summary: A picture of Levi's childhood, and how Kenny taught him to be strong—as well as how he'd never be strong enough.
content/warnings: lots of physical/verbal abuse against a child (Levi), hurt/no comfort, self-hatred, Ackerman powers, complicated relationship, poor poor kid!Levi, canonverse, brief description of starvation, canon-typical violence, insomnia, descriptions of death, mostly a whump, underage drinking (for one scene), injuries
wc: 8.6k
If Levi had learned anything while living with Kenny—well, everything was an opportunity to learn. He learned that as soon as he ate his second-ever meal after meeting Kenny. He had been sat down in front of him at a table in a real kitchen in a real dilapidated little hideout, but that first time Levi stuffed his face with bread at that bar was the only time Kenny ever fed him.
During that second meal, Kenny suddenly reached across the table and smacked him, making him flinch. Levi quit chewing and stared at Kenny, confused and a little scared.
“Levi. Lesson one: Don’t stuff food down your throat. First”—Kenny held up a long finger—“You’ll choke. Second”—he raised another—“You’re fucking tiny, skin n’ bones, and pale as a damn ghost. You look dead already, but you don’t want ‘em to know you’re starvin’, too. Act like you got your shit together.”
Levi was starving—he was still so hungry, even though he met Kenny yesterday—that the speech almost entirely went over his head. He chewed slowly, peering up at Kenny across the table through a thick veil of bangs.
He pondered the ‘them’ he had to make sure didn’t know he was starving. The bumbling pig of a man who always told Momma what to do, whose talking voice he never heard because he was always yelling, who he learned to hide from after… who…
Levi didn’t want to think about her.
“Like a man?” he asked.
Kenny leaned back in his seat with his arm thrown over the chair back. Levi thought he looked pretty cool. “Like anybody.”
As young as he was, he already knew too well that nobody cared about anybody down here. But still: Even you? Levi wanted to ask, but had Kenny saved him, so of course the answer was no.
Instead he quietly asked, “...Am I holding it wrong too?”
Levi was holding a brick-hard loaf of bread.
Kenny blinked blandly at him. “If you were on the Surface, yeah people’d point and laugh at ya. Down here, protect your food, Levi.”
People Above must’ve had access to plenty of food, then, which was such a strange concept that Levi stopped chewing. They sounded so alien to him. Just how he pictured a living fish swimming through some water Above (lakes or streams or ponds… which he didn't know the difference between) compared to the fleshy rotted ones he saw once being sold at the markets he used to go to.
Levi felt other to Above people then, and he always would. Kenny never let him forget that they’d always look down on someone like Levi—unless he proved them wrong.
“How?” He’d one day ask.
“Idiot. By kickin’ their asses. Make ‘em piss themselves. With power… you can get anything you want in this world.”
That conversation would come later. For now he put the idea of being pointed and laughed at out of his mind. He’d never go Above to have that happen to him.
Kenny spoke again. “Lesson two, while I’m at it: Don’t give me that shitty look when I discipline you for doin’ somethin’ stupid. Don’t be a brat. In fact, don’t flinch like you just did.”
He was confused. “But I… couldn’t help it.”
Opening his mouth was a mistake. Kenny knocked him upside the head, so hard—or maybe Levi being so weak—that he rocked in his chair, his hand flying up to his ear. It felt numb and weirdly hot.
“Don’t back talk me, you brat. You don’t know shit about shit yet, so lemme tell ya: You can, and you will.”
Kenny was never more lenient with his lessons than he’d been from the start. There were many of all kinds, because Kenny took it upon himself to teach him how to survive: How to tell who was a threat, if he was being followed, whether food had rotted or was poisoned, how to haggle a deal to get exactly what he wanted (which Levi failed at consistently, no matter how hard he tried; he didn’t know what to say or how to make his tone sound convincing, thus Kenny put twice as much pressure on him to wield his knife), how to walk and how to carry himself—but Kenny’s main goal was always to make Levi strong.
He even made Levi cut his hair on his own. He finds it disturbing now how much that shocked him then. “Brat,” Kenny muttered as he fished some sheers out of a drawer in the bathroom. “Kuchel must’ve spoiled you rotten.”
Levi kept quiet and his head down, his fists curled by his sides. His bangs flopped pitifully over his eyes, long enough to tickle his nose. The more he was reminded of Momma, the less he wanted to think about her. It hurt, all the time, and he blamed himself. It was his fault for being too reliant on her not to leave their room, and too weak to make someone help. If he’d just been strong enough, he could have done something—at least to ease her pain.
Not that Kenny talked about her much. He stopped talking about her at all when Levi once pointed out a hunched figure at the building stoop and asked what was wrong with her legs. They were atrophied to the bone, and trembling all over.
“There’s a chance somethin’ goes wrong with yer legs if you go all yer life without seein’ the sun.”
Levi, at this point used to the sight of bodies, evenly faced ahead again. “Oh. Okay.”
“Is that how she went? Tell me takin’ your scrawny ass in wasn’t a waste of time if yer legs are gonna give out anyway.”
Levi hastened to put together a worthy answer. It wouldn’t kill him if he didn’t want to answer that question, but he wanted to please Kenny, especially in case he talked more about what she was like before Levi was born.
“No,” Levi answered haltingly. “I actually coulda done something. If I was like you.”
