Finished Short Story + Word Count: 2159
Trigger Warnings: Canon Typical violence, onset blindness, violent metaphors used for mental health struggles
Written by: Del Rey Jean
Requested? Yes!
Extra notes: I opened up my tumblr for taking fanfiction requests for Attack on Titan a while ago – learned quickly that I cannot handle that much responsibility and closed them again – however, this request remains one of my absolute favorite pieces I have written thus far, hence why it’s joining the den even though it is in fact fanfiction. It is totally fine if that kind of work is not your cup of tea, I will not be offended if you choose not to read it.
His first clue went entirely unnoticed, like a speck of dust on a camera lens; creating the barest of impurities, just a miniscule smudge that bent light in the image.
It lay nestled so small that it wasn’t even an irritant, he never got the chance to disregard it as nothing because it hadn’t even been noticed in the first place.
~~~
He finally noticed the smudge in the picture on a slow Thursday morning while he cleaned his office.
The bookshelves were pristine, the carpet void of the tiniest granule of dirt, even the chair legs glistened in the sunlight spilling through his window.
Levi’s hands had long since pruned in the water and cleaning chemicals as he scrubbed furiously at a stubborn spot on his desk that just would not release the wood. He knew he’d been fighting with it for so long that he expected his desk to smell like pine trees for days.
Swift raps to the door snapped his attention off the irritant for the first time in hours. His back loudly complained across his hunched shoulders in a way he couldn’t remember feeling except for his returns from long expeditions.
How long have I been fighting with this shit stain? He wondered as he barked a rather volatile, “what?!” at the door.
He didn’t lift his eyes to find out who had disturbed him, instead wetting the cloth inside the now cold water once more. The door slowly crept open and a cadet shuffled in, clearing their throat..
“Sir, squad leader Hanji asked me to bring this to you. You missed dinner.”
He stopped in his tracks. His mouth dropped open in a pause of shock and he finally looked up.
The cadet had brought in a tray of food. They stood there shuffling from foot to nervous foot, unsure of what to do next.
And their face almost fit perfectly behind the smudge of impurity in his line of sight.
Bent light around the edges, like a photograph with dust on the lense.
He dropped the rag into the water.
Ice dripped through his veins.
~~~
He tried.
He really did.
Levi tried his hardest to ignore it.
He’d learned two things rather quickly:
The first was that the titans were too big for the imperfection to hinder his killing capabilities, allowing him a reprieve from having to worry about that at least.
The second lesson came with far more stress: anchoring during battle was very affected by the cloud.
One time. Only once. He’d missed. But it was one moment that forced him to reconsider his thoughts on the obstruction in his most vital sense.
He’d struck a tree at full speed because one of the claws fell to empty space when he’d already released the other to follow a pull that didn’t come.
But Levi was adaptable.
That was part of what made him the soldier that humanity looked up to as their final hope against the massive creatures that threatened their peaceful walls.
And so, he adapted.
He learned how to avoid anchoring in that spot. To use his peripherals or the open edges that were still clear. He didn’t make the same mistake twice, and life continued like normal for a little while longer.
Until his adapting forced him to realize that the smudge was growing.
As soon as he acknowledged it, he could recognize the thing’s growth easily. Every morning when he opened his eyes, he’d have glaring white sparks of ice cold terror creeping through his veins as he woke day by day to a little more bent light and clouds. The photograph was being eaten away and the imperfection was starving.
~~~
“Erwin, I have a stupid question,” Levi declared as he barged into his leader’s office.
It had finally reached the point where he could no longer keep the issue to himself. This was the dreaded beginning of what he knew would be the end of his life as a scout.
His chest crumbled in on itself with a mixture of anger, shame, and this annoying, yapping dog named Confusion.
Why is this happening now?
The blonde lifted one thick eyebrow and set down his pen, motioning for Levi to come closer and take a seat.
The smaller man walked up to the desk with brisk steps, placing his hands against it and leaning over, his mouth a hard frown.
“What color are my eyes?”
To his surprise, Erwin didn’t even pause to consider the randomness of the question. He leaned up and observed in silence.
“Grey blue as always,” he stated, sitting back and furrowing his brows when Levi visibly tensed. “Why?”
Levi unceremoniously slumped down into one of the chairs behind him, his gaze unfocused as he turned it to observe the papers across the desk.
“I have shit news,” he growled.
“Oh?”
The words lodged inside his throat and he hated the entire idea of ever releasing them. They would make his nightmare finally real.
He could already imagine the pathetic look Erwin would give him, and it pissed him off to think that’s what he’s going to be forced to keep as his final memory before this shit dunked him into darkness.
He opened his mouth to begin, nonetheless. “I…” a heavy sigh released and he muttered, “shit.”
He’d never backed down from a damn thing. These words tasted rotten, though, and he didn’t think he could let them go without his lunch following behind.
He swallowed hard, closing his eyes for concentration, and tried once more, “there’s something wrong with my sight.”
That wasn’t so bad. Right?
Erwin remained quiet, drawing Levi’s gaze back to his serious face. Apparently, that was all the commander wanted before speaking.
“Terribly wrong, or fixable and irritating wrong?” he prompted slowly.
Levi’s frown deepened. “I don’t know that it can be fixed.”
“Have you spoken with Hanji about this?”
