A/N: Hey all! I just wanted to warn you guys that there's some pretty nasty stuff going on in this chapter, mostly in the second half. So if you want to skip that part, then go ahead. Enjoy!

The next morning found Levi standing in front of the window in his kitchen that sat above the sink, dressed in sweats, slippers and that one hoodie that was far too big for him and yet he kept wearing anyway. He was watching the snow fall silently, admiring how completely white the world was outside: white ground, white sky, and white trees. It made everything so wonderfully quiet, all sound muffled by the snow outside, and that spell seemed to work its way inside the house as well just by looking at it. However, looking at the snow outside made him feel cold as well, hence the mug of tea he was occasionally sipping from. The steam was doing wonders at heating up his cold nose, and the tea itself was doing a great job at heating him up from the inside out, pooling in his gut and warming his core. It was still very early in the morning, the sun's light feeling fresh and still too weak to permeate through the thick snow clouds sitting so low in the sky.

Levi hadn't slept well at all last night.

A few moments later, he heard the groggy, uneven shuffling of feet moseying their way down the hall and into the kitchen, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He didn't turn around. Instead, he just felt Eren come up behind him and place his head on top of Levi's before crossing his arms around the older man's shoulders, pressing his front against Levi's back, and laying his hands in front of his chest with a drawn out groan.

After a moment of silence in which Levi processed the new position he was now in, he tilted his head up slightly, as if to attempt to look Eren in the eye, and said flatly, "Can I help you?"

His response was a grunt and a huge yawn. He tried again. "I'm going to need you to use your big boy words, kid."

Eren sighed irritably and nuzzled his nose into Levi's hair. "Piss off."

Levi snorted in amusement. "No not those ones. Guessing since you're up so early means you didn't sleep well either."

"Mm mm," Eren grunted a negative, "Feel like shit. My head hurts really bad. It started last night and I thought it would go away by this morning."

"Probably a leftover stress headache from yesterday's fiasco," Levi guessed, "I'm sorry Eren. Take a hot shower, let the water beat on your head. Then try and nap today. We'll keep a hot towel over your eyes and close all the shades in your room. Sound good?"

"Mhmm," the boy hummed. But he didn't release Levi right away. If anything, his grip tightened, and Levi felt him take a few deep breaths against his scalp, as if Eren were breathing in his scent. The boy then admitted in a quiet, rough voice, "The headache was only part of the reason I couldn't sleep. I think I got it from how scared I got after Erwin said I might be taken away. It was all I could think about last night, and I kept having bad dream after bad dream that I was stuck in Hutchings, and I was running down the hallways of the place calling for you, but I couldn't find you. I checked every room, every staircase and elevator, but you weren't there. It was…I…"

He trailed off, and Levi lightly clasped his non-bandaged hand in consolation, offering a confession. "That kept me awake too, the fear of you being sent away. Trust me, I'm going to send a very profanity laced email to Erwin later."

He turned around, facing Eren for the first time that morning, and saw that he indeed looked as awful as he felt. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was sticking up in every direction. His face was twisted in a grimace, and his eyes were only opened into slits. Realizing the light, weak as it was, was probably hurting his eyes, Levi tried his best to block it, even though he was almost a half a head shorter than Eren, and in truth probably didn't help as much as he wanted to. So, he wasted no time in carefully pulling the boy into an embrace and guiding his head down onto his shoulder. Eren set his chin onto it, moaning in pain and leaning his head against Levi's, who in turn leaned his head against Eren's.

"Listen to me," Levi said seriously, his voice no more than a murmur in the quiet of the kitchen, "I already told you once, but I'll say it again: you're not going anywhere. I'm not letting anyone take you away from me, even if I lose my job for it. Like it or not, you're stuck with me."

"I wouldn't want you to lose your job for me," Eren protested.

"It'd be worth it," the older man said, "I've spent time in a psych ward, Eren, when I was first rescued. Not Hutchings, but the same principle applies across the board as a rule for these places. And while it wasn't the most horrible place in the world, I'd still like to keep you out of there if I could. Especially if you'd rather stay here."

Eren wondered curiously, "What did you need to go to a psych ward for?"

"For the opposite problem you have, actually," he answered, "Instead of lashing out at myself, I was a danger to others. I was just so angry at the world, for what it had allowed to happen to me. I'm much better now of course, but sometimes I'll still get the itch to punch someone out."

He hugged the boy a little tighter, and added, "And Eren, if I can improve, you can too. You're not going to do this alone."

