Notes: Pre-104th, after the breach of Wall Maria

"Hmm… so Albert's skin is much tougher than Chicacchironi, but Chicacchironi feels less pain when stabbed or prodded, and Albert bleeds less overall when inflicted with deep wounds—"

"P-please slow down, Major! I can't write that fast!"

At this moment, Moblit took the notepad from the freshly joined recruit, whose knees were trembling as he stood just behind Hanji, who in turn, was standing perilously close to Albert's teeth. Silently shooing him away to the safety of six steps back, he handed the notepad and pen over to Hanji, who took it with a quick nod of thanks before scribbling down her own notes as fast as she could. Very soon, the handwriting on the page transformed from neat (albeit shaky) penmanship, to an indeterminable mass of squiggles and scratches. Moblit had been looking over Hanji's shoulder for a couple of years now. He still had no idea how to decipher Hanji's code.

Soon, Hanji grew frustrated with how much it slowed her down to have to write and think at the same time, so she clapped the notebook shut, and grudgingly stepped away from her precious titans.

"I'll finish my notes, plan the next experiment, and be back in fifteen. At ease, men!"

As she skipped away, humming lightly, the trembling young lad from earlier followed reluctantly behind her, pausing to pick up a sheet that had dropped out of her notebook.

It took him a while to realize that it had, in fact, been written in English. As Moblit silently walked up to stand beside him, the young man, Guido, looked to him with eyes that seemed to plead for mercy.

"Can you—can anyone read this?" He stammered.

"Major Hanji can."

"Not even you, sir?"

He glanced down at the sheet. Well, that particular sample was neater than her research notes, because, well… it wasn't about titans at all. He could vaguely make out that it said something about Mike, scents, and pine.

"Only sometimes." He held out his hand to take the sheet. "I'll get this back to her. Dismissed, Guido."

Moblit found Hanji near the mess hall, having commandeered one of the outside tables entirely for her notes and papers. Her back was hunched over, her nose practically touching the paper she was scribbling on, and various bits of paper were held down by rocks she had picked up from the ground so that they were in no danger of flying away. Moblit held out the one sheet in his hand, and Hanji poked her head up.

"Hm? Oh, did I drop that? Thanks, Moblit!"

"Major, if I may ask, what's written on that paper? From what little I could read, it wasn't about titan research."

"Hmm?" Hanji held up the sheet and scanned it quickly before tucking it under a nearby rock.

"You're getting better at reading my writing. You're right, it has notes about my squadron. You know how Mike likes to smell things. Well, he's particularly sensitive to the smell of pine. It makes him sneeze, every time, always three times."

Others thought Moblit a wonder for always being so unaffected by Hanji and her whims, but the truth was that he was just better at hiding his expressions. Were he less controlled, his expression would be that of mild exasperation at the current moment.

"Forgive me, Major, but is that worth taking notes on?"

"What do you mean?" Hanji replied while resuming her writing.

"Your research is for the future of humanity. These scrib—notes are crucial to understanding the enemy and where we stand in the world. Are notes like these relevant?"

Hanji reeled herself up dramatically, holding out her pen inches from Moblit's nose as if it were a sword and she a gleaming knight on horseback.

"The difference between screwing around and science, Moblit, is writing it down!"

A mocking wind whistled by in the immediately following silence.

"…So you're basically screwing around and calling it science by writing it down."

Hanji was sprawled across Levi's lap as he sat at his desk attempting to fill out a report on the most recent reconnaissance mission that had captured Chicacchi—the 6m and 8m titans. Well, it was about as sprawled as she could get, given that Levi was a tinier man and that his chair wasn't all that plush and roomy. Not like General Pixis' chair in his office at the headquarters for the military police.

She was reading her notes aloud to him, as it was standard to submit a report to one's commanding officer when you were in a position of authority like she was. But since no one could read her handwriting save for she who wrote it, Hanji always had to read aloud her research progress to Levi, whether or not he really wanted to listen to it.

