Shit. Why now?
The tiny leak in the entryway turned into a waterfall overnight. Now all the soggy carpet would be turning moldy. The smell was awful. It did not help that Levi was surrounded by the other apartment residents outside as they awaited transportation to assigned lodgings or family or friends' homes. A few of them cast him some odd stares, probably at his large facial scar and finger stubs. Great. More unwanted attention. Not that he was ever going to cover up his face or his hand. No need to be shy about his wounds even if they wouldn't get him loving attention.
"Hey," some old lady with dark skin barely whispered in awe, "You were of the great Alliance that stopped those evil spirits of Ymir and Eren, did you not?" She extended her hand. He recoiled slightly. She was part of the church here.
"Tch. I barely did a thing." He shifted away keeping hold of his packed bag he put together.
"Our Creator with His many Spirits has good and bad Spirits among His creation. All created is good, but the spirits do not always fit well with each other and have to fight…" He shuffled away while others in the crowd watched him.
"Amma, leave him be," a man who Levi recognized as one of the tenants named Sisi spoke in hushed tones. "He does not need the praise he does not seek." Damn thank you.
The landlord summoned them awake early that morning before sunrise. Another leak was forming on the third floor ceiling. Now there were talks of having to have the whole plumbing system gutted out to inspect for more leaks. His afternoon visit with the Braun's just turned into a possible few day affair. One more mouth to feed.
Giuseppe was the one coming to pick him up before driving to work that morning. Strange how public phone boxes worked. Just press some buttons with numbers and speak. Hange would have squealed in glee. No more need for messengers on horseback.
Levi rubbed his brow. He didn't get too far in reading his book that prior night, but at least he learned some new information about the clan. Nothing about their genetics or anything. Just the five main clans: Clan David, Clan Simeon, Clan Joseph, Clan Jacob, and Clan Esau. Not sure which one he or Mikasa belonged to though.
He would have read on but fell asleep in his armchair, again. Old habits were catching up to him, two nights in a row now. This time he got to have a traumatic nightmare to wake up from in addition to his leg throbbing.
He was running in a field filled with white flowers covered in drops of blood. The sky ahead was turning into dusk as the sun set. Hundreds of birds filled the sky taking flight over him, most of them dark and angry sounding. One snipped at his right eye. As he turned to swat at it, he caught a glimpse of the field. The white flowers covered in blood were replaced by hundreds of soldiers donned in Survey Corps uniforms. Oluo. Gunther. Eld. Petra. Nanaba. Lynn. Gelger. Mike. He recognized these comrades among the many all laying dead.
The grass was pooling with more and more blood until it was up to his ankles. Among these soldiers were so many other people. Men, women, and children alike. One of the children looked like that brat from Marley.
He was panting from fear and exhaustion. The birds scattered in flight. It was then he saw him. Erwin. He was standing up alive but covered in blood himself. The source? The stump of his arm. Levi's leg started to hurt yet he hobbled to his commander.
"Erwin?"
The man was gone. He was replaced by that damn shitty snake Beast Titan. It was on all fours and struck him right in the leg, biting down hard.
That was when he snapped awake to the landlord knocking on his door at the godforsaken early morning hours as his leg ached and his heart raced. His dreams probably meant nothing but subconscious bits of guilt and terror, nothing unusual for the rest of his former squad. Jean would sometimes wake up in their lodgings crying for "Marco" back on Paradis. And Reiner had times where he woke up screaming over Marcel. Nothing new for any of them.
A clunky gray car sputtered to the curb. Giuseppe arrived. Thank the Walls, just in time. That lady was going to start venerating him if he had taken any longer despite Sisi arguing with her based on some words from a religious text he didn't know. He opened the back door and tossed his bag when he was greeted by an "oof" and a giggle. And then he realized he hit Falco with his bag… in a sensitive spot. Gabi peaked from beside him, grinning enthusiastically and stifling her reaction to Falco's pain despite the time of day.
"Good morning, Mr. Levi," Falco greeted, shoving his bag aside, grimacing and blushing. "Sorry to hear about your apartment. That must suck." Suck? Must have been some language he picked up from the local brats. "At least you can stay with the Brauns."
"Yeah, just don't stay too long," Gabi butted in, "Or we'll just have to adopt you!"
"Gabi!" Giuseppe scolded.
