So you'll come racing to me in your death, is that it?

Yes.

A few paces from where he's reclined, rather awkwardly against a large chunk of rubble—maybe a house once, or a shrine— he watched the dark puddle of blood beneath Zeke's body coat the dirt in a widening fan. A few paces away, the man's head had rolled facing up to the sky where it had landed.

Levi licked dry lips, sticky with blood.

His own, of course.

The grip of his gear, blade broken off close to the handle, hung limply in one hand by his side. His free fingers inched their way across his abdomen to the place where the rest of his weapon protruded from his stomach.

After everything, impaled by his own—

A rueful smirk tugged at his mouth.

Fitting.

He knew the cut went straight through, could feel the fire licking at his back when he struggled for breath. A brief stab of panic made him catch a too-deep gasp, and the pain was so sharp his head jerked back against the rock where he had dragged himself.

Overhead, the sky was tinged in sunset. Levi watched it as he willed his pulse to slow.

You were careless, said an admonishing voice in his head, cool but nonetheless concerned. Always concerned, even if Levi was the only one who could tell. No one knew him like Levi.

"Yes," he answered in a weak puff of air and to no one, "but Zeke is dead."

He heard voices then, echoing somewhere. Arguing. Eren and Jean… and whoever else had survived. No doubt Mikasa. She was humanity's best. Besides him.

Well, he thought, looking down at his clearly mortal wound, she'd be humanity's best soon enough.

Selfishly, he hoped he'd go ahead and die before they found him, but stomach wounds kill slowly. Levi had a bit of time to wait, and to think, and to…

Bloody fingers inched up to dip into the breast pocket of his coat, fumbling weakly around for what was hidden there.

Hanji had lied to the brass during their debrief, said they'd never recovered it, but she had given it to him instead—

Erwin's tie. And with it a small, creased note.

The green stone caught the late afternoon, almost cheerily as Levi laid it against his drawn-up knee. He hadn't looked at it much since the day Erwin died to be honest. At the time, perhaps he thought it would cause him pain. But now, it was almost promising in its reminder.

Levi disliked dawdling this far behind Erwin. Finally, he was catching up.

The thought relaxed him further, and with it his body hunched, sliding down an inch or two against the rock. The blade inside him shifted at the movement, but he could hardly feel the pain.

Levi turned the bit of parchment over in his tired fingers. Fresh blood mingled with old, dried stains already immortalized upon the grainy surface.

The note had been in Erwin's things, which Levi had received upon his death. Before that singular, strangely terrifying moment of seeing Erwin's life fit neat into a box, Levi had no idea the man had registered him as next-of-kin.

A smeared thumbprint blotted his name—Levi— written in shaky, but legible script.

Ah, Levi thought, pondering the handwriting now more than ever. Erwin had been getting better with that hand...

The note was sealed. Even after all this time, Levi had never opened it.

He didn't need to.

There were things they had never acknowledged about their friendship, about their strange companionship. Hatred had turned itself into trust, and trust had solidified within Levi's heart until that, too, had changed…

Not that Levi could tell when it had changed.

There were never any fantasies of telling Erwin how he felt, only comfort in their shared knowledge that Levi would follow Erwin wherever he went. During the war. After the war. If the fighting had been over and Erwin had lived, Levi would have stayed by the man's side forever— never telling him, never revealing— and he would have been happy anyway.

Levi let his hand with the note drop to his lap, vision darkening around the edges.

Whatever was written inside, Levi didn't want to read it.

He didn't want to read about Erwin, in his final musings, telling Levi to live for himself now that he was gone, because of course the man would write something so sickeningly sentimental. Bastard.

Now he could die without going against Erwin's final order, and there were parts of himself that Levi wanted to keep intact, even at the end...

Perhaps Erwin had been the bigger man; revealed in those shaky words what Levi hadn't dared divulge in voice or by letter. Perhaps Erwin had indulged his heart before his personal feelings robbed him of the chance.

It was my decision, he thought.

The brat's voices were getting louder, closer, but as Levi's head tipped forward, chin resting on his chest, he thought maybe they really wouldn't make it in time.

Good.

With what strength remained in his fingers, Levi crumpled Erwin's letter into his loose fist, gaze flickering around to the green stone of Erwin's tie.

He didn't need to be told what he already knew.

A shiver wracked his body. He felt so cold, and so tired, and yet so light…

To his surprise, there simply wasn't any pain left in him.

Finally.

So you'll come racing to me even in your death, is that it?

Yes.

You'd follow me here?

"Haahh... Erwin, you idiot," his lips barely moved at all, a small smile twisting at his mouth, "I'd follow you anywhere."

Levi closed his eyes and sunk down into something dark and eerily familiar, a heavy blanket, a warm bed; a fine place to rest. Fleetingly, before his body was relieved of him, he hoped those brats were able to finish this once and for all; give all those who had died along the way some meaning to their death.

But not Levi. He hadn't scarified his life for them to save humanity. In his final few acts, he'd been selfish. He didn't need those brats to wrap his death into their unflappable will to carry on.

Levi's life had already had meaning, although he had lost it along the way...

Now he was free to find it again.

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