WhIP

by footfungus

nederlands verhalen over mijn otp

5. Hold fast to that resolve - Levi x Petra

Hold fast to that resolve

Troubleshooter

Summary:

In which Petra Ral, an elite member of the survey corps, endeavors fruitlessly to hide her burgeoning affections from Levi Ackerman. Humanity's strongest soldier and, ironically, her commanding officer.

However, following her initial saving of his life, she finds his company more frequent, and dreads he'll soon learn how truly and horrifically in love she really is.

Notes:

This is my first story on ao3, so it will be messy.
If you can soldier through some weird storytelling to eventually get some smut, then strap on babe. Happy to have ya here.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Letting her teeth scrape noisily across the tines of her fork is sometimes all she can do to stay awake after a uniquely grueling day on the training grounds.

She abhors that sound.

But she'd learned a long time ago that often her consciousness hinged on a willingness to utilize the things she hated, and harness her distaste for them constructively. At first, a crude coping mechanism she'd thought up as a means of recourse where the titans pertained. The accidental philosophy came unlooked-for, as fluky happenstances were incidental to their line of work. Much as the blood, sweat, and even more blood.

The muscles in her arms and shoulders throbbed dully and it caused Petra to wonder that her comrades could be hurting even worse. Oruo had likely taken the brunt of today.

Launching a hook into the padding of a dummy titan, he'd bitten his tongue celebrating himself after it had registered that he'd done it without looking. As cause for the preening, his left leg had tangled into the cord of what was, regardless, an imprecisely fired hook.

Petra had told him time and again to pay attention.

Airborne and futilely struggling to yank himself free, the ODM gear continued to propel him forward rapidly. Petra thought she would have heard him curse and scream or see his face tell all about how dumb he felt in those long seconds.

Surprisingly, his face twisted with regretful gall and not fear. She surmised that Oruo had by then braced himself for the collision, however still embarrassed by his glaring dearth of forethought.

He hit the dummy with an animated smack. Petra didn't catch how, but apparently he'd flipped and collided with his body prone on the wooden shoulder of the titan, which had begun to fall backward after absorbing Oruo's comical impact. He'd landed again, billowing dirt and dead grass all around him. But this time, he'd looked up to meet the icy glower of his captain.

Petra remembered landing next to them and promptly chewing him out for ignoring their explicit instructions. The ones that delineated a fleshed out maneuver of attack, it outlined Oruo descending and hacking at the feet of the titan, as to hinder movement, while Petra would be the one to move up and go for the nape. And while a part of her thought she should have been trusting the disciplinary component of their training to Levi, he seemed content to allow her to spare him the wasted breath.

She also remembered how long she'd been studying the nuances of quiet colors the sunlight had emphasized in the silver of her lieutenant's eyes before he'd turned around to walk off.

Petra's fork is loud against her teeth again.

"Would you stop that? It's starting to really get on my nerves." Oruo's exasperated voice wrested Petra's head clear.

"Sorry," she said insincerely, "How's your head?" That is sincere. "It looked real bad when the medics patched you up after the dummy fell on you."

"Felt worse." He muttered indignantly. Rubbing his head as he nursed his tea, this made Petra think.

"At least you didn't bite your tongue that hard this time." She snickered sportively behind her own cup. Petra was acutely aware of the taciturn censure taking precedence in his bruised head. She figured a little playful prodding would lift her fellow soldier from his low spirits.

She smothered another giggle at the tea splattering out of his cup when he forcibly set it back down .

"You'd better watch it, Petra. You're hardly in any position to poke fun at me."

Sensing his temper boiling, Oruo pulls back slightly, "Besides, if memory correctly serves, I took down two more dummies than you did today overall."

She recoiled visibly at that, lowering her cup with equivalent irritation. "Yeah, two 5 meter dummies. If you think taking those down counts for a better performance than mine, then you really did suffer a nasty hit today."

"You think the specifics matter when you tally everything up? That's still two more things I took care of before you did. I'd say a head injury is small price to pay for the recognition." He gloated, adjusting his stained cravat.

God, she hated that thing.

"Recognition? Now I know you're not serious, the captain had to throw you up onto your horse just to get you back to the barracks."

"Ha," Oruo's laugh was dry, "Laugh all you like. You're only getting on me about this because you're upset that all you're good at racking up are assist kills."

She bristled with the last paltry fumes of her energy, her fists balling at her sides as she rose to her feet. "Keep that up and you'll be visiting the medics again, Bozado."

Oruo chortled, throwing up his hands in feigned surrender. "Relax Petra, I'm sure the captain appreciates you wrapping things up for us after we've finished all the handiwork, I know I do."

He punctuated the aspersion with a wink and she'd never been more willing to ignore the ache in her muscles just to throttle him.

"How's about another head injury then, huh? I'd really be doing your face a favor." Her threat came as a snarl, but her bullheaded squad mate saw fit to spur her further.

"Don't strain yourself, girlie. You'll mess up your hair." He towered over her as he too stood from his seat at the table.

"Will you both give it a rest?" Eld chided resignedly as he stepped into the mess hall, Gunther ambling closely behind him.

"Don't either of you ever get tired?" The latter asked, skirting with effort into a seat beside them, as though he had been even more sore than the rest of them. Immediately, Petra's expression shifted back to passive annoyance.

"Oh relax, I wasn't really going to hurt him."

"Yeah, what she said. All in good nature." Oruo shrunk cautiously back into his stool, but not before he sent another suggestive wink Petra's way.

"Anyway..what did captain Levi have to say?" Petra questioned shifting closer to Gunther.

"He's ordered us to tell you both about an assembly we've each been called to attend." Gunther nodded toward Eld to continue.

"We've just learned that commander Erwin has marshaled squads Levi, Hange, and Mike, and summoned us to the coping of wall rose tomorrow." Eld said before slouching down next Oruo, dropping his head, and sighing into his arms.

"Before you ask, he didn't say why." Gunther was quick to add in.

"The cadets?" Petra asked.

"Not invited. Apparently, the unveiling is exclusive to the 'veterans'."

"So, it's an unveiling then?" Petra observed, wide eyed.

"Of what, we're not sure. The captain didn't say much, I don't think he knows a lot about what's going on either." Gunther clarified.

"Hange and Mike were present too, also didn't have anything to say." The tired man across mumbled as he sat up.

"...Ah, what do you bet it's someone's birthday and this a weird attempt at a surprise party." Oruo's sarcasm is not missed.

"Would explain why they don't want the kiddies there." Petra grumbled as her eyes roll.

"Very funny. The captain says it's important despite a lack of details. So, don't show up with a party hat unless you wanna get kicked off the edge of the wall tomorrow." Gunther's tone was authoritatively genial.

"Don't count on it." Oruo sighed, folding his arms behind his neck to support his head.

As funny as it was to envision Ouro tumbling off the wall, she was too tired to picture it any longer. She couldn't risk laughing, lest her sore rib cage burst with the strain.

"Right, so now that we've been briefed on this, what about us?" Petra jumped in, her finger motioning a circle amid them.

"What about us?" Eld raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are we done here? Can we go take a nap? Bathe? The only reason we're not sinking into our beds right now is because you guys told us to wait for you here." Petra says, pulling at the bags under eyes for emphasis.

Eld pushed onto his feet and leaned over the table to survey the state of his female counterpart. He pulled away after sniffing at her and scrunched his nose.

"You smell like sweat and hard work, Petra. You probably could stand to take a bath." He said with a strained voice.

Glaring at him, the corners of her lips pulled down and she bitterly concurred, "I'm glad we agree."

"He did say we're free to go after our maintenance drills." Eld's voice was lost against the wood as he slouched forward again.

"Did you say after?" Oruo whined, poking the man next to him with his fork.

"You heard right, Ouro," Gunther smiled, standing up and moving to the far end of their table, "Good thing, Eld and I have already seen to our end of that deal."

Petra's jaw dropped, she could already feel the burn in her limbs return. "You've got to be kidding me. When did you..?"

"Just before you both schlepped your sorry asses all the way back here. We had more than a head start." Eld shook his head patronizingly, getting up to join Gunther.

Oruo was off his seat in a second, he swayed a little from getting up too fast.

"What the hell did you have us wait here like idiots for then!? You could have told us to-"

"Hey! I don't know if that bump on your head is effecting your listening, but remember, we said we got started on our drills before you both returned to the barracks. As in, before we knew the captain would give us our leave after finishing them." Gunther interjected with an edge of sternness.

"Don't get all pissy with us because our time management skills don't disappear with a little pain in the hamstrings." Eld sneered, flexing under his uniform. "Pain you should both be used to by now, I might add." He attached needlessly to an already scathing condemnation.

"Sorry, Eld. But it's hard to take you seriously when you look like you're about to fall over." Petra countered easily, her fists balling again.

"Heh, don't worry about me, Petra. I'd be more concerned with getting all your duties out of the way before nightfall."

"That goes for you too, Oruo. The captain won't give a damn that you roughed yourself up today." Gunther's warning falls on the deaf ears of an angrily muttering Oruo.

"Chop, chop. The horses aren't going to change their own shoes." Eld's crude reminder was said over his shoulder as he walked for the doors.

Petra sent a grievous look in Gunther's direction and he felt a twinge of comradely pity.

"Oh don't look at me like that, Petra. You'll live, I promise." He said with light ridicule, giving her a reassuring punch to the shoulder.

"Ow.."

Smirking, Gunther followed after Eld and waved at them, "Good luck, you're going to need it." The door closed with a thud behind them. After popping his knuckles and stretching until his back cracked just as loud, Oruo looked down at a crestfallen Petra.

"Well, no use sitting around here then. Let's get to it."

Whimpering, Petra lifted from her seat laboriously, wincing at the high pitched skid of her chair.

"With any luck, we'll be done with half of what we need to do before passing out." She said, lighthearted.

"That's ambitious." Oruo said with matching enthusiasm as they made for the doors.

"Do you think we'll be able to clean our blades and have enough time leftover to care for the horses? I don't want to have to roll that stuff over for tomorrow." Petra looked at her hands and knew they would be raw by the end of the day.

"Tch, one thing at a time, Petra."

Using his body to push the double doors open, Oruo wiped his sleeve against his brow and Petra licked at the sweat already collecting at her cupid's bow. They exchanged weary sighs and separated, walking in opposite directions.

Glancing over her shoulder, Petra noted that the sky had reddened appreciably since she left the mess hall.

She might have been able to tell on her own, gleaning from the ache that persisted in the joints of her fingers.

Cleaning her ODM gear was especially annoying today, there was no caked blood to scrape away, she was thankful for that. But her propeller was covered with damp soil and every time she wiped at a smudge it would only smear wider.

She had been elbows deep in suds and reeked of chemical detergents. The pads of her fingers are pruny and red and her wrists hurt from shaking them dry so often. But now, as she held her gear under a weakening ray of sunlight, it shined enough to make her look away. She was certain they would hold well under Levi's scrutiny.

Depositing everything atop a nearby barrel, she made to liberate her most loyal friend from her saddle and metal shoes. That and maybe brush her mane and tail, remind her how cute and strong she is.

After freeing her hands, Petra turned, "I'm all yours, pretty girl."

She was just behind Petra, her head tipped forward into the grain basin, gnawing uncharacteristically at the long blades of hay the soldier had placed there minutes ago. Normally, Petra's horse ate at an unhurried pace, like she was savoring each individual strand.

Petra giggled stepping towards her, "Easy sweetie, you're food's not going anywhere. Ah!"

Petra staggered backward to rub her nose after walking face-first into a fuzzy muzzle. Very unlike her. The docile mare had never bopped Petra in the nose like that before.

"Wait a sec..you're.." Petra stepped back again to examine the legs and chest. This steed was taller and more muscular than her lithesome mare. A bit darker, with a thicker mane. And a different temperament.

"Oh. Hey, you." Petra stepped forward, placing her hand at the top of the stallion's head. Levi's horse was a special sort. He didn't like to be bothered when he was chewing, but if he wasn't chomping on anything, a pat on the head was welcomed with happy neighs.

"When did you and captain Levi get here, hm?" Petra whispered, reaching out with her other hand to stroke up and down his face.

She regularly indulged one sided conversations with the horses. She couldn't help it. Sometimes, they just looked so lonely. Nobody got hurt when she talked to them and they didn't mind the company, so she didn't need to reason it any better.

"You work much too hard don't you? Yes, they never give you any credit, huh? I know, I know. It's terrible, sweetheart." Petra's voice is pushed through pursed lips while her hands cup fondly around the strong jowls of the dark horse.

Pressing a gentle kiss onto his muzzle, Petra let him continue. He did, huffing peevishly out his nose.

"You know, I used to think it was cruel to use you guys for travel. I figured the titans would prefer you to us, what with all the meat on your bones." She reveals, patting the hulking neck with gentle compliment.

"That was before I'd become more thoroughly acquainted with those things." Her amber eyes searched the stallion's when he looked up again. Being an animal, the deep-set eyes boring into hers are vacant and unreceptive. And still, Petra squinted into them, sifting inscrutably for estimation.

"Now I know we can trust you guys because you're so strong." She continued to pet him, comforted by the feeling of his coat smoothing between her tender fingers.

"You are so strong."

Petra knows he can't understand her. But she couldn't say that she even knew what she was talking about right then.

"You guys inspire me. You make me strong too. You make me feel fearless." She sighed against her captain's horse, leaning her head on his larger one.

"Was that before or after your little accident on your first expedition?" A gravely voice echos into the stable.

"Befo-"

The air leaves her.

"Captain Levi!" Petra flinched at how hard her fist came down on her breast in her salute to him. "I'm almost done, just need to polish some buckles and refuel."

The lance corporal had shed the layer of capes and jackets and wore only the fitted white button-down and uniform pants. Her eyes focused again on his face when his head shakes and he waves her down.

"At ease."

His eyes don't leave her as he makes his way to the foot of the basin, where his horse had resumed eating.

"When did you get here, captain?" Petra repeated.

"Erwin dismissed us hours ago. I came here to make sure no one's slacking off." The raven haired man looked down his nose at the smaller woman. "Ouro still has a shit load of things to do. But he's catching up, so don't slow down now."

Petra immediately straightened at the mention of Commander Erwin.

"Don't worry, Captain, I won't be slowing down anytime soon. But about the commander, I meant to ask.."

The curiosity that piqued her transiently during the briefing at the mess hall was at once restored to her.

"Do you know why Erwin should need to see all veteran squads tomorrow but not think to reveal to us what for?"

The way her words came tumbling off her tongue made it sound like she cared much more than a little curiosity would let her.

He stopped short, tossing her an apathetic look over his shoulder, offering a single, cryptic answer.

"Confidentiality."

His eyes skirt over her nonplussed expression and watch her eyes dart left and right, trying to piece the one word into the corner of a larger picture. Her teeth caught her lower lip and her head shook, her arms had crossed and a foot began to tap against the silage pensively. Soon, he grew tired of watching her rack her brain over it.

The way she raised her arm stirred him, an index finger unfolded, wobbling up towards the ceiling and then at him. "I see now. Like a non-disclosure kinda thing."

Levi turned fluidly to face her and nodded for Petra to carry on.

"The..higher-ups mandated it then."

The inflection of the statement struck him more like a question.

"Erwin can't be held vicariously liable if too much information starts floating around the barracks before he's even decided to implement whatever the hell they're unveiling at the wall." He skated over the details again.

"Implement to what?" Her head cocked to the side. "The way we fight titans?"

"I wouldn't be attending if it had to do with anything else." Her captain confirmed indirectly.

She huffed, disgruntled, to herself. "Is that all you know, sir?" Her tone is blatant and agitated, a decidedly inappropriate address of authority.

He fixed her with a pointed look of annoyance and she extended a hasty rewording.

"I mean...do you think you might have picked up on anything else?" Omitting the honorific, she amended tenuously, "Sir?"

Narrowing his eyes at his subordinate as she fidgeted with the folds of her shirt cuffs, Levi exhaled a curt return.

"None of us did. Not Hange, Not Mike. I doubt Ewrin even knows a lot about what he's going to have explain to all of us in the morning." He said, managing to squeeze in his unmistakable tone of lukewarm resentment.

Petra knew it was not the military's job to facilitate information to everyone who served under them, they had the memos to communicate the important things for them. Hell, sometimes they didn't even use those. Occasionally, they relied on the indiscretion of loose lipped personnel to make some things clear to everyone else. However, they could afford this laziness. Their focus has always been to keep the survey, garrison, and military police regiments in passable shape. Because numbers would always dwindle, included in their jurisdiction was accommodating for the interminable loss of soldiers on the field. Ceaselessly drafting and arranging emblem deliveries to families probably penciled distributing new information last on a list of priorities.

And more than that she could recognize the military's secrecy as a gambit of self preservation. Better to not let a precarious hope give sway to the people that pay taxes. If something should disappoint that hope, it would be their heads. It's of a general understanding that the government panders only to those willing to pay it forward, they couldn't afford word getting out too early, touting potential of conjectural integrity that could come rocketing back at them when things went wrong.

With the acknowledgment of this truth, she feels a rush of esteem soak through the bitter feelings she once had about it. The collateral stroke to her ego should have gone unconsidered, but the swell of pride ballooned inside her completely indifferent to her better logic.

The higher-ups had summoned each scout individually—by name. She suddenly draws the conclusion that they had chosen to call forward only the vets for reasons of security and trust. She felt lifted to know she'd made her name indicate someone of dependable quality. Even if she and her squad knew absolutely nothing.

"Don't be late for that, Petra. Meeting's at the wall, at the ass crack of dawn." Levi's footsteps were quiet as he sauntered over to Petra and his mount. "The arrival of squad leaders will be delayed, we're to be at preliminary conference before anything happens. You're all expected to assemble there in advance. And I don't want to hear any bitching about the early rise, because I'm going to be up before any of you."

After nodding off thoughtfully, Petra was abruptly jerked back down to earth when he moved closer. When she said nothing more, he looked askance at his temperamental traveling buddy.

"Your horse is in the neighboring stable, Petra. Mine looks like he's had just about enough of you." His hand stretched out toward the velvety muzzle that came up to greet him.

"And here I thought he was warming up to me." Petra's smile was halfhearted. Her hand came up in time with her captain's and the tips of her fingers brushed furtively across his.

"Ah..yes, my horse... I had no idea. Thank you, captain." Petra said, pulling her hand away and looking towards the doorway.

Levi's hand falls back to hang at his side again. He blinked at her and then her hand.

"Oi. Your hands are falling apart."

Her eyebrows shot up and she wanted to roll her eyes at herself for forgetting how perceptive her lieutenant was. Still, she'd barley touched him.

"Yes, well, I trust you know the paraffin wax will do that, sir." Petra tried her best not to sound completely drained, if she hated anything more than a metal scraping sound, it was appearing fragile in front humanity's strongest. Nonchalantly, she slipped her hands into the slits of her jacket.

"Don't pin this on the wax," Levi plucked her left hand from the pocket she'd tried to hide it in, his gaze lingered on the skin there. "..This was all you."

She looked everywhere except his face as her ears began to burn. She is quick to acquiesce with all the due soldierly grace. "You're right, I'll be more mindful next time, sir."

He dropped her hand, scowling at her. "I know I tell you all to sweat the details, but I'm not too keen on my soldiers wearing their hands down to fucking stubs."

She could only nod.

"Don't work so hard one day that you can't work just as hard the next day. Got it?"

"Loud and clear, sir."

Petra smiled again despite herself, pulling her other hand out.

"Speaking of hard work, this morning had a lot of it." Levi's eyes shut coolly as he bent against the pen of his horse.

"I couldn't agree more, captain. I've been ready to drop for a few hours now." She says doubling over, supporting the weight of her torso with her hands on her knees.

"You showed some improvement today, Ral." Levi observes with his noncommittal tone, natural to the rumbling timbre of his voice.

Petra was suddenly upright again. She bit down on her trembling lip to answer him. "..Thank you for saying so, sir."

"With that said.."

She feels her lips tremble once more.

"You need to work on your execution from the ground up. Literally. From a position with both feet in the dirt. You can't always be death from above. Eventually, you'll get swatted out of the sky like a damn pigeon."

"Ah..right."

"Next time we're on the heels of a titan, I'd better see you latching into the bastards and carving your way up to the nape."

She had to remind herself not to giggle, this was her captain telling her to shape up. She'd be sure to have this assessment in mind next time she's been grounded. But in her chest, her heart is aglow with giddy, stupid, misplaced endearment. How her captain could jump from sweet—maybe not sweet, but for argument's sake—to sour in just moments never failed to render her dizzied and tongue-tied. However, that shouldn't suggest that she resented him for it. Not for a second.

Somewhere along her on-boarding, she'd made a point to relate Levi's discursive tendencies to a feeling of home and familiarity. It was something she could always depend on.

"You can count on me, captain. I promise I'll do better next time around," She saluted him as she finished, "I will not let you down."

She held his stare for what felt like a minute. At length, he finally nods to her.

"See to it that you don't."

Petra's hands fell away and she felt her chest deflate. She blinked up to see Levi pacing toward the stable doors.

"Thank you for clarifying, captain!" Petra almost tripped over boots calling after him. "I Just wanted to know a little more about what's happening tomorrow, that's all."

Levi turned her way again. A corner of his mouth twitched as if he were about to say something, but staying his words with mind to reconsider.

"I do too, looks like we're both just going to have to be there then, aren't we?" He is leaning forward and cocking his head to the side, not unlike the way she just did.

Petra sighed inwardly and stared after him as rounded the corner and stopped at the entrance, "Don't forget about those belt buckles."

"Yes, sir." Petra spoke just before he was gone.

Levi going from hot to cold was a trait Petra learned to appreciate a while ago. His frost could not chill her. In fact, she loved that about him.

Petra admired her captain for numberless reasons. But if she were to reduce him to single trait, doubtless, it would have to be the unapologetic bluntness that came effortless to him.

Oversimplified, Levi was the uncompromising stinging sensation wrought by the overt candor of his words, the indelicacy of his mannerisms, and an overall callous nature. Whenever most anyone would talk about him, or even think of him, they'd wince with subconscious pain.

Like they'd felt their stomach knot with a cramp. Like they'd just bitten into a sour apple. Like he was the worst thing to have ever happened to them.

And they didn't even know him.

Its for people like them he risked his life every other day. Only to have them yank the glory right from underneath him. She used to think Levi, dark and fatalistic, was the one to crush the grandeur around his name by being gruff and unbending. But then she'd learned that first impressions are almost never a good basis for a judgement of character.

Levi did nothing to take away from his title by simply being himself, everyone else did.

He was still no less the symbol of strength amongst all three regiments, or the face of the survey corps, or the last bastion of hope against humanity's extinction. He was all of these things and still a human being. Albeit, indefensibly rough around the edges.

Next time, Petra would not hide her smile from him.

All was quiet as she lit the lanterns, it would soon be dark and the moon was beginning to peek through the clouds. Behind her, Levi's horse whinnied after noting his owner's absence and Petra's heart lurched with fellow feeling.

"Looks like we both don't like when our leader leaves." She whispered, "...Let me do you a favor."

Petra moved purposefully as she removed his saddle and bent down to lift a hind leg, fumbling with her empty hand for the hammer that lay somewhere around her. He wasn't her horse, but she didn't mind changing shoes twice in one day. She would get to her own horse in a matter of minutes. What's more, this way she'd spare her captain a walk in the dark.

Lifting a newly found hammer high above her head, Petra's hand quivered up there. She doesn't move, so as not to sacrifice the accuracy of her swing.

Soon the muscles in her arm gave out and it fell limp beside her. She sighed again, moving silently under the moonlight filtering through the cracks of the wooden walls.

Standing face to face with Levi's stallion a last time, Petra's whisper was lost in the humid, dusty air of the stable.

"Will you do something for me?"

The horse whinnied again and she was prepared to swear that he'd just now conceded to returning her favor. So, her eyes closed and she decided to trust him with her thoughts one more time. Her honey-blonde hair fell into her eyes as she pushed onto the tips of her toes and rest her forehead on his.

"Don't let your master know how much I love him."

With that, she pulled away and picked up the hammer, drawing her arm up once more, with vigor.

In the left over hours of the night, a petite woman with amber eyes does not relent in her quest for completion. After scrubbing at brass fasteners and clicking new gas tanks into her gear, she crossed over to the adjacent stable and cared for the restful mare there.

Bidding her a silent goodnight, Petra hauled up endless steps back to her room and was asleep before she made it to her bed. She does not dream, but blurry images of sliver eyes and scents of ivory soap float in and out of her mind.

She has only the few hours of remaining darkness to sleep. Of course, they would not be enough.

And the day tomorrow would be long.

That was probably a weird place to cut it off but it doesn't matter. This is only here to test the waters.

Future chapters are underway, let's see where this goes.

(Can Levi even be called a lieutenant? Whatever, I'm shoehorning it)

Chapter 2

Notes:

Y'all don't know how weird it is to type like 6200 words on the notes app of your iPhone

But yeah here's chapter 2

Go crazy, go stupid.

Chapter Text

The morning toll rang almost plangent through her eardrums. That awful sound.

Her drained whimper was muffled by the cotton of a pillow. She'd buried her head so deep, she could scarcely suck in a breath. The length of her body was swathed in the downy comfort of a blanket. The toll resonated through the barracks a second time, at this, Petra spitefully shoved the covers off her still-recovering body, the muscles in her arm protesting sharply because of it. The splenetic throbbing persisted in intermittent, fine tremors along her body as she postured up on the mattress. Her hands came up to rub into the skin of her temples, focusing on the swelling tension there. She really didn't know if she could make herself go to this thing today.

With a start, Petra pushed off her cot and moved frenziedly to ready herself for the assembly at the wall. She'd narrowly forgotten about it, and she now had to engage in what was a completely avoidable race against time. She looked down at herself when the straps of her uniform obstructed her movement.

In the small hours of last night, Petra had plopped into her bed and passed out without changing out of her soiled and sweat drenched uniform. On her bed were the tell tale dark smudges of dirt and green blotches of moss.

She slapped a hand to her forehead, aggravating a newly emerging headache. If nothing else, she could have simply slipped out of her dirty clothes and slept in the nude, avoiding the replacement of stained bed sheets. All she had to do before laying down to rest was bathe. It was the very last thing she had to do, and it was for herself too. Now, she had to make time for it.

She knew immediately that Levi would have no reservations about booting her from the squad if she showed up like this. Already, she could envisage the disgusted glower creasing into his brow and curling his lips, for he could probably smell her before even ascending the wall.

Petra forcibly emptied her mind of the defeatism of her thoughts. She could privately chastise herself once she's present for the meeting. Leaving her door open, she ran down stretching halls to the lavatory, looking to draw a bath and scrub herself with furious conviction. Mercifully, there is no line and she can rush through the doors without worrying about knocking someone down on the other side. She counted the ticking seconds in her head as she undressed, calculating the math of the shortcuts she'd need to take if she expected any chance of halving her commute time.

Mapping the route in her mind and stepping into a wide mouthed barrel, Petra sputtered as she upturned a bucket of tepid water over head. No time for anything more than a quick but thorough rinse of the body. She dreaded to think of the tongue lashing she'd get if she showed up late and in unacceptable condition. Vigorously dragging a soapy rag over her tingling flesh, concepts and theories of what she and her squad would learn in the next hour distracted her. As she washed the bubbles from her skin, she deigned to hope for something she could use to better apply the adjustments Levi instructed she work into her techniques. Like an upgrade to the ODM gear or a modification to the parring blades.

The ideas ricocheting off the walls of her brain helped to ward away the apprehension that would otherwise dampen and encumber her movements. The frenzy made her clumsy. It caused her to repeat things. And so, Petra's never been more grateful for the luxury of distraction.

Lifting out of the vat and securing a cloth taut around her lithe form, Petra hastened back to her room where she pulled on her white button down and pants in quick succession, but locking the fastenings of her straps had never taken so long before.

Why today?!

She pathetically willed her uniform to cooperate with her, but the belts kept slipping out between her moistened thumbs.

Not a moment later, her heart plunged to the soles of her feet when she heard the trotting of hooves from outside her window. She could only just identify the characteristic shrill of Hange's voice as it carried into the pane of her window, rattling it.

