G'day folks!
Sorry for the delay (not that I actually have a set time to put these out), I've been busy with TAFE, and had a good time at Manifest over the weekend~ certainly the most eventful con yet since we had to evacuate the traders hall since the fire alarm went off, turned out to only be some dickhead who set off a smoke bomb (and even more idiots were coming into the building while were were meant to be getting out...the whole weekend seemed to have a bit of a problem with communication throughout the staff :\)
Also managed to get myself a recon corp uniform~! Ended up buying the first one from the stall! and also my first cosplay!
After everything had finally absorbed in, Mikasa headed back to her fellow cadets at the tents, promising that their discovery is to be kept between the three until ordered otherwise, leaving the two adults alone to discuss.
"This doesn't make sense." Levi started with a huff, still glaring at the boy who had now woken up and tangled himself in the sheets.
"What aren't you getting?
"That the brat's even alive. If he was a giant monster the entire time, we would have known much earlier, it's hard to miss something like that in a jungle, so he clearly would have reverted back to a baby. Last time I checked, babies can't do squat at 1 other than eat, cry, make messes and shit themselves."
Hanji just plopped onto her wheely chair, cupping her chin as she thought of an explanation. "Hmm...Maybe he still gains the nutrition from what he eats when he's transforms."
"Possibly. He would have ran into other animals, so wouldn't they have killed him?"
"If you look at his behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if something took him in as a cub. This wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened, there have been other cases of feral children; some have been raised by dogs, wolves, monkeys, even birds."
"Is it possible to humanize him?"
The scientist let out a tired sigh, her expression becoming slightly depressed. "It is, but there will be a lot of complications. According to the journal entry, he'd be around 15, putting a pretty big gap between other wild kids, who were mostly under the age of 12 when they were found. He might be too far gone to teach him how to behave like a human or to even speak since a lot of the other cases struggled, and tend to hold onto their animalistic upbringing."
"Right...So what do we do with him now?"
"Well, I need to contact HQ to keep them updated on our progress. If I get in contact with either Ervin or Pixis, I'll inform them of Tita-I mean Eren, they're the only two in the higher ups I can really trust with his information. And since I don't want to leave the kid unsupervised for the time being, I guess you can give him a bath or something."
Hanji regretted her comment as soon as she saw the glint in the shorter mans eyes. Finally being able to wash the child who hasn't been clean for about 14 years who Levi had been forced to watch roll around in his own filth seemed like an early birthday present for him.
"Err...Levi?"
"I'll be back on a moment, I just need to grab a few things." Levi stated, leaving the tent to gather whatever it was he needed.
Hanji watched the other leave, then turned her attention to the caged boy who seemed to be loafing about, enjoying the luxury of a comfy mattress, and warm, soft blankets he managed to make a nest out of.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry Ti-err Eren." The woman cried, her pitch made Eren lift his head up and glance in her direction.
Levi returned, a large yellow tub in hand that was full of towels, hair products, soap, face washers and other objects, the most concerning object being the freaking machete that was sticking out from the top!
Hanji was about to question the weapon but Levi quickly dumped the tub on the ground and walked out of the tent, soon returning with buckets of cold water, and leaving again for hot water.
"Levi? What umm, what'cha gonna do with that machete?"
Levi leered at the woman with a bored expression, not bothering to answer her question as he removed the items from the tub and grabbed a needle out before headed over to the cage.
Eren, on seeing Levi approaching, let out a cat-like hiss in an attempt of intimidation. The corporal wasn't phased in the slightest, even when Eren decided to lash out and try to claw him through the bars of the cage and made more noises. Levi only responded with a snort before grabbing the boys arm tightly and injected the substance inside the needle. Within minutes, the boy calmed down significantly before dropping onto his butt in a daze, which made it easier for Levi to move the child out.
"Please tell me you're not gonna harm him." Hanji squeaked, earning the same bored leer.
