After leaving this story on hiatus for over a month, I finally decided to update on maybe the nerdiest holiday in existence.

Happy Pi Day.

I was going to keep up with my numerology stuff and post the new chapter on the ninth, but then my internet connection mysteriously died and I couldn't get access to any of the sites where I'm publishing this story. Now that I'm stuck where I am, I guess Pi day is good enough. Anyway, a lot of my readers (meaning two. yes, two whole people) have been asking for updates, and I've been holding out on everyone long enough. I have the time to waste tonight, so I'm finally going to post this.

Also, I've got news. This weekend I reached 20 followers on asking-appelia. I feel like that's kind of a sad milestone to have, but it's something. I tried, guys.

Also lord-ravioli reached over 100 (meaning 101), but then again that blog had been in existence for over a year.

And guess what else. MORE NEWS.

I'm going to be making a few updates to the asking-appelia blog. I'm going to be adding a few pages. The first one is a page I'm going to be building for fanfiction prompts, where I'll be posting all the AUs and fanons that I've made, since I have WAY more than any healthy human being should.

Next update I'll be making to the blog are pages for my individual fanfics. Again, I've been checking, and still no one has posted anything under the tags. So so far I have nothing to post on the pages except for my own content (art, text posts, whatever the hell else I do). If you want to post anything in relation to any of my stories, tag it with "fic: ," then the title or title initials of whatever story it relates to. This story goes under the tags "fic: the monsters inside us" and "fic: tmiu."

I don't know why I still do this self-promotion crap, it honestly never works.

TELL YOUR FRIENDS. TELL YOUR FAMILY. TELL YOUR GRANDMA. I WROTE A SHITTY FANFICTION AND ALL THE WORLD SHOULD READ IT.

I should probably stop.

Story time.

I stood at the edge of Jean's pool and stared as Levi emerged from the water.

Watching him felt like some form of hypnosis. He might as well have been rising from the pool on angel wings for all the fascination I took in observing him. Every move he made was fluid and graceful. The taut muscles in his body worked together like clockwork as he pushed up against the concrete edge, picked his legs up and straightened out again. The sunlight glowed on his slick skin, lighting up the barely-existent tan of someone who spent the majority of his days inside a hospital, but still somehow managed to look alive. He gave his head a quick shake, and his hair flicked across his forehead in sleek, silky strands of black. Water drops scattered from the already sexy mess and rolled lazily over his sculpted arms and stomach. Lucky, lucky water drops.

Wait. What?

I blinked, and just like that the spell broke. A shudder ran down my spine and I tried to shake some sense back into myself. What the fuck was I thinking? Did I just catch myself fantasizing?

About Levi?

Was it even Levi that I was looking at?

"Oi. Brat. What're you staring at?"

I cringed. Yeah, it was definitely Levi.

My ex-nurse had fixed his razor-sharp eyes on me. He cocked his head to the side and ran a hand through his dripping hair to push it away from his eyes. My mind flashed back to the ethereal vision I'd seen just seconds earlier before jolting back into reality. He was glaring at me. Oh god, I was weirding him out.

Quick, Eren. Say something intelligent.

"H-hey, Levi."

Levi's eyebrows twitched into a different position of annoyance. "Hi," he deadpanned.

Great job, fucknuts.

"I didn't know you were going to be here," I choked out. My throat was tightening up and I felt like all of my organs had been replaced with marbles. My eyes flicked impulsively back down to his just about perfect body, then resorted to bouncing back and forth between his body and his face. It was like a train wreck; I couldn't stop looking at it.

"I didn't know you were, either," Levi replied flatly. "I guess that makes this a surprise for the both of us."

I nodded dumbly in agreement. My eyes drifted back down to his body and stuck there. Holy shit. I had seen his toned arms countless times before, but never could I have imagined that he looked like this. Saying that Levi Ackerman had the physique of an olympic gymnast would not have been an exaggeration in the slightest. I had no idea what this guy did in his spare time, but somehow he managed to sculpt his body into something I couldn't have imagined in even my wildest, gayest, most perverted dreams. He seemed to be made entirely from solid muscle. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him, or stop myself from noticing the way the soaking waistband of his plain black trunks clung to his defined hips like a second skin, and the smooth pattern of his chest and abs tapering down and disappearing behind the fabric.

If I had thought that he looked attractive in his everyday clothes, seeing him like this damn near set my brain on fire.

My face started blazing as I realized I was staring at him again. I quickly ripped my eyes away and tried to meet his gaze again. I really had to stop doing that. "So... what are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm attending a party. What the hell does it look like?" Levi answered, fixing one hand on his hip and nodding his head toward the pool.

"I know. But... why?"

"Because I was invited."

"You came to Jean's party?"

"No. I came to Nicole's."

The realization hit me like a dodgeball to the face. Nicole was a Sina student. So was Levi. I finally remembered that conversation with Reiner, when he had told me that she had probably already asked Hanji and Levi to come. I couldn't believe I had forgotten. It all made sense. My excitement over the mention of Sina University also made sense. But I still didn't know why the prospect of seeing Levi set me off so much. Being around him was never anything but awkward.

"Right. You have classes with Nicole, right?"

"Just one. I take organic chemistry with her. She wants to go into cosmetics, I think."

"Oh. That's cool," I said. Silence fell between us a split second later. I searched my brain for something to say, but couldn't seem to find anything. The quiet stretched on and on like a break between songs on shuffle. Finally Levi started to get bored.

"Well, it's been nice, brat, but if you don't mind..." He took a step forward, brushing me aside and heading back into the house.

Suddenly the ice in my muscles melted and words came flooding into my head. I spun around and started walking. I shouted his name out before I could stop myself.

"Levi!"

He glanced over his shoulder. "What?"

"I-I just wanted to ask..." I stammered as I caught up to him, "Is it weird hanging around here with all these high school kids?"

He shrugged his shoulders and kept walking. "It isn't much weirder than what I do on a daily basis."

"I know. But you're not getting paid to be here."

Levi scoffed. "I really think that getting free food and access to a resort pool is payment enough."

"Did Nicole invite anyone else from Sina?"

"You blind or something, brat? Look around. There are so many people in Sina Stallions merchandise that the team spirit is making me sick."

"I mean people the support group might know."

"Oh. Hanji's running around here somewhere. Nicole had invited her, really. She's a lot more into this whole socialization thing than I am. I just happened to get swept along."

I laughed under my breath. "I know how that feels."

"What, does Mikasa still have to drag you by your shoelaces to the support group meetings twice a week?"

"No," I shot back, my cheeks heating up. "I-I mean, not anymore. I've... I've gotten better about it."

"And how bad were you before?"

"Pretty bad," I murmured, another nervous laugh slipping past me.

"Thought so," Levi said with a small nod. "The whole boyish-cancer-angst thing was a fairly obvious hint."

I looked over at him, my eyebrows knitting up. "Was it really that bad?"

"You sat by yourself and brooded for the first three meetings. Clearly something was not right."

