Dear courageous (Eruri, Erwin x Levi) EXPLICIT

Part Eight: Coward

The remaining weeks of May were heavy with preparations for the upcoming mission. Levi drilled the formation strategy with the Scouts daily, running several overnight exercises in the Rose valley. The soldiers were to know the plan by muscle and heart, leaving nothing to chance. But still, Erwin could think of nothing but chance, and every time he and Levi were alone together misery clawed sharp at his insides. If anything were to happen to him, how would he possibly explain his grief, let alone live with it? He held onto Levi desperately, brutally, and each time they fell down together Levi held him by the throat until his fears went quiet and dark under the close of his grip.

Then in June, the day of the operation arrived, and waiting behind the Wall with Eren as per Pixis' instructions, Erwin watched as Levi led the rest of their company into the maw of the unknown. Heart in his throat, Erwin prayed to all the Gods he'd never believed in that he would see him again.

The red flare came just before noon. Eren and the Commander exploded through the gate in a race of hooves and Titan steam, Eren's grim form coiling into being, quaking the ground tectonic. Riding hard behind him, Erwin steeled himself for the horrors ahead.

It was worse than he'd expected. Old blood stained the cobbles of the ruined village a sickening brown before they had even reached the others. Up ahead the Armoured Titan barrelled his arms at two attacking scouts, and Eren's Titan ran straight for it, his roar vibrating Erwin down to his intestines. Retreating metallic on their lines, Mikasa and Jean pulled back, clearing the way as Eren connected, slamming Reiner into a furious roll across the ground. Stones from the buildings exploded into powder around them, grey dust rising thick and opaque into the air.

Levi...! Where was Levi!

Choking through the dust, Erwin grappled, pushed off from his horse and slashed one of the crowding titans into a spurting crumple. Finally he spotted Levi, his narrow frame collapsed into a tangle of ODM gear, unconscious at the base of the Wall. A bright smear of crimson painted down the shadow of his face, and for a moment Erwin's entire world razed to ash. He knew he couldn't run to him, not yet, but still Erwin swore nothing would live if he had to live without Levi. Rage like lightning burned his veins electric, narrowed his vision to savagery. Leaping up past Moblit and Hange into the fray of gorgon mouths, the Commander drove his blade screaming into the next titan's face, the next neck, the next eyeball, fluids spurting hot and clear as steam like poison gassed the air.

A boulder the size of a house suddenly came cometing towards them.

"Clear!" Erwin screamed, rocketing backward on his grapples. Moblit looked up a moment too late. In the next, he was gone.

A roar shuddered the air, trembling the very ground, and with a deafening snap the Armoured Titan's arm burst into the sky, falling back down to the earth with an explosive crash. Flying through the eruption, Mikasa sent an empty grapple into Reiner's eye as he stumbled and smoked to the ground, splitting the trees beneath him to tinder. Eren's Titan leapt onto him, digging his monstrous jaws against Reiner's neck.

"Erwin!" shrieked Petra, and Erwin dove, narrowly escaping a second rain of boulders. The ground quaked, shuddered, boomed like a war drum as the Beast Titan slammed down into their midst. Swinging his arm long as a Hydra's neck, he exploded the roofs beneath Erwin and Sasha. Snatching her from the air, Erwin flew them both into a careening roll, tumbling and bashing their limbs across the ground as it erupted around us with rockfall. Eren's Titan roared, screaming the air full, and Erwin jumped up into the dust, unable to see. His foot stumbled at something soft.

Mikasa was screaming for Eren, her voice red and breaking. The dust cleared, and Erwin lifted the toe of his boot. Below him lay the twisted, legless body of Connie Springer, his eyes cemented open, green and cold with horror.