SnK: Pastimes to Send the World by
May. 15th, 2014 02:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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aegiscryptTitle: Pastimes to Send the World by
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General
Word Count: ~7700
Warnings: Implied major character death. Levi’s potty mouth. Spoilers and foreshadowing of events up to manga chapter 57, and may not be compliant with future chapters.
Also Archived On: Livejournal; Archive of Our Own.
A.N.: Part 4 (Trusting) was inspired by this hilarious sequence of fanart.
Summary: The Survey Corps is generally considered to have more unique hobbies than the other Military branches. Of course, after each expedition, they may need to adapt some of them...
Even though the Survey Corps occupies the imagination more than the tangible reality of the daily life of the average citizen, they are nonetheless as polarizing as they are legendary. Hope, as they say, die last, so it stands to reason that as the supposed hope of humanity, they’d have seen all sort of things in their trials for survival. It’s only to be expected that they be a little abnormal in the head, though whether they were so as a result of joining the Survey Corps or to have decided to join the Survey Corps in the first place is a matter of raucous debate in rowdy taverns.
Reputations, strange or otherwise, are however not easily solidified by mere claims or expectations. As the Survey Corps’ regular conduct in their line of duty is not observable by the rest of the populace, it befalls the Corps’ leisure time within the Walls to cement their reputation. So, they are watched, within and without.
Well.
On this aspect, at least, the Corps does not fail to exceed expectations. As a whole, Survey Corps is odder.
Nile honestly had not expected to chance upon Levi in the back campus of the Corps’ training grounds. He’d assumed that the man would be buried in a supplies depot or an office with the list of mobile equipment in hand, given the man’s reputed fastidiousness; and yet, here he is, watching a motley collection of his subordinates hover over something with buckets and what looks to be rakes.
Oh, well. There’s nothing yet he can do about Levi’s past relations with his Police, and neutrality is as good a starting point as any. “Captain Levi. Where’s your Commander?”
Levi doesn’t even bother looking at him. “On this fine day? Off getting over his constipation somewhere, probably.”
“Is that figurative or literal?”
“Everybody’s got to shit sometime.”
So either he doesn’t know where Erwin is, or he’s not about to cooperate. Great. Great, this is not what he needs, not today of all days. “Do you know when he’ll be free?”
Levi glances at the papers in Nile’s arms. “Why? Everything should have been settled.”
“Bureaucracy is not so easily escaped, unfortu— nately...” Nile pauses, momentum unhinged, squinting as if it would help clarify what he’s seeing. The stench of pine tar and turpentine is heavy even from where they’re standing. Everything should have been settled. Ah. “Are they painting your tent?”
Levi slants him a dead stare. “Waterproofing my backup.”
“Oil doesn’t come in camouflage.”
Levi shrugs one shoulder. “They’re competing.”
A beat. “Competing in what?” Nile finally asks. He’s not entirely sure if he’s not going to regret the question.
“On who makes the best camouflage stain,” Levi says, “obviously. Why the fuck do you think they’re each painting one side?”
That doesn’t even make sense. How are they supposed to evaluate its effectiveness? See which side is most run over by his own soldiers by the end of some arbitrary timeframe? Does camouflage work against Titans? Do they even use tents? “I don’t know,” Nile mutters, “I try not to expect anything from you so I won’t be surprised.”
“How’s that working out for you? As well as your Police’s combat records?”
Nile lets his glare grow a smidgeon more hostile. And he’d only just gotten rid of his tension headache, too. “Until you’ve tried handling politics firsthand, I don’t want to hear your opinion of it.”
Levi meets his eyes for a few flat moments before inclining his head. “No, thanks. I’d sooner kill them all than deal with their bitching.”
It is as close to a truce as Levi has ever offered to him in all their short years of passing acquaintance. Nile is not used to taking what he can get, but the Survey Corps have always managed to throw him off to a disconcerting degree, so he grits his teeth and accepts with as much grace as he can muster. “I thought they’d paint their own first.”
“They did.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“We test out our shit first before we give it out,” Levi scoffs, the heavy weight of duh making his sarcasm more cutting than usual. “It’s common sense if you don’t want to contribute to a fellow soldier’s fucking death.”
“I see.” Erwin must have a hell of a time with his Captain. Nile really shouldn’t be surprised; the man has had a twisted sense of humour even during their trainee days. Adopting a pet criminal is well in line with his deviant tastes.
“Besides,” Levi adds, with casual indifference, “they’ve already finished scrubbing the stables clean. As an outlet from tension, this is about as productive as it can get.”
...Oh. Oh. Walls and cabals. So this is what affection from Levi looks like.
Levi’s eyes narrow. “What’s with that stupid-ass expression?”
Nile settles for holding his tongue and shaking his head. Levi would attempt to castrate him if he calls him soft, even if the fact that he’s allowing them to repaint his perfectly serviceable tent with four perfectly serviceable variations of camouflage waterproofing is proof enough.
Levi gives him another look, then huffs. “You’re surprised. No expectations don’t help at all, huh.”
“I just—” Nile sighs, exhaling his irritation by force; he can feel his headache looming over the foreseeable horizon with a vengeance. Damn Survey Corps. If this is what he’d avoided by choosing the Police, then he’s got one more reason to be satisfied. “I’d have expected that you would take up gear maintenance as a hobby by force of necessity or something, not try and innovate on little things on your downtime.”
“We’ve all finished our daily checks. It doesn’t take that long for competent people.”
And that’s enough Levi for his day. Nile’s not about to spend more energy on civility when he doesn’t have to, and Levi has made it very clear that he hasn’t changed his opinion on pleasantries. “I’m running on a schedule. Does anybody else know where Erwin might be, or when he might be free?”
Levi glances at the papers again. “Mike’s in food storage. He’d know which shithouse Erwin picked this time,” he says, before turning his back in clear dismissal.
Nile gives serious consideration to answering with silence, but no. They are neither of them nice men; nor are they heartless. “Tomorrow’s going to be the start of your 56th expedition, right? Don’t die easy.”
“We’ll see,” is Levi’s pithy answer, which is just insane. Erwin’s got his entire Corps ready to lay down and bleed for him, and he sends them all to certain death against the threat outside instead of mitigating the threat inside.
Sometimes he wonders if Erwin remembers that he, too, is not heartless. But he won’t bother asking; the fact that he’s begun to think of Erwin like so is indication enough that Erwin Smith, Commander and thankless weapon of humanity, no longer trusts him.
Which is fine. They are not free men. They will meet as rank equals, and part as rank equals. Erwin can play chess with the madness that is his Corps, while Nile consolidates his Police, and they’ll see who will get to achieve their dreams. The fact that they were once friends has long ceased to matter in the face of their duties.
(It isn’t until he has returned to the inner sanctum of Wall Sina that he realizes he’s forgotten to ask Levi to tell him the winning recipe. For curiosity’s sake, of course. Nothing more.
(It’s not like he can’t look up the recipe when they submit the innovation, but he might as well just ask the Survey Corps directly the next time he has to visit. A headache is a fair exchange for any information, and Levi still thinks his tells are unreadable.)
“Ah, are we interrupting?” Armin peers around the corner of the door.
He doesn’t have to look at Jean to know that he is brooding again, and trying to hide it. In company less illustrious, Jean would probably be even more distracted. But the four soldiers within, whispering amongst themselves in a cluster around a table, are a Squad Leader’s handpicked set; it won’t do to make a bad impression.
The closest soldier straightens and waves them in. “No, come in.”
“Way to clear that with the leader, Lynne,” says the blond man beside her, screwing his flask closed and tilting his chair back on two legs.
Lynne nudges him hard enough to topple him with a crash. “Nanaba doesn’t care, so I don’t see why you should.”
The man glares at her from his sprawl on the ground. “Oh, so you speak on behalf of Nanaba now?”
“Ha, since when does Nanaba need to be spoken on behalf of?”
“What can we do for you?” says the soldier with the close-shaven head above his comrades’ bickering, very politely.
“Erm,” Armin flounders, thrown, still frozen in his salute.
Jean plucks the sheaf of papers from Armin’s hand and proffers it. “Missive from the team leader in squad six. About the 57th expedition. It requires Squad Leader Mike Zacharias’s approval.”
“Okay. Nanaba?”
The fourth soldier near the back walks around the table to take the papers, skimming through them briefly. “It isn’t top priority, I presume?” Clear brown eyes spear Armin with a quiet stare that impacts like a bullet. Armin doesn’t realize that he’s not breathing until that look slides away to his side. On cue, Jean sucks in a startled breath of his own. “Then there’s no need to notify him now. He’ll track it down on his own schedule.”
They’re mute for the moment it takes Nanaba to set down the paperwork on one of six indistinguishable piles on what is presumably Mike Zacharias’s desk and return to the table. Then Jean shakes himself hard enough for Armin to feel it, a foot away and with his back turned, and asks, disbelievingly, “With all due respect, but ‘track it down on his own schedule’? You mean to just...” Jean trails off, skepticism strangling his voice for another moment. “Let the Squad Leader look for new papers on his desk?”
“Yeah?” The soldier picking himself up off the floor takes in their expressions mid-word, and grins. “Aw, you’re worried, that’s cute. Don’t fret, finding something like that on his desk is nothing for him. And Nanaba’s the world’s greatest taskmaster when it comes to hounding Squad Leaders for incomplete paperwork.”
“That’s because Gelgar’s too busy drinking to hound him. I mean, look, he was already on the ground,” Lynne tells them in a stage whisper, and gets punched in the arm for her efforts.
“The Squad Leader is busy,” Nanaba says, with supreme indifference, “but he will submit the forms on time.”
Armin’s blood runs cold. Lynne and the soldier with the shaved head wince in tandem, in what looks to be clear pity for the Squad Leader. “Damn,” Gelgar says sympathetically by way of an opinion, and takes a drink from his flask smelling so strongly of Vine that Armin can practically taste it from seven feet away.
