Chapter Text
“I already gave you food today, stop whining,” the black cat that shitty glasses had dragged into his apartment a few days ago stared up to him from the ground with big round green eyes. Shitty glasses had said he needed company, needed something to take care of, that the companionship of a cat can be a relief for loneliness.
He wasn’t lonely fucking damn it!
"I don’t need a fucking cat four eye," he had argued as Hange had presented him the fucking thing.
"But look at him, isn’t he cute?"
"He’s missing half a tail and a whole ear."
"Yeah, they don’t know what happened to him, they found him in a ditch like that. I named him Lieutenant," Levi had given them an annoyed look.
"Lieutenant, meet your Captain," Hange had sat, holding the cat up to his face.
"You think you’re so funny, don’t you?" he had asked, not impressed, leaning away and not touching the animal.
"He’ll grow on you."
"Like a tumor," Levi had spat but Hange only chuckled and set the cat on the ground. "Take him back he’s gonna make everything dirty!" Levi had said as Hange had started to get into their jacket and the cat had ran off into his apartment.
"Cats are very hygienic animals!" Hange had gone over to the door.
"Hange I’m serious. Take him back!" shitty glasses had opened the door and waved to him, smiling like an idiot.
"Bye! Don’t forget to feed him, I bought some cans and put them in your cabinet!" Hange had slipped through the door and had jumped down the stairs waving up to him.
"Hange get back here! I swear I will strangle him and throw his body out the window!" he had yelled, but Hange had been already outside. Only the old woman living on the opposite side of the floor had stared at him with big, worried eyes and had closed her door quickly.
Levi snorted, ignored the cat now and continued to make his tea. It took until the water was boiling and the damn cat was meowing at him again.
“What the fuck do you want?” Levi turned back to the cat, the little rest of its tail flicked from one side to the other, observing him and meowing again, its head looked a bit uneven with just the one ear pocking up.
Levi decided to ignore the cat again, he did his job with the food there was nothing more he could do. He reached for his cup, bypassed it completely. With an annoyed grunt he tried again, his eye-hand coordination was always worse when he was tired.
As he finally grabbed the cup, he made his way over to his little balcony, the cup in his whole hand, since he couldn’t even hold a teacup nowadays with his missing index and middle finger of his right hand from the knuckles up.
He sat on the only chair on his balcony, the sun was barely up, even the birds were still asleep but he just couldn’t lay any longer in his bed tossing and turning without getting any sleep. He had gotten a bit more than four hours, more than regularly but the bags under his eyes were still there, witnesses of his insomnia.
After finishing his tea, Levi started cleaning the kitchen. Rising the cup in the sink three times, before placing it back.
Wiping off the counter tops three times, his arm falling into a repetitive motion while doing so.
Next came the stove, scrubbing it three time. His arm started to get sore.
He knew his kitchen was clean, since he did all of that only yesterday.
The disgust in his stomach didn’t lessen while he was mopping off the floor for the second time. An annoyed grunt came over his lips as he checked the time. He wanted to be on his way to the studio already.
With a debating eye he mopped the floor one last time, trying to press down the urge to do it again, since he ended on three already. Trying to tell himself that it was fine. It was clean. Forcefully he shut the door to his little supply closet. Already at the end of his nerves with himself.
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered to himself and the cat observed him from the couch, legs tugged away completely and it's tail was flicking again.
“What are you fucking looking at?” he snapped at the cat, than grabbed his sport bag, throwing in a clean towel, clean clothes, water, his phone and earbuds and headed outside.
It’s been over a year since he was sent back, now he was a war veteran at twenty-seven, with eight fingers and one functioning eye, the other only saw shadows on good days.
He had been told to take it easy but easy was dangerous.
Easy meant sitting in his apartment the whole day, drinking tea on good days and scrubbing his hands bloody in the sink on bad days. Sitting on the sofa on good days and on the bottom of his shower screaming back at the voices in his head on bad days.
They said he should go to therapy, he tried - he was no man for therapy he decided afterwards.
