Chapter Text
In stressful environments, anger and bitterness can abound relentlessly. Foul tongues and blood stain the air and ground in a barage as strong as the beasts they chase down to eliminate. Losses of life are common. An unfortunate truth when faced with a crisis two thousand years in the making. Men leave the barracks whole and come home as grisly splotches or half-pound mounds of flesh wrapped in green shrouds. Sometimes, there's nothing to bring back. In which case, the horse comes home with no master.
Scratching names off the list and finding new recruits is simply the norm for the command. Occasionally, souls are even lost on their very first mission.
It's a relentless source of pain that's rivaled only by the agony of witnessing the demise itself. In truth, no soldier is without their own nightmares. Trauma runs round for round in rings and in time with every heart that beats behind the wall. Humanity seems only destined to suffer.
Some men handle that loss and stress better than others.
It was apparent that, from the moment they forced his hand and drafted him into the Survey Corps, they were going to need a firm hold on one Levi Ackerman.
The Underground raised a hardened heart with cold eyes to match. Its grit and grime are practically woven into his bone marrow, tossing fuel of strength into a fire of rage. Instead of seeking an outlet for the anger that claws at him, he stomps on it and bottles it up. It builds every day. All the cleaning and scrubbing in the world doesn't seem to provide a decent reprieve. As the months drag by, those surrounding him begin to detect a truly potent and negative aura that refuses to dwindle.
It's a powerful force that almost seems to siphon any positive energy nearby. A scowl from fifty feet away is enough to send recruits reeling and cowering in a corner. Disciplining him, try as Erwin might, proves completely useless. And before long, that sickening force is nipping at Erwin's heels and challenging the fabric of his own sanity.
It's not good for morale if command suffers under the weight of the little shit's bottled emotions.
It all comes to a head when a scouting mission goes unnecessarily wrong.
At the root of any and all branches of military, orders keep the systems flowing. They're meant to be obeyed. Barring an extreme and outlandish situation where resistance might be necessary, if a superior gives an order, one must follow it. Depending on the nature of that order, disobedience can cost lives.
It was a simple reconnaissance mission. Observation. A small squad sent out to study titan movements. They got what they came for and turned to go back. Upper command had been clear.
Do not engage.
Levi directed them across the vast acreage with those instructions in mind. But letting a monster live was apparently beyond any and all comprehension for one of them. He heard the rant billowing in the breeze, the sod swearing vengeance in a colorful blue streak. He heard the horse's hooves halt and turn away from formation, and looked back to scream an equally vile retort and order the man back in line. It was already too late. The idiot was already charging the field, swords drawn, voice screaming into the air.
Foolishly, Levi hoped to intervene. To reach him in time so he could drag the bastard back to the barracks and stomp his thick head into the dirt. But, he never made it. Too soon, all in the face of arrogance, another life was cut short. A black smear streaked across his vision, paired with the sound of a fountain pen upon paper, just as the scream was silenced into a gnarled mess of bone based cud.
A shred of green liberty and a heap of bedraggled flesh was all that was left. It fell to the ground and splattered the grass, vibrant and ugly. Only his word and a yellowing roster would be enough to distinguish the identity of the justifiably punished burst of stupidity.
He brought it home, anyway.
When he presented the bundle of death at the gate, a screaming widow cursed his name and spit in his face for his failure. He said nothing. He simply wiped the hock of spittle away from his cheek, marched into his commander's office, and scratched a name off the list.
It wasn't the first time he'd lost someone. But it was the first time he'd lost a man for no reason at all. He pressed too hard and bent the nib, nails digging into his palm as he added another soul to the statistics. Erwin grumbled at him for the destruction of the utensil, it being his favorite pen.
Levi lifted his head up to glare through a veneer of salted anguish and hurled the pen across the room. The bent point of the nib jabbed into the brick and stuck fast, the tool jutting out from the wall in a display of supposed solidarity. He bit his tongue, saluted, and stormed out.
Levi holds on to that anger. Adds it to the pyre. It festers and boils within him, eating his nerves raw and plaguing his sleep at night. The nightmares run rampant on repeat, reminding him of the needless tally and the ache in his wrist when he crossed the name out. The face was a distant memory to him after only a few days. The name, a useless swirl of letters buried under an ichorous pigment. He forgot it quickly. But the sight of the reckless moron, and the red that painted the fields as he relives the failure over and over again, those chase his every waking moment. Cold sweats and interrupted sleeping patterns garble the passage of days for him.
He stops drinking his tea before bed, intentionally abandoning the chamomile in a stray cabinet of a room he barely frequents, because he doesn't want to dream. The terror chomps at his sanity at night while his left cheek continues to burn in the day, still suffering the phantom wetness of the salivated spatter of a truly embittered woman. It's her right to be angry, of course, but yelling back her husband's name within a string of profanities wouldn't help anyone.
His appetite wavers and his mood degrades until he's glaring at everyone and everything. Eventually, even the horses rear away from his touch.
"We have to do something about Levi," Mike grits into the silence. His words are softly uttered, but sharp in the confines of the office.
Erwin's shoulders tense at the statement, startling his scrawl mid-letter on the paper and streaking ink upon the page.
Sighing at the mess, "I know," he crumbles the sheet up and tosses it into the wastebasket so he can start over.
"He's single-handedly bringing down the morale of the entire base."
"I know."
"We've all lost men before, this is no different."
"It is different," Erwin corrects the man.
"How so?"
The blond quietly lays a new sheet of paper down. Its fate, a letter of apology to a young widow. An overdue one, and one he's been trying to write ever since Humanity's Strongest staggered past the gate clutching a heap of flesh to his chest.
"Did you read the report?"
"I can barely write my own. You think I take the time to read others?"
Erwin smirks, eyes grim. "It's different," he repeats.
"How?"
The commander stares at the white island before him, fingers twisting the pen in his hand around in little circles.
"Because it was pointless."
''...that's no excuse.''
''...I know.''
''If you know, then why haven't you done something, yet?''
Erwin sets the pen down and leans back in his chair. He levels his friend with a long, worn look, well steeped and marinated in agonizing experience. He thinks for a moment, to decide upon the truth that needs to be faced. And it's a sour one.
''I cannot discipline grief.''
''...then reward it.''
Erwin blinks in his seat. The words replay in his head a few times, but remain dumb and faded in clarity.
''...what?''
Mike folds his arms and glares down at the man, ''I said, reward it.''
''...''
They stare at each-other in silence for a few seconds.
''Do you think that'll work?'' Erwin asks, already feeling his own mood beginning to brighten, despite the depressing topic.
Mike leans over the desk, into his personal space and using his height to his advantage. He moves in until their foreheads press together, sharing warmth and dredging up long nights blurred by darkness, heated blood and thrilling touch.
It's been a while.
As if on cue, the taller man reaches for the strap running across his sternum and tugs at the buckle, setting Erwin's heart aflutter.
''Why not? It works for us, doesn't it?''
"He might fight it."
"Reward that, too."