In fact, it probably is Vine. So Lynne was serious? Huh.
Nanaba flicks a softer glance at them. “If that is all, you’re dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.” Armin takes a step back, then hesitates, considering. “We’ve been told that our duties are complete after we deliver the document. I-is there anything we can help with before we take our leave?”
Jean’s silence behind him grows thorns.
Nanaba gives them another unnervingly even look, then shrugs. “Why not. Maybe fresh brains will have fresh ideas.”
Gelgar outright smirks at that. “All right. All right! Come in properly, and shut the door.”
Armin obeys, hearing Jean comply with the latter part. His palms are starting to sweat; hopefully he had read the situation correctly and not—
“So. We’re trying to come up with a way to hide scents.”
Armin starts. “H-hide scents?” He shakes himself. “Like, cover a scent, or make it untraceable, or change it by some other mechanism? Sir.”
“We’re trying to find something that won’t set off our dear Squad Leader’s nose.” Lynne holds up the list with a sigh. “So far, we’ve discovered a lot that will. Eh, Henning?”
Set off the Squad Leader’s nose?
Henning’s expression dissolves into one of sheepish worry. “Everything will.”
Armin hesitates, then ventures, “H-have you ever tried overwhelming his nose? Temporarily?”
He can practically feel Jean’s puzzlement sharpen. What? It had worked on the feral dogs in the slums of Wall Maria. To shut down a sense, they could either do something to the stimulus or the sensory equipment.
Henning and Lynne glance at each other. “Mmh, good idea, but it’s not going to work for our purposes. And we can’t risk shutting down the Squad Leader’s nose, even behind the Walls.”
Armin frowns. “I-if you don’t mind us asking, why exactly are you trying to find something that won’t register with the Squad Leader’s nose?”
Lynne takes a cautious glance around, then leans close conspiratorially. “Not that we’re complaining about the Squad Leader’s scouting abilities, but do you know how hard it is to prank somebody properly when he can smell you from halfway across town?”
“I swore I took a bath before I tried last time,” Gelgar grumbles.
“By the rate you drink, I doubt a bath would have helped.”
“...I would contest this, but I don’t think I can actually deny that possibility.”
“I don’t know enough about chemistry to help with the alternatives,” Armin says with a helpless shrug. “Jean?”
“I know even less than you,” Jean snorts. “If the Squad Leader isn’t so easily distracted from smells, I’d think the only pranks that he will work on him are the sorts that will do the job even when discovered.”
“We thought about that too,” Henning agrees, “but getting the Squad Leader to fall for even one of those has proven fruitless.”
Armin exchanges a look with Jean, and shrugs helplessly.
Lynne sighs, an explosive gesture that slumps her across the table. “Well, all right. Thanks anyway, boys. Off you go! Enjoy your precious free time.”
“There you go again, speaking for Nanaba,” Gelgar complains, swinging his flask at her.
“Dismissed,” Nanaba supplies obligingly, as Lynne ducks the container and rises like a stormfront to topple Gelgar again.
Jean is frowning when they shut the door. They are halfway down the path when he opens his mouth. Armin braces himself.
“Good try.”
Armin yelps, nearly jumping out of his skin. Jean bites off his curse mid-syllable. They both glance up at the same time.
Squad Leader Mike Zacharias waves at them cheerily from the rooftop. “They’ve been trying for months. Still no go, huh.”
“Sir!” Armin salutes. His heart is trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. “Forgive us for aiding and abetting, sir!”
Mike Zacharias watches them with unreadable eyes – Nanaba must have learned that look from him, or maybe the other way around – then waves them a forgiving gesture. “If there is anything that can be done about it, they’ll discover it. Better that my squad finds out before the Titans do. Dismissed.”
“Sir!”
(“What was that about?” Jean demands the moment they’re out of civilized earshot.
(Armin shrugs, refusing to be intimidated. “I-it was a good opportunity to take stock of the other squads. We’ll be working together—”
(“Taking stock doesn’t require us to incriminate ourselves!”
(“Don’t worry. They wouldn’t have gotten us into trouble.”
(“And you can tell how?”
(Armin smiles. “I-I know their kind of people. Like... um, for example, Gelgar reminded me of somebody I’d known since I was young. He’s fond of Vine, but he works hard. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t have told on us unless it was going to be to a benefit worth what we’d give up.” He laughs softly. “He’s ranked in the Garrison now. You should meet him; I think you’ll like him.”
(Jean gives him another look, but says nothing else for the rest of the trip to their barracks.)
Even though they’d spent the last three years sweating and bleeding and cursing next to each other, the silence on the tree is as awkward as a nest of newly-hatched birds figuring each other out for the first time. “You know,” Reiner finally surmises with a grimace, “this exercise really hammers home how sad recruiting for the Survey Corps really is.”
Sasha has to agree; she can count all the present participants of the recruit training with fingers to spare for the manoeuvre gear. This isn’t even a particularly big tree, either; the fact that they can stay within eyeshot of each other is disconcerting.
Actually, the amount of Survey Corps soldiers gathered in the trees around them is disconcerting, too. Had they come to observe them or something—
“Trust fall!” Squad Leader Hange Zoë bellows, and proceeds to commit suicide by throwing herself headfirst towards the ground.
Sasha barely has time to begin shrieking in tandem with Connie and Krista before Commander Erwin Smith, who happens to be passing by just beneath the tree, extends his arms and catches the Squad Leader with obscene ease.
She skips out of his arms with an expression of glee that, until now, she’d only been witnessed to wear when she’d been mired in the depths of her investigations. At the exact time, Captain Levi falls out of nowhere. Six feet from where Hange had been diving down.
The Commander catches him, too. Without changing pace. Or expressions.
Mikasa’s usual ellipses is practically audible even over the ruckus.
“Mother’s apple pies,” Connie gasps, one hand pressed against his chest to check that his heart’s properly restarted and the other clenched around Sasha’s forearm to keep himself upright, “this Corps is mad!”
Sasha, clutching his arm in return, nods frantically. They watch with mute shock as Captain Levi levers himself off the Commander as though nothing special has happened. In fact, Squad Leader Hange has already trotted halfway out of eyeshot, bellowing for her assistant to log her next experiment’s progress, you’re late, Moblit, come on!
“Shut your mouths, there are cleaner ways to get more protein than eating live bugs,” the Captain says by way of greeting as he swings to land on their tree without disturbing a leaf.
“Bugs can be delicious,” Sasha feels compelled to protest, in defence of the honour of insects everywhere.
Sadly, nobody seems to care. “Is that why so many soldiers were gathering in the trees in the last fifteen minutes?” Connie demands. “To jump the Commander of the Survey Corps?”
The Captain doesn’t so much as blink. “Yes.”
They boggle at him as one. “T-that many trust falls in a row?” Bertolt gasps.
“Sharpens the reflexes.”
Ymir appears to be thoroughly unimpressed. “Doesn’t announcing it defeat the purpose of a surprise trust fall?” she drawls.
“You assume Erwin hadn’t already known that we were there to jump him,” the Captain counters. Just beyond his shoulder, the Commander is setting a soldier on her feet, he still taking everything in stride, she giggling like she’d received extra rations. “The guy knows these kinds of things like how he knows when he needs to take a dump.”
Bertolt shifts nervously, glancing at Armin. Mikasa’s silence gains more dots. Sasha takes pity. “How did you even know he’d be coming here?”
“He’s scheduled for stable inspections. And you fucks,” Captain Levi sweeps a look across them that could have cut down a Titan at fifty paces, “are scheduled for aerial competency tests. Why aren’t you already warming up? Move!”
“Begging pardon, sir,” Reiner says, “but the trust falls were unforeseen obstacles. We weren’t certain they were supposed to be part of our evaluations.”
The Captain scowls, but doesn’t get much further than opening his mouth when the shout rings across the forest. “Levi! Oi, Levi!”
“Are you blind even with those blasted glasses of yours?” the Captain bites out.
Squad Leader Hange hurries back into view at the base of the tree. “Hey! I need you on the third field in about fifteen minutes.”
“This exercise ends in two hours.”
“Well, I don’t get the field free anytime else! Have somebody else supervise.”
“I’m not rescheduling for your sake, shitty four-eyes. You want my time last minute, you make it for yourself.”
“So demanding!” She jets up to plant her feet on the tree and her hands on her hips, pouting in perpendicular to the staring recruits. “How about you supervise until I can get Dita to cover the evaluations?”
The only response the Captain deigns to give is an arched eyebrow and a huff. Squad Leader Hange just grins at him and turns to observe them with unnerving excitement. “You’re going to have fun,” she predicts with dire cheer.
“As much fun as you had back there?” Jean says morbidly, because he can’t help but poke at wounds. He’s the type Father had warned Sasha about, the brooder who is too sharp for his own good.
Squad Leader Hange practically sparkles at them with the force of her satisfaction. “Of course! Everybody in the Corps knows that Erwin has very steady arms,” she says confidently. “Very strong arms.”
Connie seems to have switched to complete fascination; he’s also the type Father had warned her about, because Sasha is just as bad a troublemaker, and Father has very clear visions of how much havoc their brand of troublemakers can wreak in groups. “Wait, we can all do this?”
Squad Leader Hange cackles, slapping him on the back. “He’s your Commander! He won’t let you down!”
Krista turns just in time to watch the Commander intercept Squad Leader Mike Zacharias’s silent jump for the back of his head with the stately aplomb of a dancer. Somehow. “Wow,” she breathes, “that’s amazing.”
Ymir pouts, lassoing Krista into her arms. “Leap at me, Krista, and I’ll show you even more amazing moves!”
Squad Leader Hange’s already rappelled back down, halfway distracted by whatever is next on her schedule. “Fifteen minutes!” she hollers, then is bouncing away at remarkable speeds. “Dita!”