It was only a fifteen-minute walk from his apartment to the boxing studio and he headed inside without much hesitation. The studio looked shabby on the outside, windows dirty and the facade crumbled at many spots but the picture was a whole lot different on the inside.
The walls were clean white, the floor was scrubbed clean, no dirty towels were laying around and Mike already waved him from the counter.
“Already back?” he asked as Levi passed him.
“Yes,” he answered, not meeting Mike's eyes. The blond man was a bull and reminded him far too much of the man of his unit back in the day. Levi headed straight for the changing rooms and changed into workout clothes. Wide shirt and shorts to just make an attempt at hiding how much weight he had lost since being back.
It’s been a few months since he first approached the studio, mostly he went a few times a week, but this week he already been here every fucking day. He already knew by now how much the boxing helped on shitty days.
Levi sat down on one of the benches and started to wrap his hands in tape. Starting by looping it around his thump and going around of what was left from his index finger over his knuckles, looping the tape around his wrist and moving on to the next finger. He flexed his fingers again and again, pulling the tape tight around his knuckles. It had taken some time to get used to his right hand missing two fingers, he still struggled with certain everyday tasks and it annoyed him endlessly.
As he finished his right hand by fasting the Velcro around his wrist, he made a fist, tested the tightness of the tape but it wasn’t tight enough, so he undid the entire wrap and started again. It took him three tries to get it right before he could move on to his left hand.
The other hand always took longer, since his missing fingers messed up the grip he had on the dark green tape. It took him an eternity, redoing the wrap two times before his mind left him alone and was satisfied with the tightness.
“Yeah, can you get the new contracts back to me as soon as possible?” Levi noticed Erwin’s voice from somewhere on his right side, judging the following silence he was probably on the phone with someone and Levi forcefully focused on his hands again and prayed Erwin would just continue back to his office.
“Alright, great thank you … Levi!” Erwin called and Levi let out an annoyed sigh, a big shadow approached him and he had to turn his head to actually see the men. He had to tell that idiot that it freaked him out when he continued approaching him like this, until today he managed to not flinch when his big ass shadow entered the sight of his blind eye without warning.
“You gonna let me help you with that someday?” Erwin asked, gesturing to his hands with a ridiculous friendly smile on his face, shoving his phone into his ridiculous too tight dress pants. Erwin was probably one of the only people who would wear dress pants and far too good fitting button ups - that let nothing to the imagination - to a boxing studio.
“I can do it myself,” Levi answered, while getting up. He only reached Erwin’s shoulders as he passed him, finding a spot to start stretching, avoiding Erwin’s eyes.
“I know you can, but it probably will be faster if you let me do it,” Erwin argued, narrowing his ridiculous eyebrows with a stupid knowing smile on his lips he always wore as if there was a joke nobody than him was getting.
Levi only grit his teeth - he knew that it took way too long, he had stopped checking the clock afterwards, tired of seeing that it took him sometimes up to thirty minutes to wrap his hands. It hadn’t always taken that long; his mind didn’t always pester him about doing it until it was right. But that fucking Erwin had seemed to notice annoyed the fuck out of him. He didn't understand how he even did it, since Erwin was mostly cooped up in his office hunching over paper work.
“Well, I have time,” Levi said now, stretching his body and loosening up his muscles.
“Why won’t you train the kids then?” Erwin was still standing by his right side and Levi was straddled for a moment that he was still there.
“I told you already, I'm not good with kids!” Levi answered, going over to light punches in the air, bringing his fists up to his face again and again. Focusing on his breathing while doing the repetitive routine that always calmed his nerves.
Erwin’s came into his sight again, his arms crossed in front of him while watching Levi warming up, his blond hair tidy combed to either side, revealing his undercut only slightly.
“They could learn a lot from you,” Erwin insisted, he tried to convince him for weeks now and Levi was tired of it.
From punches he went over to a few light body weight exercise, aware of Erwin who still waited for an answer that he wouldn’t get.
“Where still on for tomorrow then?” Erwin asked, realising too that he wouldn’t get an answer.
“Tomorrow?” Levi asked, slightly out of breath.
