CLOSED | Holding on to phantom memories

[alofts]

WHO: LEVI and MIKE ZACHARIUS
WHERE: Residence #031 Heropa, FL
WHEN: 08-16
WHAT: Friends catching up, bUT...
WARNINGS: SPOILERS for AoT with mentions of death and violence

SATURDAY NIGHT

[ Maybe Hank didn't make shit beer, but every bottle in the six pack of the American IPA was unopened and Levi's opinion moot- he planned on letting Mike be the judge on its overall quality. Words like 'hop oriented' and 'bold and lingering finish' meant fuck all to Levi, but even if its brewer was tone deaf to social nuances even by Levi's standards they were smart and again, maybe this beer wouldn't be shit. Only putting Levi neck out like this put an ill feeling in the put of his gut and tugging on the pull string of his grey cotton hoodie to keep out a chill that wasn't in the late Autumn air in southern Florida.

Mikes came by their place when he showed up out of the blue that night. Out of the blue, alive and cognizant of his own demise. Something Levi, or as he suspected, no one else could really come close to understanding. That Mike wasn't in some kind of emotional free fall was testament to his character, hell, even Erwin shut himself out for a good while when Levi had informed him of the former being listed as MIA. MIA because they didn't find the body. There were a lot of people in the Corps listed MIA for years and counting without headstones and only memories and hastily letters of condolence to remember them by.

Levi brought neither. Levi brought beer of unknown quality and stood outside Mike's house waiting for him to answer after a couple text messages touching bases that he was even home and if they shared a day off to shoot the shit. Levi knocked again, and waited. Not knowing where to start once that door opened. ]

Hey, Mike.

Comments

[snifftest]

[He knows exactly when Levi arrives - he brings with him a distinct scent of cleanliness and familiarity, and Mike's just been getting better and better at honing his sense of smell. He's pretty sure he'll never tell Levi he can smell him coming down the street because he doesn't think the other would appreciate it, and the faces Mike imagines him making are probably more entertaining than the ones Levi would actually make.

It's the simple things like that that keep his mind from wandering too far to the things he doesn't want to confront, namely a certain too-hairy titan.]

Levi.

[He nods at the shorter man after opening the door, offering him a small smile before stepping aside to let him in. It's strange sharing a place with people he doesn't know, but honestly Mike hasn't seen his house mates very much. He glances at the six pack Levi holds, raising a curious brow.]

You brought gifts?

[alofts]

No, I brought beer.

[ Levi returned flatly, holding up the six pack and shoving it into Mike's chest as he stepped through the threshold when invited in. Every step slower and less self-assured by only a fraction that it slipped by his own notice until he came to the a halt in the entranceway. ]

Bottle opener in the kitchen.

[ It wasn't a question every one of these houses came with the same utensils and basic necessities. The layout of every government-issued residential was cookie-cutter; Levi figured he could navigate each of them blindfold save a trip up or two on personalized furniture and conformation. This house felt different, and unfamiliar. A heaviness the fault of something other than the evening humidity in late August. ]

I [ Levi looked at the floor and then back at Mike. ] Figured you were sitting on your days off here not knowing whether to shit or go blind.

[snifftest]

So, yes.

[Free alcohol is always a gift. He doesn't complain at the shove, and he follows Levi after closing the door with his foot.

He breezes past him to the kitchen, just placing the six pack down on the counter for now. He looks back at Levi, eyes narrowed in thought for a moment before he grunts in reply.]

Can't say that I haven't done that. [He shrugs.] I don't have a lot of days off, at least. Maybe more than you, I'm not sure.

[Having any free time at all is weird, but he does know he spends more times with the dogs than what he's being compensated for.]

[alofts]

[ Nose turned up in a wrinkled little show of indignation, Levi only gave him a sharp: ] Shut up.

[ Barreling through the narrow turn off from the living room in to the kitchen, Levi follows Mike in and immediately began digging through the kitchen cabinets for that bottle opener.

It wasn't an intrusion. Government housing really did not belong to any of them and Levi always tended to let basic pleasantries go unspoken. ]

Got it. [ Bottle opener in hand and waved over his head without looking back at Mike, Levi was already pulling two beers from the the little cardboard six pack. Bottle caps flew off with a hiss, Levi catching them to be trashed. ]

Do you want to drink outside? [ Levi asks as if he planned to while holding out a beer to with his already hovering his lower lip. ] It's a thing people do here in the summer.

[snifftest]

[He only responds with a snort, leaning against his forearms and watching the shorter soldier. It's not surprising that Levi knows the place so well - it's very likely that Levi knows Mike's house better than Mike does, if only because he's been in an identical copy for months longer.

He takes the beer from Levi, pushing himself off the counter.]

What makes the outdoors more appealing?

[Is it the heat or those godforsaken mosquitoes? The people here are weird as hell to Mike, but he supposes they're used to it. Regardless he's already stepping back, ready to leave the house.]

[alofts]

You mean you don't like getting eaten alive by disease-ridden mosquitoes and listening to asshole blare incomprehensible music at all hours of the night?

[ Levi took a pull from his beer and his words smacked with crisp taste and sharp chill of surprisingly good beer on his tongue. Even when what he said could be, generously, construed as humor the delivery was deadpan that always made it sound as if were trying to start an argument. ]

Makes no difference to me. [ Only the house was air-conditioned- one of the first advances in technology he had come to rely on but if Mike was heading outside then he would follow. It was Mike, maybe he would enjoy whatever southern Florida in August smelled like. ]