There’s a raw taste on the tip of his tongue.
Levi doesn’t feel anything too deeply these days, not even resentment. His colleagues - a word too close to “friends” to even sound real - are surprised by him showing more compassion than ever, while nobody mistakes it for forgiveness. He’s just tired of being angry. Rage has been accompanying him all his life and he feels sort of naked without it, but it doesn’t serve any purpose now.
Exhaustion sticks his bones to the ground and his skin burns every time someone touches him. His body is not a trophy, nor a weapon. Not anymore, at least. Not when his stomach sinks with the smell of blood or when the feeling he can’t name keeps him from eating or sleeping without feeling sick. And the nightmares aren’t the worst part.
For the first time in his life, he fears oblivion. Everything he has left of Erwin is a cold stone, an old jacket, a bolo tie and memories, and his worn-out mind keeps erasing them as if more destruction would lessen the hole in his chest. Knowledge is something hurtful.
“I wanted your death to mean more than this,” Levi says to the stone.
“I don’t blame you,” Erwin would say. But not even the wind stills.
The war hasn’t ended, and he regrets it all.