright green eyes. Every time the sunlight moves and the forest lights up brighter, those eyes seem to burn more intensely too, as if they were breathing along with the world around them.

“Eren?”  Levi gasps breathlessly.

Green eyes flash again, wordlessly. The creature’s form confuses him. Though he appears human at first glance, there’s nothing human about him. There are markings on both sides of his cheeks, as if his skin was marred and patched together, or as if they were teeth. Through the skin of his scalp, long, finger-like spikes break to the surface and reach toward the sky. A second set of ribs emerge from his back and embrace his collarbone, arms, and his chest like armor made of white bones.

Levi shivers at the sight.

There’s no answer whether he calls for Eren again or not. Only the sound of the wind whispering in his ears and a gentle touch on his forehead, no longer ice cold.

He’s lying on the grass, the tip of a warm finger above his brow. His hair is being lifted from his eyes.

“Eren…”

‘Hm?’  the distant voice echoes in his mind. It’s more of a memory, a feeling that can’t be defined, but right now, it still rings clear in Levi’s ears. It's enough.

“Where have you been?”

The fingers pause before they rake through his hair. Levi can feel the familiar warmth of the titan’s palm on his scalp. There’s wind, and Levi picks up the smell of blooming flowers. He feels the touch of grass dancing on his bare forearms. He can smell the rain in the air, but they’re still dry and safe, basking in the sunlight. It’s the picture that he always dreamt of as a child, tucked away in a cold, dirty corner of the Underground.

‘I was trying to find you,’  Eren answers, and Levi can almost feel the titan’s body next to his, the voice coming from above. He’s close enough that if Levi reached out, he could touch him.

Eren’s words make Levi’s heart flutter with something unfamiliar and bright. He feels… sated. Happy, even. The happiest he’s been in a while. Life and its problems are forgotten, he can’t even recall why hasn’t he felt this way in so long. It doesn’t matter though, because Eren’s hand gently cups his face, and Levi leans into the touch.

“What took you so long, brat?”  his voice trails off, feeling sleepy.

Eren chuckles.   His melodic voice engulfs Levi like a warm embrace. It’s the wind in the air, the birds chirping somewhere in a tree, a nearby creek splashing idly against its shores. When Eren smiles, the sun peeks through the clouds, and when he laughs, Levi feels nature come to life around them.

Unable to resist the soothing call of a blissful dream, Levi relaxes into Eren’s hold and he lets go. His body feels light, and the constant tension melts away from his muscles. There’s only a tiny voice of anxiety nagging him at the back of his mind.

“Don’t go,”  he whispers, not wanting the forest to hear him.  “Don’t leave me again, Eren…”

‘I’m here now, Levi. I’m here,’  Eren murmurs, and Levi can hear the gentle smile in his voice and feel the light on his skin.  ‘I missed you…’

Satisfied with the answer, Levi’s eyelids grow heavy, and he doesn’t fight it. Eren’s humming continues to echo in the mind of his dream.

I missed you…

Levi didn’t come to with a jolt like he always did after a few hours of restless sleep.

His body felt heavy under the duvet, and he relished in the feeling of the clean sheets pressing against his skin. Rays of light danced on his face in slow tandem, painting the insides of his eyelids a lively pink.

A faint gust of cold air played with an unruly strand of hair on his forehead, and Levi delightfully snuggled deeper into the bed. He could still feel the ghost touch of a hand on the side of his face and heard an airy chuckle.

For several minutes he didn’t realize where he was. Even when he slowly opened his eyes and the silhouettes of the room settled down around him, he still saw green grass and blue sky, and somewhere in between there was a blurry face.

“…Levi?”

I’m here now, Levi.

Hazy eyes looked around and a hand clumsily fumbled under the sheets, looking for a warm body, but it found none.

“Leviii~!”

An unpleasant sound kept invading his ears in the distance, and while Levi was prone to ignore it, the banging got louder and louder, until Levi realized that the sound was coming from the door.

The remains of his dream drained from his body like cold water. Tossing the duvet off himself Levi sat up straight and immediately cursed out loud when the greeting he got from his body was a stab to the skull with a sharp flash of pain.

“Ah, fuck!” he gasped, his hands grasping at his temples as if massaging the outside of his head would make a difference in what was going on inside.

“Levi?” the knocking stopped, and Hanji’s voice took its place. “Are you okay in there? Hold on, I’m breaking in!”

Levi’s head snapped towards the door, a hefty chain of curses already on the tip of his tongue, when the door got busted open with a very sweaty and distressed-looking Hanji standing on the threshold.

“Thank Sina!” she panted. “You’re alive!”

Sitting still halfway under the duvet, Levi observed Hanji’s disheveled appearance, and he frowned. His mood switched from blissed out to pissed off in a single second, and there was no going back now. Another shitty day was demanding his attention.

“What’s your problem, you filthy creature?” he mumbled absentmindedly while he reached for the water on the bedside table.

“I was banging on your door for like ten minutes! And you didn’t answer any of your squad members’ calls either, so naturally, they got worried!”

“And they ran to you?” Out of all people , the implication of his words was clear.

“No, I was on my way here anyway!” Hanji grinned as she stepped inside, and Levi didn’t like the way her eyes lit up. Every time that glint appeared, something annoying or messy followed. “Aw, Levi, did you sleep well? You have an adorable bedhead!”

“So damn noisy.”

Levi reluctantly ripped the sheets off himself and stepped onto the cold floor. His frown hardened on his face when he noted that he was still wearing his clothes from yesterday. He was in desperate need of a shower and a toothbrush too.

Looking around he noticed that his jacket was draped across the end of the bed and his boots were tucked against the nightstand too. He didn’t even remember getting into bed.

Gods, his head was a mess. This was exactly why he avoided drinking.

Another thing that stood out was the window, which was creaking open just by an inch. It would explain why it was so damn cold in the room. Did he open it after his drunk ass managed to get back here? Levi remembered closing it before going out. Then again, most of last night was still clouded by the bitter taste of alcohol in his mouth.

“I like your scarf! The color goes well with your bloodshot eyes.”

“Scarf?”

Looking down Levi’s eyebrows disappeared behind his messy fringe. He stared dumbly at the red fabric draped around his neck.

“What in the ever-loving fuck of Sina, this is not mine,” he said, suddenly very aware that a scarf that was definitely not his and therefore definitely not clean was so close to his face and touching his skin .

He quickly grabbed it to tear it off, but he halted when he felt just how soft the fabric was. Uncertain whether a sniff would get some nasty spores inside his lungs, Levi carefully lifted the end of the scarf to his nose and was surprised to note that it had a light scent of snow. Nothing like sweat or a new species of sprouting fungus.

“Eeeh? You sure?”

Levi just clicked his tongue.

“Well, how did it get here then? Do you think it’s a magic scarf? Do we have a teleporting, ancient magic scarf on our hands?!”

“Don’t be a moron, it’s too early in the morning for me to deal with you right now,” Levi shot a cold glare towards a brightly grinning Hanji while also flipping through possible explanations in his head.

The first thing that came to his mind was the detailed system of signs they used in the Underground for threats. Like rotten eggs in a paper bag for money being due or the fish under the pillow for those who were suspected to be snitches, but Levi had never heard of any meaning behind a red scarf around the neck.

It didn’t seem entirely impossible though. Even an idiot would understand that a red line on the neck could mean a slash to the throat and a very bloody death, but it was hard to get various colors of clothing in the Underground, and nobody would throw away a good scarf like this one just for a threat. Was there a different dialect of signs on the surface? Levi’s past enemies all lived underground though, and they were still rotting there if the gods were gracious.

But if not a threat, then what? Did his drunk ass swipe it from someone in the tavern? Did it have something to do with his open window? Shit, was someone here while he was out? Or did someone follow him back to the inn?

Turning around Levi began searching for any sign of an intruder, but the room was in the same orderly fashion in which he left it, with no mistakes or changes he could notice.

“Levi?” Hanji was observing him rather worriedly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just have a random new item of clothing that I don’t remember getting, but besides that everything is fine and dandy.”

“It’s just a scarf, c’mon.”

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose, but instead of snapping at Hanji for being so idiotically naïve, he used her as an anchor to ground himself. Sometimes he got too caught up thinking about the past, thinking if his past life would ever catch up with him and rise from Underground like the plague.

Knowing how life worked, Levi accepted that there would be a day when he had to face those shadows again, and he doubted that it would be a civilized encounter. ‘Bloody mess’ was the correct expression.

“I don’t remember how I got back here. But…”

Did someone help him? He furrowed his brows, trying to separate dreams from memories. He could only remember a blurry face illuminated by golden light on one side and the cold winter night on the other, but his mind might have enticed him with visions again.

Levi snorted bitterly. Right, a vision of human Eren. He was losing the plot.

“But?”

Levi looked up, lost in thought. “What?”

“By the Walls, it’s fun to see you so lost for once! I thought I’d never live this day,” Hanji cooed.

“What time is it?” Levi rolled his eyes while locking the window. He made sure to check that it was closed all the way.

“Uh, nine-thirty,” Hanji offered, and Levi froze.

Nine thirty . He slept in. How the hell did he out of all people sleep in? Fucking alcohol, he knew he should’ve said no to Hanji’s offer yesterday.

“Shit, Erwin said there would be a meeting at eight! Gods fucking dammit–”

“It’s okay, munchkin, you had a rough night. Erwin postponed the meeting since no one showed up at eight. Not even him, apparently,” Hanji snorted, the amused tilt in her voice irritating Levi to no end, but currently, he was more interested in changing into a clean shirt than probing her for answers. “The new meeting’s at ten. That’s why I’m here actually, to tell you. I didn’t expect you to still be in bed.”

Levi groaned and hurried to the bathroom. He wasn’t going to have time to take a proper bath, but he would rather stab himself in the nuts than go completely unwashed.

He splashed some water on his face and yanking off his shirt he quickly wetted his arms, torso, and armpits.

“I’m surprised you didn’t wake up,” Hanji continued blabbering in the other room. “Normally you wake up to the sound of a needle hitting the floor! Though you did drink like a whale last night.”

“What the fuck is even a whale?” Levi mumbled to himself. He was smart enough not to let her hear him, otherwise, there would be no shutting her up about the most random things she liked to call ‘fun facts’. Levi called them ‘bullshit’.

“…though you should see Nanaba, she’s still absolutely wasted!” Hanji cackled. “Mike had to carry her back to her room because she could barely stand on her own. I really did worry about you, though. I was afraid you wouldn’t find your way back. I do feel a little guilty about leaving you out in the snow, shorty, but in my defense, I thought you were coming back.”

Levi’s hands stopped in the middle of washing his face.

Snippets from last night dangled in front of his eyes, but he had trouble distinguishing reality from drunken exaggerations and even more drunken dreams.

He could almost still hear it, a melodic, deep voice whispering, I missed you.

His body shivered, and it wasn’t from the chilly temperature and the water quickly cooling on his chest.

That dream hurt more than he liked to admit. He didn’t remember most of it, only the feeling of having the company he’d been longing for, which longing he managed to suppress it seemed until last night.

He had a vague recollection of getting flared up at the mention of the corps’ failed investigation for Eren’s murder, and he also remembered yelling at Erwin for the childish, unfair grudge he deep down still held against the commander.

“Did I try to kill Erwin again?” he spoke up flatly, drying himself off with a towel.

“Ah, yes, you kinda did. Wait, what do you mean ‘again’?”

Fuck, this was embarrassing.

Levi quickly put on a new shirt before he could change his mind. It was blasphemy in his books to wear clean clothes without bathing first, but apparently, he also tried to murder Erwin’s ass last night, so the least he could do now was to show up at the man’s meeting on time. The postponed time, more accurately.

Walking back to the closet he whipped out a clean cravat, and tied it around his neck without daring to look into a mirror. Levi wasn’t a vain man, but he had a hunch that right now he was about as presentable as he was on the day Mike, that bastard, shoved his face in a puddle. The bed was still looking too soft, and there was a high chance that if he saw his face, he would’ve just crawled back under the blanket.

Well, then. Let the hungover’s walk of shame begin.

Levi grabbed his coat and deliberately ignored the way the mysterious scarf was staring at him from the nightstand where he placed it. One of the housemaids would swipe it, and they would surely need it more than Levi did anyway, or that’s what he thought. But not a second had passed after stepping outside of the inn that a strong wind punched him in the gut.

Levi was already pissed and it wasn’t even noon yet. Was one day, one single day in bed too much to ask for?

While he was debating whether it was better to freeze his balls off on the way or throw all reason aside and go back for the temptingly soft scarf, another gust that sent chills down his whole body quickly helped him make a decision.

He stomped back for the scarf and ignored Hanji’s grin along with the muttered ‘cute’ after he returned, chin buried behind the shield of fabric. He couldn’t deny how pleasant it felt around his always cold skin.

They set out shortly after that to meet with Erwin, and for the love of everything unholy, Levi was glad for the mysterious stranger’s scarf. Considering his blooming headache that stung sharply every time a horse carriage went by or a child saw it best fit to start screaming right when the two soldiers walked past them, Levi was grateful for the smallest bits of comfort he could keep.

“Anyway, where are we going exactly?”

“Military Police headquarters. Erwin wanted to catch up with good ol’ Nile.”

“Wonderful.”

“He should be done by nine-fifty I think. D’you wanna grab something to eat before we go?”

“Eren, please, don’t make this decision on a whim. Let’s talk about this!”

“No.”

“You’re not listening, just pay attention for one second!”

“No!”

“Armin, say something, please!”

There were only five more people in the line, and Eren was practically bouncing off the cobblestone from the titanic amount of excitement bottled up in his small human body.

His hands were zapping with the insatiable desire to do something, and Eren felt ready to face this enthralling unknown that waited for him on the other side of the military-style tent.

He stroked his fingers down his nape only to be surprised once again by the lack of protection over his most vulnerable spot. Still, it was worth cutting his hair, and luckily Armin was there to help. He said that Eren gave the impression of being older with his hair cut short.

“Mikasa, Eren doesn’t owe us his choice,” Armin said quietly, and Eren felt all warm inside from the support he received from the boy. He could see that Armin was hesitant, downright anxious about Eren’s decision, but he didn’t try to oppose it. He stated the facts and then let Eren choose.

“He still has three years of training time to change his mind,” Armin added and placed a soothing hand on the girl’s stiff shoulder. For a moment they held each other’s gaze silently, the tense atmosphere completely going over Eren’s head, who was busy watching the enlisting process like a hawk.

That morning when he went back to the inn, Levi was still asleep. Eren may or may not have climbed the house to peek inside through the window. Figuring that he could come back for the scarf later, he roamed around the city, hunting sunlight.

Not long after that, the two trainees returned to Trost on a carriage along with a few other cadets who had family in the city. They have barely said their goodbyes to Jean and Marco, and they haven’t even reached their usual meeting place behind the small monastery when Eren had already pounced on them.

“Arm, Mika!” he grinned and yanked them into a bone-crushing hug that made the air rush out of Armin’s lungs with a strained wheeze. Mikasa returned the hug like she would do normally, her iron-made body not even flinching under the boy’s unnatural strength.

“Eren, where is your scarf? You’re going to catch a cold!”

“How are you, Eren?” Armin prodded more tactfully, noticing the feverish glint in his green eyes.

“Yes, I’m okay, scarf okay, I need, Armin you tell me, okay, tell me about the scouts and you learn me…”

“Eren, slow down,” Armin grabbed the boy’s hand. Eren’s speech broke up more than it usually did whenever he got excited or frustrated, and right now he even made some mistakes such as mixing up ‘teach’ with ‘learn’, the first two words Armin helped him with.

Seeing how Eren was and knowing that there was rarely anything that could distract him once he had his mind set on something, Armin led them to a bench where they sat, and the two trainees began the herculean work of untangling the messy strings of Eren’s words.

After about twenty minutes of prodding, they were finally able to understand that he wanted to learn more about the military, which he had never asked about before this morning. Armin had tried explaining to Eren why he and Mikasa had to leave all the time, but Eren neither seemed to understand fully or worry about managing on his own before; though he was always flashing them a wide, toothy grin whenever they returned from camp.

Armin wondered what brought the change. Out of nowhere, Eren wanted to know everything, more specifically about the Survey Corps and its soldiers. He listened to Armin with his pupils blown wide, and one could almost see the cogs turning in his head.

When Armin was done, having explained the main tasks and goals of the Survey Corps, Eren had a distant look on his features, his eyes focusing on something neither Armin nor Mikasa could see. Armin wondered if it had something to do with the missing red scarf.

Eren was fiercely protective of it like it was a person. He washed it regularly and clumsily, though he never bothered with his other clothes. His hands often got lost in the soft red fabric as he absently played with it to calm himself. That one time when the edge of the scarf got ripped by a nail’s head sticking out of a wall, Eren was on the verge of tears, and he couldn’t be consoled until Mikasa showed him that clothes could be very easily fixed with some thread and a needle. He jumped in the girl’s arms with his fixed-up scarf hanging safely around his neck and he babbled something about Mikasa being the best.

Now the scarf was mysteriously gone, and Eren showed no other sign that he noticed it other than the occasional shiver that trembled his body.

“Why do you want to know so much about the Survey Corps, Eren?” Armin asked.

“I want to go,” Eren declared and raised his chin towards the sky like a sunflower. “I want to go to Survey Corps and fight titans.”

And so they were currently standing in line, waiting.

Armin knew that there would be no peace for them until he told Eren how to apply to the military, and though he was very much scared of the idea of letting Eren sign up without maybe fully understanding what it meant to be a soldier, Armin felt like he out of all people should understand Eren’s motivation. Having witnessed the horrors of Shiganshina himself and still mourning his grandfather, Armin knew why Eren was so determined to become a scout. He admired his bravery, and just maybe he wished he could be as single-mindedly determined as Eren was.

“Mikasa, think about it,” Armin brushed the wind-swept strands of hair from Mikasa’s pale forehead. “If he became a cadet, he wouldn’t have to stay here anymore, alone. He would have proper housing and warm food. We could also keep an eye on him, make sure that he doesn’t get in trouble,” he added with a snicker.

Mikasa pressed her lips into a firm line, but Armin could see her hard gaze softening.

“Good luck keeping Eren out of trouble,” she muttered, but her lips finally twitched into a fond smile.

Meanwhile, Eren was jumping from one foot to the other, and he was about ready to push the remaining humans out of his way to finally get his turn.

He would’ve been tempted to scream out his frustration of not knowing about the Survey Corps sooner if not for the fact that he was finally here now, separated only by two more people from his wish to meet Levi again and kill every rotten titan in existence.

Those hideous beasts were roaming on human lands right now as if it was their nature-given right, but not for long. Eren’s palm was itching, ready to tear the beasts in half with his bare hands.

Before, when he heard of the military, it never crossed his mind that the similarities between Levi’s and the MPs’ clothing were a sign of them both being soldiers. Many humans wore similar-looking garments, and while the MPs didn’t wear green capes, they were also as far from Levi’s courage and fighting skills as it was humanly possible.

No wonder Eren never considered that the military might be the place where both the MPs and Levi came from.

But the Survey Corps was not something he ever thought would exist. If the scouts regularly and willingly left the lands behind the Wall, then they were the bravest and in Eren’s opinion the stupidest, craziest humans to live.

“And Levi, who?”

“Levi?”

“That’s his name. Scout too, soldier.”

“Oh, you mean the Captain?”

“Cap-ten?”

“Yes, there’s a famous scout called Captain Levi. They say he’s the strongest soldier. He killed dozens of titans by himself. Well, that’s what the rumors say, anyway. But he did go missing outside for half a year and came back alive. Everyone thought he was dead. I remember when the news broke out, everyone was so shocked. And terrified. Losing the strongest soldier meant losing hope that humanity would ever live free from titans…”

Eren bit back a proud smirk. The ‘strongest human’ wasn’t a bad name for his Little One. If only Eren had known sooner, he could’ve enlisted in the military months before, but the glee that coated his mood was far too bright for the gloomy thoughts to stick to his mind, and Eren could feel nothing but giddy excitement.

Finally, he had a goal, something to strive for that looked beyond his daily struggle to get by. His pointless existence in this human body no longer seemed so daunting. Even if he lost his true form and with it his strength, Levi was the living, breathing example of what a human could become with enough training.

“Next!” the harsh bark of the officer from the tent woke Eren from his daydream.

Inside, a man sat by a scrawny table, and he eyed Eren up and down skeptically. There were two more humans inside, an old woman dressed in a white coat and an MP who stood by the table, looking bored out of his mind.

“How old are you, boy?” the first man asked, already looking down at a clipper with a piece of paper on it, his pen hovering impatiently.

“Fifteen,” Eren recalled the number they had agreed on. Armin and Mikasa had a fleeting debate over Eren’s age since the titan himself couldn’t remember how long he’d been roaming this earth. They both struggled to pinpoint Eren’s age, saying that sometimes Eren looked mature and at least eighteen when other times the childish eagerness to discover new things made him look much younger.

“Papers,” came the simple order.

“Lost at Shiganshina.” Another pre-prepared set of words.

“Name?”

“Eren.”

The scribbling stopped. “Eren what?”

“I… what?”

“What’s your last name?” the man grunted impatiently.

Eren swallowed nervously. He thought he was doing well, the way his speech improved ever since Armin started teaching him, but the boy forgot to mention what a ‘last name’ was. Did humans have multiple names?

Bumping into a language-related problem three sentences into a conversation with a stranger was not how he imagined this would go.

He felt shame burning up his cheeks under the gazes of the three humans, his mouth opening and closing silently, gaping like a fish out of water.

“He doesn’t have a last name,” Mikasa’s voice rang firmly behind him. The titan looked over his shoulder, relief washing over him when he saw his friends following him into the tent.

“You two, wait outside,” ordered the officer. “This isn’t a gathering. Better yet, take him with you,” he tilted his head towards Eren. “The King doesn’t need halfwits in his army.”

“He’s not a halfwit,” Mikasa seethed, her eyes darkening.

“Semantics. The boy is simple, I can tell by one look.”

“Sir, please, hear me out,” Armin stepped forward with a hand on Eren’s shoulder. “He has certain speech impediments, but that has nothing to do with his mental capabilities. He’s a fast learner, and he’s also very strong and agile. We…” the blond boy bit his lip, and Eren felt a painful pang in his heart when he saw Armin’s eyes tear up. “The three of us are from Shiganshina, sir,” he then said, making all eyes in the room turn to him. “My sister here was trapped under a burning log, and Eren lifted it all by himself. If not for him, she would be dead. Eren didn’t know us back then, but he helped us anyway, risking his own life.”

The tip of the pen hit the table surface in a continuous, monotone rhythm while the officer was thinking, his narrowed gaze trained on Eren’s shoulders, arms, muscled legs, and bare feet.

“Well,” he sighed, “they can always throw him out during training.” He pointedly scribbled an ‘X’ behind Eren’s already written down name. “Doctor, give him a checkup, would you?”

Eren heard a relieved sigh from behind him, most likely Armin’s, and he felt a heavy boulder lift from his own heart as well.

The doctor listened to his heartbeat and checked his eyesight with strange tools, then popped a thermometer into his mouth, and tenderly prodded the lymph nodes under his jaws with the tips of her fingers.

“You’re a bit warm,” she noted. “Do you feel feverish, or are you always like this?”

Eren could feel two sets of worried eyes on himself again, one blue and one grey.

“Always like this,” he reassured the woman, though he had no idea what ‘feverish’ was. He still knew so little, and it frustrated him to no end.

The thermometer was pulled from his mouth and he was guided toward a tall, wooden structure that had indentations and numbers on its spine. Eren watched every twitch of the doctor’s face like a hawk, trying to guess what was needed of him or how he should answer the questions directed at him.

“Alrighty,” the doctor finally smiled, and Eren let out a breath he’d been holding this whole time. “You do have a low fever, but unless you feel nauseous or ill, you should be all clear. Go give these papers to the old man, soldier,” she winked at him with a warm glint in her eyes, and Eren couldn’t refuse a smile, feeling relieved that he at least passed this test without major complications.

The tent’s entrance opened behind them. Eren assumed that it was another young human wanting to enlist, but instead a raspy, very loud voice spoke up.

“Sarge, look what I managed to snatch at the gate customs! Two whole fucking bottles of karanesian wine! Can you imagine, a refugee seeking shelter in our fucking city with pure gold under his cloak? The fucker knew his priorities.”

Eren felt his whole body stiffen not only with rage at the newcomer’s audacity to mock a refugee but also with terror. He recognized that voice. He didn’t know to whom exactly it belonged, but he had heard it shouting orders at his soldiers before when Eren was running far ahead of them.

It had to be one of the local MPs, one Eren regularly got into fights with. Perhaps if he pretended he had nothing to hide, the soldier would leave him be. He no longer had his scarf and cut his hair too since he was last chased, so perhaps there was a chance that he would go unrecognized.

He had to get out of here.

Keeping his head down he took the paper handed to him by the officer and turned towards the exit where Mikasa and Armin were holding the flaps. Their faces also seemed to take a shade of pale grey hearing the soldier talk in such a tone, but this was not the time to get into fights.

Except…

“Hey, you!” the ugly voice called out, and Eren froze mid-step. “I fucking recognize you, you freaky-eyed bastard!”

So much for Eren’s plan. A heavy hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, making Eren look into the face of the seething MP.

“What’s the issue?” the older officer asked.

“This is the fucker we’ve been hunting for months!” the man growled. “He’s a fucking thief, he robbed more than twenty shops in the area!”

Adrenaline started to set loose in Eren’s bones. He glanced at his friends, but they looked just as stunned as Eren felt. He clenched the paper in his fist tightly; at the end of the day he still got accepted, they couldn’t take this away from him.

Eren had been here before. He remembered a bright street, and people standing on the sidewalk to give space to the riders, Little One being one of them. Eren stood on the road, eyes never letting go of the green cape and the dark, shimmering hair when he was tackled to the ground and thrown into jail.

If not for the titan attack, he doubted he would’ve gotten out soon.

So the situation was clear: letting this soldier manhandle him meant getting separated from Levi again. He wouldn’t have that.

Shoving the paper into his pocket, Eren swiftly kicked the soldier’s knee and twisted himself out of his restraints. He burst out of the tent without looking back, and he pushed everyone aside who was in his way.

He only spared a quick, apologetic glance at Mikasa and Armin before he started sprinting towards the nearest house.

“What’s all this?” Levi crinkled his nose, eyeing the stuffy crowd on the square just under the Trost headquarters of the MPs.

“Huh? Oh, it’s enlisting week. With all that happened at Maria I’ve heard more people are signing up to get shelter and food,” Hanji explained, her eyes trained on the long queue of mostly teenagers. Levi was less enthusiastic about watching the brats sign away their futures.

“What are the criteria to get in?”

“Oh, I almost forgot, you never had to do this, did you?” Hanji gasped with a fond smile. “You lucky dog, I remember I had to stand in line for an  hour ! That’s where I met Moblit! We used to live in the same part of town north of here, but I never got to talk to him much before joining the army. I was eighteen and he was seventeen, but we had to bring our birth certificates to prove that we were older than twelve, ha! Then there was a medical examination. They take your measurements like height and weight, they check your eyesight, ask for any history of major illnesses…”

She abruptly noticed that Levi was no longer walking by her side. “Levi? You okay?”

Levi stood frozen in the middle of the busy street, eyes slightly wider than usual, and trained on the steadily pacing line.

Twelve?  Some of these kids were only twelve years old and the government let them sign away their freedom? They haven’t even properly started puberty yet and they were already trained to use maneuver gear?

Memories of young faces that have turned into bloody chunks of destruction flashed across his mind, recruits who were sent to battle at the tender age of fifteen, to be broken in half by a titan’s jaw or to get crippled for life.

Anger, frustration, and grief washed over him, his heart turning somber when he thought of all those young lives and all that unnecessary death. Levi was no sentimental fool and understood the struggle to stay alive, but when it came to war, he drew the line at sacrificing children. Bitter stomach acid filled his mouth. He couldn’t imagine how he could once think that the surface was that much different from the Underground.

“Levi?” he heard Hanji call out for him with uncertainty, her voice no longer tilting with enthusiasm.

Levi tore away his gaze from the crowd, knowing that in three years he would see some of those faces again, framed by a green cloak and cheeks smeared with blood.

“It’s nothing,” he replied curtly, and pulled the scarf over his mouth, subconsciously trying to find comfort in its soft touch. “Let’s go.”

“Right! We should make sure that the commanders haven’t pulled daggers on each other yet, arguing about the constitution–”

“Hanji! ” Acting on pure instinct, Levi grabbed Hanji by the arm to yank her out of the way of a body that cut through the crowd like an arrowhead.

“Woah!” she caught onto Levi’s coat to steady herself just within an inch of her life, the person’s shoulder roughly grazing her back.

“There!” someone yelled, and Levi’s head whipped around to see several MPs running after the boy, who was already halfway up on the side of a building, pulling himself up with such ease that one could’ve mistaken him for a lizard.

Levi, however, was anything but amazed.

“Fucking shitty kids,” he growled. He managed to get Hanji back on her feet, only to be pushed aside by five MP officers.

“What’s all this?” Hanji wondered breathlessly, and both of their mouths fell open when lizard-boy leaped into the air with nothing to secure him from the deadly height and jumped across the wide street. He landed on the rooftop on the other side, and then he was gone.