Captain Levi casts a baleful glare down, then snaps it up to scour them. “You can think about giving him your own trust falls after you prove you can aim for shit. You four, step forward. As a team, your objective is to retrieve the mark on the last tree of the obstacle course. Your objective is to knock them out of the air without injuring anybody involved, including the trust falls. Then your objectives switch. The team with the fastest time of three gets one less round of aerial practice tomorrow. One minute until you start. Move!”
(“Isn’t the forest kind of out of the way, if the Commander’s heading for the stables?” Sasha finally ventures, when she finds herself dangling from the tree in which Levi is overseeing their exercise. Like, at least fifteen minutes out of the way, if he’s strolling at that pace.
(Levi shrugs. “Erwin knows how to make a point.”
(“That we are his, and he is ours?”
(“That we are one, and we are humanity’s,” Levi says, and Sasha hums before taking the opportunity to intercept Jean in midair.
(The thought is still beyond petrifying, to face down the Titans who have torn through humanity like a fire through kindling, but in solidarity, maybe facing their terror together won’t be nearly so bad.)
Through various unspecified sources, Armin and Connie independently confirm that almost every group hobby in the Survey Corps is informally sanctified by Squad Leader Hange Zoë before being officially, or unofficially, taken up by any number of members.
Despite her patronage status, though, Hange Zoë is apparently not subjected to any of the affectionate pranks or jokes that the rest of the Corps like to drench on their leaders. Ever. In fact, her direct subordinates don’t take on hobbies so much as they take on her hobbies.
“It’s not that Squad Leader isn’t receptive to pranks or anything!” Nifa looks aghast at the mere implication of such a suggestion. “It’s just... well...”
“We’d tried once, with squad seven,” Keiji says, shuddering, “and we ended up having to handle her mania for the rest of the day.”
Why Mikasa of all people had been chosen to investigate this reputed horror on behalf of the new members is more than a little beyond her comprehension.
Moblit’s face is already drawn with horrified recall. Then again, he wears it so often, possibly as a form of déjà vu whenever Hange Zoë is tearing through another experiment, that even Mikasa, who has encountered him a grand total of thrice, is tempted to take it for his default expression. “Not a good idea. So not a good idea...”
“What did you do?” she has to ask.
“We told her we’d found a new Titan class, a two-metre one.” Nifa firms her lips until they whiten into bloodless lines. “Squad Leader Mike Zacharius was not impressed when she leaped on him.”
“He did insist that we talk Squad Leader down once the misunderstanding was cleared up.”
“If he didn’t, Captain Levi would have insisted in his stead. Personally.” The collective shudder practically shakes the roof.
“Just to clarify,” Mikasa ventures carefully, “don’t the Squad Leaders personally know each other?”
“Yes, well,” Moblit coughs, “she may have been running on ten hours of sporadic naps in her eighty-second hour of research while being fuelled by, uh, one of her stimulating drinks.”
“I think the Commander had it put on the top of the list of banned substances after everything was over.”
Mikasa blinks. “The Commander himself?”
Moblit grimaces. “Yeah. Uh, after that, the Commander made it explicit that he expects us to follow up with each and every consequence of our leisure activities without necessitating his or the Captain’s direct intervention. Or both at the same time.”
Mikasa winces, then tries to rally herself. “So what would you consider one of her hobbies aside from researching on Titans?”
The answer from four voices harmonized. “Cooking.”
“Cooking?”
“I know, right? We thought she was joking the first time around, but she was actually quite serious,” Moblit says mournfully. Mikasa blinks, then blinks again when the smell hits. No wonder why everybody had been walking away so quickly when she was making her way here for the interview... “Squad Leader is very invested in our wellbeing, so she’s determined to find the best, well, she calls them recipes, to feed us.”
Mikasa nods, understanding; when food had run short during their initial years adrift from Shiganshina, she and Eren and Armin had concocted healthful combinations they wouldn’t try again for the sake of their tongues even if the Military were to triple their salary. She also makes a mental note to keep Sasha away from Hange’s lab, lest she be forced to deal with an upset stomach hosted by an even more upset roommate come nighttime. “They are healthy, at least?”
“Yes. They are healthy. At least. Though if the taste doesn’t fool you, the texture will,” Nifa mutters. Frederique heaves a sigh beside her, expression funereal.
“And yet you’ve all gathered to eat it,” Mikasa observes.
The entire room exchanges a single glance fraught with unspoken emotion. “I don’t believe you’ve observed the Squad Leader in pursuit of results,” Frederique finally rumbles, “or you would not be asking.”
“And honestly, we’d rather she test on us than she test on herself,” Nifa adds. “You know how Captain Levi rotates squads on cleaning duty? We also rotate squads sitting at Squad Leader Hange’s mess, but we organize it ourselves. Well, Moblit does.”
“He even got Captain Levi to sit at her mess a few times!” Keiji says proudly. “It’s incredible!”
“Believe me, if Captain Levi wasn’t already half-willing, I would have had no chance of success at all,” Moblit demurs.
“I see.” The smell is getting stronger, and proportionally more unbearable. “I will take my leave of your meal—”
A firm grip snags her elbow. “Now that you’re here, though,” Keiji says with a considering air that fools absolutely no one when Mikasa turns to give her a questioning look, “I’m sure the Squad Leader will be more than happy to feed you, too. The more the merrier, as they used to say.”
Moblit’s tone is equally meditative. “And portion sizes will be smaller when more people partake.”
“Don’t be offended,” Nifa advises before Mikasa can edge in a word, “we’ve given up on subtlety for these kinds of things when the Squad Leader proved immune to death threats from Captain Levi himself.”
Squad Leader Hange Zoë chooses then to barge through the door, cradling a cast-iron pot of a truly intimidating size in between comically large gloves. “Oh, more hungry visitors?” she carols, lugging the filled pot with alarming carelessness, “come on in, sit down! This recipe’s nutritional profile is mostly complete based on the Health Organization’s recommendations from last year, and I’m 83% certain this batch won’t cause foodborne illness!”
“Don’t worry, Ackerman,” Keiji says with ominous cheer as he finishes setting an extra place beside Frederique, “Squad Leader always makes sure to pick all-edible ingredients.”
“You aim to have everyone go down together?” Mikasa says, edging away.
“We have faced Titans! It will take something much less mundane than food to take us all down,” Nifa says bravely, as she moves to block the door.
Only then does it dawn upon Mikasa, too slowly, that her single gravest tactical error to date is to allow Hange Zoë’s squad to stall her with their willingness to divulge information, and then get between her and every escape route from an enclosed area.
(The batch does not cause foodborne illness. Nor does it cause spontaneous requests for second servings. Not even from Squad Leader Hange Zoë of the Iron Stomach herself.
(“Mikasa understands my investigative methods better than Eren,” Armin tells her soothingly when she confronts him, “and I wouldn’t have trusted anybody else to do this correctly.” It would have been more convincing if he wasn’t clearly preparing to duck for cover behind Reiner, the latter of whom is failing to hide his amusement behind his sympathy.
(“He thinks you can survive anything,” Ymir clarifies helpfully between gasps for breath. She is laughing too hard to think about ducking for cover behind anything, and doesn’t stop even when Krista smacks her.
(Mikasa bares her teeth at her, but it helps. Somewhat.)
Commander Dot Pixis and his venerable aide take their leaves mid-afternoon, three hours after Hange had left with Connie in tow, and an hour after Levi had departed to prepare for his operation. Judging by the angle of the light streaming in from the window, the sun is about to set in two hours.
Save for the expected wooziness from the analgesic, Erwin finds his mind clear enough to take stock of his surroundings. Off-white walls wrap around the wooden floor, broken only by the blurry pane of the window. The ordinary bedside table hosts a half-filled jar of water and a glass. Despite the orderly appearance, Levi had nearly thrown a fit when he’d first come in, which Erwin had taken to mean that medical sterility is somewhat below Levi’s exacting standards. To Erwin’s undiscerning eye, the hospital room looks much the same as all clinics do: featureless and utilitarian, nothing remarkable at all.
This is hell, he decides.
He is alone, neither locked nor restrained, left to recuperate in silence and relative safety, and he is about to wage war with the bed-sheets for his sanity’s sake. Erwin’s mind is a thing of razors and tripwires; should it be left spinning at full speed and bereft of a direction to expend the energy, he will bleed for it. It is at least half the reason why Erwin is not a sedentary man.
The medication thankfully does not impair his mobility. He waits until the nurses are busy with their shift change, and slips out of his room without further drama. The security in the hospital is pitiful; he’ll have to have a word with the Commander soon. How could any soldier feel secure in such an open area?
Still, it’s a relief. His balance has yet to fully adjust to the shift in his centre of gravity. He hasn’t been able to fully assess the extent of the change, due to the chief medical officer confiscating his clearance to use his manoeuvre gear the moment Erwin had been helped into her clinic, but his body starts learning how to rectify his overcompensation within fifteen minutes. Good. He’ll need at least six weeks of recovery and intensive retraining before he’s field-ready again, but he’ll still be able to fight.
He pauses quite inadvertently three steps outside the door to take a deep breath. It’s a risk a nurse will recognize him, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take. The air is fresh and mobile, missing the medicinal desperation within the hospital, and he has forgotten to brace himself for it. How careless; he has grown lax in such few days within the Walls.
His feet have a will of their own; he is walking before he quite realizes where he means to go. But he is not truly surprised; every part of him knows where Erwin Smith belongs.
Local scuttlebutt is unfortunately predictable. Civilians have never been shy about gossip, but they have been particularly indiscreet these past few days. It’s no wonder; their reported losses stagger through every branch of the Military, and many of their Police have been lost in the expedition. How dare he waste their precious talent like so much spilled water. How dare he walk as though he has not sinned. How dare he.
