Chapter Text
As always, it’s filthy outside, and Levi compensates for this by compartmentalizing it in a box he has constructed deep beneath his ribs.
There is absolutely nothing interesting about walking the inner perimeter of Wall Rose, but it’s of some relevant importance—especially before the mission to reclaim Wall Maria in just a few short weeks. The Surveying part of the Corps (especially when it comes to the Wall) is more than just a minimal effort done by lackeys and the Chairforce: it’s done by the people who know what they’re doing, from all branches and sects of the greater militaristic body.
These efforts usually stop at the Commandants, though after some less-than-favorable miscommunication events and rubberbanding within the Ranks, the responsibilities of Surveying the Wall have threaded their twisty little fingers to possess the already-packed schedules of the Squad Leaders.
If there’s one thing he’s learned since being wrangled face-first into the military, it’s this: things are way too fucking convoluted here. He doesn’t think he’d go so far as to say he’d prefer being in the Underground again—not right where he stands in this current point in time, at least—but he’d make a liar of himself if he said he didn’t miss the simplicity of life before.
Sure, the simplicity was more self-induced than anything else (and things become significantly less simple if you take into account the bullfuckery of moral compasses and philosophical definitions of legality), but it was what it was and, for the most part, it stayed that way. The adaptability a person needs to survive on the Surface is completely different from the improvisation required not to kick the proverbial bucket in the Underground.
Levi wouldn’t mind as much if he didn’t have to be subjected to all those damn reports confirming what they were told in shitastic legalese and government mumbo-jumbo.
Up top, shit still changes, but shit changes slow—which means there’s a whole lot of red tape that just doesn’t fucking exist down below. Documentation, and more documentation, and documentation of all the documentation done before to document the documents, and don’t even get Levi started on the documentation needed to document future documents when the documentation documents no longer are registered as Appropriate Documentation for Future Documentation for Documentational Purposes…
All this to say, there are things Levi would far prefer to be doing, though in the grand scheme of things this is significantly better than what could be required of him. Case in point, large humanoid man-eating creatures tumbling around like toddlers just beyond the stone—not that the current group of military leaders and their future successors appear too much better from the perspective of an insect.
In a more lackadaisical manner of speaking, it’s probably a real funny sight: a gaggle of uniformed people meandering around a massive Wall, guided by Commander Pixis and narrated in part by their very own Commander Erwin. Technically, Erwin isn’t meant to be the one giving the lo-down, but Pixis’ interests lie in fidgeting with the flask he has quote-unquote “hidden” in his belt, and Erwin is nothing if not thorough (that descriptor is self-prescribed; Levi would instead call him “uptight”).
As they are ushered from Point Five to Point Six on the itinerary from the Seventh layer of Hell (Levi’s beginning to wonder if his internal monologue is tempting the fates), both Commanders continue their performance for the Higher Ups some disgusting distance away.
With every passing moment, Erwin’s frustrated expression becomes more concentrated by approximately one twenty-fifth of a percent.
“And up ahead there’s some construction,” Erwin says, though he sounds a bit surprised that it exists at all.
His confusion is not unjustified. With the exception of some… less than ordinary circumstances, this Wall hasn’t fallen or cracked or crumbled since its erection: that’s kind of the whole legacy of the thing. The only thing Levi can think of as being the purpose for this construction is the damage from where those massive titans grabbed on with their hands. However, if that were the case, they’d be able to see people meandering about those areas. For now, the damaged zones are bare.
Pixis draws his gaze toward the construction in question.
“Ah, yes,” says Pixis, and Levi can tell from the shift in his tone that he’s got his mouth pursed. “The construction, it won’t hinder any future missions and it certainly won’t hinder the military’s work. It’s just a formality from the central government, really, no need to concern yourselves with it.”
“No need to—” Erwin cuts himself off, there, which is far more interesting than any of the arbitrary recon. He stops walking, which stops the rest of the group, which then stops Pixis, who turns to directly address Erwin. “What exactly is the construction for? Damage from the attack?”