“Yeah, we talked about it last week, remember? You would at least listen to my suggestions regarding the kids?” Erwin’s look was kind, Levi hold his position for another few seconds before he got back up.
“Ah yeah, where you stealthy as hell invited yourself? I forgot about that. Hange is coming over too,” how did he land in that situation again? Right, Erwin had catched him at a particular bad day, talking his ear off about the kids lesson and why Levi had to at least try and only to make him stop talking Levi had said yes to whatever he had suggested. Seemed like he had invited himself into Levi's apartment.
He had taken that Xanax right after he left the studio on that day. He had to put another emergency pill in his wallet when he was home.
“Great, then I can finally meet her!” Erwin called out excited.
“Them,” Levi corrected him, still thinking how to get out of the situation but no plan was forming in his head. Erwin was fucking persistent.
“What?”
“You can meet them.”
“Right, of course. We said eight right?” Erwin asked, smiling again excited.
“I guess we did,” Levi answered defeated.
“By the way, you’re leaving an opening when you pulling your right shoulder up like this!” Erwin said, before he turned around and left and Levi could only stare after him disbelieving.
“Motherfucker!” he mumbled as he went back to his routines, clearly not pulling up his right shoulder!
-
Later back at his apartment he took a shower, washing away the filth on his skin. There was no way he could use the studio showers; they looked fine but they weren’t clean.
He did multiple times of soap and rinse and stepped out. The itch on his skin had quiet down after the shower and as he checked the clock it had only lasted forty minutes this time and there was no blood in the drain either.
Progress! he thought grumpily.
His hair hung in his face even more when it was wet, looking around in his bathroom his eyes spotted a hair tie, probably from Hange and loosely tied his hair back in a bun. A few strains weren’t long enough to hold but the majority was secured, escaped hairs tiggled his shaved sides.
Before the cat could annoy him again, Levi took one of the cat food cans out.
“Stop staring at me, you don’t even have thumps,” he snapped at the cat who sat to his feet and waited for the food as he struggled with the latch of the can, for once not complaining loudly and demanding like it so often did. He dumped the cat food in the little bowl, refilled the water too and then headed to the fridge to put some food into his own body.
-
First came the screams then came the pleads.
One moment he was sitting on his sofa not really watching some dumb TV show and the next he was curled up on the ground, fingers curled into his hair. It didn’t take long until the first scream left his throat.
His blind eye saw things that weren’t there, his breathing was rapid and way too fast but he was suffocating at the same time. All his muscled had tensed up and the phantom pain of his fingers being blown off was unpleasant, the phantom pain of his face getting split again was unbearable. The scar that cut over his lips and through his right eyebrow started itching and the smoke of gunpowder clogged his nose, he tasted blood in the air.
He hated this, he hated this so much. Lying between the sofa and coffee table, his mind held his body hostage. All triggered from a single firecracker that got ignited somewhere down the street.
He prayed it wouldn’t hold on that long this time, he hoped he didn’t have to hear his comrades screams another hour because it was tearing him apart inch by inch.
There was something pressing himself between Levi’s arms, he managed to roll on his back and the something climbed on top of his chest and started purring.
The vibration traveled through his entire body and Levi tried to hold his breath and listen. He listened to his body, focusing on the weight on his chest, trying to ignore the false images his mind conjured up in his head.
The purring grounded him, gave him a piece of reality he could hold on to while the battlefield was overbearing in his mind.
When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at two green eyes and a ball of black fur that was laying on his chest. The cat was looking at him with half closed eyes, still purring and flicking its tail, one remaining ear twitching as they looked at each other.
“Guess we won this fight,” he whispered as he took a slow rigid breath, his chest and the cat rising with it.
-
“You got to be fucking kidding me,” this cat was the ban of his fucking existence. “I will kill you, shitty glasses!” he yelled. Should he be worried that his self-talking drastically increased since that damn cat moved into his apartment?
As soon as he woke up this morning he made the decision to not set a foot outside of bed, after the flashback attack yesterday he crashed into bed immediately. Tossing and turning on his sheets for most of the night but eventually falling into a light sleep for a few hours.
