Chapter Text
“Great practice everybody!” Coach Zacharias says as Eren runs past him towards the benches where his water bottle lies in the sun. He winces, probably should have moved it into the shadow, but it’s too late now.
The water is warm, just as Eren had expected, and he grimaces when it touches his lips. But the fire in his throat wins out and he takes a well-needed sip.
“Hey,” someone says but Eren ignores it. It’s not like someone is talking to him. “How’re you doing?” That same someone asks again and Eren sees a shadow in front of him. He looks up—
Levi Ackerman is talking to him. Those grey eyes bore into Eren’s own green and amber like they’re trying to find clues to a mystery. Eren blinks.
“Uh,” he says rather unintelligently. Then he shakes his head, okay, he thinks. If Levi wants to play a game, he’ll play along. “Sweatin’ like a pig, actually,” Eren says with a smirk as he takes another sip, waiting for the words to register with the other. “How about yourself?”
It’s not like Eren isn’t surprised at the conversation. He and Levi have never even shared a passing glance and suddenly Levi’s all up in Eren’s business? Something is going on.
Levi’s eyebrows raise minimally before he schools his face into the usual apathetic scowl he wears. (Not that Eren has looked at him, no, it’s just like… common knowledge.)
Levi sighs before he leans in with a smirk, “Now that’s definitely a way to get a guy’s attention.” Eren chuckles quietly while he packs up his soccer bag, stowing his warm water bottle in the bag.
“Oh yes, definitely what I was going for,” Eren says sarcastically. He’s not hiding his homosexuality, but he’s not broadcasting it either. It’s whatever if people know he’s gay. But Levi? Definitely not gay.
Right?
But the way Levi’s looking at him now, eyes still on Eren’s own, laughing quietly at Eren’s joke. It can’t be. Can it? No. Levi’s just passing his time and Eren is the only one at this school who isn’t conformed to normal gender roles and high school popularity.
It makes sense they’d find each other eventually. Eren just hadn’t thought it’d be… Now.
“My mission in life is to get guys’ attention, you know. And obviously it worked on you so mission complete,” Eren continues. He puts the bag on his shoulder and turns to leave. “The world finally makes sense again,” he says with a snarky smile before he walks away.
He’s not expecting Levi to follow him.
What the hell?
“I’ll pick you up on friday, then,” Levi says as if they actually know each other.
“Not used to picking people up, I take it?” Eren asks, refusing to look at Levi next to him. It’s not like any of this is real, right? No, it’s just some sick joke someone’s trying to play on Eren.
Levi fucking chuckles, “No, but it’s working anyway, isn’t it?”
“Oh right. Yes,” Eren drawls while still walking across the field toward the locker rooms. “Friday then, uh huh.” He hopes Levi can hear the sarcasm in his words because he doesn’t have it in him to actually stop and explain.
“I might take you places you’ve never been before,” Levi says smoothly, as if he’s not even deterred by Eren’s ‘I don’t give a flying fuck’ attitude that his father says he should ‘grow out of already, Eren!’
“Do you even know my name?” Eren replies instead of answering. He doubts Levi does. Eren only really knows Levi’s name because of his staring the fact that it’s a small school.
“I know a lot more than you think,” Levi says with a smirk and Eren finally stops walking. He turns and looks Levi in the eyes and he raises one eyebrow.
“I highly doubt that.”
And then he walks away, and this time, Levi doesn’t follow.
When Eren next sees Levi, he’s walking out of the record store with a new CD in his bag. His favourite band just came out with a new album and Eren needed to buy it right now even if it was ‘just noise and complaining’ as his sister called it. Eren doesn’t care. He likes his music.
It’s honestly hilarious how different Eren and his sister are. She’s perky and pink and beautiful and Eren is… Well, not. She drives a pink convertible and Eren drives a truck. Whenever he looks at pictures of them both he’s reminded by Avril Lavignes ‘Girlfriend’ and can’t help but snort.
“Have you considered a new look?” Mikasa had said one night while Eren was washing his face in their shared bathroom. “You could have some definite potential,” she’d continued before taking a strand of his shoulder-length hair. “I mean, if you did something with this first.”
Eren pulled away and gave her a look.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why are you so hostile?”
“I’m not hostile,” Eren answered with bitterness in his voice. “I’m annoyed. There’s a difference.”
“Sure,” he was pretty sure he heard from her, but it was said under her breath. “Why don’t you try being nice?” She had then asked in a louder tone. “You’d surprise everyone. They wouldn’t know what to think.”
The memory is foggy in Eren’s mind as he walks on the warm pavement toward his car. Had she been standing next to him then or behind him?
He’s not sure. But he knows he answered something like, “You forget I don’t care what people think.”
Then she’d scoffed and picked up a brush to run it through her long midnight black hair. “Yes you do. Everyone does.”
“Well, I don’t,” Eren had said. “You know,” he’d continued. “You don’t always have to be who they want you to be.” He’s not sure why he said it then, but it had gotten Mikasa to stop brushing her hair and look back at him.
“I like being adored.”
Eren can’t remember the rest of the conversation and it doesn’t really matter because in the next second he’s face to face with Levi. Levi, who’s leaning up against the side of his truck as if it was his own.
“Are you stalking me?” Eren says with a scowl. He crosses his arms over his chest, the bag fluttering in the wind.
Levi scoffs. “I was in the laundromat across the street,” he says as if that’s an actual answer. When Eren raises an eyebrow Levi continues with a small chuckle. “I saw your car, came over to say ‘hi’.”
“Hi,” Eren says before going around the side of his car to drop the bag inside the open back door window. When he turns to open the front door, Levi has moved and is leaning against the handle. Eren sighs so loud it actually ruffles some of Levi’s bangs and Eren takes a step back once he realises how close they actually are to each other.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” Levi says with a smirk, leaning in to close the newly created distance. Eren crosses his arms over his chest.
