@commxnderiisms || plotted.
humans as titans.
it’s been on levi’s mind, in some form or another, ever since hange first brought the springer kid in to tell them. we don’t have proof, they’d said, but as far as levi can tell, it’s the only explanation for what happened in ragako. and he’s sure it’s no coincidence that a whole village full of people suddenly become titans right around the time they discover titan shifters working against them -- call it paranoia, but levi can only conclude that the titans set loose inside wall rose were a calculated attack, that these shifters know how to create titans and are using them. however the fuck that works.
it would be a lie to say that he’s made peace with the fact that the titans he’s been killing all this time might have been human once. it horrifies him, in some visceral part of him that defies reason. but he’s thought it through, and accepted that - well, it doesn’t really change his mission, does it? whether they were human or not, every mindless titan levi encounters is still going to try to eat him and destroy humanity. they don’t have a way to turn the titans back into humans, so killing them is still the only sure way to survive. and levi knows full well he can keep killing them, whatever they might be. it’s abhorrent, but hasn’t it always been? that isn’t the real problem.
no, the problem is that levi’s fucking tired of all the secrets. it feels like they’re fighting blind, swinging their blades in the dark. first discovering that titan shifters exist in the first place, then that all titans might come from humans -- and then all that bullshit with the church of the walls, knowing about the titans in the walls and saying nothing -- it’s fucking sick, the way they’re forced to scrabble and die for every sliver of information, just to take a single step forward, when there are people trying their damn hardest to make sure it all stays hidden. levi’s sick of the lies. he hates the idea, not just that he’s been killing humans, but that he’s been killing human and not knowing it. it makes him feel like a fucking child, stepping on ants because no one’s bothered to tell him they feel pain.
it’s times like these that he most understands erwin’s obsession with finding the truth, with gaining something from their expeditions. it isn’t just about keeping the titans at bay, and it isn’t just about proving themselves useful enough to stay funded, either -- erwin wants to understand the world, and levi gets why. and yet erwin’s reaction still bothers levi too. levi hadn’t been joking when he’d called it sickening -- there levi was, shaken by the thought of human heart inside the beasts he’d been slaying, and all erwin could do was smile and look almost satisfied, like someone who’s been proved right. which begs the fucking question, how much did erwin already suspect and not share with levi? and how much does he care about what the truth is, so long as he discovers it?
it isn’t something levi can just let go of, not right now. so he’s in erwin’s office, boots propped up on the desk, wiping down one of erwin’s paperweights with a cloth. he glances up as erwin walks in and places the paperweight back on the desk, stowing away the cloth into his jacket with no particular sign of remorse for having breaking and entering what is technically his superior officer’s office. figured it’d be the easiest place to wait for him. “when’s the last time you dusted in here? it’s filthy,” he says by way of greeting, and then swings his boots off of the desk so that he can lean forward, expression serious. “how much did you guess, erwin? about the titans?”
