Seasons come and go - leaves turn every possible shade of red and brown and yellow before falling to the ground, their crackling underfoot soon replaced with the crunch of snow; until snow melts and the puddles are replaced with spring showers, bringing to life the leaves once more, giving them a vibrant shade of green all through the summer until the cycles begins again as the leaves lose their colour.
It's never been important to Levi. Spring then summer then autumn then winter. Year after year. A circle that he hardly takes notice of.
Until now as he watches Eren splash through puddles left by the latest rainstorm. Like a child, he stomps his rubber boot into the water and beams giddily at his lover before finding the next pool to disturb. He pauses to admire a vivid butterfly sipping from a brilliantly red poppy. He may have to continually adjust the tubes to sit properly over his ears, he may have to drag his oxygen along with him, yet none of that stops him from exploring the reborn world with awestruck wonder.
Eren smiles, his eyes such a vibrant colour that nature has no hope of competing with, when a pair of ducks pass, followed by a herd of fluffy, yellow ducklings waddling as quickly as they can to keep up with mother and father.
"We'll have plenty of kids trailing after us, just like that," he says as he hooks his arm through his boyfriend's.
It stabs Levi through the heart but he nods anyway, supporting Eren's wan body as it trembles from exertion. "Let's focus on getting married first."
Levi drinks tea every day, black unless he's feeling a bit down and decides to add milk and sugar to cheer himself. It's a ritual to him: make tea as soon as he wakes, sip it while he reads the paper, work out, then go shower. He brews another batch before bed. Morning and evening. He does it without thought.
Up until now.
Now he is sure to boil the water for just the right amount of time, to strain the leaves fully. He counts the revolutions as he stirs in two sugar cubes before he brings it to Eren at the table. Eren looks up from the magazine of flower arrangements and boutonnieres then smiles. He sips the tea with a thoughtfully look, one that makes his brows draw together and his nose scrunch up as he considers the flavour, one Levi memorizes again and again and again. "Did you add something to this?"
"Vanilla extract," Levi nods, pleased with his astute taste.
And there it is, that smile that puts the summer sun outside to shame. It brings colour to Eren's pale cheeks, makes his whole body light up. "It's really good," he says with a grin and a kiss to the man's cheek.
Levi never makes tea thoughtlessly again.
Leaves float to the ground as their life cycles end and give Levi a never-ending mess to clean. Yet even more prominent is the pumpkin the seems to be everywhere - the coffee, the scent, the flavouring, the spice, even the colour it seems. Pumpkin isn't that great. Yet it surrounds him as if it were the cure to growing older. Why people obsess over it, he'll never know.
Yet here he is in a bath surrounded with pumpkin and cinnamon candles as their only lighting, filling the air with their aroma. He combs his fingers through Eren's mop of brown hair when he leans back into Levi's chest. With rain dripping steadily out their window as they laze in a tub of warm water to soothe Eren's aching body, knit sweaters discarded on the bathroom floor, and the scent of pumpkin in the air, Levi can think of nothing more perfect.
He breathes in deeply and finds the smell blissful. It's the smell Eren loves the most and Levi agrees with him fully.
Cold bites into Levi without mercy. Maybe it's because of his small frame, maybe it's because he has little to no body fat to act as insulation, or maybe nature just likes to tell him to go fuck himself specifically. Whatever the reason, the slightest chill and Levi has to wrap himself in layers upon layers to stay warm.
Not here though. Here he finds himself perfectly content as he lay curled up under the heavy winter duvets, his head on Eren's shoulder as Eren cards gentle, trembling fingers through his hair and scratches lightly at the stubble of his undercut, some horror movie playing on his laptop that Levi pays no attention to.
Bedridden now, most of Eren's days are spent like this, curled up with his new husband. Eren never complains, not when he has to drag an oxygen tank with him, not when he has to spend summer inside because of his health, not when most of his autumn is spent in surgery, not even when he has to stay in bed for Christmas. He jokes that Levi bitches enough for both of them. But Eren would never complain; he finds too much joy in every little thing around him to complain.
And, weeks later, that's all Levi can think of as he holds a still, cold hand. A monitor flatlining deafens him to the world around him as he sits there on his knees, squeezing this hand and wishing with every last bit of his soul that it would move just one more time. Just once more, please.
And a sob rips from his raw throat. Never in his mind had Eren been sickly; he was a sunburst of happiness, finding new things to smile at every day; everything from how Levi made his morning tea to the blue jay nesting outside the window of his hospital room. There was goodness in everything and Eren made sure to find it all.
Levi's life had been full of the need to survive and only that since the day he was born and abandoned on the muddy streets. His world was dark until Eren came and opened his eyes to the wonder in every little moment.
Every second he had with Eren he was grateful for, every tiny thing he cherished. No one had ever done for him what Eren had, and he could only hope he gave back a fraction of the happiness.
Levi doesn't bother wiping at the tears that stream down his cheeks and drip off his chin as he presses a kiss to his husband's gold wedding band before pressing his forehead against those cold fingers as he whispers to the man he loved.
"Thank you so much."