EVENTYR
disclaimer: you can blame me for none of this because I don't own it.
a/n: time for our favorite squad to make an appearance. I know you were wondering.
ratings/warnings: M for content; adult language, multiple pairings, rotating POVs, gritty themes, macabre universe, tears, the inevitable hitting of bases 1 through home plate, utter zombie fail, gross cliché AU comparisons, exploitation of one of my favorite concrete playgrounds, compulsory reference to fairy tales and religious themes, my terrible music choices and abuse of anachronism. batteries included.
CHAPTER TWO
ROTKÄPPCHEN
LEVI
Somebody, somewhere, was still in charge of the electrical grids. Or maybe the electrical grids had always run on auto until there was a brown-out or something, and then the guy in charge had to drag himself to fix it from his squeaky office chair where he was eating Phad Thai take-out and drinking black coffee, smoking a cigarette to keep awake while he watched I Love Lucy on one tiny rabbit-ear and the security stream on a stack of other fuzzy screens. Like, God, here we go again, gotta reboot the Hollywood drive because some drunk motherfucker crashed into another transformer. And so now that that lazy control guy was gone, the electrical grids just continued to buzz on their own. Light switches on, until the bulbs burst, like the gas still ran at the pumps in a world of free-for-all and broken windows.
Levi could hear the choirs like he was young again. The way the voices layered and blended together, a sound like gold, and sunlight winking in your eyes, vibrating against the friezes and chipped angel faces on the ceiling. The way he remembered them singing when he was very little, looking up at everyone back then, clutching his mom's hand and hiding behind her skirt from the Father (because why should he call anyone Father but his own father?), had been innocent and wholesome. Holy.
Then the first wave of Death had swept the nation, and it was like he'd just woken up one day and understood that the singing was markedly sad and desperate, and vaguely disheartening, like some daunting warning. He'd been suddenly and distinctly aware of how the crowds cowered from the cataclysm in the nave like walls of faith were enough to protect them, like he'd been suddenly and distinctly aware of things like sexuality and responsibility as a man, that pubescent switch flipped overnight inside him as it did for all boys of eleven or twelve, charging his inner hardwiring with a new current of acuity.
He liked this church.
St. Brendan, about three miles down from The Grove (not that anyone gave a shit about that place anymore, anyway, because it was more like a playground of ruined buildings and gutted restaurants, though Levi had definitely sifted through any books that littered the destroyed Barnes and Noble when they'd first gotten there). It was gothic in a land of stucco and palm trees, all dark wooden arches inside and candles lit below the faces of the saints, and there was just something about churches. Something timeless and ancient and alive amidst the pews and sacristy. The quiet breathed down your neck in the best way and sitting with his knees drawn up in the first pew, Levi tapped the front of the glass bowl to get the attention of Hanji's beta fish. What was it like to be a beta fish in the time of Pestilence, contained to a little bowl no bigger than two fists, captivated by shiny rocks and sprinkled food and nothing more?
What are you doing?
Erwin's voice cut through the sacred hush. Levi looked up, over the back of the pew.
Playing with General Sweemo, he replied, matter-of-factly.
God, did she finally name that thing? Erwin swept up the aisle to lean down near the beta fish, sticking a finger in the water and swirling it around and trying to catch one of the silky fins against his knuckle. What sort of name is Sweemo?
General Sweemo. It's a nickname. It's short for something else.
It was eerie to think that outside, the sun was glaring down on Los Angeles. In the sanctuary it was dark and cool, windows boarded up and a mesh of iron bars installed across the stained glass. The heavy chandeliers overhead were unlit; but candles danced in the prayer corners and reflected off the gold. The low throb of light looked good on Erwin. Levi glanced away. Erwin's eyes always pried; they could see right through him, it seemed. No, not through him. Not past him, either. But right into him, peeling away steely pretenses and exposing the darkest tangles of the soul—
I'm going next door, Levi sighed.
Erwin's frown followed him out, but Levi didn't grace it with a glance. He refused to look over his shoulder lest he notice (again) how good a wrinkled Henley looked on those broad, built shoulders, or the way that fine blond hair danced through a rake of the hand like every strand was unnaturally conscious of their owner's charm and sex appeal, hand on a hip and hip cocked out to show off guns only a trained fighter would be comfortable flaunting. Whether that training was ex-military or vigilante didn't change the point.