"But what if I can't?" Eren fretted, "What if I can't get better, or what if I get worse? I can't exactly control these flashbacks, Levi. I'm so scared that I'm going to slip up and be triggered by something I didn't even know I was afraid of. If that happened, I'd…God"-

"Eren, stop," Levi soothed, "You're worrying about things that haven't happened yet, that most likely won't. You're going to make your headache worse. Now listen, I'm going to make a promise right now to you: I promise that I'll do everything in my power to help you get better, and I promise no matter what, I won't let anyone take you away from here as long as it's your desire to stay."

After taking a moment to absorb Levi's words, Eren asked shakily, "You promise?"

"Yes," Levi assured him, "With all my heart, on whatever you hold dear. I promise to do whatever it takes to keep you here with me."

Eren blinked back tears that were threatening overflow, though whether they were from relief or overwhelming gratitude he didn't know. Probably both. He nuzzled his nose into the skin of Levi's neck, murmuring, "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it, Eren. Alright now, let's worry about the rest of this another day, shall we? Let's get you soaking in a hot shower."

The boy offered no argument, allowing himself to be shepherded into the bathroom and just sitting on top of the closed toilet as he watched Levi set up the shower for him, keeping the lights low. When the water was running and warming up, he gave Eren the go ahead to get in, and the boy did so, watching as Levi left before he undressed and stepped in.

He must have been in the shower for close to an hour before he got out, and barely wasted any time drying his hair, throwing on his clothes haphazardly, thinking of nothing but climbing into bed and sleeping away the throbbing pain emanating from the very core of his brain. At hearing him get out, Levi was soon right there with a warm, wet towel, escorting Eren into his room. The boy gratefully flopped down onto his bed, curling up in the thick blankets. Levi sat down beside him, placing the towel over his eyes, adding an extra layer of soothing darkness and warmth.

"Thank you," Eren said softly.

"It's what I'm here for," the older man told him matter of factly, running his fingers through Eren's hair a couple times, before pulling his hand away and saying, "Okay, I'll leave you to nap."

"Mmm, no," Eren mumbled, "That felt good. Stay? Please? Just until I fall asleep?"

Levi didn't even try to deny him, simply replying, "Sure," and Eren could hear the quiet smile in his voice. He felt the older man lay down carefully beside him, shifting around as gingerly as he could so as not to jostle Eren's head too much, before he found a comfy place in the mattress and relaxed. He continued his ministrations in Eren's hair, running his fingers through the wet strands over and over again, slowly, rhythmically. The boy sighed happily, tiredly, scooting a little closer towards him and rolling over so that he faced Levi, and brought his legs forward towards Levi's so that they touched, the contact comforting even if Levi was lying on top of the blankets. The older man watched as Eren stilled, before the boy's breathing gradually evened out and deepened into sleep.

Levi simply lay there for a minute, listening to the sound of the snow pattering against the window and Eren's heavy breathing. The sounds, as well as the darkness of the room and his own exhaustion, were working to persuade him to join Eren in sleep. His eyes grew heavier and heavier until it was far too much work to keep them open anymore, and they shut. He kept running his fingers through Eren's hair for as long as he could, until that too became too much effort and his hand stilled, fingers remaining tangled in Eren's hair. His thoughts became slow and syrupy, halting as his consciousness faded away. His last thought he remembered clearly though, even as sleep closed over his head, and that was him wondering what was wrong with him He'd never consider sacrificing his job for any of his other kids before. He loved his other kids, but he would have conceded sending them to a place like Hutchings if it meant if was in their better interest, recognizing the limits of the help he could offer them. But the thought of Eren leaving prompted in him the same surge of adrenaline and cold chills he got when confronted with a needle, and he had no idea why. Why Eren? Why did the boy incite such potent, wildly different feelings in him of both fear and happiness, protectiveness and pride?

What on Earth was this boy doing to him?

000

"I think it's time I tell you guys about some of the worst things that happened to me while Nile had me."

Eren fidgeted on the couch in front of Petra's woodstove with Levi beside him a few days later, there for the second time that week. In keeping with her word to Erwin, Petra had increased their sessions from once a week to three times a week, hoping in time they would see better results. This was actually in and of itself a bit of a breakthrough, since Eren didn't really go into detail during his sessions, often giving vague summaries of the things Nile put him through. He thought if he distanced himself from the memories, they might fade in time, but evidently that didn't seem to be the case.