Kenny stopped walking, so Levi stopped too. His face was twisted in a disgusted grimace. “Tch. Well you didn’t, and you aren’t. You oughta not turn into a guy like me anyway. You’d be one annoying bastard.”
Oh. Levi grasped for information about Momma instead. “Did she not like you?”
“Ha…” Kenny looked wistful for a second. “Forget it. She’s dead, kid. End of story.”
It was time to keep moving. Kenny surprised Levi by briefly ruffling his hair before pushing him to get a move-on.
Which came with the expectation of being able to keep up with Kenny when Levi only reached as tall as his waist. Naturally this earned him names. Mostly 'shorty’, and Kenny’s laughter when Levi insisted he’d get taller if Kenny just gave him a fucking chance. By the last time Levi ever saw his retreating back, his height had stagnated at around Kenny’s stomach.
Some lessons were harsher than others. The most pain Levi had ever experienced was at Kenny’s expense, but he learned so brutally well because Kenny was brutal—not that he was capable of being gentle.
And Levi never doubted his intentions. Kenny must’ve picked him up when Levi was inches from death’s door for some reason.
Even sleep was a lesson which Levi would learn.
After Kenny took him in, it was strange. Levi slept more restlessly than he’d ever had in his short life. When he woke up, he’d sometimes be crying and not know why, swiftly wiping the tears away, angry at his body for betraying him. He mused that he had slept better when his body was physically struggling to function, after those countless days with desert-like saliva caked in his mouth, and dozing, not eating.
Kenny didn’t afford him any luxury whatsoever, but Levi had a mattress to sleep on with a pretty thick cotton blanket. He was once breaking over the edge of sleep when he was ripped to wakefulness by being snatched around his middle, pinned on his stomach, and below him appeared a blade that glinted in the darkness, reflected off the faint glow of streetlamps outside.
Gasping, Levi elbowed his assailant in the stomach—like he’d been taught to do if someone ever got his back. He’d never been so relieved to hurt Kenny, though when he was dropped, it seemed much more like Kenny letting him than Levi genuinely catching him off guard.
“You’re too damn slow.”
Levi whirled around, kicked the blanket away and backed up against the wall, staring at him wide-eyed. Blood spotted Kenny’s trenchcoat, where he crouched evenly, staring back like Levi was an idiot.
“Huh?”
Kenny punctured the mattress with his blade, making him jump. “Don’t be stupid, Levi. You think someone’s gonna wait to attack you just 'cause you’re asleep? When your guard’s down is the best chance anyone’s got of killin’ you.
"Don’t gimme that look. I’m teachin’ you a lesson, here.”
Levi was fully awake now. He thought of defending himself by saying he kept his knife under his pillow, but either way, Kenny had gotten the drop on him. Levi would’ve died if he was anyone else, and he probably wouldn’t even know who killed him.
“So what do I do?” he spat, glaring defiantly. “Don’t fucking sleep?”
Kenny ignored him. At some point, because of Kenny or not, Levi stopped shrinking down when he was spoken down to. One day, his shitty attitude would be stuck to him all the time, even if he didn’t mean it. For twenty-some years, it didn’t benefit him to act polite.
“Be ready to defend yerself just like if you were awake.”
So Levi… exercised his rampant sleeplessness in a way. Even before his voice dropped he had had it hammered into him to be disciplined, and so he could discipline himself just as well.
Whenever he slept on the mattress, he tended to sleep deeply, and so he kept getting reprimanded for reacting too slowly after Kenny cut, kicked, or slapped him awake.
So came him sleeping sitting up in the back corner of his small room so he had full view of his surroundings. He figured out if he stopped using the blanket, he’d sleep lighter, and he did—but there was also something about sitting up against the wall.
He’d withstood her… decomposing for as long as possible, clinging to her. It had never even occurred to Levi to get up, because who else did he have in this world, back then? Everyone he could go to either despised that he’d been born in a place like that, and the women looked after themselves, in the end. There was nothing they could do for him.
But her skin became cold and thin, stretched over her bones. Losing all color and luster, even her hair so she finally blended in with the dirty corners and damp walls. Smells started to rise, besides the stench of death he’d never forget, and little living things squirmed and began to eat her, and so Levi crawled out of the bed.
He can’t remember if he apologized or not for leaving her. He hopes he did.
Now sitting sat up in that same way, even though the place and time was different, made him constantly alert. He replaced his blanket with his knife, clasped in his hand at all times.
Night by night, Levi figured out how much sleep he needed in order to function. It was always hard to tell time of day in the Underground, so he tuned into his surroundings, and based starting the day on the people he could hear around outside when the day seemed to begin, at “dawn”—earlier than when Kenny gets him up. Over time, whenever Kenny tested him again, he would snap awake to him feet away, his knife instinctively raised.
Kenny laughed thickly. “You even look like I’m here to kill ya. Keep it up,” he said.
That was the last of Kenny’s lessons on sleep.
But Levi wouldn’t understand until later what lengths Kenny would really go to to make him strong. With the knowledge that Kenny was the strongest and most talked-about person in the Underground, Levi first tried to imitate him.
Levi didn’t often get to join Kenny to do… whatever he did when he was on his own. Only as far as Levi knew, Kenny spilled a lot of blood. One night when he’d came back, more blood than normal stained his coat, especially red near his shoulder.
