Chapter Text
The first thing they did was to order Nile, who had escorted him from his cell, to leave the room.
“Erwin Smith was an old friend of yours, was he not, Commander? Perhaps it’s best if you leave while we… question him. This might be upsetting for you, having been close and all.” It was worded as a suggestion but spoken like a command, a whip-crack in the air, and Nile had left, sparing Erwin a worried glance over his shoulder before the door shut with an ominous echo.
The situation was bad enough, he had no delusions about that. They’d arrested him on false charges. They’d interrogated him, and then beaten him under the guise of interrogation, then beaten him for the fun of it. Then they’d left him in a cold cell with his injuries untreated for a day before bringing him here.
His lone arm was chained to shackles around his ankles. He knelt on the brightly colored tiles, wobbly from his fall. His entire body ached. They’d let him topple gracelessly, unbalanced, to the floor after a hard shove and watched contemptuously as he struggled upright. Facing him was group of nobles lounging on couches on a ringed dais, their mouths dripping with contemptuous smiles. They were dressed as plushly as their surroundings, four velveted, jewel-buttoned, glossy-leathered nobles in a room that was muffled with the finest wool curtains, that gleamed with veined marble. Erwin Smith, filthy and bleeding and amputated, was like a wild animal snatched up by a big game hunter and brought before them for their amusement.
Erwin recognized the rotund one, Aurille, who smiled perversely and licked his bottom lip. This was no formal cabinet meeting, no royal assembly. There was wine and liquor and fruit laid out on a nearby table. They were already flushed with drinking. He could smell their breath. There were two prostitutes – they were too gaudily dressed and too fawning to be anything but prostitutes – draped over them, one in yellow and one in pink. These men may have been part of the royal government, but they were not acting on royal authority. The curtains were drawn and the door was locked for a reason.
Erwin knew it was going to be bad when they dismissed Nile, his only possible ally, leaving him alone with a ring of stone-faced MP’s, a circle of guns and four pairs of gleaming eyes aimed at him.
But Erwin’s heart didn’t sink to his boots, his blood freezing, until an inner chamber door opened and four guards came in dragging another prisoner. Levi.
Erwin didn’t dare to call out as they dumped Levi next to him, close enough to see and smell but not close enough to touch. The captain of the survey corps had his hands pinned punishingly tight behind his back, his wrist shackled to his leg irons. He was bedraggled and exhausted, his eyes glazed from a concussion. He was unarmed. His knuckles were bleeding and his arms, exposed through ripped shirtsleeves, were blotchy with bruises. Which meant he’d given as good as he’d got.
“This is your man, isn’t it?” intoned Aurille.
“In more ways than one,” muttered the adjacent nobleman with a leer.
Levi panted once, twice, then glanced sideways at Erwin through a bloodshot eye. “Erwin,” he rasped out a greeting. “Sorry I got caught.”
Erwin could offer no words of comfort.
There was a breathless moment, the nobles leering down at them in silence, before they opened their mouths and started shouting. A barrage of accusations rained down on them. From a wine-sloppy, grinning mouths, Aurille and his cronies spat out a litany of ugly things, wagging thick fingers in their direction. The Survey Corps were murderers, traitors, anarchists, perverts. They embezzled taxpayer’s money and spent it on drink and prostitutes – how ironic. They plotted against the king. They assassinated those who spoke out against them. They murdered and cheated and stole and raped.
Erwin squared himself and declared in a loud voice the same thing he’d been repeating for days. The Survey Corps were innocent of plotting against the royal government. They did not commit the murder of Dimo Reeves. The Corps had only ever strived to protect humanity. He declared it to Aurille, to his slouching companions, to the ring of Military Police who were pinioning them with their guns and their gazes.
“I am the Commander for the Survey Corp,” said Erwin, after he refuted their accusations. “Even if the Corps has broken any law as a group, I am responsible and will answer to any charges on their behalf. There is no need for him to be here.” He glanced at Levi, who was silently glaring ahead.
“But we have committed no infractions,” he said, staring around at their revolted faces, making sure they heard him. “You’re the ones who are violating civil law and human decency by holding us here.”
He could see Aurille sweating. His speech had only infuriated the nobleman.