Their answer came as to why he was having this sudden change of heart when Eren explained, "I want to get better. When Erwin said I could be sent away…I haven't felt this scared since Nile shut me in his basement that first day. I know that sounds ridiculous, but…"

"It's not," Petra assured him, "It's sad, but at the same time, I'm glad you found such a good motivator for trying to get yourself well again. I'm sure Levi has already told you that he's going to do everything in his power to make sure you don't have to go to Hutchings, and I'm going to do the same. It's not going to be easy, but you're a tough kid, Eren. If anyone can pull this off, it's you."

The boy shrugged uncertainly, lowering his gaze as Petra continued, "But at the same time, I don't want you to push yourself. If you genuinely don't think you can share something with us, then don't until you feel you're ready, if you are at all."

"And Eren," Levi added, "If you're not making as much progress as fast as you'd like, don't get too upset with yourself. Don't try and bully yourself into healing, because it's not going to work. Take it from someone who knows, PTSD is not one of those mental illnesses that exactly has a be all end all cure. It's more something you learn to live with, a little demon that becomes your constant companion. You learn what makes that demon tick; what makes him act up, what calms him down, when he's going to strike, and when he's going to leave you alone for a while. So really I don't think it's about getting rid of your PTSD, because I'm not going to bullshit you, it's not ever going to fully go away. Mine hasn't. But if I've learned anything, if there is any kind of cure, it's time. The more time passes, the more the memories begin to fade, and the more chances you're given to learn how to deal with the new demons in your life. And the best part is, you're not going to be doing it alone. Petra and I will be right here with you every step of the way. And knowing someone is with you to help you through this, knowing someone is going to be there to comfort you and pull you out of your flashbacks, makes dealing with them a whole hell of a lot easier."

Levi wouldn't admit to Eren that that last part was something he had only discovered recently since the boy had come to live with him. But he supposed it didn't matter anyway; Eren relaxed marginally in his seat at his words, relieved both at the fact that Levi had given him the straight facts without trying to sugar coat it so he'd know exactly what to expect, and the fact that there was in fact hope for him.

"Levi's right," Petra said with a smile, "And also, I've found with kids that come to me with PTSD, the more good experiences they can have in their lives, the more those good memories seem to help to drown out the bad ones and make them easier to deal with. We have to work on making your good memories louder and more overpowering than the bad ones. Make you so happy that there's no room for fear, and it won't hold as much power over you. Like he said, there's no complete cure for PTSD, but I believe these things will help you enough so that you don't have to go to Hutchings."

"I'll do it," Eren agreed emphatically, "Whatever you guys want."

"Just you watch, brat," Levi promised him with a grin, "We'll have so much fun this spring and summer that there will be moments when you'll forget Nile's goddamn name. How does that sound?"

"Incredible," the boy gasped, a lump forming in his throat at the heavenly thought, "I…okay. Yes, I want that. More than anything. So I guess to start, like I said, I just want to get everything out in the open. I feel like the more I repress these memories, the more vivid they're going to get and the more they're going to torment me. I think I'd feel better if someone else knew. But I'll just tell you guys a couple things today."

"Whatever you want or don't want to," Petra reminded him, and Levi nodded.

"Okay," Eren repeated, "Okay. I guess I can start with my, um…incontinence. I'm pretty sure I know what Nile did to make me like this."

Levi placed a supportive hand on Eren's back, silently letting him know that he could start whenever he felt like it, and Petra gave him an encouraging nod. Eren licked his lips and swallowed, scooting a little closer to Levi, not that they could get much closer to each other without him being in the older man's lap, and by the end of this session he wouldn't be surprised if that's where he ended up. Nonetheless, he summoned his courage, reminding himself of the consequences if he failed to improve, recalling his dream where he had run up and down the hallways of a psych ward calling out Levi's name over and over again, and receiving no answer but his own echo. He focused on how terrified and hopeless he had felt, and used those feelings to fuel him as he launched into his tale.

By the time Eren was fifteen, he had forgotten many things: what it felt like to be warm, or to have a full stomach, or the feeling of clothes on his skin. He had forgotten what his own normal speaking voice sounded like, or what it was like to not have his lower body aching constantly. He had forgotten how soft a real bed felt, what the sky looked like, and how warm dignity felt.

And now, he was about to forget a little more.

