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"So, Levi, you said your name was? How'd you get all the way out here on your own? Most people have fled the cities, you know," the one with the long brown hair said. Hange, he thought their name was. He didn't really care, but it'd be easier to think one word than to constantly call them the one with the long brown hair, so he decided to just ask. He clicked his tongue in irritation at needing to ask; he should have paid more attention when they first introduced themselves, but he was caught off guard by... something he didn't want to acknowledge, not properly.
"You're Hange, right? And you, blondie, you're Erwin?"
"Hange, yup! Erwin here's been my buddy for years, now!" Hange laughed loudly. Far too loudly.
"Hange, quiet," Erwin admonished in a cultured voice. He didn't look as cultured as he sounded, not in clothes that clearly needed a wash or five with dirt streaking his face and his blonde hair begging for a vigorous shampooing, but then again, the world ended while Levi was in a coma, so he probably hadn't had time to focus on hygiene while avoiding being eaten by infected humans or being killed for resources by the non-infected, Levi allowed reluctantly.
He was fairly certain he'd have found time to wash his hair, at least, or steal a change of clothes - in fact, the first thing he did upon waking in an entirely empty hospital wasn't exploring or finding out why no one came to check on him after he was put into a medical coma while he healed from an injury gained in a Kendo sparring match, it was to head into his adjoining bathroom and verify that the water was still running so he could wash twenty-eight days of filth from his skin. Whatever sponge baths some nurse was, or was not, giving him, were not enough, he knew.
He looked and smelled clean when he woke, and he didn't know it had been twenty-eight days then, but he still knew he wasn't clean enough and scrubbed himself thoroughly before donning the spare clothes in his sports bag that had been earmarked for after the Kendo competition. Once he was comfortable, once he felt that there were no germs left crawling over his skin, he'd picked up his shinai, the bamboo sword he fought with, and headed out to explore.
When he'd found the world devoid of all life and sound, he'd been fairly certain a bamboo sword with no edge would not be enough to protect himself and headed in search of a weapons store, breaking into the local one he knew well to arm himself with a true katana, and unfortunately, had discovered Hange and Erwin camping out in the store room.
He had gotten the katana, at least.
"Whoops, sorry, big guy! I forget ya know? If you weren't such good company, I'd probably remember we were in dire straits a little more often," Hange joked with a wide grin, pushing their glasses up their nose before turning to Levi and giving him an assessing glance that spoke of an intelligence buried beneath the wacky personality and the loud mouth that Levi was skeptical of but pleased to see. Perhaps they weren't such an utterly useless moron, after all. "So, Levi, you said?"
Levi let his own cold grey eyes skim over them in assessment, taking in the daggers sheathed on their belt, the combat-appropriate clothing and the confident posture and made the calculated decision to at least provide his name and see if they and the 'big guy' were worthy allies in the world they had told him of, one that had collapsed thanks to a virus turning people into creatures most aptly compared to fictional zombies were it was every man for themselves.
"Levi, yeah. Levi Ackerman"
"You hold that sword as if you know how to use it," Erwin observed with a raised, overly-thick eyebrow. Levi briefly stalled out as he wondered how anyone with eyebrows like that could be so damn attractive before slapping himself mentally and palming the hilt of his katana.
"I do. Kendo national champion, former military. I typically use the shinai, since it can't kill my sparring opponent, but the principle is the same, the movements. When I saw the state of the streets, I decided to arm myself, and here I am, as I've already said. Now, you two, are you any use or should I be on my way?" He didn't care how rude he sounded, he had been a soldier since he was barely a man and at thirty-one, he was a soldier still at heart. Pragmatism was king in any catastrophic event or potentially dangerous situation.
Assess, evaluate, think, decide without reservation and follow through. It was what he was trained to do and it came more naturally to him than breathing.
