This is My Last War (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) - Part 3

Remember, Remember!

Hanji is so silly, Levi thought, feeling a fond smile tug at his lips. Getting excited over a bit of blood like that, tsk.

He put his face against her warm neck and inhaled deeply. Only she could gush for at least an hour about medical sciences and the joys of feeling the pains of womanly cramps while a man was aching and desperate to get her laid.

"Are you asleep?" He whispered.

"Mhhhh," she hummed, continuing to breathe in and out deeply and regularly. A soldier's skill: respond to questions while sleeping soundly.

"Pfft," he tightened his arms around her. Silly Hanji.

The bed they shared again was still far too narrow for two people and still he didn't mind one bit. Rationally, he wasn't the type to cuddle someone like a stuffed toy, but nothing he was doing these days was rational: Having sex with his superior. Getting emotional about it. Deviating from his orders. Wading knee deep in trouble.

After their weird encounter in the Titan facility gardens, Levi had dragged the tightly bound, unconscious Eren to the Doctor's house and made sure he was secured even more tightly to a bed for the night. Mikasa had given him an evil side eye upon seeing Eren's bruised face but she must have realized it was smarter to keep her mouth shut, since there was nothing that could be said to defend Eren's treacherous action. They would decide what to do with him tomorrow - according to Hanji and Armin, the decision needed some 'careful thinking'.

Levi was doubtful that much thinking was necessary: Without Eren on their side they were truly, deeply fucked.

Hanji hadn't been able to do any careful thinking anyway - not that Levi felt sorry for keeping her a little busy, exhausting her to the point where she had just mumbled "more later, Levi, later", falling asleep the very next moment. No, he didn't feel sorry: She deserved her rest, she was always working so hard.

He sighed and inhaled more Hanji scent before closing his eyes to catch a few hours of sleep himself. It wasn't something to boast about, but he had never trusted Eren, that boy just knew how to bat his sad green eyes at people and have them fawn and coo over him like he was a whole litter of puppies. For a long time, Levi had felt that Eren was up to something, something that would not be pretty once it hit them.

Maybe that thing was finally here?

On the brink of sleep, Levi knew with eerie certainty that he was going to have one of his "strange" dreams, but he could not do anything against it. He heard a weird voice mumble something, then was inevitably drawn up and forward to that place, the place with the white sand and the colorful sky, where he felt lost and forlorn, like he was the last human being on earth.

"Hanji," he croaked, "wake me up!"

But how could she, no sound left his lips. He lay there frozen, helpless, and pathetically terrified.

... White sand covers the ground, twinkling like a gazillion tiny stars. It is warm and pleasant underneath his bare feet - which is an illusion, a lie, there is no warmth here. The vastness of what he beholds is stunning, the sky is painted with trails of wavering light and he who never knew fear feels humbling awe as he stares and stares and cannot avert his eyes even when they feel like they are melting out of his head.

"It's not like I haven't been here before," he says to calm himself but words exist only inside his head, his tongue is so heavy he cannot move it. There is no calm, only creeping dread. He feels increasingly dizzy and powerless, like the sand saps his life out through the soles of his bare feet.

"Why the fuck are my feet bare?" He lifts one foot off the ground to have a closer look at it. Have his feet always been this small and white? It's well known, only idiots walk around with no shoes, because if you do, you are bound to cut yourself. One guy even died of an infection that way. Military Police, of course. All of them, idiots.