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Ch. 57- "Setsuna"
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It almost felt right, walking side by side through Trost. It almost felt normal… but his fingers remaining cold and empty spoke to how fragile this uneasy alliance was. Their hands did not even brush, the distance between them not so great that any stranger wouldn't realize they were walking together, but enough that there could be no incidental brush of the knuckles. Erwin couldn't even remember the last time they'd walked together without holding hands, a habit that long preceded any romantic inclinations.
I'm glad you're alive…
I'm glad you're alive too, Erwin…
It seemed that Thomasin had been pushing herself for some time, fueled entirely by anger and hate, but now that the anger had worn off and the hate at least retreated back below the surface, she was left utterly depleted. Too tired to argue, too tired to fight back any more, when he offered to let her rest back at base, she'd nodded and while he'd given her hand a slight pull to steer her back the way she had come from, the moment her legs began moving, the momentum carried her and she drew her hand back. Erwin let her without protest, keeping his distance, keeping his hand to himself, but not once letting her out of his sight.
The way she shuffled forward reminded him of the Wall Maria refugees when they'd first been dumped in Trost, the body moving out of habit alone while the eyes stared blankly ahead focused exclusively on the horrors in their memories. She had been one of those refugees, he remembered painfully. Even if she had seen some of the Titans when they entered the district, it wouldn't be the same kind of virgin horror that the civilians experienced (she'd already lived through that horror- he remembered her hands shaking so badly as they rode back from their first expedition). But there was a different, entirely unique horror that came from watching civilians die, one he'd felt during the "reclamation" (that she'd also been a part of- god, why hadn't he ever asked her if she was okay, if she wanted to talk, to pour her problems onto someone who might actually understand them?).
She walked at a snail's pace, her body curled in slightly to the left, and as he looked at her legs, watching the way she dragged her prosthesis with each step, he was left wondering exactly how much pain she was truly in when she was obviously still hiding the extent of her agony. He quietly, slowly, offered to carry her- he might have a harder time of it with only one hand to support her, but he could bend further to keep her from slipping off. She did not speak, but shook her head, her agonizing pace unchanged… and all Erwin could do was watch her suffer. She used to let him carry her… she used to love it, be it riding on his back or cradled in his arms…
What's this, now? You used to let me feed you, Smith…
That's what hurts me, Erwin, not this…
Every step seemed as though she might topple over, so he watched her like a hawk, ready to catch her the moment her balance faltered. With her cheeks and eyes so sunken in, it was hard to tell how much of the dark skin below her eyes was a result of Levi, and how much came from weeks of poor sleep. Her warm sepia skin had paled to a sickly, ashen beige, and as he took in the face that he had spent cumulative years just admiring, memorizing, worshiping, he realized something was wrong. Well, of course something was wrong, a great many somethings were wrong, but he thought back to the doctor- augh, what was his name? Gearbox? There had been so many recently- examining her during that house call. Underweight yes, but the low blood pressure, too…
He'd asked to see Hange's laudanum bottle, its label also hand written but more professional than Thomasin's bottle of "soothing syrup", complete with a dosage chart and, along the bottom in large letters, a warning that the contents within were a deadly poison if not dosed correctly. What was the correct dosage? Well, the section commander had told him, confused by this sudden interest in medicine, it varied from person to person, but usually depended on age, weight and resistance. Ten drops was enough to knock Hange out, but a coederoin addict would probably need twenty five or even thirty to achieve the same effect. Thomasin paused suddenly, turning and barely managing to move over to the curb before she began vomiting. Despite the sheer volume of liquid being expelled, she didn't even double over- just stood there, as though she were too sick and tired to move any more. Was this just regular morning sickness, he wondered as the retching finally stopped and he carefully pulled her away from the mess, or had she perhaps brewed a cup of tea before making the journey to Trost?
…in an hour? Who knows…?
He wanted to ask her. As they resumed their tediously slow trek back to the Survey Corps base, the questions burned his mind, What did you take? When? How much? Is that what's making you sick? Is it killing you, even now? Why? I thought you wanted a quick, painless death- that's why you fought so hard to live through the culling… Why…? He kept all of those questions under lock and key in his mind. This situation was a mortar shell that could go off at any moment, completely destroying these delicate tendrils of trust.
The only thing that mattered to Erwin right now was getting Thomasin back to base, measuring their life together right now not in months or years but seconds bleeding into precious minutes that he could hopefully- hopefully, please if there was somebody, anybody up there listening, if Ymir had any love for her children- coax into hours. Days. The future that had once stretched out before him beyond the true horizon now felt limited to individual footsteps, but every time he heard the faint "thump" accompanying one of those steps, it felt more satisfying than anything contained in Grisha's journals.
~o0o~
Faint as they were, he could hear voices coming from the direction of the mess hall, so it seemed likely that was where the recruits were (whether or not they'd gone there of their own volition or if Levi herded them there was still in the air). The halls between the barracks were silent, and more thankfully, empty; no curious eyes peering at the pair through cracked doors. Aside from their steps, his bare feet quieter than her scuffed boot, the only sound from the two of them came when Thomasin began groaning slightly, swaying and bringing a hand up to preemptively over her mouth. He rushed her to the bathroom on the floor but she only made it as far as one of the sinks before being violently sick yet again.
Other than rubbing her back (and wincing at the definition of her shoulder blades through her blouse), Erwin found himself completely at a loss for what to do to help. When anything was wrong with him, from the slightest scrapes to the most serious illnesses, Thomasin always knew exactly what to do, and he… didn't. He didn't know anything practical, anything useful; he could dedicate his heart to humanity until he was blue in the face, but he- and probably every other Scout who had ever served- couldn't actually do a single damn thing to help humanity. He hated to break the silence; it felt like one of those times when you just didn't speak, but he had to.
"Do you need a doctor?" he asked once the heaving stopped. Thomasin didn't answer at first, hands bracing against either side of the sink, panting as thick saliva dripped from her open lips. She fumbled with the brass knobs for a second, turning the water on at full pressure to wash away the mess that remained in the sink and shaking her head before also rinsing her mouth. That did nothing to put his mind at ease; she could be sprawled on the ground leaking spinal fluid and she'd probably say she was fine. "Is there anything I can do?" As she wiped her mouth on her sleeve, Thomasin's brows furrowed, the fine lines near the corners of her eyes more noticeable as she winced, but she blinked and her expression returned to what it had been before.
