A/N: Hello and welcome to another Ereri one-shot! And finally I got back into the mood of writing fluff and not the angsty crap I've been doing! Anyway, this was inspired by all the last name proposal prompts and stuff I've been seeing around various fandoms and I just thought it would be a wonderful way for Eren to propose. Sort of. XD Now this story may seem different from my other works, but that's because I'm trying to work on limiting points of view to build up suspense (?) and whatnot in scenes. If you like this style or any other part of the story, please leave a comment below, and if not leave a comment anyway :)
Disclaimer: I do not own SnK/AoT
~Last Names~
"Levi-heichou?"
The knock on the door made Eren perk up, resembling a dog who suddenly caught sight of something interesting moving in its peripheral vision.
"Come in," Levi called, not even glancing as he continued scratching away at the parchment on the desk in front of him.
The door opened, Petra peeking around before carefully slipping inside with her arms full of papers.
"Good afternoon, Heichou!" the woman said cheerily. "And hello to you too, Eren."
"Petra," Levi nodded, still not looking up.
"Hi, Petra-san," Eren smiled back. "Do you need help with those?" he asked, pointing at the heavy-looking stack in her arms.
"You're sweet, but I'm fine. This is all for Levi-heichou actually."
The captain finally looked up, his dull eyes catching on the papers Petra set down in front of him. "Well. Thank you for bringing me this pile of shit, Petra. Who do I thank for sending it to me?"
"The Commander." Petra smiled sweetly despite Levi's use of language. "Would you like me to give him your thanks?"
"Maybe not in so many words," the raven muttered. "I'll, ahem, thank him later. You are dismissed."
The woman gave a small sigh, but smiled nonetheless. "Good day, then, Levi-heichou." And with that, Petra gave a small bow, hands clasped in front of her, and left the office.
It was silent for a few moments after that, Eren watching from his corner of Levi's desk as the man narrowed his eyes at the papers he now had to deal with.
Finally, Eren snickered. "You're going to thank him, huh?"
"Yes. Very politely."
"Oh, I'm sure."
"Is there something you would like to say, Jaeger?"
"No, not particularly."
The office fell back into a comfortable silence. Eren went to sorting files and papers like he was supposed to, and Levi bent over the mountain of work he had to look forward to all day. Both of them had a small smile tugging at the corner of their lips.
"…Except maybe one thing."
Levi briefly glanced up to eye his teal-eyed subordinate expectantly. "And that would be?"
The brunet looked down at his papers, face suspiciously neutral as he carried on about his work. "Heichou, do you know what the one thing I hate about you is?"
This time the captain paused, fully moving to glare at him, his silver eyes flashing. "Are you trying to pick a fight, Jaeger?"
"No, no," Eren continued smoothly, as if the sudden danger was barely affecting him. "See, that's the thing. You call me that, but you're just 'Levi-heichou'. Wouldn't it sound better if you had a last name?"
"What are you driving at, Eren?"
The brunet finally lifted his gaze to meet Levi's, teal clashing with silver. "I just don't like that you don't have a last name. It's just… weird."
"…I suppose." Levi sat back in his chair, arms and legs crossed to give this brat his full attention while on this matter. "And what exactly do you think I should do about it?"
"Well…" this was when Eren finally seemed to become self-conscious, drawing into himself with his hands placed on his knees and his shoulders hunched. "You should start using a last name. I could even give you mine if you want…"
Silence reigned in the office then, both men completely still. Eren's face had turned a light shade of red, his eyes firmly glued to the floor between his feet. It was so clean, ten times cleaner than his 'room' despite his efforts to scrub it until it shined. It was obviously Levi's work from a glance. Levi remained seated how he was: sitting back, his eyes locked on Eren's head from the side.
"…And how exactly do you plan to do that, Jaeger?"
At these words, Eren looked up, exasperated that a man as intelligent as Levi hadn't already caught on. But one look into those eyes, glinting with what was unmistakably amusement, Eren knew that he had long figured it out, he was just drawing it out on purpose to tease him.
"W-well, ahem, we could go to the nearest courthouse and change it."