Her troublesome bindings are restrictive to the movement of her hips and legs, so she must hop awkwardly all the way to her window. There, Petra can spot several other scouts closely galloping beside each other. She can distinguish the blond undercut and thick brows unique to commander Erwin. The bespectacled figure with sunlight bouncing off the lenses she affectionately recognized to be Hange. The second blonde man, sticking his nose up and flaring his nostrils had to be Mike. And the smallest one, all sharp lines and dark hair that belonged unambiguously to captain Levi.

They were already on their way to the wall. The squad had probably regrouped there hours ago and wait for her now, frustrated and unimpressed.

Petra was given orders to be there beforehand. She wasn't. She thought she might have had a head start. Now it was gone.

Her head slanted against the pane and it shook again. She felt her momentum plummet and fizzle out.

No time to strap up then.

Steeling her nerves, she quickly bid her wits return to her. She'd sooner stay cooped up in her room before showing up later than Oruo. Technically, she would still be late even if she left right then, but she'd be damned if she let the captain know about it. Abandoning the futile attempts at forcing her uniform together, Petra decided that she was presentable enough. She threw her jacket over her shoulders and ignored her mirror as she yanked her door open, whistling through the barracks and to the stables she left just a few hours ago.

"Okay, okay. Almost done." Petra struggled with the maternal part of her that clamored for her to be more gentle with her mare. She moved desperately and several times her horse had objected vocally. Securing the reigns gently as she could, Petra whispered muted apologies to her steed but found her cooing to be more for herself than the patient horse towering her above her.

Deferring pitifully to the make-do comfort met by her own voice, it was the only reason Petra hadn't succumb to the weight of her nerves. Any noise, even that of her mousy voice repeating the same sing-song intonation over and over, would soothe her. It was hard to quell the despairing thoughts and invite back the optimism that carried her to the stables, specifically when time, or gross lack of it, made doing just that impressively difficult. There was no room in her head for hopeful anticipation, she was all panic and jitters.

"Okay! That's done, just gotta saddle you up and then we can go, huh?" Petra hopped off the stool to fetch a saddle only to reach the post and find it was empty. But in a dusty nook, there lay a worn and forgotten back up saddle, encrusted with overlapping rows of rust along the stirrups and moth-eaten leather everywhere else.

With no time for a second thought, she unlatched it from its hook and hurried up the stool once more, quickly fastening the tattered saddle onto her mount. Pulling at the bands that looped and tucked under her horse, Petra sighed a relieved breath when they held fast. Throwing her leg up and over the seat, she had her horse trot out of the stable and onto the pavement ahead, sighing again when she didn't slip and hang from under the stomach. Apparently old did not mean unserviceable.

Veering off the path and toward the wall, Petra wasted no time galloping into the streets. Looming so enormously overhead, it belied a considerable distance that Petra had to cover in less than...what? 10 minutes?

Concentrated on maintaining a center of gravity, Petra set about combing her groggy mind for the shortest paths and routes she could take. Her focus is to best the speed of the squad leaders, be at the coping before they even reached the wall. In theory, it gave every indication of being compassed reasonably. When they'd passed by her window, they didn't look to be in any kind of hurry. But she couldn't get too comfortable.

Shadowing the squad leaders was out of the question, she could not gamble that they would not intercept her.

As she came barreling to a skidding halt at a desolate crevice between buildings, she recognized that she could not be especially selective right now. Outrageous as bolting down a pinched alleyway on the back of a two ton horse would seem, she had to draw on every unlikely course afforded her, convenient and otherwise.

Springing into full-tilt once more, Petra beat a path down the dusty passage, bounding through the narrow trail like a loose arrow. She would need to duck down several times to dodge under open windows and avoid getting caught in the billowing duvets and carpets being beaten clean. Plenty of bewildered eyes fixed on her as she pelted past, and it supplied her with a boost of yet more unease that made her move even faster.

Fast approaching the far end of the alley, Petra could glimpse the shapes and colors that denote a pleasant marketplace. The one that sat a few meters from the west end of the wall, just before the lift. But the area is also bustling. Well-trodden and congested with locals, Petra was unsure of how far she could get on a horse. She doubted that she commanded any kind of influential air like Levi, who would have no trouble parting a sea of people with a pass of his hand. No way, she couldn't even get Ouro to respect her. She would reach the lift by the end of the day if she continues this way.

Dubiety gripping her like a vice, Petra cast an uncertain glance behind her, debating fiercely with herself whether she should yank the reigns into her chest and wind back whence she came.

No, I can't retrace any steps now.

Resolving to press on, Petra forced her vision forward again. Coming upon the exit, she pulled back on the reigns and hoped her timing wasn't totally off. With a yelp of effort, the mare pushed down on her back haunches and came to a harsh stop just before trampling into market, sending a cloud of dust and dirt up at them. Petra pressed down on the pommel of her saddle and leapt off the back of her horse.

After shaking herself off a bit, Petra took the reigns back into her hands, turned around, and pushed onward.

With one arm out, she tried to get the most people she could out of the way of her horse. Muttering distracted apologies and warnings to step back. She payed little mind to the odd looks and mumblings whispering through the crowd about how odd it looked; pushing through a market with a horse in tow.

A lot of people were stepping on her toes, even as she extended her hand out to make sure no one got within arms' length. Somehow, nobody had bumped into her horse yet, but she didn't know how much longer it would be before one of the children scurrying about would get too close. She tried to maintain a light jog pulling her horse along but faltered into the same pace every time she tried to speed up.

She could feel her momentum doing another nose dive. She had to keep moving. It was right there. The last herd of people were just beyond her fingertips.

Summoning every last vestige of decorum that quickly waned in her small body, Petra tried not to shove them out her way as she gingerly snaked her arm between wandering families to separate a path through them. Her outwardly calm expression garnered a spate of embarrassed smiles and nods as they leaned back and bunched up ponderously to step aside and around.

All together, it was very awkward to emerge from the crowd with a lump in her throat and her stomach in knots like that. Finally with a bit of leeway to breathe, Petra used it to make for the troop of military police that collected in the corner just ahead. They operated the crank that would elevate her to the top of the wall.

She ran like it was for her life.

How her sore calves screamed with the stabbing impact absorbed every time her feet reconnected with the asphalt!

If Petra had known how much her body would feel the fruits of her labor from the yesterday, and she felt it, she would have trained just as hard every day before. If only to acclimate her body to the aftermath of such rigorous lessons and wean herself of the expectancy of leisurely days. Too often she assumed that one exhaustive training session would mean an attendant calm was in the offing.

As the ache continued to spike through her while she ran tirelessly for the wall with her mare, she remembered that a soldier's life was not so cut and dry.

Before she could finish the thought, out of the corner of one eye she spotted them.

The wings of freedom stitched into the jackets of the squad leaders. Commander Erwin and captain Levi. Squad leader Hange and Mike. Petra's heart pounded against her ribcage before springing up to her throat as she watched them dismount their horses.

When she staggered backward, her horse bumped into her back, sending her jutting forward. Thinking fast, she sidestepped around the mare and hid behind her neck as she worked to pull herself together.

She thought she had made good time. But it seemed that something really did kill her momentum. Perhaps she should have turned back. Rather, she shouldn't have deviated from the path at all. Petra's head lolled back as her neck craned up, closing her eyes tight, hopeful that the sunlight beating down on her face could help her to think. Her brow furrowed with concentration as she mulled over what her next move would be.

She was not about to stop now, not when she'd come this far. It wasn't as if she could dramatically accept her defeat and ride back to the barracks with her head in her hands miserably. She still had a professional obligation to be up there, no matter who knew that she overslept.

Glancing over the back of her horse, Petra could see they continued talking indistinctly to the military police stationed at the crank. Likely readying to move onto the platform and be carried up.

The last hope that Petra had, the only thing she might still be able to do, is be at the top the wall before they can make it up.

"Okay, sweetie. We're going to walk over there now. Don't let the captain see me, okay?" Petra whispered tentatively.

Now, contriving to do just that, Petra guided her horse forward to the secondary platform on the right of the four of them, using her mare's neck to conceal her. She never imagined her body could grow so stiff as she struggled to keep pace with her horse. Her lips moved wordlessly in silent prayer, hoping they wouldn't turn around and see her or recognize her horse. She kept her chin tipped down behind the neck much wider than her head and walked slowly. Twenty more steps. Fifteen more.

Petra nearly bit through her lip when her foot hit the edge of the lift. With her hand gripping one side of the saddle, she guided her horse onto the lift with her. The soldier musing dazedly there looked up when he felt new weight on the lift. He tried tilting his head back to look at the soldier, but gave up after she kept shrinking away.

"Uh...going up?" He prompted wearily.

She could only manage a squeaky, "Yes, quickly please."

Listening intently for the characteristic clunking sound of the wooden platform being elevated by the crank, Petra stilled when she heard the soldier grunt with effort to operate the crank. Looking down, she noticed she was beginning to gain height, the houses and buildings growing smaller behind her. She was ascending the wall. Petra felt her body slump forward and took that to mean all the pent up agitation had fallen away.

Although, it didn't last long.

All the newfound relief dispersed inside her when her ears caught the cranking noise of the lift beside her ascending too. Sneaking a look from behind her horse's head, her fears were confirmed when she saw them all there. Lined up, single file. Looking straight ahead.

Worry singed down her spine again.

Now what?

Petra tipped her head back down and surveyed her situation. She had still gained a few feet on them, luckily, she started moving up first. While this made for some extra time to think, it didn't give her a lot of time to act. She would get there first, but she'd need to know exactly what to do by the time she's up there. And she only had a few meters to go.

Looking up, Petra could see the garrison soldiers that lined the edge of the wall. She could make out the shapes of ODM gear on some of them. Below, she could hear them talking amongst each other and it shook her concentration. Steeling herself once more, she squinted up again and noticed she was much closer.

Petra's eyes shut and hands came up to rub at her temples again. She was climbing higher and higher, couldn't think for the life of her.

Petra could always think clearly when she was zipping through the air. Much higher than she was right now. So why couldn't she come up with a way to simply act natural?

Her eyes flew open when she felt the glare of sunlight shine again on her face.

"Hey, you need help with your horse?"

Petra's eyes focused on the hand extended to her and looked up to find it belonged to Nanaba.

"Uh...Yes, Thanks." Without thinking, Petra handed the reigns to Nanaba and slipped off the platform, looking everywhere around her hoping something would give her an idea of what to do. The primary lift would be pulling up any second now.

In the distance, Petra could see other soldiers looking at her and precisely placed them. The scouts of Hange's squad, Mike's, to the familiar faces of her own squad.

She had to get to them. If she was with them, she could finally settle down. Maybe even breathe a little.

Picking up her feet, she made her way to them and was glad to see they were running to meet her halfway. Thank god for that; she was getting tired of running.

Eld reached her first, looking her up and down. His fists moved up to rest against the leather on his hips. "You're never late, Petra. Where have you been?" Eld's tone was highly accusatory.

She stared up at him and fought with all she had to steady her breathing.

Petra's tongue felt like a damp rag in her mouth. She had opened her mouth to talk, but it was hard to do it when she was so... winded. And it wasn't just her body, Petra felt spent for how her nerves had clenched onto the dreading and trepidation that slinked so severely around her. Feeling out of control for a whole morning siphoned all the energy she would need to carry on for the remainder of the day. Being on edge for so long was a different kind of draining. Coupled with the soreness of her body, Petra felt like she was repeating the day before all over again, and it wasn't even noon yet.

It then dawned on her that this whole morning, not once did she take a complete breath.

Gunther and Oruo came to stand behind Eld. Both looked just as concerned.

She sucked in a deep breath and exhaled.

"Petra?" Eld tried once more.

Her hand lifted to rake through her ginger tresses, "I overslept, guys. It's a long and uneventful story, okay?"

Gunther thought for a moment. "Did you get here just now?"

"Yeah.." Petra answered as her face crinkled with embarrassment.

"So what? You just hauled ass here?" Ouro snickered, crossing his arms.

"That's right." She said matter-of-factly.

"Ouro, that's enough." Eld intervened with a sigh. "And Petra, don't you think you're a little tardy to be catching an attitude right now?"

She tensed hearing this. "Look, the meeting's not even started, it's not like I missed anything."

"It's less about what you could have missed and more about the principle." Gunther shook his head at her.

Petra balled her fists, ignoring the twinge of pain as her fingernails bit into the skin of her palms.

"You guys aren't going to tell the captain, are you?"

The look plastered on Eld's face betrayed the ambivalence he felt toward her plea.

Petra's words had a shaky air about them now. "Please," she began, "Please, don't say anything."

"Why? What do we owe you?" Oruo chimed in again.

Petra was too far gone to tap into the patience she kept largely for her wannabe teammate, and she lashed out because of it.

"How about a little understanding? I just told you what I had to do to get here, if you tell it'll all be for nothing!"

"Petra." Eld muttered.

"Are you asking us to lie, Petra?" Gunther shoved past Oruo and Eld.

Just when she was about to refute that, all four turned around as the scouts saluted commander Erwin. Captain Levi was to his left, his eyes drifted over every soldier's face. He was looking for them.

Turning back around, Petra's voice took on a desperate note, "Listen, I'm not asking you to lie. I'm asking you not to tell on me."

As she cast another glance over shoulder, her eyes locked with her captain's for a split second. In turn, her head swiveled back like she'd just been burned.

"Oh come on, guys! It costs you nothing to say nothing! When do I ever ask for anything?"

The three men exchanged unreadable looks as Petra eyes darted anxiously between them. Eld was kind and noble at the best of times, but before any of that he was painstakingly loyal. Gunther, however, was integrally reticent, only spoke when we had something relevant to add. She really couldn't say anything for him. And Ouro, who wanted so much to be like captain Levi, that he made himself a lousy caricature of him, might just talk to get in better graces with him.

But before any that, they were her friends. She would hate to think she could confide in them in battle and nowhere else.

Cutting that thought away, was none other than her wannabe friend himself. Shrugging with both hands in the air, "We've gotta have each other's backs, right?"

The way Petra's smile spread over her face made her cheeks hurt.

"Right!"

Raising an admonitory finger, Gunther went on anyway. "Don't get too comfortable, Petra. We're all tired from yesterday. No excuse to slack off, next time you had better be on that lift with us."

"Duly noted!" Petra's grin hadn't left her face as she saluted them.

"Yeah, you might wanna redirect all that energy over there." Eld said pointedly, taking the smaller woman's shoulders and spinning her around.

Petra found her captain just a few feet away, pacing towards them with his meticulous gait.

Suddenly remembering that she was supposed to look like a good soldier who had actually arrived on time, she scanned her surroundings for something to better sell that. Her eyes fell on someone's discarded ODM gear. In the blade reserve box she spots some left over blades sheathed inside. Running for them, Petra snatched the gear up, she quickly yanked a single parring blade out and set the rest back down.

She came to a stop at a supply box and sat there; waiting with her teammates for their captain to approach them. Using the blade, she drew meandering swirls and figures into the stone.

Like she was bored. Like she had been there all morning.

Every perturbation winked out of Petra's mind as she sat on that box. She finally got her wind back and settled into the wood below her. She'd made it. All she had to do now is act the part.

And Levi was closing in.

She hoped her teammates couldn't see how she was eyeing the way the wind caught in her lieutenant's hair and how daylight threw shadows on the planes of his chiseled features, highlighting them.

For the third time today, Petra's fingers found her temple and rubbed at the left side as her eyes fell shut. With the blade still in hand, she flipped it so that she now had a reverse grip. Like Levi.

Would that he could cross the thresholds of her mind. There, he'd slice and hack away the burdensome feelings that had insinuated themselves indelibly onto what used to be professional admiration. It would save her so much trouble.

When she opened her eyes again, she was looking down at the lance corporal's boots. She hadn't looked up yet, but she knew they were his for the way light glinted off the instep.

"Good morning, captain." Petra saluted him, the rest the squad followed suit.

"You guys look real cozy over here." Levi intoned.

When no one did anything about the silence that gradually draped over them, Eld was the first to speak up again. "Yes, well...we've been waiting for you here, captain. Just like you said."

Levi walked around to the corner of the supply box and instantly they all scoot over, almost pushing Petra off if they didn't accidentally sit on her first.

He sat down, tucking one leg up into his body. "Must have been pretty fucking boring." He jibed, looking at the endless green on the other side of the wall.

"You're right about that, captain. Guess we're just waiting for something to happen." Ouro says, holding back a yawn.

Petra's amber eyes rolled endearingly. Lucky for her, Levi couldn't see her face.

"Say, Petra.."

Shit. Maybe he could see her.

"Captain?"

She didn't need to worry about putting on a brave face, he wouldn't be able to see it as he sits opposite her. But she still had to sound coolheaded.

"That's your horse over there, no?" Levi nodded to his right. "Why does it look like it's wearing a carcass?"

Petra couldn't see their faces, but close as they were to give Levi space, she could feel her friends' bodies tense and stiffen for her.

The pause that staggered her was only momentary, she recovered promptly, "That was the only saddle left to me, sir. I know it looks pretty worn, but it got me here just fine."

He sat quietly behind her for bit, as if he were absorbing what she said, taking his time. Nothing wound her up like waiting for Levi for take something she said and throw it back at her. He was funny that way. But not the kind of funny that made her laugh.

"Just as well. It's a real shame they have to carry us everywhere and then be forced to ride around looking like that."

Petra thought to agree with her captain and but instinct warned against it. His voice sounded particularly affected just then.

"Although, you don't look much better, Petra."

Levi commented with his same tone.

Quick as it came, the calm that had washed over her evaporated from her body. Diffusing into the haze of heat above them even faster when he spoke again.

"You're covered in dust from the waist up." He went on.

The image drifted across her mind's eye, the cloud of dust and debris that fell over her from the alley.

"And what is that? Sauce on your pants?" Somehow, the upward inflection of his words is heard despite the deadpan of his voice.

Again, she recalled the moment. Probably when she was trying to stave her way through the market; the children. They must have brushed past her with grubby little fingers.

"It looks to me that you just threw yourself together this morning, Petra. I'm surprised." He uttered.

Opposite him, despair breezed smoothly throughout Petra's body, chased down by a numbness that felt like a cold swig.

Had it been for nothing? All that... toil, and for what?

"Oh, and I'm sure you know by now that those straps are supposed to be around your arms and legs, not hanging off of them." Levi added, perfectly impassive.

Petra felt ready to sink right through the wood and stay there. But, it'd have to wait because she had to say something. Anything.

"I do, captain. But you see, today, there was-"

"I said just as well, didn't I? Save it, Ral. You're sitting with us, that's all that matters. I'd rather you look like shit and be here than immaculate someplace else." Levi cut her off tersely.

Petra forced herself to answer now before something stupid popped into her head.

"Yes, sir."

Petra's head felt like it was spinning on her neck. These were far too many emotions in one sitting. She didn't know where her mind had the space to fit so many. It was awfully draining. She felt oddly inclined to welcome the numbness back into her body, even if she did feel like she was soaring right now.

And she did.

To her captain's credit, he really had honed a knack for jerking her out of any comfort zone she might have settled into, confident that she understood him. Every day he came crushing down on that ease like a pestle. Reminding her that she didn't understand. Or rather, that she had much more to learn.

"Squads Levi, Mike, and Hange! Front and center!" Erwin called into the sky as he walked down the coping, carrying an indiscreet metal casing at his side.

The commander's voice roused Petra from her thoughts and put her on her feet. Her teammates and fellow soldiers rose with her and gathered to form a circle around him.

"I expect you all must be wondering why you've been summoned here. I'll be explaining that now." The boom of Erwin's voice rang through her as he moved to the center of the circle.

"Nifa, the box nearest you, bring it forward."

Erwin commanded succinctly.

She jumped a little, but moved behind the box and pushed it to the center. It stopped just under Erwin's middle.

"These last months, I've been in receipt of consecutive criticisms from the monarchy and commander-in-chief Zachary. It would seem that a gross disregard of regulations has been observed in the execution of operations carried out by the survey corps," Erwin's gaze was harsh as he set the container down on the box, unclasping the hinges, "Operations sanctioned by me."

Flipping the lip of the case open, soldiers could glimpse something that resembled a signal flare resting atop velvet inside.

"Apparently, poor leadership leaves much to be desired in the realm of pragmatism." Erwin remarked detachedly.

"Poor leadership?" Levi clipped. "As demonstrated by what?"

"The fatality rate of the scout regiment." Erwin responded. "The expeditions of late have each incurred a death toll exceeding sixty percent. The military sees it, and become given to perceive we conjure an image of the regiment that's exhausted all it's resources."

"And then assign blame accordingly?" Levi ventured further.

"No, they make new weapons." The commander retorted before setting about removing the weapon and its accessories from its casing. "And then assign blame accordingly."

Levi doesn't speak again, but makes known that he's not dropped this yet.

"The inestimable loss of life has the military in want of a complete upheaval of common reservations. It looks like they're finally willing to do anything to stop us dying."

With what looked to be a newly assembled signal flare in hand, he prompted the squads to tighten the circle.

"That's where this comes in. Commander-in-chief Zachary, in collaboration with merchants of the Reeves company, have cultivated the first technological advancement in years. However, it's still in the works. This is just a prototype."

He extended his arm to give everyone a better look.

"The device is without a name for now, but some features about it are already clear. The most obvious being that it's a modification of something we already use, closely resembling a signal flare in make and likeness."

Nifa peered down at the pistol and blurted, "Wait, so it's not signal flare?"

Mike brought one of the accompanying barrels up to his nose and sniffed. "What are these then?"

"Explosive rounds."

The circle widened.

Erwin continued. "To answer you, Nifa, what you see here is not a signal flare. But a makeshift cannon you can hold in a single hand. The purpose of the explosive rounds are exactly as it's name suggests."

"I see! We're supposed unload these into a hoard of the little beasties, right?!" Hange exclaimed.

"That's the idea. They're made to dispatch as many titans as possible, as quickly as possible. I suppose they modeled this after the signal flares to make us less afraid of it." Erwin examined.

"Commander Erwin," Petra prodded carefully, "Why would we need to be afraid of it?"

He pondered this for second before answering, "Maybe 'afraid' isn't the right word, but soldiers should posses a great amount of respect for this weapon. Anything it can do to titans, it can do to you a lot better."

Petra swallowed thickly.

"These things can level a small district. Once fired, you're to gain as much distance or height from the blast radius as you can. Forget about closing in after impact, you need to take off and keep moving until you've heard the explosion. And then keep moving after that."

Erwin stared intently at all of the soldiers there.

"Or you will be charred and then you'll die. A piece of ash under a titan's foot."

A muted sniffing sound suddenly pulled everyone's attention.

Mike whiffed around before asking no one in particular, "Do you smell something burning?"

Erwin raised a thick eyebrow at him before angling a wary look at the supply box behind him, where he found a detonation shell sitting innocuously atop the wood, distended and bloating.

Petra's eyes widened when the flash of panic flickered over his face.

"Scatter!" Erwin shouted as he launched a hook into a building and reeled off the wall.

"Get to lower ground now!" He yelled back.

Petra felt all her blood stop and boil. She wasn't wearing any gear.

And she had all of 5 seconds to react.

With her mind blanking, she turned slowly, aware of her squad screaming themselves hoarse telling her to move, and looked for her captain.

She found him at the very same supply box, something terrible changing the lines of his face.

She began to leave her body.

He wasn't wearing his ODM gear.

Just then, an idea that prescinded all the training, everything she'd learned from true to life experience, exploded into her mind.

Petra redirected all the strength left in her body to her legs and sprinted to him. She picked up the ODM gear she left at the box's side, wound her arm around him, and fell.

The explosion is deafening as it rips through the sky.

So yeah this is how I think thunder spears basically came about.

I should really get into the habit of proofreading these chapters but I'm just so lazy. I think typos give stories character anyhow.

Until next time babes.

Chapter 3

Notes:

Okay, this chapter is considerably shorter than the last two..I know, I know. That's because I kinda, sorta cut it in half.

I was having some pretty bad writer's block and this seemed like the best thing to do.

Now, this might and might not mean the next chapter is coming sooner

Either way, I hope y'all are still down for the ride.

Chapter Text

Soldiers screamed and wailed as they zipped off the wall, some leaping off into the outer section and hooking onto the wall on the other side.

Everyone on Hange's squad had their ODM gear on and took off, reeling onto the rooftops below.

Gelgar had to carry Nanaba in one arm as she held on because she didn't have her gear on, while Mike held Lynne and flew off with Henning.

Petra managed to connect the flashing of images together into a hope of their escape. But any good that brought was squelched by the violent eruption in her abdomen, one that sent the bile bubbling up her throat.

She was falling. He was falling.

Petra could only just manage a squint at the wall that sped further and further away from them.

The wind whipping her hair and her captain's hair about her face made it virtually impossible to keep her eyes open.

She can't recall ever being permitted the distance to achieve any kind of touching. But now, as her fingers clench into the fabric on his chest, she finds that she doesn't want it.

Her limbs throbbed with the strain of keeping their bodies locked together as the wind buffet them.

She struggled not for her captain's weight, but for what her heart had made of it.

In her arms, his weight felt so foreign to her.

The heaviness of his body connoted a vulnerability in him that had been, hitherto, completely unknown to her. The fear in that alone compounded her crippling panic. Levi had never needed saving, never needed any kind of help. And now, he was free falling with only her body to cushion his landing. The incongruity of the dismaying irony was such that it lurched Petra's stomach into tumultuous flips against the walls of her abdomen.

At once she understands that he is in a new kind of peril—and for the first time—without control.

The reality of this truth frightened her more than the pavement rapidly approaching them.

Levi was humanity's strongest. The hyper-competent Lance corporal that eclipsed a brigade of 100 soldiers. The only man who could look down on those he looked up to. What could she do to save someone who's entire basis was cemented in his living independently of others' aid?

Where could she begin? And who was to say she could do it at all? And what of her own life? She had to be alive to save him, didn't she? How could she begin to worry about being able to save Levi's life before clinching surety of her own survival?

There came a terrible ringing noise that had begun to vibrate riotously throughout her skull. And she realized it was her own screaming.

When had she become so afraid to die?

Petra had made the subject of her mortality something almost conversational years ago. She was a scout because the yawning jowls of death held no sway in the spaces of her mind, so how could she allow herself to become enmeshed in the mire of despair so inappositely, so voluntarily?

As Levi angled his head to look back at her with muted desperation, Petra saw the prospect of her own death twinkle formlessly in the grey shining of his irises. Instantly, she knows it was not her life she feared for.

For those eyes were set in the face of someone the world needed much more than it would ever need her. And it mattered little that he would need to be saved by someone so beneath him, so long as he lived to remember that it happened.

For the day to come that he would need anyone, it turned out it would be her.

She could not die.

If she died, then he would too.

As they continued to tumble through the air, Petra forced her eyes open. She needed to see! Even if she had to blink her fear away. Willing her mind to clear, she remembered the gear she'd snatched up before jumping off the wall. She had the ODM gear, she was the only one who could do anything right now.

They were running out of time, and gravity was not on their side.

Levi's breath choked in his lungs as Petra's grip on him grew slack and she began to pull away. When his hands clamped around her wrists to keep her to him, she yelled from behind,

"Captain! I have to let you go for a few seconds!"

To his mortification, her hand slipped free and pushed at his back to wrest herself away.

"I have to put on the gear! Even if it's only on halfway! I have to, captain!" Petra shouted over the wind.

He blinked incredulously at her through billowing, dark tresses. With a final, reluctant grimace, he released her wrist as he drift backward.

Petra worked fast, but her velocity made accuracy very tricky. The cadet corps never made a point to teach the trainees how to do this air borne, so when the wind cascades up into her, blustering things about as she reached for them, it complicated the process tenfold.

She relied expediently on muscle memory to cinch the ODM gear to the important parts of her body. Quickly, she made to bind straps around her upper things and pull the harness over her shoulders.

On her right, she spots the buildings that flanked the chapel situated on the northwestern end of wall rose. Opining the main spire to be their best bet, Petra set about framing a rough plan of ODM gear maneuvers. The chapel would act as a landmark, being one of the closest buildings to the infirmary. In the event that one of them should be maimed or mutilated from this fall before they make it, the ride to the medics would be not be a long one.

But she had to make the trip short. She hadn't the first clue how well she could move through the district with half her gear dangling limply around her, or how long she even could stay in the air as she would be carrying Levi.

