Blue and White - Levi Fanfiction

Ch. 29 - The Boy Who Can Turn into a Titan

"Tch... it got all filthy."

"Of course it did," I said, not without a certain level of snark and smirking at him all the while. "You only murdered something." He leveled a rather annoyed look with me, but I only responded by allowing my smirk to morph into a smile. "Take a look down there, smartass," I said, gesturing to the two decaying Titans I had killed only moments ago. "You have to learn to look around, love."

He'd killed his two Titans, and I'd killed mine, and we landed on the same roof at roughly the same time. Of course, he got right to wiping his blades clean, while I simply kept them out and let the blood evaporate away by itself - at least, that was what I was doing until Levi stepped closer, keeping a close eye on our surroundings yet taking my wrist in his hand so he could use the other to wipe the decaying mess away with his handkerchief.

"That's not professional language, now is it?"

"Which part?" I asked teasingly. "Calling you a smartass, or calling you love?"

"You're looking to get us court-martialled, aren't you?"

"And you were looking to get Petra, Nathan, and me trampled, apparently."

At the mention of his name, Levi's eyes found mine and his tone grew serious and low. "How is he doing?"

"Not good," I answered gravely. "It... probably won't be long before he... you know."

Knowing that I wouldn't lie to him about something like that, he nodded gravely and let me lead the way back to the soldier. We landed a short way away from him and when she noticed our brisk approach, Petra looked up towards us. She was applying pressure to the wound I had been originally, and already I could see that he was several shades paler than he had been only moments ago. Goodness, the poor man was nearly transparent.

"Captains," Petra said in greeting, though rather obviously, panic rose in her chest and wavered in her voice.

As far as I could remember, while she had done some training under field medics, she hadn't as of yet had to deal with the death of another soldier. She'd seen it, of course she had. In this regiment, it was hard to avoid seeing that sort of thing. But to try to help only for it to be all for nothing... her training hadn't included this. This was new to her, and it was surely affecting her more than she would allow herself to say.

"I can't stop the bleeding!"

"Captains?" That was Nathan's quiet voice now, and I knelt beside Petra, gently moving her hands and replacing them with my own. Levi knelt on his other side, his focus only on the dying soldier before us.

"We're here," I said gently to our poor comrade. Petra, true to her training, redirected her hands to another wound of his to apply pressure there, but I knew well the eyes of a dying man, and he had them.

"What?" Levi prompted him.

When he gathered the breath required to speak, it was still broken, quiet, and horribly shaken and unsteady. "Was I... useful to mankind?"

His focus was not on us, but on the sky. His eyes were glassy, glazing over with the clammy grasp of death. He lifted his hand up and reached for the sky, which to him, in this moment... simultaneously close enough to touch, but much too far away. I gently picked up his head and set it in my lap, so that he might be more comfortable, then returned my hands to his torso wound.

"Or will I die... useless... like this?"

The poor, downtrodden soldier teared up, and Levi grasped his bloodied hand. "You did great," Levi assured him, his voice authoritative and firm. It was his Captain's voice; that which did not allow for negotiation, nor did it allow for argument. It let the soldier know that there was no doubt in Levi's mind that this was true - and for any good soldier, such solid authority was something to count on and right now, it was probably all the poor man wanted to hear.