When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes
One-shot
That night the ground was still frozen, as it was still that strange time of the year when you wouldn't be surprised if it would've started snowing the next morning, yet it would be no surprise if the temperature rose high enough for you to walk outside without wearing a jacket. At a night like this Levi was lying on a bench in a park near his apartment complex and tracing maps made by the countless stars and galaxies so many light-years away, situated in the dark night sky. To be told the truth, if anyone would've asked him if he was feeling shitty at the moment his answer would've been negative. It's not like he would've pretended, he truly just hadn't felt any feelings in a while now, it didn't matter if they were positive or negative. Spending some time in this emotionless state he decided that maybe he should stop doing this miserable thing called living.
Well, actually not completely. He decided that he needed to die but he just couldn't make up his mind when, where and how he should do the deed. Being hung over these details for almost three hours led him to moments where he almost seemed to regain that spark of life which the dark haired man had lost what seemed so long ago. At those moments he almost wished not to give up and try this thing called living again, but those moment were as fleeting as cherry blossoms in spring, hence Levi payed them no mind as they died one after another.
Levi pondered maybe he should just stay here, lying on this bench throughout the night, until some innocent passerby who forced himself out of the bed early to go for a morning jog or to walk their dog would find his permanently frozen body, still here, forever unmoving.
That thought was inviting, as the only thing he needed to do to make that situation come true was let the sleep take him. Even for him, a person who had suffered from insomnia all his life, closing his tired eyes and stopping the time for his body, which was already numbed by the cold, seemed to be an extremely easy task to do.
The gray eyed man shivered as a gust of wind blew straight at him. As a matter of fact, before going out Levi considered himself to be dressed appropriately for the weather, but no doubt the cold early spring air had no problem seeping through his expensive black wool coat, leather gloves of the same color and grayish silk scarf, causing the stinging in his bones. Though now, lying here and no longer feeling even the sting of millions of tiny needles, which was so inseparable from the notion of feeling cold, he thought otherwise.
"You still alive?" An unknown male voice asked.
It was about 2 a.m. hence no one should have been here and even if someone decided to take a walk in the middle of the night, the possibilities of them ending up anywhere near this particular bench – as it was at the very edge of the park, hidden from the view of strangers by trees which almost made what you could call a wall around it, were incredibly slim. Thus because of such reasons, Levi came to a conclusion that the voice was either talking to someone else or the dark haired man has already started hallucinating someone talking to him. So he stayed still, gazing up at the sky and completely ignoring the said voice.
"I'm talking to you, guy on the bench." The voice rang once more and just like the previous time Levi decided to ignore it. "Pretending you're dead, huh? Well it certainly is a nice place to die, but you know it's gonna start snowing soon. If your fingers still aren't frostbitten then they're gonna be like that in a while, so if you're not seeking death you should get up and go someplace warm. When your fingers are amputated it's really fucking inconvenient, you know? Actually even if you want to die, get up. At this rate someone else will find you before you truly die so you're probably gonna survive. Not like I mind, but trying to commit a suicide when you have no fingers is even worse than what you're going through right now."
As the owner of the voice continued blabbering Levi wondered if the said person had any screws loose. After all only an idiot would talk to some random stranger he found lying on a bench in a park in the middle of the night. Hasn't he ever heard of stranger danger?
Levi sat up and turned his head in the direction which the voice was coming from, but the person was nowhere in sight. It seemed as if one of his previous guesses was right – the dark haired man was indeed hallucinating someone talking to him. Yet once he lied down, back into his previous position, it took only few seconds for a face to pop up from behind of the bench and take up Levi's entire field of vision.
The stranger was male – just as Levi predicted from the voice. His sun kissed skin emitted this weird glow under the moonlight and his messy mop of brown hair almost completely covered the said man's gorgeous Caribbean blue eyes. Levi couldn't stop himself from getting lost in those glowing orbs as he stared back at the man.
"The fuck you looking at?" Levi muttered. It was quite quiet and his voice came out strained, as he hadn't used his voice much that day, but in the deafening silence of the night it was enough for the brunet strange to hear.
