'Rise and shine, four-eyes.'
Huh?
Hange swam slowly into consciousness, the vivid dreams they had been experiencing dispersed from their mind, the daylight now filtering through their eyelashes.
However, instead of their eyes being greeted by the blurred bedroom ceiling, they found themselves staring up into the emotionless face of Levi.
'W-what?' Hange mumbled, reaching up to try and rub the sleep from their eyes, instead their knuckles collided with their glasses.
Their fatigued state made it impossible to understand what was going on, as Hange's senses came alive one by one. Instead of their soft mattress beneath them, Hange felt cold hard stone. Around their wrists they could feel cold iron....handcuffs? Instead of smelling the sandalwood musk of their bedroom, they could smell damp and....soap?
'I said, rise and shine. You certainly will be shining once I'm done with you.' Levi said threateningly, and Hange finally became fully aware of what was going on.
Hange was in-fact lying on the washroom floor, still in their nightshirt and their hair loose and tumbling wildly down their shoulders.
Hange had been in this situation before: Levi had lumped them over, still-unconscious, from their bedroom into the washroom to try and force them into submission for a bath.
'You son of a-' Hange began furiously while they tried to wriggle up to stand, but found that Levi had predicted their attempt to escape and bound their legs together with rope.
'After our last fiasco I thought it would be wise to incapacitate you.' Levi towered above them, something which was rare since it was usually him staring up at Hange's height.
'I remember.' Hange growled moodily, thinking back to the last time that Mike had been given the horrifying shock of a nude, sud-covered Hange sprinting past him in the hallway, pursued by Levi armed with a towel and sponge.
'Lets get this over with.' Levi reached up to tie a linen mask around his mouth, as if he were a medic about to undergo life-altering surgery.
'I'm not rampant with diseases, you know?' Hange grumbled.
'Not diseases that we've heard of. God knows what new bacterium is lurking all over you.' Levi shuddered, and turned to swill the lukewarm soapy water waiting in the tin bathtub.
Hange used his momentary distraction to turn over onto their stomach, and endeavoured to crawl towards the door like a caterpillar. They scrambled to their knees and took hold of the door handle, but couldn't stand to exact their escape.
'Oh no you don't.' Levi pounced and locked Hange's arms to their stomach, and lifted them into the air, his almost super-human strength making it effortlessly easy.
'Moblit! Save me! I'm being attacked!' Hange squawked as a last resort, writhing to free themselves from Levi's iron grip.
'Sorry, Hange! Commander's orders!' Hange heard their subordinate-turned-supervisor call cheerily from the other side of the wall.
What Hange and Levi didn't see was Mike and Moblit stood by each other in the hallway, chuckling lightly between themselves at the two socially-challenged individuals sharing this incredibly intimate shenanigan.
'Screw all of you!' Hange whined loudly, squirming violently as Levi carried them over to the bath.
Levi struggled to keep a hold of their flailing limbs, keeping the gangly squad leader still while facing sanitation was as easy as holding a hyper-active octopus- Levi told Hange just that.
'I knew I should have brought the mace.' Levi muttered sardonically, as he narrowly avoided a painful crack on the nose as Hange threw their head back.
'I'll mace you alright!' They snapped, feeling their back pressed against Levi's solid chest.
'Sure you will.' Levi opened his arms, so Hange dropped down into the water with a splash.
As he predicated, Hange reacted like a cat would, suddenly exploding into a feline frenzy, clawing and scrambling to get away.
But Hange was quelled with a quick shove by the captain, raising his eyebrows in signal to them to say that there was no point trying to escape. He reached forward and whipped their glasses over their head, and everything now turned fuzzy and indistinguishable to them.
Hange sat miserably in the mounting bubbles, the smell of lavender assaulting their nostrils and the water soaking their nightshirt which they still wore.
After pulling on his yellow cleaning gloves, Levi yanked the sopping nightshirt over Hange's head, smearing their face with further suds as the soaking material slithered off of them.
