A/N: I am so terribly sorry it took me so long to get this chapter on page, but it really was an absolute bit** to me. I even had to change some minor details in the pasts chapters to keep the flow going. So to spare you from rereading the last two ones, here they are: Eren hadn't talked to Armin about Levi being an hitman (since Armin decided to visit his grandpa over the weekend) and Eren still hadn't found his peace with what Levi is doing, either. Additionally, some images from his mother crossed Eren's mind when he was talking to Levi in his room. I hated to have to change the already posted chapters so much, but it was a necessary evil. I hoped you're not too annoyed with me, and without further ado:

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Levi had moved one room further and over to the chin-up bar, facing the concrete wall. As he continued set after set of pull-ups, his hands were numb, and he felt like his biceps were being peeled from his bones with dull knives And that was just mindless chatter in comparison to his shoulders. They were the real problem. Someone clearly had come up from behind, put varnish stripper across them, and then buffed them with an industrial sander.

He had no idea how many reps he had done. No clue how many miles he had run. No count of the sit-ups, squats, or lunges.

He just knew he had to keep going.

Goal: total exhaustion. He wanted to pass out the moment he went upstairs and got horizontal on his bed.

Dropping from the bar, he put his hands on his hips, lowered his head, and breathed heavily. His right shoulder immediately seized up, but that was his dominant side, so he expected it. To loosen the knot of muscle, he swept his arm around in a big circle.

There was no time to lose.

He hopped on some random machine that was next to him. Fate chose the Butterfly machine as his next tool to torture himself. After adjusting the pin on the stack of weight, he settled onto the padded seat, gripped the double handles, and started pushing out from his chest. Forth. Back. Breathing.

Until his lights got switched off. Completely. Otherwise those images and the nausea would be coming back.

Half an hour later Levi collapsed on his seat, making the weights rattle in their sockets. He did it. He didn't feel a single muscle anymore. The ceiling could be melting and breaking down above him, he wouldn't notice.

This was one of his more favoured techniques to get his urge under control. And since the man who had caused all this to start with was somewhere out of the country, Levi allowed himself to revert to this method. Otherwise him being barely able to move would mean risking his job's success.

With the little strength that was left, Levi dragged himself up and out of the weight lifting room. It was 3:30 a.m. and the house was so quiet, he could've heard a speck of dust falling on the carpet. This was good. It matched the silence in his head.

He arrived in his room and fell flat on the bed. No way, he would make it to the shower. He hated the feeling of his own sweat drying on his skin, but he didn't deserve any better. Just as sleep promised to take him to a land of dreamless slumber, all his effort proved to be in vain. There it was again. The brunette's image entered his mind without a warning sign.

Levi put one hand over his mouth and nose, and tried to keep his breathing even.

He didn't get it.

He didn't get him.

How was it possible that the boy still looked at him like that after what Levi had done? He was dangerous and at least that should've been obvious to the brat. He had seen Levi beating the shit out three men almost twice his size, and was in immediate proximity when he had slit the throat of the sniper who shot him. Sure, he hadn't seen it, though. But Eren knew who Levi was. What he did for a living. And even if it was only half of the truth about the abysses that were his existence, it sure should've been enough for the boy to back away. But he didn't. He hadn't even been afraid of him. Not once.

It just wasn't possible. The boy had to have not a single idea about what Levi almost did to him. In what kind of danger he had been it. What Levi could have done to him.

Allowing him to get closer had been mindless. Something Levi had to undo.

He still wasn't sure what causes his extreme reaction to the boy, but it didn't matter in the end. He needed a way to stay in control as long as this job lasted. Going out again might had been an option, but since he didn't know whether it really was the recent blood-loss that made him act that way, he didn't want to takes chances.

Without looking, he swung his arm on the nightstand and grabbed his cellphone. He dialed, and waited for the voice at the other end to appear.

"It's almost four o'clock in the morning, you know that?"

