Attack on Titan -- Where Am I

(so there are a lot of sweet fics out there about shipping but friend do you want to read a story about ANXIETY because I sure felt like writing one)

(this takes place sometime within the timeframe of chapter 51 of the manga)

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People who know who Levi is move out of the way quickly.  So do the people who don’t, in almost exactly the same manner.  Small as he is, he somehow occupies the entire hallway as he walks quickly along his way.  His ankle still hurts him with every step, but that’s reflected more in his expression than his pace.

The Commander’s lost an arm, a titan bit it off, he’s going to make it, he’s pretty miserable right now, he accomplished incredible things on the battlefield anyway, the Commander is so cool; rumors and then reports reached Levi, and he came as fast as he could, and then he heard his leader was asking for him, specifically, a little urgently, and here he comes, even faster.  

They show Levi to Erwin’s room, and he’s asleep.  He looks older and thinner; tired somehow, despite not even being awake.  A little small talk is enough to send away the hospital staff, small talk and some subtle acting to promote the assumption that don’t be silly, Levi’s not gonna wake him up, he’s just gonna, sit there supportively or something.

Maybe Hanji could sit there supportively, but Levi doesn’t have the patience or the courage.  This place makes him so uneasy.  And sitting by someone who’s asleep is so awkward.  When Levi gets uncomfortable, Levi does something about it or avoids it or at least grouches at it; his mind sees action as the most favorable solution to most circumstances.  So after giving the people who showed him here some time to be on their way, Levi creeps over and taps Erwin’s shoulder, lightly, tensely.  Waits.  Taps again.  If this doesn’t work, he’s going to have to decide the best way to step it up, and how far does he go before deciding they must have put Erwin on some kind of sedative, and this is awkward enough already, he shouldn’t be doing this, Erwin wanted to tell him something though, Erwin doesn’t tell him shit, this is important, he wants to know, he’s worried.

Oh thank goodness, Erwin’s waking up.  Levi steps back and salutes; “Commander.”  As if such a display could excuse waking up a sleeping sick person.  

“Corporal,” Erwin says, half in question, that’s you? though he surely recognizes who this is.  He’s looking around the room, trying and failing to be subtle about it, as if to find out who else is there, and Levi says, “It’s just me.”  Deadly curious as he is, he wants to be out of here.  He doesn’t like seeing Erwin like this.  First of all, it doesn’t seem right in a universal sense; second, it’s undignified; surely the Commander would prefer privacy in his weakness; Levi doesn’t have to see this.  

“Where am I?” Erwin wants to know.  He sounds afraid, another false note in Levi’s generally accepted universe.  Levi tells him, a little confused; surely they’d tell him where he is?

Erwin processes the information, seems to grow satisfied.  Relieved?

“Sir… I was told you sent for me,” Levi says, hoping his curiosity and distress doesn’t bleed through to the point of rudeness.

“Oh, I just wanted… to know,” Erwin says, more calm than he’s been for this whole visit (relieved??).  “That everything’s okay,” and Levi could shake him, he’s slipped back into mysteriousness again, too suspicious to show all of his cards; somehow Levi confirming that this is, in fact, a hospital answered all he needed to know…???  

“You’re losing it,” Levi says darkly.  “Did you also get hit on the head?”

And Erwin just looks at him, conflicted and unhappy, trying to find a response; looks
away, still trying.

“That’s all you wanted to know?” Levi asks, a little incredulously, a lot flatly.  “Nobody told you?”

Erwin doesn’t answer, and by now his face is a mask.

“You’re telling me they dragged your high-ranking ass off the battlefield, then when you woke up you asked them where you were, and they – what, just smiled and shook their heads?  They’ll take a message to me that you want to see me, but they won’t tell you where you are?  I’m confused, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Erwin doesn’t answer.  Does he actually have anything particularly important to hide, or is he just so used to secrets he can hardly have casual conversations anymore?  How rational is he at this moment, exactly?  Levi’s never had his arm bitten off, but he can imagine it’s not conducive to clear thinking.  Whatever’s going on, there was something bothering Erwin.  And Levi came too far, in too much of a hurry, to quit just yet.  Something’s wrong.  Something was wrong.  What’s going on?

“If they’re not going to tell you where you are, what else aren’t they doing?” Levi says, looking around the less-than-perfectly-clean room.  “Is everything okay?”

“They’ve told me where I was, it’s fine,” Erwin says.

“So why drag me over here?” Levi asks.

“It’s fine, everything’s fine,” Erwin says.  There’s still that bothersome hint of fear, in his voice, his manner. When Erwin Smith thinks something is fine and you should drop it, he doesn’t say everything’s fine, he says your name.  Once.  And you understand.  But Erwin got hurt, of course he’s not going to be back to top form scary yet…maybe all he wanted was to see Levi as a trusted friend, maybe there was nothing more to his request than that… how to tell what’s indication of wanting comfort from pain and what’s indication of something else that’s wrong, though… especially when your injured commander’s mind is a place where secrets go to die, when he doesn’t trust even his most skilled and valuable officers with hardly anything…

“You don’t trust them to tell you where you are,” Levi ventures, and of course Erwin doesn’t say anything.

