On sleepless nights I often reflect on how we ended up here. I've never slept much to begin with, though sleep has come to me more often since I invited Eren to my bed. I've had a lot of time to think about the path we're about to take if he agrees to it. I will do anything he asks of me and no one has ever had that privilege before him. I have loved before, though not with the same love as I have for Eren. Isabel and Farlan were the closest I've ever come to having a family and I loved them. Dearly. When they died, love died with them. I became detached.
That's not to say that I didn't care for my subordinates and comrades, because I did and still do, despite rumors to the contrary. But loving and growing attached to another person in that way is a guarantee in a world where nothing is certain. A guarantee of heartbreak. I've lost enough, mourned enough, regretted enough, and, having had my fill of these things, resolved to never allow myself to experience that again. Love and pain are unnecessary and distract one from one's duties.
Eren changed that. Eren… changed a lot of things. The first time I met those feral green eyes, I knew. I felt a pull that I knew I should desperately fight. The cost would be too great if I allowed myself to be pulled in. As it is, you can never know how things will turn out. In the end I relented and let that red thread pull and bind us together. He changed my perspective. A life without love was not a guarantee of a life without pain.
No, a life denying oneself those fleeting moments of peace and happiness is a life wasted. Living only for fighting and killing, watching as friends die in vain without having experienced anything besides the hopeless reality of a soldier on the front lines… That existence, unavoidable for the duty-bound such as myself, now would be unimaginable without him. I imagine life without another who shares your grief, someone who understands your burden and knows you. Someone who watches, ready to pull you up before your head sinks below the waves of solitary darkness to drown in bottomless despair. How did I ever think it was better to live without this?
The first time I actually saw him wasn't in that basement prison with Erwin. It was the day he transformed into a titan for the very first time. Thinking back on that, I'm amused by the apparent symbolism. I had not witnessed the chain of events leading up to our first contact. I only arrived in time to watch a small, blond boy, a cadet judging by the patch on his uniform, doing what appeared to be pulling a human body from a gash in the nape of a titan's neck. I didn't know what to think of this, so I pushed it aside to question later and did what needed to be done at the moment.
A field briefing informed me that this boy pulled from the titan's neck somehow became a titan. He was immediately attacked by swarms of hostile titans, cornering him, biting at him to devour his body as if he were human. This boy-titan then proceeded to take down twenty or more of those hostile titans, apparently seeming to be cooperating with and taking orders from soldiers, before finally picking up a massive boulder and using it to seal the breached portion of wall in Trost district, thus preventing any more titans from entering the city. The existence of intelligent titans, once only speculation following the fall of Shiganshina, was now undeniable. Furthermore, this boy-titan's actions provided evidence that he was likely on humanity's side. It was then, digesting that shocking report, that an ember of hope ignited within me.
Still, I reserved judgement.
Then came the day of the military tribunal where the fate of the titan-boy would be decided. This day remains vivid in my memory. Our first interaction wasn't pleasant. As I descended into that basement prison alongside my superior officer Erwin Smith, 13th Commander of the Survey Corps, I had no way of knowing that one simple conversation with a prisoner of war would upend my life as I knew it. The commander's questioning of him was brief. The boy showed no hostility toward us as he listened.
As he began to deliver his reply, his eyes became wild. He spoke fiercely of killing every last titan and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would be able to place my faith in him. The titan-boy's fighting spirit fanned the tiny ember of hope he sparked in me into an undeniable flame. I was so affected by him that before I knew what I was doing I had uttered a rare word of praise. Not bad. Anyone else hearing those words would not recognize them as praise. Only those who knew me, like present company Commander Smith, would understand the significance of my words. Words that I spoke when, after living my whole life in the underground, I saw the sky for the first time. I recruited him into the Survey Corps right then and there, though not warmly, as I then warned him I wouldn't hesitate to kill him if he turned against us.
