December 25, 844
-Part III-
The hum of the singer's sultry voice and lonely saxophone continued to echo in Levi's mind even when he was back in his captain's room. Dawn was less than two hours away.
He still felt lightheaded, not entirely sober. Hange's drink was to blame- that idiot only drank shit that tasted like rubbing alcohol.
The steam fogged his bathroom mirror. With his forearm, Levi wiped at it once he secured a towel around his hips. Inspecting his appearance, Levi's eyes traced over the lines of bruised skin that crossed over his chest, trapezius and sides. With Hange's shirt unbuttoned so low, he kept getting glimpses of the same marks running just under their collarbones everytime they leaned over the bartable to talk to him.
Levi ran his fingers through his hair- he needed a damn haircut.
He opened his cabinet to find the hair tie which had been forgotten on his bedside stand many nights ago. With slightly clumsy motions, his fingers turned and twisted the band until his outgrown locks were collected into a stump of a small bun just above his undercut.
As he stalked over to his drawer, ready to exchange the towel around his hips for clean pajamas, a familiar knock tapped on his door. Levi froze.
One hand hovered at the tuck of the white towel just below his navel, the other upon the drawer handle. He hadn't been expecting them- did he have time to change before getting the door? Levi heard faltering steps lose courage and slowly retreat from his room. Faster than he cared to admit, Levi crossed his room in quick, brisk strides and opened the door.
The hall was dark, lit only by long windows which were overdue for a cleaning. Just a few paces from Levi's room, Hange Zoe halted. They turned around.
"Ah, you're still awake, Shorty," they murmured, standing where they were. Levi saw they were carrying a bag in one hand, but couldn't make out what it was.
He rested his bare forearm, still red and speckled with droplets of hot water from his scalding shower, against the doorframe. Hange understood that they had permission to approach.
As they came closer, Levi saw that their tie now hung completely undone around their neck and their shirt was unbuttoned by two more. Their hair was untied, resting upon their shoulders and pushed back by their glasses. Whenever Hange got drunk, they began to complain about blurry vision- their genius solution was to push their glasses over their head. According to them, it worked without fail.
"I wish I could draw you," Hange whispered once they stood before Levi. The scent of liquor and tobacco from the bar still clung to them, but it wasn't overpowering.
Levi didn't reply. Instead, he watched as Hange's eyes unabashedly traced over the details of his built figure.
"Try to lust with some more shame," Levi murmured after a lingering silence.
Hange's lips twitched up. "Why?" Their fingertips rested upon his chest with a delicate touch. "You're so pretty. I could do a whole muscular anatomy study from your model," they told him. Softly, they traced the marks his ODM gear had left upon his sides.
Levi couldn't hide the shiver that ran up his spine. The way Hange had dropped their voice to a low husky note made Levi vividly remember the last time he had heard it that way. Hange's gaze briefly glanced up to his. There, at the door frame between his room and the public hallway, Hange continued to drift their hands over his warm damp body. The hand of the arm resting upon the doorway balled into a fist as Hange's fingers sunk low, tracing the skin just above the band of his towel.
"I was expecting you to have company tonight," Levi said.
Hange raised their brows. "Really? Who did you picture me with?" they asked. When they drew their hand away, Levi immediately grabbed their wrist. He hadn't told them to stop. Hange's expression darkened as they met Levi's gaze. Their fingers returned to linger above the towel.
"The waitress?" Levi volunteered wearily, "Erwin?" The moment the name left his mouth Levi realized he must've been drunker than he realized.
Hange's eyes widened slightly, then they looked briefly away.
"How funny," Hange murmured slowly, "I was afraid you were with Erwin as well."
Levi blinked in surprise. What the hell had given Hange that impression?
"So a few more drinks in both our systems would've turned the three of us into a naked heap on his floor," Hange mused with a laugh, their gaze returning to him. Levi didn't know if that prospect turned him one or horrified him, but he knew Hange wasn't here for anatomy lessons.
His gaze fell to Hange's other hand. "What are you carrying?"
Hange also looked down, as if they themselves had forgotten the item they were holding. "Oh." Hange raised what Levi saw to be a rather sizable item in a cloth bag. "Hot water."
"Hot water?" Levi echoed.
Hange nodded with a sheepish smile.
They took a deep breath and said, "Yeah, you see at first I had just boiled a mug's worth of hot water, but then I spilled half of it out on the way out of the kitchen-see? my hands are still a little red from it- and I realized that there's no way I was going to make it up all those steps and halls in the dark, half-drunk, to your room with any water left in the mug. Plus, I remembered how you hate tea in mugs..."
