A/N: I wrote this a long time ago before the latest chapter with revelations about Erwin's past came out so yeah no mentions of those here. This was just some stupid thing but I guess I'll post it here anyway (to show that not 100% of my SnK writing is Rivetra... just like 99.99% of it haha).
He never thought about how he would die.
There is no time for wandering musings or pointless what-ifs in their world; a moment taken to think about the future can lead to sudden, violent death. Even decisions and actions have bloody consequences more often than not, but it is always better for those consequences to come about by his own doing rather than circumstance.
Erwin has never allowed himself to wonder—as long as he is still alive, as long as he is still around there is always something for him to do, to plan, to strategize, and it leaves no time for weak human fears to invade his mind—but as he lies there, vision blurring and sounds fading, his own blood soaking his clothes and staining the ground beneath him a dark, angry red, he realizes he always expected his death to be instantaneous.
Losing his arm was nearly a blink-and-miss-it matter: one moment he was riding and the next he was caught between a Titan's teeth, sudden piercing pain in one shoulder, and then a woozy feeling in his head and a throbbing ache where his arm used to be, and for one second he nearly let himself laugh: at the fact that one of his most vital limbs was gone, at the fact that he was still alive—and then he stifled that urge and moved on, doing what he had to do.
He never thought about how he would die, but he realizes he never expected to live until the end of the war, and subconsciously he must have always thought losing his life would be like losing his arm: the brief shock of pain and then moving on immediately.
But the sounds of Titans' footsteps has long faded, the grounds are littered with torn, battered corpses and scraps of bloody cloth, and he is still alive, though he can feel his breath slipping away with each weak inhale, each faint exhale. The air burns in his lungs like he can never get enough and in this moment the phantom pain of his missing arm is far worse than the gaping wounds slashed across his torso.
Life is taking far too long to leave him, he thinks, because now that he is helpless, now that he has no means to continue what he devoted his entire existence to, all the thoughts and personal feelings he represses and ignores every day, the sensations he writes off as not his own because they do not help humanity, come flooding back.
Now he has time to ponder, to think about his choices and the war and he does not like what he finds: was it all worth it? In the end, did anything he do help at all? Is humanity now closer than ever before to achieving freedom, or has he only postponed the inevitable?
It is then that he feels rather than hears footsteps approaching, quiet steps across the plains that he can sense in his back against the ground: his eyes focus slightly and a short, dark-haired figure blurs before him; a glimpse of a green cape and stormy eyes and a blank expression.
"Levi," he says, his voice a barely audible rasp in his throat.
Levi does not say anything, but Erwin knows him, knows that his eyes are probably briefly furious before retaining their usual stoicism, knows that he is probably clenching his teeth, hands tightening on the blades at his hips before returning to their position by his sides.
It is fitting, Erwin thinks, that when they first met Levi was kneeling in the mud before him, and now the last time they meet it is the other way around.
You fucking idiot, Levi says, but Erwin's hearing is fading fast and perhaps he just imagined the words.
Death is approaching; he feels it in the sharp rattle in his chest, the sudden sensation of numbness spreading across his body, taking away his pain, dulling his senses. He is acutely aware of how little grasp he has left on this world: he thought he could do everything, he thought he could make a difference, but in the end he is just another dying soldier on the ground, and the world will not even grant him one last bit of it before spitting him out.
Through the haze overtaking his mind, his body, he thinks he can feel cold fingers on his, lifting his one hand in the air for a brief moment and squeezing it tightly.
You did more than enough. I promise you, I will obliterate the Titans.
Perhaps he imagined these words as well: he has heard Levi say them before, countless times, to dying soldiers in need of comfort. He would laugh if he still could: I am not one of your soldiers, Levi; there is no need to lie to me.
But the broken whispers do not stop, fading in and out of his ears as his sense of the world continues to disappear, and he is sure those fingers are still clenching his, would be cutting off his circulation if it were still functioning properly.
And in his last moments, Erwin allows himself to think.
He thinks of his mother, alone at home with nothing for company but the constant gossip and rumors about her ruthless monster of a son. He thinks of Mary, sitting in Nile Dawk's home with the man's children and how he chose grotesque flesh-eating giants over her kind voice and sweet smile. He thinks of Mike and Hanji and countless other soldiers who gave their lives following him almost blindly, trusting in him to do everything he could to stop the Titans, believing in him to lead them to victory.
He tries to swallow, a weak twitching of his throat, and he tastes not blood but ashes.
And then darkness overtakes him and he stops thinking at all.