Yeah, I got bored again. Feel like I'm writing this for myself, just for the heck of it.
SPOILERS: This will be your final warning on season 3 stuff. If you like to be surprised, don't go any further until you've watched season 3. Period. Because this will ruin it for you. Got it?
An Understanding Chapter 3
Erwin appreciated that Levi had assumed that he wouldn't need help peeling off the wet clothing that clung to his body. True, it took a little practice to be able to unfasten his buttons left-handed, not to mention all the little tasks that normally took two hands, but Levi was showing him honor by waiting to be asked for help.
Once he got through the buttons, Erwin grasped his cuff between his teeth and tugged. In a moment, he held his shirt by the collar and hung it up beside Levi's wet cloak. Next, he took the spare cloak and swung it around his shoulders. It felt good to be in something dry. He used the boot jack behind the door to assist him in removing his boots, and since a little water had seeped through them, he also removed his stockings. He debated only a moment before deciding to remove his trousers as well; they would dry more quickly away from his damp skin.
With all the articles of clothing he had to carry, Erwin was left with no way to keep the cloak tight around himself, other than by its one button, but he didn't mind Levi catching sight of his undershirt and shorts. After you'd seen Titans running around naked, drooling your comrades' entrails, underwear was a bland sight.
Levi had revived the embers in his fireplace into a fine blaze and set out a wooden rack for Erwin to drape his clothes over. He caught a stocking that slipped from Erwin's grasp as he was trying to deposit the clothing on the rack.
"I'll need to oil my boots," Erwin commented. "They're not keeping the water out as they should."
"I have some leather oil," said Levi. "I can lend it to you if you like."
"Saddle treatment?" Erwin guessed, going back to the door to fetch his boots and put them near the fire, too.
"I still like to keep my tack in good condition."
"And you still don't trust anyone else to do it for you."
"Tch. I have the time. Merchants complain that there aren't enough hours in the day, but…"
"But they haven't tried being a military officer."
Levi nodded. He looked around the shop that was the first floor of his home. He had been open only a few weeks, but business was good so far. People would always drink tea, and now that the world was theirs for exploring, there would soon be new varieties for them to try. The great expanse outside the walls was a marvelous place.
Erwin sat in a chair by the fire and pulled one side of the cloak over his lap. "You've done all right for yourself, Levi."
"Thanks to a generous pension." Levi fetched a tea kettle and went to fill it with water at the back of the shop. "Are you ever going to do anything with yours?"
"I've toyed with the idea of raising horses, but lately I've been writing too much to leave time for looking at livestock."
"It's not like you to stay behind a desk."
"Or you behind a counter," Erwin said, nodding at the sales counter at one end of the room.
"I really spend only about a tenth of the time actually behind it," Levi objected, returning to the fireplace to hang the kettle over the fire.
"All right, but you're inside all day. We're really retired, aren't we? When I look at Pixis and some of the others… we're not old yet. There's more we could do."
Levi spoke over his shoulder as he headed for the staircase behind the counter. "What more could we do? It's a new world. It wants young people to build it." He paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked back. "Not just young in years, but young in heart. You and I have done our part… and seen too much. Me, I'm content to fade into the background." He ascended the staircase.
Erwin knew that Levi would expect the conversation to resume just where they had left off when he returned from putting on dry clothes. He still didn't think that inaction suited Levi well, but he would let that go for the time-being. When the Captain was halfway down the stairs a few minutes later, he said, "What then? Are you going to settle down and get married?" he raised an eyebrow knowingly.
Levi gave his eyes a minute roll as he walked toward Erwin, now dressed in comfortable civilian garb. "I'm sure you heard me earlier: I prefer to be alone. Besides, you and I aren't destined for marriage."
"We're not?" Erwin was amused.
"No. If you married a fellow soldier, she would feel intimidated by your rank and experience. It wouldn't be fair to her. And if you married a civilian, she'd never understand the hell you've been through—that wouldn't be fair to you."
"I suppose you have a point." Still, I don't like giving up on the idea. The world needs populating, and it's safe to have children now. Safe to raise them with the knowledge of the truth. Maybe marrying wouldn't be fair to one of us, but this is a rather lonely existence… even when I get to have tea with you every so often, my friend.