Now he felt out of it, the itching in his skin worse than ever and he knew how the day would go by if he left his bed like this. Exhaustion already filled his bones and made his limps feel heavy, as he thought about what his mind would pester him to do.
His plan to just stay in bed therefore failed by the damn fucking cat, who meowed at him for half an hour because it probably was hungry again. Levi had tried to hush it away, yelled at it, threw a pillow but nothing had worked and it just always came back, the meowing continued until the cat sat practically next to his head and not meowed, but yelled into his ear.
After another twenty minutes and he couldn’t take it anymore, with much more force than needed he threw back his blanket and stormed in the kitchen. Surpassing the food can with his hand a few times before grabbing it and dumping the food in the bowl. “You’re happy now you little shit?” Levi asked furious as the cat happily sat before the bowl and started licking at the food.
Since he already was awake now there was no point in going back to bed, so he filled the kettle with water and flicked the power on.
He flicked the power back off and on again.
One more time.
It wasn’t right. He did it again. Three times off and on.
Every time he tried to turn on the kettle, the feeling of losing control rose up in his chest and pressed down on his lungs, making him breathing shallow. He needed to do this right. It needed to feel right. He tried to take deep breath and calm his nerves but his chest only started hurting as he expanded it.
“Fucking great!” he whispered leaning against the counter, staring down at the kettle and flicking the power back on again. He felt the control slipping though his fingers and flicked the kettle off. Desperate he placed his palms flat on the counter and leaned forward looking at the ground, taking deep breaths.
It took him ten minutes to get the water boiling, Levi opened the cabinet getting a cup for his tea but he slammed the cabinet door shut again with an angry outburst after the wave of anxiety passed. He tried opening it again, but it was the same and it took him another ten minutes to get his cup.
His tea leaves were in boxes on an open shelf in his kitchen, he picked the black box like every other morning but as he opened the little lever, he had to close it again.
“I’m gonna get shit done, fuck!” he slammed the box down on the counter out of anger over himself, it had been half an hour that he was awake and he already felt emotionally drained.
His look drove over to the sink, to the dishes that were still sitting there from yesterday cause he hadn’t had the strength to do anything and his skin started itching more, disgust was building in his stomach and anxiety about rotting leftovers.
No, if he started cleaning now he would spiral, definitely. He couldn’t do that today; today four eye would show up later and on top of that, Erwin had also invited himself.
The itching in his skin got worse, the disgust made him nearly vomit the more he looked at the dirty dishes in the sink. The strong desire of cleaning made itself known in his mind.
Maybe just these few dishes, maybe he could just rinse them and put them in the dishwasher he never used.
Or he could take another Xanax, but he wasn’t eager to feel all cloudy and dizzy all day and Hange would definitely notice and ask, he didn’t want to think about the Erwin situation. Hange pestered him for weeks now to meet the guy.
Levi argued that he barely knew him, only saw him at the boxing studio all the time since he was probably the manager of some kind, they went out and got coffee a few times but only because Erwin was heading the same way as Levi. That was it and Levi couldn’t understand why Hange made such a big deal out of this.
Anger was boiling up inside of him, his fingers clutched the counter and his muscles jerked as he fought the desire to clean the fucking dishes.
Just the dishes! he thought to himself. If he had guests over, is apartment should be clean! That there was not one little bit of dust nor dirt anywhere didn’t matter, what mattered was his brain telling him that it was filthy and he would change that.
Maybe cleaning his apartment would miraculously clean up his messy mind.
-
“Levi? Levi!” a voice pulled him out of it violently. His eye refocused, Hange face was in front of him, piercing eyes stared into his and their hands were clasped around his shoulders, shaking him slightly.
He was kneeling on the floor, a sponge in his hand and a bucket beside him. The floor around him was wet, the entire room smelled like cleaning supplies.
“There you are, what’s happening? You didn’t answer the door!” Hange said, still holding his shoulders, kneeling in front of him.
“I …” Levi looked around him disoriented; Hange waited patiently for an answer. “What time is it?” he then asked, hand still closed around the sponge he was scrubbing the floor with.
