A/N: Things are going to escalate in this one. I tried my best to keep the characters as in-character as possible but, from what I can see, there might still be a few things that I need to tweak if I want to get them perfectly in-character (or, rather, spread this chapter out across three or four chapters)... but, hopefully, it's still alright.

Beta'd by Stately Demented
secondary edits are unbeta'd

~ Chapter Six [Confronting] ~

Eren tiredly sipped from the Styrofoam cup filled with heavily decaffeinated coffee and sighed at the bland taste that numbed his tastebuds. He hadn't had such tasteless drinks since he'd ran out of his sparse supply of Levi's teabags just a day ago, but getting more was out of the question when he hadn't so much as looked his neighbour in the eye for the past week and a half.

It was really much easier than he'd thought it'd be avoiding Levi, thanks to their differing schedules and the effort he'd exerted to keep it that way. However, the lethargy that crept into his body from the thought of attending his lectures and facing his friends had driven him to lounge motionlessly on the couch for days on end.

It wasn't just the awkwardness that had been weighing Eren down, though.

There had been headaches that had come and gone with just as little explanation as his long bouts of tiredness. Odd things had appeared in his periphery, only to disappear when he turned around. He swore he saw a bespectacled man stalking his dreams and the unpleasant nightmares of his childhood, where needles sunk into his arm and a host of faceless people gathered to watch, returned with a vengeance. His throat would seize up and his eyes well up with tears at random intervals and, frankly, Eren was far too gone to deal with his emotional and mental trauma. It had seemed like his self-awareness had screwed with his mind and the knowledge that his heart was catching up to his semi-deranged psyche needed a good few days to process– a good few days that didn't involve the trouble that came with re-entering the outside world.

He had only been able to summon up enough energy to do just that today, a good week after his wanking session had been interrupted and his mind had been thrown into turmoil. Even though he'd made an effort to go outside, the mere thought of sitting through an hour of Jean's loud mouth and Professor Hange's irritatingly enthusiastic mannerisms was too much for him to take and so, instead of pondering life questions in his lecture, he'd gone to an off-campus coffee shop to while away the hours instead. Because here, at least, he could be sure that he'd be left in relative peace to curse the sunlight and his miserable existence.

The chances of him running into anyone were slim to none here –unlike most sophisticated stores, this particular coffee shop was a veritable hole in the wall– which was precisely why he'd chosen this place, of all places, to re-integrate himself into the outside world. Staring at the cracked walls inside his apartment was only interesting for so long before he got sick of the sight and its subtle reminder regarding his dwindling bank account.

Yet pondering over his thoughts was an activity that would unceasingly pester him. The urge to frown, as more confused thoughts and blurred images swam to the forefront of his mind and became stronger by the second, grew with every lethargic breath he took. He could sense curious glances lingering over his relatively inert form and a foggy part of his mind attributed them to the waitress that'd served him when he'd listlessly wandered inside, but—

"Excuse me, sir. You've been staring at our counter for quite a while, and I was wondering… do you need anything?" a tentative voice piped up near him and, jolted out of his mental rambling, Eren blearily blinked at the waitress' shaky smile.

"…No, I'm fine, thank you," Eren stiffly replied, before he dropped his gaze back to his cup and left the nervous waitress at his elbow to her own devices. Ordinarily, he might've made a bit of small talk to lighten the mood, but he simply couldn't muster up the energy to care– which was hardly surprising when he could barely muster the energy to think beyond the muddled haze that was his thoughts.

For a moment, he wondered why he was sitting in a nondescript place with a crap cup of coffee in his hands as he pored over everything and nothing, but the brief confusion disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. As his eyes lost themselves in the placid surface of his overpriced drink and attempted to shove all thoughts of Levi and his disturbed mind in a dark corner of his conscience, Eren sank into a thoughtless stupor that consumed him for the better part of his time at the cafe.

In fact, he was so immersed in said thoughtless stupor that he found himself nursing a completely cold drink while the same hesitant waitress steered him out of the closing store when he next surfaced for rational thought.

And so, Eren plodded into his final lecture for the day with a muddled mind, a half empty Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hands, and the blankest expression anyone had ever seen on a living human being.

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The first thing that Mikasa did, as soon as he'd shuffled through the lecture hall's door, was yank him into the chair beside her and fix the sternest expression she could muster onto her face. If Eren hadn't been so spaced out, he might've been a little confused as to why his foster sister was there to begin with. After all, they didn't exactly share any lectures or tutorials in college, thanks to their radically differing degrees, and it wasn't hard to tell that forensics bored her to bits.

"Eren, where have you been for the past week?" she hissed worriedly into his ear. "I couldn't call you, I couldn't reach you at your apartment and nobody knew where you were…"

A faint corner of Eren's mind briefly flickered with the recognition of her words and, in the deep recesses of his numbed brain, his rational thoughts connected her statement with the numerous missed calls on his phone and the frantic knocking on his door at ungodly hours. He had assumed that his neighbour or some other unwanted guest had somehow gotten a hold of his cell's number or had bothered to knock when the locked door refused to budge under his grip… but clearly, his plans had forgotten to factor the rest of the world into his irrational avoidance scheme.

Well, a small corner of his mind muttered, at least I can trust Mikasa to care about me.

"I'm sure Eren has a good explanation for all this, Mikasa…" another voice piped up, and Eren almost cursed aloud when Armin plopped into the seat next to his. "You can tell us what's going on, right?"

