A/N

Reader discretion advised. I rated this story M for dark, adult content and a scene depicting sexual violence in Part Two.

PART ONE: WHO WE WERE

In the year 842, I found the strongest, most notorious fighter in the criminal world and placed him in the service of the King. Many marveled that I had achieved such a feat, and many more had their doubts.

"Tell me, Captain Erwin, why did you recruit Mr. Levi for the Survey Corps?" the wheezy, old inspector droned. His sagging eyes were glued to the paperwork in his hands.

I cleared my throat and pulled at my collar. It was suffocating in that dust-choked office. "Inspector, he demonstrated potential and so far he's proven highly skilled..."

"Yes, yes, very skilled, but why? Why a, a, a deviant, one of the Underground's most dangerous?"

I frowned and studied the man's face, which reminded me of melting, mottled candle wax. We stared at one another pensively for a few seconds. "The Underground is precisely what honed his skills, Inspector, skills I know can be of great use to humanity," I said.

"You trust him?"

Dubious was his middle name. I gave him my most reassuring look. "Absolutely."

"Why?"

"For many reasons. One that stands out would be how he saved my life when we first met. The details are in the report, if you'll look..."

"Oh yes, yes," he mumbled through his waxy mustache. "It also says in here that he's had, quote, 'problems adjusting.' What does that mean?"

I clasped my hands together in front of me and put on a courteous smile.

"Nothing serious, Inspector."

That wasn't the first time I lied in the chain of command and certainly wouldn't be the last.

MAY, 842

When I brought Levi to the barracks on his first day of service, he immediately claimed his bed of choice…from the unfortunate cadet who'd had it for the past three months. The scuffle barely took five seconds. Levi dropped his things, the bed's owner rose to protest, and then went down again clutching his groin and bawling.

"Baby." Levi smirked, lying on the bed and crossing his legs.

"Levi, you aren't in the streets anymore. There are rules of conduct here." I walked to the bed and stood there, my formidable height shading him.

Swiftly he got up. "Right." He looked down at the man he'd injured. "I want this bed," he said, casually planting his foot on the man's back. "May I please have it?"

"Take it!" said the cadet, a regular muscle-flexer I'd seen pick on greenhorns for fun. "Take anything!"

With that, Levi found his place in the army, and I developed a habit of rubbing my temples whenever I heard Commander Shadis bark his name.

JULY, 842

"CADET LEVI!" Shadis yelled, dark-rimmed eyes popping as he looked around the mess hall. Bottles and cracked mugs littered the beer-sloshed floor. Barely conscious bodies were strewn over the flipped tables and chairs. Someone moaned a curse, and another sneezed through a bloody nose. At the center of the pile, Levi casually sat on the faintly moving rump of the biggest man of the bunch. He held a cloth to his bleeding forehead, grinning at the Commander.

"What happened?" I asked.

Levi leaned back comfortably on his human throne and looked us both dead in the eye.

"I had nothing to do with it," he said.

Shadis stood speechless and I let out a weak groan, palming my face.

SIX HOURS LATER

I watched as Levi mopped up the last dregs of beer from the floor. The silence between us seethed until my anger boiled up and out of my mouth.

"This has to stop. This…pleasure you take in being difficult is beyond childish."

Levi kicked the soap bucket; it was a light tap but the clatter made me flinch. He leaned on the stick of his mop and looked at me. "You're getting dirt on my floor."

"My boots are clean."

"Did you get a greenhorn to lick them for you?"

I closed in, my gaze piercing him like a grapple hook through plaster. "You're picking a fight with me now, your friend?"

He backed out of my shadow and his mop vigorously wiped the spotless floor. "What do you want? Another public apology? Should I send flowers, say prayers, light a fucking candle? What can I do this time to calm the shitstorm?"

He spread his arms and slightly bent forward in a show of submissive grace. I only stared at him. His mocking gesture combined with the smug, small smile on his lips utterly disgusted me. In that moment, I truly thought this man would never be of service to humanity.

My shoes squeaked on the wet floor as I strode to his side. "Everyone knows how good you are, the best."

"I know." He devoured the flattery. "What did I tell you when we first met? You remember what I said?"

"I do, I remember exactly."

"Then there's nothing left to say."

"What you said," I hissed in his face, "Amounts to nothing if the only person you serve is yourself. You're a selfish bastard, Levi. You may excel in skill and surpass your peers, surpass even me. But if you fail as a soldier..." I turned and marched for the door, "...you fail humanity."

I heard the mop hit the floor and skid across the slippery surface. "Hey," Levi jeered, and his voice banged against my aching head. "That's me in a nutshell - Humanity's Greatest Failure!"

JANUARY, 843

I could tell by the way Levi looked at some of the women cadets that he had slept with them. How he could attract mosquitoes, let alone the fairer sex was beyond my comprehension. I never believed for a moment that he forced himself on them. I only ever saw girls return sweet and desiring smiles to his gaze. All his affairs were brief and harmless, far as anyone knew. He was a strictly discrete lover and never fooled around on duty.

One rainy afternoon, the mess hall's crowded noise gave me a headache and I decided to take my meal to the barracks. I entered to see Levi in bed, entangled with a freckled brunette twice his size. She was all muscle, and could snap his limber body between her pulsing hips.

"Holy Rose." I slammed the door on the scene, cleansing my brain of the image.

A minute later she came out, hastily dressed and shining with perspiration. "Captain..." She stifled a smile and saluted.

Silently I handed her my plate of food. She was no doubt hungry after such passionate...activity...and for some reason I'd lost my appetite. With embarrassed thanks, she took her meal and dashed off to the mess hall.