“What, and you do?” Because really, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard Levi talk as much as he has these last couple of days with Eren. It’s kind of strange.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?” Levi says and Eren snorts.
“Why the fuck would I be that?”
“Well, most people are.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not.”
Levi smirks, leaning in again and Eren can feel his breath on his cheek. “Well, maybe you’re not afraid of me. But I’m sure you’ve thought of me naked.” And Eren chokes on his breath because what kind of conversation jump is that? He squashes down the blush he can feel creep up his neck because, well, he has thought of Levi naked. But only because Levi seems to have the body of a fucking God and Eren is only one gay teenager.
It’s not like it’s his fault what images his mind creates.
Eren takes a final step back. “Oh, wow,” he says with as much sarcasm as he can muster, “Am I that transparent?” Then he opens his car door and Levi finally seems to get a fucking hint and leave and Eren drives home.
He does not think about Levi naked that night when he’s in his bed.
Nope.
(He does.)
Eren is having a good night. The air is electric with energy and the band is playing all of his favourite songs. Everyone around him is dancing, laughing, and losing themselves inside of the music. It’s a kind of happiness that is contagious. Reckless and wild.
Free.
Eren dances until his heart thunders in his chest, until his feet ache, until his eyes burn from the strobe lights. He finally acknowledges the dryness of his throat and goes to the bar to find water.
And, all too suddenly, Eren is suddenly reminded of why he doesn’t like to go out in public. The world truly is a small place. When Eren sees Levi sitting at the bar, he can’t help but roll his eyes and make a face.
Seriously? Levi just happens to be at a concert listening to the same band Eren is, when Eren has never seen him within a ten mile radius of this bar before? Yeah, right.
Coincidences are just fate’s unfunny sense of humour.
Eren doesn’t get Levi. If he just wants to get his dick wet, well, as they say there are plenty of fish in the sea. Fish that are much nicer and sweeter than Eren has ever claimed to be. Eren knows how most people view him and he doesn’t care; in his opinion it’s better to be disliked for who you are then to be adored because you are viewed as a person you can only pretend to be. Most people in his school are idiots, anyway, so Eren doesn’t care about any of their opinions. Not at all.
(Eren 100% does not care about Levi’s hypothetical opinion of him! He doesn’t! And he definitely isn’t disappointed that he was the one who spotted Levi first.
It’s not like he wants to be seen by those pale, mist-filled eyes.)
Eren’s conscience has the irritating habit of sounding horribly unconvincing in the most inconvenient of times.
But it’s better to assume Levi is just playing a game. Safer.
Besides, Eren is good at playing games.
“Boy,” Eren snarks, shaking his head. No one has ever gone to this much trouble to flirt fuck with him before. “You just do not know when to quit.”
“Do you mind?” Levi doesn’t even look at Eren. Just continues to sip his drink casually. Infuriatingly casually. “You’re ruining the music for me.”
Eren blinks, momentarily caught off-kilter. Huh. Not the reaction he was expecting — but he recovers stunningly, in his opinion. “Like you actually enjoy this type of music.”
“I’m wounded.” Levi places a hand on his heart — finally looking over at Eren, and Eren resolutely ignores the way his heart flutters in his chest. And while Eren is busy ignoring things, he decides he’ll ignore how good Levi looks too. “This is one of my favourite bands. Well — I do enjoy No Name and Shingeki, but these guys have… Soul to their music.”
Eren narrows his eyes. He really cannot tell if Levi is fucking with him.
“What’s your favourite song, then?” Eren asks, because Levi will either divert the question or choose one of the band’s most popular, mainstream songs, which will totally confirm Eren’s suspicions—
Of course, Levi says the name of Eren’s favourite song.
For a moment, the music seems to stop. Eren can only hear the air whooshing through his lungs, the sound of his own heart beating in his chest. He meets Levi’s eyes and quickly looks away — because he saw something, some flicker of emotion that is much too real for any kind of game.
“Sure,” Eren says, for lack of any kind of real comeback. “I’m sure that is your favourite song. Not like you’re stalking me and followed me here to ask me out a third time.”
“Do you want me to ask you out?” Levi asks, a smirk tugging at his lips.
Eren’s eyes go wide. “Wha-no!” Eren hisses, but it lacks any kind of real conviction. Eren hears it, Levi hears it, hell — even the bartender probably hears it.
Levi nods — as if he totally believes Eren while also looking as if he absolutely doesn’t. His eyes seem to look through Eren as if he is transparent. As silver as gleaming scalpels trying to cut through the meat of him, to reach straight into his chest to find his heart. “Well, no matter. Seem we’ve stumbled straight into a date anyway. Luck is on our side, tonight.”
“You think this is a date?” Eren asks — baffled by Levi’s confidence. Or, sheer stubbornness. “No, no, no, no — this is absolutely not a date, can you not read rooms?”
“Sure, I can try to read this one for you,” Levi shrugs, slinging an arm over Eren’s shoulders and pulling him close before Eren can even do so much as blink. “Let’s see, there’s drinks, great music, and a dance floor. You look sexy as hell, and you somehow look even sexier when you dance. Sounds like a date to me.”
“Sexy?” Eren asks, and he doesn’t like how faint he sounds. But — sexy? He was just — Eren was just dancing to the music, he wasn’t trying to look seductive but… But Levi saw him, watched him, and thought he looked good?
No. No, not just ‘good.’ Sexy.
But Eren’s voice is drowned out by the thrumming bass of a guitar, and he finds it doesn’t matter anyway, because it seems his voice has deserted him. Eren opens and closes his mouth, but no words escape. Levi takes this chance to grab Eren’s hand and lace their fingers together, dragging them back out onto the dancefloor together.