"…sterilize yourself, so no one else has to suffer like this…" Erwin cringed slightly, not so much because of her harsh words but rather because he wasn't entirely sure something like that would even be possible anymore. While his own healing seemed to have a spotty record as of now, it was an undeniable fact that his body could regenerate damaged organs. He hadn't seen exactly how badly his intestines had been shredded by the shrapnel that tore through him, but judging by the pain he'd felt before blissful unconsciousness took him, he'd venture a guess ranging from somewhere between "pretty badly" and "dear mother of God, how was he still alive; how had that not killed him instantly?". If the Titan serum could repair that, he had a feeling any genital mutilation would also end up being repaired in short order. Hange would probably want to run tests on that…
"I meant can I do anything that would help you presently?"
"…no." Now wasn't the time to argue or be contrary, so he simply followed her from the bathroom, continuing up to the third floor. Entering his office, Thomasin made a beeline for the sofa, lowering herself onto it with a quiet, but unmistakably pained groan, her hand going to her left hip as she leaned back. Erwin's initial instinct was to sit beside her, but that coldly calculating part of his mind that served him so well in the field warned him to stay back, observe from a safe distance. This was uncharted territory, and if he did something wrong, made a mistake, it might prove to be just as costly as his mistakes in battle. So he pulled a chair closer to his desk and sat there, not behind his mahogany pulpit but in front of it.
Thomasin opened her eyes, and for a moment, he was reminded of the Armored Titan staring down at him atop Wall Maria. Even its eyes had been covered in a strange, glass-like substance (something Eren had noted months earlier but which still had to be seen to be believed), meaning that while he could tell that it had been looking at him, that was all he could tell. A stone statue that offered no indication of what the actual person within was thinking or feeling.
"What do you want?" Even her voice offered no insight, her words spoken in the same flat affect he remembered from the Training Corps, that tone that he used to take as boredom which he was only now beginning to realize was probably just exhaustion. Exhaustion on a level he could barely comprehend, to be so tired that even living felt like a chore…
"I don't want anything," he whispered.
"No, you want something- that's why you're staring at me." Her eyes narrowed. "Scared I'm gonna lunge for your blades and slit my throat and get blood all over your nice clean carpet?"
"I'm not worried about the carpet." She sighed, sinking further into the cushions.
"You can relax; I'm too tired and too sick to do anything now."
"If you're tired, I can carry you to my bed-"
"This is fine."
She moved her hand from her hip, crossing her arms, not the way Levi often did over his chest when he slept, but over her stomach, not a defensive position but something that looked more like she was hugging herself. He noticed each of her hands clutching the opposite forearm, where, if he remembered correctly, the scarring was thickest.
She must have been even more tired than she let on, for within a minute of falling silent, Thomasin's head lolled onto her shoulder, her jaw falling just a bit slack as her breathing evened out into something slow and deep. Erwin continued watching her for a few more minutes, making sure that her sleep did not become something more worrisome. He heard no gurgling, no rasping, so he could only assume with his limited knowledge of the human body that she was alright for the time being. The first thing he did was to, slowly, carefully so as to make as little noise as possible, remove any and all sharp implements from his office. He had to open the door prior to gathering his ODM gear (he had considered just taking the blades and leaving the rest, but a quick glance at the hoses and tightly spooled cable made him reevaluate that), holding his breath as he gathered the scabbards as though that would somehow mute the clatter of the blades in their holsters. Thankfully, the noise was not enough to stir Thomasin, so he quickly made his way from the room, debating for a few seconds where to go before ultimately choosing Levi's quarters.
Oddly for a former thug from the Underground, the lieutenant kept his door unlocked at all times, possibly daring someone to be stupid enough to enter his private quarters without his permission. Erwin reasoned that, all things considered, Levi probably wouldn't erase his kidneys for this transgression. He set the ODM gear behind the other man's desk, taking a moment to at least make it relatively neat, along with the pens and letter opener he put in one of the drawers (if he was going to… reverse burgle(?) the man, the least he could do was not make a mess while he was at it). He made to leave, opening the door and nearly tripping over Levi, who was stood there clearly waiting for the other man.
"Where's the gimp?"
"In my office. Sleeping."
"And you're here because…?"
"…I was hoping you could hold onto some of my things for the time being." The lieutenant pushed past him, eyeing the secondary set of ODM gear behind his desk. He nodded approvingly.
"Smart. But you might also wanna get rid of your sheets and any long sleeves or long pants for now." Erwin was about to ask why when he quickly remembered and felt stupid for even wondering.
"Right…"
"You don't have to jump; she's not gonna do anything right now." Erwin watched him take a seat, not behind his own desk, but on the sofa just as he did in Erwin's office.
"What makes you say that?" he asked carefully. Levi regarded him with that unnatural stillness of his face he got sometimes. That was probably armor, too. When emotions swelled too great, it was easier to feign having none whatsoever.
"…you've never killed a human being, have you, Erwin? Not directly. It's hard work. I'm sure it's way easier when you've got a gun or a hand mortar like those fukken Anti-Personnel fuckers, but when you gotta actually get your hands in there and get 'em dirty… it takes a lot out of you. I imagine it takes even more out of you when you're the perpetrator and the victim." Sighing, Levi patted the cushion beside him, inviting his commander to sit. A fierce war waged in his mind, whether or not he should rush back just in case, but… Erwin found himself walking forward on wooden legs. Unlike his companion, who looked completely at ease (if he actually was wasn't the question), his own posture was stiff to the point of looking awkward and feeling completely unlike himself.
"Thomasin said you saved her…" A thin brow cocked.
"Did she actually say that, or are you just twisting her words into something nicer to spare my feelings?"
"She said you helped her." 'She said you ruined everything…'
"And, what? You don't believe her?"
"I'm curious as to what you would say you did."
"I stopped her from making a mistake. She didn't even the open the door the first day; a shitty host if I ever saw one. For over an hour she was moving shit around- she put the fucking couch in front of the door, like that would stop me if I actually wanted to get in that way… didn't open the door the next day, either." Levi crossed his legs, his ankle resting on his knee as he stretched out further, his posture completely at odds with his increasingly strained voice.
"I thought she was gonna feed the chickens by going through the bedroom window again… figured she might hate me, but not enough that she would let those overgrown pigeons starve… but she didn't. It kept getting later and later and she didn't come out, and then I heard something hit the ground so I looked through the kitchen window and…" He trailed off, and with his bruises and dirty clothes and that vacant horror in his eyes, he looked as though he had just stepped off the battlefield.
"Did you break the door?" Erwin asked, wondering if this was the same morbid curiosity Mike's family used to get reading about what happened on expeditions. Desperate to know what happened next in spite of wishing none of it happened in the first place. Levi shook his head.