For the most part, Levi tuned her out as he worked on other things. All he had to do was later tell Erwin that Hanji was making progress and relate a few details that he picked up here and there.

"…and then Albert cried and you don't understand how much my heart went out to him, poor darling!" She turned a page. Then another page. "Ooh, these got a bit out of order." Came the eventual mutter under her breath.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Levi snatched the notebook from on its current page and saw Petra's name scribbled onto the page surrounded by more meaningless chicken scratches.

"These are notes about the squad again. Do you have to take notes on everything?"

"Not everything, no." She grinned sheepishly.

"What does this say?"

"That Petra keeps hidden stashes of chocolate in her room and that I can get some from her whenever I want. Oh, and that our newly received multi-fiber blend of sheets don't stain as easily as the previous sheets they used to give us."

"Why is any of that relevant enough to write down?"

"It's relevant to me. I'm a scientist, Levi. I observe things, and then I—"

"Then you write it down, yes, I know."

He dropped the notebook back into her lap, scowling. Hanji nervously shoved the papers into a random order before getting herself off of Levi's lap and started to head out the door.

"You haven't finished your report."

"Yeah well, it's not like you ever pay attention. Or that Erwin gets very many details with the report coming secondhand from you."

Shooting Levi a two-fingered salute, she was just about to duck out of the room when Levi spoke again.

"Hanji, write this down."

"Hm?"

"If no one stops you, you'll spend days with these captured titans and not sleep or eat. So this is a direct order from your superior officer, do you understand? My quarters, 10 p.m., on the dot. Don't you dare be late."

"Oh, Levi." She grinned. "I don't need to write that down."

"If you're late, you're dead."

"Aye aye, Corporal!"

She didn't, in fact, go back to Chicacchironi and Albert. Levi had a point, her research notes were a mess, and it was probably a good idea to sort out her notes between notes on titans and notes on humans before she added to the bulk. So she took a couple of her notebooks and notes scrawled onto loose-leaf sheets of paper, and took them to her quarters, spreading it all out onto the floor. Soon, she had barely any floor space left minus the small circle she had left surrounding her feet.

"This might be difficult…" she muttered.

Ten minutes later, she had succeeded only in making more of a mess, but a blissful knock sounded on her door and an inquisitive blond head poked inside.

"Major Hanji?"

"Petra!"

"Moblit was look for you, what's all this?"

"I'm taking some time to arrange all of my research notes."

"I see… um. Do you need help?"

Hanji's eyes began to gleam, near tears forming in her eyes. "Oh, Petraaa! That would be wonderful!"

Were there not a floor strewn full of papers between the two women, Hanji would have run over, hugged, and kissed Petra for her kindness. Petra was always beyond valuable in a time of need. She seemed to have sensed the desperate gratitude, so she took a couple of steps back as she said,

"I'm just going to tell Moblit what's going on, and then I'll be right back, ok?"

She came back nearly fifteen minutes later dragging along Mike to a Hanji who had created even more of a mess, and who had ripped papers out of her notebook to obtain her so-called organization. Mike gave a wary sniff to the air of the room as they stepped carefully in, trying not to step on the papers. This proved difficult, considering that they were as plentiful as grass in a field.

"How can we help, Hanji?"

Petra was trying to keep Hanji from tears. Her assumption, as any normal person might presume, was that Hanji was upset at herself for her failure to organize her notes. The truth was that Hanji had been growing overly emotional at re-reading her research notes and recalling all the horrible things she had to do to Chicacchironi and Albert in the name of science.

"Hey, does this sheet have my name on it?" Mike had picked up one of the papers on the floor and managed to recognize shapes that vaguely spelled out his name.

"Don't be silly, Mike!" Chided Petra.

"And this one has your name, Petra. Though I can't tell much of what else is written on it. Hanji, why are you taking notes on us? Last I checked, we're not titans."

Hanji wiped at the snot on her nose with her sleeve, gathering her bearings.