Levi blinked. Well, this day just got a lot more interesting.

The MPs launched themselves into the air and set off in pursuit of the boy, their orders clapping harshly at each other. They seemed to struggle to keep up with the escapee’s swift, zigzag pattern of movements.

“Should we do something?” Hanji asked.

“No,” the captain hummed tentatively, “let them struggle.”

Levi shot his hooks into the side of a house, and with Hanji following closely behind, he pulled himself into the air. From above he could see the brunette boy ducking from a hook punching into a chimney. He wore an olive green shirt and trousers that looked suspiciously like the standard military uniform pants, only ten shades darker from what Levi assumed was filth.

He was baffled by the boy’s speed. He was barefoot, his soles and toes black from dirt and bruises, and if Levi wasn’t mistaken, there were multiple cuts on them too. But the boy seemed to care about none of that. He flung himself from one roof to the other fluidly, as if he had no regard for his safety or wasn’t bothered by the gaping depths beneath his feet. All it took was one wrong step, and the boy would fall to his death.

“Did they catch him?” Hanji panted as she landed on a rooftop next to Levi, just when the boy made a sharp turn to avoid the hands reaching out to catch him. “Oooh, he’s smart!”

Levi clicked his tongue. He would’ve had no difficulty tackling the brat into the dirt, but he wasn’t any less impressed that someone on foot could out-maneuver soldiers with gear, even if they were just the untrained embarrassments of the Military Police.

“Wait, hold up, is this the notorious criminal mastermind I’ve read about in the papers?” Hanji wondered, sounding all of a sudden very much intrigued.

“Mastermind?” Levi arched a brow sardonically, not at all convinced that a lanky kid who didn’t even wear shoes was anything but a hungry rat.

“Yes! There was a description and a hefty prize for anyone who could give the MP information about a young thief with brown hair and uh… strange eyes? It also said that he always attacks from above, jumping from the roof!”

Levi narrowed his eyes at the fleeing boy. When he was still without the stolen maneuver gears in the Underground and had to flee from the soldiers, he remembered using a similar tactic to outrun them. One didn’t have to be faster than the machines. It was enough if one knew their weak spots. Sharp turns, decisions made on the spot, never having a clear goal in mind, always improvising; those were the rules he had to follow to avoid a beating.

A frown made its way onto the corner of Levi’s mouth without him even noticing. Nobody ran from the police like that on the first try. There was too much practice in the boy’s movements and something unnatural too. People shouldn’t have been able to run like that.

The MPs formed a loose arrowhead, the leader of the five getting closer and closer with each passing millisecond. The boy only had a flash to decide, only a moment of hesitation that would’ve made him end up in handcuffs, and Levi found himself subconsciously holding his breath. How the boy ran so fast on bare feet was beyond him.

A hand in the air, fingers bent like claws.

Just as they ripped into the faded green shirt, the boy wedged his heels in between the roof tiles, pieces of it flying everywhere.

He didn’t pay mind to the fresh cuts on his feet. He ruthlessly elbowed his pursuer in the cardia, and Levi absently registered the sympathetic hiss that Hanji let out.

Using the shock of pain to his advantage, the boy grabbed the man’s arm, and with the help of the momentum of the officer’s body, he threw the man over his shoulder and onto the ground like he weighed nothing.

Hanji straightened her posture, not even noticing when she leaned forward. “Woah!” she breathed and a sly grin spread on her face. “Levi, saw that?”

What Levi saw was a bunch of incompetent idiots who got outsmarted by a single brat. The second-hand embarrassment was fucking real. He had enough of this shameful circus.

He shot his grapple hooks, and the wind harshly slapped him in the face. He cut through the air like a blade, time stopping in his flight as he sped towards the elusive escape artist.

The officers could only see a flash of green. Levi landed an unforgiving kick to the boy’s lower back, sharp and precise, aiming for the kidneys. He heard a pained squeak and looked over his shoulder.

He threw the boy off balance mid-air. Scrambling for something to hold onto but finding nothing, the boy was speeding towards the ground between two houses in a narrow alley. His expression was open and honest, panic flashing in his irises when he realized what happened.

Then he locked eyes with Levi, and the captain’s blood froze in his veins.

The boy, his face cupped by sweaty, mid-length strands of brown hair, tightly grabbed hold of Levi’s gaze, and the panicked expression instantly disappeared. Its place was taken by a vibrant tide of shock, excitement, and something warm that Levi was sure he just imagined.

Levi felt numb, like dead weight falling from the sky.

No, he couldn’t be here–

I’m here now, Levi. I’m here…

I missed you…

Haunting green eyes bore into Levi’s, a color that he had seen many times over, staring at him at night through the veil of time, through a past long gone. Those bizarre eyes which breathed along with nature, which burned brighter when the sky cleared and darkened in its anger like a summer storm that brought wind and hail, staring right at his soul.

Levi felt his whole body grow rigid, his toes and fingertips burning under the sharp stinging of cold dread. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening, nor could he move to tear his eyes away from the emerald sea, from that raw unlawfulness that tore through laws and flesh with the same ferocity, and burned white hot in the very core of the boy’s soul.

And at that moment Levi realized something. The boy with the eyes of a monster saw the same kind of shocking, depraved savagery in Levi that he saw in the boy too. It was that emotion that he couldn’t understand not a second earlier.

It was recognition. Familiarity. Eyes that twinkled with sly satisfaction and said, ‘I know you ’. After all, monsters recognized each other.

Then the moment was over, and time snapped back to its original flow.

Desperation so strong hit Levi’s heart that it felt more compelling than hunger or death itself. All he knew was that he couldn’t breathe, and he would suffocate if he had to bear those eyes on himself for even a second longer. He felt disgustingly, pathetically weak.

Abruptly changing the course of his flight he charged toward the boy, and kneed him cruelly in the face, more out of the need to regain some control over his body rather than out of necessity.

He heard something crack, then came a gargled cough, and Levi might have gone too far, been too violent, but fuck if he could be concerned about a rat’s face at that moment. Ghosts couldn’t feel pain, right? And if this was no ghost, then Levi wanted nothing to do with the nightmare reincarnated.

The boy fell, Levi pulled back, and the velocity of a heavy body flying by him made the hairs on his forehead flicker.

One dull thud, then a groan, and two people were on the ground, one quickly restraining the other.

“Hold him down! He’s going straight to Dok this time!” an MP yelled, and soon the rest of the team pulled up to help cuff the trashing, growling criminal.

Wait, growling? What in the… Levi’s frown creased his forehead deeper as he set foot on the rooftop right above the scene of the arrest.

The boy’s bloodied face was pushed to the cold stone by a heavy foot, blocking multiple attempts of biting the hands reaching for him. A foul sound bubbled up from the pit of his guts like he was a rabid dog or wild animal, his body convulsing violently to throw off the MPs.

“Nice job, Kirschtein!” an MP grunted as he struggled to keep the boy on the ground.

“Thank you, sir!” a lean trainee’s chest visibly swell with pride, currently busy assisting the officer with cuffing the tanned wrists, and Levi wondered how much more pathetic these corrupt bastards could get if they needed a trainee’s help. Not to mention…

“A shitty brat running off with  my  words of praise? I’m offended,” he announced his presence flatly – feeling like he had been ignored deliberately – and jumped off the roof, making sure to keep his eyes off the boy.

It didn’t miss his attention how the struggling beneath the officers’ ministrations ceased the moment his voice was heard. The brat lay eerily still on the ground. Levi didn’t look at him.

“You should be more careful next time, Captain ,” the sergeant said without even attempting to hide the pitying disgust in his voice. “You could’ve gotten hurt, throwing yourself in line of police business so recklessly.”

The corner of Levi’s mouth twitched downwards. “Oh, I’m sure. Hard times his Majesty’s internal police must be going through if they need the help of a trainee and a reckless captain to catch a common sewer rat.”

Eren wanted to scream. His mouth was foaming, rage boiling over in his guts like burning poison. He kicked, he bit, hard, until he could taste blood, until a boot collided with his face, making a sickening crunching sound. Pain struck his nose like a bolt of lightning, and Eren couldn’t care less.

Levi was leaving again. He turned away without looking back, without sparing Eren a single glance.

Gurgling through the blood that now flooded his mouth he desperately tried to call out for Levi, his panic clouding his mind. All he knew was that things couldn’t go the same way they did last time in Shiganshina. He couldn’t be torn away from his human and tossed into jail when he finally got his eyes on him again.

At least he’s wearing the scarf. He doesn’t seem sick like he did such a long time ago, shivering like the smallest flower petal on the cold ground in the cave.

It was okay, Levi had the scarf, and Eren could escape jail again. He could, he had to. That’s what he kept repeating to himself as he was dragged off the street.

The adrenaline of the rush was starting to wear off, and it stripped the titan of the blissful unawareness of his body’s condition. He was hurt all over, his face was gushing blood, and his arms twisted uncomfortably behind his back. The cuffs were cutting into his skin, but the pain in his jaw where Levi kicked him soared much more. Still so strong.

Instead of bringing him into a cold, stone room with bars on its windows, he was escorted to a building where they would drag him across a maze of corridors before they stopped in front of a thick oak door.

After knocking, a voice from the inside responded with a curt “Enter.”

Eren was pulled by the arm, and before he could look around to see what kind of place they brought him to, a soldier “accidentally” got his boot under Eren’s feet, making him fall onto the floor.

“What the hell?” a gruff voice spoke.

“Sir, apologies for the interruption. But we got him. We fucking got him, sir!” Eren shuddered at hearing that excited viciousness in the soldier’s voice. “This bastard is responsible for the whole district laughing at our asses.”

Eren groaned when the hard leather boot connected with his stomach just below the ribcage, and he looked up through teary eyes, hands still behind his back.

“This runt?”

“We recognized him, sir.”

The foggy edges of the room started bleeding into each other, and Eren tried focusing his vision on the two silhouettes sitting by a wooden desk. The one speaking wore the MP’s horse on his jacket, and his eyes ran up and down on Eren’s bloody figure with disapproval and maybe a touch of surprise.

Eren struggled to turn his head to get a better look at the other one too, but he could only see up to the man’s waist from the angle he was forced to stay on the floor.

“Is this the thief I heard rumors about on our last meeting in the capitol?” the deep, honeyed voice sounded pleasantly surprised. It was off somehow, artificially sweet, like the candy Eren saw the rich kids eating. He wasn’t used to anything but the taste of dirt and sunlight, and the absurd aftertaste left behind by the man’s voice made him feel uneasy. It also sounded familiar.

“Not anymore, he’s not,” the irritated man grumbled before making a gesture with his hands that could be interpreted as dismissal. “Lock him in the coldest cell we got and schedule a trial for tomorrow at the earliest hour. I want this embarrassing affair behind my regiment.”

“A trial for what crimes?” That voice again. Eren laid flat on his stomach, having given up on trying to see the man’s face in favor of paying attention to the conversation.

“Theft, destruction of property, assaulting multiple officers, and arson.”

Now the man honestly sounded taken aback. “Arson?”

“Tch, you know how it is,” the MP huffed and lowered his voice. “We have an unresolved incident from back when one of our barracks burned down. I just need the higher-ups to finally quit nagging me about it, I’m fucking sick of it. And the kid’s guilty enough, sentencing him for one more thing won’t make a difference.”

A chair creaked and a heavy pair of feet took a step towards Eren, the floorboards resonating under the weight. Eren flinched, trying to prepare himself for another kick that would no doubt break his nose for good if it wasn’t already broken. At least it didn’t steam, he thought bitterly. Being a titan no doubt would’ve been another crime he’d be charged with.

But instead of getting kicked in the face, Eren saw a knee in white uniform trousers touching the floor, and heard the voice from above, “Help him sit up, please.”

Rough hands grabbed his shoulders from behind, and Eren hissed through the pain of being yanked up. He would’ve gladly bitten off those grimy fingers, but then all his thoughts hushed quiet when he was finally able to take in the features of the man in front of him.

It was Levi’s friend, the one with blond hair and blue eyes. Eren’s dry lips parted. He didn’t expect to come across a familiar face here out of all places. Erwin, wasn’t that his name? What was he doing here, meeting with an MP?

Erwin’s eyes only widened for a fraction of a second when blue met with bright green. A single twitch in the corner of his mouth signaled that something had crossed his mind.

Eren felt naked under the intense scrutiny. He knew it was impossible, but he dreaded that Erwin would somehow see through his human disguise. If neither Little One nor Hanji could recognize him, would Erwin be any different?

The titan both feared and anticipated the answer.

However, Erwin didn’t show any signs that he did, for not a second after their eyes met he turned back toward the officer. “Don’t you think it would be a shame to lock up a boy with such a strong, able body? He managed to escape from the law for so long, perhaps it would be foolish to discard him like he’s household rubbish.”

The officer rolled his eyes. “The boy is a compulsive kleptomaniac, Erwin, he’s no use. The scum of society, robbing people left and right when we’re all struggling.”

“I don’t think that anyone could be deemed useless in the war we’re fighting. It would be a waste.”

“Yes, I know how much you love collecting criminals. You could pick up a better hobby, you know, like I dunno, gardening or something.”

Erwin gave a hearty laugh, for reasons Eren couldn’t comprehend. “It would be less taxing mentally, I’m sure. But we’re all slaves to our commitments, and you happen to know mine.”

There was a brief minute of silence, the older officer pouting a little while his gaze dropped down onto Eren and then back up to Erwin before he let out a tired sigh. “Don’t make me regret this. If he’s caught doing anything  ever  again, he’s getting sent straight to the gallows. No second chances.”

“That’s a reasonable condition,” Erwin smiled, then kneeled in front of Eren again, until their eyes were on the same level. “What’s your name?”

The titan blinked. “Eren.”

A strange expression appeared and vanished on the blond man’s face before Eren could understand what it meant, and anxiety started sinking its claws in his limbs. Should he have said a different name?

No, he couldn’t. Levi gave him that name, he couldn’t just throw it away. Eren was anxious when he thought about what would happen to him if the human’s found out what he truly was, but he wasn’t afraid of Levi. He would never hurt Eren. He’d be sad if he found out that the titan decided to live by another name. So he said it again, “my name is Eren.”

“Eren…” the man contemplatively tasted the word on his tongue. “My name is Erwin Smith. I’m the thirteenth” … commander of the Survey Corps , Eren internally finished the sentence he had heard a long time ago in a forest, this very same human standing in front of him.

Erwin was tiny back then, the size of Eren’s palm, and his voice was higher too, just like Levi’s and Hanji’s. That’s probably why he didn’t recognize them immediately.

“How did you manage to escape the police for so long?”

The titan hesitantly paused. This was Levi’s friend. Armin said friends trusted each other, and Levi was Eren’s friend. If Levi trusted this human, then Eren had to trust him too.

“…I run.”

“You outrun soldiers equipped with ODM gear? How?”

Eren bit into his lower lip, searching for the words he could use to help the man understand.

He stood, and rather effortlessly jumped through the hoop of his own two arms, bringing his cuffed hands in front of his body to gain more mobility. A soldier’s breath hitched behind him, and the irate man stood from the desk too, but Erwin merely observed him calmly.

“Soldiers fly fast like this,” Eren said, and using a hand with straight fingers he glided his palm across the floor in a line. “But they’re slow when…” He turned his hand first at a ninety-degree angle, demonstrating a sharp left turn. Then he repeated the same motion to the right before turning his hand’s direction by a hundred and eighty degrees, trying to imitate a hairpin bend.

“When they turn?” Erwin helped him without batting an eye.

“Yes. Can’t turn. I wait for them to get close, then I turn, very quick.”

Erwin hummed. “Impressive. You must be strong, Eren. And skilled. Don’t you think you could be more than a petty criminal? Your abilities are quite extraordinary, from what I’ve heard.

“Why don’t we make a deal? You won’t be punished for your crimes. In return, I ask you to join our ranks and use your strength to help humanity.”

“Help… humanity?” Eren repeated the words, eyes wide.

“Yes. Join the Survey Corps and fight the titans for freedom. If you refuse–”

“I join!” Eren cut in before hearing the rest of the man’s terms, this so-called‘deal.’

He didn’t need to. He wanted to laugh, wanted to pull against the cuffs on his wrists until either the metal or his bones snapped. He wanted to smell the blood of titans in the air, feel his claws tingle and his fangs push further out of his gums, ready to sink into the flesh of those monsters.

“I want to kill them,” he skimmed the words through his teeth. The effort he always put into watching his composure slipped when he lifted his chin to meet Erwin’s slightly stunned eyes. “I want to kill all the titans.”

Erwin’s gaze was calculating, making Eren feel like his soul was being scrutinized at torchlight. But Erwin could look all he wanted, Eren was no longer anxious. Determination burned his body from the inside, and the lust for fighting which could only be soothed by the sensation of slain blood cooling on his skin.

Slowly a smile began to curve both sides of Erwin’s lips. A twinkle of excitement flashed across his crystal blue irises as he stood, and reached out a hand. “Very well, then. Eren, welcome to the Survey Corps. We’ll be counting on you.”

Eren took the commander’s hand without hesitation.

Chapter Text

“I’ve heard you assisted some officers in the capture of a certain outlaw?”

The ten o’clock meeting was brief, and this time everyone was present, though still visibly worn out by yesterday’s drinking fest. Now it was only Levi and Erwin left in the room, Erwin already having dismissed everyone else but him.

“You could hardly call it assisting,” Levi said offhandedly and brushed off a speckle of dust from his boot, sitting with one foot on his knee. Thinking of the incident made him feel all kinds of uncomfortable, and Levi didn’t like it when he couldn’t suppress his body’s visceral reactions. He needed to stay in control, and today he lost it, even if just for a minute. “Charity, I’d say.”

“But you’ve met the boy,” Erwin clarified tentatively, and Levi wished he would just get on with whatever this was about.

“ ’Met’ is an overstatement, but yes, I've seen him.”

“Good!” Erwin nodded. “You’re in charge of him from now on.”

Levi blinked once, then twice.

“What?” he blurted out as eloquently as ever.

“I happened to be around when he was escorted to Nile, and I took my chances,” Erwin explained so casually as if he was telling Levi about an extra item they needed to purchase on their next supply trip.

Levi was half convinced that he was still drunk, and he thoroughly misunderstood something while he was daydreaming about that tea set he saw on the way here, but it wasn’t the case.

Why on earth would he be suddenly in charge of a street rat? Let alone that boy specifically. No, disrespectfully, Levi wanted nothing to do with him.

“Meaning what exactly?” he asked with suspicious caution lacing his words.

“I bailed him out.” There was a pause, Levi’s deadpan expression unchanging. “Well,” Erwin cleared his throat and glanced aside, “there was no actual exchange of money.”

Levi sat in silence, judging the hell out of the weirdo he somehow managed to land under as a subordinate. “You bought a person… for free. Again.”

“Gods, don’t make it sound weird,” Erwin squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, and Levi thought, good. That sloppy adoption paper from last night no longer seemed like a joke.

“It is weird. You’re like a fucked up hoarder, snatching people off the streets left and right. There’s gotta be a better hobby out there.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what Nile said,” Erwin muttered under his nose, mouth curling with a know-it-all smile, while Levi deliberately ignored him for the sake of not breaking any furniture in the room. Or in Erwin’s body.

“And nobody has time to discipline a brat. He’s gonna be back on the streets as soon as we turn our back on him for more than ten minutes anyway.” He would probably be better off too, Levi thought. Topside thieves had the life of kings compared to them, underground scum. Trost would surely treat a kid better than the outside. Titans weren’t exactly hospitable.

“Nile also said something like that.”

“Oh, don’t fucking Nile me!” Levi snapped, his foot landing on the floor next to the other with a harsh thump. “Mention that pig’s name one more time–”

“All I’m saying is that you two could work a lot smoother with each other if you put aside your petty grievances,” Erwin lifted both his hands up all innocently like he would ever yield without winning an argument.

“He’s a sadistic bastard, Erwin,” Levi reminded him. The scars on his back still ached from time to time, the long stripes of thick, white tissue lining his back from shoulder blades to hips.

“And you regularly disturbed his patrol lines along the eastern district underground. Coincidentally you always seemed to have business there whenever he was on watch. Or so I’ve heard.”

Erwin’s eyes glinted with playful amusement, and Levi sunk into defiant silence. He might’ve timed his raids when he knew it was Dok’s time to patrol, back when the commander was still just a nobody within the ranks, and Levi was a greenhorn thug, but it wasn’t his fault that Dok made such an amusing face when angered.

“Regardless, we will do a favor to him by swiftly removing this boy from the radar. He’ll owe us, Levi, and that’s something even Nile respects,” Erwin said calmly, similar to how parents talked to their children. “Money loses its value with time, debts don’t. It’s the safest currency to invest in.”

Levi narrowed his eyes. He could smell a shitstorm from miles away, and the stench never quite left Erwin’s person, always lingering near him. “What on earth are you planning?”

“For now? Nothing,” Erwin waved a hand dismissively. “I’m simply making insurances.” Then, after a short pause, he quietly announced, “The king is old and dying.”

“Dying of what?” Levi snorted. “Eating too much?”

“You’re not too far from the truth,” Erwin’s lips twitched wistfully. “Disease of the rich. He’s been sick since this spring, and last I’ve heard, his household doesn’t expect him to make it ‘til summer. The princess, as you know, Frieda, is already twenty-five, and still has no children. Rumor says she can’t conceive.”

Levi frowned. “What’s this have to do with us babysitting a snotty brat?”

“One snotty brat is a small favor, and small favors can make up a debt of considerable size. The succession won’t go smoothly, Levi.”

He spoke with such conviction that Levi had no reason to doubt it. Erwin had a talent for making well-educated guesses, making him possess a near unerring instinct for the future. It was as creepy as it was annoying.

“The old houses won’t support Frieda. They believe a woman can’t rule, besides, Frieda openly rebukes the nobles’ expensive way of living.”

That Levi knew. Frieda was one of the few he didn’t actually despise among the roaches inhabiting the Capitol. The girl had a sharp head on her shoulders and a wrinkle between her brows that frequently appeared when dealing with the so-called nobles of the country; or so Levi heard. He never met her himself, since a worse-than-low-born soldier like himself had no business with princesses, but Frieda had Levi’s reluctant respect for her reserved lifestyle and for being an advocate against poverty and the unlivable conditions in the Underground.

Levi would’ve rather seen someone like her on the throne and childless rather than a greedy, fat pig with balls full of frisky brats.

“Rumors of Freida not being able to conceive is the best chance the old houses will get to turn to someone else,” Erwin said. “Their foundation of reason is the instability of the kingdom’s future. It’s hard to argue against.”

“Have they thought about the princess’ husband being the one with the empty sac?” Levi frowned, picking at his nails. “Not much a woman can do when the man isn’t giving dog shit.”

“It’s an excuse, clearly. With Prince Urklyn gone, though, the next in line to succeed will be eight-year-old Dirk.”

“A puppet, in other words, dancing however it’s most convenient to a bunch of weaselly old men, while the rest of us can go fuck ourselves.”

“Simply put, yes. I don’t need to tell you that there would be no more funding for our missions with Dirk on the throne. The best case scenario is that we pack our things and be happy that eviction was all we got.”

“Worst case being another wall kicked in and those bastards sip on champagne while we’re getting rimmed by titans,” Levi mumbled, arms crossed and dark clouds looming over him.

“Always so colorful with your words,” Erwin noted with a touch of amusement in his otherwise serious tone. “Frieda, barren or not, is still protected by the constitution and the younger generation of nobles, but they aren’t nearly as wealthy as those who would support a child king. So, if or rather when the conflict becomes physical, it all comes down to the military. Us.”

Erwin’s expectant gaze remained on Levi, who only now understood what this was all about. He felt his eyes widen for a flash before he could scold his expression into his usual cold, indifferent state.

Those goddamn eyebrows… In a moment of absurd curiosity, Levi wondered what kind of devil’s wit they possessed.

“You want the military to be a third party,” he said, and the words dropped like stones in his stomach once he said them. “United enough to take down both sides of the nobles if necessary.” Levi ran rigid fingers through his hair, staring at the commander with a mixture of shock and sizzling fever he felt in his younger days before raiding a stash house. It was something akin to excitement. “Holy shit, Erwin. I could report you right now for conspiracy and treason and your ass would be deported to the Underground faster than you could say ‘motherfucker’.”

“I want to find out the truth about the titans and ensure humanity’s victory,” Erwin sighed. “That’s where my loyalties lie. But I can’t when a second war is threatening us within our walls. Expeditions need financial stability, and for that, I need the Military Police to have my back.

“The small investments of today, such as the boy I welcomed within our ranks, are the debts of tomorrow we can call in if needed. Besides,” he added with a pleased smile, “the boy seemed eager to join us. He didn’t even want to hear out my offer.”

“Tch… I swear to the Walls, you give me a bag full of pussy and I still manage to pull out the asshole.”

“I don't even know what that means, but I thought you don’t have preferences.”

“A hole is a hole and I’m not picky, but one stinks more than the other,” Levi frowned. “Not that you’d know. You’re as pure and vanilla as a virgin.”

“Well, I don’t judge.”

“Good for you, but I’m judging the fuck out of you,” Levi grumbled. He was damn well pissed off that his life just became a lot more complicated because of one brat deciding to seek out trouble, but lately life had nothing but shitty surprises for him. And babysitting a brat was still better than a titan’s foot through another wall. “Fine, what do you need from me? I don’t exactly have a lot of free time on my hands.”

“Teach him the basics. No unnecessary flaunting. I want him on the next expedition.”

Levi didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “That’s in less than a year.”

“That’s why I picked you. That boy will need a firm hand, and you’re a brute when need be. Can you do it?”

“Consider it done.”

“Good. You’re dismissed,” Erwin nodded, meaning that their official business was done. He let out a ragged sigh and leaned back in the chair to stretch his stiff back. Levi watched him with a hand in front of his mouth and eyes narrowed.

“Makes me wonder, though, what kind of friends you have on the internal,” he spoke up to break the momentary silence that enveloped the room. “To leak such information about the king’s health… Must be one hell of a friend.”

The corner of Erwin’s mouth twitched in a way that Levi didn’t like. “I have my ways.”

“Your ways will bite us in the ass one day, Erwin.”

“Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that, then. I have one more thing to ask you.”

Levi cocked a brow. “Off the record?”

“Strictly. Does the name Jaeger mean anything to you?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Levi lied seamlessly.

Erwin slowly nodded. There were secrets swirling in his eyes which could be read no more than the man’s own thoughts.

“Ask around, would you?”

“You assume I didn’t lose contact since I’m topside.”

“Oh, I know you didn’t,” Erwin arched a brow smugly.

There was no point denying this one, Levi supposed. At least it was gratifying to know that he had some sources which Erwin didn’t. Not that he suspected his friend would ever act on an interest that didn’t align with his, but as Erwin implied, making assurances never hurt.

“Alright,” he finally said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Erwin thanked him, and Levi set out to gather his squad and the newest addition. He was in the hallway when he looked outside, and noticed his men loading a carriage with heavy bags of much needed supplies. Towards the end of the carriage stood the black sheep, eyes attentively plastered onto the group of scouts, watching them as if it was necessary to memorize something that Levi couldn’t see.

Just as the captain’s eyes had found him through the glass, the brat’s posture stiffened like a cold bucket of water was dumped on him, and he slowly turned his head. Levi felt a chill running down his spine when green eyes met his.

He couldn’t move, those devilish eyes making his feet strike root in the floorboards. Levi clenched his jaws, and he had to make a physical effort to tear his gaze away from the awful depths of that emerald sea.

He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead, and his hands trembled like he wasn’t in his office but on his first expedition. If ghosts existed, it probably felt like this to have one walk through you.

He didn’t know what the brat was expecting to be so willing to take Erwin up on his offer, but Levi was determined to make him quit by the end of the month.

Not an hour after Eren shook hands with the scout commander, the soldiers loaded a carriage with various supplies and sat Eren on top of it. The loud one with the mouse brown hair warned him not to take anything, or else there would be serious consequences. Eren just snorted and wriggled around on his butt until he found the perfect sun spot.

By now the circus Eren caused with his grand escape had died down, the MPs were out of sight, and the pedestrians went on with their lives.

Eren watched Levi and Erwin exchange a few words in the gates of the large, cold building before the blond man turned to leave. Levi’s shoulders slumped, something he used to do while sitting by the edge of their old cave, scoping the horizon. Eren wondered what put the human in such a discouraged mood again.

“Heeey!”

His ears perked up, and his eyes zeroed in on Gabi standing on the sidewalk not far away, struggling against Madam Lydia’s grip on her nape.

“Dammit, girl, stay put!” she hissed quietly enough for only Eren to hear, and a concealed hint of anxiousness flickered in her gaze.

“But–!”

“Hush, love, he’s gone for. Keep your mouth shut if you want us out of trouble. The coppers got him now.”

Gabi’s eyes went wide with heart-wrenching terror. “Are they kidnapping him?! Bastards, give him back!”

The shouting caught the attention of quite a few to the Madam’s annoyance. Levi drew his brows, the already gloomy expression on his face turning even darker, and walked his horse between the carriage and Gabi, just before the girl could latch onto Eren’s arm.

