Work Text:
Meeting Hange was a matter of luck.
When Levi was a boy, his Uncle Kenny made him play cards. There seemed to be an infinite number of ways to play cards, between Go Fish and Rummy and Twenty One and Solitaire, Old Maid, Cheat and a myriad more, with a dizzying array of rules Levi struggled to remember, and Levi had ended an embarrassing number of games the sour, red-faced loser.
He had on numerous occasions denounced Uncle Kenny as a cheater, to which Kenny had reliably informed him it was impossible to cheat at cards, and so Levi had instead blamed his losses on a skill imbalance, to which Kenny had said this: “There’s no skill in cards, kid. It’s all down to luck.”
Of course, Uncle Kenny was a big fat liar, but those lies had helped Levi come to terms with the idea that a lot of the time, everyday occurrences depend largely on the luck of the draw.
In the same way that Little Levi could do nothing to ensure he pulled a Jack during a pivotal moment in Beggar My Neighbour, there was nothing Big Levi could do about the violent overcrowding on his overnight train from London to Edinburgh. He could not control the number of people who bought tickets for the service, nor could he control the mechanical fault that resulted in there being two fewer carriages than expected, and he had no hope of influencing the thoughts, feelings, and ultimate decision of the person who had, at 16:04pm, thrown themself before an oncoming train on the Northern Line and disrupted the passage of trains between Newcastle and Berwick for the better part of the evening.
Call it coincidence, happenstance, serendipity, whatever. The point was, Levi’s current situation was unavoidable. Some untouchable force in the universe had conspired against him, and drawn the perfect hand to thoroughly ruin Levi’s day. His luck sucked.
“The train now approaching platform four does not stop here. Please stand well clear from the edge of platform four.”
The passengers around him hummed their dissent, vibrating like a swarm of aggravated bees, but their anger was dampened by the summer warmth. The day had been sweltering, bright sun beating down from a cloudless sky, but the coming darkness had done nothing to break the heat. The air remained heavy and humid; even the breeze from the passing train was warm. It lifted the ends of Levi's fringe and ruffled the fabric of his t-shirt, but the air was balmy, rippling as the train hurtled through the station.
Levi stared ahead, watching the opposite platform as the passing carriages shuttered the view, condensing the waiting crowd into nothing but a blur of lines and colours. It was dizzying, but Levi didn't have the energy to look away.
His train was now thirty three minutes behind schedule.
Levi was hot and tired and annoyed, and getting hotter and more tired and more annoyed by the second. He had already been dreading the overnight journey after a long and unusually insufferable day at work, and it was made infinitely worse by the overcrowding and the continued delays.
“We are sorry to inform you that the 22:40 LNER service to Aberdeen is delayed by appropriately fifty minutes. This is due to an incident on the line between Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
Levi ran a hand over his face and groaned. All he wanted to do was get on the damn train. If he was lucky—which, given the days events so far, seemed unlikely—he might even find a seat and take a nap.
He was fantasising about this very prospect when Hange, before Levi knew her as Hange, made her entrance.
He heard her before he saw her. The quick, loud slap of shoes on concrete caught his and many other passengers attention, and they all turned to see a woman tearing at full speed down the platform. She looked positively ridiculous, with her overstuffed backpack swaying precariously on her back and threatening to topple her over at any given moment. She was built like a stick insect, tall and narrow with long, thin limbs, but somehow she kept her balance and, much to Levi's horror, ran straight towards him.
“Did I miss it?”
She was panting and sweating, brown hair sticking to her forehead and the sides of her neck. She wore thick, round glasses that magnified her eyes and kept sliding down her sweaty nose. Her clothes were summer appropriate, shorts and a t-shirt, but they were not Olympic sprint appropriate, and the thin white fabric of her top had turned a little see-through with sweat.
Levi blinked at her.
“What?”
“The train! Did I miss the train?”