Erwin lets the talk trail him. It is but a simple thing to ignore the whispers. He’d known what he wanted, and he’d known what he had with which to bargain. He’d obtained his objective within acceptable cost parameters. He will face his reckoning after his duty is done. Until then, the war rages onwards, and the battlefield needs tilling.
As expected, a sizable number of Survey Corps soldiers have gathered in full uniform and geared up in the Garrison’s training grounds. They notice him the moment he takes one step onto the field.
“Commander!” His soldiers salute him, then swarm close, haloing him as he walks towards the sparse grove of trees. “Commander, you’re back already? The doctors said—”
A few words later, he scatters them. He knows his men. They may be good at redirection on the field, but they lack sufficient exposure to Wall medics to deny them anything for long. It is only a matter of time before the hospital discovers his empty room and sends a search party to take him back and drug him into obsolescence. So—
Erwin pauses, the back of his neck prickling with the familiar sensation of being watched, then turns and looks up. Levi stares back down at him, footing solid on the intersecting branches of a tree, three metres above him.
Erwin’s mouth moves of its own accord. “I see you have finished your paperwork.”
“No thanks to you.”
“Yes.” No wonder why Levi is looking rather hunted. “I have been rather indisposed.”
Levi just stares at him. Erwin does not speak of the shadows that tail him and encircle his hospital, shadows that remind him of Levi's movements in Sina’s underbelly; Levi does not ask if he should be on his feet. They are far too familiar with each other for that.
“I know what you want,” Levi finally says, very steadily.
Erwin tilts his head. “What of it?” he replies, rather mystified.
Levi shifts his weight, almost too minutely to be seen; from him, it’s as clear a telegraphed warning as a smoke signal. “So get ready,” he growls, one second before he leaps.
Erwin manages to grab him before he hits the ground by pure reflex. He fights down a wince when the motion jars his injured arm hard enough for the pain to bleed through; it’s nothing unbearable, beneath the haze of the drugs, but it’s still unfamiliar and unpleasant— Refocus. Levi is alive and patient against him, pinpoint eyes watching his six. Maybe it’s because Levi is smaller than most, but he fits quite comfortably in the crook of Erwin’s remaining arm, warm and solid and here.
“Trust fall,” Levi murmurs into the shell of his ear, in the frozen moment when Erwin is still adjusting his balance and Levi is still an immobile bundle of wiry muscles thrown across his chest. Then Levi arches and flips off his arm, somehow also managing to reverse the slow backwards fall that Erwin couldn’t correct.
Then his body turns at the yodel, and his arm wraps around Hange’s waist just before she nearly knocks them both down.
Approximately nine seconds has passed since he’d spotted Levi up in the tree. Erwin’s still not entirely sure what has just happened. Perhaps he isn’t as unaffected by the drugs as he had first assumed...
Hange doesn’t help. “You’ve still got it!” she informs him brightly, patting his cheek with the arm that isn’t taped – scrubbing at his stubble, really – and squirms out of his hold to the tune of her perpetual background chorus of worried subordinates and the particularly despairing bellow of her assistant.
Erwin surreptitiously braces himself for more, stump starting to ache, but his instincts are no longer tingling. It seems as if nobody else is about to take the same liberties. He waves away his concerned soldiers before they become more of a spectacle. All participants are unharmed and ready for battle at the first toll of the bell; all is well. Besides, Hange has always made herself a more receptive target than he or Levi do to their subordinates, in that aspect...
He is definitely affected by the drugs.
“They don’t know you,” Levi says quietly at his elbow.
“No,” Erwin replies, blithe, watching Hange stride across the field with nine soldiers in tow, “or they’d have followed Hange’s example. She is not setting a good one, though, if she does not rest.”
Levi levels him a glare. “You can’t fail them if they don’t know what you do. That’s why you’ll never fail us.”
Erwin closes his eyes. “She definitely should not be out of bed yet.”
Levi snorts. “You try keeping her in there. Moblit look about ready to cry every waking second, and he’s only barring her from the kitchens.”
“My men know how to pick their battles wisely,” Erwin says, an inadvertent frisson of pride shading his amusement into something much stronger.
“You did train them.”
“Has she taken her painkillers?”
“She’s quieter when she’s doped up.”
Erwin gives Levi a look.
“You know she hates the way they fuck with her head. I still haven’t found anybody who’s managed to get her to actually take her medication, but I haven’t screened all the recruits yet. Hey, you should consider promoting somebody like that. Save everybody a shitton of bother.”
“If she’s not listening to you or me, I doubt anybody else will have much success with that particular venture. Still,” Erwin continues, as he watches the corners of Hange’s eyes tighten when she thinks nobody’s looking, “I do wish to know if she’s taken her painkillers. I would not like to chance overdosing her.”
“Damn,” Levi sighs, “times like these, Zacharias would really have come in handy. Still no sign of him, huh?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Levi heaves an irritated breath. “How much time’s left?”
“The window for declaring missing Corps members presumed dead is seven days after their last sighting.”
“Shitnosed bastard always manages to make me work... Fine. I’ll finish processing the paperwork and send off the condolence letters tomorrow morning, before I go.”
“Thank you. I should be able to sign for myself within three days.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Erwin. We’re a far cry from done, and I’m holding you to that. Why the fuck would anybody willingly become a Commander if they knew how much filthy paperwork the rank would entail...”
They watch Hange thoroughly distract the rest of their men from the two of them for a little longer, before Levi relents and goes to relieve their subordinates of the handful that is their only companion left.
Somewhere along their crooked way, Hange had learned mercy, and Levi, grace. Mike will never demonstrate what he’d learned, but when Erwin gets the chance, he’ll be sure to reprimand him. They could all have used his experience.
He is not yet tired enough to sleep, and pain has long ceased to be sufficient to stop him. So Erwin keeps walking.
(The command team of the Survey Corps does not remember every squad they have ever formed or led. It is not out of malice that they forget; it is simply that the memory used for such facts is better served for the humanity that remains to face the nightmare. Their dead would not have appreciated having their comrades die in their remembrance. They may all of them have been only numbers, but they are numbers that count. That must count...
(The pieces are falling into place. It is time to accelerate, and to look within before looking outwards again. If they are careful, perhaps they even won’t lose anybody more than whom they must.
(The next time they meet together like this will probably be in hell. It’ll be an interesting exercise when they compare their tallies.)
“That is all.” Thérèse raps her sheaf of paper against the desk twice, then lays it flat, perpendicular to his files. “Notes?”
“Interesting developments.” A rise in vandalism reports of graffiti from the Garrison, studious silence on corruption from the Police, and indignant protests of ‘general Survey Corps insanity’ from both. Accompanied by proportionate amounts of very formal assurances from the Survey Corps that such accusations are exaggerated, in between the usual requests for more funding. Of course, he is still officially two months behind reviewing the reports for current events, but bureaucracy has its moments of usefulness, especially when one has to give the court excuses backed by the indomitable might of red tape. “I honestly had expected to have to field more complaints than usual.”
“I presume that the more experienced Garrison commanders know how to sympathize with different coping mechanisms. No matter how idiosyncratic their manifestations.”
“That’s one way to phrase Commander Pixis’s partialities.” Thérèse has long been the sharpest soldier on his payroll, well before she’d become his aide; she’s become even better with her words. “Still, it’s a good reminder.”
Thérèse looks as though she wants to smile. “A reminder of what, sir?”
“A reminder that we are not tame.”
She hums agreeably. “What of boundaries?”
“What of them? A kept bird does not desire to fly out the opened cage just because it is told to want freedom.” Darius stares at his hands, watches his fingers lace together with pensive languor. “Faith is a precious commodity, Colonel, not the least to somebody who has willingly ridden into hell and returned to prepare for another trip back.”
Thérèse folds her own hands. “Of course. Speaking of which, there have been reports of deaths of prominent Marian merchants. I am afraid that their heirs presumptive may have been lax with their taxes, and the Police too lenient in the confusion of the internal review. I will have Helen and Andreas conduct surprise inspections in the markets tomorrow. After all, we mustn’t let our precious resources be mishandled.”
He cannot resist a laugh. “You are a wonder, Rousseau. A revolution, indeed!” he murmurs beneath his breath. “Such dangerous hobbies we have. Play with fire often enough, and the nerves desensitize, don’t they?”
Thérèse does smile at that, a blade flashing for one chill second before sheathing back into her usual professionalism. “If there is anything the Military has taught me, it is that humans can be infinitely dangerous in any class or rank, shape or form. Because we learn and adapt, and we rise.”
“That is to be hoped. We’ll need that ruthlessness to survive. Do not forget that the Military has always and ever underestimated blooded soldiers used to overwhelming odds.”
“I will not forget. By your leave, Führer.”
“Dismissed.”
He waits until the door closes before skimming over Thérèse’s coded summary of the arrests and the connections her people had noted, and has to fight to keep his satisfied nod buried. Erwin Smith is becoming exactly the kind of person he’d thought he would be. If Darius has not misjudged, the man would have already started reaping what he’d sown for civilian support; the fact that he is not publicly free to move will not hamper that. And since the First Royal Division of the Military Police has already made its brazen stretch beyond the shadows of their supposed secrets... well. Thérèse is very good at her job. They’ll find out the full extent of all their efforts soon enough.
No, they are not tame, none of them, and boundaries will fast lose even the shred of meaning they had once borne in peace. Time is running out; the world will not stop moving onwards on humanity’s account. They will all of them need to consider their stance, and mobilize accordingly. No longer do they have time to indulge in hobbies with harmless outcomes. Indeed, the erstwhile leaders of their smallest Corps has been living that philosophy since its inception. It’s about time for him to focus, too, on resources and fronts and factions and the underlying cause of it all.
Hope is the currency of humanity’s survival. And as they had once said, hope dies last. So the last one standing will be the hope for all.
This time... who will it be?
