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Mike suggests that Levi check on the Commander. Nanaba passes him in the hallway and asks if he's seen Erwin lately. Even Hanji gives him a nervous side-eye when he encounters them in their lab to check on progress for any kind of treatment for the wretched illness that's been plaguing the entirety of the Survey Corps.
It's been a miserable October, although at least it's a plague lacking corpses. From top to bottom—battle-hardened veterans to green cadets—everyone is sniffling, coughing on each other, and bright-eyed with fever. It's not lethal; just highly uncomfortable and hard to get rid of, especially in a barracks.
For once in his life, everyone who comes within a wide berth of Levi has held a handkerchief over their mouth without being asked, not only for fear of Captain Ackerman's infamous wrath… but for the sheer fact he's one of the last standing officers who isn't bedridden.
There's a reason he scrubs things to the point of rubbing off finishes. He'd learned cleanliness equates to survival in the Underground, and right now, it appears to be paying off in spades.
Mike, Nanaba, and Hanji are all sick as dogs, too, but still up and doing the heavy lifting of day-to-day tasks as well as they can, staying away from each other and everyone else with a glimmer of hope of getting well.
And then there's Erwin. Erwin, who, to Levi's knowledge, has not gotten sick but has been phantom-like in his presence (or lack thereof) in order to keep things moving. He's continued his usual diplomacy—making deals to get more medicine for his overwhelmingly downed troops than the government normally allots the Survey Corps, pushing his best scientist day and night to figure out how how to stop the spread, doing damage control with pissed off funders over postponed expeditions.
However, given the people who know Erwin best are all telling Levi—the Commander's closest confidant, as is whispered around the Walls—to check on him, he's on his way to do just that.
Cold air hits Levi's face as he enters the barracks courtyard and then he stops short as he takes in the scene before him, blinking incredulously.
"What the hell?"
He's not expecting to find the Commander of the Survey Corps himself, beads of sweat on his brow despite the cold autumn air, chopping wood in nothing except his white button-up shirt and mud-spattered pants and riding boots.
"That's a cadet's job," he informs Erwin flatly. "And you're not even dressed properly. You're going to get sick."
Erwin glances up at Levi in surprise just as he fells the axe with a sharp crack and two halves of a log thump to the ground. They land neatly on each side of the wide, dead tree stump that's acted as a makeshift chopping block since before Levi joined the Corps.
"I think the entire point of me being out here is so that I don't get sick," Erwin replies with a raised eyebrow. He has his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows and his forearms flex as he buries the axe with one, strong swing into the stump, pausing to turn his attention to Levi.
Levi can't help the way his eyes flit from Erwin's sweaty face down to his thick, powerful forearms, then back up, reminded of just how much some people underestimate Erwin when they see him as a diplomat. He can feel those intense blue eyes follow his gaze in the same path and he curses internally for getting caught ogling his closest confidant—not that he's not going to admit it out loud—and he can see the smile tugging at Erwin's chapped lips.
His tongue darts out to wet them, one big hand coming up to swipe lank blond hair off his face where it's wilted with physical exertion, and he meets Levi's eyes unblinkingly.
"No one else is going to do it, or can do it," he informs sagely, as if he has it all figured out and he's waiting for Levi to catch up. "We need kindling, wood, fuel for warmth."
"I'm aware," Levi retorts curtly. "You don't have to do everything, Erwin. Why didn't you just ask—"
Erwin offers up a small shrug and interjects, "I'm accustomed to being the last man standing."
Levi is never ready for Erwin's gallows humor when it's just the two of them, but he snorts nonetheless. "Stop being morbid and put on a coat."
"Chopping wood definitely gets your blood flowing," Erwin replies, ignoring Levi's suggestion and wrenching the axe out of the stump with one hand to continue his self-assigned task. He's working hard enough that there are sweat stains on the normally crisp white shirt and he's loosened his bolo tie. He looks strangely young, as he could be an ill-behaved schoolboy assigned a menial task as punishment for insubordination.
Then again, Erwin managed to make an entire career out of just that.
He takes another log and balances it on the stump, concentrating on its center before pulling the axe back and splitting it clean in two. The force of his entire body goes into it, the motion of a man who puts his all into everything, his biceps flexing almost obscenely through his rolled shirt sleeves. A bead of sweat drips down his neck that Levi tries not to follow with his eyes and disappears inside his damp shirt collar. His hair is mussed and it looks like—
Levi clears his throat, unamused at himself.
Erwin, on the other hand, seems very amused.
"If I put on a coat I'll suffocate, Levi. The fresh air and exercise is good for me. Makes the immune system strong."
Levi rolls his eyes and adjusts his cloak. "It's true that nothing could continue to function if you succumbed to plague," he deadpans.
The smell of freshly chopped wood is somehow reassuring, though, as is Erwin's sweaty, glowing, oversized presence in the courtyard. It's alive and present and reminds Levi that they will get through this, that the Survey Corps has certainly survived worse.
Erwin lines up the split log to chop it into quarters. "Therefore, since no one else is going to do it," he states conclusively, falling the axe smoothly and slicing through the wood, "I am here to do it."
Levi huffs in exasperation and closes the distance between them with his best glower—a skill he's gotten relatively good at it given that he has to look up at this tree of an exasperating man every day—and nimbly plucks the axe out of Erwin's hand.
"Give me that," he says petulantly, shrugging off his own cloak and jacket as he grabs a new log. "Go take a bath. You smell and filth makes people sick."
He doesn't get right to his task, though, as those big hands, thick forearms, and sweat-damp shirt wrap around him from behind and he feels a nose push into his hair.
Levi practically holds his breath as Erwin inhales him, flexes his arms once around Levi's smaller frame, and then pulls away.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," he says in a dulcet whisper against Levi's ear that somehow sounds like a secret.
He turns to face Erwin, axe still in hand, and uses his own not-insubstantial strength to grab Erwin's wrist before he can get away. "As long as I'm alive, you'll never have to."
When their eyes meet, Levi loses himself in Erwin's intense gaze like he always does without meaning to, an endless sky that grants reprieves of peace and pleasure between sheets, things he knows he should resist.
But there's very little about Erwin Smith—his straining forearms, his boyish smile, his terrible idealism and even more terrible secrets—that Levi has ever been able to resist.
"Thank you, Levi," he says simply as they part.
Erwin disappears from sight and Levi picks up a log, centers it on the stump, and puts his all into it as he starts to work.