Disclaimer: Shingeki no Kyojin © Hajime Isayama
Warning: yaoi, explicit contents, character death.
A/N: I read a very heartwrenching Axis Powers Hetalia fanfiction a long time ago and the story kind of stuck in my head since, so I decided to write my own fic based on it. This fanfiction is dedicated for Aphin123 RiRen Fanfiction Challenge 2013.
The door to the pitch black room creaked open and a man stepped inside. Small lantern in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other. The feeble flickering light illuminated what little furniture hiding behind the veil of darkness, their shadow filling the wall like awkward, lanky limbs.
Wooden chair tucked to the matching table.
Oak wood wardrobe next to the wall.
A single bed in the corner of the room.
The man staggered towards the bed and sat down with a sigh. Putting the lantern on the floor, taking long generous gulps off his bottle. He counted when one became two became three became four, until his mouth burned and his throat choked and he coughed, splattering liquids and spit to the neat white sheets beneath.
It was Eren's favorite beer he drank.
It was Eren's literal deathbed he sat on.
The humble green-bottled beer was from a small village of Shingansina survivors. He had always preferred the brand, the very same brand his father used to drink. It reminded him of simpler times, he had told him more than once.
Levi brought the bottle and took another gulp yet again. When he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine himself sitting side by side with his lover, be it on the porch of some random lodge, on the edge of the towering Wall, or in the vast clearing with the boundless sky above. Levi couldn't remember how many times he had spent listening to Eren rant about his past (how his mother used to cook, how Ackerman got the job to put the beer in a big glass Eren always curious about) while drinking the same grain-based liquor.
The beer left a bitter taste in his tongue, a sour reminder that there were a lot of things missing, a lot of things that he had lost and will never get back. It's hard to believe that he was sitting there in one of military clinic's room and not outside doing night patrol with Eren; their horses running in mirrored motions, their cape billowing in the nighttime wind. Like a cat's eyes Eren's green irises always shone more brightly in the dark, and the possessive side of him liked the feeling of being the only witness of the sight.
There would be no glittering emeralds, shining brighter than the stars.
There would be no eager talk about banishing all the titans, and someone to scold on for being too reckless.
There would be no Eren.
"This thing tasted like shit. Must've gotten stale or something," Levi muttered, a lame excuse to put the bottle away but he tried to believe it anyway.
He fell back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He noticed the criss-crossing cracks on the surface and wondered in grotesque interest if Eren observed them in his last days like did now, and did he try to make some nonexistent pattern out of it? Or did his sight have deteriorated so badly that he couldn't even see the worried faces hovering above him? The thought upset him somehow, so he grabbed the pillow under his head and pushed his face into it, trying to distinguish the image of dying Eren out of his brain. He concentrated on inhaling the fabric instead, and for a second he was sure he could smell Eren's hair scent, a mixture of sweet-scented sweat and the heat of summer sun; but then he remembered the nurses had changed the sheets and it was all gone like a puff of breath in the air.
Levi had always thought, being a "normal" human in the midst of the heated war, that if one out of the two of them was going to die, it would be him. They had talked endlessly about the chances of him being killed in a mission, and everytime he had always made the reluctant Eren to promise to keep moving forward. Not once had he imagined that it would be Eren to go down first.
And what hurt the most was that it was Eren's own body that killed him. They all knew that human's knowledge about titan-shifter were next to zero and it was probable that one day the ability would backfire, but he never thought it would be so soon, he never thought the process would be so cruel.
He closed his eyes and swallowed a lump in his throat. He was supposed to be stronger than this. He was supposed to get over it already and march towards the battlefield like an exceptional soldier he was, not sneaking into Eren's room time and time again, drinking Eren's beer and missing the shy, out-of-character pleads he would whisper to him in bed.
He recalled how Eren would kiss his cheeks tenderly, face flushed and eyes downcast when he asked Levi to hug him tightly, to love him more because the love he got was never been enough. Gone was the fierce soldier fueled with revenge, there was only a delicate boy with quiet words and tender heart, a boy he might've grown to be if only he hads never known violence's name. And Levi had treasured this side of Eren most, grateful for being trusted enough to see it and promised to protect it, like a father to his son, like a man to his lover.
The last few weeks before death had been the worst. Eren had alternated between staring blankly at them, unsure of whom they were and writhing in pain when his mysterious titan gene tore him apart. He had asked with small awkward smile plastered on his lips about their names, which brought Ackerman to tears and Arlert explaining in gentle sad voice and him clenched his fist wanting to beat the memory out of him. Other times he just begged anyone in the room to kill him already because his skin was burning and his lungs was burning and he felt like his soul melted away with the flame.
Levi had never before felt so helpless. There had been nothing for him to do but hold Eren close even when he was trashing and screaming with frothing drools and tears glistening on his face, eyes bloodshot and breath hitched. It had shattered his heart that he couldn't do anything when Eren's bony limbs spasming and twisting, when he shit and peed and vomited all over himself in an attempt to escape the raging demon inside him. He had done his best and tried to find out a cure or at least something, anything to ease the pain, but there had been no answers.