-fin-
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General
Word Count: ~7700
Warnings: Implied major character death. Levi’s potty mouth. Spoilers and foreshadowing of events up to manga chapter 57, and may not be compliant with future chapters.
Also Archived On: Livejournal; Archive of Our Own.
A.N.: Part 4 (Trusting) was inspired by this hilarious sequence of fanart.
Summary: The Survey Corps is generally considered to have more unique hobbies than the other Military branches. Of course, after each expedition, they may need to adapt some of them...
Prologue: On Public Relations
Even though the Survey Corps occupies the imagination more than the tangible reality of the daily life of the average citizen, they are nonetheless as polarizing as they are legendary. Hope, as they say, die last, so it stands to reason that as the supposed hope of humanity, they’d have seen all sort of things in their trials for survival. It’s only to be expected that they be a little abnormal in the head, though whether they were so as a result of joining the Survey Corps or to have decided to join the Survey Corps in the first place is a matter of raucous debate in rowdy taverns.
Reputations, strange or otherwise, are however not easily solidified by mere claims or expectations. As the Survey Corps’ regular conduct in their line of duty is not observable by the rest of the populace, it befalls the Corps’ leisure time within the Walls to cement their reputation. So, they are watched, within and without.
Well.
On this aspect, at least, the Corps does not fail to exceed expectations. As a whole, Survey Corps is odder.
Connecting
Nile honestly had not expected to chance upon Levi in the back campus of the Corps’ training grounds. He’d assumed that the man would be buried in a supplies depot or an office with the list of mobile equipment in hand, given the man’s reputed fastidiousness; and yet, here he is, watching a motley collection of his subordinates hover over something with buckets and what looks to be rakes.
Oh, well. There’s nothing yet he can do about Levi’s past relations with his Police, and neutrality is as good a starting point as any. “Captain Levi. Where’s your Commander?”
Levi doesn’t even bother looking at him. “On this fine day? Off getting over his constipation somewhere, probably.”
“Is that figurative or literal?”
“Everybody’s got to shit sometime.”
So either he doesn’t know where Erwin is, or he’s not about to cooperate. Great. Great, this is not what he needs, not today of all days. “Do you know when he’ll be free?”
Levi glances at the papers in Nile’s arms. “Why? Everything should have been settled.”
“Bureaucracy is not so easily escaped, unfortu— nately...” Nile pauses, momentum unhinged, squinting as if it would help clarify what he’s seeing. The stench of pine tar and turpentine is heavy even from where they’re standing. Everything should have been settled. Ah. “Are they painting your tent?”
Levi slants him a dead stare. “Waterproofing my backup.”
“Oil doesn’t come in camouflage.”
Levi shrugs one shoulder. “They’re competing.”
A beat. “Competing in what?” Nile finally asks. He’s not entirely sure if he’s not going to regret the question.
“On who makes the best camouflage stain,” Levi says, “obviously. Why the fuck do you think they’re each painting one side?”
That doesn’t even make sense. How are they supposed to evaluate its effectiveness? See which side is most run over by his own soldiers by the end of some arbitrary timeframe? Does camouflage work against Titans? Do they even use tents? “I don’t know,” Nile mutters, “I try not to expect anything from you so I won’t be surprised.”
“How’s that working out for you? As well as your Police’s combat records?”
Nile lets his glare grow a smidgeon more hostile. And he’d only just gotten rid of his tension headache, too. “Until you’ve tried handling politics firsthand, I don’t want to hear your opinion of it.”
Levi meets his eyes for a few flat moments before inclining his head. “No, thanks. I’d sooner kill them all than deal with their bitching.”
It is as close to a truce as Levi has ever offered to him in all their short years of passing acquaintance. Nile is not used to taking what he can get, but the Survey Corps have always managed to throw him off to a disconcerting degree, so he grits his teeth and accepts with as much grace as he can muster. “I thought they’d paint their own first.”
“They did.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“We test out our shit first before we give it out,” Levi scoffs, the heavy weight of duh making his sarcasm more cutting than usual. “It’s common sense if you don’t want to contribute to a fellow soldier’s fucking death.”
“I see.” Erwin must have a hell of a time with his Captain. Nile really shouldn’t be surprised; the man has had a twisted sense of humour even during their trainee days. Adopting a pet criminal is well in line with his deviant tastes.
“Besides,” Levi adds, with casual indifference, “they’ve already finished scrubbing the stables clean. As an outlet from tension, this is about as productive as it can get.”
...Oh. Oh. Walls and cabals. So this is what affection from Levi looks like.
Levi’s eyes narrow. “What’s with that stupid-ass expression?”
Nile settles for holding his tongue and shaking his head. Levi would attempt to castrate him if he calls him soft, even if the fact that he’s allowing them to repaint his perfectly serviceable tent with four perfectly serviceable variations of camouflage waterproofing is proof enough.
Levi gives him another look, then huffs. “You’re surprised. No expectations don’t help at all, huh.”
“I just—” Nile sighs, exhaling his irritation by force; he can feel his headache looming over the foreseeable horizon with a vengeance. Damn Survey Corps. If this is what he’d avoided by choosing the Police, then he’s got one more reason to be satisfied. “I’d have expected that you would take up gear maintenance as a hobby by force of necessity or something, not try and innovate on little things on your downtime.”
“We’ve all finished our daily checks. It doesn’t take that long for competent people.”
And that’s enough Levi for his day. Nile’s not about to spend more energy on civility when he doesn’t have to, and Levi has made it very clear that he hasn’t changed his opinion on pleasantries. “I’m running on a schedule. Does anybody else know where Erwin might be, or when he might be free?”
Levi glances at the papers again. “Mike’s in food storage. He’d know which shithouse Erwin picked this time,” he says, before turning his back in clear dismissal.
Nile gives serious consideration to answering with silence, but no. They are neither of them nice men; nor are they heartless. “Tomorrow’s going to be the start of your 56th expedition, right? Don’t die easy.”
“We’ll see,” is Levi’s pithy answer, which is just insane. Erwin’s got his entire Corps ready to lay down and bleed for him, and he sends them all to certain death against the threat outside instead of mitigating the threat inside.
Sometimes he wonders if Erwin remembers that he, too, is not heartless. But he won’t bother asking; the fact that he’s begun to think of Erwin like so is indication enough that Erwin Smith, Commander and thankless weapon of humanity, no longer trusts him.
Which is fine. They are not free men. They will meet as rank equals, and part as rank equals. Erwin can play chess with the madness that is his Corps, while Nile consolidates his Police, and they’ll see who will get to achieve their dreams. The fact that they were once friends has long ceased to matter in the face of their duties.
-----
(It isn’t until he has returned to the inner sanctum of Wall Sina that he realizes he’s forgotten to ask Levi to tell him the winning recipe. For curiosity’s sake, of course. Nothing more.
(It’s not like he can’t look up the recipe when they submit the innovation, but he might as well just ask the Survey Corps directly the next time he has to visit. A headache is a fair exchange for any information, and Levi still thinks his tells are unreadable.)
Detecting (Without Being Detected)
“Ah, are we interrupting?” Armin peers around the corner of the door.
He doesn’t have to look at Jean to know that he is brooding again, and trying to hide it. In company less illustrious, Jean would probably be even more distracted. But the four soldiers within, whispering amongst themselves in a cluster around a table, are a Squad Leader’s handpicked set; it won’t do to make a bad impression.
The closest soldier straightens and waves them in. “No, come in.”
“Way to clear that with the leader, Lynne,” says the blond man beside her, screwing his flask closed and tilting his chair back on two legs.
Lynne nudges him hard enough to topple him with a crash. “Nanaba doesn’t care, so I don’t see why you should.”
The man glares at her from his sprawl on the ground. “Oh, so you speak on behalf of Nanaba now?”
“Ha, since when does Nanaba need to be spoken on behalf of?”
“What can we do for you?” says the soldier with the close-shaven head above his comrades’ bickering, very politely.
“Erm,” Armin flounders, thrown, still frozen in his salute.
Jean plucks the sheaf of papers from Armin’s hand and proffers it. “Missive from the team leader in squad six. About the 57th expedition. It requires Squad Leader Mike Zacharias’s approval.”
“Okay. Nanaba?”
The fourth soldier near the back walks around the table to take the papers, skimming through them briefly. “It isn’t top priority, I presume?” Clear brown eyes spear Armin with a quiet stare that impacts like a bullet. Armin doesn’t realize that he’s not breathing until that look slides away to his side. On cue, Jean sucks in a startled breath of his own. “Then there’s no need to notify him now. He’ll track it down on his own schedule.”
They’re mute for the moment it takes Nanaba to set down the paperwork on one of six indistinguishable piles on what is presumably Mike Zacharias’s desk and return to the table. Then Jean shakes himself hard enough for Armin to feel it, a foot away and with his back turned, and asks, disbelievingly, “With all due respect, but ‘track it down on his own schedule’? You mean to just...” Jean trails off, skepticism strangling his voice for another moment. “Let the Squad Leader look for new papers on his desk?”
“Yeah?” The soldier picking himself up off the floor takes in their expressions mid-word, and grins. “Aw, you’re worried, that’s cute. Don’t fret, finding something like that on his desk is nothing for him. And Nanaba’s the world’s greatest taskmaster when it comes to hounding Squad Leaders for incomplete paperwork.”
“That’s because Gelgar’s too busy drinking to hound him. I mean, look, he was already on the ground,” Lynne tells them in a stage whisper, and gets punched in the arm for her efforts.
“The Squad Leader is busy,” Nanaba says, with supreme indifference, “but he will submit the forms on time.”
Armin’s blood runs cold. Lynne and the soldier with the shaved head wince in tandem, in what looks to be clear pity for the Squad Leader. “Damn,” Gelgar says sympathetically by way of an opinion, and takes a drink from his flask smelling so strongly of Vine that Armin can practically taste it from seven feet away.
