Author's Note (it's long, I am sorry in advance):
Hello, everyone! After this first chapter, any ANs will be at the end. For this first chapter, however, I wanted to introduce the story first. I've been writing for a hot minute now so this is not my first rodeo, but this is my first SnK story. I fell pretty badly in love with these characters and the way the manga and anime delve into human conflicts and emotions, all with the looming threat of the Titans. This story will be centered on the characters with actions and gore and all of that good stuff peppered in. It is also in the present tense which is a writing style I have been playing around with recently and have found I really enjoy using. As it is an SnK story, this story will have Mature content if you hadn't guessed it from the rating or by just watching the damn show. Phew, so much blood. And...I mean...have y'all seen Levi? Total dreamboat. But that is a ways off.
I always welcome constructive criticism, but no outright demeaning or rude comments, please. We're all just trying our best, you know? Mistakes happen! I edit each chapter about 5,000 times but my eyes can only catch so much, y'all. Let me know of any glaring errors and most importantly let me know how you are liking it! I love hearing from readers.
I always feel the need to defend my characters because I really do invest a lot of time into them and I want people to like them as much as I do. It's a writer's curse, I suppose. In this opening chapter I wanted to introduce Maia through Eren's POV. We will see a lot of his take on things in this story, partly because I like the idea of it and partly because I actually do not care for Eren and I really want to. He just...is such a hot mess. So, I figure the best way to like him is to take a deep dive into his side of things and play around in his little tormented mind. Poor thing. There will be plenty of time spent with Levi and our new heroine and the other characters as well, don't worry.
If you're thinking "jfc another Levi/OC story goddamn!" then, uh, I mean...what're doing here, bro?
And if you're not thinking that...well, enjoy, you lovely human you :)
The story title is based off of the song "100 Suns" by Thirty seconds to Mars.
Disclaimer: I do not own SnK, either the manga or the anime. All content taken from either source is not mine. All original content does, however, belong to me.
Chapter One: Remember what you did.
How long has he been down here?
His eyes are bleary and they ache in their sockets every time he tries to focus them in the dim light of the cell he's been thrown in. Wrists raw, he can feel the skin underneath the shackles become more and more irritated with every slight movement of his arms. He tries to stay still if only to stop the stinging pain around his hands, but he can't get comfortable in any position. His back has a constant shooting pain from staying in the same position for so long. He cannot comfortably lie down. Sitting up is no better. The chains pull and push at his skin no matter what.
Where is everyone? He wonders to himself as he begins an attempt to jog his memory yet again. A pounding starts behind his eyes, different from the pain that straining them causes him. This has happened before, has happened every time before, and again he stops while he is ahead.
No need to pass out again.
I should just be happy they haven't killed me.
His mind conjures up an image of a man with a severe look. There is no light in his eyes, no spark of anything at all. Dark circles sit as guards just underneath them, leading the way to high cheekbones and a mouth that is perpetually drawn straight, tight-lipped. The only other direction he thinks that mouth is capable of turning is down.
"It's not like I trust him," his voice was so deep, he thinks, rumbling with such promise behind his words that he remembers visibly gulping even after declaring he would destroy every last one of them, declaring that he was on his side of the fight.
"And if he betrays me or goes out of control," he recalls the way the man's eyes held years of weariness, ages of torturous sights. What was one more horrible thing?
"I'll put him down immediately."
*creaaaaak*
A door on squeaky hinges opens and snaps him out of his own mind. Three new military personnel appear outside of his cell.
"Eren, I'm sorry we kept you waiting. But it looks like you can finally get out of here."
She is a change of pace from Commander Erwin and Captain Levi, the only other military officers who have bothered to visit him down (was he down?) in his cell. Hair piled up into a haphazard and slightly lopsided bun, she gives him an actual smile. Her eyes crinkle behind her spectacles. She looks like she is barely containing an unprecedented amount of excitement and he wonders if it is for him, for what he is. Why that excites anyone, he cannot guess.
Next to her is a man who looms over the trio. He is broad shouldered, strength exuding from his limbs as he stands with his feet hip width apart. It is a power stance that only aids in highlighting the muscles that lie underneath the ODM straps across his thighs. Blond hair and a light mustache above a closely shaved beard, Eren thinks that he is…sniffing? He gives Eren a wary look through narrowed eyes. His arms, previously at his side, have moved to cross over his broad chest, as if daring Eren to do anything stupid.
I think I've done enough stupid for the time being, he thinks to himself.
The third in their party is a small woman, smaller than Captain Levi by a few inches at least, whose smile is so warm Eren thinks that maybe one of the torches outside of his cell has fallen down and thrown the room into flames. Her hair is the color of gold. It hangs long and loose down her back in curling tendrils settling just below her ribcage. She has her eyes trained on him, but they are filled with impossible warmth, like glowing amber. They stare at him unlike the man's suspicious gaze. Her eyes seem contemplative. She appears to be assessing him, but in what way and for what purpose, he is unsure.
