12 | His Slanting Gaze, Pt. 2

slant asymptote (n.): an asymptote that is neither horizontal nor vertical.

"Who was that?"

"Bother someone else, four-eyes."

Levi continued on his way towards the troops loading the Trost-bound supply wagons, eyes searching for the quartermaster.

"Funny. She looked familiar. I could have sworn I'd seen her somewhere – at the Garrison, I think – "

He scoffed. "Even with four eyes, you can't recognize half of the recruits' faces."

Catching up to him, the redhead splayed out her hands, like she was in the middle of explaining one of her numerous titan theories. "No, no you don't get it! I'm almost positive it's the same woman."

Levi ignored her rambling. "You see, it was late at night, or at least I thought it was late judging by how tired I was, and…"

His eyes landed on one of the privates trying to edge out of his line of sight.

"You."

"C-Cap-t-t-tain Lev-vi!"

"Stand straight. The hell are you pounding your chest for? We're soldiers, not animals."

"Y-yes sir!"

"Give a real salute before addressing an officer, brat."

He let out a sigh of aggravation when the recruit miserably failed. "You'll be titan fodder tomorrow if you can't do something as simple as a salute. Where's the quartermaster?"

"W-With M-M-Ma-j-j-j-jor Z-Z-Z-Z – "

Meanwhile, Hange continued to prattle.

"… I had a meeting with the Garrison emergency command on the top of Wall Rose, it was incredible, I never thought they actually set up command tents on top of the Walls but I guess you could say nobody else has Pixis's style and…"

Whatever patience he had (and he had never been a patient man, Levi knew) was running dangerously low; coupled with the lack of sleep (a scant half-hour stolen on the back of a wagon) and his present company (somehow Hange and the recruit managed to time their gibbering so it was simultaneous), it was safe to say that Levi was more than a little desperate to find that cup of tea Camille had offered.

He broke off in the opposite direction, dismissing the recruit without another word. Hange, as always, followed like a dog that didn't know when to give up and go home.

"… now I wanted to listen to Pixis so we could coordinate with the Garrison just like Erwin said, when this pair walked in, and just like that our conference was cut short because the Commander cracked a joke! A joke! In that time! I thought it was pretty funny but nobody else was laughing so I…"

Mike came in sight, locked in conversation with the quartermaster.

"Oi! Bear! Stop talking!"

The taller man looked up, and naturally he had the same dragged-through-the-mud-and-stomped-on-by-a-titan look everyone else in the Scouts wore. Even his goatee and beard, always so distastefully unkempt on a normal day, looked more digusting than usual. "Levi? Waddayawant?"

Levi ignored him. The quartermaster at least sensed it was he that Levi really wanted to talk to. "Captain," The quartermaster gritted out. Patience and nerves were scarce for everyone. Everyone except Hange who wouldn't stop yammering. "What can I do for you?"

Levi didn't break his stride. He remembered the directions Camille gave him without a problem. "An old woman is riding with one of our wagons. I'll bring her by later." He silenced any objections the other officer had with a scowl. The quartermaster nodded with resignation, and resumed his talk with Mike.

"…the intel we received about the two intelligent titans was from that report… ah, wait… I think she only talked about the refugees from Shiganshina. The other one was the one who saw it all. What was her name again?

"Specialist… Leda? Leroy? Levayne?

"…Leto?"

"What?"

That jolted Hange out of her rambling. She paused, unaware that he'd frozen in place, and twisted back to look at Levi.

He narrowed his eyes.

"That name. Say it again."

Clueless as ever, she blinked. "Specialist… Leto?"

Levi took a careful step. "And you're saying," He glared at her, shooting daggers into her skull, wondering what were the odds that Hange was lying or imagining things. "That you saw her. With Pixis."

She nodded just as slowly. "Yes. That first night of the breach."

"She came from…"

"…Shiganshina. That's what she said."

"Describe her."

"Blonde. Had her hair tied back, but with a braid instead of a ponytail, and that braid was pinned across her head… does that make sense?"