Perfectly white and even teeth opened in a snarl and the noble went off again, spitting out wine-flecked saliva as he heaped a new tirade of accusations on them, each one growing more lurid as he got more frantic. The evil Survey Corps held orgies in the barracks. They forced new recruits to profane the sacred walls and to curse the names of Maria, Rose, and Sina. They practiced ritualistic human sacrifice. They snatched babies from their cribs to turn them into child soldiers.
His face turned red as blood. He got up and started pacing, swinging his velvet-cased sausage arms. One step brought him just a hair too close to Levi who, having been working his jaw the whole time, reared back and spat a mouthful of blood and saliva at him. The captain’s aim was good. The splat of gore hit Aurille right in the forehead, then trickled down like a wound.
One of the women shrieked, as if Levi had actually shot him.
Aurille let out a wordless sound of fury and aimed a kick at Levi’s head. Levi dodged it with ease, shifting his weight, fists cocked, body coiled to attack.
“Levi, don’t!” Erwin warned. Assaulting Aurille would have been a death sentence.
At his commander’s voice, Levi went limp. A stocky MP stepped up and clubbed him hard with the butt of a rifle. Levi grunted and flinched under the blow, but otherwise refused to budge. His mouth was bleeding.
“I think,” said one of the other nobles, flicking a finger at Erwin, “you’d get a better result by hurting the other one.”
In response, the MP strode three long steps to Erwin and struck him hard with the rifle. Pain exploded in Erwin’s unprotected right side, his ribs bearing the brunt of the attack. He exhaled forcefully, curling sideways. He absorbed the pain as best as he could; it was predictable, after all, for them to attack his weaker side, but it still hurt like hell.
“Erwin!” Levi’s strangled cry reached his ears. There was a scrabble of chains, then the sound of a booted foot kicking flesh. An animalistic growl. “You bastards…”
Aurille, who had retaken his seat, laughed derisively. “No wonder you Survey bastards are such a corrupt, incompetent bunch. You recruit thugs and whores from the underground slums, and then you make them your pets. Isn’t that right, Commander? Was he your whore before you even brought him into the Corps? Is he your personal toy or do you and the other officers take turns with his scrawny ass?”
“Shut up,” Levi snarled from where he lay.
But Erwin’s blood had gone cold, like it had been replaced with river water. Aurille, blustering idiot though he was, had hit a shared nerve.
He and Levi, they’d been careful. Rumors would always fly, but they’d been so careful.
Erwin passing Levi a sheaf of papers during a meeting, saying so casually, “Catalogue these and then we can discuss them in my office this evening.” Slick as oil.
Or maybe they hadn’t been as careful as they thought?
Did his fingers ever linger on Levi’s a bit too long in the passing of documents, of equipment? Did the recruits ever see them together in a way that was too intimate, too domestic?
Erwin, shaving in front of the mirror with Levi in the same room. They were both dressed in their shirtsleeves, but should a Commander really have his subordinate present when he was grooming? Was the door open a crack? Had someone seen and… interpreted?
Levi, leaving the table early, one of the other officers jokingly drawling, “What’s the hurry? You got a hot date or something?” Levi snapping, “What’s it to you?” then stalking off with no further explanation. Did that invite… speculation?
Had Levi been smiling just a tad too much when Erwin entered the room, hiding the curve of his mouth behind a teacup just a little too late?
Somehow, whether through rumor or solid evidence, the upper echelons had gotten wind of their relationship. And now they were using that tiny wedge of truth amidst a hodgepodge of lies to condemn them. They had found what Erwin tried so hard to hide: a weakness.
“Why are we here, Minister Aurille?” Erwin said lowly. He saw Aurille flinch slightly at the sound of his family name on Erwin’s tongue. “This isn’t a court of law. What do you want with us?”
Aurille blustered for a moment more, “You’re accused of the crime of high treason, Erwin Smith! You will be brought before the king, and make no mistake, you will be condemned to hang. They’re building your gallows as we speak!”
His words went high, plinking off the painted ceiling, the crystal teardrops of the chandelier. And then dipped low, “But I’m a reasonable man. Merciful. I was generous enough to grant you and Captain Levi a private audience, for a chance to confess your crimes. If you own up to your misdeeds, then I can personally put in a word for you with the king. Maybe I can persuade him to show leniency.”
Aurille licked his lips. His mustache was greasy. He wasn’t just sweating, he was drooling as well. “Confess, Commander Smith. Confess by showing your sins to us all. Demonstrate to us the many perversions you’ve taken with your subordinates, and I will appeal to the king to show you mercy.”