"As long as he doesn't act up, he's fine." Levi stated as he dropped the kid in the tub with a loud thud and picked up the machete. Grasping onto the unkempt hair, Levi cut through the hair in one quick slash, leaving the ratty, almost black hair at a much more manageable length that was just above his boney shoulders.
Hanji sighed in relief that the machete was only used to cut the bulk of the disgusting mop of hair. An amused grin spread across her face when Levi pulled a face of disgust as he felt the texture of the hair, a couple insects and tiny clumps of dirt and dried mud fell as Levi disposed of the manky tresses to the side.
"Don't you have something important to do?"
"Right. I'll be back to check up once I'm done, so play nice." Hanji stated before heading out, leaving Levi to go about his business.
"Alright you filthy abomination, time to have a desperately needed bath." The male mumbled as he picked up one of the buckets filled with cold water, and dumped it onto the boy, who let out a whine in protest as soon as the cool liquid made contact with him. The tub began filling up with water, already murky from whatever grime that came from Eren's shivering body, which was trying pathetically to escape the tub. Levi then added the hot water, pouring it into the tub rather than burn the kid who was settling down once the freezing cold water began to heat up to a pleasant warmth.
Levi grabbed a bar of soap and rag, dunking both into the scummy water and began lathering the cloth with the soap. From there, Levi began scrubbing the cloth on Eren's left arm, becoming more vigorous when he wasn't getting enough dirt off. By the time the top of his arm was clean, the entire rag had become covered in black or dark brown from the filth. Tossing the material to the side, he grabbed another washer and repeated the process with his underarm, followed by the other arm, back, chest, neck, face (which was a 'lot of fun' when he was working on scrubbing the scum from behind the ears until Eren was whining and the skin became red and raw). Working on the lower half was a bit more of a struggle, the brat was thrashing about when he was pushed back and his head was coming close to the water, but he eventually was able to scrub the kids legs, butt, and private regions clean.
"Alright, time to change the water." Levi said to himself as he heaved the boy out of the tub and wrapped him in a towel in a way that he wouldn't have an easy time trying to get himself out of, especially since he was still under the influence of the sedative. Picking up the tub, the short male carried the tub outside, dumping the murky water at the tree near the back of the tent, and returning again, finding Eren sitting in the same spot he had left him, though weakly wriggling around in the towel.
Pouring clean water into the tub again, Levi unwrapped Eren from the towel and pushed him back into the bath so he could get started on the hair.
Grabbing the back of the kid's head, Levi dunked Eren's head under the water more roughly than intended, and tried to get the water to soak into the hair before bringing the head up for air. Eren gasped as he was finally able to breathe, followed by violent coughing and hacking, vomiting some of the water he inhaled. Eventually he caught his breath again, only to be dunked again but pulled up just as quick.
Picking up the shampoo, Levi squeezed out a lot more than necessary amount of the product before lathering it into the boys hair. The corporal scowled as he could still feel how much mud was clumped into the hair, chunks of clay was chipping off and falling into the tub, along with twigs, leaves, insects, and even a couple spiders.
"Well well, look how handsome you are now that we can get a proper look at your face." Hanji sang as soon as she had waltzed into the tent, her usual cheesy grin stretched along her face as she made her way over the the two males.
"So, how'd it go?" Levi asked boredom, still keeping most of his attention on the hair that he managed to pull a handful of mud out of.
" Yeah, it went alright. I got in contact with Irvin; he said he'd come down in a week or two just to see how things are going and to take a look at Eren. If all goes well, we might be heading back home pretty soon after."
"Thank god, I'm sick of this hellhole...god damn it, can you hold him still for a second."
Hanji complied to the request, grabbing onto the ridiculously thin shoulders as Levi grabbed a comb from his little pile and using it to tug into the hair.
"Fucking knots!" Levi snapped as he was tugging the plastic harshly until he was able to rip through it, which earned him a loud yelp and whimpering.