Tch. Not too far off.
…
Levi splayed himself across Reiner's unused bed in the room he would be sharing with Mateo and Martino. It was a modest room rearranged so that Sigrid and Karina would be sharing a room for the next few nights away from them. Just as long as the mutt stayed out of there.
Baby Viola would probably present a problem too. The baby brat was growing teeth already. When she didn't have something to bite on, she would fuss at the pain. At the Orphanage on Paradis where he and Hange sometimes helped Historia, they would have to give the younger Underground children cloth balls to chew on. Here the baby got a ring made of something called rubber.
He tried to make up for a lack of sleep but failed. Damn birds flocking outside squacked. A knock on the door stirred him.
"Levi? Are you alright?" Karina's voice sounded through the door. "We're going to go out with the dog. We'll be back soon. Tina and the baby will be here."
"Okay. Not that I could walk too far anyways." He sat up. Her footsteps grew fainter even in the emptier than normal house. He didn't think about bringing his wheelchair for longer walks. He was going to be stuck inside drinking even more tea than usual, just with more people.
He heard the door click shut. He made his way to the living room area where Tina sat in the rocking chair as Viola was splayed out on her blanket on the floor, rolling around without a care in the world. Her brown eyes, too big for her little head, widened as he entered the room. She drooled.
Tina turned her head. "Good morning. I hear you'll be with us the next few days?" Her hands were occupied with some sewing needles being used to craft some socks for the baby. She sighed. "I'm sorry if my daughter caused a ruckus last night and this morning about you coming over to visit. Where does she get these ideas from?" She winced as she poked a needle through the thumbtack.
Levi shifted into the armchair. Would Giuseppe and Tina's overt apologetics be passed on to Viola instead of Gabi? "She's fifteen. They all go through phases where they get thoughts like that." Even Eren did. "They think I'm some hero who deserves a woman like some sick prize or shit." Tina glared. Shit. Language. He looked down and grunted. Viola was trying to eat her hand.
Tina's sewing needles clicked. "You have standards at least. The Marleyan army is a different story. My nephew I worry about. His infatuation with the Queen of Paradis concerns me. Latching onto her based on stories from that girl he brought back."
Of course there was Reiner's other side the others were well aware of. After they had settled in, part of him regressed into an unusual obsession with Historia's person from his days in the 104th. What the hell was with other men in the military infatuated with the women? Pieck would regularly tell of her panzer squad and their one night stands at brothels and bars, then taking pictures to motivate them on the field. Why couldn't they just be happy with fighting for humanity?
Awkwardly, Levi cleared his throat. "There should be news today from the Alliance. If not, we should be worried. She's damn lucky that HIzuru is in her cards now. Even if I were in top condition again, I would never be able to clean cut a whole faction on my own."
Tina cast aside the socks and needles onto the table and reached for Viola, who squealed. "Keep quiet about this around Karina. Last night she kept fretting after you left about Reiner. We don't need to let her guilt rear its head two nights in a row." Viola whimpered. Tina handed her the rubber ring, and she happily bit on it. "She's been taken by melancholia."
Levi cocked his head.
"Oh, do you island devils- oh, I'm sorry," she replied, casting her head down, "Do the people on Paradis know what that is? The hospitals in the Internment Zone treated soldiers with it all the time, but other people can get it too." She lowered her voice. "We think… Reiner had this. One doctor told us that families can pass it down like a plague. Um, here. Can you hold Viola for a minute? I'll go start some morning tea." She shuffled out of her chair to plant the baby onto Levi's lap and headed toward the kitchen.
What a great start to the morning, hearing about the Braun family troubles. He turned the girl to face him. Viola stared wide eyed at him, sucking on her drool covered rubber ring. Was the brat even perturbed by his messed up face?
The Orphanage kids loved him once upon a more simple time. He was well-known to the citizens of the Underground City, the patria of a majority of the children. On some of the visits he and Hange paid to the Orphanage, several little boys and one or two little girls proclaimed they wanted to be just like him when they were old enough. Most of them would probably want to be more like Eren or fucking Floch now and want to take him down. Not that he was such a good man in the first place.
Viola cooed and pulled the toy out of her mouth and threw it at him, hitting his fresh shirt. She smiled a toothy grin, pleased with herself. He grunted but smiled slightly back. Just a little brat. He'd wash his shirt later. And then she reached for his right hand, fascinated by his finger stumps, which would have been fine if she had not placed his remaining fingers in her mouth.