“Sure,” says Pixis, nonplussed and unconvinced. And then, “Problem with that?”
“Not at all,” says Erwin, squinting up at the Wall. “It just seems…”
“Oi, Levi,” comes the whisper of Hange. They nudge Levi in the ribs, which he doesn’t bother trying to block. There are things that require effort, and there are things that exist just to sap energy. Hange, of course, is the latter, and he has no interest in giving up any of his relaxation time if he doesn’t have to. One good thing about wandering and listening to idle, boring chit-chat and narration is that it essentially acts as an extra long break. “You’ve not brought anything to write with.”
Levi glances down at himself, but does not move his head to do so.
“You’re right,” Levi says. “It’s almost as if that was intentional.”
“So you’ll memorize the entire brief?” asks Hange. “And then you’ll write the report later?”
“Don’t give me that,” Levi says. “Unlike you, I have a functional short-term memory. I don’t need to take notes.”
Amused, Hange jokes, “I hear short-term memory can be short-lived.”
“Is the concept of functional short-term memory really too incredible for your shit-for-brains to handle?”
“Definitely not,” says Hange. “It’s just overrated, if you ask me—I’m quite satisfied with my cracked-crap cranium, you see? I’m all about accepting yourself for who you are, and it really makes me myself and I. That being said, I also like to skip steps, so I’ve been writing my report as I go.”
Hange slides their clipboard under Levi’s nose. He gets a waft of dirt and dust-filled atmosphere with the movement, which cakes the insides of his airways and raws his throat upon his next swallow. In scrawled writing is what must be every detail, significant and infinitesimal, on Hange’s Official Report Document—why else would it be multiple pages?
Hoorah, thinks Levi, for more fucking documentation.
At the very bottom of the page is a chicken-scratch, single-sentence summary of the discussion both Commanders are having as Levi and Hange murmur to themselves like school children during lecture. Levi must squint and focus his energy on interpreting the distorted and offensive script, spelling out with some perceived error: an indubitably fascinating squabble between the Command.
Dizzied by the letters, Levi averts his gaze just a bit to the side.
“Get that out of my face,” Levi says. “And erase that last line or the idiots reviewing it will think you’ve lost your mind.”
“I thought we just agreed I didn’t have one to begin with?”
“You think it’s any better that they assume you’re reporting infighting?”
“Who knows? Makes it more interesting.”
Before Levi can return that daft statement with a quip of his own less-than-impeccable caliber, a cacophony cuts through all nearby conversations, and stutters all further words to a halt. The dozen-wide group of soldiers touring at the base of the wall turn their heads this way and that to detect where the noise came from, and what caused it, but nothing is immediately apparent.
Levi is no different, glancing around, though unlike a few of his closer comrades, he has enough sense to look upwards. It had come somewhere above, he knows that much. And then it happens again, this groaning shriek of metal on taut-pulled wire that fractures throughout the zone.
Below as they are, it’s impossible to tell what’s going on atop the Wall, but Commander Pixis isn’t the slightest bit concerned. He finally pulls that flask from his belt. All he needs to remove the cap is a single flick of the wrist, which he performs with a practiced steadiness before knocking back a shot. Then, he returns to his surroundings, not daring bother to twist the cap back on. His efforts are put instead towards offering some of the rum to Erwin, who declines with a shake of the head and a single semi-furrowed brow.
“Just construction,” Pixis tells Erwin. “There’s nothing they’re doing up there that would pose risk to anyone down here.”
“…as you’ve said,” replies Erwin.
Levi frowns and narrows his eyes. Loud noises are not at all uncommon anywhere near the Walls, and he knows this, but there was something about that roaring metal beast that seemed to more than hint at something bad to come. A danger sense wafts through the air, an instinct that he is more than accustomed to at this point. With every inhale, it fills his lungs a little more, a little deeper, a little faster.
