Nowhere to Hide
Once they had entered their room and locked the door, Levi sank to the floor against the door with a groan. Eren set his pack down at the foot of the far bed from the door. "Are you sure we can trust her?" Eren asked. "And who is she?"
"I sensed no deceit or malice from her," Levi answered. "Eartha is a well-known hero from several years ago. Her power is all things earth; rock, sand, dirt, magma even. If she says we're safe here, she means it."
"She's right about your shoulder. It's bleeding again. Probably need stitches. I took a couple of first aid courses my first two years of university, and my dad taught me before that, so I can stitch that up for you," Eren offered.
Levi groaned again as he stood up and headed into the bathroom. Eren grabbed the kit and followed. The man could barely lift his right arm, so Eren helped him out of his jacket and shirt. Levi scarcely reacted as Eren removed the bandages and exposed the weeping wound. After examining both the back and the front, he said, "Only the exit wound in front is actively bleeding, but neither one has scabbed over. I should probably stitch both. I don't see an anesthetic in this kit, so it's gonna hurt like hell."
"I don't care. Don't want anything that might dull my senses anyway."
"Okay. But if you want to shower, you'll have to do so before I do the stitches, since you shouldn't get them wet." He left the bathroom but kept the door ajar in case Levi needed his help. He nearly jumped out of his skin when there was a gentle knock on the room's door. A quick peak through the peep-hole told Eren it was just Julia.
"I brought over some old clothes that used to belong to my husband. Your friend is going to need a clean shirt, and I figure you both would like something more comfortable to sleep in," she said as she handed a pile of sweatpants, t-shirts and an old blue flannel shirt to Eren. "I'm making beef and barley stew for dinner, so I'll bring some by later for the two of you. Get some sleep, okay?"
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you,"
Levi frowned at the sweatpants and t-shirt he found by the sink. His frown deepened when he learned Eren had opened the door. "You locked it again, didn't you?"
"Of course, I did!" Eren scoffed. "I'm sleepy, not stupid."
Eren was still a little hesitant about doing it, but he thoroughly cleaned Levi's wounds with hydrogen peroxide before opening up a stitching set in the kit they'd been given, carefully threading the small, curved needle and carefully applying four stitches to the front and three to the back, tying each one off carefully. He then applied an antiseptic salve and covered the wounds.
Levi barely mumbled a thank you before he crawled onto the bed, which Eren had, thankfully, thought to turn down for him and fell almost immediately asleep. Eren, having slept not only on the train, but in the truck as well, stayed awake. He kept his gun beside him on the bed as he watched the television on low volume. It was after 8pm when Julia knocked on the door once again, this time with a pot of stew, two bowls, a basket of hot biscuits with butter and a pot of green tea. Eren thanked her and then locked the door.
He touched Levi on the left shoulder to wake him and couldn't quite figure out exactly what happened next. All he knew was that he was on the floor, Levi straddling him with a dagger at this throat. Eren instantly froze, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise, but not fear. Levi blinked at him in confusion then glared furiously. "What the fuck, Eren?" he hissed. "I could've fucking killed you!"
"But you didn't," Eren responded. "You never kill blindly without good reason."
Levi sagged in relief at Eren seeming to be okay and withdrew the dagger. "That's not the point, shithead," he growled.
"Sorry. But I needed to wake you. Julia brought us dinner." Eren's face was quickly reddening, and he was certain that it was obvious, even in the dim lighting of the room. He couldn't help it. A totally hot guy that he'd had a crush on for years was pinning him to the floor, ass directly over his twitching and unfortunately growing erection.
Levi must have sensed this, because he rolled his eyes and muttered, "for fuck's sake," as he got up. "Get your head out of the gutter, kid."
Now Eren's face was even redder. "Well you were the one sitting on my dick," he blurted out before he could think. At that, he received and even scarier glare from Levi. "Just sayin'."
They ate their stew quietly. Eren then took a shower while Levi remained on guard. Then both of them went to sleep.
It was late the next afternoon when Eren was startled awake by someone knocking at the door. Levi had his gun at the ready as he checked out the peep-hole. It was Julia with an armful of clean towels. He let her in. "I don't know who you've got after you," she said after he'd closed the door. "but a couple of men were here a couple of hours ago asking for two men fitting your description. There were five other people with them snooping around. I told them everyone staying here were hikers."
"That won't fly with the U-haul sitting out there," Levi said.
"They never saw it. I buried it out back."
Eren's mouth fell open. "Whaaaa?"