He hopes that he can stay in the company of these three, the two women in particular, for at least a little while. Maybe they will not threaten to immediately put him down like some street dog the way Captain Levi had.
"Gruber?" The first woman says to the guard currently outside of his cell, "The key?"
The man named Gruber rolls his eyes and reluctantly produces a key from inside his inner jacket pocket. He hands it over to the first woman with a small hint of disdain for what Eren thinks is the entire ordeal. With a small inward smirk, he reasons that no one probably wanted to guard the cell of the boy who can apparently turn into one of them.
When the door's hinges cry out as the thick metal bars slide open, Eren swears he feels an air of freedom rush in. The small woman approaches him without hesitation, striding up to him in a glide as if she walks on air. She is impossibly light on her feet, Eren notes, with her hair lazily swinging behind her as she moves. Another key appears in her hand, and she gently grabs at the cuff around his right wrist. He winces when she moves it too suddenly, the metal biting down on his already aggravated skin.
"I'm sorry," she apologizes, and it is genuine. Her face is close to his, and he can see that her eyes are warmer than he first thought, with flecks of red like hardened resin dancing among the molten amber. "This may sting."
He allows her to uncuff him, wincing only a few times after she learned that the restraints hurt him when they move. Eren gingerly brings his right hand up to his face, examines it like a foreign object. A sudden flash of memory hits him.
Teeth slamming down onto unbroken skin.
He blinks. Once. Twice.
What was that?
Three times.
"Thank you," he mumbles quietly, still staring at his hand.
Warm fingers curl around his. The hand is small, so tiny as it grips around his own. There is a strength beneath her skin, though, and the pads of her fingers have been roughened by years of whatever task she is responsible for, he assumes. His eyes drift to hers and he sees that she is looking at his unbroken skin, wondering what he was seeing, probably. Her gaze switches back to his face and she gives him another one of those impossibly warm smiles.
"You are most welcome," she tells him. Her voice is soothing, and he wonders if she talks to everyone like that.
"Now come," she pulls him up by the hand she is still holding, "let's get you out of this squalid place, hmm?"
*ahem*
Gruber is peering into the cell, his beady eyes glaring at the tiny woman knelt by Eren's bedside. How anyone can give this woman a look like that is beyond him, and he's only known her for a grand total of three minutes.
"His hands." Gruber says gruffly with another eye roll.
"Watch it, MP," the first woman's eyes cut over to him from behind her frames, "keep rolling your eyes like that and they'll get stuck that way."
"Whatever, Titan Chow," Gruber throws his gaze back to Eren and the small woman, "just bind his damn hands and get him out of here. I'm sick of this damp place."
"I'm sure this young man is too," he actually hears the woman next to him frown as she speaks, "what with all the welcoming hospitality he's received."
"Monsters don't get hospitality."
"Monsters don't save people." is her definitive response, her words laced with finality. She gently takes Eren's hands and cuffs them loosely together behind his back. Whispering to him quietly, she presses her fingers into his palms as if to reassure him of something he does not yet know, "Remember that."
Eren stands and follows her to join the other two out in the hallway. His steps are slow, unsure, but he does his best not to let too much of his absolute terror show. The first woman begins speaking as they walk down the hallway, away from his cell, his imprisonment.
"I'm Zoe Hange," the first woman introduces herself to him, "a squad leader in the Survey Corps. And he's – "
*sniff sniff*
"- Mike Zacharias…also a squad leader." She explains his apparent "gift" for smelling people and tries to reassure Eren that his following scowl is totally normal and not a reaction to just his scent. Eren is not so sure he believes her.
"And this cute little sprite," she gestures to the woman on Eren's left, the one who helped Eren out of and then back into cuffs, "is Maia Beckett, the bright light of the Survey Corps!"
The small blonde woman, Maia, rolls her eyes with a good-natured smile playing on her lips. "Hange, please." She turns to Eren, "I'm just an equine veterinarian."
*Harrumph*
A quick blast of a laugh escapes Mike. "Just a vet my ass," he says, and Eren can practically hear the smile that busts out over his lips. "Tell that to L-"
"Oh!" Hange's outburst cuts Mike off and Eren wonders why they've stopped. She apologizes for not allowing him to speak at all and then casually instructs him to tell them exactly how you feel.
What? Who is "them"?
Eren feels a gentle hand on his arm and turns to see Maia giving him a reassuring smile. He doesn't know why, but when she speaks, he trusts her.
"You've got to just be you in there, Eren. Nobody else. You."
"Maybe I shouldn't say this," Hange is holding the door open for him, "but all we can do is believe in you."
He looks at her with wide, fearful eyes. But…he trusts her too.
"Remember, Eren," he hears Maia's smooth and calming voice.
"Remember what you did to save them."
"Sorry about that…"
If Eren was going to quite possibly literally sell his soul to anyone, he is happy that it is Commander Erwin Smith. The man holds deep compassion in his eyes and a stalwart mission in his heart. He is unmovable in his quest to further humanity's understanding and eradication of the Titans. He is unmovable in his quest to preserve them, to save them all.
