Some people know they're brilliant. Most of them don't. Some people bask in their brilliantness, living the life of rich scientists, engineers and professors, making people pay them to pick their brains. Others are left to ponder if they were really anything at all. Sometimes brilliance is embraced, eagerly offered large amounts of money to do clever things. Sometimes brilliance in pushed away in favour of justified ignorance, ridiculed and torn. The large majority of the time, nobody knows what on earth is going on anyway and whether isn't brilliant or not is not the biggest concern in the house. Levi knew he was brilliant, and he was quite good at it too, being brilliant. Keeping this in mind, this made it quite mysterious why he was calling Eren at three thirty in the afternoon as he walked towards Armin's house with said boy. It was the very last day of school and Eren was coming very close to brutally murdering everyone because he was tired and he had had two tests that day. In Levi's defense he was the one who had helped Eren study for said tests. Eren paused on the sidewalk, holding the phone up to his ear, smiling just a little at the contact photo of Levi. He had gotten the photo a few days before, it was of Levi sleeping peacefully on the couch after a particularly difficult day at work. Levi had tried very hard to get Eren to delete the photo, but he hadn't been successful. While Eren wouldn't admit it for all the riches of spain he thought that Levi sleeping was one of the most adorable things the world had to offer. As far as he was concerned Levi was one of the few people that could go up against kittens and babies.
"Hello? Levi?" The phone didn't answer right away, instead there was an uncomfortable pause and Eren's assumption that Levi was calling so that he could get the teenager to get him food from the shops wavered just slightly. He heard a short intake of breath from the other side of his mobile phone and Armin looked at him expectantly.
"Er, hello Eren. I believe we've met. This is commander Erwin speaking" Eren's eyes widened just slightly and he opened and closed his mouth in surprise. At this point he strongly resembled a startled goldfish.
"Commander, sir?" He said, not knowing what to say. Why the hell was a military commander calling him from Levi's phone? He felt like he had missed something, like he had just missed a whole series of events that he should of been paying attention to.
"Yes, I'm sorry to be calling you. There has been an unfortunate… accident concerning Levi and as his flatmate I really do need you to come in" Erwin still sounded uncomfortable. Eren stiffened, picturing in his head Levi's burn, back when they weren't living together. He did have one of the worst habits of hurting himself and then down playing it. He thought with his vivid imagination how badly Levi had to be hurt for him to need to come in. Was he in hospital? Was he dying? How badly was he injured? He almost threw up thinking about it.
"Where are you?" He realised that his voice sounded worried and his face was probably pale, but he didn't really care. Worry and anxiety was coursing through his veins and he was beyond ready to start running in any direction in blind hope that he would end up wherever Levi was. Armin was looking at him, blue eyes open with surprise and concern. As always Armin could sense the tension in him.
"We're at the military base a little way out of town, do you know where that is solider?" Commander Erwin's voice was becoming muffled with background noise, shouts and bangs.
"Yes, sir. I'll see you in a little while" The military base was too far away to run so he would have to grab Levi's car from the apartment block's car park. Thank god Levi had given him a spare key. He didn't have his full license yet, but he was sure that if he did get pulled over he would be able to play the my flatmate has an unknown injury and might be dying and I'm taking orders from a super tall military commander, so fuck off card. He hung up the phone and shoved it into his pocket, almost panicking then and there.
"Whats wrong?" Armin's voice was small and meek, worry lining it like golden thread.
"I'm really sorry Armin. Levi's been hurt and I have ta go. Bye!" Without another word Eren darted off. Running as fast as he could down the street, thank god they were near the apartment.
If he was being honest he was pushing the speed limit, but he still didn't really care. There was nobody heading towards the military base anyway. Everyone steered clear because of a rumour that had been spread a few years before that they were doing explosive experiments. The more he thought about it the more it sounded like something Levi would have a hand in. His hands clutched the steering wheel and his knuckles were white. Thoughts of insane amounts blood and explosions and the endlessly numerous things that could of gone wrong concerning Levi's health ran hectically through his mind. After a while he came to a checkpoint in the road, just in front of the high barbed wire fences in front of the buildings.
A armed solider came and lowered his head to the driver's side window of Levi's car. He gestured for Eren to roll the window down. He did so. Maybe if he hadn't been insanely worried he would of been nervous talking to the solider. Thankfully for everyone he became ridiculously assertive when he was worried. When he was angry he was hopeless. When he was nervous he was hopeless. When he was normal he was hopeless. But he was pretty good when he was worried.
"I've been invited here by Commander Erwin. I'm Captain Levi's flatmate" His green eyes were hard. Nobody would of guessed he was on the verge of throwing up into the glove box. The solider nodded and disappeared into his little hut thing. He had a large heavy looking gun swinging behind his back. That worried him even if he was a solider. The solider returned and gave him a small laminated badge. A visitor's pass.