"That's the problem. My squadron notes are getting mixed up with my titan research, and they need to be sorted out so that they're at least mildly presentable."

Petra and Mike exchanged wary glances. That didn't answer the question at all, but there was also the fear in which they didn't really want to know the answer. It was like asking Hanji about her research. Even if you were mildly interested, you didn't ask, because you wouldn't receive a mild answer.

"Um… ok. Then let's start by making two piles. One pile for titan notes, and the other pile for… um, other notes."

"It's a start." Mike shrugged as he kicked away some of the papers at his feet, making one pile for the sheet with his name on it. "All the notes deemed 'other' can go in this pile then."

"And all the titan notes can go right where you're sitting, Hanji. We'll get it sorted in no time!" Petra was an optimistic beacon of order in the piles of chaos.

And an hour or so later, they had four piles of paper, each stacking almost twelve inches high. Only one of those stacks had titan research in it, the other three were filled with, well, definitively other notes. But in Hanji's defense, she hadn't had very many actual titans to study, and there were only so many things they had thought to try so far. Petra and Mike were trying not to be alarmed by the sheer number of notes she had taken on things not related to titans at all.

"Well, now that that's done, they have to be sorted by date!" Hanji's glasses gleamed with delight at the significant amount of progress they had made, and once she was on a roll, it was nigh impossible to stop her unless one wanted to be steamrollered trying.

Hanji opted to sort out the titan notes on her own as those were the ones with the worst handwriting, but it was slow progress for Petra and Mike trying to sort out the other piles as they frequently had to refer to Hanji's deciphering of her own atrocious penmanship.

"What's this one about Gunter?" Mike held up a sheet, sniffing it briefly beforehand.

"Let's see… Ah, he's 183 cm tall. That was taken on the day he joined the squadron on… August 12, year 847."

"What's the year on this one about… Donna?" Petra's turn to get confirmation on a sheet.

"That one is… year 843. She used aloe on her skin regularly, so it was soft to the touch, and her hair was a very silky brown."

"I think this one says February 2nd?" Mike gave a quizzical look while holding up another.

"Let me see… Nope, 7th. Year 846, Conroy. Brought me jasmine flowers."

"Hanji, do you really want to keep all of these notes? A good number of the people listed here are dead."

"A scientist never throws away her notes, Mike. The information never stops being relevant. Even if it becomes… outdated. If it's written, it's a reminder, you're not supposed to forget."

For the rest of the evening, no more questions were made about whether or not she truly wanted to keep absolutely every note she had ever taken ever on any squadron member, especially the ones who were deceased. As the hours progressed, Mike and Petra even learned quite a number of things about themselves. None of it was particularly new or vigorously enlightening, and large portions of it seemed rather mundane. Mike found one where Hanji had noted what type of razor with which he shaves, and the one morning when he had lost it. Petra was reminded that nearly a year before, she had accidentally spilled some honey from her tray onto Hanji's clothes during lunch.

And so it went. Well past sunset. To the point where Mike and Petra's stomachs were groaning loudly from food deprivation. Hanji might be able to go days without eating or sleeping with her mind fixated on an activity, but they could not. So they excused themselves, trusting that Hanji could now finish the rest on her own since more than half of the work had already been done.

The mess hall was more or less empty by the time the two got there for their evening meal. Potatoes with cheese, a vague meat-like substance with gravy, dinner rolls, and a helpful serving of leafy green vegetables. They didn't eat luxuriously in the recon corps, but they still ate better than many starving civilians living off of rations crammed inside Wall Rose. Mike carefully sniffed all of his food before eating, determining precisely how they were cooked, with what seasonings, and for how long. Then he grabbed his knife to begin cutting his meat-thing into meticulously even slices before he would eat. Hanji probably had a note about this habit of mine too, he thought.

"Why do you think she has all those notes on us?" He posited as he cut up his food.