Petra cast a look in the direction they'd last been, but found him farther away than she thought he would have been.

A lot farther. At least a meter. Shit.

"Captain! Take my hand!"

Levi heard, and flipped so that his front was facing her to extend his arm. Petra reached out for him and prayed the wind would hurl them into each other.

Petra flailed and clawed at the air in front of her trying to get to him, but it didn't bring her any closer. They were quickly losing altitude, the birds that had been flying past them were now soaring above them. Levi had attempted covering some of the gap between them with his arm outstretched, straightening his body to speed his falling and pivot himself toward her. Still, it was not enough to have them meet.

Please, reach!

Her feet kicked furiously behind her like she were swimming against a harsh current, but she couldn't get any more than some mere inches in. They didn't have more than a few meters of airtime left, she could tell for the way she identified the sooty smell of chimney smoke that hung low and heady in the breeze now.

She simply couldn't get her fingers to close around his.

Looking down, Petra is reminded of the hardness of the stony ground that would kill them both if something was not done.

Right now.

Suddenly, a terrifying realization came undulating through her like a heatless gust. Making her insides twist in knots. She acted on it before the thought gave out.

With her breath catching in her throat, Petra grit her teeth and fired a hook in the direction of her captain.

The metal sunk into his left hip with an audible cutting sound. His pained scream stabbed into Petra ears, much louder and more distressing than the blast of the explosion. She was propelled into him the next second and when they collided, Petra felt the warmth of his blood seeping into her own clothing.

The main housing spewed out gas as she fired another hook into a different direction and reeled forward.

Petra's arms wrapped so tight around his tensing form that she thought she might have been hurting him. More than she already had. Even then, she squeezed tighter around him. She hoped, desultorily, that the pressure could help to suppress the blood flow as she latched into another wall.

She was trying her hardest to keep steady, but she wasn't properly supported by her gear straps. Any balance she could find was lost when she readjusted her hold on his body, which she had to do every time they swung downward.

Petra gasped as she again found the chapel spire that she spotted before, it lay just a few blocks away. She launched another hook and made to zip into the street that lead to the rear entrance with renewed enterprise.

But the winch did not spin. The hook would not shoot.

The motion of everything that surrounded her slowed as her gas tanks hissed disjointed puffs of fumes at her sides.

She doesn't look down at him, but feels his arms shift against her torso as he crossed them over his head and shoulders; bracing himself. His body tightening in her grip. He must have realized she was out of gas, and prepared himself for impact.

Sweeping past a corner, her heart sinking and her courage giving, Petra's looks up to find a cart full of crates and provisions parked right smack in the middle of the tight juncture.

Mentally cursing, she instinctively squeezed even tighter around Levi's body. She knew she wouldn't be fast enough.

Thumbing the trigger on the hilt, Petra retracted the hook back and writhed her body around to cover the exposed portion of Levi's head and back. She hoped whoever owned the cart would understand.

Wooden crates flew as their bodies crashed through. Petra's back collided first, wrapped securely around Levi's form. They fell to the dirt and rolled through the wheat and vegetables that flew out of the smashed crates. Potatoes and carrots tumbling down the road with them. The crash had slowed them down, but they rolled and rolled, almost onto the far end of the block until their momentum faded.

They stopped with Petra's body to the ground, her arms braced around his head and shoulder blade, keeping him to her chest. Her grip on him never loosened, pulling him closer and deeper still into the security of her body.

"Levi?" She tried weakly, omitting the honorific a second time.

At length, she felt his head lift slightly against the pressure of her forearm, only to settle back into her chest. Spent and exhausted. Her eyes, that had been screwed shut the whole time, opened to the feeling of his own lashes fluttering on the swell of her breast.

She looked up to see the sky tinged darker by the smoke of the detonation. Speckled black with the ashen debris filtering through the air, blanketing the sky with a layer of cloudy gray that reminded her of the all-present chaos in the eyes of the man in her arms.

As a glowing ember came floating atop the disheveled darkness of her captain's hair, Petra blew it away indignantly. Nothing else would remotely hurt him today, not a thing. Not if she had anything to say about it.

It was hard for Petra to complete the thought when she felt the blood of the injury she'd inflicted trickle down his side and into the front of her shirt.

Tears prickled the edges of her vision as her heart lurched familiarly in her chest, she hoped with every last trace of her energy that he wouldn't feel it.

She should have guessed the ODM gear was low on gas, why else would it have been discarded? Her head lolls to the side, the skin of her cheek rubbing sorely into the grainy dirt as she silently upbraids herself.

As if it weren't bad enough that she had treated her captain's body as literal leverage, she also ran him through a cart after taking him on a perilous ride-along throughout the district. Part of her job, incumbently delegated to all on Levi's squad, was to preempt any and all harm that comes Levi's way. Shunting any coming danger to themselves or, awful as it sounds, to other soldiers.

They'd never had to do it, Levi was far too skilled to ever necessitate a circumvention of that like. But, it was something they always had to bear in mind. Before yourself, protect Levi.

As she lay there, with no injuries to later report and her captain's blood on her skin, she has never felt more undeserving of her placement on an elite squad.

Her tears threatened to spill over now.

And what's more, that cart had been full of food that was probably going to resupply the barracks. Now it was on the ground all around them, in their clothes as they had tumbled over them. Staining their uniform with tomatoes and dirt.

Albeit, the dirt and food stains would be much easier to remove than the blood.

Petra's eyes closed again, attempting and failing to stop a single tear from escaping. It fell and absorbed into the earth under her.

His injuries were sustained by force of circumstance. As a solider, she should have recognized them as peripheral to the obligation of his rescue and accept that she had to hurt him in order to save him.

But she did not want to think like a soldier.

The jarring dichotomy represented an expected weariness to her thinking. She had been scared to within inches of her life, her captain's life. She felt tired and unguarded. It was perfectly warranted for her to feel beside herself, she had every right to be a little frazzled.

But to shed tears before a superior? And one still very much alive at that?

Her thoughts raced intractably throughout her head. She wanted to be relieved that he was alright, that he was alive and she was the reason why. But whenever she invited the relief to flood into her and while away the thoughts of her faults, the feeling would thin and disperse into apprehension once more; when she thought of how much worse things could have panned out had she been even more careless.

Petra knew she was probably hurting him by now, and still she clenched her body tighter onto his.

She had been terrified of losing him and even more terrified to let him know.

"Mmph..Petra."

His muffled voice stirs her. Her arms, at last, loosen around him.

"You're going to have to let me go sometime."

Just then, a dirt cloud lifted up and onto them as a soldier landed right next to them.

"Oh no," Hange looked over them with worry, glossing over the splintered wood planks and bruised vegetables that lay around them, "What happened here?"

"Squad Leader Hange!" Petra's hand came up to smear her tears away as she looked up at the most eccentric of the squad leaders. "Captain Levi, he's hurt!"

Hange moved to quickly squat down beside them, looking down with a stark countenance at the sight of his wound. "Levi? Can you hear me?"

"Even if I were out cold, I could still hear you, Hange." Levi managed gruffly, the sarcastic tenor of his voice persisting despite his wounds.

"Is it deep? Did you get hit by the debris?" Hange pressed exactingly.

"..No, Squad leader." Petra spoke grimly.

Shifting carefully, mindful of Levi's body, she grasped the main head of the hook on her right side. Slowly pulling it out to show Hange the blood that caked around the edges.

Hange's eyes darted from Petra's pale face to the hook for a wordless stretch of seconds before nodding.

"I see. It was probably the smartest thing to do at the time. I'm sure you had no other choice, Petra." Hange's eyes trained on the growing blood stain on Levi's shirt, who had begun to sit up.

"I don't know how deep it is, but it certainly hurts like a bitch. Those things are no joke." Levi winced as he stood up, his injury smarting sharply at the sudden movement.

Petra sat up briskly at this. "Captain, I'm s-"

"Well, good thing the medics are right there. Can you manage a stroll over yonder, Levi?" Hange sprung up to Levi, grabbing his arm and slinging it around their shoulder to support him.

"Shut up and get a move on, four eyes." Levi grumbled tersely.

Hange looked down at Petra and offered her a hand. "On your feet, Petra. I'll see to it that Levi gets fixed up. You should regroup with your teammates, they're probably worried sick about you."

Her eyes widened as she stiffened where she sat. In the muddled whir of her thoughts, Petra had completely forgotten to ascertain the whereabouts of her squad mates.

"Oh and after you do that, you should mosey on over to the privy chambers and get changed." Hange added.

After hoisting herself up with Hange's help, Petra looked down at herself and noted, with jaded dissatisfaction, the state of her uniform.

"Can't very well have you trudging into the mess hall wearing all the victuals, can we?" Hange smirked halfheartedly.

Looking back up at the bespectacled squad leader, with drawn brows and a heavy heart, Petra shook her head solemnly.

With that, Levi and Hange went limping off to the rear entrance where the medics await them. Slipping the ODM gear off her person, Petra hesitated as she looked back at Levi and Hange walking away.

Pressing her lips together, she resolved to trust that her captain would be taken care of and ran off to the barracks, hoping to find the rest of the squad there.

Her feet kicked up bloodied dirt where Levi's wound had wept.

Hange is my favorite bitch

Yeah, yeah i know this shit was short as fuck. Ngl, I do feel like shit for posting an incomplete chapter but listen, a bitch gets busy sometimes.

Next Chapter will begin from Levi's POV. Stay tuned.

Until next time, babes.

Chapter 4

Summary:

Surprise bitch I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.

I wanna make opening these chapters with meme references a thing.

Your girl is gonna be honest with y'all right now, E3 is coming and the next chap probably won't be up until my hype for that dies down. Depending on how far my wig flys, I'll be back pretty soon.

Chapter Text

Whispering expletives into the balmy air that permeated around him, Levi grit his teeth as he struggled to be still. A nameless medic had been seaming into the gash at his side, stitching the angry, puckered skin together.

According to them, the site of impact would have been superficial had it been most anyone else. But because Levi's skin sat right on top of his muscle, the metal teeth had little in the way of fleshy tissue to tear into. Quite literally, it had nowhere else to go.

Though the sharp, piercing sensation was nothing he hadn't known before, the pained creases wrinkling into his brow betrayed the discomfort he tried so vehemently to suppress. Even after the medics had pressed numbing agents into his raw flesh.

Not unexpectedly, the medic suturing his wound caught this and winced gingerly at the lance corporal. The woman's face was marred with age and solemn wisdom, the indirect apology shining off the hazel of her irises.

Carefully, she replaced the cloth she'd been using to wipe at the blood that was beginning seep through the one she'd been using. A few drops of it dripped off the cloth and onto her clothes as she moved it over her lap.

The medic's head shook detachedly as she peered down at the dimming stains on her pristine, white clothes. Behind her mask, she sighs and her voice comes muffled and distrait.

"You know, Lance corporal, it's strangely off putting to see you bleed." She remarked with hesitation.

"What, did you think it would be a different color or something?" He deadpanned deftly.

Levi doesn't spare the woman a glance. There's something exceptionally uncomfortable to watching a stranger do something so... personal as to pull your separated flesh together.

"No, nothing like that," She discerned the sardonic attempt at mistimed humor, and countered with her own unprompted candor, "I suppose we all just thought you couldn't be hurt. As though the lance corporal were some indestructible force that..."

When she trailed off, Levi made no gesture or sound encouraging the woman to continue. His eyes narrowed as he focused on counting the dust particles carrying in the rays of sunlight coming through the window.

The older woman's voice floated up again anyway.

"Well, let's just say that I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't be surprised at hearing that I had stitched up humanity's strongest this afternoon." She quipped pointedly. The network of faint crows feet crosshatching around her eyes cinched upward and it was apparent that a crooked smile pulled at her skin beneath her mask.

He'd wager that the woman talked openly with all of her patients this way. Must be the environment. It had to have been easy to speak so frankly when the only other person in the room has been preconditioned with a spontaneous trust in you. Being medically inclined must make everything one says very interesting.

Or perhaps, it could be the incidental truth that patients would have no other choice but to listen. He resignedly chalks it up the latter, it better resonated with his present feelings about the conversation.

"I realize now that it's cruel to impose our ideologies onto someone just as human as we are." After uttering the word 'human', she'd applied a bit more pressure to her needle, making Levi twitch and wonder if she did it on purpose.

"Humanity's strongest or not, no one should be denied their own humanity. We attach all these 'superpowers' to you to make us feel better. Safer. But end up scratching off every other detail that makes you a person. And that's completely unfair."

Levi noticed that her hands had slowed and surmised, impatiently, that she was preoccupied with supplying weight to her words.

He'd much rather she didn't talk at all.

If he wanted to listen to someone fifteen years his senior talk into long-winded, anecdotal lectures, he would have pursued a higher education at the pompous, snooty universities inside wall Sina.

Were he a man of weaker constitution, he might have been touched by the considerate, good natured medic purging her innermost thoughts so unreservedly to him; ones in his favour at that. Likely tired with the uninterested reception of those on her payroll or patients that would prefer to occasionally hum in understanding.

But he wasn't. And so, would massively prefer not to feign interest or put on a jaded facade of mock-acknowledgement. Especially when everything that she'd said were things Levi knew already. Things he had accepted much, much prior to their meeting.

Of course, he could have conceded with her, inasmuch as their agreement on the subject. Seeing as his prolonged silence certainly behooves a reciprocation a little better than the curt nod he'd been defaulting to.

But Levi cared not for shared sentiments. While they were good about bringing soldiers, townsfolk, and children closer, a common perspective was of little consequence to him. Could it be that he was just argumentative? Was this was Hange meant when it was mentioned that he was 'always looking for any kind of fight'?

As the medic snipped the cord and grabbed another replacement cloth, she glimpsed the stiffness in the lance corporal's posture and took it to mean the conversation had deepened uncomfortably. She amended with a slight derailment of topic.

"I don't mean to kiss ass- ah, pardon my french."
The medic rolled her eyes at herself.

"You're good. Don't worry about it." Levi replied flatly.

"You probably hear things like that twice a day, every day, anyway. I suppose..." The woman paused and he watched with chary anticipation as she sift through her brain. "I suppose I'm just glad your injury wasn't much worse than this. Just weeks ago, I was jotting down names of fallen soldiers. So it's good to know I won't be writing your name down."

Looking down the barrel of her covered nose, she keeps her eyes forward as she feels his gaze fall on the crown of her head. She flicks some wayward strands of salt and pepper hair out of her eyes before continuing.

"There's something so jarring about a young person's death. It's like...it's like there frozen in time."

The last thing Levi wanted to think about was how close he came to dying today, and not from a titan encounter. But from a fall. "..Right." He intoned bleakly.

Suddenly, percolating like an amber droplet through the thickest mire of his musings was a thought of Petra, striking a discordant note with the all the other unpleasant things going on in his head. Granted that he didn't enjoy thinking of his red-haired subordinate at all.

She always felt out of place in the gloom of his mind. He tried not to let her in there too much.

However, on the topic of young people, he couldn't help but draw on the fresh image of Petra's worried face as he lay encased in her arms after the crash.

He knew the medic was talking about him, but when he thought of young people, he thought of the recruits and newly graduating classes at the cadet corps. Even his squad, gamboling closely behind him like distracted kids. When he thought of soldiers dying, or more accurately, almost dying, he thought of Petra and what she did today. And felt as though the credit for surviving by the skin of one's teeth belonged to her.

He didn't do anything but hang on, what right did he have to thank luck or god? He didn't even thank Petra.

Damn it all. Damn her. Could the girl care so little for her own life?

When they had first jumped, Levi could think only of the punitive measures he'd made a mental note of storing for her. Of course after she leapt off with him, he didn't know if she would live to see to them or if he would live to assign them to her, and that made him even more distressed. She'd risked her life and his own for a plan she was still formulating. She could have died. They both could have died.

But at the same time, he was so impressed with her. For someone so indisposed to thinking on their feet, much unlike others on her squad, she was remarkably adept at coming up with solutions on the fly. Where others might have jumped without thinking to escape the explosion, she had retained the sense to pick up the ODM gear and then jump. And before even knowing what she was to do with it, he was sure she had come up with that on the spot too. Letting him go to put on the gear was scary, but necessary. He doubted many soldiers could yank on their ODM gear while falling through the air with less trouble, let alone possess the nerve.

And launching a hook into him to bring them back together...

The muscles that corded along the left side of Levi's pelvis throbbed with recollection.

"What do you mean frozen in time?"

The woman's eyes flickered up briefly. She didn't expect that the quiet man would deign to express anything more than his distaste for her rambling.

"Well, it's like they leave so quickly, so untimely that whoever knew them barely has any time to register that it's happened. It's sort of like a...'poof'."

Levi winced as she pulled the cord through, listening intently.

"It's why you see these soldiers react with such numbness at first, and then fall apart after some time lets them absorb it all. Everything becomes frozen for a moment, and then everything hurts."

The medics words provided Levi with an island of rumination that served to distract him from the pain. Before he would let his mind go there however, he shrewdly deduces the chatty tendencies of the medic to be a competently contrived subterfuge. A decoy. Judging from the subtle way her voice became more gentle, but a bit louder when she pulled a cord through or wiped a cloth over broken skin, effectively distracting her patients from any pain.

He feels a surge of respect and appreciation wash over the annoyance he once felt with the woman, because it worked. Setting his jaw, Levi addressed himself to the deep grooves of introspection as she cleaned him up.

She'd been on her way into the barracks when Nanaba told her that all of the horses on the wall had perished.

Petra's comrades, who she'd found in good shape waiting at the entrance, offered her comfort with carefully placed hands and measured seconds of eye contact.

Amid the bleakness of her thoughts, she questioned herself. Petra imagines, tangentially, that she wasn't wrong to think her years as a scout had furnished her with what she was given to understand to be a 'thicker skin'. So why she wanted to collapse into herself, she couldn't begin to explain. Nor why she felt her nostrils flare and her gut twist when she heard other soldiers dismiss the news with notions of animals being 'unreceptive to contrition', and that 'they can't feel your sorrow'.

Petra had exhausted every last cell of energy in her body, and still she felt the anger swell and bubble inside her. As if she could do anything with it.

She just didn't understand her fellow soldiers. Even Hange, who thought titans were 'morally ambiguous observers of the human condition', could sympathize with creatures as hideous as the enemy. What excuse did they have for being so insensitive?

She offered a flimsy promise that she would be okay, provided her squad mates stop crooning over her and hounding for information as to how Levi had reacted to her rescuing him, and departed.

She didn't know anymore than they did anyway.

After a quick change of clothes as Hange advised her to do, she walked away from the barracks, in no particular direction. Her mind wandered to the recurring question of her captain's condition. She remembered that she didn't get the chance to say anything after Hange had taken him to get fixed up near the chapel. She guessed that he might have needed stitches over there. He would need them if he wanted to be able to show up tomorrow. Against her better judgement, she suddenly wanted to see him. If only to be sure that he was okay and he wasn't cross with her.

Petra shook her head, annoyed with herself.

She didn't know where her last thought came from. She held Levi in high esteem. Untowardly high esteem. She should have been able to avail herself of that estimation and know her captain wasn't so immature as to hold a grudge for inflicting a graze that would save his life.

...At least, she hoped it was a graze. All the more reason to check up on him.

Petra's head fell into her hands as she walked. She truly pitied herself.

No one.

No one knew of the feelings she harbored for her captain and still her embarrassment with them was enough to make her feel sick. She could tell no other soldier about what she felt, but she sometimes wished she could depend on someone other than herself to call her stupid for having them.

Pulling her hands away, Petra looked down to find she'd stepped on a tomato. Her vision drifted up and she sees the broken pieces of crates that litter the street. Over by the cart, she could see two people picking up the crates that were still intact. There were some potato spuds and few heads of cabbage on the cart, tucked into a corner. She guessed they were picking up some of the food that hadn't been crushed or torn apart.

Petra's heart sank even lower now. Quickly, she bent down and plucked some dirtied carrots from the ground in front of her. She brushed some dirt off and extended them towards the man depositing soiled ears of corn into the cart.

"Thank you, miss. You're very kind." The man thanked her, taking the carrots from her arms.

"I'm awfully sorry about your cart." Petra apologized. She wasn't sure if the man knew it was because of her that he was picking his destroyed goods off the ground. She felt reluctant to reveal she was responsible, only too eager to save face.

"Don't be, miss. It was out of anyone's control, we're just worried that we won't be quick enough to resupply the barracks by the end of the week. We doubt these scraps will do." He said, gesturing to the woman behind the cart.

"We were told the explosion that was heard up at Wall rose was the cause of this." The woman suggested.

Petra was unsure of what to say. She'd not been instructed to avoid the subject of the explosion publicly. But she didn't know anything about it, and so didn't want to speak on any of the theories she'd begun to entertain.

"I see.." Petra mumbled, swallowing thickly.

"Now, this could just be hearsay, but apparently it was Captain Levi who crashed through here." The man whispered effusively.

Petra tried her best to play along and simulate surprise, she used to gush about him just like this. "Captain Levi, you say?"

"The same! Word is he's getting taken care of by the medics as we speak." He declared.

"Are you going to see the lance corporal now?" She asked, her eyes widening at the wings of freedom emblazoned proudly on Petra's jacket. "Be sure to tell him we don't hold him in contempt." The woman smiled genuinely.

"Go now, shoo, shoo!" The man demanded, nodding his head in the direction of the medics quarters that lay behind the chapel.

Petra predicted that they would use Captain Levi's name to embellish their account of what took place here in the future, and giggled to think about it. She knew her captain found people giving him such a wide berth to be in bad taste, but when they gave her a reason to go see him, she simply couldn't resist.

Deciding to do as they asked, Petra walked all the way to the end of the the block, turning at the back end of the chapel. She walked past the blood stain Levi had left on the dirt and knew she was going the right way.

Levi sat up in his cot and blinked away the pain behind his eyes when the light of a setting sun hit his face.

He was told he should eat to offset the drowsiness caused by the blood loss. The plate of food before him would have looked appetizing earlier today, but he didn't feel like eating anymore. He wanted to go to his room and bathe.

Indolently poking a floret of broccoli around the plate with his fork, Levi thought of the words his medic had left him with. Those of a soldier's figurative freezing.

At first, he assumed the metaphor just didn't apply to him. He understood how others could go numb after loving and losing, but not now it could happen to one who prepared for it. He could not become unfeeling if he had to make sure he was like that all the time. The medic's choice of the word 'jarring' confused him too. Devastating. Heartbreaking. Sure, maybe. But jarring. That meant it stopped you before letting the stunning effect hit you. Froze you.

But Levi could not be frozen. And so the confusion began again. He'd been like this ever since she left, after she reminded him that his squad didn't know where he was.

What did the old bag mean? The hurt, it's enough to freeze someone, he got that. Right. Yes. But is it time itself that's being stopped or the person's perception of time? And who is being frozen? The person dying, your memories of them, frozen as in stuck in a loop? Or are you the one freezing?

The surface of Levi's plate screeched under the pressure of his fork. The noise was enough to have him set the fork down, but not enough to neaten the sameness of his muddled thoughts.

Frozen. To stop. To frustrate any and all advancement. To hurt. To be surrounded by ice.

Levi harked back on his first days on the surface.

He was told that his mastery of the ODM gear was insane, especially when you knew that he was completely self-taught. So, to prepare him for facing titans, the survey corps put him through proportionately 'insane' training. But he found challenge and accomplishment in the sweat he'd shed and the wounds he'd opened. Because he wasn't underground anymore, looking at the same ugly things over and over again. Now, he could see new ugly things. He wasn't forced to run along the cuts of that same stagnant picture. He wasn't stuck.

Levi's fingers tapped against the softness of his cot, he was getting somewhere.

He would never pretend his first months on the scout regiment were all great though. The novelty and hope could only distract him for so long before he remembered he was still there against his will. After the initial buzz died down, he realized he was just a bird moved into a fancier cage. He had closed himself off to his new comrades, not believing he could trust any of them. He erected walls of ice around him and didn't let anyone offer him any kindness. He rejected empty seats and plates of bread, turned down new clothes and bed sheets.

His whole life, he'd known only the removal of good things. Before they could even think to take anything from him, he denied it from himself.

Levi didn't get how he could don the wings of freedom on his uniform when they'd made it their mission to clip his off. What good was a new world if he couldn't experience it first hand with his friends? Isabel and Farlan.

Levi felt his body still as their faces drifted across his mind's eye. Everything went still. And everything started to hurt.

He used to think meeting Erwin and coming to the surface was the universes' way of presenting him with karmic justice. Letting him know that violence and fear were, in fact, not a child's two earliest examples of parenthood.

That the world had done him wrong. And this was its way of rectifying.

Though he'd soon discover that the world didn't owe him anything, when a titan encounter had claimed the lives of his two best friends. His only remaining family. And he didn't let himself feel anymore.

It would be months before the newly appointed captain would unfurl.

He was insensate. But somehow the darkest and most creative parts of his imagination grew even more fecund, rushing fractiously over and under the breaches of his mind. Just beyond his understanding, in a recess where he was powerless to do anything about them. He'd thought about killing Erwin, the one who brought him here. For the longest time, he craved only destruction. To make himself worse than all of the horrible things around him.

Was this what it was to be frozen in time? He wondered. He had been stuck in another dark place...for a long time...all over again. Could this be what she meant and how it related to him and his squad?

If anything happened to them, he didn't know if he would become destructive or self-destructive. Either way, if something should take them away, someone was getting hurt.

He would never freeze.

A knock on his open door roused him, she saw him stiffen and figured he must have been brooding over something important.

"Captain..." Petra suddenly felt bad about disturbing him. "I..uh. I have something to tell you."

"Close the door, Petra."

She did as he said, glad for the privacy. She didn't want people to hear her trip all over her words. After clicking the door shut, she stood by the wall and looked him over. He was still in his uniform, she expected that. He didn't have time to change like she did. He must have been miserable.

There was a full plate of food next to him, though it looked like he just moved stuff around. She supposed that all the blood and stitching had ruined his appetite.

"Captain, what did they tell you about your injury?" She tried cautiously.

Levi looked up at her beneath long, dark lashes, letting a few seconds pass before he answered her. "Well, they said the hook went pretty deep, and that healing would take a while so I'd need to be careful of reopening the wound. Before they did anything to stop the bleeding, they warned me that stitching would be hell. When the hook closed into me, scrunching everything up, it made the needle work complicated."

He touched his left hip and frowned. "They were right, hurt like a bitch."

Petra's gaze fell down to her feet as he spoke, her heart plummeting with every word.

"They even speculated that if I had a little more fat on me, the hook wouldn't have done that much damage."

She sighed inwardly and worried that he might have heard it when he squinted at her.

"They also said it could have been a lot worse. I think you know what I mean." He added, angling his head to get a better look at her face. "I'm banged up, I've got some bruises here and there but it could have been a lot worse."

The way Levi's voice came so gently raised goosebumps on the flesh of Petra's arms. He sounded almost sympathetic. She couldn't understand why. Still, if she didn't study every detail about her captain, what he'd just said would have been enough to give her pause. But when he touched his hip and winced like that, she knew that it was hurting him. She pictured the pained look on his face as the needle pierced into him and it made the guilt and remorse pour down her spine in hot rivulets all over again.

Earnestly regretting ever leaving the barracks, she bit the inside of her cheek and wobbled on her feet. She couldn't speak. She could feel his stare on her and it made her feel even smaller. He must have noticed because he spoke again, over the loudness of her thoughts to make her look up at him.

"Just forget about it, Petra. What's done is done. Now, you said you have something to tell me." Levi's eyes closed as leaned back on the cot.

"Ah. Well, I have some good news and bad news, sir." Petra stepped closer, standing at the edge of the bed. "What do you want to hear first?"

Levi sighed and opened one eye. "Guess."

"The cart we crashed into today, the owners aren't holding a grudge. In fact, they were quite impressed to know that you had something to do with it."

Petra, always the bearer of glad tidings, knew Levi liked to hear good things first. It let him gauge how angrily he could react to the bad news.

"Tch. I should think so. These townsfolk are very excitable." Levi grumbled, looking every bit the unaffected idol.

"What's the bad news?"

Petra sucked in a breath as she felt her eyes glazing over. "Our horses died on the wall. All of them."

Levi's eyes opened as he sat up and in them she could see the shadow of dulled shock.