"And waste time going all the way around the house? I went in through the kitchen window- you're probably gonna have to get that replaced. She hadn't been hanging that long; unless you fall hard and far enough to snap your neck, it takes a while to die like that. It's a slow, painful, terrifying way to go out- I assume that's why the Assembly wanted to do it to you instead of just puttin' two in the back of your head and getting it over with." Levi sighed, tilting his head back and looking up at the ceiling, his brows furrowed, a rare look of disappointment on his face. "I couldn't get her down. Even standing on a chair, I couldn't lift her high enough to slip her head out of that noose… That was the first time in over twenty years that I hated being so fucking short. If I were tall like Mike or you or even Hange, I could've probably slipped her out of it, but no- I had to let her go and let her start choking again so I could cut her down."
"But you did get her down," Erwin confirmed, his voice surprisingly even considering how tight his throat was. "My being tall wouldn't have done a goddamn thing to help her because I didn't go to her house, I didn't break in through the window; I didn't even consider that she would- do something like that again."
"Most people don't, not that soon, at least… but when you feel backed into a corner, you get desperate…" Cerulean eyes closed tightly. Desperate…
"You know her so much better than me… you understand her better than I ever could… maybe if she'd married you, she wouldn't be so desperate."
"…you're ugly when you're wallowing in self-pity, y'know that? Uglier than usual, I mean." As Erwin opened his eyes, he noticed Levi staring at him, his eyes hard, the corners of his lips turned down. "Y'know why I understand the gimp? It's not because we're soulmates with some deep, spiritual bond; it's because we both grew up dirt poor with coffins for parents. Because we both lost our moms and were left with the absolutely shittiest excuse for caretakers who only did the bare minimum required to keep us from dying before leaving literal children to fend for themselves. Because we were both completely alone in a world that despised us for having the audacity to exist in it, until we met two separate blonde-haired, blue-eyed dumb-asses who thought they was smarter than they were but made up for it by being the least shitty person we knew… gotta admit, it's weird that that happened twice… She's not in love with me, dipshit; she is me… but, y'know…" he shrugged slightly. "Without my stunning good looks and amazing personality and giant cock." Erwin gave an amused snort that he immediately choked back.
"I feel like I shouldn't be laughing- not now-"
"This is exactly the time you should be laughing. We don't make quips and jokes about all the horrible shit that's happening because it's funny; we do it because it's the only way to stay sane… and because it's funny." Levi reached out, gripping his shoulder. Most people avoided touching him on the right side; maybe in some deep, primal part of their brain, they were afraid that something was wrong with him, something that could pass onto them and lose them their arms. …even if he did have something contagious, Levi would probably remain just as irreverent around him… "Stop walking on eggshells and go back to your wife. I guarantee you you'll get a better response if you just act normal. Though… maybe take her leg away from her first."
"Why?" Levi pulled at the collar of his shirt, revealing a massive bruise covering the skin between his shoulder and neck. Erwin winced. "What did she do…?"
"She fucking axe kicked me with it," he spat, pulling his collar closed once more. "Now I know how she killed those MPs…"
"It has an iron core."
"Yeah, so maybe take the giant, iron-cored wooden club away from her unless you wanna end up looking like me."
~o0o~
Erwin ultimately didn't end up taking Levi's advice. He couldn't. What was he supposed to do, imprison his wife? Hell, she'd proven full well that she could escape a better fortified base than this one with one leg; he could just imagine her opening his office window and- he tried very hard not to imagine that. The advice he did take was acting "normal", which for him meant badgering Thomasin to take the bed until she ultimately relented, if only because it was closer to the bathroom which she spent the night routinely running into.
Even if he hadn't been able to hear the retching and gagging through the thin walls, even if he hadn't found himself getting off the uncomfortable couch every half hour or so to peek his head into the bedroom, Erwin still wouldn't have been able to sleep. It was hardly his first sleepless night spent in the office, although usually he was seated at his desk trying to fill out a few more forms, write a few more letters… Never had he simply lain there, staring up at the ceiling, pondering an issue he had no solution for.
He must have fallen asleep without realizing a few minutes before sunrise, judging by it feeling as though he had just closed his eyes when the loud knocking on his door awoke him. All manner of disconcerting cracks and pops came from his neck and shoulders as he stood and dragged his feet to the door. Hange scoffed in disbelief as they looked him up and down.
"The hell, Erwin? We're almost ready to go and you haven't even gotten dressed yet!"
" 'To g-'" He groaned, leaning his head against the door frame. Right. The meeting. The meeting with the queen's council, the meeting to discuss Grisha's journals with the council; that meeting. "I'm not going."
"What? You have to!"
"No, I don't. This is just rehashing things I've already discussed with the premier and the heads of the other branches for the queen's sake. There is no reason I personally need to be there."
"You're the head of the Survey Corps!"
"Not today." Erwin reached out, tapping a finger against the curved bridge of Hange's nose. "You're the head of the Survey Corps now."
"You can't do that," they whined, "that's an abuse of power!"
"It's a learning experience. Remember; you're my successor. It'll do you good to learn how to sit there with your mouth shut and quietly nod while people who know nothing about what you do make uneducated claims about what you do and why you need even less funding to do it." He moved his hand to their shoulder. "You can do this, Hange. You have to do this. I have to stay here." They leaned slightly to look past him, eyeing the door leading to the bedroom.
"I thought she was okay enough to move back to Calaneth? What, is she getting sick again?"
That's a coward's way out…
"I assumed she was feeling better than she was. She's… very good at hiding the true extent of her unwellness."
"Is it bad?"
"It's pretty bad."
"Then maybe you should take her to a hospital?" What hospital; an asylum? All Erwin knew of those institutions were the horror stories he'd heard as a child, about someone's uncle's third cousin's neighbor barking like a dog or being caught dancing naked in the woods and getting carted off to live with the other crazies, where they chained you up and dunked you into ice baths and cut out parts of your brain until you were normal. That was probably an exaggeration, but then again, if someone had told him the Military Police could lock you up and beat you and humiliate you and pull out your nails just because they didn't like you… he'd have thought that was an exaggeration, too.
"She's said they'd probably just prescribe bed rest, and that's what she's already doing. I just want to keep an eye on her in case she takes a turn for the worse. It already happened once in my absence; I'd rather not risk a repeat of that…" Despite Hange's lips thinning, there was understanding in their eye as they thankfully nodded.
"You're right. You can justify risking someone for an expedition- you can't make that same justification for a dumb meeting, and I know you've been beating yourself up over leaving her during the mission. Hey." They tilted their head slightly to meet his gaze. "You made the right choice, Erwin. I could barely lead us against the Armored. I was unconscious for most of the battle against the Colossal- I don't even know how they took that thing out, just that Armin thought of a plan. If you hadn't been there to deal with the Beast Titan… we would have failed.