By the time all parties gathered in the courtroom, I was already deep in an internal battle over my instant attachment to the boy. This was rapidly becoming messy and I am legendary for my stance on messes. Shortly before the trial, Commander Erwin devised a plan to ensure that the boy titan would be delivered into the custody of the Survey Corps. I would follow the Commander's orders even though they repulsed me.
The scene that played out next is a memory that haunts me still. I knew I had to do it to save him, but I beat that boy bloody. Mercilessly. I humiliated him in front of superiors and soldiers alike, some of whom I'd later learn were his childhood friends and fellow graduates of the 104th training division. I called him a dog, I kicked him relentlessly, I ground my boot into his bruised and bloodied face. I felt waves of guilt and nausea as I watched one of his teeth clatter across the courtroom floor.
Typical of Commander Erwin's plans, it was a success that came at a price. They always come at a price, sometimes questionably high, and usually paid in lives, but if Erwin judges it to be worth the price, we trust his judgment. This time a boy's life was purchased at the cost of his dignity, though the significant effect it had on me was a private cost.
To my great surprise and relief, the boy, Eren Yeager, did not resent me for my brutality. He flinched when I seated myself next to him, but he assured me he understood why my actions were necessary. I was then placed in charge of overseeing him at all times. Our relationship progressed quickly from there and I'm sure we both sensed that soon the lines between superior officer and subordinate would not just be crossed, but burned to ash and erased.
On quiet nights in the dungeon, he told me stories about how he had admired me before I knew him. As a child he watched me return from failed expeditions, cheering me on when others were taunting and jeering. He even punched a grown man in the head after he heard him insulting the Corps. I laughed at that. Even without having any success in our missions outside the walls, he still truly saw the Survey Corps as wings of freedom and dreamed of one day joining us. In turn, I admired him more and more each day. Someone so young with such an unbearable burden upon them, the burden of loss, guilt, and responsibility. Just like title I never asked for, Humanity's Strongest, was placed upon me, he also was given a title. Humanity's Last Hope. To have all of humanity's hopes and expectations forced upon you and still be able to stay as determined and confident as ever. It is beyond the grasp of most people's comprehension. I understood.
He became my constant companion and confidant. Understandably, he was not trusted by the rest of his assigned squad, which was the Survey Corps elite special operations team. My team. This bothered him greatly, so he naturally grew closer to me than to any of the others. My squad - Petra, Erd, Gunther, and Auruo, the best of the best of Survey Corps veterans - eventually warmed up to him but remained cautious and ready to strike at the first sign of betrayal. That is exactly what I desired from my men. I would personally make up for the discomfort caused to Eren by it.
As propriety and professionalism demands, our relationship needed to appear in public to be one a mentor and his eager apprentice and I resisted showing obvious favoritism toward him. I allowed myself some leeway, though. For example, special training sessions with the Corporal were deemed necessary. A recent academy graduate suddenly placed into a specialized team of veterans must be able to keep up with their skill level, so one-on-one training with me was frequent. In private, though, when it came time to secure him in his quarters for the night, I always greeted him with a command of 'at ease.' I was no longer Lance Corporal Levi, sir! in those private evenings behind closed doors. We were friends and equals.
Since he was such a rare and valuable asset to mankind, Eren was to be constantly subjected to tests and experiments in order gather as much information on his powers and limitations as possible. Not only was this to learn how to most effectively utilize him in combat, but also to learn more about titans themselves, as titans have continued to remain a mystery despite a history of great losses in any attempt to capture and study wild specimens. Many of the experiments were gruesome and it pained me to watch. I remained by his side through them not because it was my duty, but because I wanted to provide him with the comfort of my presence. To remind him that I saw him as a human. It was important to me to be worthy of his trust. It was one of these experiments that resulted in that inevitable crossing of the boundary between superior and soldier.
