The inside of the officials' building is everything Levi would have thought. Simultaneously, it is nothing like he could ever imagine. The trainees' boots squeak on polished stone and wood floor of the entrance hallway, and Levi clenches one fist into the other to keep it from trailing across darkwood panel walls. The whole place smells of dust and water and it's cold. Not cold like the barracks, but cold inside, cold in the walls, cold in the heart.
The streets where Levi grew up had a heart. Walls have beats, if you listen long enough. This building is old and sad. Nobody stops here, he knows, probably save for a mop to tease a shine out, but even as Levi walks he can see officials bustling around at the other end of the corridor.
A heavy sea rocks in his stomach.
"Can I help you?"
Levi turns to the voice; a door has opened to his left, and the sight of the man in front of him makes his shoulders square and his back arch. Officer Smith looks down at him with half-lidded eyes and very little tangible emotion, but Levi feels heat creep up his face.
"Kid," he says simply, surprisedly, as if the mere sight of Levi – at a military base, no less – was extraordinary.
"Officer," Levi drawls, and one corner of Smith's lips quirks up.
The older man moves his eyes over the three trainees behind Levi. "Can I help you?" he asks again. Petra squeaks.
"We were invited to meet officers here," she says, barking a "sir!" as an afterthought.
Smith strokes his chin. "You couldn't be the winners of that little contest, could you?"
Little contest.
"We got twenty-five." Levi regrets the childish words in their childish tone as soon as they leave his lips. He watches as the officer places his tongue between his teeth, trying not to smile.
"Oh, did you? I suppose you'd better come in, then." He steps back, waving an inviting arm into the room. Levi stares up at him.
"We're supposed to be meeting someone," he says dumbly. He feels Petra's eyes on the back of his head.
Smith cocks his head, thick eyebrows raised. "And who might that be?"
Levi barely pauses. "Anyone but you."
He feels an elbow shove into his back, resists the urge to spin round and smack its owner. Not that he could have looked away from Smith; Levi seems to sink under the intensity of the older man's blue gaze, like being pierced and crushed by the sky. The silence is long and aching, and Levi feels his eyes begin to water by the time Smith speaks again, though not to anyone in the hallway:
"Looks like you still have some work to do on this one."
"Who?" comes a voice from inside the room, and there's a rise and break of sickening waves inside Levi when he catches that glint of a lamp on thick-lensed glasses. The female officer steps up beside her colleague (holding three foolishly small sandwiches) and croons. "Aww, I thought I was finally getting somewhere. Running your mouth off again, Squirt?"
Smith chuckles. "Squirt? I like that."
Hanji practically chirps.
Levi turns on his heel and begins to march back down the corridor. A waste of his fucking time is what all this is, all the training, the beatings, the suffering. All the work he's made and endured, and the people he has to impress are the ones who put him here.
His hand is on the front door when he is lifted off his feet by strong hands under his arms.
He kicks, disoriented. "What the fuck? Put me down!"
"'Fraid not," grunts a voice, and it takes Levi a moment to realise it's Smith. He kicks with more force as he's carried back up to the open door, wriggling like a fucking baby.
"Shit, I hope you like this goddamned sicko show I'm putting on for you, you bastard."
"Mm-hm."
Levi is set down inside the room off the hallway. The first thing he does is take the time to appreciate that there is actual carpet under his boots; the second thing is swinging around, intending to slam his elbow into Erwin Smith's stomach, but his efforts broken by his superior's large hand around Levi's – admittedly skinny in comparison – forearm.
"Are you seriously going to fight me here?" He indicates their surroundings with his free hand. Grudgingly, Levi takes in the room. It's smart to say the least. The carpet is red, walls panelled in old darkwood. A long, shiny wooden table lined with matching chairs takes up most of the floor space, and there's a whole fucking wall dedicated to bookcases. You couldn't make this shit up.