Levi blinked again. It was difficult to tell if her fogged up glasses had blinded her, or if she was just stupid. He looked pointedly around the crowded platform and then back at her. When Levi didn’t answer her she let out a frustrated groan and stood up on her tiptoes, craning over Levi to read the distant sign on the platform. Up close, Levi could see her eyes squinting behind her lenses, and the way her lips twitched as she read, and the drop of sweat wobbling precariously on the very end of her nose. Levi took a none-too-subtle step back and scowled for good measure.
She dropped back down onto her heels and huffed. The sweat drop detached itself and disappeared, soaking into her already sweaty shirt.
“Damn, why can’t they make those things bigger?” She checked her watch. “What train are you waiting for?”
“22:40 to Aberdeen.”
The woman's face lit up in a blinding grin. She let out a loud laugh. Multiple people on the platform turned to look at her as though she had grown a second head.
“Wow, I’m on time!”
“You’re,” Levi checked his own watch, “forty minutes late.”
The woman waved him off, then unclipped the straps on her backpack, shrugged it off her shoulders, and dropped heavily to sit on the ground. The few brave souls who had not already backed away from her did so hurriedly, and she took advantage of the space by stretching her legs out in front of her and leaning back on her hands.
“Still made it,” she said, and flashed him a satisfied smile. And then she shifted her weight, and stretched her hand up towards him. “I’m Hange, by the way.”
Levi glared at her hand. Evidently, she wanted him to shake it, but small flecks of dirt and stone had already dug into her palm and stuck there and Levi had on more than one occasion watched people empty their bladders on this very platform, so he folded his arms tightly across his chest and glared at her instead.
Hange frowned, just a little, and then her face lit up in apparent understanding and she hastily wiped her hand on her shorts, then held it out again. Levi’s lip curled in disgust. It was an involuntary action, but Levi made no effort to hide it.
“People piss down there,” he said. Hange looked at her hand, and twisted to look at the ground where it had been.
“Did someone piss here today?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“Did you see anyone do it?”
“No.”
“Then it’s probably fine,” Hange said. “What’s your name?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It doesn’t, really. But I told you mine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“No,” Hange said, “I suppose you didn’t.”
They fell into silence.
Levi should have enjoyed it. He had been perfectly content with the way things had been two minutes ago, before Hange arrived. There had been a nice camaraderie in the collective quiet displeasure, everybody grumbling to themselves and nobody talking to each other, the way things should be. But Hange had disrupted the peace, and now the silence felt heavy and awkward.
After a protracted pause, he said, “Levi.”
Hange didn’t miss a beat.
“Nice to meet you, Levi! Where are you headed?”
“Edinburgh.”
“Really? Do you live there?”
“No.”
Hange's lips turned down in a little pout. She pulled out the front of her damp shirt to fan herself some.
“Shame, it’s a lovely city. I’m doing my Masters there.”
“Hm.”
“What are you going for?”
“Birthday.” Which, given the current circumstances, seemed like a supremely unimportant reason to persevere waiting for this godforsaken train. It would be easier to go home, to tell Erwin he could no longer make it, to drink a very cold glass of water and stretch out on his bed with the fan running full blast and sleep .
But Erwin would bitch about it. He had been nagging Levi to visit for months, since he and Marie moved into their new apartment, and Levi had continually found excuses not to—not because he didn't want to, but because the trains were chronically shit and Levi had not wanted to subject himself to the journey.
Case in fucking point.
“Oooh!” Hange said, “Your birthday?”
“No.”
“Who's?”
“A friend.”
Hange grinned a little wickedly. “Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“ No. ”
“Are you homophobic?”
Levi gave her an exasperated look. “No.” My God . It was almost impressive, really, that Hange had the mental capacity to keep coming up with new questions and the energy to ask them with so much exuberance. Between the late hour and the muggy heat, Levi could barely muster the energy to give her one word responses.
“Are you gay? Sorry, sorry. Forget I asked. Is your friend having a party?”
“Not really.”
“What are you gonna do there?”
Levi shrugged. “Dinner, probably. I don't know.” Levi did know. Erwin had provided a complete itinerary, but Levi's brain felt distinctly like soup, and relaying the information to this weird stranger would take more brain power than it was worth.
Hange folded her arms over the top of her backpack and rested her chin on them, then let out a deep, exaggerated sigh.