We wouldn't have just died, we would have left all of humanity- all of our people- at the mercy of that thing. Marley would have won and completely erased us from existence." That was true. It had nothing to do with why he chose to leave his miserable, pregnant wife to die, but it was the objective truth. Hange's lips pulled into a grimace. "What do I tell the councilors when they ask why you're not there, though?"
"Tell them the truth. I need to take care of my wife, and if they have any issue with that, they are cordially invited to eat my entire, Colossal ass." The section commander snickered before stopping mid-laugh, their face lighting up with that inner glow that only came from a new hypothesis.
"Now that's a question I need to answer…"
"Oh no; what is it?"
"We know Titan Shifters can grow back parts of their body they lose, but… what happens to the original body part that was cut off? Because every time Eren lost an arm or two, its because it was bitten off by a Titan, but we never got a chance to examine their stomach contents, so does it just evaporate like a regular Titan's limb when it's removed, or does it decompose like normal meat?" Erwin shook his head.
"No. Stop thinking about things like that; you have to be normal today." He grabbed their arm, forcefully turning them around, but they leaned against his hand as he attempted to push them back into the hall.
"As much as you want to, I know you're not gonna be spending every waking second staring at Thomasin's angelic sleeping face, so why don't you run some tests on yourself while I'm gone?"
"No, there are hundreds of things I need to do that don't involve me lopping off a body part."
"It doesn't have to be big! It can be small! Just cut off a pinky toe and leave it on my desk-"
"Go, Hange."
"An ear! There's no bones in that!"
"You're going to be late."
"Just pull out a nail! It's not that hard! In fact, I can do it for you; I'm really good at it. I just need pliers and, like, six seconds-!"
Giving them a hard shove, he quickly shut the door, locking it for good measure. Hange didn't pound on it, demanding he give into the whims of science, but he definitely heard them heave a loud, annoyed sigh before walking away. Glancing down at his fingers, a shudder ran through him. The Titan serum had finished regrowing the nails on both hand and foot, but given that the agony of having them ripped from their beds was still painfully fresh in his memory, he was probably going to agree to having an actual digit removed before he would agree to a nail. But just as Hange did not need to think about Titan experiments at the moment, neither did he.
Inhaling deeply, Erwin turned, walking back towards the bedroom, pushing the cracked door open slightly more. It was still early enough that the drawn curtains, thicker than those in his office, left the room dark, but the darkness was not so absolute that he could not make out the shames of things well enough once his eyes adjusted. It was easy enough to see that the lump that had been curled up along one side of the bed was absent, the covers flung away. He walked in, his steps slow, quiet as he approached the door leading to the bathroom. He couldn't hear anything, no gagging or panting or running water.
"…Thomasin?" He held his breath, straining to hear anything. No response. The walls were thin; even if he'd been talking to Hange, surely he would have heard the tell-tale thud of a body hitting the floor, right? Erwin opened the door, the newly installed glowstone lamp nearly blinding him. The room was empty, no bodies, no signs of recent use save for the faintly lingering smell of bile and a mostly dried puddle of vomit on the floor beside the toilet. He was breathing but his lungs weren't inflating, he was suffocating as he ran over to the window, flinging open the curtains. It was closed. The latch was still in place- it couldn't be locked again from the outside.
The fear was beginning to recede, but in its place, confusion was rising and on the whole, Erwin liked that feeling even less. He knew fear; fear meant something was happening, something he understood was bad but something he understood nonetheless. Confusion meant he had no idea what was going on. There was no window in the bathroom. She couldn't have snuck into his office without him or Hange noticing. Simply by process of elimination, he knelt, every joint in his body protesting as he leaned on his arm, peering under the bed. It was even darker than the rest of the room, but his pupils were dilated enough that he could see the vaguely human shape lying there amidst the dust.
"Thomasin, what are you doing under there?"
"Sleeping." When the hell had she gotten under there? How had she- why had she-?
"That can't be comfortable."
"It's fine. If you care about my comfort, give me a pillow." Erwin straightened, sitting back on his calves only because his back was killing him just from being in that position for a few seconds (he felt a sting of pity for Lena and the other poor women in the brothel). He wanted to protest, to say this was foolishness, to pull her out and dump her back onto the mattress- it wasn't great, but it was better than hard wood. Sighing, he pulled both pillows down as well as the comforter, sliding it under the bed.
"Do you need anything else?" He watched her grab one of the pillows and fold it under her neck.
"A bucket would be nice."
"I'll be back in a minute." The buckets were in the supply closets on the first floor. Standing (and arching his back until it popped, relieving a bit of the stiffness plaguing him), Erwin slipped on his shoes and headed downstairs in a state of undress that would have been unacceptable for the commander of the Survey Corps if he'd been worried about any of his soldiers seeing him. Of course, they'd already seen him yesterday unbathed, wearing two-day old clothes and running through the streets of Trost barefoot.
The veneer of the unflappable, untouchable, always calm and collected and perfect Commander Smith had probably been scrubbed away for the recruits since Shiganshina. Maybe that had something to do with why Eren regarded him with such disdain; the man whose life cost him his friend was not the brave hero he had once gazed upon with pride as a child but a pathetic, broken shell of a man he'd had to watch weep in his basement. Alas, disillusionment was a price of growing up. One day, they too would inevitability disappoint a generation of children who'd looked up to them as heroes.
He'd had to look through three closets before he found a single bucket; if he hadn't, he would have had to go out all the way to the stables, and he wasn't ready to spend fifteen minutes walking across the base. Not yet. He was grateful for these small, easily completed tasks. There were few things in the world that Erwin hated more than feeling useless, and even if he was just fetching things, it at least gave him some purpose. Filling it about a quarter of the way in the bathroom sink (that was about how much water Thomasin kept in the bucket when he'd needed it), he set it down by the foot of the bed. Staring at the curtains and contemplating whether or not he should open them, a quiet voice, almost inaudible through the mattress, slipped into his ears and down his neck like a sliver of ice.
"So what Titan are you?" He shut his eyes tightly for a second, cursing whatever higher power was doing this to him. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have now, but he couldn't just ignore her; hadn't he done enough of that? Kneeling was too uncomfortable, so Erwin instead laid on his back. Thomasin was laying half on her stomach, half on her side, the blanket bunched up and serving as a rest for her arm and knee.
"Levi didn't tell you?"