In fact, it probably is Vine. So Lynne was serious? Huh.
Nanaba flicks a softer glance at them. “If that is all, you’re dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.” Armin takes a step back, then hesitates, considering. “We’ve been told that our duties are complete after we deliver the document. I-is there anything we can help with before we take our leave?”
Jean’s silence behind him grows thorns.
Nanaba gives them another unnervingly even look, then shrugs. “Why not. Maybe fresh brains will have fresh ideas.”
Gelgar outright smirks at that. “All right. All right! Come in properly, and shut the door.”
Armin obeys, hearing Jean comply with the latter part. His palms are starting to sweat; hopefully he had read the situation correctly and not—
“So. We’re trying to come up with a way to hide scents.”
Armin starts. “H-hide scents?” He shakes himself. “Like, cover a scent, or make it untraceable, or change it by some other mechanism? Sir.”
“We’re trying to find something that won’t set off our dear Squad Leader’s nose.” Lynne holds up the list with a sigh. “So far, we’ve discovered a lot that will. Eh, Henning?”
Set off the Squad Leader’s nose?
Henning’s expression dissolves into one of sheepish worry. “Everything will.”
Armin hesitates, then ventures, “H-have you ever tried overwhelming his nose? Temporarily?”
He can practically feel Jean’s puzzlement sharpen. What? It had worked on the feral dogs in the slums of Wall Maria. To shut down a sense, they could either do something to the stimulus or the sensory equipment.
Henning and Lynne glance at each other. “Mmh, good idea, but it’s not going to work for our purposes. And we can’t risk shutting down the Squad Leader’s nose, even behind the Walls.”
Armin frowns. “I-if you don’t mind us asking, why exactly are you trying to find something that won’t register with the Squad Leader’s nose?”
Lynne takes a cautious glance around, then leans close conspiratorially. “Not that we’re complaining about the Squad Leader’s scouting abilities, but do you know how hard it is to prank somebody properly when he can smell you from halfway across town?”
“I swore I took a bath before I tried last time,” Gelgar grumbles.
“By the rate you drink, I doubt a bath would have helped.”
“...I would contest this, but I don’t think I can actually deny that possibility.”
“I don’t know enough about chemistry to help with the alternatives,” Armin says with a helpless shrug. “Jean?”
“I know even less than you,” Jean snorts. “If the Squad Leader isn’t so easily distracted from smells, I’d think the only pranks that he will work on him are the sorts that will do the job even when discovered.”
“We thought about that too,” Henning agrees, “but getting the Squad Leader to fall for even one of those has proven fruitless.”
Armin exchanges a look with Jean, and shrugs helplessly.
Lynne sighs, an explosive gesture that slumps her across the table. “Well, all right. Thanks anyway, boys. Off you go! Enjoy your precious free time.”
“There you go again, speaking for Nanaba,” Gelgar complains, swinging his flask at her.
“Dismissed,” Nanaba supplies obligingly, as Lynne ducks the container and rises like a stormfront to topple Gelgar again.
Jean is frowning when they shut the door. They are halfway down the path when he opens his mouth. Armin braces himself.
“Good try.”
Armin yelps, nearly jumping out of his skin. Jean bites off his curse mid-syllable. They both glance up at the same time.
Squad Leader Mike Zacharias waves at them cheerily from the rooftop. “They’ve been trying for months. Still no go, huh.”
“Sir!” Armin salutes. His heart is trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. “Forgive us for aiding and abetting, sir!”
Mike Zacharias watches them with unreadable eyes – Nanaba must have learned that look from him, or maybe the other way around – then waves them a forgiving gesture. “If there is anything that can be done about it, they’ll discover it. Better that my squad finds out before the Titans do. Dismissed.”
“Sir!”
-----
(“What was that about?” Jean demands the moment they’re out of civilized earshot.
(Armin shrugs, refusing to be intimidated. “I-it was a good opportunity to take stock of the other squads. We’ll be working together—”
(“Taking stock doesn’t require us to incriminate ourselves!”
(“Don’t worry. They wouldn’t have gotten us into trouble.”
(“And you can tell how?”
(Armin smiles. “I-I know their kind of people. Like... um, for example, Gelgar reminded me of somebody I’d known since I was young. He’s fond of Vine, but he works hard. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t have told on us unless it was going to be to a benefit worth what we’d give up.” He laughs softly. “He’s ranked in the Garrison now. You should meet him; I think you’ll like him.”
(Jean gives him another look, but says nothing else for the rest of the trip to their barracks.)
Trusting
Even though they’d spent the last three years sweating and bleeding and cursing next to each other, the silence on the tree is as awkward as a nest of newly-hatched birds figuring each other out for the first time. “You know,” Reiner finally surmises with a grimace, “this exercise really hammers home how sad recruiting for the Survey Corps really is.”
Sasha has to agree; she can count all the present participants of the recruit training with fingers to spare for the manoeuvre gear. This isn’t even a particularly big tree, either; the fact that they can stay within eyeshot of each other is disconcerting.
Actually, the amount of Survey Corps soldiers gathered in the trees around them is disconcerting, too. Had they come to observe them or something—
“Trust fall!” Squad Leader Hange Zoë bellows, and proceeds to commit suicide by throwing herself headfirst towards the ground.
Sasha barely has time to begin shrieking in tandem with Connie and Krista before Commander Erwin Smith, who happens to be passing by just beneath the tree, extends his arms and catches the Squad Leader with obscene ease.
She skips out of his arms with an expression of glee that, until now, she’d only been witnessed to wear when she’d been mired in the depths of her investigations. At the exact time, Captain Levi falls out of nowhere. Six feet from where Hange had been diving down.
The Commander catches him, too. Without changing pace. Or expressions.
Mikasa’s usual ellipses is practically audible even over the ruckus.
“Mother’s apple pies,” Connie gasps, one hand pressed against his chest to check that his heart’s properly restarted and the other clenched around Sasha’s forearm to keep himself upright, “this Corps is mad!”
Sasha, clutching his arm in return, nods frantically. They watch with mute shock as Captain Levi levers himself off the Commander as though nothing special has happened. In fact, Squad Leader Hange has already trotted halfway out of eyeshot, bellowing for her assistant to log her next experiment’s progress, you’re late, Moblit, come on!
“Shut your mouths, there are cleaner ways to get more protein than eating live bugs,” the Captain says by way of greeting as he swings to land on their tree without disturbing a leaf.
“Bugs can be delicious,” Sasha feels compelled to protest, in defence of the honour of insects everywhere.
Sadly, nobody seems to care. “Is that why so many soldiers were gathering in the trees in the last fifteen minutes?” Connie demands. “To jump the Commander of the Survey Corps?”
The Captain doesn’t so much as blink. “Yes.”
They boggle at him as one. “T-that many trust falls in a row?” Bertolt gasps.
“Sharpens the reflexes.”
Ymir appears to be thoroughly unimpressed. “Doesn’t announcing it defeat the purpose of a surprise trust fall?” she drawls.
“You assume Erwin hadn’t already known that we were there to jump him,” the Captain counters. Just beyond his shoulder, the Commander is setting a soldier on her feet, he still taking everything in stride, she giggling like she’d received extra rations. “The guy knows these kinds of things like how he knows when he needs to take a dump.”
Bertolt shifts nervously, glancing at Armin. Mikasa’s silence gains more dots. Sasha takes pity. “How did you even know he’d be coming here?”
“He’s scheduled for stable inspections. And you fucks,” Captain Levi sweeps a look across them that could have cut down a Titan at fifty paces, “are scheduled for aerial competency tests. Why aren’t you already warming up? Move!”
“Begging pardon, sir,” Reiner says, “but the trust falls were unforeseen obstacles. We weren’t certain they were supposed to be part of our evaluations.”
The Captain scowls, but doesn’t get much further than opening his mouth when the shout rings across the forest. “Levi! Oi, Levi!”
“Are you blind even with those blasted glasses of yours?” the Captain bites out.
Squad Leader Hange hurries back into view at the base of the tree. “Hey! I need you on the third field in about fifteen minutes.”
“This exercise ends in two hours.”
“Well, I don’t get the field free anytime else! Have somebody else supervise.”
“I’m not rescheduling for your sake, shitty four-eyes. You want my time last minute, you make it for yourself.”
“So demanding!” She jets up to plant her feet on the tree and her hands on her hips, pouting in perpendicular to the staring recruits. “How about you supervise until I can get Dita to cover the evaluations?”
The only response the Captain deigns to give is an arched eyebrow and a huff. Squad Leader Hange just grins at him and turns to observe them with unnerving excitement. “You’re going to have fun,” she predicts with dire cheer.
“As much fun as you had back there?” Jean says morbidly, because he can’t help but poke at wounds. He’s the type Father had warned Sasha about, the brooder who is too sharp for his own good.
Squad Leader Hange practically sparkles at them with the force of her satisfaction. “Of course! Everybody in the Corps knows that Erwin has very steady arms,” she says confidently. “Very strong arms.”
Connie seems to have switched to complete fascination; he’s also the type Father had warned her about, because Sasha is just as bad a troublemaker, and Father has very clear visions of how much havoc their brand of troublemakers can wreak in groups. “Wait, we can all do this?”
Squad Leader Hange cackles, slapping him on the back. “He’s your Commander! He won’t let you down!”
Krista turns just in time to watch the Commander intercept Squad Leader Mike Zacharias’s silent jump for the back of his head with the stately aplomb of a dancer. Somehow. “Wow,” she breathes, “that’s amazing.”
Ymir pouts, lassoing Krista into her arms. “Leap at me, Krista, and I’ll show you even more amazing moves!”
Squad Leader Hange’s already rappelled back down, halfway distracted by whatever is next on her schedule. “Fifteen minutes!” she hollers, then is bouncing away at remarkable speeds. “Dita!”
