Chapter 62
Sasha sat on the cold floor of her cell, still leaning against the door, and as far as she knew, Nikolo did the same in his. They'd spoken for hours, but were currently taking a break due to getting thirsty. Sasha still had water left from yesterday's dinner, but Nikolo had none and she had no way to get hers to him, so his throat must be parched, even if he doesn't admit it. It was better to not make it worse, and so she'd suggested they rest a little. They'd agreed to alert the other if they heard someone coming or something else happened, but aside from that, they hadn't said anything more after that. It hadn't been long, she was sure, but it already felt like a lot longer time than what they'd been talking.
Hugging her knees, Sasha wonders what would happen from now on. It had been almost effortless to live in the moment when they'd talked, but now the silence brought all her fears and insecurities back to surface. Would Nikolo really be alright? Captain Frank said he wouldn't have a fellow Marleyan killed, and Sasha wanted to believe him, but what if he changed his mind or someone of higher rank decided otherwise? And even if Nikolo got to live, Sasha wasn't naïve enough to think what he'd done wouldn't have any consequences. What would happen to him?
Unknown to Sasha, Nikolo was having more or less same thoughts. Head held between his hands, he went through the worst-case scenarios he could come up with, the top one being that they'd kill Sasha to get rid of the problem once and for all and to teach him a lesson. It was a very realistic possibility; that had already occurred to the odd captain, as was seen from his bluff. The only thing that calmed Nikolo slightly was the fact that he'd sent them both down here instead of killing Sasha then and there; even if it was an option, the final course of action had clearly not been decided yet. Maybe, if he could talk to the captain again, he could affect the man's decision and protect Sasha. But if he did manage that, if they'd spare her, what then? Would they keep going as they were, letting her wither away in her cell, all alone?
Nikolo grits his teeth, knowing he can't allow that, but not knowing how to prevent it, either. It's not like they'd let him stay with her, not even in this separate cell. If they would, he'd do so in a heartbeat. Of course, he was fully aware of how it'd cause trouble for his family, but he didn't care; they could take care of themselves without him, they already had for nine years, but Sasha? Sasha needed him now, so it wasn't a hard choice to make.
Did he have anything to lose if he asked to be allowed to stay here with her? The only downsides of doing so that he could think of were the two of them being separated earlier than planned just out of spite, but it would be worth the risk… probably. He didn't know. Too much was at stake here.
"I hear footsteps" Sasha suddenly alerted him, and while Nikolo heard nothing, he wasted no time as he stood up. He'd learned a long time ago that if Sasha said she heard something, then there was something. Facing the door, he could see Sasha already looking out through the bars, but he doubted she'd see anything yet. He wanted to be sure though, so he looked too, not that he could see any further than she did.
He saw no one, but after glancing at Sasha and seeing how tense she was, he knew that whoever she'd heard wasn't just passing by. She was clearly nervous, and so was he, but he wanted to comfort her somehow.
"Sasha, it's going to- "
"Promise me something" she interrupts him, turning her steely, no-nonsense gaze to him. He rarely saw that look, the one so soldier-like, on her face, and never directed at him, not after he'd been captured and no longer considered a threat, but here it was again "Promise me you won't do anything that will put you in danger, regardless of what they plan to do with me."
Nikolo frowns at that, and it's enough to tell Sasha that there will be no promises. And she doesn't like that.
"C'mon, you just got your life back! Don't throw it away for- for-!"
"For you? You're starting to sound like Grior" he says, and if the situation wasn't what it was, the mortified look on Sasha's face would've made him laugh "I can promise to try not to act too rashly and to try thinking things through, but that's that. I'm not abandoning you."
Recovering from her surprise, Sasha opens her mouth to protest, but Nikolo gets a word in before she does: "Now I hear it too."
They turn their attention back to what they can see of the hallway, listening to the steps and then to the opening of a door. Some more steps down the hallway before a soldier comes to their line of sight, carrying a pair of food trays, one on top of the other. As if on cue, Sasha's stomach grumbles, and she hopes Nikolo didn't hear it. He probably didn't as his gaze didn't leave the soldier, who went to his cell first.
"Back away from the door"
Nikolo does as told, trusting that this really was just a food delivery; if they planned to do something, they would've sent more than one man.
The soldier slips the tray through the hatch on the door before closing it once more. Nikolo can't see it from where he is, but he's guessing the man does the same with the other tray at Sasha's cell. And he wasn't wrong; Sasha had backed away from her door when Nikolo had gotten the order, knowing that she'd get one too, assuming the soldier didn't decide to just walk away with her food. That had happened a time or two when she'd been too close to the door to their liking.
