Levi didn't know how much more of this place he could take.

He had already been in the prison for a month. One month, and he was already ready to call it quits. He had thought he was so much stronger than this, but of course, he was wrong. Eren had told him not to lose hope, to smile for him, but with each day it was getting harder and harder. Levi thought that when it came to Eren, he could do anything, but he didn't think he could do this.

But it was too late. He had already signed up for two years of this horrible place, and he couldn't take it back now.

During Levi's first week there, honestly, it hadn't been too bad. He could take it okay. He had tried to remain optimistic, but that was hard to do in a place that was designed to break its prisoners, no matter how insignificant their crime. He had heard that as well as those convicted of sodomy, there were also murderers here, and they were all treated the same. He had to admire the idea of the prison, he supposed. It was designed to make them penitent for their crimes, to reform them by giving them plenty of time to think about what they had done and feel remorse for it. However, there was no prison in the world that could make him regret being in love with Eren.

Or so he thought.

This place…this place was inhumane. Its ideas were admirable, but its practices made Levi wonder if he was going to survive. For one thing, the minute he had entered the prison on his first day here, he had barely gotten a look at the inside before men were surrounding him and placing a hood over his head, tying it around his neck. He had struggled for a minute, asking what they thought they were doing, before someone explained what was going on, though it did little to ease his fear.

"We don't let anyone see the inside of the prison except the staff," he heard someone say next to his ear. "That way it discourages escapes and riots, since no one knows the layout. You'll see soon, we value, above all else, silence in Lafayette."

And they were right. He dared even say they went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to achieving their goals. There was nothing that was too extreme for them to try when it came making sure it was quiet. Levi was told that he was going to spend his entire sentence in his cell. There would be no going outside, and if he needed to be moved, they would do so with the hood over his head. The guards themselves were even silent. They said nothing to them; just stood there as a menacing, quiet presence. When Levi did get a glimpse of them, he saw that their shoes had socks over them so that they made no noise when they walked. It was terribly eerie, and they reminded Levi of stalking cats when they walked. They would haunt the hallways like spirits, waiting to catch them doing something that they shouldn't. Usually, that something was making noise of any kind, whether that was just trying to talk to the person in the cell next to them, or singing to themselves, or talking to even themselves. If that happened, the cell door was banged, and they would be told to keep quiet. Some inmates made noise on purpose just so they could be yelled at, anything to break the silence.

Levi's cell door was not just barred; there was a large, oak door covering the bars, so he couldn't see anything at all outside. But he supposed it could be worse. His cell wasn't that bad, though it was horribly plain and white, and made him wish dearly for some colors to liven the place up. He never thought he would die just to have a potted plant in his room, but he was close to doing so. The only window he had to the outside was a skylight in the ceiling that provided ventilation, and a small feeding hole in the wall where meals would be passed to him.

If he was really lucky, they would let him outside for one precious hour every day, but even that area was connected to his cell. Other than that, he never got to see another human presence, and hadn't seen a human face for a month.

It was so ridiculous, even the food cart's wheels were padded in leather so it made no noise, and the pipes which normally would have been humming in his cell with the sounds of water passing through them were in the hallway. Though, he was told that this was also to prevent prisoners from tapping messages to each other, which he had never known they could so such a thing. In a way, he was happy that he was by himself, as it meant he was safe from any of these other crazy people. That had been one of his biggest fears in coming to prison. He knew in the older days, inmates of all kinds were simply thrown together in a holding pen like farm animals, but it was, in many cases, like putting a bunch of chickens in with a fox. The fox would either kill the chickens or teach them even worse predatory behavior and make them more dangerous chickens. So he supposed in that manner, his isolation was okay. As long as he behaved himself, this wouldn't be so bad.

Except after a month, the silence was quite literally driving him insane.

Levi had often spent many days wishing for quiet, or thinking he preferred it after a long day of work. Even during work, it was pretty quiet most of the day. But he supposed he had underestimated just much he depended on the sound of others chatting, or how much he really spoke during the day. He and his coworkers didn't speak much to each other, no, and his patrons didn't talk much among themselves, but it was only now that he realized how much he had taken that for granted. Even when he got home, there were so many times when he wished his neighbors would stop arguing so loudly or do something about their crying children. Even the sounds of people walking on the street below, or the sound of his stove going, or something boiling as he prepared for supper. Later on, he had learned to appreciate the sound of Prince gnawing on a bone or clicking around on his hardwood floors. Now all those sounds were gone, and Levi realized he would do anything to get them back.