Eren follows as if caught in a trance.
“You know,” Eren finally finds his voice, just as the drum beat begins replacing the thumping of his heart and his feet start moving to the rhythm without his conscious permission. “This really isn’t a date.”
“No?” Levi asks — no, he whispers in Eren’s ear. He’s so close, too close, his lips are tickling the shell of Eren’s ear and Eren shivers. Levi undoubtedly feels it, since his body is pressed flush against Eren’s. But Eren can’t help it, Levi’s lips are unbelievably warm, unfairly soft. “Let’s make it a date then. There’s a party Friday night — can I take you?”
Eren opens his mouth, fully prepared to deliver an emphatic ‘hell no!’ But then, unfortunately, Mikasa’s words from dinner earlier that evening come back to haunt him.
“C’mon Eren! It’ll just be one party, you won’t die!” Mikasa had begged, big blue eyes wide and hopeful. “Dad won’t let me go unless we go together. Please? Please, Eren? Please do this for me?”
Mikasa had said ‘please’ three times, and tonight had been the first night Eren had ever heard his sister use that word, besides when it came to begging their father to let her go out on a date. But it had been the first time Mikasa had looked at Eren, clasped her hands over her chest, and asked—
“Please?”
And so Eren, overwhelmed by the neon colours bursting across his vision, the music rushing through his ears, and most importantly, distracted by the Levi’s warmth of Levi’s body against his, reluctantly grumbles, “I might be there.”
“Oh.” Eren can feel Levi’s smirk against the nape of his neck. “I might see you there, in that case.”
“You might.” Eren’s going for breezily dismissive, but he lands somewhere in between windstorm excited and hurricane hopeful. And so, without looking back, Eren shimmies out of Levi’s arms and loses himself inside of the crowd.
But maybe he doesn’t lose himself, exactly. Eren feels Levi’s eyes on him all night. Even though, when Eren looks over his shoulder, Levi isn’t anywhere in sight.
“Stop!” Eren hears his father say loudly from the living room downstairs. “Where are you going?”
“Study group,” Mikasa lies easily. Eren knows she’s trying to go to the party. Eren hasn’t told her he was thinking of going.
“An orgy?” Eren hears his father say in a scandalous voice. He can’t help but snort from his room while he’s debating whether to wear a skirt or pants. Decisions, decisions.
“It’s just a party,” Mikasa answers and Eren can imagine her arms are crossed over her too-big chest in a too-tight dress.
“And hell is just a sauna.”
Eren has finally had enough, chooses the skirt and picks up his favourite band t-shirt before jumping down the stairs.
“You know anything about a party?” His father asks, doesn’t even bat an eye at Eren’s attire. As much as Eren thinks his father is overprotective and strange when it comes to dating (though, only really with Mikasa since she can get pregnant whereas Eren can’t) he doesn’t give a fuck about what Eren wears.
Well, he doesn’t now. Eren still remembers the first time he came home wearing a skirt and his father nearly had a heart attack, asking him if he was ‘becoming a girl or what-not’. Eren had assured him that he wasn’t, he just liked skirts.
(He did not say that his ass looked phenomenal in them, because that information was for Eren and Eren alone.)
“No,” Eren answers with a shrug because he still hasn’t really made up his mind about going yet. And he likes to mess with his sister. She eyes him with anger that Eren ignores before going into the kitchen.
They seem to have some conversation that Eren isn’t listening to because only a few seconds later he hears, “Why can’t you be normal? Why can’t you be a normal guy, wearing pants and going to parties?”
Ouch, Eren thinks but he just shrugs off the little pang of pain he feels inside his chest. He puts his hands on his hips. “Well, maybe I don’t want to drink beer and hook up with random people in a pool of germs?”
“Hook up?” Eren’s father interrupts and Mikasa groans.
“Can you…” She starts before pulling Eren away from their father. She leans in to whisper in his ear. “Just stop being wretched for one night and be my brother?”
Oh, wow she has no idea how to ask people to do something for them, does she? ‘Stop being a jerk’ is not exactly persuasion material in Eren’s book.
“Please?” She says again and Eren is reminded of how she begged a couple of nights before. With fake tears in her eyes like she was begging for her soul and not for going to a party.
Just at that second, someone knocks on the door. Their father immediately gives Mikasa a look.
“Wanted to make sure you actually showed up,” is what Levi says when Eren opens the door. “I admit, I might be a bit early, but we can take a detour going there.” And then he fucking winks and Eren’s knees shake under his skirt but he ignores it.
Eren stands silently for a moment, pondering on whether he should go or not. He sees Levi eye his skirt with a dark look, the pupils in his eyes dilating and as much as Eren pretends it’s not true, that look is what solidifies his decision.
“I’m driving,” he says before walking out the door.
He thinks he hears Mikasa scream ‘thank you’ but he ignores her. She can deal with their father.
Eren’s skirt ruffles in the slight spring wind when he moves towards his car and he tries not to think about the fact that Levi is pointedly walking behind him.
Eren is drunk.
Mikasa is dancing with some jock he can’t remember the name of, but it’s not any of those he’s punched in the balls for copping a feel whenever he wears a skirt so he’ll let it slide.
She can take care of herself even though she acts like she can’t.
Someone’s fight broke through the living room window and the gentle breeze on Eren’s feverish body is amazing.
“I’ve been looking all over for you!” Levi shouts over the music as Eren manoeuvres through the party toward the kitchen.
“I’m trashed,” Eren says as a way of answer. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”
“You should do what you want to do, not what you’re supposed to.”
“As if I’ve ever done anything else.”
Eren is wasted.
