#* 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙎 ft. levi ackerman — ⌜ if i cannot bend heaven i will raise hell. ⌟

[chaoslulled]

tag drop 001.

[chaoslulled]

erwin makes the first move.   his hand reaches out and splays against his neck, skin touching skin, palm resting heavy in the nook of his shoulder.

and levi feels like he has come to life for the first time in months.

it feels like neurons finally, finally start to fire again, the feeling of fire filling his veins in a warmth that's like a cresting, crashing wave.   he swallows hard and feels the weight of erwin's palm against his throat  ––  he could press his thumb up against his windpipe, he could steal his air.   he could do all of that and levi would thank him.   that's still the horrible truth that keeps spinning around in his head: erwin could drag a blade into his sternum and he would thank him for the blood that he spills.

the bond is like a fire that keeps twisting embers until they're stoked into large flames that are going to consume him.   there's an ache in his soul that pulls toward erwin, that dances around him and for him, that bends and breaks and that would drop to his knees to worship at his alter if he would let him.   levi can practically feel the moment that his slate eyes dilate, that he looks up at erwin and feels like his world is right again.   it's a simple touch, heat against his skin, and yet levi has to fight back the whimper that attempts to soar up his throat, the words that want to beg erwin for more. 

he has been trying to be more self sufficient, has been trying to pull away from the fabled ackerman bond that still is never confirmed.   he can't exactly ask kenny, and there's nothing in grisha's ledgers about it.   the only way to know any of it would be to cross the sea, to set foot in a place that they hadn't even known existed until recently.   it's not a step that's possible, not yet.   so he has to go with the thrumming of his heart, the feeling in his veins;   the echoes of kenny ackerman and the liege that he had bowed to as well.

erwin cannot keep gambling and expecting it to pay off, just like levi can't keep gambling on a heart that might or might not be his.   but there's a warm touch that echoes against his skin, that presses bond into his own, that steals his air and whispers of promise.   that whispers that terms and conditions aren't a thing, not really  ––  there's something unfathomable that echoes throughout his very being.   a swan song that makes his head both full and empty all at once; he wants to fall to his knees and beg for erwin to keep touching him, to make the ache dissipate away.

tongue presses up against the roof of his mouth.   he has sought so much, has grit his teeth and knelt on a knee, had promised death and couldn't allow himself to go through with it.   he had breathed life back into lungs that hadn't wanted it, but he will never say sorry.   he will never say sorry because he is a thrum of energy, a jolt of electricity that races into veins and makes every inch of him feel as if he is on fire.

erwin is someone who is used to gambling, used to bartering, and now he has been stripped of it as he debates who he will be, breathing and alive as a titan.   he is monster incarnate, he is destruction that thrums in the threshold of this world.   but underneath it, erwin is a good man  ––  he has his own protections because there is so much that he has fought.   there is so much that he has lost.   bargains that have never gone well.

two hearts are an ultimate bargain.   there is nothing to barter for them and it leaves him exposed, a raw nerve.

so levi does the thing that he can  ––  he puts a barter inside of his own palms, lets him drink the nectar of the gods if it means that he'll still be here.   "you get to choose when the third kiss is."

it's a quiet bargain, one that is low stakes; levi had already made peace with it not happening, with having to stare at erwin's unmoving body and realizing that there was nothing there, that this was his new reality tumbling down until he was ready to scream.   but now he gives him something  ––  he gives him the barter of a kiss inside of open palms and the space between them.   levi was promised three but he moves the debt  ––  he gives it to erwin and hopes that the barter will be enough.

the question is a fair one.   levi has spent so much time thinking about what it meant, being given something that he had always wanted but in return he had to watch erwin die.   he has been given life again, but levi has spent so many nights with the chills inside of his body, tossing and turning and gasping because there was something inside of him, something that was ugly as he tries to shake through the desperation inside of him. 

but erwin has come back.   erwin has found him, has watched him and given him the warmth of a touch, feeling the fever that raced through his skin.   erwin and him have fought and were desperate for touch, desperate for something more, but they had kept themselves removed  ––  there was a bite throughout the two of them; two colliding forces that were still learning how to land. 

levi allows his teeth to run along his bottom lip for just a moment.   there's something that hangs in the air between the two of them, a soft thrum that levi knows  ––  there's a turning point, something that makes gravity feel too heavy and too light at the same time. 

erwin is fair in his question. 

"who said i didn't believe you?"   the voice that comes from him is quiet, is meant just for him; they are no longer captain and commander, but two lost soldiers who are finally trying to find footing no matter how much they keep slipping.   he swallows hard and steps forward more, takes erwin's hands and laces their fingers together, presses palms until they are flushed. 

"how could i not believe you when you came back?"   thumb runs along his knuckles for a long moment before he makes a decision, lets his own gamble play across the board.  

he lets his hands go in favor of wrapping his arms around his waist, pressed flush against him as his ear presses against his heartbeat, the sure, steady thump of it moving sluggishly with his own pulse. 

