Levi.
Such a strange name, in retrospect. The only thing he had left from his mother, aside from memories that grew cloudy with each passing day. There was nothing left for Levi to inherit – everything had been sold to pay the bills and late rent after she'd died. They'd never been rich, anyway, not even owning a car. His mother didn't have family heirlooms to pass down either, or even any family left to speak of. All she had was her son, and she'd named him Levi.
There must have been a man, his father. A strange concept to him, because he couldn't remember ever having a father. She had never talked about it.
Levi.
A Jewish name, maybe. His mother had never said anything about their ethnicity, but Levi had been told he looked the part, with his black hair and skin pale enough that it was hard to see for the olive complexion it really was. But Levi couldn't care less. He hated stereotypes and knew the color of his hair and skin meant jack shit.
He'd been told that what mattered was what lied in his heart, the motives that colored his words and drove his hand. What made him Levi and no one else. It was true, he knew. And he knew above all that none of that mattered when you were dead. That was what he'd been taught, what life had proven time and again.
He'd been trying his best to survive for what felt like forever.
Levi.
His name was Levi, and he was a survivor.
His mother had been like that too. She'd never been a fighter, but she'd endured three jobs at a time after he was born, while she'd raised him. She'd always known to adapt to the world around her and fit in it, in her own way, but also use it to the fullest extent. She'd known to avoid resisting what couldn't be changed.
And Levi was like her in that way, quiet and resilient. He was prickly and combative at times – which she'd never been – but he knew that going with the flow was sometimes the best decision.
Choose your fights, he remembered his mother telling him when he'd come back from school, with a black eye and bruised knuckles. She hadn't voiced it, but the words had been clear as day in the brisk moves of her kind but unforgiving hands. You can't fight the whole world, because the world will always win. The world is stronger than little boys with their small, angry fists, stronger than your mother, her tired eyes said. Don't fight when you can't win. Surviving is what matters.
She'd never been a very demonstrative mother. She'd done the best she could, but they'd never been very close – certainly not as close as the kids from school were to their own mothers. She'd rarely had the time or energy to take care of him, and yet, she'd fed him and wiped his ass. She'd nursed scraped knees and gotten up at night to dry his tears, whenever he'd wake screaming from nightmares. She'd made sure that he had everything he needed, even when they didn't have much. She'd loved him, even if she hadn't shown it often.
When she'd died, he'd been through the motions as in a daze. It only hit him months later – not that she'd left him all alone in a world that was far from merciful, he knew that already – but what exactly it had been that he'd lost now that she was gone.
His name was Levi, and like his hair color and pale skin, he was all that was left of her.
"...evi."
His name was Levi, and he 'd been alone for so long that he didn't even think he knew what it felt not to be anymore.
"Levi!"
He blinked at Gisele, surprised by her hand resting light on his arm. He cleared his throat.
"Yes," he said.
She shot him a dubious look, and took her hand off his arm.
"Are you sure?" she asked, sighing. "Were you even listening?"
Something on his face must have given him away, because she narrowed her eyes, eyebrows knitted.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Levi tried to glare at her, but his heart wasn't in it.
"I was lost in my thoughts." He looked away. "Sorry."
Giselle shook her head.
"It's okay."
They were sitting in the emergency stairs near their office, enjoying coffee – tea for Levi – in peace. The hustle and bustle of office life could be heard through the closed door, but it was quiet here.
Levi still ate at his desk, and Gisele at the cafeteria. But lately, they spent the remainder of their lunch break together.
Giselle finally spoke.
"You can talk to me, you know?"
Levi glanced at her, but didn't answer. He didn't know how she was so sure he had something to tell. Although, he was in a pretty bad mood. He guessed it would be noticeable, to someone who knew what to look for. She was probably the only one who could, these days.
"Giselle," he started, unsure how to formulate his question. "Why are you here?"
She blinked at him, confused.
"What do you mean?"
Levi hunched forwards, elbows on his thighs.