“Ah, you don't talk much.”
Levi didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. Hange didn't seem overly disappointed by this.
“I’m going up to Newcastle myself. My grandma lives there and she’s getting on a bit, so I try to visit when I can. And then I’ll be heading back to Edinburgh to work on my dissertation.”
Hange turned her cheek onto her arms and fell quiet. Levi had thought she might be the type to get restless if she kept her mouth shut for too long, but she seemed reasonably content to end the conversation there, and instead began humming under her breath, eyes closed serenely, and Levi took the opportunity to properly look at her now that she was quiet and still.
Her face and hair were drying of sweat, leaving her skin dewy and her hair loose and curly, and now that Levi was really looking at her, he could see a light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She didn't look the type to wear a lot of makeup, but the pinkish colour of her lips was full and vibrant, and Levi's eyes caught on it as her humming turned into quiet, off key singing.
For a fleeting moment, Levi found himself thinking she looked quite pretty.
It must be the heat , he thought, or else the late hour was getting to him. He squinted and scrutinised her some more, and decided that she looked a little bit like a dead spider, the way her long arms and legs were curled around her backpack. It did not change the fact that he found the curve of her cheek and the sharp line of her jaw appealing.
Hange stopped singing. She breathed in a deep, contented way, and settled into the quiet. Levi found that he liked it better when she was loud and in motion. It was easier not to look at her so much. The quiet felt awkward and heavier than the humidity.
“What’s it on?”
“Hm?”
“Your dissertation,” Levi clarified. He dug his hands into his trouser pockets. “What's it on?”
Instantly, Levi knew he had made a mistake. Hange lifted her head with enough force to give herself whiplash, and her eyes, open wider than ever, shimmered vibrantly behind her glasses. He might as well have told her she’d just won the lottery.
“Oh! It’s fascinating. It started out as an attempt to reconstruct dietary habits of a medieval population based on the prevalence of specific dental pathologies in archaeological human remains. It’s so interesting, scientists have done all this research on the link between certain dental diseases and diet—like, take caries, right? Or cavities, whatever you want to call them. We know they're caused by acid erosion of tooth enamel, so at a base level we can assume that consuming acidic foods increases the likelihood of caries developing. But then, tonnes of studies have shown that its actually carbohydrate heavy diets that are the main cause of caries! Because all the sugar provides fuel for the bacteria in your mouth to feed on, and the bacteria produce acid, and the acid erodes tooth enamel, and voila! Cavities! So, in theory, a population that presents with a high number of caries would indicate that the primary dietary component was cards, except—”
Hange was loud. She made no effort to keep her voice down despite the disgruntled looks she was receiving from passengers around them. Levi felt a little embarrassed to be the object of her attention, but if Hange could read his discomfort on his face, she didn't let it bother her. She talked rapidly, with an excitement that shone brightly in her eyes, her cheeks flushed with delight.
“I must be boring you, right?”
Hange's voice cut in. The honest answer was no, because Levi hadn't listened closely enough to get bored. He felt a little guilty, and was about to tell her to continue when she laughed and scratched at the back of her neck.
“My bad, my bad. I get carried away too easily. It's just fascinating and I never get to talk about it outside of uni.”
“It's fine.”
“Attention. The next train to arrive at platform four will be the delayed LNER service to Aberdeen. Calling at…”
“Oh thank god, ” Hange said. The sentiment was clearly shared by the whole platform, who had already begun to close in on the platform edge. Between his realisation that this weird, loud, sweaty woman was actually quite pretty and the way all rational thought had disappeared while he listened to her talk, Levi had all but forgotten what they were here for. He watched as Hange hauled herself to her feet, unfurling her long, dead-spider legs and standing to her full height.
He hadn't really paid too much attention to it before, but Hange was a couple of inches taller than him. She stretched her arms up over her head and the hem of her shirt rode up. Levi consciously averted his gaze and looked around the platform instead.
He scowled out at the crowd. There were too many people; at this rate they'd be lucky to make it on the bloody train, let alone find a seat. Hange, however, did not look worried. She pulled her bag back onto her back, clipped the straps over her chest and hips, and marched confidently forward, grabbing Levi's wrist as she passed him to pull him along.
