Inspired by the song 'Face Down' by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
Jean is a dick in this fic, but I like him OK, don't let this confuse you.
I hope you enjoy!
~~~KMD~~~
The world outside Levi's small apartment was dark and gloomy. Grey clouds filled the sky, rain pelted any one and anything that dared go outside, and strong gusts of wind turned umbrellas inside out before carrying them away. Levi watched the chaos from his window seat, wrapped in a thick blanket, a mug of coffee held tightly in his hands.
Despite the unappealing weather, Levi still felt the urge to go outside, but rain was disgusting, so he fought the urge and waited in the comfort of his apartment until the rain finally slowed to a stop. He put on his coat and shoes, grabbed his keys and then left. He didn't pay attention to the direction he was walking and ended up at a small park not far from his apartment.
There were deep puddles everywhere and Levi tried to avoid walking close to the ones on the road, just in case a car came by and splashed filthy rain water all over him. He managed to make it to the park without having an unexpected shower and found that the lake in the middle of the park was practically overflowing, the ducks didn't seem to mind though, quacking happily and paddling around in the deep water.
Levi walked around the park for a bit and managed to find a bench that wasn't completely soaked with rainwater, it was under a tree and provided a nice view of the lake and the bridge that crossed it. He didn't expect any one to be out so soon after the storm, so he was surprised to see a couple walking along on the other side of the lake.
They looked happy together, hands joined, laughing at something the taller one had said. Levi thought he looked weird, he had a long face and two-toned hair in an undercut style, he reminded Levi of some sort of horse or donkey.
The shorter of the two turned his head and locked eyes with Levi, he smiled and raised a hand to wave slightly, mouthing the word, 'hello'. He looked a lot better than the other man, he had dark brown hair, tanned skin and eyes the colour of the ocean.
Levi just nodded a hello and raised a hand, he could see the way the man's smile never reached his eyes. He could see the way he was just begging for help while trying to look happy, and that's when the other man turned and frowned.
Horse face growled something to the brown-haired man and he quickly shook his head, standing on his toes to kiss the horse's cheek. But the horse faced man didn't seem satisfied and threaded a hand through the shorter man's hair, tugging on it harshly. "You are such a whore, Eren!" Levi heard him growl, "Am I not good enough for you? Is that it? I'm not good enough so you have to go and flirt with every other man that you see?"
The shorter man, Eren, tried to shake his head again, but the hand gripping his hair tightly restricted movement and he began to frantically grab at the man's wrist. "Jean, you're hurting me." He said weakly.
"Then tell me what the hell you were doing!" Horse face hissed, tugging again.
"I-I just wanted to say hello! He looked lonely so I thought that would make him happy!" Eren said hurriedly, "Please, Jean, let go!"
"You fucking slut." Jean shouted, throwing the other man to the floor.
Usually, Levi wasn't one to interfere with other people's personal lives, but just this once Levi felt that it was necessary, he couldn't just continue to sit on that bench and pretend that the argument on the other side of the lake wasn't happening. He quickly fished his phone out of his coat pocket and stood from the bench, "Oi, horse face!" He called, "Leave him the fuck alone and get your ass out of here before I call the police."
The horse face looked up and narrowed his eyes at Levi, before letting out a loud laugh, which sounded more like a neigh, "You're bluffing, you midget."
Levi felt his eyebrow twitch at that, but managed to stay relatively calm and didn't let his annoyance at the name show, "Suit yourself." He shrugged and lifted his phone, moving his thumb around the touch screen to make it look like he was typing, when really he was just looking at pictures of horses and comparing them to the man across the lake. Then he lifted the phone to his ear and the other man took of running with a couple of curse words.
Levi would have laughed, but then he remembered the other man who was now sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, face hidden in them and arms wrapped tightly around his legs. The shorter man shoved his phone back into his pocket, rushed across the bridge and knelt down next to Eren, despite every cell in his body screaming at him not to touch the wet and dirty ground.
He placed a hand on Eren's shoulder and the taller man flinched, lifting his head to look at Levi. "Hey, it's alright, that ugly horse face is gone now."
Eren flung himself at Levi, wrapping his arms tightly around the other man's neck and burying his face into his shoulder. "I-I'm sorry for causing you trouble!" Eren cried, "Jean's never done that in public before!"
For some reason, that little fact about Eren's supposed boyfriend pissed him off, "What the hell, brat? It wasn't trouble at all and don't apologise for that guy being a complete dick." Levi said, using this opportunity to check Eren's head where his hair had been pulled. His head looked a little red and it was probably going to be quite sore for a while, but there was no serious injuries. "Can you stand?"