“What’s this?” he grumbled from on top of the dark mare, his unfriendly gaze on the Madam.

“Don’t mind her, sir, she’s just a troublemaker,” she chuckled nervously.

Levi narrowed his eyes and glanced at the woman’s clothing, no doubt making an accurate guess of what her profession could be. He reached for a bag of potatoes on the cart, and rather unceremoniously dropped it on Gabi, who caught it with a breathless huff.

“Keep ‘em fed,” he said curtly and ordered the squad to get moving.

Eren grabbed the side of the wooden boards to keep himself steady when the carriage got launched forward. Gabi carelessly swung the sack of potatoes in Lydia’s direction and ran after them.

“Wait, you can’t just take him–!”

“Gabi, I’m fine, not kidnapped,” Eren stumbled through heavy boxes and sacks to the back of the cart. He felt his heart pang with sadness when he realized that he had no idea if he would ever see the kids again. It never seemed to be possible to return to the places he once left.

“Be good, Gabi, okay?” Eren pleaded, knowing that it was not only impossible to keep the girl out of trouble, but Eren also had no right to lecture anyone. “I go away for a while, but not long. I come back.”

The human’s feet started giving up on her, and she was panting heavily through the droplets of sweat running down her face. Still, she didn’t give up. She ran after them, heaving threats and pleas until her tiny legs gave up and she fell to the ground.

Eren promised again that he would come back, though he didn’t know for sure.

He could see her standing at the gates of Trost for a long time, watching them until she could no longer tell where Eren’s brown mop of hair ended, and where the frosty, autumn landscape began.

Eren felt his hands tremble when he realized that he lost sight of Gabi too, this time for good.

He was ready to face the new challenges of the human world, the new people he had to prove himself to, and the new and unknown situations he had to manage, but seeing Trost shrink into the size of his pinky’s nail did funny things to his stomach.

The rattling of the cart, the horses galloping by its side, and a walled city in the distance was a familiar image, one that made his anxiety spike up. He reminded himself over and over again that this isn’t an exodus, and Trost wasn’t fallen, lost to a sea of titans, yet he found himself worrying if the workers of the brothel and the children would be okay.

“So, is this the first time you leave home?”

Eren turned to look at the young woman; yellow flowers, sunset hair. His lips twitched wistfully. “No.”

Trost was the third home he had left behind, but the first one which he might be able to return to. He didn’t look back again, eager for what was waiting for him at the end of the dirt road.

They traveled for quite a few hours before arriving at a large castle, larger than any building Eren had ever seen. During the journey the soldiers kept to themselves, only occasionally picking up on brief conversations, but Eren had a hard time keeping up with their meaning, so he resigned to sitting back and watching the way the wind played with Levi’s hair.

He was riding ahead of the carriage, his back to Eren. Not once did he turn around to look at him or say a few words. If Eren worked up the courage to speak up, he suddenly found himself lacking the words, so he stayed quiet.

When they arrived at a spacious courtyard and the soldiers began undressing the horses of their strange gear and took them towards a smaller building, Eren looked for Levi to finally address him, possibly embarrass himself too, but Levi was gone before Eren jumped off the carriage.

“Make him useful,” was all the man said to the brunette soldier, and before Eren could run after him, a heavy saddle was pushed into his hands.

“Stop hovering, boy,” the brunette barked. His hair had a weird shape.

“What I do with it?” Eren’s eyes were still searching the courtyard, looking for a trace of Levi.

“Never cleaned tack before?”

“No.”

The man sighed but spared no time to express his opinion on the matter. “C’mon then, I’ll show you. And watch your manners. The Captain doesn’t take kindly on insubordination.”

Accepting that he should have to wait a little longer until he could speak to Levi, Eren followed the man who introduced himself as Gunther. The name was familiar, he probably heard it when the scouts visited his forest.

He didn’t even know what he would’ve said to Levi if the man had stayed, he had so many questions. Eren wanted to know if he remembered last night or if he recognized him at all, but he wasn’t sure how that would go. What if Levi didn’t believe he was a titan? Would they throw him out then, calling him crazy? And what if he did recognize Eren, but he’d be freaked out by his inexplicable human body?

A sudden pang of fear drained the color from Eren’s cheeks. Doubt crept up on him.

What if Levi wouldn’t want to see him again? If he was angry with him for losing his calm back outside the walls? In his panic he almost killed Levi’s friends. Did Levi recognize him and ignored him deliberately? To tell Eren that he wanted nothing to do with him? What if Levi hated him for it? After all, he… Eren looked down at his right hand, at his wrist. After all, Levi cut off his hand when Eren held the man in his palm to protect him. Did he think Eren wanted to kill him?

Sometimes Eren forgot how much he hurt on that day. How much he possibly hurt Levi too.

Eren’s ears were ringing, and he could barely pay attention to what Gunther was telling him about the maintenance of the tack and their storage in the stable. The horses, already stationed in the boxes, huffed and stomped anxiously around Eren. The titan didn’t go near them.

“So, what do we call you, kid?” the one named Eld asked. He showed Eren how to clean the snaffle on the bridles. He really had to get in there with his nails to scrape off the bits and pieces of grass, but he didn’t mind it. The stable smelled nice.

“Eren.”

The soldier replied with a noncommittal hum. “How did you end up under the Captain’s care? We never get any rookies straight out of the cradle.”

“Uh–” Eren’s voice trailed off as he closed his eyes momentarily to concentrate on the myriad of words he barely or never heard before. This would’ve been a lot easier if Armin was here, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Eren also didn’t want people to mistake him for being simple-minded again. Then, they’d surely throw him out. “Erwin asked. I wanted to join.”

Eld’s eyebrows ran halfway up on his forehead, and he exchanged a surprised look with Gunther. “The Commander did?”

Eren nodded. “I’m a thief, but Erwin thinks I run fast, so he asked me and I said yes. Is this clean?”

“Um…” Eld drew out a long breath, confusion written all across his face, mostly because of the blunt confession, but Eren was oblivious to it. “Yeah, that looks good.”

“Really?” the titan beamed, overcome with sudden joy. He raised the snaffle close enough to his face to see his teeth reflect on the silvery surface. Tiny human hands could do so much amazing, detailed work!

The soldiers only snickered at his enthusiasm and gave him more work, glad that they weren’t the ones elbow-deep in the mucky green water. After cleaning the rest of the tack with brushes and oils that smelled strange, Petra whisked Eren away from Eld and Gunther to show him the barracks.

“Any bed?” the titan gasped when he saw the bunkbeds lining up in the decently sized room, all of them being empty.

“Yes, pick whichever you fancy the most,” Petra gave him an encouraging smile. “We don’t get many recruits, so the beds in this room are all unoccupied. We’re hoping to get a few new recruits with the next graduates, but… times are tough. Oh, wait, I also got you some toiletries.”

“To-let-trees?” Eren cautiously observed the little basket of items. He recognized soap and what looked like a fuzzy blanket only smaller, but the rest didn’t ring a bell.

“Just some knick-knacks, nothing fancy I’m afraid. Oh, while we’re at it I can also show you where the showers are! Then we can go see the kitchen, I’m sure you’re hungry!”

Eren wasn’t, he got plenty of sunlight on the ride here, but he wasn’t about to refuse when Petra was treating him so kindly. The human gave him a vague tour of the castle, and Eren’s head was hurting by the time they were through with just the first floor.

There were more rooms, corridors, and hidden corners than Eren had ever seen before; the old building of the brothel in Shiganshina was nothing compared to this, and that was the only house he’s been to more than once.

He never felt so hopelessly small as he did when he was trailing after Petra in a long corridor with narrow, stone walls and a tall ceiling. It felt like the walls could curl and crumble any moment, crushing Eren beneath themselves.

He didn’t dare think about how much stone weighed down on the ceilings from above, how many more rooms could be upstairs that didn’t fall on top of him just yet due to some clever human engineering. Still, not seeing the sky messed with Eren’s mind in a way that was hard to ignore.

If Petra noticed his discomfort, she mustn’t have thought much about it, because she never mentioned the clear drops of sweat running down Eren’s temple or the way his eyes darted anxiously from wall to wall.

The place called ‘showers’ confused the hell out of Eren, but Petra barely spent a minute mentioning how the room functioned, so Eren figured that it was basic enough for humans that asking about it would’ve raised suspicion.

“Here, feel free to wash up,” Petra said with a friendly smile as she gave Eren a fuzzy towel. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but you’re as filthy as a little piglet who spent the day rolling around in mud! And oh, I’ll get you a set of clean uniforms and bandages for those nasty cuts on your feet. Jeez, how did you even get them?” she wondered, a finger tapping inquisitively on her chin as she observed Eren’s bruised limbs, skin almost black from all the dirt.

Eren wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Eld seemed a little taken aback by his upfront answers; perhaps humans didn’t like that? Mikasa and Armin never complained. Eren hoped they were alright and not too worried about him.

“Alright, you go and take a shower, I’ll come back when you’re done!”

“Can you show me?”

Petra just stared at him for an uncomfortable minute, and Eren was about to take everything back, saying that he would just figure out how to work the strange devices on the wall on his own when suddenly Petra slapped a hand on his forehead.

“Oh, of course, honey! I’m sorry, I didn’t think that you might not know how to–” she cut herself off, and Eren noticed a faint redness on her cheeks as well as an apologetic smile on her lips. Was she embarrassed for herself? Or for Eren?

“Here, you just turn this handle,” she demonstrated, and to Eren’s absolute astonishment, water started sprinkling from the top of the strange metal device. It was like rain but inside a room. “When you’re done, just turn the handle the other way. Sorry, there’s no warm water this hour of the day, so just make it quick.”

Eren didn’t know what she meant by warm water, since the water he encountered had always been ice cold, whether it was from a pond or a creak. After she left, he shed his clothes and made quick work of washing himself. Brownish water went down the drain in a spiral of bubbles and soapy foam. It wasn’t much different from standing under natural rain.

Petra soon came back and gave him fresh clothes while making sure to completely turn her back on him too. Eren didn’t understand why, but he said nothing and got dressed. He couldn’t remember the last time he wore clean clothes. It had to be a few months ago now when Carla washed his shirt for the last time. Petra promised him that she would get the olive shirt cleaned and then give it back to him.

The boots were… something else. Awful did not cut it. They were strange, rubbing his feet in all the most delicate places, and it felt as unnatural not to feel the ground beneath his feet as it was the first time Carla made him wear them.

“I have to?” Eren asked with eyes full of angst.

“Wear the boots? You’ll need them during training, trust me,” Petra chuckled half-heartedly. “It’s very unusual for a civilian to get enlisted like this, getting thrown straight into our ranks, but the Captain won’t go easy on you. Find me after training, okay? I have a cream from Squad Leader Zoe that works wonders on bruises and sore spots. Now, come, I’ll show you the kitchen!”

“Right!” Eld clapped his hands together to draw the attention of the new and very much strange extension of their squad. “How about we begin the assessment?”

The boy, standing in front of them in the empty courtyard, looked around with a frown of discomfort on his face. “Where’s Levi?” he asked with that strange accent of his, one that made it sound like his tongue was heavier in his mouth than it should’ve been.

“Watch your mouth, stupid brat!” Oluo barked. “That’s ‘Captain’ for you or ‘sir’. You don’t get the honor to call him by his–”

Blood splattered from the man’s mouth, and a collective groan could be heard from the rest of the squad. The boy flinched away and watched Oluo’s struggles with poorly disguised satisfaction. Eld sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, already knowing that making these two get along will be one hell of a struggle.

“We can leave the lesson on etiquette after lunch. Petra will teach you how to talk properly, Eren.”

“I will?” she gave him a startled and equally confused look.

“Would you rather Oluo taught him?”

Petra bit into her lower lip and glanced at the man who was still struggling to stuff his scarred tongue back inside his mouth. “Point taken. Don’t worry, Eren, I’ll make a gentleman out of you!”

The boy blinked.

“Where’s Levi?” he asked again like the whole conversation just flew over his head.

Good question, Eld wanted to mumble, but he knew better than to openly criticize his captain. Their task was to figure out how much and what kind of training the brat would need, which didn’t per se require Captain Levi’s presence. Still, Eld couldn’t help but feel entirely unprepared. He never had to train anyone before, let alone a civilian. Or whatever the brat was, a weird mix of civilian, outlaw and recruit. Not yet a scout, that was certain.

“He’s busy right now,” he clipped, and the brat’s posture visibly stooped. “Now, let’s get this over with.”

Eren performed admirably in almost all physical exercises. The Commander wasn’t tripping when he trusted the boy with the Captain; seeing firsthand what a boy of Eren’s unassuming size could do, the strength and agility his body possessed, Eld had no fear that there was plenty to work with.

They watched in silence the way Eren effortlessly speed-ran the obstacle course, diving into the water and pulling himself on top of the wooden climbing board without even using the ropes. It gave some further explanation on how a kid could survive all by himself on the streets with the MP on his back.

“What the fuck,” Gunther gasped when Eren flung himself off the wooden wall, and instead of getting his legs snapped into small shards of bone, he landed with a muffled thud on both feet, and continued running.

“Yeah, I’ve… never quite seen anything like that before,” Petra muttered, who herself had ended fifth place in her class ranking, and was easily the best one on the obstacle course back when they were training.

Eld kept quiet.

Eren was freakish. Everything about him was, and Eld was left overall feeling uncomfortable every time he had to look at the kid, but he put aside his prejudices. The Commander needed soldiers, and the best ones turned out to be the weirdest, craziest, or most dangerous ones. One only had to look at the top three scouts of the regiment – Mike, Hanji, and Levi – and it was easy to see the truth.

And Eren seemed crazy enough. After finding out that his performance would be timed, there was no stopping him from cashing in cuts and bruises all over his body that would surely turn black and blue. When Gunther hesitated to read out loud the result of Eren’s lap on the obstacle course, Eren insisted that he took off his boots and tried again without them. The kid thought Gunther was baffled by how bad his performance was when in reality Eren had beaten the record by two whole seconds.

The problems didn’t surface until it was time to see how well Eren could carry himself on a horse. Riding was key in a scout’s life, and Eld didn’t doubt that Eren would show a remarkable talent for handling horses too, regardless of the brat never having ridden one before.

Except as soon as Petra led a horse out from the stable and started walking towards Eren, the horse stubbornly refused to move. Petra pulled on the reins impatiently multiple times, first encouraging it gently, but it refused to budge.

“C’mon, girl what’s up with you?” she pat the horse’s thick neck when she noticed the way its ears pulled back fearfully.

“Stop fucking around, Petra, I want to have lunch before the sun goes down,” Oluo spoke up, went to snatch the reins from her, and ignored her angry grumbles.

He harshly pulled on the bridle, but all he managed was make the horse let out a startled whine, and it began throwing a fit when Oluo wouldn’t stop dragging it toward Eren. The boy watched quietly.

The horse put up a valiant fight, both Oluo’s heels and its hooves wedged into the ground, until the reins suddenly snapped, and the horse hurriedly trotted away to the nearest green patch of grass.

“Who’s fucking around?” Eld heard Petra growl, and shortly thereafter there was a yelp from Oluo, a kick to the shin. It was well deserved.

Eld went to retrieve the horse, and while he expected the same kind of resistance, the horse was as pliant as it should’ve been in the first place until they got about a radius of five meters within the corral and the squad inside it.

Not knowing what else to do, Eld asked Eren to come to them, if the horse was so unwilling to go to him. He’d never seen a horse develop a fear of corrals so out of nowhere before, but he didn’t know what else to think. It wasn’t until Eren started walking towards them that the horse’s strange behavior began showing its roots. As soon as the boy stepped in their direction, the animal started resisting Eld’s hold on it, neighing defiantly until the man let go of the reins in fear of hurting the horse in the process.

“I’ve no clue what’s gotten into the damned thing,” Eld admitted. Saying that he was baffled would’ve been an understatement. These were trained battle horses, not the skittish ponies the rich folks had in the interior. They ran from nothing but titans, and even during battle they didn’t ignore the commands of their riders.

Eld supposed that everyone was allowed to have a bad day, even the horses. They were lucky this didn’t happen on the battlefield. Just to be sure though, Eld made sure to remember the horse for the future, in case it started acting up again. They couldn’t have any unreliable horses when riding out behind the Walls.

What Eld didn’t know back then, however, was that finding a horse that wouldn’t scream and tear at its reins the minute it got near the brat would become his hardest task yet. Forget the maneuver gear and the maintenance of the blades; keeping the brat on horseback was one herculean job.

By the end of the first day, Eren had been thrown off of the backs of three horses, and the number was only so slim because the other five didn’t let him anywhere near them.

Petra tried to make the boy feel better about himself, and Gunther made a joke about Eren committing some great crime against the horses like stealing their carrots, but Eren seemed unconsolable and with good reason.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Eld said to him. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Try to make friends with them.” Otherwise, there’s no place for you here. Eld wasn’t cruel enough to say that out loud, but the truth remained unchanged, because there was no surviving as a scout without a horse.

More than a week had passed, and Eren tried his best not to give himself over to the gloom blossoming in his heart. But his resolve got chipped away gradually and meticulously. He was sitting in the sun, alone, and he felt so cold.

It was a tight, prickling sensation gripping at his chest, and it spread; slowly, under the blazing heat of the sun, it began to eat Eren away from the inside with its icy fangs. He sat on the ground in the corral, his hands tightly fisting the grass, trying to hold back whatever tears wanted to surface from within.

He picked at the grass, the distressed chirps of the horse in front of him no longer hurting his ears. The sounds were reduced to a simple bothersome noise in the back of his mind after an hour. It was Petra’s idea that he should sit outside with one. She was kind enough to notice Eren’s anxiety and offer a hopeful solution. So sitting outside with a horse tied to a nail it was.

The smell in the air promised rain. He caught the scent of Levi in the air, like he had many times during the last few days. It was the same as it was when he got separated from the human for the first time. The whole forest carried his ghostly scent, only to mock Eren’s hopeful efforts to find him when Levi was nowhere near anymore.

They arrived at the castle ten days ago, and Eren had barely seen Levi since.

Every day went by more or less the same way. Eren woke up late and struggled to get enough energy from the dim light inside the room to get himself sat up on the bed. It was always dark inside the castle. He spent about twenty minutes by the open window, bathing in whatever amount of light the outside had to offer. It didn’t help much that the window was facing west, the walls blocking out the brilliance of the rising sun.

After washing his face he went to gather some food. He’d been eating a lot more since he was confined to the castle, but his body digested everything he ate as if he had lava in his belly and not stomach acid. Nothing could fill him up to such satisfaction as the sun.

He preferred to eat alone and outside, bathing in light as much as he bathed in his useless sadness. For the first few days he managed to get ahold of his anxiety and sat with the other humans for the sake of appearances, trying to forget that the one human who’s company he really needed was not around. Soon he realized though, that nobody minded him eating outside. As Levi’s squad became more busy, they no longer had time to keep Eren in sight.

He thought that following Levi could lead him to a better life as a human, but so far he’s been here it felt like everyone had forgotten about him. He was nothing more than dead weight, an annoying obstacle to always trip over. Eren hadn’t seen Levi in five days, not even a glimpse.

Petra was around the most, and she gave small errands to Eren, whatever she trusted him to do, which was not a lot. Mostly they were chores that Eren saw no point to. In his free time he just sat by the stables, keeping company to the horses who hated him. Still hated him. Oluo said that they weren’t going to train him to be a scout until he couldn’t ride a horse, because it was wasted effort.

And he couldn’t. So Eren was slowly forgotten. He could see it in the squad’s eyes that every time they gave him some task to do, it was only really to get rid of him for an hour or so.

When he asked where Levi was, they regarded him with a sharp look and corrected the way he said the human’s name, then gave the same answer for the hundredth time: the Captain was busy. He was an important man, they said, and he didn’t have time to babysit snotty brats. Oluo loved pointing that out. And Levi sure was busy all the time.

Eren didn’t want to be ungrateful, he wanted to be happy to finally be somewhere where he didn’t have to fear for losing him, but then again, was this really any better from when he was stalling on the streets of Trost? He was so cold, all the time. Colder than he ever was sleeping on the cobblestone ground, and he never knew where Levi was. He might as well have lost him again.

Was Levi avoiding him? Did he really not recognize Eren? Or would it be worse if he did? It broke Eren’s heart just to think about it…

All these past months, all the hardships he went through, he didn’t think about giving up because he knew that at the end of the road, his Little One would be waiting for him, and then everything would turn out fine. When he was covered in rubble during the breach at Shiganshina, he knew it was Levi’s voice he heard. Back then he didn’t know what words he remembered, but he just knew that his mind subconsciously encouraged him in the image of his Little One.

He fooled himself though. Reality wasn’t so ready to grant him his wishes. Being human in this cruel world was something he could deal with as long as there was a purpose to it. It used to be finding Levi, but he no longer knew what it was. Maybe he never did.

“Sooo~” Hanji cooed, her chin resting on her palm and her legs on Levi’s freshly polished desk. “How have things been~?”

Levi poked those dirty boots with the handle of a dagger, and pointedly shoved them off, out of his face. He quickly wiped the weapon with a handkerchief before throwing the white fabric into the fire. There was no saving that one.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled and threw his well-worn jacket onto the coat hook by the door. Damn the gods for timing Hanji’s arrival in sync with his.

His head was killing him since that morning, and the dust he’d been choking on for days now from the long rides made his throat itch uncomfortably. When he arrived at the castle his grandiose plan was to get to his office before being seen by anyone and fall asleep on top of a pile of official papers after a long bath, but as usual, Hanji had other plans.

“Don’t play dumb. Last time I saw you, you weren’t a single father!”

“I’m not. Things’ been fine.”

“Really?” Hanji immediately grabbed the opportunity to pester him, but Levi was determined to shut her off with chipped answers and an uninviting scowl. Of course, Hanji was immune to it all. “That’s unusual for you. It’s never just fine, it always gotta be shit or awful or something fun like that.”

Levi sat and silently began working on the papers Erwin had dumped on him. The window behind his desk was open to a creak, letting in some fresh air that smelled like rain. The sky was tinted dark blue on the western horizon. It should be raining by evening.

“I talked to your guys, you know how I love cutie pie Petra,” she continued blabbering, and Levi could practically sense the trap inching closer to his ankles. “If Moblit wasn’t so damn adorable I would’ve snatched her from you a long time ago.”

“I’d rather you don’t kidnap my squad members,” Levi noted dully. “They’re not ready for that kind of trauma.”

“Mean,” Hanji cackled, and started absently playing with her now empty teacup. Levi watched her hands from the corner of his eye, annoyed but not yet angered enough to tear the endangered cup from her claws and break her fingers; though he was tempted. They were goddamn expensive. “Your boys are so tight-lipped, but Petra and I have a connection. Our heads are not clouded by all that stinky testosterone, you know?”

“If you say so.”

“Hm. She told me about them struggling to find the new kiddo a horse, but it’s been rather hard without their captain’s help.” When Levi didn’t answer, she pouted and put the cup down. “She also said that you’ve been rather absent since Erwin appointed you as the glorified babysitter.”

“Petra is gossiping too much,” Levi sighed irritably. “Remind me later to give her fair punishment for running her mouth about things she should keep to herself.”

“Tch, c’mon, Levi, what’s up with you?” Hanji changed her tone to a more serious one.

“Erwin’s been giving me a shit ton of work. I’ve been busy.”

“You’re always busy, but you never neglect your soldiers. Are you avoiding Eren on purpose?”

The pen abruptly halted in Levi’s hand, and his scowl deepened. He sat frozen in his chair for a second too long. He hastily picked up writing, but the damage was done.

Hanji was staring at him with eyes wide and lips parted.

“You didn’t even know his name.” It wasn’t a question, Levi’s face said more than his words could. He didn’t like the way Hanji’s gaze dulled with genuine disappointment. “You didn’t even ask him?” she asked disapprovingly. “That’s the most basic courtesy! Oh, Sina, you’re an awful, awful little man…”

Levi tried to ignore her words, but all he could see was the tip of the pen trembling above the paper, and the muscles in his lower arm suddenly felt like cotton, useless and cold.

“What the fuck…?” he whispered.

“Don’t freak out.”

Levi’s head snapped up, eyes boring into Hanji’s. “Don’t freak out? Don’t– Are you seriously asking me not to freak out?! Hanji, what the–!”

“Apparently, it’s an old Eldian name,” she held up a placating hand. “I know it’s freakish, but it’s an honest mistake. I looked it up, it got me a little messed up too when Erwin told me.”

“What the hell is ‘old Eldian’?” Levi scowled.

“It’s a kingdom that fell around two thousand years ago. That’s what I read in a book I found anyway. In the old language ‘eren’ was what they used to address these mythical beings that erected some magical walls, similar to ours, I suppose. The word ‘eren’ meant something like ‘saint,’ so yeah, you didn’t invent the word. It’s a really good book, by the way, I can lend it to you if you want. There’s this story about a knight and a monst–”

“I don’t care,” Levi harshly cut in. He had no idea what to do with all this new information. “I don’t care about no fucking children’s stories, dammit. You probably found it on the black market anyway.”

Hanji’s proud grin didn’t say otherwise.

Levi stood from the desk to stretch his suddenly very stiff body and walked to the window to breathe some fresh air. Hanji really should’ve put up warning signs before she dropped such a heavy load of information on someone out of nowhere, he thought bitterly.

He didn’t know what to do. Could this shit get any more frustrating? First the brat gives him a near heart attack just by looking at him with those eyes that were stolen from the catacombs of the dead, then he’s thrown into Levi’s care, and now his name was Eren? Nah, Levi wasn’t a particularly superstitious man, but he knew when it was wiser to turn around and leave. This was more than what a scout’s job description included. Levi did not fuck around with the dead.

“Levi? You okay, honey?” Hanji tilted her head and scrutinized him with attentive eyes. He could only nod as he collapsed back onto the chair. He couldn’t do this. No fucking way. “Listen to me. I know you’re weirded out–”

“Yeah, no shit,” Levi rasped, and the shame of being seen so shaken could no longer outweigh the distress he felt.

“But! Butt. That boy out there needs guidance and training. Your squad is trying their best juggling their duties and taking care of a kid, but frankly, they have no idea what they’re doing,” Hanji smiled pityingly. “It’s like watching a bunch of toddlers taking care of a baby.”

Yes, Levi had seen their reports. It seemed they got stuck right in the beginning when they discovered that for some reason their horses had a dislike for the brat. It sounded like bullshit to Levi, but for a bitter, victorious moment he felt relieved that this could put an end to this whole ordeal. If the brat couldn’t ride a horse, then Levi had an objective motive to kick him out.

“They know more about basic training than I do…”

“And you and I both know that out of all of us, Erwin, your squad, and me, you’d be the only one to survive the shittiest of situations,” she cut in before Levi could continue lying to himself. It pained Hanji to see her friend so confused, so human, and it hurt even more to see just how deeply he was still impacted by all that happened, but unfortunately, the world gave them no time to fall apart. “None of us with all our basic training could survive the things you have. So just teach the kid everything you know, and he will be fine. Erwin talked to Shadis about this, um… situation, and he agreed to take the boy in for a few days every week. That doesn’t sound so bad, hm?

“You’d only need to tutor him every once in a while. And it doesn’t have to be all you. That boy is like a newborn, he’s so clueless. I’ll teach him all about titan anatomy, your squad can handle physical training, so all you’ll have to do is give him a few lessons here and there on the maneuver gear.

“And by the way, the longer you will avoid this matter, the harder it will be to face him. I know that deep down you have the sweetest of hearts, and your conscience won’t be able to justify the neglect of a subordinate. So get out there, get it over with, and take care of the kid. If you must then don’t look at him, but he needs you, munchkin.”

Hanji left soon after that, sensing that Levi needed to spend time alone to sort himself out. It started raining soon, and quickly it developed into a heavy rainstorm.

Levi propped his forehead against his palms and took a deep breath. The droplets hitting the window glass in a gentle symphony helped calm his ruffled nerves.

Deep down he knew Hanji was right, and he had little to no excuse for his behavior over these past few days. Realistically all he did was drown himself in work and run from a boy with strange eyes like a coward, a brat who did nothing wrong apart from being born with some unfortunate facial features.

And they weren’t even unfortunate, Levi was just unable to keep himself from projecting the ghosts of the past onto a living, breathing kid. Nothing else could explain his behavior but a weakness that he let grow and fester in his body until it started affecting people outside of his own person. Levi let it take charge, let himself act like a shitty fucking bastard who promised to take care of someone only to then abandon them. It sounded too familiar for his comfort.

Levi stood and left the office to retreat to his private rooms.

An uncomfortable feeling started crawling up his sides, and memories that he’d rather have forgotten kept surfacing in his mind. He was so fucking blindsided by his own weakness that he had the audacity to put his needs above that of a child’s, and if not for Hanji then he would’ve kept acting like a spoiled coward.

He decided more than ten years ago, when he met Farlan and Isabel, that he didn’t have to end up as someone like Kenny. He would take care of his people, tend to their needs, provide for them, and Levi was dead fucking set on keeping his promise. First Isa and Farlan, then came Petra, Eld, Gunther, and Oluo, and whether he liked it or not, now he had the brat under his wings too.

