This was supposed to be a simple fairy tale. And it's more like Grimm's than Perrault's fairy tales, believe me.
Also, this story will have three chapters and center around Levi and Eren. (by the way, this is totally a riren story). And that's it.
Pas de trois: French term usually referring to a dance in ballet between three people.
Don't ever go in the Jaeger house.
That's what every kid in the village knows. Even when the harvests haven't been that great and that the farmers can't feed their families, no one ever tried to go there and fetch some edible plants.
The Jaeger house is an old mansion, with windows made of glass and candles that never run out of wax. It isn't made of wood, mud and hay like everyone's cottage but is in fact made of bricks that have the color of dried blood. Not that anyone has seen them as the whole house is covered in ivy and all kind of vegetation.
But above everything else, the Jaeger house is cursed.
There have been a lot of legends about that house and about its first inhabitants.
They were quite the loved and respected family, count Jaeger had been an eminent doctor that never made his patients pay as much as the new doctor did now, while his spouse, lady Carla was a lovely woman with a heartwarming smile who always had a sweet for the street kids. They were the perfect couple and this was why their curse had been such a terrifying and marking story for the townspeople.
And this was also why Levi was planning to use that abandoned place as his stronghold. It was the perfect plan, no one dared to even think of going there as they had all been fed with those old wives tales about cursed houses and monsters that screeched in the basement. Thus, making Levi the only sane person who would go there and actually have a nice bed without a leaking roof.
He was a bloody genius and he knew it.
"You shouldn't do that," Isabel told him while she scrunched the tip of her nose and pushed back a strand of her fiery hair under her hood. "It's dangerous!"
Isabel had always been his best comrade whenever he went to steal or annoy the rich people in town. But since she had gotten to her fifteenth winter, she had withdrawn into herself and had taken to hide her red hair under scarves and hoods, and went every morning at the mass like every good kid. The witch hunter staying at her family's hostel had scared her into obedience.
Levi sighed and ignored his friend's plea while he checked his bag. The rope, hunk of stale bread and almost rotten apple hadn't moved from the patched bag. He put the bag strap under his coat made of a simple blanket that he had stolen in one of the bourgeois' house and slightly softened his gaze when he looked at Isabel. Her green eyes were glistening with worry and the familiar spark of her fiery temper was rearing its head in her pursed lips.
"At least, let me go with you!" she insisted.
"No," Levi retorted with a frown. "You have to wait for Farlan's signal. I'll go ahead to shake those idiots from my tail."
Isabel sighed with an aggravated expression and shook her head.
"But what did you have to steal that dagger, big bro," she whispered. "You already have a ton!"
"That one is in steel," the boy curtly explained.
He only had weapons made of bronze and they wouldn't be as good as that dagger. Levi had already sold all his old weapons and prepared himself to stay low until the annoying French knight (from whom he had stolen that lovely dagger) left the town.
Thus, his amazing plan to hide in the Jaeger house.
Who knows, maybe it even hid some kind of treasure in there. A thief's wet dream.
"If you say so, big bro," Isabel smiled happily at him before she softly pushed him. "You have to leave now, you can't go in the forest at night..."
Levi rolled his eyes at the superstitious belief and promptly left with a curt nod toward the redhead. He immediately left the road and took one of the paths that the poachers liked to take. Levi had often accompanied them, helping them whenever they needed to skewer their preys and taking some bits of the animals for himself. It was nice, the poachers weren't talkative and they actually liked his colorful language, making their precarious alliance work quite easily. But that was in spring and as the winter was as stronger as ever, Levi was pretty sure that even the poachers wouldn't be around to notice him walk towards the Jaeger house.
It wasn't that hard to find, there was at least three paved paths under all the brambles, blackberry bushes and nettles. Levi cursed under his breath when one of the nettles, bigger than himself, grazed his face and provoked the irritating reaction.
The dark haired teenager muttered with annoyance as he walked in the mud, his thin boots not being enough to protect him against the cold and humidity of the mud, before he let out a heavy sigh once the muddy and thorny path opened to a gigantic clearing.