"you're mind, no matter if you're human, monster, titan, war general.   you're erwin, and nothing will change that."   for the first time in weeks, he feels like his body is eased, like the constant chill that echos in his spine has finally relented from a harsh winter and has finally moved into spring.

erwin is someone who adores the gamble, who likes to move chess pieces one at a time, taking at least ten minutes between moves. he keeps an opponent waiting, tries their patience, waits to identify the type of players that know how to die more than once. these players are the ones that can sever themselves from lifetimes & make themselves comfortable & wait for blood to spill. they are the ones like him.

they are separate from those from those who fight for survival when cornered, the ones that believe that death happens only once.

erwin remembers watching levi’s fist clench at his knee, remembers seeing the clench of his jaw that he agreed to a game that he never enjoyed ( & that erwin had never enjoyed either ).

erwin is someone who adores the gamble. even if he takes at least ten minutes between moves, he doesn’t need ten minutes. he doesn’t need two minutes. he gambles on intuition.

though he accumulates mountains of relative successes & relative devastation, he supposes he’s a terrible a gambler.

intuition is based on old knowledge. it is based on how the body has pressed old knowledge into itself. it is not a gamble of chance, & it is not gamble of luck.

erwin adores the gamble, & he’s a terrible gamble because it surprises him what he has managed.

no matter how good his intuition may be, it surprises him that he had accomplished the position of commander. the first time he died had been in youth, when he learned that impulses have consequences, that wants have consequences, that uninhibited tongues draw blood.

the second time he died had been when he understood that grief alone is not enough to equip a man for carnage. the scouts made carnage. he adapted.

the third time he died had been because he earned it, because he identified humanity’s strength & made gambles with strategy. because he started sawing away at himself, severing himself. he became a man who knew that he could die multiple times.

levi had been there for that, & levi had hated him. he hadn’t been sure how to recognize the humanity in erwin.

levi is the kind of man that survives when cornered. he savors oxygen in his lungs, & he can’t help but the sun even when he comes from underground spaces.

he is the type of man who will endure, & there’s a part of erwin that is certain who is certain that he will never die.

it’s a strange juxtiposition in the face of now, when erwin has learned to die again & be resurrected. it has been asked of him that he perform as frankenstein’s monster & to come back damning himself over & over again.

it has been asked of him to fit the godhood of colossal against his chest. unconsciously, to do so, he scraped clean the cavity of his chest. to fit the godhood of colossal, he had to shake hands & know that consequent carnage is part of a same story.

levi is a part of a same story. even while they circle around each other. even while they keep learning how to force a reflection from foils. even while they keep learning to sink into orbit & learn that gravity sometimes means distance.

there’s an artform about it. they had only grown into their artistry sometime around erwin’s third death, when he had been preparing to be named commander. the noose had not yet been tightened, then.

it did not happen overnight that erwin realized he didn’t know how to breath anymore. the noose was too tight. it did not happen overnight that he invited those close to him to help tie the knot.

every death that erwin has given himself had been by his own design. for this he can hold himself accountable. he can accept this.

it is a harder to ask that others who positioned a rope against his neck forgive that he has asked them to ruin.

this is the context that concocted his & levi’s gravity. this is the proof of valleys between them, the reason why they had to forge an artform so that they could stay close.

at present, staying close isn’t enough to erase the distance.

erwin still feels the distance.

he scraped clean the cavity of his chest. he finds himself conscious of consequent scar tissue. it tightens against his throat too. a second noose. it almost chokes a laugh from him.

it’s possible he’s meant for purgatory. it’s only in purgatory that he thinks that he & levi could circle terms & conditions a million times & never come to resolution.

every time levi hears terms & conditions, it makes him think of hanging the noose & restraint.

every time levi hears terms & conditions, he refuses to hear the reasons that erwin had set them. of course erwin loves levi, erwin had said. how could he not.

erwin has orchestrated his own ruin. he has died many times, & he knows the space between them — he does not have to wonder why levi has asked anything of him.

it makes a contradiction of erwin, dead or alive. for a woodman, he is uninhibited. for a tarnished man, he is unconflicted.

how could he not love levi ? there is nothing to stop him from loving without apology & without uncertainty. although his expression may be filtered, there is nothing to stop the magnitude of feeling with which he had tried to offer kindness that day in a woodroom, when he had answered a request for honesty with the confession that he had always had selfish interests.

there is nothing to stop the magnitude of feeling with which he had met levi that night on the rooftop. there had been selfish kisses & shared table wine. he had allowed levi to see him unbalanced by something so small as a missing arm.

there is nothing to stop the magnitude of feeling with which he had come here tonight. he is still unbalanced.

despite that, it is the magnitude of feeling that leaves him swallowing rocks & unfair sourness. it is one thing for levi to doubt erwin’s capacity ( dead or alive ) to love.