He reevaluates the environment, studying it for threats and escapes.
It’s hot today, and it’s dry, dusty to a degree unusual for this season. Some innumerable feet away, civilians and soldiers trot along their daily business with breads and goods and hard-worked leather to tote from shop to family and back again. From the distant crowd, a commotion stirs, and Levi braces himself and drops his hand to the holster of his ODM, where the handles of his blades linger at the ready.
His heartbeat picks up. Just a little. Just enough. Circulation increases, his lungs hunger for air that he does not starve himself of, and he watches—
Hange places a hand on Levi’s shoulder, withdrawing him some from his focus.
“You okay?” they ask.
All Levi replies with is a dismissive shrug to rid himself of their grasp. He returns his attention to the crowd just in time to see a couple of the more steadfast and reckless recruits tumbling out from between civilians, and the rushing sends a few into a bit of a panic, hurriedly and warily eying the sky for the steam evidence of imminent tragedy.
“Where is it?” shouts Eren, bounding toward the Wall at top speed. Jean follows close behind, gradually accelerating to a point where he can almost surpass Eren’s sheer, unadulterated force of will and determination. “Where’s the armored titan?”
If the sprinting hadn’t been enough to panic the civilians those two soldiers burst through, the mention of the armored titan most certainly is. A few of them squawk their fear, and it’ll hardly be any time at all before that panic spreads and an unnecessary exodus begins to flood the inner Gates.
“There is no armored titan!” Pixis’ exclamation is loud enough to halt even some of the more reactionary individuals. “It’s just construction!”
As some of the panic dies down, and as people slow back to their ordinary meandering pace, Erwin blinks. He is apparently unappreciative of having his ear shouted into. Levi finds this amusing, though he can’t put his finger on exactly why.
“Construction?” asks Eren, though it’s muddled from his distance and flurried buzzing around the base of the Wall. Despite Pixis’ assurance that Eren’s idiocy is in fact merely idiocy, Eren flounders with surprising adeptness, jerking his head from one side to the other as he gazes up to the top of the Wall. “Why is there construction on the Wall? Was there another break? Did the armor—”
“No,” says Jean, knocking the side of his fist into the back of Eren’s head. Eren pitches forward and catches himself just in time to not slam his face into the dirt. “You idiot, there’s nothing going on here.”
“You came with!” snaps Eren, popping back upright. He turns on his heel and puffs his chest out, squaring up for a disadvantaged fight: with both of his blades situated in his hands, he’s prepared to slaughter titans more than he is prepared to launch into fisticuffs. “What’s that say about you, huh? Following to get in on action that doesn’t even exist?”
“You’re the one who thought there was action in the first place!” says Jean, face flushing.
With a certain lyrical hum to their voice, Hange nudges Levi and mutters, “You might want to wrangle your infants before they cause the infighting you’re so scared of.”
“They’re fine,” Levi mutters back, crossing his arms. “Entertainment is hard to come by these days.”
And then Jean shoves Eren in the chest.
When Eren, affronted, reaches up to return the favor, Levi cusses, “God dammit,” and pushes out of the dozen of his stupefied peers to directly interfere.
As much as he hates it, those two headless chickens are his responsibility until they’re cooked enough not to kill themselves at every turn. Even once they reach that point, he still holds de facto authority over them. Were he not to intervene, he’d have to answer to more than just one tall son of a bitch—and Eren still technically risks being executed under-the-table by the State.
Is it unlikely? Yes, highly—especially with Historia’s rightfully reclaimed power. That doesn’t mean Levi wants to risk it. Especially not now.
“Oi,” Levi calls, some feet away. “Knock it off.”
It seems that Eren just about shits himself when he catches sight of Levi, face blanching and eyes bugging out.
“Captain!” says Eren, and he fumbles with his weapons in a way that would be funny if it weren’t outright dangerous. He all but drops them as he tries to salute, and in the clumsiness, he comes damn close to skewering Jean straight through the side on one of his blades.
