Hello all! This will be the first of many stories posted on this refurbished account.
Please be advised that there is mention of sexual content in this piece, and if that's not your cup of tea, then it might be best not to read further.
With that said, please enjoy, and leave a review if you so please!
LadySoup97
"So, choose for yourself, the decision you will regret the least."
Captain Levi Ackermann, Survey Corps
It was strange, indeed, how one simple quote could withhold the future of so much, yet not predict a single outcome at all. Then again, it wasn't supposed to, was it? Those words were not meant to comfort, or to apply any sort of certainty. It was merely a guideline, a bar that you could hold on to so the maddening emotions of grief and regret wouldn't drive you insane. The Survey Corps watched their comrades die every day, after all…. And their jobs were a never-ending conundrum of choices. This, or that. Here, or there. To kill the Titan, or leave it be? The goal was always the same, to circumvent tragedy in whatever way possible. Yet, somehow, either choice could yield very different results from the other.
That very idea was the one maddening aspect about that breath of wisdom. No matter what you chose, and no matter what the outcome was, you had to move on in the certainty of the decision you had made… even if it attempted to eat you alive.
Such decisions should, naturally, be left in the hands of able-minded adults, right? After all, the human brain and it's prefrontal cortex don't finish developing until the age of 25. How then, could the kingdom's government ever expect a group of traumatized teenagers to ever be able to make the same decisions? Need would have it, though, that the never-ending cycle of death would pull these teens, still practically children, into the arms of death, swordplay, and 3D-maneuver gear. Coupled with a fifty-percent chance of certain death on the first scouting mission, any hope for sanity was dismal at best, but those words… those words were something that they all held on to, but none so much as Eren Jaeger.
The blood was always hard to forget, always staining his memories like mead on a white table-cloth. Even in titan-form, with the absence of retention in memory, he could still remember it. It was always a blur, but even then, there was always this subconscious element of choice. Even if that choice followed the path of carnage, it was still a path, and a decision made. The teen became all too aware of this that day in the forest, as a titan-form Annie chased them as they rode away on horseback. Even though Levi had been his superior, his leader, in the end, he was given his own power in deciding how to handle the approaching enemy, even if his choice had ended up in the death of squad Levi. That sobering truth, though learned the hard way, was proof that no choice was certain.
There was no "right path". There was no "right to life". There was either a "do" or a "don't", and a promise to yourself to not let the consequences devour what bit of humanity you had left.
Eren's admiration of the Captain only increased after that, especially after seeing the lengths to which the Captain would go to ensure the safety of his comrades. In a way, too, it seemed the Captain had taken the boy under his wing. A quiet companionship seemed to grow, although sometimes that quiet was forced. Eren was perpetually loud, after all, and it took some rather physical convincing every now and again to remind him that tea-time was meant to be quiet (AKA, a sharp kick underneath the table against a certain unsuspecting teen's shin). This wasn't to say small-talk was out of the question, but this was usually reserved for when Levi had a little too much to drink and was feeling a little more personable (however, Levi's definition of personable was more or less a soft smile and a gentle nod while Eren raved and rambled about Jean's latest stupid escapade). After a while, they relaxed into an easy friendship, one that was noted by superiors and comrades alike. Most would comment on how strange it was to see Levi relax so much around someone so much younger, especially around one that was more or less his polar opposite. His body language was always different, more open, no crossed legs or arms, just an easy holding of his tea cup while his shoulders slumped a bit. Yet, the minute someone would intrude on that space, it would change back to his normal, closed-off posture, coupled with that perpetually pissed off "I'm not impressed with you" facial expression. Had it not been Levi, such a change in demeanor would have been insulting.
This relaxed-ness transcended past the walls of public viewing, however. Behind closed doors, an even further façade was pulled away. In the midst of their closeness, the boundaries of friendship had blossomed into something far different, and something far more intimate. It had all begun, too, over a nightmare, and a sobbing Eren that had woken up crying for his mother all over again as Levi tried, in vain, to shake him from his grief.
Perhaps Levi had looked into Eren's eyes and saw himself that night Perhaps, he'd seen the eyes of the sister he couldn't protect. In the end, in didn't matter. Somehow, in the gap between grief and understanding, their lips had brushed, and with it brought the beginning of a new, soul-bound connection. In tragedy, they found comprehension, and in anger, they found clarity. Later on, after several "accidental" brushes of skin, or a hand on a thigh, or the hushed brushes of lips in shadowed hallways, came the shedding of clothes, the sound of muffled moans, and memories of waking up and looking in the mirror only to be reminded of the love notes left on their pale skin, and the soreness that love-making had wrought them from the night before. After they had dressed and left for their duties for the day, there would be no shortage of heated glances, and even more heated cheeks as they waited for night to fall again, where they could rip off the linens of duty and just… be.
These late night escapades would transcend into forlorn conversations about grief and sorrow, and of joy and joking. Levi would tell of his escapades as a young thug in the underground, and Eren would aptly listen, captivated by Levi's many victorious escapades and escapes from the military police. Before long, he told of the young girl that he'd considered a sister, and a friend that had been nothing short of a true brother, even though that particular story had ended with Eren trying his hardest to keep the most solid man he'd ever met from falling apart. Eren, in turn, would tell him of his mother and father, of Mikasa and Armin, and of their childhood adventures in the streets of Shiganshina. He spoke of how often Armin had been bullied, and how he, heroically, would save him (though Levi knew this wasn't the case, and it was probably Mikasa that had done all the saving). However, as he delved in to the memories of his mother, Levi could only watch as this brave solider of a teen turned back into a boy, and all Levi could offer him was a tight embrace of protection, and the promise of revenge. Those were the nights that they really connected, and that they realized, now, where their stories had had met in the middle, and that they now were writing these chapters, not alone, but together. In turn, the choices they made were now made as one.
On both hands, Eren could count the number of times he'd made a mistake. It was either an error of judgement, an error of attitude, or… an error of choice. He was prone to making decisions on emotion, rather than rationality, and more often than not this got him in trouble. However, there was one choice, one above them all, that he knew he'd made correctly. In trusting Levi, mind, body, and soul, he felt he'd gained a part of humanity back, and out of all the consequences he'd faced, a choice to bond to Levi had not been in vain.
It was a choice, he knew, he would never regret.