This is kind of a little filler chapter while I'm working on the next. It's all just a flashback. So yeah. & sorry about the shitty title; it's 5 AM, I can't sleep, and I'm not feeling particularly creative at the moment.

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Eren's hands shook vigorously as the bandages were peeled off, agonizingly slow, from the bite marks in his hands. He had a lip trapped between his teeth, grimacing at the pain and trying not to make a sound.

As soon as the wounds made their reappearance, his stomach churned. They were still bloody, the skin around them swollen and red. Angry looking. He had to keep himself from passing out again.

The medic in front of him had a deep frown set across her thin blonde brows. Her touch was gentle as she leaned closer, examining his hands further.

"Am I wrong to assume these should have healed by now?" she asked.

"No..."

"Hmm. We should get someone who knows more about you to look at these before we bandage them," she said. Eren only nodded. Watched as she soaked a clean piece of gauze in alcohol. "This will sting a bit," she warned before taking his hand again and gently dabbing at the wounds. He hissed in pain as the substance assaulted his injury. It burned. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he couldn't help but turn his head away until she was completely done with both hands.

Almost as soon as she'd finished and tossed the bloody gauze into the trash, Levi hobbled over using a wooden crutch on the left side. He looked tired. No, exhausted, like he himself would collapse at any second. He said nothing, but frowned with eyes pointed at Eren's hands resting in the boy's lap.

"Still not healing, huh?" he murmured, resting his weight against the table Eren sat on. The teen could only shake his head; his entire body seemed to ache, his hands throbbing, his side stinging.

"Any ideas why?" the medic asked him.

The captain's eyes narrowed; he reached for Eren's hand and stopped just short, giving the brunette a questioning look, to which he nodded. His touch was light and tender as a butterfly's wings, turning the limb back and forth to study the wounds. They were almost perfect molds of Eren's teeth; three bites on just the one hand and Levi swore he could count his teeth by these alone.

"No steam," he murmured. "I have no idea." He released Eren's hand and glanced up at his face to find his head dipped, eyes mostly concealed by his hair and tears making trails down his dirty cheeks. Levi placed a gentle hand on Eren's shoulder, feeling a dull ache in his chest at the sight of more of Eren's tears, the way he had just hours earlier at the top of that building.

"Oi, glasses!" he barked.

From across the room, a bespectacled head snapped up. Levi nodded the owner of the head over, and in just seconds they were in front of him. Hanji, too, looked fatigued and haunted after the expedition, though this wasn't an uncommon sight.

"Any ideas why he's not healing?" Levi asked, gesturing toward Eren's hands.

Hanji leaned down and, without touching, inspected the wounds, peering through the thick lenses. After a moment, they stood up straight and shook their head.

"Judging by multiple bite marks, I take it you didn't transform?" they asked the shaky brunette.

"No," Eren mumbled before dragging a sleeve across his face. Frustration and anger boiled around the edge of his striking green irises. "I couldn't."

Hanji nodded thoughtfully. "Well it isn't like you've never exhausted your titan abilities before..."

"He still healed," Levi cut in. Eren was hyper aware of his hand still resting atop his shoulder, and briefly wondered if Levi could feel him shaking.

"Perhaps this is more profound than before," they speculated. "We should get it bandaged and test it once he has healed. Get some rest for now, Eren. You need it. We all do."

* * *

Later that night, Levi found his way to the mess hall from his room. The sun had long since gone down and he'd only managed to capture about an hour's sleep before he grew tired of the images flashing behind his lids every time he tried to find slumber again.

He'd left his crutch behind his door in his room and halfway down the stairs found what a mistake that had been. His ankle wasn't just sprained or twisted, but fractured in two places. It'd been wrapped by a medic and he was ordered to keep it iced and elevated, but this wouldn't be the first time he'd disobeyed a doctor's 'orders'. By the time he reached the door to the mess hall, he was forced to lean against the frame and let up his weight on the limb; he wasn't about to attempt ascending the stairs for the crutch now.

Even on the first floor of the castle, he could hear the rain. Heavy and wet. Thunderous against the windows on the far wall of the large room, pattering the night away. A flash of lightning briefly lit everything up and threw shadows back, and in the brief second the corporal spotted a figure huddling near one of the large windows, curled up on the floor. Judging by the unruly hair sticking up, there was only one person it could've been.

"Can't sleep either?" Levi asked, hobbling into the room using a few of the chairs as support.

The figure jumped a bit at the sound of his voice; a head raised and swiveled in his direction. Bright green eyes reflected what little light shined in, and they were trained on him.