But he seemed to be in a good mood while he drank from a tankard on the threadbare sofa, his booted feet kicked up on a stool. The rooms were connected in such a way that the room was open from there to the kitchen, so Levi watched him while he ate dinner, which was a mushy apple and a couple shreds of dried meat.
Even if Levi didn’t know all about what a drunk person looked, acted, and especially smelled like, the high, bitter stink of the alcohol was all over him. He was smiling to himself bitterly, and mumbled things between swigs that Levi couldn’t make out.
Silently, Levi took his glass of water, and placed it on the seat of an adjacent chair.
“Are you gonna drink all that, or what? I’m tired of smelling it.”
Kenny peeled his eyes open. Pushing his bangs back, he grinned drunkenly at him. “Hah? Oh, I see. You thirsty?”
“...Maybe.”
Levi was fairly confident that since he couldn’t draw the kind of respect from his strength that Kenny did, yet, if he copied him more then that got him one step closer. Plus, Levi wasn’t used to seeing someone drunk and happy at the same time, either. It was pleasantly strange.
Kenny leveled him with a lazy smirk, then hefted himself to his feet with another scoff. It didn’t seem like he was too drunk. He didn’t stumble on the way over, and firmly planted the tankard down in front of Levi, so hard a few drops flew out.
“Alright, boy. Try it. Maybe you’ll like it.”
It was filled with a bubbly-looking glazed liquid just under halfway, but it was a large tankard just the same.
Levi raised himself up and sat on his knees to be taller, and sniffed it warily.
Kenny leaned on the table, smiling lopsidedly. “Hurry up. You wanna act grown up, right?—You wanna be like me? Then drink it, Levi. If you don’t, that’ll really hurt my feelings,” he drawled.
This thinly-veiled threat didn’t go over Levi’s head, and especially not next to Kenny sniffing out Levi’s real intentions.
But it was unthinkable to back out now. He put on a straight face as he took it up by the sides, tilted it back, and then jolted as Kenny overturned it completely, dousing Levi’s nostrils and eyes.
It was disgusting. Cruelly sour but somehow tangy, suffocatingly thick. Beer stung his eyes, he coughed so hard his gag reflex started to flex, all the while Kenny laughed his ass off in the background. He flung the tankard at the wall, where it knocked off and rolled around sadly on the floor, like it was disappointed in Levi for not drinking it.
"Still wanna be like ol’ Kenny?” Kenny shambled forward and kicked Levi’s chair out, but this time he reacted in time. He dropped down just in time and took on a defensive stance, still coughing. “What about it? You wanna another drink?”
“Fuck off!” Levi rasped. “This is… a shitty lesson.”
Kenny looked over curiously, as if just noticing the damage he had caused. “Nah. This is a lesson in peer pressure. And also not bein’ a fucking idiot.”
Levi focused on his training after that. Day and night, cuts and bandages, blades and flesh.
Levi’s hardest lesson would be the most rewarding in the end. One day, Kenny told him to get dressed, and he followed without any idea of where they were going.
So he asked: “Are we just gonna walk around all day and wait to get robbed?”
Kenny grinned down at him, the one that spread wide enough so that Levi could almost see his canines. “I’m gonna make you strong, rat. I think it's time.”
Levi frowned, but he felt a rare blip of excitement, too. He’d never been so direct, even though for these past few years, he’s always been teaching Levi to survive. This, for the first time, felt like it was leading up to something.
In the lower Underground districts, Levi felt confident walking alongside the strongest—and most intimidating—person in the whole world, or what might as well be. That underlying wet stink of blood, sewage, all things suffering that he could never get used to felt less suffocating then.
Especially in the lower districts where they were, where it hung much thicker, where the denizens were a lot more dangerous. This way was abandoned. Garbage lined the broken streets.
Levi had no idea where they were going, so he closed his hand on the knife in his pocket.
He counted the corners they turned. Left… right, right…….left…right…
The biggest man Levi had ever seen burst out from behind an abandoned cart—he knew this based solely on the sheer size of him, and it wasn’t in the fat way. One of his biceps was as big as Levi’s head.
The attacker charged at them—no, him! Levi easily used his height to his advance to dodge, but he did it so his back was towards the cart. A lithe woman with a face like a crow’s appeared from behind him and swept her leg out, meaning to trip him. He dodged once again, flipping backwards and landing easily on his feet.
“KENNY!” Levi snapped his head towards Kenny for support, but while the big man set his sights on Levi like a bull, Kenny leaned casually against the brick on the other side of the street, watching as if judging an apple to see if it was rotten.
The attackers didn’t even speak. One look was in their distant eyes, and it was dangerous. They meant to kill him.
The woman ripped out a knife and went for him again, but he was ready. This was no time to hesitate. He pulled her arm, yanked her down to his level, and kneed her in the chest. She made a noise like popping a paper bag before Levi sunk his blade into the side of her throat.
This was no time to hesitate.
He didn’t rip it out in time. With the ease of kicking a ragdoll, the big man kicked him. When the dirty cobblestone hit Levi, he actually bounced off it at first before landing.
Down came the man’s knuckles. For a split-second he could wonder how weird it was that his knuckles looked covered in armor when metal, brass, smashed his cheek. Pain exploded and gripped his head.
He cried out and tossed his head to the side. He couldn’t use his arms—his hands were pinned under his attacker’s knees.