"Fuck.." His voice was just above a whisper.

Petra wanted to pull the pillow on the bed into her face and scream. It looked like their deaths hit him with all the force of a resounding thud.

Those horses were there with them from the very beginning, they rode and died with them like every other soldier. They were members of the scout regiment and they died today, and not in a blaze of glory. Someone should be sad.

His own horse, who she'd trusted with her feelings, was gone now, taking with him the oneness of her newfound tranquility with them.

Her body shook with the fine tremors of reinvigorated bitterness, but when she looked at him it all fell away. She was suddenly ashamed of herself.

His head was bent forward, with his features out of her view. This, she knew, was his way of grieving.

Petra knew that all soldiers mourned differently, but sometimes she thought he held back so that everyone else was allowed to feel. She hated that he had become so resigned to treating his feelings secondarily.

How she wished he could trust them to her.

"Captain. I'm so sorry."

He looked up at her then. Her voice sounded so weak and broken.

"..What happened to them wasn't your fault, Petra." He assured with eyes downcast.

"No. I'm sorry for putting you here. For giving you that."

She pointed a trembling finger at his hip and choked a sniffle back. She couldn't just forget about it. She couldn't just let him hide from her. This man bolstered everyone's strength with the negligence of his own humanity. But she was determined to see past the veneer, into the cell of his bloody, veiny, human heart.

"I'm so sorry, sir. If I had known-"

Levi's eyes held hers as his hand came up to quiet her.

"Petra, don't. Okay? Just stop. Stop talking and get over here."

Petra swallowed harshly and willed her feet to move. She stopped at the edge of his bed, but didn't look at him. Without warning, he took her right hand and placed it over the side of his neck. It took all of Petra's will power to squelch down the instinctive yearn to rub at the flawless skin there.

"Do you feel that?" He asked, his voice deepened, rumbling into her ears with their new proximity.

"Your pulse." She whispered.

"Don't ever apologize for preventing death. You're a soldier because you're good at that."

Petra felt her cheeks flush, she released a shaky breath as she looked down at the fabric on her right arm.

"Would you look at me, Petra?!" He sneered, squeezing his hand around her smaller one.

He gave her an order, but she just couldn't budge. Afraid looking at him with a red face would hurt her chances of walking out of there with her dignity intact.

With effort, Petra lifted her head up and locked eyes with her captain. Amber melting into steel blue.

"Thank you for saving my life."

Petra could hear her heart beat in her ears, galloping at a thundering cadence. Harder and faster than when she faced titans. Her stomach flipped violently against her ribcage as her fingers tingled on the creamy skin of her captain's neck. With his hand on hers, she hoped he couldn't tell that he electrified the blood coursing through her veins.

Being in love caused her so much confusion, but of one thing she was certain. That these feelings had endowed her with an esoteric virtue of clarity. And with it, she could be sure that something was starting here. Her entire body was ringing with discernment. The beginnings of something bigger than her had surged to life here. She could feel it his heart beat under her palm, as it beat in time with hers.

"It was no trouble, sir. No trouble at all."

*roman holiday plays*

Everybody spam Anna ou in the chat

Btw can y'all say run-on sentences because I can. Okay so if it wasn't obvious already s3 part 2 has got me in my feelings okay

Just waiting to watch Levi put the fear of god in Zeke.

Until next time, babes

Chapter 5

Notes:

hey guys, welcome back to my channel.

Guess who's back 'n' better than ever, this bitch. E3 broke into my house and beat my ass like it really did. Sorry for my late recovery babes.

Chapter Text

Levi let her go and Petra straightened at once. Her spine pulled stiff like a taunted string.

Coming down from the heights of a hormonally induced haze, she feels embarrassed at conflating some out-of-body experience with a completely reasonable, womanly reaction. She used to buoy herself up with the adolescent hope that an active imagination would right her lot in the future. Plenty of good that optimism would do her after he cut it down.

As Petra shrunk further and further away from the edge of the bed, she thinks it best to bite the proverbial bullet and forget about the whole thing for now, just like he told her to. She was always so good about following her captain's orders to the letter.

In his own face she can discern the jaded bewilderment that barely reflects her own storming feelings. Burning so fervidly in her chest, they felt much bigger and obvious right about now. Almost like they draped over her body, a layer of heavy, wet flannel. If she didn't know any better, she'd wager he were aware of them and that he enjoyed jerking her around this way. Why not? He was probably getting bored in here.

"Oi. Get out of your head, Petra."

His voice was a call rent through the density of her thoughts.

"Please forgive me, sir. For getting so emotional, I mean." She added, not wanting to give the even the slightest suggestion that she was still on about his injury.

He blinked once at her before clenching his jaw. Levi's reply came swift, implacable as ever.

"Apologies should come from a position of correction. Not self-deprecation. It's my job to be hard on you, Petra. Don't get us confused."

"I won't let it happen again, sir." She'd been ready to salute him but felt the timing would make it seem inappropriate, given their settings. She wanted to make use of their surroundings, they so rarely spent time together outside of the mess hall or some stuffy cabin drawing maps or confecting offensive ODM maneuvers.

As if reading her mind, Levi's eyes flickered to the tray sitting desolate on the far end of the room. Petra looked over at the counter and found the kettle and tea cups that almost lit up the dusty nook of that tiny corner.

"Oh. Did they bring this for you, captain?" Petra tried.

"They did. I mentioned to one of the nurses that I enjoyed a cup every now and then. The staff here are eager to please, if a bit jumpy. But I'm not about to complain."

Petra was taken back when she'd asked Levi why she would always find him nursing a cup of this stuff, and he'd told her that the tea 'gave him his years back'. It was fair to say that the implication of his response was totally lost on her then. But now that she's had the time to wise up, she's grown keen to every shade and strain of elusive repartee, however economically expressed.

As she touched the pot to know it's warmth, Petra smiled to learn about the kindness of the medics. She had always vouched for them, and yet, it was a good day when she remembered to think of the tremendous struggle the medics bear on the part of the survey corps. She was just so preoccupied with all the chaos on the battlefield that thinking about what happened when soldiers cleared and medics emerged seemed wasteful of her energy.

"You know sir, I've always thought the medics didn't get enough credit." She said through her mawkish smile.

"I think I finally know what you mean, Petra." Levi spoke, watching quietly as the steam hit his subordinate's face when she removed the lid.

"I don't know if you're up for it, sir, but I doubt you'd say no to some black tea. I got some at the market, it's crazy how expensive this stuff is."

Producing a stringed sachet from her pocket, Petra deposited the little bag into the pot. She watched as the dark, mossy tuffets unfurled in the heat of the water before replacing the lid.

"The merchant spoke highly of this blend, captain. 'The benefits of our black tea are manifold', he said." Petra beamed. She walked over to where she last stood with the tray in her hands. She looked at Levi and then the bed, blinking a few times. Her head turned left and right as she looked around the room.

The hollowed humming sound she made in her throat to make things less awkward only made her look more awkward. It vibrated into Levi's ears, aggravating his headache.

"Petra."

The crack in her voice was bright. "Sir?"

He gestured with annoyance to the foot of the bed with a still hand.

"Sit. Down."

Her eyes widened, and she nodded with a surprised glint in her eye. The bed squeaked as new weight settled.

As Petra focused instead on the cantering of hooves and pleasant chatter she could hear outside, she quivered to wonder what went on behind the eyes that ensnared her so. Quivering again when he appeared to have just done a full body eye-roll.

The rest of the squad, who'd been sympathetic to her earlier plight, would be laughing completely unrestrained at her right now. The obvious tension in her movements and body language around the captain were always the butt of jokes in the mess hall.

"You should know, sir, the rest of the squad made it out with no injuries to report." Petra said, adjusting the tray on her lap.

Levi, who lay recumbent against the headboard, suddenly bent forward and plucked the tray from her grasp. He set it between them, wincing as he moved to sit cross-legged.

"Good. I expected as much. Any casualties?" He continued.

"Ah-none that I've heard about. Should you be moving like that, sir?"

"If its to make pouring a cup of tea easier, yes." He gave her a quick once over and added, "Don't put this on your lap either, Petra. It's got to be hot."

"Of course." Petra answered, she felt her face flush all over again and quickly looked away. "Well, sir, a whole section of wall rose has been cordoned off by the MPs. It's hard to tell what's going on up there."

She finished just as her hand came up to steady the cup her captain poured into.

"Thanks. Anyway, it's also hard to tell if we should be taking this seriously or not." Levi raised an eyebrow as he tipped the spout into the second cup.

"You can't mean that, sir?" Petra raised an eyebrow as well. "Every member of the elite squads could have been hurt, you and I almost died."

"No one is dead yet, Petra. The MPs are already up there looking into what caused the explosion. And as far as the injured go, I think I took the biggest hit today."

Levi held a cup out to her. She accepted, ducking behind her bangs.

"I hate seeing soldiers expending energy where it's not needed. I could have told the MPs that this is just an issue of some shitty lining in the bomb shells. But ol' Nile's gotta go the extra mile." Levi declared, his muscles relaxing as he finally took a sip.

"You think it was a technical flaw?" Petra ventured boldly.

"I think none of this shit would have happened—this is great, by the way—if Zachary hadn't partnered with the Reeves Company. Never trusted the bastards."

Petra grinned beneath the rim of her cup, removing it a second later; reminded of the promise she'd made to not hide from him anymore.

"I'm glad you're enjoying it, captain. Although, for someone whose unsure if we should give this anymore attention than we already are, you sure seem to be..."

Petra squinted down at her reflection in the tea as she minced over the right word.

"I'm annoyed." Levi called. "I had words with that Dimo guy once. The head merchant. The guy's an elitist asshole. Snobs like that don't know how to help anyone but themselves." He sipped again, a sneer of frustration pulling a crease into his brow.

"It's funny, I think I remember the day that happened." Petra's eyes fluttered closed briefly as recollection took her. "You were so...frustrated. I think you even said the only thing fatter than him was probably his wallet."

A corner of Levi's lips curled upward, his eyes found hers when he felt her gaze linger.

"You remember that?" He asked behind his hand as he took another sip.

Petra tried to keep her eyes front when he bore into her, but couldn't commit and focused on his cravat. "Yes. It was for a meeting the commander set up that you had to meet with him. The boss."

"Tch. These uppity types are all the same. Can't stand them."

Petra, feeling brazen, scooted a bit closer to the man across and dared further. "The squad leaders are forced to fraternize with people of status, is that true, sir?"

Noticing the new distance between them, Levi furrowed his brows at her sudden curiosity. When she gave him a pleading smile, he huffed out his nose and poured another cup. "Yes and no. The monarchy thinks it's a good look if we make nice-nice. Call it 'gentle prodding'."

"So you have a choice?"

Levi thought about this for a moment. Petra loved to watch him think. His expression when transfixed always caused her to feel the same way.

"I do. Not always. Sometimes it's made for me. It's very dependent on how much fuss they make about the whole thing." Levi shrugged, forming ripples in the tea he stirred.

"Hmm." Petra said nothing, watching quietly as his spoon moved in mesmeric circles around the rim of his cup.

"I don't have to like it though. For all I know, my horse could be dead because of that fuck." He held the cup to his lips as he grumbled.

Petra sat dazed, formulating her next sentence. Her eyes found a metal spoon on the tray, glinting in the sunlight. The spoon's shine winking up at her like a smile, catching her attention.

She picked it up and dipped it in her own cup to stir. Strangely, the swirling of the tea helped to push her thoughts into her mouth.

"I don't know, sir. Maybe, it's better to have known someone horrible than to worry about having squandered a meeting with someone wonderful. I find it's sometimes good to be disappointed."

For a moment, Petra went perfectly still, surprised at how fluently she could spin sentimental yarns, and mushy enough to hold water. Levi, however, looked less enthused.

He took a big gulp of tea, hopeful that the bitterness would be enough to wash through the saccharine taste in his mouth. It didn't work. If anything, the heat made it scorch down his throat and spread through his chest before settling at the bottom of his stomach. Disgusting.

Always, he found Petra's aimless tendency of poeticizing the rightfully negative perspectives of others to be observably ill-timed. It was very distracting. Anyone with social skills would exercise the tact to let something that was bad to one person, be simply bad. She couldn't let stupid things be stupid, or ugly things be ugly.

She always found a way.

He didn't like how her expression would soften and her words would purr out in light, pillowy tones whenever she talked like that either. It denuded the severity of an issue.

While he knew that Petra was a special sort, he understood her optimism to be cautious and steady. And still, her positivity was tenuous even in it's muchness, it was never actionable. Besides, if it was sometimes good to be disappointed, would that not mean things needed to be bad sometimes?

Perhaps he didn't understand, but he knew a little hurt could do very specific people a very huge favor. Nothing is honest like pain. The kind that makes you grow up the right way. All the lovey-dovey stuff did was make you soft. Obviously, it could never be both and neither, each person had to depend on one to build their person on and Petra had made her decision. What he didn't understand, is why he had to know someone that bright.

Not in the intelligent way, though her smarts were nothing to sniff at, of course. But bright as in blinding. It did make his realism seem so much darker in comparison. He didn't know how he felt about that, and that confusion annoyed him even more.

"Captain?"

The frown on his face smoothed over when she called to him. He fixed her with a pointed glare. "What?"

"I wanted to say that I also thought the explosion might have been because of a fault in the prototype. Well, one of the reasons." Petra shrugged.

"One of them?"

"Yes, I have a bunch of theories, the one you said being the most prominent."

That was true. But the suggestion that the incompetence of the reeves company had something to do with it hadn't occurred to her. Now, her captain's vehement endorsement of the idea raised an important question.

Why is it that in none of the thoughts she had about the explosion did she question the choices of the survey corps? She didn't want to believe her trust could be that blind. But more than that, she felt disoriented by Levi's ability to draw the same conclusion and still be more critical and indiscriminate. Always so shrewd, her captain.

Her time as a scout had made it so she could never begin to think the scout regiment, much less the monarchy, cloud show a lapse of judgment. It could never be so simple, she would need to think up twelve different reasons to explain why something completely avoidable happened. With only around four of them making any sense.

Petra huffed silently, annoyed with herself.

She sometimes wondered why Levi hadn't strong armed his way to the top and made himself the true leader, like a commander. She didn't doubt his ability nor his inclination to do so. He would have more freedom to make his own decisions and being in charge came so easily to him anyway. It didn't seem far-fetched to assume he'd enjoy a little more control, right?

He would certainly encourage soldiers like her to have a mind of their own. Though she doubted her captain's...coarseness would sit well with the higher-ups, especially with a charge under constant vigil. But at the same time, she had to guess that they were privy to all the good things that circulated around Levi's name as well.

The peoples' uncomplicated love for Levi, coupled with the unflinching loyalty vested to him by entire squadrons, all together might have elevated him a rank above reproach. Then again, as the precedent of the survey corps would have it, he could never be allowed to believe he was so special. Humanity's strongest or not.

Albeit a pleasant idea, the notion retroactively undermines the precepts determined by those before him, she was pretty sure a former denizen of the underground could not be promoted to a more important position than what was already assigned to him. That he was allowed to be in any of the regiments was amazing. But then, he never wanted anything to do with them in the first place.

"Say, Captain, I have a question." Petra spoke up.

"What is it?" Levi returned coolly, not once taking his eyes off her.

"Do you think..." Petra stopped mid-sentence. "You don't have to answer this, you know."

"I do know. What is it?" Levi said again.

"Sir, do you think you would have eventually joined the survey corps on your own, even without any complications making it happen?" Petra asked, careful to be vague but clear at the same time.

Truthfully, she didn't know what she was expecting. Maybe she just wanted clarity. Or maybe she just wanted to hear him talk some more. She didn't know.

He blinked at her, setting his cup down momentarily. All became so quiet, that Petra could hear the deep breath he took from his nose.

"No."

"Okay."

Petra replied immediately, right after his mouth closed over the teacup's rim. And because she didn't know what she wanted, she didn't know how to feel.

But, maybe it was better that Levi didn't have the authority of someone like the commander. He would never fall in line with the way the regiment encourages a commander comport himself anyway. That, and she knew that these 'uppity types' were very vain. They would likely be very averse to idea of their leading man being someone a little vertically challenged.

"Why the sudden interest, Petra?" Levi clipped, his monotones betraying nothing.

"I just wanted to make conversation, sir. Forgive my prying."

Inside, Petra felt her heart stir with strange feeling.

She would have loved to think that Levi would inspire individuality among soldiers. That maybe new recruits would look at him and see someone crass, small, and atypical of a usual heroic and gallant commander. A figure they all knew had to have something wrong with him. It was of a putative knowledge that one doesn't seek out jobs in the military without some kind of trauma. And they were all same way, everyone from cadets to veterans. They all spoke the same way, walked the same way, dressed the same way, and thought the same way. Like copies of each other. At first, it was easy to feel like a tiny letter in a really long word.

Perhaps she just wasn't good at paraphrasing. But it was the best way to explain how small one could feel to be a single part in a system much bigger than any impact you could hope to make as a lone soldier. She just wanted to know that someone a little different could make a big difference, and all you needed to begin was an example.

To be so desperate for an example made her feel so helpless. Enough for her to look to her captain and wish he give even more of himself to this cause.

"Petra." Levi called to her again.

She faced him with her eyes hard and her mouth a tight line. "Sir?"

"Why?"

Why the sudden interest?

She knew what he wanted to hear, but she didn't know what he wanted her to say.

That she wanted him to take the reins and save her from her own way of thinking, the way every soldier thought? To change the meaning of structure in the regiments and teach soldiers that they had a brain and that using it meant being at odds with those you follow sometimes?

Alright.

"Well, sir, it's just that... How do I say this?" Petra asked, twiddling her fingers out of his view.

Her ears perked to hear the faintest chortle. The sound challenged her, emboldened her.

"I mean, you have this ability...to really see the forest for the trees. You know?" Petra began, her hands moved animatedly with her words.

"No."

Petra laughed nervously.

"Of course not. Ugh-Okay, well, what I really mean is, you can be a part of something and still look at it for what it is and call things out for what they really are. You can be unbiased and honest, without being afraid."

Levi's expression had not changed, his voice came just as flat as before. "So?"

"So? So! Right, so..." Petra's cheeks flush a third time as she emphatically clears her throat. "So, with that kind of objectivity, it's a wonder you're not one of the head honchos by now. You know, up there with the likes of the commander."

Abruptly, Levi turned away from her and topped off his cup. "We already have a commander, Petra."

"I know that, sir. I do. But... I don't know, I just can't help but feel you'd be happier leading more than just the four of us." She said finally, sighing a heavy breath.

"Just? What's made you think I'm unhappy with who I've already got?" He asked.

"Nothing at all, captain. I only meant to suggest a change of scenery, to give you a new angle. I suppose."

She really meant that it could be high time for a broadening of the scope of neutrality, in herself and many others. She didn't want to have a bias toward something for the coincidence of her alignment with it. That was a total cop out, and it made her autonomy into a falsity. But, when she looked at it this way, it made her sound so ungrateful.

But that wasn't right either.

"Are you sure that's all there is to it, Petra?"

She started slightly when he leaned closer, but quickly recovered. "Yes, sir. I was probably just thinking too loud. Must be the tea." Petra's laugh was dry.

Levi's face became stern.

"For a second there, I was beginning to think you wanted me to replace the commander or something."

Petra almost forgot to breathe when she realized, for a second, she did too.

But that simply wasn't right.

Petra felt great respect and admiration for all the commanders. Erwin, Dot, and Nile were people she could have met only once in her life, and never again meet any with the same courage and virtue.

They were indispensable. And their jobs were bleak, the bitter fruits of their labor were dour and cheerless.

The commanders have the honorable burden of acting as the spur that urged soldiers to sacrifice much and more. So young as to be children, to be happy in a line of fodder was a sadness that flared and tapered out wide into the hearts of many. Their reluctantly supportive parents, the friends that made the choice with them but suddenly changed their mind.

Everyone saw the toll it took on them. It hurt them, aged them, and dehumanized them. But they had to do it, in the name of progress.

She always believed that her leaders were appointed seats of power because they lacked the capacity to lie, cheat or sneak in the interest of their own furtherance. Petra did not deny the content of their character, not by any stretch of the imagination.

That would be stupid for two reasons. One, it was groundless, she had no reason to believe them capable of anything more than that. Two, it was dangerous, she couldn't afford to think that way. If she looked a hair out of place, she could risk running afoul of the monarchy.

It was irresponsible to level a compound accusation of that kind at people with that much authority over you and your livelihood. The regiments' control was complete. Unchangeable.

And that was precisely her problem. She hated that she couldn't afford to think a certain way. Her trust felt false to her, as though it were superimposed over the qualms she didn't want to feel. Those feelings swelled—teetering; precarious and lonely there, on the edge of something worse.

Petra tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, she suddenly felt watched. She turned to Levi, worried the silence had stretched too long. When she found him staring a hole into the side of head, she understood why she felt eyes on her.

"Your tea is cold." Levi remarked with dissatisfaction.

"My tea? Ah. What a waste." Petra sighed, picking up her cup and rubbing her palm across to warm it.

"I don't think that'll work." He deadpanned mirthlessly, fixated on her moving hand.

"No, huh? Well, I guess I ought to clean this up. Unless, you want more, sir?" She asked as she lifted off the bed.

He shook his head slowly with his brows drawn.

Petra collected everything and walked back to the counter, hoping that her captain's brooding had little to do with her.

She grabbed a nearby washcloth and dipped in the bucket of lukewarm water by her feet.

Despite the silence, inside Petra's head is filled with noise. She had more she wanted to bring up to him, more questions, more thoughts that needed closure. The theories forking and knotting like the gnarls of the passages in the underground, none were tenable enough to present to Levi.

Mechanically, Petra scrubbed at the platter, as she was wont to do. But when the picture of the dark and wringing passages stole over her mind, for the second time, she stopped to squirm a bit.

Petra knew enough about the city running beneath her feet to know the roads below stretched as deep and twisted as its history, so she'd always been wary of asking her captain more about it.

It wasn't until she thought of the wasteland below, seedy and roach-laden, that she really appreciated just how stupid her reaction was to the graze she'd given Levi. It was a comparison so pale, she felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

She could never teach him new pain. She could never cut, scrape, or hurt him in a way that mattered.

This whole day, she felt her brain had taken her down avenues she had no business exploring. Why hadn't she listened to Levi when he told her to get out of her head?

Petra took advantage of her back facing Levi and brought the washcloth to the middle of her forehead to ease the tension there. It felt colder on her head than it did on her hands, enough to bring the swarming to a momentary stop.

Now, as Petra wipe at the last tea cup, she began wonder if Levi would mind telling her more about the underground. He didn't seem to have trouble answering any of her earlier questions, and it was about time she changed the subject anyway.

Gently, Petra lay the cup down next to the first one as she nodded to herself. Maybe she could start simple, ask him what his hobbies were when he was younger. No, that was no good, she already knew what those were. And he wouldn't enjoy talking about them either.

Maybe bringing up Levi's past wasn't a good idea, but she didn't know what might be appropriate at all. She'd never talked to Levi long enough to know what that was, and neither of them had anywhere else to go or anything better to do.

Perhaps she could move the conversation into a more practical sphere, one better suited to his tastes. Maybe a rousing discussion about natural detergents and restorative astringents.

Petra swiveled on her heel.

"Oh, sir! I was thinking, about that ivory soap you use, I've heard plenty of good things abo-"

Somehow Petra did not notice the shadow that fell over her when Levi stood behind her. Something changed the blankness of his face, it was a look that sent dread jolting through her limbs. She shut her mouth and willed her body to still.

"You favor right arm." Levi nodded towards her shoulder.

Petra's head shook mindlessly. She stepped backward and the small of her back hit the counter.

"I-there's nothing..." On impulse, she moved the left side of her body forward, toward him. "My arm is fine, sir, really."

"Bullshit. I grabbed your hand earlier, remember? I already know, Petra, don't make this worse."

The feeling of her captain's pulse beneath her palm suddenly flashed into her mind.

"I've been observing you. You're not 'fine', Petra, you can barely pick up a fucking spoon. I was afraid your arm might fall off." Levi fumed.

Petra felt charred by the rage in his eyes. A fire burned so potently there that she felt she'd been locked into the blast furnaces of the mess hall.

"Captain." Petra began pathetically, "It's just that..."

"Take off your jacket." Levi ordered her, moving closer.

"But, Captain. There's nothing wrong with me." She pleaded again.

"Let..!" Petra watched mortified as he pulled back slightly.

"Let. Me see, Petra." Levi snarled.

Petra did as she was told, thankful he did not come closer than that. Else she would feel the might of his anger tinge her skin.

With her eyes closed, Petra shed her jacket and placed it beside the tray. She did not miss the deep breath Levi gave when he saw the blood on her sleeve.

"You changed clothes, didn't you? Like Hange told you to?" Levi clipped.

Petra nodded.

Levi exhaled out his nose.

"Roll this up. Now."

She unbuttoned the wrist of her shirt and carefully folded up and along the length of her arm. Mindful of the pained expressions Levi would be looking for, Petra kept her features hard as she could until she finished.

Levi's eyes moved over the torn flesh of her arm, the gash began at the underside of her forearm and zigzagged up to the top of her shoulder blade.

Levi let out another deep breath.

"Fuck. What the fuck?"

Petra felt utterly flattened, choked by the surrounding air—thick with the promise of her impending doom.

A redoubtable aura crackled around him like a vice, almost visible. It caused her toes wiggle in her shoes with trepidation. She'd never incurred Levi's wrath before. At most, she'd annoyed him with the squabbles she had with Oruo and inconsistencies in her cleaning. She'd always known how to fix it then, but this was new.

"Sir, believe me, I didn't mean to hide this from you. I just didn't think it would matter, at least not by comparison."

Petra gestured to the stitches sewn into his side.

"Heh. No, no. You're not about to do this to me. Alright? I will not be the reason why."

Petra reacted physically to the sound of Levi's affected laugh. It was such sour, dry sound.

"You bled through a change of clothes, Petra. That's...what, you thought it wouldn't matter? Are you serious?"

Petra didn't say a word, instead, she brought her left arm up to roll her sleeve back down. Surely, he'd seen enough.

Levi watched motionless as she moved the sleeve down her arm with slow fingers, taking this time to collect his bearings. He wondered superficially at the anger and worry that smoldered within his breast, questioned how they could be there at the same time.

From her he derived an alien whirring of feelings. He hated it, and he hated how it made him lose sight of what he was angry about.

With his focus shaken, Levi chose to press her further, louder than his thoughts could distract him.

"I gave you every chance, Ral." Levi muttered.

Petra looked up at him. Ral. He really was pissed.

"I know, sir. But, please, try to understand. The wound isn't deep, it looks a lot worse than it is. I just have to clean it up, that's all it is." Petra offered weakly.

"Likely story." Levi's head nodded "You got this from the crash, right? We hit that cart pretty hard, Ral. The only reason my head is still attached is because you took the brunt."

"Well, technically."

Levi's scoff cut her off. "Can you walk it off?"

She was afraid of that.

On Levi's squad, if you can't walk something off in 5 hours, you're done. Off to the barracks until you recover. It purported to be a realistic and lenient ground rule, merciful even. Or rather, ostensibly uncharacteristic of the harshness of his punishments.

This was because it was. Being trapped indoors was hell after more than a few days. When a soldier sits there, staring out their window for god knows how long, they begin to feel like an accessory to their room. It was lonely and depressing.

And Levi, just to be cruel, would have the squad stroll past their window so they knew exactly what they were missing.

She didn't know if she could handle that.

Petra suddenly noticed that Levi had begun pacing, frustrated with her silence.

"Okay, Ral. Fine. You be that way, you take your time. Why can't you.." He paused then, opening his mouth and closing it, as though his words ailed him.

"Look, go back to the barracks." Levi demanded finally.

Inside Petra, her heartbeat skipped and the acid in her stomach bubbled.

Levi glared icy daggers her way as he walked away from her.

Petra watched him pace around the bed, his limp was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it became obvious when one realized who they were looking at.

"Get going, Ral. Wrap that up, and we'll deal with it in the morning." Levi said, picking up his cold plate of food and starting on it.

Petra somehow found her voice and replied shakily as she made for the door.

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

Levi threw a look over his shoulder that stopped her.