Levi sat across from Erwin, leaning forward with his arms on his knees. "You wanted to see if your father was right. I wanted to see humanity free. To be honest, I didn't expect to live this long, and I doubt that you did either. We've earned this retirement… let's let other people's children decide what to do next."
"So, we do nothing for the rest of our days?"
"We do as we please. Do you miss the chain of command?"
Giving and receiving orders; playing a delicate game with the higher-ups while demanding complete commitment from his subordinates… "Not the chain. I do miss the command."
"Control freak." Levi sat back in his chair with a smirk.
Erwin wondered if Levi could truly be content with his tea shop and his "peace and quiet" for the rest of his life. Was that enough for him?
The fire was warm and pleasant, and the tea kettle was beginning to rattle quietly, promising its oncoming song.
"You have a lot of space here," Erwin observed.
"If business goes well, I'll expand my inventory."
"The living quarters must be more than you need."
"I can use some of it to store surplus, if it comes to that."
"Or, you could take in a boarder."
"Tch. Haven't I been saying all evening that I would rather be alone?"
"You also said that mine was the company you could tolerate best."
Understanding reached Levi at last. "You… want to move in with me."
"Peace and quiet is all very well, but hours of writing without anyone to pass a word with, not to mention the fact that you are closely familiar with my subject matter, makes cohabitation an appealing prospect. I always look forward to our conversation, and only necessity makes me leave you. I would find living under the same roof much more convenient. I would pay you for the room—"
Levi put up a hand. "Don't be absurd."
About paying? or living together?
Before either could say more, there was a knock at the front door as the tea kettle began to whistle.
Levi jumped up and carefully used a fire poker to swing the iron bar out from the fireplace. "Enter," he called toward the door, too busy grabbing a cloth to handle the kettle with to go to the door and answer it.
Erwin turned in his chair to see the door open and admit a figure familiar to them both. "Commander." He started to rise.
"Aha! I've found you," Hanji Zoe exclaimed gleefully. "No, don't get up, Erwin."
"Don't drip all over my floor," Levi snapped as she started to cross the room.
With a smile and a shake of the head, Hanji unceremoniously dropped her cloak in the doorway, removed her boots and resumed her way across the room. "I'm so glad you're here. I have an important prospect to share with you."
Levi wheeled a cart toward the fireplace, turning over three tea cups on their saucers. "Whatever it is, I'm not interested," he said, not looking up. He measured tea into an infuser and lowered it into a teapot before pouring scalding water over it from the kettle.
"Oh, my dear captain, I wasn't speaking to you." She crouched in front of Erwin's chair and looked up at him, taking in his brief clothing with her good eye. "My, what an interesting angle this is."
Erwin stifled a laugh and crossed one leg over the opposite knee. "What is this prospect of yours?"
"I'm so glad you asked!" She hopped up and fairly danced in her exuberance, causing Levi to scowl and keep his hands hovering just above waist level, ready to save anything she might knock over. "As you know, I have continued my research into the Titan spinal fluid, their composition and various abilities."
"I would expect nothing else from you, though I hope the knowledge you gain will never become necessary to our survival."
"Yes, yes, yes," she said impatiently. "But necessary or no, I think that the ways we have used the Titan powers since attaining peace have just scratched the surface of what we might do in the future!" She was visionary as ever, in spite having lost half her sight. "Specifically, I think I may have isolated the element responsible for Titan regeneration."
"That's an accomplishment, particularly since you can't expose the fluid to air without its evaporating."
"Thank you, sir! It was a monumental feat of science, if I say so myself!"
"Get to the point," Levi grumbled, beginning to pour the tea, now that he seemed assured that Hanji was calm enough not to turn his shop to shambles.
"The point is that I am ready to try injecting a human with that element. But I had more to say before that, if you wouldn't be so impatient."
"Won't it turn the human into a Titan?" Erwin asked.
"I won't know until I try, but I'm hopeful that it will not."
Levi snorted. "You're hopeful. Well, damn. It must be safe. What would the point of it be, anyway?" He handed her a teacup, which she passed to Erwin, and then another with a saucer.
"Oh, I don't know…" Hanji was scowling back at him now. "To cure disease? To heal injuries? ...To regrow limbs?"
Her words hung in the air for a moment.