Sighing, Levi squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Hey!” snaps Jean. “Watch where you’re jabbing those things, idiot!”
Eren retorts, “I’m not an idiot, idiot!”
“You just saluted with swords in your hands, and you’re calling me an idiot?”
“At least I think for myself, idiot!”
“I said,” Levi snaps, lifting his head. “Knock it off! Jean, Eren—get the hell over here.”
These kids are lucky it’s illegal (on paper) to beat fellow soldiers. They’re even luckier that Levi has half a mind to obey the law, at this point. With two fingers, Levi beckons both of them to approach.
Jean is smart enough to duck his head and hurry forward, though it’d be a lie to say he doesn’t come off a bit scrambling. There’s a moment’s pause as Jean comes to a stop a few feet in front of Levi. When Eren makes no moves to follow, Levi repeats the beckoning motion—with his whole hand, this time.
Gulping, Eren follows the silent order. He even does everyone a favor by holstering both of his weapons as he walks, head tipped in a frustrated bow that sours his posture.
As soon as he’s within reach, Levi contemplates grabbing Eren by the ear and throwing him directly into the center of the high-ranking military personnel some feet behind them. However, knowing no one else in the group would beat Eren the way he’s tempted to (hoity Surface-types), he opts not to take his chances.
Levi flicks his gaze between his soldiers.
“I have three questions for you,” he says.
“Uh… Captain?” says Eren. Jean, on the other hand, snaps to attention.
Staring the two down in the figurative sense, Levi asks, “Are you deaf?”
Glancing briefly at one another, they reply, “No, sir.”
“Do you understand the language I am speaking?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have a functional short-term memory?”
A repetition: “Yes, sir.”
“So explain to me,” says Levi, “why the fuck you are outside of the barracks when I told you less than twenty minutes ago to stay where the hell you were?”
Eren shoots a glance toward Erwin and Pixis. From the quickness, it can be understood that it is meant to be discrete—perhaps even secret—but if there’s one thing that Eren isn’t, it’s discrete. Levi wrestles with the idea of leaving Eren with some semblance of dignity, but that flies out the window when Eren gets this look in his eyes and spouts something supremely moronic.
“Because I want to begin eradicating titans, Captain.”
Jean gives Eren a “did you actually just fucking say that?” look.
Slowly, Levi says, “You want to begin eradicating titans.”
“Yes—”
“You couldn’t listen to a simple command to stay in a room for one hour,” begins Levi, “you almost shit your pants when you saw me, and you very nearly sliced your little friend in half right in front of a group of your superiors.”
With every word, Eren deflates a little more. It’s nothing short of a miracle that his eyes retain a committed fire.
There’s something else in there, too. Something that, while familiar, Levi cannot place.
Just when Levi thinks he’s about to get Eren to crack, Jean says, “All due respect, Captain, Private Dumbass and I are not friends.”
Levi looks at Jean. There are a million different things he could reply with, perhaps the most pressing of them being that’s what you latch onto? However, Levi chooses quite consciously not to voice any of them. He stands silently.
Watching.
Jean squirms, then bites his mouth shut.
Levi returns his attention to Eren.
“You really think you’re ready to eradicate titans when you can’t even maintain control over yourself?” he says.
“No, Captain,” says Eren. And then he flounders, “I mean, yes, Captain, or—”
“Bite your tongue or bear the consequences, Jaeger.”
Eren shuts up.
“The two of you are in what experts like to call ‘deep shit’,” Levi says. “And until you prove to me that you’re not gonna drown yourselves in it, neither of you are permitted to leave my sight until I walk you to your next training module my-damn-self. In that time, you will not touch your ODM gear and you will keep your weapons holstered. Welcome to Shitty Wall Recon, soldiers—I expect a full report afterward, so you might want to pay attention.”