Here, the lack of sound was so disorientating that often times he felt dizzy. Even worse, since he couldn't fill the ringing voice with any sounds, sometimes his mind would provide them, especially when it became dark. Oh, the nights were the worst, and it wasn't unusual for him to sleep with a gas lamp on, just so he could stay sane in the dark.

However, it could only help so much.

Some nights, he really did feel crazy. Maybe this place was driving him crazy. He was beginning to hear things and see things. At night, sometimes he would see glowing eyes or white teeth bared at the end of his bed. One time, he swore he woke up with a Mare on his chest, a hairless, snarling little demon with bulging eyes that prevented him from getting up. Many times, the creature's hands would be around his neck so he couldn't scream, could barely breathe. And there was no mirror for him to look into in the mornings so he could see if there was bruising around his neck or not to prove that it had been there. Too many inmates had cracked their mirrors and then used the glass shards as weapons. So it drove him even crazier not knowing.

The voices he heard were like those of what he assumed people in asylums must have heard, and he was beginning to understand why they acted the way they did. On the edge of his hearing, he could swear he heard his name being called, or hearing a man laugh. Sometimes he heard whispers, or growls. Those he could explain away though, as maybe one of the inmates near him acting up. This place was so quiet that he could often hear noises from almost all the way down the cell block. What he couldn't explain was the sound of children's laughter, or women crying. Maybe someone had brought their families to the jail, but he doubted it, not when this place valued silence above all else. And especially didn't explain it when he heard those sounds in the middle of the night when seemingly no one else was around.

Levi wasn't allowed to have anything except a Bible in his room, and wasn't allowed to speak to anyone except a priest that would come once a week. He supposed the Bible would keep him entertained to a degree. It had been a while since he had read it, and he decided he could amuse himself by reading about all the sins he had committed. Even so, the Bible did contain some good stories he remembered enjoying as a kid, and the author in him couldn't help but form those pictures in his head as he read. That was a small reprieve from his loud thoughts that often went in circles and in directions that he didn't like. Most of the time his thoughts would spin off into nonsense directions that frightened him, or reminded him of all his fears and insecurities.

Sometimes though he could get his thoughts to focus on more pleasant things. He was just thankful that even though he was in here for sodomy, they couldn't take away the nice memories he had of spending his nights in Eren's bed. They couldn't take away or control the memories he had of the two of them laughing together, or having picnics on their hill in Levi's favorite place. Whenever he was missing color, he would close his eyes and think of that place, of the patchwork of farmer's fields, looking like a quilt, with the bright blue sky spanning overhead. Whenever he craved sound, he thought of Eren's moans as they made love, or how he'd whisper Levi's name in his ear, or the sound of rain outside their window as they laid in bed together. He would even think of Prince's barking when he caught sight of a bird or another dog and couldn't get to it. Lord, for the number of times he had told his dog to shut up, at the moment he would give anything to hear his yapping.

When the priest came to see him, he found himself asking him about what he thought about the strange voices that he heard sometimes, how he could understand the male voices but not the female or children's voices.

"Well," the priest said slowly, "it could be something mental, something inside your head. Or, I've heard rumors that there are spirits that haunt these hallways of former inmates, as well as the families of staff. Many of those people of course died in violent or mysterious ways, so they're trying to avenge their deaths and look for answers. Some say it's true, some say it's supernatural nonsense. I guess whatever you believe is up to you, but I'd say this prison does tend to hold onto remnants of suffering in many forms."

Well, he had certainly gotten answers, but he had no idea what to do with them. He supposed he had always believed in the supernatural, and even more so now that he was forced to be alone. At that point, he was kind of almost hoping that there were ghosts in the prison so that he'd have someone to talk to. Maybe if one came into his room, he could help it, just to give him something to do besides read the Bible. So, he decided to invite them in.

Big mistake.

In the night, he found himself waking up screaming, unable to handle the sounds of voices whispering in his ears. Even during the day, they wouldn't leave him alone. Sometimes he would feel those lips against his ear as they whispered, their cold, icy breath as they told him things.

"Follow me into the basement…"

"Listen to me- the body is"-

"Help me, help me!"

"I'm going to tear your heart out with my teeth."

