LANCE CORPORAL - Commander's Call (pt. 19)

WARNING: Strong language, and implied sensitive content. Consider yourselves warned, and proceed with precaution.

PART 19 - COMMANDER'S CALL - Levi x OC

Here’s what I’ve found upon entering the HQ.

The crowd, which consisted from soldiers, was pretty upset and confused due to the latest turn of events. They were shouting and protesting to Erwin’s calm composure, and carefully chosen words. Some of the present soldiers were borderline-rebellious because they were angry with Erwin.

The Military Police volunteers were the most upset now, and demanded a detailed explanation from our dear Commander. Erwin just told them what was necessary and that they can complain about him directly to the Military Tribunal after the whole thing was over. But, it was still far from over.

“… so, the mission is currently aborted, or rather… delayed because the titan-shifter appeared this morning and attempted to destroy the HQ. We suspect it had accomplices, so certain soldiers were brought in for the questioning. It will all be over very soon, I dare say in a few hours… so, I ask for your patience, and your understanding. This is the critical point. A crucial point. Therefore, remain here until we settle this matter, and let us finish what we have started. You shall all be informed about the development of the situation, after we acquire all the information. But, until then, please… remain calm, and wait until we figure out what exactly happened out there. That’s all I can share for the time being. Refrain yourselves from creating unnecessary commotion.”

Erwin sounded calm, polite and refined, as usual. He hasn’t raised his voice once while he was reporting to the crowd, who grew restless and impatient. The soldiers started arguing, asking questions about titan and about mission, complaining about the way Erwin and his closest soldiers handled things, and they even dared to threaten him with the Court. They were also asking about missing comrades, and about the sudden appearance of the North Unit section (who wasn’t present at the last night’s meeting). What a mess.

“Lance Corporal. Assistant Corporal. Join me in the office,” Commander ordered, turning his back to the rest of the soldiers and left the chamber. Needless to say, people were simply outraged by his behavior (and I am being polite when I describe it that way). Well… there was more in the store for them when Lance Corporal gave his orders.

“Jaeger, Ackermann, Kirschtein,” Levi called, “secure the perimeter.” Eren, Mikasa and Jean blocked the entrance, forbidding others to abandon the meeting room. Armin, Sasha and Connie blocked the exit on Levi’s other order. Lance Corporal spoke again.

“No one is to leave this building. No one, until this shit is clarified. Any objections?”

The soldiers were now shouting, loudly and rudely, and their voices merged in my ears. It really pissed me off. I was tired and I needed sleep, not noise.

The North Unit’s members joined Levi’s squad, silently, and obediently, adding extra force to his team, in case the situation gets really ugly. But I understood why Levi wanted to secure the room. After all that happened, we couldn’t allow to any possibly-hidden shifters to leave after Christiana got exposed.

Everyone is a potential suspect at this point. Everyone but a few. I wonder…

“Corporal Levi! What the Hell is going on?“

“Why are you doing this?”

“How many people are accused of conspiring?!”

“Levi! How come that titan-shifter appeared at this point? Is it someone we know?!”  

He crossed his arms on his chest, raising an eyebrow.

“Shut the fuck up, and obey the Commander. You will hear everything in the due time.”

“Who was the titan outside? Who is the shifter? Why are the soldiers missing?”

“It’s rude to keep us here against our will!”

“We demand…” All the voices spoke in unison. Again. Levi gave them one intimidating look.

“I don’t have time for this bullshit. Like I said, you will be addressed after we determine the truth, so stop whining, for the fuck’s sake.” He turned towards the exit and made a few steps, ignoring further ruckus. His soldiers stepped aside to let him through.

“Lance Corporal, sir!”

Wow, they were fucking persistent bunch, weren’t they? I went ahead when someone called my name.

“Corporal Schwarz! Who were you fighting outside?” Oh, great.

“Ezra, what’s happening?!” they wanted to know. Hell, I wanted to know. But how can we explain anything to others when we don’t have answers ourselves? Fuck.

“Who was that titan?!” another question piled up on top of others and landed on my remaining nerve. That’s it, I’ve had enough. I was pissed off even before I’ve got here… now, I was majorly enraged, and felt like the bomb was ticking in my brain. Calm down, fool. Inhale. Exhale. That's it. Bravo.

“Listen, comrades… you’ve heard what Commander said. The best option is to wait until we draw certain conclusions. You will know the details in no time,” I’ve tried to remain professional like my superiors. “So, until then, let’s just keep calm, and…”

Calm, my ass. No one paid attention, and I hate when people don’t pay attention. I don’t like when I am ignored, and most importantly, I don’t like when I am under pressure. I get bitchy when I am moody, and I snap purely for the sake of feeling better. So… can you imagine what happened next?

Yeah. Exactly.

“SILENCE, YOU SHITHEADS!” I yelled from the bottom of my lungs. The crowd’s loud protest dropped significantly, reducing the noise to murmurs. My voice exponentially grew up as their own were turning down.

“YOU DARE TO DEFY OUR COMMANDER? YOU UNGRATEFUL PESTS!”

“Ezra…”

“SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH, OR I WILL SHUT IT FOR YOU! FOR ALL OF YOU! STOP YOUR BITCHING BEFORE I LOSE IT! NOW!”

I kinda lost it along the way, but really... they just wouldn’t shut up and I couldn’t listen to them anymore.

Remember when I said I was great at screaming? Well… there was that. Also… remember when I said they were outraged with Erwin? Forget that. They were absolutely outraged with me. However, they finally shut up, and the silence felt like a blessing to my ears, although it was very uncomfortable… for them anyway. I didn’t really give a damn.

“That’s better. See? You can behave like decent, civilized creatures when you want to, instead of being loud, filthy savages. May Walls bless the evolution.”

