Work Text:
Seldom was there a peaceful day at the scouts headquarters. A fact Levi had grown accustomed to since he first agreed to Erwin’s request in taking in seven brats under his wing. They were teens, rowdy and spirited, young and lively, doesn’t make them any less annoying, really.
With the morning light grazing the soft lush fields ahead, and the last scion of the moon sinking deep into the earth’s core, Levi was to take his time in this one, quiet moment of peace.
It won’t last long, he knew that any of the aforementioned brats would sooner or later barge into his room like a flock of frightened chicks. That, or Hange.
His tea cup rests in his hand, the aroma sweet and warm, familiar like the figure sleeping in the bed by him. A rustle of fabrics, a soft sigh, and suddenly striking blue eyes looked up at him through hooded lids.
“Erwin.” Levi greeted, his grey eyes strikingly warm at the sight of his commander.
“Morning, Levi.” Erwin smiled as he sat up straight on their bed. They share a room together, on paper they say it was for convenience’ sake. Not entirely wrong, the winters get cold and rough within these walls, and considering the survey corps’ base now lies at the very foot of a known mountainous region, soldiers must do with practicality in even the most dire of situations. Sharing a bed is warmer, more effective, and leaves no space to waste.
But everyone in the military knew that was all a mere facade. The commander and his captain, that’s what the nice people call them. The aristocrats however, despite having bore witness to the captain’s own skills, still find it hard to believe that a mere rat from the underground could plummet through the ranks in a matter of months within joining the corps, unless through other means. Levi has heard all the whispers by now, but he could care less, the scouts had already bore the reputation for being the freaks of the regiment, what’s one more rumour?
“For being commander, you always seem to wake up awfully late.” Levi remarked, no particular hostility lacing his voice. As Erwin walked around the room, reaching for his shirt, he stared back at Levi, a coy smirk grazing his lips.
“Were you lonely, captain?” he replied, walking up behind and wrapping his arms around the other man, his chin resting against Levi’s mop of raven black hair.
Levi only huffed. Putting down his tea before turning around to face his commander. He rested his hands against Erwin’s broad and hard chest, only covered by a thin shirt that accentuates his toned and chiselled body. The same body that had laid him down and crawled on top of him just the night before.
“Admiring the view?” Erwin teased, coaxing a raised eyebrow from Levi, who then merely rested his forehead against his beating heart. Levi found it comforting, the steady thumps of Erwin’s heart, warm and firm, like fire coursing through his veins.
“We should get going, the kids will be wondering.” Levi spoke into his chest, hearing the deep rumbling of Erwin’s chest as he made an affirmative noise.
X.
The titan’s roar bellowed across the valley of flower fields as Levi waited atop his horse on the perch overlooking. His black mare aggravated, Levi shushed her down quickly by holding fast on the reins in his grasp. Erwin was beside him, his own white mare tame and docile as ever.
Today’s goal consists of testing out the exact capabilities of Eren’s newfound crystallisation abilities, a feat which had taken an extreme amount of time and energy, mainly on Eren’s part.
A red smoke signal flared, Hange looked up to the two men, a shake of their head seen, right as Eren’s titan form dropped on both knees and slumped over the grass. As always, Mikasa was the first to react, followed by Armin, then the rest of the squad followed.
Levi and Erwin nodded to one another, before scaling down the hill and down the valley.
By the time they reached the foot of the hill, Levi knew something was wrong. Because where the usual commotion would’ve followed as soon as Eren exited the titan’s nape, there were hushed whispers and concerned voices.
“Levi.” Erwin commanded. He didn’t need to be told twice. The two men hastened their pace and tightened their grips on the reins.
They skidded to a stop by the party, Jean, Connie, and Sasha stood at the side along with Historia, all with concerns grazing their face. As soon as the commander and captain approached however, they parted to let the two men through.
Mikasa and Armin were steadying Eren by both his sides, a single arm slumped over their shoulders as Hange knelt in front of the three kids, a gentle hand carefully holding the boy’s face to examine him.
They looked over their shoulders at the approaching companions, then stood.
Erwin had a knowing look on his face by then, and said to the squad, “That'll be all for today, retreat back to base.”
A chorus of ‘yes, sirs!’ were heard, but all Levi had sights on was the boy kneeling on the ground, his two friends by his side, emerald eyes drooping, and breaths shaky.
Levi felt a tug of string in his heart.
X.
At base, Hange explained that as days went by, Eren has grown more and more fatigued with every titan transformation. According to his friends, he hasn’t been sleeping much either, always last to droop in the boys’ barracks, and his diet has been, quite frankly, shite.