"You're not sleeping anyway."

"What can I do for you, Levi?"

"Call Hange and tell her to send over some packages, please."

"Courtesy instead of insults? You got me worried. What's up with you?" Levi rolled over to his side, looking out the window.

"Fuck you. Nothing." He paused. "I simply wonder if I really should be grateful for you picking me up back then."

He could hear Erwin taking a deep breath before he continued. "What happened?"

"Nothing, as I said. Forget it. Just tell Hange."

"The packages never really worked and you know that. Ask Grisha to give you the night off, and everything will be fine. I found out where he's staying in Italy, and I have my eyes on him." Levi knew that Erwin's last statement referred to the guy he was after.

Levi already figured the answer, but he still asked: "If you know where he is, then why don't you just get him?"

"It's not that easy, unfortunately. If I intervene now, I might face greater problems than you being pissed at me for taking too long."

"I assume, he has some connections as well?"

"I'm afraid, he does. But that's not the subject at hand. Ask Grisha, I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem with it."

"I don't even know if that'd be a solution. But if it isn't, then I'd have to do it again without it being fruitful. If the packages won't work, I can still fall back to the other option."

"Fine, I'll let her know. Then, enjoy yourself," Erwin said with a quite bitter voice.

"Fuck you."

Levi hung up. He knew that this wasn't the safest of all solutions, but it was the best he could come up with at this point. He rolled back onto his back, eyes closing.

One room further, Eren heard Levi coming upstairs and entering the room next door. After his body had cooled down, he had dreaded the hours that would be coming. Sitting in his room felt like being in a cage, and now it was much too late for him to be out and running down the hallways. Still… God, he was so restless he could taste the agitation in his mouth. And that there was no one he could talk to made him ache. More than any training session ever could.

Those memories were back. Hospital beds. Needles. Bags of drugs hanging next to her. In an awful mental snapshot, he saw her head bald and her skin gray and her eyes sunken until she didn't look like herself, until she wasn't herself.

That was shortly before the screaming had started. Before she started rejecting him when he came to her to help. Not that he had been able to. Nothing could've helped her then.

She had looked at him with the same kind of fear and despair like he'd seen in Levi's eyes this evening. Like she didn't want him to see. Like he didn't want to be seen at all.

It's been so long since he had successfully steeled himself against those memories of his mother that had caused him so much pain over the following years. And now they were back, out in the open, raining down on him like a heavy storm.

Eren squeezed his eyes shut.

Levi wasn't good for him. Not if he made him remember those awful times.

He didn't care for the lives of others. And Eren couldn't stand people who think that way. People to who life didn't mean something. Not after losing his mother that way.

Levi is not good.

His whole attempt had been insane. To expose himself the way he did to someone who isn't just possessing frighteningly strength and speed, is way better at hand-to-hand combat, but also evidently had a tendency to violent behaviour. What he had said to him. The way he took those thieves apart. What the hell had he been thinking? That a man like him would be all upside down and gentle all of a sudden when he came across the innocent advances of someone like him? He must've lost his fucking mind the second this man stepped into their house.

Levi is not good.

And there was a huge difference between bodyguards and hitmen. The first are protecting people, even if it also might be for the money in the end, but hitmen are the aggressors. The ones who are bent on hurting people. And Levi was one of them.

Levi is not good.

This has to stop.

Later that day, after every member of the house had their good cap of sleep, some more, some less, Levi was still in his room. Maria had brought him his breakfast when he didn't show up in the dining room, and since then he was sitting on his bed, not knowing what to do with himself.

Silence… silence… silence…

When the sound of his heartbeat started to annoy him, Levi cursed and stretched up, turning on the lights. As he settled back against the pillows, he let his arms flop down. Anything was better than the quiet. Fishing around the sheets, he found the remote, and when he hit the TV's on-button, there was a pause like the thing had forgotten what it was used for - but then the picture flared.