"Is that any way to talk to someone who tried their best to help you?" The stranger retorted, his lips twisting into a slight frown. He stopped hunching over and Levi was able to see more of the stranger's body. The brunet wasn't wearing a coat or even a scarf, only gloves – this Levi was able to see since the stranger was scratching his head as he replied – and a blazer which looked similar to the ones high schoolers wear. "A brat, huh."
"I didn't ask for your help, you little shit." Levi spat out and sat up once again.
The dark haired man rubbed his hands together in an attempt to feel his fingers once more and after few seconds, which seemed extremely long to Levi, he succeeded, and though the warmth did not return to his fingertips, he at least was able to feel the slight sting from the cold.
"You know, I should have just left you to fucking die here!" The brunet hissed. The frown on his face deepened and after muttering other few curses the stranger turned around and left.
This left Levi bewildered and after sitting there for another few minutes, trying to process everything that had just happened, the dark haired man headed towards his apartment. This encounter was way too surreal for Levi, but the dark haired man still decided not to commit a suicide. Not today anyways.
Somehow as months passed Levi and the strange brat he talked to that night managed to have few more run ins. At first neither of them recognized another, but eventually the brunet started to recognize Levi.
You couldn't call the first proper conversation they had after that night a pleasant one, no matter how hard you tried to sugarcoat it. Even though neither of them was especially happy to have it, the conversation was particularly fun for Levi, as the insolent brat had claimed that the older man has been stalking him for a while now. This resulted in a heated argument and quite a crowd of passersby ogling at them, interested to find out how the matter is going to end, until the involved parties finally calmed down and dropped the matter. Even though they were still quite obviously mad at each other.
That day Levi found out two things about the shitty brat. His name – Eren – and that he truly was still in high school – as he so passionately shouted at Levi that stalking a minor will land his ass in jail.
After this, to Levi's surprise, Eren himself for some reason would strike up a conversation with Levi whenever he saw the older man. To Levi it was quite annoying as the young brunet would get stuck to him like a wet leaf after a storm or a chewed gum would stick to the sole of your shoe after stepping on it, and the teen was just as hard to get rid off as those two things put together. Tough after few months Levi got used to Eren's presence and no longer minded it that much.
It took a while but their relationship progressed quite steadily. They went from strangers to acquaintances, from acquaintances to friends and later on even from friends to lovers. Even if this whole process happened in about a span of two years everything seemed to have happened in a blink of an eye for Levi, and now they were finally here, renting an apartment together, sharing the same bed and eating together as many meals as they could manage, while Eren attended university, doing his major in writing, and Levi worked as an office worker under one of his close friends.
It was the beginning of the happiest time of their lives.
"Eren, why don't you come here?" Levi asked while flipping through the channels in their TV. Not like the dark haired man really liked watching TV, as there never seemed to be anything good on, but today he didn't really have anything better to do. After all, this day off was really unexpected and he managed to finish cleaning the apartment that he and Eren shared while it was still morning.
"I'm trying to cram here, okay!" And annoyed shout came from Eren, who had spent the whole afternoon cooped up in their bedroom.
"Why the fuck are you even trying? It would be a miracle if you got any smarter, while the only thing you seem to excel at is getting dumber." The dark haired man said in response as a smirk played on his lips.
"You're calling me stupid, you shitty old man?!" Eren's voice roared and few seconds later the door to the bedroom slammed open. Once it was open the brunet man with a nasty bedhead emerged from the said room. His right eye was twitching revealing his irritation. Levi couldn't help but laugh at this sight. As a matter of fact, even the remote control managed to slip from Levi's hand without him noticing, while he was enjoying the entertaining sight,
"I thought you cramming was too good to be true! You've been sleeping all day!" The older man managed to squeeze out between his ragged breaths, the consequence of laughing so hard.
"I wasn't!" The university student fumed while his face went red from the embarrassment.