“He needs rest, like a lot of them.” They continued, as Erwin issued a hold on all titan activities within the scout regiment, strictly locking Eren on bedrest.
When given this command, Levi knew what to expect. A screaming match would always follow when anyone even so much as suggests that Eren should rest. The boy would then follow up with a rant about dedicating his heart and soul to humanity or the likes. His mood would be pissy for the next few days, refusing to eat unless Levi threatened to force the spoonfuls of rations down his throat, or his friends nagged him constantly because frankly speaking, they could get very convincing.
Eren had an iron will, unbreakable as the crystal that surrounds Leonhart in the basement of their main headquarters. But what concerns Levi now was the very lacking presence of all that pompous screeching.
In fact, when he, Hange, and Erwin had walked in the infirmary and told him of his new conditions for the next few days, he said nothing. Not a single word, only a nod and a solemn gaze out the window. It didn’t escape the three adults before him. Hange let out a surprised noise, shifting their gaze to Erwin who only nodded back in acknowledgement.
His lack of energy is very much concerning, if anything it only serves as an indicator of how truly fatigued the boy had been. Levi winced at that predicament.
Now, he finds himself standing at the doorway of the infirmary, the sunset light filtering in through the windows, and the boy’s soft and tender sleeping face lying atop sheets of white in the corner. The blankets were strewn up to his torso, his two hands resting atop them.
It was then Levi noticed his fingers, more specifically, his nails.
Disgusting . Levi thought inwardly. They were far overgrown—by his standards—and heaven knows how much gunk and shit hides under there. So he stepped away from the door, and headed for his and Erwin’s shared quarters.
Truly, these kids don’t know how to take care of themselves. The one time Levi had walked in the boys’ barracks, he nearly had a whiplash from the array of scents that blasted up his nostrils the minute he stepped through the doorway.
He made them clean the room until everything was spotless. Someone had to, otherwise they’d be sleeping in their own shit, literally.
When he returned, a nail clipper was held in between his fingers. Slowly, he headed for the boy’s bedside, pulled out a chair—gently so as to not cause any commotion—then sat down.
He grabbed the boy’s left wrist first, surprised by his own gentleness, then started clipping off the white parts of his nails. He must be doing a good job, the boy hasn’t noticed yet, that or he really is clocked out.
Clip. clip. Clip.
He silently tutted at the boy’s uncleanliness, scrunched his nose in disgust, and attempted to remain indifferent. He tried to excuse himself, having overgrown nails is simply not practical, especially not for a soldier. They could rip in action, hinder their mobility, so many things could go wrong if one were not in the most effective shape. But holding the boy’s hands, he realises how small they really are.
Eren is taller than him already, this everyone can see, he’s fifteen, a growing boy, yet taller than he is just as the rest of the squad—save for Historia and Armin—but grasping hold of the boy’s hand on his own, he seems so small .
Levi has known, knows this world is cruel, knows that Eren was only ten when he witnessed horrors beyond imagination, twelve when he joined the cadets. He’s a child, so is the rest, yet, it has never clicked on him until now.
Perhaps that was why he was being so tender with the boy, so very adamant about his kids’ wellbeing—and since when did he start referring to them as his kids?
There was an old comrade—long dead by now, their body decaying somewhere in a titan’s stomach—who once admitted that they had seen Shadis as their father, back when he was commander of the scouts regiment. He hadn’t thought it possible, how come? But the more he pondered, the more it made sense.
The scouts are all they have. Most children join the military with the intent to refurbish their chances of living, with clear-cut goals of vengeance or justice at the wake of their family’s deaths. Other children come in with only the clothes on their backs, no last name, no past, only that they had wanted to make something, something out of this shitty hellhole they had caved into called life.
And these children had to become soldiers, had to fight until the last schism of their blood was spilled, had to endure a future filled with terror and fear because they may never know what lay beyond the present. These children needed anchors, and those anchors came in the form of their superior officers who had once been children like them. The only people who would understand.
He wonders if Shadis felt the same, perhaps that was why he decided to step down from his position as commander, opting to watch over from afar, distancing himself from these kids he shaped out of fear of attachment, and before he knew it, another child cradled bites the dust.
Clip. clip. Clip.
He wonders if Eren thought the same, he won’t know what to make of that, being completely honest. Erwin was a cadet once, so was Hange, and they were tender with the kids—as tender as they could be. At the very least, the two have a bond with the children where, off the battlefield, they could act as mere compatriots instead of superior and subordinate. The kids seem comfortable enough with Erwin if they were able to drag him into their jokes and trickeries.