"Levi didn't say anything. Hange did, just now. I heard them asking you to cut off your toe. If they were gonna start experimenting on normal humans, I'd expect them to either work on the recruits or just kidnap homeless people and prostitutes like all the other serial killers do. They wouldn't be asking you to do Titan experiments unless you're a Titan." He sighed silently.
"The Colossal."
"Did you choose this?"
"No. I was injured and Levi used the serum on me." The room had grown a bit lighter- the shadows under the bed were still dark, but he could see Thomasin's eye- the one not obscured by her hand and the blanket- narrowing.
"You were dying." It wasn't a question. "He used the serum on you to save your life because you would have died otherwise. If Kenny hadn't stolen that case and given it to Levi, you would be dead."
"Thomasin-"
"You aren't supposed to be alive." Her fingers clenched, twisting into the pillow so hard he could hear the cloth straining at the seams. "I was right-!" he rolled onto his stomach so that he could reach her, placing his hand over hers, rubbing his thumb over her prominent knuckles.
"But I am alive. Listen to me, please. I didn't chose to be turned into the Colossal Titan, Thomasin, but I did chose to get injured. The mission went to hell- there was another Titan, one that I would say was even more dangerous than the Armored or Colossal. That thing wiped out half of my soldiers by itself and if I had done nothing, if I had chosen to stay safe, there was nothing stopping it from heading north and wiping out the rest of humanity. I hadn't seen the basement at that point- I thought about it, about abandoning my terrified recruits and saving my own skin… but if I'd done that, it wouldn't have just been them being turned into a red mist by that monster… it would have been you. It would have been our child. I didn't know that you were hurting… I didn't know that you would have welcomed a rock crushing your skull; I thought you were happy and I chose to give up my dream and ride to my death thinking that I was protecting that happiness." Thomasin remained quiet, her fingers not uncurling from the pillow, but her knuckles receding under the skin somewhat as her hand relaxed.
"So you couldn't bear the thought of being alive if I was horrifically murdered by a Titan?"
"I wouldn't want you to be horrifically murdered by anyone." 'Not even yourself…'
"…and yet, you believe I could ever be happy again if that happened to you."
"N-no, that's-"
"You figured that I would be sad for a while but then move on eventually because… that's just what would happen. No one would miss you that much. No one would shed that many tears for you." Erwin opened his mouth to argue, but it quickly dawned on him that there was nothing accusatory in her tone, her statements treated as banal truths spoken with just a hint of… fatigue? It was a sad kind of tired.
"Is that what you told yourself…?" The dark eye closed.
"No. It's not the same. You're somebody. You have friends, you have subordinates, you have peers… you have admirers and dissenters… If I died after you, the only ones who would notice something is missing would be Henry and Bernie."
I don't have those things… I have people I know. People I work with…
I don't have anyone else…
"I think…" he began, choosing his words as carefully as possible, "far more people would notice than you realize. Of course the girls would be the saddest- they'd be losing their mother- but you didn't even include Levi on that list. How many times have you told me that you and him are friends?" The eye snapped open, filled with anger, and he immediately regretted saying anything.
"That stupid piece of shit isn't my friend. He isn't anyone's friend. He isn't capable of forming relationships with humans. That thing is just a tool that exists to carry out your bidding. If you died, he would have just held his breath until he died too, because he exists as an extension of you and nothing else." Maybe he wasn't gaping, but he was certainly slack jawed and speechless. It never would have occurred to Erwin that Thomasin would ever harbor such a low opinion of Levi. Even after he'd told her that the man was planning on killing him, she had been distraught, of course, but some time after that, it seemed that the two of them became acquaintances.
Levi told him of the way she used to speak of him "back then". It could have been any time in the last six years, but… given that they'd already seemed to have a rapport when Thomasin stayed on base after the culling, he had to assume that their relationship evolved before Wall Maria fell. That would explain why Levi knew where she'd worked in Shiganshina, how he knew where she lived in Calaneth. Why Thomasin was so flippant and nonchalant around him, touching him with the same careless ease she'd always touched Erwin with. Levi knew things about her that she would have taken to her grave if given the chance. She knew things about Levi that still clearly hurt and shamed him. If that wasn't friendship, then what was? So what- the bridge. Of course. He shook his head, shifting closer to her until he lay half under the bed as well.
"That's not true, Thomasin. If Levi existed as an extension of me, he wouldn't be as harsh as he is." Inhaling, he contemplated for a moment if the things he wanted to say might not be classified information, but ultimately decided that he didn't care one way or another. "You seem to have at least some idea of the quirks of the Ackerman family, their… predisposition for following orders, I suppose you'd call it. There's another Ackerman in the Survey Corps. Mikasa."
"Dr. Yaeger's girl. I met her while I was here the other month." Erwin nodded.
"Given that you were helping run tests on Eren, I assume you saw how… close she is with him?"
"She followed him like a dog. He didn't seem to appreciate it, much."
"Eren is a very pissy child, but we're not talking about him, not directly. Mikasa has killed for Eren. She would gladly kill for him again- she attempted to kill Levi to prevent him from giving me the Titan serum because Eren wanted it to be used on a friend of his. She disobeys orders and behaves recklessly for Eren's sake. She follows him blindly, without critique or judgment. It might be a cruel thing to say, but it wouldn't be untrue to say she exists as an extension of him. Levi is not the same." Thomasin opened her mouth to argue, but he continued, raising his voice just enough to speak over her disagreement.
"Levi follows my orders because he believes them to be the best judgment. He does not obey blindly- when he disagrees with me, he tells me loudly and often. He has argued with me in the field, while on missions, when he feels that my calls are the wrong ones. And off the field, it's even worse. The day before the expedition… he stood in my office for almost ten minutes, arguing with me to stay here. He threatened to break both my legs, and I have no doubt in my mind that he would have made good on that threat if I hadn't made it clear that I wouldn't let that stop me. If he were an extension of me, he would obey me without complaint. He would treat my opinion as gospel, and he would fall in line with whatever I wished simply because I wished it. My desires would be just because they are my desires… an extension of me would not despise me so." Erwin rolled onto his side, further under the bed, the wooden frame scraping against his shoulder as he squeezed Thomasin's hand tighter.
"Levi despises me because he loves you. Because I hurt you, who are precious to him, with my callousness and ignorance, just like he despised me for putting his other precious friends in a situation where they died." If he wasn't as close to her as he was, he wouldn't have seen her lips quivering, mostly hidden by the blanket and her hand. The shake of her head was more of a jerk.
"No. Levi loves you. The only reason he won't let me die is because that would upset you. My life, independent of you, means nothing to him. That's how it's always been." She blinked, and a drop of warm water fell on his knuckles. "…it just didn't bother me before, because I agreed that's how it should be."