"That bird's nest on your head indicates otherwise." Levi was finally able to control his breathing, bringing it back to it's usual pace, as he bent over to pick up the fallen remote control. "If you have so much free time as to sleep using your books as pillows then come and cuddle with me. I practically haven't seen you the whole day, even if we both were home." A seductive smile played on the dark haired man's lips as he patted the seat next to him on the sofa.
This time Eren didn't retaliate against his lover. Truth to be told, he himself wished to spend a bit more time together with Levi, as the brunet's schedule has been getting more and more hectic, resulting in their decreased quality time. Once Eren was finished maneuvering through their small apartment and sat down next to Levi the older man wasted no time pulling him straight into a back hug.
Neither of them said anything when Levi didn't let the younger man turn around and face him, as he himself sniffed his lover's hair and played with Eren's fingers. The silence was only filled by the stupid talk show playing in the background, but to be told the truth the absence of interaction between them using words wasn't awkward at all. It fell over them like a soft, thick blanket would, making them feel calm and warm.
Another few minutes passed until Levi finally talked. "You know I was sad. I felt as if you were abandoning me." And as the older man said those word Eren could almost see him pouting.
"Stop exaggerating, you old fart. I can't help that I'm busy with my studies from time to time." As these words came out of his mouth, the Caribbean blue eyed man laughed.
"Who's more important: me or your studies?" Levi's hold around his lover tightened. Actually he understood that Eren couldn't be around him all the time quite well, after all he wasn't a brat, but no matter how the gray eyed man tried, he just couldn't shake of the feeling that his lover will leave him. And probably quite soon.
"You're being a brat, you know that?" Eren finally broke out of Levi's hug and turned around his head to face him. The brunet stared into the other man's eyes for a moment before licking his lover's lower lip and pulling Levi into a deep kiss, It was passionate and they pulled away only after there was no air left in neither of their lungs, but nonetheless both men couldn't stop themselves from laughing after that.
"Tsk, you didn't fall for it." Levi said, trying to sound irritated, but right after those words left his mouth both men started laughing once more.
A few days later though everything seemed to go wrong when Levi found Eren laying on the living room floor, clutching his head in his hands as hard as he could. The only thought that went through the older man's mind at the time was "I was right."
Everything happened so fast, it almost seemed that it was all a dream. The dark haired man's shaky hands found his smartphone, his numb fingers dialed 911 and his voice calmly whispered everything that was happening to the operator. Too calmly. In fact the voice seemed not to even belong to him.
Moments later after the phone was tossed onto the sofa and Levi had already knelt down next to Eren, about to help the brunet up, the gray eyed man made out the sound of someone screaming. At first he thought that the source of the noise was Eren, but the younger man – even though he was in a lot of pain – was clearly unconscious and his mouth was closed. It took another few moments for Levi to realize that the one screaming was himself. He forced his mouth shut and cradled Eren in his lap.
This couldn't be happening.
No, Levi was pretty sure this was only a nightmare and that he soon will wake up wrapped in Eren's long limbs as his alarm clock will ring, announcing the beginning of a new day.
It didn't take long before the ambulance was here and paramedics were banging on their apartment's door, forcing Levi to get up and open the door for them. The paramedics rushed inside, picked up Eren, laid him on the stretchers and carried the said man out. Next thing Levi knew, he was sitting in front of the operating room and – for the first time in his very atheistic life – praying to all the gods he could think of.
The operation didn't take very long but to the dark haired man it seemed as if a millennium had passed until Eren was rolled out to the ICU. After that the doctor soon came out of the operating room as well and Levi's legs themselves carried him to the said person.
The surgeon was a brunette woman. She was a bit taller than Levi himself and, besides her uniform, wore strange looking glasses. The woman wasn't wearing a grim expression and this gave Levi hope that everything will be okay, but his hopes were shattered only moments later after he asked the professional how did the operation go and she asked the dark haired man to sit down.
"The operation was successful, we managed to stop the bleeding into the brain from the ruptured aneurysm." The brunette female said and deeply sighed before continuing. "However we weren't able to prevent the damaging of the nerves responsible for vision. There's a big chance that the patient will never be able to see again. I'm sorry." Levi's legs gave out as the doctor walked away leaving the said man to his own thoughts.