He suddenly remembered that one time Mikasa and Armin had gaslit Erwin to the brink and back over Mikasa’s supposedly-stolen scarf, before admitting at the end that they had only made up a ploy to sneak into Erwin’s office with the intention of fixing Eren’s terrible test scores.
A faint chuckle escaped his throat. They’re all idiots, the lot of them.
Levi isn’t sure what the kids truly think of him, maybe scared, anxious, both. But then again, Levi isn’t sure what to make of his own feelings of deep care to his kids. He wasn’t a father, sure as hell, but he cares for them, and isn’t that enough?
Levi dared to look at Eren’s face, his eyes still snug shut asleep, he looked so vulnerable, not at all the hollering titan who had plugged up the gates to Trost district using sheer will alone.
The faint sound of footsteps echoed through the hall as Levi turned his head towards the doorway. Sure enough, there Erwin was, surprised to see Levi still in the room with the boy.
“Levi.” he called, but the captain only held up a finger to his lips.
Erwin’s eyes shifted to the boy in the bed, then to his hands, then to the nail clippers on Levi’s own.
Then, the big fucker smirked. A wide, knowing grin, that had Levi glare daggers at him, superior officer be damned.
“If only there exists a device to capture a moment instantly, how I would pay to have this framed.”
“Shut up.” Levi spat, refocusing his concentration on the task at hand.
Erwin stepped forward, stopping to a halt right behind Levi.
“It’s good you know, he looks up to you.” that made Levi stop dead in his tracks.
“What the fuck do you mean by that?” he spat once more, and he could practically feel the way Erwin’s gaze softened.
“I meant, you care for him, just as he does you, he needs someone, Levi, needs us.”
“He needs a stable home, a family, and a fucking break from all this bullshit that’s thrown to him, goddamnit , Erwin he’s a kid .” The words had gone out before he even processed it, but the intensity startled even Levi himself as he wretched his gaze back to Erwin’s sky blue eyes.
But he meant it, every single last bit of it. It has always been Eren, everything has always been thrusted into Eren, for this cursed gift he bears, everything falls to him. All these choices, these plans, all those losses and wins, it doesn’t matter how much Erwin, or Levi, or Hange, insists on taking the fullest, utmost accountability for it, at the end, the people will set Eren front and centre all the same.
Everything has always been burdened unto him. A child, a fifteen year old boy.
“It’s a cruel world.” Erwin stated, slowly kneeling to the ground right next to the boy’s bed. “All this burden, the weight of humanity placed upon the shoulders of a fledgling barely out the nest.” he whispered, the same way he would whenever he and Levi would hold each other dear and close after an expedition gone horribly wrong.
“How is it possible that he has no one else? Are we truly the only ones he has left?” Levi said, his steel grey eyes solemn as he met Erwin’s gaze once more.
There were a few brief seconds of silence, the two men knowing what the answer to that was. Because that’s how it’s always been. The military is a brutal field, especially the scout regiment, venturing out onto territories swarmed with man-eating titans has no real guarantee of a long and peaceful life, yet people—no, children—choose to be a part of it anyways. Because so many of them were sick and tired of the lives they had led inside the walls. So many of them had been hopeful .
It makes so much sense to him now, what his dead comrade had meant. They’re all they’ve got. The only people who could possibly understand, who could possibly fathom what the young cadets of the scouts had gone through, are the scouts themselves.
Erwin stood, his figure looming over Levi’s, yet remained a comforting presence as he rested his hand atop Levi’s shoulder.
“Yes.” Erwin replied, stern. Levi understood well enough.
Just then the bed stirred, and soon enough Eren grunted and groaned as his eyes fluttered awake, seemingly registering the light stabbing at his eyesight. Then, as his gaze landed on his two superior officers, his eyes jumped in surprise.
“Ugh—wha—? Eh—captain, commander—! Sirs I—forgive me— !”
“Hush. stay put.” Levi commanded, not taking his eyes away from his nail clipping duties.
“Seriously, you ought to take better care of yourself, your hands are filthy, you know that? How much of your own shit do you have under here?” Levi chastised, as Eren felt a hot rush of blood fill in his cheeks.
Erwin chuckled softly before turning on his heel to leave, a smile still plastered on his face.
“I—I—Captain, I swear I’m fine, you don’t need to trouble yourself—”
“I said quiet, that’s an order, now give me your other hand.”
As Eren tentatively reached out his other wrist, he secretly relished in the comfort of his captain’s hold, wondering, remembering, that the last time anyone had ever held him this gently was his mother, when he was but a toddler, and she a mother fussing over her son’s overgrown nails. A bloom of warmth filled his chest.