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amywritesthings · 1 year ago

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THE TAGGGGGS, NUBE SKDFJLSKDF

i almost feel bad -- almost. finding my lil levi pov about that entire first chapter was equal parts 'oh god this hurts' and 'oh wait until i show the friends THIS mess.' originally i was going to make it its own fic, but i think this works much better to just give lil special treats in levi's eyes. I'LL FIX THE SADNESS TODAY, I SWEAR

SILVER UNDERGROUND / deleted scene 01.

levi's pov #1. :: a deleted scene from chapter one. this is an alternate pov of levi's first conversation with james in the trost hospital.

happy silver underground eve! i thought i could give you all a little treat for the very first edition of additional SU content. this is a special levi-only drabble covering his pov when james first wakes up. i wrote it to better understand his own head while writing james' pov, but it wasn't necessary for the final draft. apologies for the pain, my dears. xo this is unedited. 1.8k words / angst, language, mentions of self hatred. :: please remember: this is additional content. nothing in the deleted drabbles are tied to the main content/overall final storyline.

He doesn’t bother knocking.

Levi can’t, not when you’ve been awake for twenty minutes. Twenty whole minutes where he wasn’t there. Twenty fucking minutes where you were alone, lying in a hospital cot, confused and out of sorts and more than likely asking for him.

He was supposed to be there.

He just didn’t think today would be the day it finally happened.

As he rushes through the hallways of the Trost District hospital, he tries to keep his face neutral. You’re going to need one hell of a recovery period, so he’s going to need to be strong — to hold true to his twilight promises he made six months ago, come what may.

According to Hange, you’d already been gone for several minutes by that time. That didn’t stop him from talking to you through the entire surgery prep process like you could hear him anyway. They’re cutting your shirt now. They’re setting up the blood bag. I’ll sit here all damn day hooked up to it if you need more.

(For someone notorious for silence, he sure had a lot of promises ready on his tongue.)

The door of the medical wing swings wide, and he could fall to his knees then and there: you’re sitting. For fuck’s sake, you’re actually sitting.

You look sickly, disoriented, but your eyes dart across the room towards the sudden intrusion. Your chest rises and falls in your gown. Your fingers are moving just fine.

He can’t say anything — he’s a goddamn coward waiting for the other shoe to drop in this miraculous awakening.

“Captain Levi!”

Doctor Rini’s voice calls to him, but the captain notices immediately that you don’t turn to the doctor. No. Your eyes never leave him, and it’s…

Blank.

Maybe you’re just exhausted.

Maybe you’re not quite here in the present yet.

“Doctor,” he replies, clipped to avoid emotion.

“I sent Nurse Phillipa to find you,” Doctor Rini exhales with anxiety.

“I was found.” Levi locks onto sarcasm as a defense mechanism. If it wasn’t for the good doctor, he’d already have been at the foot of your bedside. Begging for forgiveness is hardly enough. I’m sorry. “So?” I’m so sorry. “Tired of sleeping yet, or are we looking at six more months of winter?”

If you’re James, then you’ll tell him that you’d take another six months to avoid him.

If you’re still you, then you’ll tease that his left hand is trembling.

But you stare.

That’s it — that’s all you do.

Stare, and stare, and stare.

“You only look like total shit,” he continues with a snort, “so I guess that’s a good thing.”

“Captain—”

“Apologies for Levi’s intrusion, Doctor Rini.” Your attention turns when Erwin enters the room. Levi almost wants to demand you keep your eyes on him — look at me, James — but the commander speaks for the both of you. “Nurse Phillipa was able to locate me in my office. I had to retrieve Captain Levi personally. Is it alright if we come in, or is she not yet lucid?”

Of course she’s fucking lucid. She’s right here.

Levi takes a few steps forward, tightening his trembling hand into a fist to keep it concealed.

“She is… lucid, Commander.” The doctor stops there. There’s a but coming — he can feel it.

Levi doesn’t like this, not one fucking bit.

“But?” he snaps, glaring the doctor’s way for the first time since he burst into the room.

The doctor sighs with sadness then gestures towards the fallen lieutenant.

“Lieutenant, state your name.”

What?

Levi can’t help how fast his attention whips towards you. His stomach drops to the floor, digging itself into the dirt. You look… scared?

You shouldn’t be scared. He’s here. He promised he’d be here.

“...you originally stated she suffered a major concussion,” Erwin says.

“Yes, I did,” the doctor agrees, “and I also stated on the report that the probability of temporary to permanent post-traumatic memory damage was high.”

You have to be fucking joking.

Erwin states it in plain terms: “In other words, sustained amnesia.”

The fist at his side painfully tightens, his trimmed nails pushing into calloused skin. He sets his jaw, forcing himself to breathe through his nose.

“It never said anything about permanent,” Levi growls, pushing forward away from the doctor, away from the commander, to talk to you himself. Erwin’s fingertips touch his shoulder as if to dissuade him, but there’s nothing — absolutely nothing — that will keep him from this.

There’s no way it’s sustained.

Confusion in the beginning, maybe, but you just needed to talk a little. He’d show them both.