A lie. That's what it sounded like to Levi. That's what it had to be. Nothing similar was supposed to happen. Not to Eren.
When Levi was able to stand up again, the dark haired man staggered to the ICU and convinced the nurse to let him stay next to his lover, even if the brunet was still out from anesthesia.
When Levi was in Eren's room and looked at his lover's face, the Caribbean blue eyed man seemed as if he was only sleeping. Pain was no longer ached into Eren's facial features. Levi tried to ride out this storm via make-believe that the brunet was actually just sleeping, but that didn't help much. The doctor's words echoed in his mind until it went completely blank and Levi wasn't able to make even them out.
It was truly scary for Levi when Eren woke up for the first time. He hated being the one who delivered the dreading news to his lover that his loss of vision was permanent, after the younger man asked why the room was so dark. To his surprise Eren didn't cry or panic, just nodded, completely lost in his own thoughts. The fact that Eren chose to hide his feelings from his lover broke Levi more than anything else did. After all, he was well aware of all the suffering the brunet was going through as he clearly heard Eren start crying the moment Levi had closed the door to his room behind himself, while on his way to the bathroom.
When Levi heard that heart wrenching sound he forgot where he was heading. While listening to his lover's anguish the gray eyed man couldn't even bring himself to open the door and comfort the younger man. He just slowly slid down the wall and sat on the floor, listening to Eren cry, trying to hold back his own tears and silently repeating the word "fuck" over and over.
Eren's doctor, Hanji Zoe, came by few times that day. She had long conversations with both of them. First with Eren, advising how to cope with his new life, and then with Levi, asking if he was truly ready to care for his lover and once Levi answered positively, instructing him what he should do from now on.
By the time Eren was finally out of the hospital, the way both men interacted with one another changed a lot. Before this mess they used to steal glances at one another, make stupid faces at inappropriate times to lift each other's mood, but now everything was only light touches and soft whispers.
Once Eren was released and both of them got home the first thing Eren said to Levi since the very morning was "I want to see your face."
These words left Levi dumbfounded. He had no idea how to reply to the young brunet. The only thing that came to his mind was saying "I'm sorry" and that would've been way too forced.
The gray eyed man spent the next few seconds wrecking his brain for anything to say, until his lover's voice rang with words that he was perfectly aware must've been hard for Eren to force out. "I'm not stupid, I know that I'm blind. I'm no longer able to see you like anyone else can, so what I meant was this."
Eren started standing up from the couch, where he had been sitting during this whole conversation. He banged his knees on the edge of the table while standing up and that almost made Eren's legs give out, but he continued standing up and made his way in the direction Levi's voice was coming from. Levi – too worried about Eren stumbling and falling down – met the younger man half-way. The raven haired man grabbed Eren's elbow once the said man was in his hands' reach.
The brunet wasted no time once his skin made contact with Levi's. He pulled in the man closer and ran his fingers over the shorter man's arm until he reached Levi's collarbone, neck and finally his face. Eren's cool fingertips left ghostly touches all over Levi's forehead and nose, ruffled his hair, adored the man's sharp jawline until they landed on his lips.
"God you're so beautiful Levi." Eren softly whispered before pressing his lips to Levi's. The kiss was incredibly gentle. It reminded Levi of their very first kiss, as both of the kisses shared the same feeling. The feeling of new beginnings.
AN: "When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes." – Amedeo Modigliani
So yeah, I'm not particularly proud of this one-shot, but my beta said that it was good so I decided to post it anyway. Also this somehow turned out fluffy when I wanted to write something really angsty. Well, at least my goal of writing at least one fic during the spring vacation was achieved.
Btw, this might seem a bit random but I recently got really into Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu and I was wondering if wrote a fic for this anime would anyone be interested? Because I've already spent plenty of time daydreaming about various parings from there, so I think I might be able to write something.
Positive and negative comments are welcome.