dedication: to rhea and tk
summary: the dead will dance here tonight.
notes: thought really hard about posting this here coz i am terrified of new fandoms. but the past two episodes have broken me and i hate whoever told me to watch this shit. have some levi, hopefully i did him some justice.

empty swears at empty labels

There's a ringing in the air.

He doesn't hear it because he's too lost in his thoughts, too consumed with things like tragedy and loss. There's a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth and it's not because of the beer he cradles in his hands, the coolness lost in his calloused palms. There's no noise; no breathing but his own and even then he cannot hear it—forgets he's even doing it and if it weren't for the fact that his body inhales and exhales out of muscle memory, he wouldn't be breathing right then.

Soldiers die, he's said and he still stands by that fact.

They die and Levi has always thought they died a worthy death because they died fighting for humanity. And with what life is, now, what other grandiose death could there possibly be?

But there's a difference a side of him argues. He doesn't know this side; never conversed with it, never acknowledged its existence but it's there—in the back of his mind, humming and numbing and whispering things. Things like losing close loved ones; people that you've come to care about and it's okay to mourn for them because they are no long by your side.

Levi doesn't know how to counter.

Perhaps it's because this humming and numbing side of him is gathering recollections of one of the last things he can remember before everything went wrong.

There's laughter and they're all being loud. There's a collection of empty beer bottles in the middle of the table and Petra's hair looks nice under the light; very nice shade. And she's talking to Gunter about something and Levi's sitting at the head of the table, half paying attention and half watching their interactions.

It's good, he'd tell himself, soldiers need to familiarize themselves with each other to be able to work together. It's good that they're laughing and talking and even singing a song he doesn't really know. And they look happy, in this memory, the smirks and the grins and the carefree moment being lived for just a second before they have to be soldiers again.

They were… Alive.

Yes, he tells that humming and numbing side of him—they were alive.

He would never forget that they were alive because only someone so alive could look so dead, the way they did.

The way Gunter hung by his 3D Maneuver, his blood dripping towards the ground with a wicked 'slosh, slosh, slosh' and the way Erd was split in half right in the middle. Auruo splattered on the ground with Petra not too far, her spine broken and her eyes staring up at the sky—starry-eyed, that's what her father had said.

No, he can't ever forget that visage.

That memory is burned onto his mind and even now he can silently hear the sizzling and he blames that for the way his eyes are stinging.

Levi takes a swig of his beer, movements robotic, and he breaks away from his trance and he stares at the table—the empty seats, the fact that no one is sitting along with him having a drink and sharing the adrenaline shot in their veins as they maneuver themselves to kill a titan or ten.

The chairs are tucked in, like they last left them and the table is clean.

Levi stands up and grabs a cloth; he dampens it a bit before returning to the table and he begins to clean. One chair at a time, until it's spotless and even then he gives it one last go, cleaning until his hands grow raw. No one's sitting there tonight, though.