if levi surrenders this & steps closer to him, if he stands toe to toe with erwin & tries to offer him his humanity in the palm of his hand - then it provides something different.

it is one thing to doubt erwin’s capacity to love. it is another thing to doubt magnitude. you're a fool if you think that i ever actually cared about what you had to barter, erwin.

erwin appreciates the sentiment. his breath catches in a type of huffed laughter or gratitude. he’s unsure.

he stand to toe to toe with levi, & levi looks tired too. there is too much tension gripping at his jaw from a habit built over days, months years. his skin is still too grey, & erwin isn’t sure that levi has ever worn his age as much he has recently.

it’s possible erwin is meant for purgatory. terms & conditions had existed because of the magnitude of feeling. terms & conditions had existed because erwin had bartered self-restraint & kindnesses & the human things that levi has always kept close, kept warm. it’s the unique positioning of a man who doesn’t sever. who hasn’t known how to sever, how die multiple times.

terms & conditions had been the last thing that erwin had tried to do humanely. hnow is throat keeps closing, & he has little more to barter because of it.

levi ( inhibited, conflicted ) gave him unconditional loyalty & had conditional love because of it.

erwin ( uninhibited, unconflicted ) had offered levi conditional loyalty & unconditional love.

the ability to barter had mattered. it had mattered because he has grown to adore the gambling with intuition & known things. it had mattered because he never expected good things anyway.

it had mattered. it was a part of the magnitude of feeling.

‘ in truth, you should have cared about what i had to barter, ‘ he allows once. because terms & conditions were something that he tried to communicate. because in purgatory, there are gambles that never amount.

erwin is bruised eyes & dead man & a husk not come to life. levi prods him in the chest, & erwin is grateful for it.

he keeps swallowing rocks & sour things. he appreciates levi’s familiarity. he appreciates the challenge at the lilt of levi’s lips, & the way that he promises that he is still reliable.

the artform erwin & levi have developed ( circling around one another ) is still reliable.

erwin has nothing more to barter so he raises his hand & breaches distance. his fingers splay alongside levi’s neck to the bridge of his shoulder. the magnitude of what he feels turns loud, & he knows he has gambled.

levi has been betting on a heart for far longer than he has ever fully realized, but he hasn’t bet on magnitude.

erwin knows. & still, he appreciates. & still, he feels himself settle at levi’s familiarity, feels himself collapse.

he had come here tonight because he had been outside of himself. he can handle living, he can handle death, & he is poor equipped for purgatory.

‘ i know, ‘ he says & concedes too much resignation & doesn’t promise an end. this is the context that concocted their gravity. of course erwin loves levi, he says. how could he not.

levi had never requested his third kiss.

erwin could kiss him now, but it’s terrifying to think about kissing like a dead man.

‘ i know, ‘ erwin says & concedes again. the palm of his hand against levi’s neck tenses & betrays him.

this is the first time that levi manages to see how a man dies & comes back to life. it’s the first time that levi has seen him in transition.

& still. levi chooses to trust him. levi still chooses him, even if he should have considered what erwin had to barter.

it’s a funny thing. because the way they gravitate towards one another changes history. because it immediately influences how erwin will evolve.

‘ have you have thought about what you’ll do if you can never manage to believe me ? ‘

he muses because it decides third kisses, future kisses. it informs the demands to which erwin will try to evolve.

the tips of their boots touch. levi’s breath splays against his cheek.

still, he is uncertain how to handle the distance between them. how to use the gamble between them for evolution.

he is uncertain, a dead man made whole again when he didn't ask to be stitched back together.

but god, levi has injected him with life.

he is still struggling to swallow it. he is here asking for help.

[chaoslulled]

kenny isn't all bad && not all of his memories with him are bad, either.

one thing he had done when he had first opened the cafe && started to actually make money back, he had sat down at the bank && set up a savings account, one that he had mentally labeled the 'give back fund'. it had little to do with actually repaying people the money for his loan (though he keeps telling uri he will && uri keeps insisting it's fine) && more to do with setting money aside for his uncle. because without kenny, the cafe wouldn't have happened.

if he hadn't picked him up && stood him on a chair so that he could get a better look at what was on a counter, small fist forming around a pairing knife handle, then he wouldn't have cared about cooking as much as he does. his actual chef skills need work; he's leaned more toward baking as a vice where kenny cooks elaborate. but there had been those moments when he watched him && the normally drunk, neurotic man patiently explained cuts && vegetables && spices that paired well together. && levi had soaked it all up with wide, curious slate eyes that resembled his mother's as he teetered forward on the chair && tried to get closer.

so it's a thank you, the money that he's putting away, but he hasn't said a thing about it to either kenny or uri. he wants it to be a surprise, to be secret –– something that he can rely on if the drinking gets too much, if his money is spent too much. uri may be loaded, but there's a protectiveness in him, one that wants to make sure.

eyes sweep across him as he eats, as he talks –– a habit that doesn't extend toward levi, who has always preferred to be quiet && calculate, watch motions than actually speak. but he listens && his eyes soften, a soft flush coming up over his cheeks in embarrassment && an inkling of pride. it's not often that he's paid compliments, but sometimes kenny slips up –– sometimes he allows that emotional wall to fall down && pays a compliment that levi is never sure how to take.