"Why are you here, talking to me?"
She watched him for a moment, opened her mouth, but closed it before saying anything. A soft chuckle was what she finally settled for.
"Sometimes, I wonder," she said.
Levi made a noncommittal noise. After that, they fell silent for a while. Giselle's knee was jumping at his side. He wished she would stop.
"You're," Giselle started, "difficult to get along with most days. You're quiet and distant. You don't open up easily. But I don't know."
She was trying to find her words. Levi waited for her to go on, sipping on his tea.
"When you first came here, four years ago," Giselle said, "you looked, I don't know. I thought you looked resigned. Lonely. There was something... I don't know. Almost 'faded' about you."
"You make no sense," Levi told her.
"I know," she simply said.
Levi stared at his mug. He wondered what else she'd seen then.
"Maybe I saw what I wanted to see," she said. "I'm not sure you've noticed, but I don't have friends at the office. I get along with most people, but I don't feel comfortable being close to any of them. I thought you might be like me, in a way, and I wondered if, maybe, we could be a little less lonely together."
Levi downed the remainder of his tea.
"Were you right?" he asked.
"About what?" she said
"Are we less lonely together?"
She didn't reply. She wasn't looking at him, but he could see a small smile lifting the corner of her lips, as if it was a sufficient answer.
Levi could understand where she was coming from, but he didn't know if he agreed with her.
"I'm not that lonely," he said.
The small smile remained on Giselle's face as she turned to face him.
"Yeah," she said, "and neither am I. I have friends. I had a great childhood, wonderful parents. But there's a subtlety here. You can be alone and perfectly fine on your own. You can also feel lonely, even surrounded by supportive people." She sighed. "Sometimes, that's just how I feel."
Levi's mind wandered to the time he found her crying at her desk. But he remained silent.
"I've always wanted a family, you know?" she said after a while. "I'm not getting any younger."
He shrugged.
"You look plenty young to me."
It made her laugh.
"Still, suitors have become scarce, and the few I met never seemed to be proper father material. Or interested at all, for that matter."
There was a moment of silence between them.
"My mom raised me on her own," Levi said.
She looked a little surprised, and so was he. He hadn't planned on telling her that. But it was the truth. They'd been a family, his mother and him, he now realized. They'd never been very demonstrative, or even really affectionate towards each other, but there had been love.
He missed her so much.
Gisele was smiling.
"Didn't turn out too bad, yeah?" she said.
It took Levi a moment to realize that she was talking about him. He couldn't stop a smile from curling the corner of his lip.
"I don't know about that," he said. "I'm a bitter, tiny old man who likes shit jokes. I know," he added when she opened her mouth to protest. "I'm not really old at all. But that's how I feel most days."
"Good point. I guess can relate."
"What I meant," Levi said, "is that a family starts at two."
She offered him a smile, and he returned it before thinking about it.
"I know."
It wasn't so bad, Levi thought, brushing invisible dust from his knees. Awkward, yes, for now. But maybe, someday, they'd reach some level of comfort around each other.
"You're right," he told her.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah?"
He shrugged.
"I was lonely. I kept telling myself that it didn't matter. I'd managed to convince myself that it was what I wanted."
It was weird to acknowledge it. He'd lived his life thinking he didn't need anyone. He'd thought he'd be alone until he died.
Giselle was eyeing him with a peculiar look on her face.
"But?" she said.
Levi glanced at her. He didn't know how to explain it, but he wasn't really alone anymore, was he?
"There's someone," he told her.
Eren was special in so many ways. There had never been anyone before, not like him. He didn't know if Giselle could tell. It wasn't a topic he'd ever broached with her – or anyone, and he'd never imagined that one day, he would.
"It never happened before, and it made me realize – it changed everything."
If Giselle seemed surprised by what he was implying, she didn't remark on it. Instead, she watched him quietly, waiting for him to elaborate.