He felt like an overworked mother hen. Or one of those sows with the giant fucking tits and a dozen piglets. Now there’s an image he didn’t want to think about.

He remembered the first time he saw a pig on the topside market though. It was the most absurd experience to see half a ton of fat walk around on stubby legs. Isa fell in love with the piglets instantly.

By pure chance, Levi decided to look outside through one of the many windows in the hallway while walking and came to a halt when he noticed the bleary figure sitting outside in the rain.

Wondering who would be idiotic enough to risk catching pneumonia he stomped to the window and yanked it open. The loud banging of the rain assaulted his ears, and narrowing his eyes he reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was none other than the street brat.

What reason he could possibly have to sit there like some misplaced statue in front of a horse nailed to the ground, Levi could not imagine. He sighed, wondering which idiot left the kid outside in pouring rain, but then the revelation quickly came that it was in fact himself.

He hated it so much when Hanji was right, but when one owed the Truth, one had to face it.

He stomped downstairs and opened the gate leading to the smaller yard. Shouting would have to do because Levi was not stepping out into that messy weather.

“Oi, brat, the fuck are you doing?!” he yelled.

Levi hated how the way the boy’s head didn’t turn to him with the urgency of someone who’s been startled; the damn brat always seemed to know where Levi was the moment he stepped inside a room. That one time in Trost when the brat looked straight at him through the window still creeped him out.

He fought the prickling nausea clawing at his throat when the set of green eyes settled on his face.

The brat didn’t scurry to his feet nor did he salute as a proper soldier should’ve, and as much as Levi wanted to be mad, he couldn’t even blame the kid for the things Levi didn’t teach him.

Hanji was always right, dammit.

“I want horse to like me,” came the muffled reply through the fog of rain, and the brat made no move that suggested that he planned on standing up any time soon.

“Sina damn you, Erwin, I’m not cut out for this shit,” Levi hissed before he turned to the sky, praying for patience, and he reluctantly stepped under the rain.

“Get up! Now!” he demanded while he aggressively marched outside and made quick work of the knot that kept the horse from running off.

The moment the binds were gone, the horse took a few steps backward, and Levi wondered what got its panties in such a twist. Besides standing in the rain, which Levi could understand. Was this that mighty effect the brat had on their horses?

Said brat waited outside like a sheep ready to be sheered while Levi led the horse back inside the stable.

He would’ve been keen on sending the brat off to change and dry off by himself, but he still felt guilty about the scolding he got from Hanji, and the regular soldiers’ showers only had warm water between six and eight in the morning. Judging by how the brat was shivering, he probably wouldn’t be too excited to shower in cold water.

Whatever fatherly instinct had possessed Levi’s body at the sight of what closely resembled a drowned rat, it was enough to make him temporarily forget the uncomfortable scratching in his stomach and continued on the way back to his living quarters.

“Which one of the idiots told you to sit outside in this weather?” he grumbled without looking back, where the brat was trailing after him like a small, soaked puppy.

“Petra, but she didn’t say ‘sit in the rain’. Horses hate me,” the brat mumbled quietly, almost as if he was afraid to be heard or just couldn’t bother to speak up. “She said I have to spend time with them, maybe they will like me more. It started to rain later.”

“She forgot about you, didn’t she,” Levi clicked his tongue, but knew that if there was anyone he should be mad it was himself. And maybe the brat for not having the common sense to find shelter when all the heavens’ tears were pouring from the sky. “Next time you don’t listen to those idiots, understood? You find me instead.”

There was hesitation in the boy’s voice, but he was smart enough not to voice it. “Okay.”

Okay? Fuck Levi in the ass from behind, there were so many things that he would have to correct in this brat.

“When your superior asks you a question, you reply with ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir’. Do you understand?”

“Yep!” the brat replied with more vigor now, and Levi had to ball his fists to stop himself from burying his face in his hands. Gods bless Erwin’s patience and his eyebrows for dealing with Levi straight after he got pulled out from the Underground for the first time. With that infamous patience he had, Levi would’ve surely beaten the shit out of a person like himself.

He opened the door to his private rooms, thanking the goddesses once for the scarcely populated Survey Corps headquarters, because if someone saw them, Levi would’ve had a hard time explaining why he brought a trainee to his bedroom.

“Why am I here?” The brat reluctantly, though curiously stuck his head inside, and Levi wasn’t sure if he imagined the brat’s nostrils twitching like he just smelled Levi’s room.

Gross brat. Gross, weird, and not to mention soaked.

“You’re under my care, and if you get sick, I can’t carve you into that perfect soldier Erwin wants you to be,” Levi said in an expressionless tone and led the boy to his bathroom. “And I’m not cruel enough to make you take a shower in the freezing water of the common showers.”

The brat blinked at him with such open features, so much wonder, that Levi wanted to poke his eyes out. Wide, innocent eyes, like the brat wasn’t a thief who kicked MPs off roofs for a hobby, and didn’t appear in Levi’s dreams to haunt him.

“I’m here to shower? But I was just outside in rain?”

Levi glanced at the brat from the corner of his eyes, noting the weird way of phrasing.

“I’m not arguing about this with a shitty brat, clothes off, get the fuck inside the fucking bath,” he grumbled before he could actually slap the boy for thinking that sitting in rainwater equaled taking a shower.

The brat reluctantly started shedding his uniform while Levi set the water temperature and began to fill the tub.

Turning around he fetched some fresh towels and an unboxed pack of soap – since the kid looked like he’d never seen a proper bar of soap in his life –, and his eyes caught a patch of olive skin.

Levi didn’t mean to look, cross his heart, and hope to die, but the brat undressed with such ease as if it was the most natural thing to stand butt naked in front of a superior officer, and Levi might’ve been caught just a little off guard. The brat didn’t even have the common decency to turn his back on Levi, he just stood in the middle of the bathroom, hands on his hips, crown jewelry on shameless display.

It almost would’ve been an impressive demonstration if not for the fact that the brat was shivering like a dry leaf in a snowstorm.

Clearing his throat, Levi raised the bar of soap and conveniently covered up the sight of the brat’s not-so-private parts.

“If I don’t see this reduced to at least half its size by the time you’re done, I’m dunking you under the water myself. Now, get in before you freeze your balls off.”

He left the soap and towel by the edge of the tub, but when he reached the door, Levi was stopped by a startled gasp.

Turning back to see what the brat’s problem could possibly be, Levi saw him with one foot still on dry land and with the other in the water, and his face held the most mesmerized expression a human’s features could muster up. Levi could practically see the stars in his eyes.

He wasn’t about to enquire, wanting to get out of the room as quickly as possible, but then he heard the faintest whisper, almost too quiet to be picked up by Levi’s ear. But he heard it.

“It’s warm!”

A cold, familiar ache pang in Levi’s heart, a shard of pain he knew well, though haven’t encountered for some time now. Then the brat showed up and had to ruin everything.

‘You even know what a bath is? Gods, I miss taking a good bath, I’m so filthy. Moan all you want, your pond is shit, and the water could freeze the devil’s asshole. Do you even know what warm water is like? I suppose it’s similar to sunlight… but more intense. I could die in a hot bath. I might even die happy.’

‘I wanted to show him what warm water felt like.’

“Of course it’s warm,” Levi mumbled and didn’t even notice when he turned his head to watch the brat slowly lower himself into the tub, his eyes spitting starlight and rainbows.

Levi did tell him that he wouldn’t make him shower in freezing cold water, didn’t he? So why the hell was he so surprised?

The brat let out a happy sound when he fully submerged in the water, and looked at Levi with eyes that were simply so full. Full of emotion, full of life.

Levi never thought he’d see those eyes alive again. It hurt to see, but at the same time, he couldn’t tear his gaze from it.

Still, understanding that being in the same room with a naked subordinate, a teenage boy not to mention, was wildly inappropriate, Levi finally turned to leave. “If you get up early, the common showers will have warm water too. It’s switched on between six to eight. Now get clean, we’ll find you a horse tomorrow.”

Eren hummed and gurgled his thanks happily under the water. With the sounds of waves slashing around in the tub behind his back, Levi closed the bathroom door and leaned his back against it. A silent exhale heaved his chest, and he closed his eyes, giving himself a moment to get his shit together.

It had been well over an hour and Eren was still in the bathroom, but for once Levi decided not to pester a brat to hurry up.

The rusty faucet creaked and cried under the pressure, and the sound of water droplets hitting the tile flooring bounced off the cold walls.

Shivering, Eren shed his clothes and jumped under the hot curtain of bliss, the bar of soap held close to his chest the same way human mothers held their babies. Levi gave it to him, saying that he wouldn’t use soap that had been in the ass crack of a shitty brat, and Eren didn’t mind. The soap smelled like Levi.

The common shower room was still tinted with the blue light of the early morning, but the puffs of warm steam soon started to melt away the chilly temperatures still clinging to the walls.

Eren turned his face towards the water and gave a content sigh. Out of every new thing the human world had offered him so far, hot showers had to be the best. No wonder Levi always mentioned them in the forest.

After breakfast, they would go out to the stables again and look for a horse that tolerated Eren enough to let him ride its back. Levi seemed dead set on finding Eren a suitable horse without him ending up standing for hours in the rain again.

In the end, Eren didn’t get sick, which Levi couldn’t believe until he saw Eren up and about the next morning with his own two eyes. In Eren’s opinion, he was just jealous of the immune system which he didn’t know was powered by the remnants of a titan’s body.

Eren didn’t dwell much on it; he was happy enough that Levi didn’t catch a cold either while he fetched him from the rain.

The birds began chirping outside, and Eren knew it was time to turn off the water and get dressed, but he allowed himself an extra few minutes to enjoy the soap bubbles gliding on his heated skin.

One of the first things Levi showed him was how to wash his hands if Eren remembered correctly.

Safely tucked away behind the curtain of white steam, Eren’s lips curled into a smile that was his secret and his alone. Whether Little One knew it or not, he still kept showing Eren new things about this world.

Chapter Text

Eren was flying.

The bright blue sky filled his vision, blinding him to every other color as he rode on the back of a strong gust of wind. He was too stunned to do anything but gasp, and for a heartbeat, he was as free as he once was beyond the Walls.

It was a short-lived freedom though. A stuffy, hard surface slammed against his back, and the air got knocked out of his lungs. Bits and pieces of hay got catapulted into the air, covering everything within three meters in a large cloud of dusty fodder. Eren groaned, his ears ringing like hell, and he was sure he was never moving his body ever again. He was done for, this is where he shall breathe his last breath, in a pile of horse-snack.

“Ereeen! Are you okay?” Hanji’s concerned voice reached him from some distance. He meant to answer that he was deemed immobile, but only a rusty squeak managed to leave his chappted lips.

“If you killed him, you’re the one writing the report to Eyebrows,” a certain grumpy man’s voice echoed in Eren’s fuzzy mind, and not long after an iron hand grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out of the ruined haystack.

What greeted him was none other than Levi’s unimpressed glare, and Eren had a fine opportunity to examine the angry little wrinkles between his brows, and the dark shadows of exhaustion beneath his storm-grey eyes. Eren stared, wondering if the fall actually killed him and if he was now in a place that humans called Heaven, but then he was rudely tossed to the ground, and the pain was very much an indicator that he was still alive.

“Oi, Eren.”

“Ughhh…” Eren pulled himself into a ball on the ground and fought the urge to puke his guts out. His head was swirling like he got picked up by a titan and then swung around. He doubted he could get up on his feet any time soon and frying into a crisp under the blazing sunlight seemed like a plan he could get behind.

After getting bitten, kicked at, and thrown to the ground for the fifth time by a horse that morning, and getting set up on yet another unfortunate date with the sixth horse by a very frustrated Levi, Hanji showed up and saved Eren’s ass from getting another hefty kick to his aching bits.

Or so Eren thought. Looking back now with pieces of hay sticking out of his messy hair, he had to revisit that hope with bitter regret.

“Good morning, Levi Squad!” Hanji loudly announced her presence walking towards the stables, and said Levi Squad conveniently found some other important matter to tend to, except for Levi and Eren, who were bound to the stables by the captain’s own promise.

Hanji seemed as cheerful that morning as ever, but when she spotted Eren standing sheepishly between his annoyed commanding officer and a fussy horse, her eyes went comically wide.

“My, my, I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed and ran to yank the titan into a crushing hug, sounding exactly as excited as she was when Eren met her for the first time in the forest. “Is this you then, Eren? I can’t believe this, hello, my little darling!”

Squeezed into a useless bundle of flesh between the erratic scout’s muscled arms, Eren thought for a flash of a second that Hanji perhaps recognized him, but then he quickly remembered that they have ‘met’ a second time during the breach.

“Hello, Hanji,” he choked out with the restricted gasp of air Hanji’s arms allowed him to heave.

“Oh, you remember me, yay!” she squealed before Levi finally scraped her off of Eren and pushed her a good couple of steps away. By then he was sporting a nasty scowl.

“What’s this, long lost lovers’ reunion?” One could practically hear the sarcasm dripping from his words.

“Might as well be! We met in Shiganshina! I was so worried about him, but I never thought that the little boy with the crazy eyes would be the Eren!” she grinned, while Levi’s features softened under the weight of those words. The gaze he lifted onto Eren melted the small smile off the titan’s lips.

Achingly beautiful, yet lifeless eyes met his. The memories of a flame Eren once saw and hoped still lived was nowhere to be seen.

“Hanji saved me from titan. I'm alive because of her,” he explained with a renewed smile, yet his heart was aching.

If Levi had any opinion on the matter, he didn’t voice it. But he did leave a few minutes for Hanji to fuss over Eren while he got the next horse tacked up. He only stepped in when Hanji began insisting that Eren should strip his shirt so she could examine the so-called ‘nasty wound on his back’.

“Stop molesting him,” Levi slapped her hand that was reaching for Eren’s shirt for the third time, and Eren was greatful for the rescue. He knew his wounds healed faster to some degree than regular humans, and he wasn’t prepared to answer how exactly he no longer had a thick, pink roll of scar tissue on his back, but only a thin, white line.

Back to the issue of horses, Hanji’s genius idea was to tie the horse's bridle to a pole to make sure it couldn't bite, distract it with sugar cubes, and have Eren quietly climb on its back while it was busy munching on treats. While this allowed Eren to actually sit down in the saddle for once, when the treats were all eaten the smell of sugar was suddenly overpowered by the musky scent of titan, and the horse panicked. The short-lived success cascaded into the horse bucking Eren off so violently that he was kicked out of the saddle, and fell into the pile of hay on the other side of the corral.

Opening his eyes now, back hurting and his ego bruised, Eren saw two shadows looming over him.

“Eren? Are you alright, sweetcheeks?” Hanji prodded his shoulder, her tone apologetic. “I gotta say, this is curious! I’ve never seen anyone get rejected by a horse so dramatically before. I wonder if Mike will be able to sniff out what’s wrong with you, ha!”

“On your feet, you lazy shit,” Levi barked and pushed the scientist aside. “We’re not leaving until one of them tolerates you.”

Fuck the horses, Eren wanted to say, but it was one of those rare moments when he decided to play wise and shut his mouth. Or more likely he was in too much pain to utter a word.

With Hanji’s help, he managed to stand up on his feet, and shot a predatory glare at the guilty horse, making it neigh and tear at its bindings again. Levi went to hurdle it back next to the other failed candidates while muttering profanities.

“Oh, I got it, I got an idea!” Hanji gasped and snapped his fingers. “What about your precious lady, Levi? She's so calm, I bet she couldn't hurt a fly.”

Eren’s head curiously perked up and watched as Levi’s expression turned from sour to hostile. He didn’t say anything though, just walked back to the stables, and a few minutes later he returned with a horse that got Eren’s jaw nearly hit the ground.

Hanji squealed excitedly when she saw the light-heeled mare. “Look, Eren, this is–”

“Horse!” he cut in with a joyful exclaim that startled the horse enough to make it falter in her step.

“Tch, of course it’s a fucking horse. Did you think I was bringing you a donkey? Don’t make it despise you before you ever get close,” Levi grumbled and led the animal closer to them. She sniffled the air curiously, and when Eren reached out to stroke the soft skin between her nostrils, no teeth were snapping at his hand.

“Aw, don’t say that Levi, look, she already likes Eren!” Hanji observed with a wide grin. “Isn’t this a miracle? Who would’ve guessed… I was right once again!”

“He’s still gotta ride the thing,” Levi noted unenthusiastically, his eyes plastered onto Eren’s fingers which meanwhile have migrated into the mare’s mane. It looked like he was secretly rooting for the animal to develop a sudden and festering grudge against Eren, which simply didn't happen.

“Horse will let me,” Eren cooed with a sweet smile curling his lips, his senses entirely overwhelmed by the animal’s presence. “You will, won’t you? Yes, you will, you’re so beautiful.”

“She is, isn’t she~,” Hanji chimed in and quickly gathered the tack to get the mare ready. “She’s too pretty to be mean like those other nags.”

“Pretty things can be mean too,” Eren said, and his eyes darted towards Levi, catching his gaze for a flicker of a second before returning to Hanji. He flashed her a bright smile. “But it’s easier to forgive them.”

Hanji’s eyes widened in surprise when she caught Eren’s little display, and she burst out cackling. Levi ignored all three of them, the horse included.

“A young fountain of wisdom, I see, we’re going to get along so well! Go on then, Eren!” Hanji encouragingly shoved Eren towards 'Horse', and she backed up to Levi’s side. They watched from some distance as Eren effortlessly swung up into the saddle.

“So~,” Hanji wiggled her eyebrows.

“I’m not talking to you.”

“He named your horse Horse.” She was also quite sure he implied that Levi was pretty, but not even Hanji was suicidal enough to point that out.

Levi closed his eyes to preserve his nonexistent patience. A dumb name for a dumb brat. “I’ll fucking beat the stupidity out of him by the end of the week.”

“Nooo, you won’t, I’m not gonna let you. I’ll help you pull that stick out of your ass, though. Cheer up already, your little apprentice got his first taste of success!”

Meanwhile, the corners of Eren’s lips were reaching from ear to ear. The mare was a little fidgety underneath him, Eren could clearly smell the anxious droplets of sweat steaming from her warm coat, but when the titan gently nudged her side with his heels, she began walking forward without resistance.

Eren couldn’t keep the smile off his face, nor hold back the praises that he kept whispering under his breath. He noted how Horse became less anxious each time he cooed at her. Experimentally he rocked his hips forward the way he saw some soldiers in Trost do it, and Horse switched to a gentle trot.

“Levi, look!” he giggled as he bounced around on Horse's back, clumsily fumbling with the reins. “I can ride horse!”

“Keep your eyes on where you’re fucking going, this isn’t a joyride!” the man barked from the side of the fence.

“Good job, Eren, don’t listen to this old bum!” Hanji put her hands on each side of her mouth and cheered him on. “And good job, Horse, too!”

“Tch, let’s wait until he knows how to keep himself off the ground with a titan on his ass,” Levi said and pulled himself up into the saddle of his own black mare. “You better not take another century to learn how to ride, brat, or I’m kicking you out.”

Eren flashed a cheeky grin and watched Levi pull up next to him. “I already know how to!”

“Oh, yeah?” Levi cocked a dull brow. Slipping a foot out of the stirrup, he suddenly lifted his leg impossibly high and swiftly kicked Eren into the stomach, and effectively off Horse’s back too.

Eren fell on the ground like a sack of potatoes, his lungs heaving for air for the hundredth time that day. His body would be a messy painting of black and purple bruises by the time this morning was over.

Levi watched him struggle with an unimpressed frown and squinted against the sun.

“Get up,” he said calmly. “Try again.”

Eren did. This time he knew the kick was coming, and he held onto the reins tightly. But Levi’s eyes traveled down to the spot where he was holding onto the leather strap, and clicked his tongue.

“Let go, you’ll tear its mouth. Hands behind your back.”

“How am I supposed to stay on then?” Eren furrowed his brows, and Levi mockingly mirrored his offended expression.

“I thought you knew how to ride a horse? Figure it out, shitty brat.”

Eren let go and braced himself against the kick with the only weapon he had left, his legs. He squeezed his thighs tightly, but Levi’s strength still took him off guard.

The kick tossed him out of the saddle again, but Eren refused to fall. He kept holding on, resulting in him comically hanging off Horse’s side with only his legs scrambling for something to hold on to on the reattling, leather tack.

Levi watched silently for a while.

“At this rate if a titan comes for you, you're dead. Pull yourself up,” he ordered against Eren’s struggle. He walked his horse around to the other side to get a proper view.

Eren felt like his whole body was on fire from head to toe, and sticky sweat was already dripping down his temples. His head flushed with the blood pulled to his skull by gravity, and he could feel his muscles let go a little bit with each second he spent struggling. He refused to fall to the ground another time though.

“I said, if you wanna live, pull yourself up, soldier!” Levi snapped more harshly this time, and his voice sounded closer than before.

Eren squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will his body to obey. When his hand instinctively reached to grab ahold of the saddle, a burning snap of a riding crop landed on the back of his hand. He hissed and dug his nails into his palms.

“Use your hands again and I break them,” Levi threatened, making Eren flinch. Tears of frustration and pain began swelling in his eyes and mixing in with the sweaty patches on his face.

He heard Levi grunt a frustrated breath. He raised the crop for another punishing hit. “Get the fuck up on that goddamned horse if you want to become a fucking scout, Eren! ”

The titan froze.

You have to protect him.

You can’t protect him if you’re weak.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, Eren forced his mind to ignore the flaming aching of his limbs, and a familiar sensation of limitlessness flooded his veins. He ignored everything but his opponent when he fought, even his own survival was secondary to his goal: killing his enemies and protecting his human. This was no different from a fight in the wild.

Hissing through his teeth and nearly biting his tongue off, Eren finally managed to scramble back up on Horse's back. When he was steadily seated he collapsed onto her neck, bone-tired. His body felt like air, and every muscle in his body burned in a fire agony, but it didn’t matter, because Levi’s harsh glare now hid a small flame of light that Eren crossed half a world to see again.

“Not bad,” the man regarded Eren with an impressed yet stern look. “From now on you’re not allowed to touch the reins until I let you. You need your hands to wield your blades and send off signals.”

“How does horse know where to go then?” Eren mumbled through the thick mane, too tired to look up. He yelped and sat up straight when the riding crop slapped harshly against his thigh and he shot an accusing glare at Levi.

“You use your legs, what else, dumbass?” the human deadpanned as if it was obvious. Eren would’ve liked to kindly note that no, it wasn’t obvious. “These horses are trained. They know what the rider’s signals mean even when they’re as green as you and don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

Supposedly pushing the right foot forward and the left foot backward while also squeezing the horse's belly would bend a slight curvature into its spine, and make it turn left. It wasn't a drastic change in direction, usually enough for corrections only, but it was good enough when the rider didn't have a free hand for the reins.

“With your hips you can dictate a faster traveling speed or slow down, depending on how deep you sit into the pace. You better remember all that, 'cause I’m not saying it again.”

Eren pursed his lips together as he tried to adjust his comprehension to the meanings of the words. Most of it flew over his head though. “Sit into the pace? What does that mean?”

Levi threw the crop at Eren, his jacket onto the corral fence.

“Watch,” he instructed plainly. He tied the reins to the saddle and linked his arms behind his back, effectively stripping himself of the ability to use them in any way, even for balancing.

Eren stared in awe as Levi straightened his back confidently, and with nothing else but the gentle nudge of his hips, he signaled the horse to begin moving forward. The black mare obeyed with the submission of a well-trained hound, and to Eren’s astonishment, the horse carried her rider on the course of a near-perfect circle.

When the horse and rider walked around once, Levi made a small tutting sound with his mouth, kind of like when he clicked his tongue, and dug his heels deeper into the horse’s side. She sped up until they reached a steady pace, then with a final push, Levi bucked the horse into a slow gallop.

“Eyes on me, shitty brat,” Levi managed to draw Eren’s attention to his pale face for the last time. Then Eren's gaze dropped to where the man sat, and one look was enough to let him know that he was a goner.

Whatever it was he was watching, it was mesmerizing.

The horse galloped in a steady motion, head rhythmically bobbing up and down, nostrils breathing out steam, and Levi sat on top of it… no, it was like he was attached to the animal, connected by the hips through living flesh.

The muscles on Levi's torso shifted in a dynamic symphony underneath his gray shirt, the little wrinkles dancing around near where they tucked into the white pants and held in place by the straps of the man’s maneuver gear harness. Strong thighs and calves flexed against the tack, adjusting the grip on the animal however Levi’s needed the most. His hips rocked delicately yet precisely with every wave of motion, back and forth, thrusting encouragingly and pushing into the pommel with the front of his lap.

Eren felt hypnotized each time Levi’s lower back curved a little, then pushed down and ahead again.

He absently noticed that his lips parted, and a familiar yet still unexplained warmth flooded his cheeks. Something was tingling his guts from the inside. It was just like on that snowy night when Eren held the man in his arms for the first time in forever. The Levi back then, shivering and confused was the complete opposite of the Levi who was in front of Eren now, confident and as strong as steel, yet they were undeniably the same entity, and equally beautiful.

Eren gasped when suddenly the harmony of movements turned to stone, and instead of going with the flow of the gallop, Levi's rigid and unwilling body on top forced the horse to slow down first into a trot, then to an uptight walk.

“That’s where I want you by the end of the month.” Levi pushed some loose strands of ink-black hair out of his face and turning towards Eren his brows immediately furrowed. “Oi, shitty brat!”

Eren let out a startled gasp and tore his gaze away from the man’s hips. Feeling like he was caught stealing, he reluctantly looked up at his unimpressed commanding officer.

“Your face is all red. Are you sick?” Levi asked and scrutinized Eren up and down as if he was eyeing a potentially explosive gas canister. “If you throw up on that horse, you’ll be the one cleaning it.”

The captain rode past him, and Eren let out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.

“We survived,” he nervously chuckled to Horse when the human was out of hearing distance. He was glad that Horse didn't embarrass him further. Who knew if horses were vengeful creatures? For now it seemed that Horse didn't remember that time Eren almost stomped her to death. To his credit, he was feeling rather guilty about that, and he hoped Horse could smell it on him.

Whatever was tickling Eren's body from the inside, it better stopped before he made a complete ass out of himself. Damn whoever gave a titan a human body but didn’t include an instruction manual.

Needless to say, it was a long day. Once Levi whipped out the riding crop again and measured Eren’s imperfections with iron lashes, the titan quickly forgot about staring dreamily at his human.

Chapter Text

helooohh guyss as you can see there's no new chapter because dumbass reasons, but i also promised to update regularly so welcome to this shitfest of unnecessary thoughts, you have been warned!

hehe im still battling the essay i told yous about and ew im so done. its about tombs and inscriptions so its interesting but yk that feeling when you've been doing somet for so long that youre just sick of it? yea thats where i am but im actually doen alriight

ive been taking meds for my depression for about 3 weeks now and i dont want to say anything too soon but its been a while since ive felt this stable lol

so this is a reminder to take your meds, kids, dont forget them or i'll sic levi on you and thats a threat!

also i might have found the uncensored version of dear door, ive been reading that so life is allll goood!

sorry about the late chapter btw, i have about 6k unedited words which are not yet ready to be readeth by your eyes so thats that, im sorry :(

ive also been using this app called finch (not sponsored ToT) and likeee i guess its a mental health kinda app but its super cute because you gotta take care of this bird by doing tasks (washing your teeth every day, going outside, changing bedsheets, yk the stuff us mentally crap ppl struggle with lmao) soo you basically take care of yourself through this little bird

i named my bird after my teacher bc i thought it would be funny but now i dont know how to look him in the eye anymore cuz i always get the notifications that 'baby (teacher name) has returned from his adventure' and i canttttt

i was also wondering, is suicidal bastard a nickname for eren in canon too or was that just something the fandom invented? i luv that nickname soso much pls let it be canon!

also, do tell me cuz ive been wondering, do you prefer top or bottom levi/eren? i love a healthy switch but i know ppl have preferences, so i thought id ask. not that smut is on our doorstep rn um... thats entirely my fault heh

btw i had a discovery! i realised that bad writing and mostly bad dialogue sounds like the stuff chat bots come up with isnt that funnn :3 likeee if you ever doubt whether your stuff is good just see if a chat bot would say your dialogue or not. idk how to explain it but bots are so specific yet so weird sometimes? yea i might have spent a night trying to craft this chatbot instead of sleeping and i still didnt feel like i just got a new friend by the end of it, wasted effort 0/10 would not recommend :(

anyway i formally invite you to share some of your unnecessary thoughts with me like i have just demonstrated very gracefully. sorrey i just miss those good ol days when i could update every week ToT oh to be young again...!

anyway anyway jokes aside i hope youre all doing okay, sorry if this update disappointed you but thats just life honey im so sorry♡

take care of yourselves darlens and hopefully see you soon! byiee

Chapter Text

The sky was bright orange and the air carried the intoxicating scent of human sweat. Pale collarbones glistened in the watery substance, and Eren couldn’t resist letting his eyes dive down onto that delicious spot of skin.

He could hear the scorching hot blood rush beneath the surface of cool skin, he could almost imagine what it would taste like if he could just sink his teeth into that unmarred flesh.

“Eyes on me, shitty brat,” the low voice commanded his wandering gaze to find its way back onto its owner. What were they doing again? Eren had to remind himself. Something about horses? They were training and Eren had to watch.