Terminator 2 was on, some fake court show and a few flat-humoured sitcoms. Trust them to put nothing worth watching on their channels on a saturday noon.

He caught Maria's scent coming from the hallway and heard a knock on his door. He got up to answer it and was greeted by her struggling to heave a huge suitcase off the ground. That was fast.

"You should've told me to get it myself. It is too heavy for you," he remarked dryly.

"It's my pleasure, Mr.-," she stopped. "Levi."

He took the suitcase from her and put it down inside his room, next to the door. "I don't want to be disturbed for the next hour."

"Of course not." Maria turned on her heels and was gone. Levi closed the door and went back to his bed, suitcase in hand. He placed it on the mattress, typed in the numbers on the safety lock, and the top sprung open, revealing a dozen of neatly packed transfusion packs.

This really wasn't his favourite strategy, but it was the fastest and most uncomplicated way to see what was keeping him on the edge. Although he didn't like the idea of doing in here in the house, he took one of the packs, and lied down next to the suitcase.

He took a long sniff of the plastic bag in his hand. Smelling the blood, he felt his canines elongating two times their size. Levi bared his fangs, hissing down low in his throat, becoming the deadly animal that humans made up all kind of horror mythology around.

He shoved his hand in his pants, and what he had his palm on was ready to go.

Wrapping his palm around himself, he let out a moan, and his head fell back. He felt his smooth skin gliding over an iron-hard core as he began to move in his grip. Slow at first, and then with increasing urgency. It didn't take long for his body to take over completely, pumping wild into his own hand.

His mind became foggy over the minutes, and out of the blue, images of him and Eren were lighting him up from the inside out. He saw them on his bed, naked, Eren straddling his hips, and Levi reaching up to touch Eren's chest. He felt good and solid on top of him, his erection hard and hot against his own. His body arching as he rubbed himself on what arched to penetrate him.

Levi needed to get inside of him.

The instinct was overwhelming, and he sat up to take one of Eren's nipples into his mouth. As he drew his tender flesh between his lips, sucking on it, tonguing it, Levi knew this wasn't happening. And that even in his mind, it was wrong. Yet, the vision had too much momentum and his palm too much grip as he worked himself.

There was no going back. This fantasy was too undeniable and electric to turn away from. Levi imagined rolling Eren over onto his back and looming above him, looking down in his emerald eyes. His legs were split on either side of Levi's hips, sex and entrance ready for what he wanted to give him.

Baring his fangs, Levi ran one sharp white tip around his areola, circling, stroking. In a quick move, he struck him and a sliver of blood was drawn.

Levi was captivated by the bead of deep red that bloomed up, and eased down the side of the other man's chest. Leading with his tongue, he caught the trail and swept it back home with a flick that ended at one of Eren's nipples. Levi's whole body shimmered at the taste of him, a release shuddering out of him and marking their skins as he fell into the throes of his orgasm.

Lifting his lips from the other's chest, he placed one hand against Eren's entrance, tracing the taut muscles he found. Oh God, he was slippery smooth and hot, ready and arching to receive him. Levi repositioned himself so that his glossy cock was poised over those open legs...

The heady flavour in his mouth was replaced by the taste of plastic, and Levi was torn away from his fantasy, with nothing more than pieces of the bag he'd practically ripped apart left between his teeth. As he was coming down from his high, he noticed that the blood had traveled down his cheeks and landed on the pillow underneath his head. He looked down at his partly exposed body, and saw the release he'd had, the one he'd imagined he'd had on Eren, being all over his belly and the sheets.

Why did that spell out alone like nothing else could?

His hand was still on his messy, jerking cock, but he felt quiet. Calm.

The urge was gone.