Levi isn’t good at puzzles; sitting still and concentrating intensely is not what Levi is all about; if he has to, though, it really helps if he’s talking with another person, or even just at another person.

“You trust me to say you’re safe in a hospital, but you don’t trust other people to say that,” he continues, and as he says it, it sort of clicks, it’s really the most rational explanation he can think of.  “Where did you think you’d be taken, then?  A dungeon?”

The way Erwin doesn’t find this funny in any respect says something.  

“You thought you were in danger?  From who, the crazy church, the military police?” He has to lower his voice, he just has to, “Your own soldiers?”

Hanji would tell you that Levi is generally incapable of reading body language beyond the basic stuff like smile = happy, frown = sad, but Levi is trying, and even he can tell that all three of his guesses were absolutely correct without Erwin even saying anything.  

“You are a miserable, suspicious person,” Levi says, and Erwin lets out his breath in a low, ashamed sigh that turns into a pathetic laugh halfway through.  

“The entire scouting legion respects you… we like you,” Levi says.  “We trust you.  We’re not gonna turn on you the instant you show weakness.  You’re safe with us.”

Erwin nods once, like he needed to hear these words but still has a hard time believing  them, and Levi is a little baffled.  It’s NOT pleasant to not know what’s going on at any given point in time, not know why specifically you and your friends are dying, and that’s how Erwin operates, often enough.  But at the same time the whole legion knows why:  to free humanity from the titans.  And they trust Erwin to be working towards that goal in everything he does…right?

Perceptive as Hanji would tell you Levi isn’t, he can catch a glimpse.  Of the turmoil in the mind of a Commander who’s momentarily lost his strength and independence, who needs people now, who depends on people now, who has maybe been dreading the thought of a moment like this for a long time, dreading what those people will do to him when he’s at their mercy, those whose friends he sent to die, whose lives might be required to be swept away like pawns in future decisions.  They said the Commander fought ferociously after he lost his arm, it was incredible.  They said he only lost the battle with consciousness once they’d finally traversed the nontrivial distance back to the safety of the wall.  Levi can catch a glimpse of pressures he hadn’t thought of before, pressures that have nothing to do with killing titans and saving humanity.  A need to appear as strong and mythical as possible so nobody turns on you when you finally sink to your knees and close your eyes.  Levi can catch a glimpse of what it must be like to return to the walls in a cart instead of on a horse, not really knowing what was going to happen to you once you got there; what it must be like to black out wondering if you’ll ever wake up again, not because of your injuries but because of your company.  Every one of whom you’ve maybe killed in your mind at least a dozen times, in a dozen different musings of possible attacks or countermeasures, every one of whom you’d discard as quickly as you would a dirty napkin if a necessary maneuver demanded it.

But he doesn't have to be afraid, he shouldn't be afraid, not of the Scouting Legion.

“You are a good man, and your soldiers see you as such,” Levi says, almost angrily, putting a firm hand on Erwin’s shoulder, too roughly, oh dear that was probably pretty jarring and painful, why is Levi even trusted to be alone with sick people, this is too much responsibility.  “Fear the crazyass church, fear the military police, but don’t be afraid of us.”  How does Erwin not know how much they look up to him?  How does he not know how respected he is?  

“If I die at human hands, I don’t care who killed me, you have to continue to cooperate with the scouts, with the military, continue to fight the true enemy, keep yourself detached from the politics that will spring up; humanity canNOT lose you,” Erwin says.  He barely even flinched when Levi basically shoved him, there’s no one else here, no one to be strong for, and still he hides his pain.  “If those who kill me want to turn me into a villain, do not let that distract you from fighting our enemies.  I don’t care about how I’m remembered.  I care about winning the war.”

“We talked about this, I know,” Levi says.  “But, good news, no one’s going to kill you because we basically think of you as a pal; send me into certain death and I would go, and so would everyone I know.  We trust you.  We are with you.”

Erwin doesn’t answer, and Levi really does shove him, in frustration, don’t you get it, be respected, be appreciated, you earned it a thousand times over.  

The atmosphere changes; “I’m not very good at being threatened, and I would ask you to stop doing that because it hurts,” Erwin says very coldly and pointedly, and the old Erwin is back, that familiar sensation of fear down Levi’s spine is back.

“If you trust me to tell you’re safe where you are, trust me to tell you you’re safe from your men,” Levi says, putting his hands behind his back diplomatically.  “You’re good at logic, right?  Why is it that you trust me so much, anyway?”

Erwin stares into space.  “You speak your mind,” he says, finally.

“So…that’s all you wanted?” Levi asks.  “Me to come over and say nobody hates you?  Get this place all Levi-approved and shit?”

“I apologize for –“

“It’s fine,” Levi says.  

“…I really shouldn’t have called you here; this is a little embarrassing,” Erwin observes.

“It’s a lot embarrassing,” Levi agrees.  “Listen, you’re much safer than you think...you don’t have to resign yourself to taking on the world single-handedly.”

A thick silence springs up; if there was a stage audience, they’d have ample time to groan.  

“But I am in a safe situation?” Erwin asks, finally.  

“Yes,” Levi says.  “Get some rest.”

“How’s your ankle?” Erwin asks.

“I’m leaving,” Levi says, and does.