"Eren?"
He knows it the second that the glazed look comes into the boys' eyes. A look beyond the usual dumbfuck, shifter haze of confusion that he is used to seeing during these type of training sessions.
"Oi! Eren!"
The boy falls limp in his arms before Levi even realizes that he ran to catch him. Levi's hand brushes over Eren's pale face, trying to rouse him. It's molten hot and bathed in a sheen of sweat. He retracts his hand quickly, like he's touched a stove—a dirty stove still hot from cooking supper.
"Hanji!"
She comes scampering over only a second after Levi's gruff call. "Waaah~! Eren!" She wails, reaching through Levi's arms to cradle the boy herself. "What did you do to him?" she moans accusingly.
"Tch. Go inside and set up a bed for him."
Soon, Eren is draped lazily in Levi's arms—completely unresponsive—being carried back into the Survey Corp HQ. He's almost literally burning up. Levi isn't sure if it's his imagination or if the boy is actually steaming. It seems likely considering his abilities.
"Hurry, hurry, on the bed!" Hanji is saying, scuttling about like an anxious squirrel. Her favorite science experiment is malfunctioning, Levi thinks cynically, no wonder she's having a heart attack.
He's not worried. No, not at all. Well…not as much as Hanji anyway. His face shows no sign of whatever tiny amount of worry that he may or may not be feeling as he tucks Eren's near-lifeless body into the bed that Hanji has prepared.
Eren groans a bit as Levi positions him neatly in the bed, repositioning his arms to lay neatly against his sides. "Lazy brat," he mutters, making sure to say it loud enough so that Hanji will overhear. "This is not the way to get out of training."
"What's wrong with him?" Hanji asks, quickly flicking a glance in Levi's direction before starting on Eren's vitals.
"I don't know; you tell me."
Her look of concern quickly turns into one of confusion. "His vitals are all normal…" she shakes her head and takes a step away from the bed, bringing a hand to her chin. "Hmm. Very interesting. Really very interesting! Seems like he got completely worn out and just…fell asleep."
"Makes sense," Levi says, leaning back on the wall near the bed. They had been training all day, after all.
"In which case…" she goes on, not listening. "…this is a great chance to study how long it takes for him to 'recharge!' Excellent job, Levi!" She gives him an excited little shake that he hates and rushes out of the room in search of paper to document this, crying, "Keep an eye on him!" over her shoulder as she leaves.
With Hanji gone, the atmosphere in the little bedroom is entirely changed. The apathetic look doesn't leave Levi's face, but his jaw softens as he peels himself off of the wall and moves to sit on the edge of the bed. It dips slightly under his weight but Eren doesn't stir this time.
"Just fell asleep, huh?" he sneers softly, "You're some shitty excuse for a soldier."
He watches Eren's face. Just a boy. Always a boy. Always for as long as Levi can remember, Eren has looked just the same. Except for when he's a Titan. Now that's different. That was something that Levi hadn't expected—so much so that Levi wasn't sure that it was the Eren he knew for the first few days. But when that pang of realization hit home, Levi almost lost his steely resolve.
It was in the court house after Eren's tooth was already out and scattering across the floor. Something in the way that Eren had looked at him made it impossible not to remember. The Eren kneeling on the floor in front of him taking the full brunt of his kicks was the same Eren who had held him close in the cave back in the Underground. The same Eren who had sent him off to Kenny Ackerman. The same Eren who—
"Uunnhg….wait, wait…"
Levi perks up at the sound of Eren's sleepy groaning. He sits still, watching intently, waiting to see if the boy will say anything else. Eren's brow is creased in a worried look, his expression twitching slightly.
Is he dreaming? Levi wonders. It is even possible to dream when you're so tired that you faint like that?
Hanji comes barreling back into the room before Levi can tell one way or another. Erwin's voice follows close behind her in the hall way. "Fainted?"
"Yes, just completely wiped out. Levi's been pushing him and pushing him all day long—who knew we'd get such a great result!" They file inside of the small bedroom, Hanji smiling brightly and Erwin looking terse as ever.
"Levi, what do you make of this?" he asks. Levi shrugs and gets off of the bed as nonchalantly as possible.
"I'd like to monitor this very closely," Hanji goes on. "If I can set up some monitors, perhaps we can—"
"We'll just leave someone in here until he wakes up," Erwin says. "We can take turns."
"But—"
"Any change in his condition would be reported to you immediately, of course," Erwin concluded. Hanji gives a feathery sigh.
"Oh fine. I get first watch."
Levi can't help it. He shoots Erwin a look of displeasure before he even knows what he's doing. But in the split second it takes Levi to get his face back to normal, Erwin has already raised an eyebrow in recognition.
When they're walking down the hall side by side, Hanji left behind in the room with Eren, Erwin is saying, "What's wrong, Levi?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"I saw that look."
"Tch." Levi pinches up his lips in annoyance.
"Well?"
Prompted, he feels that he has to say something. If it were someone else he wouldn't give in, but this is Erwin and Erwin deserves at least a half-truth in response. It's better than nothing. "Can we even trust Hanji to let him rest?"