Like some sort of deficient bird, Eren opens and closes his mouth and struggles to locate the words he needs.
He does this for a while until he finally blurts, “But I don’t have anything to take notes with, sir.”
“Did I say you were to take notes?” Levi asks, partially convinced that there may be a problem in the way Eren’s brain is wired. “Do I need to ask you those three questions again, Jaeger?”
“Uh—no, sir.”
Jean raises his hand, and Levi looks at him.
“Should I take notes?” Jean asks.
Moments like these convince Levi that natural selection does not exist.
“You wanna ask me that again, Kirstein?”
“Should I—”
“No,” Levi says. “Stick close or you both get sticks up your asses, come on.”
Fortunately, that’s all that’s needed to kick the two into work-mode. Levi ducks back into his rightful place near the center of the pack, and both idiotic ducks follow suit, a bit awkward in the midst of these authority figures that, assuredly, they have not yet met all of. Levi begins to regret tucking himself into the midst of the group, feeling more than just a little claustrophobic with Hange to his left and Eren and Jean hovering over his right shoulder.
Even once the three have joined the group, the surrounding people remain remarkably silent.
“Okay,” says Levi, trying to prompt some kind of motion. “Continue.”
“Captain Levi,” says Erwin. He shoots Levi a stern and unmistakable look of disapproval. “This is not a matter that concerns anyone below the rank of Squad Leader.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, are we discussing secrets?” asks Levi. “Are we passing around each other’s diaries and braiding hair? Perhaps we’re going over the super-confidential cult activity that’s most certainly happening as we speak? Planning our next strategic battle move out in the open?”
“Okay—”
“Was I wrong in my assumption that we would be briefing all members of the Survey Corps on what we conclude during this bastardized recon?”
“Oka—”
“Was it false of me to think that the twelve of us were the mother birds to the chicks of our soldiers, chewing the meat so these brats only have to worry about digesting it in its simplest form?”
“Okay,” Erwin says, “Okay, that’s enough. Commander Pixis, if you would, ahm… continue.”
“Ah, yes,” says Pixis, renewing the walk around the perimeter of the Wall. “The matter of construction…”
Eren starts to look a little more interested, at this point, apparently spurred-on by Levi’s sarcastic outburst. With how flighty and conspiratorial the kid is, that could prove to be particularly dangerous.
“Don’t make that face,” Levi mutters, checking Eren in the shoulder. “This is extremely boring and torturous, start acting like it.”
That is enough to get Eren to drop the weird, tight-lipped smile, but it isn’t enough to extinguish the intensity just behind his pupils. To put it bluntly, this kid is weird, and Levi has no interest in trying to crack the Jaeger Code.
It’s probably a family thing. Mikasa’s an odd one, too.
Briefly, he wonders where she is. When splitting up the soldiers into digestible groups to train in rotational intervals in different fields (with one group taking lunch in the barracks), Levi had made certain to separate them from one another, if for no other reason than to examine their reactions. Yet despite the order, he had not actually expected Mikasa to listen. She is fully involved in Eren’s life, perhaps even obsessed, to an irrational degree—to a degree that Levi wishes he could say he didn’t understand in the slightest.
Don’t get him wrong: he doesn’t understand why she’s so attached to specifically Eren, of all people; his only redeeming quality is that he can turn into a titan, and whether or not that quality is actually “redeeming” depends on who you ask. Levi gets the involvement, though, and he gets the vague obsession that can come with deep connections. He gets the way it can just snap, one day—like a life devoted to one cause, and one cause only.
When he lost his first Cause, things became dim. There was a period where he felt there was nothing left for which to live.
Levi shakes his head and marches on.
The group of Squad Leaders (and Eren and Jean) are not brought directly through the radius of the construction zone for obvious reasons of injury risk, though Pixis is more than just a little adamant on the area being entirely safe. Formalities, it is once more excused on. Formalities and protocols that sound more like ass-coverings and apologies than anything else. Pixis walks the group around a semi-circle area of approximately a hundred feet from the more active areas of the Wall.