Levi went with his leg. If he got it behind the man to kick him in the kidney, it would hurt like a bitch enough to for Levi to get an advantage—but the man was too big. He was like a monster.
Surprisingly, the next punch landed on Levi’s side, then his gut, coughing up all the air from his lungs. Instinctively his body bowed back, trying to get away, but he was trapped.
Levi tossed his head back for the woman’s corpse and his knife, but she was slumped over, his blade too far out of reach.
And as quickly as he looked, his attention was yanked back as the attacker nailed him in the chest, making him shout. Pain dense and dull shook his ribcage.
Out of options, Levi wrenched his head to the side. The man’s arm was braced beside his head. He sunk in his teeth, and ripped out a chunk of flesh.
Howling, the man punched him again. And again. And again. Until even the mind-numbing pain felt far away.
“Kenny, help…” Levi whimpered. Did he say that? Or just think it?
Two gunshots in quick succession split the air above, though it felt blocks away, and then Levi was being smothered by dead weight that had crashed on top of him.
He groaned miserably, heaving, and wiggled free with all the strength he had left, crawling like a worm. Somehow he succeeded, and lay on his side, coughing violently and smearing stinging blood from his eyes.
“Get up, Levi.”
Kenny’s voice sounded like it came from far away, too.
“Are you dead, or what? My friend there didn’t punch you in the legs.”
Kenny sighed, and disappointment was heavy in it. “By the way, you failed.”
The pain. The pain ate into Levi’s bones like a sickness, it was all he could think about. He had never hurt this bad. He didn’t think it was possible to fit this much pain into his body.
He forced himself to pull in deep breaths. Still. The knowledge that this had been the test, and that he’d failed somehow made it all hurt worse.
“Get up, rat,” Kenny ordered.
Kenny never repeated himself.
Levi slowly heaved himself to his hands and knees. Beads of sweat dripped off his forehead and landed on the cobblestone between his hands, and this sight was somehow more shameful than if—
No, he was bleeding too, bleeding from all over his face. He wasn’t just ashamed—he was totally fucking useless.
He shoved himself to his feet, swayed, then looked up at Kenny, who looked completely ambivalent to Levi’s blood and the two corpses some feet away.
“Don’t look at me. Get yer knife, you idiot,” he retorted.
“Right.” His voice was small, but firm. He straightened up, his fists curled tightly by his sides, and shuffled over to the corpse of the woman. When he crouched, he almost fell over.
Taking back his knife was easy, but it was as disgusting as the rest of him.
He wiped the blood off on her shirt in two simple strokes. If he didn’t keep himself looking as neat as possible, Kenny would discipline him. If his knife rusted because of the blood, Kenny would discipline him.
Levi, his heart clenching with guilt, just had to tell himself that it didn’t matter. Dead was dead.
He somehow rose to his feet again.
Silent, Kenny stuffed his gun back on his belt, and turned around. Levi followed.
Breathing in felt like fire. Breathing out worsened the stitch in his side. Moving one foot in front of another felt more like pushing boulders, and like a haze, this all hung around his mind. This pain was dreamy. A dream where his whole world meant staying on his feet—despite his hearing screeching in and out, despite his surroundings outside Kenny turning fuzzy at the edges—with Kenny in his sights. To march and march at Kenny’s back forever. The destination meant nothing, because Kenny knew where they were going. Because Kenny would never not be leading the way…
The dream abruptly ended when Kenny’s face suddenly appeared again, and he reared his leg back.
Levi hit the ground on his bad side. The pain was too loud to hear himself, but he thought he screamed. The white-hot shock of it was, for a second, his whole entire life.
He started getting a handle on his surroundings just in time to see the sole of Kenny’s boot when he kicked him in the side again.
“I’m gonna keep goin’ until you quit whining! Bitchin’ and moanin’ ain’t ever gonna help you, Levi!”
But he couldn’t help it.
The pain was too loud. Right now it blocked out everything. Kenny’s voice faded in and out as though through water.
Levi cried out wetly as he was kicked in the back, and involuntarily, he rolled onto his other side, facing Kenny. He curled up into the most protective position possible, with his arms shielding his head, still moaning. “Kenny! KENNY!—Fucking, stop! It hurts…”
When Kenny didn’t stop, didn’t even respond but to nail him in the shoulder, Levi knew he had no choice but to do what Kenny said. If Kenny said he had to do something, then Levi had to. Not even his human nature was immune to Kenny’s teaching.
Levi couldn’t tell when or where a hit was coming to promptly muffle himself—all he could feasibly do was shut up, or shut up and get up, and his legs felt like strings. The pain screamed through his mind.
Be strong…
Kenny kicked him a couple more times, but besides a grunt, Levi bit his tongue and tensed up every muscle in his body. That way didn’t feel so much like getting kicked with a hammer, which was really Kenny’s boot.
"Does it still hurt, kid?” Kenny didn’t even sound winded.
Levi swallowed thickly, panting. He tasted blood on his tongue and inhaled wetly. His nose was bleeding. But coughing counted as bitching and moaning, didn’t it? Stuttering or rasping. Weak. Whining or whimpering and especially crying, weak.
“No,” Levi said, voice firm.
The scrape of dirt could be heard as Kenny stepped back. Levi stared ahead at his tall black leather boots. Somehow, Kenny never scuffed them while he was beating the shit out of him.
