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The barracks are always mildly disgusting. One can always clean their corner, but one still has to coexist with everyone else. A part of Levi, a stupid and mindless part, wants to crawl back into the underground, into his tiny hard-fought for apartment, with his tiny well-cared for room, with not a dust mote in sight, with Isabel's laugh outside the door.
Nothing about that makes sense, here, in the surface, now, after loosing them in the rain. None of that has anywhere to go.
Levi pushes the sheets back and leaves the bunk bed, not making a sound, not needing a light. He puts on his shoes and the jacket and a cravat. He glances around. Nobody is awake. There's only sleeping soldiers, some too busy twitching with nightmares, to witness his departure. He prefers it that way.
He walks in the dark. Into the corridors, his steps sounding mildly without snores to cover them up.
Upside, the difference between night and day is so clearly marked. So easy to glance around and notice it's night, because one expects the sunlight to tickle in from somewhere, from a fissure in the wood or a window. It's an obvious difference, when he lived most his life from firelight, but somehow, the difference of sound is more striking. The surface is quieter. Like the open sky allows sounds to just drift off, rather than bounce off the cavern walls (because the underground is that, a cavern. The word leaves a bad taste in his mouth.) There's no dirty water tickling down all around. Most everyone sleeps at the same time, so nobody is yelling, nobody is moaning, nobody is working. It allows other, milder, sounds to stand out. Crickets. Wind. The horses in the stables.
Levi stops on top of a staircase. His meandering took him to the officer's quarters, and it almost feels like a pull, like he could end up nowhere else, when he spots the light under one of the doorways. He can just make out the sound of scribbling, of papers shifting. So much for nobody working.
Levi doesn't knock. Erwin doesn't even glance up, focused, as he is wont to be. Levi doesn't step further in. Erwin finishes writing his letter, and only then, candlelight shinnig off his cool eyes, does he look up. "Good evening Levi," says the man, so well mannered despite being a soldier, "anything I can assist you with?"
Levi shakes his head. He doesn't know anybody like Erwin. Anybody that takes to an assassination attempt without any offense. Anybody that can be so severe and so kind, at the same time. A half of Levi feels like he was dragged kicking and screaming into this life, and the other feels like he was politely invited. A combination of his desperate choices and rough impulses and stupid desicions, bringing him right into Erwin's palm, and somehow, also Erwin's design. Levi can't regret being here, for the man's dream. That's who Erwin is, and Levi is still learning to get a read on the blond. He has to begin the framework from zero, because there's nobody he can quite use as a reference.
Right now, the pale hair is still neatly parted, the shirt only slightly wrinkled, and his eyes clear, as if it wasn't the middle of the night. The bolo tie is loose, showing off more of his strong neck.
What a man.
"You look a shitty mess," Levi says, crossing into the room and around the desk, looking down at the papers, squinting at them for a moment. Death notices. "Maybe you need help, before you fall all over yourself."
"Thank you, Levi, but I would prefer to do these myself. Besides, I'm almost finished, and they'll be ready to send off in the morning."
Huh, he wants to notify the families as promptly as possible. "Isn't Shadis supposed to do this shit?" Erwin hadn't lost anybody in his squad, last time.
"Shadis is asleep."
"Pig."
That cracks a slow and tiny smile out of the man. "You know, Levi, a well rested Commander is ideal for the Survey Corps."
There are many ways Levi would describe Shadis, and well rested isn't one of them.
Levi spins away. "Whatever. Tell me if you need me to take over, and if I see you so much as blink for too long, I'm forcing you to bed." He sits down on the chair in the corner of the room, opposite the bed and perfectly within sight of Erwin's desk. "We need you better rested than anyone else around here."
Erwin nods. "I appreciate it, Levi."
Then it's just them. The papers shuffling, the flame flickering, and Erwin writing in that elegant caligraphy of his. Erwin acts like his family could afford a private tutor. Levi doesn't understand how he isn't a spoiled brat. He doesn't need to understand. He'll keep watch either way.
Levi doesn't know in what moment he falls asleep. Erwin notices immediately.
Levi never sleeps on the communal bunk beds again.