"Hange and I work- worked for a private mercenary outfit that did a lot of military contract work. They prefer the speed of daggers, though they are proficient with firearms, too. I prefer my trusty Remington," he said, patting the sleek black tactical shotgun at his side. "Hange has been debating making the switch to their Beretta since the virus transmits through ingestion and close-quarters-combat is a good way to swallow their blood as you spill it. Are you familiar with guns?"
Levi baulked a little at the implication that a military man like him wouldn't be familiar with guns, but that damn enigmatic smile of Erwin's distracted him from his indignance just long enough for it to peter out. "Of course, I know how to shoot, yes," he replied tersely, none of his usual scorn in his tone as he worked to force himself to bypass the blue eyes and the blonde hair and remember that he didn't baulk or get caught off guard, he was Levi fucking Ackerman, he did the catching off guard, he made others uncomfortable with his piercing stare and his blank face.
He certainly didn't become an idiot just because some tall fuck in need of a wash was hot even with dirt all over him.
"Good, in that case, you can take Hange's second Beretta and reserve your sword for desperate situations only. Less risk."
Levi scowled at being given orders; even as a soldier, he had bucked against authority when he thought the person with it didn't deserve it, and he didn't know anywhere near enough about the tall fuck to know if he deserved authority over him or not. Still, scowl in place, he willingly left the weapons store with the unusual pair and formed a provisionary alliance with them.
The world was over, he couldn't afford the luxury of being picky about who he survived the remains of it with.
Five days later, Levi was wishing he had stayed at the damn hospital or gone off into the ended world with just his shinai as his defence, anything, really, but having made the decision to group up with tall, eyebrows, and handsome. It was fucking infuriating, finding himself attracted to someone who also made his eye twitch with irritation on a regular basis, and who seemed to think that Hange was competent regardless of how many near-misses they got themselves into with the infected.
Perhaps around the start of the virus spreading, he had sustained his own head injury and not had the time to heal as Levi had. Perhaps that was why he managed to still seem so damn noble and highbrow when he was still in filthy clothes and needed a double vigorous shampooing.
Not that Levi was faring much better after five days of killing the infected and getting their vile blood on his clothes. His face and hair were protected by a neck gaiter procured at a sports supply store and a hood, at least. The blood wouldn't show so significantly in his dark locks the way it did in Erwin's blonde, but he would still know it was there. He had sweated through his clothes at least twenty times over since they began their journey towards a supposed safe zone in the next city over, fighting both the infected and other humans alike to stay alive and retain their hard-won supplies, and he was desperate for a change of socks - god, the fucking socks felt beyond filthy - more than anything else.
Unfortunately, unless a place that just happened to have socks available presented itself along the way, he had to fight the bile that crept up his throat whenever he felt the fabric squish with accumulated sweat and bear it, because a detour could be the thing that cost them their lives, and he wasn't so stupid as to prioritise clean socks over his life. Hange's life, maybe, but not his.
He grimaced to himself when a small part of him rebelled against the idea of losing the eccentric person who point-blank refused to let him be alone. He craved peace and quiet, he really did, but if he had to, gun to his head, he supposed having someone who accepted him at face value and still tried to be a good ally - friend - wasn't really the worst thing. It was certainly easier to swallow than the fact he wanted to kiss Erwin, grime on his lips or not.
That was like trying to swallow one of those huge pills vets gave to horses whole.
"Infected, one o'clock, a grouping of seven to ten. Levi, you take the left, Hange the centre, I'll take the few on the far right so there's no chance of friendly fire. Let's move!" Erwin commanded, and damn it if Levi didn't listen and jump to it. Erwin was, he forced himself to admit - if only in his own mind - a good tactician and a fierce fighter, and on a purely pragmatic level, Levi knew he had made the right choice joining their little team and letting himself be lead, though, on a personal level, he wasn't sure it wouldn't have been better for him to have been eaten alive in his coma than to have developed feelings for one idiot and friendly fondness for another.