"So I decided I might as well brew it in something with a lid, y'know? Looking back I should've probably just boiled a kettle, waited for the water to cool a little and poured it into a mason jar or a clean milk bottle, but my cognitive abilities aren't exactly at peak performance right now and since I hadn't seen any of those around it was all very out of sight out of mind for me. What I did see was this small pot," Hange wiggled the bag a little for emphasis, "So, I heated up a bunch of water in this. I got quite excited, because I realized that would mean you would have enough water for tea in the morning too, but now I realize the water would be way too cold by then. But hey! At least this had a lid. Trouble was, as you will soon see, was that I had to keep the lid on the pot while I carried it up here. So I ran into the other building to get to my study and got my rolls of clean bandages. Came back, reheated the water, lidded the pot and then wrapped it up in linen bandages to keep it in place and….seeing that there appears to be no leaks…"
Hange raised the bag a little higher and squinted at it in the dark to make sure that was still the case, "Well, I think I did a pretty okay job, don't you?"
Levi stared at Hange.
Just stared.
Hange squinted at his blank expression, then lowered the bag. They retrieved their hand from Levi to pinch the air, leaving only a miniscule space between their pointer finger and thumb. "I'm still a wee bit drunk, as you can tell," Hange said in their defense.
"Yeah, Four-Eyes, I can tell."
"I'm not wearing my glasses, so can't call me Four-Eyes."
"You think that's why I call you Four-Eyes?" Levi deadpanned. He pushed off the frame and reached for the bag Hange had carried to him, taking it from their hand.
"It… isn't…?" Hange asked weakly, suddenly looking overwhelmed, as if they were calculating vast sums in their mind. Levi's lips twitched up in response to their confusion. He stepped back inside his room.
Carefully, he set the bag upon the empty surface of his drawer and pulled the fucking hot pot out of the bag by both of its bandaged handles. For humanity's smartest, Hange sure did the dumbest shit.
Levi was clueless to the size of his own smile.
He heard Hange wiggle out of their shoes before stepping in and closing the door behind them. Softly, Hange's steps echoed across the room as they crossed to stand behind Levi.
"This was pretty stupid of me, wasn't it?" Hange mused softly, resting their chin on his shoulder. He could sense them watching his hands.
"What do you think, Hange?" Levi retorted, unwinding the dampened bandages from the pot. He was doing his best not to snicker at the absurdity of it all. Levi heard Hange whine softly at his shoulder.
"Well, did you at least like your birthday present?" Hange asked.
His present had been a beautiful antique teacup, the likes of which he had never seen. If someone three years ago had told Levi he would own such a thing without stealing, he would've clocked them for getting on his damn nerves.
"It looked expensive."
"A friend of a friend knew a guy," Hange said innocently.
"As long as you didn't kill anyone," Levi said flatly and Hange laughed. Finally, their hands rested at his waist. He was surprised to pick up on the hesitation of the movements.
"Erwin got the actual tea," Hange told him, "And Mike and Nanaba were the ones who found the cute little spoon and strainer. I know you're all brooding and tough guy and blood and murder and getting the reputation of 'Humanity's Strongest' but I just know, deep in my bones, you like cute crap."
"So what they say is true, huh," Levi remarked, unwrapping the last of the bandages, "Alcohol really does slaughter brain cells by the second."
Hange nipped at his shoulder in reprimand as he lifted the lid. Steam rose into the air, warming his face. He stared at the gallon's worth of hot water and then deadpanned, "Hange… what the hell do I do with this now?"
Hange hesitated. "...Get your new tea cup."
"Okay, and then what?" Levi grunted.
Silence.
Levi inhaled and looked at the gnat on his shoulder. Slowly, he asked, "Did you bring, I don't know, a ladle?"
A pause.
Hange pulled away from him. "A ladle?" they echoed, voice struggling to remain level. Levi pressed his lips tightly together and hung his head.
"For what? To like… scoop the water into the cup like soup?"
Levi grunted, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing the ball of his hands against them. "Hange," his voice shaking, "I'm going to kill you… Hange."
He could hear them right behind him, unable to respond and struggling to stifle their laughter.
"How the hell else… would we do it?" Levi asked tightly.
"Use...use the birthday… teaspoon…" Hange choked out. Their forearms fell to Levi's wide back in effort to support their shaking body.
"It's the size...and depth...of my fucking thumb, Hange," Levi growled, hands leaving his eyes, "Have you seen… the size of my thumb?"
There must've been something particularly humorous about the way Levi said the last sentence, because Hange cracked and crumbled. They fell to the floor, cackling- wheezing with laughter.
Levi held onto the edges of the drawer for support as he too, lost it. Everytime he pictured the two of them, doubled over this pot, dipping his tiny new teaspoon in and out of the water for hours in effort to fill one teacup, Levi laughed even harder.
His laughter made Hange laugh even harder. They raised their arm to weakly smack his lower back, telling him to shut the hell up. Wheezing, Hange babbled out that they could just use the teacup itself- that they could dip it under the water and pull it out filled to the brim.
Levi's knees buckled. With a thud, he fell to all fours and through strangled laughter, hissed in a pained whisper, "That's so fucking stupid."
Hange couldn't breathe from how hard they were laughing. Their arms clutched their stomach, tears escaped the corner of their eyes.