Levi took a step forward, his hips swaying delicately and right within reach of Eren’s twitching hands. He licked his lips. It was forbidden to eat from a human, yet Eren craved nothing else at that moment. The light shining in Levi’s silver eyes was nothing short of ravenous either.

Eren fell to his knees, his heart beating against his ribcage as if it too wanted to reach out and finally claim what was his. His eyes darted back up to Levi’s face, seeking approval. From the ground, he could smell the human’s delicious aroma as if his tongue had already touched the mounds of ivory skin.

Tanned hands found their way onto the man’s angular waist, and Eren caressed those steel muscles which could work this wonder of a body as if it was no heavier than air itself. Hipbones rocked into his palm encouragingly, and he watched breathlessly as Levi slowly lifted the grey sweater from his torso.

Saliva flooded Eren’s mouth, coating his sharp canines, when his gaze finally locked onto his prize. Those valleys and hills of creamy skin, cool to the touch yet hiding unknown depths of heat which Eren’s whole body was trembling to taste. His thumb smoothed over Levi’s lower abs just above the belt buckle, and his eyes twinkled with a predatory light when he felt a twitch of muscle right under his fingers, this body reacting to a titan’s touch on instinct.

Levi combed his fingers through Eren’s hair and fisted it just hard enough to let it be known who was in charge.

“You may eat,” Levi whispered, his darkening gaze never leaving Eren’s saliva-coated lips.

Not wasting a single second, Eren leaned in and pressed his mouth against the silky smooth skin, enjoying the floral taste of the small beads of sweat on his tongue before he opened his mouth, and sank his teeth deep into the burning flesh of ethereal bliss.

Levi’s hand tightened its hold on his hair and he gasped when Eren’s teeth pierced his skin. There was blood in Eren’s mouth, warm and sweet and rich like a thousand rays of sunlight compressed into one mouthful of honey.

Eren came to with a startled whine.

“Ugh…” he groaned, confused about his whereabouts for a minute before he recognized the walls of the barracks. He wiped away the sweat from his brows and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell that dream was about.

At least by now he knew that it was normal for humans to see weird images when they slept, but he had a sneaking suspicion that dreams about eating people might have been a titan-related addition.

He planked himself up on his elbows and shook his head in shame. What a truly disgusting creature he was, dreaming such awful things of Levi out of all people. He couldn’t remember ever tasting a human, so it was unsettling to say the least just how natural it felt in his dream. He could never eat anyone, least of all Levi. He’d rather die before he would ever do that.

But… if Eren thought about it, Levi didn’t look hurt in his dream. He didn’t sound like he was in pain. He just sounded… weird. His voice was a little higher than usual, and his fingers trembled as he grabbed tighter onto Eren’s hair while that sweet essence of the man flooded Eren’s mouth, and…

“Huh?” Eren frowned and looked down at his lap, noting the uncomfortable tension between his legs. Surprised by the foreign tightness, he grabbed the hem of his loose-fitting pants and lifted it, feeling a little concerned. It had been a good couple of months since anything new had surprised him about his human body. If this thing had broken during the night, Eren would have no idea how to fix it.

So he pulled his pants down and recoiled when that useless thing between his legs almost slapped him in the face. Well, more like in the abdomen.

Eren blinked, eyeing his human bits as if he was waiting for an explanation directly from the culprit.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked and curiously poked the stiff thing. A tickling beam of electricity cursed through his lap when his finger made contact, and Eren flinched away from the strange sensation. Did he crush it somehow during the night and it was now injured? It didn’t look wounded to the naked eye, but if Eren thought about it, it did look a little more red and swollen than it usually did.

Touching it more gently this time, Eren lifted it with a finger and tried to push it down between his legs where it usually hang like a useless piece of decoration. All it was good for really to get in the way and make him feel really uncomfortable in those tight-fitting military pants.

He pushed it down, but the thing came back up stiff and proud, bobbing back and forth as if to mock Eren with its disobedience. The strange sight made Eren crack up with a baffled huff of laughter.

“Eren, are you up?” Petra’s muffled voice came a second later than Eren heard her footsteps and smelled her familiar scent creep under the door. Eren curiously sniffed the air, wondering if his human nose had always been so perceptive of smells, or if maybe that strange dream had something to do with it.

“Uh, yeah…?” he spoke up not bothering to cover himself. He was still a little mesmerized by the ridiculous sight.

“Get dressed and go to the captain’s office, he’ll be waiting for you,” the human said, and yet unknown to Eren, he was in fact very lucky that Petra didn’t barge into the barracks as many officers did. It saved him a great deal of embarrassment which he would later have to suffer through. “And don’t forget to address him properly, okay? Just like we practiced yesterday.”

“Yeah, got it!”

The footsteps faded, and Eren fetched a clean shirt and some white pants. He didn’t bump into any difficulties until he was about to pull up his pants. Up to that point, his new, strange addition to his body was relatively cooperative to the human ritual of putting on fresh second skins, but the thing had to have something against pants because it twitched a little painfully every time Eren tried to stuff it into the tight confinements.

“C’mon, work with me here,” he growled through his teeth, but this body seemed to have a mind of its own.

He ended up waiting for about fifteen minutes before his crotch softened into a more pliable version of itself, and it felt like a victory of its own when Eren finally managed to button up his pants.

Odd dream all forgotten, Eren concluded that this had to be a one-time anomaly he’d never have to deal with again. Future Eren only pitied him for that blissful ignorance.

There was nothing natural about those eyes.

They were glowing in the fading darkness of the early morning, like a cat’s or some wild animal’s. Those watchful eyes, following Levi’s every move at all times, and always so silent, yet speaking more than Eren’s clumsy words ever did.

Yet Levi couldn’t get a read on them. Every time he glared, even though Eren flinched, those eyes kept staring. Every time Levi tried to dig to the truth in the bottom of those eyes, they taunted him with mirrored secrets. I’m an open book, look as deep as you like, those eyes said, but they were nothing but bottomless pits in a sea of emeralds, and Levi never knew what was lurking deep down.

He remembered the first time he caught a glimpse of them in Trost, piercing through his soul like they were grapple hooks. It felt like the brat could always see the monster that lived inside the hollow shell of his body. Yet Eren told no one. Was that what kept Levi so on edge? He wanted to scoff. Was he afraid of Eren unveiling the vilest parts of his nature that Levi made no effort to hide in the first place? Or was he afraid that Eren could show him something that not even Levi was ready to face?

The captain shook his head to get rid of those intrusive thoughts, but as if life was out in the open to mock him, stepping inside his office he found none other but the green-eyed brat standing by his desk and admiring a quill. The obscurity of the brat already waiting in his office and turning to face him before Levi had opened the door had him standing on the threshold with parted lips.

“Morning, sir!” Eren beamed and jumped into a very enthusiastic albeit very sloppy salute. “Petra told me to come see you in your office, sir!”

Levi blinked, so baffled that he even forgot to glare.

You see, Eren was in his goddamn office. He let himself in without Levi’s permission, looked at his stuff without his permission (no doubt the rascal would’ve felt no shame to go through the privacy of Levi’s drawers and given the criminal history, take anything shiny) but on top of that, the brat was also touching his stuff. Grimy little fingerprints all over the quill.

But… for the first time since he had arrived at headquarters, Eren had addressed Levi properly, once again gods bless Petra for her patience, and Levi would’ve lied if he said it wasn’t a pleasant surprise for once. Talking properly was mandatory and a very basic requirement for every soldier, but Eren was a special case, and now Levi faced the dilemma of punishing or praising the brat first.

He opened his mouth, Eren eagerly waiting for the words which were going to be praise as Levi had finally decided, until his eyes fell on the brat’s very, very bare feet.

His face fell into a deathly mask of simmering fury, and Eren had to notice because a visible gulp bobbed his sun-kissed Adam’s apple up and down.

“Did you fucking enter my office with those dirty chicken feet touching my floor?” he glared, eyes staring daggers into said feet, which were now squirming beneath the culprit anxiously.

Eren’s mouth twisted into a nervous smile and he quickly jumped behind the captain’s desk, as if hiding his insolence from Levi could help him any after he was discovered.

“Hah, no…?” He took a nervous step back, noting the murderous energy radiating from Levi’s stiff body.

“Brat,” the man growled with dark eyes.

Eren pushed himself away from the desk and bolted like a fawn fleeing from a pack of dogs. He ran straight towards the cracked open window, and Levi threw himself after him, claws out and teeth bare.

“Get back here, you little shit!” he yelled, but Eren had no fear of heights (not bad if one planned on becoming a scout), and landing on a balcony just below, he quickly made his escape through the drainpipes.

Cursing under his breath Levi busted out of the office, because even he wasn’t crazy enough to jump out of the window after the brat with no gear on. The little shit was halfway through the courtyard by the time Levi made it down the stairs, and looking over his shoulder Eren could see death charging toward him.

“Shit!” he screamed and picked up his pace, but Levi had swiftly pulled off one of his boots, and aimed it at the brat’s nape.

Eren cried out and Eren fell, right onto the dirty ground.

Spluttering the most creative and mind-bending profanities Levi could muster up, he fetched a bucketful of water from the well, cursing the little shit who was now the reason why one of his feet had to get dirty too.

He snatched his boot from the groaning boy and clicked his tongue. He couldn’t put it back on when his foot was dirty. Lifting the bucket he sloshed it all on the brat and watched with a contempt frown the way Eren shrieked and shivered under the icy waterfall.

“Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck, cold, cold, cold,” he stuttered. His trembling lips were taking a blueish shade quickly.

“Cold it’s fucking right, you foul-mouthed cretin!” Levi snarled. He harshly grabbed Eren by his shirt and began dragging him back to the castle. “Way to ruin your week, brat! You’ll be scrubbing toilets until your fingers are waterlogged and your nails fall off!”

Ignoring the bemused looks on the passing soldiers, the captain held his boot in one hand and the squirming package of headache in the other, his mind already listing off ideas on how to make the brat’s punishment just and proactive at the same time. Running laps until the brat puked his guts out sounded appealing.

“Uh, Levi, I can walk actually, I can– ouch, my hair, not my hair, shi–!”

Half an hour and a long line of threats later they stood in reversed positions in the office, Levi by the desk and Eren by the door, his feet stuffed inside a pair of boots which put the brat in a properly miserable mood.

“So, as I was fucking saying I’ll be gone for a few days, and you will be on your best fucking behavior. Am I understood?” Levi crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared at the boy.

“Yes, yes,” Eren whined but he barely seemed to listen. He was busy switching his weight from one foot to the other. Levi narrowed his eyes at him.

“And you’ll be wearin’ the fucking boots. If I come back to you running around without them, I’ll hang you from the ceiling by your thumbs and I ain’t joking.” Satisfied with the color draining from those tanned cheeks, Levi whipped out a paper from the desk drawers and slammed it in front of the brat. “You better keep up with your schedule for the time I’m gone. Every single one of these tasks will be done when I come back, if not then you go on the ceiling. Is that clear, soldier?”

Eren peered down at the paper with mesmerizing green eyes, and Levi’s expression darkened a shade deeper as he was watching that youthful face open up with curiosity. It was simply too familiar not to hurt, but Levi was too proud to avert his gaze, so he hardened it.

“Um…”

“What is it this time?”

“Nothing!” the brat startled and a faint hue of red blossomed across his cheeks. “You’re very talented, sir.”

Levi looked at him like he was the second apparition itself. “What?”

Eren poked the paper and vaguely gestured at the notes. “I like your art, it’s uh… very…” Brows furrowed, Eren struggled to blurt out something, mouth gaping like a fish, and Levi had to take a second to understand what was going on.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Eren. These are letters. Do you know what those are?”

Eren scoffed with feigned confidence. “Yes…?”

“You will try that one more time. Can you read?”

“Ah, no,” the brat pouted.

Levi wordlessly nodded, not finding himself surprised at all, and circled ‘basic literacy skills’ on the list with the thoroughly cleaned quill. “Alright. This should keep you busy.” He stood to retrieve a dark cloak and the mystery scarf, noting how Eren’s eyes lit up.

“Wait! I’ll go with you!” the brat exclaimed hopefully, trailing after Levi who went to gather his horse for travel.

“No, you will stay here and do what I say,” Levi said, knowing that the last thing he was going to need on Erwin’s next bullshit mission was an excitable and absolutely clueless child. He took the reins from Oluo’s offering hand and mounted his horse. The tack was unbranded and simple, much like the clothes Levi was wearing. Simple dark slacks and warm clothes fit for traveling, none of which revealed his identity as a soldier.

Levi could feel emerald eyes trained on his figure while he gathered the reins. He looked at the brat and gave him a sharp glare. “Behave or I’ll find out.”

With that he took off and ignored the weak pang of his heart commanding him to look over his shoulder, knowing full well that the brat was standing in the gates, watching him with those unreachable eyes.

Levi looked ahead on the road and shifted his mindset from that of a soldier’s to one of something he hadn’t been in a while now: a shadow.

Erwin was a cunning bastard, and Fate favored him in ways he wasn’t even aware of. He chose Levi for good reasons he knew of, and even better reasons he was yet unaware of. For the past few weeks, Levi had been busy digging up records and various official documents he could find on those devilish bastards, the Jaegers.

On the surface, Levi could find nothing of interest, least of all something that could be valuable for Erwin. Turns out, demons were only scary while they hid in the shadows. Once one could see them they turned into annoying headaches rather than formidable beasts.

Levi internally reviewed the information he had gathered so far while he traveled. The house of Jaeger was one of the elite ruling families between the sixth and seventh centuries, but then around a hundred years ago it was as if the whole family had been swallowed by the ground. No mentions of what happened exactly, but overnight the Jaegers went from prominent to basically nonexistent. A weak line continued to bear the name, but one old text mentioned something about the name being cursed, and therefore most of its bearers shed their surname and faded into obscurity. A load of bullshit if you asked Levi.

What he didn’t mind was that due to this sudden halt in the family’s history, there was now only one line of surviving sons he had to investigate, and two men in particular. Most Jaegers had a talent in medicine and the natural sciences, leading many of them to live modest lives as physicians.

One particular record mentioned a Grisha Jaeger curing a whole district of smallpox. Indeed it seemed almost like a miracle. Levi tried to look up any documents of any mysterious disappearances around the time Grisha visited the city, but found none. Levi had his suspicious doubts, but for now, he let them go. Grisha wasn’t whom he was looking for.

In the Underground, it was hard to measure the passing of years, and between starving to death and getting stabbed one didn’t much pay mind to useless things such as time. This put Levi at a disadvantage of having no clear idea whom he was hunting, but his best guess was that he was looking twenty-or-so years in the past. It was a time when he no longer showed that he was scared, yet the fear of demons still lived strong inside his childish mind.

Rumors of monsters lurking in the shadows, bone-eating creatures, and vampires had always been around, but the older Levi got the more he realized that ghosts were not what one had to watch out for on the streets. It was people. Cannibalistic ghosts became starving children. The Boogeyman became traffickers waiting in dark alleyways, ready to snatch away any remotely healthy person to then sell them in brothels. But the tales about the Shifters were never quite just rumors.

And Levi should know because he had seen one himself. The Shifters, a simple name given by simple people, were creatures of darkness who snatched people away into their dens, where they would twist their own bodies inside out, shifting into a bloody mess of gore, then they would eat their victims. Levi, who at that time had just begun his belated puberty, was raging with hormones, and he was determined to slay one of the monsters. But in hindsight, he should’ve known that this was not your regular folktale monster.

Gossip about them had started from one day to another, and a month later there was barely anyone who hasn’t yet heard of them or hadn’t suspected one of their missing acquaintances to be the victim of the creatures. Then as swiftly as they came, the Shifters had vanished and everyone forgot about them. Not even Kenny fucked around trying to scare Levi with them, unlike he did with the ’regular’ children’s stories.

It was a day surrounded by the abyss of forgotten memories, but one thing Levi remembered: it was as dark as it was on any other day when he found those two boys by the riverside. Their skin was all white and their bodies were puffy from floating on the river for days. By then Levi had seen enough corpses to know.

He was trembling with adrenaline when he saw them on the shore, the open, pale flesh on their backs proof that they were Shifters about to undergo changing. Except when Levi got closer with his trusty knife and a metal rod as his choices of weapon, he had to realize with deep disappointment that his prey was nothing more than gross, skinned corpses of some kids who were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hunting spirit deflated, Levi went to search their bodies for anything valuable, but as expected of victims of murder in the Underground, everything was already taken. Levi frowned as he lazily glanced at the stomach-turning wounds. Both boys had their backs flayed and their flesh opened up, their ribs and spine left uncovered.

Levi remembered staring at the yellowish bones and the fish-eaten muscles, wondering if any of it was still edible. In the end, the smell of decay was enough to make him gag and puke out the little he had in his stomach. He left the shore without thinking much of the almost-Shifters.

Only when the rumors about more and more bodies turning up with the exact same “condition” reached him did Levi think that perhaps it wasn’t just any regular psycho’s product he saw those many days ago.

Still, a kid who was busy not starving to death or getting beaten did not care much about anything but what he had to do to survive that day and that day only. The memories from the river shore faded and whispered rumors of Shifters and Jaegers became nothing but the annoying buzz of the taverns. By the time Levi became a known thug under Kenny’s fatherly care and had to live and trade in the darkest corners of the Underground, no strange bodies with naked spines were found again.

When Erwin mentioned the name Jaeger, it meant nothing more to Levi than the Boogeyman or the Coppercock Owl. They were faded bits and useless nightmares told by drunken barmaids; until they weren’t. And Levi knew exactly whom he had to find for answers.

With a long groan, Eren collapsed onto the bench next to Hanji and immediately regretted it.

“Ouch!” he hissed through his teeth and jumped back to his feet like his butt had just touched fire. He eyed the guilty bench with the intent to split it in half just with his gaze, and Hanji let out an amused chuckle next to him.

“I can barely remember what it was like to have nerve endings in my ass, hah!” she grinned and slammed a heavy basket on the wooden table. Eren frowned, and this time he lowered his weight onto the bench very carefully. “Oh, to be young and healthy!”

“Will it always hurt like this?” Eren whined, wishing his titan powers back.

“Most good things in life hurt, honey,” Hanji chuckled and ruffled Eren’s hair. “You did very well for your first week on horseback, though. You should be proud of your cute little self!”

It was well after lunchtime, but Hanji asked the cooks on duty to whip something out for them, and Eren was certainly grateful. He didn’t know what it was that had his stomach in a rumbling twist of anger, whether it was the exercise or the excitement of living in his new surroundings, but it felt like his stomach acid could burn a hole through his side any minute. He certainly didn’t complain when Hanji gave him a thick slice of bread and an apple.

He ate like a starved wolf while Hanji went on and on about something that Eren knew way too few words to understand, but was happy to listen anyway, especially when Hanji placed her own rations on his plate.

When his hunger was satisfied, it only took a minute or two before he turned to the sky, already craving sunlight. This newfound hunger was certainly weird, but he paid no mind to it. He always loved sitting in the sun, and what he loved even more was sitting in the sun with a friend.

“So, Eren,” Hanji put an elbow on the table and cupped her chin with a hand. “What have you been up to since I last saw you? Erwin says you’re a criminal!”

Eren shrugged and gathered the last of the breadcrumbs on his plate. “I guess. Everyone acts funny with their faces when I tell them. They look like I just told them ‘I’m a titan’,” he chuckled weakly, then he quickly added, “Being titan would be worse than criminal, no?”

“Hah! You have a weird sense of humor!” Hanji cackled. “I feel like you and I will be best friends! You will be my new best friend. I have Levi, then Moblit, and oh, don’t forget Sawney and Bean, I can’t wait to introduce you to them!”

“What’s best friend?”

“It’s like a very special friend! The best people become best friends.”

Eren smiled. Levi really was the best human, so should he be everyone’s best friend? He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

 “I don’t think I’m as ‘best’ as Levi. He’s lot stronger than me.” And he’s so beautiful too, Eren beamed internally. The impulsive thought made him recall the dream from this morning, and he could feel that bothersome heat spread across his cheeks.

It had only been two days since Levi had left Eren in the care of the squad and Hanji. He enjoyed her company, the constant chipper and talking reminded him of the time he spent with the humans in the forest, but the more he listened and the more he started missing Levi’s voice, he couldn’t help feeling a familiar numbness weigh him down.

He kept finding himself looking at the gate behind which Levi had disappeared, and his tummy churned in shards of ice when he remembered the reserved look on Levi’s face, which seemed to be the only expression he wore whenever he couldn’t avoid eye contact. Eren noticed that his human didn’t like looking into his eyes, and doubt crept inside his heart once again. Levi never avoided his gaze while Eren was still a titan. He yearned to get lost in those beautiful skies of silver again.

“Hanji-san?” he mumbled.

“Yes, Eren?” she smiled at him brightly. She was tasked with teaching him letters from an old book, similar to the ones Levi showed him and Eren took them for artwork in his confusion. Talk about embarrassing yourself in front of your favorite human.

Eren pressed his lips together to repress their trembling. “Does Levi hate me?”

The squad leader curiously peeked at the boy. “Why would you say that? Is Levi being nasty to you? Does he not treat you well? You can tell me, technically I outrank him, and I’m not afraid to sic Bean on him–!”

“No, no!” Eren hurried to grab Hanji’s arm before she could go find Levi and do whatever she had in mind with the vegetables. “He treats me well and he kept his promise about the horse, I’m very happy.”

“Oh? What is it then?”

“It’s just that… it’s weird that I’m here,” in more ways than one, Eren cringed. “And I know that Levi doesn’t like it. That I’m here.”

Hanji tilted her head to the side. “How would you know that?” she asked gently. “He’s hard to get a read on. Trust me, babe, I’ve known him for years and I still can’t tell what he’s thinking most of the time.”

“I can,” Eren said quietly. “His eyes are…” he paused, and suddenly tears started stinging the corners of his own eyes.

Little One has changed as much as Eren himself since they got torn apart by the cruel twist of fate. His eyes once beyond the Walls were full of spirit and the will to fight. Even when he was weaker than a flower petal his eyes burnt with raw determination to survive. Eren had never seen anything like that before. He glared at Eren like he was ready to struggle until his last breath, and then Eren saw how they softened with each passing day, how the flame of trust was lit behind silver irises. And soon he found out that Little One’s eyes could laugh too, they could laugh so beautifully.

Levi’s eyes didn’t laugh. They didn’t smile. A small, fading sparkle was all that was left of the burning light of Eren’s heart. Steel eyes hardened, there was no more room for liveliness. They were dull and dead, and they frightened Eren to his core. It was a stormy sea of eternal sorrow, and if only Eren could help, if only he knew how to cheer him up and make him feel less…

“…sad.”

The wind stole the thin paper pages from between Hanji’s fingers, and they rolled over with a sizzling sound. Eren wished he could see her face behind the messy curtain of bangs.

“Sad?” she hummed quietly. Eren waited, but she didn’t continue. Only the sound of molar teeth grinding on fresh hay could be heard from the nearby stable.

“Yes.” Eren’s brows creased. Can nobody see it? “His eyes get sad when he looks at me.” Am I the reason he’s sad? Does he not want me here because he knows I’m a titan? Or is it something else? Is this human body that horrifying? Do I repulse him that much? Tell me, please, anyone…

Hanji closed the book and set it aside with a heavy sigh.

“Levi is a soldier, Eren. He will do what Erwin orders him to. You’re in good care, I promise you, he’s not someone to take his responsibilities lightly,” she said, and Eren’s shoulders flagged. He squeezed his lips into a thin line and nodded. He thought the conversation was over, but a warm hand was placed on his shoulder.

“I don’t think you’re wrong, though,” Hanji smiled at him apologetically. “Levi is a tough guy, and you won’t have to worry about his personal life interfering with your training. But…” she sighed. “He lost someone very dear to him not so long ago, and I don’t think he’s quite over it yet. You see, us scouts never really have time to say goodbye to our comrades.”

Eren sniffled and wiped the wet patches of moisture staining his upper lips. His Little One was in pain yet he was selfish enough to worry about himself, wondering if Levi’s sadness was all centered around him. What a terrible, terrible creature.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could whisper. He knew too well what it was like to miss someone so much that it hurt something within.

“It’s okay, honey,” Hanji cooed softly and ruffled his hair. “You’re helping him.”

Eren lifted his head with a soft gasp parting his lips. “Really? How…?”

“You’re a task that keeps him grounded, gives him a purpose. That’s all any of us can ask for when we’re lost. A bit of distraction and a bit of comfort. Just keep him busy. I don’t think that will require you much effort, my little criminal mastermind,” she added with a mischievous glint in her eyes, and Eren chuckled along with her. “You’ll be fine, munchkin, don’t worry. Now c’mon! It’s time I finally show you something!”

Leaving the bench and unregretfully the book of letters too, Eren had some time to think about what Hanji shared with him about Levi.

“I don’t understand how I come to the picture though. If Levi is sad for someone else, then why does he look at me like he doesn’t want me here?”

“Ah, you see,” Hanji scratched the back of her head with an awkward giggle. “It’s uncanny, actually, but you look very much like him, the boy we lost. And both of you are called Eren.”

Eren tripped over his feet and he barely managed to catch himself before cracking his skull open on the cobblestone. He felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water on him.

Eren?

How would that be possible? Levi gave him that name because of the awkward sounds he was making. That was his name and nobody else’s, Levi gave it to him.

A flame of burning possessiveness ignited inside his heart, and he was suddenly struck by a sudden wave of mindless rage that Little One would mourn someone else, that he could be so sad for someone who had stolen his name. Here Eren was, wanting nothing else but to experience the warmth of Little One’s mesmerizing gaze again, pining for a human’s attention who was so busy mourning this…

“He looked like me?” he blurted out, surprising himself more than anyone else.

“Huh?” Hanji looked over her shoulder, seemingly already over the heavy load of information she just dropped on Eren. “Yes, brown hair, big, green eyes. So freaky!”

And suddenly the titan felt like crying and laughing at the same time.

He didn’t dare consider it, even think about the fact that the person Little One was sad for might be him out of all creatures in this world, but Hanji said they looked similar and they shared names too. It was him! It had to be, Eren was the reason Levi was so sad!

Along the line of that thought, his budding smile withered from his lips.

Levi must’ve believed that Eren was killed on that faithful day when he turned into a human. Of course, he believed that. There was no explanation as to how Eren didn’t die in the first place. He should be dead.

Levi thought he was dead. Levi didn’t know he lived. Levi had missed him since. And now when Eren showed up as a human, he’s reminded of a titan whom he promised to keep safe.

Hot tears were streaming down Eren’s cheeks, and a chuckle turning into a wet hiccup bubbled up from his throat.

“Eren?” he could hear Hanji’s voice somewhere far away.

Levi missed him. That meant Levi didn’t want Eren dead. That meant Eren could tell him the truth!

The revelation was simply too much to handle. He felt light and heavy at the same time, and his heart was beating so fast that he was afraid it might crack one of his ribs. They were fragile because they couldn’t heal, and they couldn’t heal because he was a human, no longer the titan he once was. And he could finally tell Little One, he could tell him about all the things he’d seen and experienced since they last saw each other. He could tell Little One that he never gave up on seeing him.

“E-Eren, you okay there?”

“I’m sorry, I’m fine,” Eren wiped away his tears and quickly caught up with the scientist.

They arrived at a large, tent-like structure not far from the main building. Hanji was practically vibrating with energy now, and she lifted the green flaps to hurry Eren inside. He stepped through and was surprised by the unexpected darkness that welcomed him.

In that moment of blindness, his other senses rose to full alert, and Eren felt his muscles go rigid. Something familiar, something huge was breathing inside. A stench he hadn’t smelled in a long time, yet was unable to ever forget it.

Run. Fight!

The air was freezing cool in his overheated lungs. His hands shaking, guts trembling with unfathomable hunger. This wasn’t possible, he had to protect these humans, they didn’t know what was coming for them, they…

“Ah, sorry, sorry, I was conducting some research that required total darkness,” Hanji’s cheerful voice forcibly made its way through Eren’s consciousness where he could process its meaning.

Hanji pulled on a rope, and the tent fabric from above started pulling apart like a curtain, folded into little rolls on a carefully constructed web of ropes, and the darkness could no longer hide what Eren already knew was in front of him.

The rush to fight had gone quiet, and a slow terror started setting into Eren’s bones.

Two titans nailed to the ground, bound by ropes, mouths kept wide open by pairs of metal rods.

“These are my babies, Sawney and Bean, my pride and joy! Aren’t they just magnificent? Do you want to hear about the experiment I’m working on currently? I have kept them in darkness for about seventy-two hours to stimulate a response that would be evoked naturally by nightfall, and listen to this, I found out that…”

Hanji kept going on and on and on, but Eren could no longer hear any of it. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the spot where one of the titan’s heads was fixed to the ground by a nail the size of Eren’s thigh sticking out of the steaming mess of flesh under the titan’s tongue. Eren unintentionally touched the tender spot inside his mouth with his own tongue, imagining how much it would hurt if it was done to him.

He knew that he should gloat over the suffering of these man-eating, hideous creatures, yet all he could see was ropes digging into skin, and all he could feel was the fantom-touch of iron nails piercing through flesh.