❝ it's more than enough. you should cook again though –– maybe we can make a family dinner together. get mom out of the house for a bit. ❞ && away from the work that she keeps slipping back into, even though he wishes she wouldn't. levi feels that same frustration that he did when he was younger, when he would fight with his fists && kenny would be the one to pick him up, vowing not to tell kuchel what happened in favor for taking him to the arcade, to swindle something with too big doe eyes, to do anything but wallow in the black eye that he had received. he had taught him how to throw a real punch –– && that got him in trouble further when he got older.

levi doesn't blame him for his reaction. when levi had remembered, he had ran straight here, crying on uri's doorstep as rain soaked through his clothes until he wore himself out, tucked away in fever dreams of a life that wasn't exactly his. he's been spending more time here, too –– avoiding reality seems to be a thing him && his uncle have in common.

but he persists where he would normally back down. ❝ i don't blame you anymore for leaving me, you know. you did it because the ackerman power awakened. i get that. you thought i could survive on my own && you were right, really. ❞ a small frown on his face; levi had gone on to make his own terrifying name in the underground. it didn't rival kenny the ripper, but it was enough to take him into the sunlight up top.

tongue presses against the backs of his teeth for a moment. there's a personal detail that he could indulge, that could bring them closer together or push them further apart. kenny doesn't talk about the love that him && uri share –– it's just something that's there.

but levi knows better now. he knows what had been underlying in the bottom of it all, in the life that they had once shared. ❝ i couldn't leave my liege either, you know. i let him die because it's what he wanted, && it haunted me until his last request was fulfilled. ❞

there's another moment && levi exhales carefully through his nose, then sits across from his uncle, the one that he won't just let run away from this conversation. he's heard uri's piece on it already –– && maybe it's time to get it from someone who understands his point of view of it all.

❝ && he's the same one i've been seeing. but i'm not going to see him anymore. he has a family now, a chance of actual happiness without those memories. you were the best thing that ever happened to uri. his family is the best thing that ever happened to him. so yeah, remembering ruined everything –– but not for the reasons you keep thinking && beating yourself up for. it was a different time. you've done more now than you ever have for me. ❞ his voice is quiet, his fingers drumming against the table; he doesn't even know if kenny'll remember this conversation in the morning. maybe that's what emboldens him. ❝ so quit being a sad sack of shit && drinking so much –– you && uri deserve more than that && you know it. ❞

kuchel never told him the name of the father. she knew her brother, && she knew what he was capable of: as kids, the older boys would pull on her hair // those same boys would end up leaving school early, with pulled muscles.

when she gave birth, he was there with her in the delivery room, parsing through the pages of a ‘ PLAYBOY ’ magazine && holding in a day's worth of piss. even then, kenny kept levi at a distance. when she'd asked if he wanted to hold him ( he did ) kenny shook his head. even then, he saw himself as something of a leper. but when a tiny hand made a resolute fist around his index finger, kenny didn't have the heart to pull away. he might have even smiled. he holds onto memories of fast-forwarding through gratuitous nudity in eighties' action flicks, before the brat had the chance to ask the awkward questions; of getting him to help peel vegetables && measure ingredients, while preparing a mouth-watering brisket supper; of picking him up from school whenever the principal called, && taking him to the movies instead of back to his sister's. kenny kept levi at a distance. but he remained present ( in his own, unconventional way ).

he is spoon fed memories of smoke && steel, && washes them down with a generous helping of lager. it started off with dreams: dreams of blood debts, depravity, && death. they only worsened with time. there was one night where the dream was so vivid that he had to make a trip to go ‘ toss his cookies ’. when uri asked if he was well, kenny made light of the incident, suggesting that they must've managed to miraculously defy human biology ― uri didn't think it was as funny of a joke as he did. it didn't stop with dreams. he wishes it stopped with dreams.

uri tries to reassure him that he is not the same man he was; that he is not another ‘ KENNY THE RIPPER ’; that he is not fated to carry burdens across lifetimes, although it sure as shit feels like it. he lives in the shadow of new enemies: landlords, debt collectors, cops, telemarketers. although he's never killed anyone, he's hardly an upstanding citizen. if this was the ‘ better ’ version of himself. . . cockroaches really are impossible to kill. he reaches for his beer ― && makes a face when he finds that it had been switched out for a glass of water.

❝ --oh, piss off. i could skip in a straight line && do the fucking ‘ hora ’ if i wanted to. . . ❞ a bold-faced lie. although he'd somewhat sobered up under his nephew's supervision, he knows that if he tried to so much as stand up on his own, lanky legs would fold like paper, let alone attempt line dancing.

it's kind of a piss off that he inherited all of these dogshit memories, but none of the ‘ ackerperks ’ ― namely, the ability to handle his liquor.