He despised how weak feelings like that made him, how vulnerable and open to pain. After Furlan and Isabel had met their end on a particularly dangerous mission back in their early military days, he had sworn he wouldn't get attached again so the deaths didn't hurt so much, and there he was, constantly on a razor edge worrying that each fight would be Hange or Erwin's last.
Gritting his teeth, he widened his stance and took out three infected with perfect headshots before they realised they were under attack and began to respond. Once they responded, the melee weapons were safer and more efficient, since they were damn fast and impossible to kill as moving targets with a handgun. Erwin had a slightly easier time of that with a shotgun, but he had still started carrying a wicked hunting knife just in case one managed to slip through the rapid fire of the pump-action shotgun and close in on him.
Sacrifices had become a natural part of all of their lives. Sacrifice hygiene for the safety of regular movement or finding a safe spot to hunker down for the night, whether it had running water or not. Sacrifice nutritional meals for anything they could get their hands on to keep their strength and energy up. Sacrifice feeling regularly hydrated to preserve what little clean water they had or could find. Sacrifice weapons' preferences for whatever kept them the fuck alive.
Levi wanted to live indulging in his every whim for the rest of his days, if the world ever began to repair itself and he could stop moving and stop fighting just to see another sunrise. He wanted to be spoilt, to have access to hot tea whenever he craved it and to be able to sit down with a good book and not get up for hours if he didn't want to. He wanted to see Erwin clean, just so he knew if he was as damn gorgeous as Levi suspected when the dirt was scrubbed away and his messy, greasy hair was clean and styled.
He hated that he wanted that last thing, but fuck, he really did. He was starting to survive on his daydreams and desires for the future, and Erwin featured in an embarrassing number of them.
"Levi, your three!" Erwin's rich voice screamed, panicked, terror-stricken. Levi spun on his boot heel and swung his katana on instinct, closing his eyes to protect them as he felt blood spray his face and a gurgling scream ripped through the air. As he opened his eyes, he found an infected, practically cleaved in half but still wriggling disgustingly. He sneered down at the thing, feeling an echo of pity for whatever human it had once been, but no guilt for fully beheading the monster it now was.
It was a fucking mercy killing, all of the infected deaths were merciful, and anyone who denied that was a fool.
"Thank fuck," a deep voice said from behind him. He spun a second time and found himself practically nose-to-chest with Erwin. He made a startled noise in his throat that he covered with a cough and stepped back to peer up at the man, meeting blue eyes blazing with fear and relief in equal measure.
"What?" he snapped, pissed that his heart had the audacity to flutter when it realised that it was fear that he could have died and relief that he had not.
Erwin smiled that fucking mysterious smile and said, "I didn't think you'd turn in time. I thought you were... gone. I'm glad you're not."
Levi scowled and tapped his foot, cocking his hip and crossing his arms over his chest awkwardly as he hadn't had the presence of mind to sheath his katana first. "Well, I'm not gone, I'm here, and I'm filthy. If we don't find somewhere I can wash up soon, I'm letting the infected have me," he replied flippantly, wanting to move past whatever third emotion was starting to creep into Erwin's sky blues before it got voiced, too.
"Levi, if you ever joke about that again, I'll handcuff you to me," Erwin practically snarled, his mood swinging from one extreme to another as anger darkened his fucking stupidly perfect features. Levi's scowl softened into a quizzical frown as he looked up at the man he now considered a friendly ally out loud and the most pleasurable torture of his life in silence and wondered what was so terrible about a simple joke.
"Alright," he said softly, roughly, "alright, I won't kid about that." He wasn't sure why he wanted to ease that anger from his face so badly, but he did, he hated to see those sky blues darkening into twilight storms all because of a stupid comment that was obviously untrue. Erwin's face and posture relaxed as he nodded in acceptance of Levi's reply.
"Good. Now, why on earth do you hate the dirt so much? I mean, Hange and I aren't fans of roughing it like this, either, but we aren't... repelled as you are. What's that about?"
