Chapter Text
“Or maybe you and I can camp out here in the sticks forever. Right, Levi?”
It wasn’t about surviving the war. It was about picking the best place to bleed out.
The bitter gingerness in their tone, made out to be sarcasm, but he knew it all too well. The silent undertones of desperation, the beg of agreeance. They didn’t want this, none of the scouts did. But they didn’t exactly have a choice. They kept their hope in their whispers, afraid that the world would steal it away.
He glazed open a drowsy eye, to gaze at them. Their messy brown bangs tucked haphazardly behind their ears, their head buried in their knees. Hange radiated a suffocating feeling of dread, it sliced the heavy atmosphere weighing between them, between his choice. Their shoulders trembled under the weight of it, as if they already knew the answer, but they couldn’t look at him. If it were up to them, they would’ve already taken him far away from this place. Away from the Jaegerists and the Marleyians. Away from all of this. A garden of eden, a safe haven.
But it wasn’t up to them. It never was. Their fate was sealed in the unstable hands of a nineteen year old boy…
Except…
Except for when it was up to them.
▬▬ι═══════ﺤ
“He's… breathing…” the cadet laid his limp body down in front of the scouts
“He’s alive.”
A breathless silence eroded the atmosphere. The captain's ODM gear rattled as he came to his feet, the serum clutched tightly to his chest. Erwin was alive.
“I’m using the serum… on Erwin-”
Eren shot up, his face inches from Levi’s,
“But you said you’d use it on Armin.” His voice was taught. Anxious and fueled with rage. Like it always was.
“I’m using it on the one who will save humanity.”
Behind him, Mikasa unsheathed her sword, tears welling in her inky eyes. Neither of them dared to speak a single word, fixated on the iris of their captain. They all wanted the same thing. Freedom.
Freedom from this torture, this hell. Erwin could give that to them. They’re being selfish-
“Do you idiots have any idea what you're doing…” Of course they don’t, they're emotional teenagers. “This is Erwin, the commander of the scouts.” His voice was steady, and deep. What more could he expect from them.
But they’ve been too careless. Too infatuated that they are the children of the prophecy. He didn’t want Armin to die. But they have no choice. They have to learn.
“Just stay out of my way-” They have to feel what it’s like to lose someone. Their driving force. Their friends. They have to learn what it means to be a scout-
Without warning, Eren’s fingernails dug deep into Levi’s hands
The captain felt his gaze lock into Eren’s.
“Keep your emotions out of this, Eren.” He could see his clenched jaw, the trembling of his eyelids as he refused to yield.
“Keep… my emotions out of this?” Eren strained out, catching Levi off guard, “Tell me… Why didn’t you hand over the syringe right away?!”
Because, for some stupid reason, I had hope that I could save him, just like I normally did.
There was a beat of silence. Levi exhaled through his nose before answering,
“Now that Erwin is here, I have to give the serum to him.”
Eren’s grip tightened but before he could react, Levi shoved him out of the way. It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth fighting with him over this. Everyone has lost comrades in the scouts. In the desperate plea against the Titans. Everyone had felt the anguish, the rage, the defeat. It wasn’t fair. He knew that. But now it’s their turn.
Armin was a good kid. Intelligent. Ambitious. He would've made a great commander. Exactly the kind of person humanity would’ve wanted to lead them.
But he couldn’t waste the serum on someone humanity wanted. Someone Eren and Mikasa wanted. Humanity needed Erwin. They needed his leadership, his power, his determination. They needed his knowledge. His bravery, his wits. His intelligence. There was no question.
Save a scout, or save the Commander.
Just as quickly as Eren was hit away, Mikasa exploded, pinning Levi underneath her. She screamed and cried. Her body reacted before she could. But she always did that. Swooped in to protect him before her right mind could even decide if she wanted to. Her blade was clean against his neck, he could feel her shaking underneath it.
But he wasn't going to fight her. He wasn't going to hurt her, despite what her wishes were for him at that moment. She was angry. She was scared.
