In the Quiet Hours
"Captain." Mikasa stands on his doorstep, her skirt fluttering in the soft breeze, sunlight filtering from behind her into his dim hallway. She smiles.
Out of all of them, Mikasa visits him the most. Her presence is calming - the kind of quiet that slips through the tiny cracks and crevices and nestles under your skin. It's a stark contrast to the disarray Gabi and Falco bring along with them whenever they decide to drag Levi on their next adventure.
Her hands chop the carrots and potatoes for their lunch with efficiency, the knife glinting in the afternoon sun. Levi stares at his crossword puzzle, pencil fiddling between his fingers, lost in contemplation. Mikasa asks about his knee, bringing him back from his musings. His knee annoyingly bothers him more than usual. Levi wonders how she knows. Maybe it's Gabi and her blabbering. Or perhaps it's just his aggravated limping that gives it away. Levi shrugs. "It's fine," he tells her. "It's been worse, just a shitty knee."
Mikasa hums as she dumps the vegetables into the pot of boiling water, the steam rising. She moves on to cut the chicken breast into little strips.
During lunch, Mikasa fills him in on the rest of the brats, sharing her latest insights into the state of affairs inside the walls and beyond. The rising tension on the island is a worrying fact. She recounts their most recent talks and her friends' seemingly endless stamina during even the longest meetings. It's tough, but they are making progress - one step at a time. Mikasa gives a small smile, dissipating a bit of their earlier unease, as she recalls Reiner's near mishap, narrowly avoiding spilling coffee over himself in a moment of drowsiness. Levi rolls his eyes.
Later, after lunch, they make their way to the little park nearby. There's the scent of early spring in the air, a promise of warmer days ahead. The sun casts patterns through the leaves of the trees lining the path. Though still small, the trees are growing fast, their foliage painting shifting shadows on the ground below. Mikasa unhurriedly guides the wheelchair forward along the winding path.
"Captain," Mikasa asks as they settle on a patch of grass.
"Levi," Levi corrects her. Because they still won't stop calling him that, no matter how many times he reminds them he's not their captain anymore. He's simply Levi.
"Levi," Mikasa echoes. A pause, and then her next words rush out. A jumble of feelings. "How do you stop feeling like a burden?"
The question catches him off-guard.
Mikasa fidgets. She feels adrift. While she's trying to come to terms with what happened, it's hard. Everything is so different now. And maybe she sounds like the child she never truly was; after all, she matured far too quickly. But she still misses the old days with Eren, Armin, and her - back when they were just children. Back when she could pretend she was still a child, too.
That's why she keeps finding herself drawn here, isn't it? Somehow, the captain - Levi, she corrects herself - has become a familiar presence. Despite the distance that separates them, there's a bond of blood that runs between them. In the last year, they've been growing a little closer slowly. It's in the little things; sharing a meal or cup of tea - being more at ease with each other - and silences that aren't loud but rather comforting and gentle.
A long moment of quiet before Levi answers. "I'm not sure, Mikasa." His voice lowers a tad. "It's shitty. But we deal with it as it comes. You move on."
It's true. These moments come and go, and you move on until the next time it smacks you in the face. Once, Levi came across Gabi and Falco, draped across each other, stealing kisses. He promptly retreated, feeling guilt spreading inside his stomach. It's in those darker moments, when his brain decides to let the demons in, that Levi feels like a hindrance, old and crippled. In those instances, he feels like he holds them back - back from living the lives they want. But then Gabi is standing on his doorstep, excitedly inviting him to dinner, Falco smiling as he shares his sketches of birds and landscapes, Gabi's mother asking if he wants some oolong tea with a twinkle in her eye, Onyankopon silently sharing a beer with him.
"It's the people around you," Levi says, the words surfacing suddenly. "They remind you that you're not a burden. It's just- it's just your shitty brain." Levi sighs, and Mikasa remains silent beside him, her legs pulled up with her arms wrapped around them. But she nods, mulling over his words.
Words are hard. Words are shitty. They stumble around and get all tangled up, much like the shitty thoughts roaming around in your brain.