Erd, Petra and Gunter are staring at him though the heavy silence; Hanji is stood with her arms crossed and foot tapping, eyes not visible through the glint of her glasses.
"So… Do you two know each other, sir?" Petra offers in a too-high voice. Smith hums, clapping Levi on the shoulder hard enough for his knees to buckle. The officer moves past Levi and extends his right hand to each of the trainees in turn.
"Mm, unfortunately. Officer Hanji here is currently mentoring him, though that's taking slightly longer than anticipated..."
The other officer huffs exaggeratedly, straightening her glasses. "Don't you worry your pretty blond head, Erwin, I'm still breaking him in."
Smith tsks playfully, then turns back to Erd and seems to begin offering him something that Levi can't make out before Hanji is striding back across the room towards him. His ear is pinched between her strong index and thumb and his whole body is yanked from the room; it takes all Levi's will not to squeal. She lets go of him when they're stood back in the hallway, tossing him forward and shutting the door behind her back.
"What do you think you're doing, Squirt?" she sings quietly. "You do realise where you are? Who you're talking to?"
"I don't give a damn –"
"Have the last three months been for nothing? Do you need me to make you run again? 'Cause I'll do it."
Levi knows it's far from an empty threat. His thighs burn with the memory.
To his surprise, Hanji sighs. Her shoulders bow, and the tilt in her head angles the shine from her glasses; her eyes are dark and warm. Where he could have sunk under Erwin Smith's gaze, Levi feels he could sink into hers.
She speaks softly, and the words are almost lost under the distant babble of officers' voices: "You know Erwin picked you for a reason, right? I've said this before. You know it, don't you?"
Levi sniffs. "I thought you said I wasn't special."
"You aren't, you chump. What I mean is…" She crosses her arms uncomfortably and sets him with a look so pitying Levi feels himself wilt. "Did you really have that much for you back there?"
Levi can't hold her eyes. He inspects the grain in the polished wood beneath his boots and resists toeing it like a child. The truth is that no, he didn't. His life had been shit back home. The money was bad and when it wasn't it was dirty. He'd been a carrier, a pusher, a dick-sucker and anything and everything else that could keep food in his mouth.
Before Levi can articulate his thoughts, or even decide if he wants to reply, Hanji speaks again.
"Levi, Erwin gave you an opportunity. Granted, it wasn't optional, but by bringing you here he's given you a chance." She hesitates, making him meet her eyes before concluding, "Give your heart to him."
That takes him by surprise. He's never given anything to anyone, let alone something like his heart, whatever the fuck that means. He tilts his chin up and there are a few moments of silence as he considers what his next words will be.
He eventually settles on, "How would I do that?"
Hanji rubs the back of her neck. "There are few people I respect more than Erwin. One of them is my mother. She was a chemist, worked herself to death trying to come up with something to cure my brother. He's another one. He's in the fields breaking his back for his village right now despite the fact that his organs have been slowly shutting down since he was seven years old. My point is that people are people, and people are different from authority. My professional place is beside Erwin as his colleague, not to look up to him as a superior, and yet because I've been so close to him – we were in the same squad, after all – I can't see him as anything but my superior. Do you understand?"
Levi looks at Hanji. Her face is not wild, her stance not threatening. He has to look close to see the same woman dropping sandbags on his back as he did pushups in the dirt.
"What do you need me to do?" His voice cracks.
"Be professional. You're in the military, not the kids' yard. Start respecting authority. Let go of this stupid grudge on Erwin, see him as a person. I told you, his head's in the right place"
He can't manage much more than a weak nod.
"Right." Hanji claps her hands together. "We've wasted enough time out here. You get inside; I have some business to take care of."
She grabs him by the collar of his shirt and thrusts him back through the door, slamming it shut behind him again. He takes the time to right himself and straighten his collar before looking up. Erd, Petra and Gunter are all holding apples – actual, real apples – and flicking their attention between Levi and Officer Smith, who seems unfazed by the young man's sudden re-entry.
