The crash downstairs has him sitting up and out of bed and out of his room in an instant. He sneaks across the dark hallway, and without nearly making a sound descends the stairs. He's still good at that despite his fucked up knee, not being seen or heard when he doesn't want to. At the bottom step, he comes to a halt, ears straining and muscles high strung, ready to spring into action.
A noise in the kitchen draws his attention.
The kitchen is dark, but in the sliver of pale moonlight, the figure is all too familiar. Levi's taut muscles relax instantly, the impulse to put his knife at the throat of whoever had decided to take a stroll in his home in the middle of the night dissipating. "What the fuck are you doing?" His voice rings out harsh in the stillness, earning him a flinch. His hand finds the light switch, and the light flickers on slowly. They both squint at each other for a few moments.
"Hange." He comes forward till he's standing before her, frowning down at the glass shards. His frown deepens as he notices the droplets of red. He hunches down, ignoring the pain that shoots through his leg with the sudden movement. "You're bleeding, shitty glasses." He reaches out. She still does not respond. Just watches him, eyes glassy, fingers gripping into the hem of her shirt, smearing red trails onto the white material. He sniffs, bows nearer. "What are you— have you been drinking?"
"No." Sharp and unsteady, and her first word since Hange decided that breaking into his home in the middle of the night was a good idea. She has a spare key, but he had not expected this kind of visit when he gave it to her. Or maybe he had, deep down. Far down, with all his own shitty problems, the sort of stuff he does not want to deal with. Not soon, anyway.
"No?" Levi echoes, raising a brow, trying to squash his feeling of foreboding. He shakes his head. "Come on," and he grips her forearm, "get your ass off the floor first and let me take a look at your hand, alright. Then we can talk."
"No." Hange shakes her head. "I—" She sniffs. And next, there are sudden tears, and Levi drops his hand away from her arm, abruptly feeling chilly. "What—" he shakes her shoulder. "Hange?" But the only answer he gets is a sob and more tears.
"Sorry." She gasps, and she twists away from him, trying to hide. Even though there's nothing to hide here, it's all clear-cut, engraved into the blood on his floor, the tremble of shoulders, and muffled cries. And he can only stare for a moment, feeling oddly helpless while his brain tries to supply him with a solution. An answer to stop this, the plain hurt and the awful sounds of misery that are too familiar to him. Make it better, his brain yells. Right the fuck now. It's foolish, he knows. Grief, trauma, and all the other painful shit they have buried deep take time to heal. It lingers and comes back to hit you square in the face when you expect it the least. There's no easy and clear-cut solution. Not right now, not tomorrow or next week. But—
He moves, hauls Hange forward and against his chest, not even himself precisely sure what he's doing, and wraps Hange into an awkward hug. They are both stiff, and the floor is cold, and Levi tries not to think too hard about the possible blood and snot that certainly will be on him after this. He doesn't speak while they sit there in an awkward tangle of limbs. There is nothing to say and not any of his words will make this better anyway. Between the two of them, Hange was always the one who had a way with words despite her chaotic nature. Not him. She regularly had to spring in and act as a translator for his frequently cryptic and crude explanations.
He closes his eyes and waits.
It's a while before she calms down, and by the time she's down to sniffles, his leg is yelling at him to hurry the fuck up and get his ass off the frigid floor. "Hange?" He doesn't bother to hide the pained expression, not now that she can't see it. "Can you move? I think if we do not move soon, my leg will fall off." Beneath his chin, somewhere buried into his nightshirt, she inhales deeply. "Oh, sorry." And she moves away quickly, swaying a little, leaving him feeling suddenly oddly cold.
His knee throbs, and he tries not to show it as he stands. "You alright?" Hange asks as he limps to the nearest chair and sits down. He eyes her critically, crossing his arms. "Mh, it's not bad. But I'm not the one roaming my home at 2 fucking am and bleeding on my kitchen floor." She flushes a bit, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. "I— sorry." He shrugs. "I've had worse things coming up to me at night." He eyes her hand. "Get the first aid kit. I'll make us some tea."
Hange protests for a moment, saying that he should not be standing anymore, that she will both make tea and get the kit. Levi waves her objections away and goes to make tea himself and also sweeps up the shards of glass. For the tea, he chooses a type that is good for making you relax. When Hange returns with the kit, Levi pulls a warm blanket off one of the chairs and tosses it at her. "Keep yourself warm." He grunts when she looks at it with a slight puzzled expression.
They sit in silence for a while. There's still blood on Levi's shirt and possibly dried snot and tears too. Tch. The many questions of 'what' and 'why' are also circulating through his mind. Even though he can guess, but guessing is not enough. However, the tea is hot, and Hange's hand treated, and she seems to do a lot better than merely a half-hour ago. So it's not that bad. He will ask later, try to figure this out. Now they have the time. Now they have the luxury. No titans. No immediate and never-ending crisis after never-ending crisis crashing down on them.
Yeah. Levi will try. Maybe in the meantime, he can also start to sort out some of his own shit.
He eyes Hange over the rim of his cup, inhaling the soothing scent, closing his eyes for a moment.
Yeah. Perhaps.
"Hange." He calls. And she looks up from her examination of his spotless kitchen table. "You should take a shower. You smell like shit."
It earns him a short laugh. And for now, that's more than enough.