Eren nodded into his shoulder and stood with the help of Levi, but he kept his knees slightly bent, even then he was still taller than Levi. "I'm Eren, by the way."
"I heard, I'm Levi." Levi said, reaching a hand up to wipe away the tears that were still falling from the brown-haired man's eyes, and then Levi noticed the way Eren kept his knees bent and rested most of his weight on the shorter man. "Can you straighten your legs."
"Uh..." Eren lifted a leg and slowly straightened it, he hissed and quickly bent it again, "No."
Levi sighed and wrapped one arm around Eren's shoulder and the other behind his knees and then lifted Eren up, causing Eren to cry out in surprise and grip onto Levi's coat tightly.
"H-hey! How are you able to do that?" Eren asked, looking down at the ground and then at Levi's face.
"Able to do what, brat?"
"How are you able to pick me up so easily? I mean, you're so sma-", Eren immediately shut up at Levi's piercing glare, a moment of silence passed and then he tried to hurriedly explain himself, "No! That's not what I meant! I didn't mean that you're weak, 'cause your small, I- Please don't kill me, Levi!"
Levi continued to glare at Eren as he stepped up to the edge of the lake, holding Eren over it, "I'm sure the ducks wouldn't mind some company, would you like to join them, Eren?"
He tried not to let his amusement show when the taller man's eyes widened and he started flailing about, trying to get out of Levi's arms, but quickly realised that if Levi let him go, then he would fall in the lake, and instead tried to push Levi over or get him to turn around, "You wouldn't! I'll freeze to death!"
Levi turned away from the lake when Eren almost kicked him in the side of the face, "All right, calm down, holy shit, or I'll actually drop you and you'll get even more injuries."
Eren stopped, "Oh, sorry." He wrapped his arms around Levi's neck and buried his face into his shoulder again.
It took Levi a little longer to get home, due to the added weight of Eren, but he managed to get to the building and climb the five flights of stairs - Eren was scared of elevators and clung to the door when Levi tried to pull him inside - without to much trouble. When he got to his front door, he set Eren down gently and grabbed his keys, unlocked the door and then carried Eren into the apartment and set him down on the sofa.
"I could have done that myself, it wouldn't have killed me to walk the few feet from the door to here." Eren pouted as he took off his coat.
"No, you couldn't have." Levi took his coat and hung it up with his own on a coat rack near the front door, then locked the front door and threw his keys onto the coffee table that was in front of the sofa. "Roll up your trousers and try not to get blood on anything." The shorter man said as he went to get his first aid kit.
Eren just nodded and did as told, rolling up the legs of his jeans and hissing when the drying blood made the material stick to his knees.
Levi came back a few minutes later with the first aid kit. He knelt down on the floor at Eren's feet and began to clean the drying blood from Eren's knees, causing the man to hiss again at the stinging and keep trying to pull his legs away. "Damn it, keep your legs still!" Levi growled, grabbing a hold of Eren's ankles with one hand and pinning them down.
"I'm not doing it on purpose!" Eren crossed furrowed his brows and crossed his arms, before his phone started going off in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that he had a text from Jean, and then another and another, and the texts just kept coming.
Eren could feel tears in his eyes as he read through the texts from his boyfriend, how could he say such things?
Levi noticed the shift in Eren's mood and stopped cleaning Eren's knees, he looked up and saw the tears spilling from Eren's eyes, "Hey, what's wrong?"
The taller man held up his phone with a trembling hand, Levi took it immediately and began reading through the texts. All of them were from Jean, all of them calling Eren a filthy slut or a worthless whore, or some other disgusting name or insult, and the shorter man's own hands started shaking at the anger he was feeling. How could that horse face even think to call himself Eren's boyfriend? Levi deleted all of the texts and blocked Jean's number before he could send anymore.
"How the fuck did you even end up with that abusive son of a bitch?" Levi hissed as he bandaged Eren's knees.
"H-he used to be so n-nice... he s-said he loved me everyday... a-and he always bought me anything I-I asked for... I-I don't know what happened, Levi...!" Eren sobbed, bringing his hands up to his face to rub at his eyes, "He j-just started getting r-really aggressive... b-but it was a gradual change, s-so I never really noticed until he a-actually s-started hitting me, but he always apologised after and s-said he loved me... and I always forgave him and t-told m-myself that it'd never h-happen again..." He stopped, rubbing his eyes to grab and pull at his hair, "Mikasa, m-my sister, suspected that something was going on, but I w-was really good at covering the bruises and I stayed with Jean, b-because I still loved him despite everything..."