I waited a few more minutes for Levi. He came out dressed in fresh clothes, hair combed and the faintest glow in his cheeks.

I sniffed. "You're wearing perfume."

He smirked. "Smells like shit in there," he said, folding his arms and leaning nonchalantly against the door. I imagined kicking him through it.

"A quick reminder, Levi," I said dryly as I turned to go. "Your first expedition is in a few weeks. I should hate to see Cadet Dreyer lose her little playmate to a Titan."

"Tch," Levi scoffed. "I'll die laughing at your shitty jokes first."

FEBRUARY, 843

A soldier's first Titan kill changes him. Sometimes I see elation, other times tears and shock. Always I see the face of a man who finally understands how small he is next to these monsters that plague our race.

Burning blood splashed Levi's blades and he nimbly landed on the Titan's fallen husk. Dropping expertly next to him, I gauged his face. I would forever remember what I saw. No fear, no shock, not even the teeth-gritting wrath I knew we all shared for Titankind. All I saw in his ash-grey eyes was sheer contempt. He looked at the disintegrating corpse and then checked the sole of his boot, expecting to find chunks of sticky, steaming flesh.

"Gross," he said.

"This Titan has pieces of our comrades in its stomach, and that's all you have to say?" I asked, bristling.

He doubled over and retched, much to my distorted satisfaction.

Sundown baptized us in a crimson haze. We scoured the battlefield for the dead, while miserable silence clamped our throats like choking chains. Only quiet weeping leaked out and my face was as wet as any other man's. My young heart beat softly, and I could never see death as honorable, or Maria forbid, a necessary statistic. It would be many more missions before its crushing blow ceased to rattle me to tears.

That day, the day he first fought on the field, I never heard so much as a sniffle from Levi.

Gently I placed another body in the expanding row. Though numbed from stupor, I caught Levi in the corner of my vision. He'd partly unwrapped a body at the end of the row and his hands were ripping at the blood-stained uniform.

Bile spurted up into my mouth and my vision blurred as I staggered over to him.

"Have you no respect even for the dead?" I snarled, hoisting him up by his cravat.

He yanked my arm tight and chopped the inside of my elbow. The pain cracked hard as a bullet and with a cry I dropped him. As he somersaulted to his feet I managed to catch hold of his neck and punch him in the mouth. His feather-light body hit the ground, 3DMG clanging on impact.

"Get out of my sight," I growled, clutching my throbbing elbow.

"A corpse is just a corpse." Levi sat up, black bangs hiding his eyes. "And most of these are half-eaten. There's barely anything left to respect."

"We must respect what's left." I glowered down at him. "For the sake of their families." Turning, my eyes brushed over his hands and saw a flash of blue and white thread. "What have you got there? Open your fist."

He didn't budge. I dropped down beside him, seized his wrist and stared as his fingers splayed open. In his palm lay a frayed, stained insignia patch, torn from a Survey Corps jacket. My shocked gaze moved to the bulging handkerchief inside his vest and I grabbed it. The white silk fluttered and a dozen insignia patches cascaded out. Both our laps were covered in the shredded, bloody Wings of Freedom.

"Levi..." I breathed.

He wouldn't look at me as he hastily picked them all up. I thought I heard the faintest crack in his voice.

"I need these to remember them."

That moment lingered in my mind weeks afterward. It astounded me how deep Levi's feelings for others could go.

As his battles mounted, those feelings began to churn and rage to the surface. He cut down Titans with inhuman ferocity, spin-slicing through their flesh like a whirlwind. Hours after the blood evaporated from his hands, his fists still clenched in fury.

AUGUST, 843

"This is for taking my son away from me, you damned, crazy bloodhounds!" The rotting, caved-in tomato splatted my back and tepid juices soaked through my cape.

Another naysayer. There were always a few in the homecoming crowds, most of them grieving, bitter relatives of our lost comrades.

I cringed, tensing for action. It wasn't the thrown food that scared me, (thank Rose it was just a tomato) but rather the sound of Levi rearing his horse. He broke formation and scattered the crowd. Gracefully dismounting in a single bound, he rushed on the heckler. It was a pot-bellied merchant man with a waxed goatee.

His beady eyes flew wide open as the five-foot-three human cyclone shot straight for him. "Hey! How dare you! Stop, by Maria, stop I say!"

Levi caught him by his goatee and pinned him smack into the nearest wall. Bystanders stepped back several yards, staring. I navigated through them on my horse as quickly as I could.

"How...dare...!" the merchant choked.

"You should look up the meaning of sacrifice, you fat swine." Levi's voice could cut the Wall in half.

"Levi!" I nudged my steed up beside my subordinate. "You're out of line. Release him, now."

He did so without a word and made to retrieve his horse. I cut in front of him and extended a hand. I wanted him to ride with me for his own protection. His outburst had drawn plenty of ugly looks and the merchant was cursing us by every god he knew, promising retribution.

We left the booing crowd behind. Levi sat in the front of the saddle, his back ramrod stiff against my chest.

"They're all shit-brained hypocrites," he spat.

"Who we must forever protect and serve," I said quietly, and clicked the horse into a trot. At the time, I thought the juice stains on my cape and a mild reprieve from Shadis would be all that came of this incident.

I never imagined it would lead to an unspeakable act on a liquor-hazed night, less than a week later. That night, Levi and I lost everything short of our lives, and became scarred ghosts of who we were.

A/N

Thanks for reading. Reviews, follows and favorites are appreciated. To be continued.

Sarah