I cast my eyes back to the floor and sighed. He was right. It only took me until now to realize what a moody idiot I must have looked like.

"So what brought you to the horse's stable?"

I looked back up at Levi, my face screwed up in confusion. "What?"

"Come on. That Kirschtein kid has the face of a horse. Don't tell me that you haven't thought about it too."

I blinked. I had thought about it. Several times. "It is pretty horsey, isn't it?"

"Is that why you're so dead-set against him getting with your sister?"

"No. What kind of shallow dipshit do you think I am?"

Levi turned to me with a razored glare that had me shutting my mouth and rethinking my statement in a matter of seconds. I sighed and started over.

"It's because he's a jerk," I explained. "And insensitive. And entitled. He hates me for no reason. And she hates him just as much as me. And... and he's just bad news, and the two of them getting together is a horrible idea."

"Hm," Levi agreed, staring blankly out into the crowd with me. At least I think he agreed. "Well, I had an agenda when I came in here, so if you don't mind, I'm going to get a drink."

My head whipped to the side just in time to see him disappearing into the impenetrable wall of people. "Wait, Levi, can't I-"

My sentence sputtered out before I could finish. Hold on. What was I about to say? Levi, can't I come with you? I bit down on my tongue and turned around. There wasn't any point. He wouldn't have heard me in there, no matter how embarrassingly loud I said it. What would I want from being around him, anyway? It was good riddance to him, if anything. As I turned and started back towards the pool, I could already feel the awkward tension that he always stirred up in me starting to wash away.

Someone rushed up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders. All of a sudden I was being pushed forward and a shrill voice was squealing in my ear.

"Saved your life!"

A startled cry tore free from my throat and my balance had gone completely to shit. The edge of the pool loomed ahead. Before I could even think of reacting, my feet were slipping on the wet patio stones and I was falling. The water rushed up to meet me and I went under with an earsplitting SPLASH!

When I came up again, Krista was standing on the edge of the pool, her pretty blue eyes wide with concern and her delicate hands clasped over her mouth in surprise. "Oh my god," she cried out as soon as my head was out of the water. "A-are you okay? I am so sorry! It was just a joke. I didn't mean to do that!"

"Whoa. Hey. It's fine. I'm fine," I stammered out, wiping chlorinated water away from my eyes.

"Are you sure?" Krista asked, her lower lip starting to tremble.

"Yeah. Definitely." I nodded and gave her an encouraging smile.

"Okay." She knelt down on the edge of the pool and smiled. "Well, then... Hello."

"Hello," I echoed back to her. I took a second to appreciate Krista in her pink floral bathing suit and her glossy blonde hair tumbling enchantingly to her shoulders. "You look fantastic."

"Thanks," she chirped, brushing a golden strand behind her ear. "You... um..."

"It's okay," I cut in, nodding down at my scar. "I'm not expecting any compliments."

"Oh. A-alright." Krista cocked her head to the side. "You're just going to stay in there?"

I glanced around at the water surrounding me. "I'm wearing a swimsuit. There's no reason not to."

"Reiner told me you were out here and I thought I'd come and surprise you," Krista said, swinging her feet over the edge to dip them in the water. "I asked Ymir if she wanted to come too, but she said no. I guess she just doesn't want people to see her in a swimsuit or something. Now that I think about it, it was probably better that it was just me, since I... you know." She flicked a hand towards me as I continued floating where I had fallen.

"Ymir's here?" I asked.

"Yeah. She's my date."

I blinked, my eyes widening. "Wait. You two are-"

"Yeah," Krista said with a shy smile. "We've been going out for a while, actually. Everyone's always so surprised when they find out. I wonder why."

Probably because you aren't exactly what people think of when the word lesbian comes to mind.

"Maybe because they like to think they have a chance with you," I said coyly.

Krista blushed and let out a musical giggle. "Eren!"

"Hey, it's true. If I had the confidence, I would totally ask you out."

Krista tossed her hair and melodramatically gasped, placing a hand over her chest like an offended aristocrat. "Well, I'm sorry, kind sir, but I am a faithful woman!"

"Of course you are. I'm not one to make assumptions, milady," I said, tipping my imaginary hat. Krista laughed again. So did I. Wow, this girl was infectious. No wonder she'd reeled a brick wall like Ymir in so easily.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod Krista! Eren! Get in the kitchen right now!"

The both of us whirled our heads around towards the sliding glass door. Connie came bursting out of the crowd. He staggered over to us, wide-eyed and panting like a rabid dog.

"Connie!" Krista stood up and fixed her dainty hands around his arms, trying to bolster him as much as she could. "Connie, what is it? Is something wrong?"

"No." Connie gasped, shaking his head madly. "No. It's the exact opposite."

"Then why did you come out here running and screaming?" I asked.

"Someone dared Sasha to eat an entire bag of fries," he gushed. "It's insane. You guys are gonna want to see this."

I bolted out of the pool and made a break for the sliding glass door. Connie was right. I wanted to see that.

Watching Sasha choke down a whole bag of uncooked freezer fries was surprisingly entertaining. Almost the entire party had gathered in the kitchen to watch. Almost as soon as I showed up, she spontaneously transformed into a human piranha and blazed through every last frozen potato stick with a whole three minutes left to spare in the twenty-minute time constraint some moron from Trost High had given her. I was in a state of shock for a while afterwards, wondering how the hell she had managed to ingest not only an insane amount of food, but also an insane amount of food that was raw, mealy and rock-hard. She explained during the ensuing half hour that she spent decommissioned on the couch that potatoes had been her favorite food ever since her multiple surgeries had handicapped her absorptive abilities. Apparently they were some kind of nutritional superfood that contained everything a person needed to live. She'd started eating potatoes every day since then and hadn't been able to stop. Potatoes were potatoes, even if they were frozen. It was still kind of terrifying seeing someone who looked like a living stick figure put away that much food in seventeen minutes.

Pretty soon I found out that Sasha's fry stunt was only the beginning.

The party rolled onwards in a disorderly fashion. The countless people that I didn't know started to get into the spirit of things. I clung to whichever support group members I could find. Armin eventually ditched his shirt. Connie spent most of the time acting stoned, even though we all knew he wasn't. Sasha quickly got back to shoveling down the assorted foods once her frozen fry trauma had worn off. Reiner and Bertolt threw everyone in the support group into the pool at least once, twice for me and four times for Armin. I caught Ymir and Krista making out next to the staircase and managed to hide in the crowd and watch for a while. The same thing happened between Reiner and Bertolt, minus the watching part. Mikasa fought Jean off multiple times, Jean stared at Mikasa's ass multiple times, and I thought about multiple ways of killing him. Levi managed to evade me for a while longer, but Hanji located the support group quickly enough. She turned out to be a bigger party girl that I had ever thought possible and pushed both Reiner and Bertolt into the pool after they were finished with everyone else. Armin stuck with me for the better part of the night. When he wasn't with me, he was with Annie. It really didn't seem like she was enjoying herself that much. But I still saw her smile every now and again when Armin was nearby and they texted each other while sitting face to face. So not even she could have been completely miserable.