One night, when Levi sat vigil next to his bed, dapping wet clothes on his feverish head, Eren had opened his eyes. They were crystal clear, no clouds of pain nor confusion. He had looked almost healed.
"I'm going to die soon, am I not?" he asked rhetorically, and Levi wanted to snap at him because if that was the only thing he was going to say after being in a coma for days, he had better go back to sleep. But instead he just combed the boy's hair comfortingly while Eren continued to talk in a thick, tears-filled voice.
"Next time, you should choose someone who won't drop dead for bitting their thumbs too much," he chuckled weakly at his own joke, a single tear escaped from the corner of his eyes. Levi wiped it away and he leaned to the touch.
"Promise me you'll move on. Kill as many titans as possible. Deliver us to freedom. See the outside world for me. Promise me, okay? Or I will rise from my grave and haunt you and that won't be pretty."
That was the promise he always demanded Eren to make.
The next day, Eren was gone.
Levi blinked and reached up to wipe at his eyes. Fuck. He had learned the hard way that the world wasn't fair, but for once he wished he got his justice. He had dedicated his life to save the humankind, so why couldn't he save the only human he loved?
Taking a deep breath, he tried to lessen the rope around his chest. He didn't want to think of the final times full of anger, tears and despair. There were better memories to recall—days they had spent arguing about how the ocean looked like, nights they had spent thinking that they had the rest of the eternity for each other.
His fingers slipped under his tunic and circled around his nipple slowly, and for a moment he imagined it was Eren's subtle way of telling him he wanted to do it and yet his dignity prevented him to say it out loud. He pictured the small, slender body lying timidly on top of him, the hand tracing down his chest were that of the emerald-eyed boy, not his. The room was silent save from the occasional creaks of wood, but he had no problem recalling Eren's soft murmur in his ears, the heating of his body was Eren's breath on his skin.
"I love you, Corporal," he mouthed to himself, but all he can hear was Eren's higher, sweeter voice, eyes half-lidded and cheeks blushed like an inexperienced teen who didn't know what happen in bed.
The lantern had long since died out, inviting back the darkness with its power to spike anyone's imagination like oil to fire. He chose to pretend it was one of their naughtier escapades, to make love inside a room with paper thin walls: they have to be quiet; they have to do it in complete darkness so that no one would notice. He wasn't alone in the room—he simply couldn't see and hear his beautiful Eren.
The leftover taste of the beer earlier was the taste of Eren when he kissed him. He moved his tongue and mouth sloppily, chuckling to himself when the Eren in the dark trying in vain to dominate him. The moans in his throat no longer belonged to him, as did the touch against his skin. They were Eren's half-hearted protest of being defeated even in a simple kiss, they were his nimble fingers crawling and scratching against his chest, attempting to hold the pleasure that rode through him.
It was times like this, when the lights were out and Levi couldn't gaze at his face as he pleaded, that Eren tended to show his complete submissive side. He would stutter in a lewd plea, things he wanted Levi to do to him that he wouldn't want to be reminded of afterwards; things Levi didn't know a boy with such naïve façade could think of.
He fumbled to open his pants' buttons and pull his trousers down. Eren naturally was the hopeless romantic, he would prefer more kisses and cuddles before the real game started, but Levi couldn't wait. He needed something to numb the loneliness, even for a moment.
The first touch against his member sent him arching his back as he mimicked Eren's caresses. He moved his hand slowly up and down his length, circling the very tip with a single digit, teasing the slit that drove him crazy. He never need much time to react to Eren's massages and soon the boy would position himself right above Levi's aching member.
The sensation had caused his body to sweat, so it wasn't difficult to imagine that the digits travelling down his length was actually Eren lowering himself inch by scorching inch. He shivered as the grips became more intense, imitating the pulsating tight wall that surrounded him, sucking and trapping him in the sinful heat.
Levi increased his pace and couldn't hold back a moan, eyes rolled back in dumb pleasure. He recalled what it had been like to grasp on Eren's waist, urging him to move; to hear smack and slaps against his skin when Eren bounced on top of him, struggling to place himself, aiming Levi's member to his prostate. The grunts when he finally stroke the bundle of nerves, and the feel of his whole body tighten right before one more him made him tumble over the edge.
He groaned as his climax overcame him, and for a moment the white stars in his visions made he forgot about everything around him. However, the satisfaction of his release was short-lived. There was nobody he could pull into a kiss after his breathing had calmed down and nobody to tell him they love, love, love him, the short sweat caked hair to comb and the feeling of smile shyly formed against his chest. The spot by his side would remain vacant all through the night and always will be.
Levi rolled over to his side and hid his face into the pillows so that nobody could hear him cry.
A/N : Aaaaaaand it's a wrap! I'M SO SORRY THE LEMON SUCK ORZ the perv in me is a stupid inexperienced perv and that's the best she could think of. And sorry for the weird sentences/grammar, you probably had guessed English isn't my first language and it's like 3 a.m. in the morning and I can't think straight. I'll probably find a beta and re-upload this but now I just want to get it done because today is the challenge's deadline and I just ( wOAO)w
Thanks for reading, constructive criticism welcomed! :)