Erwin tried not to let himself get excited. He had accepted the loss of his arm. Maybe people stared a little, and maybe it was inconvenient, but the people who mattered most to him did not think less of him for it. They did not pity him. It was a loss he had taken for the ultimate victory.
"If you think it's worth the risk, half-eyes, why not try it on yourself?" Levi asked. "See if you can have four again?"
"I would," she said, "I absolutely would. However, if something went wrong, who would continue my research? If I had to be slain as a result of an error, do you think our queen and her advisors would allow anyone to pick up where I left off? My research would be buried and forgotten. I need someone…"
"Expendable," Erwin said. "I am a much better test subject for this purpose."
She grinned at him. "I appreciate your understanding, sir." She sipped her tea.
"Bull shit," Levi growled. "You think your accidentally turning the symbol of hope into a Titan is any better than doing it to yourself? They'd shut you down. I'd lobby for it myself."
"At least you'd have your peace and quiet," Erwin said with a grim smile.
"Oh, shut up… sir."
"Listen," Hanji said, "I said I'm hopeful because I've been testing it on rats. Before I refined the element, it turned the rats into big, bulky, rodent-like monsters… over a meter in height! They went after anything that moved, human or animal. They healed quickly like the Titans did, but were also killed by severing the nape."
Levi's mouth was hanging slightly open. He looked like he didn't know whether to be more shocked or disgusted. Erwin too was surprised at how far Hanji's experiments had gone without their knowledge.
"However," she went on, "after refinement, the rats stayed ordinary rats to all appearances. The one difference was that their injuries continued to heal quickly with the accompanying steam. The results were temporary. The spontaneous healing lasted a few hours on average, and a day at most, losing potency over time."
"It's intriguing," Erwin said. "How much of this does anyone know? Other than your assistants, I mean?"
"If the research is useless on humans, they won't want to hear about it."
"So, you've kept it secret," Levi concluded. "Probably the wisest choice you've made in this area." He looked at Erwin. "Tell me you're not really considering this."
"I would like to see the research up close for myself," Erwin answered. "Perhaps you should try it on a larger animal first, such as a dog."
"I'd like nothing better," said Hanji, "but time is of the essence. Eren Yeager and Armin Arlert are in town. I have a short window of opportunity to gather more samples from them. If the human experiments work, I'll need to persuade them to stay around so I can get more out of my work. It will be of the utmost importance!"
Levi dropped his fist on the cart, causing the tea things to rattle. "My god, leave those kids alone," he said sternly. "Haven't they been through enough? Haven't they given enough of themselves already? And him," he said, gesturing at Erwin, "Has he not given enough to humanity? Do your tests if you must—I know you'll find someone willing eventually, but don't come around demanding more of people who have already given their all and then some."
"Levi," Erwin said softly.
"I understand what I'm asking," said Hanji. "I know they've given their all, and so have I. I'm not just doing this for my eye, or Erwin's arm. I'm doing this for all the savaged bodies I've seen in my career. For all the future plagues and tragedies that humanity is sure to encounter. This is how Historia can help her people overcome hardship. This is how we, who left our souls out there in the wreckage, can keep on fighting for the next generation. It's still our fight, Levi. These are our people."
Levi lifted his gaze to meet hers, and Erwin thought he saw that uncanny light in them. "Damn you," he said.
She smiled. "Besides, I'm hoping it can even lead to my finding a way to defy that thirteen-year rule so we can keep Yeager and Arlert around longer." She turned back to Erwin. "What do you say, sir?"
"How much time can you give me to observe and decide?" Erwin asked.
"I think I can spare a day."
"Then, I'll be at your workshop in the morning."
Hanji drained her cup and set it and the saucer back on Levi's cart. "Excellent. In the morning, then. You're welcome to come too, Captain Wet Blanket."
"Get out before I throw you out," Levi said, almost in monotone.
As Hanji was putting her boots back on, Levi pushed the cart closer to Erwin so he could use the empty saucer sitting on it. Erwin sat up and set his cup down. Once the door finally closed behind Hanji, Levi spoke.
"Damn her. What the hell were we talking about? Whole evening ruined."
So... stuff's happening now. I hope you found it interesting. Please let me know if you're enjoying the story. I have to say, Hanji is kind of fun to write.