I had been so worried about the party that morning. But by the time a few hours had passed at Jean's, I couldn't remember what I had been so twisted up about in the first place. I had spent so long on my own that I'd forgotten how much fun these stupid house parties actually were. I didn't have to worry about making a fool of myself. That was what everyone else was doing. First impressions didn't amount to anything here. Most of these people would never see me again as it was. And even if they would, I was having too much fun to care.

I didn't even start to panic until I caught sight of the bottles sitting on the kitchen counter.

It wasn't like I had been looking for them or anything. I had just come into the kitchen to load up on food to bring back to the support group. And suddenly, they were just... there.

I stopped dead right where I was. My eyes locked onto the bottles. Maybe they weren't what I thought they were. Jean certainly seemed to be pretentious enough to buy some kind of fancy expensive glass-bottled soda or make some other stupid show of wealth to prove to everyone how cool he was. But when I saw the Miller labels, I knew I was only fooling myself. I didn't need to hear the minor argument behind the garage door a few seconds later to know what was going on, but I did anyway.

"Are you sure about this?"

It was Jean's voice. He sounded shaky. Kind of unsure. It was weird, coming from someone as arrogant as him, but he was still unmistakable.

"Yeah. If I wasn't then why the hell would I have asked my sorority to buy all this crap?" That was Nicole. And she sounded pissed.

The two of them fell silent for a second. I heard plastic bags rustling around and glass bottles clinking against one another. It was a while before Jean spoke again. "Mom and Dad are going to kill us."

"Mom and Dad aren't going to find out!" Nicole snapped. "Now shut your whiny little mouth and help me bring these in."

More shifting around, more glass bottles being loaded into plastic bags. Heavy footsteps were drawing closer to the door. I looked frantically around for a place to hide. I threw myself into the pantry behind me a split second before the door swung open and Nicole swaggered through. Jean was close behind and weighed down with four bags loaded with chiming glass bottles.

"Just put those on the counter," Nicole commanded. "I'll sort them out. You go get the rest out of the car."

Jean sighed and heaved the bags onto the counter, dropping them on the granite with a jarring clank. "I've got friends at this party too, Nicole."

"Yeah. So?"

"They're in high school. And they might wind up getting into this stuff."

"And what if they do?" Nicole quipped.

"We're not going to get away with this if we end up sending a bunch of kids home drunk. I don't want to have to deal with that kind of liability."

"Come on, Jean. It's bound to happen to them at some point in their lives."

"Nicole, some of them aren't even fifteen!"

"Then keep them out of the kitchen. I'm not going to risk my social status because you wanted to invite a bunch of underage lightweights."

Jean sighed heavily. "Fine," he groaned. I heard the garage door swing open and click shut again. Glass clinked against the countertop as Nicole took the bottles out and arranged them. I held still in the pantry, afraid that she would find me if I so much as breathed. Eventually the clinking stopped. I heard Nicole's bare feet padding away and disappearing into the thrum of the partygoers outside. I pushed the door open and crept hesitantly out.

And immediately came face to face with Jean.

He stood in the open doorway to the garage, bags looped over both his wrists and his eyes wide. I was too stunned to do anything but watch as anger seeped into his features.

"What. The fuck. Are you doing here?"

"I... um... I..." I spluttered. I'd just come in to get something to eat. Everyone else was outside. I hadn't meant to hear anything. This was all a misunderstanding.

"You'd better not tell anyone about this, do you hear me?" Jean snapped, taking a step towards me.

I didn't waste any time. I nodded so fast that my my neck nearly snapped, then spun around and bolted for the door. I raced towards the designated YCSG spot in Jean's backyard as fast as the crowd on the patio would let me and skidded to a stop at the edge of the pile of towels that were serving as our picnic blanket. I dropped down in the grass at the roots of the tree we'd claimed, my chest rising and falling like a malfunctioning elevator. A second later, Armin appeared overhead, his damp blonde hair hanging down around his face. "Eren?" he asked warily. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah," I panted, trying to get enough air out to form coherent words. "I just... there was a thing... in the kitchen... it's fine."

"What happened in the kitchen?"

Jean's warning echoed in my head. "N-nothing. Not important."

"Hey. Weren't you supposed to bring the plates back with you?"

My eyes flickered over toward the skeleton in a rainbow bikini otherwise known as Sasha. Shit. I had completely forgotten.

"Something happened in the kitchen and he had to get out of there," Armin explained while I caught my breath. No matter how heavily I gasped, I couldn't get it back under control. God fucking damn it, why did my body always have to give out on me like this?

"That's alright," Connie said. "He can always go back, right?" A second later, he was hovering over me next to Armin. "Please, dude. You've got to go back in there and get more food," he muttered to me. "You have no idea what Sasha is like when she's hungry."

I nodded, or at least the closest thing to nodding that I could do while lying on my back. "Got it."

"Good." Connie disappeared from my field of vision. "He'll be going back for them in a while. Just give the guy a minute. He looks like he's had a heart attack or something."

I sighed heavily and struggled my way into a sitting position. My chest shuddered and I coughed a few times before my breathing finally returned to normal. I felt a hand patting my back. It was Armin.

"What the hell happened in there?" he asked.

I took a deep breath and said, "Jean's sister brought beer to the party."

Armin's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened into cue balls. I felt my stomach bottom out somewhere near my pelvis. I wasn't supposed to mention that, was I?

"Don't tell anyone," I blurted, doing my best to fix the already doomed situation.

"Don't worry. I won't," Armin reassured me, giving my shoulder blades a friendly rub. I sat and stared at the grass for a while.

"But do you really think that not bringing this up is going to keep everyone away from it?"

I looked back up to face him. "What do you mean?"

"The YCSG aren't the only minors at this party. Jean invited a bunch of people from Trost. Remember?"

I felt a block of ice settling inside me. "They really shouldn't have tried to mix high school with college students."

"Neither of them thought this through, did they?"

I gazed out at the crowd on the patio, wondering how long it would be until there were empty bottles scattered around and half of them were wasted. I steeled myself and staggered to my feet. "I'd better get those plates back and reload them before the word gets out."

"Good luck with that," Armin said. "Chances are, someone's already snuck in and swiped a few."

"Then I'll just go before someone becomes everyone," I said. I started towards the sliding glass door before Armin could say anything else.

Armin was right. By the time I reached the kitchen, a few of the Sina students had gathered around the counter where Jean and Nicole had been setting out cold ones not five minutes earlier. A chunk of the arrangement was missing, and there were already a few semi-drained bottles hanging around on the counters and floor.

The whole ordeal actually went over pretty easily. I passed by the counter of beers, got what I came for and left. No questions were asked. I ran back to the YCSG spot as fast as the full plate of party snacks, my worn-out lungs and my shitty legs would let me. After that, everything was fine.

Well, it was fine until I noticed a few younger-looking kids smuggling bottles towards the edge of the woods behind Jean's house. Before the sun had even begun to set, nearly everyone had gotten a taste of Nicole's little contribution.