Sometimes he would even hear a scream, or a loud bang that would startle him just as he was beginning to fall asleep, and then that would prevent him from falling asleep for the rest of the night. It got so that this would happen night after night, until he was afraid to fall asleep anymore.

Of course, the lack of sleep just made things worse.

Levi had done a lot of research in his day as an author, and he had looked up what lack of sleep can do to a person. If someone went without sleep for long enough, it was like being drunk or on very strong drunks in terms of how much your higher mental functions were depleted. Hallucinations were a large part of losing your higher mental functions, and he began to wonder if those were because he was getting absolutely no sleep or because there really were spirits in his cell that were trying to talk to him.

Either way, he couldn't take it anymore.

One day, when a guard passed by, he found himself begging incoherently, for what, he had no idea. He couldn't articulate what he wanted, just that he wanted. He was scared beyond imagination, and he didn't care how the staff hurt him, as long as they would get him out of this cell. If they wanted to leave him outside in the elements, that would be alright. If they wanted to hang him up by his thumbs, he would take it gladly. If they wanted to splash water on him and throw him outside in the middle of winter, he would freeze to death gladly.

He just wanted to get out.

"Help me," he babbled to the guard through his feed hole, "hurt me if you- hurt me. Get me out. Spirits driving me mad, another cell, another."

"Oh shut up you," the guard started to say, but Levi kept going, sounding so genuine in his fear that it affected him more greatly than he thought it would.

"Please!" Levi almost screamed. His throat felt raw from all the crying he had been doing in the past few days, all the times he had cried for help and found none. "I'll do anything! Just help me!"

"If you don't cut it out you're going in the Hole, you hear me?"

Levi had heard of the Hole, heard that it was the worst possible place in the prison, but he had no idea why. At the moment, he didn't care either; anything was better than being stuck here with the ghosts. Maybe if he moved somewhere else, they wouldn't be able to find him. So, he kept pounding on the walls, trying to convey his agreement, that yes, they could take him anywhere they wanted as long as it wasn't here. He could hear some of the other inmates also acting up in response to his cries.

"I've heard the ghosts too!"

"Get me out of here, we're going to die!"

"Put me in the Hole, I don't even care!"

The guard unlocked and then burst into Levi's room, looking quite angry and desperate to stop the noise. He charged over to the smaller man, cuffing his hands and putting the black hood over his head, and Levi didn't fight him, behaving so that he could get what he wanted. He even let the guard manhandle him out of the cell, practically running out alongside him. He was still crying, still babbling, wishing he could stop because he could hear the how angry the guard was getting in how he snarled in his ear to be quiet, and feel his grip tighten on his arm so hard he sword he could feel the bone grinding under his grip. It made him shriek and the tears come out faster, and likewise the hold tighten and the voice angrier. It was impossible to stop though, and he kept crying all the way down to the Hole.

They walked for quite a while, and Levi could tell immediately that he was someplace he didn't want to be. The air was damper, more moldy smelling. It was colder, the central heating he was used to taken away. He could hear water dripping and the sound echoing as it did so, as if he was inside a cave. He began shivering, tossing his head so he could get the bag off and see where he was. The guard grabbed the bottom of the bag around his neck, squeezing it so that it made it harder to breathe. Levi stopped struggling without the guard even telling him anything; the physical threat was more than enough.

When they finally stopped, he heard a door creak open loudly, and it was clear that the door was not maintained or used very often. From inside came a fresh draft of wet, musty air, something he could smell even though the bag. He recoiled away from it, trying to take a step back, but the guard held him firm. The bag was ripped off his head, and he gasped, though the air outside the bag was not any fresher than inside the bag. And when his vision cleared, all he could see was a crushing, open, black maw rising before him, the shine of dampness on the stone walls on the outsides of the huge oak door.

That was all he was able to see, before the guard said, "Say hello to your new cell until you calm the hell down."

He was pushed into the cell then with a hand to his upper back. The guard was so large that he was easily able to overpower Levi, and send him not only into the cell, but sprawling on the hard floor. Once he was in, the door was slammed behind him with an echoing clang that vibrated through Levi's bones.

The first thing he noticed after the guard left was that it was utterly, horrifically, quiet. So quiet, violently so. He could hear every beat of his heart, every pulse of his blood as it moved through his veins. His blood roared in his ears, and the ringing started. But more than that, so much worse than that…

…oh God…

It was dark in here.

