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“Y’know, I was almost arrested by Military Police when I was ten.”
Levi raises an eyebrow at them from over the lip of his booze. Such a statement would be unsurprising if he were still in the Underground, but up here on the surface, it’s almost unheard of to be touched by the MP’s at that age unless you got yourself into some real shit. If Hange in their adolescence is anything like Hange now, they definitely got themself into some shit— but not incarceration level of shit.
When he meets their gaze, Hange’s face is flushed red. Not quite the manic blush they get during their experiments, but rather a state of drunken floridity that ruddies their cheeks. They answer his raised eyebrow with an, “Mmm, well. Now that I’m thinking about it, they were probably just scolding me. I was so young though, I thought for sure I was about to get carted off and executed.”
Levi watches their eyes droop as they speak, their face nodding slowly into their bottle, chin resting on its lip, before sliding down until their nose plugs the hole, dopey grin on their face. Gross.
He rolls his eyes at them, that wasn’t the answer he was quite looking for, but he can’t exactly relay the question again with another twitch of his face. He resigns his apathy for curiosity. “What did you do?”
Hange isn’t listening to him, they’ve got their forehead on their bottle now, picking at the wrapper with their bitten nails. It’s past happy hour, creeping late into the night, but the bar is still buzzing with life. The room is awash with the orange glow of lanterns, and the veteran scout members are all scattered throughout. Mike and Nanaba had gone off to dance, Erwin disappeared somewhere into the crowd–because of course he did–and Levi thinks he saw Moblit passed out on a bench in the corner of the room. There’s a band in the corner strumming some jovial tune he doesn’t know. With a quick beat and a bass drum he feels thumping in his rib cage.
Hange is watching the band, eyes half-lidded but still sparkling with fascination. That stupid smile is still plastered on their face. He thinks they’re humming, but he can’t be sure, given the fact he can’t hear much outside the diameter of their splintered table.
“Oi.” Levi barks, when they don’t respond.
“Hm?”
“I asked what you did to get almost arrested, Four-eyes.”
“Oh!” Hange perks up, once more surfacing to something nearing clarity before their eyes get glassy again. “So… y’know how I’m really curious ‘n stuff? Well imagine that like…times a bajillion as a kid because I didn’ know a whole yet y’know. Like everything is super new still! And exciting! So I lived in Wall Rose…but like not the part near Sina so I wasn’t rich or some shit. The part right near the wall so it’s like still walking distance for a twelve-year-old….” They trail off again. Turning back to watch the band, before shaking their head like a wet dog in an attempt to shake the distractions off of them physically. “Ten! I was ten. Not twelve. Hey, Levi, this band is pretty exciting. The bass drum is so loud! It sounds like titans are chasing us! Don’t’ch’a think?”
“Nope.” Levi deadpans. A drunk Hange is a distracted Hange, and not one that can afford a titan-related tangent. Part of him worries he might seem too eager to learn more about Hange, and that curiosity will lead to further attempts at friendship–as they are wont to do. Hange had been vying for his company since they met him, and it's only gotten worse in the months after Isabel and Furlan passed. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had a notebook dedicated solely to studying him.
That train of thought is a sour one. It’s only been three months since they were killed, but Levi already feels like he’s given too much of his history to Hange. He gives into their pestering just to make them stop, but no matter how little a bone he throws them, they make a meal of it instead. It’s a skill for sure, and one he would respect if it wasn’t actively working against him.
Still, for all Hange’s skill in digging their pesky claws into his life and general extroversion, they were never one to show their own cards. They’ve always made a point to learn about their comrades– families, friends, hometown—but never one to give equal information in return. When the conversation shifts back to them, their responses are always in the now . Their family is their fellow veterans. Their friends, well, nearly the entirety of the Scouts. Where are they from? Within the walls like you, silly! Now, what was I saying about the titans?
Levi supposes everyone else is too polite to prod in the same incessant way they do. No one is quite as hungry for information as them, and no one is willing to risk an uncomfortable conversation when it's unnecessary.
Hange is a stone castle. One that invites its citizens to play in the gardens but never opens its gates. The faux intimacy is a shield that lets others think they’ve crossed the bridge when in actuality they haven’t even left the field. They flaunt their emotions on a whim and yet have never spoken of their own past.
Levi would be a liar if he said he wasn’t curious.