Eren was lowered into a well and instructed to transform. Conducting the experiment from the bottom of a well was a preventative safety measure. I was there as a last resort should he need to be subdued. Minutes passed after the flare signaling him to initiate his transformation was fired. I cautiously approached the well with Squad Leader Hanji Zoe, a long time survey corps veteran, scientist, and leading titan researcher. Hanji was running through theories beside me as I approached the edge of the well to check on Eren. My stomach lurched at what I saw at the bottom of that well: Eren, frantic, face dripping with blood and tears, gnawing at the flesh of his own thumb, crying out in frustration as he bit through skin and muscle in a futile attempt to transform.
We removed him from the well and declared the experiment a failure. Hanji noted that Eren's wounds were not healing as they would normally; some of Eren's titan abilities carried over into his human form, immediate healing of wounds accompanied by steam was the most notable of these. His wounds were tended to and I tried to provide him with as much comfort as was appropriate in the presence of others, and Eren, having failed to transform and feeling poorly about it, dejectedly joined my squad for tea.
At some point during tea, he dropped his teaspoon to the ground and reached to retrieve it. The heat and sound of his unexpected partial transformation scared us all shitless. In the blink of an eye my squad turned to strike. In the chaos of clearing steam and shouting, mostly of threats hurled at him by my squad, I placed myself between the two parties, exposing my back to Eren as a sign of trust and commanding my men to stand down.
Eren tore himself from the incomplete titan arm attached to his body and collapsed from the stress and exhaustion. The squad was shocked and outraged at my intervention. Hanji was dramatically expressing their disappointment at a missed opportunity to collect data. I was biting back my fury while lifting Eren's body off the ground and into my arms, ignoring the protests of my squad and Hanji's shrill squawking, shouting an order over my shoulder to not disturb me under threat of a slow, painful death. At that point I blocked out all other distractions and retreated to my quarters, cradling Eren's feverish, unconscious body against mine.
I watched over him day and night as his exhausted body repaired itself. A transformation normally only leaves him out of commission for a day, give or take. I wondered if this time it wasn't just the physical strain that depleted him, but the emotional as well. I sat beside him on my bed, holding his hand and softly speaking to him. I didn't know if he could hear me, but after experiencing my entire squad ready to kill him, I was going to do everything I could to make him feel safe. Protecting him was duty, yes, but it was also my personal desire. I was so attached to him at this point that I knew it had become more than platonic companionship. Seeing him on the verge of being slain in front of me was all it took for me to make my choice. For the first time in who knows how long, I was genuinely afraid. I would not lose him.
In the pre-dawn hours of the third day of his unconsciousness, he stirred. Sleep is rare for me and it was no sacrifice to maintain my vigil at his bedside. I grasped his hand and called to him.
"Eren. I'm here."
A fluttering motion of the eyelids. A pause. A groan. I called to him again, louder this time, and he opened his eyes. I didn't realize just how much I missed those expressive green eyes until they found mine in the dim candlelight of my room.
"Corporal…" It came as barely a rasp, his unused voice cracking as he looked away to observe his surroundings. On any other day he would have been shouting, hurriedly raising a startled salute even though we're alone.
I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and sat up near the head of the bed to sling an arm around his shoulders and gently raise him into a sitting position. He stared at me for a moment, then down to the glass in my hand, and as he understood, I raised the glass to his lips, allowing him to drink as much as he could. I could see him tensing his grip, testing his muscles, and he hesitantly raised his hand to grasp at the glass. I held it in my hand until he was sure his grip would hold. He nodded and I let go so he could drink on his own. Eren is strong and capable and would not appreciate me babying him, and I show my respect for him by acknowledging this. I do take the glass from him after he finishes, returning it to the nightstand.
"Corporal Levi. What happened? Did… Did I lose control? How long-"
While he was drinking on his own, I had not removed my arm from his shoulders. I had leaned to nuzzle my face into his hair, returning to this position after taking the glass from him. I interrupt his speech when I reach across him with my other arm to caress his cheek in the palm of my hand as I gently turn his face to look him in the eyes. Those beautiful, heartrending green eyes. He does not continue to speak, instead drawing a sharp breath as we search each other's faces in the faint, flickering light of the lone candle. I had already made my choice. I don't hesitate. I kiss him.
He kisses back.