Levi pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose like a medical mask, wary as always of the air in a city this devastated. Petra and Gunter—they didn't like the night. Levi, however, didn't trust the day. He didn't trust the blown-up fire hydrants and wrecked streets, or the boarded-up windows of homes and businesses. There were people everywhere, hiding like termites in the woodwork. People reduced to self-preservation and the pack mentality of survival. People not necessarily to be bothered with, but people not necessarily to be trusted, either. And that unsettling tomb-like quietude of a city that had, they said, at one time in the world been a mega-hub metropolis for long-gone celebrities and designers and artists, The City of Angels, The City of Dreams… That just didn't sit right with Levi. It was so hot and dry and barren and bad. More like The City of the Lost and Damned.
He crossed the short walkway of the lot, past the moss-covered fountain and stone benches, hopping the rail of the ramp and rapping the code knock on the office door before just turning the knob and going inside.
I left your fish with Erwin, he announced, dropping his scarf from his mouth as Hanji's dogs bounded over to greet him. German shepherds. Ex-police dogs. You spoke to them in German, and they'd kill a man. I can't say General Sweemo won't be emotionally scarred afterwards, but I'm sure he'll survive twenty minutes with the idiot.
Good old Captain America! Hanji singsonged around a gnawed-down Twizzler.
There was electricity in the offices. They'd been vandalized at some point, when the religious had flocked together into compounds decades ago. JESUS IS GAY in lurid blue across a bulletin board, among other lovely discouragements. FATHER TOUCHED ME FUNNY and EAT SHIT and, admittedly more serious, WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?
Hanji had all the lights on, and a little television set up on the desk. She sat with her feet outstretched and crossed at the ankles, thick dark hair up in a characteristically bushy ponytail, leaving little trails of dirt from her combats as she wagged her feet to the beat of the opening theme for M.A.S.H.
Come here! she called for her dogs, patting her thigh. They returned to her side, nuzzling and settling back into place beside her.
Levi swung open the dented mini-fridge and plucked a bottle of orange juice out. Who do you think decided to devote the rest of their life to keeping television broadcast alive? he muttered under his breath.
Do you think one day someone will thank him so technology won't have to start from scratch again?
It's just like the lights. Who the hell decided they'd be the Keeper of Luxurious Amenities?
Why aren't you putting out for the Cap anymore? Hanji looked up, innocently. Goddamn her big brown Love Me eyes. Then her expression fell; she must have noticed the way Levi's face had soured. Oh, sorry! She laughed. She knew what she was doing. She was a fucking nut. Sorry, are we not playing 10 Questions To Break? I thought we were playing 10 Questions to Break.
Really, the fucking games you came up with when you were on the road and needed something to fill the ringing silence. 10 Questions to Break, answering questions with questions that in the way of Freudian slips and free association was supposed to make one of the players break and accidentally say or ask something deeply personal and revealing. It was a stupid game, really. More like psychological blackmail. Wasn't it funny the way a simple question could make his heart jump and his skin go clammy like the sirens did? Not funny. Fucked up.
Why aren't you... It was none of Hanji's business, anyway. Whether he put out or not. But he couldn't say that; she'd turn around and counter, It's my business because you get stingy and unforgiving if you don't get laid, and he gets all mopey if he doesn't get laid, and the two of you sort of run this team so...?
Well, it made sense.
After all, they'd sneered at Levi like some courtesan or pampered lover when he'd first joined Erwin's squad. And Levi didn't blame them. He would have gotten the same idea if somebody new signed on and emerged every morning from the Captain's room, all bedhead and wrinkled shirt and loose holsters and scowling at the rest of them like he wasn't something new to doubt. Yeah, he'd be remiss to think that tension wasn't apposite at first; him, hating everyone for knowing he stuck his hands down the Captain's pants at night and everyone hating him for sticking his hands down the Captain's pants at night.
But then had been Nashville, and that awful Opryland bloodbath, and the way they'd all looked at him when he'd proven himself, taking five Aberrants to one like eezy-peezy, lemon-squeezy—Hanji, Petra, Gunter, Erd, Mike, Auroro. Full of awe. Full of defeat. Full of terror. Full of pride. Bright with the glow of inevitable brotherhood.
Ah, but nothing—nothing ever in the rest of his life, however long it lasted—could possibly compare to the way Erwin had looked at him as he'd clawed him up off the flags in Moscow, bloody and hissing out of a gutter as the flames had danced under the icy gray sky, some little ritual tribute as the cursed carnage had burned. Die, die, die, really be dead this time, and purified, and forgotten—and Erwin had pulled him physically and figuratively from perdition and Levi had felt the give in his heart like it had literally rolled over in his chest, the Everything inside offering itself up for sacrifice as Erwin's fingers had dug into his shoulders hard enough to bruise—please, take me, love me, need me, use me, save me, teach me, there's no one else—
That was two years ago, and Erwin had caught him stealing first. Almost shot him but let him go. Would it have been better to die then, that way? At the hands of a man, and not the jaws of a monster? Thankfully, the nickname Little Red Riding Hood had worn off after a few months.