You’re such an idiot, a snickering voice whispered in his ear. This is what they would’ve done to you.

Eren was there in body, but not in spirit. In his mind, he was somewhere far away where no one could reach him.

When Hanji finally let him go, he stumbled back to some desolate parts of the castle, not really knowing where his feet were taking him. For the first time ever he mourned for titans, and he rubbed his eyes until they were raw and marred by salt.

They’re not your friends. And they will never trust you.

“Shut up!” Eren twisted his fingers in his hair, his voice shaking from anger and fear. He needed to see Little One. He had to find him, he had to ask, but he couldn’t because what if it was true, what it those two titans’ fate was Eren’s all along, what if it was all just a scheme, no please don’t let it be that–

“No…” he whispered through ragged breaths in the silence of his loneliness. “Little One would never lie. He’s good, I protect him, Little One is good…”

What about Levi?

Eren couldn’t breathe.

…You’re a fool.

It was dark by the time Levi reached the western district of Yarckel.

For the past five days, he had been trailing down someone he knew from below, and while he was reluctant though ready to take a trip to his dear old hometown, it came as a surprise to find out that they were no longer a prisoner of the ground. How that happened, Levi hadn’t the faintest goddamn clue.

The city was flooded with refugees, and it was even more run-down and filthier than Levi remembered. Frowning against the foul smell of people and rotting trash everywhere he stopped in front of the building he was looking for. A two-story shack with a single, wobbly red light on the wall.

Almost at the exact moment his fist hit the door, a young woman in a revealing outfit tore it open and gave Levi a sickeningly sweet smile. It was about as fake as it could get. 

“Hello, handsome, are you looking for a good time?” she crooned and Levi stepped inside the brothel being mindful of his surroundings. The place was loud and packed with half-drunk people in the lobby. Mostly men gripping the waists of whores and spending all their money on drinks and other means of pleasure.

Levi’s frown twisted deeper into his features with each step it took him to cross the threshold. “I’m looking for Holly, is she in?”

“Sure, if you want something cheap and loose,” the woman’s voice changed from inviting to disgusted at the sound of that name. “Diseased too. If you’re into old hags, I wouldn’t judge, but give me twenty minutes of your time and I can promise I will change your mind about what you think you like.”

Levi fished out a few gold coins from the inside of his coat and shoved them in the prostitute’s well-worn hand. She gaped at him with distrustful eyes. The amount Levi gave her clearly worth a lot more than “twenty minutes”, but as soon as the shock wore down, a calculated look of willingness took its place on her face.

“This way, sir,” she led Levi toward the back of the building and showed him to a room that looked no different from the others.

The woman left silently, and Levi waited until she was out of sight. Then he raised his hand and knocked on the door. Three times slow, two times fast. Levi waited, a small dagger from his belt unsheathed and ready when he heard a faint rustling noise from inside.

Slowly the door opened, and a woman with grey hair, wide eyes, and a knife held in hand similar to Levi’s fashion was revealed. Levi could feel her eyes roughly pat down his face as if they were hands until there was an actual hand slapping against his cheek.

The harsh blow turned Levi’s head to the side, his bangs falling in his eyes. The pain of those familiar rings digging into his skin once again was something he doubted he’d feel ever again.

“You… son of a whore!” Holly growled like a feral beast, and she would’ve slapped Levi again if not for the weapon in his hand, which he never refrained from using. “Who do ya think ya are, knockin’ on my door like yer ghost has come to haunt me, huh?!”

Suddenly the boisterous laughter and noise coming from the main room reminded them that they were not alone completely. Holly grabbed Levi by the arm and tossed him inside the room before locking the door. “Get yer scrawny ass inside before anyone sees! Ya almost scared the livin’ soul out of me!” she hissed.

Levi rubbed his burning jaw and shot a glare at the old woman.

“I can’t say what surprises me more, seeing you’re alive or hearing that you have a soul,” he grumbled.

The room was sparsely decorated as most rooms in any cheap whorehouse, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that Holly had been out of business for some years now. Fuck knew why nobody had thrown her on the streets yet; or for the record how she managed to escape that hellhole below. By bribing the right people, Levi supposed.

“I ain’t gonna let none of these girls get in trouble, and nothing good ever happens when ya show up,” she scoffed and looked Levi up and down the same way she used to scrutinize her working girls. “Ya look fat,” she noted. “Ain’t as fat as yer whore mother would like to see ya, gods bless her. Well, that’s still better than hanging from the gallows with the crows feeding on yer bones. I figured that’s where ya ended up, but alas…” she scowled. “Why are ya still not dead?”

“Beats me,” Levi shrugged. “Guess I kept killing the right people.”

“Tch. Ya were always a wolf amongst sheep, weren’t ya,” she shook her head, looking visibly unimpressed, but then again that’s how she always was, ever since Levi knew her as a child. “Where have ya been?”

“Here and there.”

“What have ya been doing?”

“This and that.”

She made an attempt to swat a hand at Levi again, but this time he leaned away from her attack with ease. “Argh! The devil will try to talk to ya then! Heavens know why I ever bothered with ya.”

“’Cause I brought in money,” Levi said plainly.

“Tch, ya think money is all that matters to me, eh?”

“Yes.”

She clicked her tongue again and sat down on a chair by a small table. “Damn straight. I have better things to do than waste another minute of my life on ya. So, out with it, whatcha want?”

“Information.”

“Ya better came prepared, I don’t do charity.”

Levi fished out the rest of the money in his purse and shoved it on the table. He could see the way Holly’s eyes twinkled in the golden hue reflecting in her mud-brown irises. “Will that cover it, ya foul hag?”

She inspected the money closely before slipping the coins in her corset between the breasts that Levi was quite sure nobody would want to touch in search of any wealth.

“Alright, I’m all ears,” she pouted with wrinkly lips.

“What do you know about the name Jaeger?” Levi asked, cold eyes hidden under the dark shadows of the poorly lit room. Holly paused, and Levi continued. “I remember from back when I was a brat, there were rumors about people disappearing from plain sight, snatched by some crazy fucker, and then they were never seen again. I can’t remember much of the details, but you’re ancient, so I figured you might know more than me if all that booze you drink hadn’t destroyed your brain yet.”

Holly hummed and stared into the distance, ignoring the insults. “Odd name, ain’t it… Jaeger.”

Levi narrowed his eyes. “What do you know?”

“I know everything that happened back then in that shithole,” she scoffed, though her voice was now bitter, lacking the cutting-edge slyness that Levi learned to hear out from her voice at an early age. “I also know that ya don’t want to get involved with this. Run along, fuck a brat into some lass, and live the topside dream. I’m telling ya for yer own sake, ya hear me?”

“Why don’t I wanna get involved?” he pushed, sensing the opening that began to crack on her shell. Holly lifted her shallow gaze and looked Levi deep in the eyes.

“Because yer just a man who’s trying to challenge monsters to a pissing contest,” she said ominously. “Ya ain’t gonna win.”

Levi sat down by the opposite end of the table. “Killing monsters is my job, a pissing contest is child’s play.”

“Ya haven’t seen these kinds of monsters,” Holly said in a warning tone. “They deal with black magic that goes against the will of the gods. They’re heretics of the most unhinged kind.”

Levi rolled his eyes and rubbed the stiff muscles on his neck. He was too tired for cryptic talk like this. “Tch, you and your damn superstitions–”

“Ya can laugh at an old woman all ya want, but ya were the one askin’ what I know,” she glared, her posture as stiff as a rod. “Damn it, I need a drink. I told ya, nothing good ever happens when ya show up.”

She walked to a small cabinet and opened a bottle of rum. Not bothering to look for a glass she took a sip straight from the bottle before sitting down. When Levi refused to drink with her from the same bottle, she shrugged and drank again.

“More for me,” she snorted. “A lad gave this to me after he couldn’t pay one night, the fool. This is worth more money than what I earned a night back in my time. I suppose he got it as a gift too. No way a foal like him had money for rum like this.”

Holly gulped down another mouthful and heaved a long sigh. “There used to be a lieutenant back then who sang like a finch after just one sip. Met him around the time the Jaeger showed up. Twenty years ago or so.”

Levi could feel the cold sweat of anticipation forming on his nape. “The Jaeger?”

Holly slowly nodded. “I haven’t seen them myself, bless Sina, but I heard there were two of them, an old man and a brat. They were witchers. The grey one said he was a doctor, but I wouldn’t have sent my worst enemy to him for treatment. We all knew that those people going missing were his doing.” Her voice grew hoarse and she weakly coughed into the bottle before taking another sip.

Levi contemplated her words carefully. Twenty or so years ago. It would line up with his memories as he remembered just about hitting puberty when the bodies started showing up. Records said that Grisha Jaeger was supposed to be in his late thirties when he moved to Shiganshina. Could it be that he was the brat Holly talked about?

“People go missing underground all the time,” Levi played the devil’s advocate, despite his ears drinking up Holly’s words the same way she drank alcohol. “Nothing strange about a pile of bodies on the side of a street. Why were these different?”

“These were no ordinary dead bodies,” she lifted her wide-eyed gaze onto Levi. “I saw them myself. They all had their backs cut open, the flesh cleaned off their spines.” She started coughing again, this time more harshly, and the goosebumps running down Levi’s skin weren’t just because of the forceful sound. Backs cut open. “People said the witchers were eating their rotten flesh, but– I tell you, it was– something far more sinister. After some time the Jaegers disappeared like… like…”

She slammed the bottle on the table and covered her mouth, coughing like she was trying to spit his lungs out, and Levi had a prickling sensation in his nape telling him that something was wrong. He kept a watchful eye on her as she struggled to talk between the urges of heaving for air. “They disappeared without a trace– What in the devil’s…!”

Holly whipped out a handkerchief from a pocket and pressed it onto her mouth. There were spots of dark red seeping through the dirty fabric.

Levi jumped to his feet at full alarm and rushed to her side, but before he could reach her, Holly rolled over and collapsed onto the floor.

“Holly? Holly!” Levi hissed and shoved her on her back. Glossy eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling, the trails of blood dripping down from the corner of her mouth. Levi felt his whole body freezing up. “Gods fucking dammit, what the fuck…!”

His mind racing, Levi didn’t bother to check her pulse. He had seen enough dead bodies to know which one had no way of coming back. His eyes darting from one corner of the room to the other, he suddenly noticed the bottle of rum standing on the table.

Holly seemed just fine before she began drinking it. Levi snatched the bottle and sniffed it carefully, expecting some sort of poison that could be potentially effective even just through breathing it in, but the rum didn’t seem off. It barely had a strange, metal-like scent that made Levi gag. It reminded him of blood. There wasn’t much that could overpower the strong smell of hard liquor like this.

Did she drink too much and the liquid went down the wrong way? But if she choked there was no place for that blood coming up through her mouth. It had to be poison, though not any kind Levi was familiar with.

“Shit,” Levi hissed under his breath and took a look at Holly’s cold body. He had to get out of there before anyone noticed them.

Hiding the bottle under his cloak he opened the window that led to a dark alley. It should be safe to escape without someone seeing him. His plain clothes wouldn’t give away his identity, and even if someone recognized his face thanks to those godawful propaganda pictures he doubted that any of the drunkards busy getting laid would remember him.

Levi took one last glance at Holly, tempted to properly say his thanks for saving his ass so many times back in the days by lifting her body from the awkward position on the floor. But the loud noises coming from outside and above the room reminded him that mourning the dead was not something the people from the Underground could ever afford. They were born as a product of rape, stole and abused each other in their lives, and then they all died like dogs in a ditch by the roadside. There was nothing sentimental about death.

“See you later, old hag,” he murmured and pulled the hood of the cloak deep onto his face.

“What an absolute fucking headache,” Levi sighed and wiped the dust and sweat from his brows. His horse, exhausted from the long journey, dragged herself towards the tavern with the last of her strength.

They had been on the road since that night at Holly’s. The weight of the bottle strapped to his side under the heavy cloak was digging into his skin uncomfortably. He couldn’t afford to lose it.

Boris Feulner.

That was the name that young prostitute in the brothel said when Levi had hastily asked her who had visited Holly within the past few months. Holly didn’t have many customers anymore, that woman explained meekly, Boris being the only one to still indulge himself. He was a gambling addict and usually short on money. It would make sense to ‘gift’ something instead of actual payment.

But why would a lowlife police officer bother to poison a lowlife whore, that’s what Levi couldn’t wrap his head around.

“I suppose he got it as a gift too. No way a foal like him has money for rum like this.”

A gift, Levi frowned. It made no sense to give such expensive alcohol to a common soldier, and it made even less sense to give poisoned alcohol to said nobody. If the poor folk wanted someone dead, they did it with the least amount of money spent. Levi had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to this annoying chain of alcoholics than it first met the eye.

Nobody paid him too much mind when he arrived in his civilian clothes at the stables, and he tied down his horse next to the five other ones with the military tack already cleaned next to them. Good, so his squad was right on time with the schedule then. The stable was absolutely filthy though. Levi had barely been off his horse for ten seconds and the muscle under his right eye was already twitching.

He looked around, noting how unusually empty the tavern lot was for an afternoon.

“Where the hell is everybody?” he muttered and followed the sounds of bustle coming from inside the building.

The volume of the shouting and laughter rose with every step, and Levi instinctively picked up his pace. What a day it was if the drunken bar fights have already started before sundown. Idiots loved to brawl for the hand of the prettiest barmaids.

He stepped inside the crowded main room and flinched at the loud noise piercing his ears. A growl similar to that of a dog's caught Levi’s attention, and a spike of worry cruised through his veins. Shit, his squad was better be still in one piece, he thought as he forcibly pushed through the crowd, otherwise, not a single person was going to leave this place alive.

His small stature did not keep him from picking up and shoving away grown men, cutting his way through the excited crowd with bits and pieces of foul threats. However, Levi wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted him when he finally reached a clearing.

Details of the scene flashed into his mind in rapid turns: a man on the ground, another two crawling away on their asses, his squad struggling to prevent a vicious attack. And Eren, back hunched and legs apart, lashing out at his bleeding opponent on the ground like a rabid wolf. Eyes burning with rage. Menacing teeth bare. Foam by the edge of his mouth. Clear intent to kill. A wild animal.

Levi didn’t hesitate. He launched forward, his reflexes as sharp as the edge of a blade.

“Eren!” he shouted and grabbed the boy’s wrist in the air.

The whole tavern seemed to go quiet in an instant. Frozen in place, Eren stood with his back to Levi, chest heaving with an audible rasp, and when he looked over his shoulder to meet the man’s eyes, Levi felt like he was punched in the guts.

Eren’s eyes were red from tears of rage, his green irises flaring with such fury that Levi was shocked to find anyone still alive. Eren clenched his jaws tight, and when Levi’s eyes trailed up to the hand that he was still restraining, his heart did something uncomfortable in his chest, not unlike the first time he ever came face to face with a titan.

Eren didn’t raise his hand for a punch. His fingers weren’t balled up into a fist, but instead, they were crooked like they were claws of their own, ready to lash out and tear up flesh and guts. There wasn’t anything remotely human about it.

“What in the three Walls’ fucking name is going on here?”

Chapter Text

do not fret my dear readers! this is not your note on me abandoning you all. this is the note which im very hesitant to post BUT IM JUST SO BOREED

im literally dying from boredom and i have no friends so i came begging for attention here, further destroying any shred of hope you might feel that im actually a respectable person

right now its 8pm where i am, im in a damn hospital, some scary alarm sound is going on, i dont have a hospital roommate, im alone and its dark and the night is so loooong

iiii had thyroid surgery meaning that a big overexcited lump of stuff was cut out from me myself and i, and also ive been here since tuesday so pls pity me this is me begging for attention

jokes aside tho, im all good (i mean it, im up on my feet and all so dont ya worry my lovely ppl it was a quick and easy operarion), my surgery was yesterday and im feeling so much better already, also i do have a new chapter for this sunday tho this tiny ass room doesnt help my creativity so it might be up a little later. thooo im not very consistent lately with updates sorrey

anyway hmu bitches pls because i prolly wont sleep any tonight and im willing to sell you my feet pics come hither

(i'll also likely to delete this by next update because im very ashamed of myself rn but im still gonna post this because i have no self respect)

(also if this gets no responses we're just gon pretend it never happened okay, you didnt see nothin)

Chapter Text

“What in the three Walls’ fucking name is going on here?!”

Levi’s voice rang loud and clear in the crowded room.

He took a stunned step backwards, bewildered by the dark, predatory gaze that was now zeroed in on him, an expression that he had never seen on the brat’s face before. Eyes, which he had known to be bright green like a grassy hill at sunrise, were now overshadowed by dark clouds, and they were unsettlingly dim. Empty.

What creeped Levi out more than those deep teal eyes was the physical reaction they had coaxed out of his war-hardened body: unease. That simmering anxiety from the pit of his guts, slowly spreading and stuffing his veins full of shaky ice, turning his skin cold and his breathing rapid. It stunned Levi that this fucking brat could make him feel things he had only ever felt the first time he saw a titan.

His face must’ve betrayed his shock because Eren’s arm had softened in his grasp, and his fingers rested into their natural positions, no longer taking the shape of deadly weapons. As Eren’s fury seemed to deflate, the astonishment in Levi’s system drained and anger took its place.

He tossed Eren’s arm away from himself and slapped him hard across the face.

To the brat’s credit, he didn’t as much as flinch or make a sound when the harsh strike bloomed a bright red patch on his cheek. He fell on his hands and knees with nothing but a mute gasp.

Levi then looked at the people lingering, and they collectively took a step back when the weight of those unforgiving irises lifted onto them. Some of them were looking fairly roughed up, while the person Eren had beaten up on the floor looked like he had been mauled by a bear. Remains of his trainee uniform hung loose on his body, his face a bloody mess, but at least he was still breathing. Gunther had bright red gashes on his jaw in the shape of four fingernails.

What would’ve been appropriate for Levi was to drag Eren back to HQ or better yet, bring him to court immediately and get him discharged at that instant. There was no place in the army for someone who was a danger to his comrades.

Eren looked unhinged. Uncontrolled, out of his mind. He threw trained soldiers off himself, battle-hardened veterans as if they weighed nothing more than twigs, ignored their commands, and if Levi had arrived one minute later, perhaps someone really would’ve ended up dead.

Yes, Levi should’ve brought Eren to the commander. Instead, he hauled the boy onto his feet and grabbing him by his nape he started leading him outside with a rough hand.

“Clean this mess up!” he barked the order to his soldiers over his shoulder, while he addressed the rest of the crowd. “The circus is over, shit stains, you’re dismissed! Scrape that boy up from the floor and patch him up!”

The stable door got torn open with a loud rattle, and the attending boys scattered when they saw the angry captain shove his subordinate inside. Eren didn’t struggle against him, as if all the spirit had left his body at once. It was like tossing around a log of wood, Eren remaining unresponsive and his gaze somewhere far away. Brooding within the confinements of his own mind on what could’ve been the matter with this unsought weight on his conscience, Levi pinned the brat onto the ground with the sheer force of his glare.

His anger burned so hot that he couldn’t even open his mouth to spit the first sprouts of venom that came to him, not finding any of them telling enough of just how deep his outrage ran.

Now, Levi could tolerate many things, and he understood even more. What he wasn’t willing to look over, however, was the deep gash that ran along Gunther’s jaw, resembling the claw mark of a wolf.

“You… animal,” he seethed through his gritted teeth. Eren kept his head low, though his whole body was trembling with either anger or fear. Levi refrained from injuring another one of his squad members by pure will alone despite how his foot was itching to rearrange the brat’s teeth.

“I don’t care what hole you crawled out of or what you were before Erwin scouted you, and you can behave like a fucking lunatic all you want, but my patience runs out right around when you start hurting my own men! Good, able fucking men who should be on the field, killing titans and not staying behind because of injuries that their own comrades had caused! What do you think you are, a fucking rabid dog? Is playing soldier not doing it for ya, huh?! You fucking disgrace! Explain yourself!”

Eren said nothing, just kept staring at his hands as if he was in shock himself. His mouth hung slightly open, traces of blood smeared across his lips.

“Hell, if people topside weren’t so squeamish, they’d say you deserve a fucking lashing for what you did,” Levi growled. “How dare you hurt my fucking men, huh?!”

The words burnt his throat like charcoal when Eren lifted his head, his face stained with blood and dirt, and those eyes, empty and so cold, looked at Levi with nothing but fatigue. Gone was the look of adoration which Levi thought he hated, the excitement which had annoyed him. A droplet of tear was all that was left, carving its way through smudges of dirt and swollen cuts of red. A familiar sight.

Something akin to light shattered in slow motion in those endless hues of green, and Levi could almost see the moment when the heavy burden of realization settled onto Eren’s soul with the inevitability of their truth.

“Out of all the things,” Eren whispered through shards of his broken voice, “I never thought that you’d be cruel.”

Levi, his heart heavy with memories of the past, said nothing. He threw the door open with such brute force that it resonated through the hinges, and he marched out of the stable. He heard something akin to a fist colliding with wood, followed by an outraged roar that sent shivers down his spine.

“Fuck!” Levi was seething as he pushed his way back inside the tavern, wishing that someone would dare to get in his way so he could shove them aside. Fists clenched, he went to his bedroom and with the same impulse he entered he kicked a chair across the room.

“Captain–!” Petra threw the door open and rushed inside, worry written all over her face.

“How fucking dare he, that piece of shit,” Levi growled through gritted teeth. “Acting like he’s the fucking victim, that ungrateful bastard, that absolute child! Fuck, I should’ve crushed his fucking bones!”

He spun around, heaving like a raging bull, and Petra’s face went as grey as ash. When Levi dashed towards the door with his mind made up and eyes shooting piercing blades, she jumped between him and the way to the corridor, trembling even as she was blocking Levi’s way outside.

“Sir, you need to calm down,” she declared. Her eyes were wide with fear, but her determination was apparent, something that managed to turn Levi back to his senses.

He took a step back, and Petra called in the rest while she began boiling water for some tea. The atmosphere was tense with the silence Levi knew he would be the one to break first. They might as well get over it while he had a grip on his right mind and he wouldn’t march back into the stabled to smash that brat’s face in.

Out of all the things, I never thought that you’d be cruel.

“Piece of shit,” he muttered through clenched jaws as he prepared the tea, using the routine process to help himself cool down even if just a bit. “So. What the fuck happened?”

His squad stood in an orderly line, eyes cast on the floor.

“We…” Eld glanced at the other three with a clueless expression, “are not sure. Has he said anything to you, sir?”

Levi frowned and rather forcefully threw the soaked-up tea leaves into the fire. Oh, he said just enough all right.

“I didn’t give him much chance. Had I started questioning him, I should still be down there, beating the crap out of him.”

“He’s been acting strange for a few days, sir,” Oluo stepped up, ignoring the warning glare Petra sent him. “I had a hunch from the beginning that he would be trouble–”

“Oh, shut it, what do you know about trouble?” Petra snapped. “There’s clearly something on Eren’s mind that keeps him on edge, he has barely eaten lately! And that trainee, he’s been provoking Eren since we arrived!”

“But to lash out so violently… That boy,” Gunther muttered with a disapproving shake of his head, “there’s something wrong with him.”

“It came out of nowhere, Petra–!”

“Let me explain–!”

“There’s no reason why that brat should deserve a rank within our group, he’s uncontrollable–!”

“I said let me explain to the Captain, get out!”

“All of you, shut your goddamn mouths!” the voice of their captain erupted, and at once the squad went quiet. Levi’s fringe fell in his eyes, all sticky from the sweat on his forehead. “I will not have another mutiny on my hands tonight unless you all want to get discharged! I’m about this close to losing my shit!”

The frightened stillness in the room was tangible. Levi sighed and he buried his face in his hands, a rare expression of vulnerability and exhaustion for him. He needed to keep his head cool.

“Have you been keeping up with your written logs?” he asked sternly.

“Yes, sir,” Eld replied.

“Good, give ‘em, now. This shitty day is not over for either of you. Eld, Petra, I trust you two with this.” He placed the bottle of rum snatched from Holly’s place onto the table. “You take this back to Hanji, I need her to find out if it could kill someone and if yes, what kind of poison it is.”

Petra gasped silently. “Poison?”

“Oluo, Gunther, you two will find a man named Boris Feulner in the Military Police, potentially out of service or not alive,” Levi continued as he desperately tried to push his thoughts of Eren to the back of his mind to focus on the important issues, but he simply couldn’t. Those white fangs and the unhinged look on Eren’s face have engraved themselves into the very surface of his retinas. “I want everything you can find out, basic information, habits, history, everything, anything.”

“What about you, Captain?” Gunther asked.

“I’ll follow our original plan, go to training camp to whore myself out to a bunch of snotty halfwits in Erwin’s name,” he murmured. “The brat’s coming with me too, I ain’t letting him out of my sight.”

“I see,” Gunther said with a furrow of his brows, and Levi’s eyes dropped onto the freshly bandaged wound on his neck. “Sir… Though I haven’t heard much that trainee had been bad-mouthing the corps since the moment we set foot in here. I don’t know what he said, but Eren’s been in a bad mood for days. I think it was all just an unfortunate accident of a shit mood meeting a loose mouth.”

Levi rubbed his sore eyes and dismissed the soldiers. Quite frankly, Erwin probably wouldn’t let the boy go, even if Levi had started banging on his gates with a petition. He out of all people should know that Erwin’s willingness to overlook one’s shortcomings was mainly rooted in his abnormally large ambitions. A little scrape to the neck wouldn’t get Eren thrown onto the streets.

Levi didn’t want the brat to go back to his old life, he realized quietly. Kids like him should have a roof over their heads, a warm meal in their bellies, and some realistic idea of a future that they can dream of. Eren wasn’t any different, but why, oh why did he have to make Levi’s job so damn difficult?

His squad had left with their tasks on hand, and Levi was left alone with nothing but a handful of bothersome thoughts and a shitload of unanswered questions. When he felt himself calm down somewhat he went to check on the brat, but he was already fast asleep on the ground by a stack of hay. Levi decided not to stir him.

Eren remembered the sudden headache and then the vertigo that followed.

It came like a summer storm, quick and powerful. It was always there, breaching the surface just barely, like waves, never staying long enough for Eren to grasp it. Not until yesterday, until he lost control. His heart began beating faster even now just thinking about that strange, powerful feeling.

It was like back in the old days, except… nothing ever was the same. It left him confused and terrified. That rage which caught fire within, and an invisible hand dropping just enough logs of wood on it to burn too high, too much. Then he snapped, and the next few minutes went black. He couldn’t remember.

It was only later he realized that he had forgotten much of what happened before Levi showed up and Eren almost crawled his eyes out in his blind fit of rage.

Eren shook his head violently until he began to feel dizzy. He needed those images out of his head.

“…bunch of liars.”

“What the fuck did you say?”

I’ll kill him. I’ll kill them all.

“Shut up,” Eren growled breathlessly, and the silence suddenly lifted around him like fog.

“…ren! Oi, Eren!”

Levi clicked his tongue when his third attempt to get the brat’s attention finally succeeded. “Have you fallen asleep on your fucking horse? You better wake up quickly ‘cause we have a long ride ahead of us.”

Eren didn’t budge to the harsh words. He was as good as a numb sack of meat sitting in the saddle, eyes looking forward, yet seeing nothing. The boy carried out every single task Levi gave him to a point, silently and without complaint. And Levi hated it.

He hated seeing that expressionless face, those sun-kissed cheeks that were now pale and lacking the dimples of a cheeky smile, and those hollow glances, giving nothing. Levi tried to ignore just how deeply unsettled he was by this new sight. A single tear kept flashing across his mind, and he gritted his teeth trying to shove that image out of his head every time it appeared.

He knew what this was. So many annoying coincidences had been surrounding this brat and another whom Levi had vowed to put aside for now, that he simply couldn’t separate them in his heart. How pathetic one man must be to confuse the living with the dead?

They have been riding in silence for two hours when they stopped by a small creak to refill their flasks. Levi finally had enough of that dead-eyed look.

“Oi, I’m fed up with your brooding!” He tossed the brat aside with a firm hand against his head, which in retrospect was not the most diplomatic way of opening up a conversation with a touchy subject.

“Sorry,” Eren murmured, unbothered by getting shoved just like that.

“Tch. Need to get your ears checked? Or you’re having memory problems?” Levi bit out, though the comically puzzled face Eren gave him was enough to soothe his quickly flaring rage. At least the brat no longer avoided his gaze. “I didn’t ask for an apology. I asked you what happened.”

And the brat had the audacity to look him dead in the eye, and then climb back on his horse, stretching out a long pause between them that almost had Levi swat at Eren’s head again.

Out of all things…

“Fucking hell,” Levi shook his head and mounted his mare as well. He was getting too old and soft if a brat like this could get through to him.

Wasn’t it just ironic that out of all people, he was the one holding someone accountable for explosive violent tendencies? Dammit, was this what Erwin had to deal with every time Levi tossed someone around? But he always had a good reason, didn’t he? Erwin disliked his temper because it took him a surprisingly long time to figure out what made Levi go silent with an intent to ruin a life and what made him kick and break bones. Even a strange brat like Eren had to have a master switch somewhere. Levi only had to find out what flipped it on.