This was exactly the kind of thing that I had been worrying about that morning.

For the longest time, I stuck to the towel compilation and the huge, knotted tree where I'd been staying for the past hour. So did the rest of the support group. It wasn't all that surprising that the kids with cancer had no interest in getting drunk. As if we needed any more possible methods of dying.

"Hey, Marco, you want a taste of this?"

Marco stared at the bottle Jean offered to him as if he were holding lethal poison in his hand. Since, you know, technically he was. "Are you seriously asking me that?"

"What? It's a valid question," Jean replied. "And if you wind up going overboard, you were planning on crashing here anyway."

"I can't," Marco told him flatly. "You should know that better than anyone else."

I turned just in time to catch the slightly wounded look on Jean's face before he took the bottle back, murmured a passive "Okay." and got up to chase after Mikasa again.

I scooted over to Marco. "Jean couldn't resist, could he?"

He glanced over his freckle-and-scar-ridden shoulder in my direction. "Guess so. It's not that much of a surprise. I guess it's just another normal teen thing that he wanted to do. I don't really have any right to hold him back from it."

"So what was all that about?"

"What?"

"The ten-second argument you two just had. I was here the whole time."

"That? Oh, it was nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing."

"Well, it's not, really. It's just... not a big deal. Just Jean trying to make me feel normal." A faint smile lit up his freckly face. "He does that a lot."

"So he thinks that letting you get drunk is going to make you forget..." I started, then trailed off and jerked my head towards the crumpled mess of scar tissue that was his body.

"I don't know," Marco sighed, shrugging indifferently. "He means well with all of it. I know he does. He just wants me to have fun like everyone else. But... but he has to remember, I've already lost a lot of pieces of myself. I can't afford to mess around with... all of this." He flicked a hand at the aggregation of drunken idiots wandering around on Jean's patio.

I took a deep breath and leaned back against the tree. Marco did the same, and the both of us stared out at the rest of the party. Armin joined us a few minutes later, then Mikasa showed up after managing to shake off a now semi-drunk Jean for the sixth time that night. We all watched as the party around us got progressively drunker. Jean eventually came back to us and immediately proceeded to start getting touchy with my sister. I got the feeling that his little taste of the stash had given him a confidence boost that he certainly could have done without.

I didn't even know what to make of the situation anymore. I had been so mixed up before I got there, then everything had sorted itself out, and now I was mixed up again. I should have seen this coming hours ago. I must have forgotten after the second time Reiner shoved me into the pool that it was still possible for things to go wrong.

By the time it started to get dark outside, I was getting a little sick of hiding.

I inched away from the tree and pulled myself to my feet. "I'm gonna go get something to eat."

"Right now?" Mikasa mused, squirming around in her spot to face me. "Why?"

"Because I've been under this tree for two freakin' hours and I'm starving," I responded. "And I don't think Sasha will be able to handle herself much longer if someone doesn't suck it up and grab something from the kitchen soon."

"Do you think that they still have any beer left?" Armin asked.

"Probably. Jean told me Nicole had her sorority sisters bring a ton of the stuff," Marco pointed out.

"Why are you asking, Armin? You want me to pick some up for you while I'm at it?" I teased.

My friend's face flushed bright red. "N-no! I was... I was just curious! And if there's still beer left, someone might try to push it on you. I've been warned about parties like this before."

"Who told you that? Your grandpa?" Jean said brashly, currently draped across Mikasa's legs. She seemed to be just barely putting up with the contact.

"Shut up, Jean," Armin snipped, and my sister gave him a decent kick in the back of his head.

I shot a bitch-faced glare in Jean's direction, then turned back to my friend. "Relax," I told him. "Like that would ever happen." I turned and started back towards the patio.

"Eren."

I looked over my shoulder. Mikasa had her eyes fixated on me, a twinge of concern breaking through her restrained expression. "Yeah?"

"Just be careful," she said warily.

"I will. It's a house party, Mikasa. What's the worst that could happen?" I turned and ran off before she could give me an answer.

Jean's house had become an insane asylum while I was gone. The sounds of drunken laughter, over-excited screaming and loud, slurry conversation were enough to make my eardrums bleed. There were a few girls dancing on the dining room table. More people than I was comfortable seeing were making out like they had just returned from war. Someone was unlucky enough to have passed out with markers nearby, and someone else had gotten stuck at the top of the stairs and was afraid to come down. I honestly had to wonder if any of these people still qualified as human beings.

After a great deal of pushing, shoving, and stepping over bodies sprawled out on the ground, I made it to the kitchen. Just as Marco had predicted, there were still a ton of bottles hanging around on the counter. Newly replenished, too, judging by the condensation on the glass. Probably still cold. Maybe if I-

Wait. No. That was a horrible idea. I couldn't.

Jerking my eyes away from the alcohol, I stalked off towards the other side of the kitchen where the counters still held an astounding amount of food. Someone had even made the surprisingly smart decision to order a few pizzas. I snatched a fresh paper plate from one of the stacks that hadn't been toppled over yet and made quick work of gathering food to bring back to the support group. Once I had what I came for, I turned back around to leave.

And was faced with the beer counter. Again.

I sighed to myself and clenched the edges of the paper plate in my hands. I wasn't interested. I was not thinking about taking one of those stupid bottles. In fact, I hadn't even remembered they were there until I turned around and saw them. All the same, I took a step closer. But I still couldn't do it. It wasn't legal. It wasn't even moral. Given the fact that my liver already been severely damaged and for all I knew might still not be functioning at its best, it was probably one of the worst things I could possibly do.

But that didn't stop me from putting the plate down on the counter and grabbing one.

I gave the entire kitchen a quick once-over. Everyone in the room was preoccupied. Nobody would notice one random kid taking a small fraction from the limitless supply of alcohol. It was probably something they had seen happening all night as it was. I stared down at the bottle in my hand. It was still cold, the condensation pooling around my fingers and dripping over my skin. The top stared up at me like an invitation.

I had only ever tasted alcohol once. My dad had hosted a New Years' Eve party for a few coworkers back when I was between eleven and twelve, before cancer had come in and ruined everything. Mikasa and I had stumbled across some unopened bottles at around 2 in the morning and decided to give it a try. The taste had nearly made the both of us throw up and we had dumped the rest of the bottle out in the backyard. I wondered if I'd still think it tasted that gross.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

I snapped the top off the bottle and took a sip.

I choked the second the alcohol slid into my mouth. A sour, grainy taste flooded over my tongue and bubbles drifted up my nose and stung the inside. I held down my retching as the beer ran to the back of my throat and disappeared. Once it was gone, I held the bottle out in front of me and stared at it. I took a deep breath, the inside of my nose still burning like a bitch.

Not too bad.

I finished the bottle before going back to the support group spot. I threw it into the recycling as soon as I was finished. It was surrounded by other emptied-out clones, and I was sure that no one would notice. It was just one beer. No big deal. It it would just be the one, and then I would stop.

But, of course, that was not what actually happened.