"Guess not," Eren murmured back. Eyed the way Levi was limping. "Where's your crutch?"

"Upstairs," Levi said casually. He moved in the direction of the kitchen in pursuit of a cup of tea. Eren stumbled to his feet to follow.

"You shouldn't be walking on your ankle like that," he mumbled, eying his superior's heavy limp.

"Spare me," Levi muttered back. He lit a torch in the kitchen and hobbled over to the kettle. Eren hovered in the doorway, arms wrapped securely around his stomach as he watched the man prepare the tea. All was silent save for the rain pattering against the building, and eventually the squealing of the tea kettle signaling it was finished. Steam rose from each of the two mugs as Levi poured it before setting a teabag and a spoon in each. Keeping one for himself, he offered the other to the boy lingering just a few feet away. His hands, bandaged so that the tips of his fingers were the only things visible (excluding his thumbs) cradled the cup by the bottom as he murmured a small 'thank you'.

"Let's go sit," Levi murmured, nodding toward the dining room. Eren shuffled along, his socked feet soundless on the wooden floor. Another flash of lightning, followed not long after by muffled thunder. He took a seat at the end of the nearest table, just a few feet from the window. Watched as Levi hobbled over and followed the action, relaxing into the chair with a soft, tired sigh.

"How're your hands?" Levi inquired after a stretch of silence.

"Okay," Eren replied, more so watching the tendrils of steam curl up and disappear into the air than actually drinking the beverage.

Levi's eyes narrowed a bit, studying the bandaged limbs in search of a better answer. In the weak light, he could see darkened spots of blood seeping through the gauze. Remembering the way they swelled, Eren was surely in pain, and it surprised him just how much concern he held for his subordinate.

The memory of their shared embrace passed fleetingly through his mind, and his eyes promptly flickered away.

Another silence, this one perhaps a second shorter.

"C-captain?"

"Levi," the man corrected. "When it's only us...just Levi."

He felt Eren's surprised stare boring into the side of his head, but he refused to look back at him and away from the miniature waterfalls sliding down the glass.

"Okay. Well, I...I just wanted to apologize."

"For?"

He could see Eren's concealed thumbs stroking absently along the sides of his ceramic cup. "For messing up."

"You didn't. Not on purpose, anyway."

Eren's head dipped slightly."It's just...now our chances of defeating Reiner and Bertolt are slim to none..."

This time Levi couldn't help but glance back at the kid; he came to the realization of Eren's ignorance on the situation.

"Eren. Reiner's dead."

Like a mouse trap, Eren's head snapped up, shiny eyes the size of the moon. "Wh-what?!"

"Hanji had a plan, once the two of us went missing. I don't know the details, but supposedly it was a success. That damned armored titan is toast. I saw his body for myself."

"And...and Bertolt?"

"Don't know. But word is he's lost without his fellow titan shit."

Eren was completely shocked by the news. He started at Levi for a long minute before a gust of air blew through his lips, eyelashes fluttering in disbelief. "Wow. That's...good, I guess."

"Mm? You don't sound so sure. He was a fellow soldier for a while, right? You're not feeling sentimental, are you?"

Immediately, the teen's brows furrowed. "Hell no. Those shitfaces are the reason my mother's dead."

Levi scoffed lightly and lifted the cup to his lips for a small sip of tea, already cooling off.

Eren sucked in a deep breath and shook himself of the sudden, although small, flare of anger. "Even though...I messed up out there..." He paused. Swallowed. "Thank you. For staying," he mumbled in a small voice.

Levi's eyes cut back to the right to see the kid out of their corners. "It's not like I had anywhere else to go."

"I know. But you know what I mean." Eren's lips pressed together, his fingers like vices around the warm mug. It strained at his wounds and caused them to sting, but it somehow kept him grounded as opposed to booking it from the room out of embarrassment.

Know what he meant the captain did, but he gave only a small nod in response. The fresh memory of what happened in that room left the strangest of feelings in his stomach. Warmth, he thought, but couldn't be sure. It was subtle. He didn't remember the last time he'd been embraced like that, been so close to another person. The sensation left him confused and mildly dizzy.

They'd been there until after dark, and just before Levi was about to make the decision for them to make their escape, Jean burst into the room with the rest of the Special Operations Squad in tow. Followed Eren's trail of blood, he said. They'd been lucky.

"Here," Eren offered softly, holding his hand out for Levi's now empty cup. The corporal pushed it gently toward him and watched him stand and stride toward the kitchen where Eren rinsed the cups and left them to be washed later. Back in the dining room itself, Levi had stood up and was staring blankly out the window at the rain.

