Making a Home out of Loose Ends

Knowing You

Listening to Hange speak while cleaning the laboratory quickly became a vital part of his daily routine. Levi had learned not only to expect it, but to look forward to it. They always had something interesting to share, and even their mundane ramblings about their students had a distinct charm to them.

"And there's this guy, a first semester student, and you are not going to believe this, but his name is literally Eren Jaeger. I mean, who the fuck names their kid that?"

Levi grimaced.

"That's pretty fucked up."

"I know right? And I have to act like that is normal. Like it's a normal name to have."

Professor Hange turned out to be not only an amazing researcher, but extremely knowledgeable in Eldian history as well. Titans had been their special interest, as they called it, since they were a child, spending hours upon hours deep into every book they could find on the subject, whether they were reliable or not. At some point as a teenager, they had decided to take this strange hobby to another level, choosing to study cell biology with the purpose of better understanding the mechanics of titan transformation.

"I've always been inexplicably drawn to them. Everyone thinks it's weird, but I can't help it."

"You are as normal about it as you could be," Levi replied, thinking about his previous experiences with titan obsessed people, none of them pleasant. Hange was, in comparison, thoughtful and measured, as well-informed on the subject as one could be.

He enjoyed the consistency of this routine for a good while, so when one day he entered the lab to find that Hange wasn't there, he became instantly upset. The room was orderly, unnaturally so, and it was reasonable to assume it was because the person responsible for the expected mess hadn't shown up to work at all. Maybe they had gotten sick, he reasoned, trying not to think too much of it, attributing his distress to this sudden change in schedule.

When he came home, he wasn't able to bring himself to fall asleep. He stared at the dark ceiling until sunrise.

-.-.-.-.-

He had arrived to work early, just to ask around about Hange. One student, a young man with blond hair and a sweet smile, had been kind enough to answer. Next to him, there was a boy with brown hair, clinging to his arm like a scared child. Levi thought he had a very punchable face.

"Do you know when they'll be back?"

"No, but I've got their contact info. They sent all the students a note telling us their class was canceled."

But this did not ease his concern. This irrational worry, summed up to his lack of sleep, took a significant toll on him, and he was bitterly miserable for the rest of the day as a result.

So he felt really stupid when the next day Hange welcomed him into the lab, bright as sunshine, fully recovered from whatever it was that had kept them housebound for the past two days.

"You look more tormented than usual," they said as soon as he got close enough for them to see his gloomy face. "Is everything alright?"

"I guess I'm back to normal," he replied. "I got a few nights of good sleep since arriving to Sina, but I guess good things never last."

"You are not from Sina?"

Levi shook his head, starting to sweep the floor, as this was his usual first step.

"I'm from Marley."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I was in the military and all. I was diagnosed with some chronic condition before I could be deployed, though. I was never actually on a battlefield. So I left, and that's when I became a janitor."