“It’s half past seven,” Hange explained and Levi stared at them disbelieving. “What’s the last thing you remember?” they asked, still holding Levi shoulders, making him unable to move and keeping his focus on their face.
“I made Tea, then I wanted to do the dishes, wiping off the cupboards, then …” he saw himself heading from one task to the other, unable to stop the cycle he was in. Hange took a deep breath, taking a quick glance at the apartment.
“You spiraled, Levi. I rung the bell for quite some time before I took the key you gave me,” Hange explained. He had been scrubbing the floor as he had heard the bell, but he needed to go give the spot a third time scrub and then there was the next spot …
“Fucking hell,” Levi cursed, letting go of the sponge now and suddenly all of his needs crashed into his conscious. His bladder was bursting, his stomach was growling and his back and knees were killing him.
Back from the bathroom, Hange had put away the bucket and sponge he used to scrub the floor with and was busy in the kitchen. They stopped as Levi sunk down at the kitchen table, his hands still shaking a bit and his fingertips wrinkled from the water.
“Where do you keep your Xanax?” Hange asked carefully, coming to the table, searching for eye contact from Levi.
“No, I can’t!” Levi argued, watching as his hands continued to shake.
“Levi your spiraled into compulsions for the majority of the day!” Hange said, voice stern and anger was boiling up inside of his stomach.
“Erwin is coming, I can’t be that out of it!” he said, mind racing a thousand miles per hour and trying to figure out how to navigate this situation. In all the scenarios he had for today’s evening, this was not part of it.
“No shit, I finally getting to know the famous Erwin?” Hange called out excited,
“The fucker invited himself,” he answered muffled, leaning forward on his kitchen chair, head in his hands and fingers in his hair.
“Levi!” Hange made their way over to him, kneeling in front of him again and carefully removing his fingers out of his hair, holding his hands in theirs, even if they knew how uncomfortable he was with physical touch.
“It’s gonna be fine, I’m gonna drive us through this! But you’re still stressed out and compulsive – taking the Xanax is the right thing to do here,” Hange tried to convince him. Levi knew that he was still not out of the cycle, he had already looked for the bucket and sponge far more often than he liked and the uneasiness in his stomach didn’t settle down. He knew it was the right thing to do but he just didn’t want to do it.
“It’s gonna make me tired and dizzy,” he said now, voice sounding defeated.
“I’ll take that over stressed and tense anytime!” Hange replied immediately, still holding Levi’s shaking hands.
This is a new rock bottom! he thought as he told Hange where he stored the Xanax and shitty glasses brought him back the white pill and a glass of water.
Hange knew he had to take the Xanax sometimes to stop the compulsive behaviour, they had pestered him about going to therapy again for months now but he refused. They knew about his flashbacks and his obsessive cleaning, but until today he had managed to not let them see him like this.
Sure Hange had seen when he was coming down from the Xanax on the next day but they never actually witnessed something like today.
The pill took roughly thirty minutes to actually kick in full force and Levi watched how Hange prepared dinner for the three of them. The plan was originally to watch a movie, Hange made him watch the classics how they called it, since after them he didn’t have any pop culture knowledge. Probably the consequence of growing up with Kenny who preferred to teach him how to wield a knife properly.
At eight o’clock his bell rang and Hange went to open it. Levi heard footsteps on the staircase, how they introduced each other; laugher was coming from the hallway. The Xanax didn’t kick in fully yet but it wouldn’t be any longer and Levi already felt how his muscles relaxed and his senses dulled.
He hated that loss of control.
“Well, I’m not surprised anymore that you held this men a secret, Levi!” Hange called out as they joined him back in the kitchen, Erwin right behind.
“Well, I brought wine!” Erwin called out, this ridiculous smile on his face again.
“I can’t drink,” Levi said, watching how Erwin smile faded for a second. He couldn’t drink while being on medication but maybe he could have said that with friendlier words …
“That doesn’t stop us, right?” Hange called out, saving the situation and Levi was grateful for it.