"You've lost your toilet privileges," Nile told him one morning. Eren remained silent, as he was expected to be, especially naked and his wrists chained to a pipe as he was, ankles chained as well. The weight was as familiar anymore as breathing was. The man prompted him, "Go ahead, ask me why."

"Why, master?" the boy mumbled quietly.

"Because a little cock slut who turns honest, straight men gay doesn't deserve a toilet," he explained, "You'll use the bucket all the time now. And you better not make a mess, or you'll be cleaning it up with your tongue, got it?"

"I-I, but I, I couldn't…"

"You better. Now come on, you said you had to go, didn't you?"

He held up a bucket, situating it so that he held Eren's penis over the rim, and waited expectantly. Eren shuddered. He knew he shouldn't be disgusted, shouldn't have any dignity left to lose after all these years of beatings and rapes, of being kept naked permanently so that Nile could have him whenever he desired. Who had forgotten what it was like to be able to close his legs at will, so often did Nile keep his homemade "leg spreader" locked around his ankles. But there was a tiny, pitiful, spark inside of Eren that represented the only bit of dignity he still possessed, and though it had encountered many horrible things, it was still repulsed every time a new horrible thing was introduced to the boy. He almost wished that spark would go away; it made things so much harder for him. It was easier to just give in to what Nile wanted.

But he didn't want to give into this. He hesitated, having a strong suspicion that this was just another one of the man's fetishes, that he probably got off to watching others urinate. And that little bit of dignity left in Eren refused to give him the satisfaction, even though he knew it was a bad idea. The boy shook his head, even as his bladder throbbed in protest.

"No?" Nile raised an eyebrow, "You're not going to use the bucket?"

Eren refused to meet his eye, and instead let his silence and his failure to perform be his answer. Nile sighed, "Fine then," and shrugged, before he put the bucket down, and reached under the bed, pulling out a sinister looking thing he had shoved under there when he first came down to visit Eren that day. The boy had no idea what it was, or what it was supposed to accomplish, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.

From the quick glance he was given, Eren guessed it was some kind of chastity belt, but there was a long, thin tube in the groin area that pointed towards the wearer, and before he could guess what its purpose was, the belt was being attached, and the tube was being forced up into his urethra. Eren yelped, tears stinging his eyes from the pain. He shook for a minute, instinctively trying to bring his thighs together to protect himself from the intrusion, but it was too late. The belt was being fastened around his waist, harsh and metal and unyielding. Even if his hands were free, the belt was secured by a padlock that clicked sinisterly shut.

"You either piss in the bucket," Nile explained, "Or you don't piss at all. I'll see if you've changed your mind by tonight. It's seven in the morning now, so how about I check on you at seven tonight. That should give you enough time to think things over."

With that, Nile turned around and turned the lights off, saying before he went upstairs, "Enjoy your day, kid."

And then he was left alone in the dark.

That day seemed to last a week for Eren, an agonizing period of time in which he could think about nothing but his bladder. The pain was so raw, so primal, that his thoughts allowed for him to focus on nothing else but the fact that it needed to be emptied, and desperately. His lower body throbbed, the pressure building and building until Eren felt quite sick with it. He honestly felt ready to vomit, and he wished that he would. Maybe if he relieved himself that way, he might feel marginally better. However, he didn't, and instead all he could do was stand there and cry over yet another ache that he didn't have the power to soothe. What was worse, later in the day, his body eventually overwhelmed his willpower, and with a sob, he felt his bladder give out.

But nothing came out.

Horrified, Eren realized that the device was indeed living up to its intended purpose, so while he felt the sharp ping of his bladder relaxing and trying to release its contents, the probe was preventing it from doing so, stoppering him up like a cork in a wine bottle. No liquid was going to escape; instead, it was going to be forced back up to where it came from. With that realization Eren began to feel faint, and the feeling didn't leave him for the rest of the day.

Seven in the evening rolled around an eternity later, and when Nile appeared punctually in the doorway and came down the steps, Eren immediately began crying in relief, his mind utterly destroyed by the pain his body was in. He was ready to beg, cry, or spread his legs, whatever it took to get the man to remove this awful device.

"Alright, slut," Nile said, picking up the bucket from the ground, "You've had a good long while to think things over. We going to use this like a good boy?"

"Yes!" Eren sobbed, "Please! Oh God, please!"

"Close, but that's not my name. Please what?"

"Please master!" the boy shrieked, knowing that Nile was enjoying this little extra bit of suffering he was causing by making Eren answer these questions he already knew the answer to, "Please master, please let me use the bucket!"

