Chapter One: An Unwanted Revelation
"Eren, it's not that bad." Eren glanced up in speculation at the woman staring down at his captured and cowed form. Hange. She was one of the squad leaders of the fourth regiment. After his trial they had brought him here to this cell, and she had been the one to constantly poke and prod at him, as if that would somehow give revelation to why he was a freak of nature…the enemy. A titan.
Honestly, he hadn't even really been allowed a reprieve to consider all of the ramifications of such a thing before he had been hauled in front of that tribunal to be put to death. …But he hadn't. No, his savior had come in the form of boot heels and pain as his jaw crunched under the weight of them and all that raw power.
Levi Ackermann, Captain of the Scout Regiment, and his current keeper as he spent day after day, week after week, month after month in his cell. The Captain didn't trust him back with his comrades yet. At this point, Eren was beginning to doubt he ever would. Nevertheless, Levi had saved him. He gripped him by the arm and dragged him away from those bureaucrats that would have his head.
It's not to say he didn't understand why. Of course he understood. Properly used, and Eren could be the difference between their extinction or victory over the titans. Properly used, and he could win this war for them. He just wished they would hurry up and do it already—use him that is.
Baby steps could only get them so far. He wanted out. He wanted to fight. They were so busy micro-calculating every possible scenario where this could all go so wrong, that they never allowed him the chance to show how he could do right in this world. They were dying. They were starving behind these walls, and yet they needed to take blood test after blood test to ensure that what?—He wouldn't suddenly decide to eat them? That he wouldn't give into his nature?
Protecting his friends was all he cared about, but he would settle for at least seeing them. He hadn't seen Armin or Mikasa since being thrown into this cell, and every day that he was paraded out onto the practice field, he hoped he would catch a glimpse, but it was only ever Hange and Captain Levi. A few times Commander Erwin had graced their training with his presence, but those times were as few and far between as ever even getting a word said to him from Levi. At least Hange talked to him. At least she still held the humanity within her to acknowledge his aching loneliness while trapped in this hell.
Eren buried his face in his knees, tucked up close to his chest as he watched Hange. "I know. I am grateful for everything you've done for me. I'm not a danger to you. I would never do anything to hurt any of my friends."
"Of course you wouldn't," Hange assured him, voice placatingly with false politeness as there was an underlying tone of wariness. He was the monster promising not to eat the villagers because they asked extra nicely. Honestly, if the situation was reversed he would probably keep himself locked up too.
"We're getting closer in the pit to me being able to transform at will," Eren argued his case, as he did every night to the only person who had showed him a sliver of empathy.
"I know," Hange replied solemnly. "Eren, I truly do know. It's not my call. You're his project."
"Let me talk to him," Eren reasoned, gripping his knees tight as he pleaded with her. "He never talks to me. I can explain. Hange, please. Just have him come see me."
Hange sighed, looking like she'd rather eat an entire tub of lemons rather than to ask such a thing of Levi. …Not that they could even get to lemons anymore from their position behind the wall. "I'll ask him, Eren, but Levi can be…"
"Difficult?" Eren suggested as she trailed off.
Hange laughed at just the thought. "To say the least. There's one other thing. I'll have to tell him and Commander Erwin about the blood tests we took yesterday. They're showing abnormalities." Her face was a mixture of excitement as well as dread, the two warring upon her features.
"What abnormalities?" Eren asked, pushing up off the cot as he came closer to the bars. "Nothing has changed. I'm watched like a hawk. I didn't do anything!"
"I know Eren," she spoke with that same placating pity she had used on him since seeing him sitting miserable behind the bars. "Your titan blood seems to be altering your biology the more and more you transform." She took a deep breath, and Eren took one with her as he was positive he didn't want to hear the next words uttered out of her mouth. "I think you're starting to present."
"Present?" Eren asked, the words echoing over and over in his mind but not registering. "Present as what?"
She flinched at even the question, and cold terror filled him. "No," he denied even the assumption that she could be telling the truth. "You're lying."
"Sweetheart," Hange spoke quietly, shaking her head solemnly. "I'm really not."
"You're wrong!" Eren bit out, temper flaring as he felt nauseous, terrified, and infuriated all at once. "I had the surgery! I got the implant when I was child! My father did that surgery for me!"