Erwin chuckles—very much not the reaction that Levi was hoping for. "I doubt that she could wake him if she tried. He seemed completely out of it. What did you do to him, Levi?"
"Nothing," he grits, frustrated. He would never say it out loud, but he doesn't want Hanji in there with Eren because he wants to be there instead.
"You switch with her in two hours—if he's still asleep by then," Erwin says, pausing at the corner where they will separate. "Let me know if there are any changes, alright?"
Levi consents with a stubborn little nod and they part ways.
Three hours later, Levi is getting bored on the edge of Eren's bed. The brunette has been lying still for the past hour—and apparently for all of Hanji's two hours as well.
"He must be beyond exhausted," she had said on her way out. "He's like a corpse aside from his normal heartbeat and breathing. I really doubt that he'll wake up any time soon."
Now, Levi is starting to question why he was anxious to be sitting here in the first place. "Tch, Eren, what's the meaning of this? Making everyone hover over you." He shakes his head like he's reprimanding an awake version of the boy. He even watches Eren's face for a response but nothing comes.
Levi sighs. He's uncomfortable so he brings his legs up onto the bed, sitting cross-legged. The blankets bunch up underneath him so he tries to smooth them back into place.
"Plea—"
It's such a soft little moan that Levi barely hears it, but his head pops up just in time to see the anxious expression has consumed Eren's sleepy face once again.
"Sah please…."
He thinks his heart has stopped. Everything's cold. It's too familiar, like a flash of lightning, shocking as Eren's transformations, licking through him.
"Please sir, spare some money? I'm starving, sir, please. Some money? Just one coin. I'll bless you forever…." It's Eren's voice in his memory, back in the alleyway when they stole the food years and years and years ago. Levi's eyes bore into the boy, horrified.
No. That's impossible.
But then again….Levi feels his heart start to chug faster as the confusion of the past few weeks threatens to overwhelm him.
They'd met by Wall Rose, Eren unconscious in the arms of a girl, Levi coming down from above to save their lives. They'd been strangers in the jail cell, before Levi had made the connection that this Eren was his—his from all of his life. But when Levi knew it, Eren had showed no signs of remembrance. Frustration had been Levi's only friend for the past few weeks as he hovered over Eren, helping him train, yes, but all the while searching for any sign that the boy knew who they were in connection to one another.
But now…now Eren was mumbling things in his sleep that hadn't been said since Levi was a child. Could it be possible that the boy was just now meeting Levi in the Underground? Now, so many years later?
The thought makes Levi nauseous.
"Eren," he snaps, hoping to wake the boy. It couldn't be. He was wrong, he was wrong about all of it. He had to be. The Eren he knew should be an adult by now. They'd done things…seen things…far too much of Levi's past and secrets had been revealed to him.
If that Eren—that Eren who knew more about him than anyone else in the world—was here, now, a child….Levi didn't know what he would do.
I'll have to kill him, he thinks, watching the boy sleep entirely differently now—like watching a target. Yes, he'll have to kill him. Because if Eren were to wake up with that big mouth of his flapping about Levi and about things that no one was allowed to ever, ever know….
Or worse: If Eren were to wake up with a look of disgust and pity in his eyes, all of it directed at his senior officer who he had worshipped only hours before….
Well, if that were to happen, Levi didn't know what he would do.
It's not until the second day of Eren's sleep when Levi is dripping water from the tip of his index finger past the boy's lips that he finally comes to accept the existence of time travel. Somehow someway Eren is in the past with his younger self even as he sits here on the bed in the Survey Corp HQ.
It's crazy. Far too crazy for him to accept for awhile, but it does make sense. After all, Eren has been the same for as long as Levi has known him. Always 15 years old and dorky looking. Always fumbling around Levi like he's nervous, trying and failing to not call him 'Heichou.'
Sitting on the bed, Levi can partially follow the journey that Eren is going on. Sometimes the boy will mutter something that sends Levi spiraling into a flashback, as if he's out of body watching his younger self interact with the boy. It's a terrible experience. Terrible because he has come to expect that it will soon end and that means Eren will wake up with that look in his eyes that Levi dreads.
And then Levi will have to kill him.
It shouldn't be hard. He can make it seem like Eren shifted without permission and tried to hurt him.
The boy's soft giggles catch Levi's attention, now. He must be back in the cave, watching Levi experiment with the 3DMG for the first time.
Dumb brat, Levi thinks, feeling a bit bitter that the boy finds his younger self so precious. He's a corporal in the Survey Corp for god's sake. He can't have cadets finding him adorable. At least—not out loud. He hopes that Eren isn't this noisy in his sleep when Hanji is keeping watch.
A bead of water drips out of Eren's mouth due to the giggling and Levi frowns. So messy. He dips his finger into the cup again and gently presses a new drip into the boy's mouth.
Erwin comes into the room that evening. He sits on the bed opposite of Levi.
"So? What do you think?"
What does he think? He thinks it getting dangerously close to the memory of Eren turning him over to Kenny—something that he does not want to sit through and remember again. But that's not the kind of answer that Erwin is looking for.