Half an hour later, I wandered back into the kitchen. The counter looked almost no different from the way it had been before. I finished off another bottle and hid it in the recycling. I don't know what kind of lapse in logic I was having at the time. The first bottle might have been affecting me already, or maybe I was just depressed enough not to hold myself back. The party was making me forget everything that had kept me restrained before. Suddenly my brain had switched focus from Okay, you had your fun, now stop before you cause yourself any more liver damage than you already have to Screw it, you've always wondered what being drunk feels like and you might not live that much longer anyway.

The process repeated itself again not too much later. And again. And again.

This is for the experience, I told myself over and over. The experience.

I just want to live a little.

Before I knew it, the world was starting to spin and the sounds echoing through Jean's house were starting to slur together. I staggered around for a while, not entirely sure where I was going but happy to be on my way there. I was at a party. I had friends here. I wasn't in a support group, these people were just hanging out with me because I was the coolest person ever. What the hell was leukemia?

"Eren. Hey, Eren."

I spun around at the sound of a voice behind me. My name was Eren. Were they asking for me?

"Whoa."

"Heyyyyy..." I stared at the stranger in front of me for a moment, trying to discern which of my amazing friends had decided to seek me out. Blonde coconut shell hair, wide blue eyes, scrawny enough to have wanted to keep his shirt on at the beginning of the party... "Armin."

Armin blinked, a funny expression coming over his face. "Um, Eren? Are... are you okay?"

I barked out a loud, obnoxious laugh. "Am... am I okay?" I shouted over the music and drunken party noises that were echoing through the house. "Dude... Dude, I am fine. I am SO much better than okay. I am fuckin' fanTASTIC, man."

"Uh..." Armin murmured. He looked incredibly weirded out, for some reason. "Okay. Good to know. Everyone was getting worried about you. You know, since you left the tree a while ago and didn't come back."

"A while?" I blurted out. "How long is a while?"

"Just... a really long time," he explained. He seemed to be getting more and more nervous by the second. "Eren, are you sure you're okay? You seem a little... off."

"Off?" I said. I started laughing, barely able to contain myself. God, this guy was just so fucking funny! "I- I am not off, Armin. I am on. I am on top of the fucking WORLD."

"O-okay..." Armin stammered. He reached out towards me, his hands twitching near my shoulders. "The rest of the group was worried about you. We should probably get you back to them. Let them know how... um, great... you're doing. Alright?"

Without thinking, I stretched my arms out in front of me and wrapped them tightly around him. Armin let out a startled shriek as I dragged him forward and crushed him against me.

"Okay," I whispered in his ear.

Armin's hands wormed their way in between us and pushed me back to our former distance. "Okay," he said breathlessly. "We're going now."

"Now?"

"Now." Armin grabbed me by the wrist and began to pull me through the crowd.

"Hey, Armin, have you found-"

I looked frantically around as another voice broke through the background noise. A girl materialized out of the crowd. Her charcoal-black eyes locked with mine. "Eren!"

Before I knew it, she had rushed over to me and fastened her hands onto my shoulders. "Oh my god. Where have you been? You've been missing from the tree for ages. We were looking everywhere for you!"

A smile tugged at my lips and a drowsy giggle slipped through. "Hi, Mikasa."

Mikasa stared at me as if I were suddenly forty feet tall. She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. "Eren?"

"Are you having fun yet?" I asked excitedly.

Mikasa knitted her eyebrows and glanced over at Armin. "What happened?"

My friend shrugged in response. "I don't know. I kind of found him like that."

My sister turned back to me and stared for a while longer. I laughed a little again and asked her why she seemed so serious, we were at a party, this was supposed to be fun. Her face changed the second I opened my mouth. "Eren, are you drunk?!" she demanded.

I couldn't help it. I laughed so hard that my legs gave out and my sister had to hold me up by the arm.

"I don't know, maybe!" I screamed, verging on total hysteria.

Once my fit of giggles was over, Mikasa pulled me upright again. She stared at me and shook her head. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with you?" she muttered.

"Well, you could do a lot of things with me. But I don't really know if-"

Before I could finish, Mikasa turned me around and looped my right arm over her shoulder. "We're going outside now," she said flatly. "We'll sort this out once we get you back to the tree. And you're not allowed to go back into the kitchen anymore."

"But all the food is in the kitchen," I whimpered.

"Yeah. And that's not all there is," she snapped. "Armin. Help me out here." In a second, my best friend was on my left, taking my arm and winding it around the back of his neck. I sighed heavily and gave up, letting the two of them pull me forward and steer me towards the sliding glass door. They escorted me past the pool and sat me down on the edge of the patio, making sure I was in full view of the YCSG tree. I saw the rest of the support group hanging out around the roots. A few of them were looking at me. I smiled and gave them a friendly little wave.

Mikasa stepped in front of me and stared down at me, her hands on her knees. "Wait here," she commanded. "Do not move from this spot. You hear me?"

Even when my brain was blurred with alcohol, I knew better than to protest. I nodded and watched as she spun on her heel and walked back to the tree. Armin followed closely behind. A minute later, the look I had seen on her and Armin's faces earlier showed up on the rest of the support group members. All of them were staring at me now. Something told me I shouldn't wave at them again.

Great. She was telling them what had happened. And now I was in trouble. That was just fan-fucking-tastic.

"Well. Fancy seeing you again, brat."

My head automatically whipped around towards the source of the voice. I hadn't even needed to turn around to know who it had come from. I just wanted to see his face again.

"Hi, Levi," I giggled.

He had snuck up behind me without so much as a whisper of warning. But considering my current state, it wasn't too much of a surprise. He probably could have driven up behind me in a fucking bulldozer and still managed to sneak up on me. He slunk out of the crowd and stepped off the patio, standing directly in front of me. He stared down at me, his face blank as usual. It was kind of funny. I was usually the one who was looking down at him all the time. I couldn't stop myself from giggling again. That fluttery feeling he brought up inside me just tickled so much.

Levi cocked an eyebrow at me. "What's all this about?"

"I-I don't know," I giggled, a smile breaking out on my face. "I just feel... weird."

Levi studied me for while longer, then blinked as if he'd had a sudden realization. "Shit," he murmured. He bent over to look me in the eyes. "You really shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?" I asked, staring blankly up at him like a lost puppy.

Levi sighed dismissively and sank down onto the patio stones next to me. "Come on, brat. Don't even try to fuck with me like this. You practically have the word drunk written across your forehead."

I laughed. "I saw that happen to someone inside."

"I saw it too," Levi said, staring out across the backyard and avoiding my gaze. "That poor moron is certainly going to have an interesting morning tomorrow."

I giggled again. "Yeah. Imagine, he wakes up, and then it's all like, oh my god, what happened to my face?!"

Levi sighed again. "That was really stupid of you, brat. I know you're a teenager, and your kind can be pretty stupid every now and again, but I honestly thought you'd know better."

"Better than what?"

"Never mind. It's too late now anyway."

I turned and gazed at the side of Levi's face. It looked so strange in the half-light of Jean's backyard. I wished I could see all of it at once. He would probably look amazing out here under the stars.