The visitor’s chair screeches against the floor until it hits the edge of your bed. You’re still doe-eyed and lost, lips parted like you’re wanting to speak — he can help. You two practically grew up with the same half-baked brain cell.

“Where are we?” Levi asks, leaning forward in his seat. He stares up at you with a hidden layer of affection, willing for the James he knows — the James he’s always known — to see.

I’m here. Look at me, James, I promised I’d be here.

“Levi,” Erwin warns. He doesn’t get it.

Levi nods his chin, albeit barely. “Answer the question.”

You pause, fidgeting in that way when you’re nervous. “I… don’t know.”

“You do know,” he urges.

“I don’t.”

“Where — are — we?”

“Stohess District?” you guess. It’s not that far off. Maybe he’s not being forceful enough.

“Try again, dumbass.”

Wrong idea — your eyes widen like you’d never been more insulted in your life. He’s jokingly called you worse. “Excuse me?”

“Levi.” Erwin again.

Levi refuses. “What’s this building called?”

“I said I don’t know,” you plead, and your voice sounds so small that it breaks his heart.

“Do you know what titans are?”

“Of course I know what the fuck titans are.”

His heart flutters at your swear. You’re not entirely lost. “Good. And do you know what the Survey Corps is?”

“Yes, why does this matter?”

“Do you know where you’re from?” If he wasn’t in control, then he’d reach out to your hand. Cup your cheek. Swear on heaven and Earth that you know this one — you just need a little more time. You need to try a little harder.

Yet your shoulders slack. “I don’t.”

Levi’s face drops, his voice taking a sharper edge by accident. “You do. You just aren’t trying hard enough.”

Maybe insults will work.

Maybe spilling his guts of all of his darkest secrets will help.

He’s a man falling through space and time itself, willing the past not to condemn him right now. He’s sinned a great deal in his life, but that doesn’t mean you should suffer for it, too.

Because you know. You know, you know, you know—

“I am trying, asshole,” you hiss, and his face lights up for just a moment.

There you are. There’s that fire. Fight — fight for this, fight with me, just fight.

“Levi,” Erwin interrupts, “that’s enough.”

Maybe it is enough.

Maybe you can rest and try tomorrow, to let you sit in this mental darkness for a little more time, but he’s waited six long months for this.

“So that’s it, then, huh?”

Levi dares to poke at the wound just one more time. You always worked best when adrenaline courses through your veins. That’s why you two were so perfect.

“You’re going to lay down and happily take being a nameless has-been after being stuck in a coma for months?”

But it was the wrong wound.

He regrets his strategy as soon as you look horrified, and he doesn’t have time to quell your fears. Your trust turns to Erwin for the truth. “It’s been months?!”

The fire dies. You’re terrified in this bed, one hiccup away from a panic attack, and Levi is powerless to fight it for you. Erwin takes over and the captain is glad for it — he’s a stone’s throw away from begging.

Come back to me. It was too much to ask of you, but he was selfish enough to ask on your near death bed anyway. Come back to me, James, or I’ll fucking drag you back myself.

But you’re not you.

You’re not you, and he’s the reason for it.

The captain chooses silence as he watches your face, memorizing the slopes of your face. His heart clenches with the hard decision in front of him: Erwin has a clearer head for this. He’s so blinded by his guilt that he’s already hurt you in the first hour of your revival.

Maybe this is his punishment for dragging you into all of this in the first place.

From the Underground City to Hell on Earth, he is the reckoning of your demise.

I think I’d remember the name of this piece of shit — in this case, you mean him.

You’re right. He is a piece of shit.

He is a danger to you.

You are in the middle of talking to Erwin when he abruptly stands from his chair, the wooden legs scraping sickeningly across the floor. Everything is underwater. He feels like his body is shutting down, so he does what he has to:

He turns to leave.

Facing the entrance, he drops his chin to his chest with a defeatist attitude. “This is a waste of time,” he urges the commander, relenting just one moment where he admits he’s fucked this up.

He’s not the right person for this, even if he’s always been your person.

He’s not the right guide to help you, even if all he’s ever done is hold your hand.

Maybe this is fate.

Maybe this is the second chance he’s always wanted for you — one without the Scouts, without running from the law, without looking over your shoulder.

Maybe Erwin will give you an honorable discharge so you can spend your days in the warmth of the sun.

He could live with that, even if he never sees you again.

“You’re always so quick to walk the fuck away.”

Suddenly his boot scuffs the floor.

His eyes shoot wide, staring at the floor ahead. There’s a splintered floor panel at the frame of the door he’s never noticed in the hundreds of times he’s come here.

For a moment he’s fooled. This could all be an elaborate trick to punish him for the shit he’s done in his life.

(Maybe you do remember, deep down somewhere he cannot follow yet.)

But you right back then and you were right now: he is quick to walk away—

—if it means that he can't hurt you from this distance.

“I… didn’t mean to say that,” you correct quietly, and his face scrunches to battle the overwhelming bout of grief that washes over him. “I don’t know why I said that, sir. Forgive me.”

Sir.

Not Captain.

Not Ackerman.

Not Levi.

Before he can cause anymore damage, he walks out the door.

Erwin can take it from here.

#nube55 #feedback.#fic: silver underground

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