There 's a word for the thing Levi is feeling, tonight. It 's not quite fear. He feels like ' Goddamn, there has to be a word for this. Dread. Dismay. That feeling like when your caretaker-maybe-lunatic kicks you into a ring of men with brass knuckles and puts a bet on your head. Dog-in-front-of-carriage frozen. Sick with sweaty palms like when you wake from a bad dream.

'You should try to relax, ' Erwin says, counter-intuitively. Oh sure,

he 's

relaxed, head-to-toe in his dress uniform, stinking of the shitty rose cologne, so much wax in his hair you could stick it to a point and use it to slice a titan 's nape. He 's in his fucking element, shaking hands and smiling, all charming, the way he sometimes is with Levi, when he wants something badly enough. Erwin raises his brows and greets someone else, shakes their hand and laughs at something they say, which Levi doesn 't hear. He usually hears everything. He 's usually a lot more observant. But he 's not

used