❝ --now quit yellin', would ya? it's giving me a headache. . . besides, if i didn't respect your cooking, i wouldn't be eating it. well, i probably would. . . but that's because food waste is a sin. . . didn't always have the luxury of bein' picky about what's on my plate, y'know. . . but that's not the point. you're. . . doing good stuff. sorry we don't have much to work with. . . i've been avoidin' the stove most days. . . ❞ kenny confesses, skewering the waffle down the middle, && eating around metal prongs; he slathers individual bites with syrup, && ignores the sticky mess. a problem for later.

it's a short lived peace. he drops his fork, && a half-eaten waffle, onto his lap.

❝ --i don't know what you're talking about. . . remember what? THE ALAMO? ❞ the waffle is back on his plate && he is wiping crumbs off his lap. this isn't a conversation he's ready to have. he might never be ready. but it was overdue.

[chaoslulled]

frustratedly, they are mirrors of one another. frustratedly, they are the echoes of every fear that they spring upon themselves in aching chests. after everything, they will always be one another's foil  ––  they will always exist in the same space to both protect & break. they will always be this aching reach that neither of them can actively close the gap of. there's an artform to it  ––  to be broken & dangle from a string, to be an echo of yourself & nothing at all in one careful breath. they have not been themselves for some time  ––  they have been broken, shattered things that have learned how to breathe through the identities that they have created, through the charisma of chimera. through the desperation of need in order to lead troops. in the desperation of hatred to make themselves step forward, to study the uneven ground below ripping shoes & knows the familiar rumble of titans in the distance.

there is a difference though in how the dust has settled, & how they wear their statuses around their necks. erwin's all this time has become a noose, tightening by the day & threatening the last pieces that he's had stored up of his humanity, that he hasn't given to the cause. the little parts of him that he keeps hidden underneath his pillow so that he can suffocate them later on his own time, by his own hand, because cutting yourself from everything is a kindness in the world that they live in. erwin has been better at managing the echoed dots of himself that are on the map, faded & broken in perfume hazes in mitras, sludged across makeshift camps & watches in the trees of the forests. he is crushed underneath the foot of a titan that's never brought down, his cape decaying with it & becoming nothing more than symbol. because the scouts have asked it of him, he has cast it off & pretended that this is the warmth that he needs. this is the fire that he lights at night & sticks his hand into, & it no longer burns him. no, it welcomes the devil that has created it. 

levi wears his like a cloak, the invisibility that is needed to slip into the fragments of shadows that he has made friends with in the underground. he has wrapped them around his fingers & shown them kindness, so they bring him kindness back, shelter him in their depths, welcome their new master. he holds it around his fist tightly & learns that he has to be something cold, a shadow of himself, early on. but it doesn't last long  ––  who he is when they are in combat is not who he is away from it. he shows comrade, refills canteens & takes care of the horses, offers words of encouragement, tokens of loss, because he has been there before. he has held them against his chest in the night & questioned why he had been there, why he had been able to survive when farlan & isabel hadn't, when petra hadn't, when no one else had. there's frustration in the motion, to be human. to show humanity.

but levi has kept humanity careful, close, warm. he allows for his heart to strangle itself over & over again, because it's the better option. if he had turned into the cold abyss that erwin had allowed himself to turn into, he thinks he wouldn't have survived as long as he did. he survives because it does hurt, because it's worth feeling that hurt. it's worth the ache in his chest to see the kids that survive, that smile big & are allowed to grow. for this precious sunlight that filters in, for the walls that protect rather than damn. 

he is an echo of humanity's hope  ––  erwin is an echo of humanity's grief.

so erwin tells him that he could love him, & it's an echo of promise, of something more  ––  of the selfishness that levi has accumulated being something of value. something of hope. it's an echo of promise that there is love in intentions, even though there is doubt that coils in him like a snake ready to strike. levi is someone who sees results during quick actions  ––  not through long form plans that are etched out against parchment paper with ink that smears when his hand runs through it. levi is impatient, horrendous, needy for the pay off of something that has been a gamble for far too long. 

erwin is someone who adores the gamble, who likes to move the chess pieces one at a time, taking at least ten minutes between moves; it's always irritated the hell out of levi, has always made him nearly go mad from waiting. he's not good at it  ––  his patience in on a thin thread that he toes on a daily basis. he finds himself teetering now on his tether because it barely seems fair. 

it isn't fair to make erwin want things though, either. it wasn't fair to take away his choice to die  ––  it had been selfishness on his part, one that he cannot apologize for but that he's starting to feel like he should  & mean it. there's an ache in his chest, a desperation in his stomach, & sometimes he doesn't know how to handle the feeling of internal combustion until he sinks into himself.

