A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Half of this chapter was deleted by accident so I had to re-write it. Anyhow, please enjoy!
"Got anything on him yet?" I asked nervously, biting my fingernails. After much working I got my hand to the point where I could use it well enough, but once it got tired it began to shake again and I had to stretch and shake it out to get it to working order again, but I did have to thank my sleepless nights trying to move paperclips which got smaller and smaller at each victory. Writing was still not quite on the table, but I could handle that later.
Armin and Mikasa were helping me by digging up information on Levi's past and, because I was not so good at that bit, I had to settle for pacing around his apartment with them and breathing down their necks for answers that they hadn't yet found occasionally.
"Will you take a deep breath, Eren? Sit down and watch a movie or something. We can't work at the speed of light, unfortunately," Armin answered without taking his eyes off the screen or fingers from the keys.
"I can't calm down! He's missing for God's sake!"
"You can go to the police for help if you don't want us to," he mumbled again.
"No! You know I trust you, I'm just so upset that I can't do anything."
"Well, hold that thought. I may have found something," Mikasa interjected quietly, probably still reading whatever she'd found to make sure it was actually relevant.
"What is it?" I asked, though I was pretty much answering my own question by looping around so I was behind her, reading over her shoulder. It was a police article from about ten years ago.
"Police entered a building where there were suspicions of gang activity last night, but found it recently abandoned. Anyone in the area who sees the men from the pictures below (drawn by a sketch artist according to witness sightings) is instructed to immediately contact local police. If you have any information, call the tip line listed below," Mikasa read out. She then scrolled down to the pictures mentioned in the article. There were four drawings there. One was of a girl wearing pigtails with a mischievous look on her face, another was of a fairly generic-looking boy, except that he appeared to be in his teens but he also had pale hair with bangs that went down the middle of his face between his eyes. The next was a picture of a man who looked to be in about his mid-thirties with dark hair that reached to his neck, a bit of stubble, and a bowler hat on. The final picture made my throat catch. It was a younger-looking Levi. He was in his late teens, it seemed. He still had that sour expression on his face, though.
I ground my teeth at the article and stormed off to the kitchen, where I looked around for something to do to get my anger out. I resolved to open and close the cabinets and drawers to make a lot of noise. It didn't really work out the way I wanted it to, though, so I had to stop and resume my pacing.
"Can you find out anything about the building the police raided?" I asked suddenly, mumbling around the finger in my mouth that I was in the process of biting the nail off of.
"Already have it. Do you want to head out there tomorrow?" Armin spoke softly.
"Why not today?"
"It's nine at night. We need to have dinner and go to bed before we do anything."
When I woke up the next morning, I felt more tired than when I had initially fallen asleep and my back and neck were awfully sore from sleeping in an awkward position.
Mikasa was already cooking breakfast and Armin was reading the newspaper. It felt like home with my sister and my best friend taking care of me, but Levi's house felt very unnatural without Levi in it. We were there in case he came back home, though all of us knew it was an empty hope that would be fruitless.
"Good morning, Eren," Armin chirped. "How'd you sleep last night?"
"I've been better," I mumbled, plopping down in one of the seats at the breakfast table.
"Are you sure you're ready to face the possibility of confrontation with dangerous people?" Mikasa asked, not one for subtlety.
"I have to. It's not a choice."
"Fine. We'll head out after breakfast. It's a long drive."
"You don't have to go if you don't want to, Mikasa."
"I have to protect you. I will not lose any more of my family."
"I'm going too!" Armin added, looking over his newspaper at me defiantly.
"Armin…"
"No. I'm going and that's that. Now are we going to eat breakfast? It smells like it's burning."
"Shit," Mikasa grumbled and took the eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes off the stove.
The building was dark and gray and had water damage all around. Overall, it actually seemed fairly unassuming. Who would be stupid enough to infiltrate an obviously condemned building with boarded up windows and caution tape? Yet, somewhere inside, I knew that it was not so black and white. There was a thin-yet-distinct footpath leading from the road to the doorway, which had no board to cover it.
When I exited the car to approach the looming place, I told Mikasa and Armin to stay outside. It would be useless for all of us to be potentially captured and tortured. I told Mikasa that I would take the flip phone the shady people had so generously given me and smuggle it in my underwear just praying that they wouldn't frisk me and try to contact her from the inside using it. She didn't like the plan, but since Armin had already told me to do it, she knew that it was as good as we'd get, despite the risk.
So I walked along the little footpath with my heart pumping loud in my ears. It wasn't particularly long, but I got more and more tired and hopeless with each step. Even though I trusted Armin, I was still scared. But upon reaching the doorway, I gulped my reservations away and held my head up high.
Inside, the building was inevitably dark, though lanterns kept it reasonably lit. Lit well enough so I could see the middle-aged man sitting in a plush armchair. He was wearing a nice suit with the tie not done up fully and bowler hat was sitting atop his head. It was that guy from the article! He didn't look up from the newspaper he was reading, but he did speak to me.
"I was wondering when you'd show up here," he articulated before folding the paper, standing up, and tossing it onto the chair. He approached me with cold eyes that did not match his smile. "It's so nice to finally meet you, Eren. You are all Levi has been talking about for days."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion and didn't respond, hoping he would keep speaking to fill the silence if I just waited.
"Well if you're not going to say anything, I suppose I'll just have to let you see him. You're lucky. Because I know you both must have missed each other so much, you'll have a nice, secluded couples' retreat where you'll be spending a lot of time together. Doesn't that sound nice?"
I still refused to speak to the mysterious man, who just shrugged and called a goon to come and strip search me. I cursed inwardly as the phone was taken from me with a hearty chuckle from the searcher. He then told me that I could get dressed again and I shot him a death glare as the first man lead me to a room in the back with a heavy steel door.
Levi was sitting in a chair in the same saddening position from the pictures I'd received at the hospital with a very new-looking chair beside him that was bolted into the ground the same way, though it was empty. When the black-haired man looked up and saw me, he immediately tried to bolt up and out of his restraints, causing them to make a very loud metal-on-metal noise that was not at all pleasant.
"You said you'd protect him, Kenny!"
"I'm afraid it wasn't me to bring him in. He came in of his own volition."
"Eren, you fucking idiot! Why would you come here?" Levi went on to yell, his anger redirected at me.
"Because…" I began, though I couldn't really think of why. I just wanted to save him, though the more I thought about it, the more stupid it seemed. I lowered my head in shame and could hear a sigh from my lover.
"I was wondering why they put in a second chair. If they knew you were coming, I suppose they had to have coerced you somehow…," he reasoned aloud.
"Enough chit-chat, ladies. You'll have plenty of time for that once Eren is all settled in. We wouldn't want him to feel unwelcome…"
Once I was all chained-up like Levi was, I sighed deeply. He stank more than any other stinky thing I'd ever smelled.
"God, you smell awful."
"I know. You'll get used to it eventually, and then you'll smell sort of like me. It's just another way they torture you. With the humiliation of being filthy and having to do your business on yourself. Why do you think I always want to be clean?"
"Oh," was all I could muster.
"I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I…was stupid for thinking they'd forgotten about me."
"Don't be sorry. Now I'll be interesting at dinner parties," I joked, trying to keep spirits up. Unfortunately, I choked up on the last few words as tears began to roll down my cheeks.
"Aw. Don't cry, little Eren. It's far too depressing to see you give up," sounded a very familiar voice. I almost couldn't believe my ears.
"Reiner, what are you do-"
A sharp punch to the jaw came before I could finish my sentence.
A/N: Ah! What? Reiner's a traitor? Oh noes. But anyway, please let me know what you thought in the reviews! Have a great day.