The soldier walks away without saying another word as soon as the hatch on Sasha's door is closed. Sasha can hear his retreating footsteps, but doesn't pay them any mind as she moves to inspect her food, which is the same as ever: not exactly tasty looking, yellowish vegetable soup, a piece of dry bread and a water canteen. From experience she knows that the soup is already lukewarm, so it's better to eat it right away. She tells that to Nikolo too, wondering what he'll think of the bland meal. There's no way he'll like it, not with him being used to the tasty meals he himself cooks. Not that Sasha liked it either, but she was used to it.
As Sasha suspected, Nikolo didn't like the soup. He'd had his doubts just from seeing it, and tasting simply confirmed it. But it was eatable, he thought with a shrug as he took the second spoonful, and it's not like he was in a position to complain. Besides, he had gotten far worse meals on some of his days of imprisonment on Paradis, so this wasn't completely new to him.
Eating his soup, he frowns as he realizes that this was the kind of stuff Sasha must've been eating during her whole time here. She didn't have anyone who'd occasionally sneak her pieces of better food like she'd done to him.
"And the others started doing it after she got caught and was forbidden from coming over for a while… even Eren brought bread once, though I'm still convinced he chucked it right at my face on purpose." Nikolo thinks, remembering how much he owes to not just Sasha but the rest of the Levi squad as well. He wonders if there'll ever be a time, he can make it up to them.
In the opposite cell, Sasha has already finished her dinner and is now twirling the spoon in her hand, wondering what to talk about. She knows they should try to come up with something that would help them, but she doesn't have any ideas, and she fears Nikolo doesn't, either. Bringing it up would just get them both to feel down, more than they already do, that is, so she'd rather talk about something uplifting, but she's not sure how to get the conversation going again. But she really wanted to, now that she was no longer alone, and had no knowledge of how long that would last. It probably wouldn't happen today, but she was sure Nikolo would be sent away soon, either to his home or some other cell… or perhaps back to that hospital? She really hoped not. Could she protect him from that if she tried to talk to the captain? Or would that make things harder? Before today she would've said that the captain wasn't the wicked type, but after the test he'd put her through, she wasn't so sure anymore…
In his cell, Nikolo has finished eating and is now actually taking a good look at his surroundings for the first time, having been too focused on either Sasha or his own dark thoughts to do so earlier. Not that it mattered much; the cell was small and there wasn't much to look at. A small desk, a chair that he could tell just by looking was unsteady, a bench with a mattress on it and a toilet in the corner at the foot of the bed. He recalled that cells he'd been in in Paradis hadn't exactly been bigger, not counting the group cells from the beginning, but aside from lacking an electric light, they'd been better than this; the fabrics of the blankets he'd had had been rough and occasionally itchy, but at least he'd had blankets most of the time. And a pillow, though usually a worn out one, but here, he had neither. He was convinced Sasha didn't either, and his anger towards the situation only grew. He clenched his fists, knowing that he mustn't let the anger take control, least he does something rash and very stupid again.
"Well, at least being completely stuck here helps with keeping myself out of trouble" he thinks as he takes deep breaths to help control his anger. Punching something would work too, but the only even somewhat safely punch able thing in the cell was the mattress, and he didn't want to make the thin thing even more useless than it already was.
"Nikolo? Are you okay?"
"…Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?" he asks, startled by Sasha's sudden question.
"Your breathing sounded off; it was like you were taking deep breaths" she explains, and in his mind Nikolo curses at himself for forgetting exactly how sharp Sasha's ears could be. Of course, she'd notice.
"I just… thought of something that made me angry, so I had to calm myself down. Sorry to make you worry."
"It's fine, it's fine" Sasha says, and she means it despite the small spike of fear she'd gotten when his breathing started to sound wrong. Sasha chews on her lip, thinking, before deciding to ask: "Do you want to talk about it?"
Nikolo sits up straighter, glancing behind his back by instinct before realizing that he wouldn't see Sasha anyway. Did he want to talk about it? No, definitely not; he didn't want to make her worry, nor did he want to make her think he had anger issues… which probably was the case, but she really didn't need to know that, especially not now when she already had enough on her plate.
But did she want to talk about it? Would him talking about his worries to her distract her from her own, or help assure her that he was fine? Could it help her talk about her own worries, which he was sure she had more than she let on? Or was she just desperate to talk about something now that they were finally together, not wanting to waste their limited time?
