The Wings of Truth

10.

Levi woke without Eren the next morning. He sat up and looked around the room for Eren, but didn't find him. He only found Hanji scribbling away into her notes with a shard of Annie's crystal lying on her desk amongst some papers. Levi groaned and rolled back over to curl up against the wall, desperate for the sensation of being coddled by another human body. "You're up!" Her voice was softer than usual and lower in pitch so as not to aggravate him. She was his best friend on both ends of the relationship and their fifteen years were effective in committing each trouble and quirk about one another to memory. Levi's sense of hearing was heightened after the anniversary, so she made sure to be considerate of that. "Are you alright?"

"Where'd Eren go?" Her question was deflected like a cow's tail smacking a fly from concern. He was alone and uncomfortable in his own mind and skin. She hesitated at the abrupt and urgent tone in his voice. It was almost pleading. Tell me where he is. It hurt with how he seemed to be longing for his titan shifter.

"I got him up before the bell. He needed to get to his room so as not to be missed. Why?" She replied, turning her chair around to look at Levi curled up against the wall.

"Come here," he ordered and she got up to appease him. When she knelt on of the bed to look over at him, she squeaked in surprise as he tugged her down and held her close, burying his face in her chest and neck. "Stay."

"No problem," she cooed and wrapped her arms around him and held the man close. He still needed comfort and healing from the day prior, and Hanji was used to being his rock in those times just as he was hers when her dad is mentioned. They both loved and are now hurting. They could lean on each other and make two weak supports into one strong power.

"When did you come in?" His breath was soft on her collarbone and she smiled at how cuddly he was. Humanity's Strongest liked to be coddled and doted upon. It was an amusing thought, but his friends knew that he was still human after all. He wasn't just a weapon against the titans, but a human with the capacity to feel love and pain.

"Sometime before dawn. I woke Eren up and had him hurry back down to his room so he could pretend that he came in late last night. The less he's missed, then the easier for you two to fraternize without being reported." He nodded minutely into the soft skin of her chest and breathed deeply, taking in the scent of something sickly sweet but with a sharp cut of something clinging to her skin. Hanji always smelling weird, and it wasn't just his clean freak tendencies that made him think that. No, Hanji legitimately smelled weird all the time, even Mike agreed with his sentiment. "She always smells like something new, and if she doesn't then she smells like soap or Erwin" is what he told Levi in reply to his voicing the thought. They thought for several minutes before Mike figured out why it was. "She's a scientist. It must be from her experiments and plants."

"You smell like a weed," he groaned and she laughed. She smelled of lavender, a plant from inside Maria. She smelled nice. She smiled and explained her current subject and how it seemed to have a calming effect on her and Moblit in the areas she worked with it. It was helping them both sleep, and she was so thankful for that since she always had trouble sleeping. She was a restless mind and was often up in the middle of the night working as a result. She used to wake up in the middle of the night and grab some tea from the mess hall, and if Petra was having trouble sleeping as well, then they'd share that cup over a nice conversation in the dim lights of the candles they had. "A nice weed, though," he complimented and she smiled. He cared deeply for her, loved even, and he was often odd in his words to her, not wanting to misconstrue what he said to her.

"You smell like grass. A nice grass though," she teased in reply and he smiled at the gesture. She often joked with his words when she wanted him to know that she got what he meant the first time. He was still filthy from his trip and the reminder made him grimace.