Maybe it was the confidence Hange exuded as she moved, or maybe it was her bony-looking elbows, but by some miracle the throng parted for her as she walked, and Levi found himself standing smartly on the yellow line before he knew it. Hange looked up and down the platform, then around at the beams displaying the sections where each carriage would stop. She edged them sideways a few paces, checked the displays again, and then nodded happily.
“Here should be good.”
Levi avoided eye contact with the people behind him. He dug his elbow into Hange's ribs.
“Ow! Fuck, what the hell was that for?”
“You can't just bulldoze your way to the front of the queue,” he hissed.
“Nobody stopped me.”
“That's not the point.”
Hange shrugged. Levi glowered up at her and opened his mouth to say more, but before he could, the rumble of the incoming train reverberated through the station. It crawled towards the platform and came to a stop. Hange's shuffling had brought them to the perfect spot, right in front of the doors.
It was agonising, waiting for people to depart. The sheer number of bodies trapped an ungodly amount of heat, and Levi could feel himself sweating anew the longer he stood still. Hange bounced on her toes beside him and as soon as the last person stepped down from the carriage, she grabbed Levi's arm again and pulled him in.
Air conditioning. Blessed air conditioning. Levi might have taken a moment to bask in the cool air had Hange not kept ahold of him and yanked him down the aisle. The train was reasonably full, but Levi could see a few empty seats here and there. Hange dragged him past three before she let out a loud, “Aha!”
By some miracle, Hange had found an empty table. She nudged Levi to sit as she took off her bag and shoved it into the rack overhead, and then she climbed in opposite him and settled back with a loud, pleased sigh.
“Bet you're glad we jumped the queue now, right?”
Levi snorted. He sank into his seat and leaned his head towards the window, letting the air conditioning blow directly onto his face. Hange matched him and let out another loud sigh of relief.
“We got lucky.”
“No such thing.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just what I said. Luck doesn't have anything to do with it.”
“We got lucky nobody decided to punch you.”
Hange rolled her eyes. “No we didn't. Getting hit was just one possible outcome amongst a million other possible outcomes. It's not about luck , it's about probability.”
“The probability of winning the lottery is low,” Levi said. “So it's lucky if you win.”
“But luck, to me, implies you have no effect on the outcome. And that's not true.”
“What possible effect can you have on winning the lottery? ”
“Buying a ticket. Luck would be winning the lottery without doing anything, but no - you can choose your numbers and you can buy a ticket, both of which have an impact on the probability of you winning. If you buy a ticket every week with the same numbers, statistically you're more likely to win.
“If I hadn't kindly led you to the front of the queue to board this train, twenty other people would have gotten on before you did, and one of them would have sat in that seat and you'd be standing with everyone else like a tin of sardines in the aisle.
“And if you hadn't replied to me, we wouldn't have talked so much, and I wouldn't have felt like I wanted to talk to you more, so I wouldn't have brought you with me. You could have ignored me, or you could have walked away, but you didn't. You chose to stay, and now here we are. Does that sound like luck to you? Because to me, it just sounds like a fortunate outcome based on the choices we made.”
A whistle sounded, and the train began to move. Levi folded his arms, squinting at Hange for a moment longer, and then reached into his bag and pulled something out the front pocket. He held up the battered pack of cards for Hange to see.
“Twenty one,” he said. Hange grinned and nodded.
“Stakes?”
Levi reached back into his bag and pulled out a packet of Tic Tacs. He shook them out onto the table, which earned him a rather dirty look from the lady next to Hange, but Levi ignored her.
“Orange are worth one, green are worth five.”
Hange wrinkled her nose. “Ew, no, other way around.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because the orange ones are better? Who even buys lime and orange Tic Tacs anymore anyway? And who the hell just carries around a deck of cards?”
“My uncle gave them to me.”
“The Tic Tacs?”
Levi flicked a card at her. “The cards .”
Hange deftly dodged the card and looked at it.