If there was a Hell, it definitely wasn't lit with fires for people to suffer in. When people went there, they wouldn't burn to death for all eternity. No, this is what Hell would be like: dark, cold, and quiet as quiet could be. He couldn't see his own hand in front of his face, no matter how close or far away it was, and there was no light anywhere near his cell, either under the crack of his door, or anywhere.

"Hey!" he found himself crying out, "is anyone here? I can't be alone down here, there has to be someone else."

He received no answer but the sound of his own echo. He tried again, but nothing. Oh God no, he really was alone, he realized. All by himself down here, surrounded by nothing but darkness. He got up, trying to feel his way around, seeing how big the cell was. It was quite sizable, about the size of his regular cell. There was a bed he bumped into, but it was a lot less comfortable, the mattress a lot thinner, with only one thin blanket full of holes. There was also a toilet in the form of a bucket, that from the smell he could tell hadn't even been emptied since the last inmate was in here. However, that was all that was in that room.

Levi eventually found the door again, and against all logic began shaking it, seeing if it was old and decrepit enough for it to simply open and fall away. No such luck, of course. The door held firm, blocking any hope Levi had. He backed away from the door, his breath coming terribly loud in the silence, until all he could hear his own wheezes in the darkness. Panic set in rapidly, and he felt so sick from it that he felt he was going to throw up. He had to calm down quickly, he knew, or everything would become much worse.

Backing up, he felt around again for the bed, and when he found it, he sat down, trying to do so before his trembling legs sent him falling back down on the ground. He then laid down and curled up, shutting his eyes tightly, trying to pretend that the darkness didn't exist beyond his closed eyelids. Instead he was somewhere safe.

Perhaps waiting for Eren to climb into bed with him.

Just the thought of his boy was enough to make him start sobbing all over again. True, happy thoughts of him had helped him through some of his worst times here thus far, but he wasn't sure they would help anymore. It was so dark, so horrifying, that just thinking wasn't going to be enough to soothe him. It was too dark to think, too dark to remember what light even looked like, even in his memories. He had to speak, to remind himself that he existed, that he hadn't spun away into some far corner of the universe. This was like some alien planet where he no longer had any idea who he was, and he felt like he was drifting away.

But would he be punished for speaking aloud in here? He hadn't been when he called out a moment before. Only one way to find out.

"Eren," he whispered, and then waited to be yelled at. But nothing happened; it remained dead quiet, save for the echo of his own voice. So, he repeated his boy's name louder. "Eren, Eren."

It seemed to help a bit, listening to his boy's name reverberating around him. At least it wasn't silent anymore. And as long as he could hear his own voice, then the voices that were produced from his own mind ceased.

At least, for a little while.

Levi wasn't sure how long he was in the Hole for before he ran out of things to say to himself, or when the sound of his own voice no longer blocked out the things he thought he was hearing. He swore he heard creaks, or footsteps walking down the hall. But when he called out, no one answered. He also swore he heard skittering and scratching, as well as disembodied screams, that subsequently made him scream and cry. Like a child, he couldn't decide whether to hide on top of the bed or below it. Either option offered about the same amount of protection.

Sleep in this place was about the same as waking, and anymore he couldn't tell if he was asleep or awake. It was just as dark when he closed his eyes as when he opened them. His dreams were about as horrific as his waking moments too. There were many times he saw scary images on the walls. He saw white faces, sometimes with black eyes and gaping mouths, or without them. Sometimes he saw pigs with red eyes, or specters standing at the foot of his bed. He felt them scratching him, biting him, or was he doing that to himself? He didn't know anymore.

"Eren!" he would cry out, though he wasn't necessarily calling out for his boy to save him. It was more as if he was saying his name was a prayer to banish evil. It was the name of a great good to get rid of a great evil. He had no other weapons at his disposal. Levi would try and fight back, try to punch and scratch, but it had no effect on these things, whether they were really there or not.

"Eren!" he kept shouting, "Eren? Eren! Aurora…Aurora, Eren…"

Levi could hear the monsters panting, just outside the radius of the circle of protection his words invoked. They wanted him, but how, he didn't know. Did they want his soul? His body? Both? He didn't want to find out. He curled up on the bed, rocking back and forth, holding his head, his frantic breathing echoing around the walls.

He screamed.

