No, he doesn't know. He'd been spared that pain, losing yet another person he loves so dearly, perhaps the one he's loved more than any other in his lifetime. Levi had volunteered to be the sacrifice to get the small remainder of them out, but Erwin had immediately rejected the plan - not just because it was unlikely to work, but because if they were truly to have any chance of survival, Levi needed to live.

And Erwin wanted him to live.

He's imagined more than once what sort of man he would've become without him. None of it is good.

Maybe it was selfish of him, in a way. But Erwin Smith has always been a selfish man, and it was within his power as Commander to bend that scenario how he wished. Still, it was Levi, in the end, who set him free.

And now Levi holds him, here, arms snuggling around and his weight heavy and perfect on his chest. Erwin holds him a little more tightly, too, as though if they just hold on tightly enough, whatever power that might spirit one of them away would have no choice but to take both.

One arm winds across Levi's shoulders, the other stroking again through fine black hair. It's so soft, so perfectly familiar now even as he tucks his head to nose into it a little. Despite his earlier condition, Levi still smells like Levi (with maybe just a hint of creature left).

"It is a shitty trick, as though punishing you for the strength of your heart."