Levi lifted his hands and gently pulled Eren's own hands away from his hair, and the pulled the trembling man into a tight hug, "That guy makes me fucking sick."
"I-I'm so stupid Levi...! I s-should have seen this coming!" Eren cried, gripping the back of Levi's shirt tightly and burying his face into Levi's chest, soaking his shirt with salty tears.
"No, Eren, you're not stupid, don't blame this all on yourself." Levi growled, rubbing Eren's back gently.
How could Eren be blaming himself for this whole situation? He did nothing wrong, it was all that horse face's fault, that man was a sick bastard and Levi decided that he definitely needed some sort of professional help.
When Eren had managed to calm down, Levi stood and stretched, "Where do you live, kid? I have a car, so you won't have to walk."
Eren fidgeted on the sofa not making eye contact with Levi, "Ah... I- um... I... I live with, uh... Jean... I live with, Jean..."
"Are you serious?" Levi sighed, "I guess you're staying in the guest room then, call your sister and tell her to pick up your stuff."
"W-wait, Levi! I can stay with my sister, or some other friend of mine! I don't want to be a burden..." Eren stuttered out quickly, standing up as well, but falling back to the sofa when pain shot through his legs.
"It's fine, I wouldn't have said that you could stay if it was going to be a problem, I think I'd prefer to keep an eye on you for a few days anyway, to make sure you stay off your legs and let them heal properly, and just in case that fucking psycho does anything when I'm not around to stop him." He said, glaring at Eren for trying to stand with his injuries.
"Oh, OK, but I don't think Mikasa will be too happy with me staying with a stranger." Eren said quietly.
"We'll figure something out."
~~~KMD~~~
Eren called Mikasa and explained the whole situation to her, and, of course, she wasn't too happy with the news, and insisted on meeting Levi. Though she was mostly pissed off at Jean and promised she'd beat the shit out of him when she went to pick up Eren's stuff. Eren had tried to talk her out of it, but she wasn't changing her mind, so in the end, Eren just told her Levi's address and Mikasa said she'd be there in a few hours with Eren's things.
True to her word, Mikasa arrived at Levi's apartment three hours later with a duffel bag, two suitcases, and various other small bags filled with Eren's smaller possessions. She placed the bags and suitcases in Eren's new room, and then Levi made them all coffee and they sat on the sofa to began talking, while Eren tried to ignore the small spots of red on Mikasa's tank top.
Surprisingly, Mikasa actually took a liking to Levi and thanked him for helping Eren and giving him place to stay, though she told Levi that she didn't fully trust him, and that she would be checking in every few days to make sure Eren was OK. Mikasa stayed for another few hours, and she and Eren got to know Levi a lot better, then before she left, she helped Eren to unpack his things and find a place for everything in his room.
Levi forced Eren to stay in bed until his knees had fully healed, even when he protested that they were only small scrapes and didn't even hurt that much. Kids got scrapes all the time and weren't forced to stay in bed, God damn it! Levi ignored him just like Mikasa had before, but eventually after a few long days, Eren was able to explore the apartment where he was know living.
A month passed before Eren realised that he had never thanked Levi properly for helping him, so he waited patiently until Levi had gotten back from the grocery store, and then greeted him at the door. He grabbed some of the bags for Levi and helped him to put everything away, when they were done he hesitantly tapped Levi on the shoulder, "Um, I... I never thanked you for what you did, so... thank you for everything, Levi." The taller man said, smiling brightly.
"You're welcome brat." Levi smiled back softly and added, "But promise me something..."
"Yes?" Eren asked, furrowing his brows.
"Promise that you won't just rush into any future relationships, if you do decide to try dating again, make sure you really, really, really get to know the guy first, and make sure Mikasa and I approve of him too."
"Alright, dad."
"Seriously."
"I promise, Levi."
"Good, that's what I wanted to hear."
~~~KMD~~~
Guys, I couldn't think of a title that I liked, so suggestions would be absolutely amazing!
And I have a lot of Ereri plot bunnies that have been in my head for like, two months or more, and I wanna try and get most of them written out before school starts up again (The 2nd of September)
I might continue this, but for now, it's only a oneshot.
This also on DeviantART under the name 'Chaosangel1111' and ArchiveOfOurOwn under the name 'ChaosAngel1111'