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It is within the most quiet of moments that they come to know one another. Away from the bustle and din of daily military life. Moments like those well past midnight, Hange’s feet propped on a table in the library, Levi lingering near a window, pretending not to be interested as he carefully studies what Hange reads. It is a forbidden tome, one which speaks plainly of the sea of water beyond the land, and so Levi learns that there is no boundary to Hange’s hunger for knowledge.
Moments after battle; in that strange, eerie lull between action and peace, the whole world holding its breath in preparation of the mourning to come. So many injured… countless more dead. Hange dabs Levi’s hurts with an iodine pad, making him wince, but neither utter so much as a whisper. They are silent as their eyes meet, wine and slate, widening, perhaps a flush comes over one or both of them. Neither can say as they quickly look away. They both learn something in the moment, and in the moments after when Levi returns the favor. They learn the secret softness of the other, the tender insides which the stony shells obscure. More quickly than they looked away they resume their masks, but it is too late. They know.
Moments over late supper, alone in the mess save for a few lingering recruits. Hange sips tea, determined to stay up as they fawn over their research. Levi feigns disinterest even as he sits squarely across from Hange. Occasionally they peer up at him, sneaking glances over their work and tray of long-cold food. Levi learns Hange’s curiosity towards him in those moments, and Hange learns Levi’s unspoken language of friendship; he is steadfast in his devotion. Like a cat, his trust is earned. But once it is earned it is nigh on eternal.
In those quiet moments they learn one another; breath for breath, blink for blink, they discover one another’s rhythms. Unconsciously they adjust to fit them, meeting one another in that strange, liminal space that exists between them; officers, but not leaders. They aren’t the brass. Erwin bears that yoke, and they do not envy him.
They do not envy him as the rhythms between them begin to falter, like a storm disturbing the eb and flow of the tide. Essentially they are fine, but in the details they are shaken. White waters rushing, dark waves thrashing, they are carried away, beyond themselves. Further than either ever thought possible. They learn too much in those quiet moments. They grow too close.
Feelings.
It is Hange who first identifies it, who states it plainly during one of those quiet nights in the library.
“We have feelings for one another, you know.” They state as they casually thumb through the pages of a book. They don’t so much as glance up as Levi blanches, nearly dropping his cup of tea.
The brown liquid shudders with his hand, lapping dangerously at the rim of the cup.
“What?” He leans back against a windowsill, it digs painfully into the small of his back but he doesn’t notice as he levels Hange a weary stare.
Hange clicks their tongue, making a show of putting down their book and meeting the Captain’s gaze. Their tone is candid and they quirk a russet brow, “I like you. And I know you like me.”
Like . What are they, children? Levi Ackerman doesn’t like anyone. He opens his mouth to say as much but Hange cuts him off.
“Deny it all you want, Captain. Your body speaks for itself,” They give a playful wink and return to their reading like they haven’t just dropped a bomb of prickly truth onto Levi’s unwitting head.
Levi rests his cup on the table, grey eyes wide and swimming with denial, “What the hell is that supposed to mean, four-eyes?”
In answer Hange places the book face down on the table and scoots their chair backward. It scrapes roughly against the wood floor, and they prop their heels up on the tabletop, hands behind their head as they give a knowing, cocksure smile.
“Last week, during training, you couldn’t keep your eyes off of me. I wasn’t sure until that moment, but now I have no doubts. You feel the same way.”
“What moment?” Levi grits his teeth, but he already knows. He hadn’t thought that anyone had seen him turn away, flipping his obvious erection up and into the waistband of his trousers to disguise it as best he could. There was just something about Hange, red faced, coated in a fine sheen of shining sweat, panting with exertion that left him—
He shakes his head, banishing the salacious memory. This is Hange for God’s sake. Hange; his comrade in arms. His dearest friend.
“That didn’t mean anything. It was random. That fucking happens to guys sometimes, alright?” He hisses through his teeth, hands flat on the table, leaning forward intensely.
Hange raises a brow then drops their hands into their lap, leaning forward to meet Levi’s challenge.
They are in one another’s faces now, gazes holding, unwavering. Close enough to feel one another’s heat, taste one another’s breath.
“Kiss me,” Hange answers, voice low, husky. Their lids flutter, eyes falling to Levi’s thin, pale lips.
He shakes his head as he leans forward, somehow still denying even as he closes the distance and seals their lips in a gentle kiss.
It doesn’t mean anything.
It’s just Hange.
It can’t mean anything.
But somehow it means everything as he moves bodily across the table, settling into Hange’s lap as the taller person cups the back of his head, fingers raking across the stubble of his undercut.
Levi hums into their mouth, cupping their cheek, thumb brushing over the jut of it.
Then they are on their feet, hands moving swiftly over their clothing. Uniforms peeled away like the skin from ripe fruit, revealing the sweet, supple flesh which waits underneath. Hard muscles roll and coil. Teeth scrape. Hands pull hungrily at limb and hair.
It is past midnight and the library is gracefully empty, but both of them are acutely aware that anyone could walk in at any moment. Erwin could walk in, and everything would fall apart before it had really begun.
But they can’t stop. They won’t. As Hange sits on the table and Levi stands between their legs, fingers testing their wetness as Hange moans into the flushed skin of his shoulder. Their hands find the muscular globes of his ass, and they pull him forward, sex to sex, heat to heat.
Levi cants forward, knuckles white on Hange’s thighs, and buries himself inside of them; his comrade, his best friend, and— he finally admits to himself as he sinks into that exquisite heat— perhaps even his lover.
They clutch at each other through their sex. Desperate for contact, desperate to be anchored to a momentary blissful reality when so much of the world seems determined to fracture around them.
Levi can’t stop kissing them, their neck, their shoulder, their face scrunched with pained pleasure, their mouth soft and yielding under his.