“Joker,” she said, and handed it back. Levi fished the second joker from the deck and slipped them both into the box out of the way.
“I assume you're trying to prove a point. I should tell you now it's not going to work, and also, you're probably going to lose all your Tic Tacs.”
She pushed one of each Tic Tac into the middle of the table. Levi did the same, then shuffled the deck and dealt his and Hange’s cards, one face up and one face down. Hange pulled her cards closer and peaked at the face down card. She drew her mouth to the side in thought. Levi checked his own hand and barely resisted rolling his eyes.
On the table, Hange had an ace, and Levi an eight. His hidden card was a ten.
“Hit me,” Hange said. Levi dealt her another card and she scrutinised her hand again. Then she looked at Levi, eyes narrowed in concentration. “Hit me again.”
Levi threw her another card. She looked at it, bit her lip, and placed it face down with the rest. “I'll stand.”
Eighteen was high already. The likelihood of the next card being a 3 or lower was low. “Stand.”
Together, they flipped their cards. Hange had an ace, a two, a Jack and a six. She grinned smugly and pulled all the Tic Tacs into her pile.
“Lucky.”
“Nope.” Hange plucked the next card from the deck and held it up between her fingers. A three. Un-fucking-believable. “We both chose to stand. If I had taken the risk, I would have gone bust. If you had taken the risk, you would have won. We both chose not to, and this,” she paused and popped a Tic Tac into her mouth, “was the outcome.”
They played a few more rounds, most of which Hange won, until they both went all in and Levi drew an ace and a king.
Hange applauded his win, but was unmoved in her argument.
“You can dress it up however you want. It's not lucky if someone wins big at poker, it just seems that way because the probability of getting the perfect hand is low. Really, any hand could be a royal flush, but the probability of that happening is so small that we consider it ‘lucky’ when it does. Not luck, just maths. Or maybe they cheated.”
“My uncle said you can't cheat at cards.”
Hange snorted. “Your uncle is a liar. And probably a cheater. There's a million ways you can cheat at cards.” Hange began counting them off on her fingers. “You could peek, mark cards, rig a deck, there's false shuffling and false dealing, or you can hold cards—humans are historically creative at being insincere. But that wasn't my point.”
“What is your point?”
“I just think that if you start thinking about everything as a matter of luck, or fate, or destiny or whatever else, it makes you…passive, I suppose. You stop making choices and taking actions that could impact the outcome.”
Levi scrubbed a hand over his face and looked pointedly at his watch. “Is now really a good time for life lessons?”
Hange smiled brightly. By some miracle, she didn't look the least bit tired.
“But if I stopped talking now, and I never told you my thoughts, you'd get off this train in Edinburgh and you'd continue thinking that not getting a seat on the train is just bad luck, and you'd never even try to get to the front of the line.”
“I'm never going to try that anyway , idiot. It's rude.”
Hange rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever. Maybe you'll buy a lottery ticket next week.”
“I won't.”
“Then you'll never win.”
“I'll never win anyway.”
Hange jabbed her finger at him. “There! That is what I mean. You're so convinced that you need luck to win that you won't even try. Your chances of winning are only zero if you don't play.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, pleased to have gotten her point across.
Levi thought her point was batshit insane. His chances of winning the fucking lottery were negligible even if he did buy a ticket, and also, how the hell did they get so deeply into a conversation about the lottery in the first place?
But, while it was an extreme scenario, Levi supposed he understood her meaning. He would have waited to board the train, and he would have been left standing, and he would have blamed his own shitty luck before thinking he might have been able to change the outcome in any conceivable way.
Rather than giving her the satisfaction of saying as much, Levi instead said, “You're mental.”
Hange kicked him under the table.
They passed most of the journey in similar conversation, chatting quietly and playing various card games over their table. Even Hange made an effort to keep her voice low so as not to disturb the passengers who were trying to sleep, though she slipped up once or twice during a particularly aggressive round of Cheat.
Levi found Hange's company infinitely more entertaining than he could have anticipated. So much so, in fact, that Levi was surprised by the sudden announcement that the train would shortly be arriving in Newcastle. He hadn't napped at all, but felt no more tired for it; if anything, he felt more awake than he had before they'd boarded the train.