I turned on my heel and went after Levi. When I kept up with him, he spoke.

“You are fucking loud.”

“Thanks.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know. I am just… so fucking angry, and I don’t know what to do with all of that rage. I really needed to express myself somehow,” I explained.

Levi’s hand closed around my wrist.

“I know a way or two to fix those anger-issues of yours.”

Before I could fire a witty answer back at him, he grabbed the moment. (He grabbed me to be precise, but that's irrelevant).

His kiss was rushed, but deep. His hand was pressed against my back, leaning me closer towards him. What I wanted the most in that moment was to be behind closed door again, with him, ‘till this world disappears. But we couldn’t afford something like that. Not us.

“Let’s save the rest for later,” he said, ready to enter Erwin’s office at any point now. I pulled his cloak, in a silent attempt to stop him. It worked.

“There… won’t be later for us, Levi. I will probably go back to the West Unit’s HQ if I don’t previously end up on a trial, or get fired because of my mistakes. In any case, I will go… and you are staying here,” I've pointed out.

I screwed us up. I… ruined everything, like I ruined my own squad, by not realizing that I have not one, but two traitors in my section. No matter how tough I pretend to be, or force myself to be… I have to live with what I have done. I have to live with all my choices.

“Tch… getting pessimistic already? We’ve been through worse, so don’t make drama out of this. I am sure Erwin will be able to explain to everybody that this wasn’t your mistake. You couldn’t know about your shifters. You caught that Fitzgerald bitch after you found out what she was, so no one will blame you. And regarding your return into the West Unit HQ... I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it's not the end of the world there where you live, it's only a geographical distance which can be crossed in a few days, and via extreme horse-riding. We will manage to see each other somehow, if we don't find another reason to argue about for the next couple of years.”

I had to laugh at his sarcastic tone. His words were comforting, but I was still feeling down because I was very disappointed with myself.  

“I am a fool, Levi. I am… a failure,” I admitted, gritting my teeth. “I knew something was off, I felt it. But I deceived myself into believing in my unit, into all those cadets who relied on me, on my strength. I thought they needed me, but the truth is… I needed them. I needed something to feel whole. Because, without you… I was…”

“You were strong. You did all you could, and you did it in the best possible way. You couldn’t know at that time that there were shifters in the military, because nobody knew about shifters until we revealed Jaeger, Leonhardt, Hoover and Braun. Stop blaming yourself for something you are not truly guilty of. You always blame yourself, even when it’s not your fault. You are stupid like that.”

I laughed again. I am stupid, and I am weak.

“I turned the blind eye to the truth which was practically screaming into my face. Someone in my unit… was spying on all our moves. All our plans, and our missions were corrupted…”

“Stop it, will you? You couldn’t know. And moreover… Fitzgerald hid well (though Holbain wasn't exactly wearing a titan t-shirt to make things easier for us either). Nobody suspected her, not even our best chameleons. You have discovered that she was one of our traitors, and you apprehended her. I doubt the military would allow a soldier who’s that capable to get fired, or punished, or whatever scenario you have in that weird head of yours.”

“Levi…”

“You’ve been through a lot today, but Christiana’s betrayal is nothing comparing to things you’ve faced before, and survived. I know that better than anyone,” he whispered these words to me.

My hands froze, and I felt sudden shame… he was talking about things from my past I didn’t want to remember. I wanted to bury Ezra I used to be back in the Underground City, and to focus on Ezra I became since then. I wanted to forget the blood on my hands, human lives I took in the time I wasn’t using gambling as my way to survive in the world full of criminals, human-sellers and rapists… I wanted to forget the killer Christiana woke in me tonight. I wanted to forget why I became that way, the man who was responsible for the birth of the darkness in my heart… and Christiana brought that on the surface again, and Levi saw it.

That’s why he is talking about my past. No. Please…

“Don’t…”

“I know it hurts. After all these years… it must still hurt. But if you could survive the cruelest of things when you were so young, and heal in the process, you shouldn’t let someone as petty as that scum to break you down now. You are stronger than that. This wound will heal too.”

“She used to be my friend,” I was choking on those words now. I used to trust her, to occasionally confide in her. I gave her all she needed to destroy us from within. To destroy me.

“Yeah, and Gilford used to be your adoptive father, but you put him out of his misery anyway. She is nothing comparing to him.” Levi reminded me by offering kontra-argument, and a pretty valid one too, though I didn’t want to hear about that person ever again. That name was too painful.

Gilford was the name which belonged to the face which belonged to the man who adopted me when I was eight years old. He seemed kind, and cheerful, very polite and very noble. He was a nobleman. He was my way out of the Underground City, my ticket to citizenship in the Capital on the surface. My ticket to freedom, my escape from eternal dark, sickness and misery, from constant hunger and dehydration, and my escape from the death. How ironical. How very ironical.

In three months after he adopted me, the Death knocked on his door.  

“Well, all I want right now is to put Christiana out of her misery too. I want to break her fucking neck. I don’t even need an explanation, a reason behind her actions, I don’t need to hear her side of the story. I don’t fucking care about the information we need to obtain from that liar. I just… need… to squeeze the life out of her. To make her bleed, and to make her feel the pain I am feeling right now. Just like with Gilford.”

“I know. But you don’t get to kill her, you know that. You get to torture her, to question her, but we need her alive, at least for the time being.”

“Is that why you want me to see Albert before Christiana, and why Erwin wants to see us now? To warn me? To ask me to refrain from killing our suspects?” I asked, but Levi shook his head.

“That won’t be necessary, he is aware of your self-control. But if we want to find out, I suggest we get the fuck in, Corporal Schwarz.”

With that, he opened the door for me like a real gentleman, and we both entered Erwin's office.