He addresses the three other trainees: "Thank you for taking the time out to see me, and congratulations on your hard work." A smile takes grace on the blond man's lips. "I'll remember your faces; I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again."
At these last words Erd, Petra and Gunter rise and dismiss themselves automatically. Levi doesn't glance at them as they pass him, and they, too, faithfully keep their eyes down as they exit the room. Levi wonders if he should follow, but something in him knows the blond officer by the window, the setting sun outlining his fair hair with streaks of pink and gold, has private words for him.
Though doesn't look at him either, instead seeming completely and happily focused on peeling something long and yellow. Levi walks slowly forward, daring him to look up.
"What on earth is that?" he asks in as flat a tone as he can manage as the older man tosses the skin onto a platter on the table.
"It's called a banana, quite a rare fruit. They grow on the opposite side of Maria in special conditions. The workers have to light fires to keep the air warm or it'll get too cold and the fruit will die." Smith breaks it in half and holds one end out to Levi. "Try it."
Reluctantly, Levi takes the half of the banana. There are dents in the soft flesh from Erwin's fingers. It smells strange, balmy.
"If it's so rare why are you giving this to me?" he challenges.
"Eat."
Levi eyes the officer suspiciously before raising the banana to his mouth and taking a small bite. It's sweet in an odd way and breaks on his tongue. He dislikes the texture.
"Awful," he says, giving the half back to Smith, who shrugs and places it on the platter beside the skin.
"Everyone has different tastes, I suppose."
Levi humours him with a grunt, watching the man finish his own half and wipe his fingers on a light blue handkerchief.
"Now." Smith tucks his handkerchief back into his breast shirt pocket and sets Levi with a strong, hard gaze. "Why don't you start by telling me your name?"
Levi freezes. There's something in his tone, some scratch between the syllables that makes it impossible for Levi to refuse an answer, and this raises hairs on his arms. This man, looking like some Adonis with eyes capable of physically wilting any person before them, is also able to manipulate his words, his tongue, until telling him your name seems like your own idea and the best one you've ever had.
"Levi," the younger man growls. Smith looks at him, smiles and nods once.
"Nice to meet you, Levi. I'm Officer Erwin Smith."
"Like I'd forget."
Smith chuckles. "Flattery?"
"If you like it like that, sure."
"Thank you."
There's a silence too comfortable for Levi's liking. It settles on his skin instead of hanging around it. There's little anticipation, little intention. It makes him actually look at the older man, gives him time to realise that he's actually (probably) not that much older – early twenties, at most.
"Officer Zoe seems to think very highly of you," he says for the sake of saying anything.
"She does?" Smith raises his eyebrows, though looks somewhat pleased. "That's sweet of her. Though I must admit to suspecting she holds me in slightly higher regard than someone of our rank usually does their equals."
That irks him. "So you're saying you don't hold her to the same regard."
Smith shakes his head quickly, blue eyes slightly widened. "Don't misunderstand me, Levi, I respect her immensely. She's a very… passionate person."
Levi lets his gaze drop and he leans against the table, arms folded, wondering just what Hanji Zoe and Erwin Smith's relationship really is.
"Do you dislike me?"
Levi looks up again. Smith has his back to him, looking out of the window as the sun disappears behind the red brick building opposite. Outside, the courtyard is in blue shadow, making the light of the lamps in the room seem more orange, warmer, more intimate.
"I don't," he answers, and the honesty of the words surprises him. Hanji's face swims at the back of his mind.
"Oh. Really? Then why the hostility?"
Levi shrugs despite knowing Smith isn't looking. He isn't prepared for his own next words, and grimaces when he says, "I guess I'm just a hostile person."
"Hmm." A pause, then: "Save your anger for the battlefield, Levi. It'll help you think more clearly."
"Yes," Levi says, and as an afterthought mutters a quick 'sir'.
"Incidentally, how many titan figures did you get today?"