He checked his measurements had been right, and confirmed that Hange's body was indeed covered by the snowy bubbles. It wasn't as such for Hange's decency, it was more for his own sake. There was something about the notion of seeing Hange fully exposed that sent an odd shiver down his spine.
Even with the most of their anatomy covered, Levi still felt goosebumps along his arms as he touched their skin.
He shook his head and ignored it.
'First things first.' Levi took the clay jug by his knees as he knelt down next to the tub, and dumped the water straight over Hange's scalp, their hair instantly flattening to their head and sticking all over their face, so only their nose poked out of the glistening brown curtain comically.
Wielding his rough-bristle comb like a sword, Levi peeled back Hange's hair into one fist, preparing for the laborious task of de-tangling the notorious birds-nest.
But to Hange's surprise, instead of feeling like a seven-taloned eagle was attacking their cranium, they felt Levi actually take great care to ease out each knot gently. He didn't tug nearly as much as usual, and they didn't see Levi's concentration as he held each lock like it was the finest silk braid.
He didn't speak as he worked though each section of hair, too focused on eradicating any imperfection in it, before lathering her skull thickly with soap.
'You're getting it in my eyes!' Hange wailed childishly, screwing up their eyelids and knuckling them fiercely with their shackled fists.
'Stop bellyaching, you toddler.' Levi scolded them as he kneaded Hange's hair until it ran clean, rinsing it thoroughly.
'Right, it's clean, now let me out!' Hange demanded, trying to worm their way out of the tub again.
'I'm not done yet, the rest of you is still filthy.' Levi gripped them firmly by the shoulders and pushed them back down into the water.
'I don't care, I like my filth!' Hange objected, trying to twist away from Levi's sponge.
'I will never understand you or your pig-like ways.' Levi sighed, taking Hange into a headlock and scrubbing their upper body sternly, but averting his eyes delicately from their chest.
The back-and-fourth scrubbing motion Levi was making on her shoulders seemed to set some sort of cog going in Hange's mind, a memory pecking it's way to the surface. Then the scent of the lavender soap kicked this thought into over-drive, and soon Hange was consumed by recollection.
'Hange, put that down! You know you're not supposed to touch anything here.'
Hange's mother tutted and she crouched down to begin scrubbing the kitchen flagstone's once more, as her young child danced clumsily about the room and placed the floral China plate they had picked up back on its stand.
'Mama, why do we have to do so much cleaning? It's boring!' Hange stuck out their bottom lip, poking their mother's mop and bucket with their toe.
'Because it's what pays for our supper tonight, dear.' Their mother sighed wearily, sitting back onto her haunches and wiping the sweat from her withered forehead.
'But the ladies and gentlemen don't have to clean! They get to go out and play!' Hange sat and hugged their skinny knees to their chest.
'That's just how it is, dear. They leave their things for us to clean, and then they give us money for it.' Hange's mother explained patiently, creaking to her feet to move on to tackle to dishes.
'But it never stops, there's always more stuff to clean, I don't like it. And I don't like it because you always smell like that horrible soap you use.' Hange whimpered, and pushed their little glasses up their snub nose.
'That's why you need to listen hard in your lessons, so you can get a clever job that pays you lots of money, because you're such a clever thing.' Hange's mother cooed warmly, moving over to pull her child into her arms.
'You know what I'm gonna do, when I get a grown-up job, mama?' Hange's voice was muffled by their mother's bosom.
'What's that, dear?' Hange's mother stroked their feathery head.
'I'm never gonna have a bath again! I'm never gonna clean again! I'm gonna throw away all your horrible soap.' Hange giggled, and their mother laughed softly.
'Okay, you grubby little gremlin.' Hange's mother smiled, and wiped a spec off Hange's nose tenderly.
'Hello?....Anybody home?...Attention four-eyes?!'
Hange surfaced back into the present with a snort and a jolt, sending a wave of suds spilling over the side of the tub, causing Levi to leap back.
'I'm sorry, I was having a flashback.' Hange murmured absently, their widened eyes staring off into the distance.