"I think I hurt them. I didn't want to," he said, "but I did exactly what I knew would come to that, eventually."
"What did you do?"
Levi's hands were tense around his cup.
"I didn't leave when I should have."
Gisele seemed confused. "But you care about them, right?"
Levi didn't expect her to understand, because she didn't know the whole story, and he wasn't about to tell her, or anyone, for that matter. Yet that was exactly what the whole mess was about, wasn't it? It was something only Eren could understand, and Levi wasn't naive enough to take even that for granted. Not after he'd harmed Eren like he had.
He was surprised to find how strong his grip on the mug in his hands was. It was empty, but he liked that mug. He carefully put it on the step he was sitting on. His hands kept twitching when he rested them in his lap. He had to fight not to let them clench into the fabric of his jeans – yet another surprise. He'd never been one to let his emotions get to him like that.
His voice came out weak to his own ears when he finally spoke.
"Why do you think I couldn't leave?" he said.
It was an even more foreign thing to admit to. He'd thought it'd be easy to push Eren away. But the kid had somehow managed to make himself a place inside Levi's heart long before he'd realized.
"Huh," Giselle said, frowning. "What about them though? Do they care about you?"
Levi let out an unamused noise. What had happened when he'd last seen Eren had to mean something. But Eren hadn't tried to contact him for the past week. Levi couldn't be sure whether that was because he was giving him space or because he'd decided he was better off without Levi.
"I suppose," he said. "If they haven't changed their mind."
Giselle was silent for a while. She was rubbing her index finger and her thumb together, sometimes making her nails click, staring at him. When she saw him looking back, she finally spoke.
"If they do," she said, "do you really think they'd be happy if you left?"
Levi kept staring at her but didn't answer, and Giselle sighed.
"At least, it's worth a try," she said. "Fixing it, I mean, though I don't see how being with someone who wants you around would hurt them."
"It's," Levi said, trying to find the best word to describe the mess, "complicated."
If Giselle didn't seem convinced, she didn't say anything about it. Instead, she briskly patted his knee.
"Come on," she said, "we have to go back to work."
It was hard, coming to terms with the fact that his hesitation was at the root of this whole mess.
Levi had never been the indecisive kind before. Confusion was alien to him, and conflict was usually caused by external factors. He'd usually known what was right, and that it took precedence over what he wanted.
But Levi had never really wanted anything for himself before. For others, maybe, but not like this. Not like he now realized he wanted this unexpected bond with Eren.
Levi had known that keeping his distance from Eren had been the right thing to do. But he'd lingered too long at Eren's side, even knowing that getting away with it was wishful thinking. Too easily swayed by Eren's eagerness to spend time together. But he wouldn't blame Eren for his own shortcomings. It was all on him, in the end.
Now, it was time to face the music. Levi had no idea where to start. He wanted to fix it, but he didn't think he could – it was too late. Too late to stay away, too late to spare Eren. And yet, it seemed likely that they'd have to part, in spite of it being useless at this point. He couldn't hope that Eren would forgive him. No, Eren would hate him, Levi was sure of it.
It was hard to understand what Eren saw in him to begin with. What was so good about a short, grumpy guy with a weird face like him? He was peculiar, jaded, emotionally stunted. He was boring, and he liked it that way. Going out and having fun weren't things he enjoyed – old man's habits despite his supposed youth. Didn't Eren deserve to have fun?
Eren was probably better off without him. Levi expected him to figure it out by the time they met again – it would likely be the last time.
If Levi could only forget they'd ever met at all. It'd be easier to face the eventual rejection when Eren realized he wanted nothing to do with Levi anymore.
But Levi wasn't forgetting anytime soon. The irony didn't escape him.
Had he really ever been satisfied with his uneventful routine? Had he really thought that a dull life was a good thing? He couldn't remember. His life had never felt so empty. He soldiered on, going through the motions, just like before, but nothing was the same.
Meeting Eren had really changed everything.