The Jaeger house was there, in its mysterious and desolated glory. Levi noticed that the door was closed and that the windows hadn't been broken by all those years of being inhabited. There was ivy everywhere, climbing all around the house structure and even going in the tiny cracks of the bricks. However, the ivy hadn't entered the house (from what Levi could see) and hadn't extended itself on the clearing.
In fact, in a perimeter of a hundred yards, there was only grass and even bushes of roses around the house. Not a single weed.
That was strange. And if Levi had been as superstitious and stupid as all the townspeople, he would have immediately changed his mind and left the clearing.
However, Levi was quite a stubborn boy and he simply shrugged, muttered a small "Not bad" at the absence of weeds and mud, and carried on. He walked to the porch, his gray eyes keenly looking around and checking if there wasn't any beast or owl living in there before he slightly relaxed. Once he was in front of the heavy door (probably mahogany as the riches always liked those strange woods coming from faraway lands), Levi glanced at the darkening sky and pursed his lips.
He couldn't see the sunset from here, the trees were too big and didn't even let him see the night sky.
It looked like some kind of tree wall and disturbed him. But as that would be like admitting that he believed in those fairy tales, Levi ignored his feeling of being caged and put his hand on the door handle.
The handle wasn't made of wood like in the slump houses, but in metal. It looked like some kind of snake, the size of his fist and Levi widened his eyes when he noticed that the metal was warm against his cold skin. He tensed right there, in front of that closed door, and swiftly looked around him.
It hadn't snowed that winter and there was only mood on the ground so if someone had been around, he would see their prints in the mud. And, even if the light was slowly fading out and it was getting as dark as Satan's asshole, Levi could nonetheless see the footprints.
They were deep and even so he quickly ruled out thieves like himself. Also, the spaces between each footprint was stable and quite wide compared to himself.
So a young person, taller than him.
That plan of his didn't sound that great right now. But well, Levi was a stubborn little bastard so he decided to keep going and, if there really was someone living there and that they didn't want to cohabit with him, he could always use his new dagger.
The sun had totally gone down when Levi opened the front door. The hinges creaked quite a bit and the teenager flinched when he heard the creaking. He stood at the opening, holding his breath and waited for some kind of monster (be it a fat farmer or a vampire) to jump at his throat.
But nothing happened.
Reassured that he wasn't going to die at instant he put a foot in that abandoned house, Levi sighed and took a step into the vestibule. Nothing attacked him. He seriously was on a roll.
Now convinced that his life wasn't in danger of being suddenly cut short, Levi began to explore the house, his eyes widening when he found old portraits of the count Jaeger and his wife and frowning when he found a big leak in the kitchen ceiling that had transformed the whole room into a swamp. Though it was nothing that he couldn't fix.
However, nothing could top his delight when he found out that there was a water closet in the first floor. And it worked. For the first time of the day, Levi smiled in delight and he even found himself about to giggle when he noticed that the water was clear and still running. The Jaeger house was better than the King's castle and Levi had it all for himself.
A sudden creak behind him quickly reminded him that it wasn't really true.
That and the impact of something extremely hard and heavy against his skull.
Levi fainted right on the spot.
To be quite honest with you, Levi had never been a morning person. Mostly because he wasn't that accustomed to sleep a whole night and was more accustomed to grasp some little naps that didn't help at all with his already horrible character.
And this explains why the first thing that came out of his mouth once he woke up from his painful induced sleep was a string of extremely colorful curses and swears at the brown haired youth in front of him. The other boy didn't even blink, his eyes were observing him and judging him in silence while his youthful features were twisted into an ugly scowl.
"And who the fuck are you?" the boy swiftly cut through the heavy shower of insults that was offering Levi with his quite concise question.
The black haired teen blinked, momentarily taken aback by the suave and confident voice before he remembered that the other boy had been the one who had put him to sleep thanks to a rock.
"I'm Levi Ackerman," he answered. "And you? What's your name? Gigantic Shit? Tiny Dong?"