“He’s right!” The recruit that brought Erwin to the rooftop exclaimed, but Mikasa wasn’t having it, neither was Levi. She grunted and struggled against the captain, and he did the same. The recruit spoke of how no one beyond the walls were living. How they were crushed to death, just as planned. Just how he planned them to be. No one was listening. Their eyes fixated on each other in an anxious demand of salvation.
“When I found him alive, I was going to finish him off myself,” Their gaze shifted from each other, to the recruit, loosening their grips and concentration slightly, “but that would be going too easy on him. He should be forced to taste more of this hell.” The air escaped from their lungs. He felt Mikasa straighten her spine to look at the disrespectful slave to cowardice.
What the hell is this crackpot even saying? That Erwin deserved to live? This coward scrambled away from the fight as a dog with its tail between its legs. He had no business with Erwin, with the beast titan, with anything. And now he thinks he has business here?
“So, STAY OUT OF HIS WAY-” Mikasa leapt without a second thought to slice his head clean from his shoulders. Levi held his hands up to her but there was no use. He was pinned beneath her. Once her mind is made she wont stop at anything to achieve it.
“MIKASA WAIT!” The section commander flew past Levi’s vision to hold her back from murdering the recruit. He watched their uncovered pupil sink to a pinhead, “you…you can’t be serious!”
They had only been there for a solid two seconds and they already knew. They looked at Levi, at his hand, at the titan serum. If anyone understands this, it’ll be them.
Besides, Levi had already made his choice. He didn’t even look at Mikasa, or Eren whose limp body was cradling the edge of the roof tiles. He drew up the vial, purple elixir sloshed in the glass. It was thicker than normal water, glooping to the sides of the canister.
Shrieking filled the air as she begged for his life. Her voice wasn’t even producing a human scream anymore. More the sound ODM gear makes when it hasn’t been oiled. If anyone deserves this. It's him. He thought. His choice was made.
Levi rose back to his feet. The air was eerily still, despite the fight Mikasa roared.
“C-captain?” A hand clasped around his ankle, “Have you heard of the…sea?” Eren’s voice was trembling. One final bargain for the scouts life. Levi couldn’t move. Caught. The sea?
He continued, “We had planned to go there when we were children, but I lost sight of that!” His voice was as husky and dry as Mikasa’s. “But with killing the titans… Avenging my mother… My brain was so full of hate… Armin isn't like that!”
Levi shot a glance at Armin’s charred body. The faint and unsteady rising and falling of his chest. The ash that fluttered around him.
“He cares about more than just fighting! He has dreams!”
Erwin has dreams. Ambitions…
“Everyone get out of here!” They were clouding his judgement.
Every set of ODM gear whipped away. And Levi was alone.
Alone with the crushing weight of a decision.
Erwin had dreams. He had ambitions. Cares. Worries.
He had so much love, if only he had a little more time…
Erwin's arm was turned over, exposing the weak veins, blood barely pumping through them anymore. He was doing this for humanity, for their nation, or what's left of it. He was doing it for them. For everything they left unsaid, unresolved. He was a desperate and bleeding dog, tearing his skin from muscle to save the one person who ever gave a shit. So by the walls, this man deserved it.
˗ˏˋ TINK ˎˊ˗
His knuckle grazed the glass, as Erwin goddamn Smith, even in his dying hours, refused to succumb to the titan’s grasp. He refused to go back on his pride, to give up on giving up.
Levi held a quick gasp, hovering his exhausted and trembling hand above the large man, the jittering needle. And in a nearly silent voice, a whisper rasped through his weak vocal cords.
“How do we know there aren't more humans beyond the walls?”
His arm was raised high above his head.
Levi couldn’t breathe.
His uncle’s dying words agonisingly repeating in his mind;
“Everyone’s a slave to something… Something to keep them pushing forward.”
Erwin had given up his dreams. Marched towards his death.
The only person Levi ever found himself submitting to. His pride. His bravery. Bold and precise. Every decision he ever made. Any one of the captains could learn a thing of two.