"We should get back to our rooms," Eren murmured, hugging himself.

"Yeah," Levi agreed. With a soft sigh, he turned on his heel and began limping in Eren's direction, using the back of the nearest chair for support. Eren kept an eye out, noting the way he winced when he put the tiniest bit of weight on his bad ankle and walked on the ball of his left foot.

"Would you like some help?" he offered.

As soon as the question was out, Levi's face twisted up in pain, his knee buckled, and he started to go down. Eren acted quickly, reaching him in one stride and instinctively grabbing his arms to keep his superior upright. Levi's face ended up pressed to his chest, his arms extended forward and having grabbed the sides of Eren's sweater a little too roughly for the stitched cut spanning across his side. He gritted his teeth and focused on pulling Levi upright.

"Shit," Levi hissed, holding onto the teen in front of him for support. "Sorry."

"You should've brought your crutch," Eren murmured, concerned.

"I'm fine," the man insisted, but the twisted up expression and wrinkles between his brows suggested otherwise.

That was when he caught sight of his subordinate's hands, the speckles from before having been erased by fresh blood blooming across the gauze. Fractionally, his eyes widened and he pulled himself away a bit, taking Eren's hand with the gentlest of touches. In his haste to keep Levi on his feet, he'd reopened the wounds.

"Dammit," he grumbled.

"I'm okay," Eren said quietly, withdrawing his hand from Levi's to cradle them to his chest.

"Like hell you are," Levi muttered. "Come on, we need to rebandage you."

"What about you?"

"I'll just have to limp like an old man."

"At least let me help you..."

Levi pressed his lips together, considering for a moment. Deciding the pain was too much to bear on his own and he'd already nearly fallen, he muttered a "fine". Eren moved beside him and slid an arm around his waist while Levi's slung up around his neck. Fortunately, Levi remembered having left a roll of bandages up in his room, so the two weren't required to hobble all the way to the other end of the building where the infirmary was and back. The stairs were a bit of a challenge, but they managed nonetheless.

Eren couldn't help his shaking as Levi peeled the bloodied gauze from his hands, cleaned them up, and worked on wrapping clean ones around them, working carefully to mimic the way the medic had.

"Good?" he asked, snipping it off and securing the tape.

"Yeah," Eren breathed. "You should lie down..."

"How's your side?" Levi asked, clearly ignoring the other's concern.

"Fine," Eren half-lied. He was sure it wasn't bleeding due to the stitches, but it throbbed painfully with every beat of his heart. "Thank you. For tending it...back there, I mean. I didn't say that before."

Another flash of the memory - Eren pale and on the ground; the sensation of his hair as Levi's fingers were tangled through it; his warmth, and the steady beating of his heart beneath his palm; the fear of realizing Eren was hurt and losing blood...

"Would've been better if you'd just told me it was there," he responded tiredly.

"I know. I'm sorry." Eren looked away, dejected.

"Don't sweat it." Levi ran a hand through his hair, sighing lightly. He began limping toward his bed, shuffling his feet along the wooden floor while using the desk, the wall, the window sill for support. Eren scrambled to assist, but Levi lifting a hand stopped him short. "You'll just open your wounds again," he said quietly. Winced as the weight was finally taken off his ankle as he sat on the edge of his bed.

With concern swimming in his eyes, Eren took the crutch from behind the door and leaned it against the wall nearer the bed. "If you get up again, use it," he said, to which Levi lifted his brows in a way to say, 'who gave you the authority to give me orders?' but he said nothing. Eren continued, "Even if you just have to go to the bathroom...so...so you don't fall." And then he quickly retreated a bit, back toward the door. The way Levi's smoldering eyes seemed bore into him made him uneasy; for a second he feared he was showing too much concern for the captain.

"Thanks," Levi finally sighed out, reclining back against his pillows. "You should get back to your room before someone catches you up here."

"Right..." Eren backed up another few steps, placed a hand on the knob and turned. He could feel Levi watching him, and that bothered him more than the stinging of his hands or the aching of his side or even the heaviness in his chest for how much of a burden he'd been during the expedition. He twisted the knob, pondering whether he should say 'goodnight' or 'see you tomorrow', or even thank him again for staying because it meant more to him than he knew he'd probably ever admit, but before he'd made a decision on whether to say anything at all, Levi was the one speaking up.

"Hey," he called softly. From halfway out the door, Eren turned back, much too much hope filling his chest at a simple word. Levi's eyes as well as his words were steady and sure as he strung them together: "I don't make promises often, Eren...but when I do, I don't break them."