Captain Levi casts a baleful glare down, then snaps it up to scour them. “You can think about giving him your own trust falls after you prove you can aim for shit. You four, step forward. As a team, your objective is to retrieve the mark on the last tree of the obstacle course. Your objective is to knock them out of the air without injuring anybody involved, including the trust falls. Then your objectives switch. The team with the fastest time of three gets one less round of aerial practice tomorrow. One minute until you start. Move!”
-----
(“Isn’t the forest kind of out of the way, if the Commander’s heading for the stables?” Sasha finally ventures, when she finds herself dangling from the tree in which Levi is overseeing their exercise. Like, at least fifteen minutes out of the way, if he’s strolling at that pace.
(Levi shrugs. “Erwin knows how to make a point.”
(“That we are his, and he is ours?”
(“That we are one, and we are humanity’s,” Levi says, and Sasha hums before taking the opportunity to intercept Jean in midair.
(The thought is still beyond petrifying, to face down the Titans who have torn through humanity like a fire through kindling, but in solidarity, maybe facing their terror together won’t be nearly so bad.)
Provisioning
Through various unspecified sources, Armin and Connie independently confirm that almost every group hobby in the Survey Corps is informally sanctified by Squad Leader Hange Zoë before being officially, or unofficially, taken up by any number of members.
Despite her patronage status, though, Hange Zoë is apparently not subjected to any of the affectionate pranks or jokes that the rest of the Corps like to drench on their leaders. Ever. In fact, her direct subordinates don’t take on hobbies so much as they take on her hobbies.
“It’s not that Squad Leader isn’t receptive to pranks or anything!” Nifa looks aghast at the mere implication of such a suggestion. “It’s just... well...”
“We’d tried once, with squad seven,” Keiji says, shuddering, “and we ended up having to handle her mania for the rest of the day.”
Why Mikasa of all people had been chosen to investigate this reputed horror on behalf of the new members is more than a little beyond her comprehension.
Moblit’s face is already drawn with horrified recall. Then again, he wears it so often, possibly as a form of déjà vu whenever Hange Zoë is tearing through another experiment, that even Mikasa, who has encountered him a grand total of thrice, is tempted to take it for his default expression. “Not a good idea. So not a good idea...”
“What did you do?” she has to ask.
“We told her we’d found a new Titan class, a two-metre one.” Nifa firms her lips until they whiten into bloodless lines. “Squad Leader Mike Zacharius was not impressed when she leaped on him.”
“He did insist that we talk Squad Leader down once the misunderstanding was cleared up.”
“If he didn’t, Captain Levi would have insisted in his stead. Personally.” The collective shudder practically shakes the roof.
“Just to clarify,” Mikasa ventures carefully, “don’t the Squad Leaders personally know each other?”
“Yes, well,” Moblit coughs, “she may have been running on ten hours of sporadic naps in her eighty-second hour of research while being fuelled by, uh, one of her stimulating drinks.”
“I think the Commander had it put on the top of the list of banned substances after everything was over.”
Mikasa blinks. “The Commander himself?”
Moblit grimaces. “Yeah. Uh, after that, the Commander made it explicit that he expects us to follow up with each and every consequence of our leisure activities without necessitating his or the Captain’s direct intervention. Or both at the same time.”
Mikasa winces, then tries to rally herself. “So what would you consider one of her hobbies aside from researching on Titans?”
The answer from four voices harmonized. “Cooking.”
“Cooking?”
“I know, right? We thought she was joking the first time around, but she was actually quite serious,” Moblit says mournfully. Mikasa blinks, then blinks again when the smell hits. No wonder why everybody had been walking away so quickly when she was making her way here for the interview... “Squad Leader is very invested in our wellbeing, so she’s determined to find the best, well, she calls them recipes, to feed us.”
Mikasa nods, understanding; when food had run short during their initial years adrift from Shiganshina, she and Eren and Armin had concocted healthful combinations they wouldn’t try again for the sake of their tongues even if the Military were to triple their salary. She also makes a mental note to keep Sasha away from Hange’s lab, lest she be forced to deal with an upset stomach hosted by an even more upset roommate come nighttime. “They are healthy, at least?”
“Yes. They are healthy. At least. Though if the taste doesn’t fool you, the texture will,” Nifa mutters. Frederique heaves a sigh beside her, expression funereal.
“And yet you’ve all gathered to eat it,” Mikasa observes.
The entire room exchanges a single glance fraught with unspoken emotion. “I don’t believe you’ve observed the Squad Leader in pursuit of results,” Frederique finally rumbles, “or you would not be asking.”
“And honestly, we’d rather she test on us than she test on herself,” Nifa adds. “You know how Captain Levi rotates squads on cleaning duty? We also rotate squads sitting at Squad Leader Hange’s mess, but we organize it ourselves. Well, Moblit does.”
“He even got Captain Levi to sit at her mess a few times!” Keiji says proudly. “It’s incredible!”
“Believe me, if Captain Levi wasn’t already half-willing, I would have had no chance of success at all,” Moblit demurs.
“I see.” The smell is getting stronger, and proportionally more unbearable. “I will take my leave of your meal—”
A firm grip snags her elbow. “Now that you’re here, though,” Keiji says with a considering air that fools absolutely no one when Mikasa turns to give her a questioning look, “I’m sure the Squad Leader will be more than happy to feed you, too. The more the merrier, as they used to say.”
Moblit’s tone is equally meditative. “And portion sizes will be smaller when more people partake.”
“Don’t be offended,” Nifa advises before Mikasa can edge in a word, “we’ve given up on subtlety for these kinds of things when the Squad Leader proved immune to death threats from Captain Levi himself.”
Squad Leader Hange Zoë chooses then to barge through the door, cradling a cast-iron pot of a truly intimidating size in between comically large gloves. “Oh, more hungry visitors?” she carols, lugging the filled pot with alarming carelessness, “come on in, sit down! This recipe’s nutritional profile is mostly complete based on the Health Organization’s recommendations from last year, and I’m 83% certain this batch won’t cause foodborne illness!”
“Don’t worry, Ackerman,” Keiji says with ominous cheer as he finishes setting an extra place beside Frederique, “Squad Leader always makes sure to pick all-edible ingredients.”
“You aim to have everyone go down together?” Mikasa says, edging away.
“We have faced Titans! It will take something much less mundane than food to take us all down,” Nifa says bravely, as she moves to block the door.
Only then does it dawn upon Mikasa, too slowly, that her single gravest tactical error to date is to allow Hange Zoë’s squad to stall her with their willingness to divulge information, and then get between her and every escape route from an enclosed area.
-----
(The batch does not cause foodborne illness. Nor does it cause spontaneous requests for second servings. Not even from Squad Leader Hange Zoë of the Iron Stomach herself.
(“Mikasa understands my investigative methods better than Eren,” Armin tells her soothingly when she confronts him, “and I wouldn’t have trusted anybody else to do this correctly.” It would have been more convincing if he wasn’t clearly preparing to duck for cover behind Reiner, the latter of whom is failing to hide his amusement behind his sympathy.
(“He thinks you can survive anything,” Ymir clarifies helpfully between gasps for breath. She is laughing too hard to think about ducking for cover behind anything, and doesn’t stop even when Krista smacks her.
(Mikasa bares her teeth at her, but it helps. Somewhat.)
Internal Review
Commander Dot Pixis and his venerable aide take their leaves mid-afternoon, three hours after Hange had left with Connie in tow, and an hour after Levi had departed to prepare for his operation. Judging by the angle of the light streaming in from the window, the sun is about to set in two hours.
Save for the expected wooziness from the analgesic, Erwin finds his mind clear enough to take stock of his surroundings. Off-white walls wrap around the wooden floor, broken only by the blurry pane of the window. The ordinary bedside table hosts a half-filled jar of water and a glass. Despite the orderly appearance, Levi had nearly thrown a fit when he’d first come in, which Erwin had taken to mean that medical sterility is somewhat below Levi’s exacting standards. To Erwin’s undiscerning eye, the hospital room looks much the same as all clinics do: featureless and utilitarian, nothing remarkable at all.
This is hell, he decides.
He is alone, neither locked nor restrained, left to recuperate in silence and relative safety, and he is about to wage war with the bed-sheets for his sanity’s sake. Erwin’s mind is a thing of razors and tripwires; should it be left spinning at full speed and bereft of a direction to expend the energy, he will bleed for it. It is at least half the reason why Erwin is not a sedentary man.
The medication thankfully does not impair his mobility. He waits until the nurses are busy with their shift change, and slips out of his room without further drama. The security in the hospital is pitiful; he’ll have to have a word with the Commander soon. How could any soldier feel secure in such an open area?
Still, it’s a relief. His balance has yet to fully adjust to the shift in his centre of gravity. He hasn’t been able to fully assess the extent of the change, due to the chief medical officer confiscating his clearance to use his manoeuvre gear the moment Erwin had been helped into her clinic, but his body starts learning how to rectify his overcompensation within fifteen minutes. Good. He’ll need at least six weeks of recovery and intensive retraining before he’s field-ready again, but he’ll still be able to fight.
He pauses quite inadvertently three steps outside the door to take a deep breath. It’s a risk a nurse will recognize him, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take. The air is fresh and mobile, missing the medicinal desperation within the hospital, and he has forgotten to brace himself for it. How careless; he has grown lax in such few days within the Walls.
His feet have a will of their own; he is walking before he quite realizes where he means to go. But he is not truly surprised; every part of him knows where Erwin Smith belongs.
Local scuttlebutt is unfortunately predictable. Civilians have never been shy about gossip, but they have been particularly indiscreet these past few days. It’s no wonder; their reported losses stagger through every branch of the Military, and many of their Police have been lost in the expedition. How dare he waste their precious talent like so much spilled water. How dare he walk as though he has not sinned. How dare he.
