Humanity's — 🪽

Anime Levi #901

LEVI ACKEMRAN s4

Four seconds before the tragedy / S4

Levi absolutely does not fuck in public places. This includes hotels or inns. Anywhere outside of ‘home’ is a no for him. Being out of the SC headquarters usually means being on a mission, and he can’t get himself in the right headspace for sex when he must focus. Also hotels and inns are filthy. ( He may consent to getting his partner off if they ask, but he’ll bitch about it. )

He does much better when he is the giver, aka the one giving attention and/or providing a service to his partner. It gives him something to focus on, gives him a purpose. He doesn’t know how to be on the receiving end, struggles with lying down and relaxing into it. Too much of it can be quite overwhelming for him, too, and not in a good way. He gets restless and impatient. He doesn’t like being played with or edged; get him off or get off him.

If they get as far as reaching climax, he needs a cloth or a towel. He absolutely loathes getting the bed dirty; he is more tolerant about washable surfaces, but he would rather have the choice to do it cleanly the first time around. Coming into his partner’s mouth makes him extremely uncomfortable. He will do it if they want it, but mutual agreement and consent ought to be established beforehand. He doesn’t mind cum on his body as that is an easy place to clean it from.

He still remembers the filthy tangles his hair was in when he was a child and how much pain it was to wash, upkeep and untangle the ends when he was too young to do it himself and his mother lacked the strength to do it for him.

Having grown up in relative darkness, with no direct and ever-present source of natural light, Levi's eyes have developed an affinity for the dark. He, alongside Isabel and Furlan, have always had an advantage over the MPs in the streets of the Underground.

Not only they were better at using the ODM gear, which shouldn't have been an advantage they would have over professionally trained soldiers in the first place, but their eyes were also better used to the glum of the back alleys and poorly lit streets.

He is unshakeable in his convictions; he cannot be tempted by vices and once he decides to go through with something, he does it — He has the nature of an unstoppable force to him because he doesn't tend to dwell in the past and moves forward, executing commands and following his own rigid moral code. (Or breaking it where need be, but it isn't an act of weakness or failure, it is his will.)

And there is something very devoted and intimate about Levi doing all this with his hands. Touching each of Erwin’s bones as he places him, piece by piece into the grave he had dug up for him.

How would he mark the grave? Would he mark it at all? Would he visit it? Once the war was over, would he even be able to? What would have become of the place?

When he hears them, he doesn't shrivel inside and wishes to be small. He is fuelled by adrenaline; he is focused and driven. To protect. To complete the mission. To move onwards.

The sound, or rather the memory of it, that wakes him in a cold sweat in the dead of night; the sound that makes him want to curl up in a ball and rip his ears off, has always been his mother’s ragged dying breaths; the stifling, decaying silence of the room after she has gone from her body and only her corpse was left behind. The rising buzz of flies and scurrying of rats that swarmed her corpse and tried to eat her.

He has trained himself to push his body through the terror of the memory, and it rarely catches him off guard. In the fray of the battlefield, when blood is rushing through his ears, he never has to worry about an episode. But when the night settles and the barracks go to sleep, sometimes, a shuffle of a blanket or even something as silly as a random snore can set him off.

When the dread of his past catches up to him, Levi often finds himself in an open space where he can feel fresh breeze on his face and hear the noises nature makes as it slumbers. And when even that doesn't help, he isn't above paying a visit to Hange in their lab, to Erwin who does paperwork late into the night, or linger around the mess hall where, quite often, a few stray scouts will be talking and laughing over a pint of warm beer.

Especially towards the end of her life, it was difficult for her to keep the room and herself clean, so Levi took it upon himself to maintain cleanliness in hopes of his mother becoming better if her environment was neat. He took care of her until she had drawn her last breath and then some.

Countless people who are no longer with him and have no grave he could visit. Their hearts and dreams are carried on and kept by Levi, tucked safely away in his thoughts.

He holds their memory close and their names even closer, and, when the time comes, he will have their names carved into the tombstone right beside his.

One stone, many names, a reunion at last. He will rest eternally with all the hearts, whose wishes he carried through, resting with him.

The silence Underground was often eerie and stifling. More often than not, it was a sign of danger. The most quiet places were the most remote, and the most remote were the darkest and most dangerous. The silence in such places was the perfect cover for an ambush, it was the perfect set up for laying down a trap. One could hear steps approaching and use the silence in their favour — an element of surprise.

Levi does not enjoy the silence that comes before a storm.