It sort of did, once you knew how Camille looked like with her braids. But he wouldn't humor Hange's awful attempt at description. "No."

"Hmm… what else is there to say… she had legs. Because she was tall. Oh, let me revise that. Shall we say she – "

"Hange."

" – whatever, all you need to know is she's still taller than you anyway."

Levi rolled his eyes.

"That, and Pixis kept her close like all of his other escorts – least, the ones we've seen in our time. But… she seemed younger than usual. And nothing but a specialist to boot."

"Old creep."

Hange shrugged. "He never touches them. Far as I know. Maybe they make him feel young."

Pixis' questionable habit of collecting young women aside, it did sound like Camille. Leto was an uncommon name, and Hange had even gotten her hair and rank right.

His brow creased at the thought of her being in Shiganshina, in the middle of the chaos of when the titans first broke down the Walls. They'd all heard the initial reports on the breach – it had been absolute carnage for anyone not on a horse. Somehow she'd survived it long enough for him to see her yesterday, near the Ister river of all places. And practically alone, without a unit.

This doesn't make any sense, Levi glared at the ground now. If she's Pixis's escort why the hell was she ever on the frontlines?

"So… I'm guessing that was her?"

Levi kept silent.

"That woman, I mean. Specialist Leto, huh? And she's in the Garrison. I didn't know you knew anyone in the Garrison."

"You want to say something that bad, spit it out," He snapped. Why was she annoying him about this?

Hange held up her hands, but he could see her latch onto his reaction with glee. "Hey, I was just making an observation! You're getting all riled up over nothing!"

Levi kept silent, ignoring her and mind now trying to put the information together. But he knew next to nothing about how the Garrison operated – and he doubted a lot of things made sense even now, in the middle of the evacuation.

"Sooooooo…"

He spared her and this whole line of thought one look, before turning away to all the more important things that still needed to be done.

In the days after the titan invasion, the Scouts were busier than ever. Clean-up missions, done to secure the perimeter of Wall Rose; sometimes, the Garrison even lent them a detachment to accompany them on the missions to kill titans who wandered too close to the Wall. Levi hated these missions at first – the detachments were liabilities more than anything, but as weeks passed and reconstruction continued, even the Garrison could get something close to passable when it came to killing titans.

They could never be as good as the Scouts, though. But in these times there was never enough people trying to help kill titans anyway. The gossip about military recruitment being at an all time high was everywhere – more so were the rumors that a lot of these recruits were refugees who wanted to join the Scouts and retake Wall Maria.

"You'd think this would make him happy," Hange whispered in his ear. Both their eyes were trained on Erwin's back. Their Commander's posture was stiff, formal. Tense. It had been tense ever since the Royal Government had closed the gates to Wall Rose on the 4th day of evacuation. "We'll have enough recruits to fill the ranks again and some. Maybe even add another company or two… if the rumors are true."

Erwin turned back to gaze at the two, which shut Hange up immediately. But as soon as Erwin went back to the MP pigs who'd wanted to talk to him, Hange's face twisted with confusion again.

For his part, Levi shrugged. "I'll believe it when I see it."

But he did see it.

Erwin's silence.

His distant stares.

The carefully blank face he kept during meetings.

Erwin Smith was a difficult person to puzzle. Not that Levi had wanted to make a habit of trying to understand him, but given the stress they were all under and that Erwin was in charge of all the lives of the soldiers under him in the Scouts, understanding Erwin was something he did by necessity.

He would say nothing about how successful he was on this score. But he agreed with Hange: you would think it would make the Commander of a regiment that was growing smaller and smaller with every dangerous clean-up mission they embarked on happy. Ecstatic, even.

For once the Scouts were popular.

Yet:

"That'll be all for today," Erwin nodded once, and turned his attention to some paperwork leftover on his desk. The murmurs of yessir, alright sir, echoed in the room, and the rest of the officers filed out – though both Mike and Hange shot Levi questioning glances. Saying nothing, Levi took a seat on the couch. Erwin had requested he stay before that afternoon's meeting began.