The man laughed lightly, before he began unbuckling the belt with one hand and pulling it off. The probe slid out of Eren, and the boy whimpered, managing with an inhuman effort to hold in the urine for the half second it took for Nile to place his shaft back over the bucket, before it all came gushing out. Eren groaned loudly in sheer, beautiful, blessed relief, so relieved in fact that he saw white for a moment from the force of it.

The sound of urine tinkling into the bucket was loud and obscene, echoing off the stone walls of the basement, before it ceased after what seemed like hours. Eren's thighs trembled and he felt devastatingly weak, panting with elation at having that agonizing pain relieved, savoring the feeling of an empty bladder. However, he only got to enjoy it for a moment, before Nile was lifting up the bucket and dumping the contents onto his head.

"There," he said, "You spent all day with it in you, now spend all night with your piss on you."

Eren stood there in shock as the urine ran in warm rivulets down the sides of his head, soaking into his hair and scalp, the smell pungent in his nose. However, before he could unwisely protest, Nile was gone again, vanishing up the stairs, leaving Eren alone once more.

"Nile liked to use that thing on me a lot," Eren concluded, "So much that I noticed a difference right away in how well I could hold my bladder. It became harder to do so fast. I guess the constant stretching and straining of my sphincter muscles made them weaker. But that was just the start. That wasn't even what really made me as bad as I am now."

He paused, finally lifting his head to glance at them both briefly, before pointing at his breast and saying, "You guys know about these scars on my chest. I think you said you saw them, right?"

Levi thought back for a moment, recalling the first day he had met Eren, and remembered clearly the odd surgical cut between his ribs next to the scar that indicated he had been shot at one point, and answered evenly, "Yes, we remember."

"Well, Nile had been drinking that night," he began, choosing to stare at his hands resting on his knees rather than look any of them in the eye anymore, "And when he drank he always got a lot more sadistic. He was already convinced that I had corrupted him and turned his 'morally straight soul' gay, as he put it, and he constantly told me that it was his job to punish me for it. So one night, he came into the basement drunk off his ass, ranting about the usual stuff. Told me how I cursing him and his family, that I was reason he was having problems with his wife because he couldn't get it up around her anymore. Called me whatever awful names he could think of. 'Whore' was a popular one, 'bitch' was too. 'Slut,' 'fag'…it was always creepier when he called me 'darling' though, or when he called me both in one sentence."

Eren shuddered, fighting hard not to see the basement in front of him, instead hyper-focusing on the crackle of the fire in the woodstove, on the abstract shapes he could make out in Petra's carpet, on the warmth of Levi's thigh against his own. He could do this, he told himself.

"Anyway, he was angrier than usual. Said his wife had walked out on him and taken their kids with him, and he had no idea where they were or if they'd even come back. He was blaming me for it, again going on and on about how I had ruined his life, how everything had been better for him before he had ever met me. He started pacing back and forth, trying to decide what he should do with me to punish me. He's listing off things he usually liked to use, like the whips, or the car battery he'd hook me up to sometimes. He said he might even get the mating brace out again and strap me into it. He liked to do that sometimes, stick me in one of those contraptions that you use to mate dogs with, and rub what he said were pheromones of female dogs in heat on me, before letting his German Shepherd down into the basement to-to…"

He swallowed hard, taking another shaking breath and letting it out slowly. He squeezed his eyes shut, and Levi reacted instinctively. He pulled Eren to his chest, mindful of the boy's injured hand, and Eren wasted no time in pulling up his legs and tucking them underneath him, before he laid his head on Levi's chest. He searched for the man's heartbeat, and found it, letting it soothe him before he continued.

"But instead of doing any of those things, he pulled a handgun out of nowhere, and…he, um, he shot me. In the chest."

Eren felt Levi squeeze him subtly tighter, a reflex brought about by a surge of angry protectiveness welling up inside the man, and he appreciated it. He nuzzled his face further into his chest, daring a look up at Petra, and seeing that her face held an expression of sympathetic understanding. If she minded Eren clinging to Levi so blatantly for comfort, she certainly wasn't saying anything, and in fact, if Eren had to guess, he'd say she approved of it.

"I thought I was going to die," Eren said breathlessly, "I…God, it hurt so bad, and I had never seen that much of my own blood before. I was so fucking scared."

"I'll bet you were," Levi said, his voice surprisingly somewhat hoarse, "Shit, I'm so sorry Eren."