What he likes, instead, is the peace of the outside world, the murmur of people having a genial conversation, the rustle of leaves in the trees, the distant neigh of horses, the birdsong. Something he used to only experience in short, unfulfilling and stolen snippets of time, but what he has found the Above has an abundance of.

Erwin has always known his hands would be tainted with red, but he never imagined them to be drenched in it right at the beginning of his commandership.

He focuses on the dancing flames and the sound of boiling water, nodding silently as Levi gives his report. He agrees; this bunch do seem pretty promising despite their green status. With that type of grief, just a mere bone wouldn't even begin to satisfy their hunger. In another circumstances, Erwin would almost feel bad for taking advantage of it, knowing how effective vengeance is as fuel for their cause.

However, as much as their anger can spark a fire, it can also be the thing that will burn them in the end. It's a good thing he assigned Levi to training duty; he's always been the most sensible of them all, including Mike. Under his expertise and guidance, he's sure they'll soon become some of the finest soldiers the Corps will ever have so far.

The way that Levi doesn't seem to resent him for being given new responsibilities is also a big bonus, if Erwin can be honest.

"You'd be happy to know that I've secured more funding," he avoids the question as he approaches Levi, trying to assess some positive reaction on his blank features. "Maybe I'll need to take one or two trips more and there'll be enough for this semester's budget... But, nothing is worth waiting for when morale is low. The Corps has taken too many hits, we can't afford any more."

Perhaps it's the mania from not sleeping properly in more than 24 hours, the dreadful and fruitful endeavors he went through this past week, or just the juvenile high that comes from finally being able to spoil his Captain in the ways he'd always wanted to, but something compels him to hold Levi's hand between both of his. To look down and admire the expensive tin, now secured in Levi's strong fingers after a fun journey of blackmail and bribery. "I've brought your usual black leaves too, but… Well. I figured you'd like to try this one out first."

The new position of Captain sits on Levi's shoulders awkwardly, despite how readily the people around him have taken to it. He knows there is acrimony; he hears the occasional rumour and bad-faith sentiment about his persona — The new Commander has pulled up the sewer rat to be his Right-hand Man, giving him titles and lavishing him with gifts. He doesn't need to have lived on the surface from childhood to understand how resentful people can be when they don't get what they have worked so hard to achieve — and then have to watch the same thing being given to someone they think so low of.

They all want to be in Erwin's good graces, as if that can elevate them somehow. ( As if that isn't the most dangerous place to be. ) Many of them were Erwin's comrades, fought side by side with him, a good number of them for far longer than Levi has. They feel it right to get rewarded for their bravery, skill and loyalty. Yet. It is Levi who now outranks them all. And it pisses him off to even think about it. As if rank fucking matters out there, as if a titan gives two shits who is the Captain and who is a squad member. They all die equally.

Levi also doesn't give a fuck about the funds. It brings him little happiness to know that Erwin has managed to squeeze the right people and get the right amount of coins from them. It seems ridiculous in the grand scheme of things to be playing at society and class when the titans are knocking on their doorstep, when people are in need, when so many of them had to die in order for others to live. They are on a brink of extinction and the nobles are still clutching their purses. It would make Levi's blood boil if Erwin wasn't talking about it with such — silly, fucking, juvenile joy.

"Yeah, it's good," Levi agrees because he knows Erwin needs him to. And he does agree. He understands that in order to achieve anything worthwhile, Erwin has to work the system that he is in. He is choosing the peaceful solution. Levi wouldn't have been so merciful as to 'ask', no matter how cunningly, for more funding. He thinks the chit-chat is redundant.

Erwin's hands overlaps his own, big and warm and sweaty from the journey, and Levi pauses and stares at them, not knowing what to do or how to respond. "We'll have this one," is all he says and there is something on the tip of his tongue. Something more he should say. He remembers the tin because he has seen it multiple times when he lived in the underground. He has seen it and wished to taste it, but he has also seen people die for it. Smugglers. Merchants. It was precious. And Erwin brought it for him. Just like that. He knows it is a gesture, and he wants to find a good way to show Erwin that he sees it; he understands. ( The strain is giving him a headache. )

A burning not sensation rises in Levi's chest. He is frowning, hard, and he knows he probably looks angry, but he is thinking. He is still staring at their hands, twisting his brain on how to respond in a way that Erwin would like; he hopes ( so stupid ) that he has read the situation correctly, but just when he touches on an answer, Erwin says something, and it makes him recoil — violently.

The tin bangs against the wooden floor.

"The fuck did you just say?" Levi barks, bristles, pulls back. He holds himself as if Erwin has burned him.