He’s dancing on a table that wobbles with his moves. His skirt is hanging low on his hips and his shirt has been bound with a hair-tie to look like a crop-top. If he were a girl he’d have many hands on him right about now. As it is, he only has eyes on him.
They holler and scream as Eren moves his hips to the beat of the music, the fog of the alcohol clogging up his mind.
He turns and for a second he thinks he sees Levi, a worried frown on his face before everything goes black.
When Eren wakes up he’s outside, puking his guts out.
“Oh my God,” someone says and he’s pretty sure it’s himself even though his voice sounds rougher than he’s used to. The tequila burns just as much coming up as it did going down.
There are hands on his shoulders, holding back his hair, letting him get the poison out of his system. Then there is a water bottle in front of him and when Eren finally blinks the tears out of his eyes and looks up he sees Levi.
“Why are you doing this?”
“You fell, you might have a concussion,” Levi says, his arms now around Eren’s waist, helping him stand up straight. He guides Eren down to sit on whatever is behind him. His hands seem to be all over Eren, trying to keep him from face planting onto the grass, and Eren pretends that it doesn’t affect him as much as it does.
“I don’t remember that,” Eren slurs, nausea taking over as soon as he opens his mouth again. He leans over to vomit again but nothing comes up but tears in his eyes. “It’s not like you care if I never wake up.”
He doesn’t look at Levi, but he can hear the venom in his voice when he says, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why me?” Eren asks, still leaning forward, his head in his hands. The concrete he’s sitting on is cold beneath his skirt and he shifts a little. Something is draped across his back but he can’t find it in him to look up to see what it is.
“Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?” Levi says, his cold hands coming to cup Eren’s cheeks to force him to look up.
Eren’s pretty sure he blacks out for a moment because when the world comes into focus again, Levi’s standing very close to him. Hands still on his cheeks, worried frown on his face.
“Your eyes have a little blue in them,” Eren whispers, cringing at the taste in his mouth.
The next time he blinks he can’t find the strength to open his eyes again.
“My throat tastes like the underside of a bridge,” Eren hears himself saying, before he’s even really fully regained consciousness. His voice comes out as a sluggish murmur, a low drawl.
“... I’m hoping that’s not a taste you recognise from personal experience,” Levi says, sounding almost concerned, but when Eren turns his head he sees an almost invisible smirk, just a twitching of Levi’s lips, really.
“Ah, you caught me.” Eren sighs, his hands flopping in his lap dramatically. Was… Was his skirt always this short? “Now I’m gonna need to find some new secret hobby.”
A car. They’re in a car, now, Eren recognises that. Levi’s car, probably.
Eren wonders if Levi carried him. If he had an arm under the back of Eren’s knees — Eren’s very bare knees.
Eren’s face is warm, very warm, and he cannot in good conscience fully blame it on the alcohol.
“Have a lot of secret hobbies?” Levi says — trying to humour him — but Eren thinks he detects a genuine hint of curiosity, there, as if Levi is genuinely trying to figure him out. His hopes and dreams, and all of the bones that make up his skeleton. “You can’t just say something like that and not elaborate.”
Eren blinks, real hard. Ouch. It hurts too much to think. “But if I told you, it wouldn’t be a… a… a secret — fuck I think I’m gonna puke again.”
There’s a faint sound to his right and Eren jumps, only to roll his eyes at himself because it’s just the passenger window rolling down.
“Seriously?” Eren asks, staring at it dumbly. The cool night air is whipping at his cheeks, tangling his hair, making it wild. Mmmm it feels good to lean into, to open his mouth, to taste the breeze and the sounds that collect in the night.
“What? Never puked out of a moving car before? Just make sure you aim it right.”
“Aim it right?” Eren echoes, only half-listening to the sound of his groggy voice. The stars have distracted him. There’s so, so many. How many stars are out there, really?
“Yeah, we’re coming up to some stuffy rich area. Sure it would make some wealthy prick’s morning to walk out and see vomit all over his meticulously kept flower beds, or wrought-iron fence.”
Eren laughs, sharp and inelegant, before he can help himself. “Mean,” he murmurs. He can hear Levi chuckling beside him and Eren wants to get lost inside the sound of his voice. He wants—
Eren wants—
He wants those dark, rasping chuckles dwindling into moans that vibrate through his chest.
(Eren does not puke again.)
Eren swears that he only closed his eyes for a minute, but when he opens them back up all he can see is a blur of black and he feels worryingly weightless. Well, Eren would worry if the alcohol weren’t making him feel so free.
“Eren — I swear to God, you’re not a golden retriever.” That’s Levi’s voice and he’s not — shouting, per se, he just has to talk really loud to make himself heard over the rushing of the wind. “Pull your head back in now, I really don’t wanna have to go searching out in the streets for your decapitated head.”
Eren pictures himself as a golden retriever, with honey-golden fur and bright, wide brown eyes, with a tongue lolling and a smile that seems to be permanent. What cute dogs. And, just because he can, Eren raises his arms high above his head.
… And no, he doesn’t almost lose his balance and fall out of the car window. His hips just happen to hit the padding on the door extra roughly as he sways. But then there’s a pressure pulling him back in — a quick look over confirms that Levi has a fistful of Eren’s t-shirt.
Eren’s mind immediately goes into filthy overdrive, imagining many different scenarios in which Levi is tugging his shirt, white-knuckled.
“Idiot,” Levi says, but he sounds fond. And he’s smiling too.
“It felt like I was flying,” Eren says, breathless. “I really like your smile,” he says then, because with this amount of alcohol in his system he has no brain to mouth filter and so he shoves his foot in there instead.
Levi blinks, as if taken off-guard. But then, even if it’s only barely noticeable, his smile widens.
“I wanna start a band,” Eren mumbles, his head following the movement of the car as Levi drives. He chuckles to himself. He vaguely recognises the surroundings. “Yeah… My father would love that.”