"She's Eartha Brute," Levi explained. "She can do shit like that easily. They won't even see a disturbance where it's buried. Good thinking, Julia. We owe you. We'll leave within the hour. Chances are they'll follow us and leave you alone."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
"Perhaps, but we need to keep moving. Thank you for everything."
After Eren checked, cleaned and re-covered Levi's stitches (shocked by how fast the wounds were healing) and they'd cleaned up and put their own clothes back on (except for Levi's blood stained shirt, now replaced with the blue flannel of Julia's late husband), Julia unburied the truck (to Eren's utter amazement as he watched a chunk of earth rise up into the air with the truck, the truck set gently down and the earth placed back in the hole like nothing had happened) and they drove off just as the sun was setting.
Levi drove for the next 24 hours straight. Some of the roads they traveled actually had grass growing down the middle. He pulled into a gas station near the edge of a small town and woke Eren. "Sorry to do this to you, but we've got to abandon the truck."
"Are you kidding me? We were on dirt roads through the forest with no houses or powerlines and friggin' 3-foot-tall grass growing down the middle! We had to open a gate, so we could drive across some farmer's field to get to the rest of the road on the other side! How could they possibly have found us?!"
"I don't know," Levi said softly. "I saw one of their cars that I recognized from Shiganshina waiting for us when we pulled off that last dirt road. I think I lost them in the last town by doubling back on ourselves, but they won't be fooled for long. They know where we're headed to. We just have to avoid them in the meantime."
Levi was taking no chances this time. They grabbed their backpacks and walked a couple of miles to a regional high school. As much as he hated to do so, he found a house that had left their laundry out to dry overnight and stole a change of clothing for himself and Eren. The clothing would be too big for both of them, but it would have to do.
Once at the school, they both stripped, showered very thoroughly in the showers by the gym, and put on the stolen clothing. Levi checked the laptop, data cards and hard drive carefully before placing them in backpacks they found in the school's extensive lost & found collection. They also found some nice fitting coats and boots. Levi thoroughly cleaned and checked his knives and both of their guns. Using the flip phone he'd bought, he photographed each page in the book that Grisha had left for Eren as well as everything in the Binder. He then photographed the pages of the gazetteer. In a trash can just outside the back of the building, Levi flash incinerated their old clothes, backpacks, the book, binder and maps.
They remained silent as Levi led them through the increasing dark out of the town and into the forest. It took them until sun-up the next day to intersect with the mountain trail Levi had been aiming for. He continued into the forest beyond the trail until they were well out of sight of it and settled himself in the roots of a large tree. Eren settled beside him with an exhausted sigh.
"I know I said I grew up in the city where everything was usually in walking distance and so I walk a lot, but this is not walking," Eren huffed. "The city is mostly flat walking and the only obstacles are people and garbage. I swear the trees and rocks are trying to trip me on purpose!"
Levi gave a faint huff of his own in amusement as he dug a package of jerky that they still had left from the truck along with their last two bottles of sports drink. "We'll rest here a few hours and continue on the trail overnight. It'll be slow going, but Titan is likely expecting us to find another vehicle. Hopefully we've eliminated anything they may have been able to track, so they won't be able to figure out we're hiking over the mountains rather than driving through."
"Don't get me wrong; it's a brilliant idea, but damn, it's exhausting. I'm just not used to it." Eren took a swallow of his drink. "So how many days is it going to take us and what are we going to do about food and water?"
"The streams up here are relatively clean, so we just keep refilling our bottles. As for food, we forage. I've had enough survival training to keep us from starving to death up here."
"Mmmmm. Grass and twigs. Yummy," Eren deadpanned.
Levi actually smirked slightly. "Well, lichen, maybe. But at this time of year, since it rained just a few days ago, there's mushrooms, clover blossoms, fish, rabbit, biscuit root, cattail and wild strawberry. Not only that, but lots of hikers use this trail system and camp alongside it, so we can make use of lean-tos and build small fires for cooking. We'll be fine."
Eren sighed. "Well, I suppose if I'm going to be studying volcanoes in remote locations, I'm going to have to get used to roughing it. Think you could teach me some survival tricks while we go?"
"Good idea. I'm sure it'll come in handy when you go up mountains that could explode on you at any moment and kill you while you examine them."
"Actually, I'd be at greater risk of being gassed by a fumarole than by the volcano actually erupting," Eren countered.
"Right, cuz that's a much better way to die."
Eren rolled his eyes before closing them. "I'm gonna get some sleep."