The brown haired boy snorted and rolled his eyes while he leaned against the door. Levi finally noticed that he was sitting on the floor and that he had been tied with his own rope.
"Come on," the boy taunted him with a smirk on par. "You can do better than that, Levi~"
"Yeah, you can say my name, fucking great, you piece of shit," muttered Levi with an annoyed eye roll on par. "Now untie me before I decide to kick your ass to the moon..."
The other boy snorted another time and took a step toward Levi before he decided to kneel in front of the teenager.
"And why should I do that?" he retorted as he cocked his head with an (extremely obvious) fake innocent aura flowing around him. "You're the one who barged in my house in the middle of the night!"
Levi's expression didn't change and he simply blinked before he narrowed his eyes and hissed through his teeth.
"I'll fucking kill you," he promised quietly.
The boy laughed and shook his head. He stood up and left the room with a small chuckle.
"Keep going like that and I'll never untie you," he said just as he closed the living room door behind him.
And just like that, Levi was left alone with his own thoughts and an empty room. Also, he had to take a shit.
In the following day, during which the little shit, whose name he still didn't know, hadn't visited him even once, Levi had a lot of time to think. Mostly about his poor choices in life and how he hated the boy that had left him to die in an abandoned house.
He just hated that boy with all his guts. That were full of shit.
In fact, he was about to shit himself and that went against everything that made Levi himself. So, sending his own pride to hell, the dark haired boy began to scream for help. Although it took some time (the sun was already setting when the boy came back), Levi couldn't help but be relieved when he saw the boy's grin expression.
"About fucking time," Levi muttered as he crawled on the carpet (it was dusty and he could feel the parasites in it crawl over his skin. He wanted a bath, right fucking now). "Untie me or I'll shit all over your feet."
The boy squeaked and immediately went to untie the other. Levi sighed in relief when the rope stopped constricting his moves and he tried to stand but the boy didn't even let him try to. He took Levi's right arm and put it around his neck before he walked with wide steps towards the restroom, dragging the thief with him. Levi didn't complain and merely shunned out the boy once he was in front of his own version of heaven. In fact, he was pretty sure that some kind of angels began to serenade him when he emptied his bowels and flushed the water.
It was just so fucking clean.
"Sorry about that," the boy told him once Levi got out of the restroom (he had in fact considered living there). "I kind of... forgot that you were there..."
Levi blinked and almost furrowed his brows. How could someone forget about the existence of a thief in his own house? Even if it wasn't really his house as it had been abandoned.
"It's just that," the boy added with a nervous chuckle. "I don't have frequently guests over so I forget about them..."
"You forget about them," Levi repeated as a puzzled expression began to form on his face. "So it has happened before?"
The boy's face lightened and he smiled while he nodded.
"Sorry about yesterday by the way," he added and even if there wasn't some kind of light around to confirm it, Levi knew that the other boy was blushing. "I thought that you were a thief and I acted impulsively."
"Doesn't matter," the dark haired teenager shrugged. "I am a thief so I can understand."
"That's good to know," the boy laughed happily before his features froze in shock. "Wait! You're a thief?!"
Levi nodded with a bored look. However, while he may look like he was bored, the young thief was in fact puzzled by the change of character that showed the boy. The other day, that boy had been vulgar, aggressive and extremely self-confident. Today, however, he was acting all bashful and polite with him. Did he have some kind of mental illness?
"Oh," the boy blinked and rubbed nervously his neck. "I'm sorry to say that but could you not steal? Everything in this house is really precious and I can't substitute it..."
"Even the puny kitchen knives?" Levi asked because he had seen some of them in the swamp like kitchen.
They were made of silver and with golden scriptures, Levi was pretty sure that he could sell them for quite a high price.
"Even those," the boy answered with a grave face.
Levi pursed his lips into an annoyed scowl. He had found his treasure (those knives were only the beginning, he still had two floors to explore) but there was an annoying little pest protecting it. But he could always live in there and wait for the perfect occasion to steal those.
"I won't," the dark haired teenager shrugged. "But only if you let me stay in here. It's winter and I can't sleep outside..."