Levi thought almost deliriously, that whenever he'd find himself in Kenny’s shoes, then he’d learn how to do that too. How could Kenny not only be so strong, but so… untouchable?
His boot charged again. Levi’s stomach. He tensed and squeezed his fists, but he was silent. It didn’t happen again.
“Good job,” Kenny said, like he expected that of Levi all along.
Good job? Levi squeezed his eyes shut. Good job good job good job good
“Yeah, you look like a beat dog, n’ I bet you feel like one, too, but whoever’s beating you won’t know that. No matter what… you still got some advantage.”
Kenny stepped forward. Levi braced himself for the moment he’s kicked in the face, but Kenny merely slid his boot forward, and lifted Levi’s chin up to look at him. From this angle, he looked miles above him.
“You understand why I’m finally teachin’ you this. That’s cuz it’s a hard-ass lesson. At least you succeeded in somethin’ today. You aren’t so scared since you made yourself quit that shit, huh. It’s called keepin’ yourself together. And you’re stronger for it. Don’t let anybody ever know your weaknesses, Levi. Do ya understand your teacher?”
“I understand,” Levi croaked.
Satisfied, Kenny let his chin drop. “Good, kid. Now you’re gettin’ the hang of this. Let’s get back.”
Levi blinked. He was still processing the way he’d been praised—so rare a thing with Kenny’s lessons.
The pain meant less when Levi both buried it somewhere so deep he couldn't feel it, and did well because of that. With the words still heating his face, he pushed himself to his feet, giving himself no time to register the way moving felt like blows of their own.
Yeah, it hurt, but that was the point, wasn’t it? He understood what Kenny was teaching him. When it came to his lessons, Kenny was never cruel for no reason.
This lesson hurt like hell, but Levi had overcome his very human nature because of it. An enemy could never fully take advantage of him, and Underground, an enemy could be found in anyone.
He was beginning to be strong.
Good, kid.
It was a few weeks later when the worst thing that could’ve happened, happened.
Levi had been frustrated, to say the least, after another failure at Kenny’s test. He could never seem to overpower his enemies before Kenny’s gun rang off, ending the test. To be fair, Kenny put him up against enemies bigger, stronger, and even faster than Levi, but he didn’t even feel like he was improving. The most he’d gleaned from these fights were injuries.
He made his breathing short and tight and balanced his weight evenly on both his feet—he’d diagnosed himself with a bruised rib and something wrong with his ankle.
Levi always took care of his own injuries. The challenge right now was not seeming weak in front of Kenny.
But Kenny could tell, he felt. A cold sweat had broken out on the back of his neck from his constant stare as Levi went about taking account of what food they had stored.
The afternoon was no time to rest, and there was never a time to be useless.
Don’t be weak. Don’t, Levi repeated internally, especially as his midsection screamed when he crouched down, in search of something—a can of broth maybe. He had to eat enough to fuel his body.
At the table behind Levi was where Kenny sat, arms crossed with both his legs kicked up on the table. Levi didn’t understand why he was lingering, unless Kenny felt like taking a day off from killing Military Police.
All that sat on shelves and cupboards taller than Levi were cobwebs (if he had gone too long without cleaning them). Seeing how Kenny hardly ate here, Levi got to organize his way, which he was grateful for. He was grateful for any leniency Kenny showed him, but he tried not to be, and focused on his lessons. If Kenny wasn’t harsh, it would’ve been easier for Levi to be robbed, or murdered, or starve to death.
If only he could rise to the occasion and be strong. He didn’t know what that meant exactly, but he was sure he’d understand when he passed Kenny’s test.
A dented can of sardines.
Before he ate, Levi washed his hands in the basin of water that he had pumped this morning. It was disgusting, so he reminded himself to retrieve the cleanest water possible later, after Kenny was gone. Levi never felt like he could relax, but around Kenny, he especially felt the pressure to meet a certain standard.
Not that he particularly looked forward to Kenny leaving. It would hurt like hell to try and bathe and clean up around the place, but he was determined to. If there was nothing else he could help, he could help his hygiene, and the hygiene of his surroundings. He was scared of getting sick, like her, but other than that, the feeling was hard to describe. He would just… feel better.
Cleanliness didn’t matter to Kenny as far as anything other than appearances went, but living Underground didn’t mean he had to be dirty… like before. He wouldn’t be able to calm down and feel any ease until then.
He had his work cut out for him. Blood had scabbed on his throat, and pasted the collar of his shirt to his chest in an odd, itchy way. He felt bruises forming on his legs, his chest, but if he looked now, he knew they’d only hurt more. He’d want to rest. But this was not the time.
Don’t don’t don’t, he thought.
Levi sat down, straight-faced. He was almost tall enough now for his feet to touch the floor when he sat in this chair. There was more than one, but he preferred to sit in the same one every time, the one facing the door.
He peeled open the can and kept that expression even when the oily fish smell rose up. It was a disgusting stench that bore into his nostrils, but the way saliva pooled in his mouth at the idea of food, any food, felt otherwise. He was hungry, so he’d eat. He protected the can with his arm and stuffed his face with a fork. It felt and tasted like grey slimy mush on his tongue.
In his peripheral sat Kenny, whose expression was unreadable. Levi could speak whenever he wanted and not get reprimanded as long as it wasn’t a stupid question, so he asked, "When do I get to try again?”