"No use thinking about it" he thinks with a sigh as he makes a decision. "I guess that'd be fine."
And yet, a silence follows that declaration since Nikolo has no idea where to start.
"…Eren was often angry, too" Sasha says to fill the silence after several minutes pass without Nikolo starting to talk "At titans, at the world, occasionally Jean… the last one I totally get by the way; he can be such a nag."
Nikolo can't help but let out a startled laugh; being compared to Eren felt like an insult, but he knew Sasha didn't see it that way, and he could understand the comment about Jean, too. But-
"I think "angry at the world" hits home in this case" he starts "If the world didn't see Eldians the way it did, neither of us would be stuck here now, and it'd be easier for us to see each other."
"Oh, well umm… nothing we can do about it? I mean, I suppose we can, little by little, but it'll take time" Sasha says. She gets up from the floor to put the tray on the table before going to the door, slightly disappointed when she doesn't see Nikolo through the bars of his own door "I'm pretty sure we've made some process with some of the Marleyan soldiers that come to the island, you know. There are many who don't glare at us as much as they used to, and they mutter and yell less insults, too!"
"That was before anyone died, wasn't it?" Nikolo asks, regretting it immediately after despite not even seeing how Sasha flinches "…Sorry, that was uncalled for."
"It's fine… it's the truth, isn't it? We've probably taken quite a few steps back after everything that happened" Sasha leans her forehead against the cool bars, closing her eyes "It's not like I didn't know it, but I tried to be optimistic… maybe a bit too much."
Very likely, but she probably really needed it. Nikolo could understand that; he'd tried it through his own imprisonment, too. At the beginning, it was assuring himself that reinforcements would soon come to save them from the devils, and that since they hadn't been killed already, their enemy wasn't planning to do so in the first place, keeping them as cheap labor instead. That they'd just had to hold on until reinforcements arrived. After it became clear that the fear of dying from being overworked was unnecessary, his optimism had only grown. Perhaps the enemy soldiers would get less harsh with them, perhaps they'd get a bit more room to move around instead of being stuck in their cells…
Now that he thought about it, Nikolo realized how well placed his small hopes had been the first few years; they did get that better treatment they'd hoped for. They'd been treated well. But things had changed when he'd gotten caught poisoning the wine, and that was when he had really needed the optimistic thinking. Sometimes his positive thoughts had hit the mark, but on some other times, not so much. And, with his negative mindset in place, he felt like the current situation had even less reason to stay optimistic.
"I know the feeling… I was too optimistic about my ability to return to you" sighing, he leans against the door, his head causing a little bang as it hits it "Maybe, if I'd been pessimistic from the start, I would've worked harder to find a way, and actually gotten something done."
"Maybe… but no use thinking about it now, is there? What's done is done" Sasha says, not liking how bitter Nikolo sounded despite understanding why. She bites her lip, trying to think of something nicer to talk about, something fun that could make him laugh, like they'd talked earlier, but she comes up empty.
"Of all the times to run out of jokes…" she frowns.
"If my brother is to be believed, I've always been a bit whiny" Nikolo says suddenly "Whiny, and easily annoyed, but rarely outright angry. Or at least, I don't remember much real anger from my early years. Or my years at school. I think it didn't start until I was at the military… until I ended up on the island."
"So, it's the trauma?"
"That's what I thought at first, too. For a long time, but lately, I've been wondering if it's really the case." Nikolo gets up as he speaks, turning to the door. He can see Sasha leaning against the door "Of course, it could be both, but I think the cause for my anger is the knowledge I have now that I didn't have before. Now I know how unfair the world is, how naïve I used to be, and how wrong the things I was taught were" he shrugs "Thinking it like this, it's easy to understand why they say that ignorance is bliss."
"Yeah… life was already scary when we thought the only threat outside the walls were the titans, but it was simple; even idiots like me were useful as long as we were good with the gear. But now… life is complicated. We always gotta think about what we do and say, and the fear of messing up is actually bigger than when fighting the titans, since it won't be just my safety that's at risk" Sasha says "But… I'm not upset that we found out the truth instead of continuing to live in our ignorant, bloody bliss. Mikasa always says that the world is cruel, but still unbelievably beautiful… it took me years, but I'm sure that these days, I understand what she means by it."
She lifts her head, looking at Nikolo with a small smile on her face.
"Despite all the trouble, I don't regret finding out the truth about the world."
