Evenings

When Oruo passed by Petra's room that evening, the door was wide open and the girl was sprawled gracelessly across her bed like a cat without bones. Seriously, only a cat could be comfortable sleeping like that. Or maybe a string of pasta with no ambition out of life. He crossed the threshold and pulled her quilt over her shoulder, then tucked her slender, white foot back under the end. Petra's mouth fell open in a loud, obnoxious snore, but she remained sound asleep, blissfully unaware of the coarse racket she was making. Must be dreaming. He thought, gently easing her jaw closed and smoothing her bangs out of her face. She smiled in her sleep, mumbling to herself about how the flour bomb and the hedgehog wasn't her fault. Silly girl.

Eld was still up, scribbling a letter by the light of a flickering candle. Oruo paused to watch him work, smiling to himself at his younger comrade's enthusiasm. He was hunched over the desk, his pen scratching madly against paper, writing what he knew to be maddeningly tiny script. Thank the Holy Three Karoline had the patience and the eyesight to decipher his insane handwriting. That last time he'd squinted at one of Eld's messages without his glasses he ended up passing the note to Petra, asking her what the hell it said. Seeing him from the corner of his eye, the blond man raised his head, nodded in greeting, and returned to his writing.

"Give her my best." Oruo said as he continued on.

"Yep."

Levi was passed out at the table in the mess hall, his head dropped onto his folded arms and a heavy tome liberated from what remained of the abandoned castle's library. The Poisoning of King Kasimir. Oruo read as he eased it out from under him, a well-practiced maneuver that barely stirred the younger man in the slightest. Not exactly light reading there, Levi. He slipped the silk ribbon bookmark between the pages, set it aside, and draped his cloak over his captain's shoulders. Levi probably wouldn't appreciate being covered by a cloak that hadn't been washed in two days, but they didn't need him getting sick right before an expedition. It was a chilly night, and when Levi got sick it was as though no one had ever heard of a cold before. Oruo shook his head and blew out the candle before he left.

Gunther was in the chamber they'd designated as an indoor training hall, although in the castle's glory days, it had probably been the ballroom. Now, where lords and ladies once held grand parties, and where Wall Marian refugees once flocked awaiting relocation to a settlement, the Levi Squad now practiced hand to hand and moved through their daily work-out. He stood in the door and watched his friend throw a rapid series of punches at the wall, decided he was too tired to join him, and turned away without a word.

"Oruo?"

He stopped.

"You need something?"

"No, I'm just passing by. Don't mind me." Something occurred to him and he backtracked into the doorway. "Has Eren been locked down yet? Petra and Levi are asleep. Did you or Eld do it?"

"I didn't." Gunther answered, rubbing a ragged, old towel against his face. "And I think Eld went straight to his room after dinner. You want me to do that now?"

Oruo's hand throbbed painfully. "Nah, I'm making my rounds. I'll take care of it after I see to the horses. Good night, Schultz."

"Night."

Why wasn't the kid locked up in the cellar by now? On most nights, he would've been down there hours beforehand, long before anyone else turned in. Levi was much more cautious with something like this, more suspicious of someone he didn't trust. Granted, he probably hadn't meant to fall asleep on a book, but why the lax attitude all of a sudden? Normally, he have the job done as soon as he felt himself nodding off, no exceptions.

A chill wind had come down from the mountains, he noticed as he made his way outside, and he almost wished he'd kept his cloak with him. It was an unbelievably cold autumn night, especially this early in the season. It was as though it had gone from relatively nice weather to dead of winter freezing in less than the span of a day. Or had that been the half-constructed titan corpse?

He shuddered, then noticed a flame was burning in the stable. Had someone left a lantern in there? No, none of them were that careless. A rogue looking to steal their horses? Or was the kid out here? He quickened his pace and darted across the courtyard, pressing himself up against the wall of the stable and creeping toward the partially closed door, then peered behind him.

No one.

But a lantern was burning brightly away, sitting alone on an overturned bucket without a soul in sight. Oruo frowned and pushed open the door all the way, stepping cautiously inside and looking back and forth for anyone who might be lying in wait. All the horses were here, and none of them seemed too bothered. Levi's Cendre had her giant, black rear turned to everyone else and appeared to be asleep. Eld's Feuer raised his head when he entered, snorting a little, which gained the attention of Petra's Athena. Gunther's Windrunner was fast asleep while his own Vittore was contently munching away at a bucket of grain left out for him. Oruo patted his neck as he continued toward the back, where Eren kept his Ina. Like Cendre and Windrunner, the small mare was fast asleep, except she was lying comfortably in the corner without a care in the world.

And so was her rider.

Oruo almost burst out laughing at the sight and covered his mouth. "Ah, Rose."

Eren was curled up by Ina's head, using her long neck as a pillow and his own cloak as a blanket. Poor kid must've run himself ragged. The stable was immaculate. Fresh straw had been laid out for all six horses, and the soiled batch had been cleared away and the smelly bits of poop along with it. The riding gear had been packed neatly away, and there was clean water and a bucket of food for everyone. All in all, it was an acceptable job. Maybe not Levi's standard of immaculate, but he probably wouldn't complain.

But what was he to do now? Oruo let out an indecisive breath of air.

The kid still had to be locked up. That much hadn't changed. Even if it was clear he meant them no harm, it didn't mean their orders or the conditions of the arrangement were any different. Should he risk waking him and carry him down his quarters in the cellar? He shook his head doubtfully. From the look of the tight ball Eren was curled into, the amount of jostling it would take to lift him would surely wake him up. Depending on how tired he was of course. He'd once accidentally bashed a sleeping comrade's head into a doorframe, and that kid never woke, much to his astonishment. She never noticed a thing, either, and she was genuinely curious as to why she had a painful lump on her head the next morning.

Try as he might, though, he really didn't think Eren was that deep a sleeper. Ina snorted and shifted her head a little. Eren murmured something to himself and curled into a tighter ball, throwing an arm across the mare's neck. Was it safe to just leave him here, he wondered, rubbing his hand into the painful bite mark in the opposite thumb. After that incident yesterday-the Spoon Caper as Gunther had skeptically dubbed it-it seemed unlikely there was much risk involved. Unless that's what the kid wanted them to think.

Oruo sighed and opened the stall door, stepping silently across the straw and pulling a red horse blanket down from the divider between Ina and Cendre's stalls. Ina's big doe eyes opened as he approached, but Eren wasn't disturbed in the least as he swept the red blanket over him.

It was a cold, autumn night after all, he thought as he extinguished the lantern and made his way back to the door. No need for anyone to get sick. At any rate, maybe it was about time they finally learned to trust each other.

As Eld once said so long ago, if they couldn't get along inside the Walls, how were they supposed to work together outside them.

He smiled.

Levi was probably going to pretty pissed at him tomorrow.

-0-0-0-

Author's Note: Author's Notes: What's difficult about writing a chapter for Oruo is there really isn't much to go on. Sure, in comparison to Gunther and Eld, he has more screen time and speaking parts, but he's always imitating Levi so it's hard to tell what his personality's actually like. The only parts in the series that I can think of where he's actually 'himself' are parts in the OVA with Ilse's Notebook and, sadly, when everyone died. I think what says a lot about Oruo's character is the way he tried to kill Annie after she murdered every other member in the Levi Squad right in front of him. When I think of that moment, I picture Oruo sort of as the one who looked after the others but was too insecure to truly acknowledge that and instead hid behind his imitation of Levi, exempting moments of crisis.

I hope you liked it. This one truly was a bitch to write. Thank you for reading.

Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin is owned by Hajime Isayama.