"Oh I don't know… maybe she's really sentimental. She wants to keep those notes about Donna and Conroy and Leonard… she used to date Conroy and Leonard, I remember."

"As much as anyone can date while being a soldier, anyway."

"I'm trying to be delicate, Mike."

"Maybe she has a compulsory need to write something down everyday." He twirled his fork between his fingers before stabbing into a neatly cut meat square. "Arranging by date, she had something written for almost every single day, minus a few days here and there when she would focus on titan notes instead."

"You mean like an OCD?"

"Why else would she have written down that I lost my razor one morning?"

"I don't know. Maybe her scientific mind had an idea about razors that would become relevant later?"

"Maybe she catalogues mundane facts about our lives in a poor attempt to keep a diary."

"Or maybe she just has a horrible memory." Petra giggled at the thought. She knew that wasn't really true. Hanji could keep encyclopedias worth of knowledge in her mind to regurgitate at any given moment about the titans to anyone who was stupid enough to ask.

"Did you notice, Petra?"

"Be more specific, Mike. There were a lot of things in there that I noticed."

"All those notes about everyone she knows, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing; there wasn't a single mention of the Corporal."

Petra's fork faltered on its way to her mouth, dropping the potato she had skewered onto it.

"…you're right."

"Now, why do you think that is?"

"I've been looking for you everywhere." A very miffed Lance Corporal stood with his arms crossed in the doorway to Hanji's bunk as she sat on the ground sifting through the papers in her final stack of notes.

"Hm? Oh…" Her eyes dart to the clock on the wall, which reads 10:30, and she amazed that Levi took so long to find her. She wouldn't have put it past him to show up at her door at 10:05, affronted at her tardiness.

"This is why I told you to write it down." He stepped inside briskly, shutting and locking the door behind him as he approached her.

With a slow, nervous laugh, Hanji grinned up at him from her position on the floor, before setting down the papers that were currently in her hand.

"Well, I was a bit distracted. It's not that I forgot about—"

He didn't let her finish her sentence as he swooped her up from the ground and tossed her onto her bed, the springs creaking in response. Hanji let out a playful giggle as she bounced, eyeing Levi hungrily as he removed his jacket, hanging it on her chair before approaching her bed.

"Like hell you didn't forget. How long were you going to keep me waiting?" An annoyed vein visibly throbbed in his temple, and Hanji made a mental note that an impatient Levi made for a very feisty Levi in bed.

As she removed her own jacket, she casually remarked, as if not picking up on his apparent irritation,

"I was organizing my notes, since you commented on how disorderly they were earlier."

Levi growled as he unbuckled the straps around his thighs. "There better not be anything about me written in those papers."

Hanji crawled forward to the edge of the bed to get a head start on unbuttoning and unzipping Levi's pants while he worked on his harness, a feral grin on her face as she pulled out his rapidly stiffening length.

"They're all about you, actually."

And before Levi could respond, she took him into her mouth, taking as much of him as she could into her mouth without gagging. The only reply Levi could give was a low, guttural groan as his fingers tangled in her perpetually messy hair.

Petra was wrong. Hanji's memory was impeccable. Give her a date and a time, and she could recall exactly what she had observed at that moment along with every extraneous detail. She remembered precisely what Levi enjoyed, what buttons to push to bring him pleasure, and this is where Levi was also wrong. No, she didn't write everything down.

Without any notes to guide her, she knew that if she swirled her tongue around the tip, he would shudder in response. She knew he preferred slow, careful ministrations with her tongue to tease him than a rapid throat fucking. She also knew that if she sneaked her fingers around to play with his hole, he'd moan in just that way that she liked to hear. And when he moaned, she moaned with him, so that the reverberations in her throat would send an extra jolt of sensation through his cock.

When she pulled her mouth off of him for a moment's rest, he took the chance to seize her chin with one hand, pulling her up into a searing kiss.