"Not yet, Ral. Dismissed."

Petra pulled the door open after he dismissed her and stood there. A second passed, she shook her head and shut the door behind her softly.

For a very stupid moment, Petra worried she had been booted from her squad and nearly sobbed at the thought. She didn't know what Levi had in mind for tomorrow, but if it had anything to do with her, she knew she was still on his team. Even if that meant something really bad was about to happen.

As she made her way back to the barracks, she noted the wash of deep red that colored the sky. She looked back at the setting sun and wished the following day would be a little different, and hoped wishing were enough.

levi's a dick but he's our dick and we stan a king.

Make sure you smash that like button and subscribe.

Until next time, babes.

Chapter 6

Notes:

No one:

Not a single organism:

My brain: catch dis writer's block bitch

It's okay real hoes find a way.
Not much progression in this chap y'all just a heads up

Chapter Text

Oruo was the last to arrive at the mess hall that early morning. Late and unapologetic, he was received with curt waves and dreary faces. Petra sat at the opposite end of their table while Eld and Gunther slouched together on the other side. As he made his way to them, he chuckled at the dried drool he could see caked around the edges of their mouths and the imprints of their bedsheets stark upon the skin of their disoriented faces.

Concluding that they couldn't have woken more than an hour ago, Oruo smirked a lopsided grin at his yawning company, gathered senselessly in the dampness of the sleepy, morning air.

"Good morning to you too." Ouro snickered through his grin. He slid into the seat beside Petra, spoiling for a quick remark.

"Is that what this is?" Eld mumbled, he heaved a disgruntled noise. "What the hell's so good about it?"

"You know Eld's moody in the morning, Ouro. Don't look him in the eye." Gunther sighed.

Petra frowned at him when he elbowed her in greeting.

"You're late, bonehead." She chided.

"Tch. And here I thought being fashionably late would let me miss all the early morning attitude."
He said, shrugging.

"What's the point of being fashionably late if you still look like that?" Petra's jibe was friendly.

"Well, you'd know a lot about being late, wouldn't you? You never explained why you took so long on your 'walk' yesterday. That's two times you were late in one day. Is this becoming a thing?"

Petra narrowed her eyes at him and answered, "Would you give it a rest? I came back, didn't I? And since when do I answer to you anyway? Confusing yourself with the captain again?"

"Well, Petra, Ouro's not the only one who wants answers this time." Gunther's voice was tired as he spoke. "When you asked us to meet you here at dawn, you didn't really tell us why or what happened on your way back."

Petra blinked at him, confused. She turned to Ouro a second later to see him pout and shake his head with disapproval, looking her up and down.

"After you went straight to your room, we started to worry a little bit. Where've you been?" Eld croaked with dull eyes as he continued to nod off. "Did it have something to do with Captain Levi?

Petra shuffled in her seat a bit, they were absolutely right.

"It has everything to do with the captain, the reason I asked you guys to meet me is because I wanted this time to talk to you guys about it."

"Couldn't we have met after all the other soldiers woke up? I was in the middle of a really nice dream." Ouro grumbled.

She fingered the crevices in the wood she leaned over. "I would've liked that too. But this time, I didn't really have a choice. I have to meet with him in a few minutes."

Ouro looked up at her now. "What for? Oh no, what'd you do?"

Eld looked up too. "Are you in trouble?"

"Well, that's the problem." Petra began. "I definitely made Captain Levi angry yesterday, but I think I've-"

"Oh god, you're gonna die. You realize you're going to die?" Ouro gripped her shoulder.

"Ouro, please. I really don't need that right now." Petra swatted his hand away. All the same, questions of her fate came flooding through her head.

"What did you do, Petra? It's gotta be be pretty bad to get the captain mad at you after you saved him like that." Eld observed evenly.

"It's more what I didn't do." Petra replied with a flat tone as she undid her shirt cuff. "I have something to show you guys."

She folded her sleeve up to expose the bandages that wrapped snug about her right arm. The skin there felt as though it were only held together by the grace of the bonds. She deigned to think of how much worse the gash must have become under them.

Petra searched their drawn faces for an emotion, their eyes moved over the red showing through her bandages without a word. Their bovine expressions were dulled with sleep and she couldn't find the concern in them, couldn't react to the dissatisfaction behind their eyes. If there was any there, she couldn't see it.

Gunther was the first to speak up. "Did you get that yesterday?"

Her eyes caught his for a moment, and she still couldn't discern anything there.

"Yes. When we crashed into the cart outside the chapel, I scraped my arm on something. I didn't say anything about it."

"And you wouldn't have said anything about it either," Ouro tore his eyes away from her arm and furrowed his brows at her, "You got caught, didn't you?"

"She chose not report an injury to her dominant arm, so yes, that'd probably be why Captain Levi wants to see her now. He must have figured her out." Gunther quickly deduced.

"And why she wanted to see us before she gets her head bitten off." Eld supplied tersely. "Did we miss anything?"

"Yes. No. Ugh, you're all terrible without sleep." Petra grimaced.

Oruo shook his head again. "I don't get you. Why hide it? Why try, you knew you would get found out eventually, right?"

"I didn't mean to hide it, it just happened. Or didn't happen—I don't know, guys. I guess...I just didn't notice." Petra sighed.

"Didn't notice what?" Gunther's gentle prod stirred her.

"That I was injured. That..I was hiding it. I can't remember where this started or how I let it get so out of hand. But I'm about to pay for it, and I wanted to talk to you guys now since I couldn't last night. And I might not tomorrow. I mean, hey, for all I know, Captain Levi might actually bite my head off."

The four shared a brief laugh in the center of the mess hall, the echoes calmed Petra in the strangest way. But too soon, they dissipated, and the quiet fell over them again.

Eld leveled a warm glance her way, "For what it's worth, you're definitely making us look like crap."

Gunther smiled as he nodded. "It's true. Some vets we are, we can't even rescue our captain."

Petra laughed genuinely. Behind her chest, her heart clenched and skipped, beating that same happy tune.

"I will say though, this is what you get for trying to be the hero." Ouro quipped, shaking a finger at the side of her head. "Not for getting hurt, but for acting like it wasn't important."

"Ouro, come on. Right when we were having a moment?" Petra's eyes rolled as the fluttering in her chest sunk into her stomach, becoming again the tremors that caused her so much upset. "I already know I'm a idiot, and I'm sure I'm going to be hearing a whole lot more later."

Eld threw Oruo a short look and spoke over both of them. "Ease up, Ouro. She's going to get what's coming to her, now's not the time to make yourself the big guy."

"Huh. That's just great. What's the matter? Is the second-in-command getting soft?" Ouro retorted bluntly.

Gunther felt Eld stiffen beside him and offered a quick return. "Don't listen to him, either of you. He's just in a pissy mood because he's not going to help Petra get patched up."

"You're probably right." Eld chuckled through his nose. "Seriously, he would not shut up after you left, we ended up having to take a walk too."

"The guy cares, Petra. He's just really annoying about it." Gunther added.

Petra laughed again, she nudged her friend in the ribs as he huffed beside her. He shot back angrily after scoffing her off, but she didn't really pay attention. She sighed against the table, listening distractedly to the heated exchange of expletives and colorful insults. This was always the best part of her day, sitting together and acting like everything was okay. Yesterday, she didn't know much she needed this. But now, as she rubbed against the bandages on her arm, she hoped the day would never come that she missed the obnoxious, overlapping laughter that rung into her ears.

The way to the chapel was unusually busy this morning. Levi had to cut around the edge of the market place and steal a path through the vendors and customers to get to the medics. He had picked up some supplies earlier. Cleansing agents, needles, cord. He made sure to bring plenty of bandages. He'd need some to care for his own injury later on.

The pain in his side had become worse overnight, he worried that he might have slept on it. The pain seemed to spread down the length of his left leg instead of up his torso, stopping at the sole of his foot. When he walked, it felt like he was stepping on a lightning bolt. It looked nothing like it though. To passerby, he made it look almost like his leg had fallen asleep or less.

The soldiers at the barracks couldn't tell either.

Levi looked ahead as he pushed through a corridor of MPs. They stood like stripes against the wall, straight and uniform.

As they salute him, he recurred to the conversation Petra had sparked the day before. The distant slant of her body and the unease on her face when she spoke to him was different that time. The reason why seemed, to him, pretty obvious, and it had to be for her too—that they both knew she didn't know what she was talking about.

After she suggested that he move to climb the ranks of the scout regiment, he was about to remind her about how the regiments had been subsumed into a sectional military system; there was no space to move. But, he got the impression that she already knew that. The survey corps was owned by the capitol and they had their thumb over soldiers, captains, and commanders by the hundreds. He'd learned long ago that nobody could ever ask for a promotion without some pretty good leverage. Nobody ever would. Moving up a rank was never something to celebrate, it meant more responsibility, being accountable for more than your own life, being afraid for more than your own life. And if he knew anything about the world above, it was that soldiers weren't necessarily afraid of titans, they were afraid of being afraid. Those at the bottom of the rung are cursed to stay there and they're happy as hell about it.

So why would she think he would be happier with even more people depending on him? And happiness? That was odd to him too. He couldn't see why happiness should have anything to do with it, nor when she had decided to make his any of her business.

A headache throbbed at the crown of Levi's head as he puzzled over thoughts that weren't his own.

As Levi approached the door of his office, he decided the feelings his subordinates shared with him in confidence were not for him judge or analyze. As they were, by a professional recognition, none of his business. He closed in, on the other side, he could hear boots bumping against the sides of his desk.

Behind the door, his subordinate tried crossing her trembling legs to stop the bumping. Clenching the muscles there to minimize the urge to squirm.

Hearing him stomp a deliberate echo into the hallway rankled her nerves like nothing else, he was the sound of terror. Her fingers played at the wrinkles in her knuckles as she waited for something inside her to give with his footfalls. She didn't like having to brace herself every time she was to meet with her captain, but she wouldn't quibble with the logic of her feelings this morning, she lacked the energy to endure the internal contention.

If she struggled anymore to give sense to the reactions he stirred in her mind, and in her body, she would buckle under the pressure of renewed exhaustion. Her truth would show through the cracked halves of her facade and then she really would get booted from the squad.

She could focus on better things to ruin her life. Easily.

Levi pushed through the door and found Petra sitting in the chair facing his desk, she turned her body in his direction when he entered. Everything looked to be in order. He hadn't suspected her of snooping, but then, he'd never thought she could hide anything from him either.

He looked over her with a firm countenance. She looked more herself this morning, although barely. Neat and prim as usual, Petra was always the least difficult when it came to the issue of his sanitary standards. Not that it was an issue, of course. She looked the part of an elite squad today, he noted with a twinge of pride. Quickly, he snuffed it out, reminding himself he was supposed to be angry with her.

Something was different, however. He would find out what, but he'd need to move closer.

"Get up."

Petra was on her feet in a single, fluid movement. Unprompted, she assumed the salutation and extended her usual greeting.

"Yes, sir. I'm glad to see you well, Captain Levi. Good morning."

"Sit on the desk. It's higher and I'll need to stand."

He spoke detachedly, not once betraying the curiosity that fret him. Regardless, she did as he bade, climbing atop the corner furthest him. She looked askance at the supplies he pulled from a satchel, crossing her legs again.

He stopped organizing the tools, forcing her to look at him. "You look confused, Ral."

"Captain, are these for you?" Petra's tone came hopeful.

Levi continued to unpack, he held the tip of the needle under a ray of sunlight to inspect it.

"Some of it is."

Petra's hand moved slowly to clutch around her right arm, she suddenly understood what he meant when he said he'd need to be standing.

"I don't understand, sir. I can clean and close the injury on my own, I would never ask you to.."

Petra's words failed her as her tongue flattened in her mouth when he came to stand in front of her. "To..."

"Hold this."

He handed her a cloth and she took it without hesitation. Glad for something, anything to squeeze her trembling fingers into. She was doubly thankful now, the cloth being something she could stare at.

"I know what you can do, Petra. But I thought I'd do you the favor this time, you don't mind do you?"

The mannered conceit he put on made her draw back into herself.

"Captain, if you'll listen, I can tell you that I-"

"No. You listen."

Petra looked up from her cloth.

"I have somewhere to be in a bit. Normal, boring captain stuff—you understand."

She blinked aggrievedly. "Yes."

"Good. Then you'll understand that's put our mock drills on hold today. Now, I'd intended for you to use this to get your arm looked at, but then I thought of something."

Levi grabbed a bottle off the desk and unstopped it, bringing the mouth of the container to his nose. He sniffed once at the disinfectant and flared his nostrils, confirming it's pungency.

"You're long overdue for a little talk. You've been off your game the past few days and I've been patient. But now, I'm all out of that and I've got plenty of time instead. So, I think I'll save some and take care of your little nick there while having some one-on-one." Levi said, replacing the bottle on the desk.

Petra quailed beneath her bangs when she felt her face go pale, she winced slightly at her fingers closing tighter around her arm. She held his gaze for as long as she endured the pain, until she let go and began to roll up her sleeve.

Levi watched her expose the bloodstained bandages, section by section. They encircled her upper arm loosely and tightened as they wrapped downward. He supposed that she had been bleeding worst there.

"...'I can clean and close the injury'.." Levi trailed off. "You sure do a shoddy job of dressing the wound though, Ral. You're sure you could stitch it without supervision?"

He waited for her response, but she remained silent and still. He did not miss the sharp intake of breath when he tried to move closer, hindered by her knees.

"You want to help me out here?" Levi grumped.

Petra looked away as she uncrossed her legs to accommodate him. He stepped closer still, into the space between her knees.

He held out his hand and nodded towards her arm. "I'm going to need that."

Petra lifted her arm into his grasp and pressed her lips together as she clenched everything else. He began peeling away the inmost bandages of her skin, listening for a reaction. When nothing came, he continued to pull.

Her arm twitched suddenly as a section stuck to her skin, the movement caused the bandage he pulled to lift even more. She yelped and he looked through narrowed eyes at the damage. None.

"Be still." Levi ordered before he adjusted his grip on her arm.

He pulled again, this time she kept steady, allowing for a smoother removal. The cool air of Levi's office prickled over her exposed flesh, puckering the torn flaps of skin with goosebumps. When he finished, she pressed the cloth into the angry, red skin.

Levi rolled the bloodied bandages into a ball and tossed them into a bin. After rubbing his hands off his pants, he took hold of her arm and stepped around her side to extend it forward, examining it.

He'd been livid yesterday, didn't get a good look at the graze. All he knew was that it looked painful, enough to complicate simple gestures and movements.

His eyes followed the curves of the lesions and tears. The position and angle of the wound denoted an object's jagged sharpness, they probably broke off a large wooden splinter. The gash scored along her skin like a stream, it must have happened fast. He wondered if she noticed the pain immediately, or if she felt it after standing up or even later. He knew it hurt because she had to hide it, but it irked him to know that it probably hurt so much that she couldn't even do it right.

He grabbed a rag and the disinfectant.

"This is going to sting, but you fucked up yesterday, so it's okay." He clipped while he moistened the rag with the liquid.

Petra remained silent, she shut her eyes tight as she braced herself. Puffing up her chest and squeezing the cloth in her hand. She kept her arm out and waited for the sharp pain.

It came and she addressed it. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip and bit deeper than the cold sting of the disinfectant. But, she was unprepared for the warm clasp of his hands, his grip on her arm was different. Gentler. Forgiving.

He rubbed the rag gingerly across broken skin. She recoiled not at the pain, but at his amended touch.

Levi wiped again, slower.

"I hope you don't think I enjoy this, Ral. It's your luck that my idea of one-on-one means a little pain while I'm helping you. At least today it does."

At length, Petra finally nodded.

"I'd imagine it is my luck. I thought we were going to have a little talk about how I've been off my game this week." She uttered, her voice tight with strain.

"You have. Yesterday morning you showed up looking like shit. The day before that you were slow on the uptake against the dummies. And lately, you've been dropping that honorific a bit more than I'm comfortable with."

Petra grit her teeth behind her lips.

"Is that all, sir?"

"I said little talk."

Levi focused on the dampness of the rag between his fingers.

"The reason I'm not getting on you about it is because while your execution is a little careless, you do what you need to do anyway. You did better than Ouro and Gunther on the field that day, you took care of the stables and your horse. Mine too."

Petra listened intently, permitting of all the pain.

"And even though you were a mess yesterday, you still showed up with the rest of the squad. And after that you saved my life."

She felt a thrum wiggle down her spine as he spoke. Her leg jerked slightly with it, shifting against his hip. His body tensed and his hands faltered on her arm, she suddenly remembered why.

"I hurt you, sir."

Levi put the rag aside, he didn't look at her. "We did this already, Petra. I'm here because you hurt me." He picked up the needle and cord, something about his tone came harsher. "Don't regret what happened. That's an order. It's the worst thing anyone can do."

He felt the desk move slightly as she steel herself. She wasn't very good at holding still, if she twitched even once he could rip her skin off.

The masked face of a clever nurse occurred suddenly in his mind.

He pondered for a moment, then passed the cord through the eye of his needle when he figured it out.

"What were you on about yesterday, Ral?"

Petra exhaled a shaky breath. "Captain?"

"You were saying something about the soap I use. Didn't finish." He intoned flatly.

"Oh, that! That was.." Petra paused when she felt the needle prick her skin. "...At the market, they were selling this soap made of herbs and goats milk. I wanted to recommend it to you, sir."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"It's good to experiment, don't you think?"

"Tch. And before that?"

He felt her stiffen beside him.

"Ah. Before that, sir?"

"You suggested that I could be playing a bigger role in Survey Corps."

"Oh. That."

Levi slowed his needle as she fell silent again.

"It's like I said, sir. I was just thinking out loud. I was tired, shaken, and bleeding. I guess that can affect your reasoning."

"So I'm learning."

Petra glanced up at him sorely. Her chin tipped forward and her bangs fell into her eyes.

"I didn't know you remembered what I said about Dimo Reeves."

Her eyes flickered up and fluttered shut as he pulled the cord through, until it stretched taut. She whispered soft, "I didn't either. It wasn't until you mentioned him that I knew I remembered."

"What else do you remember?"

"I think..Ow...you said that the commander had wanted to bring all the squad leaders to a sit-down inside wall Sina, but they all refused and you were the only one to go. You didn't know."

"I didn't. They all hated organized events, didn't like the people who showed up. I had no idea." He pushed the needle into her again. Watchful. "Did I ever say why he and I don't get along?"

Petra's ears perked up. "Um. Not that I recall, sir. Just that you had a disagreement, and it wasn't violent. That, and what you said about his wallet."

Levi smirked at himself. Petra saw it and traced the gentle slope of his lips with her eyes, committing it to her memory.

"It was supposed to be a formal dinner at some lodging he rented to celebrate a deal he made. Late, small gathering. I was Erwin's plus one. That was the first time I saw his fat head."

Inches apart, Petra's only view was the solid wall of his chest. When she was this close, she could scarcely identify the thinnest layer of sweat. The dry heat of a west wind. He'd been outside, and it'd been hot. Very hot.

"Dimo didn't know who I was either. To him, I was just one of Erwin's nosy cohorts. And that's exactly how we wanted it. The only reason we were there is because Erwin wanted to convince him to keep his dealings local to Trost, to keep tabs on him. But, things didn't go as planned."

Levi remembered vividly.

An overestimation of the merchant boss's discretion would give away his collusion with Erwin.

While a nosegay of peonies was a welcome courtesy gift in more rural and bucolic districts, like Mitras and Trost, inside wall Sina the gesture seemed almost offensive. And the scumbag wasn't even based there.

"What went wrong, sir?" Petra blinked up at him.

"I did." His gaze sharpened as his fingers worked. "Erwin said to 'be cordial' so I walked in with a shitty flower arrangement."

She gave him a perceptive look. "..Oh."

"Asshole said it was obvious I didn't know how things worked above ground, that I had to be the paperless thug Erwin blackmailed into joining the scouts." Levi recounted bitterly. "Said it loud too. Everyone who heard had something to say to me. Stupid questions to ask me."

He was almost sick to think about it. Levi didn't know what a flower was until he was in his late twenties. Underground, the prettiest thing you might find was a rotting weed, and that was if you looked hard enough. Until now, he thought he'd met every kind of person. With humanity pushed to the brink of extinction, he thought it was fair to assume there couldn't be enough humans left for people to be very different.

But he'd never known a variety so authentically petty. How they'd fallen, willing, into the decadence and excess that mutated them into remote figures, hedonistic and proud to let others know. Levi didn't like the way he thought at the best of times, but this depravity was the most unfortunate.

Levi, however, was less than concerned. He had swiped the flowers from beneath a sconce at the hold of the manor anyway.

He watched her face change. It was easy for him to recognize the deep frowns and knitted brows of pity. He didn't want it, but he continued to distract her.

"The whole night from there was a bust. Every guy there was a snob. Their suits were all fitted to the crotch and it was clear they were all businessmen."

He stitched carefully. He was halfway done, at the crook of her elbow.

"There were women there too. Escorts. Pricey whores. I wasn't sure, and I didn't think I needed to be. Until Erwin told me they were paid to stay with him for the rest of the lease and that I had to 'respect' them. They were spoiled and pampered to sit next to him and look pretty, without having to do anything unsavory."

Petra grimaced at her pain first and his words second.

"I didn't know women could get paid to tolerate men and stay in mansions at the same time." She huffed out her nose. "I'd love to know what his wife thought about it, stuck in Trost with their daughter."

Suddenly, her demeanor felt peevish and jaded to him. He could understand why; learning of the women better off than her, who trade on their wiles and live much more comfortable, predictable lives. But withal of their varied, exuberant fancies, there was a hollow in them.

The women were wispy and slight, but it wasn't because they needed to be. The monotony of their work corroded them inside. It happened to everyone who worked within the walls. The details of the job didn't matter. Farmers. Soldiers. Tarts. They all worked to eat, not because they had careers in mind.

"She heard about what happened after the fact. Dimo may have used the girls for housewarming, but what looks sad to us looks like money to others." Levi explained sedately.

Petra's frown smoothed. She waited for him to continue, eager to listen. She felt the steely cold of the needle move against her torn skin, focused on the heat of his hands.

"We eventually sat down to have dinner at this long, clothed table. Candles, intricate silverware, the works. Something dead was at the center of the table, everyone got a piece of it, but my appetite wasn't really there that night." Levi said with eyes fixed on the line of a cord.

"Too gamey, sir?" She ventured quietly.

"No, but the conversations were. Dimo wouldn't shut up the entire time, nobody else was bothered."

Levi felt his calm slip as he remembered how irritated he'd let himself become back then. The boss had probably been told his whole life that he was hilarious. He had to be, the laughs floated up like blown smoke, artificial and suffocating. And it was normal this way. The scariest thing about notoriety is that once a person has enough of it, it allows them to do half as much and get twice the credit. Every time.

"Did he say horrible things, Captain?"

"He joked about Wall Maria. Said he was glad that he didn't have to do business with uncultured plowmen anymore. He thanked us."

Petra visualized a yellowed grin that kinked into the fat folds of his round face as he laughed at the dead and patronized the scouts. The thought made her skin crawl.

"Everyone there thought he made perfect sense. Erwin sat there staring at me like I was some kind of.."

She kept perfectly still.

"I listened for a long time." Levi squinted at his stitches. "I was ready to kill him and hurt everyone else by the end of the service."

He could hear Dimo drone on and on in the back of his head.

All night, he had to fight the urge to tear the boss a new one and watch the joy slip from his arrogant, two-chinned face. To silence the tittering of the idiots sitting between them. They were even worse than him. The effects of hubris occur cumulatively with repeated strokes to the ego. Dimo reeves was a testament and his followers were the enablers.

Regrettably, Levi had to settle for the vivid picture drawn by his imagination. He was soothed by the idea of hurling the lit candelabra into his bald head, maybe a candle would fall out and burn the pubes off his upper lip. The thought of flipping the table over the pricks that surrounded him was enough to chisel a simper into his face for the remainder of the dinner.

"No one got shanked. I controlled myself. Good thing too, could you imagine the mess?"

Petra shook her head with a muted giggle.

"Erwin tried diffusing the situation a few times, but Dimo and the rest shrugged him off every time. Told him a commander shouldn't be so sensitive."

Whenever Erwin managed a word in edgewise, tired to raise a different topic or ask an unrelated question, he was waved down and ignored. But he wouldn't be silenced. More was the admiration for him.

"But you did end up saying something, sir?" Petra asked.

"I said several things." Levi answered bluntly.

"What was the last straw?"

Levi shot her a knowing look. She had forgotten completely about the the needle and cord piercing through her separated flesh, seaming it together. He felt a rush of surprise surge inside him, followed by a swell of pride.

"Erwin cut right to the chase after he'd heard enough. Naturally, Dimo didn't like being told where he could and couldn't make his living. He crossed the line when he called the commander's dream a child's folly."

Petra's eyes widened.

He nodded. "Just wait."

He pulled the needle over his shoulder as he neared the end of her wound.

"Erwin didn't like that. He saw red and I could tell he was going to do something we would regret later. So, I did it for him."

"You did what for him, sir?" She pressed eagerly.

"I said everything he was thinking. I walked up to Dimo and let him know he was a worthless sack of shit, he didn't deserve the money in his pockets or the loyalty of his idiots."

Petra stared, astonished.

"Then I called him a waste of semen." Levi added with another smirk pulling at his lips.

"You...both left then, right, sir?" Petra's voice was breathless.

"Yes. We came back to wall rose as soon as we could. Once we returned, I was the one who told his wife all about his little excursions behind the inner walls, his scantily clad company too.

Petra gasped soundly. "It was you, sir?"

Levi nodded. "Now, she doesn't let him do business anywhere outside Trost. The guy's whipped. So, Erwin can watch every move he makes and his lady can too. Everybody wins."

He prompted her to stand.

"Wha-? Oh." Petra looked down at her closed wound as she stood. "I...When?"

"You're easily distracted, Ral. I don't know if I'm good or you're just clueless." He deadpanned.

"Ah. No, you're good, Captain. Amazing." Petra flexed her arm slightly. "How does it look?"

Levi threw the snipped cord and bloodied needle into his trash. He raised an eyebrow, sending her a tired look.

"It improves you."

Petra felt heat flush into her face. "You have my thanks, Captain. I don't know how well I could have done this by myself."

He clenched his jaw as he wiped at his hands with a new rag.

"Don't thank me yet. We still need to go over your punishment. You lied to me, Ral. And you should know by now, you fuck up, you get disciplined. That's how this has always worked"

Petra only realized she'd been smiling when she felt it fall away. She slumped back down on the desk, dabbing her cloth over the blood that remained.

"Yes, sir. I'm aware."

Levi stopped in front of her.

"Originally, I'd planned to have you furloughed on provisional authority, but to place you on momentary leave would put a strain on the team, more trouble than your punishment's worth."

Petra set the cloth by her thigh, she looked at his boots as she rolled her sleeve back down.

"I won't have the others pull your weight on some hope that the guilt gets through to you. No, that would save you, wouldn't it? So, here's what's going to happen now. Are you listening?"

She lifted her head to meet his gaze and nodded her wordless confirmation.

"You are, in fact, going to walk this off. Whether you think you can or you can't isn't my problem. Your workload's doubled until I decide you've learned your lesson. And if I hear single complaint, I'll see to it that you never work again."

Petra swallowed thickly, she didn't say a word.

"I'm not taking any breaks, so why you should you? We're both hurt because of each other, right? Might as well share a painful recovery too. You get it, right? Yeah, you get it. I know you get it."

She nodded solemnly. "I understand, sir. I will do as you ask."

Levi watched her shoulders fall and her back slouch. He got his point across. He was certain now that if she ever made trouble for herself, she would be more afraid of keeping things from him than letting him know as soon as she did.

He looked dimly over the covered length of her arm. He knew she felt every prick and pull. She'd been aware of every ounce of pain. She wasn't clueless. She was just a rapt soldier, listening to her captain.

His voice came softer than he knew it could. "Does it hurt?"

Petra started slightly. She glanced up at him and felt caught by the restraint and concern that glared in his silver eyes.

She brushed her fingers along her sleeve.

"It does hurt, sir. But, I can manage. I promise."