Eren was starting to hyperventilate as he considered the implications of just one word. Around the time the titans had appeared, Eldians had also begun to exhibit certain characteristics. They were growing stronger, faster, keener in their ability to avoid a titan's teeth. It was an evolutionary miracle that made a certain class of warriors nearly indestructible in their abilities. These warriors had been trained to fight the titans. They had been bred up within Eldia's military. The warriors had taken over as they bred and passed on their special gifts. These gladiators were the alpha of their race. They were revered by all, and feared by most. They were given everything before the walls began to fall. Even other people. Because at the same these Alphas had begun to emerge amongst humanity, yet another anomaly had occurred. These strong, fast, vibrant humans were paired together with meek, begging, submissive creatures that were meant to only please the saviors of their race. They were omegas.
It didn't take long in a world that had so little, to begin to covet something that was so rare and meant only to give pleasure. The Eldians enslaved the race. Any you could find now were sex workers…practically slaves whose one purpose was to get wet for an Alpha and milk his cock. Omegas were not allowed to serve in the military without blockers. They were not allowed to be a distraction to the only hope humanity had of surviving this nightmare. They were allowed to serve the ones that claimed them, and nothing else.
It was the biggest form of hypocrisy to fear the titans overrunning their homes and freedoms, all the while, destroying the lives of their own and doing far worse things than eating them and putting them out of their misery. The perversion got so bad at one point, that a procedure to protect the potential emerging omegas was created. It was an implant placed at the base of the cervical spine. It blocked the production of hormones that would eventually make the omegas pliable…breedable. It stopped their persecution. There were almost no omegas now. Most parents chose to test their children and get the implant put in before they ever knew a difference. Now, only the poor families that couldn't afford such a luxury, and were too ignorant to think they needed the procedure produced Eldia's slaves. It was the worst kind of blackmarket trade in the seedy underbelly of the walls. It was disgusting.
Eren had tested as an Omega, and his father Grisha had implanted the blocker before he had even lost all his baby teeth. He was allowed to grow up strong. He was allowed to join the Scouts. He would not be anyone's slave. He would not give up his freedom to be sold to the highest bidder and bred.
"Eren, can you turn around for me? I want to check your neck." She pushed on her goggles. "It's possible that in your transformations, your titan healing abilities found it as a threat. It would make sense that the cells are only starting to appear now."
Horrified at the thought, Eren turned his back, pressing it against the bars. "If it has, you can put it back in, can't you?"
Hange's nimble fingers came up to the back of his neck, and he shuddered at the first feeling of human contact since Levi's fist had broken his face. The blood draws and exams were always so clinical—he didn't think they counted. She palpated along his spine. A spine, Eren realized with horror, had been grown back after he was eaten. How badly hurt had his titan blood thought he was? It couldn't possibly have reworked his biology. It couldn't have done this to him just when he thought there was a possibility he could be special. …That he could make a difference.
"It's gone," the squad leader spoke softly, as if cajoling a startled horse. "I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" Eren questioned, spinning around as he gripped the bars and got directly in the young leader's face. "Fix me! Put it back in!" The scout shook his head furiously, denial running rampant through his blood. "You can't tell them! You can't tell anyone until you put it back in."
"Even if I could Eren, your titan blood will—"
"Then I won't transform." Eren gripped the bars, laying his forehead against them as he wasn't above begging for something like this. "I won't ever transform again. Just put it back in." Tears of desperation came to his eyes as he looked directly into hers, pleading with her. "Please. I can't be a sex slave. I can't be kicked out of the Scouts. I can't lose everything before I ever even made a difference."
There was pity in her eyes even as she shook her head in denial. "It's never been attempted in an adult before. Your hormones presented at puberty. It wouldn't take." She hesitated, clearly already realizing the devastation that had left her mouth. "Even if I could…we need you to transform. That's why you're here."
That is why he was here. That's why he was locked up, caged already. They would be able to do anything they wanted to him once he fully presented. He had made it so easy to enslave him. Eren had been patient…polite even to his captors. "Let me out of this cage."
"It's not a cage," Hange argued sadly. "We wouldn't do that to you, Eren. I told you, I just found this out. The cell is for your own protection as well as ours—"
"Let me out of this cage!" Eren screamed in her face in response, temper flaring as he shook at the bars, desperate to get out of them. "I'll transform! I'll escape!" It didn't matter that he didn't know how to do it. It didn't matter that they both clearly were aware that such a maneuver would mean his death via cave in as well as probably the death of all of his comrades. He needed to say something. He needed some kind of bargaining chip.
"I'm sorry," Hange apologized, putting into words what they both already knew. "I don't know much about Omegas. They're very rare, but I'll do everything in my power to help you. I don't know what this means with you being a titan. You might not go into heat at all. We don't know yet."