Once getting the worst of the knots out of the way (some even being bad enough that they had to be cut out), he proceeded to rinse the shampoo out, being a lot more gentle since Hanji was around. In doing so was difficult as they decided to have the boy lean back, which resulted in thrashing in protest, much like when Levi was washing his legs.
Once the task was done, the conditioner was lathered into the mop of a much cleaner and natural brown, comb brushing through it again just to get whatever knots and inhabitants out till it was nice and smooth, which was followed by another rinse and finally back into the towels to dry.
"Satisfied?" Hanji questioned as she was drying Erens mop with a towel as he sat on her chair, snugly wrapped in another towel.
"Much."
"Heheh, he certainly looks better now that he's squeaky clean."
Levi rolled his eyes, "So what's going to happen now? I don't particularly like the little shit, but I'm not overly fond of having a kid being used as a lab rat, especially since we don't know what triggers him to turn into a giant."
"...I honestly don't know. I mean, this is a massive breakthrough for science, but I don't want to have him cooped up in a cage in a lab just to be experimented on for the rest of his life." Hanji paused as she removed the towel, brown hair all fluffy and sticking out everywhere. Eren yawned as he curled himself up into a ball and begun to doze off just as she grabbed the hair brush to flatten the hair down and picked up the scissors to style it. " I'd love to see him to live like a normal kid...which is impossible."
With a warm smile, Hanji finished cutting and picked Eren up to carry him over to the cage, which he snuggled into his bed as soon as he hit the mattress.
"Just seeing him with a loving family and just learning how to talk and do even small menial things like using a knife and fork would make me happy."
Levi looked at the woman as he picked up the tub to dump the rest of the water "Such fantasies will never exist for him, he's just going to be a guinea pig and be used as a weapon for war...Can you help pick up those?"
"...Yeah." With a depressed sigh, Hanji left the cage, not bothering to put the muzzle on the sleeping boy, and locked the cage before picking up the hair products and the dirty rags. She had a feeling she was going to be in a miserable mood for the rest of the day.
Sorry this chapter isn't overly interesting, shit happens though.
So to make up for it, a silly little Omake! I wanted to put this somewhere in the fic, but I don't think I'd be able to get it in XD so bonus
*~*OMAKE*~*
"Oh-OH GOD!" Hanji cried as she buried her face in her hands, body shaking from her sobs.
"Why the hell are you crying, shitty woman?"
"He's a murderer, Levi!"
"Who?"
"EREN! Sweet precious Eren is a cold blooded murderer!"
The male's eyes widened slightly at the news.
"Wait, what? what happened?"
Hanji pulled her face away from her hands, tears still pouring and snot dribbling from her nose. Levi scowled at her current unattractive appearance.
"S-so I thought Eren was lo-looking a bit lonely, seeing that-that he's not used to interacting with humans. I decided that maybe he-he'd find comfort with animals, so I decided he could play with Sonny and Bean."
"You mean your mice?"
Hanji nodded with a sniff. "Anyways, it seemed to be going well, Eren s-seemed to be enjoying their company...and then it happened."
"Oh God." Levi sighed as he slapped his hand against his face, already knowing where this story was going.
"Eren had Sonny in his palm, seeming pretty happy, and THEN HE CRUSHED HIM IN HIS HAND!"
"Hanji-"
"And that's not all! He grabbed Bean, and then he...oh god." Hanji covered her mouth, not wanting to remember the horrible memory.
"Hanji, you-"
"And then Eren bit Beans head off! HE FRIGGIN BIT AND RIPPED POOR BEANS HEAD RIGHT OFF!" Hanji basically screamed, burying her face in her hands again.
Levi just gave the woman a 'Are you fucking serious look'. "Hanji?"
"Y-yeah?"
"You do realize you bought those fucking rodents a week before we headed off on this expedition?"
Hanji just cried even harder, resulting in Levi absconding the fuck out, not willing to deal with with the woman's idiotic problems.