“You don’t strike me as the type to ask your father for permission,” Levi snorts, killing the radio and then the engine. Eren doesn’t look around again, just sits in the silent car. His and Eren’s eyes meet and a current of — something, possibly something electric — passes between them, but Eren’s too drunk to decipher what it means.
“Oh, like you know me so well.” Eren asks, mostly teasing. But something in Levi’s expression falters, like a wound reopening.
“I’m getting there,” Levi says, softly.
Eren scoffs, attempting to break up this weird tension that has settled between them. “The only thing that people know about me is that I’m scary.” He laughs, hoping Levi won’t take it seriously, won’t try and make a thing out of it.
Levi shrugs, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “Well, I’m not exactly a picnic myself.”
Eren finds himself nodding, finds himself looking into Levi’s eyes again. He finds himself recognising something in Levi that he sees himself wear in the mirror everyday.
Suddenly, it becomes hard to breathe. Harder, not to lean in closer.
It’s not something electric that passes between them this time, but something softer. Like the gentle breeze after a storm.
“So, uh —” Levi clears his throat, this time being the one to break the strange tension between them. (Even Eren’s inebriated mind will not call it a moment.) “What’s the deal with your dad? Is he like, a pain in the ass or something?”
“Oh,” Eren waves a flippant hand. “No, he just wants me to be somebody that I’m not.” He wrinkles his nose, adopting a squeaky, high-pitched voice. “Mikasa.”
“Oh, Mikasa,” Levi laughs along with him, shaking his head. He looks away and a tongue darts out to wet his lips. He looks as if he’s debating on whether or not to say anything. But then his lips are forming words, words Eren latches onto with a drunk eagerness. “Well, no offence or anything because I know everyone ‘digs’ your sister,” Levi says with exaggerated air-quotes. “But she’s without.”
No one has ever preferred Eren to Mikasa.
Ever.
“You know,” Eren says, teasing but genuine at the same time. “You’re not as vile as I thought you were.”
Sure, Eren has always thought Levi was hot. He has eyes and it’s not a crime to admire someone’s aesthetic beauty. Besides, looking at Levi beats looking at all of the sweaty meatheads that wander his school’s halls like gorillas on the hunt for a banana.
But Levi… He isn’t like them.
Eren’s starting to see that.
And then he can’t see anything at all because his eyes are fluttering shut — and he lets them. Eren lets himself lean closer, lets himself purse his lips, gives into temptation. Levi is being sweet, Levi seems to like him, seems to be genuine about it… One kiss couldn’t possibly hurt—
A beat passes. And then another. A child laughs somewhere distantly down the street.
Eren cracks an eye open only to find Levi staring down at him with an inscrutable look. Almost… Something like apprehension, fear in its palest shade, something like regret. His lips are definitely not pursed.
“Maybe we should do this some other time,” Levi says, quietly. All of the air leaves Eren’s lungs in a rush.
Eren remembers thinking one kiss couldn’t possibly hurt, but this, the empty space around his own lips, hurts in a way that Eren cannot describe. But it is all consuming.
Eren scoffs. So that’s it? Right when he shows the slightest bit of interest that means Levi’s done with him? Did he really prefer Eren’s disdain to his affection?
Eren slams the car door and doesn’t look back.
He’s brushing his teeth when he catches sight of a car out in the front yard. It’s not Levi’s car so he breathes a sigh of relief.
He recognises Mikasa’s red dress and black hair in the passenger seat, and after another beat she leans in and kisses whoever is in the driver’s seat. Eren gasps, not because he cares, no, but because his sister is such a ‘goody goody’ he honestly doesn’t think she’s ever kissed anyone before.
God, he hopes it isn’t one of the jerk jocks.
Maybe it’s the dude she was dancing with earlier that night, but Eren’s hazy mind fails to supply him with a face.
When Mikasa leaves the car she looks contemplating but she also has a small smile on her face and Eren knows the guy is not some jerk. So he doesn’t say anything when Mikasa enters the front door, calling to their father that she’s home.
Eren ignores how the guy in the car (whose hair looks to be a massive bleach-fail) punches the air before backing out of the driveway.
Please, Eren thinks to himself as he enters his classroom. Kill me now.
“Dance for me, cowgirl,” one of his classmates says when he walks past.
“Babe,” another one moans, “What do we owe you for the dance?”
“Okay, that’s enough,” their teacher says as he comes into the classroom. Eren sighs as he sits down, burying his head in his arms. He has almost no memories of the night of the party except for puking and being rejected by Levi in the car.
He does not want to think about Levi.
Their teacher explains a new assignment they’re supposed to do. “Now, it’s due the monday after prom, so I’d suggest you all finish it before that weekend. It’s worth thirty percent of your grade and because you’ll have three weeks to complete it, I will not be giving extensions.”
He talks about Shakespeare and sonnets and Eren is only half-listening. So they have to write a poem, he can do that.
“Now,” their teacher continues. “I want you all to write something real. Whatever that means for you.”
When the bell rings, and their teacher ends class with a, ‘See you all next week,’ Eren stands up to gather his things.
Eren is wearing another skirt today because he wanted to look cute and remind Levi what a dick he is, but he regrets it that instant when someone sneaks a hand under it and smacks his ass.
Eren punches him in the nose and earns himself a spot by the principal’s office.
He swings by the record store on his way home, seeing the new fender in the window and wanting to try it out. He knows the owner pretty well since he’s there every few days listening to new records or trying out various instruments.
“Hey Eren!” The owner, a sweet young lady named Christa, says as he walks in the door. “Here to try out the new fender?”
Eren smiles, and nods and she finds the guitar for him. “Here you go, sweetie. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
Eren plugs in the designated headphones (not only to not disturb the customers, but also because he doesn’t want people to hear him play) and starts to slowly tune the instrument.