Her mouth shut tight when he approached her, she was in his hands again. He pushed the fingers on her arm aside with his own. She kept her eyes fixed on his left shoulder as she felt them glide and ghost over the raised bumps of her stitches, beneath her sleeve.

He shook his head. "This'll take weeks to heal..." He whispered distractedly.

Inches from her ear, he sounded so far away. Petra felt her body react again. He'd spoken so much in just minutes this morning, more than she'd ever heard him speak in a while. She knew the sound of his low, deep voice. It was soothing and imposing. Gravely and smooth. Like water flowing over jagged rocks. But she'd never heard it so close, never heard it breathed softly into the side of her cheek.

Petra, ever dutiful and practical, so rarely summoned the bravery to speak like anyone more important than a soldier. She lacked the conviction to act on the spates of boldness that would haunt her later. And yet, she felt inexplicably fain to wheedle the shriveling initiative out and into fruition. At once, she was excited by isolating the chance moment to be transparent. To talk like a person, a woman.

She trembled as she spoke. "Maybe, sir. But, I believe my price was worth your outcome. I believe it with all the pain I feel."

Levi tensed visibly, removing his hands and creating distance. He settled her with a look of strong intent.

"Is that right? Even though you'll be working through the pain and the punishment now? How noble."

He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Maybe next time you'll think before you risk your life for mine."

Petra's breathing slowed suddenly, such that she couldn't feel the air move and bend in her lungs anymore.

And no sooner had she felt her breath stop than she felt her body had been gripped by something without shape. Like a feeling. She might have called it courage, but it crest and wave all around her, not inside her. She didn't name it. If she did, she might have become afraid of it. She never liked to give feelings power, it's what got her into so much trouble. Her hands found purchase in the thick fabric of the cloth he'd given her.

Crumpled and bloodstained, the material was durable but pliant. She had been all of these things once too.

Petra squeezed his cloth in her fist until she could feel her nails bite into her palm, through the material. Perhaps she could be just as strong, twice as soft.

"I won't."

She kept her gaze level, they would burn holes through each other's eyes before one of them looked away.

Abruptly, Levi felt his body still. For a moment, the unfamiliar sensation made him become physically ill. He waited, frightened, as his gut worked to restore the composure he needed to speak.

He nodded once, looking down at his floorboards and nodding again.

"I know you won't."

His voice was low, but his words were clear.

He searched her eyes, she wanted desperately to give him what he was looking for, but she couldn't find him behind his own eyes. He looked so lost to her in there. What had she done to him?

He walked away from his desk, stopped at the door before swinging it open and looking back at her.

"What's different about you, Ral?"

She stood up from his desk and wiggled on her toes. Her head felt a bit empty, like she'd just woken from a dream. The numbness of her limbs belied the current of heated emotions thrilling through her.

The ache in her heart longed for this chance to tell him the truth, but the will of her mind was stronger.

Petra smiled a sad smile. "I'll be sure to tell you when I know, Captain."

Though it hurt her, Petra bent her arm over her chest to salute him. "Thank you for today."

The doorknob in Levi's hand dent as he squeezed around it, his fist closed tight over it to divert a clenching feeling that lurched in his chest.

"Clean this up. I've got a meeting to get to." He ordered as he stepped into the hall.

"Be good, Ral."

Petra nodded.

"Always, sir."

He was gone and she could begin. She put his cloth in her pocket and got to work with both hands.

I was listening to that lover song by taysway while i wrote this and that shit got me emotional so that's why not a lot happened in this chapter and it was just kind of about the two of them

Next chap will start with 'the meeting'

Until next time babes

Oh and my birthday's coming so lemme get them kudos

Chapter 7

Notes:

My head HURTS

Chapter Text

Levi descended the stone steps that stretched down into the sprawling passageways of the dungeons. Pulling the heavy door shut and sliding the bar into place, Hange trailed after him.

She had intercepted him at the entrance of the barracks. He'd bent a nod of appreciation her way when she'd promised to ease him through a shortcut to the location of their meeting.

She neglected, however, to mention that the path was hard by the cistern, and choked with people. Smelly and crowded. Worse yet, the sun beat down on everyone outside like it hated them. Smelly, crowded—hot and sticky, everyone felt clammy and moist as they bump into him. Tooling through the crush of heated bodies, impatient of the sweltering temperatures, Levi took pains to will his limbs taut, and not shove through them.

Truly, the people outside were in a state worse than those pressed against the rusting bars around him. Crankier too.

A hastened glance of his surroundings turned up surly prisoners and their gaunt counterparts, gnashing their teeth and leering at them with trembling lips. He considered them from a distance, shuddering to think of the must and dirt that clung to the tawny rags they wore. As he and Hange walked through, Levi heard footsteps approach from the far end of the hall.

Erwin stepped blithely around the curling fingers that reached to hook the straps of his gear.

"Levi, Hange, impeccable timing." Erwin stopped a few feet before them. "Thank god for it too. I'm embarrassed to say I was beginning to get worried."

Levi squinted up at him. "What for?"

Hange cleared her throat behind him, adjusting her spectacles.

"Allow me to explain. After the explosion at the wall, I caught up with Erwin, and he asked that I locate you soon as the dust settled. When I found you, I'd intended to have us regroup with Erwin and the squad leaders. But when I saw you were injured, I thought it better to let the medics take care of you and ask that you meet with Erwin and I the day after. I would relay everything to him later in the mess hall."

Erwin nodded intermittently between her words, affirming them with a troubled crease in his brow.

"All I knew was that you'd been hurt, though not by the debris." Erwin risked a glance at Levi's side, a static look flitting across his irises. "I understand Petra Ral was forced to make...an executive decision. I'd like to know more about what happened."

He blinked at the taller man.

"Didn't Hange already tell you everything?"

"Well, I'm not asking Hange. I asked for your account."

Levi answered with inaudible disdain, his expression betrayed nothing.

"Petra and I didn't have our gear that morning. When you yelled for everyone to haul ass, there was nothing she or I could use to take off. After everyone bolted, she acted in seconds. Found a discarded set of gear, grabbed it, grabbed me, and jumped."

Erwin's hand reached up to touch his chin. "Before putting it on?"

"Well, let me get to the fun part." Levi deadpanned easily.

The commander set his jaw, neatly avoiding the urge to assert his authority.

"Continue."

"We were falling for a minute almost, before she remembered that she'd need to put it on. Guess she panicked. Anyway, she let me go."

"Let you go?" The composure of Erwin's voice slipped a bit. "All that trouble looking for ODM gear, the seconds she spent getting to you, just to let you go?"

Levi gave a sigh.

"If you think about it, she would have needed the ODM gear anyway, really. Or else she would have died even if she had jumped off without me. And then I'd be dead too."

Levi understood him. He'd been angry with her too, but it'd been as her captain, not a bystander. He was there. He had every right to be mad. It was different for Erwin. As someone observing a relation from a position on the outside, Levi expected that he'd listen more instead of getting hung up on the details. Especially when they would eventually save his life.

Hange piped up.

"Ah! Of course! See, this makes perfect sense now!" She pointed to Levi's hip. "She let you go to put on the gear, right?"

"Yeah. It only took a few seconds, but they were enough, we had veered off meters away from each other by the time she was done. I tried to get to her, and she tried even harder to get to me. We were running out of airtime, and we couldn't fight against the wind anymore."

Erwin's fingers returned to his chin as he listened.

"Petra latched into me. The cable reeled her in, and we collided, I think she was crying. I'm pretty sure she had a plan too, if she just wanted a safe landing she wouldn't have tried to reach the chapel."

Erwin's gaze shifted to the taller figure beside Levi. "The chapel. Is this where Hange found you both?"

"She found us a fucking tangled, bloody heap near the chapel. Yes."

A prisoner behind them snickered soundly, sagging against his binds.

Erwin did not react, instead, his voice rumbled in his chest as he turned. "Let's walk."

The commander started down the dusty path, his cape billowing behind him. Their echoing footfalls were the only sounds made for a while. Levi wasn't sure if he should continue or wait for Hange to while the tension away with her campy chattering.

"I'm sure there's more to it, Levi. Pick up where you left off."

He and Hange exchanged cautious looks. She shrugged at him as she focused on the back of Erwin's head. Using two fingers to loosen the cravat around his neck, Levi began again.

"When she caught me, I noticed her struggle with her own weight as much as my own. The gear wasn't secured correctly, so I guess she settled for getting us somewhere close by the medics. We came to a road that led to the rear, but her canisters, they were running on fumes and..."

Erwin stopped then, Hange almost bumped into him. They came to a crooked aisle of cells, with uneven gravel and a miserable odor. The echos droned lower and longer here.

Levi had been to the deeper channels of the dungeons before. Still, he never liked hear his own voice like that. To him, he sounded almost like he belonged there.

Erwin spun around to face them. "And?"

"And..Ugh, and she was out of gas, there was a cart in the way, we crashed, Hange found us. End of story."

"That would be where I took Levi to the medics, sir." Hange added.

"Yes, I see. Everything connects now." Erwin crossed his arms over his chest. "Thank you for your curt recount, Levi."

He huffed as he shifted to poise on his right leg. "Tch."

Erwin glimpsed the slight redistribution of his weight. "I've noticed your new limp."

Levi's head snapped up to meet his discerning gaze.

"No you didn't."

He smirked down at him sheepishly. "Okay, I didn't. It's very slight, but still, I can tell it's affecting you. You were walking a bit slow just now and it's not like you to fall behind like that."

Levi corrected his posture and blew out, "You try to pick up your feet with a fucking eight inch deep gash on the good side of your ass."

The commander clicked his tongue. "Listen, if you can keep up with us, I know it can't be hurting you that much."

Levi's eyes flickered over him with a wary grimace.

"To know you both overcame this ordeal, none the worse for wear, is unsurprising. Well done, Levi."

He fixed to start walking again, gesturing with a pass of his hand for them to tread behind him.

Levi stood firm, flexed stiffly under his jacket. "Yeah, yeah. Before we drop this, you should know that Petra didn't walk away from that stunt 'none the worse for wear'.

Erwin's eyebrows shot up as his pace stalled to a stop. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she's fucked up. Or, her arm's fucked up. She shielded my body with hers when we crashed and injured her dominant arm, the idiot. She got cut up by panel that was jutting out or something. Fuck if I know. But, if anyone overcame anything that day, it was her."

The echo of the word 'her' thrummed a tremble through the surrounding bars, followed by a beat of bloated silence.

The commander's expression boggled. "I wasn't aware. Where is Petra now?"

Levi had an idea.

As he depart, he craned to look up into the pane of his office from the entrance to the barracks. Petra had the widows thrown wide, just like he would to exhale his space of dust and dross. She was thorough that way. Although, it was probably to let the scent of the bakery below carry up into the room, filling it from the outside with a domestic quality as she scrubbed her blood off his desk. She was corny that way.

"Last I saw her she was in my office. Earlier this morning I was stitching her arm up so that I could get here on time. Why?"

"You?" The taller man blinked rapidly as his shoulders dropped. "When did you start stitching anyone up? Hadn't you sent her to medics the day before?"

"I didn't know she was hurt the day before. I mean, I did, but not until I couldn't do shit about it." He shrugged. "Why do her whereabouts matter now?"

"You didn't know? How's that? You mean you didn't notice?" His tone was markedly doubtful.

"She didn't tell me, Erwin. I had to figure it out over some fucking tea on a hospital bed. Okay. Look, she-"

Levi raked a hand through his wind mussed hair. "I already took care of it, alright?"

"I trust that you did, Levi. It's not what I'm worried about."

"Well, I'm trusting you now. Do me a favor, Erwin. Make like a true leader, and don't get involved."

Levi checked his temper as he bit the inside of his cheek. He'd be hearing about that later.

Erwin's head nodded slow, he angled a quizzical look at Hange, who kept watchful and motionless.

Levi rolled his shoulders back and straightened his spine. "Why did you want to know where she is, Erwin?"

"I meant to thank her personally for her bravery and commend her unwavering resolve. As her leader, I would think a veteran like Petra should feel rightfully entitled to receive her praise from the source."

Levi knew that Erwin always moved strategically, every motion had its purpose. So, when he subtly inched his footing to one side, allowing the light of a torch to bounce off the gem around his neck and glare into his eyes, he knew it was to drag a point across.

"As your leader, I can determine whether particular courses are befitting their criterion, include you in a discussion, and ultimately do what I believe to yield results most favorable. I can do as I please, Levi, it's not for you to say which of my soldiers I can and can't get a hold of."

Levi's body relaxed as his lungs burned with an uncharacteristic need to scream. His head bobbed once, a half-nod.

"Just down this corridor and past a flight of stairs, is our meeting location and our last conferee." Erwin pointed a thumb over his shoulder before turning fluidly to march along the bowered corridor. "Come along."

Mentally, Hange added up a quick head count. "Wait, there's someone else?"

"I'll explain as we walk. Let's go."

Trailing after their commander into the stuffy pass, they followed him mutely around the bend of the walkways. All throughout, the rhythm of Levi's shallow breathing kept time with the cadence of his thundering heartbeat. He felt put out of his own body. When he talked, he heard someone unrecognizable. Who did this anger belong to? Certainly not him.

"Psst!" Hange whispered as she looked ahead, holding her palm to the side of her mouth. "Be glad he's more pressing matters to distract from your attitude just now. We're friends, Levi. We're comfy, you know that. We're also equals."

Levi raised an eyebrow at her.

"Whether you want to see it or not, Erwin is on level that's above ours. You might actually have one up on me there too, it's probably how you can get away with things like this."

"If I did, you wouldn't get to scold me."

"Levi." Hange found his eyes, the gunmetal orbs were defiant despite her severity. "You can get snippy with me, your squad, my squad. You usually do. But, be careful of where you direct that..back talk. You'll find he'll do more than scold you."

"Oh, he'll do more than sco-Shut the fuck up. Oi! Erwin. When are you going to start explaining? Who's waiting for us at the end of this shit hole?"

"We're here to speak to these dungeons' newest addition, a man by the name of Collins Torrey."

Hange cocked her head, "Er, is he important?"

"It's what I'm here to find out. He was thrown down here yesterday. Before that, he was waging trades as a merchant of the Reeves Company."

Levi scoffed. "Ah. Probably not that important."

"Why is a merchant being thrown into a cell?" Hange called.

"He was turned in."

Levi's interest was snagged. "Customers?"

Erwin shook his head. "Associates."

"Unbelievable. Everyone in that company's a fucking tool. Men can't even negotiate a shady deal without their colleagues ratting them out." Levi huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Actually, shady dealings had nothing to do with it." Erwin threw a look over his shoulder.

Levi jogged up to Erwin's side and scowled. "Then why's he here? I don't know that I'll believe he killed someone, it'd hurt the business."

Erwin walked slower. "The night of the explosion, we received a tip that what happened at the wall was no accident. A merchant who'd contributed to the development of the hand cannon had allegedly set the whole thing up."

"Uh, did I hear that right?" Hange skipped to Erwin's shoulder the same way. "Someone of the company bugged the device, is that what you're saying?"

"You heard right. More damning, several of the company's more prominent tradesmen corroborated the tip just hours after it was given to us. All of the claims coincided. Until then, no one was made a suspect. It'd just been a freak accident. But with the accusations piling up, it was only prudent that we detain a culprit."

"Okay, if multiple people came forward the day of, then there couldn't have been a lot of speculation." Levi voiced dubiously.

"And there wasn't. The merchants believe he almost made a point of suggesting himself."

Hange guffawed haughtily.

"Some terrorist, single-handedly removing the guesswork? Feh! I would think watching everyone run around confused is the best part, no?"

Levi cringed at the shrill of her voice, bouncing off the stone and vibrating into his ears. "No, Hange. Think. Come on, when you smell bullshit like this you ought to pay attention."

She shrugged, throwing her hands up. "But I don't see the sense, what's the thinking? Cause some mayhem, land himself in here? Why make it easy to get yourself locked up before seeing all the trouble you've caused?"

Erwin listened intently to the discursive back and forth, their separate views were revelatory in a presentation of new, possible factors. He began to deduce a connection, and he'd need the quarreling voices that butted up against him for the rest of the way.

He came to a standstill, the two walked on a bit before looking back at him.

"We've come to take him to task over the crimes committed against the survey corps and the defamation he's caused the Reeves Company...and learn more about his past, if that."

Hange chewed her lip, shaking her head. "Why does it matter who he is anymore? He's already in here."

Erwin balled his fists behind his back.

"A theory that Torrey worked in collusion with other insurgents hasn't been ruled out as of yet. In view of the fact that his birth was one on the other side of the Ermich District, it's fair to assume the odds at play here are on a field virtually uncharted to us. We can't afford not to assume there were no other interlopers. We must suspect there are several."

Levi slumped a bit. "Where is this guy from then?"

"A forested village on the south side of Wall Rose, Dauper."

"The hunters?" Hange recoiled from the first pang of shock. "What would the forest dwellers have against the Survey Corps? All we've ever done to them is butt out of their business."

Beside her, Levi crossed his arms and tapped his fingers against his bicep.

"Any relation to the brat who's always got a potato in her mouth?" He ventured.

The corners of Erwin's lips twitched, "We're about question him you two, these are all things we'll soon learn."

"I don't know, Erwin. It's like shitty glasses said; the guy's already in here. What's he got to lose if he tells us to fuck off?"

Erwin looked at Hange. "There are always methods old-fashioned and more...hands-on, if Torrey should become disagreeable."

Hange hooded her eyes. "Do you mean to say a little cross-examination could be in order?"

Levi watched her expression darken and a shiver creeped him. "Don't get any ideas, Hange. You're not turning of a captive of the MP's into one of your guinea pigs."

"I wouldn't think of it. He'd just be subject to what I call, 'invasive research'."

Erwin chuckled despite himself. "He'll be hearing all of this."

Levi glanced around. "Just down here?"

The taller man jerked his head toward the end of the hall. "Let's introduce ourselves."

Levi and Hange stalked after him. The closer he came to the end of the passage, the louder he could hear a thin scraping sound.

The commander stopped with his hands together at his front and his feet apart. Levi came around to stand on his right side as Hange stayed on his left. They looked past metal bars into the shadowy cell ahead. Levi squinted to identify the source of the incessant scraping.

The boom of Erwin's voice rang clear. "Collins Torrey, we'd like a word with you this morning. Please, approach the bars."

The noise stopped then, a fried voice croaked out from the darkness.

"Commander Erwin, always a honor to be in your company."

An accent was thick in his vowels, but a condescending tone was the first thing Levi recognized.

Erwin asked again, "Please approach the bars."

"Give me a second, will you? These aren't exactly light, you know?"

Before long, a glassy-eyed man with a jagged scar on his forehead walked lamely into view, dragging his constraints across the stoney ground.

Levi glared at his chains, the prisoner's aimless pacing would be the noise that he'd heard earlier.

He studied the shackled man across, his face looked wizened and withered by something crueler than age. Every part of him looked caved in on itself, Levi felt his insides twist just looking at him.

"Here I am, Erwin. To what do I owe this visit?" He asked, a hint of disdain underscoring his tones.

Erwin stepped closer still.

"I'm here on behalf the Survey Corps to learn about the motives and reasoning of your treachery and sabotage of the device you engineered with the Reeves Company."

Torrey sucked his teeth. "Ah man, are you all still mad about that? Nobody even got hurt. You should care this much when you put your soldiers in danger." He shuffled against his chains. "What're you looking at, short stack?"

Levi breathed a deep breath of sweaty rags and rusting metal as he waited for Erwin to say something diplomatic.

"Address my affiliates properly, Torrey." Erwin placed a hand over Hange's shoulder. "This is Hange, my distinguished council."

He lifted his other hand and fixed his collar when Levi shot him a menacing look.

"On my right is Levi, our strongest. You may have heard tell of-"

"I know who he is. I just pictured someone little different in my head. No offense, Captain, but humanity's strongest is a little..." Torrey shrugged with difficulty. "Yeah, little. Makes me wonder if you're eating right."

Levi was about to step forward when he felt Erwin's hand clamp onto his shoulder.

"Speak for yourself, Torrey." Erwin turned his nose up at the prisoner, indicating the inches Torrey didn't have. "You're kind to be worried, but you can be sure that my soldiers are fit and well-kept."

"Oh, I believe you, Erwin." Torrey flattened his palm against his chest. "But since you brought it up, the last person to visit was a one Nile Dok. I was eavesdropping, as you do, and I overheard that an inquest about the explosion returned vastly polarized responses from your scouts. Followers can lose faith with a leader's silence, I think you should be more worried about everyone else being sure, commander."

Levi's hand moved easily though the bars to the snag the short beard hanging at his chin.

"Wha-? Ack!" Torrey stumbled backwards as he pressed his hands to his forehead. The banging noise echoed well after Levi yanked him down, headfirst, onto a bar.

Erwin watched him curse and slur with recollected composure. "That was uncalled-for, Levi."

Torrey gripped the bars suddenly, pushing his red forehead between two of them.

"You better watch yourself, short stack! I can't knock you one from here, but I know you're afraid of germs. So be mindful you're within spitting distance."

Erwin grabbed the chains that dangled by the man's knees and fisted them in his right hand, tight.

Torrey's eyes widened with horror as he struggled against his bonds. "What is this? Let me go."

"Torrey," Erwin began, "I had hoped we could be more civil about this, but I won't hesitate to ask Levi to intervene again if you let your tongue slip."

Levi smirked with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

The prisoner faltered again, only to be roughly jerked back to the bars by Erwin's grip.

Levi chortled. "You're starting to look like the little guy from here, asshole."

Torrey growled, holding his hands over his beard. "You can't do this! This has to violate some kind rights that I have!"

Hange smiled at him. "Well, technically, the rights you're talking about don't apply to you. As a forest-dweller, you don't inherit the rights of a citizen of these districts."

"If you don't want to suffer a concussion, we ask that you cooperate and answer our questions." Erwin said as he looped the chains around his wrist. "It's you and me now."

The man looked up at Erwin with respectful hatred. He sighed, looking utterly deflated. Levi was almost giddy with it. He leaned back to look at Hange, who was already sending him a triumphant look behind Erwin's back.

Torrey reposed on the bars with a frown glooming his dirtied face. "How can I be of service?"

The commander tightened his grip on the chains.

"That horizontal scar on your forehead looks almost deliberate. How did you get it? And don't lie, Torrey."

He sulked and shot back. "In my village, it's a mark of exile. The symbol of defectors. When you cross the line, they slice it into your face, that you may never be allowed in the villages again."

"You were banished." Erwin asserted, it wasn't a question.

"Heh. Yes, I was. But, don't look so sad, Erwin. I'd find somewhere else to shack up."

Levi's hands twitched at his sides, itching to throttle the man into a smooth paste.

Erwin blinked coolly. "Who gave it to you?"

Torrey stiffened visibly at that. "What do you care? Why the hell does it matter?"

Hange sighed heavily. "Please, do yourself a favor, and just answer if you know the answer. The commander doesn't like repeating himself."

At length, he rolled his eyes and muttered, "It was just some other huntsman."

"Who? Name him." Erwin pressed.

Torrey fidgeted his toes, he looked at Levi, who tapped his finger against his wrist when their eyes met.

"...Braus. That's the man's name."

Erwin nodded. "This seems personal to you. What made him cast you out?"

"Well, I was going to kill him, see."

He didn't bat an eye. "What for?"

"My niece. He let her join the military."

"This Braus fellow, her father, right? Was he your brother?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Any brother of mine wouldn't be such a careless father. The girl was my sister's kid. And the way I was raised, family don't let family gallivant bravely into the arms of their own executioner."

A sneer furrowed into the commander's brow. "So, you revolted because he let his daughter join a noble cause, and got exiled when you tried to kill him."

"Oh, bite me, Erwin. Noble my ass. What's so noble about lining your pawns up, seventy percent of which are goddamn teenagers, and sending them to their death with a lousy battle cry?"

"I'm waiting on you, Erwin." Levi snarled.

He shook his head calmly.

"I don't want him too dizzy before I know a little more. Now as I was saying, I might understand why it would purport to be a meet solution, casting you out. But unfortunately for me, it led you to the other side of Wall Rose. And unfortunately for you, Braus isn't dead. Is he?"

"Heh, no, he's not. I wouldn't go back to exact revenge. That's petty. Even for my tastes."

"How did he learn of your betrayal then? When you had the knife at his back?"

"Nope. Braus wasn't an idiot. The bastard talked smart, dressed smart, and he always on the smart end of his musket. He was a pro. A frontal attack wouldn't do. I wanted to off him in his sleep, actually."

"You're a piece of shit." Levi seethed in his boots.

"I'm a coward. And that means I'll live a lot longer than you will. So, get it right."

Erwin yanked at his chain. "What did you do?"

"I improvised. Hey, I didn't always want to kill him, you know? But after the plan to convince Sasha to stay with food failed spectacularly, I opted for plan B."

"Which was what got you that scar." Erwin examined tersely.

Torrey raised his thumb. "Now you're getting it. I was going to take a bearded axe to the back of his neck, but my sister figured me out. She told him about the whole thing."

"Go on."

Torrey lounged himself against his bars, making himself more comfortable. "So then, I beat a hasty retreat after he disappeared my weapons and supplies, but I was set a trap."

Levi huffed out his nose. "They jump your bony ass?"

"Three of them, yeah. I was near the outskirts when I got tripped up and before I knew it, I had my whole hunting group holding me down while Braus carved my face up, temple to temple. Sent me on my way and that was that."

"That was that." Erwin repeated.

"Mhmm. I stole some guy's horse and I ran into this fat guy once I passed the gates. Funny, he said I was riding his right-hand man's horse. Gave me a job a day later. You guys sure make an easy living here, huh?"

Hange tensed at Erwin's side, her voice came shaky and tight. "Were you also raised to cut family down when they don't do what you want? You tried to kill your own. How could you do that?"

"Easy. I never liked the bastard. Braus was always a stickler for the rules, even the ones that held him back. I told him, hunting and foraging would soon cost him more than they could feed him. But, it seemed to me that he cared more about defending obsolete traditions than taking care of my sister and his daughter. No wonder he let her go. Only willing to change his mind once he's lost what should have made the decision simple."

Torrey's voice cracked as he continued.

"And then I learn my niece has decided to fight for lives that...don't deserve anymore. The hunters were forced to ration everything after Wall Maria's fall, it was in the middle of winter. We lived never knowing if we'd starve or freeze by the end of the night. With the influx of people, I guess someone up there must have decided that if you don't have bread on the table, you never will."

Erwin's gaze fell on the matted hair on Torrey's head as he hid his eyes from them.

"No one noticed the people on the outside struggling, and its because they weren't looking."

Torrey looked up at Erwin and spoke firmly,
"Braus was crying when he gave me this scar, I thought, for a second, that it could be hurting him more than me. When told me to get up and leave, and I started running, he yelled that Lisa had killed herself when he told her that he'd be sending me away."

Levi stood motionless, he realized that his weren't the only eyes fixed on Torrey's green ones. He, Hange, and Erwin watched as all the emotions from before slipped away, unfeigned, as if he locked them in their own dungeon.

"Losing your brother and your daughter is enough to drive most women mad, she was no exception. Sasha is the last part of my sister that I have. You won't make me feel bad for trying to get her back."

Erwin glowered at him with disgust. "Was everything you did just to get to her? The good men and women you could have killed yesterday, do they mean anything to you?"

Torrey shook his head, shrugging. "Are we not all a little selective about our morals?"

"What the fuck were you trying to do, blow her to pieces so no one can have her? Because if that's it, you've got shit timing. She wasn't even up there that day, dumb ass."

"No, it wasn't my timing. It was my execution. I didn't account for the speed and teamwork of the veterans, had no idea you guys could carry each other while zipping through the air like that, or I didn't think you'd go through the trouble. I really thought at least one of you would have died. I underestimated you all, I'll give you that."

Erwin bore into him with a piercing glower.

"If you really were trying to kill us, Sasha would have died too. And I doubt that's what you wanted. You must have known she wasn't up there. What were you really trying to do?"

"Well, that's another place where I messed up. I underestimated my niece too. See, Sasha's real timid, she was raised to be scared of everything so that her survival out there would be easier. I liked that, I thought if she saw the these hardened, experienced vets get taken out by accident, she would come running home without looking back."

Hange shook her head incredulously. "Even if she had gone back home, she'd be with her father, and you'd never see her again anyway."