“… the hell?” Levi grunted under his breath.
Aurille pointed a thick finger at Erwin. “I want Levi to start by sucking him. Make him ready with your pretty mouth, little captain. Then Erwin is going to fuck you until you beg for mercy. If you put on a good show, we’ll let you go.”
Erwin’s cold, calculating brain had already understood the situation about five long-winded sentences ago. But his emotions, always slow to catch up, were writhing and roiling in the pit of his stomach like acid.
A raspy laugh came from Levi. Gracefully despite the chains, he unfolded himself and stood. The nearest MP’s took a nervous step back, a ripple in the crowd. Rifle muzzles that had drooped snapped up again.
“You’re all pathetic,” he said. “You pigs, with all your money and wine and whores…. And yet you fat, shriveled bastards are still so hard up that you need our ugly mugs to get your cocks wet?”
“Oh my!” twittered the woman in yellow. “Look how he’s glaring at us. Like he wants to kill us all.”
“He’s probably imagining we’re titans,” scoffed one of Aurille’s friends. “Bet he wants to cut us in half. If only looks could kill.”
“You’re partly right,” drawled Levi, pinning the noble with his death glare. “I would like nothing better than to slit that shitty fat-roll of yours and watch the guts and grease ooze out all over those fancy trousers. But the real reason I’m staring,” he let his gaze sweep the dais, “is because I’m remembering your faces. Such interesting faces…”
Several of them flinched. One even ducked his head.
Aurille went white with anger and made a violent motion with his hand. “Strip him!” he shouted, his voice cracking with hysteria.
Three MP’s jumped at Levi, who was ready for them. He ducked low and threw his shoulder into the first one’s solar plexus, then whipped himself sideways, scissoring his legs around another one’s neck. She choked and staggered, and he used the momentum to lurch forward and slam his forehead into the third one’s nose.
Aurille uttered a wordless cry of anger and signaled to someone outside of Erwin’s sight. Erwin reacted, angling his vulnerable side away, just as a booted foot stomped hard on his good arm, then lifted to kick at his ribs. He doubled over, gasping.
“Show Captain Levi what happens if he doesn’t cooperate!”
A hand yanked Erwin up by his hair. A knife was at his throat, already starting the slitting motion, drawing a line of blood.
Levi stilled his struggles, his breaths coming out harsh. “If you were going to kill us, you’d have done it already, you bastards.” The MP with her neck under his knee gurgled and scratched at him. He ignored her.
Aurille smiled a nasty smile. “Maybe I won’t have him killed. Maybe I’ll just have something cut off. His remaining arm, perhaps?” The MP grabbed Erwin’s arm and yanked brutally upwards, making him groan aloud, the joints and tendons straining. “Or maybe his testicles? His eyes? He doesn’t need to see when he goes before the king for judgement.” He shrugged his padded shoulders. “Of course, we could just kill him and then say he tried to escape. Such a shame we had to cut him down. Such a shame he never even made it to his own trial.”
Levi made a furious sound through his teeth. Slowly, he eased up and the woman rolled out from under him, gasping for breath. “Erwin,” he said in an undertone, soft but urgent. His dark eyes were darting around the room. “I can take out about five on the left before they stop me.”
Erwin swallowed and then shook his head sharply. “No.” His voice was hoarse, crackling. “They’ll shoot you full of bullets.”
“I’d rather be full of bullets than play their sick game!”
“You’d die. We’d both die.”
Levi glared at him venomously. “So what? You want me to… you want us to…. You actually mean….?”
“We can’t die yet, Levi!” said Erwin, suddenly shouting. “I can’t die. Neither can you. Not here. Not like this. Humanity still needs us to live.” You need to live.
Levi slumped forward, his gaze deadly. “Damn you…”
“What are you waiting for?” screeched Aurille. “Restrain him and continue!”
And they were on Levi again, kicking at his limbs mercilessly, stomping on unprotected hands and groin. They dug their fingers into his clothes and yanked, tearing them off his body violently, like they were trying to rip off his skin.
And Erwin was biting his lip until he bled, not allowing himself to cry out, Don’t you lay a hand on him, don’t you dare. No. He would give them nothing. Survival, and the success of his plan, his gamble, would be his revenge.
Levi moaned brokenly, his bruised bare legs kicking weakly as they ripped the last shreds of cloth from him, and Erwin bit down harder.