000

Eren often found himself passing by the jail, whether he meant to or not. He and his dogs, including Prince, would walk by, staring up at the towering, bleak grey walls. The sight alone was to make him shiver with unease, and the dogs never wanted to go anywhere near it.

But unfortunately it was the closest he would ever be able to get to Levi again until his sentence was over.

Unlike some prisons, where one was allowed to visit their friends and relatives, Lafayette would allow no such thing. When he had tried to write a letter to Levi, under a different name of course, his letter was sent back. That was when he had confronted someone at the prison and found out that no outside contact was allowed. The purpose of the prison was total isolation, the idea that if the prisoners were separated from outside influences, and only had access to religion, they might begin to change their ways because they would see the error of them. Of course, it had enraged Eren, and he had called them a few choice names before departing.

He leaned against the wall, the part of the prison that he as a member of the outside world was allowed to see or touch, and looked up towards the top. The sky was overcast today.

"At least you're not missing much in terms of the weather, Levi," he said quietly. "Even though we're into spring now. But hey, guess what? I've started construction on our house. They told me it'll definitely be several years before it's done, but we've waited this long. I've spared no expense on it. So it'll be worth it. And I suppose if you must, you might as well spend it in there. Ah, my poor Doll."

The dogs were starting to pull on their leashes, trying to remove him from the situation since it seemed to make him so sad. He sighed, and with one last, lingering look towards the prison, he allowed them to pull him away.

Since he wasn't allowed to talk to Levi through letters, he found himself talking aloud to him quite a bit. He knew it was odd, but he was so used to having the other man around to speak to, that suddenly not having him there was too odd, so he filled the void by saying what he might have said to him if he was present. He got several looks from people of course as he passed them, but he disguised it by pretending to speak to his dogs.

He just couldn't take the silence.

Eren promised that he would take Levi's dog for a walk every day, and take care of him otherwise, and of course he had done exactly as he had promised. Poor Prince. The first night Levi didn't come home, he sat in his bedroom and whined, sniffing all over. When Eren came into the room to feed him, he barked accusingly at the boy, like he would be able to produce his master if he made enough noise at him. Of course, every night, he had invited Prince to sleep in his bed with him, unable to stand the sound of him making his little whines as he hopped up in Levi's empty bed and wandered around, sniffing for him. He could tell that he appreciated Eren's company, but it was only a substitute until his actual master came back.

Levi was very lucky to have a dog like Prince. But of course he was as loyal as he was, despite being a terrier, who were more like cats than dogs most days in terms of how independent they were. He had cared about Levi enough to save his life during a fire, as well as kill any mice that wandered into his room, often leaving them on the rug next to Levi's slippers in the morning, much to the older man's horror.

"Don't worry pup, your dad will be home soon enough," he assured the dog, who trotted along the sidewalk happily.

He just hoped that was true.

When he got home, Emma was waiting for him, kissing him when he walked through the door. After handing his jacket and hat to one of the butlers, Emma knelt down to unleash the dogs. They ran into the rest of the house when they were free, tags jingling as they ran. After standing up again, she asked him, "Have a good walk?"

"Oh yeah," he answered nonchalantly, following her into the house. "It's cloudy, but warm. Not too bad."

"And you're okay?"

"Um…yes? Why?" Well that had certainly had caught him off guard.

"Well, just, I'm here if you need anything," she assured him. "And just know, no matter what your father says, we don't have to try for a child any night you don't feel like it. Seriously. After what happened to you, you shouldn't allow him to control that aspect of your life."

Oh. He resisted sighing heavily. Ever since the trial, she had treated him much differently. She was too understanding, acting like he was a fragile child that might break at any moment. He supposed he couldn't blame her, considering what she believed happened to him. She even believed that because he had been "raped," that was the cause of his erectile dysfunction around her. He hated perpetrating this cruel lie, hated that now she hated Levi, refused to even speak his name in fear of "triggering" him. This was just too awful, but what could he do?

He supposed that when it was time to leave, he would have to leave her a note, explaining that what Levi had said in court was a lie, and that he was perfectly happy and in love with him. It might hurt her, but she deserved to be with someone else that could be with her the way she needed. He would just have to keep that in mind while he waited for Levi to be released. For now, he would have to keep putting up the façade.

"I know," he replied. "Thank you. You're the kindest wife one could ask for."

And the silence kept ringing out.