Looking closer, “construction” is a funny word for it. Now that he is actually paying attention, Levi notices that about half a dozen people have descended some way down the Wall from the top on ODM gear. Not one of these individuals actually dons any kind of official uniform, military or otherwise, which rouses more than just a bit of suspicion from Levi’s still-lingering danger sense. He fidgets with the trigger of his own gear.
None of the idiots on the Wall are doing construction. They’re tapping and prodding along, examining crevices that don’t exist and listening with ears pressed and cheeks dusty from rock that appears, on first glance, smooth. To make things worse, from the way they hold themselves, not a single of the six men seems to be comfortable in their gear. Their perch alone is awkward, and the grapples are tucked much too far apart for them to have any kind of proper stability, leading them to brace with knees or even shoulders, as is the case of one person near a corner.
The tool belts the men have are also mere formality. Those dinky little items couldn’t so much as dent the Wall—especially not with that elementary use of ODM. They’re supplying too much effort into not losing their balance to be useful.
Yet another god-awful metal shriek snags the attention of all nearby. Since Levi is already looking up when it happens, he notices a particular bustle of commotion near the leftmost half of this section of Wall. Apart from that, he notices nothing that could make such an atrocious screech.
Unless, of course, they aren’t fixing something on the top of the Wall, or even this side of the Wall. They’re fixing something on the other side of the Wall. And suddenly, it hits Levi: they’re fixing one of the pulleys.
Hange nudges Levi in the ribs, and Levi grunts, glancing over to them.
“Oi oi,” says Hange, pointing straight toward the Wall. “Isn’t that our friendly neighborhood titan shifter?”
“What?” Levi asks.
He has half a mind to say Eren hasn’t left his side, but upon glancing around, Eren has vanished from the group as if he were never there. He’d be tempted to say the situation with his soldiers never happened, if it weren’t for the fact that Jean still stands there, a worthlessly confused expression on his face.
Levi flicks his gaze to where Hange is pointing just in time to see Eren already halfway to the Wall and gaining speed, fighting some with his gear in preparation to deploy. There are but a few similarities between Eren’s use of ODM and the men on the Wall’s, though in this case Levi knows Eren’s messy use is from half-thought and not from genuinely lacking skill.
The recklessness portrayed in Eren’s panic justifies immediate intervention. Without a second thought, Levi begins a fast walk down in the wake of Eren’s tread.
The shadow he casts stretches, long from the downward drift of the sun for late noon. Only temporarily is Levi enthralled by those shadows, and that he can see Eren’s at all. The perfect conditions have been met not to have it drowned out by the Wall’s beastly form.
Levi shouts, “Jaeger! Get back here!”
It’s not a surprise that Eren doesn’t respond. Levi doesn’t care much about that, anyway.
It’s the way Eren flicks his hand that Levi cares about.
Is he seriously going to try and turn? Here? Now?
Why?
He’s already fired up, and it doesn’t take a genius to know Eren has some kind of goal in his mind. Even if he doesn’t know what the hell he’s running for, his body certainly does: thus the scrambling, thus the swift movement, thus the speed, thus the stupid twitch in his fucking wrist. This isn’t just revenge—and if that weren’t enough, the fact that he was outside at all before his training rotation came up certainly is.
“Shit,” says Levi. He jerks his arm down and secures his gear. “Eren!”
No longer is speed-walking fast enough. He breaks into a run, deploying the grapples straight at the Wall. The resistance that tugs his hips signals to him that the latch secures. It only takes a second to activate the gas canister and propel forward, bracing himself for any unexpected moves Eren might make.
Eren activates his own gear and starts up the Wall. Either he doesn’t realize he’s prepping himself for turning, he’s prepping to turn once he gets to the other side, or he’s planning on doing some stupid fancy shit of trying to launch his titan form into the air. None of those situations will bring a good outcome.
