Mamihlapinatapai (Yagan)
The wordless look between 2 people who both desire something, yet are equally reluctant to initiate
Levi
There were flashes of color and faces I did not recognize. The smell of dry gunpowder in old barrels burned my nose, but the air - the wind that billowed across my bandaged face - burned hotter still.
Strapping into my harness felt like coming home. I eased my way down onto a crate. The kids, Mikasa, Connie, Armin, Jean - wait, where were Eren and Sasha? - stood beside me. Their wide eyes darted all about the. . .
Fuck, the word slipped my mind.
. . . The place we hid at, but they avoided looking at me.
There was shouting. Gulls squawked and took off for the clear horizon: the blue opposite of the smoke that consumed all that my eye could see. My stomach dropped, nerves suddenly alight.
What the fuck was going on?
"Captain," Mikasa turned towards me.
Armin's gaze flicked between us. Her hands were white with how tightly she gripped her ODM blade handles.
"Are you sure you can do this," she asked quietly.
The kids dared to look at me while I watched my shaking hand rise. Well, what was left of it, at least. I clutched my own blade handle before my chest.
"Three fingers are enough," my lips growled, but that voice didn't sound like mine anymore.
My thin brows shot up into my hairline. My skin pulled taut against stitches beneath fresh bandages that covered half of my face and all of my forehead. It was me, with a mangled hand and bloodied nubs where fingers used to be, but how could this be me?
Why couldn't I remember anything?
Mikasa nodded once. Armin swallowed. Jean shook his head, long bangs falling into his downturned face. Connie said nothing and looked away.
There was shouting, guttural and frantic. I couldn't tell what they screamed all around us, but I heard fast bootsteps charging towards our group. I looked up from my hands, and my jaw dropped. Hanji rushed forward. Her brows knitted together, shoulders tense with fear. An eyepatch covered one of her eyes beneath her smudged goggles. When had she started wearing that? She paid me no heed as she talked fast, hands flitting all about as she spoke, but I didn't understand what she said. Her drawn ODM blades rang out. Her back faced me.
"Hanji," I barked, flying to my feet.
My weak knees nearly buckled beneath my weight. Pain laced through my bones, as if the dull ache after my suicide attempt had never really left my muscles. Hanji looked at me over her shoulder as I put my blade handles back in their holsters and limped to her.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going, Four Eyes," I hissed.
She smiled at me, sad and sweet.
"Levi," she chuckled. Then she met my glare with a red-rimmed eye. "Please don't try to stop me."
'W-what are you talking about,' I tried to ask her, but my body wouldn't move.
"I really want to look cool when I go out, like in a blaze of glory and all that," her voice cracked.
'Don't do this,' I silently screamed at her.
My mouth didn't listen. I took a step closer to her and thumped my fist against the center of her chest. Beneath my knuckles, I felt the blood rushing through her veins, and everything inside of me knew this would be the last time I'd ever know the life inside of her.
"Dedicate your heart," I croaked.
Her bottom lip quivered, and she sucked it into her mouth before beaming at me. Then, laughter bubbled from her like the goodbye she couldn't bring herself to speak. Her loose hair danced across her scarred cheeks and nape. As she took a step back, my fist slipped down her clean buttons and fell to my side.
A grappling hook shot off from her hip.
'Please, don't leave me,' my very soul pleaded with her.
And then, in more soundless flashes of color and light and faces, she was gone. I found myself in a hollow metal tube, sitting against a wall. Through my boots, I felt we were flying in the air, and I knew that I had once known the word for the machine I was in. But it was lost on the tip of my tongue.
The wailing and shrieked gasps barely reached my ears anymore. I rested my back against the metal. The edge of a cold window jutted into my shoulder, so I moved forward a bit. My forearms laid against the tops of my thighs, and I noticed a window across from me.
All around me, it was the kids who were crying, a keening so deep I felt it in my yellowed marrow.
Through the window, I, too, saw it: a shoreline of crimson Colossal titans.
And I knew where Hanji was.
Violence tore through my chest, hot and vile and desperate. My throat was shredded with the need for it. No, with the need for Hanji.
My tongue began to move of its own accord.
"Watch over -"
"NO," I bellowed.
Sweat soaked sheets wrapped themselves around my thighs, claiming me for the damp mattress. The comforter threatened to suffocate my raw lungs as I sucked in another shaky breath, and I screamed her name. My arms thrashed, and my legs kicked until I was freed. As I threw the last blanket off of my back, the force of my wild strength pushed me over the edge of the bed, and I thudded onto the ground. The wind was knocked out of me. I took a moment to try to force air back into my chest. Blinking in the darkness, I sat up.
Hanji's bedroom was empty and quiet, save for my ragged gulps. The familiar mess of strewn-about uniforms and broken books slowly came to me. The drapes were drawn, but dim candlelight seeped through the door's cracks. I nodded to myself that I needed out.
No, I needed her.
"Hanji," I yelled again as I scrambled to my feet.