Kenny grunted. “Who knows? You know what to expect when an enemy is face-to-face with ya Levi, but yer never gonna know who’s comin’ when unless you get good enough to predict it.”
It would be a mystery, then. He wasn’t good enough yet.
Levi swallowed the fish, and raised his head. It felt like he was being watched.
A brick shattered the window to his left, followed by shouts. Eyes wide, he instinctively ducked down and dropped to a crouch, gritting his teeth as his breath automatically started coming out in gasps. Something was wrong with his rib, for sure.
He dodged out of the way of a young man swinging a dagger, which made a whistling sound as it cut through the air, and juked around the side of the table so the man missed him and ran into the wooden kitchen counter instead. This, just as another man, a more gaunt one, hopped in through the jagged remains of the window.
Levi’s knife was outstretched as they circled each other briefly.
Of course, his teacher hadn’t moved. His arms were still crossed but his leg was now balanced on his knee, slouched with his hat pulled over his eyes, like he was pretending to be asleep. In the middle of all this shit.
The table almost went crashing down on Levi as it was heaved up in his direction. He slid out of the way just nearly, and used his size to his advantage to leap forward and slice the hell out of the gaunt attacker’s achilles heel, and then he plunged the blade into his stomach. The man howled and fell to his knees.
He nearly got out of the way of the other. He was snagged back by his shirt into the attacker’s arms. He tried wrenching around, but his chest injury made his movements stiff and too slight.
He was pushed down to the unforgiving floor. A boot stomped him on the chest, making Levi shout, now shaking all over from the pain. The world twisted and twirled. It looked like there were two of the men again.
And then he didn’t roll in time. He was wrenched up by his hair with cold steel on his throat when the grip went slack as quickly as it came. The thick choking smell of gunpowder clouded the air as Kenny ended the test.
Levi fell down on his side, totally limp, followed by something huge and heavy. The corpse of the man. His face had landed in Levi’s neck, and blood poured out of the gaping gunshot wound in that throat. He was still in his death throes, convulsing, sputtering and croaking.
He gasped, tears of exertion sticking on his lashes as he kicked, then kicked again to get the leverage enough to roll onto his stomach, freed. His whole chest felt like it was stapled together, his heartbeat like a drumline. With every thrum, the sides of his vision pounded.
He needed to get up. He tried to get up, but his hands and knees felt like twigs, burning and devoid. Physically unable, he dropped back down with a groan, but at least he wasn’t crying.
In the background, wood scraped the floor. Levi silently curled into a tighter ball and protected his head. Hot blood like a sheet had ran down his neck, staining his shirt, and—did his throat get cut? Unlike earlier, had he somehow fucked up that badly? All he could think about, if he was going to die, was how much his and Kenny’s efforts would have been for nothing if he bled out on this floor.
But Kenny wouldn’t let that happen in the first place, Levi believed that. They weren’t close, they weren’t even friends, but he could rely on Kenny. Even when Levi failed, Kenny wouldn’t abandon him…
Darkness ate Levi’s vision, and awareness floated away from him rapidly, like a cut balloon.
When he woke up, the pain had completely transformed. His skull pounded like too much cotton had been stuffed in his head, and every inhale felt like wire tightening, gripping his chest. Something must’ve been broken.
He felt used-up. But at least he was laying down.
Wait. He was laying on a mattress? He saw a faint glow behind his eyelids, which meant light. The amount of light meant it had to be a lantern.
For a moment, he kept still, listening for any sounds, any clues to what was happening and where he was. He heard some kind of button snapping shut. Something metal clattered.
Opening his eyes into slits, he spotted Kenny crouched and pulling cans of what appeared to be food out of a paper bag, scrutinizing them closely, and then letting some drop. Loudly. It seemed like Kenny had carried him to his room, and even mended his injuries. Under the old blanket he never slept with anymore, Levi was shirtless. Leaned up against the base of the lantern was some kind of small satchel.
Grunting softly, he forced his arms behind him to lift himself up, gritting his teeth against the pain, until he was sat up against the wall.
Kenny didn’t acknowledge him with his eyes. “You’re pretty damn useless, kid, you know that?”
Levi stared at his lap. Instead of answering a rhetorical question, he felt his side, sensing a tightness that hadn’t been there before. It was indeed bandaged. Even worse, at the foot of the bed his ankle was also wrapped, and propped up on a pillow. His cheeks glowed hot with embarrassment.
“Pitiful, too. But I ain’t gonna be the one to pity you. I jus’ wanna see what happens if you stay alive.”
“You didn’t have to do this… I wasn’t gonna die.” His voice grated from disuse, and he wondered how much time he’d wasted being asleep. He was even shaking, he was so humiliated. Kenny never bandaged him. Never so much as gave him the bandages.
Kenny paused. “I know. You’re not like your mother.”
Levi froze, but Kenny’s face gave nothing away. He looked as clean and put-together as always, just missing his hat and his coat. “This is a loan. Doin’ what I did just now was stupid of me for what I’m about to tell ya, but I’m tired of seein’ you fail.”
Levi grit his teeth and dropped his eyes again, silent.
“I get it now. You think cuz of all I’ve done, I’m gonna be there to save your scrawny ass no matter what. But guess what?—Look at me, Levi!”