Hanji nibbled on his lower lip, remembering that Levi had a sort of nibbling kink. It was a good thing he wore that silly cravat to cover up as much of his neck as possible, considering how many marks she left on him. Though in her defense, she wouldn't leave nearly as many if she hadn't known how much it turned him on.

She was about to move to leave marks on his ear when she felt his hands on her shoulders, pushing her onto her back on the bed. He always took more initiative when he was feeling particularly slighted, which tended to happen whenever Hanji prioritized her research over his libido. Not that Hanji minded, of course. As fascinating as it was to her to see what made Levi tick, it was also interesting to learn what new things would make her go wild. She was all for sexual exploration, but titans pervaded her mind much more frequently.

He was pulling impatiently at her pants, unhooking belts in random order, Hanji giggling at his impatience, though she was offering some mild amount of assistance. Eventually her pants (and panties) were removed in one dramatic motion. As Hanji continued to make slow work of her shirt, Levi settled himself between her thighs, more than ready to just start thrusting wantonly, but he had more self control than that. And there was something to be said for being able to please his partner with skills other than the one between his legs.

Looking directly into her eyes, Levi stuck two fingers in his mouth, wetting them. Taking the cue, Hanji bit her lower lip and spread her labia for him, inviting him to ravage her. Smirking, Levi inserted his middle finger into her warmth, and she let out a pleased sigh as she let her head drop back, her lips curled up into a smile. He curled his fingers to match her grin, nearly forcing it off her face as she let out a loud moan, arching her back and pushing down into his hand to get his fingers even deeper inside. She was very wet already; it didn't take much to get her excited.

Levi couldn't help smirking at her eagerness and slipped a second finger easily inside, accompanied by his tongue on her clit.

"Aah!" Hanji squealed in delight, grabbing at Levi's hair and pulling it none too gently.

Her insistence only made him more eager to please and he swirled his tongue around the rosy nub, while steadily pumping his fingers in and out.

"Ahn… Levi…"

Good, he thought. She was saying, she was moaning his name. As she should. He was used to her mumbling the names of her stupid titan pets in her sleep, spending most of her waking hours raving about her research, her papers were full of notes about every fucking squadron member whose name she had learned, but when they were together like this… it brought him immense satisfaction to know that every single bit of her attention was focused on him and how he made her feel. So he quickened his pace, pumping his fingers faster in and out, sucking at her swollen rosebud.

Say my name, he thought. Say only my name.

She was squirming about, rolling her hips to meet his fingers and moaning a bit too loudly for the walls to hold in all the noise. When she felt herself getting too close, she sat up suddenly, pushing him away and out of her, panting heavily, her cheeks flushed. Grabbing Levi by his cravat, she pulled him down on top of her, kissing him fiercely and rolling over on top of him. Straddling him, her dripping wet pussy comfortably resting on his length, she let her fingers roam over his chest, moving to unbuckle and remove the chest harness at last. Never mind that hers was still on, she wanted to feel more of his skin beneath her fingers.

After some work, everything had been unbuckled and unbuttoned, and Levi's naked torso lay beneath her, his strong muscles rippling and tensing slightly as she slowly slid her wetness along him but not letting him enter just yet. She loved looking at his naked body, however short. Here was visible proof that he was humanity's strongest soldier, and it was sexy as hell to see.

"Like what you see?" Levi was smirking up at her.

"Always…" Hanji purred as she leaned down slightly to take a nipple between her teeth.

The buckles from her top harness felt cool against his naked skin, and he took in a hissing breath at the mix of warm and cold sensations. His hands moved to squeeze her ass, silently urging her to ride him. She let out a pleased sigh before reaching down with one hand to grip his cock firmly, then raised herself up before slowly lowering onto his length, letting it slip in inch by glorious inch. They were both letting out little shudders and gasps, moans and whimpers as they became one; once she had buried him in to the hilt, they looked at each other, eyes full of only desire.