Their headquarters in Trost was similar to Garrison HQ, in the sense that they were both sprawling, multi-story buildings made in an ornate style that had probably been some nobleman's expensive idea. Erwin's office was covered wall to wall in bookcases except for the space across the couch, where an equally grand fireplace sat. The days were getting chillier – someone had already lit that fireplace when the meeting began. For a moment, the only sound was the occasional crackle of the logs.

Levi watched Erwin's impenetrable gaze switch listlessly from the paper in his hand to the burning fireplace, then to the sweeping windows behind his desk. Why Erwin even bothered with the façade of doing his paperwork, he didn't know.

As if on cue, the Trost belltower chimed the time. The sound was muffled, but he heard it: five peals, just as the sun outside dipped into the horizon.

"Whatever it is that's been bothering you, you need to wrap it up."

Those thick eyebrows of his were raised in surprise when Levi met his stare. It was the first recognizable emotion Levi had seen him display all day.

"You're starting to make Mike and Hange worry," He continued with as much bluntness. "You don't look any of us in the eye anymore. Maybe you do see us. But we're not really there, are we?"

The other man's gaze softened. Or, that was what Erwin chose to outwardly display and what Levi observed. The corporal knew nobody more in control of their own face than Erwin. "Is that how it seems to you?"

Irritation seeped into his voice. "The others don't know you well enough, but those two can tell. So can I, but I don't care what's wrong with you. All I know is that the Scouts need a leader, not someone too busy with his own problems."

In his eerily annoying way, all Erwin did was smile slightly. Even if he did knit his brows.

"You find this funny," Levi stood. "I don't. You shouldn't need me to tell you to snap out of your own shit. You picked a bad time, because people need you. Us. The Scouts, more than ever."

Erwin sat back in his chair. Shoulders drooping, looking slightly more abashed now. But the weak smile never left his face. "Ah. You're right, of course."

The Commander's blue gaze found him, standing with his arms angrily crossed in the middle of the office, face tilted downwards in a dangerous scowl.

"I apologize if I've been more lost in thought these days," Were Erwin's mildly apologetic words. He shuffled more papers on his desk, but Levi thought the gesture empty, just another sign of his distracted need to pretend that everything was fine on the outside. "Understandably, I've had a lot to consider. Nobody could have foreseen something like this happening. The human cost alone is staggering. We've lost so many people. But right now, recovering – rebuilding – this is even harder."

Erwin sat back in his chair. In a move Levi had never seen him do before, the other man raised a hand to his creased forehead and rubbed it, shielding one blue eye from view, just for a moment.

"Figuring out what to do now, in the middle of all this destruction… it makes it hard to envision the future."

He seemed surprised to still see Levi standing there when he looked up. But even Levi had to give a small sigh – he'd been prepared for Erwin to brush him off with another smile and an increasingly hollow apology.

Not… this.

The frustration; the fact that even Erwin was affected by the hole humanity had sunk into after the titans broke down Wall Maria. That he wasn't immune to the death that surrounded them – only that he showed it differently, or his hold on his emotions was so tight that it instead showed as a complete lack of it.

But didn't he know this about Erwin already? Erwin was the most ruthless person he knew.

I expected more from him, Levi realized with some remorse. I shouldn't have. I can read him better than the others.

"But you can still see it, can't you?"

Whatever it is that only you can see. The reason that I followed you that day.

"If even you can't see how we're going to get ourselves out of this mess now," Levi shifted his glance into the fireplace again, the embers glowing and the flames burning low. "Then we really are screwed."

Erwin's answer was a laugh. A rumbling laugh, like he was actually amused and not just faking it for the benefit of some fawning noble or nosy MP. "It's nice to know I still have your vote of confidence."

"Take it or leave it," He countered smoothly, deciding that was enough consoling for today. "If there's nothing else – "

"No, you can g – "

"Sir?"