the problem that rests with erwin & him though is the fact that levi has always had a harder time reading between the lines when it's something meaningful. when it's not all strategies & stardust & hoping that the new recruits don't end up dying because erwin purposely put the weak ones on the flanks to see what they're made of. he has a hard time deciphering erwin when erwin thinks that he speaks plain as day, thinks that he finds solace in his own words that should be so easy to decipher. 

levi has grown up in the underground where actions speak louder than words. he has grown where it is a very much dog eat dog world & that nothing is promised because there is too much in the underground at any given time. he is selfish kisses & bruising marks to remind himself of the emotion that twists underneath the heart. he is not well placed bets in the sheets of mitras. he is not well placed sacrifices in the shape of marie & nile's relationship. he is the opposite of what erwin is, has always been, & truthfully he isn't sure how much longer his feet can perch on the thread before it breaks. 

he thinks maybe hearing the words terms & conditions will be the very thing that makes him stomp on the thin threads until they break, because crashing to the ground is better than hearing them, over & over again.

erwin is bruised eyes & husk of purpose  ––  he is dead man made whole again when he didn't ask to be stitched back together. levi has done that to him, so levi shoulders responsibility that he hasn't had to shoulder before. 

" you're a fool if you think that i ever actually cared about what you had to barter, erwin. "  there is no judgment in his voice as he steps forward, until the tips of their military issued boots touch  –– a  promise in leath, a quiet compromise. a barter of his own, because there is no part of him that looks at erwin & expects a hollow barter. no, the only thing that's ever mattered was erwin. 

" you know, you're already in violation of them. i never got my third. "  he says it to be an insufferable little shit, to push himself forward & tease boundaries. to be levi instead of sore loser. 

because erwin is a husk of himself & levi has caused it. because while erwin may not have anything to barter, levi has made the biggest gamble of his life by injecting him with that damn spinal fluid. he had taken a bet that would've made erwin proud if it had been anyone else. 

so he tips his head, prods his chest, but there's a familiar smirk at the edges of his lips  ––  one that promises compromise, that promises a conclusion, a barter of his own all over again. 

he will gamble on erwin smith any day of the week. he has never been much of one, but he looks at erwin & finds that perhaps he can be one  ––  that he has been betting on a heart for far longer than he has ever fully realized.

will you allow me to take the bet & keep gambling on mine, too?

‘ of course i said i could love you, ‘ erwin returns. because even with terms & conditions, it feels obvious to him. the only way that he thinks it could have been denied was with the assumption that erwin had managed to rob himself of the capacity to love.

he wouldn’t have been quite so efficient at his post if he had managed as much. he wouldn’t have been quite so efficient at killing himself if he could not love.

of course, now he has been displaced, now he has been damned, now he has to rebuild himself & decide what is needed of him.

for a second, he thinks of his habits.

mostly, he has read history books. they had been his father’s favorite. at some point, they had been his favorite too. he liked old things, & he liked to understand what sort of things survived long enough to be remembered —

his being made an orphan made him a spectator of the kinds of things that people remembered about his father. it was one of the greatest mysteries of his childhood. it made him curious.

your father was kind, townspeople said. that was true enough. your father was intelligent, townspeople said. that was true enough, too . . . though he had always been useless at home repairs. the logic of creaking floorboards or windows that didn’t close or of the leak of their roof.

erwin’s father had been intelligent, but he had been at fault when he confided in his son about things that he had no right to know.

no one knew that much about your father, townspeople said. & that couldn’t have been quite true. the man had been married. he had extended family. he was not native to the town, but he did not forge himself into being from nothing.

it was rumored that your father had a mistress in the next town — a blatant lie. an explanation for why the man had died where he did.

the manner of his death was suspicious, townspeople said this was true. & this became the heart of the dead man’s legacy.

it’s enough to make erwin believe that it might be that the wretched go remembered. the unsettling goes remembered. the things that feel unfair. the things that strike dissonance rather than a melody. they all go remembered.

it makes a hobby of his curiosity.

curiosity is something to do in the midst of a town that will go forgotten, a town that will forget him. it’s something to do in the time it takes to dig his own grave.

there was a time when reading history was his favorite, just like his father. at that time, he was not slated to be prominent enough to be remembered. he’d found the information bound within the history to be the most useful for learning tricks of the tongue & trade secrets that could spell out another man’s ruin.

a hobby became a tool. a hobby collected dust in a library stashed in a rented apartment in the city. old personal habits always betrayed themselves in his apartment. they betrayed themselves in the way that erwin stacked books vertically. he never bothered to invest in bookshelves to store them, but he kept their spines aligned — kept them ordered enough by genre that he found it easy to find a book months after it touched it last.

still, a hobby collected dust. mostly, he has read history books. but otherwise, he reads theory; he reads philosophy. he reads fiction sometimes, to keep with common conversation — but it still sometimes feels as though time guiltily used. because it’s silly to readtrending literature when the stack of paperwork never slows, when the writing isn’t that good, when levi steals a glance at the title when he brings his own work into erwin’s office.