"Hmm. It could work. But you should be made aware that I do have a last name."
Eren's eyes widened. "What?"
"Why did you think I didn't anyway? No one doesn't have a last name, idiot."
This made the brunet pout and look to the ground in mortification. "Well when you put it that way… What is it?"
"I don't think you would like it."
"Try me."
Levi could see that determination back on the brat's face despite still being flushed, and that made him want to smile. If only a little bit. "Ackerman."
Eren's eyes got impossibly wider. "Acker… What?! So are you and Mikasa—?"
The raven shrugged. "I may never know and I prefer not to. We could be from two very distantly related families or not… I told you you wouldn't like it."
"…You're right. I don't. Which is another reason why you should change it."
Levi's eyebrow lifted. "Well what if I were to tell you that I like my name?"
That made Eren pause, looking almost hurt as he floundered around for something to say.
"Maybe it's your name I don't like."
And then Eren froze, staring at Levi with disbelieving eyes. It made a smirk finally break across the raven's face.
"W-we could hyphenate?" the brunet suggested, barely able to let out a squeak in response.
Levi sat there for a while, as if seriously contemplating something. Suddenly he locked eyes with Eren again, making the titan-shifter tense up like a small kitten caught doing something it shouldn't have done.
"Where is it?"
Teal eyes blinked. "Where's what?"
"Well if you're talking about changing names, there's a certain process we have to go through first, if I remember correctly. And that requires a certain question to be asked and a certain object to be exchanged before anything else. So. Where is it?"
"R-right." Eren hurriedly began digging through his pockets, fully aware of Levi's eyes on his every move. Finally he pulled something out, offering it to the man in front of him. Levi briefly glanced at it before looking back at Eren disdainfully.
"You're doing it wrong."
For a second, the brunet simply looked at him.
Levi rolled his eyes. "Get down on your knee, brat."
The younger quickly did as he was told, scrambling off his seat and onto one knee, looking completely flustered at being told how to do something so traditionally easy. It's not like he didn't know how this worked, it was just... well, the previous conversation threw him off.
For a long time, Levi stared down at him, as if studying every detail of Eren to see if he had the right posture and decent clothing. It made Eren extremely self-conscious.
And then Levi made a sudden movement. Eren flinched.
"Well? Come on then."
The brunet looked up, shocked to have not been slapped as blue-green eyes widened, staring at Levi's outstretched hand. The man looked bored, almost impatient as he met Eren's gaze. But there was the smallest twitch of his lips.
Levi offered his hand to Eren, fingers outstretched and twitching with impatience. "My arm is getting tired, Jaeger. I suggest you hurry up before I put it down."
Those words sent a striking smile to Eren's face. Next moment, he had taken Levi's hand and slipped a simple, silver band onto his fourth finger. The raven watched in amusement as Eren practically glowed, buzzing with joy and excitement, before glancing down at his finger to study his new accessory. It was obviously purchased locally, not from one of those fancier places in Wall Sina, but Levi wouldn't have really wanted one of those fancy pieces of shit anyway. It wasn't his style. This one, however, faintly shone in the light, freshly polished and pleasing to the eye in its simplicity. He wouldn't have had it any other way.
Levi stood, and as soon as he did Eren jumped to his feet and crashed into him, bringing them together in a rough kiss. The older of the two rolled his eyes, but smiled faintly as he wrapped his arms around the younger's neck, his hands fisting in soft, fluffy hair. Arms more securely locked around his waist, and for a long time, they simply stood there, too happy to break the sweet kiss or move away from each other.
Somewhere along the line, Eren pressed their bodies closer, the kiss growing hungrier as he leaned into Levi, barely taking notice when he pushed him into the desk and knocked a stack of files onto the ground. Levi cringed inwardly, but for the moment decided not to care. It was just paper and could easily be re-sorted later. In fact, everything on his desk wouldn't be too difficult to clean if it all fell to the floor. The worst thing that could happen really was that he tripped. That would hurt both of them. He couldn't have that.