The knock had come from behind the door. His eyes found it immediately just as Erwin straightened in his seat.

Papers shuffling again. Though it sounded much more convincing this time, Levi thought with a snort. Erwin called out: "What is it, Weller?"

The door opened, revealing Corporal Weller's frown. "Sorry for interrupting sir, I know it's past five already, but someone from the Garrison's here with the reports."

"I see. You could've just collected it and given it to me after."

Weller coughed into his hand. "That's the thing, sir. They say they were told to give it to your hands only."

Levi met Erwin's flicker of curiosity. The Commander nodded. "Alright, send them in."

Then the adjutant stepped aside while holding the door open – "Right this way – "

And Camille of all people stepped into view with a folder in hand. Hair neatly braided and pinned around her head, the Garrison rose on her flak jacket standing out.

Levi fought his own surprise.

Carefully, nobody said a thing until Weller closed the door shut and they listened to his footsteps recede into the hallway.

"Commander."

Erwin's chair made a loud noise as he scraped it back and he got on his feet, approaching Camille with an unsubtle smile that only grew bigger with each hurried step. "I certainly wasn't expecting this."

Her eyes flicked to him standing in front of the fireplace with his mouth feeling dry. "Good to see you again, Captain Levi," Her own mouth was pulled into a lopsided smile, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything. Couldn't get away any earlier you see."

"No, you weren't," Erwin answered quickly for him. Levi watched the other man put his hands on her shoulders, assessing her from the boots up, "Garrison, eh? A good choice. And – what's this? 1st Squad under the Command Battalion. That would be Commander Pixis's personal squad, wouldn't it? And just after graduation, as a specialist – you've done exceedingly well for yourself, Camille."

There was a twinkle in her eyes as she looked up at Erwin. Levi jerked his gaze away. "Turns out I'm just as good at climbing the career ladder as you. Ha!"

Another laugh. Louder than last time. Then Erwin's amused voice: "I never said you wouldn't be."

He found his feet circling him back to the couch, avoiding the two of them, taking the seat he had previously occupied. His mind was running away from him.

Her.

Here.

"This is new."

Something in him reacted instinctively to the note of appreciation in Erwin's voice.

The world stilled as he watched the Commander openly reach toward her, bridging the gap between them again, two fingers just brushing across the edge of her cheek to lift something out of her face.

Strands of her hair, Levi realized.

Throughout it all, Camille's bright eyes had never left Erwin's hand.

Then they flicked upwards, playful and because Erwin was titan sized. Her grin grew catlike as she spoke, "I reckon anything would be new to someone who's worn his hair the same way his entire life,"

She turned to him sitting, and cocked a blonde brow.

"Can you believe him? Even going to the military and becoming commander won't get him to budge about his hair. Such a stiff."

"I'll change it when the time comes," Erwin replied easily, catching her attention once more before Levi could reply. He could hear the shameless smile in those words. "So in about thirty years, maybe."

Erwin stepped back, clasping his hands behind him; she laughed at his joke. "Well, this way I can never say you've looked better." She walked around Erwin and headed straight for his desk, though not without giving a slow look around the office.

"So this is the Commander of the Scouts' office, huh…"

Erwin hummed as he followed after her.

"Yes. Any different from Commander Pixis's office? I imagine his is less dusty."

There was unabashed interest in the way Levi observed the two of them now. That sunny afternoon in the house at Belcastle was ages ago – but he remembered the constant mechanical sound of time passing, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tick-tick – the way he'd stood there with his eyes trained on the two of them, the prickle of his curiosity. Camille, this smiling stranger he'd just been introduced to but was expected to trust with his lifeline, his ODM gear – and Erwin, who might as well have been a stranger, for all of the resentment that threatened to resurface at Erwin's unsentimental mention of Isabel and Furlan's deaths.

Watching them now, he saw something more. Something different.