"Fuck, fuck- Levi- your towel," Hange croaked out, reaching out to try to catch it before it completely came undone and slipped from Levi's hips. For whatever reason, that made the two of them cackle even harder.
Minutes later, with his towel retied and Hange's glasses lost somewhere under his bed, the two of them lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with heaving chests and red faces. Hiccups of giggles erupted every once in a while.
"Do you hate me?"
"Yes."
Hange giggled again, and winced in pain. Levi rubbed his own stomach. He couldn't remember the last time he had a fit like that.
"Is this why you came? To offend every fiber of my being so damn deeply?"
"I still don't think my last idea was half bad."
"Please shut the hell up."
Hange whimpered an "Ow," right after they snorted in laughter once more.
The next thing Levi saw was Hange's face hovering above his, their hair falling forward. His eyes fell to their lips, but they vanished from view as Hange moved to lay on their stomach, prompted on elbows, next to him. Levi rolled his head to the side, looking up at them.
"I actually came here with a… genuinely serious proposal," Hange confessed solemnly. They set their cheek upon their fist, smiling down at Levi.
"The pot of water was to create an ambience?" Levi asked drily. Hange glared at him in reprimand for making them laugh once more. A few strands of his hair had come undone, falling over his forehead, so Hange took the liberty to begin to brush them back.
"No," they said patiently, "the pot of water was for the tea. The tea was for the ambience."
"Mm," Levi hummed skeptically. He eyed Hange for a moment. "Well, spit out the 'proposal' already."
Hange frowned. "I can't. The mood isn't right."
"I'm this close-" Levi mimicked the motion Hange had made to describe their lack of sobriety moments before, "-to kicking you the hell out of my room."
Hange's eyes shined in amusement. "Okay, okay," they exhaled and took a moment. Levi watched them watch him, their hands still rhythmically combing his hair back.
"I thought… since we didn't get the chance to settle on a birth year for you at the pub, partially because I grabbed your arm before Mike could sniff it- Well, I was thinking…. since I don't know mine either… we could borrow each other's?"
Hange shrugged one shoulder. Instead of their usual high-speed chatter, their words had been slow and punctured with uneasy pauses. Their gaze flickered to the side a few times. Levi recognized that they were nervous.
"You were born on the 25th of December, right?" Hange continued, "So, since I was born on the 5th of September, I was thinking I could be born in 825 and you could be born in 815… since you settled on the decade already." Levi could tell that stroking his hair was helping them gather their words.
Hange's gaze roamed over him. "How does that sound?" they asked quietly, "A little less stupid than the pot idea?"
Levi's lips twitched up. He turned his gaze back to the ceiling. His hand rested on Hange's elbow, which rested on his chest. "That means there'll be ten years between us, then," Levi murmured. Hange sighed. They lowered themselves back down to the floor. Wordlessly, Levi wrapped his arm around their shoulders and pulled them against his side. Hange wiggled in.
Both of them had the excuse that they were drunk.
"Yeah, that really doesn't feel right to me either," Hange confessed, resting their head on Levi's shoulder. They kept playing with his hair.
He hummed, thinking. "And 825? That's far too young for you," he added.
"We don't know," Hange defended weakly.
"I'd be really alarmed if a 19 year old looked like you."
Hange wasn't the least bit offended, but they still have Levi's strands a tug. "Blame it on all the sleepless nights and trauma of 15 years in the military."
Levi squeezed Hange. "Enrolling at 4 years old? My, my, you were freakishly huge for your age. What happened? I expected you to be Mike's size by now."
"Give me time, I'm only 19," Hange countered darkly.
Levi chuckled. Hange pulled the hair tie from his hair and began to massage his scalp. He closed his eyes.
"It's just an arbitrary year," Hange murmured, sounding surprisingly dejected, "I was hoping you'd agree. Because, this way...well, I'd finally have a reason to properly remember the year."
Levi listened, but kept his eyes closed. He didn't respond for a long moment. Then, he said, "I'll take your date, you can take your month."
Levi turned to look at the shit-for-brains Four-Eyes that rested on his shoulder, watching him. "I'll be born in 815," he continued, "and you will be born in 819. And these years… let us treat them like they're real. You being four years younger than me… that feels right."
Hange's gaze flickered over him. Levi wondered what they were thinking. They began to brush his hair forward, dragging the raven-black strands over his eyes.
"You need another haircut."
"I know."
"I'll do it in the morning."
"Okay."
A silence lulled between them.
"So…" Hange exhaled once they properly obstructed themselves from Levi's view. "You'll be thirty next year, old man…"
"Mm," Levi confirmed. He exhaled a shot of air, blowing his hair away from his eyes. He saw Hange grin.
"Happy 29th birthday, Levi," Hange whispered. Their eyes fell to Levi's lips. "Let's have some tea to celebrate."
Levi didn't want to move. But he knew they both needed to. "Let's," he agreed.
A/N: I'm ngl... i really really loved writing this scene. and I couldn't fight the urge to post it as soon as possible.