It’s a beautiful, white fender stratocaster and Eren falls in love with the sound it makes in his headphones.
I know that I ended it, but
Why won't you chase after me?
You know me better than I do
He starts playing a soft melody, the chords almost muscle memory considering he knows this song inside and out. The words tumble out of his mouth in a soft voice as he almost whispers the lyrics for himself. He can barely hear his own voice on account of the headphones, but that doesn’t matter.
So why didn't you stop me?
Why didn't you stop me
And paint it over?
The music flows from his fingers and his mouth and reaches his ears and he knows he could stay like this forever and not be bothered.
I look for a picture of you
To keep in my pocket
But I can't seem to find one
There’s a shadow behind him that wasn’t there before but Eren doesn’t let it disturb his peace. He imagines it’s Christa, coming to check on him like she usually does, but not wanting to disturb him.
Where you look how I remember?
Look how I remember
Look how I remember paint it over
He ignores as the shadow shifts behind him and he thinks he can feel a body there. After a moment, it leaves and when Eren leaves the store he doesn’t see anyone but Christa, so the idea that it was her is not out of this world.
“Excuse me, have you seen The Feminine Mystique? I seem to have lost my copy?”
Eren scowls. “What are you doing here?” He had been doing so well avoiding Levi! All week! And now here he is with his charming grin and sparkling eyes and teasing lips—
(An ugly thought had poked at Eren all throughout the week — what if it wasn’t him avoiding Levi, but the other way around? What if, now that Levi had presumably gotten what he wanted out of Eren — whether that was a new toy to play with or someone to humiliate — he was done with him?)
Eren is not pleased to see Levi. He’s irritated at Levi. He hates Levi. His hatred burns brighter than a thousand — no, a million suns.
“I heard there was a poetry reading.” Levi cocks his head, still wearing that insufferable, adorable fucking half-smirk that drives Eren wild. In more ways than one.
Eren tries to remember that he hates Levi for rejecting him. “You’re so—”
“Charming?” Levi interjects, leaning closer and nope the last time that happened Eren wound up with a tiny fracture in his heart. Eren has just managed to lick his wounds and bandage himself, he will not allow Levi to rip it off and prod at the ache. Eren brushes past Levi, making sure to shoulder check him. It doesn’t seem to phase Levi. “Wholesome?”
“Unwelcome,” Eren snaps, louder and angrier than is probably necessary, but it’s not like his maelstrom temper is any kind of secret.
Levi is, once again, entirely unbothered. He just comes closer to Eren — always when Eren doesn’t want it, never when he does — and says in a very serious voice. “You’re not as mean as you think you are, you know that?”
Eren blinks. Um, yes he is. Great, has Levi forgotten what kind of person he’s even attempting to toy around with?
Or is that part of the thrill?
“And you aren’t as badass as you think you are.” Eren retorts.
“Oh!” Levi chuckles, that dark, rasping sound. He doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered, or offended, and it pisses Eren off and makes his cheeks hot because he should. Levi should be done with him now, ignoring him and steering clear of his path like everyone else, but he isn’t and Eren doesn’t understand.
And then Eren’s cheeks get a little bit hotter when Levi teases. “Does someone still have his panties in a twist?”
“Like you had any effect on my panties.” Eren’s voice is dripping with condescension, even as a treacherous amount of blood heads south. Damn. Even when Levi is acting insufferable, Eren cannot pretend to be unaffected. Or, at least, his dick can’t. Eren angles his body away ever so discreetly.
“Then what did I have an affect on?” Levi asks then, very serious again. Eren almost says something serious back, like, ‘well if you don’t know, isn’t that exactly the problem?’
But ugly, raw, human emotions like that disgust Eren, so he shrugs with a tight scowl. “My upchuck reflex, mostly.” And with that he slams a copy of The Feminine Mystique on Levi’s chest and storms out of the store.
It’s unreasonable, but Eren is disappointed that Levi doesn’t follow him.
But, one of those blistering suns of anger turns into a tiny twinkling star of soft heat, because now Eren knows that Levi isn’t done with him.
Whatever it is that Levi wants with him, he isn’t done.
That shouldn’t be comforting.
Still, Eren can’t deny that he’s looking forward to going to school tomorrow. If only to bear witness to what inane thing Levi will do to capture his interest next.
Well. This isn’t just inane — it’s insane.
Yet Eren is smiling, even clapping along with his teammates as Levi makes a complete fool out of himself.
The entire outdoor field is filled with purple bell flowers and Levi’s standing in the middle of it all. Eren knows which movie this move is from, but unlike the movie, the flowers aren’t actually planted on the field, just lying there.
It’s still a nice gesture and Levi’s holding a boom-box over his head like an idiot (although Eren can’t help but smile again at yet another movie reference) and the whole soccer team as well as the football team are staring at Levi.
But Levi is staring at Eren.
The band comes out of the changing rooms, adding background music to the small noise coming from the boom-box (okay but seriously, where did Levi get a boom-box from?) and Eren can’t help but smile and laugh at the absolute absurdity that is this moment.
Levi is fucking smiling. Full on. With teeth.
Coach Zacharias comes out of the gym doors and gives Levi a stern looking down (which is very possible considering Coach is a fucking giant) and Levi just keeps smiling at Eren like a maniac.
Coach walks swiftly through the many, many, many purple flowers, squashing them onto the field as he does and Eren can’t help but feel sort of sad at the vision. When he reaches Levi Coach Zacharias pulls on Levi’s shirt and practically drags him off the field.
Eren bursts out laughing with the rest of the soccer team and it takes at least an hour for Coach Zacharias to come back and they finally start training.