Levi felt his face shutter, blanking out all emotion as he remembered the slums he had grown up in with Furlan and Isabel, the place so filthy both in germs and inhabitants that they had all joined the military the second the last of them turned eighteen years old and they could leave as the small unit they had survived in together.
"No reason, I just prefer to be clean and be surrounded by clean. Come on, night's setting in." He didn't wait for Erwin's reply as he jogged over to where Hange was gingerly checking for anything of use or value on the corpses of the infected, wearing nitrile medical gloves they had picked up along the way for the purpose.
"Anything good?" Hange made a bizarre half-hum, half-giggle as they pulled a small Swiss army knife from one pocket.
"Saves my blades being used to open cans, at least," they replied with an overly cheerful shrug that Levi found himself glad to see. It was a distraction, Hange's odd ability to remain cheerful and optimistic no matter what they faced on their journey, and it was one he needed badly, so he refrained from pointing out that the can opener attachment seemed to be bent out of shape and gave them what he believed to be as close to a reassuring smile as his face was capable of making, instead. His way of showing silent gratitude for their strange enthusiasm when he needed it most.
"We're almost there. About twenty-seven more hours, if my calculations based on our usual pace and this map are both correct," Erwin determined on day nine. They had found somewhere with running water, though it was only a functioning sink, not a shower, so they had been able to have a primitive clean-up, and while Levi felt better to have practically scalded himself clean, he was constantly clenching his jaw against the sight of Erwin with - mostly - clean hair and a washed face, now that he'd seen it.
It was as annoyingly attractive as he'd let himself imagine it to be, and he hated it. Fucking tall asshole with his clean skin that showed the flush of exertion far too well now.
"Great. Good night," Levi replied shortly, striding to his corner of the warehouse they were sheltering in for the night and hunkering down covered in one of the ridiculous children's cartoon-print blankets they'd found upon arrival. He tutted at the ridiculousness of it before shaking his head and closing his eyes; a warm place to sleep was a warm place to sleep, he was in no position to be picky about whether or not he slept covered in a sparkly pony blanket.
"Levi. I don't know how I upset you or bothered you with what I asked that day, but you've been very closed off with me since. I think we should clear the air," Erwin's voice said from far too nearby for Levi's patience. He was tired and he wanted to sleep under the fucking pony blanket, not rehash how much he hated thinking about those slums.
"You didn't do anything. Sore topic, doesn't need going back over."
"Look, I get that you're a... private person, and I'm not trying to pry, but I'd like to think we've at least become friends through this, at least respect each other a little. I know you're probably just tolerating me, but I still don't feel right about having opened an old wound without apologising, even if it was an accident."
Levi dragged his palm down his face with a loud, overdrawn groan before turning his steely eyes on Erwin. "Why do you care?" he hissed venomously. He slept poorly under ideal conditions, but under the conditions of the last nine days, he had gotten barely enough to keep dragging himself onwards. He was basically functioning on adrenaline and survival instinct, and a warehouse with strong locks and pony blankets provided a much-needed chance for him to finally get a little rest and restoration of his energy.
"I care because I care about you, even if you don't care about me. Good night, Levi," Erwin replied a little sadly, shrugging one shoulder as if accepting that whatever he felt for Levi was entirely unrequited but cared enough to act in accordance with it, anyway. Levi didn't let himself respond in any outward way, but inside, his heart twisted a little at that expression of defeat. It wasn't something he'd felt for a long time, regret over his attitude and coldness, but as it lanced through him, he recognised it well.
He didn't like that he'd hurt Erwin.
Twenty-four hours later, they were still on the move. It was nighttime and it was dangerous to do so, but they were close enough to the supposed safe haven that they had all agreed to make one final push to get there without losing another day to the unsafe "wilds" of the empty city streets. There were fewer infected crawling around, Levi noted, something that gave him hopes that nearby really was populated with people who were armed and could provide a sense of safety in a world destroyed.
