The Ache Within
Pain, Levi learned early in life, was a tool - a means to get something you wanted.
Pain in life was impossible to dodge. Living meant hurting.
The pain of hunger that made his insides twist and turn, Kenny who punched him good in the ribs because he missed his target during practice with the knives, the view of his mom's unseeing eyes which hurt so much he couldn't breathe.
Bloody scraped knuckles and bruised bones. It was all Levi ever had known in the Underground.
Later, as a young teen, he became a master of using pain. The break of a finger here, a bloody nose there. Levi was strong - he was more powerful than everyone else. Fear, pain, and awe kept him alive. It kept him breathing.
Pain was a tool - a means to get something you wanted.
Then Erwin happened - Erwin, the man who brought him up to the surface and into the light.
On the surface, there was no need anymore for fist fights and bloody noses. Within the Walls, there was no need to constantly look over your shoulder, even if Levi still did. Habits don't die easy, after all.
The surface made Levi softer around the edges: his mom's gentle touch, her kind words bleeding through his rigid exterior.
Despite his cruel upbringing, Levi never lost his kindness. Because despite what others perceived, Levi hated violence and despised pain.
Yet the pain was all that he breathed at times.
Levi couldn't get drunk - so he couldn't let the haze of alcohol numb the screaming void inside his chest. His friends Furlan and Isabel were dead, and it was his fault because he couldn't see past his stupid fucking pride for once. Stupid little Levi, Kenny taunted at the back of his mind. You know they all will leave you. Just wait. His knuckles ached, blood and splinters, but it wasn't enough. It had never been sufficient. There always had been this void inside of him. And for some reason, Levi could only see the empty gaze of his mother for a moment, gray and gaunt. And dead.
The blade of his knife gleamed in the soft candlelight. It was a promise, a relief from this nothingness that was Levi. The nothingness ate at him and ripped at him, invisible nails leaving bloody trails in their wake.
Levi knew it was not right, yet he took the knife and drew; red lines crossing the white lines, the warm scent of iron.
(He was fucked up, anyway.)
Levi hated pain. Yet the pain was what kept him alive at times.
It was his third month away from the Underground that Hange found out. Of course, it had to be her. Hange had the headache-inducing tendency to meddle with his business where others stayed far away. She waltzed right over his boundaries and into his space.
He was stitching up a nasty cut on his side, his bloody shirt thrown aside. The thread burned with every pull, but it didn't matter. The teary eyes of the young recruit, still breathing and whole floated through his mind. Levi hated senseless deaths. Too many died this time too. Young people with hopes and dreams shattered into heaps of bloody dust within seconds.
It was sickening.
He was stitching up a nasty cut in his side when Hange burst into his room, hair unruly and still coated in titan grime. Fucking disgusting. And when she examined him sitting on his bed, pulling his flesh together, somehow, Hange knew. The maze of white lines on his arm told the tale.
She stalked forward, asking him if he needed a hand, Levi telling her to fuck off and take a shower or two. Then her eyes wandered toward his arm. She reached, her fingers enclosing his wrist, her touch warm and gentle.
"Levi..."
Concern, kindness. And Levi couldn't- He couldn't-
"Fuck off, Hange." He tugged at his arm. "I swear. If you don't let me go, I will punch you."
Hange let go of him, took a step back to let him breathe, and stood there observing him as he applied gauze to his wound.
"Does it hurt much?"
Her question hovered in the space between them. Uncertain, uneasy, loaded. And Levi could express so many things here. Instead, he shrugged on a clean white shirt and discarded his bloodied one. Levi didn't look her in the eye, busied himself with putting his gear away, cleaning the rims of his nails to get rid of the blood and mud there. Then he sighed, exhausted, shoulders slumping a bit. "I will live."
"Hm." Hange hummed and shifted her stance. "Okay."
They didn't talk about it. Not really. And Levi was grateful. Instead, Hange took him out to practice from time to time. Hand-to-hand training, working up a sweat, collecting some bruises.
They both came to know each other's weaknesses and strengths. They were a good team, Levi realized. The two of them worked together seamlessly when required. Good friends. Good comrades. And their fighting sessions helped to keep Levi's thoughts in check - kept a bit of the emptiness at bay.
Pain, Levi learned early in life, was a tool - a means to get something you wanted. Yet, amid the pain and sorrow, there was also compassion.
Levi remembered his mother's hand, stroking his head softly, giving him a fresh apple she'd somehow acquired, smiling down at him quietly. He remembered Isabel's laughter at something shitty and stupid and Furlan's grin as he slapped Levi on the shoulder. Later, his good friends and comrades accepted him into their lives. Hange, barreling over his boundaries despite his reservations, Erwin's stupid drunken jokes, Mike's calm steadiness at his side.
"Hey," Hange murmured as they sat side by side, shoulders barely touching.
Levi did not turn to look at her and instead kept watching the starless sky of that night, so dark and endless you could get lost in it. "What."
Hange shrugged. "How are you feeling?"
Now Levi turned to watch her, raising an eyebrow, barely making out her expression in the dark. He turned back, exhaling, taking in the vastness in front of him.
"Not too shitty, I guess."
At his side, Hange shifted, stretching out her cramped leg. "Yeah?"
He shrugged. "Yeah."
The silence enfolded them like a blanket, comfortable and familiar by years of friendship and shared experiences. A space that didn't need to be filled.
Levi sighed, feeling oddly content.
He hated fruitless talk, anyway.