Eren’s dying to know what Levi did to make the stern talking-to he definitely got, take more than twenty minutes.
Eren stares at the detention check-in board outside the classroom.
Levi Ackerman.
Eren’s not surprised he got detention, but he’d at least hoped he got to see Levi the rest of the day to say ‘thanks’ or laugh in his face or… Anything really.
He sees Coach Zacharias standing by the desk, making big arm-gestures, probably talking about how ‘disappointed’ he is with everyone in that room. Eren’s eyes glide over the back of the heads he can see from the window in the door and when he reaches Levi’s recognisable undercut he lingers.
Lingers too much because Coach sees him standing there like an idiot and promptly waves him in.
“What can I do for you, mr. Yeager?”
See, Eren is good at thinking on his feet. He has to be, going to school with all the apes that are the male population, but right now? All his mind supplies him with is ‘uhhhhh?’
“Well, sir…” Eren wrings his hands, his inner-voice screaming at him to think, think, think! “I actually wanted to talk to you.”
Coach Zacharias nods, looking expectant. Maybe a little irritated. Of course, Eren is already talking to him, but he’s trying to stall. “Yes?”
“Ah! So, I had some ideas about ways we could improve the boys soccer team,” Eren laughs nervously. It seems the best excuse he can go with — what else is he supposed to talk with the Coach about? The weather?
“Great.” He nods, but his voice sounds more dismissive than curious. “Let’s talk about it later.”
With that, Coach Zacharias turns away with Eren to reorganise some papers on his desk, probably mentally making bullet points in his head over what exactly he wants to yell at the delinquents he has sitting in detention.
Eren catches Levi’s eyes — they’re sparkling with amusement, the colour of them like that of clear water catching the sunlight — and before Eren can get at all flustered, he jerks his chin. And he mouths ‘window.’
Levi’s eyes narrow as he leans forward.
‘Window!’ Eren mouths again, the word more exaggerated this time around, but Levi’s brow furrows as he shakes his head, still looking utterly confused. Eren rolls his eyes as his voice rises to a severe whisper. “Window!”
At that moment, Coach Zacharias turns back around and so Eren can only hope Levi got his message. The Coach seems surprised to find Eren still loitering.
Eren gives the Coach his brightest smile before the man can tell him to piss off again. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Levi slowly rising from his seat so Eren grabs the Coach’s arm and angles him ever so slightly away from Levi. “Well, you know we have that big game against Trost coming up and I just really think we need to be prepared for it! Prepared for anything those rat-bastards might throw at us!”
Coach Zacharias’ eyes widen ever so slightly as he stiffens — Eren isn’t usually daring enough to openly cuss in front of the man, considering he’s the one who assigns positions and Eren doesn’t want to be resigned to bench warmer for the entirety of the season. The Coach is a notoriously strict man. But, Eren is undoubtedly the best player on the team — in any position, offence and defence and otherwise — so the Coach, more or less, lets Eren’s bad behaviour slide.
So instead of condemning Eren to a boring afternoon in detention, he just nods stiffly. “Okay…”
Eren also knows that his surprising choice in language is enough to momentarily stun the man — enough to distract him as Levi quietly sneaks past him. But just as the Coach makes a move to turn around again, Eren grabs his arm tighter. “Oh wow, your bicep is huge! And the other one is too!”
The room is immediately filled with hushed snickers. Eren grits his teeth — again, his sexuality is by no means a secret, and so this means that there’s a good chance a rumour will start up about Eren having a crush on the Coach. Which is… Horrifying for a multitude of reasons, but Eren is trying to break his real crush out of jail, so desperate times call for desperate measures.
“You don’t take steroids, do you?” Eren continues his mindless stream of word vomit as he discreetly watches Levi try and quietly open a widow. “Because I’ve heard that steroids can severely disintegrate your package.”
The class collectively gasps ‘ooooh!’ and that, coupled with the Coach’s face slowly going from beaming with pride to scrunched in confusion, clues Eren into what exactly he just said.
Eren may have a certain person’s package on his mind, which is probably what he can attribute the word vomit to. But… Talking about the Coach’s…?!
Yeah, Eren would have to return that particular package to its sender.
Eren rushes to cover up his mistake while Levi struggles harder with the window. Thank the heavens he seems too distracted to have heard exactly what atrocious thing came out of Eren’s mouth.
“I mean, not that I was thinking about your package!” Eren yelps. “That’s, er, that’s not the point I’m trying to make…”
“Let’s hope not,” Coach Zacharias agrees, looking as disturbed as Eren feels. Levi, the idiot, trips on something and the slight sound makes the Coach almost turn around again so this time Eren grabs his shoulders and stares into the Coach’s eyes as if this is a life or death situation.
“The point is, they kick our butts every year. And this year, are we gonna put up with it? Are we just gonna lie down and roll over? No! I refuse to lose yet another game to the Trost Titans, heh, like their heads need to be any bigger, right? This is Shiganshina high, ranked one of the top three schools in the district—”
“There are only three schools in the district.” Some idiot interjects from the back of the classroom. Eren ignores him.
“But we have our pride, our dignity! We are a damn good school, a force to be reckoned with, and damn it all if the Titans are going to take that away from us! We’re going to defeat them in this game. We’ll kill them — I’ll slaughter them all!”
Eren can tell most of his impassioned, mostly improved speech goes into Coach Zacharias right ear and immediately goes out his left. The students that make up their audience either look bored or a little disturbed.
“Uh — metaphorically, of course.” Eren laughs nervously, scratching his head. Levi is still fiddling with the window and fuck — how long could it possibly take to open a damn window?! “Anyway, they beat us every year, so I devised a little plan that will enable us to finally defeat them.”
“Which is?” Coach Zacharias prompts — looking dangerously close to fed up, and just then a floorboard creaks. Eren is forced to grab his shoulders again (he can practically hear the rumours circulating in the stale classroom air.)