"Hey, Levi?"

"Yeah?" he replied. He didn't turn towards me. I held back a protesting whine and searched my brain something to say.

"Are you... having a good time?"

"Well, as far as parties go, this one isn't too bad," he said flatly, stretching his arms out behind him and leaning back. I hoped he didn't notice me staring at the way the dim light glanced off his curved, perfect body. "But honestly, no. I'm really not one for social gatherings. I'm here for Hanji's sake, really. You should see her right now. She's drunk off her ass. Even more than you."

"So you're taking her home?"

Levi turned his head to look at me. "Yeah. I don't think she'll get back any other way."

My breath caught in my throat as my eyes focused in on his face. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was like something out of a dream. His skin seemed like it was glowing in the dark and his raven hair was still tousled with pool water. I studied the way it swept gracefully over his forehead, just barely brushing his eyes.

His eyes. Holy shit, his eyes.

I had never seen them like this before. They looked different, for some reason. I leaned in to get a closer look. I was just barely able to pick out the small flecks of bright cobalt blue that scattered over his irises and mixed with the steely grey that I was so used to seeing. So his eyes weren't really grey at all. They were blue.

An odd, fluttery feeling began to build up in my chest. "Levi?" I said, my voice just barely above a whisper.

"What is it, Eren?" he responded. I felt my heart shudder in my chest. Eren. Not brat, Eren. He'd said my name.

I started leaning in closer. Our faces were just inches apart. What would happen if I got rid of a few? Or all of them? What if...

Suddenly I felt my stomach flip over. Before I knew it, I had pitched forward and was puking into the grass.

Levi tensed up next to me and jerked his feet up onto the patio stones. I could feel his eyes burning into my back as I convulsed on my hands and knees. More acid, beer and half-digested food came spilling out of my mouth. I coughed uncontrollably, silently begging for it to end.

A hand suddenly appeared on my back, right in between my shoulder blades. It rubbed gently over my skin. "Hey. Easy, there. Breathe."

I had to cough up another good splatter of vomit before it was finally over. Once the retching had stopped, the hand on my back moved to my shoulder and was quickly joined by another. Then they were tightening, and I was being pulled to my feet. Levi turned me to face him. I looked down at him, my face blazing with embarrassment.

"L-Levi..."

"No," he said, holding up a hand to shut me up. I obeyed without question. "You've had enough for now. You're coming with me." Before I could respond, Levi spun me around again, looping his arm around my waist and throwing one of mine over his shoulders. I freaked out for a millisecond over the fact that I was touching him, he wasn't wearing a shirt and my uncovered skin was directly on his. Then reality smacked me in the face. I had just thrown up in front of him. The next logical step for me would have been to leave as quickly as possible and hope that a few weeks from now we could pretend it never happened. But of course, he was holding me captive by the waist and I was too listlessly drunk to struggle, so there was no hope of me escaping. I didn't even bother to resist him. I was still sober enough to realize that there wouldn't be any point.

Levi led me back into the house and towards the staircase. I staggered my way up, leaning on him every step of the way. He didn't seem to care. He just continued to act as my crutch and dragged me down the hallway, only taking his hand away from my wrist to open one of the doors. I had just enough time to catch sight of a clean, blue-tiled bathroom before I was dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

Levi swung the door shut and flicked the light on. He stared condescendingly down at me. I stared back, not sure what else there was to do.

"Stay here. I'm going to tell the others where you are." And just like that, he was gone.

I stared at the door long after it had been slammed shut, wishing that Levi was still there. I didn't know why. It was the same feeling that I'd had over and over the summer when I had my operation. Only this time, it was all mixed up with something else. I couldn't figure out a name for it, but it was there and so strong that it drowned out almost everything else in my head. My face felt like it was on fire, and all of my internal organs felt like they were being attacked by moths. And Levi seemed to be the one who had caused all of it.

My vision started to defocus while I stared at the door waiting for Levi to come back. My eyelids began to feel heavy. They were going to fall closed. I could feel it, and there wasn't a single thing I could do to stop it. I tried to fight it anyway. I wanted to stay awake until he came back. I wanted to see him again. But I couldn't hold it back forever. As I drifted off, I thought back to when we were outside. I had no idea what I was thinking when I had been leaning towards him. Maybe I hadn't been thinking at all. But there was something else. It didn't seem all that important, just a faint little feeling that refused to go unnoticed. And there was no way in hell that I was going to admit it by the time I blacked out.

But in that very second before I had thrown up, I had kind of wanted to kiss him.

When I finally regained consciousness, I was curled up on the bath mat of Jean's guest bathroom and wrapped in an oversized pool towel. I craned my neck to do a 360 of the floor, hoping that I would catch sight of a pair of pale, slender legs. But there weren't any. Once again, I was all alone.

I tightened the towel around me and squeezed my eyes shut again. Fuck,my head was pounding like a bitch. Why did I feel like this? There was no way that I could have drank that much. I could probably just stay here for a while longer until it wears off, I decided.

Apparently, my stomach had other ideas.

Not even a minute after I had settled back into the rug, I felt an uncomfortable lurch in my guts. I quickly threw the towel aside, scrambled my way to the toilet and threw the lid open before I sprayed drunk vomit all over Jean's bathroom and gave him another reason to hate me. As if he even had one in the first place, I thought as I purged out whatever alcohol was left in my system.

It took me a while to empty myself out. I clung to the rim of the toilet until my stomach couldn't squeeze anything else out of me and the violent retching receded into sporadic little shudders. I sank back from the toilet and ripped a good deal of toilet paper off the roll nearby. I wiped my face off, disposed of the acrid-smelling mess and dragged myself up to the sink. I was in the middle of washing my mouth out and lapping at the water to ease my headache when the door swung open again.

"So, I see you're finally awake," Levi said.

I shut the tap off and turned to look at him, pain pulsing through my brain at the sudden movement. "Yeah," I replied, hissing through my teeth.

He studied me carefully and crossed his arms over his bare chest. He had ditched his swim trunks for a pair of shorts, but his shirt was still missing from the equation. "Are you feeling any saner now, or are you still a drunken lunatic?"

"Sane, I think," I muttered. I leaned against the sink and pressed my hands into my eyes, my fingers knotting in my hair. "Fuck. My head..."

"Serves you right, brat," Levi snipped.

I squinted into my palms. "What?"

"That was a really stupid thing you did." Levi took a step towards me, backing me up against the sink and pulling my hands away from my face. His eyes delved into mine like needles. "You are such a fucking idiot. What were you thinking, going and trying to get wasted when you've already had a fraction of your liver taken out? You're sick enough as it is. You could have gotten alcohol poisoning or killed yourself or something. You're lucky that a stupid hangover is all that you have to deal with."

I opened my mouth to respond, but all of a sudden it was as if I had forgotten how words work. The bathroom fell silent. I felt something in the pit of my chest twisting up into a hard, icy knot as Levi's eyes held onto mine. Pins and needles in my nerves pricked at my surgical scar, as if it needed to remind me that it was there.