"That's not true-"
"It is." She sniffled, another tear pooling on his hand until it rolled down into the crevasse between his fingers. "No one would care about me if it wasn't for you. No fancy hospital in Ehrmich would treat me. The military wouldn't let me get away with killing their own. I wouldn't have my pension reinstated, or find someone to rent me a house, or even get my job in the Garrison hospital. Everyone would let me die if I wasn't some thing that belonged to The Commander. No one would miss me. No one would care. Everyone would just feel bad that The Commander lost his thing."
Her fingers tensed beneath his hand and she turned her head to bury her face fully in the pillow, muffling the hitched gasps coming in time to her shaking shoulders. He wanted to argue, to tell her she was wrong on principal because he wanted her to be wrong… but she wasn't. The world was cruel. Even on this tiny speck of dust known as Paradis, the apathy and callousness and cruelty was almost too much to accept. Humans cared about very little unless it personally affected them. Erwin shifted closer, his torso completely under the bed by this point. He moved his hand up, from her hand to her wrist, the span of his fingers wide enough to cover half of her forearm, and he pressed his lips against the back of her hand. The skin there was soft and smooth, unlike her calloused palms, unblemished and even, no sign of the pain that lay only centimeters further down.
"I would miss you," he muttered against her skin, hoping his breath would warm her chilled knuckles. "I would care. For the majority of my life, I was no one. I was nothing. If I died, the only people who would notice I wasn't there would be the people in my squad, and eventually, I would be replaced and forgotten. I didn't even receive letters on mail days, not a single one… until you wrote to me. When I realized you would miss me if I died, even if you were the only one… that became enough of a reason for me to want to live. For me to do everything in my power to come back, because there was someone waiting for me… Is that not enough for you? Is it not enough that I would miss you?"
The sniffling and choked whimper were silenced, the shaking restrained to trembles he could feel under his palm as her muscles continued to spasm. Her face remained pressed deep in the pillow. Her silence could have easily been read as an answer; perhaps it was, but Erwin chose to think of it rather as a sign that this conversation was over for now. That was okay. It was good, even.
They had spoken. She had not pulled away from him or told him to die, or even to leave. She did not brush off his concerns and assure him she was fine, but confessed that something was bothering her, something was hurting her. Of course, he hadn't exactly helped, but at least it seemed that he hadn't made things much worse, either. It was… maybe not so bold as a step, but a creeping slide, a single foot… not forward. Back. Away from the edge.
~o0o~
Erwin had no idea how long he'd stayed under the bed. His stump was in searing agony from the way he'd laid on it, the pins and needles evolving into full blown knives tearing into the muscles as they cramped, but he'd stayed perfectly still in spite of his pain. Eventually, Thomasin's arm stopped twitching under his palm, and the trembling in her shoulders stopped as well. At some point, she shifted her head, just enough that her mouth and nose were uncovered, allowing her to breathe freely. Erwin listened to those breaths slowly even out, growing slower and deeper. His hip was killing him, but the pain was a small price to pay to once more hear the calm, soothing rhythm of her breathing.
The gurgling that had plagued her whilst she was hospitalized was completely absent- the Ehrmich doctor told him that she'd probably choked on her own vomit and it went into her lungs. She was lucky she was young and healthy; aspiration often resulted in pneumonia or infections, and once it gets to your chest, they can't very well amputate that, now can they? She was healthy, but more importantly, she was lucky- well… no, by her standard, Thomasin was very unlucky, constantly surviving things that she wished she wouldn't.He was lucky, Erwin corrected himself.
He was lucky that the Interior MPs who murdered his father took pity on him, allowing him to live and grow up and meet many people, people who would become precious to him. He was lucky that those people lived long enough for him to know them and love them, and even though each and every loss hurt, he was lucky that he too had been loved by them. He was lucky that the always sad and tired and strangely beautiful girl he talked to in the Training Corps liked his eyes enough to join the Scouts with him, because if she had gone to the Garrison like she'd wanted, there would have been no one to make her feel guilty enough to stop her from jumping off Wall Maria. And then there would be no one waiting for him within the Walls, no one to make him see how big the world was but how so much of its beauty came from the small, simple things he always overlooked. The person he loved the most was sleeping on the floor under his bed, sick and sad and hurt and alive, rather than hanging from the rafters or floating down the river, cold and bloated and stiff, and he was so very lucky…
He moved as slowly as he could, praying with every shift and scooch that he wouldn't wake her. He managed to slide out from under the bed completely without too much sound or effort, but the trouble then came from needing rise. It felt like someone had jabbed a red-hot poker into his hip, and as Erwin rocked and pushed himself into a seated position, he had to bite hard on his lip to keep his pain silent. It seemed unfair that Titans Shifters could grow back entire limbs, but here he was struggling with arthritis and the cramping of an arm he no longer possessed. But then again, the only Shifters they'd known until this point were children, boys and girls less than half his age in the prime of their life. If he assumed that all of the Shifters they knew, those from Marley (sans the Beast given that Zeke was older than the rest) and Eren, had been about ten when they'd first been given their Titans, then their bodies were as robust as possible and would only get stronger from there.
Erwin had been a soldier for thirteen years at that point, putting so much wear and tear on his body through vertical maneuvering that he'd begun waking up with back pain before he reached his thirtieth birthday, to say nothing of the injuries he'd endured. The Titan Serum was not some miracle elixir, it seemed; it simply kept a Shifter near the baseline that their health had been when they'd been turned. So he could recover from getting caught in a mortar blast, and continue enjoying sciatica long afterwards. He wasn't even upset, just annoyed as he slowly climbed to his knees and stood, leaning heavily against the wall to resist the urge to collapse onto the bed. That would definitely wake Thomasin up, and he was hoping to avoid that.
Staggering back into his office, he slumped onto the chair behind his desk, resting his elbow on the papers he had yet to put away and his forehead on his open palm. He wished they were back in their house on the Trost outskirts, where the furniture had been chosen for comfort, not because it was practical and fit into budgetary constraints. Mostly, he just missed the tub. He hadn't used it often, given that he usually got back around midnight, but once or twice, he'd found a bath already prepared for him (usually with a note from Thomasin to please bleed out quietly if he slipped and cracked his skull open in the dark). The tepid bath was easily warmed with a pot of boiling water, and simply being able to soak in the warmth for a while had done wonders for the bruises and aches his vertical maneuvering practice resulted in. He was honestly considering renewing the lease just to take a few more baths. It would probably be good for Thomasin, too; however much his joints ached probably paled in comparison to the pain she was clearly enduring with every step.