"That's not the worst part," he told him. "Nile seemed really surprised by what he had done. I don't remember a lot of what happened next, but I do remember seeing the stairs under me as he dragged me up them. Then I remember being in the tub while he tried to stop the bleeding with towels. I think I might have told him to call an ambulance a few times, because he told me that he didn't need to do that, that he was in the medical field and he could fix this himself. So…that's what he did. Right there, in that tub. He tied my chains around the bar in the tub, and basically performed surgery to get the bullet out.

"He got me drunk first. Forced alcohol down my throat until I was almost as incoherent as he was, keeping a towel over my chest the whole time. He didn't have any anesthetic, he said, so the alcohol would have to do. Pretty sure the bullet didn't hit anything vital, otherwise I'm sure I would have died long before the time it took to get me drunk. It was just the blood loss making me fade in and out. But once I was out of it enough, that's when he started. I…Jesus, I have some of my worst nightmares from this. I still feel him poking around with the pliers inside me, still feel the pain, hear my own screams. Some of its fuzzy from the alcohol, but the parts that aren't I see whenever I close my eyes.

"After that, he sewed me up and put me back down in the basement. And after a few days, I started getting really sick. I don't remember much from then either. I just remember the place where he shot me and cut me open hurting so badly that I couldn't sleep, couldn't even lay down to relax. I got so sick that I couldn't keep any food or liquids down that he tried to give me, and Nile said that my eyes and skin had turned yellow. Lost control of my bowels and bladder too, couldn't hold anything worth a damn, it all just slipped out of me whether I wanted it to or not. But I was so far gone that I didn't care. Nile managed to get me better though. Wouldn't tell me what he was giving me, but it was probably stuff he stole from the hospital he worked at. But it worked, whatever it was. Couldn't decide if I was grateful or not. At the time I actually kept praying that I would just die, that I wouldn't wake up one morning and wouldn't have to deal with this shit anymore. But I did. And ever since then, my bladder has been messed up, and every time I pissed myself, Nile would get mad and punish me. Just gave him another excuse to, I guess."

Eren pushed his nose hard into the folds of Levi's shirt, taking in a deep draught of the man's scent and using it like his own form of nitrous oxide. It kept him sane, kept his heart from racing too hard, took away the desire to get up and run away, or to break down into a hysterical, hyperventilating mess. But even though Levi kept his body grounded, his mind traitorously began to race in the silence that followed, and he desperately wished someone would say something.

But what was there to say?

"Why me?" Eren wondered, half to himself, although he didn't expect an answer, "What the hell made me so lucky? What did I ever do to deserve this? Nile always told me I deserved it because I was his sex slave and sex slaves were like animals. Always said my mouth was never good for anything but sucking and that's why I wasn't allowed to speak. I was supposed to be docile and submissive. And now I can't break out of that mindset. I want to. I don't want to hurt anymore. I know I'm not alone, but I still feel so alone and I hate it…"

"Shh, Eren, listen," Levi told him, squeezing him even harder, "I know. Believe me, I know how you feel. Petra knows how you feel. Every member of the Wings of Freedom knows how you feel. It's another side effect of the trauma you endured. You just feel so lonely, so isolated from others because you feel like you can't relate to them anymore. Right Petra?"

Petra agreed, "Right. And in that way, because we all have experienced some kind of trauma, we can assure you that you're not alone, Eren. I know it won't replace the one you lost, but I hope you can find some kind of comfort in the fact that you have sort of a new family surrounding you. You can count on us to support you no matter what, and give you whatever you need to make you make you feel safe and happy."

Eren took a steadying breath, saying as he exhaled, "…I know. Thanks guys, I do appreciate it."

Levi didn't miss the lingering uncertainty in his tone, however, nor did he miss the tenseness in his shoulders or the dullness of his eyes. He looked up, sharing a look with Petra, before nudging the side of Eren's head with his nose, and offered something that made Eren instantly snap out of his dark daze, that made his thoughts stop swirling quiet down abruptly. That made him gaze upon the man he admired so much with awe, anticipation, and more than a little apprehension.

"How about this?" Levi said quietly, "I think turnabout is fair play. When we get home, I'll tell you about some of my worst experiences as a captive. You'll find out we have more in common than you probably ever wanted."

A/N: I know that was hard to get through, but how about this? After all the hard stuff next chapter, I'll give you some more of Eren ogling Levi. Sound good? Okay. Chapter title means "promise."