Notes: I wrote this all the way back in October when we were all freaking out and intended to add to it, maybe even write some hurt/comfort sex. However, my laziness trumped my lust.
The Rumors of His Invalidity (are Greatly Exaggerated)
There is no single worst part to losing the arm, Erwin muses, as he waits for Hans to work the pulley. In terms of pain, it wasn't the titan's teeth, nor his own sword when he freed himself, nor even the tourniquet. No, in terms of pain it was the procedure once they got him back to the Walls: the cleaver and bone saw to close the wound properly so what was left of his humerus didn't protrude from healing flesh. Thankfully he only remembers bits and pieces as he went in and mostly out of consciousness.
Pain is the least of it, which is why he, Levi, and Hans are out on the training grounds in the middle of the night.
"Do it already," Levi huffs, but Erwin reads apprehension in his stiff-legged stance. "I hate suspense."
"I'm trying," Hans laughs, pushing at the lever, "but even one arm lighter, he's still heavy."
"You're pathetic, Glasses." Levi walks through the darkness while Erwin stands, waiting, for them to lift him.
He's tired. His left hand is cramped from holding pens too tight and the stitches that span the back of his deltoid to the front burn, itch, and weep bloody lymph. As soon as this experiment is over, he and Levi will go back to Erwin's room and Levi will clean and rewrap the filthy bandages. Perhaps they'll even fool around a little, though Erwin has yet to experience satisfactory sex since he lost the arm.
As Levi joins Hans at the crank, Erwin keeps a cool head about him and waits. The harness begins to pull tight, the cords pull taut, and bit by bit, Levi and Hans are lifting him up. He waits, lets them lift him until he's only got the faintest purchase on the toe-tips of his boots, then he brings his remaining arm away from his body and bends his knees to leave the ground beneath him.
Keeping his balance from an upright position isn't a challenge at all; his balance is fine enough that he rarely ever needed his arms to stay upright in the 3DM gear. The challenge is learning to move without both arms to stabilize him.
Erwin remains steady while the other two continue to hoist him up; they all know he's going to need a little more space to try any maneuvers, even in one place, without him flipping over and adding a head injury to his physical list of complaints. If only Mike were there the hoist would be faster.
But Mike isn't here, will never be here again. Nor Nanaba, nor… The list is long, but these two names are etched deeper than the others that he has spent in his time as Commander. He may not have his old friend, but he still has patience and so he lets the other two people he trusts work the hoist.
When Levi and Hans are satisfied with the height, they set the pulley's lock. Levi directs a simple, but direct expression of trust Erwin's way; it's just as fulfilling as any of their stolen kisses. Erwin gathers the trust in, needing it more than he'll ever reveal. Hans, though, talks through whatever she's feeling.
"You've been in the straps and gear for years," she says, "and I assume you've always had that natural affinity for it, but even if you didn't, I've seen you in action. The gear itself is pretty simple, so we have to be complex in our actions. It doesn't ask that we be symmetrical. Logically, there's no reason this shouldn't work. You just have to get used to your new dimensions and apply them to the gear."
"You're noisy as fuck, Glasses," Levi snorts. "Just do it, old man."
Erwin nods and tests his weight on his left foot's strap, then the right. The left feels a little strange, so he tries it again and feels bandages catching inside his sleeve in the process. There's a phantom suggestion that his right hand should have lifted to counterbalance the press of his left foot. It doesn't bowl him over; he's compensated for the displacement by leaning his torso into it. Perhaps this is muscle memory from the desperate moment when he charged the Armored titan to take back Jaeger. If so, then he's already done this in the field.
With two pairs of eyes fixed on him, Erwin takes a breath and leans back, allowing himself to tip along the axis of the wires. Using his weight as the impetus, he completes a slow back flip and comes up straight. Once again, he can feel the inherent strangeness on the loop on his left foot inside his boot, but has no trouble coming upright and remaining upright.
He looks down at Hans and Levi, awaiting their comments on the basic maneuver.
"It looks pretty natural," Hans says. Her hands are on her hips and she's leaning forward. Her eyes dart sharply along the straps and between his abbreviated arm and his left leg. "Your compensation could be better; the flip was fine until you straightened out. It's serviceable."
"But serviceable isn't good enough," Levi says mercilessly. "Serviceable isn't field-worthy."
The truth is perhaps even more painful, but Erwin's spirits don't diminish completely, because there's something in Levi's eyes that keeps them alive. Levi's eyes, despite his words, have new life.
"But?" Erwin prompts.
"But this is just to see if you can do it," Hans continues, "and it looks promising. We need to see more. Go through some more complex maneuvers."
Erwin nods again and begins to think of more complicated maneuvers, ones with more speed and agility involved. He's a fast thinker, fast planner, but even so, Levi preempts him. He steps past the pulley and bends just enough to take Erwin's left ankle.
"This one is the trouble when you're moving side to side, but the right side will be weak when flipping."
"Ye— "
Levi seizes Erwin by the opposite ankle, shoves it up, and when Erwin's torso comes down in a forward spin, Levi leaps up and comes down hard on Erwin's left shoulder. Levi uses his body weight to propel Erwin into an uncontrolled, wobbling spin. Levi leaps neatly away, up to the top of the hoist and peers down to watch the outcome.
One's body doesn't turn on the training wires' axis in quite the same way as it does the gear in the field. It is meant to be safe and to hone balance. Accordingly, there is no possibility of the most natural part of the 3DM gear: forward flight. Spinning and wobbling like this, head whipping down then up at high speed, is not a common phenomena in the field or on a course.
He reacts without thinking, Erwin tucks up into a quick ball and then throws his legs forward to arc his body out of the air and toward the ground. The strategy is effective for somebody his size and weight and would normally bring him out of the roll and slanting down along gravity's pull. On the training equipment, it only manages to add momentum to his swing as his feet never touch the earth, but instead swing down and then whip him back end-over-end again.
His first effort failed, Erwin instinctively tucks again, but then stretches his legs out to place his booted feet against the wires. It's useless, though, with the angle the training equipment keeps trainees at; in the field the maneuver would work, but on the pulley the angle of the wires is totally unnatural. So he tucks his legs slightly for stability instead. He keeps what's left of his arms close to his body and rides the spin out, counting on inertia and drag to bring him to an easier stop.
He doesn't have long to wait; two hands suddenly grab his shoulders, putting him into a slower spin, and then grab again. It's after Levi's second assist that Erwin manages to right himself.
Above him, hanging upside down with his knees hooked on the frame, Levi looks down with grudging respect. "Your instincts are still good, old man. Should have guessed that much."
Dizzy from the spin, Erwin only says, "Yes."
Hans fills the silence with her observations. "Oh, hey, that was actually good. The first time, you did what you should out in the field and that's all in the legs. The second time, you tried to land on the wires, which is a great tactic; but the training apparatus doesn't allow for that. In the end, you tried to use your mass and legs to capitalize on drag and inertia."
Smiling slowly, but with eyes bright with excitement, Hans steps forward and places a hand on Erwin's muscular thigh. "We use our core and our legs the most and, like Levi says, you didn't lose your instincts. So our next test shouldn't be of you, but to see if we can engineer the gear-hilt triggers to shoot and release two wires at the same time or something. If that happens, the following test will be yours and we'll put you through the paces at the training grounds."
Erwin nods and grants Hans a bare smile. It's better news than he had expected and if the guarded satisfaction in Levi's expression is anything to go by, the rest of the night may also prove better than hoped.