"Hanji thinks he should come out of it soon," he said tonelessly. "He's been more active in his sleep." Active is an understatement really. His mutterings are becoming increasingly intelligible and Levi is terrified that someone will be able to decipher them other than himself. Not only that, but Eren has been thrashing around in bed more as well, clearly growing more and more agitated as things go wrong in the past.
When Levi looks up again, he finds Erwin's ever stoic expression staring back at him under the set of blonde eyebrows. "I know what Hanji thinks. What do you think?" Levi says nothing, turning back to gaze upon Eren's writhing form. "Do you think you were too hard on him?" Erwin prompts, clearly expecting an answer.
"No, I don't," he replies, stubborn but sure. "A little adversity is good for young people. It makes us who we are." He doesn't know if he's talking about Eren or himself, he just says it.
"Well," says Erwin thoughtfully, his breathing very steady, like a well maintained clock. "I guess you would know about that, if anyone would."
Levi ignores the pointed comment. Erwin knows more about him than most people, but not nearly as much as Eren will know when he wakes up. "We aren't who we are without our trials," he says, pushing the disconcerting thoughts away.
But he knows that he can't push it away for long. He can tell from the way that Eren's body has tensed up in anguish that things are coming to a head.
Eren wakes up on the morning of the third day. Hanji comes running in, shouting excitedly, waving her hands, asking him a million questions before the poor boy has hardly even opened his eyes.
"Ha—Hanji san…" are his first words. Nothing about Levi. Not the gasping, horrified, "Heichou?!" that Levi is expecting. He can't take any chances though. Levi does his best to shoo everyone else out of the room. It takes awhile, but eventually Hanji is gone and the door is closed, leaving him alone on the bed with Eren.
There is a long, long silence. Much longer than Levi has ever heard Eren be quiet for, so he knows that there's something serious on his mind. What is it? What is he thinking? Things about him? He won't look at me, Levi thinks. I should make him. I can make him. I'm his superior officer. He thinks. But he won't. He waits and he waits, his heart puttering like the child he knows Eren has been with for the past three days. Foolish. Stupid. Insecure.
He can't help it.
Eren knows too many things now.
So he doesn't do anything, he just waits for Eren to look to him because he knows that he will…eventually. And when he finally casts a sidelong glance at him, Eren's eyes are wide.
"How are you feeling?" Levi manages to get out without sounding as unnerved as he actually is.
Eren gives a shaky little sigh. "Not too well, Heichou."
"Mmm. I was wondering when you would go back," Levi says softly. "I didn't expect it to be during shifting practice." He fights down the urge to swallow the saliva that is pooling in his mouth. He's afraid it'll sound like a gulp.
He's already seen me weak. Too weak. I can't show that to him again now. I have to put on a good face. Yes that's right. After all, he still hasn't decided whether he's going to have to kill the boy or not.
Eren raises large green eyes to meet Levi's. Can he see through the hardened exterior expression now that he knows so much? Don't keep waiting for him to do things, Levi scolds himself, you're in charge here. He forces himself to talk.
"When I joined the Corp…and I lost Farlan and Isabel…that's when I remembered about you, Eren. I knew that you'd come but honestly I was expecting a stupid, over enthusiastic recruit shitting his pants after one of Erwin's speeches, not a Titan. Even though your name was Eren, the fact that you were a shifter kept me from suspecting that you were my Eren."
Why is it coming out so much weaker than he had planned?
Too late. "It was in the court room, when I finally got a good look at you in the light," he goes on without control, shaking his head slightly, "there was just no denying it. And then later on, the first time that you said it."
"Said what?"
"Levi Heichou." Dammit all. Damn Eren. "When you said it a few weeks ago—that's when I knew, Eren. So many people call me that but it's never the same as you."
"So you remembered for once and I didn't…" Eren's mutter catches Levi off guard but he refuses to let it show on his face this time.
All of a sudden Eren droops his head down into Levi's lap. His eyebrows pop up in surprise, but before he can question it, the boy asks, "Is that why you were always staring at me, Heichou? Trying to see if I remembered you?"
"Tch." He doesn't have words. His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. He can't do anything but brush a stray strand of hair out of the boy's eyes. Finally his mouth works again, scratchy and hoarse, "That's right, brat. On top of making sure you didn't fuck anything up, I was waiting, wondering when that dumbfuck look of worship for me would finally go away."
Eren's eyes pop open again, slightly disturbed. "What? Why would it go away?"
Why? There's a million reasons why. Levi makes a frustrated face and then closes his eyes because Eren is beneath him, staring up at him too innocently to be real. I know what you've seen. I know what you know. Don't you look at me like that. Don't you dare mock me…
He wants to push Eren away just as much as he wants to hold him close. He doesn't know anything anymore.
And then the boy is getting up, shifting the blankets around in that messy, childish way. When his arms come—warm and sure—clasping around Levi's neck, the corporal has to actively choke down a sob.
"Well…I hope it doesn't annoy you too much, Heichou, because that look is never going to go away," "I'm glad I could go back and be with you when you needed someone. I don't care about anything else, Levi. Just that I'm your soldier and you're my hero."
He wonders somewhere in the back of his mind as his arms find their way around Eren's waist, how he could ever have considered killing him.