Their fingers dig into his ass, legs looping around his thighs as he thrusts erratically, losing all sense of rhythm.
In the end they both give themselves over to orgasm within seconds of one another. Blinding white light flashing behind their eyes as their bodies go tense and they finish with cries muffled into one another’s skin.
In the afterglow Levi stands limply between Hange’s thighs. Wet penis softening between their bodies as come pools pearly white on the table under his partner. He pants softly, eyes wide with disbelief at what they have just done.
Hange touches his arm gently and his attention jolts to them.
There is something like fear in their eyes, and he realizes they never intended for it to go this far.
“No one can know,” They whisper. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
Levi’s mouth goes dry, “Did you not want—
“No,” Hange reassures. “I wanted it. But no one can ever know, we’d lose our positions in the corps. We’d lose the respect of our allies.”
They slide off of the table, away from Levi, reaching for their trousers and underthings.
Levi swallows thickly, eyes following their every movement, “You’re not making sense, four-eyes.”
Hange gives a few little jumps as they pull their trousers back up their long, muscular thighs, “I think I was pretty clear?”
“You said you wanted this,” he feels like he’s being rejected.
Hange tosses his clothes at his chest and he catches them in shaking hands.
“I wanted to push you a bit, hash out our feelings. I took it too far, I’m sorry,” now fully clothed they pause in front of him, pressing an assertive finger to his bare sternum. “We keep this quiet, alright? No one has to know.”
They push their smudged glasses up the bridge of their nose.
Levi, finally understanding, steels himself. It was just a tryst. It meant nothing, he lies to himself. But they are lies that he must believe if he means to carry on.
So he lets Hange go without another word.
And in that quiet moment as Hange Zoe walks away, he learns that they will deny themself so much in the name of duty.
It’s what makes them a good soldier.
And it is what makes them an excellent commander when the day finally comes. Erwin dies. They grieve. They move on. Hange never lets their hurt show. They shed not a single tear as they stand over the grave of their dear friend.
Levi stands silently beside them, just as he always has, always will.
He truly believes in his heart of hearts that he has learned everything there is to know about Commander Hange Zoe. They are brutally intelligent. Beautiful in a perfectly androgynous way. They are contemplative. Their sense of justice is strong. And they are the love of his life, and in another life perhaps they might have reciprocated his feelings. But whatever it was that had passed between them in the library that night, all those years ago, has failed to repeat itself.
So Levi stands at a distance. Protective. Silent. Savoring those quiet moments.
The night of Erwin’s funeral they are alone in Hange’s lab. The new Commander produces a bottle of whiskey and they drink the fiery liquid as they reminisce over their years with Erwin Smith.
They get sloppier as the night grows old, dawn tickling at the unseen horizon. Their jackets fall away. Their gear slips off. The buttons at the tops of their shirts come mysteriously undone.
Levi can’t keep his alcohol heavy eyes off of Hange’s collarbones. Hange stares openly at his mouth.
“I haven’t forgotten, you know,” Hange says as they slam their glass down onto the table top. The amber liquid jumps and ripples like a storm on a tiny brown sea.
“Wha?” Levi is resting his head on his arms, lids heavy, gaze locked on his Commander, intoxicated by the booze, but also by their handsomeness.
“The night we slept together,” Hange leans back in their chair, eyes shining at the memory. “I never forgot, Levi.”
“Is now really the time?” Levi poses, and he means it sincerely. The world is falling apart around them… but isn’t it always?
Hange sighs, “I’m starting to realize that there’s never going to be a time, short-stuff. Not if we don’t make it ourselves.”
They fall forward onto the table, resting their chin on their hand. Their cheeks are red and warm, not entirely from the booze.
“What’re you saying?” Levi swallows hard, blinking through the blur of the whiskey.
Hange, wobbly on their feet, stands up and leans forward across the table in a mirror of the challenge Levi had posed all of those years ago, “It’s now or never, Levi. Erwin’s death really drove it home; we could be dead tomorrow . And if that’s the case then I want to fall asleep with you in my bed tonight .”
Levi slowly stands. Chair scraping on the stone. He meets Hange’s eyes, can smell the stink of whiskey on their breath. And in that quiet moment, holding Hange’s gaze, tasting their breath and basking in their warmth, he learns one more thing about Hange Zoe; they never give up. Not on anything.
“Kiss me,” he says, deadpan as ever, though his grey eyes betray the emotion swirling in his chest.
Hange obliges. Light at first, but they lose themselves in one another with surprising swiftness.
In the alcohol fueled haze their clothes are adjusted or stripped, hands wandering, lingering over new scars earned in those intervening years. Their teeth scrape. Their tongues parry. Their muscles coil and roll and before he knows it Levi is lost in Hange’s cunt, fucking them through his fly as their nails scrape down the pale expanse of his back.
They kiss through most of it, lost in the slide of their lips and tongues. Wet slapping fills up the vaulted ceiling of the lab as they make furious love.
Hange gropes at Levi’s ass, preventing him from pulling out too far, from going too far away when all they desire is his proximity, his closeness.
It ends with cries unhindered, echoing through the space as Levi’s hips stutter and Hange’s body goes tense and tight around him. Levi buries his face in the crook of Hange’s shoulder, clutching them tight to his body as the aftershocks wrack through him.
Hange kisses his ear, breath hot and tickling against the shell of it, “I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since before that night, you know?”
Levi grunts into their sweat damp skin, holding them tighter to his bare chest. He loves them, too. But he isn’t much for words, so he holds them, and kisses them, shows them.
And if Hange has learned anything about Levi in all of those quiet moments, it is that he is a man of action, not words. That he would kiss them, touch them, fuck them, is all the reassurance they need.
For a single night they know peace.