are you reading the dirty stuff again, he asks. his voice is bored, & erwin very nearly throws the book at him because it’s a poor joke.

regardless, there is a theme in fiction that he has noticed time & time again. as though it were a legend. a man deceased, a man buried, a man become a ghost.

ghosts do not exist in conversation the way they do in fiction. in conversation, they are empty shells. they are translucence. they are memories unsettled, memories cradled.

in fiction, they are visions. they are corporal bodies pacing peripheral vision & pushing for action to be taken. they are the dead unburied, the dead unresolved. they are souls’ throwing stones at window panes & promising that sleep is not deserved.

erwin lives, but he is the image of a deadman. he is the image of the dead man from fiction, the corporal body pacing & throwing stones.

but fiction doesn’t tell the perspectIve of the deadman.

the deadman knocks because there is gravity. because there is trust in the source that pulls them. because it is familiar. because it is home. because it was fated.

erwin is not dead. parts of him may as well be dead. parts of him have yet to die because it is necessary that he be reborn.

so he had knocked on levi’s door as a deadman because the space is something he trusted — because gravity still has meaning across different versions of life & because gravity means that there are distances he is no longer equipped to keep.

so now, split between an office that feels like a wooden room, it is plausible that deadmen are not empty men. deadmen want their cause too —

even if their cause comes with teeth bared & knives unsheathed. even if they circle one another & try to understand how to interrupt a narrative of predator & prey — the footwork of their routine is too familiar to break, & erwin knows that he is responsible for the momentum behind what it has meant for levi to be guilded as the strongest. what it has meant for erwin to make him his right hand.

the first time they had teased at honest conversation, levi had asked him momentarily if he could speak as though they were not bound by the military. as though they were more than their positions. as though they lived as people rather than emblems.

the first time they had teased at honest conversation, erwin had told him that profession & person could not be disentangled — the two are seared together in a way that makes erwin trust too much in teeth bared & knives unsheathed & predator & prey.

the footwork of their routine is too familiar to break.

it makes it easy sometimes to forget the origins of their routine. the way that levi had hated him in recruitment, hated himself in grief. it makes it easy to forget the way that levi wore insubordination & never shook away its barbs, even as he has made concession after concession to honor the lives of lost scouts, to honor the prospect of freedom, & to honor the parts of erwin that he didn’t understand.

truthfully, erwin never took it for granted. but he never knew how to reciprocate. he never had the chance to pretend to learn.

before shiganshina, before this rebirth he had already named himself dead man. he had already killed & resurrected himself two times, three times. & he had already accustomed himself to being a work of fiction —

erwin lives, but he is the image of a deadman. he is the image of the dead man from fiction, the corporal body pacing & throwing stones. the corporal body pacing & settling into mechanistic movement because the soul is petrifying, decaying, forgotten.

terms & conditions have existed by his own necessity, by the insistence that he hold onto one type of cowardice & one type of kindness. it had been enough to keep the machine churning. to keep the soul alive.

even now, erwin is not certain that levi had truly understood why the distance between them was a kindness. why he had spurred cheap things & kept distance.

when the soul is petrifying, decaying, forgotten — there is a haze that settles. erwin is still alive despite the haze, but it still necessitates so familiarity. it makes him conditioned to the gravitational pulls that put him here in levi’s office.

the haze is heavy, & it means that old logic is dead. new prices in honesty will be paid, & the corporal body is not yet in command.

‘ of course i said i could love you, ‘ erwin returns. because even with terms & conditions, it feels obvious to him. the only way that he thinks it could have been denied was with the assumption that erwin had managed to rob himself of the capacity to love.

he wouldn’t have been quite so efficient at his post if he had managed as much.

so the capacity has prevailed even if his ability to love honestly, however, had oxidized & corroded. it’s unlikely that it’s restored now, when he harbors a god at the base of his neck.

of course i said i could love you. i have loved you.

something cracks at the base of his throat, at his sternum. it sinks mud into his stomach, & he imagines himself speaking naturally, breaking his silver tongue : god, i have loved you. he hears himself say & knows that his tongue does not know how to bring it into action.

‘ how could i not ? ‘ because it is the truth, even if the truth is not meant to be believed. because he had been too tempted by the stolen moments that they had shared, by the prospect of being anything but a deadman, by rooftop wine & the way that levi’s lips had once turned red beneath his touch.

levi resurrects his insubordination. he tips his chin upwards & makes a demonstration of defiance for which erwin thinks he could love him even more.

but he is tired.

‘ levi, i would continue with terms & conditions. i don’t regret that i set them. but i have nothing to barter with. i couldn’t lay down terms if i wanted to. surely, you know that ? ‘

surely, levi knows that he is tired.