Levi retracts his grapples and redeploys one of them, pitching himself along the surface of the Wall and changing his direction mid-move. He’s only a few feet too far to the left, and he purposely aimed higher than needed, so all it takes is a quick one-two step of scaling to make it to Eren’s rapidly-ascending form. Their paths intersect and with an alternate redeploy that slams into the Wall close to his head, Levi thrusts his body forward.
He snags the back of Eren’s shirt to get that initial purchase on him, then with the secondary part of his surging strength he hoists Eren into his arm and pins Eren’s hands to his body, keeping him from doing that party trick of his. The kid may be taller than him, but he’s light as a fucking feather and easy to maneuver so long as he doesn’t start kicking and screaming seven ways to Sunday.
It’s just one grapple to steady them centered along the Wall, and then they can descend from there. It’s easy.
Life has never been easy, though, and today is no different.
At just the same time that Levi deploys his second grapple, Eren shouts, “Let me go!” and twists his body so hard you’d think the guy to be tearing himself in half. There’s a panic to his tone that has Levi reeling.
Eren’s reckless struggling throws Levi off-balance just enough to miss the grapple, which flies off into the air uselessly. When Levi attempts to pull it back in, Eren’s floundering damn near knocks the control for that side of his ODM out of his hand. This kid is all flailing limbs and breaths too shallow for screams that deep.
It’s fine. It delays him and he has to work quicker now, but he’s still capable of rescinding the grapple and performing a force-pivot to bring them down safely.
Until, still thrashing, Eren slips in Levi’s grasp.
In one unthinking instant, Levi’s priority changes.
“Let me go!” screams Eren.
They lose momentum as they hit the end of the cord’s give, and then they swing backwards. All at once. Like a lightning bolt or a gunshot or a slit carotid.
Levi has seen his soldiers devolve into screaming and blubbering messes before. It almost never ends well, with their panicked flailing and improper breathing. Thoughts go awry, if they don’t tumble to a complete halt. No way Eren is rational enough to execute an order, let alone comprehend speech.
So Levi does the only thing he can think to do. He wraps his other arm around Eren. He tightens his grip. And he doesn’t let go.
Hold, he commands the cord and hook. Hold, damn you.
“Let go, please!”
When Levi’s back slams against the Wall, the impact is so profound that it rattles his every cell. It knocks the wind out of him, and the recoil snaps his head back. This second impact makes him see stars: something goes wrong—topsy-turvy and twisted. Long and arduous is his distorted vision as his brain tries to convince itself he’s somehow turned sideways. “Dizziness” doesn’t do this feeling justice—neither does “vertigo”. Nausea sinks its teeth into his gut but that, also, is too tame a word.
His head drops, eyes barely open. The ground speeds toward him, horrifying in its depth, a dusty maw to chew him up, a pool of human decay beneath a bed creaking under lessening weight, and he squeezes Eren even closer to his chest.
With all the focus he has left, Levi turns them and launches the second grapple into the Wall. Seeing the surface fracture from the latch terrifies him, unjustifiably—he thinks, for the first time in forever, he realizes exactly where he is and what he’s doing. Everything feels far too real. Simultaneously, he’s never felt so disconnected.
Levi’s boots hit stone. One foot skids a small distance downward as the hook catches its purchase proper.
It’s still.
The weirdest feeling washes over him. He knows that he should feel steady and capable with his gear—he’s used it millions of times and he’s more than perfected his technique—but he’s…
He’s in midair. He has to get down to the ground. Fuck the vertigo, he can puke in a bush if he has to. He blinks back to himself, glances around as much as he can without turning his head, and slowly descends the remaining distance.
It’s easy.
It should be easy, at least, but he’s unsteady and he thinks he’s swimming in sewage and the fucking thing he’s toting so tight to the ground—what the hell is that?—squirms like a maggot the whole way down.