Hange pulled out two wine glasses and Erwin poured them the red liquor.
Levi listened as Hange asked Erwin about the boxing studio. He learned that the studio was a family business and as his father busted his hips a few years ago, he had to step in and abandon his position as history professor at a local university until his father was back from recovery.
“Isn’t that right, Levi?” Hange and Erwin were looking at him with questioning eyes, he had lost the train of conversation and starred back at them with a confused look. Since the Xanax dulled his senses, he often zoned out when he took them. A dangerous place for his mouth since things could easily slip out like this.
Hange continued their conversation ignoring Levi’s confused look, probably already knowing what had happened but Erwin was throwing glances to him again and again, his eyebrows narrowed as if there was something he needed to understand but couldn’t.
“Should we switch to the living room? Levi and I planned to watch Lilo and Stitch since he doesn’t know that one yet!” Hange suggested and Erwin stared at him.
“You don’t know Lilo and Stitch?” he asked, fully blown away.
“I don’t,” he answered dryly, looking straight into Erwin face, who narrowed his brows even more as he stared back at Levi.
“You’re pupils are blown wide like moons, are you okay?” Erwin asked and Levi quickly looked somewhere else.
“Don’t even try, he has a terrible pop culture knowledge! But we’re working on that!” Hange called already on the way to the living room. Levi rose from his chair now too, wanting to follow Hange but dizziness washed over him. He had to steady himself on the table, felt Erwin’s hand on his arm but the Xanax relaxed him so far that he didn't really care for the contact.
“Oh slow down, you’re sure you’re okay?” Erwin asked worried, his stupid eyebrows still narrowed in worry.
“Yeah fine, just stood up to fast, low iron probably,” he answered, trying to get his balance back, he hoped he didn’t slur the words. Erwin looked him up and down still worry on his face but he let go of Levi and they both went over to the living room.
They got greeted by meowing and Levi sighed, he had kept the cat in the living room but now the black ball of fur was running towards him and stroked around his legs. Weird. It hadn't done that before!
“You have a cat?” Erwin asked excited, his eyes glued to the little animal and he crouched down holding out his hand.
“I got him this little bundle of joy!” called Hange out, fiddling with the TV.
“Bundle of annoyance,” corrected Levi, staring down at the cat, who still was stroking around his legs, staring at Erwin and flicking the rest of its tail, acting like a possessive husband.
“What’s his name?” asked Erwin, making sounds to get the attention of the cat.
“Lieutenant,” said Hange.
“Are you in the military or something?” Erwin joked, coming back up now since the cat wasn’t moving from Levi’s side.
“Hange is still in active duty but I’m retired, no, honorably discharged they called it,” Levi said, voice sounding detached again. Shit. He didn’t want to say that. Erwin stared at him with an unreadable look in his eyes.
“I’m sorry I don’t …”
“Alright, it’s all set up!” Hange interrupted Erwin’s stuttering and Levi was very thankful for it.
They all got seated on the sofa, Hange on the armchair what left Erwin and Levi with the sofa. The opening scene wasn’t even finished and the damn cat was jumping in Levi’s lap, spinning around itself before it settled and started purring. Levi stared down annoyed, this was very new behaviour. Normally the cat would stare him down from the other end of the sofa before falling asleep. Now his hand automatically started petting the black fur (surprisingly very soft) and he couldn’t deny how relaxing the vibrating of the purring was.
“This is so cute!” whispered Hange, phone in their hands and ready to take a picture.
“If you take that picture I will break your hands!” Levi dared, but his voice lacked the spite. Hange took down the phone but Levi was not sure if they had already taken a picture.
He was so invested in the story of that weird little girl on the screen, that he nearly flinched as he brushed another hand while petting the cat. He looked up and saw how Erwin was petting it too, he had come a little closer on the sofa but they were not touching. Erwin was not looking at him, but there was this smile on his lips.
Slowly but steady tiredness crawled into Levi’s mind, the music and the animations were soothing, the cat was still purring on his legs. His eye lids became heavy, the Xanax did its job and made him loose. It didn’t take long after that until he was deeply asleep.