When Kenny took his shoulder, he looked up, his face carefully neutral. He didn’t know what to think, except that this shame was so immense he wished Kenny had just left him there on the floor.
Kenny’s eyes were heavy and grave. “No one’s ever gonna look after you.” He huffed in amusement. “With that shitty look on yer face all the time, yer probably not gonna make any friends anyway, but even if you do, no one’s gonna keep you alive other than you.
"This world don’t give a shit if you live or die, and it especially don’t want ya. Livin’ or dyin’s a choice you’re gonna make on your own. D’you understand me?”
“…I understand,” Levi breathed, locking his throat. For some reason, he could never stamp down his emotions completely. He wanted to cry.
Kenny pushed him away. “Don’t gimme that look. You look the same way you did when we met. It’s pathetic.”
Feeling repulsed, Levi faced ahead, but he definitely still looked as tired as he felt.
“You’ve gotten too comfortable clingin’ to me. And ain’t no one clings to Kenny the Ripper but women" —he laughed— "so I’m leavin’ you for awhile. You’re no good to me weak. By then, you better be ready to try again.
“And the rules are gonna be a little different next time. Try not to die.”
Would the enemies be even stronger?—Would Kenny intervene to help instead of kill them at the end? Levi assumed both would be the case.
He wondered where Kenny was going, and for how long. But maybe it’d be safer for him to assume he didn’t plan on coming back anytime soon—that was his whole point.
"Got it,” Levi muttered.
He wouldn’t see Kenny again for a whole month, but Levi trained every day like he was going to come back tomorrow. Nursing his own wounds was obnoxious, since they never seemed to heal fast enough. He constantly felt like an easy target whenever he left the hideout for supplies.
The front door being knocked open startled him from the kitchen table. He’d been a good hour into sharpening his knife back into a point when Kenny appeared, looking the same as ever.
Unsurprisingly, he gave no indication of when he’d test Levi next, and as he had learned, it could happen where he slept. He watched his back all the time, even through Kenny’s other lessons, but Levi made sure his performance didn’t suffer because of it.
Some weeks later. He was carrying a bag of food back from the nearby market when three people in plainclothes split off from a spot where they’d been smoking, and started towards him.
Levi didn’t know what Kenny was paying them to potentially forfeit their lives for Levi’s training, but he had learned that it was easier to think of them as obstacles instead. Levi didn’t take after killing like Kenny did, but Kenny had advised him not to be like him, anyway.
This time they were all men. One had a pistol that he aimed down at Levi off the bat, so he threw up the bag as a distraction, ran and leaped on the nearest one’s back as he shot frantically, so this man became like a human shield.
“Shit!”
Levi grunted as he was tossed about. The bullet had hit the human shield in the arm and shoulder, so he could only use one to try and shake Levi off.
Levi stabbed the man in the throat before this could happen and jumped back down, still on his feet.
The one with the gun was a blond man. He aimed like a blind man, making it easy for Levi to cut his hand, forcing the gun to drop, which Levi kicked away. Then he plunged his knife into the blond's thigh, who dropped to his knees moaning. But still alive.
This time he didn’t get it back. He elbowed the other coming up behind him in the gut, but this wasn’t enough to phase a grown man, and so Levi found himself being hefted up, his back pinned to the man’s chest. The blond rose on weary legs, now wielding a knife of his own, and bracing his bloody thigh with his other hand.
This was fucking humiliating.
“LET ME GO! Fucker, die!” Levi screamed. He kicked wildly, gave it more thought, and struck back at the knee of the enemy holding him. Then he kicked at his knife still lodged in the thigh of the blond, dislodging it so he flopped down like a fish on his side, wailing.
“Stop it… Stop it, gods,” the blond moaned.
Levi got away from the fatter man when he stumbled. Brute force worked in his favor this time, so he managed to kick and wiggle free.
He landed on his knees, rolled, snatched his knife back, and tore the blade across the blond’s throat.
Levi had no illusions that he was in good shape, even though it was one against one now. Hot blood kept trying to trickle into his vision, and his knee felt somehow twisted from where he had just landed.
But he had a chance.
The bigger man had eyes so dark they looked nearly black. He stood and widened his stance, silently goading him, Well? Fight me.
Levi threw his dagger, and it landed off its target, in the man’s shoulder. Apparently, he wasn’t too big that he couldn’t dodge.
He grunted, then surged forward like a steamroller.
There was no way Levi could fight him using brute force here. He was outmatched.
Once he was almost right on top of him, Levi ducked between his legs, hooked his elbows around his shins and shoved, but the man only stumbled. He didn’t fall down, and so he whirled around, shoving Levi down into the stone by his shoulders, face-first.
Levi grunted as one of his arms landed behind his back, held by such a hand that could’ve easily closed around both his arms instead of one.
One of Levi’s shoulders dug into the dirt, so that arm was pinned, too—underneath him. A hand closed on his throat.
No! Shit no no—
He didn’t want to hear another gunshot. He couldn’t fail again. He gagged and choked, and tried to thrash as he felt the pressure on his windpipe all the way up to his eyes. Black dots swam around his vision.
Another gunshot, he worried, but was Kenny even around this time?—Levi never got the feeling he was being watched.
Did Kenny tell the man to stop whenever Levi passed out?
As if to answer his question, the man growled, “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you.”