It wasn't until they could vaguely see lights, real fucking lights shining in the distance that they allowed themselves to let relief flood their veins. They stopped in unison, as if it were choreographed, and turned guarded but hopeful eyes to one another. Well, Erwin and Levi looked cautiously optimistic, Hange looked positively giddy as they grinned widely at the fucking lights glowing in the dark, right within walking distance of them.
They would reach those lights and whatever safety came with them within the hour. Revived by the knowledge that some remnants of civilisation was there and waiting for them, they ignored their exhausted limbs and picked up the pace, walking quickly but not jogging so as not to trigger any nearby infected that might have eyes turned their way, looking for moving prey.
They should have goddamn known it wouldn't be so easy, Levi thought to himself, as a lone infected lunged towards Hange from a darkened alleyway. He saw it as if it had been replayed in slow-mo, a horror film come to life as his body seized up with the awareness that if he did nothing, if he didn't push every bit of his strength and energy into moving his feet and yanking his friend - they were his fucking friend, and he was done denying it after they had made him a cup of beautiful, steaming tea that morning - out of that infected's path, he was going to lose the first person to breach his emotional walls since he lost Isabel and Furlan, and Levi refused to let that be his reality.
Erwin had seen it too late, and besides, he couldn't fire on the thing with his shotgun with Hange possibly in the shot's path, so it was all on Levi. He roared with pent-up rage and frustration, everything that he usually kept carefully in check deep down inside of him, and pushed off the balls of his feet with practised ease, imagining the infected to be any other Kendo opponent - if his Kendo opponents had been able to turn him into a monster with a single drop of blood or saliva, at any rate.
He pulled his katana free of its sheathe and shoulder-checked Hange, knocking them back onto their ass with a startled cry as he spun in place, disregarding the fact his hood and gaiter were down and he would be bathed in infected blood, disregarding everything but the strength needed to sever a head with a single swing and save his friend's life by doing it. The germs didn't matter, they were fucking irrelevant if keeping clean got Hange killed, and when he looked back on that moment as an old man that could barely chop an apple in half, he knew he would recognise it as the moment his emotions got fed up of their gilded cage and tore free, forcing him to accept having friends and feelings and all the shit he had come to hate.
He felt the sharp edge of his sword slice through muscle and sinew like it was hot butter, snagging slightly on the spinal column as it passed through. He felt the hot spray of germ-infested blood hitting his face and thanked whatever deity might exist that his mouth and eyes were closed as it coated him. He heard Erwin's sharp intake of breath like a gunshot and felt his left foot twisting too far, he'd put too much momentum into his movements and he was slipping, falling with his sword positioned to slice his abdomen just like he'd done to an infected four days ago-
"Oof."
His breath was shoved forcefully out of his lungs as a strong arm wrapped around his midsection and yanked him backwards into a firm, broad chest. Wheezing from the impact, he blinked up at Erwin, who had been too slow to save Hange but caught up just in time to save him. "Tha-" he paused, still wheezing, to catch his breath. "Thanks."
"No problem," Erwin murmured before sighing and setting him on his feet properly, shoulders sagging with relief and regret. Levi grimaced and dropped his katana to the ground, sparing Hange a brief glance to check they were okay - they were, looking just as ridiculously cheerful as ever, somehow - and turning to face Erwin.
"You're smart, you're a good strategist, you fight well, and you're... you're okay to be around, all right? I mean, I don't hate it. Or you," he mumbled, rolling his eyes at what was, to Levi, a veritable love poem filled with mush and sap and things he really wasn't all too fond of, but made himself say anyway because he really didn't hate being around Erwin.
Erwin blinked down at him in surprise before visibly suppressing a smile and nodding. "I don't hate being around you, either, Levi."
"Yeah yeah, enough bleeding hearts, let's get to the safe zone, my ankle's fucking killing me and Hange probably needs a bandage for their ass."
If Erwin wanted anything more than you're not the worst, I guess, he was going to be waiting a long fucking time, Levi thought, though oddly enough, he didn't mind the thought of the tall fuck sticking around until he was ready to progress to I'd hug you if you needed it.