Levi didn't know what to do anymore, so instead, while he thought about the best way to approach Eren about it, he did what he knew best.
He survived.
He survived at work, by diving into piles of overdue papers that needed filing. The task was so dull that by the time he got home, his mind was tired enough that he could get some rest, for a change.
He survived at night, too. But his nights were filled with weird dreams he couldn't completely shake off once awake, faceless ghosts of memories once forgotten, coming to haunt him where he was at his most vulnerable, incapacitated by the permeability that came with sleep.
He barely remembered any of these dreams, but he didn't need to retain anything from them. He knew what these were telling him.
Still, he survived.
He spent way too much on a plush duvet undercoat. He was never cold again, but there was nothing he could do about the growing lump of ice in his chest.
Eren's scarf remained hidden within the confines of his closet. He'd never had the chance to give it back.
He made sure not to starve either. He survived at the supermarket, dutifully showing up every few days to purchase necessary sustenance after work. As he checked his list of vegetables, fruits, fresh produce and unprocessed meals that he took the time to cook himself, for once, the same thoughts went round and round in his mind: he had everything he needed – a roof over his head, healthy food in his plate, and – and Eren Jaëger was inside the store.
Levi was still outside when he saw him, standing in line to pay for groceries, and he stopped in his tracks before he could step into the supermarket. He needed more time. He wasn't ready to face Eren yet. He still didn't know how to tell him.
He needed to leave, but he couldn't take his eyes away.
Eren grinned as the cashier greeted him. He made conversation while they scanned his purchases. He didn't seem so sad from afar, but only a well-trained eye could tell. Levi thought Eren's smile looked more subdued than usual.
Before long, Levi was gone, headed towards another supermarket. It was a little further away, and more expensive, but Levi couldn't do this yet.
"Tea?"
"Please," Eren said.
Levi filled two porcelain cups with murky green water that had a pleasant smell. When presented with one of them, Eren took the cup. He breathed in the steam slowly rising from the warm liquid. It seemed to help him relax a bit.
"Thanks."
Levi made a noncommittal noise and filled his own cup. But as Levi sat next to him, Eren was already putting his cup on the table, empty.
Levi wouldn't have been able to explain why, but it seemed important that Eren's cup would remain full.
"More Tea?" Levi asked.
Eren nodded.
Levi held the teapot to fill Eren's cup again, but it was empty as well.
"I'll make more," Eren said.
Levi almost said that he'd do it, but Eren had been like that, in the beginning. Always willing to help, as if scared that, if he didn't have something to do, even a mundane task like refilling a teapot, his usefulness would run out. Always eager to fit in, to belong. Maybe scared to stand out too much, but always owning up to it when he did. And given his peculiarities, he often stood out.
Levi didn't have the heart to take that away from him. He let Eren take the pot and disappear into the kitchen area.
The dining room was silent, deserted. It had been filled with people before, but most of them were gone now. Levi tried not to feel sad or bereft. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to stop once he started.
Eren soon returned with a teapot full of steamy water, but he didn't fill their cups yet. The tea leaves needed to brew for a bit still.
"You were right, you know," Eren said.
Levi stared. Eren had been mostly silent earlier, and Levi hadn't expected him to talk. He waited for him to elaborate, having no idea what Eren meant.
"I finally understand what you've been saying," Eren said. "It's wasn't my fault that anyone died."
Something in Levi relaxed. He was glad Eren wasn't beating himself over the deaths of their comrades. This was war. Death was bound to happen. It was always hanging over a soldier's head.
"As for saving them," Eren added, "maybe I could've done more. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter – we'll never know either way."
Levi carefully sipped at his tea. It was still a bit too hot to drink, just how he liked it.
"It still hurts," Eren said, his voice soft.
Levi swallowed a mouthful of tea before answering.
"It's supposed to hurt," he said, not looking at Eren.
It wasn't a comforting thought, but it was all Levi had to offer.
He meant to drink again, but his cup was empty. When had he finished it? He couldn't remember.