'I see. These flashbacks are happening often.' Levi commented, leaning on one knee as he regarded the squad leader.
'Increasingly.' Hange quietly agreed, then realised they were sitting compliantly in the bath and their skin felt squeaky with the soap. But their hands and legs were free now, and the damp rope and cuffs were lying by Levi's legs.
This time Levi let them scramble out of the bath, turning his back on them while they rushed to grab a towel from the wooden stool by the door. When he rotated again, Hange had preserved their modestly by wrapping one around their torso, so the fluffy hem brushed their thighs.
With another, smaller towel, they were furiously rubbing the remaining moisture from their body, eyes screwed up in an expression of defiance. Hange snatched their glasses from the stool and growled like a dog while they vigorously raked the towel all over their body.
'You know, I think a cheese grater would work better, since you seem to be trying to remove your skin.' Levi crossed his arms.
'I just don't like being damp. I don't like baths.' Hange muttered.
'Why?'
'I just don't.'
'Oh.'
Hange knew Levi wouldn't say anything more, it wasn't in his nature to speak when he felt there was nothing that needed to be said. The only way he would communicate again would be if Hange spoke directly to him.
'I could just as easily ask why you care so much about being clean.' Hange stood still as they asked the question.
But Levi appeared even more disengaged than he ever had been before, his icy grey eyes were glazed over as he seemed to be retreating into his own personal flashback.
'Mama, my knees feel itchy.'
The young, clumsy Levi whimpered to his mother as he wriggled to change his position on the cold dirt floor. The threadbare rags he wore as clothes did little to prevent the damp seeping in as he and his mother crouched outside the Underground's grocer.
'That'll be the mud, Levi darling.' His mother, Kuchel, explained as she anxiously scanned their surroundings in the dingy alleyway.
'I don't like it. When are we going home, I'm hungry.' Levi continued to whinge.
'We'll get you something to eat now, I promise.' His mother bit her cheek as she said this: scraps found from the grocer's waste were hardly fit for a growing boy, and it broke her heart to see the ribs straining pitifully underneath her son's papery skin.
She surveyed once more, and concluded the coast was clear. Hauling the boy into her thin arms, she heaved upwards till Levi caught the rim of the garbage dumpster, and clambered in.
Kuchel followed him, and proceeded to rummage around in the moulding bread crusts and rotting vegetables. A few minutes later, she gave up, only having salvaged a few carrots; potato peelings; some questionable cheese parcels and some overly softened apples. Taking her son's filthy hand, the two Raven-haired individuals trudged back to the tiny shack they saw as home.
Kuchel boiled the food she had scraped together to clean it, all the while explaining to Levi how hot water was needed to sterilise things and make them safe to consume. She then turned around in response to some snuffling, and she turned to see tears brimming in Levi's large infantile eyes.
'Can I have a bath in boiling water?' He whimpered.
'Goodness no, Levi, that's silly. Why would you want to do that?' Kuchel smiled and laughed at his innocence softly.
'Because I want to be clean.' He whispered and a few tears spurted down his cheeks, leaving tracks in the grime staining his skin.
Kuchel kneeled before the weeping youngster, and gently used her thumb to wipe the tears from his face, before kissing his forehead tenderly.
'One day you'll be the cleanest boy in all the land, sparkles will surround you and everyone will be dazzled. They'll say "who is that wonderful shimmering shining boy?" And they'll all look up to you, and you'll teach everybody how to be as clean as you, so no little boys or girls have to be dirty ever again.' Kuchel tried to stop her own tears that were threatening to arise.
'I'll never let anybody be dirty ever again.' Levi responded with his unusual childlike seriousness, and he reached forward to wipe the soot from his own mother's cheeks as she embraced him tightly.
Levi's sight focused once more, and he was drawn to Hange's question still lingering in the air, their facial expression earnest.
'I just like being clean.'
'Why?'
'I just do.'
'Oh.'
Hange smiled in that odd way they had, where they titled their head slightly to the right, their lips only stretched slightly, and their eyebrows upturned a little. A look like they could see right through you; a look that had so much empathy bursting from it that it made Levi shiver strangely. He looked away.