"You're an Alpha, right?" Eren questioned, forehead knitted as he backed up in the cell. "Of course you are. That's why you're an officer. Erwin…" he hesitated, swallowing the lump in his throat as he realized the dynamics. "Levi too. Everyone in the corp has to either be an Alpha or have a blocker, so it has never made a difference. Sure I've had to work harder, but it was never going to stop me. What are you going to do, Hange, when you have a newly presented Omega amongst your squadron in his first heat? What then when I make all of your scouts lose their minds?" Your first heat normally happened around puberty. Eren was nearly 17. No one had ever had their first heat so late. "What are you going to, Hange?"
"I'm going to talk to Erwin and Levi," Hange explained calmly. "Then we're going to figure out what to do with you."
"Where to sell me?" Eren questioned, a far away dread beginning to fill his bones. "No, I suppose not. A titan is worth potentially more than a sex slave."
"Don't talk about yourself that way," Hange scolded. "It's going to be okay. If we can handle you turning into a murderous monster, I think we can handle your heat. On a scale of doability, it's very plausible."
Eren sneered at the good natured view point, already knowing how this story ended. "Let me out." He stepped back, grabbing the cot he slept in as he threw it bang against the bars. "Let me out!" He grabbed everything he could find, every bit of luxury they had afforded him in the form of books, toothbrush, soap, chucking it all at Hange as she covered her face as some of the debris managed to get through. "You can't keep me here!" He needed to run. He needed to run before anyone realized that they could take the only freedom he had left away from him.
He tore through his cell as panic overwhelmed him, not even realizing that Hange had left as he ripped up everything they had given him—their pet. Self revulsion pulsed strong in his veins as he collapsed in the corner, burying his face in his knees as he considered just what he could do to get out of this mess.
Hours later, and he wasn't any closer to finding an answer than he had been before. He was just sadder as he glanced up towards his ruined cell at the sound of footprints. The Captain's boots clicked amongst the stone, coming to stand in front of the cell as he stared down at the cell in disdain.
"What a mess you've made," Levi sounded beyond annoyed, dressed down in a white button up and black slacks as his suspenders hung down at his hips. "I just got out of an emergency meeting. Care to guess what about?"
Eren's heart was racing at seeing him, always nervous around Levi as they hadn't really spoken since the trial. If there was another reason…one more sinister that had to do with the fact that Levi was an Alpha, well, he wasn't going to think about that now.
"Oh, don't get quiet on me now, brat. Half the fort had to listen to your screaming. Besides, I heard you asked for me." He pulled a ring of keys off his belt, glancing down at them and then at Eren. "Do I need to restrain you first, or will you just promise not to try to rush past me the second I open this door?"
"I won't," Eren agreed. He knew Levi wouldn't risk it if there weren't backups just up the stairs poised precariously to prevent his escape. "I promise."
"Oh?" Levi murmured, pushing open the cell as he stepped in and shut the door behind him. "You can be polite. Hange, your superior, told a much different story about just how you were doing with all this."
Those knee high boots came into his viewpoint as Levi knelt in front of him, head tilting to the side as he took in his appearance. "Care to tell me why you lost your mind? Too much confinement?" Eren glared at the words, causing Levi's mouth to slightly tilt. "That's it, isn't it? You were okay with being our pet titan, but our pet Omega…"
Eren lunged then, panic overwhelming him as he grabbed for Levi's waist where the keys were, grunting as his arm was grabbed and twisted around as the captain spun him and slammed him against his chest in a bind.
"That was very stupid, Eren. You promised." Levi twisted the arm bound behind Eren's back until the younger cried out, bending forward to prevent the pressure as his forehead was pressed deep into the stone as Levi pushed down on his back. "That was my fault. Clearly you're triggered by being called a pet. You know, I've never even seen an omega. Files are kept confidential for testing. They don't want any other scout to look down on any of their other teammates. Alphas, for their part, know exactly what they are. But they also are not allowed to divulge to keep things copacetic." Levi knelt behind him, pressing up against Eren's bent legs and backside. "But you know, Yeager, I always did wonder about you."
"Because I wasn't a good scout until I could be used as a titan?" Eren questioned, squirming to try to relieve more pressure on his arm as Levi just twisted more.
"Not that," Levi sounded bored. "I actually respect that. You worked hard in spite of your genetics. It was in the trial…when I—"
"Beat the shit out of me?" Eren suggested, trying to spread his legs in his bow to create some space between his hips and his slowly cracking arm.
Levi hummed his agreement, free hand traveling from his shoulder blades to grab at a handful of hair. "You let me do it. Not only that, but you liked it. I can always tell. That it, brat?" Levi ripped him up by his hair as Eren's legs bent to either side of him, lips pressing to his ear. "You like being under the hands of a big strong alpha?"