“Nothing happened,” Eren was quick to mumble his response. “That h– guy had… an annoying face.”

Levi hummed at the half-assed response noncommittally and recalled the words Petra spoke to him not long before she left for HQ. She mentioned something about Eren’s mood deflating since the second day he was gone. Less willing to obey orders, explosive temper, more aggressive during physical training. Bloody teenagers.

“So you beat him half dead?”

“I said I was sorry!” Eren suddenly snapped, eyes flashing with that eerie flame of fury hidden beneath bottomless pits of emerald. Surprised by his outburst, Eren leaned back as if to unsay his words, but the vigorous clenching and loosening of his fist told Levi that Eren wasn’t contempt to step down yet.

“Eren, I’m giving you a chance to explain yourself so you will calm the fuck down unless you want me to beat your ass into submission. Don’t fucking tempt me,” Levi flashed him a threatening glare, challenging the boy to disobey him. “Make your goddamn choice wisely.”

Eren stood his ground staring into Levi’s eyes, but as quickly as his anger came, like a sudden thunderstorm during summer, it was disheartened by the quiver of his lips.

Levi’s gaze softened as he watched the brat shamelessly tear up in front of his superior officer.

He let out a drawn-out sigh. “Did someone hurt you? Did something… happen after I left?”

And Eren looked at him like he wasn’t sure if Levi was to be trusted with the truth. That calculative, cold gaze trying to get a read on Levi’s face suddenly felt like a betrayal. It surprised the captain more than he could ever think it would; since when was he so dependent on having Eren’s trust?

Since now, he guessed irritably, given how he was all soft and mellow this morning. Gods, he hated himself sometimes.

After many failed attempts, the chance of having an actual conversation about what happened drowned right about then. Levi decided to keep to himself and just observe the brat from afar, looking for any indication of his mood or how quickly it might change. For the most part, Eren stayed the same: mute and expressionless.

They stopped by the nearest town on the border of the training camps to pick up some supplies, and Levi was in a proper foul mood. Stressed by the noise and the filth on the street market, and frustrated not only with Eren’s uncharacteristic mood swings but also with his own puzzling investment in the brat’s happiness, he was left brooding in the dark cloud of his thoughts.

They led the horses by the reins through the crowded streets, when Levi’s eyes zeroed in on a traveling merchant’s small collection of high-quality soaps. He was about to tell the brat not to wander too far from him while he went to check out the stock, when a feminine voice called out:

“Eren?!”

Levi turned to see a young woman dropping a heavy basket from her hands, spilling apples and vegetables onto the cobblestone. Warm golden eyes intertwined with wide green ones, and Levi glanced between the two people who seemed to turn into stone statues upon seeing each other.

Then Eren’s lips slowly parted, and tears of dread swelled in his sore red eyes.

“…Carla?” he whispered hoarsely, and his body snapped into motion faster than the human eye could follow.

Pushing people aside he ran towards the woman with abandon, and at the same time she opened her arms, her stunned expression matching Eren’s. Eren swooped her off the ground like she weighed nothing, his arms clutching her waist with sheer desperation.

The crowd parted around them, the basketful of dropped goods all but forgotten. There was no beginning nor ending to the continuous stream of tears and choked up words; there was only the embrace and the wish to hold each other closer and never let go.

Eren buried his nose between Carla’s neck and shoulder, and he cried like never before because it was the same scent of white lilies he thought he’d never smell once more. He felt like his heart was breaking into a hundred pieces all over again, and she was there to pick up the pieces.

“Carla!” he wailed her name over and over again, as if holding onto the beloved woman through body and soul could protect him from the terrifying chance of this moment turning out to be just a cruel fragment of his imagination. There was only the scent of lilies and the warm, solid body in his arms that kept him grounded, and the sound of Carla’s soothing voice cooing in his ear.

“Eren, oh, my gracious goddesses, I’m here, darling, I’m here!” she sobbed as she rubbed the boy’s back in circular motions the same way she used to when they lived in the brothel. “I’m right here, darling boy, I’m not going anywhere! Please, don’t cry, it’s alright now, you’re here!”

Carla cupped Eren’s angular jaw and lifted his chin to look him in the eyes.

“Look, how you’ve all grown up!” she giggled hysterically and showered Eren’s cheeks and forehead with wet kisses. Slowly Eren’s muscles started to ease from the tension, and Carla’s continuous coddling, praises, and touches finally pulled out the first string of genuine laughter from him.

“I missed you,” he breathed through frantic heaves of his chest, and he couldn’t have willed away the tear-stained smile from his lips even if he tried. “I missed you so much, I was so bad for you, I–”

He couldn’t finish his sentence as another wave of sobbing overcame him, and Carla held his shaking body in the protective hold of her warm arms.

“I’m sorry,” Eren choked out, and when he met Carla’s gaze, he could see both shock and immeasurable pain in her beautiful golden eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you, I tried to go back but I failed…!”

“Shhh~” Carla yanked him into a tight hug and tucked Eren’s head under her chin. “Hush, you silly goose! You talk so beautifully yet you speak such idiotic things, I’m both so proud and angry with you! How dare you for even just a second think that anything had been your fault!” she sobbed in his ear with such kindness dripping from each word that Eren’s tears only began raining harder.

“You did so well, my darling boy,” Carla cooed as she rocked back and forward, slowly calming Eren’s erratic breathing. “You’re so good, I’m so proud that you’re here, alive. I’m so proud of you, Eren. All this time I prayed to Maria, I prayed for her to give you back to me, to protect you, and she heard me! You’re safe, that’s all I ever wanted…”

Her words drowned in a warm stream of tears, and for a while, none of them spoke. There was no need for anything else, only the firm touch of each other’s, proof that they were alive.

Levi stood in a polite distance to give them privacy, but he found himself unable to tear his gaze from the overwhelming scene. For the first time in who knew how long, he felt hidden tears sting the corner of his eyes, and he quickly looked the other way before they could threaten to spill.

When Carla wiped the tears from both of their faces, she finally looked up at Levi, then back at Eren. “Why are you with this man, Eren? Who are you?”

“Captain Levi, ma’am, of the Survey Corps,” Levi introduced himself stiffly before he quickly gathered the fallen items. Basket secured, he offered the woman a hand to help her stand up. “Here, let me.”

Carla gratefully took the offer, pulling Eren with herself.

“Oh, thank you! W-Well, if there was one thing I couldn’t foresee happening today, it was this,” she chuckled weakly, her skirt trembling with the uncertainty of her knees. Levi stood on watch just in case she would faint. “But regardless, please, let me invite both of you over for supper!”

Levi bit the inside of the corner of his mouth, and he glanced at the wide-eyed brat hanging from the woman’s clothing as if it was his lifeline.

“Please,” Eren begged with crystal clear tears shining in his eyes. “C-Can we go, please?”

Levi found himself answering without hesitation. “Of course, brat.”

Eren hung onto some part of Carla the whole way back to the little cottage named the Golden Butterfly. It was a neat little house, two stories with a vegetable garden and enough land to farm for a small family. Carla insisted that the walk was not far from the town center, but Eren refused to have her walk and carry all the produce she bought.

“You had to do this all by yourself while I was away,” Eren stated with a serious expression as he grabbed Carla by the waist and plopped her up into the saddle of Horse. “No more.”

“Gosh, Eren, I’m not old enough yet that you should fret about me walking a little,” Carla nagged half-heartedly, the amusement clear as daylight in her voice, and something else too, something far more profound that could be only compared to the love that a mother felt for her child.

Levi watched them from the corner of his eyes, not wanting to invade the privacy of their reunion, yet he couldn’t help the twitch of his lips every time Eren began insisting that they should lead the horses while Carla sat in the saddle and took a break.

So this was the mother of this strange brat, Levi wondered.

On one hand, it relieved him in ways which he hadn’t predicted. Knowing that Eren had at least one person in this world for a family made him feel less uneasy. Both regarding the kid’s safety and his own obsession with his two Eren’s being somehow connected. Carla’s presence made this option impossible, relieving Levi from a batshit crazy suspicion that had been lurking in his subconscious since last night.

On the other hand, this was not what he imagined.

An illiterate rogue who barely spoke any and when he did he was hardly confined by grammar; not to mention those strange quirks of his, his distaste for boots, the criminal background, and his shocking ignorance of the world… This well-groomed and kind-looking woman was simply not what Levi had envisioned. He had seen his fair share of neglectful, selfish parents in the Underground, but no neglected kid ever clung to their wrong-doers the way Eren latched himself onto Carla.

Before they left town, Levi sent a messenger boy to the camps to inform them of the slight delay, and later that turned out to be one of his smarter decisions, given how currently he was chopping wood in a neatly kept backyard. Even a dumbass like Hanji would’ve sensed the energy needing to be addressed between those two, so Levi offered to get the wood for the night’s fire while Carla and Eren would cook dinner. He decided the world wouldn’t come to an end if they stayed for a night.

“I picked those just this morning,” Carla pointed at the apples on the table with a bright smile. “I always wanted an apple tree when I was a little girl.”

“I’m happy that you have one then,” Eren said quietly as he watched the slumbering residents of Carla’s neat little garden. His eyes seemed to trail back to Levi’s figure from time to time on their own. He held the axe with the exact same ease he held his blades.

“Bite sized, right?” Eren asked as he lifted a piece of apple for display. Though last time he helped baking a pie it was peaches, he figured the two fruits looked similar enough.

“Aw, you remember?” Carla cooed and pinched his cheek playfully.

“Of course, I do.” Eren rolled his eyes like it was no big deal, and the curious light in Carla’s eyes spurred him on to explain himself. “I try to remember a lot of things I heard back then. I used to practice with the things you said, trying to figure out what you meant… It also,” Eren gulped and stared blankly at the apples, “helped me feel better.”

Carla’s lips curled into a sad smile as she put down the supplies in her hand and went to grab Eren’s. She leaned down to press a kiss onto his hairline, and when the titan looked up with a puzzled expression, her smile turned sweet. “I’m so proud of you.”

Eren hid his blushing cheeks by turning his face.

“I literally suck, so don’t lie. People think I’m an idiot every time I open my mouth,” he mumbled. A quick slap on his nape made him flinch, and he leaned back to glare at the woman with hurt surprise. “Ouch! What was that for?”

“How dare you be so harsh with yourself, young man?” Carla looked at him sternly. “As long as you’re under my roof, you’re not allowed to speak such things of yourself, do you understand? And where did you learn such words anyway?”

Eren pouted and looked aside, not wanting to throw Levi under the horse carriage. Though it seemed like nothing could get past Carla.

“It was the Captain, wasn’t it?” she sighed. “Ah, these soldiers, always corrupting the youth with unsanitary words! Then again you’ve always shown a liking to dirty language. No doubt just to get me to freak out about it, my little troublemaker.”

Eren repressed a fond chuckle. “I’ve never done that, what are you talking about…”

Carla’s fingers raked through the titan’s hair in gentle, repetitive circles. Eren let her pull his head against her apron, and he relished in the comforting scent he knew to be his home. “I want to hear you tell me everything so I can hear that beautiful voice of yours.”

“Good, because I’ll come visit you every week,” Eren mumbled into her dress. “You’ll be sick of hearing my voice.”

“I severely doubt that. We have a lot to catch up on.”

Eren smiled and he prodded his chin against Carla’s abdomen to look up at her. “I can tell you about my new friends. There’s Mikasa and Armin. They taught me a lot of words… Levi too.”

Carla hummed. Her amber eyes were searching Eren’s face with gentle touches. “Does he take good care of you?”

“…Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

Eren pressed his lips together, feeling the stinging of tears in his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Eren,” Carla murmured quietly. “What is it, darling?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Eren closed his eyes and heaved a deep breath. “I don’t have this, everyone I see has this. Levi has Hanji, and they can tell each other stuff, and my squad mates, they got each other, but I… I have you, but it’s…”

“It’s different,” Carla’s gentle voice resonated through the tight hold of his arms. “I know you have secrets and things you’re not ready to tell. Things you’ll maybe never tell. But our secrets are secrets for good reasons. We have a right to keep them.”

“I’m just so sick of secrets and lies,” Eren confessed with quiet desperation in his voice. “I want to be honest, and people to be honest with me, but how can I ask for honesty when I’m not giving any?”

“Well, have you ever lied to me?”

The titan hesitated. Had he? “I… don’t think so, not intentionally. But that doesn’t mean I told you the whole truth.”

“I never asked for the whole truth,” Carla pointed it out. “Eren, what happened to you in the past is the past, and it can stay there as long as you want it to. We all have the right to turn the leaf. Why would you be any different?”

Eren held her tighter in his arms, and a broken sob finally made it past his defenses.

“I don’t think I know what I want anymore. People are awful, Carla. I hate them so much, all of them,” he whispered. “I hate humans, hate titans, they’re all awful for no reason. They make me so angry!”

He buried his face in Carla’s apron, and for a moment they just held each other while Carla made sure that Eren wouldn’t sink.

“When the titans came, I saw so many die. Titans eat them, and they don’t help, Carla, they kill and lie and betray each other. They’re ugly. And I’m starting to become like them. I-I get so very angry. And I try to trust them and then they always hurt me. I don’t like it when it hurts.

“I know Levi from before,” Eren confessed, his voice hoarse and his cheeks tearstained. “And he doesn’t know it was me, but I can’t remind him either. B-Because I don’t know if I can trust him. I don’t want him to hurt me too.”

For a while he just sat there with Carla standing next to him, her arms cradling his shoulders as if to shield him from the ugliness of the world.

“You know,” she began quietly, “when I was fourteen, I sold myself to a brothel for one meal per day and a roof over my head. I had no family apart from an uncle who left on my twelfth birthday, and I haven’t seen him since. I had to learn quickly if I wanted to survive. Don’t trust people, always take care of yourself. Steal, lie, endure, those were the rules we had to obey.”

Eren listened silently, Carla’s gentle voice tinkling in his ears like golden bells. “I’ve met so many bad people, Eren, so rotten on the inside. There are awful people out there, and even though I had a few reliable friends in the brothel, I knew it would only last as long as times weren’t too hard. But then you showed up.”

She guided Eren’s face into her warm palms, and she smiled when their eyes locked onto each other.

“A strange little boy who couldn’t speak, didn’t know that soap wasn’t edible, and who got chased around by the police because he wanted to repay me for the food I gave as a gift,” she said with a teasing smile. “And the more he kept coming back, the more I realized that I had no idea what was going on inside his head, yet never for a second did I doubt his honesty. Because I saw the goodness in him.”

Eren shook his head, but Carla refused to let him turn his face. She kept her gentle yet firm grasp on the sides of his head. The intense warmth radiating from Carla’s beautiful golden eyes made him putty in her hands.

“I was so afraid for you,” Carla drew his brows into a pained frown. “This world shows no kindness and gives no second chances. And you were so innocent and hopeful, always ready to learn and help, and I was afraid that one day that beautiful heart of yours will be your end. I knew I couldn’t protect you forever and sooner or later you’d have to realize just how cruel this world is.

“But Eren, you mustn’t lose hope. There are good people out there, who are worth saving. Worth loving,” she added with an encouraging smile. “At the end of the day, you’ll never know who will betray your trust. The only thing you can do is listen to your heart and hope that you made the right decision. Sometimes we just got to take our chances. A world without anyone to trust is a lonely one, my darling. I wouldn’t want that for you.”

Worth saving.

Was that what Eren was thinking when he first saved Levi? He didn’t know; back then he couldn’t think of concepts such as this. But love, he knew. It was the sunlight, it was warmth, and it was freedom. With Levi, he used to experience all of these things.

But Carla was right, the past was the past, and perhaps this wasn’t all bad. This human body gave him a new life and new chances, and it made it safe for him to make contact with his human again. And it will forever be safe.

There was no turning back to his old life with Little One, but also no turning back to a time when he could’ve ended up as a captive, a test subject. He was simply Eren now, a human boy, and a future scout.

So wouldn’t this really be the perfect time for him to finally let go of the past with all the doubts he had? To let go of his titan-self, let go of Little One and instead give himself a chance to discover who Levi was? No assumptions. It would be only fair to Levi too. Eren couldn’t figure out who Levi had been, or what his past intentions used to be, but he can judge the man in the present, based on his actions.

And in the present Levi had been nothing but caring towards Eren: he gave him hot water, gave him a horse and a friend, and Eren could see worry lurking in his eyes beneath all the frustration and anger. Levi cared for Eren.

And Eren didn’t need to know of his past intentions because they had been long irrelevant. Perhaps letting go of the past would bring them the freedom they both needed.

“Now come on, darling!” Carla’s delightful chitter grounded Eren back to reality. “The Captain has been chopping wood for us so dutifully, it would be a shame to welcome him without any food!”

After washing up, the three of them spent dinner in relative comfort. The polite chatter between Levi and Carla mostly flew over Eren’s head both for vocabularic reasons and because he was still thinking about his newfound epiphany. But taking part in the conversation or not, Eren wasn’t blind to the strange connection those two immediately seemed to share.

There was an air around them that was both cautious and comfortable, as if they haven’t known each other for long, yet they understood the same struggles of life. It was the gentle light in Carla’s eyes that lit up like a warm oil lamp on a cold winter night, and it was Levi's moments of quiet reminiscence when he looked aside just for a short moment as if his mind had been guided to forgotten memories. The inquisitive squinting of his eyes that held no threat nor suspicion, and the warmth that melted his silver irises once he reached a conclusion.

“What are you smirking about, mister?” Carla smiled at Eren teasingly, who up until then haven’t noticed that he had indeed been smiling for a little while.

Levi’s attention skipped to the gentle curve of Eren’s lips, making the boy flinch. The smile turned into an embarrassed frown.

“Nothing!” he said quickly.

Carla and Levi exchanged glances that had the equivalent of them rolling their eyes at the audacity of these modern-day teenagers, and Eren suddenly felt hopelessly outnumbered. Luckily the adults decided to spare him and they didn’t pester him about it; though both looked equally tempted just to annoy him.

“I know this isn’t anything fancy, but I hope it will do,” Carla moaned as she stacked the large pile of bedding on the living room couch. “My upstairs guest bedroom is taken, unfortunately, so I hope you don’t mind it here.”

“Believe me, ma’am, I had to sleep in far shittier places in my life before,” Levi huffed, and Eren’s jaw almost hit the floor when he realized that the human was openly joking around now with Carla.

His two favorite humans were literally becoming friends in front of his very eyes.

“Oh, I’m sure I couldn’t even imagine,” Carla chuckled lightheartedly.

The atmosphere was light, nothing to weigh them down… until Carla excused herself to give them some space to get ready for the night, and Eren was left alone with Levi.

It was still only sunset, so Eren took his time setting up his bedding on one of the living room couches, mostly just to seem busy and give himself an excuse not to get into the whole conversation again about why he did what he did the day before.

Levi, however, didn’t seem like he was in a hurry to mention it. In fact, to Eren, he looked oddly calm. Serene, even, lost in thought. He was just admiring the texture of Carla’s soft duvet covers with a faraway expression.

“What’s the best place where you ever slept?” Eren suddenly blurted out.

Levi hummed and went to stir the freshly lit fire in the hearth. Perhaps he had been thinking of the answer to this exact question because it didn’t take him too long to answer. Or perhaps there just weren’t too many ‘good’ places he had slept before. The thought dropped like a heavy stone in Eren’s stomach.

“The best, huh…” the man pondered. “It wasn’t the most comfortable one, I suppose. It was shit, actually. But it was warm.”

Eren remained quiet for some time. Warm? Memories of a time long gone came to him, of a cave and a tiny creature backed up against the wall, but each day it made its way closer and closer to Eren until one morning the titan woke up to tight little breaths touching his nape and even smaller hands buried in his hair. Oh, well…

He shook his head to make himself forget about it.

“I did it because he called you liars.”

Levi, who had been shuffling around with his bedcovers on the couch, trying to smooth out all the wrinkles, now froze. Eren pulled his knees up to his chin and he stared at the fire as if he wanted to raise an invisible blanket of protection between the two of them. He was restless, but he never quite remembered feeling this much anxiety before around the human. This was one of the first truths he revealed to Levi in all honesty, and frankly, it was terrifying.

Then again, Levi told him something, so Eren was determined to pay him back in the same currency. Honesty for honesty, right?

After a moment of silence, Levi finally spoke up. His voice was rough though not unkind.

“Fuckers call us all kinds of names, all the time. You shouldn’t waste your strength beating up them every time they hurt your pride. You’d never stop throwing punches.”

“It wasn’t pride,” Eren mumbled.

“What was it then?”

The titan gulped and he knew the human was watching. He refused to look the man in the eyes directly because he knew that if he did that, if he had to look at those beautiful, tired features, he would simply spill everything.

But he couldn’t help himself. Raising his chin their eyes met in silence. Eren’s heart clenched with shame and sorrow. He made Levi look so exhausted. He made him look sad.

“I got scared that it might be true,” he whispered. His voice felt foreign to his own ears. “I shouldn’t have called you cruel, though. I was upset. I’m sorry I took it out on you.”

The fine skin between Levi’s brows creased and the man tilted his head to the side quizzically. The breath which he had slowly released was audible, and Eren was mute, waiting for the verdict. At this point, he didn’t know what he was expecting anymore, yet it seemed like Levi never stopped surprising him.

“Look, I’m shit at this,” he admitted bluntly, and he cleared his throat rather awkwardly. “Talking is Erwin’s thing, not mine, but I ain’t that daft either. Before the corps, the people who worked for me did because they wanted to. I let them stay when they caught me in a good mood, but mostly I told them to fuck off. So let’s just say I’m not used to having anyone under my command who doesn’t want to be there.”

Eren opened his mouth to protest, but Levi silenced him with one quick stare.

“I never had to be the one to work for others’ trust. It was always the other way around,” he murmured. “But I’m not an idiot. As your captain, I gotta earn your trust before you’ll view me as anything but a barking pest. Hell, out of all people, I should understand how annoying it is to start listening to some shithead wearing a uniform.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Eren caught the edge of his lips twitch. “Hanji said you used to be a criminal too.”

“Tch, of course, she did. Did she tell you any other classified information? How many times I shit a day, maybe?”

“Errr…”

“Don’t answer that!” Levi quickly shot him a warning glare, and Eren pulled the covers over his mouth to hide the smile that his eyes couldn’t. He was starting to feel droopy. The sun must’ve been down by now. “The next time you get overwhelmed, you come find me. We’ll spar it out like men, you can release built-up energy that way.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you!”

The answer Eren received was only a short huff of amused breath and a shake of the man’s head. “As if you could. It’s clear as fuck that nobody taught you how to fight.”

Now Eren’s head snapped up, and Levi repressed a satisfied smirk when he saw some of that familiar sparkle return to the brat’s eyes.

“What do you mean?” Eren exclaimed, pique so apparent that one could think Levi had just told him one of those vile jokes about one’s mother. “I know how to fight!”

“Is that why you got that print of my palm on your cheek?” Levi cocked a sardonic brow. “Or did you just let me do it, hm? That’s what all you brats say, ‘oh I let you do that.’ I can smell the bullshit on you from miles away.”

Eren mumbled something similar to ‘it’s just you’ under his breath, but Levi either didn’t hear it or promptly ignored him.

“Well, you gotta work on that attitude one way or another,” he concluded firmly. “I can’t be worried about the welfare of my comrades every time I leave for a few days. You either take up on my offer or I may actually have to hang you from the ceiling by your thumbs. Want that?”

Eren’s ashen cheeks and the busy shaking of his head was answer enough. “No, sir.”

“Good,” Levi nodded not only regarding the brat’s willingness to obey this one command but also his shift in mood. Though still looking rather fragile, as if one wrong look could break him and then Levi would have to be the one to pick up the pieces, Eren looked like he had regained some of that puppy-eyed look of his.

Fragile, the brat who nearly killed someone just yesterday? Levi sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. For the umpteenth time in his life, he cursed Erwin for always giving him the most difficult jobs. He had so much shit to do that he didn’t even have time to get upset about the exhaustion that was pulling on his shoulders day and night.

He should’ve gone to Hanji himself, ask her to test for potential poisonous substances in the bottle of rum, busied himself with the training schedules of next week, and check on his squad, because he definitely didn’t have time to sit around in the cozy living room of his subordinate’s mother. But for once Levi decided that the world could wait for him just this one evening.

The same went for the brat. Even violent little shits deserved to get a break every once in a while. Levi would’ve lied to himself if he said he hadn’t recognized Eren’s rage to be his own when he was still young; though admitting it didn’t exactly mean he liked the idea.

They each got comfortable in their own space, and Levi closed his eyes.

It was… nice. The fire quietly cracked in the warm hearth as the darkness of the night slowly enveloped the room, and nothing else could be heard apart from the occasional hoot of an owl outside and Eren’s steady breathing on the neighboring couch. They were familiar sounds from the past.

Levi rarely thought of that cave on purpose, learning that the months he had spent on titan territory reminded him of pain and shame more than anything. But in rare occasions such as this he thought of those times when he was no longer afraid near Eren and when his broken leg no longer ached, nor did his anxiety bother him about the faith of the other scouts. It was just him, Eren’s sleeping, steady mass, a small stack of fire in the endless night. It was Levi’s own fragile piece of paradise.

Catching himself falling into a loop of stubborn nostalgia, Levi opened his eyes with an annoyed click of his tongue. It took him by surprise how quickly it had gotten so dark. It must have been around an hour since Eren’s mother left for upstairs.

Eren was sleeping on the couch rolled up into a small ball for a lanky teenager, his head tilted to the side and quietly snoring. Levi’s heart twinged with gentle sadness seeing those young features finally let go of all the puckers of anger and frustration.

Looking at the brat from this angle, he no longer resembled his own Eren so closely. The long, pointy ears were round, and the beaked nose was replaced by straight lines and just the slightest hint of a button nose. No monstrous sets of teeth were hiding beneath those curved lips. It was just a brat who was unfortunate enough to land in the care of a confused man.

The brat of course had managed to fuck up his blanket somehow, so his feet and arms dangling off the couch were left out in the cold. Heaving a long sigh, Levi stood and walked up to Eren.

“Oi,” he poked his side, but the brat remained as still as the dead.

Shaking his head Levi shoved Eren’s arm back on the couch and fixed his blanket until nothing was visible of him but a mop of messy brown hair. Deciding that this was about as much babysitting as his stomach could handle, Levi declared his job done and he went back to hide under his own covers.

He could learn how to take care of this brat yet. Keep him alive and safe for as long as Levi’s strength allowed. Eren deserved this much.

Chapter Text

Mornings such as this one, when the sky was clear blue and the Sun was shining, they reminded her of Eren; even during the winter. Perhaps especially during winter when warmth was so hard to come across. By the lakeside the weather was always more comfortable due to the large body of water conserving its summer heat during the colder months and in turn the melted snow cooling the lake from within brought a refreshing breeze by the shore during those blazing hot summers.

She lifted her creation, presenting the chain of dandelions, and draped it across a clawed fingertip the size of the trunk of a tree.

“Here,” she said. Pointy ears perked up and he whirred quietly, signaling his excitement. He was going to try again, she just knew.

Eren carefully lifted the dandelion chain with his pinkie and clumsily attempted to shift it around on his hand to tie the two ends of the chain, but he failed as usual. His fingers were just too big, and he was not skilled enough to use the very tips of his nails to complete the task. He kept trying anyway.

Annie watched him with a smile hiding on the corner of her lips.

“Let me,” she swatted his hands away. Eren whined, disappointed in his lack of skills, and watched eagerly as Annie tied the ends of the chain together, forming a delicate loop of the flowers. Eren cooed in childish admiration, as if she had done something mighty.

Annie repressed an involuntary smirk at the adorable reaction. She climbed onto his palm and had him lift it up to his face, where she placed the tiny crown of dandelions onto Eren’s bushy head.

Eren crossed his eyes in his eager effort to see it, and Annie could no longer hold back an ever-so-rare chuckle. “When you shift, you can make one for yourself that will fit you.”

Eren curiously tilted his head to the side, but for now, as always, his questions had to remain unanswered.

“Oho, what is this?” Reiner’s deep voice carried across the expanse of the forest, one that made Annie internally groan just by the sound of it. “Spa day for the ladies?”

Annie snarled at the shifter and jumped onto the ground, while Eren welcomed their visitors with a friendly chirp.

“Testing and improving fine motor skills is actually very important work, Reiner,” Bertholdt offered and shyly glanced at Annie, who made one of those  ‘see, you dumbass?’  faces at Reiner.

The three of them walked down to the lakeshore with Eren carefully tiptoeing behind them. Annie kept an eye on him from the corner of her vision.

“He’ll be fine,” Bertholdt spoke up quietly, startling the girl from her thoughts.

“What?” she scoffed. “Where is this coming from?”

Bertholdt awkwardly glanced aside to avert from the direct line of Annie’s defensive stare. “Th-the assimilation of your spinal fluid with his… If his body doesn’t accept it then it will be eliminated from his system like any other foreign substance–”

“I didn’t ask,” Annie cut him off with a sigh of frustration that did nothing to hide just what her thoughts were about this so-called “experiment” of Grisha’s. She shoved her hands inside her pockets and huffed again. “It’s a shitty thing…” she muttered to herself, and Bertholdt lowered his gaze in shame.

