Torn
Erwin, Hange, Mike- every single one of his precious comrades and friends, fading away and disappearing into nothingness and leaving him behind once more. Once more, with nothing but a hole in his chest and a heavy heart.
It was over in the blink of an eye. And Levi wanted to ask them: "Don't leave me." Levi wanted to scream, dragging his fingers through the dust as he bent down to beg: "Please. Please, please, please."
It would be useless.
Throughout his life, Levi had wanted so many things (and look where that had gotten him, a whisper, taunting him every step of the way because it was never fucking enough). Levi had wanted to keep the people around him safe. Yet he had lost them, one by one, piece by piece (and he was slowly breaking from the inside out).
His lungs ached more than from the dust alone, his chest heaving to get the air in. Then he was crying, the first tear trickling across his cheek, dripping down to the dirt below. He tried to smile, a wavering expression that soon gave away beneath the force of more tears, treacherous and searing. Right now, at this very moment, something in him had ripped open and was torn apart (all of his tendons and flesh and blood, just yanked away like that because it had been oh so easy in the end). Something raw and aching and exposed for the world to see (finally). Something he even had hidden from himself because that had been the way to survive. Fucking push it all down and away and move on. From the dark corner of his mind, he could envision Kenny yelling at him, sensing the phantom ache as he struck him in the ribs because Levi was fucking weak. Be the strongest. Be the fastest. Be the asshole who does everything for humanity to survive. But now. Now-
Hange's smile, Erwin's smile, horrified expressions, and unseeing gazes, the red of blood and the glint of bones - all seared into his retina.
Now Levi could only choke through the hurricane of emotions whirling inside his chest, dancing across his skin and beneath his nails. Soon he was shivering, fingers scraping across dust and stone and skin. And please, please, please.
A hand on his shoulder brought him back from the depths of his mind and into reality. "Are you alright?" Gabi asked, dark eyes anxious. And the coughing fit pulled at the muscles in his chest. She waited, tense and weary. "Can you stand?"
He stared at her, chest heaving with every pained breath of air he dragged in, the metallic taste of blood on his tongue, tears drying on his cheeks. Because despite it all, Levi was still breathing, living. He was still fucking breathing while the rest of them-
"Yeah," Levi rasped out, feeling the exhaustion deep in his bones. "I think I can."
Here I bring you a dose of angst.