But that’s all it is. Just a baseline curiosity. Something ingrained in him from the Undercity, a survival tactic meant to exploit any weakness available. He tells himself that this is the reason for his line of questioning. There’s a tingling in his chest, a flush on his cheeks, but it’s all just the anticipation of knowing something that no one else does. It’s leverage. The way he sways closer to their face as they speak, caught like the moon to earth, drunk on cheap booze and the way the lanterns bounce off the rim of their glasses are all just a front to keep them talking. Maybe he could use the stories to get Hange to stop pestering him for a change. Flip the coin on them. They would be impressed by his enterprise.
That’s what he tells himself, at least, when he prompts:
“What happened next, with the MP’s?”
Hange blinks awake again, before gesticulating wildly. “Right! So I got curious about the walls, and what they were made of to be able to keep titans out for so long…so, being ten and having no research budget, obviously. I took a trowel from my mom and started trying to dig my way through the wall.”
Levi’s hands are covering the mouth of his bottle, and when he tilts his head he finds his face much closer to his fingers than before, and, finding his head feeling much heavier than it should, he rests his cheek fully on his knuckles. For all his efforts at nonchalance, he knows he looks enraptured. He’s never made this much eye contact before. He nods at them to continue.
“And the MP’s nearby totally freaked!” Hange shouts, loud enough for the table next to them to shoot them a questioning glance. “I don’t know why , I obviously couldn’t do shit with a gardening shovel. I hadn’t even chipped the damn thing. But they jus’ started screaming at me, calling me a dumbass brat or something, and grabbing the trowel right from my hands. They marched me right back home and then lectured my parents about watching me or some bullshit,” Hange growls, or tries to, the effect is lost under their slurred words, and throws their hands into the air with a roll of their eyes. Levi follows the movement with a half-lidded gaze. “I don’t even know.”
Levi had never heard of Hanges’ parents, not even in reference. And, even though his head feels stuffed full of feathers and the world keeps tilting, he has enough self-awareness to recognize the subject as sensitive. Hange has asked him about his family before–not that he answered, of course—and he uses that excuse to swallow the guilt as he asks, cautiously: “were your parents mad?”
Hange’s eyebrows knit together as if they’re straining to remember, before they fall into a decidedly forlorn look. Levi already regrets asking, and has to stop himself before doing something stupid, like reaching over to smooth the wrinkle on their brow. Or bringing up Titans. “Oh, well, my dad wasn’t. He was a… something merchant. I don’ remember— he wouldn’t talk to me about it anyway because it wasn’t appropriate for a young lady . I’m not even a lady .” They huff, then take a swing from their bottle, wiping their lips on their sleeve and glaring at the uneven wood on their table. “Doesn’t matter anyway because he was a shitty merchant and his trade was going under, so he was too busy trying to save his ass to lecture me. He left that to my mom. She was pissed, though.”
What did she do? Levi wants to ask, but he can tell that this conversation is souring, and Hange still hasn’t looked up from the table. He wants to see their eyes. He asks instead: “Did your mother work?”
“Mhm,” Hange hums, rolling the base of their drink in a circle on the table. “She was a seamstress and tailor. She’d always force me to wear all the dresses she made and would lock me in my room ‘till I wore them.” Their lip twitches upwards, “until of course I was tall enough to unlock the damn thing myself. Then she’d put chairs under the doors to keep me in– before I learned I could just brute-force my way through instead, ‘course.”
Levi huffs something that could be a laugh, remembering Hange’s habit of slamming doors open instead of knocking.
“After the wall incident though,” Hange continues, grimacing, “she hit me in front of the MPs and then put me in my room and shoved a bookcase in front of it and wouldn’t give me dinner.”
Levi pinches his eyebrows together, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, fidgety and unsure of how to comfort someone under normal circumstances, let alone when they’re both drunk off their asses.
Hange finally looks up at him again, grinning. Their eyes are closed, however. He really wants to see their eyes. “It’s fine, I ran away to join the Cadets as soon as I turned thirteen, and I haven’t seen nor heard of either of them since.” Their eyes are finally open, and his shoulders shoot to his ears at the watery sight of them. “For all I know, they could be dead!” They exclaim, the crack of their voice belying their jovial tone.
Levi’s brain doesn’t catch up to his fingers before he’s reaching across the table, grabbing their hand in his. Hange’s fingers are slender and calloused, and they fit seamlessly between his knuckles. He squeezes once, in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.
Hange gives him a watery smile. Their forehead drops onto their clasped hands, and Levi feels the warmth seep into his skin.
“Thanks, Levi,” Hange mutters into his hand, he thinks he can feel their lips brush his skin. “You’re a good listener.”
Levi can only nod, mutely, and squeezes their hand once more.