“Oh, that's me.”
Levi had forgotten that Hange wasn't journeying all the way to Edinburgh with him. She pushed her cards back towards him and Levi gathered them up, slipping them neatly back into the box. Bizarrely, he felt a little disappointed.
Hange pulled herself up to her feet. She stretched out her spine and shook out her limbs before clambering out of her seat, gathering up her bags and turning to Levi with another bright smile.
“Chance or not, I'm glad we got dealt the same shitty hand today.” Optimistically, she held out her hand for him to shake. Levi deliberated for a moment, then reached out to take it. Hange grinned wider. “It's been a pleasure!”
Levi wholeheartedly agreed with her.
“Could've been worse.”
“Maybe I'll see you in Edinburgh some time,” Hange said. Her smile was wicked and teasing when she added, “if we get lucky.”
And then she was gone, shuffling up the aisle with other departing passengers and disappearing out of sight.
It would be nice to meet her again, but the chances of running into her were low. Levi doubted he would visit Edinburgh very much, and the possibility of being there at the same time as Hange, in the same place as Hange, were slim to none.
And then a thought occurred to him.
If you start thinking about everything as a matter of luck, or fate, or destiny or whatever else, you become passive.
Maybe they didn't have to leave it up to chance. Maybe there was something Levi could do here and now to impact the outcome.
The train was slowing down. Levi rifled through his bag for a pen and slipped one of the discarded Jokers from his card deck. He scribbled hurriedly on it, then stood from his seat and squeezed his way through the clump of passengers clogging the passageway.
Hange was near the doors. She had already made conversation with somebody new, but paused when she saw Levi, her head tipped in question.
Levi considered, for a moment, continuing past her and heading towards the toilets, as if running into her one last time had been pure coincidence.
Instead, he thrust out his hand. “Here.”
Puzzled, Hange reached out, and Levi dropped the card into her palm. And then, without waiting for her to look at it or say anything about it, he turned on his heel and wedged his way back through the crowd, throwing himself back into his seat.
Levi staunchly refused to check his phone for the remainder of the journey.
It was a little after 6am when the train pulled into the station. Levi slumped his way off with a sea of other exhausted passengers, and was pleased to find the air in Edinburgh far less stifling than it had been in London. It was still warm, but there was a freshness that London had lacked, something crisp and invigorating. Feeling more awake for it, Levi allowed the flow of people to carry him through the barriers and out of the station, and abruptly realised that he had no idea where he would meet Erwin.
His phone had been bombarded with several messages. Most had come from Erwin, or Marie or Mike or Nanaba, all of whom were asking with increasing impatience what time his train would arrive, when they should meet, where they should meet, if he had been mugged, or kidnapped, or murdered. He had a number of miscalls from all of them, and some voicemails that were sure to be increasingly derogatory, but the notification that caught his eye came from a number not saved in his contacts.
Levi shot Erwin a quick text to let him know his location, and then hovered his thumb over Hange's message.
Perhaps meeting Hange wasn't a matter of luck.
Sure, Levi could do nothing about the overcrowding on his train, or the missing carriages, or the unfortunate circumstances that resulted in the vast number of service delays. But he could have cancelled his ticket. He could have delayed his journey until the following day. He could have taken a replacement bus, rather than waiting for a train that might never come. But Levi had chosen to stay, and to wait, and because of that Hange had ran into him. Levi had chosen to talk with her. He had chosen to sit with her, and he had chosen not to leave his chances of a future encounter with her down to luck.
Levi leaned against the wall, out of the way of foot traffic coming into and out of the station, and clicked on her message.
In it was a single picture. Hange was in the back of a car, throwing a peace sign at the camera and smiling so broadly her eyes pinched closed behind her glasses. She looked dishevelled and like the lack of sleep was finally catching up with her, but she looked happy. She looked nice.
Beneath the picture, Hange had written only one line of text, and when Levi read it he scoffed loudly enough to scare the couple walking past him.
You're lucky I could read your terrible handwriting ;)