Erwin lets the talk trail him. It is but a simple thing to ignore the whispers. He’d known what he wanted, and he’d known what he had with which to bargain. He’d obtained his objective within acceptable cost parameters. He will face his reckoning after his duty is done. Until then, the war rages onwards, and the battlefield needs tilling.
As expected, a sizable number of Survey Corps soldiers have gathered in full uniform and geared up in the Garrison’s training grounds. They notice him the moment he takes one step onto the field.
“Commander!” His soldiers salute him, then swarm close, haloing him as he walks towards the sparse grove of trees. “Commander, you’re back already? The doctors said—”
A few words later, he scatters them. He knows his men. They may be good at redirection on the field, but they lack sufficient exposure to Wall medics to deny them anything for long. It is only a matter of time before the hospital discovers his empty room and sends a search party to take him back and drug him into obsolescence. So—
Erwin pauses, the back of his neck prickling with the familiar sensation of being watched, then turns and looks up. Levi stares back down at him, footing solid on the intersecting branches of a tree, three metres above him.
Erwin’s mouth moves of its own accord. “I see you have finished your paperwork.”
“No thanks to you.”
“Yes.” No wonder why Levi is looking rather hunted. “I have been rather indisposed.”
Levi just stares at him. Erwin does not speak of the shadows that tail him and encircle his hospital, shadows that remind him of Levi's movements in Sina’s underbelly; Levi does not ask if he should be on his feet. They are far too familiar with each other for that.
“I know what you want,” Levi finally says, very steadily.
Erwin tilts his head. “What of it?” he replies, rather mystified.
Levi shifts his weight, almost too minutely to be seen; from him, it’s as clear a telegraphed warning as a smoke signal. “So get ready,” he growls, one second before he leaps.
Erwin manages to grab him before he hits the ground by pure reflex. He fights down a wince when the motion jars his injured arm hard enough for the pain to bleed through; it’s nothing unbearable, beneath the haze of the drugs, but it’s still unfamiliar and unpleasant— Refocus. Levi is alive and patient against him, pinpoint eyes watching his six. Maybe it’s because Levi is smaller than most, but he fits quite comfortably in the crook of Erwin’s remaining arm, warm and solid and here.
“Trust fall,” Levi murmurs into the shell of his ear, in the frozen moment when Erwin is still adjusting his balance and Levi is still an immobile bundle of wiry muscles thrown across his chest. Then Levi arches and flips off his arm, somehow also managing to reverse the slow backwards fall that Erwin couldn’t correct.
Then his body turns at the yodel, and his arm wraps around Hange’s waist just before she nearly knocks them both down.
Approximately nine seconds has passed since he’d spotted Levi up in the tree. Erwin’s still not entirely sure what has just happened. Perhaps he isn’t as unaffected by the drugs as he had first assumed...
Hange doesn’t help. “You’ve still got it!” she informs him brightly, patting his cheek with the arm that isn’t taped – scrubbing at his stubble, really – and squirms out of his hold to the tune of her perpetual background chorus of worried subordinates and the particularly despairing bellow of her assistant.
Erwin surreptitiously braces himself for more, stump starting to ache, but his instincts are no longer tingling. It seems as if nobody else is about to take the same liberties. He waves away his concerned soldiers before they become more of a spectacle. All participants are unharmed and ready for battle at the first toll of the bell; all is well. Besides, Hange has always made herself a more receptive target than he or Levi do to their subordinates, in that aspect...
He is definitely affected by the drugs.
“They don’t know you,” Levi says quietly at his elbow.
“No,” Erwin replies, blithe, watching Hange stride across the field with nine soldiers in tow, “or they’d have followed Hange’s example. She is not setting a good one, though, if she does not rest.”
Levi levels him a glare. “You can’t fail them if they don’t know what you do. That’s why you’ll never fail us.”
Erwin closes his eyes. “She definitely should not be out of bed yet.”
Levi snorts. “You try keeping her in there. Moblit look about ready to cry every waking second, and he’s only barring her from the kitchens.”
“My men know how to pick their battles wisely,” Erwin says, an inadvertent frisson of pride shading his amusement into something much stronger.
“You did train them.”
“Has she taken her painkillers?”
“She’s quieter when she’s doped up.”
Erwin gives Levi a look.
“You know she hates the way they fuck with her head. I still haven’t found anybody who’s managed to get her to actually take her medication, but I haven’t screened all the recruits yet. Hey, you should consider promoting somebody like that. Save everybody a shitton of bother.”
“If she’s not listening to you or me, I doubt anybody else will have much success with that particular venture. Still,” Erwin continues, as he watches the corners of Hange’s eyes tighten when she thinks nobody’s looking, “I do wish to know if she’s taken her painkillers. I would not like to chance overdosing her.”
“Damn,” Levi sighs, “times like these, Zacharias would really have come in handy. Still no sign of him, huh?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Levi heaves an irritated breath. “How much time’s left?”
“The window for declaring missing Corps members presumed dead is seven days after their last sighting.”
“Shitnosed bastard always manages to make me work... Fine. I’ll finish processing the paperwork and send off the condolence letters tomorrow morning, before I go.”
“Thank you. I should be able to sign for myself within three days.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Erwin. We’re a far cry from done, and I’m holding you to that. Why the fuck would anybody willingly become a Commander if they knew how much filthy paperwork the rank would entail...”
They watch Hange thoroughly distract the rest of their men from the two of them for a little longer, before Levi relents and goes to relieve their subordinates of the handful that is their only companion left.
Somewhere along their crooked way, Hange had learned mercy, and Levi, grace. Mike will never demonstrate what he’d learned, but when Erwin gets the chance, he’ll be sure to reprimand him. They could all have used his experience.
He is not yet tired enough to sleep, and pain has long ceased to be sufficient to stop him. So Erwin keeps walking.
-----
(The command team of the Survey Corps does not remember every squad they have ever formed or led. It is not out of malice that they forget; it is simply that the memory used for such facts is better served for the humanity that remains to face the nightmare. Their dead would not have appreciated having their comrades die in their remembrance. They may all of them have been only numbers, but they are numbers that count. That must count...
(The pieces are falling into place. It is time to accelerate, and to look within before looking outwards again. If they are careful, perhaps they even won’t lose anybody more than whom they must.
(The next time they meet together like this will probably be in hell. It’ll be an interesting exercise when they compare their tallies.)
Epilogue: On External Analysts
“That is all.” Thérèse raps her sheaf of paper against the desk twice, then lays it flat, perpendicular to his files. “Notes?”
“Interesting developments.” A rise in vandalism reports of graffiti from the Garrison, studious silence on corruption from the Police, and indignant protests of ‘general Survey Corps insanity’ from both. Accompanied by proportionate amounts of very formal assurances from the Survey Corps that such accusations are exaggerated, in between the usual requests for more funding. Of course, he is still officially two months behind reviewing the reports for current events, but bureaucracy has its moments of usefulness, especially when one has to give the court excuses backed by the indomitable might of red tape. “I honestly had expected to have to field more complaints than usual.”
“I presume that the more experienced Garrison commanders know how to sympathize with different coping mechanisms. No matter how idiosyncratic their manifestations.”
“That’s one way to phrase Commander Pixis’s partialities.” Thérèse has long been the sharpest soldier on his payroll, well before she’d become his aide; she’s become even better with her words. “Still, it’s a good reminder.”
Thérèse looks as though she wants to smile. “A reminder of what, sir?”
“A reminder that we are not tame.”
She hums agreeably. “What of boundaries?”
“What of them? A kept bird does not desire to fly out the opened cage just because it is told to want freedom.” Darius stares at his hands, watches his fingers lace together with pensive languor. “Faith is a precious commodity, Colonel, not the least to somebody who has willingly ridden into hell and returned to prepare for another trip back.”
Thérèse folds her own hands. “Of course. Speaking of which, there have been reports of deaths of prominent Marian merchants. I am afraid that their heirs presumptive may have been lax with their taxes, and the Police too lenient in the confusion of the internal review. I will have Helen and Andreas conduct surprise inspections in the markets tomorrow. After all, we mustn’t let our precious resources be mishandled.”
He cannot resist a laugh. “You are a wonder, Rousseau. A revolution, indeed!” he murmurs beneath his breath. “Such dangerous hobbies we have. Play with fire often enough, and the nerves desensitize, don’t they?”
Thérèse does smile at that, a blade flashing for one chill second before sheathing back into her usual professionalism. “If there is anything the Military has taught me, it is that humans can be infinitely dangerous in any class or rank, shape or form. Because we learn and adapt, and we rise.”
“That is to be hoped. We’ll need that ruthlessness to survive. Do not forget that the Military has always and ever underestimated blooded soldiers used to overwhelming odds.”
“I will not forget. By your leave, Führer.”
“Dismissed.”
He waits until the door closes before skimming over Thérèse’s coded summary of the arrests and the connections her people had noted, and has to fight to keep his satisfied nod buried. Erwin Smith is becoming exactly the kind of person he’d thought he would be. If Darius has not misjudged, the man would have already started reaping what he’d sown for civilian support; the fact that he is not publicly free to move will not hamper that. And since the First Royal Division of the Military Police has already made its brazen stretch beyond the shadows of their supposed secrets... well. Thérèse is very good at her job. They’ll find out the full extent of all their efforts soon enough.
No, they are not tame, none of them, and boundaries will fast lose even the shred of meaning they had once borne in peace. Time is running out; the world will not stop moving onwards on humanity’s account. They will all of them need to consider their stance, and mobilize accordingly. No longer do they have time to indulge in hobbies with harmless outcomes. Indeed, the erstwhile leaders of their smallest Corps has been living that philosophy since its inception. It’s about time for him to focus, too, on resources and fronts and factions and the underlying cause of it all.
Hope is the currency of humanity’s survival. And as they had once said, hope dies last. So the last one standing will be the hope for all.
This time... who will it be?
-fin-