"I-I'm sorry," I choked.

"Don't apologize to me," Levi snapped. "You should be apologizing to yourself, if anything. You just risked your life, brat. I'm not sure that you realize that."

"I do. I-I know how dangerous it is, and I-"

"Then why did you do it?"

"I... I don't know."

Levi stared silently at me for a while longer, then sighed and shook his head. "Stupid fucking brat..." he murmured, letting go of my wrists and backing away. I rubbed gently at the places where his fingers had locked around my arms. I'd be surprised if I didn't wind up with a nice set of bruises there. I crossed the small room to the glass wall of the shower, leaned back against it and sank down to the floor. Standing only made the throbbing in my skull worse.

Levi leaned over the sink, took a paper cup from the dispenser on the counter and turned the cold tap on. "It stinks in here. Did you throw up again?"

"Yeah," I admitted, my face burning red. "Look, Levi, I-I'm sorry about what happened outside..."

"Hey, no need to be embarrassed. It's not like seeing you puke is anything new to me."

I looked up at him, my eyes widening just the slightest bit. Was that what I had been apologizing for, or was it...

My thought died out when I noticed the tiny black wing on Levi's shoulder.

"Hey, Levi... how long has that been there?"

Levi shut the tap off and glanced over his shoulder at me. "How long has what been where?"

"The... that wing," I mused. "On your shoulder."

"Oh. You mean this thing," he said, brushing over the tiny black image with his fingertips. It was a simplified design, each feather its own individual shape with narrow outlines of Levi-color in between. The outermost feathers were spread out over his shoulder, and the base was centered as if the wing were growing out of the left side of his spine. It couldn't have been more than two or three inches long, but I was still surprised I hadn't noticed it before.

"Yeah. I didn't know you had it."

"It was just something I got a few years ago when I graduated high school," Levi explained. He turned around and knelt down next to me. "It was probably a stupid waste of money. Every time I look back on it, I always wonder why I'd decided to get it. I mean, I don't regret it or anything, but..." He shrugged and handed me the cup of water. "Drink that. The faster you rehydrate, the faster the hangover will wear off."

I did as I was told and gratefully sucked it down. "Why did you decide to keep it? Does it mean something to you or anything?"

Levi took the cup back from me and turned back toward the sink. I heard him sigh before turning the tap back on. "No, not really. I think I'm just scared of how much I've heard tattoo removal hurts."

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I got the vague feeling that he was lying. But I knew just about as much about that notion as I did about the way he made my nerves start buzzing every time he came near me. I decided to push the thought away.

"Well... it's nice."

Levi turned back around and handed me back the refilled cup. "Thanks," he said softly.

I drank the next cup just as quickly as I had the first and handed it back to him. While he refilled it again, another wave of pain coursed through my skull. I curled up against the shower and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes. "How long was I out for?" I asked through my teeth.

"About five hours," Levi replied flatly.

"Five?" I blurted out in disbelief. "How did I even... what time is it?"

"About three in the morning."

I groaned and bumped my head back against the shower door. "Oh, god. Mikasa is going to flip her shit..."

"Oh, believe me, she already has. She should be calmed down by now, though. I think she's fallen asleep, actually."

"She fell asleep?"

"Obviously," Levi scoffed. "She's staying the night. Your little blonde buddy's ride showed up at eleven like he had planned, and she was supposed to go with him, but she wasn't about to leave you stranded here." He paused for a second to hand me the next cup. "You're pretty lucky to have someone as good as she is, Eren."

A jolt of electricity ran down my spine as he dropped my name. "Did she at least get a place to sleep?"

"Um, have you even seen this house? Jean has two guest rooms, not to mention his parents' room, which is empty, and the most comfortable couch on the goddamn planet." He handed me another refilled cup. "She's stowed away with Hanji in one of the guest rooms."

"Hanji's still here?"

"Yeah. I'm her ride home, remember?"

"Oh. Right." I drained the last cup of water that he'd given me and stared down at it after I was finished. A pang of guilt clawed at my heart. I'd made Mikasa stay the night at Jean's house. As if I hadn't already made it easy enough for her to get taken advantage of. Well, at least she'd managed to avoid sharing a room with him. And hopefully Hanji wasn't so drunk that she wouldn't wake up if Jean tried to sneak in.

Wait. Levi was Hanji's ride home. She was still here, and so was he. He could have left at any time. So why did he...

"Oh, I almost forgot. You're probably going to need this."

I looked up a split second before Levi flung a shitty plastic sports bag at my face. I scrambled to catch it. It was my party pack. I ripped the drawstring open to see that all my clothes were still inside, just as relatively clean and intact as when I had put them there that morning. "Thanks," I said.

"Don't mention it," Levi deadpanned in response. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get some sleep. The shower's all yours if you can figure out how to work it. We're in the fourth door on the right side of the hallway."

"Okay," I said, staggering to my feet. Then, all of a sudden, I froze. "Wait. We?"

By the time the words were out of my mouth, Levi had already walked out and shut the door behind him. I sighed and started stripping off my swim trunks. Fine. If he wanted to be that way, he could.

After a quick shower and use of a few unopened toothbrushes that happened to be stowed in the cabinet behind the mirror, I stuffed my used trunks into my party pack and made my way out into the hallway. Everything was dark and the house had gone deathly silent. It was kind of eerie in comparison to the loud, lively party that had been taking place up until a few hours earlier. I found the door that Levi had told me about and sneaked my way in, shutting it softly behind me. There were faint beams of moonlight streaming in past the blinds, giving me just enough visibility to keep me from bumping into the beds and waking up whoever happened to be sleeping there. There were three of them, a double bed pushed into the corner and a twin-sized trundle with the lower mattress pulled out. The floor mattress happened to be the only one left open. There were two shapes hiding under the blankets of the larger bed, one sprawled out considerably more than the other. I guessed that the sprawler was drunk-off-her-ass Hanji and the balled-up lump next to her was Levi. It was certainly small enough to be him. I crept over to the floor mattress and pushed the sheets back, crawling in as silently as I could.

"Hey. Finally decided to join the party, huh?" A voice whispered.

My eyes snapped open and my head jerked sideways to look up at the bed above me. A shadow was propped up on the pillows and looking down at me. I caught a flash of silver-blue in the dim light.

"Levi?"

"Yes," he whispered. "Did you think I was going to leave Hanji drunk and unattended?"

"No, I guess not, but I thought you were Mikasa."

"Nope. Sorry to disappoint."

"Then who's..." My eyes drifted over to the double bed and caught sight of the end of a cranberry-red scarf sticking out over the top of the blankets. I hadn't even known she'd brought it with her. "Oh."

"Hanji tends to be a little cuddly when she's drunk," Levi told me, disappearing back over the edge of his bed. "Well, I think we both need some rest in the worst way possible. Sleep tight, brat." And with that, he rolled himself up under the blankets and went silent.

It took longer than I would have liked to fall asleep. The butterflies inside me were making things a little bit difficult.