Levi felt his neck bruising even as he choked him. Tears of exertion fell down his cheeks. And still no gunshots.
To get strong, he’d always thought that all he had to do was win.
“And the rules are gonna be a little different next time. Try not to die.”
Levi’s enemies weren’t just stronger. This was real.
“…No one’s gonna keep you alive other than you.”
“You’re no good to me weak.”
“When your guard’s down is the best chance anyone’s got of killin’ you.”
No matter how strong Levi became, he’d been weak this whole time because he put his trust in Kenny—not only to keep him alive, but not to kill him. It seemed so obvious now. Kenny was the type of person to do anything if it suited him, and Levi was no good to him weak.
So if he couldn’t win this, that was it, unless Levi wanted to survive. He was on his own.
A great revelation struck him on the edge of unconsciousness. It wasn’t a question if he could anymore. He wanted to… so he would. Nothing mattered more besides keeping this thing in his chest beating.
It’d been a long time since he thought about Momma. “She’s dead. End of story.” But he felt no more comfort in joining her. He would be strong, like him.
And suddenly, Levi knew what he had to do. It seemed so obvious and so within reach, this well of strength. All he had to do was let it flow into him.
He jerked his arm free where it was pinned, and grabbed the handle of the blade sticking out of his enemy’s shoulder. Gravity helped it jerk free, but then came the harder part.
It was still wildly easy. Levi jerked his upper body backwards, with the blade pointed at his enemy’s forehead.
He immediately felt the resistance of hard bone, but like a knife through butter, he just did it. It was almost laughable, how he’d failed all those times.
The hand on his throat loosened, gave way, but before the body could fall, he barrel-rolled out of the way, and immediately rose onto one knee, panting. After a quick look around, Levi crawled back to the body, and yanked his knife back.
Reflexively, he looked at the damage done to his bloody blade, and opened his hand. The wooden handle. Jerky cracks littered all up and down it. That had never happened before.
Blinking stupidly, Levi got up, and looked around. He was shaking like crazy, but not out of fear, or pain—It felt like he could take on every gang of enemies Kenny had sicced on him at once. He could smash a barrel with just his fists. It was just so… easy.
He felt like he was being watched, and looked instinctively where he felt it was coming from. That was what it was. Instinct.
Kenny strolled out from between two buildings, his hands deep in his coat pockets, looking almost sickeningly happy with him. Suddenly Levi’s knees felt weak again.
“That’s what I’ve been talkin’ about. Haha!—Idiots! You should see your fuckin’ face.”
Because he was smiling. It felt a little insane to smile after nearly dying, but he’d done it!—And he felt so powerful! After so much strife, he’d gotten Kenny’s praise. Even his approval.
“How’s it feel now that you’re not a useless rat anymore? Now you’re a powerful rat!”
Even though he had insulted him, Levi couldn’t stop smiling. He was good enough. Finally good enough. “Kenny…”
“Does it hurt? Well don’t have a shit over it, you’ll feel better in no time.”
Levi was so beside himself, Kenny managed to surprise him by picking him up and lifting him over his shoulder. For a split-second, he prepared for one final tussle, probably to see what he could still do after all that, but Kenny merely kept laughing crazily as he walked. He sounded fucking giddy, which was a laugh he had never heard out of Kenny. Behind his back, Levi saw the carnage he'd left behind, but this time he wouldn't let it dampen his exhilarated mood.
What did he think would happen after that?
For things to keep on the way they are, he would’ve answered back then, if someone asked. Now that he was good enough, and powerful, powerful beyond ways Levi had only imagined, then it probably wouldn’t have been asking a lot for Kenny to look at him less like a weakling, but still a student.
And that happened. For a while, things did keep on. Levi went on showing his strength, since that was the only thing that made Kenny happy with him, or at least satisfied. That was the thing they bonded over. His new talent for violence, and Kenny, was all Levi had.
But he again let his guard down, only not physically. That day hurt worse than any blow Kenny could’ve given him.
Kenny had been watching Levi fight as he usually did, and as always, Levi had had a grown man flat on his back. He beat on him loudly, yanking him up by his collar, yelling in his face since he’d felt disrespected and a crowd had formed, and they too had to know that despite his age and size (Kenny never quit pointing out how short he was), he was no one to fuck with.
And yet out of the corner of his eye, Levi’s gaze always kept flickering to Kenny’s for approval.
I’ve got the hang of this. I’m good enough, right?
One time, he looked up, only to then see Kenny’s retreating back, disappearing into the crowd.
After the scene was over, Levi wandered off to find him. He didn’t find him. He went back to the hideout. He waited, but he wasn’t naive. He assumed Kenny didn’t plan on coming back anytime soon.
And he never did.
Neither did Levi go looking. If Kenny didn't want to be found, it would've been impossible to go looking, and besides. Levi had already learned that begging not to be left alone did nothing. Begging did nothing. He was once again on his own.
Despite the day Levi had finally become strong, and the string of welcome victories after that, Kenny still had no use for him. What other reason could there possibly be, besides that he was still weak?
He was not strong enough. He was never strong enough for Kenny. Levi had the strength to keep himself alive, but not enough to earn Kenny’s companionship. He was a disgrace.
You will never be strong enough.
And he would never forget that. In fact, he would take each and every one of Kenny’s lessons along with him, for the rest of his life.
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