Behind Erwin was a past just as ordinary as everyone – even Erwin Smith had come from somewhere, the same way Levi Ackerman had come from the Underground. Under any circumstance he would have loathed holding himself up as any kind of comparison to Erwin, but in this moment it was all too fitting. It was a lesson he knew by heart: no matter how hard you tried, the past refused to stay buried.

Or in this case: there was no hiding how Erwin relaxed around Camille in a way he couldn't in front of his own officers in the past weeks.

Levi sat back on the couch, his arms loosening from where he'd crossed them over his chest, shoulders sinking into the soft furniture. Admittedly, he was just as exhausted as anyone in the Scouts those days.

They were chattering now, near the desk where Camille set down the thick, sealed packet of Garrison reports that kept the other branches abreast of reconstruction. Most of the burden of rebuilding in the aftermath of the titan invasion had predictably fallen on the Garrison, and this was a more expedient way of sharing information than the military assemblies they used to hold in Mitras.

"…we have a runner send over the reports usually, but I thought I'd deliver this week's batch myself. I've never been to Scouting HQ! You Scouts are all so… intense."

Erwin took his seat behind the desk, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I'm told it adds mystique," He quirked a thick brow at her before reaching for the packet. "By your words, I assume Commander Pixis sent you to spy on us."

"Mystique?" Levi heard her snicker. "Maybe. Dangerous-looking, I'd say. Though I hear you're pretty popular these days… of course, no one's as popular as Captain Le – "

When she tossed him a look over her shoulder, Levi was ready with his glare. She grinned apologetically before turning hastily to face Erwin again. " – yes, like I said, looks like you're not short on popularity these days – want to hear the interesting parts?"

Erwin had been reading the first two pages before setting the report down, instantly intrigued. "Of course. Do you help put them together?"

They discussed peculiarities in the last two weeks – delays, difficulties, and some minor successes. Troop arrangements in the Garrison, brigade assignments and the distribution of what meager resources arrived from Mitras; the inevitable supply shortage that everyone in the military practically knew but the Royal Government was determined to hide from the public until the last possible minute.

They weren't particularly encouraging topics – but Camille and Erwin discussed them briskly as they went through the report together.

Somewhere along the line Levi had closed his eyes, content to fall into the drone of their never-ending conversation.

When he eventually woke, it was to the sound of her laughter. Levi pawed at his eyes.

"Like it?" She chuckled as her hands straightened a stack of files on the desk.

Erwin was holding a pen up to his face – "It's beautiful. Where'd you get it?"

"Mitras, the Artisan's district. Bought it a long time ago," She said idly as she turned to gaze outside the window. Behind her, still seated, Erwin reached for a scrap of paper and scribbled something down. "I wanted something fancy to write with when I had to turn in papers at university. It works fine with the standard issue ink, but I used to buy some ink that came all the way from Krolva before."

"Ah, too bad. It's mine now – " He capped the pen and mimed putting it in the pocket of his flak jacket.

"Hey! That cost me a fortune – !"

Erwin smiled even as she plucked the pen out of his fingers.

"It's incredible, Camille. The Garrison has been dealing with everything so admirably."

"Really? From my view, it's the Scouts that have it down like clockwork. You just read our report," Camille replied with a quirk of her brow. "And I'm sure you know on the ground it's never the same as it is on paper. But I see we're both just dealing with the situation as best as we can, aren't we?"

Levi wondered how many other people could have let slip such a thing to Erwin's face, without any kind of judgment on his capabilities as a Commander, or without searching for any kind of guidance or reassurance that only Commander Erwin Smith could give –

Just a comment, said as plainly as if they talking about the weather.

The kind you'd say to a friend who'd looked like absolute shit.

Erwin mirrored her crooked grin. He set an elbow down on the table, cradling his chin on a palm, looking up at her.

"I hope you aren't planning on telling that to Commander Pixis."

She barked a laugh. "Of course not! I'm planning on telling my boss that I found the Commander of the Scouts to be a sensible, open-minded kind of man, one we'd have no problems with. Though there is the matter of him being a bit…" her voice dropped an octave, matching Erwin's infamous serious tone, "…mysterious."

