A/N: This was for a prompt challenge/list on tumblr, requested by gouguruheddo. Prompt: "Where do you think we go when we die?"
Unofficial "official soundtrack" for this ficlet is Arctic by Sleeping At Last. Manga spoilers (up to chapter 84).
Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack On Titan. But the eruris DEFINITELY own me.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think.
They weren't able to bring back the bodies. As he stands at the memorial service, Levi doesn't care to ask why. He's too far gone, too numb. He feels the weight of the air pushing against him again - the weight of being the only one left behind.
He can still feel it. Blood everywhere. It sneaks under his finger nails. Covers his half-shattered blades, the wet ground, Furlan's waist, Isabel's severed-
All he can do now is follow that light. Trailing behind Erwin on his horse, like a lighthouse in the storm. He follows Erwin to the memorial service for their lost comrades, too - like some cruel joke, he somehow ends up at Erwin's side as they listen to the lifeless, clinical proceedings.
Levi doesn't understand why he hasn't been tossed into some grimy jail for all of this yet - he held a blade to Erwin's neck less than a week ago. He looks up at Erwin, weariness etched in the lines of his face, arms held in a rigid salute.
And in that moment, he thinks that Erwin has bigger things to worry about.
Levi walks in step with him as they head back to the barracks after the memorial - another paradox, walking together.
"I apologize about Church and Magnolia, Levi," Erwin says. The sincerity in his voice is pins and needles on Levi's skin.
Levi grunts. "You're friendly all of the sudden." It's the first time he's spoken in several days.
Erwin slows as the hallway splits into two. In one direction, the trainees' barracks; the other way, the officers' housing. Levi can't help but linger with him.
"Where do you think they go?" Erwin asks.
"What?"
"When they die. Where your friends went…"
Levi's jaw tightens. "Don't ask questions like that." Words laced with venom are enough to block out the images that flash into his mind, swirl in his eardrums. "And who the fuck asks that at a funeral…" he trails off.
In the silence, Erwin smiles sadly. Eyes blue and downcast.
"Forgive me," he says, his mouth a grim line. "I suppose I ask too many questions at times." He salutes to Levi, then turns on his heel.
Levi watches him walk away. He doesn't bother saluting back.
Erwin asks more questions as the years go by. Levi answers the ones that he can manage. Oddly enough, the annoying questions somehow become less annoying as Erwin breaks down his walls, as they start eating together after expeditions, as Levi falls into his bed some nights.
Levi scoops beef and rice into his mouth. "Twenty six men dead," he mutters, "and we couldn't even capture the damn titan."
Erwin leans back in his chair. In his office, just the two of them, he lets his mask slip. Lets the age show on his face - the exhaustion.
"Perhaps we'll have more success next time."
Levi's fist braces on the table. "Those men sure as hell won't get a next time."
"Levi."
Levi looks up, but he can't meet Erwin's eyes for more than a few moments - there's a warning in them, but also a sadness. Something Levi can't handle right now.
"Sorry." He wills the anger boiling in his gut to settle.
They're quiet as Erwin stands up and walks over to his bookshelf. He runs his hand over several of the spines, like he's thinking - always thinking, never trying to block the world out, the sound-
Levi speaks, because nonsense is better than what he hears in the silence. "What's up your ass?"
He watches the rise and fall of Erwin's shoulder blades as he sighs, like he's grasping at something to say.
"All of our comrades. Don't you wonder… where they end up? Gone in an instant. Never a next time." He turns back to Levi, and his stupid, childlike frown makes Levi's head ache. "It can't just end like that… can it?"
Levi slumps in his seat. Furlan and Isabel flash in his mind.
"That's what death is, Erwin. It's the end."
"And then what?" There's that urgency, in the furrowing of Erwin's brow, the… desperation in his voice. "Levi, where do you think we go when we die?"
The question hangs in the air - a soldier suspended in ODM gear, who might fall to his death at any moment.
Levi stands up and moves closer to Erwin, finds his way into his outstretched arms.
"You can't worry about things like that, old man. You'll go crazy."
Erwin laughs softly. "That's the nature of my job, Captain."
Levi holds onto him tighter.
They're set to leave for Shiganshina in the morning. Levi packs their supplies and some clothes. Erwin makes revisions to his will, in a sloppy, left-handed scrawl.
Levi has only tried to break his pen - stop him for fuck's sake - once.
Eventually, the sound of Erwin's pen on paper comes to a halt, and Levi looks up. Erwin stares pensively out the window. His eyes squint, like a child who is trying to see beyond mountains, beyond the horizon and the sky.
Levi has never been able to look that far ahead. Maybe that's why he's always needed Erwin.
Erwin looks back to Levi. His eyes are pleasant, but distant.
"Levi."
"Yeah?"
Erwin gnaws at his lip. "When our soldiers die…" he begins, but he trails off as Levi rolls his eyes.
"This again? Stop it already." There's a dangerous edge to his voice.
"Wherever it is that they end up," Erwin presses on, "… do you think they see each other again?"
Levi refuses to meet Erwin's eyes, can't meet his eyes. His toes curl and he swears that room drops a few degrees in temperature.
"I don't have a clue," he says bluntly.
He steps away from packing and crosses to where Erwin is seated at his desk. He places his hands on the back of his chair, rests his chin on Erwin's head. Breathes in the smell of his hair.
Neither can find any other words to offer. They're not brave enough to voice the real question.
Do you think we'll see each other again?
When the morning comes, Levi puts on his jacket and follows Erwin without a second thought.
They brought back the body this time. Levi made sure of that. Looking at Erwin's lifeless face, Levi wants to carve the pale tinge right out of it. Bring back the color, the life. Anything.
The memorial service is long, cold, and stifling - but it passes quickly enough, because Levi is still kneeling in front of the casket long after the last guest has left.
His skin crawls, and he stands up abruptly. He has no business being here anymore - kneeling in front of a dead body like a fucking idiot.
But he can't quite tear himself away, either.
He paces in front of the casket as sunset turns to nightfall. He thinks of all those dumb questions Erwin used to ask - starts to wonder what they meant, too. He wonders where Erwin's soul is now. If Erwin had a soul, and if it will just disappear. If Erwin will slowly fade away - first with the decay of his dead body, and then with the decay of Levi's memory.
Like he was never there at all.
Levi looks at Erwin's face again, suddenly desperate like an animal. The air tries to push him down like it has so many times before, and he's panicked. He tries to memorize every ridge, every groove, every scar on Erwin's face. Tries to keep the image locked in his mind's eye.
For a moment, Levi rests his hand on Erwin's forehead, trails his finger down his cheek, to his lips - carefully, as if a touch could make his body vanish. Like a rat touching a holy object.
The one left behind again.
"Levi, where do you think we go when we die?"
Levi still doesn't know the answer. Maybe he never will.
But he looks down at Erwin's face for the last time… and he thinks that he's never seen him look so at rest before. Like a child, asleep after a long day.
He gently closes the casket. "I'll see you soon, Erwin," he whispers, hands shaking.
He turns away and looks out the tall windows. For the first time, he tries to squint like Erwin did. Like he's trying to see beyond mountains, beyond the horizon and the fucking sky.
He tries to look far ahead.
the end