Hand in Hand

15. Insomnia

"Eren, Eren Yeager! You get your ass up and start walking! The fate of humanity depends on you!"

"Hanji, you've been experimenting on him for hours. Don't you think you should ease up?" Asked (y/n).

It had been three days since the scouts had found out about the Royal Government's plans for Eren. Scouts from Levi and Hanji squad were standing on top of a hill, looking down into a grassy field. Eren, in his titan form, was laid face down into the ground, steam rising from his body. The face and chest of his titan were thick and muscular but its legs were thin like tree branches, disproportionate to the rest of its body.

It was Hanji's twentieth experiment in the past month. "If I can just get him to have more control over his titan, then he'll be more of a help to us with whatever Lord Reiss has planned for him," she had said.

"Hell no!" Hanji screamed, spewing spit onto (y/n)'s face. She turned back to Eren and yelled down the hill, "If that's all you got, then ya' might as well pack it all up, kid! Moblit, are you sketching this?"

"Hey four eyes, doesn't he look different this time?" Levi pointed to Eren. "His titan isn't even ten meters tall and, better yet, Eren's scrawny ass is sticking out."

"I can see that!" She screamed, stomping her feet.

"Eren!" Mikasa yelled from behind them as she rode down the hill on horseback to Eren.

"Oh look, it's the star crossed lover," muttered Levi.

"Give me a damn break," groaned Hanji. "Mikasa, wait for me!" She began running after her.

"Section Commander, don't just run off like that!" Moblit yelled, chasing after Hanji.

(Y/n) breathed out a laugh and looked to the right of her, where Levi was standing. "I feel bad for you, Levi. You had to deal with Hanji years before I even joined the Scouts."

Levi flinched as if he were able to say something, but instead, he nodded sternly and turned away.

'I don't get how you can be nice to me one day, then not talk to me the next,' (y/n) thought. Since the night they had talked down in the barracks, she had caught him sneaking glances at her during breakfast and pacing outside of Hanji's lab, but he never said a word to her. Levi did this to her every time. Just when she thought she might be getting closer to knowing who Levi truly is, he shut her out. (Y/n) didn't feel any closer to him than she did when she first met him.

"(Y/n)!" Hanji screamed from the field below. "Round everyone up, we're leaving! I just have to cut Eren out from his titan!" She waved her ODM blade in the air frantically.

(Y/n) was shaken from her thoughts. She turned to the rookies from Levi's squad, Armin and Historia, along with Jean, Connie, and Sasha. "Alright, you heard her. Everyone, back on your horses and back to base!"

Now annoyed, she rolled her eyes and mounted her horse. With an exhausted expression, (y/n) tightened her grip on the reins and said to Levi, "If you're not going to talk to me, then I feel no obligation to follow your stupid order." She wasted no second on him, riding off back to the Trost Branch.

As they rode back to base, Levi couldn't help but feel anxiety and guilt churning in his stomach. Yes, he didn't mean to push her away, but it was something he just subconsciously did. In the past, those who he had cared deeply for had been led to their death, and the common factor was their involvement with him. Was it his fear pushing (y/n) away, or his guilt?

Eren was placed in a small room on the base to rest. Thin scars marked his face and arms from where he had been pulled out of his tian, revealing the spongey red flesh under his skin, a residue of his titan form. It reminded him just how strenuous transforming was. Hanji's experiment earlier that day was the last he would have to endure for months. Armin and Mikasa had entered the room along with him and hadn't come out since.