Levi left Hanji in the front office and moved down the hall. Plaques lined the walls, amidst the water stains and broken light fixtures. Counseling Offices, here. Treasurer, there. Library, two doors down. And it was in the Rec area that he found Petra, with her dance shoes on. She was a vision of innocence; always was. The way her hair danced about her ears, and her lashes dusted her cheeks, and how could she make a plain T-shirt and cover-alls rolled up off the slender white ankles look so graceful?
He watched her until she noticed, falling down off her toes blushing and laughing and saying, I didn't hear you come in, Levi.
I didn't mean to throw you off, Levi mumbled around a swallow of orange juice. What are you dancing to?
The Valse de Fleurs, Petra whispered, tapping her temple. The music was in her head, after all. And God, when she started humming to herself... And when those soft fingers stroked through his hair at the same time...
There was a commotion in the front office. Voices echoed; Gunter's, and Auroro's. They were worked up.
Petra followed Levi back down the hall, pulling her hair loose from her dancing ponytail. Hanji was on the edge of her seat. And Erwin was following Mike and Erd in. His eyes lit on Levi first. They stayed there, flashing secret words.
A bird, he said, gesturing to Gunter. Gunter held a small paper in his thick fingers. Pixis sent another bird.
Ah, the messenger birds, like the doves of the Flood days and medieval ages.
What's it say? Levi demanded, throwing his orange juice down by the ending credits of M.A.S.H. and sweeping across the room, kicking Hanji's empty Twizzler bags out of the way. He held out his hand for the paper. Gunter offered it forth, but Erwin interrupted before Levi could read it himself.
North. All attention was on Erwin, their leader, their Captain, and the way his eyes sparked with the news. We're moving northward to the Pacific Northwest. They think that's where Eden is.
But we've only heard of Eden's location in riddles, Levi argued, not even caring to try and decode Pixis's chicken scratch despite having grabbed for the note immediately. What makes him so sure Eden's there, of all places?
Maybe after years of wrong guesses, it's narrowed the options down, Erd suggested, albeit nonplussed.
But you're saying it's possible we've basically skirted it for the last two years! Levi hissed. It was a real enough suspicion; but it was far from comforting.
Erwin straightened his shoulders. With the small movement, once again all eyes swerved to him, a testament to his gravitas. But his gaze was leveled unwaveringly on Levi, like he spoke to him and him alone. And maybe he did, with that stanch and cool tone of voice and the grim look below his brows. No-nonsense. Unyielding. Impatient.
I'm saying we're moving northwestward, he declared, shutting the conversation down swiftly. And we leave at dawn tomorrow.
This dogged unquestioning faith in Pixis was starting to eat at Levi's steeliest of nerves. Pixis's birds came and went, but had Erwin ever met Pixis in person? Levi hadn't. And he struggled to believe in some fearless and all-knowing long-distant commander he couldn't prove existed. Who said they had to follow Pixis's lead—besides Erwin, anyway, who was practically a weapon-clad disciple of the guy? Who said Pixis's plans were right? Who said Pixis wasn't misleading them? Who said the messages weren't tampered with along the way—?
But—Eden—the legendary walled city—where there were no Aberrants—no mutants—no Undead—and society was rebuilding itself, slowly—and if Levi could believe in the anonymous unseen agents who kept the electrical grids buzzing and the basic television channels broadcasting, then why couldn't he believe in a distant general guiding his soldiers to a safe haven via messenger pigeons?
The relief and excitement in his teammates' eyes was enough to quell his stubborn opinions. He didn't want to crush their dreams. Contrary to popular belief, he rather liked it when the embers of hope gleamed in their smiles again, raked out of the ashes of days gone by. It was just—it was only in his nature to doubt. It was how he'd survived thus far.
If they've got lights and TV and some radio, why can't we have cellular phones, too? They're much less diseased than birds, Levi grumbled, tossing the message into the wire waste can. Auroro fumbled for it, shooting Levi a resentful glance.
Northwestward at dawn, then.
Time to start packing.
to continue soon…
a/n: "General Sweemo" is indeed short for something else. The beta fish's full name is "General Swimming Homo." Oh, Hanji.