Torrey nodded. "Better there than here. I'd rather she be with at home with that bastard where she belongs than somewhere else, falling on her blade for the sake of these swine. Everyone there can hate me all they want. Hell mend them. I would be at rest knowing I sent a lost lamb back to it's coop."

Hange fumed.

"You're disgusting. You almost killed dozens just to frighten one little girl."

Torrey grinned, pointing a shaky finger at her. "Ah, but I didn't."

The man yelped, he was abruptly jerked by his chains again. "Ow. Watch it, commander. We're not all protected by the padding of muscle."

"How did you rig the prototype? Be detailed, or else. Levi is getting antsy."

As Torrey explained the mechanics of the device and how he set a round to go off, Levi pondered the seasonably politic skill his leader commanded, how it always had a direct bearing on the induction of their regimental inroads. Even as he interrogated criminals like Torrey and himself.

It didn't make any sense, he was an asshole and that never put things in his favor. He didn't know how he could piss off people who have nothing left to lose and still get them to do what he wanted. He would have just beat the shit out of them and hope they still have enough teeth to make words out. He wondered if Erwin's threatening grip on Torrey's shackles was his way of implementing Levi's methods into his own.

Privately, he marveled at the practicable application of his unlearned talent. There was an easiness about his approach, the casually loaded questions, the effortless unconcern.

Erwin, somehow, labors the point of his authority with layered speech and vexed statements. He made people take apart everything he said and piece it back together, because he could. Maybe that was how to make like a true leader.

Levi cleared his throat emphatically, "What was the point of making yourself the obvious culprit?"

Torrey smiled to himself. "Oh yeah, my new coworkers told on me, right? I knew they would. Hey, shouldn't you guys be persecuting them too? For people who knew all along that I was acting funny, they could have said something way before you guys ascended the wall."

Erwin nodded. "You make a valid point, Torrey."

"Yeah, well, like I said, I knew they would talk, but I knew when too. The thing about the merchants working for the fat guy, is that they're all cowards too. They see anyone with ulterior motives on their side, and think there's something in it for them too. When they see shit's beginning to hit the fan, they come crying to their high and mighty commander. Gotta say, Erwin, I had no luck finding those good men and women you were talking about."

"Answer. Why did you give yourself away?" Levi snarled again.

"Again, it's like I said. I wanted to rest. I know big time offenders face the gallows behind the walls, a lot scarier and moralizing than getting your forehead dinged up, I will say that. But, I digress. The truth is, I've seen all I need to of this world."

"You really are a coward." Levi's voice was calm and detached.

"But don't you think everyone's better off without having to share the room with scumbags like us? You know what I'm talking about, right, Captain?"

Levi grabbed the coarse hair at his chin and pulled him down hard enough break skin.

Torrey wasn't afforded much movement. Erwin's grip on his chains was unyielding, despite his new wound.

Levi's eyes widened slightly, he didn't mean to draw blood. "Serves you right, eye for an eye. You fucked me up, I fuck you up."

Torrey held his head in his hands, groaning as he crouched. "Heh, that's it, hero. Fight till' you're bleeding too. You probably think that anger will save you one day, it won't. I know."

Hange surged to Levi's side then.

"Stop comparing yourself to Levi, it won't make you feel better about yourself."

"Take her word for it, shithead. We might both be defectors, but between us..." Levi looked the groveling prisoner up and down. "There's a dramatic difference."

"Yes, I'm sure, but you know what? It's a lot easier, being different, when being different is what makes you useful; successful. How does it to feel to be a slave to your own strength, Captain?

Levi pulled his head down again.

"How does that feel?"

Torrey recovered quickly. "Heros don't have to tell you why they're heroes, Captain. Does it not tire you to have to shove your status in people's face everyday?"

Erwin stepped forward. "That's enough, Levi. Step aside."

Levi and Hange stood upright beside Erwin and waited.

He looked down at the prisoner with a disdainful scowl. "On your feet, Torrey. I have one more question."

Laboriously, Torrey picked himself up and locked eyes with the commander. "Shoot."

"What exactly do you have against the Survey Corps? Or is it me you hate?"

He laughed, sputtering driblets of blood that rolled into his mouth from his wound. He have Erwin an endearing look and hoisted his shackles.

"Oh, Erwin, I don't hate you. I hate a lot of things about you. But, while we've established that I don't compare to Captain Levi, I don't think I could bring myself to truly loathe someone who's actually a little similar to me."

"To be sure, our methods are, identically, makeshift and improvisational. We both like to gamble, sure. But you and I, Torrey, are two very different people. I'd appreciate it if you remembered that."

"Don't talk like Levi, commander. You're not better than me, it's a shame that your lackeys are pretty close to convincing you that you are though. We're no better than the merchants, Erwin. We sail our hopes on the competence of those we recruit, and we fight for our goals indirectly. And you can say you're leading these people to a new age, free titans and tyrants, but you're just spearheading those squadrons into hopeless massacres. We're cowards, Erwin, and that's okay."

The blood dripped down Torrey's face like tears.

"We're both ineffective in our sufferance, the only difference is that your fight begets loss and mine concedes to it. You raise your sword and bellow as your soldiers march into their graves. Does it make everything okay that they signed up for it? Because the deed is good and the fight is brave? I hope we're not too far gone to begin thinking that way, right, commander?"

"Right."

"They say two wrongs don't make a right, but what of those who do something wrong and do two more good things? Are they better people? Do your victories outweigh your shortcomings, huh? Are they what keep you from going to hell?"

"No, they aren't."

"You're respectable man and I'm not. Congrats. But you and I are both the losers no matter how you look at it, I just know how to take it in stride."

"You're wrong, Torrey." Erwin said. "There is hope."

"You disagree? So what then, is the position of Erwin Smith in this decrepit world? And what is hope truly made of?"

The commander let the chains fall from his hand. "I couldn't tell you."

Torrey's eyes went glassy again, he slumped to floor and began to scrap his chains against the ground.

"Perhaps hope is the long shadow of a soldier in the ring of the sun, slicing strong into the napes of rampaging titans. You're an honest man, Erwin. Don't keep your soldiers in suspense. Just..tell them their struggle is for nothing, and see if they all go home."

Erwin turned his back on the bars.

"We're going, I've heard all I need to."

He began to walk away, when a bloody finger hooked into the straps of his gear.

"Just remember, commander. Lies are tricky, but the truth is sticky. Honesty bears a hand of blame as much as responsibility, and absolution isn't always guaranteed because you resist your own heresy."

He kicked his hand away.

"I will not be lectured to by the likes of you. Everything you are is etched into your face. You're a traitor, the worst kind of terrible people."

Erwin crouched to look into the defector's empty eyes.

"Understand, snake, your comeuppance will be worse than your exile."

Erwin prompted Levi and Hange to start down the path. They walked ahead of him and waited for him at the cutoff.

He stood up, dusting himself off. "Be well, Torrey."

The prisoner went still, watching as the commander's figure grew smaller and blurrier.

"Everyone has a vice, commander. What's yours?"

My head really hurts

until next time babes

Chapter 8

Notes:

The first person to complain about the wait is gettin kissed

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Levi trailed closely behind his colleagues as he straightened the lapels of his jacket. The channels of the dungeons didn't smell any better the second turn. Indeed, the rueful din of groaning prisoners, the colorful spray of slurs directed at them, and Hange's snickering at them irked him more than his commander's prolonged silence.

The compressed lips suggest his principled reticence, his practice of keeping his own counsel. Always reminding himself how capable he is.

Attentive though he may be, Levi didn't understand why he seemed so uptight all of a sudden, and he'd be embarrassed to think that Torrey had struck a nerve earlier. To be offended by lunatics was idiotic, and Levi didn't work for idiots. There was no way Erwin could give anything the scum said a second thought.

Erwin listened to this stuff weekly. The capitol had worse shit to say about him every time he made a decision outside protocol. Which happened every other expedition. This morning's drivel wasn't anything he hadn't brushed off before.

They both knew it, the quintessence of Erwin's heroism breeds the opposition of those who've never needed patience. Idiots who decide not to think ahead because rage and vengeance cost a lot less. Steadfast and noble with all his might and main, Erwin had folks that hated him as much as loved him and no matter which they were, they were never satisfied. Tracing his high position into public esteem, Erwin climbed his way to the top performing feats no one behind the walls would ever see, he was this font of discretion and discernment. It's why he knew not to give a shit whenever some new asshole that's a little more interested decides to weigh in where he lacked the loathly experience to understand.

He'd been always so quick and indiscriminate about chucking unsolicited two cents right back at those with unprepared facts. The commander, a brilliant man, cared only for the facts. And Torrey, but another partisan wretch, had begun talking crazy right after his sister's death was tied to his banishment.

Spitting feathers about Erwin's place in the world, where the real meaning of hope could be found. Inside the prisoner's mind was a spinning web, any thoughts in there were connected scarcely by the pull of grief and the push of revenge. Torrey had lost his head to the demons who'd chewed his sanity to the quick a long time ago. And he'd lose his head again. The gallows were his next destination. Levi only hoped the guillotine wasn't still out of commission.

Anger sped through his veins as he walked after the taller man, if the prisoner had made anyone furious, it was him. Leaving Torrey bloody and curled fetal in his cell seemed, to Levi, a bit merciful, and that annoyed him. A lot. Even more annoying, he was bloody too.

When he'd crouched to level his gaze into Torrey's empty eyes, he'd split one or two of his sutures. He felt the moisture of his blood beginning to seep through his bandages. He let his company walk ahead of him for this reason in particular, limiting motion would help to slow the flow of blood. If any would come to seep through his uniform, he might boil over.

Anger. Levi's default.

As the bedrock of his every loss and triumph, anger, he'd learned long ago, is a deucedly apt conduit. You can mould anger into anything, you can work it into anyone, Torrey had proved that. You can change anger to motivation, a smoldering conviction. Hell, if you really wanted it, you even could flip a grudge over and call it lust. Often, it was just about how much distraction you needed.

Levi depended on his anger a lot when he was younger, so much he thought it might be the only thing he could feel. A dumb kid, he'd made it a personal mission to teach himself about different feelings. Stronger, weaker emotions. The short-lived and long-winded ones. All of them. He wanted to know everything about the frustrations all the older thugs struggled with.

He'd only sought them out because he was sure they'd get along alright. Hey, they were all poor, lost, and mean. You don't need to have that much in common when you're pillaging and killing together. All he knew was that he was angry, and they were too. For a while, that was enough. But then he'd seen one teenager, squatting across a gangly youth he'd never seen before. Wasn't part of the group, too spindly, not enough white on his knuckles, too soft in the mien.

Heh, they didn't call themselves 'the supernormals' for nothing.

He found them smiling and laughing. Sharing. Sharing. No one could afford to do that unless they had three of everything. Which he knew the older kid didn't have, he liked to indulge, that one. And still, he'd palmed off the dull blade and rotting apple into the kid's twiggy fingers anyway.

After this, Levi began to question what it was that he lacked inside. Why he'd been so confused at someone showing kindness. He began to try and channel the violence of his emotions into things varied and inconstant. He wanted to seem as changeable as the freaks he used to pity. The fickle-tempered and volatile. Those were always the ones in charge. He wondered if every feeling, good and bad, was based on some type of rage. The thought stirred him in a pitiful way, he didn't want to think everybody only reacted to the things they felt because they had hate and pain in the back of their brains.

That didn't even make any fucking sense. But he was child, and he wanted to know others were as fucked up as he was. Even if he hated it.

He hated his rage. Hated his tiny hands, the bags under his eyes, his soft skin. Everything that made him as human as the rest. So helpless and unorganized, even in their own heads. And still he wanted to be like them. At the very least, he could say he was just as confused as they were.

He hated that too. And he hated how much he hated everything. For all his smarts and resources, Levi's bitterness and resentment had netted him all of two things; gang jobs and a steady influx of willing partners. The bare minimum. He was still nothing but a wraithlike street urchin what scrounges off the steely and unfortunate-looking. Tagging along the sweaty pursuits of his thug friends.

Levi's calculated steps faltered again, Hange noticed now.

He didn't know that he should call them his friends, not really, not then. He wouldn't forge any true and lasting bonds until later on. After he'd met those two troublemakers, he figured that their lot were the only kind he'd ever get along with, without accommodation. He knew because once he'd surfaced, he'd made a quick friend of the freak peering into the side of his face.

Levi pursed his lip restively, slanting a sidelong look in Hange's direction, "What is it now, shitty glasses?"

"You tell me." Hange clipped, measuring her steps to keep time with his. "Does walking hurt so much?"

He felt a shrug coming on, and curbed it before he flexed his shoulders.

"Sort of, yeah. I opened some of my stitches when we were talking to that creep." He said, looking back toward the shadowy hall they just left, making sure to put emphasis at the end of his sentences. He hoped the asshole could still hear them.

He looked up at her again, something bothered his heart when he found the grievous look on her face.

"But, you're alright?" She pressed.

"Don't start, Hange." He was sure that would stick, he so rarely called her by her name in conversation. "I'm fine, a little blood never hurt anybody. I'll take care of it once we're above ground."

Her arms crossed over her chest as she walked. "Good, but you know that's not what I meant."

Levi fixed her with pointed glare, though he didn't know if it had the same effect in such low light. "I do know. So what? "

Hange huffed a defeated chuckle, muttering quietly, "You two are exactly the same."

Levi squinted at her. "Speak up, I want to laugh too."

She chuckled again. "What? Did what Torrey said hurt your feelings?"

"I told you not to start, Hange. Drop it."

"Hey, I'm just making small talk. Would you rather talk to 'lazy eye' over there. He's actually pretty funny. Oh, I know that one too! He likes to bite off his fingernails."

Levi gave a long-suffering sigh, she wouldn't be Hange if she didn't get on his case. He should have known better than to do anything more than nod and grunt back at her.

He rolled his eyes as he tipped his head forward.

"It just pisses me off. These scumbags get all this free food and clothes on our dime, and then get mad at us for doing what we have to do to keep the spoils coming."

"Yes well, what would you have them do? Be understanding? Have faith in us? Look at them, Levi. Half the guys down here are only behind bars because they're too scared to fight. Torrey's a coward, said so himself." She explained offhandedly.

He said nothing, and still, she tarried on the subject.

"Besides, what do you care about what he says? Aren't you the one who says we can't hold cowards in contempt?"

Levi blinked soberly. This time, he did shrug. "I don't care what he says."

Hange's brows shot up at this. "No? If you don't care, why do you let him piss you off? You wouldn't get this mad about a tear in your stitches, so I don't know what else it could be."

"It isn't anything. I'm not mad."

"Right. Just angry."

Levi stopped glowering at her around that, it obviously wasn't working. "I'm definitely getting there."

With knowing smile, she crossed the gap between them to walk right beside him, the same way she did on horseback when she had to something say that he'd need to remember.

"Come on, Levi. I know you better than to believe you'd get so worked up about what some nut job thinks about the Scout Regiment."

He was in too deep now, had to stay the course of quick rebuttal and smart remark.

Tutting with all the enthusiasm he knew he didn't have, he blew out, "Good. Can we drop this now?"

"Levi." Hange sidestepped around to his right side and slung one arm over his shoulders, ignoring his protests. "What are you really angry about?"

He shot her a scathing look from beneath his bangs. "Right now? You and your lack of boundaries."

However he'd meant that, he would let her decide.

"What else?"

He continued stare ahead into the wings at Erwin's cape as he took thought. Tension was evident in every line of his body, it made him feel a little better about his own spot of bother. Men were likely never closer than when they struggled silently together.

Brushing her off, he tried to focus more on the wound at his side than the one on his pride. He didn't like venting, it doesn't help another person to make your problem theirs, but she wouldn't shut up until he spoke up.

He'd been ready to speak when she dropped her shoulders and sagged, slipping off him.

She sighed and grumped aloud, "Do you want to know what I think, Levi?"

"I'm sure you're going to tell me no matter what I say."

Hange pulled him under shoulder her again, whispering, "I think...you're more offended on the commander's behalf than you are about anything else Torrey said."

He shrugged her off again, physically and otherwise. "Doubt it."

"No, really. Do you even remember the stuff he said about you?" Hange brought her fingers up, totting up a recount of the dirt that'd been thrown Levi's way. "...One, two..He called you about five things that would have had him knocked out if we were above ground and you had some room to work."

"The guy's a lunatic. Why would you think any shit he talks would get to me?"

In mock-thought, Hange tapped her finger against her chin. Levi almost scoffed when he caught the pensive press of teeth on her lip.

"Gee, I don't know. It was probably that constipated look on your face."

He never thought he'd see the day when Hange would ever use his own poop humor against him, now that it was here, he found it really wasn't that funny.

And, truly, he didn't want to talk at all anymore. He still didn't care for the sound effects down here. The dungeons' echoic, rolling effect perverts the familiarity of their voices. Everything had a wicked, foul peal. He imagined that beneath the underground, imps and devils sounded a lot like they did now.

"You know, Hange, this really isn't all that fun anymore, alright? Stop trying to get in my head, it's giving me a migraine." He ground out.

She looped her arms and shrugged, completely unaffected.

"I wouldn't have to try so hard if you'd just let me in once in awhile. But even when you don't, it's not hard to tell when your anger's aggressive from when it's protective."

Levi's headache throbbed with misunderstanding. What the fuck did that even mean?

"You don't know so much, Hange."

"I probably don't. But for all we've learned today, I think it's been seen that men like Torrey can still get under your skin—when they talk about your friends. Ya softie."

Up ahead, Erwin eyed the two of them as he walked.

"We're almost out now. And just so we're clear, publicly, you'll both avoid the question of our findings down here. Until I say different, we'll all be keeping the subject of Torrey between us and no one else." The commander ordered.

Levi nodded without thinking. Amidst the frenzy of his quarreling thoughts, he'd forgotten altogether the confidential nature of their meeting. He didn't know that even Nile had any idea they were down there.

The clunking sounds of hasps dislodging and bolts unlocking were the best things he'd heard all day. Outside, the sun still glared, but the heat hurt a lot better than the sticky dankness of the channels. While that could have been his blood growing damp, Levi was still satisfied at being let free.

Stark against the light of day, he noted that his blood had burgeoned a palm-sized blotch on his uniform.

That's two pants soiled now.

Before he could allow himself to boil over, he felt a hand slap his back in comradely fashion.

"Welp, if we're done here, I'm gonna be on my way. I've got a titan to poke." Hange beamed, sauntering off with wide, purposeful steps.

"Just a second, Hange." Erwin raised his hand.

Her momentum nearly tripped her, skidding into a swivel.

"Aw, come on," She pouted, "Daylight's burning, Erwin. They'll be out by next hour."

"It's important, and it'll only take a few minutes. If you must, hurry there and back and whatever you miss, we'll revisit when you return."

As Levi watched Hange scramble away, he deliberated risking a quick stop to the nearest latrine and wiping clean most of the crusted blood. It wouldn't help the stain, but it would be a lot less painful replacing his sutures when his broken skin wouldn't stick to his pants, and he'd just have to be okay with that.

He began pacing with difficulty toward the latrines.

"Levi, could I bend your ear for a moment?"

Levi turned, careful of hiding the irritated kink of lips.

"I'll just be a second, Erwin. My wound reopened here, and I don't want to bleed out before you finish."

With a curt nod, Erwin spared a glance at the stain on Levi's side, the glint of a new idea flashed over his eyes.

"I see, be quick then. I want to share the details of our next expedition while they're still fresh."

Levi staggered suddenly. Rearing his head, he decided the caked blood could wait.

"What are you talking about? You can't arrange an expedition twice in one month, I know you don't care much for the rules..."

Erwin considered him with a shrewd look, he hated when he did that. Hange had that same annoying habit. He didn't know when or why they'd begun to think they could just see into him like that, but if it continued, he hoped they might see how much he wanted throttle them every time they tried it.

Levi stared right back at him.

"What. What?"

The barest hint of a smirk played at the taller man's mouth, drawing a jaded sigh from Levi, who felt irked at his being successfully dragged in.

"When did you decide this?" Levi's question was another exhausted sigh.

"8 minutes ago..."

Raising an eyebrow at him, he could tell from the wavering of his tone that he was still putting things together.

"I'm still working some finer points around, but I can be sure that we'll be riding out by the end of this week."

Levi watched him contemplate, he wasn't even really answering him, if not simply..talking at him, while he was stuck inside his own head.

He stared slack jawed as Erwin muttered to himself.

"...If I were to rally less than ten soldiers, I won't need permission.. but if I should bring along more than two squad leaders, another commander would require notification..."

He shook his head disapprovingly.

"You're impossible," Levi sneered, "Including me in plans you haven't even got figured out yet. Oh, and what are you going to do when Mike and the others notice the three of us missing, huh? Did you think about that?"

He stirred the commander with this. "Three?" He ventured.

"Three." Levi repeated. "I assume you're taking Hange, because you will."

Erwin pondered privately. "No. No...one of you will need to stay, here, turn around." He said, reaching to spin the smaller man so that he faced the street.

He protested brusquely, "What are you doing?"

"Lend me your back." Erwin prompted.

After an awkward exchange of looks, Levi turned belatedly. Listening for another strange demand, he heard instead a shuffle of clothing followed closely by the crinkling of paper.

"What are you doing?" He asked again.

"Drawing a map. From memory." Levi felt the unmistakable prick, press and drag of a pencil tip across his back. "If I can recall the outline of our most recent expedition, I can replicate a layout and save time this way."

"What could be so important that you can't make enough time to draw a proper map for fuck's sake?"

"The defector below, the arrangement of his trail complicates things."

Levi glared at his boots.

"The fuck's he got to do with this? Tch, are you gonna answer me-" Levi fixed to turn back at him, but the commander's grip stayed him.

"Answer me, Erwin. How do you intend to explain our disappearance to the rest when we ride out by the end of this week, as you say? I told you, you can't just organize expeditions on a whim, not twice in one month at least. You'll never get the okay."

"That's the least of my worries..." Erwin grumbled as he continued trace along Levi's back.

"What?" Levi quipped, twisting under Erwin's hold.

"Don't squirm so much. Securing clearance will be the least difficult thing I do in the next few days, the hardest part about this will be convincing the military police to release Torrey to me."

He spoke with all the confidence of a completely sane man, but as it were, his words had Levi narrowly biting through his own tongue.

"Releasing Tor-!? Get off me!"

Levi wrested himself free of Erwin's grasp, it's a wonder he could do that so easily now, but years ago, it had seemed so impossible.

The commander straightened, unfazed. "Hush."

"Shut the fuck up. Have you finally lost it? Why the fuck would you need to have him released?"

"This expedition's success is contingent upon Torrey's guidance. Without him, we'd be spending more time figuring our way around than getting anywhere conclusive. Our largest concern here is the expenditure of time."

"Guidance? And just where would his come in?" Levi groused

"On our way to the village that banished him. We're going pay the forest dwellers a visit."

Pinching his nose between his fingers, Levi's confusion felt folded straight through his splitting headache.

"Okay, Erwin. Let's say we try that, let's say this can happen at all, what are you gonna do when this guy lies again? When he tries to run? Actually, what makes you think he'd go through with it in the first place? He told us he wanted to die."

Levi didn't like the way Erwin's smirk cast a
discriminating look on his keen features, it threw him off even more.

"The question is, what'll you do when he acts out?"

He cursed silently, somehow, he knew Erwin's digressive prosing made him bleed faster. The commander always picked the worst times to talk in circles.

"I'm not doing a fucking thing, you're the one who wants to let him out. Why should I do anything to stop him running into the arms of titan?"

"We were both down there, Levi. Torrey doesn't respect either of us, that's obvious. But he's a lot more scared of you than he is of me."

Levi kitted his brows, trying his hardest to see into his friend's head like they so often tried to do with him. And though Erwin was another who'd erected walls around his psyche, he would hope that the reach of his glare was enough to pare them down.

"Someone would need to keep Torrey under their thumb while we're out there, you know that. Your steadfast loyalty to the scouts should have you very familiar with escort missions. You've displayed, repeatedly, a willingness to lend yourself to a pursuit of the MP's best interest. Believe me, my focus now is to help them."

He got the whole 'steadfast loyalty' thing, but as far as helping the military police, he struggled to understand why he should get any credit. He had moved nothing toward that end. Any respect he felt toward their regimental mores had been abraded by the coarseness of his rancor when they pandered to him like this, trying to ensure his cooperation.

"Your participation would be greatly conducive to the gain of some headway, especially where Torrey is concerned. I know you're not anymore fond of him than I am, so I'll let it slide if you rough him up a bit."

The corner of Levi's lips twitched with a malcontented grimace. Reminded of that matted sweep of dark hair against the wan of his sickly pallor, he knew Torrey would be the most disgusting thing ever foisted upon him.

"You're an ass..." Levi said once, defeatedly.

Erwin smiled that stupid smile, that's one more idiot he'd broken through today.

"I'm hopeful that your direction will be received favorably."

Soon, a shock of brown hair jogged into Levi's peripheral view. She shouldered through people as she wiped her glasses on her shirt.

"What are we hopeful about?" She asked, breathless.

"Our next expedition." Erwin answered.

"Oh, you already planned another one? When's it gonna be?" She asked, balancing her glasses on her ears.

"We're leaving this week." Levi raised his hand to silence her when her jaw fell. "And we're taking Torrey with us."

Hange closed her mouth and darted her eyes around, trying to piece together the order of ideas and curse words that resulted between them while she was gone.

As she looked up at Erwin, he could see she couldn't understand their arrival of these terms. Peering a bit deeper, he also discerned a little something more.

"I know it's farfetched, but if we remain hopeful and creative, we may yet find a way to make this work."

Hange blinked slowly as she listened.

"Ethically, it's questionable. Personally, I like it."

"Oh god." Levi whined.

Erwin nodded proudly, extending the map he'd finished into her drawn hands. "Have a look."

Levi, however, would see the map in more responsible hands.

Hange grinned wickedly when handed the square of parchment, frowning deeply when it was picked out of her hands a second later.

"I'll hold onto this." Levi intoned.

Hange gasped soundly, "Hey, that's not fair! I wanna see where we're going!"

"It's alright, Hange. You won't be going. I'm trusting you to hold down the fort here." The commander appeased.

"Huh?" Levi and Hange asked simultaneously.

"It's like I said earlier, Levi. I can only bring one squad leader without notifying another commander. The vets need their leaders. Fortunately, Hange, Levi has graciously volunteered his services to this operation."

Levi squinted severely at the taller man.

"Aw. Well, that's alright. I would think you would want to stay, being that you're hurt and all. But, I won't doubt your judgement, Levi!"

Erwin chuckled behind his hand. "Everything works out in the finish." He voiced glibly.

"You sound pretty confident there, Erwin. This had better not be a waste of time. I'm serious. We don't have the numbers or resources to fail here."

"Have a little faith, Levi. I'll keep you updated on new details as I come up with them. This expedition will be well worth the trouble, you have my word."

He looked and sounded so cocksure, Erwin's staunch determination alone was enough to make Levi believe him. It certainly helped that he felt almost beholden to him and his fervors, he would have nothing to fight for if not for them. Although, Levi liked to think this was just minor detail, and he only toed this line because rebellion meant a lot more work.

Whatever he owed him, he couldn't pay in cash, so he may as well act in accordance with every death wish Erwin churned out. Who else would keep his head on his shoulders?

Truly, Erwin was just an aimless man, with a grand dream, on a very tight leash. His commanding presence is thanks only to the boom of his voice and the height of his stature. All of his goals are in the struggles he endures to achieve them.

What that meant, he wouldn't know. But it sounded profound and senseless, right up Erwin's alley.

A horn blared in the distance, over the braying and touting of market peddlers.

"Soup's on. Let's go." Levi said.

"Oh, right." Hange looked at the blood on Levi's pants. "You should take care of that soon. You don't want that to get infected, it'll slow you and everyone else down when you head out."

"It's true, Levi. See to that, and I'll be around tomorrow morning with new information." Erwin said, making for the mess hall.

Hange walked beside him, slowing his steps with the weight of new questions.

Levi watched them leave, trying a last time to look past the hair and bone and into Erwin's head. What he meant to achieve by these means remained anyone's guess. But Levi had accepted way before he'd clambered out of his hole and started living topside; that all the more dangerous unknowns hide between a rock and a hard place. And often, he found that's exactly where Erwin's plans took him.