He didn’t notice how Hange and Erwin were sending glances to him and smiling at one another. He didn’t notice how Erwin carefully draped a blanket over him as they stopped the movie and turned off the TV. He didn’t notice how they both left him asleep in the living room and closed the door behind them on their way into the kitchen.
He didn’t notice they whispered conversation where Erwin asked Hange if he was doing okay and Hange answered that he had to ask Levi instead. He didn’t notice how they both hugged each other while saying goodbye and carefully closed the door behind them as they left his apartment.
-
Coming down from Xanax was never a nice experience.
Levi found himself on his couch, a blanket over half of his body. His senses were still dulled from the pill, so they didn’t crash into him like sharp glass and one look outside confirmed that it was still night.
With great effort he made his way over to his bed, crawling into it. There was something in his chest, something that pulled at his heart as he remembered the evening with Hange and Erwin. He had made it through half the movie probably before he passed out, why didn’t they wake him up?
If he wouldn’t have taken the Xanax he never would have let his guard down like that. Sleeping with others around him was something he stopped doing as he moved in with Kenny back in the day.
Embarrassment crawled into his stomach; the evening should have gone differently. Hange wouldn’t have been a problem, they knew each other from his Army Ranger days back when Levi was Captain and Hange was the voice in his ear, informing him about the missions from their screen back in the base.
But Erwin shouldn’t have seen him like this, shouldn’t have seen him being so out of it, numbed by the Xanax because he couldn’t keep his stupid shit together.
Back in the day it was easier - his compulsion were already there but they were more some weird quirks than an active problem - mainly there was no time for overthinking anything when you were preparing for a hostage situation or raiding a village of terrorists. There was only the mission, his comrades and surviving until they were back on base.
But most importantly: he had a purpose. He had something to fight for, a reason to keep going.
First it was getting out of poverty, joining the military because they provided him with three meals a day, a bunk to sleep in and a way out of the slumps.
Then it was fighting and surviving. After his promotion into the special forces it was keeping his team alive and getting the mission done.
Now there was nothing for him to fight for, being honorable discharged with his body and mind battered like this, there was nothing to work towards to. The first time in his life he had no purpose. His pension covered his living expenses, he had a warm bed and a mostly filled fridge. But he felt useless half the time, sulking away in his apartment that was still as blank as the day he moved in. What was he supposed to do?
He couldn’t bring it over him to hang up the pictures that were buried at the bottom of moving boxes that still sat in the corners of his room. Couldn’t bring it over him to pack out the medals they gave him for hurling himself over that grenade.
An incoming message ended his spiraling and he lunged for his phone on the nightstand.
Unknown Number: This is Erwin, I got your number from Hange. I just wanted to say that I had a really fun evening! the phone read to him.
Levi starred at the display; he would murder shitty glasses the next time he saw them. Clearly Erwin was lying, there was nothing fun about that evening. But why was Erwin awake? Levi glanced at the clock; it was still the middle of the night. He checked the time stamp of the message, it came in just a few minutes ago.
Levi debated with himself if he should reply. With a grunt he saved Erwin’s number.
Levi: What are you doing up? he spoke into the phone, using the speech to text function, hoping it wouldn’t mess anything up.
Shitbrows: Had some paperwork left from the studio, my father never cared about it and now I have to deal with it.
Levi: that sucks
Shitbrows: What are you doing up?
Levi: just woke up
Shitbrows: Are you alright?
Levi hated Erwin for his worries, he always had this look when Levi came to the boxing studio with scabbed knuckles or black bags under his eyes, asking if he needed anything. It annoyed the hell out of him, why does he care that much?
Levi: sure
He answered after several minutes, watching as Erwin started typing, stopped and started again for a few moments.
Shitbrows: You coming to the studio the next days?
Levi: probably
Shitbrows: Alright. Well I have some more paperwork to do, but I will see you then. Sleep well!
Always that fucking formal! With a grown Levi threw his phone back on the nightstand. He had a bad feeling that Shitbrows would be more trouble for him in the future.