My skin pulled against my cauterization scars, but the pain didn't stop me from jogging to the door. I grabbed the knob and twisted every which way. It refused to budge. My fingers (all five of them - thank the Walls) felt around its surface for the lock. However, I quickly realized that the door had been locked from the outside.
"What the fuck, Shitty Glasses?"
I tried to swallow the fear that made bile rise up the back of my throat while I kept jimmying the knob.
"Hanji, I fucking need you dammit."
My fist banged against the door, but the gut-wrenching nightmare had worn my patience too thin. I sucked in a breath and took a step back. Then, with all of the strength my broken muscles could muster, I grunted and kicked the door. Its old hinges whined, and their rusted nails were ripped from the frame. The door, snapped in half, crashed against the back of the couch before crumpling to the floor. Dust and thin wood chips flew about the room.
When my eyes adjusted, my brows furrowed at the state of the front room. Books and reports and other little trinkets were scattered about the couch and coffee table. The bookshelf that was normally flush against the wall had been pulled out to reveal a waist-high metal door. Steady thumping rattled the wall while I stood in the doorway, panting.
Then the metal door flew open, and out popped Hanji.
Hanji
It was a scream that jolted me awake from the depths of my lab. My chin slipped from where it rested in my palm, and my face slammed against the table. Grumbling to myself for letting another candle burn down to the wick, I craned my neck around the pitch black room as my ears strained to listen to the eerie silence. I jumped when I heard it again: my name howled through my living quarters.
"Oh no," I cried out, my stomach sinking to my toes.
There was a crashing sound that vibrated the floors, and I flew to my feet. Not caring to secure any of my work away in their hiding places, I crawled through the narrow hallway and pushed through the metal door that led to the front room. My knees scraped against its sharp frame as I tumbled out.
Straightening quickly, I brushed the dirt and wrinkles from my tank top and night shorts before looking around the dimly lit room. Everything looked the same, minus my bedroom door splintered and resting on the fucking floor. My heart beat so hard in my chest I felt it in my fingers as I searched the shadows for Levi.
As pale as death, he stood in my bedroom doorway, shoulders heaving.
"Levi," I breathed, hesitantly taking a step past the couch. "What happened?"
Lines of worry were etched into his face, pinching his thin lips white.
"I," his voice, husky and deep and raw, broke. "I need you."
Carefully stepping around the door, I crossed the distance between us. As soon as I was in his reach, he grabbed my shirt strap and yanked me against him. His arms circled my back, crushing me in a death grip. Coughing, my hands slid up and down his shaking back nervously while he buried his face into my neck. My chin rested on his shoulder.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
My hands paused. His arms slackened, but, tenderly, he still held me.
"I just. . ."
He sighed, his breath hot against my skin.
"I thought I lost you."
A blush threatened to kiss up my throat, so I busied myself with rubbing his back again.
"Well I'm here." My cheek pressed against his ear. "And I'm not going anywhere, okay?"
He nodded. His hair bunched against me, and we stayed like that for so long my calves ached.
"Let me tuck you back into bed," I said against the stubble of his undercut, breaking the silence.
His Adam's apple scraped my collar bone when he swallowed. My hands slid down his sides. As he let me go, my fingertips traced the veins on the underside of his arm and over his calloused palm. Then, his fingers twined with mine, and we disappeared into the bedroom's darkness together.
We picked up the sheets and blanket, and he helped me throw them over the bare mattress. The delicate sounds of the comforter whispered between us. I pulled a corner of the covers back from Levi's pillow. His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. Even in the hush of blackness, our eyes met.
"Stay with me tonight."
Levi
Her hair was down, and it was one of the few times I had been lucky enough to see it kiss her bare shoulders. The hand of the wrist I held graced over my knuckles.
"Okay."
Slowly, my fingers relaxed and let go. My body protested as I lowered myself onto the creaky bed, crawling under the scratchy blankets. My head rested against the pillow while Hanji slipped her glasses off, and, with a soft clack, she placed them on the nightstand. Then I lifted the sheets up for her, and she slid in beside me. I took a deep breath to calm myself while she settled in. I couldn't stop myself from moving closer to her, pushing my legs between hers; she felt so warm.
Her head sought my chest instead of the pillow, and she pressed her cheek into the crook of my shoulder as my arm moved beneath her neck to cradle her against me. My hand traveled up and down her side, squeezing her hip every now and again. I nuzzled my face into her crown. As she sighed, her lids fluttered closed. Her lashes tickled me, and we did nothing but breathe for a long time.
"Did you have a bad dream," she mumbled into my skin.
I nodded and held her closer. Her arm draped over my ribs, her fingers rubbing patterns on my night shirt.
"I let you go, and you. . ." I swallowed. "You died."
Her hand traveled up my back to gently scratch my undercut. Contentedly, I hummed. She stopped and started a few times before finally finding rest in my arms. And it was in that very moment, as I breathed in the salt and brine of her, I realized, completely and irrevocably, I had fallen in love with Hanji