Notes:

I don't fuckin know okay lol

Chapter 9

Notes:

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST GUYS PLEASE AHHH...
Ahem.. so I know it's been a while, really sorry about that. I just kinda lost inspiration.

BUT...this chapter is ONLY to let you guys know I'm alive.

It's barely a chapter. Please bear with me, it's hard to write for a dying ship guys.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The shivering whistle of a howling wind pinged into Petra's ears. She rose from her crouch to pull the shutters closed, yanking the drapes across.

Her mother used to warn that a frigid gust on a hot day portends something is coming.

Try as she might to ignore the coincidence, there were some things Petra couldn't help but remember. She wouldn't need anymore sunlight anyway. Observing the recent space all around her, Petra felt a bore of pride straighten her body and put a smile in her eyes.

Levi had instructed her to get rid of any blood on his desk, she knew, but since she liked it in here, she decided to spruce up anything else she could too. She didn't need to, Levi's quarters were always kept. In fact, it took her all of eight minutes to reorganize everything she'd touched. She'd managed a passable resemblance. And thank goodness, too, that the rusted scent of blood got a little lost in the warmth of the afternoon air.

Her captain is described, variously, to be a neat-freak. However, she'd informed herself of the ways to avoid his wrath with hygiene and regimen. Levi hated, more than anything, clutter. All he really wanted was for things to look nice and stay out of the way.

Ouro once said that's what all men want, she'd harrumphed, he'd promised he was joking, and then they became best friends.

Petra's shoulders dropped with a sigh. She wouldn't see much of the squad for some time. With her workload doubled, she would only get to talk to them at the stables after missions or in the mess hall during downtime. Which was unfortunate, but preferable to being stuck in her room for however long Levi's sulk lasted.

She sunk into the chair she had sat on earlier, when she waited for him.

It wouldn't do to become bitter now, she struggled to convince herself. She railed smartly at her punishment, but if she looked anything but repentant and grateful, she could get benched for a very long time.

Her pout deepened when she thought of her captain walking around—angry with her.

Although, it seemed harder to remember Levi being angry with her after he'd left her with the mawkish aftereffects of his gentle touches.

Her eyes trailed over her newly stitched arm, a latticework of scars on her arm looked a little pretty against the plot of seamed flesh there.

Harder still was remembering the pain of her stitches. Running her fingers over the raised bumps of skin and cord, it definitely hurt, but for her part, she couldn't recall any pain during the process. She'd felt it, there's no way she couldn't. She was awake and the stitches were deep, but she couldn't remember it. She'd been so engrossed, so easily distracted.

Her captain's skill was terrible, but terrible as in immense and intimidating. He hadn't done anything but talk to her. Truly, Petra resented him a bit. His sleight and finesse were probably very useful to him, but the power he exuded was confusing. How he could soothe and draw her in, kicking over the traces of her wits and better judgment. It shouldn't be this way, but someday she'd lost control of that too.

And now that she really wondered about him, it could very well be that Levi wasn't that mad at her all. Well, he probably was, but it being the fact she had saved his life no more than a day ago, it was probably safe to say that she had gained his favor.

Maybe, once her captain finished his rounds, he'd return to his office and find her good work. He'd appreciate the friendly turn and forgive her this shortcoming.

She might even still be there to embrace him and rejoice the mending of their relationship.

Carding her fingers through his silken hair, her eyes would follow the stubborn line of that chiseled jaw, up and down the barrel of his straight nose, and finally settle into the glittering sliver of those guarded eyes.

He'd pick her up in a tight squeeze and ask about what she was staring at.

She'd expect that he read her mind, but it seemed more than she could do to put her captain out of his way like that. Best not play hard to get, she wasn't as good at it.

She'd say something like...their future in his eyes. And then he'd cringe, she would too, and then they'd fuck hard on his desk.

Petra cursed into her clenched hands, her stomach turning with chagrin. She needed to get out of there. As much as she appreciated the monastic decor and minimalism of his office, she couldn't trust her head to keep out her vivid imaginations in his space.

And if she couldn't depend on her head, she could depend on distraction. It had already worked so well this morning. If she's preoccupied, she's not in pain and she's not in love. She realized now that she could be doubly grateful for this too, because frankly, she was getting tired of trying to tell the two apart.

"Where the hell does this path let out?" Levi grunted.

He knew he shouldn't have taken the scenic route. However clearer and more convenient, the shortcut to the barracks felt much longer than the common trail—in that he'd never taken it before.

He didn't have much choice though. He had to make it back to his office in quick time and pick up the supplies he'd need to take care of his hip. Earlier, he'd meant to wipe some of the blood away and resume the meeting, but now that it's over, he had plentiful time to be thorough.

As he walk with leaden steps, he lamented dirtying his office just as Petra finishes tidying up.

A turn of his head revealed the evening's sunset, colored wide and bright. An early gloaming, however late enough for him to be certain that she'd have been off somewhere else.

He wondered about her as he dared up a flight of stairs.

It'd been said many times that his disciplinary preferences were...outdated. And while he wasn't particularly defensive about them, Hange once argued that punitive measures ought to be mete out with 'tough love' in mind. Something about how it wasn't enough to just be tough, and that a squad had to know their captain meant well, hence the adjunctive 'love'. A very topically gray area, he was practiced to view the extraneous details of correction to be unimportant. The implications of his ramifications were not for him to be concerned with. Not in the long run, at least.

However, not to be ignored, are the implications of this new development. A fast approaching expedition would mean a rescinding of a recently appointed punishment. Which was not a good look, it bodes badly for any captain to lift a punishment, for whatever reason.

It made him or her look soft.

But whenever Levi is assigned any kind of field work beyond the walls, he would need to be heading some kind of unit. That unit was always predetermined to be his squad. He would need to take Petra.

Suddenly, his train of thought is thrown by a creeping throb of pain as he ascended the eighth step. Dull ache rolled up and down his leg. It occurred to him that he ought really to worry more about how he would be 'enforcing' Torrey's cooperation in the state he was in. If he could at all.

Only now does it dawn on him that he would not only need to risk looking soft when he solicits the aid of another soldier when Torrey acts up. And he will. But he would also be dependent on that soldier for menial tasks, even if they didn't run into titans.

Levi cast a solemn glance at the blood that oozed through the coarsened fabric on his hip.

He could barely make it up a flight of stairs without bleeding out. There's no way he could wrestle Torrey into an arm-bar without bursting new stitches.

Someone would have to assist him with the fastening of his uniform bindings. Help him onto a horse. And then off. Someone would need to be with him or accessible to him almost all the time.

He could swallow the most of his pride, and still not know if that small bit of dignity leftover would allow such affront to his independence.

He worried his lip slightly, cursing that keen intuition that had prepared him, many times before, for the absolute worst. It betrayed, once again, a near future he did dread.

A mousy gasp alerted him to new company, a small frame cut a familiar figure against the monotone of brick and stone as she advanced.

"Ooough..that looks pretty bad, Captain." Petra grimaced, jogging to a halt before him. "Oh, no..."

She'd come close enough to justify a reaction from him, but too quickly for him to react. It was likely this belated response that had given her the bravery to graze her fingertips over the belt loops at hip, dangerously close to his injury.

"What happened, sir?"

When no other sounds resulted between them, Petra glanced up into face. Shamefaced, she aptly deduced his nonplussed expression to be answer to their recent proximity. Carefully, Petra reestablishes the distance she'd crossed.

"Sorry."

His mind made up, Levi wastes no time.

"Take me to your room. We need to talk."

Notes:

I'm sorry everyone waited so long just to read two seconds of an update. But this was just a reminder that this story is NOT over yet.

I'm finishing this no matter how many breaks I take. I only hope everyone else will see it through.

Until next time, babes.

Chapter 10

Notes:

I know I said I would update around Valentine's day buuuuut it just got away from me lol

Happy VERY belated Valentine's Day babes!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

As she walked carefully down a beaten path, Petra rolled her eyes at the feel of sweat slicking her palms with a clammy dread. She probably shouldn't have crowded him like that. It's only now that she remembers that the captain was especially exacting of the encroachment of his personal space. More to that, she truly couldn't handle being that close either. For an altogether different reason.

What it was about his proximity that lit her heart aflame, she could already name precisely. In a word, what she lacked was reluctance and the forethought therein. Always a bit too eager. A fraction too late to undo the consequences of her eagerness. If she squints, she might discern the lurking timorousness that should have furnished her that very same forethought. But for some reason, that too was a fraction too late.

At length, Petra considered Levi from behind her bangs, finding him trailing, unhurried, a comfortable two feet behind her. She looked away as she continued to suffer towards understanding. She felt like she needed to, or she owed it to herself—to understand. It was fitting, after all, that she should see with her own eyes the cowardice and intrepidity which might hereafter be the subject of another discourse between them.

She walked a little faster through the barracks now, though very excited to have Captain Levi in her room, she too felt the tremors of misgiving the notion brought with it. Her Captain could very well want only to speak with her. It could about anything and she'd be glad for it.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder that he could simply want the privacy to discuss further the details of her punishment.

Worse, it could be too that the meeting he'd attended had not gone so well, and he could be looking to her for an outlet. The Captain was good, so good about restraint, the perfect example of total emotional control. That is when it came to everything that wasn't anger and wrath. All it took was a single gesture of unfairness, a first hint of incompetence to draw his ire. And since he could do nothing where the higher-ups were concerned, Petra, the lowly subordinate that she was, presented a perfect beckoning to reap his reprisal.

Shaking her head vigorously, Petra reaches to turn her doorknob as she chides herself.

She did make him sound so childish, she acknowledged despite herself.

"Oi. What's the matter with you?" Levi inquired curtly of her, "You need to turn those things to open the door."

His voice roots her dazedly in place for a moment. A lot what was the matter, a lot she couldn't say. And a lot of things she'd love to say. Notwithstanding the palpably irritable demeanor exuding from the man beside her, it followed that plenty of other things could go wrong with him inside that had nothing to do with his feelings and everything to do with hers. Inside, where she would be alone with him. Again. For the second time today.

The lot of her time lately has been in his presence. It's made her clumsy. Confounding and devastating her thought processes. If the slip-up this morning were any indication, the way she talked to him as if he were just a man. She may as well have told him when, where, and why she had fallen for him. Cut her losses and recount to him all the fever dreams he's induced in her while she was at it.

This was where she lacked reluctance. She allowed herself to become comfortable. Said things sprout from the gooiest, mushiest parts of her besotted heart. She couldn't afford any more of that. And so, being alone with Levi, again, allotted her two problems. One, Petra's room was a magnified reflection of her so besotted heart. She liked to believe a person's room was the physical projection of their innermost state. Their insides. At the center of her insides was her heart, and at the center of that center was Levi. His being there made possible a troubling variety of outcomes once they are alone, and they were all thoroughly embarrassing.

He sidestepped around her with an irritated tut. "Well, if you're not going to invite me in..."

His hand closed around hers over the knob and turned. A rough pad of his index finger moving between her ring and middle fingers. She almost sighed.

He jostled past the wooden frame and tramped into her quarters. He turned back to her, arms akimbo. Again, his posture was aggressive.

"...I'll do it myself." He finished gravely.

She was too easily overstimulated, too much could go wrong in such a small window. She could say the wrong thing, look at him the wrong way. Then came the second issue, that he might have arranged this visit to extend or intensify her punishment. However unlikely it seemed, she would have no way of knowing if the conclusion of his meeting would have driven him to distraction. She could infer only from the wearied agitation in his monotones and body language what had transpired earlier this morning.

She would know by the end of their little talk, however. The idea was a scary one, but she couldn't just stand with buckling legs at her doorstep until it was over.

"Petra, please. I'm bleeding." Levi said flatly.

Reminded of the opened wound on his hip, she stared aghast at the growing red stain stark against the white of his uniform. Suddenly she forgets all of her earlier reservations, moving to shut the door behind her and close the enduring distance between them all over again.

"Right, sorry about that, sir. How did this happen?"

She skirted the edge of a three-foot radius around him, careful of inadvertently invading his space.

"I popped a stitch a while ago, during my meeting."Noticing the seat tucked beneath her desk, Levi sent her a look that sought her permission to use it.

Instead of nodding her wordless agreement, she skipped over to her work table and pulled it out herself.

"Please." She gestured to the stool with an open hand.

She didn't like that look. The one that asked her to let him sit down. She might more accurately call it a pleading look, but that was hard because it was Levi. Still, she could trace the line of discomfort through his eyes to his stitches, it told her all about how much it had to hurt to be on the move all day.

He pinned her with another sidelong look when he caught the urgency of her movements.

"Don't do that." He asserted brusquely. "Don't fuss.
I don't need it and I'm pretty touchy right now so..."

Petra felt her heart jump into her mouth as he trailed off. She knew him to relate his truths aversively, upon it, there was no need for her to get offended. Not in this case. This wasn't enough for her to be certain that he was in a mood.

Eventually, Levi huffed and shook his head, slumping laboriously into the stool. Instinctively, her outstretched hand lowered to settle onto the top of his back, just above the stitchwork of his wings. When she felt him tense beneath her touch, she cursed herself.

"I told you to cut that out."

He angled a meaningful glare at her over his shoulder and she felt her skin sear as she removed her hand. She needed to recover quickly. What was silly is that she knew she could, but several things had changed since she could so easily bounce back. He was hurt and she loved him and she couldn't help but worry. Just the same, the Captain's wound is what had aggravated his abrasiveness. She would lose nothing by having it in mind as their conversation continued.

Petra had to spin around such that she faced her window, this way he couldn't see her worry her lip or furrow her brow.

"So...um. About that meeting, sir. How did it go?" She ventured with a shaky voice.

Levi's head shook slow, "It sucked. So much, in fact, that I came to tell you all about it."

Her Captain's words momentarily drew her gaze, but she recovered to keep her eyes front. She never hated being right before now.

"You came to tell me, sir?" She tried to think fast, she really didn't want to on the receiving end of his wrath. "I would think it's none of my business."

"Normally it wouldn't be. But elite squad members need to be kept in the loop about coming expeditions."

Petra's ears perked to hear the word, "Expedition? Another one?"

She didn't know who he had conferred with, but with news of an expedition, perhaps he had been to see the commander?

Levi settled her with another jaded look. "You heard right. Erwin's got his mind made up about it."

Petra whirled around at this, the confusion evident on her face. "I understood that expeditions couldn't exceed the allowance of one per month, sir."

"I did too, " He shrugged, "But it's like I said, Ewrin's got his head set on getting the clearance to see it through. I don't know how he'll do it, but apparently, I'll be joining him."

Levi rose from his seat to level his gaze with hers.

"Know what that means?" He prompted.

Petra, preoccupied with her own questions, offered no answer. She puzzled over how this decision came to be, and why her captain should need to take part given the state he was in. Deciding she would get nowhere mulling over it by herself, she set her eyes on her now upright captain to apprise her of the finer details.

"Captain, did you say you're not sure if the commander will be able to get the clearance just now?" She asked with a cant of her head.

He asked not of her disregard for his own question, instead, he looked askance at her bewildered expression, "Well, Erwin came up with this on the fly, literally an hour ago. It's still in the planning stages."

Stepping forward, she remarked with perceptive inflection, "So, you don't know if this expedition is happening at all."

She knew that it should have been a question, but the way she asked made it seem more a statement.

He regarded her coolly, she could almost see his mind working. "I don't. Not yet." He shuffled uncomfortably as he amended, "I just know that I'm going."

In his speech, Petra could discern her Captain's unshakable faith in the commander. He tried to hang tough and avoid the word 'no', but it was apparent to her that he wasn't completely on board with the whole thing.

Treading carefully, she pressed on, "Captain, if you're not sure, why have you already agreed to go?" She cast a cursory glance at the blood spotting the fabric on his hip. "You're hurt still."

"Think I don't know that?" Levi clipped, he crossed his arms and began to pace in strict rhythm. "Let's just say I had to bite the bullet on this one. Besides, if Ewrin can have us moving out by the end of this week as he plans, I should already be well on the mend."

Petra's arms crossed too, instinct warned not to belabor the question, but she hated to think he would have no say in the matter. She can only imagine how he felt, even now, with an injury he'd sustained just yesterday, he could still be involuntarily volunteered. Too often she felt like the success of every expedition would rest squarely on Levi's shoulders. Being the strongest was incidental and not to the point, an expedition's success should never depend on one soldier.

It only made perfect sense that everyone believe the same thing, she thought.

She commenced to rap her fists lightly against the wood of her desk, finding the motion to be organizing for her thoughts.

She pondered privately, why would the commander need Levi to lend himself to an operation that unconscionably compromises his undermined condition? He had used the phrase, 'bite the bullet', to say that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with this and had been forced his hand. She felt of two minds about the Captain's delivery too, as though she were only confused because he might have left something out.

"Sir," She began, "Won't you tell me what happened from the start? I don't completely understand."

She did not have to explain that she was talking about the meeting.

His eyes trailed up the line of her body, a cautious perusal. "I can try, but it'll be hard. There's not a lot that I know about it and there's not a lot I can share about what I do know about it."

Levi lounged himself against the desk Petra was hunched over. She nearly started, her flustered expression drew his brows together with requited bemusement.

"What's not clear?" He asked sincerely.

Petra floundered for correctness, "Just...why, is all. I mean, not to doubt your skill, Captain, but I can't help but wonder how well you'd fare under the pressure. Well, not the pressure..because...I know you can still perform...It's more that I-God..I just don't know why you'd need to go when it's clear you're in pain."

Discretion had always been the better part of Petra's valor, it languished now only for the fact that her captain's welfare was being jeopardized without cause. Or at the very least, without cause she could examine. Worse still, she could scarcely wrap her head around why he had so quickly agreed to go.

She felt, at once, thrown by an unfamiliar feeling of cluelessness. Would that she could peer into his head and pick his thoughts apart like he so easily did with her. However, persevering the topic of classified information was an offense not to be borne by any squad leader, much less Levi. But then, he had said to her that he had come just to tell her all bout it, it stands to reason that she would like to understand the reasoning behind it. Still though, it was harder to convince herself of that when she peeked up to find him looking particularly unimpressed with her.

"You'll recall, Petra," he began truculently, "that the decision to participate in expeditions is entirely up to me. I only let Erwin get away with jerking me around when I know there's a profit to turn."

Petra tried and failed to nod with feigned concession, she ended up blinking owlishly at him when she could no more reconcile herself to this thought than he could force her to.

"Please, Captain, help me understand. You said you'd tell me about the meeting, so what happened after you left me in your office?"

Levi chose instead to focus on surveying the state of Petra's room as he thought of an answer that preserved the confidentiality of the expedition but was simultaneously the explanation she so richly deserved. Truly, Petra had shown more patience with him this day than he knew he was worth. The least he could do was explain why he needed her to come with him before ordering her to do it anyway.

He had made up his mind before arriving at her doorstep. The only person handling the severity of his injury with any grasp of reality and decorum was Petra. Anyone else he could glom onto would dote or wind him up. It would have to be her that he depended on for almost everything during the expedition. His entire squad would be present anyway, they should provide the familiar background noise that would make things less awkward for them both. But even when he considered this, it did nothing to help how humiliating it would be to remit a punishment he had just mete out. Surely, she would get the wrong impression, to say nothing of how he was now letting her get away with pestering him into talking.

Unencumbered with the rigid trammels of professionalism, he might hazard a guess as to when Petra had arrogated to herself this newfound entitlement to information. He got a vague feeling that she had grown a bit too comfortable. That maybe he had allowed for her to grow too comfortable. She was just a soldier after all. He didn't owe her anything.

Hell, if he wanted, he could force her to come without any notice and be well within his rights. He was being kind to offer any explanation to her in the first place.

This damn wound on his side. It was ruining everything. It was making him irritated with everyone. It hurt and it was sticky with blood. He was just wasting time this way, he knew. He was no good at being elusive. Ewrin was much better at donnishly prevaricating around questions than he was. He needed to get out of there, renew his stitches, and clean his damn pants before long. The sooner he was done here, the better.

"After I left this morning, Hange took me to...our meeting location. There, we had a few words with some asshole, and now.."

Even distant from her, he could see her pupils were blown with interest. Why, he found himself wondering, did she want so much to impute some kind of meaning to his choices? His being a Captain, of course, meant that every decision he made was not without significance or connection, but they were for him to analyze, not her.

"And now, the commander wants him to lead us somewhere on the other side of the wall."

Petra's head cocked to the side as she asked, "This...asshole, Captain, is leading the way for this expedition? Who is he? Where would you be going?"

Levi shrugged, his sigh blew out archly. The gesture imperceptible, on one hand, but managed on the other to dramatically highlight his annoyance.

"Does it matter?" He asked simply.

Petra bit back the pointed words on the tip of her tongue and reconsidered.

"It does, sir. I want only to be certain of your safety." She answered genuinely.

"I know." His hand came up to rub against the wrinkle of frustration that furrowed his brow. "I know."

Petra watched him pace laboriously around her one-room affair, it brought her no pleasure to give him so much grief about something that was technically none of her business. But she was in too deep now, if she didn't know now how this came to be, she would find no rest. She could not be still while her squad leader court disaster without regard for his well-being.

"Petra, the complexion of the case is complicated. I told you, I can't tell you any more than I know, which isn't much. All I can tell you is Ewrin's got his head set on this, so he'll find a way to make it happen."

Petra blurted out before she could keep herself.

"Why?"

Levi looked askance at her sudden question, it was peevish, disgruntled in tone, and very unlike her.

"..Because...the devil loves idle hands? I don't know."

"No, sir. Why, if you knew you couldn't reveal anything to me, did you decide to come see me? My punishment is current. I was on my way to carry out more of my penalties."

"I came," He said turning away from the window to bore into her, "To tell you that I'm taking my squad with me."

His mouth closed with the last word and there hung a deafening silence. Behind him, a plume of clouds passed overhead, casting long shadows on the frown that perverted her features.

"I came to tell you that you're coming with me." He said again.

"I heard you, sir." She flung back.

Petra's hands shoved into her pockets to busy themselves. Her fingers traced the lining, searching desperately for a coin or a piece of lint to squeeze. She found instead the cloth Levi had left with her that morning. It pulled easily out of her back pocket and she fisted it into her palms.

She couldn't tell where her confusion and resentment began from where her worry and concern had ended. She could not be sure which to address first. She managed only to press and drag her thumbs over the stains of her blood on the greenish piece of fabric in her hands.

"Did you hold onto that?"

His voice drew a stilled breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Disgusting. Why haven't thrown that out?" He glowered at her.

Petra looked on at her crumpled, dirtied cloth and squeezed around it one more time. It was the only thing he had given her that she didn't need buff or polish. It wasn't a draft of ODM maneuvers to page through. It wasn't even a sheaf of tea leaves to boil and share.

But it was something of his that he'd chosen to give to her. The blood therein was reminder of the closeness she was never before permitted.

She looked at him as she bore away the bloodied material and clenched her fists.

"You gave it to me, sir." She said almost matter-of-factly.

She spoke without dissembling, he noticed, so starkly as if her answer weren't incomplete. Her heavy-lashed gaze was even more perplexing. He could never figure out why she was always looking at him like that. He couldn't describe it right, it was like she was trying to look through him but he was all that she could see. And still, he held her stare.

He doesn't think he's noticed before, but as he looked at her he felt composed by the way her hair fell into her eyes. Something about her hair being similar in color to her eyes helped to orient his thoughts. How artful and orderly, he mused blankly, already moving closer.

Petra faltered backward into her desk when he approached her, the look on his face disarmed her with its intensity.

"I need you to help me one more time, Petra." He confided to her. "I don't have to tell you how hard that is to admit because you should know."

She went on gazing at him, and it continued to help him think.

"The nature of your punishment...has been changed, I'm very annoyed to say." He bit out, unmindful of her nonplussed expression.

"But if you still want the extra credit when we come back, I won't stop you cleaning up a few more latrines." He remarked wryly.

She didn't know that he could condescend to fit out some levity in the wake of her dither. Far be it from her captain to make allowances for anyone and so to connive at her shortcomings, she'd never expect. So how could the nature of her punishment be changed? How could she be forced to join this expedition and still be expected to carry out an altogether different punishment?

It was cruel and unusual. Had he conveniently forgotten that she was hurt too? Where was her say in all this? Was she meant to take it by force? Could it be another test? If it was, she doesn't think that she is up to the ridicule of failure. She doesn't think she is up to anything right now.

Her reality was a constant tiredness, and it surrendered her reason and logic to demand and emotion. The unfairness pushed her to act more than she could acknowledge her weariness. The truth was probably that she just needed a good power nap. To sit or stand still and breathe for a few seconds, idling that resultant urge, that ugly goad to start. Start...something. Anything.

The verve of which ebbs and eddies throughout her body, redirecting to her feet, forcing her to move. She knew already what she was going to say. It was foolhardy and impulsive. Most assuredly, she would press home the notion that love will cost a person total coherence of thought and judgment. And since she knew her captain to think very mathematically, this would probably be the curveball that threw him for a loop.

"I'll go on the expedition, Captain." She said finally.

He was about to tell her that he was pretty sure he'd already made that decision for her, but instinct warned him to shut up.

"On one condition, " She raised a finger to discourage interruption, "And before we leave, I need you to agree to it."

Levi considered her from their proximity, he said nothing, but his face betrayed the suspicion he was holding back.

"Captain, I do know how hard it is to admit when we need help. No one likes feeling helpless. I get it. And I want to make it so you don't have to ask for help during this expedition."

Levi blinked at her with a look of confusion flickering over his haughty features. "I don't follow."

Petra aligned her body with his and spoke harder, "I'm saying that while we're out there, I'll be the one that helps you whenever you need it, you'll never have to ask. I'll protect you. I'll be there to help you when you need to gear up. I'll help you onto your horse. And I'll need to take care of your wound when you pretend it's not bothering you. And you'll accept me without complaint. I know how much you hate when I fuss over you, but your enduring it will be part of my condition."

Levi stared wide-eyed and tongue-tied. He didn't know if it was luck that had finally smiled upon him or if she had just been reading his mind the whole time. In any case, he was spared the very humbling act of asking her to babysit him. And for that, he owed her a feigned show of reluctant exception.

Petra made a face as she flexed her stitched arm. "Come on, sir. I'm wounded too. It makes sense that the most vulnerable look out for one another."

Vulnerable? Is that how he looked? Is that had ensured her cooperation? He hated to think of it, so he decided to ignore that comment and press his advantage.

He hammed up a sigh of defeat as he rolled his shoulders back, "Tch. You can be a real brat, you know that?"

Extending her hand, Petra huffed an impatient sigh of her own. "Deal?"

Prevailing upon her captain to let her take care of him conjured a very romantic image in her head, she didn't think her hand would be trembling with fear as she held it out to him.

Her reasoning was straightforward. By being the Captain's sole spotter during the expedition, she could curry his favor while making safe that he does not become privy to the advantage she pressed with the time she would spend by his side. Her own personal advantage.

She saves everyone else a hassle and her captain some embarrassment. Everybody wins.

Levi stepped forward and took her hand into a warm and firm grip.

"I guess." He said.

Petra squeezed lightly around his hand.

"Captain, these are my terms. I need to know I have a say every once and a while. Deal?"

The air in the space between them was suddenly thick and suffocating, it messed with his head. He couldn't exactly remove himself with their hands still braced together.

Again, he found himself looking into the face of his subordinate to restore his wits and focus. Now that he can think, it dawns on him that what had thrown him off just now was her scent. Some candied...flowery smell. Subtle, but still he was unprepared.

He couldn't begin to name the look in her eyes but he didn't need to. For some reason, he could react to it. It was like he already knew how. He could see that her face had gone little red. Weird.

Even weirder, he saw now that somehow he could delight himself by all her charms, the delicacy of her scent and colorings. They stirred in him a strange, heady feeling. There was a kind of harmony to her that pleased his need to put everything to rights. This close, he could see that everything was pretty right already. Yes. Very pretty.

"What?" He whispered distractedly.

"Hm?" Petra blinked up at him. "I asked if we had a deal, sir."

Levi shook his head and remembered that her hand was still in his. Small and a little rough in the middle, he shook it again and ignored the part of him that didn't want to let go.

"Deal."