"Nine."
Erwin hums, nodding. "Very good. You can go now, soldier."
As Levi steps away from the table, aiming for the door, the officer lets out a halting noise.
"Ah – wait a moment, Levi, I have something…" He's digging in an inside pocket, tongue between his teeth. He pulls out another handkerchief, white this time and quite large, and tosses it at Levi. Levi catches it in one hand, eyeing the older man.
"What's this?"
"A reward."
Something doesn't sit right in Levi's stomach. "What for?"
The other man's smile has sharp corners. "Insubordination. The washroom is upstairs, first door. It has brass taps and basins; polish them. Keep the kerchief to remind you next time you challenge a superior officer."
Looking between the soft material in his hands and the smirking man by the window, Levi feels rage boiling up in his blood again.
But he's not going to rise to that.
But he can't seem to help it.
Slowly, making sure he has Smith's attention, he lets the handkerchief hang around his neck and ties it in a loose overlap. Smith's expression doesn't change.
"How about I suck those taps like dicks," Levi spits. "Would that satisfy you, sir?"
He walks out then, barely having enough time to savour it before he hears Smith's voice – saying, not calling after him, but fucking saying, because he knows Levi can hear him – "As long as it satisfies you, then very much."
Levi's walking, and he doesn't even know where he's walking to until his feet catch the bottom of a staircase.
He's seriously going to clean, he realises as he climbs. He's actually going to follow that jackass' orders and polish the fucking taps.
Why?
Because he's remembering what Hanji said about respecting authority? Because he knows he deserves this? Because –
He knows he deserves this.
Levi is nose to nose with the washroom door when he hears it; the sound of running water. Pushing gently on the wood of the door, the first thing he sees is a small room blurred with steam, In which sits a huge brown-gold basin filled to the brim with water. The second is the water running over the brim and covering the tiled floor wall to wall as more rumbles out of a shaking brass tap. The third is a leg, slim but muscular and covered in dark hair, sticking out of the water and resting on the side of the basin.
As he considers walking away Levi notices the water from the floor beginning to wash out into the hallway and does as his first instinct tells him to and moves to turn off the tap. His boots slosh through the pool – thankfully waterproof – and Levi can feel the heat of the water through the leather. So ranking officers get heated water, do they? Levi turns off the tap with more vehemence than intended, causing it to rattle against the side of the basin.
When the water stops, the leg on the side of the basin twitches before sinking beneath the surface. A few seconds pass. Then two hands emerge and grip the sides, heaving up a dark tangle of hair from the water like a monster from a river. As the person's shoulders come into view Levi realises this would be a good time to get out and give them some privacy, but before he can leave the bather's hands come up and move the hair from their face.
Officer Zoe blinks up at him, seemingly perplexed, from behind a pair of thick leather goggles. She sucks in the water dripping from her lips.
"Why are you in here while I'm washing?"
"I didn't know you'd be in here. Smith told me to polish the taps." He fails to keep the sourness out of his voice.
She frowns and grunts quietly. "Well why did you turn off the water?"
Levi looks at her, then at the water still rippling across the washroom's wooden floor. The officer follows his gaze and lets out a small noise of intrigue.
"Hmm, guess I spaced out." She shrugs, sloshing more water out of the basin. "There should be a mop and pail in the hallway."
"Great, use them."
"You use them."
"Uh, with all respect, officer –"
"Listen, you can leave the 'officer' business for when I'm not ass-naked. Also, you're already here to clean, a little more work won't kill you." Levi opens his mouth to retort but she's already speaking again: "What on earth is that thing around your neck?"
Levi looks down to where she's pointing. "Smith's handkerchief."
"And you're so enamoured with your superior officer you've taken to wearing his things?"
He yanks it from his collar. "Hell no. I did it to piss him off."
She lets out a snort. "I doubt it worked."
"It probably gave him a hard-on."
Hanji laughs again, then snaps her fingers at the door. "Mop, now."