“Uhhhh — Misdirection! Yeah! You taught us that, remember?”
“I did?” Right, because the Coach actually doesn’t teach them anything.
“Yeah, you! Or… Mr. Dok, or Mr. Tybur, but it really doesn’t matter.” The Coach’s eyes start wandering so Eren grabs his face, jerking his head this way and that. “We’ll divert them! They’ll be looking left, we’ll be running right, and then — boom! We’ll score and we’ll win.” Eren finishes with a flourish, with no small amount of pride. It sounds like a pretty solid plan to him and he just came up with it on the spot — maybe he should be Coach…
“Well… Okay, but how do we get them to look left?” Coach Zacharias asks, just as Levi opens the window, and of course it opens with a loud groan.
The Coach flinches, like he’s about to turn—
Eren gulps, and realises, well, there’s only really one thing he can do to make them all look.
“Uh — like this!”
Without any hesitation, Eren proudly unzips his jeans and yanks them down to his knees.
It should be noted that most of Eren’s brilliant, inspired plans are fuelled by impulsivity.
It should also be noted that today was the day he chose to wear his neon pink boxers. (He’s honestly just happy he didn’t wear one of his thongs today. He does own those and wear them… Occasionally. They’re comfortable, okay!?) In Eren’s defence — all of his other underwear was dirty…
And, this morning, he hadn’t exactly anticipated showing them off.
Coach Zacharias’ eyes are bulging, like they’re actually trying to pop out of his skull and make some grand escape.
The classroom immediately roars with laughter.
Luckily, by that point Levi has slipped out of the window, so as Eren pulls his jeans back up he finds that he really can’t be all that embarrassed. It could have been worse, it could have been his Minecraft creeper boxers…
But he doesn’t really think Coach Zacharias will see it that way, so before Eren can find himself sitting in detention, rendering his entire effort moot, he pats Coach Zacharias on the arm. “I’m glad you agree it’s a good plan!”
Coach Zacharias hadn’t said that. In fact, he looks as if he might be going into shock…
“Okay! Now that I’ve shown you the plan, I’m going to go show someone… uh, else, the, uh the plan.”
Eren takes that as his cue to leave — it would be most inopportune to have to call an ambulance or try to resuscitate the Coach when Eren has Levi waiting for him.
They end up walking along the pier because Eren mentioned (so, so fucking far back, he’s amazed Levi remembers since Eren didn’t remember saying it?) that he likes looking at the huge, fancy boats and wondering what type of people own them.
“You know,” Levi says after Eren has just devolved into an absolute fit of laughter after the made-up story Levi told him about the boat they just passed. “I never thanked you for helping me get out of detention.” He looks at Eren with a small smile. “You’re cooler than I thought you were.”
Eren makes a mock offended face but ends up cracking after approximately point three seconds. “No problem,” he answers, trying not to blush at Levi looking at him like that.
“How did you keep him distracted?” Levi asks after a moment of just staring into Eren’s eyes like they’re in a fucking Disney movie. Eren blanks for a moment, trying to come up with a suitable answer that also does not divulge what he did to Levi.
He’ll never live it down.
“Oh, you know,” Eren stammers. “Dazzled him. With my wits and charm?” Eren tries not to laugh and instead falls into another story about the two-story mansion of a yacht they pass.
“So what’s your excuse?” Levi asks after a while. They’d been walking in silence then, having passed by all the boats in the marina and now they’re just walking by all the restaurants. They’re closed, of course, seeing as it’s the middle of they day, but some of them look on the verge of opening.
“Excuse for what?”
“For acting the way we do.”
We. Levi said the way we do, as if he and Eren are the same. As if they have many things in common, as if it’s normal for them to drift toward one another and not just one random day in Eren’s life. It’s strange, Eren thinks, these moments with Levi. They feel unreal and almost stolen after so much time of pining watching him from afar. Eren sighs and tries to think of an appropriate response that both answers the question but still not at all.
“I don’t like to do what people expect.” And Levi looks at Eren and Eren falls deeper than he could have ever imagined because Levi is so kind. Kinder tha he had expected and he’d never thought he’d be here in this moment with Levi, but yet, here he is. So he elaborates. “Why should I live up to other people’s expectations instead of my own?” Eren continues, nevermind the fact that his own expectations for himself are usually much, much higher than other people’s.
But he doesn’t say that. No, he just looks down and doesn’t see the absolute heartbroken look Levi gives him. As if Levi could read his mind just then.
“So,” Levi says, letting his fingers touch Eren’s as they walk and Eren can’t figure out if it’s deliberate or not. He hopes it is. “You’re disappointed from the start and then you’re covered, right?” Levi talks as if he’s inside Eren’s mind, as if he knows exactly what Eren’s thinking. It’s scary but not all that unwelcome.
It’s almost… Nice, that someone seems to know how Eren feels without him having to explain it.
“Something like that,” Eren murmurs, trying to get all these confusing feelings out of his head and heart. Trying to make sense of Levi’s words and actions.
Levi takes his hand and Eren’s heart beats into a frenzy. “Well, then you kind of screwed up, sorry to say.”
“And why is that?” Eren manages to ask. He’s in awe that his voice comes out even because he’s pretty sure he’s having a mini heart-attack right about now.
“You never disappointed me.”
Eren lets it slide that they’re not talking about Levi’s disappointment but Eren’s own because in the next second Levi looks at him with such a warm look that he can barely speak. Then Levi smiles wickedly (and God Eren almost forgot how hot Levi was) and asks, “Are you up for it?”
“Up for what?” Eren asks with a slight tentative note in his voice. He can’t pinpoint what Levi’s looking at.
“That.” Levi says and points.