As she wandered away from the desk and Erwin's chuckling, she noticed him awake. Her cheeks pinked as she grinned and looked at the ceiling. "Sorry. I can go on forever – you probably had some business to take care of."

Levi made a dismissive noise as he rolled his shoulders. "We didn't. I was about to leave anyway."

The Trost belltower chimed again; six peals. Levi stood, smoothing his uniform in the process and intending to make his way back to his own office downstairs.

"I should go. The Commander – you know, the one you think sent me to spy on you – is probably waiting."

"Shouldn't you be off duty at this time?"

"I could say the same thing of you. Besides, I'm the aide – I never get to go home. Not without the boss's permission."

"But you should. I know Lotta would be worried by now."

"Tomorrow – I'll be going to Mitras tomorrow," A pause.

Then, "Maybe I'll buy you the pen you're intent on stealing from me. Consider it a promotion gift, Commander. I'll try stopping by Belcastle after."

That had pricked Levi's attention too. Erwin voiced the thought on both their minds. "Mitras?"

"No need to sound so worried," It was her turn to be dismissive. "Official business with the Commander. I'll tell you all about it next time."

And that was it. She met Levi by the door, though without really intending to, he'd held it open for her the same way Corporal Weller had.

Then it was the two of them in the dim hallway. There was a recruit lighting the lamps with a candle on one end, who Levi ignored as he turned to face her.

Camille met his eyes for a moment – then looked away again, though apparently grasping that he wanted to say something to her.

That, too, was something new.

It grated on him a little, that saving her life meant she couldn't look him in the eye. Without the distraction of Erwin, or the titans, or even just being on the field in general, she seemed more nervous any other time he'd met her.

"He's right," Levi decided to make this as short as he could. "Letters don't cut it."

She hasn't been home once, Iris had complained when he stopped by for tea soon after the 99th's graduation. I see you more than my own kid. The hell is that?

He'd said nothing, of course. It was none of his business what Camille had been up to – and now knowing that she'd been working under Pixis's thumb the entire time, he understood.

But it wasn't his job to make excuses for her either.

She folded her arms as she bounced on her heels once, pouting and twitching like the guilty child who'd been caught sneaking candy. "You're scolding me too. Ugh! Do both of you see me as some brat?"

His reply was exceedingly dry. "You're acting like one right now."

She finally looked at him again, green eyes twinkling as she smirked. She really is a brat when she wants to be, was the instant thought – "I know, I know. Just wanted to see how long you were going to keep nagging me about it. Like he does."

Any comparison to Erwin made him narrow his eyes, but she cut him off by saluting goodbye.

"It was good to see you again, Captain Levi," Camille said, formality and military discipline snapping back in place.

A ghost of a smile was all that was left on the curve of her lips, one that was echoed in his mind by the sight of Erwin's fond grin when he gazed up at her, chin in hand.

Levi nodded curtly. Then she left.

Lingering outside of Erwin's door, he wondered what had just happened.

His sensitive ears could hear papers being reorganized. Slow and methodical. Nothing like the man who'd sat at that desk earlier in the day and mindlessly shuffled paperwork around with his thoughts turned further and further away from everyone.

Down the hall, her footsteps were light but purposeful – making good on her words that Pixis had been waiting for her to get back to Garrison HQ.

He blew a sigh and let his feet take him to his office in the floor below. He couldn't say that he hated seeing her. Or that perhaps she'd been exactly what the Scouts needed at that moment.

Notes:

happy christmas! thought i'd finally finish this as a gift. updates will continue to be incredibly sporadic, but i wanted to leave this before the year ended.

writing and editing this took forever. i had many ideas for how this chapter would go but this is the version i like the most; it's more revealing than intended but i like it that way. im excited for the next arc, if i ever have the time to finish writing it.

silly of me to ask since i haven't responded to last chapter's reviews yet, but i'd love to hear your thoughts!