'Right, beat it, you're clean enough. I need to go recover from being within such close proximity of you for so long.' He muttered, moving off to take his bleach solution in order to clean the bathtub.
Hange paused to observe him, as he hunched over the tin bath to scrub aggressively, his ebony hair falling forward to conceal his face that could be hiding so many secrets they didn't know about. Every time they thought they were coming closer to understanding the captain, something occurred and they felt they were back to square one, Levi being a faraway enigma nobody could ever comprehend.
Hange diverted their attention elsewhere, and thought back to the moment that had occurred in the bathtub, thinking of their mother. They felt the nostalgic pang in their chest, imagining the warm soft skin of their mother when they would nestle against her. Hange resolved that they would see their mother that day before the regiment's ball, something that they felt they were doing less and less as the fight against the Titans grew more intense.
'I'd say thank you, but what I really want to say is far less family friendly.' Hange spoke aloud, not really expecting Levi to respond now he was busy with his cleaning. As predicted, he only replied with a grunt.
Hange looked at him once more, and turned to leave the washroom, heading back to their own dorm. As they shut the door behind them, they let the towel drop to the floor around their ankles, and wandered freely about their quarters. Interior design was not exactly Hange's strong point, their room could only be described as a treasure-laden cave.
Clothes were piled clumsily on top of the desk chair, cabinets, the edge of the bed, and many just crumpled on the floor. The desk itself was completely and utterly covered in stray papers and still-open books that were littered with pencils and pens Hange had absently scattered around. The shelves were straining fit to burst with their books and guides and theorems, with yet more piled on top of the already stacked ones.
The room had a thick, earthy smell to it, partly because Hange never closed the window- even during the heaviest of thunderstorms- so damp was something the air in her room was accustomed to. The other contributors to the scent were the vast array of potted plants Hange had stuffed in every available corner and crevice, their untamed leaves and branches creeping over every piece of furniture. The walls were decorated with Hange's countless sketches and observations of her Titans, both captured and wild. Levi often said entering Hange's room was like entering a serial killer's lair, with all the obsessive documents of their victims: the Titans.
Hair still damp, Hange scraped it back into the same old ponytail, their fingers getting tangled in it as their hair already had begun to work its way into untameable coils. Their bangs hanging down by their face were becoming frizzier with every passing moment, and Hange smirked deviously. Your efforts were worthless, Shorty.
Pulling on their crinkled clothes, Hange stuffed their shoulder satchel with anything that they could potentially need on the journey. It was only an hour back into the nearest town where the hospital her mother was residing in was located, but Hange's ever overactive imagination lead all sorts of possibilities manifesting to them. Maybe they would run into a stray Titan that had solo-breached a nearby wall? What if they came across any form of Titan tracks, maybe some new geological materials that hadn't been discovered before?!
Hange collected their things to go but not before stopping to stroke the stitched blue and white badge on their jacket, their Wings of Freedom. They sucked in their breath at the thought of wearing their badge in a different placement, in place of Erwin. Hange would be the one to bare the physical and metaphorical wings of freedom to lead humanity to victory, should anything happen to the commander in the world where death lurked around every corner.
Hange shuddered and tried to push these intrusive thoughts to the back of their mind, if there was even any room left there. Hange's brain was a continuous hive of activity, and they could hear its buzzing well into the night as they lay awake in fevered insomnia.
'I'm going to the hospital, Moblit. I'll be back around four.' Hange nonchalantly tried to slide past their unofficial supervisor, but he caught hold of their collar in protest.
'Hange, you can't keep wandering off on your own all the time! What if we need you?' Moblit tried to reason with them, but the squad leader just turned and flashed him a knowing smile.
'Then tell the commander to invest in some carrier pigeons, ta ta.' Hange laughed, flicking their hair and unhooking Moblit's twitching fingers from their shirt.
'God dammit, Hange!' They heard him call as they strode away down the halls.