"Yeah, me neither" Nikolo says back with a small smile of his own. The silence is much more pleasant as they gaze in to each other's eyes, not that it lasts long this time. The conversation isn't forced, either, as Nikolo, without thinking much of it, complains about having been compared to Eren, saying that it's not really something he'd like to hear. It makes Sasha laugh and say that now he sounds like Jean. And the conversation flowed naturally from there, laughter and joking involved, the conversation kept light due to a wordless agreement. It goes on for a couple of hours, both of them sitting down at one point without cutting off the conversation. Eventually though, as he leans against his door again, Nikolo says: "I think it's about time we get some sleep; I didn't sleep much last night, and you're probably tired now too since you're not used to talking all day long."
In front of her own door, Sasha pouts, wanting to argue that she's not tired like a small child, but in truth, she was. Very much so, but she didn't want this to end. And she was afraid.
"…What if they come to take you away at night, without me even being able to say goodbye?" she asks, hugging her knees as her good mood crashes down like an airship on fire.
Nikolo had similar worries, but he was not going to worry Sasha even more by admitting that out loud. Instead, he says: "You have sharp ears, and I'm a light sleeper these days as well. If someone comes, especially if there are several people, at least one of us should wake up to the sound of footsteps, and make enough noise to wake up the other. That way, we could at least say bye. Not goodbye; I'm not accepting that."
Sasha wants to argue that she's a heavy sleeper, that hadn't really changed, and that Nikolo too would probably be in deep sleep due to not getting enough rest lately, but she holds herself back, understanding that he was trying to comfort her. Besides, if she insisted on the bad things, they could start bothering him too, and he didn't need or deserve that.
Wanting to show him a positive side of herself instead of the whiny one, Sasha gets up. It takes her a few tries, but eventually, she manages to get a real, if tired, smile to her face. Turning to face the barred window on her door, she calls out: "I want to see you before we go to sleep."
"Demanding, aren't you?" Nikolo asks in order to lighten the mood as he gets up to comply. He knows it was a success as he sees the startled and embarrassed look on her face. It was cute. He grins "Goodnight."
"Goodnight" Sasha calls back, adding loud enough for Nikolo to hear "Jerk."
Nikolo chuckles as he turns away from the door. She didn't call him that often; it was usually a title reserved for Jean and Grior. Especially Grior.
Stretching a little before laying down on the predictably too thin mattress, Nikolo starts waiting to hear snoring, hoping that Sasha would fall asleep before he would. She probably would; he felt like it'd take him a while since he hadn't found a light switch to turn off the lamp in the ceiling. It was too bright for his liking, but Sasha was probably used to it, having not turned off her light, either. Maybe she couldn't; maybe the light switches of the cells were somewhere outside of them on purpose.
"If there was one in Sasha's cell, she would've definitely found it by now… but she might keep it lit on purpose… or since it's her, she might've just forgotten. I wouldn't put it… past her… sometimes she's such an… airhead…" his thoughts focused on the woman he loved, Nikolo drifts off to sleep very fast.
Across the hallway, Sasha is another story entirely. She too is laying on her bed, not making a sound, focusing on listening to the sound of Nikolo's breathing. It was easy; nights in this place were always dead quiet with very few exceptions, so even the smallest of sounds got her attention when she was awake. At the moment, she was glad for it; listening to his breathing, knowing that he was still there, even though she couldn't see him, was calming. She wasn't alone anymore.
"For now" Sasha thinks with a heavy sigh, knowing that the loneliness would be twice, if not more so, as painful once she was alone again. But it was worth it; she was glad to have seen him, heard him, even touched him for a short time again.
But it wasn't enough.
Pulling her hand in front of her mouth, Sasha hopes to block out the sounds of her sudden sobs. She knew she was being greedy, but that short time in his arms just hadn't been enough; it had been too long since she'd been held, too long since she'd had any non-hostile physical contact. She wanted, needed, more. Even if she couldn't be held by him, couldn't hold him herself, she'd at least want to hold his hand. As touch starved as she was, she hadn't even realized it before getting a reminder of what physical affection felt like, she'd take even a short handshake at this point… or even a fleeting high five!
Putting both hands in front of her mouth now, Sasha shuts her eyes tightly and turns to her side before curling up in to a ball. Her whole body was shaking with the sobs now, and she was afraid she'd wake Nikolo up with her crying. It was hard to listen to his steady breaths through her muffled sobs.
"I want to see him… I want to hold him… I want to see everyone!" she curls up tighter "I wanna go home!"
It takes hours, but eventually, Sasha cries herself to sleep.