"Remember what you did to save them."
Maia's words come back to him and he searches the room for her. She is leaning on her right side against the far wall opposite of the couch Eren is cradling his beaten body on. Captain Levi is there too, right next to her, and he has his back against the wall so that he is hunched at the shoulders, arms crossed over his chest. Hange is whispering harshly to him, but there is a small smile on Maia's lips directed at the captain. Eren can't hear what is being said, but by Captain Levi's bored look, he thinks the berating is falling on very deaf ears.
"You have my respect."
Eren feels his heart threatening to beat clear out of his chest. His respect? He has Commander Erwin Smith's respect? He can barely contain his shock, his glee, his…trepidation. He is so consumed with rage towards the Titans that he loses himself in it. It swallows him whole sometimes, and he has to claw his way out just like he physically did from that Titan's belly.
What if he lets him down?
What if he lets everyone down?
The couch cushions next to him sag as a body plops down onto them. Eren feels his hand tighten around Erwin's, which he was just shaking - a moment that was still so surreal to him. The commander lets go of his hand with a small smirk at the situation. He must trust his captain very much, because he rises from his kneeling position and takes a few steps back to stand next to an approaching Mike as Eren turns his head to stare at Captain Levi's reclined form. One leg effortlessly comes up to cross over the other at the knee, and he throws an arm around the back of the couch so close to Eren's shaking shoulders that he can feel the heat from the captain's skin. The newly discovered Titan shifter feels himself involuntarily flinch and he brings his left hand up to his chest. What real safety that action actually offers him he knows is little to none.
"Tell me, Eren," his voice is still so deep when he speaks, almost aloof in tone, "do you resent me?"
He feels a new warmth at his side and without looking he knows it is Maia. The warmth she exudes is different from Captain Levi's. His is powerful, laced with tightly coiled energy that explodes from him when facing down humanity's greatest man-eating threats. Maia's is calming, a balm of soothing heat that spreads across his side as she stands there. The ribs Levi had stomped down on begin to hurt less, if that is even possible. Eren thinks it might be. Eren is still not convinced Maia isn't a healing goddess of some sort.
Her gentle hands come up to inspect his right arm, turning it this way and that to examine it. Captain Levi's eyes momentarily shift past Eren, presumably to look at her, and there is a change in the harshness of his stare, so quick that Eren nearly misses it, but he sees it. It is as if Levi too was overcome with her warmth. He is so focused on the captain, his fear making him hyper aware of Levi's movements, that he sees the edges of the captain's eyes soften ever so slightly. When the tired orbs switch back to Eren, the hardness is back as he regards him. He is expecting an answer.
"N-no, sir. I know you needed to put on a show."
*pfft*
Maia and Mike both puff out a short laugh behind him, but it is the small, warm woman who mumbles, "Hell of a show, nearly pummeling him to death against that pole."
"You could have shown some restraint…" Hange thrusts a handkerchief in between them and shows them a little square of calcified enamel. Blood is crusted around the base, staining the cloth it had been wrapped in. Levi visibly shifts his weight away from it. "He broke a tooth!"
"Hange…" Maia sighs but leans forward anyway and pokes the side of Eren's cheek. He winces but does not pull away from her. From his peripherals he sees her eyes narrow in thought. She brings her hand up to pinch his face on either side of his mouth, forefinger and thumb on opposite cheeks to gently pry his mouth open.
"First, it's disgusting that you've carried that in your pocket with you, Four Eyes," Levi looks over at Eren, "And second, look, I'd say being nearly pummeled to death beats getting dissected any day. Instead of being ripped apart, he's being treated like one of Beckett's horses. That's gotta be a step up from whatever those pigs would do to him."
"Hange," Maia whispers over to the woman, ignoring Levi's snarky tone. They share a look as Maia nods her head to Eren's mouth which she has flopped open with the strength of her hands. As delicate and as tiny as they were, they really did hold a quiet strength that surprised him. "Look."
Hange looks into his opened mouth and her jaw drops to her chin. Levi leans forward only slightly, still deciding if he wants to have a look or not. Eren can hear Mike sniffing quietly as he regards the two women. Erwin shifts his hands to his hips as he peers over Hange's shoulders.
"Your tooth…" Maia tells him quietly, sharing a look with Levi now that is filled with so many unexplained emotions that Eren nearly forgets she is holding his face in a vise grip, his mouth propped open like a fish. What were they secretly communicating about?
Hange gapes at him and produces a notepad and pen from inside her burnt-orange jacket. She flips it open to a blank page and begins scribbling notes without even looking at what she is doing. Her mouth is practically salivating, eyes wide as saucers and lit with pure excitement.
"It's growing back…"
Levi scoffs from his position now fully leaned away from Eren.
"Look what you did now, kid. You're making her drool on herself."
A/N 2: Don't forget to leave a review on how you feel :) See you next time!