[chaoslulled]

he hates the way that kenny drowns himself in alcohol && always has. even his youngest memories of him are of the putrid smell on his clothing, the slurring of his vowels && the vacant look in glassy eyes. he remembers black eyes && bailing out with money that his mother didn't really have. but he does remember kenny babysitting him, being there when his mother 'had to work late', && he had always known what it meant. so no, their bond isn't forged in the best of memories, but it isn't forged in the worst of them, either. it's some weird sort of neutral ground that they constantly straddle the line of.

being here has been more normal lately; he's too jittery, too prone. ever since the memories had come back, he's been avoiding his own apartment && the constantly drilling for information from farlan && isabel, avoiding his shop && the damn tall blonde that seeks him out as well. it's a conversation that he's not ready to have yet && no one will come looking for him at uri's place. no, if they're going to find him anywhere, they'd think of kuchel's. so he's been occupying the couch (the guest room is a shrine to uri && frieda, && it feels too uncomfortable, intrusive) && that also means he's been cooking meals or spending time here when he can't sleep, working on scribbled nonsense in a notebook that's half full of half cocked ideas.

he knows that kenny remembers. uri had that conversation with him && it explains the heavier drinking, the sour tongue. levi skirts around the idea of hashing it out, over the lifetime long hurt of never being enough. for so long he had presumed kenny had been his father && when he got his answers, it had come with shock && then nothing. there was nothing else to say because he was handed the damn serum && then he was gone. sometimes levi thinks that hurt is a wide chasm that he won't ever be able to get over.

but there's times like this where he shoves it down && he allows himself to feel normal, to reside in the familiar pattern that he had made for himself here. besides, it's never been all bad. his favorite past time had been stealing sterling silver when rod wasn't looking && grinning when kenny praised him for it.

❝ you want me to call you my elder now? not going to happen. when you can walk a straight line then maybe. ❞ a snort leaves levi's lips as he flips the waffle maker over, leans against the counter to take in the sorry sight in front of him. ❝ you're not eating beer waffles. i know your body is mostly comprised of alcohol, but have some dignity && respect for my cooking, would you? ❞

the tease is light, but it doesn't meet his eyes. there's a hollowness in his chest, in his stomach; truth be told, he hasn't had much of an appetite since it's all come back to him. he's a nervous wreck most of the time, split between that monster that he had been && the better version of himself that he is. it's too complicated –– && it all revolves around erwin, around a relationship that he had finally fallen into && now might slip out from underneath his feet all over again.

there's a quiet beep && levi turns, slides the waffle onto a plate that he hands to his uncle. he grabs the syrup bottle for good measure && puts it in his hand this time, then points to the cooked batter in front of him.

❝ i remember too you know. ❞ the words are quiet –– he almost thinks they're lost in the ticking of the clock. ❝ && it's ruined everything. ❞

thoughts are as chalky && fizzy as the cheap beer that's been taking up more space in their fridge than actual food ― not that there was much food to begin with: pickled herring; stuffed olives; chicken fat; cream cheese; potatoes; carrots; some mystery vegetable that uri picked out on a whim; eggs. . . his nephew is breaking eggs into a bowl. . . when the hell did he get here? it takes kenny a moment to remember: he is a guest, && a shitty one, at that.

ever since kenny REMEMBERED, he'd fallen into the habit of drinking more than he used to. whiskey used to be his poison of choice; it was, in his mind, an end-all remedy to ( almost ) every malady a grown man can suffer ― be it fever, stuffy nose, tummy troubles, or heartache. these days, a shot of red-eye doesn't cut it. neither does two. not even three, for the matter. glass bottles are left to collect dust, eventually phased out by a growing collection of aluminum // ever since kenny REMEMBERED, he'd been chasing most of his meals with just enough mind-numbing substance, until he was drifting in && out of two separate realities: kenny was loosely tethered to one, held in place by a paperweight; the other was a phantom rope around his neck ― too damn tight; he's choking on spit && blood- scratch that. just a little bit of bile stuck in his throat. . . yeesh // ever since kenny REMEMBERED, it was harder to look at his nephew with a sober eye. he wonders if the boy can tell. if so, he hasn't said shit. kenny can't fault him for that. their relationship was always complicated; levi was a walking contradiction, exemplifying the best of his sister && the worst of him.

apparently, that doesn't change across lifetimes.

looking at the clock, uri must have crashed hours ago ( meanwhile kenny was crashing out ). his nephew, on the other hand, is wide awake, half-possessed by some sort of kitchen-dwelling ❛ dybbuk ❜. shitfaced or not, it's easy enough to wager that something's on the boy's mind. kenny doesn't probe. he's not a prober, unless- something smells good. really good. the kid's got talent; && though kenny's not one for drunken confessions, having company isn't so bad. . .

❝ --oi, whatever happened to respecting your elders? ❞ the words were quieter in his head, but they accidentally reverberate. meanwhile, kenny is distracted by the empty spot on the table ― a plate used to be there, he's sure of it. oh, right. beer waffle. ❝ y'know, you didn't have to toss it. i could probably mask the taste with more syrup. . . actual syrup. . . not beer syrup. you should make yourself something instead.❞

levi's right: he is a fucking wreck.