As he had hoped, the boy frowned and glanced at the window with a sad face.
"We have a deal," the boy retorted but his expression suddenly changed and a challenging smirk suddenly appeared on his face. "But only if you bring three things here every day."
Levi raised a brow in surprise and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Bring three things here?" he repeated with his two eyebrows raised. "What kind of things? And why three?"
"I can't really explain," the boy shrugged. His smirk had disappeared and he was back to his bashful self. "There just has to be three new things every day or something really bad will happen..."
"What kind of thing?" Levi insisted.
The boy took a deep breath and looked at the dark haired teenager. The latter widened his eyes in surprise when he saw that the boy's face had once again changed. But in lieu of the bashful expression or the smirk full of spark and challenge, there was only two solemn eyes that looked older than the boy himself.
"Yesterday, we took your name, an apple and bread. Today, it was your rope, coat and dagger. If you want to keep living, it would be better if you followed his advice... He seems to like you while the other wishes you were dead," the boy whispered in a husky voice. "But in my opinion, you'll be way better off if you just left this house."
Levi felt as if he had been sucker punched by the stranger. Mostly because the boy had taken his dagger and was threatening him with some shitty excuses that sounded a lot like the story in the rumors about the Jaeger House.
"What the bloody hell are you even talking about," the dark haired teen hissed angrily.
The boy blinked, his incredibly wide eyes glowing in the shadows of the dark room, before he tilted his head.
"Didn't you hear it?" he asked in that same husky voice. "The Jaeger house is cursed. Or rather, we are. My family had to pay the price of three and since then, I remain. I'm the keeper of the Jaeger house and the one who makes sure that no one will have to suffer through what already happened."
"Wait a minute!" Levi exclaimed once he connected the dots between the rumors and what the boy had told him. "You're that man's son! Count Jaeger's son!"
"I'm Eren Jaeger," the boy acquiesced. "Or rather, what remains of him. You have already met my other selves."
Levi furrowed his brows. There seemed to be a recurrence of the same number in this story, from what he could remember of that annoying fairy tale, and another number that ended being stronger than the first one.
"Let me resume this," the dark haired man raised a hand to stop the boy from talking. "This house is cursed and everyone in it has to give three things to keep living?"
The boy nodded with a grim face, his wide eyes looking without ever blinking at Levi.
"So if I want to keep living here, I have to give you three things every day?"
The boy nodded.
"But they must be different every day," he clarified. "You can give on the same day the same thing but the following day, it must be different."
Levi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
'Not a plan as good as you had thought,' he chided himself before he soldiered on and opened his eyes.
"Okay," he nodded. "I'll follow that deal. Tomorrow, I'll give you three things. But in exchange, I want those knives."
The boy tilted his head and slowly blinked, his face slowly softening while his lips shivered.
"But they are important!" he insisted.
It was another of the boy's persona, Eren's other self. Bashful Eren as Levi promptly named him.
"For what?" the latter asked him.
Bashful Eren knitted his brows and pursed his lips.
"I guess you could take three of them," he muttered before a shudder make his whole frame shake.
His big eyes narrowed and his lips thinned into a scowl.
"Like hell, I'm gonna let you take those!" he snarled.
By this time, Levi was already getting tired of those swift changes in personalities so he sighed and ignored the Angry Eren's complains and insults.
"I want to talk with Eren," he told him with a scowl.
Angry Eren scoffed and muttered something that Levi couldn't quite catch before his face lost all kind of emotion and his eyes widened.
"Yes?" Eren asked with his inexpressive voice.
"Where can I sleep?"
"You can choose whatever room pleases you," the boy answered him. "Except those in the third floor. There are to be untouched."
"Go figure," Levi muttered. He shook his head and decided that he had had enough to strange and probably supernatural things happening around him. "Let's call it a night. Goodnight Eren."
The brown haired boy didn't answer him, his large eyes watching him leave the room in silence.
It was Levi's second night in the Jaeger house.
So, what did you think of this first chapter?