"No!" Eren bit out, but he did like it. He was fighting against everything in him to not react and press back against the body behind him. Because he hadn't stopped thinking about him since the day in the courtroom. …Because he liked it, no matter how much he shouldn't have.
"No?" Levi questioned, hand tightening in his hair. "But that's what you think of us, right? That's why you threw your little hissy? We found out you're an omega, and so we're going to keep you in this cage and take turns with you, right?" He puffed in his ear, and the thought made Eren squirm against him. "That what you want, little titan? You want to be the squadron's whore? We couldn't help ourselves, right? We just rape people and take away their will?"
Eren's eyes widened in realization as he heard the scornful disgust in his captain's tone. "Captain Levi, I didn't mean…"
"But you did," Levi growled, letting go of his arm as he shoved him away and stood up. "Who exactly do you take us for? Back alley breeders?" Eren spun to face him, seeing Levi's face screwed up in anger as he glared. "Do you think we have no sense of self? That we condone slavery?"
"No, sir," Eren denied, hating that he had disappointed someone he respected so highly. His hero. "I don't think that." It wasn't lost on him that he was practically begging at his feet. "I don't want this to happen to me."
"Well it is," Levi spoke with zero sympathy. "Get over it. We'll deal with your heat and your ridiculous theatrics, and then you'll come back and fight for us."
Eren's green eyes widened comically, nails digging into the stone as he stared shocked up at his superior. "What? You're going to let me fight? It's against the rules."
Levi snorted. "Yeah, well I'm pretty sure keeping a titan as a pet is also against those rules, and yet, here we are…" He ran a hand through his hair, sighing out his impatience. "It's the last bit of humanity left, kid. We can't afford to be biggoted and picky. We won't tell anyone. That way the higher ups have no reason to shut down this project."
"But Squad Leader Hanger…Commander Erwin…" Eren reasoned, not believing what he was hearing.
"They're certainly not going to tell anybody." Levi rolled his eyes at just the thought. "But you might have Hange putting you through quite a few additional tests. She's very curious how it happened." Levi leaned down to pick up the glass of whiskey he had set aside before manhandling Eren, taking a sip as he watched him in consideration. He held out the glass in offering. "Drink. It might make you into less of a spaz."
Eren found himself smiling as Levi Ackermann had actually spoken the word 'spaz' out loud. He reached up, grabbing for the whiskey glass as he twisted it unconsciously, drinking from the same spot Levi had as he choked back the burning liquid, able to swallow it all in just a few gulps.
Levi sighed in disgust. "That was a good whiskey. Stole it from Erwin's office. You're not supposed to gulp it, but whatever, I suppose you've had a hard day." Reaching out, he patted Eren's head as the other tried his hardest to keep the booze down and not gag. He looked up towards Levi as the man was smirking down at him. "Good boy," the smirk widened. "See what I did there, because you're my pain in the ass pet now." He ruffled his hair, and Eren glowered daggers at him. "Such a cranky puppy." He glanced around. "Maybe more of a piglet judging by the way you live and what you choose to do with the lodgings we provided you." He patted his head one more time in amusement before his face turned stern. "Clean up your shit. This is unacceptable. Get it together, and tomorrow I will personally supervise your training amongst the rest of the squad."
Eren's eyes widened, not able to help himself as he set the glass down, hopping up before he could tell himself why this was such a bad idea, as he flung his arms around Levi. "Thank you…Thank you so much." He was going to see his friends. Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Sasha, and Connie. He was going to see the people that mattered to him, and maybe this all wouldn't seem so terrible when he did.
When he realized how stiff Levi was against him, he pulled back, raising his hands up apologetically. "I'm sorry sir." A blush stained his face as he couldn't comprehend what had made him do something so incredibly stupid. "I just got excited."
"Clearly," Levi replied, eyeing him up and down before once more glancing around at the mess. "Clean it up, Piglet. I'll see you tomorrow." Eren nodded to him, not able to help the brilliant smile that had broken across his face, biting his lip with joy as Levi rolled his eyes at him. "You're ridiculous."
Using the key to exit the cell, Levi made his way back up the stairs and left Eren to his confusion and happiness. Eren pressed his hands to his face, spinning as he considered his options. Levi said they wouldn't tell anyone. He said that he could keep fighting. For some reason, he trusted the surly captain. It was going to be okay. Baby steps. Baby steps, starting with cleaning up his cell, and after that…well…he could figure it out.
,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.