Levi pulled his hand out from his boxers, stood up and headed for the shower, throwing the empty bag in the trashcan next to the toilet. In the shower, he washed himself quickly, starting with his cock. This was the first time, he'd actually thought about someone specific while doing this. When he had first tried this method, it always had been faceless men and women, silhouettes of memories from other times he'd released himself with them, and he had never felt calm afterwards. Which was why he excluded this alternative for getting himself steady. Those anonymous encounters he had in the past were hardly enough in reality, and remembering them gave him less than nothing.

So, he was kind of glad that now there was another option for him. Questions about why it had been Eren who he had to think about, Levi skilfully put off, and blamed it on their latest physical proximity as well as the fact, that Eren's scent wasn't leaving his nose anymore.

Thinking about the brat again, Levi came up with the idea of putting his newly found tranquility to a test. He had to clear some things up with him, anyways. When he came out of the bathroom again, he skipped through the channels until he passed the one where he could see the camera recordings. The boy was walking down the first hallway, heading for the main hall. Levi put some clothes on and strode out his room's door.

When he stepped down the stairs, he caught the scent of sadness, a muddy strike of damp earth and freshly fallen rain in his nose. The brat was coming straight at him, his eyes glued to his feet, and he almost crashed into Levi at the stair's bottom. "Oi, brat. Watch where you're going."

The mop of brown hair lifted and those eyes, Levi was so fascinated with, were dull. As if someone had sucked out the light they normally hold. Anger crawled up Levi's spine.

"What happened, brat?" he asked in a harsh tone. But the second, Eren hold his gaze, he had already settled his eyes back on the ground in front of him.

"If something happened, you have to tell me." Was is him or did he sound a bit possessive? Levi shoved the thought back again, and stepped right in the spot where Eren was staring at, looking him straight in the face. But those green eyes stayed averted from his. Just wandered a few inches left to his shoes.

"Oi, brat, look at me," he demanded, searching his face and arms for bruises, but found none.

"I'm fine. It's not of your business," Eren finally answered, his last word leaking like poison from his lips. He was bitter.

"If something's wrong, it is my fucking business," Levi mimicked his tone, getting even angrier. Did this sucker not know what he was fucking here for?

The kid kept his lips shut, and Levi noticed that this was getting him nowhere. If the brat didn't want to talk, it was fine with him. Played him right in the cards for building up the distance between them again. The only problem was that he had seriously assumed to get another reaction from him, and that now his little experiment about his own reaction to the kid was in vain. He wanted to see if his urge would come back after his release when he caught his sweet scent again. But now? What might've happened after they parted yesterday? Surely, his little outburst at the end couldn't cause such a drastic change of mind, could it? Not after everything else that had happened and didn't seem to affect the brat. On the other hand, maybe he had finally realized what he was about to get himself into with his advances.

Levi tried to tell himself that this was only good for both of them. That now he had one thing less to worry about. The problem was that a very small part of his brain didn't buy it. Moreover, he really didn't like the way the brat smelled. This muddy soil was nothing compared to his otherwise fresh, vivid scent. He found himself missing it a bit. He hadn't smelled it since the first time they had met. Ever since then, it had been replaced by embarrassment, sadness, irritation or arousal, whereby the letter bothered him the least.

He noticed that none of them had said anything for a few minutes, and the silence had grown awkward. "Fine. I was looking for you to talk about yesterday. I'm s-"

"Don't worry about that, either," Eren interrupted him. "I've lost interest in training, so whatever you've wanted to talk about, it doesn't matter anymore. If you excuse me, I have to go to my studio."

Without another word, Eren slipped past him and up the stairs. Levi's eyes followed him, narrowed, and he wondered what has gotten into the kid. This whole time, Eren hadn't once looked at him, and considering that he wasn't able to keep his eyes from Levi before yesterday, this really was a quick change.

Levi was about to follow and confront him, but once again he had to remind himself that it was better that way. He wanted it that way. Now, it was the brat who build a barrier instead of him. All the better, and less inconvenient.

Levi went down to the gym to hit the barbells. He was back to waiting for that cocksucker of threatening ass.