At times, the idea of untangling it all feels exhausting, the knots pulled far too tight.
Levi lets his head fall back, gazing upon the blue sky peeking through the leaves.
000
The transition from the depths of sleep to consciousness is startling and sharp, her mind muddled by images floating before her eyes, sticky sweat plastering her bangs across her forehead, her heart in her throat.
"Mikasa," Levi says, pulling her focus towards him. "You were yelling in your sleep." Mikasa blinks, drawing oxygen into her starving lungs. She takes breath after breath. Her sleep-muddled confusion slowly fades away, her heart coming down from its thundering pace. She feels like she's run for hours.
Nightmare. It's always the nightmares.
"Oh. Sorry." Her voice is hoarse. Mikasa swallows, her throat dry and itchy. Pushing herself up, she attempts to shove aside the darkness crowding her mind. Levi stands close to the bed, a portable lamp in one hand and the other on the headboard to steady himself. He looks worn in the soft glow, the shadows under his eyes deep and dark, the scars running across his skin standing out. Mikasa wonders how much sleep he'd gotten, guessing not much.
Levi gazes at her, searching her face. After a long moment, he gestures towards the doorway. "Come to the kitchen. I will prepare some tea."
Mikasa nods and throws off the covers to follow him into the shadowed hallway. She enjoys the captain's tea. There's something about the way he prepares it - a comfort - a deep richness that warms you up inside. Like when the trees are painted golden brown, and the crisp scent of earth fills the air, a low watery sun glistening through the thinning foliage. Autumn, Mikasa thinks.
The night is frosty, but in the soft glow of the kitchen, the heat of a teacup warming her palms, Mikasa doesn't feel so alone.
000
During one of her visits, with the sky full of dark snow clouds, Mikasa asks him about his childhood. Levi tells her, fingers wrapped around the comfort of a cup of his finest black tea. In turn, she shares with him about her own awakening - the power coursing through her veins, the bitterness of desperation coating her tongue transforming into a surge of determination. She recounts the memory of a praying mantis devouring a butterfly on a clear, sunny day and the revelation it brought.
While they are not the best at talking - and that's something they share as well - their mutual understanding of loss and grief is comforting, an understanding formed by shared experiences throughout the years.
000
The moment he pulls the item from its bag, his breath sticks to the back of his throat, a sudden heat rising inside his chest, thick and choking. In his hands, there's a neatly folded green cloth. It's the kind of green that's burned into his mind so vividly - a color that brought comfort, an anchor amidst the chaos and grief when everything else slipped through his fingers. He'd stupidly held on to it like a sentimental fool even as the others around him moved on. Levi unfolds it, willing his fingers not to tremble. The material unfurls easily, revealing the familiar white and blue feathers - the Wings of Freedom of the Survey Corps embroidered across the cloak.
"Why? How did you get this?"
Mikasa shifts. "It was Jean's idea. We had it made for you," she explains. "We asked one of the best tailors in town, a quiet old man known for his meticulous craftsmanship and attention to detail." She smiles warmly. "When he heard who it was for, he was so proud; he said it was an honor."
Levi hums and runs his fingers across the emblem, almost in wonder. The material is smooth - a good-quality fabric, the embroidery catching in the sunlight. It's been not even a year since he last held one of these capes in his hands, but for some reason, it feels much longer.
"Thank you." The words stumble out of his mouth a little breathlessly. It feels inadequate compared to this intense thing in his chest trying to choke him, but it's all he has for now. Levi swallows, gathers his voice, and moves his gaze up to Mikasa across the table. "Tell the other brats thanks too."
Mikasa inclines her head. "It's to remember," she says then, quietly, bringing up her hand and lightly touching the scarf around her neck - an almost unconscious gesture.
Levi looks down at his hands. The green fabric glides between his fingers, soft in a way their cloaks never were, and he pretends the heat inside his chest doesn't rise up into his eyes.
I've always wanted to write the Ackertalk scene. But given I feel like my writing would not do justice to that since I'm just not that good at writing dialogue, I wrote this instead: Levi and Mikasa bonding over small things, everyday life