His hope. Everything Levi had. Everything he was. His purpose died when he hoisted himself on the horse. In such a battle of valour. Erwin goddamn Smith. The 13th commander of the scouts regiment. The greatest soldier to fight for humanity.
But…
He wanted this, he had no dreams, no desires left. He wanted to die in the battle against extinction.
And he died the way he fought.
Prideful.
Armin’s body exploded into a cloud of steam, as he instinctively searched for a human to devour. Such volatility. And Erwin drowned in the pool of blood, staining the roof tiles they were perched upon.
What is there left to fight for, If he’s gone?
Levi was used to the sinking, lonely feeling of death. The absence, the hole they leave behind. Pushing past and still fighting. If there is no one left beside me, who will I follow into the dark? But this?
This was different. He was gone.
Erwin was his light in the pitch, his guidepost, his landmark. Despite everything, despite countless battles, countless tragedies. It was always him.
Its.. always been-
“Captain,” His spiral was completely broken, diving out of the abyss he was sinking in.
Hange Zöe. Their body was broken, their ODM gas completely depleted, their eye weeping crimson tears through poorly cut bangs, and yet they still managed to crawl to the top of the roof. They still managed to hold back an Ackerman, to fight for what was right.
Persistent little cockroach.
“Can you forgive him? He had to become a devil. We forced him to. And in the end, when he was finally set free from this hell… we wanted to bring him back for more,” He didn’t even flinch at the crunch of the body in Armin’s mouth. Everyone was staring at Bertholdt. Staring at Armin, watching him deflate and become normal. But they were staring at him. “Erwin, I promised to kill the Beast, but that's just going to have to wait…”
Hange slid their body over. Pried open his eyes, watching as they stared. Cold. Unmoving.
“He’s… already dead.” Hange whispered. They couldn’t look at Levi, just focused on the body of their commander.
They didn’t cry, they didn't scream, they didn't dramatically weep as they did with most minor inconveniences. It was simply silent acceptance as they both sat opposite each other over the body of the burly shell of a man they used to call their own.
Their unusual quietness, their gaze that shifted from Erwin to lock onto Levi. Studying his breathing, his thoughts, it felt as if they could almost read them.
Such ironic sorrow, Hange and Levi being the only two left. They’ll always have the recruits, but from their legacy, it will be just them.
Levi’s thoughts were held to a halt. He was gone.
“Ah… I see…”
…
A wafting silence fell over the entire ruined city of Shiganshina. We’re they finally free?
“...Captain.” No… perhaps not.
Levi looked up to Eren and Mikasa. He had a golden key clutched tightly in his hands, it was still hanging from his neck. Both of the higher ranks met his emerald gaze. His unwavering, emerald gaze.
Eren led them down an unfamiliar road to a destroyed house, but he and Mikasa knew it well. The thatching of the roof was caved in, the pillars lying on their sides, and yet the kids knew it as if it were meant to be like that. They brought them down the stairs to an old heavy cellar door.
The office was cold and damp. And still. Awfully still.
“Seems like…” Hange wiped their eye, adjusting to the light without their glasses. “A laboratory of some kind.”
“My father was a doctor.”
“Well at first glance it seems like a regular doctors office. All of these books are about medicine…” The section commander looked over at Levi, and furrowed their brow as if to say ‘we wasted our time’.
“No. Erwin’s intuition isn't off. Not by one bit. Find it.” Whatever it was, it wasn’t just going to be ‘hidden in plain sight’. It would never be that easy.
Books were pulled and dusted off of shelves, furniture scraped across the ground. Mikasa accidentally swiped a cup from the table-
“Ereh…” Every ear pricked. “There’s a keyhole, in the side of the desk, here.”
…
Levi felt himself heave a breath he didn’t know he was holding as Hange read out the back of the detailed painting.
“...There are many people living outside the walls. My people. Where I come from! Where this photo comes from…”
When they finished reading they immediately glanced up. Up to Levi who was nearly shaking.
…Erwin was right.