Petra’s fingers danced over Erd’s lap from under the table. Levi couldn’t see it; only the slight movement of her upper arm and the way it synchronised with her light smile and Erd’s tense frame. They knew each other too well. And he could tell, the obvious way that Gunther snickers and the twitch at the corner of Auruo’s mouth.

He didn’t know what implications the growing sore in his gut was to him. He finished dinner, stood up to clean the plates. Looking away, he brought the thought deep into the back of his mind.

“Corporal, I’ll do the plates tonight!”

He nodded, bid them goodnight, let the bile roll in his stomach a bit longer.

-

She was late; that was odd of her. She was rarely late, but there she was, missing from the roll call. Erd grit his teeth under the Corporal’s odd stare.

“Sir, I will—”

“I’ll call her,” Levi insists. “Sit.”

Levi walked to her room, steps clicking sharp and angry against the asphalt floor. He knocked; once, twice. No answer. He could hear a shuffling of clothes from inside the room. He knocked again. No answer still, a bit more panicky.

He kicked the door open.

“Corporal!” Petra shrieked, sitting herself down on the bed.

Her hair was a mess, with her polo buttons misaligned, one foot in her boots, and one pant leg rolled up.  She sat stock still, on the bed, staring at him in the eye, in apology.

Levi was working all night, last night. He turned on his heel.

“Make me coffee.”

-

“Am I dismissed, sir?”

Petra stood in front of him, eyes staring straight into him. His eyes travelled down the pale expanse of her skin down her marred arms and her calloused hands. Same hands which had gone up under the back of his shirt. Same arms which had caught him in depths of the night smelling like coffee filled with sugar and cinnamon.

When he breathed, he felt like she was right against his ear.

“Sir?”

“You’re dismissed,” he said, more of a groan, sounding like losing.

-

He caught them, that time, before the 57th. Erd, fixing the straps of Petra’s harness, purposely poorly put on. He could tell—those knots wouldn’t jump out on their own. She was laughing. Erd was mumbling, under his breath, inaudible.

Later that morning before they got to the gate, Petra stood in front of him in full salute before tugging his cravat in place.

“I would devote my entire life for your sake, Captain,” she said, lips by his ear.

Oh, she would.

-------

Erwin lets him sign the papers about his squad’s death. He takes the pen, lets the ink pool black on the thin paper. Erwin doesn’t ask, when he takes them back, and gets one of the cadets to hand Corporal Levi something to drink.

Now there is no trace of Petra in the drink: no honey, no sugar, or cinnamon, or perhaps the taste of her lips lingering in the rim of the mug.

Levi gulps down the bitter coffee down in his throat in grieving.

-

He lets Erwin break the news to Petra’s father. And Auruo’s family. And Gunther’s father. But the knot in his gut refuses to unwind. So he, on his own, goes to Erd’s lover. He knocks and when the door opens to her, hair a hue a little like Petra, he hands the bloodied clothes over.

He doesn’t spare a word, or a moment. He glances to her, who stares at the pile as if the cloth would answer her questions. He turns on his heel, and she doesn’t call out.

petra tries to calm her errant thoughts with cups of chamomile tea, but not even the soft scent does much to quiet down her nerves. memories of sensation, calloused hands against her own calloused skin flood her brain, refusing to be ignored. she dips her head inside her blanket, trying to block him out.

erd enters her room, lets the shutting of the door be loud enough for her to hear. erd strokes her hair, coaxing her cries to quiet whimpers til she’s holding on to him for dear life.

“god, what do i do?”

she lets him, lets him wash over her like calm over sleepless nights, untangling her tired muscles. his kisses are poison. his breath is fire. his hands are shackles that break her from the inside out.

but she lets him.                             

(she calls out for levi.)

when they are done, and petra has finally worn herself from the inside out, erd breaks free of contact from her and watches her chest rise and fall. he tucks her inside the blanket and disappears out the room; perhaps in the morning, she would think she was dreaming, think she was hallucinating all of it.

maybe tomorrow, petra will count from zero again.

he wouldn’t bring it up.

erd listens to the creak of the wood when he walks back to his room, and sighs.

“he’s gone, pet.”