She had told him before that moving fast caused a great deal of pain, but even when she told him outright how much she suffered, her words went in one ear and out the other, overwritten by whatever more important matters he had to think about at the time. There was a small stack of envelopes on his desk, housing the condolence letters he'd completed, those that only needed to be sealed with wax. He'd left his pen on an incomplete letter, a blot of ink staining the paper where it had dripped from the nib before drying out. He squeezed his eyes shut until they hurt, breathing hard and pushing himself to stand. He needed something to do, something that didn't involve Titans or letters or dead soldiers.
~o0o~
The washtubs were in the storage shed behind the stables, beside the iceburst tanks. They hadn't been used in a long time- the Survey Corps had remained the least funded branch until only a few weeks ago, but gone were the days of needing to turn over every Maria in their budget twice before spending one. There had been a window following their first successful cache drop where the people within the Walls had hope that the Survey Corps would succeed in reclaiming Wall Maria and Erwin, viper that he was, took that opportunity to strike as hard and often as he could, ingratiating himself to the wealthy and powerful (or, more accurately, their wives), stooping as low as he needed to do what was needed.
Contracting with a laundering company had wounded his frugal soul, but freeing up time for his Scouts meant they could spend that time training when needed and resting when not, meaning they remained in better condition overall. Of course, for as backbreaking as the work could be, a part of him missed the more tedious chores Scouts once partook in in his time. It was a form of bonding with ones' squad mates in a way that training and patrols simply couldn't replicate. The larger tubs they'd washed bedding in were far heavier than the others- he'd nearly thrown his back out trying to lift one by himself when he'd been a new recruit, both jealous and awed watching Mike carry it by a single handle out to the courtyard.
While Erwin was certain he didn't make it look nearly as effortless as Mike once had, he too could now lift the behemoth with one hand, although his destination was much further than the courtyard. Lugging the damned thing back around the base was tiresome enough, but despite stopping on every landing, by the time he made it back up three flight of stairs, his arm felt as though a Titan had been gnawing on it (a pain he knew intimately enough for that to not be hyperbole). He'd had to roll it the last few meters up the hall and through his quarters, into the bathroom. Setting on the tiles beneath the shower head, he turned both knobs as high as they would go, recoiling as the initial spray of icy water soaked his sleeve. Thankfully, it did not take long for the small room to fill with steam, and he allowed himself a self-satisfied smile. Given that the floor was already wet, he allowed the tub to fill to its brim before turning the water off and stepping out.
"What was all that?" a pained whisper called from under the bed.
"I ran you a bath. Your leg hurts, yes? I figured this would help." Erwin was fully prepared for the possibility of Thomasin ignoring him- one did not last long in the Survey Corps if they didn't learn to temper their expectations-but he still breathed a sigh of relief as first one hand, then another, appeared from beneath the bed.
There were little bits of dust clinging to her hair as she slithered out, but she paid that as little mind as his proffered hand, pushing herself up to stand with more grace and ease than he had managed. Gone was the woman who had needed his help sitting on their picnics, who had been unable to stand after the culling, and in her place stood a woman who had long since learned that she could depend on no one, especially not him, for even the slightest aid. Still, the moment she put weight on her left side, she grimaced, clutching at her hip.
"Since when do you have tubs on base?"
"Since forever- I just never thought about it. Look." Every wince as she limped forward stabbed at him, but even if he'd had a right arm to offer, she would have ignored it.
"…huh." Thomasin gave a small, but nonetheless approving nod as she looked at the steaming bath. "That's actually smart."
"Sometimes, I get so stupid it wraps back around to being genius."
"I mean, I can't use it, but-"
"What?"
"-enjoy yourself-"
"No." Erwin grabbed her wrist without thinking as he always did, hating himself for the imperceptible shudder that ran down his spine. "I did this for you."
"I can't sit in that," she explained to him in a low, almost bitter voice. "It's too low. The only reason I can sit in normal tubs is because they have high sides I can hold onto." He stared at her incredulously.
"…I can help you. Thomasin…" He let his hand slip down to hers, careful of her injured fingers. "I want to help you. I've always wanted to help you, but… I… I'm stupid. I'm ignorant. You're so unlike anyone I've ever known that when something happens, I have no idea what to do and just end up making things worse. You have to tell me. Tell me what you need, what I can do." Thomasin had not looked at him as he spoke, but at his hand, as it moved from her wrist to her fingers. She slowly pulled it back, grabbing the hem of her sleeve with the fingers that weren't bandaged and pulling it down over her knuckles as she turned and limped back to the bedroom.
"How would you help me?" she asked, sitting on the corner of the bed. "You can't carry me anymore- you only have one arm."
"That hasn't stopped me from doing anything yet. I could toss you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes again, but I was thinking instead to just carry you on my back and lower you in like that."
"…I'd have to undress, first…" She pulled down her other sleeve, holding them in place with her thumbs, worrying at the hems. He considered reminding her that he'd already seen her in the hospital, that her… marks didn't bother him (even though they did, a great deal), but…
It's not about what you think, Erwin! It's ugly to me, and I don't want you to see it…!
He went to his dresser, pulling open the top drawer and haphazardly pushing aside his shirts until he found what he was looking for, sitting beside Thomasin and presenting her with a box tied with a bow. She side-eyed it, a frown tugging at her lips.
"What's this?"
"Something I bought for you when I went to Mitras for the queen's coronation. I wanted to give it to you when I returned, but… let's just say I forgot." She did not take the box, her lips thinning as her jaw tightened. Of course she would be even less amenable to his attempt to bribe his way back into her good favor now, but Erwin had already conceded that that ferry had long since sailed. Tugging the ribbon loose with his teeth, he let it fall to the floor and placed the opened box on her thigh. Her annoyed scowl turned to confusion as she lifted one of the gloves from the box, a long pale beige sleeve with laces running up the side.
"I wanted to buy you a book," he explained, "but then I saw these on display in a window, and the next thing I knew, my wallet was about ten Sinas lighter. I confess, my motivations were selfish- I thought if you could cover up that birthmark, you would be willing to take your shirt off in front of me…" And maybe he had entertained the idea of seeing her on top of him wearing nothing but gloves. "That logic still holds true now, but for different reasons. You can wear them in the tub so I can't see you."
"They're leather…" she whispered, running her hand over the fine grain. Erwin nodded.
"Kid leather, and lined with silk so they shouldn't sweat."
"And you would have me ruin them by getting them wet?"
"If a little water could ruin leather, I wouldn't be wearing the same boots from eight years ago. I'm not going to waste money on something that can fall apart after one use…" He reached out, laying his fingers over her own. "But even if they did… yes. I would have you ruin them, if it meant you could feel better, at least for a little while." She ignored his hand this time, tracing the seam on one of the gloves. When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet he could barely hear her from right beside her.