Slowly she began to move, smiling as the sensations racked her body. Levi moaned into her every movement, loving to let her have control. Her hands were braced on his abs as she rolled her hips slowly up and down, pulling him out nearly all the way before slamming her hips back down and feeling his cock hit all the way inside her. She also knew how much he liked that too. That he enjoyed giving her control and witnessing what she did to bring them both pleasure. He had told her before that she was the most openly sexual partner he had ever had, the first one to ever be comfortable controlling the pace of things, and that he loved that about her.

When she quickened her pace, Levi's hands moved from her ass to her chest, ripping open her shirt beneath the harness and grabbing at her breasts roughly.

"Ah!" She let out a gasp of delight, and arched her back into his touch.

As his calloused thumbs played with her nipples, he noted that he rather liked this look of hers, with her harness still on, the shirt open underneath it and the way the belts pressed against her bare breasts. And when he caught her gaze, her face grinning in ecstasy and meeting him thrust for thrust, he decided for a slightly more proactive approach and sat up, latching onto her nipples with his lips and thrusting himself deeper within her.

"Ah, ahh, Levi!" She dug her fingers into his shoulders, leaving welts on top of the ones left by the belts they constantly wore.

She knew Levi loved to hear her say his name, so she said it over and over, sometimes moaning it, sometimes gasping it…

They were both getting close now, and she clung close to him, panting his name repeatedly breathlessly into his ear as he grasped her hips and pounded into her.

"Ah, Levi… Ah—ahh, oh yes…"

She could feel him getting close, and she reached down with one hand to rub at her own clit to bring herself to climax with him. A few seconds of rapid thrusting later, Levi came with a low, half-whispered groan and Hanji came with a scream and a laugh a few seconds after.

With a sigh, they tumbled down onto the bed together, Hanji still clinging to Levi, her skin tingling from the post-coital afterglow. She inhaled deeply, noting the faintest smell of jasmine from Levi, though he smelled mostly of sweat at the current moment.

"Mmm… you smell like jasmine." She murmured with a kiss against his neck.

"God, don't mimic Mike's habits."

"I'll make a note of it." She giggled.

"Don't you dare clutter your notes with more useless nonsense."

What Levi didn't know was that she had long since made a note of it. February 7th, year 846: Conroy had brought her jasmine flowers. She had told him they were her favorite scent. She hadn't told him that they reminded her of the jasmine tea that Levi liked to drink, that he always kept in his office, which is why if anyone got close enough, they'd notice that he always smelled faintly of jasmine.

October 21st, year 847: Hanji noted that Mike was sensitive to pine, that it made him sneeze. At the same time, she realized that Levi rather liked it, and that his nose always twitched slightly when the smell of it was in the air. So she purposefully left pine tree bits in her hair when they found their way there during a mission, knowing he'd appreciate their smell as he picked the pieces out of her hair.

The morning that Mike had lost his shaving razor? Hanji had taken it for an experiment, using it to shave her legs and other areas. That night was the most handsy Levi had ever gotten with her. So she noted what type of razor it had been so that she could do it again from time to time. The aloe that she remembered Donna used to use on her skin? That also came in handy to make her legs extra smooth.

On August 12, year 847: Hanji noted that Gunter stood at 183 cm, 23 cm taller than Levi, and that Levi took great offense to people who were taller and younger than him. Unfortunately, that happened to be most of the people in the scouting legion.

When Petra had accidentally spilled some honey on her once, Hanji learned that Levi had something of a slight sweet tooth. He seemed to love the smell of honey on her, and the next day, she noted that he began adding honey to his tea.

Most of her non-titan notes were related to Levi in some way, though no one knew or suspected. She wrote them down in ways that seemed innocuous, pointless, completely unrelated to the grumpy midget with the title of Lance Corporal. These were the things she noted that amused her about him, that fascinated her about him, that she loved about him.

These were the notes that she didn't write down.

A/N: Reviews always appreciated~ Next up, I'll be writing a Pacific Rim AU in which this ridiculous pairing are co-pilots of a Jaeger. Gosh, how hectic would that drift be?