"Eren."

I had no clue whose voice it was that was whispering my name like that. I sighed and wriggled around underneath the sheets on my floor mattress. Whatever they wanted, they could wait. I'd had a rough night, and I didn't want to deal with life just yet.

But that didn't stop the voice from whispering again.

"Eren."

I rolled over and cracked my eyes open a slit. That whisper was starting to sound a little weird. I had never heard this one before. I dug through my memory of all the whispers I had ever heard in my life. Mikasa, Armin once or twice, my parents, people from middle school who probably didn't even remember my name anymore...

"Eren." The whisper was really starting to sound more like a purr now. "Wake up."

A little thrill ran down my spine. I knew whose voice that was. My eyes flew open to see a shadow clinging to the edge of the day bed next to mine, leaning over my mattress and looking down at me.

"Levi?" I murmured sleepily.

"No, brat. It's the fucking Easter Bunny."

Yeah, it was definitely Levi.

"Why are you awake? Didn't we just..." I asked and trailed off, reaching up to rub at my eyes. I sat up and braced myself, sure that the sudden movement would resurrect the violent throbbing in my skull. But, miraculously, it never did.

"I couldn't sleep," Levi whispered, balling up his pillow underneath his head and looking down at me with his watchful eyes. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine now." I blinked slowly as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I could just barely make out his face. It seemed different somehow. Softer. Although I couldn't really be sure why.

"Good," Levi murmured. He slipped down over the side of the day bed and landed gracefully next to me on the floor mattress. "I was hoping you would be. Maybe sleeping it off for five hours did the trick."

"M-maybe..." I breathed. Oh god, he was so close to me. My heart was starting to slip into its little Levi-induced seizure, my blood rushing in my ears. What was he doing? Why was he doing this? And weren't Hanji and Mikasa in the same room as us?

I glanced over. The comforter was pulled taut over the mattress of the double bed in the corner. Empty.

What the...

"Hey, Eren..."

My head whipped back around to face Levi. He inched towards me, gently pushing me down onto the mattress. Oh my god. That voice. His whispering had turned into purring, it was unmistakable now.

"Y-yes... Levi?" My breath was coming too fast to form a coherent sentence. I had my raging pulse to thank for that. If only the way he said my name didn't turn me on so much.

Wait. Did I seriously just think that?

Levi's hand reached out and glided over my hips, coming to rest at the small of my back. He leaned forward, and I instinctively fell back onto the pillows. And then he was on top of me, his legs straddled on either side of my body, his hands on my chest and his mouth hovering tantalizingly over mine. Another crackle of electricity ran down my spine, only this time it headed straight between my legs.

"Am I turning you on, brat?"

My answer came out in a cracked, breathy whisper. "Y-yes."

And then I lost it. My arms flung themselves around his strong, sinewy body, my fingers digging into his hair and pulling his lips down to meet mine. Levi's mouth opened in a sudden gasp and I took the initiative of sliding my tongue in first. I fought my way into his mouth and stayed for a few good seconds before he started pushing back. Our bodies pressed together on top of the mattress, our limbs tangled and our tongues dancing around each other with hot, sensual licks. My hands somehow found their way underneath Levi's shirt, against his bare skin, then I was clawing madly at the fabric and pulling it over his head. He separated from me just long enough to let me tear his shirt away from him. Then I threw it at the bed in the corner and we were going at it again. Levi's mouth moved away from mine and reappeared seconds later at the base of my throat, kissing my skin and grazing his teeth against the throbbing pulse point in my neck. I tilted my head back, a breathless groan slipping out of my mouth. "L-Levi..." I moaned, my brain turning to static.

"Eren," he whispered against my skin, running his hands over my back and raking his nails on my shirt. "Eren. Oh, god, Eren..."

His arms tightened around me. I felt him starting to straighten up, and he lifted my semi-emaciated body with his as if it were nothing. I fastened my legs around his hips and ground against him as he pressed me close to his chest, stood up and lifted me off the mattress. A second later he was dropping me down on the double bed, pushing me back and crawling on top of me. Our lips found each other again. Our hands started clawing and tearing at each others' clothes. I got lost in the smell of Levi's skin, the softness of his hair, the sound of his voice whispering to me, saying my name over and over.

One of his hands slid underneath the top of my shorts and ghosted seductively across my skin. My eyes fluttered open and I was staring at Levi's face, his razored blue-grey eyes clouded with lust. He gazed inquisitively at me, as if his eyes were asking some huge, unspoken question.

"Yes," I breathed against him. "Oh god, Levi, yes."

My mouth fastened over his again, and his hand slid further, brushing across my hips and picking at the zipper of my shorts.

"Eren," he moaned. I drank in the sound like it was the nectar of the gods.

I heard a muted zzzip and my shorts loosened up. Levi's fingers tugged at them, his nails raking across my skin and drawing out another cry from me.

"Eren."

His hand coasted down from my hips and swept his fingertips across my inner thigh.

Oh god please stop teasing me and just do it already oh my god I am so hard it hurts just do it please...

"Eren."

Okay, that did not sound right.

Suddenly the imagery was gone. Instead everything had turned a slightly reddish shade of black. Levi's skin against mine was replaced with the restraining feeling of sheets that had been kicked into the equivalent of a straitjacket. However, the annoying, awkwardly sensitive feeling between my legs had stayed exactly where it was.

Great.

"Eren, wake up."

That was Levi's voice. And he was not happy.

I cracked my eyes open a slit. "Hnnnn..." I grumbled in reply. Well at least he knew I wasn't in a coma now.

Wait. Could he see my-

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"It's ten in the morning, brat. Hanji's up and your sister wants to leave soon."

I squirmed around in the sheets, trying to rearrange the mess into some kind of position that would cover up the tent I was pitching in my pants. "Nn... I-I'm awake now. I'm up," I mumbled as quickly as I could.

"Good." Without warning, someone grabbed my shoulder and rolled me roughly onto my back. "Then get your ass out of bed. We're leaving in half an hour."

My eyes went wide as soon as they registered Levi's face.

Levi, don't look down, please whatever you do, don't look down...

"Y-yes, sir!" I blurted out. Sir? Whoa. Where the fuck did that come from?

"Alright. Meet the rest of us downstairs." Then Levi walked out the door, slamming it shut behind him. I sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy, tired sigh. Thankfully the blush that was blazing steadily into my face was draining some of the blood out of my dream boner. I really hoped that no one had seen it when they all conveniently woke up before me.

It took a ridiculous amount of effort to untangle myself from the sheet cocoon that I had somehow woven around myself in my sleep, and then even more making sure that all traces of my subconscious makeout session with Levi were gone. I sat down on the edge of the bed where Levi had thrown me the night before. Or where I had imagined he'd thrown me. I didn't even want to think about it anymore. But of course, I did anyway. I slumped over on the bed and raked my fingers through my hair, trying to wake myself up.

I had just dreamed about Levi and woken up hard. Naturally, there was only one thing that was running through my head at the moment.

What the hell was I thinking?