And so, to make sure that he didn't fall, Levi leaned further back onto the desk, shifting to lift himself onto it. Immediately upon securing himself on the flat surface, Levi tightly fisted his hands into Eren's hair, pulling him closer and shoving his tongue into his mouth to be rewarded with a satisfying moan. Then, he thought it would be just as terrible if Eren tripped, so he pulled the brat by the neck onto the desk with him. Just to be safe.
And that was how Erwin found them when he went to check on his paper work: sprawled across the desk top with the papers in question strewn all over the floor.
One year later.
"Ah!" Armin squeaked, jumping as he felt his hip bump into the corner of the desk and knock a pile of papers over. The blonde quickly scrambled, just catching the stack before it toppled to the floor. Having barely dodged a bullet, he gave a sigh of relief. If he had dropped that onto the floor and knocked it out of whatever order it had been organized into, Levi would kill him.
"Nice going, Arlelt."
"L-Levi-heichou, sir!" Armin yelped in surprise, hurriedly stacking the papers back onto the desk and turning to give his commanding officer a salute through the doorway.
Eren sighed, nudging the captain in the side lightly. "Levi, don't do that to Armin so early in the morning. No one deserves to die of a heart attack because you haven't had your morning caffeine yet."
The older man scoffed. "I complimented him, didn't I?"
"Barely." The brunet rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as he turned to his best friend. "Morning, Armin. At ease."
"You don't have the authority to give that command."
"I do when you're being too much of a grouch to be nice about it."
Levi promptly stomped on his foot, but Eren barely flinched.
As Armin watched them, a small smile spread across his face.
Eren rolled his eyes again, looking back at Armin with a grin. "You on your way to breakfast?"
The blonde nodded. "Yeah. I just had to drop some papers off here."
Levi let out a small sigh. "Of course you did. I'll deal with it later. You can leave my office now."
"Yes sir, Levi-heichou." Armin swiftly saluted again before hurriedly brushing passed them and walking down the hall.
Watching his best friend go, Eren sighed, tugging at Levi's hand to follow. "You seriously need to try to be friendlier in the mornings, Levi. I can't have you scaring all my friends away. And I still can't believe you haven't made people call you by your last name."
Levi's silver eyes rolled, but his hand never attempted to so much as twitch away from Eren's. "For the record, I would be in a better mood if you hadn't kept me up all night and deprived me of the little sleep I get on a daily basis. And as for my 'name', no one seems open to calling me anything different when the whole of humanity knows me as Levi, Captain of the Survey Corps. Not to mention that no one wants to suddenly commit to saying a long-ass name like 'Ackerman-Jaeger-heichou'."
"You mean 'Jaeger-Ackerman-heichou'."
"No. I really don't."
Eren sighed. "You think after three months we would have figured this out already."
"Well you can do whatever the hell you want with your name, but mine is going to be Ackerman-Jaeger because it sounds better."
"Of course, darling. You can do whatever you want."
Levi turned to glare at him. "Don't patronize me, Jaeger."
"Ah. Jaeger-Ackerman."
The raven groaned at this, knowing full well that this argument would go nowhere fast.
"Oh, look! It's the Jaegers! How's my favorite couple this morning?"
Hanji was promptly given the middle finger by a certain temperamental raven, but she only laughed it off and blew a kiss on her way passed them.
Eren couldn't hold back a smile. "See? Hanji prefers the simpler one."
Levi repeated the gesture.
"Thanks for the offer, but I think I got enough last night to last me a while."
A boot immediately kicked him in the shin, but Eren only chuckled. It wasn't nearly as hard as it could have been. In response, he gave his husband a quick kiss on the cheek, smiling as they locked gazes.
"We'll eventually figure it out. Let's just have breakfast for now, ok?"
"Tch. Fine. I don't feel like hashing it out right now anyway," Levi muttered, but there was no hostility to his words. He simply took the opportunity to tug on Eren's hand, leading the smiling brat into the mess hall while being careful not to show him the smirk threatening to shape his lips.
They may still have been arguing about the exact same issue for roughly the past twelve months, and that argument was obviously nowhere near resolved, but at least it was the kind of argument a happy, married couple didn't mind having.