“Um… I-I found a honeybee hive not far from the lake,” he stuttered and suddenly pulled a jar full of liquid sunshine from behind his back. He raised it towards Annie’s unwilling hands, his ears and cheeks burning bright pink.

“What do you want me to do with it?” Annie frowned, taken aback.

“I-I don’t know. It’s made of acacia, I think, and I know you like honey, so…” Bertholdt’s face by now was about as red as a ripe cherry, and the jar seemed to weigh more and more in his outstretched hand as the seconds dragged by.

Eren purred quietly in the background as he watched their awkward little interaction.

Annie couldn’t remember if she had taken the honey. Couldn’t remember much of the assimilation because she was turning the other way, refusing to watch or listen to anything Grisha did or said. That was their last day outside on that summer, and while they didn’t know, it would also be the last one they spent together before the beasts took Eren from them.

Annie landed a particularly hard punch in her sparring partner’s side, pushing them onto the ground with a heavy grunt. A helping hand or perhaps even an apologetic word would’ve been the polite reaction on Annie’s behalf, but she was never one for the human customs, and on days like this when she was plagued by memories of a rainy day, she was even less willing than usual.

Her sparring partner slowly managed to pull herself back onto her feet, generously showering Annie in looks of irritation, and from the corner of her eyes, she could see Reiner shooting her a warning glance.

Whatever. It would only be a matter of time until Zeke’s plan got set into motion, and then it wouldn’t matter who knew or who didn’t know what they were. Humans were filth, corrupting everything that was beautiful.

From afar she heard the trotting of horses, followed by a distant neigh. She whiffed the air out of habit, subconsciously trying to get an idea of what or whom might be coming when she spotted the new arrivals.

Annie froze on the spot. That awful stench of a man he could recognize even in the hottest summer breezes or drenched in the showers of April, coated in the blood of her sibling, those hands which have ripped a pure soul of its innocence without mercy–

The metal thorn flipped from the hidden pocket of her ring, and she saw red upon her eyes landing on the man, who dared to sit so confidently high up in the saddle, green cloak on his shoulders heavy with sin and cruelty creeping within those cold eyes, a monster deserving worse than death–

Her hand went rigid, finger hovering above the pin, ready to tear her flesh, and yet…

Iron fingers caught her wrists, probably Reiner’s, but Annie could no longer care less. She felt like she was dying, her whole body went cold, her head light as a feather, because she was seeing things, she was sure of it.

“Eren...?” she whispered.

The summer daylight shone with heated rays from the topside of the sky onto the titan and the human, scattering millions of diamonds across the surface of the lake. Levi’s ivory skin soaked in the radiance of the flickering afternoon, the light bouncing off his naked throat as if it was a mirror to reflect nature’s beauty.

Eren watched the tiny water droplets gliding down in the crevices of finely shaped muscles, across the smooth bumps of lilac veins just barely visible on their journey inside that flower-scented flesh. Eren rested his chin on the ground, the tiny green needles tickling his thick titan skin, and he wondered how he was fortunate enough to be just at the right place and time to meet this shiny pebble of a human.

“Oi, Eren!”

Eren’s pointed ears perked up, and he chirped at his human curiously, watching as he smoothed his dripping bangs out of his face. Eren’s eyes were glued onto the man. The subtle flexing of his biceps, the lifting of his pectoral muscles as he raised his arm, and two sharp lines of warm shadows running down the sides of his torso and disappearing beneath the waistline of his second skins, framing the picture of his abdominal muscles in delicate composition.

The edge of Levi’s pink tongue dipped out of his mouth, and he licked the water from his upper lip.

Eren involuntarily copied the gesture. His tongue glided across the smooth surface of his unsheathed canines, drenching them in saliva.

Levi’s eyes never missed anything. They flashed with a dangerous light.

“Eren…” he drew his name out in a low huff. “Tsk-tsk-tsk,” he clicked his tongue disapprovingly with a teasing shake of his head, and Eren couldn’t help the quivering that shook his body upon having the man’s full attention focused on him.

“You’re not supposed to want this, Eren…” Levi began walking towards him and Eren gulped, because no longer was he watching Levi from above, his height almost fifteen times that of the man’s, but he was now looking up at him, sitting in his human body, watching as Levi slowly towered over him.

Alabaster hands reached out, and Eren raised his head, baring his neck instinctively. He wasn't sure if he was offering up the crown of his head to be stroked or whether he was showing Levi where his hands should find a landing, right above his pulsing arteries, just below the bulge of his trembling Adam’s apple.

Eren’s lips parted, and a stranded gasp left his mouth when Levi’s smooth fingertips brushed under his ears and reached behind to grab him by the soft strands of hair on his nape. Eren waited, his body stiff from what felt like excitement and fear.

Then Levi leaned down, and his lips brushed against Eren’s ears. His voice was barely above a whisper. “You want to eat me, Eren, don’t you?”  

Eren’s body was shaking. Yes, a thousand times yes, he didn’t just want to, he needed it, he needed Levi. His entire body was raging and screaming for that soft skin on his tongue, skin which was fully within his reach, driving him insane with the desire to get his teeth wet, yet that warning grip on his nape held him back.

Levi lifted Eren’s chin with a finger, commanding the titan to look him in the eyes. Eren couldn’t disobey.

“You don’t even have the decency to hide it,” Levi teased him with a cruel smile playing on his mouth. The line of his lips was sharp, almost as if even his smile was meant to cut.

With one hand staying on Eren’s jaw and keeping him in place, Levi traced the fingertips of his right hand on Eren’s cheeks until his thumb found its way onto the corner of his mouth. The tip of his thumb pushed inside, and Eren groaned as the man slowly and meticulously guided his finger in between Eren’s upper and lower set of molars.

Having nothing in its way to stop it now, the saliva pooling in Eren’s mouth dripped out from the corners of his lips, and Eren moaned in shame as the proof of his hunger dribbled onto his pectorals.

Levi watched with great interest lurking beneath the depth of his gunmetal irises.

“Look at you,” he murmured as he pushed his thumb down on Eren’s tongue, making the titan groan, and more saliva dripped down from his lips. “You’re drooling… Do you think good boys are supposed to drool when they see humans?”

Eren wanted to answer, but with Levi’s finger holding his tongue in place, all he achieved was an unintelligible whine, and another trail of runny spit poured from his mouth. Levi’s eager eyes gulped down the sight of his struggle with unveiled interest now.

“You’re a bad, bad titan, aren’t you,” he murmured as his thumb gently probed the sharp edges of Eren’s teeth, making the titan tremble with the struggle of his inner turmoil.

He was shaking from the effort of trying to keep his jaws from snapping shut, yet all he could hear was his instincts screaming at him to do it, wishing that Levi would push his finger just enough on the tip of his canine to break the skin and let Eren taste his blood. Just a single drop… Whether it was a velvety droplet of heavenly bliss or choking on a mouthful of that violet flesh until blood dribbled down on Eren’s chin and he gorged himself fully, it didn’t matter. But Eren needed it.

He closed his lips around Levi’s thumb, trying to encourage him to venture deeper into the crevice of his mouth, and his desperate attempts were compiled to when Levi suddenly pushed his thumb at the very back of Eren’s mouth, making the titan gag around the digits.

“Don’t pull away,” Levi warned him in a lowered voice.

His hold on Eren’s jaw was still strong, locking the titan in place and denying him the route of escape.

“I know what you want, Eren, but you want my permission, don’t you? You need to be a good boy if you want me to give it to you.”

Eren’s eyes began watering and he desperately tried to suppress the convulsing of his throat as Levi’s finger began pushing even deeper on his tongue. The feeling of being so helpless, with Levi’s hands locking him in place, keeping him under total control was as frightening as it was rousing.

Levi was right, Eren wanted his approval, he wanted his permission more than he wanted to satisfy his primal needs. He could’ve taken what he wanted, stripped Levi naked of flesh, and make it all his, but to have Levi give it to him willingly, that was something he had to earn.

“That’s it, brat,” Levi murmured, the tip of his tongue dipping out and brushing against Eren’s ear. “If you want it… you have to earn it.”

A sudden burning brightness was what made Eren come to his senses, and he was ripped out of the visions of his slumber.

He came to with a startled jolt, his muscles twitching in sync and his heart racing to the rhythm of a horse galloping. It took him a good couple of minutes to recognize the ceiling above him, then slowly the rest of the room too.

“Rise and shine, darling, breakfast is almost ready!” Carla’s voice assaulted his ears from somewhere far, and Eren vaguely recognized the silhouette of burning candlelight in the doorframe.

Carla was alive, she was alive and well, and Eren came to visit him with Levi.

Yes, with Levi…

“Ugh,” Eren groaned, and he slammed a heavy hand on his sweaty forehead in an attempt to clear his mind from the remains of yet another awfully strange dream. If Carla was using candles, then it was probably way too early for a respectable titan to be awake. He needed to eat something, and he needed it fast if he didn’t want to pass out seemingly without reason in front of everyone. Those were his thoughts when suddenly he noticed a familiar tightness in his underwear.

Peeking under the pillow he went to check if it… yep. The dangly thing was alive again. It felt strangely swollen as if pressure was building up from within, like an itch that desperately needed to be scratched. It wasn’t painful, or if anything, Eren would’ve said it felt almost as pleasurable as having the sun on his skin, but he couldn’t afford to get so distracted by it every time it decided to pop up.

Finding that he was alone in the living room with Levi’s bedding already neatly folded and set aside, Eren untangled himself from his blanket, careful not to make too much contact with his lower regions. Given how his whole body felt sticky and smelly because of the ridiculous amount of sweat he bathed himself in during the night, he grabbed some fresh clothes and went to find the bathing house outside. Levi was going to kick him in the shin if he showed up smelling like a horse that...  Levi.

Eren suppressed an involuntary whimper breaking up from his throat, and his fingers tightened around the fresh clothes in his hold as a wave of a tingly sensation rippled through his body, starting from between his legs and spreading towards his belly and spine.

Dream-Levi was right, Eren was one awful titan for conjuring up such morbid situations. Where was this new development coming from anyway? Eren never before had thought of eating a human, never had he discover a desire within himself to sink his teeth into someone… well, except for that one bastard in the tavern whom Eren had almost torn to shreds but that was an entirely different impulse.

This was more consuming, more tempting than rage. He didn’t want to hurt Levi, but he wanted to... he wanted. Something. Something more than blood in his mouth, more than anything he ever experienced before.

His head was starting to hurt from all this. Maybe he should ask someone. He just had to be careful not to reveal the slightly problematic details of his dreams regarding gorging himself full on human flesh.

He pushed the door to the bathing house open and he stopped dead in his tracks when he was met by the sight of a very much shirtless Levi.

Shit.

Scarred, opaque skin. Alabaster flesh rubbed pink. Violet veins. Blood pumping in those delicious arteries, droplets of pure diamonds, gliding down on domes of sculpted muscles. For such beauty to exist with the sole intent to kill titans, it shook Eren to his core with excitement.

“What are you doing?” Eren blurted out dumbly.

Levi didn’t even bother to look up, which saved Eren something he was not yet quite aware of; his dignity. Because you see, Eren did in fact walk across the backyard and into the bathing house in nothing else but loose pajama bottoms to push down a hormonal titan’s second-ever boner. His only saving quality was the instinctive way he held his fresh clothes in front of his crotch.

“What’s it fucking look like?” Levi growled with an unimpressed frown and hung his soiled shirt on the backside of a chair. He leaned above the wooden basin filled with cold water and continued washing himself down quickly and efficiently.

Meanwhile, Eren stood like he had been struck by lightning and his brain had lost all primary circuits essential to function. Muscles, skin turning pink... it had to be warm, right? Eren just wanted to bury something into that delicious heat radiating off the man. Or since Levi always used to be so cold, would he want Eren to warm him up instead–

“Stop hovering, you dumb brat!” He was torn from his daydream by Levi’s snappy voice. He’s in a mood today, Eren pouted. “Get fucking cleaned, you stink like a titan’s asshole.”

“Titans don’t have holes, though? Only a mouth.” At Levi’s bewildered albeit questioning look he hurriedly went to explain himself. “Hanji gave me a book with pictures where she likes to draw titans. There are also pictures of h– people too, so the difference between their bodies–”

“Alright, alright, no more, it’s too early for this shit,” Levi flapped around with his hands dismissively which Eren found rather adorable. Even when he was all annoyed and his face twisted and turned with various expressions of irritation, Levi still managed to remain so precious.

The human continued to rub his hands all over his muscled torso, as if leaving his skin bare wasn’t enough but he needed to caress it too, and all the blood rushed out of Eren’s face. His dreams couldn’t compare, he concluded. This was nothing he could ever come up with on his own. As thick saliva began pooling in his mouth Eren couldn’t even pinpoint the exact moment when he started wondering if Levi would also taste better in real life than he did in his dream…

Eren shook his head violently, horrified by his own imagination. He was a bad, bad titan. He wouldn’t eat Levi, wouldn’t ever want a taste, no, sir. What he dreamt of he could not control, but as long as the strange bodily side effects following his new dreams wouldn’t take control over his willpower–

Eren turned his back on Levi, looked down, and he was officially and completely out of his depth.

The thing, which had begun to calm down in the chilly temperatures of the morning, was back at full mast, stronger and more painful than ever.

Well, then.

Wait, actually, this might not be a bad thing! From his brief experience of catching a fleeting glance at some various naked humans, bathing in ponds and leaning against walls in alleyways with their pants down, Eren had figured out long ago that certain differences between genders are more noticeable than others. And Levi was a man too, right? If this was natural, then he must’ve experienced it at some point. So maybe Eren could ask him about this problem–

“Stop fucking around and wash up already,” Levi grumbled as he gracefully threw a clean towel at Eren, hitting him right on the nape, and he made his way back to the house.

Maybe it was better like this. Humans were skittish about the strangest things, so perhaps Eren should ask someone who already knew just how ignorant he was. Like Armin. Yes, Armin would definitely know if this was supposed to be happening. For some reason he didn’t feel like asking Mikasa, and the thought of asking Hanji about this simply made his body shiver in cold sweat.

Perhaps he should try prodding around Carla, after all, there was barely anything strange left one could do and Eren hadn’t yet done around her.

After hastily washing up Eren’s nose quickly brought him to the kitchen, more specifically the frying pan on the stove and several sizzling slices of bacon. Unable to deny his urges, Eren plucked a piece of fatty meat right out of the scorching grease and shoved it in his mouth.

“Eren, what are you doing?!” Carla half-screamed, half-shouted, and throwing down the knife she grabbed Eren by the jaw. “Spit it out, it’s too hot!”

A low rustle of growling from Eren’s throat had Carla release him with a startled gasp. Eren, surprised by his own hostile behavior, tried to put on his best puppy-eyed look he could muster up.

“But it’s delicious!” he whined.

“It’s still raw!” Carla fretted and pulled Eren’s mouth open with her fingers. They were shaking slightly. “Open your mouth, you must’ve burnt yourself!”

“I’m fine.” Eren opened his mouth wide to show the pink insides of his cheeks.

Carla’s face went white upon seeing the perfect set of teeth sitting, no; waiting in Eren’s mouth, but her eerie feeling was quickly overpowered by her motherly instincts. Apart from the small red spot on Eren’s tongue, there really wasn’t anything that indicated that the boy had just swallowed an entire slice of burning-hot bacon.

“You frightened me, ungrateful child!” Carla lightly slapped Eren’s cheek and hurried him towards the dining table, where Levi already sat in the company of a cup of tea and watched them with an unreadable expression. “I swear, you’ll be the death of me one day.”

Breakfast was porridge, boiled eggs, bread, and bacon, and Carla had to swat at Eren’s hand when for the fifth time since they sat down Eren reached for the meat.

“Eren, dear, don’t be greedy,” she warned him, and instead she scooped some more porridge onto the boy’s plate, who looked at the meal like it had committed some personal atrocities against him. Or Levi.

They ate in comfortable silence until they were interrupted by the creaking of the floorboards above them. Both Eren and Levi glanced up with various amounts of startled concern on their faces, while on the other hand, Carla jumped to her feet a little too quickly.

“Oh, goodness, that must be my tenant!” she beamed, and Levi had to turn a smile into a frown when he saw just how quickly Eren tilted his head to the side with a suspicious narrowing of his eyes. “Don’t mind me, boys, I’ll be right back, I’ll just bring him some breakfast!”

And with that she swung out of the kitchen like a flower petal on the back of a spring breeze, carrying the scent of freshly baked bread and herbal tea.

Eren attempted to taste the air for any unfamiliar scent without fluttering his nostrils too much and giving himself away to Levi, but all he could think about was  bacon,  juicy, and  meat. When did he get so hungry? It wouldn’t do though, Eren needed to know whom Carla was living with and why she hadn’t said anything about this yet. Eren couldn’t just let his humans live under one roof with dangerous strangers.

“I can practically see those rusty cogs turning in your head,” Levi murmured with a low chuckle and took a sip of his cup. Eren rewarded him with a flat look that somehow made Levi want to mess with him even more.

“What?” the boy gritted his teeth, suddenly feeling a familiar heat pooling around his cheeks. That low tone of Levi’s voice sounded way too familiar from a certain dream, and Eren preferred not to remind himself what it was like to drown his desires in a tub full of ice-cold water.

Levi cocked a thin brow. “Your mother is a grown woman. She has the right to hide tenants in her guest bedrooms.”

Eren crossed his arms and glared down at Levi, who would’ve been rather caught elbows deep in the crown princess’ bosom in public than let a brat win a stand-off.

“I think you’re implying something here,” Eren frowned, cheeks angry red, “and I don’t even understand what it is, so I think you’re just trying to piss me off on purpose, captain.”

He went to cut himself a raw slice of bacon on the counter, and part of him very much aware that he was blaming the man for his morning discomfort rather unfairly.

“Feeling brave, cadet?” Levi teased with a mean smirk, and Eren wanted to bite him for that playful tone hiding in the corner of his words.

The sound of the blade of a knife hitting the cutting board filled the room only for a short while until Eren let out an irritated huff of breath and shot a glare at the unruly human who was busy boring his piercing gaze into Eren’s nape.

“What, what are you looking at?” he demanded over the heat that began climbing higher on his face and spread onto his collarbones. Levi’s eyes followed its path like a hawk watching a field mouse.

“I’m trying to figure out what ticks you off,” Levi said, and the tip of the knife wedged into the cutting board with enough force for the whole utensil to bob back and forth. “I can’t bother with you losing your shit every time you set foot outside my line of sight.”

“I told you I was sorry, and I explained too, I’m not–”

“Eren!” Carla stood in the kitchen doorway with a hand covering her mouth, eyes wide, and oh, boy, mad as hell. Levi watched, highly entertained, as the annoyed expression melted away from Eren’s features and was replaced by the fear of goddesses. “How dare you ruin my expensive knife so foolishly!”

“I didn’t ruin it, I just– Ouch, ah, fine, fine, fine, I’m sorry!” Eren squealed with one of his ears trapped between Carla’s strong fingers.

“It’s the first time I have the chance to meet your captain, and this is how you behave?”

“Oh, trust me, ma’am,” Levi murmured. “He’s behaving quite well for a brat of his caliber. There’s rarely a day going by without our Eren stirring some excitement.”

The glare that Eren sent Levi’s way was nothing less than murderous. Luckily, based on Carla’s expression turning into hard stone, out of the two of them it was Eren who needed saving.

“Is that true now?” she asked, eyes narrowed. Eren gulped, and he began praying to those deities the humans loved that he would survive the end of breakfast in one piece.

“I packed you two some snacks and some dinner for you, okay? Don’t forget to eat it or the cheese will go bad. And the bread, eat it while it’s still fresh and warm, it’s from this morning, and there are also–”

“Carlaaa, it’s fine, I won’t starve, I promise!”

“You better, but that’s the bare minimum,” Carla insisted.

They were standing in the gates of her front garden, the Sun still not all the way up to the top of the sky.

Carla pulled Eren into a tight hug and she let out a shaky breath. “Be good, okay? And don’t get into trouble because I will find out.”

Eren buried his nose deeper into Carla’s knitted sweater and he nodded half-heartedly. His arms didn’t seem to want to let go of her.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me. You stay here, too, okay?” he murmured, trying to swallow his tears. He could smell the same anxious distress on Carla that he was feeling himself. “I’ll visit often, so you have to be here.”

“I’m not going anywhere, darling,” Carla smiled and she gently unwrapped Eren’s arms from around herself. The horses were ready for the journey to the training camps.

Reluctantly Eren let go, and with the memory of a kiss still warm on the crown of his head, he went to make sure Horse was properly buckled up. Carla watched him with her hands gripping her apron tightly.

“Cadets are allowed on a leave of absence once a month,” Levi quietly stepped up beside her, his cloak already strapped on his shoulders, “but with Eren being the special case he is, I’ll see what I can do about having him visit more often.”

Carla let out a faltering sigh. “That’s very considerate of you, Captain Levi. But more than anything, I just wish Eren to stay safe and be happy, regardless of how often I see him. You better take care of him well.”

Levi nodded solemnly. He understood, even if empathizing with a mother’s distress to its full extent would never be something he could feel himself.

“In our line of work, I can’t promise you his safety, ma’am,” he said truthfully. “But I promise that I will keep your son alive to the best of my abilities.”

“Thank you. Though I can’t claim to have the privilege of calling myself Eren’s mother,” Carla smiled somewhat woefully, “those words still mean a great deal to me.”

Levi frowned.

“You’re not his mother?”

“I didn’t give birth to him, no,” Carla said while he watched Eren mount Horse, her features softened with adoring affection, completely unaware of the dumbfounded expression on Levi’s normally cool and inexpressive face. “But I do love him as if he was my own flesh and blood. I want him to live a long and happy life.”

Levi could remember the rest in dull patches of color. He said his goodbyes like a proper Topside and thanked Carla for giving them a place to stay the night, while Carla insisted that it was her pleasure and that she even apologized for disrupting their schedule. Eren waved like an idiot for as long as he could see Carla standing by the edge of her property, and more than once he almost fell out of the saddle while twisting and turning on it just to catch one more glimpse of her. After that, a quiet, yet peaceful gloom of homesickness settled onto the boy's mood, though the faint smile never wilted from his lips completely. His eyes were alive again, and Levi knew he should be relieved.

Yet he found himself in a new wave of puzzled thoughts.

I didn’t give birth to him, no.

When one mystery seemed to solve itself, another took its place. It would make sense that it wasn’t Carla who neglected Eren to such depths that up until not long ago the boy could barely speak properly. Perhaps he was from the Underground, or some similar, rotten place to that? Only the Devil knew what kinds of sick people roamed the face of this earth. People did horrible things to children regardless of their birthplace or status.

As much as Levi wanted to ask, it wasn’t any of his business, and following his curiosity never paid the bills either. As long as Eren’s past didn’t interfere with their fight against humanity, Levi was determined not to care about where the boy came from.

The ride to the camps was an uneventful one. Upon entering the property, they were met by the sight of training cadets, the sound of low grunts and abdomens meeting fists carrying down to the stables.

Levi took the reins from Eren and hurdled him off to ‘find his snotty little friends’, and Eren didn’t need to be asked twice. He rushed out of the stables to immediately be met by the sight of his two precious friends running towards him.

“Eren!”

“Mika, Arm’!” he panted through a toothy grin, happy to finally be surrounded by the familiar scent of his friends, and he jumped into their embrace.

“Eren, are you hurt?” Mikasa pushed him at arm’s length and scrutinized him up and down with those strict, gray eyes of hers. “Have they been mistreating you? Abuse is not always physical; have they been harming you mentally or in any other inhumane way? I swear to Maria, I will strangle that short ba–!”

“Mikasa, I’m alright!” Eren grabbed her hands and squeezed them reassuringly. “Why does everyone think that I’m treated horribly?” he chuckled.

“Eren.” It was Armin’s turn to grab him by the shoulders, and for some reason, it was the short blonde’s lifeless stare that had him shaking in his boots, not Mikasa’s. “I need to know what kind of deal you made with them. Legally they can’t force you into anything that’s below human dignity, and I promise you that I will find a loophole for you to break off this engagement.”

“Wha...”

“You have rights, Eren, don’t forget that. If they’re asking you anything weird or if anyone touches you, you don’t have any less rights just because of your criminal history, they can’t molest you, do you understand? If they do, you need to tell me,  immediately.”

Eren stared so hard his eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

“Um,” he gulped and slowly placed a trembling hand on Armin’s small, but firm shoulder. “Okay... I think? You don’t need to do any of that.”

“But that man!” Mikasa insisted with a frantic look in her eyes. “The way he beat you up on the street, there was no need for that!”

“Oh, Levi?” Eren grinned and he reached to scratch his blushing nape. “Yeah, he’s great, actually. He knocked me around yesterday, d’you wanna see the bruise he gave me? It’s so cool!”

Mikasa looked at him like she had just lost all her faith in humanity. That was when a rather unpleasant voice struck Eren by the ears.

“Oi, you!” Eren whipped his head up and saw none other than the guy who had trampled him onto the ground on the day he was captured in Trost. Jean, his name was, if he remembered correctly. “What the fuck are you doing here, you ragged bitch-faced jerk?!”

“What am I doing here? No, what the fuck are you doing here, you…!” Dammit, it has always been Levi spewing insults, never Eren. “You horse… faced… bastard!”

Jean’s face went blank, and a short buzzcut kid standing next to him broke out in a heartily fit of laughter.

“Horse-faced?!” he howled, making Jean growl with absolute feral intent to kill. “Oh, man, new kid on the block has some serious burns–”

“Shut the fuck up, Connie! You!” Jean crowded Eren’s space, and it was rather irritating for both of them how they came up to be the exact same height. Eren found himself unconsciously puffing out his chest, and so did Jean. “Who the hell do you think you are, parading around in that uniform like you’re one of us? You should be in jail, dog!”

“Says you with that dick-tip haircut, pretty boy,” a low, disinterested voice spoke that instantly melted away the pent-up aggression from Eren’s body.

He turned to meet Levi’s unimpressed gaze, arms crossed and chin lifted as if to challenge the group of young trainees. The aura emitting from his sheer being was enough to have them scramble to an uptight pose and beat their fists against their chest. Even Mikasa scolded her face into wearing an acceptable expression for greeting a superior.

Eren’s anger evaporated as quickly as it came, and now he glanced curiously between the trainees and Levi.

“Life must be pretty easy on cadets these days if you have time to bicker around like this until your balls finally drop,” the man said and a frown of disgust twitched on his upper lip. “Find something more useful to do than compare the size of your cocks, would you? There’s not much to measure there anyway, is there.”

With a dark shadow of irritation hiding the man’s face, Levi moved on, leaving the cadets staring after him like wide-eyed cattle.

“Oh, gods, oh, my gods, he’s one scary motherfucker, what the fuck…!” Connie gasped breathlessly, and Armin reluctantly nodded, his complexion about five shades paler than before.

Eren, on the other hand, stood up on the tip of his toes.

“Who is?” he asked, straining his neck and wondering if someone smaller than Levi had hidden behind the man.

“Are you kidding me, man?” Connie bit his lip, not wanting to let Levi out of sight because seeing the man with his own eyes was still less of a frightful situation than losing him out of sight. “He looks like one of those haunted dolls in the antique shops, you know the ones that definitely have a kid’s ghost living inside it and will fuck you up for life.”

“Connie, what the hell,” Jean complained.

“Nah, I definitely see it,” a new voice added all seriously, and Eren turned to meet gazes with a girl munching on a slice of bread.

“Who are you?”

“Sasha.”

“I’m Eren.”

“Cool. Got any food?”

“Let’s go,” Mikasa announced and grabbed Eren by the arm. “We shouldn’t be late from morning training on your first day.”

By the time they arrived at the training grounds, cadets had already started gathering in orderly lines, waiting for the arrival of Keith Shadis and the guest whom the old commandant would introduce to them to everyone’s awe and fearful fascination as none other than the famous Captain Levi.

The news that Humanity’s Strongest would stay at camp for a week to train and observe the young soldiers-to-be caused a wave of murmurs and shared glances to ripple across the group of cadets, all except for Eren, who stood his ground firmly, eyes trained on a single person.

His chest was swelling with something warm as he watched him from the back row, and his heart positively flipped when Levi’s scouting gaze halted momentarily when their eyes met. He also didn’t mind particularly how Levi’s face scrunched up a little bit like he just bit into a slice of lemon when his gaze fell onto Jean.

Eren could barely contain his giddy excitement and the strange pride that overflooded his system knowing that out of all these humans, it was he who was lucky enough to stand by the side of that man just this morning. He was so busy basking in the sight of his human that he barely paid attention to anything the commandant has said.

“I dunno, I don’t think he’s gonna like you, Jean,” Sasha snickered once the brief intermission was done, and they were back to hand-to-hand.

“Yeah, John, I can already tell he’s gonna hate your guts,” Connie joined in.

“Ey, fuck you, both, if it wasn’t for this scum–!”

Eren growled and ignoring Mikasa, his designated partner for the day, he left his post and went to shove Jean by the shoulder. “Hey, who are you to call me scum–!”

“Stop it, both of you!” Mikasa snapped and cut a sharp stare at the two boys. “Eren, be more respectful of your comrades, and Jean! Eren has been working hard to get where he is. Don’t you have any respect for that?”