"…okay."
~o0o~
Once she'd undressed, the gloves still unlaced but pulled all the way up past her elbows, getting her in the tub had been fairly easy. She'd hissed slightly as she lowered herself in with slightly less grace than she might have otherwise managed, sending the steaming water cascading over the sides of the tub and soaking into his already wet pants.
"Since I'm already wet, why don't I wash your back for you?" By the time he turned to face her, Thomasin had drawn her knee to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself so tightly that the gloves covered most everything that the water didn't already obscure.
"I can bathe myself."
"…is this how stubborn I was when I was sick?" She scoffed slightly.
"You couldn't deal with anyone being as stubborn as you…" Pulling the soap dish over closer, he lightly moved her braid over her shoulder and dunked the washcloth into the tub, squeezing the water over her shoulder blades.
"I'll leave you be after I wash your back." She could have snatched the washcloth away from him. She could have slapped him across the face and told him to leave her be when she said to the first time… but she didn't. She just sat there silently, her arms still wrapped around herself, her chin resting on her knee. Erwin frowned slightly as he noticed all the flyaway curls that had come loose from her braid and the dust matting it. "Maybe I should wash your hair-"
"No. You'd just make it worse." There was the firmness in her voice, the tone that brooked no dissent. So instead, he grabbed the soap with the cloth, working up a rich lather and running it over her shoulders.
With the brightly shining glowstone, he could easily see the mottled bruises around her arms, the sharp edges of her shoulder blades, the ridges of her spine and ribs where the skin stretched tightly over her bones. His motions were slow, careful, as though the slightest amount of pressure might cause something to break. For as sobering a sight as she was, a part of him was excited as well, albeit a rather subdued excitement. She always wore her blouses or nightgowns, or his shirts, when they'd lain together, either to make love or simply to sleep, and while she'd had no qualms about letting him snake his hand under the hem and touch her bare skin, feeling was not seeing.
For instance, he never would have known about the jagged pale lines near her shoulders had he relied on touch alone, the same ones he'd seen on her breasts and hips. He had similar marks on his back and thighs, faded white scars left over from when his growth spurt had him needing to get the hems of his cuffs let out every other month. He smiled as he watched the tiny bubbles run over those marks, his simple joy turning to bemusement as he moved the cloth over the center of her back. A cluster of strange, oblong scars were dotted between her shoulder blades. He paused his ministrations, frowning slightly as he ran his pinky over one of them.
"That wasn't me." He didn't jump, but he certainly felt his heart skip a beat.
"What?"
"You're wondering how I could reach back there. I didn't. That wasn't me."
"…I wasn't—"
"Yes, you were. Don't lie." He swallowed hard, washing around the welts.
"I've never seen scars like this before…"
"You don't smoke." For a while, silence hung between them, the only sound the occasional splash as the water lapped against the sides of the tub or sloshed onto the tiles. The first sniffle was so quiet he almost didn't hear it, but the second was accompanied by a hitched breath he couldn't have ignored if he'd wanted. He stilled instantly.
"Am I hurting you?" Thomasin shook her head as her arms trembled, her already soft crying muffled further by her gloves. "Do you want me to stop?" he asked in a lower voice, and she shook her head again. So Erwin continued, less washing and more caressing the skin before him as she wept.
000000000
*A/N- Musical Bear- Eren just sullenly accepting this shitty fate broke my brain. His entire character from the beginning was that he refuses to accept anything that goes against what he wants, regardless of how stupid and nonsensical what he wants might be, and in the blink of an eye it just becomes "welp, can't fight fate". I sincerely believe that AoT being one continuous story was (one of) the main problem(s) with the narrative. The Marley arc was already a massive timeskip and genre shift- it screams "sequel" and should have just been made into one properly instead of arbitrarily deciding your story has to end on a certain numbered chapter. Have an entire volume of this sequel dedicated to showing Eren living through one version of events in Paths, seeing everything go wrong, and interjecting himself into another timeline/ universe where he tries things differently multiple times. Don't even go into depth about what all goes wrong, just show a few pages of the horrors and atrocities Eren witnesses as he tries and fails to save the world, growing more jaded every time until he becomes the bitter spree killer we see him as. Maybe show him interacting with Historia for more than a few days so that it makes a tiny bit more sense that he would be willing to commit omnicide for a girl he totally isn't in love with just so she doesn't have to be a baby factory... which, y'know, is her job (I know he's crazy and stupid, but it still feels so out of left field, especially with the *retches* "romance" we're told of in the end. I hate the *gags* "romance" in AoT so fucking much- it should have been Historia and Ymir and nothing else). It can still be a sudden shift in the narrative seeing as time doesn't pass in Paths, but at least show the audience. Just because something is a twist doesn't make it good.
000000000
A/N- I very much want to know what canonically happens to the body parts human Shifters lose. We can assume they stay around for a while, given that Hange was able to hold onto Eren's tooth, but we never see what happens to it afterwards. We've been shown that their blood evaporates… I think- it's really hard to tell sometimes if something is happening on purpose, or if Isayama and WIT just forgot/ didn't want to draw things (e.g. Erwin's bruises vanishing in less than 24 hours after being tortured). If it does evaporate when it leaves their body, does that mean female Shifters don't need pads/tampons since the blood just vanishes or is it only circulatory blood that evaporates? What if they donate blood that's used in a transfusion- would it evaporate while inside a non-Shifter's body? If their body parts don't disintegrate, can they be farmed for meat? This is literally the only shit I think about concerning AoT…
This chapter was actually over a thousand words longer, but I realized I could move that section over into the next chapter and it would fit better there. I wanted this chapter to be bittersweet, but it's more like 90% cacao chocolate. Seriously, I've been writing so much angst that the tiny vestigial part of my brain that knew how to write fluff completely atrophied. See, normally my fics end on the saddest note possible, so trying to figure out how to claw my way out of this mire of depression is completely alien to me. I can write a lot of things I've never experienced, but "not being depressed" isn't really one of those things. Still, I think I'm doing okay; just remember that I 1000% originally wanted this story to end with both Erwin and Thomasin dying in the saddest way I could envision and every single person I know got SO fucking mad at me that I had to change it midway through. I've killed so many characters over the years, both OCs and canon, and people were fine with that, but my mother was willing to throw hands at the mere notion of Thomasin not getting a happy ending. (Quoth my mom: "No. You can't do that to her- she's been through so much. She's so sweet; she deserves to be happy!")