"No," he mumbled, trying not to sound too mad at a baby. He withdrew his chewed on fingers and stuffed the ring back into her mouth. He dug in his pocket with his free hand for his handkerchief.
"Oh, Viola!" Tina shouted, trotting back from the kitchen. "I'm so sorry. She's been grabbing everything to put in her mouth lately. Her toys, hair, fingers." She picked her daughter up. "She needs a muzzle like that dog sometimes."
"Oi," Levi replied, putting the saliva soaked handkerchief away, "the brat isn't an animal."
"I- yes. I- I was making a joke there. I'm sorry. It's just that… in the Internment Zone… it was the only way we could get around the prejudice. When my Gabi was just three years old- this must have just been before Reiner left for his mission- we were in the market. A Marleyan guard was accusing an old lady of spending too much time at the market thinking she was a thief. The woman protested that the condition of the food at the market was so poor that a dog would have better food. The guard and his friends… they started kicking her and barking at her to make fun of her." Tears well in Tina's eyes. "And then… my Gabi asked why they called her a dog. And I- I feel terrible for ever saying this- I told her we had to be good puppies or our masters would be angry."
Levi sat unblinking.
"I asked my husband that night why we even had a child if the Marleyans hated us for breeding so much. Would it have been better for us to neuter ourselves?" Viola fussed, flailing her chubby arms.
I saved those children from this cruel world! Those words. He had flashes of all those children at the Orphanage. Historia's story of her mother telling her she should have died. His own childhood poverty and struggles on the streets. Every screaming greenhorn as a Titan chewed them to bits. Was Zeke-?
"I don't know, Tina. I just don't damn know." The tea kettled whirred. Tina placed Viola back on his lap as she rushed back. Viola whimpered.
"Oi, don't you start complaining," he spoke softly. "I lost my eye and fingers so your parents could have you." He held her up to make her stand on his good leg. "Not sure if I'll be having my own like you, so you better be damn happy and do what other brats would do in a world without Titans."
The door clicked open. Theo the mutt was the first to charge in, this time constrained by his leash Karina held tightly.
"Theo, down! Hello, Levi! I'm glad you're up. Viola sure likes you." Karina greeted, fixing her headscarf with a free hand.
"Bark!" Theo concurred.
Sigrid trailed in, making her way to her bedroom, mumbling something about a headache again. Must have been the wine from last night or excess people in the house. At least she wasn't one to complain out loud about things she couldn't help. She grabbed the dog by the leash and pulled him to her sister's bedroom. No playing games with the walking stick today.
Viola squealed at the dog as he passed by, throwing her rubber ring at it. That brat would have a great aim playing those sporting games when she was older. Karina reached for her niece and held her at the hip.
"I hope Gabi didn't give you too much trouble from last night," she laughed lightly. "She thinks she needs to make everybody have a match so nobody is lonely. She talks about all the girls seeing boys at school and this dance that will happen at the end of the year before the holidays."
"She does. It's normal for kids at that age. My squads had all this gossip crap about lovers and who was sleeping around with who when we were off duty." Levi stated. How much longer were they going to keep this up? Time to change topics. "I made myself comfortable while you were out. No need to fuss over me further."
"Oh, you may be our guest for once. Stop worrying so much about being humble." She patted Viola who started whimpering. "Tina, are you ready with the tea?"
"Where is your fine set you were gifted?"
"The upper cupboard on the far right."
This really was more than just inviting him over for some morning tea during his unplanned stay, wasn't it? Tch, what would be next? That bird that attacked him was responsible for the leak in the apartment? He cleared his throat. "Is something going on I should know about? You are all acting so damn anxious." He hoped that Karina wouldn't find out what Tina told him about her melancholia.
Karina smiled. "Levi… really, no. There is nothing going on that you should know about. We just wanted you to come and-"
Heavy pounding on the door interrupted them. Nobody made a noise, not even the mutt. Confused, Karina turned and opened the door. Standing there was Onyonkopon.
"Good morning, Mrs. Braun," Onyonkopon greeted, removing his hat. "Oh, Levi. Hello. It is fortunate that you are all here. We have word from Paradis."