“Tch. Shitty glasses isn’t going to fix my sight. If she was that smart, she’d have fixed her own by now.”
Erwin hummed, leaning forward and clasping his hands on the desk. “You couldn’t wear glasses like her then?”
Levi had to look away as he replied, “no. My vision isn’t just going fuzzy. I -” he stopped, raising his hand and touching his closed eyelids with his fingertips. “-I have some kind of obstruction. And it’s growing. And apparently, it isn’t something that’s visible to you either.”
Abrupt silence echoed loud enough to pound in Levi’s eardrums. He slowly opened his eyes, looking bored while he searched Erwin’s gaze for a response he didn’t want to hear.
The commander sat with his hands clasped in front of him, frowning hard, his baby blues racing with numbers and plans crowded in behind them.
Finally, he made the deduction of where their conversation was leading, “are you telling me that you’re unfit for duty?”
Levi couldn’t actually say it. He turned his head, glaring at the window beside his leader instead.
Erwin let out a defeated sigh.
They remained there in the tense silence for a long time, both men coming to an understanding what couldn’t be voiced just yet. Humanity’s Strongest was going blind. Their hope would die with the loss of his sight, no matter who stepped up to take that mantle next. And there was absolutely nothing that they could do to stop it.
If he’d been a different man, he might have broken down. Might have wept. Or perhaps gotten angry. That sounded more likely. A different man would have lashed out. Would have snapped the chairs into pieces, flipped the desk over, punched some holes in the walls.
All Levi did, though, was lower his head until he stared at his clouded lap and he released the smallest of sounds from the back of his throat.
He’d say that it was a growl. Something animalistic slipping out at the helplessness of it all.
But if he were honest, he’d admit that it sounded closer to a whimper.
~~~
He began to have nightmares during the few hours he stole for slumber. It seemed the more the clouds grew, the louder the storm inside him thundered in response, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d go utterly mad beneath the grey and black.
Spilled ink would creep across his skin during the night, tickling it, making him itch, making him claw at his arms and chest, leaving red gashes beneath his nails that were still stinging when he would finally wake.
He grappled with a monster closing in each night that had hooked claws, and plucked his eyes from the sockets, while it jammed a smooth, curved spike down his throat when he’d try to scream.
He would thrash violently under the demon nestled on top of him, battling inside his unmoving flesh as it continued to slumber, helpless to the blackness creeping in.
And every time he woke, he took a little bit of that ink into the clouds of his vision.
It dripped in little by little. Each night an eye dropper with poison drops that fed the greying clouds and trapped anxious electricity inside his bones.
He was half certain the storm itself would kill him.
The thunder rumbling after each strike down his ribcage would shatter him.
The lightning strikes would fry his nervous system from the inside out.
He was going to explode.
And those clouds just continued to mercilessly grow blacker and blacker, blotting out the worried faces of his comrades and tugging at his chest with its violent indifference.
~~~
He would never admit the nights when he wept.
In the crushing silence of his isolation, he crumbled under the storm and the ink and he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t take the weakness. The shame. The fact that everyone watched him so fucking closely to see how he was going to handle this creeping cruse. Fuck them.
Maybe it was rage that made the fluid leak.
Maybe if he told himself it was his anger, he’d eventually believe it and stop feeling like a goddamn shit stain for letting it happen.
The salt and liquid felt thick like gasoline down his cheeks, and his wretched sobs were the sparks that lit them up to a blaze in the darkness.
Lightning cracked across his chest and another sound escaped his mouth and he hated it.
He hated it with such a ferocity that he was tempted to tear at his own eyes and end this waiting game. His self control was only slightly stronger than the rage and he was able to refrain by instead directing his attention to the contents of his desk, throwing books across the room. As the thunder crashed through him, he let out a bone shattering roar that probably woke the entire fucking castle.
He was so ready for the black to just take over already and let this suffering come to its final resting place.
Let him fucking move on already.
Let him fucking rest.
Oh god, he was so tired.
~~~
He eased open his eyes on the dreaded morn.
When the night terrors had been scored from his mind like a bladed whip tearing through flesh, poured out into the waking world and finally bringing his worst fears into reality.
The black greeted him with an endless maw that opened up to swallow him. It was unforgiving, this cold stillness that didn’t shift from eyes closed to open. The eternal ink that was deep as an abyss and he lay there for a long moment blinking furiously, as if he could deny the truth. As if the rapid movement of eyelids could wipe it away.
He didn’t snap though.
He reminded himself that this was the morning he’d been waiting for ever since he sat in Erwin’s office that day. This was the morning when nothing was left. The one when the wait was finally over. When the photograph no longer even had a smudge, it just wasn’t anymore.
In fact, he surprised himself with how quiet he was inside. The lightning no more than a soft whisper. The thunder an even quieter pur.
He just lay there under the weight of nothingness, letting it press his body further into the mattress and he swore he almost heard the creak of his bones softly protesting.
But he didn’t snap. No, he’d waited for this. He was ready for this.
After some time, he resigned to the darkness. He lay there not even knowing whether his lids were up or down, clasping his hands and resting them on his stomach.
It was strangely relieving to lay there like that. Part of him wanted to say that maybe this weight, this darkness, this curse that crept up on him, maybe it was a promise.
And he caught himself wondering, just for a brief, fleeting second if anyone by that point would even notice if he simply disappeared? What would happen if he just… stopped?