"It's not your fault either, you know," Eren said, a frown on his face as he turned to face Levi. "It was never your fault."
The words resounded in the empty hall. It had never seemed so large, so empty before.
"I know," Levi said.
They fell silent again. After a while, Eren lifted the pot to fill Levi's cup and spoke.
"If you know that," he said, "why are you still doing this?"
Levi's cup was overflowing, and Eren was still pouring tea. He wasn't even looking at what he was doing. He was staring at Levi instead.
"If you know that it's not your fault," Eren said, his frown deepening, "why aren't you moving on? Why aren't you truly living?"
Levi didn't understand what Eren was saying.
"I'm alive," Levi said.
Eren scowled. He did that a lot, much too serious for his youthful face, rarely smiling. Even after going through hell, not even proper soldiers, most of his peers were light-hearted at times. Eren was not. He just frowned and scowled and didn't laugh – only smile politely. His true smiles were so rare Levi could probably count them on the fingers on a single hand. He wished Eren would act his age, if only every once in a while.
"Come on," Eren said. "You know what I mean."
Levi didn't know. He couldn't take his eyes off the full teacup. Tea was running down the table's leg to form a small puddle on the floor.
"The tea you make is the best," Eren said.
The puddle was reaching Levi's chair.
"You're the one who made it."
"I know," Eren said. "But I like yours better anyway."
Levi surreptitiously lifted his feet from the floor to sit cross-legged on his chair.
"Fair enough," he said.
Eren glanced at his crossed legs and sighed.
"Captain," he said, "you need to stop lying to yourself."
Levi glared at him.
"What do you care," he started, but Eren didn't let him finish.
"Isn't it enough that I do?" he said. "I care about you. I just do. Do I need a reason?"
The whole stone floor was covered in a shallow layer of tea now. What a waste, Levi thought. No one would ever drink that. The pot was still overflowing.
"You've got to stop stalling," Eren said, as he finally let go of the teapot. "You've got to wake up."
It fell on the floor and shattered. Where water used to cover the stone, moments before, only remained fragments of porcelain.
Levi licked his lips, staring at the broken pieces. He wondered if he could lower his feet back to the floor without touching any of them.
"I don't think I can," he said, more for his own benefit than in reply to Eren's statement.
Eren's gaze on Levi remained steady.
"I can help," he said. He stood up and crouched on the floor. One by one, he started to pick up the pieces of porcelain. "You don't have to do this alone."
Levi watched him gather the remains of the teapot. As he was taking one of the bigger shards, his thumb slipped on the wet surface. Eren winced and looked at his hand.
Levi lowered his gaze as well. Eren was bleeding, a deep gash across the fleshy part of his palm. Blood was already dripping towards the floor.
Something rose within Levi as he watched a drop of red blood fall on Eren's white uniform pants. It seeped into the fabrics, staining the immaculate white a deep crimson.
Before he knew it, he was standing up and kneeling next to Eren. He took his hand between his and inspected the cut. It was bad, but Levi wasn't worried. He knew Eren would start healing, any second now.
He looked up to find Eren's eyes intent on his face.
"How are you feeling?" Levi asked.
Eren smiled, not the polite, sad smile Levi was used to, but a real one that had his eyes and nose wrinkle. He looked much younger like this. Levi thought it suited him.
"Better," Eren said.
His hand closed around Levi's, indifferent to the blood that was still dripping everywhere. Levi should have been bothered, but he found that he didn't care.
"Thank you," Eren told him. "But you've got to wake up, now."
Levi turned Eren's hand around. The cut was gone, the skin whole as if it had never been there.
He raised his eyes and found himself staring into green. Eren had gotten closer while Levi was inspecting his hand. He smelled like leather, like the oil they used for gear maintenance. It was a nostalgic scent.
Eren was coming closer, and Levi couldn't help his eyes closing.
"Please," Eren whispered against Levi's lips, "wake up."
And so, he did.