By the time Levi returns with the mop and pail she's sitting on the side of the basin leaning against the wall, a white towel cloth wrapped around her and her legs wandering in the still-full basin.
"Why do you wear goggles while you're bathing?" he asks, dropping the pail to the floor with a dull, wet clunk. The officer reaches up with mild surprise, as if having forgotten she's wearing them.
"I don't always, just today."
When she doesn't follow up with an explanation, Levi sighs. "And why were you wearing them today?"
"Oh, I was trying to see how long I could hold my breath for. I kept losing count but I think my best was two minutes and fifty-one seconds."
Levi puts the mop to the floor; it's saturated immediately, and ineffectually sloshes the water about when he moves it. He lets out a low grumble of agitation. "Don't officers have better things to do with their time than play children's games?"
"Hey, you asked. And, actually, I was doing it for science." The discontent is clear in Hanji's voice.
"For science, right."
"Yeah. I was thinking about how I've never heard a titan breathing." As she speaks she reaches up to unclip her goggles. The pucker is back between her eyebrows. "I was trying to figure out the average time a human can hold its breath, speculate what might be going on inside a titan that it can run for miles without taking in air."
Levi wrings the mop out above the pail as he listens to her, finding himself stung by a sense of fascination. "So you've seen a titan, then?"
"Yeah, I mean… It's my job."
"What do they look like?"
Hanji huffs through her nose, teeth gnawing at her bottom lip as she seems to search for the words. "Like really huge, ugly babies."
"What?"
"They look like babies. Naked, usually, with some sort of hair on their heads. Most of them are fat. Some of them have really tiny arms and legs." She draws in her elbows and wobbles her index fingers about in an apparent caricature of the common titan. Levi feels the corners of his lips twitch and ducks his head, setting the mop back to the floor.
"They don't sound that scary."
Hanji hums quietly. "Guess not. But they're pretty damn terrifying when they're pulling soldiers off their horses and biting their upper bodies off."
Levi stills his mop.
"And they have teeth, right?" Hanji continues, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "And some of them are smiling, like they can see you and know what you're thinking. But they don't look at you. Just for you."
"You ever seen someone get eaten?"
"Mm. In fact, I was almost swallowed once, a few years back."
This makes Levi stop and look up. "What?"
"Mm. It was on a mission outside the walls. I was new and I was being reckless. I kept turning around on my horse to look at this little five-metre-class running after us. I didn't even hear the soldiers around me calling my name, and before I knew it there was this fifteen-meter titan in front of me, on me, and I nearly got crushed under its feet. I tried to outrun it but it grabbed me, hung me over its face by my leg – I tell you, those things have such bad breath, but it sort of gets less amusing when you think about what it's from – "
"What happened?" Levi cuts into her babble before he can stop himself. Hanji looks down, into the water of the basin. A little steam still rises from it, swirls with a puff of breath from the officer's lips.
"Well, I thought I was going to die. If it had let go then I would have just fallen straight into its mouth. But then… I was falling, but it was sort of sideways, like I was flying. And then I realised the titan was bleeding and that someone had me around the middle, and it was –"
Levi looks to the floor, swiping his mop through the water in the hopes of drowning out – or simply drowning – the news of the person who had saved Hanji from the hands of the titan. But those two syllables are as easily heard as they were predicted, and Levi grits his teeth when she speaks her saviour's name.
"So what's your relationship with him, then?" He tries – so hard – not to spit the words.
"What do you mean?"
Levi snorts. "He says you're a 'passionate person'."
Hanji's eyebrows shoot up. "He really said that?" She laughs once, loudly. "He doesn't pick his words well, does he? What, were you worried I'm in some sort of steamy secret affair with the guy?"
"You're flattering yourself."
"Hmm, maybe," she says, but she still smiles. "My relationship with him is purely professional."
"Then what does he think you're so passionate about?"