"Show this to the guards at the next check point. They'll take you to Commander Erwin. Good day" The solider nodded and waved him through.
"Good day to you too" Eren murmured, almost grinding his teeth together with uncertainty. The tar road turned to yellow gravel and he eased the car forward, worried. He had to hand it to Levi. His car was a pleasure to drive. Far smoother than any normal car. Of course Levi was quite good under the hood and even he was capable of taking a little pride in his abilities to make a car go without breaking a sweat.
The next few minutes was a hushed and hurried affair. He was roughly dragged through the corridors of a building promptly after he showed the badge to the guards. He walked between two men. Both blonds, one a little older and constantly scowling, the other was younger with a handsome face and his hair was held back, away from his face, in a pony tail. Both of them wore grave expressions and that only made him more worried. Grave expressions, in his experiance, were rarely used when something good was going on.
Abruptly he got cast into a brutally light room, the two men following suit. Commander Erwin stands in the corner, next to a second door, his back against a steel wall, his hand covering his eyes. Just like Levi he wore a large white lab coat. From what Eren had heard he wasn't a military scientist like Levi was he just ordered everyone around, scientist or solider or otherwise. From somewhere there was an insistent wail, possibly from inside the door.
Erwin looked up at the approaching trio.
"Ah, Eren, I'm sorry I couldn't meet you at the gate, I have to stay with him" One of Eren's fists clenched at his fist. He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all and, yet, here he was. He could hear the wail fading, perhaps whoever it was was calming down. It almost sounded like a child. But what would a child be doing on a military base?
"Yeah, so can someone tell me what's actually going on? Whats wrong with Levi?" He didn't like not knowing why everyone was so agitated. Was he the only one who had no idea what was going on? If Erwin was actually capable of showing weakness Eren was sure he would of been biting his lip.
"Yes, of course. Please come with me" Erwin lead Eren through the door where the wailing might of once been. Eren continued behind him, the two men staying put and nervously as it was possible to stay put. "You might want to take a deep breath before you see him. It'll be… quite a shock" Erwin was obviously trying to make it obvious that this was a little more complicated than you're average scrape.
The first thing Eren noticed was the pile of clothes in the corner, crumpled like someone had simply thrown them away. The second thing he noticed was a man leaning on a table, breathing hard and sweating. Finally he reached the key component of the room, what made it really surprising. There was a boy huddled in the corner, tears streaming down his fact.
"Bloody hell" he muttered. The boy had blue eyes. Such familiar blue eyes. Blue eyes he lived with. Blue eyes that should of belonged to someone much older. The resemblance… well… the resemblance went well beyond genetics, it was down right Levi. He was as Levi as Levi was Levi, just… little and in tears. The boy must not of been older than two, still young. He was tiny, small and frail.
And adorable. He made the older Levi look like a grizzly bear he was so cute. Briefly their eyes met, but almost immediately blue eyes flickered to the tall man to his left. Then he began to cry again. Tears streamed down his face and he wailed like the world was ending. The little guy was terrified.
Eren rushed forward, strange mouthing instincts at the helm. He quickly scooped the child up into his arms, just like his mother had done to him when he was small. The child squealed in fright and tried to push back. Frightened blue eyes looked at him and he looked back. He smiled. Just a simple comforting, 'you are safe' soft of smile was all it took. All the child had needed was a little clarification that he would come to no harm. Eren felt arms wrap around his neck and warm tears soft into his school uniform. He swayed his hips, rubbing the boy's back in the soothing motions, making soft cooing sounds to soothe the boy's sobs.
He turned back around, to Erwin and the tired looking man. They were staring at him in astonishment, but he still didn't care.
"How did this happen?" His voice was cold and demanding, much to his own smothered surprise.
"I am designing a gun that has the capacity to make things smaller" surprisingly it was the tired looking man who spoke. "The captain was helping me. Something went wrong and he pushed me out of the way" he shrugged. "But, the gun's only meant to work on objects so instead of making the captain smaller, he was made younger. He doesn't remember anything un until around two to three years old" the man was slightly shorted than Eren was, well built and strong. He wore yet another white lab coat and seemed to be feeling very guilty.
"Is there any way to make him old again?" Eren's voice still retained such stature, strength and will that there was no way that the tired looking man wouldn't tell him, even if everything he said was classified.
"No, not yet at least. But if the captain's calculations are correct which they usually are he should be back to normal by the end of the week, maybe less" the man hesitated as Eren gave a sigh of relief and the boy in his arms began to suck his thumb. "The thing is..." He paused, wondering how to shape his words. "We have no idea how to look after the kid. I mean, he's obviously traumatised" the man gestured to the kid who flinched and clung to Eren's neck a little tighter.
"Well, isn't it obvious?" Eren drew himself to his full height. "I'll look after him"