"I'm sort of well-known for my three hour lectures on Titan theory." A pause, then: "Levi."
He looks at her. She's leaning back again, her arms and legs crossed and her mouth angled thoughtfully. "Can we have just one conversation that doesn't turn into Erwin Smith Hour?"
He shrugs, wringing out the mop again. "Dunno, can we?"
"Don't heckle with me."
"I thought you weren't an officer while you're ass-naked."
Hanji grumbles, but doesn't retort. Instead, she sets him with a hard gaze and blurts, "Tell me about you."
Carefully, Levi puts the mop back on the floor. "What do you want to know?"
"Where are you from?"
"A bunch of places."
Hanji thankfully glosses over his vague answer. "What's your family like?"
He clears his throat awkwardly, embarrassingly. He guesses he owes her something; she sort of told him about her family, after all. "Uh… If she hasn't kicked it yet, mother's a whore. I don't reckon my dad is the actual guy who gave her the juice, but he runs her."
"'Runs'?"
"Y'know." He doesn't elaborate, and Hanji doesn't press. He guides her away from his past with a quick switch. "What about you, why are you so interested in titans?"
Unbelievably, she splutters. "Why wouldn't you be?"
"Uh –"
"Aren't you curious about the things that're keeping us here?"
"If I were you I'd be a bit more –"
"Scared? Cautious?"
"Well –"
"When's your birthday, Levi?" She blurts suddenly. Levi stares at her, brow knotted and mouth open. When he replies it's with an incredulous stammer.
"D-December twenty-fifth, but –"
"And you'll be nineteen, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Honey, I was nineteen when I got dangled over a titan." She says the words flatly, but not unkindly. "At the time I didn't think I was going to live to see the next minute go by."
Levi sighs and swipes up another puddle. "What's your point?"
"I'm so interested in them because I can't bear not knowing."
"You do know that once you're dead you won't be able to regret not sticking your hand in titan shit, right?"
Hanji stands up then, and when Levi looks into her face a bolt of pure fear shreds down his spine. Her eyes are aflame, nostrils flaring ad lips parted just enough to make her subject want to curl in shame.
"I told you about my mother, didn't I?" she says in a voice too calm for the black aura rising from her skin. "How she died searching for my brother's cure? She never found it. My brother's disease took her life in the same way it's going to take his. I don't want that to be me." She jabs a thumb into her chest. "I can't ever slack, even if nobody else takes me seriously. I can't stop learning because there might come a day when I don't know something, and it might cost someone their life. And I can't bear that, I can't –" Her words crumble and break. The steam is gone from the room, and Levi watches the shivering woman standing in the cold water of the basin.
After a few moments, when he is sure his voice isn't going to crack, Levi asks, "How old are you, officer?"
Hanji looks at him through her dripping cold hair. She brings her arms up to hug herself, and Levi can see goosebumps on her skin.
"I'm twenty-two."
Levi nods and looks down. He isn't sure what to do with this information, or if anything could even be done with it, but there seems to be a certain distant warmth in him now that he knows this one small thing. He rubs his chest absently.
Hanji sniffs, rubbing her arms, and steps out of the basin. "Get this cleared up and go back to the barracks. Long day of training tomorrow."
"Yes, ma'am," Levi mutters, not without sincerity, but she's already gone.
He finishes mopping the washroom and the overrun into the hallway in silence before pouring the dirty floor water from the pail into the large basin and leaving it to drain while he buffs the taps – and the outside of the basin for good measure – with Smith's handkerchief. He closes the door behind him when he leaves, as if hoping to trap in there everything that has transpired in the last hour, and he's halfway across the trainee courtyard before he realises he tucked the handkerchief into his trouser pocket upon leaving the officers' building.
Levi lays in his bunk that night, arms and legs aching with the events of the day and evening, and thinks about Officer Hanji Zoe. He falls asleep contemplating all the things that stoke the fire in her eyes, and what in the small world it would feel like to save a life with a thought.