"Nothing's wrong with me, guys," Eren hoarsely replied when it became clear that Mikasa and Armin weren't going to leave him alone, yet all they did was shake their heads at his unconvincing words. "Look, I've just been a little—"

"Busy, maybe? You could've still called or at least told us that you weren't feeling well, couldn't you?" Mikasa's words stung, despite their soft tone, but he barely had a chance to do anything more than wince before Armin butted in.

"Mikasa's got a point, Eren. You haven't shown up to lectures, you haven't gone to your counselling sessions and nobody has heard from you for the past week and a half." Armin wearily shook his head at his three outstretched fingers, before he stared fixedly at his best friend. "We've got a right to know what you're going through and, right now, we're going to exercise that right. Seriously, Eren, what's going on?"

He'd imagined that his confrontation with Mikasa and Armin would've gone a little smoother… but, at the same time, Eren had been expecting this level of cautious concern from the duo in some part of his inactive subconscious. They'd almost had a fit when he fell and scraped his knee on the pebbles littering the college's walkways scarcely a month ago so, clearly, it would only be right for them to have some sort of aneurysm from his uncharacteristic silence. If anything, he was slightly intrigued by how well they could cover up their worry behind barely together smiles and overly false cheeriness.

…Really, how did he not notice the hollowness of their emotions before?

"Eren, please stop ignoring us." Mikasa cut into his thoughts abruptly. "Armin's worried, I'm worried and, right now, we really just want to know if you're okay."

"Please," Armin interjected, and Eren almost allowed a frown to mar his face when his best friend's widened pleadingly, "I swear, Eren, we're not going to do anything you don't want us to do. We'll even keep this to ourselves if that's what you want."

For a moment, Eren fought the urge to glare at his friend's puppy-dog eyes... but the urge abruptly disappeared when the meaning behind Armin's plea sunk in.

Eren's eyes immediately widened as he stared incredulously at Armin because, clearly, he must've misheard him when he'd said that he would willingly keep information from people if it meant that he'd be happy. Keeping any sort of knowledge back from the government was a crime that would almost certainly guarantee the disappearance of the miserable law-breaker from their society and Armin was the most obediently law-abiding citizen he knew of.

Yet here he was, offering to irrevocably stain his clean record for his sake.

If he hadn't been almost catatonic from shock, Eren might've found his face cramping up from the conflicting muscles that fought to contort his facial expressions into warring emotions. Was he supposed to smile incredulously at Armin's incredibly bold statement or sneer at his friend's rather obvious attempt to make him divulge his secrets? His face didn't seem to know the answer, and neither did his mind.

However, when he glanced towards his friend and found a serious light gleaming in the darkened blue of his pupils, he sighed noisily and allowed his lips to twitch upwards in equal amounts of resignation and amusement. It didn't take long for him to write down a few words onto the corner of his blank paper and tear two small pieces off for Armin and Mikasa to read, and it took even less time for them to read through what he'd written. As they glanced solemnly towards him and nodded their approval to his plan, Eren let his eyes drift upwards to the tardy professor and found a slightly more genuine smile drape itself over his face.

There was probably going to be a major fuss that would kick up as soon as he'd brought his sister and his friend back to his apartment for a recap of his week… but for now, he'd enjoy the peace while it lasted.

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"There are so many cracks along this wall…" Armin had muttered as soon as he'd walked through the front door and, though Mikasa gently shushed him and cast a troubled glance in Eren's direction, her listless foster brother had stopped in the middle of the living room at his comment.

Eren had noticed that there were cracks along the wall –after all, he had stared at them for so long that he could almost memorize the erratic paths that they took over the chipped paint surface– but he hadn't quite noticed the extent of said cracks until now. Even though he was well aware of his visitors and his duty as a host to them, he couldn't help himself from stepping closer to the largest of the cracks and running a curious finger over the dried something staining its edges dark brown. Since when had there been so many hairline fractures spanning the lengths of his walls? How long had they been there, and what sort of violence had imprinted them into his walls?

And, most importantly of all, how long had he successfully ignored—

"Eren." His hand jolted slightly when another, more slender, hand hovered lightly over his fingers, before his glazed green eyes drifted towards Mikasa's stern black ones. "Don't avoid us when we're right in front of you. Let's sit down and talk about your week before you try and shut us out again, okay?"

Although his lips twitched downwards at the sharp tone in his foster sister's words and the wariness that even she couldn't quite hide, the cautious gaze of his best friend as he perched precariously on his couch tore him from his welling annoyance and leeched the tension from his muscles. With a sigh, he tiredly shook off Mikasa's hand and shuffled to his armchair, before he flopped into the overstuffed material and blearily stared at her as she disappeared into his kitchen. She came back with three mugs, each steaming with the government-regulated coffee that overflowed abundantly from his cupboard, and the sight was enough to force a silent sigh past his pursed lips.

Even so, he took the warm cup in his hand and politely sipped at the horribly bland liquid, while his mind tried to deceive himself into thinking that it was a heavily caffeinated cup of tea.

"So…" Mikasa murmured quietly, when Eren had finally glanced up from his chipped mug. "It's been a while since we've talked properly, and I want to know what's going on with you."

"You wouldn't believe me if I tried to say that I was fine then, would you?" Eren huffed grumpily, before he dismissed the evident concern in his foster sister's widened eyes and turned towards his best friend. "Now, I know that I told the both of you to come here… but really, do you have to check up on me like I'm some sort of incompetent toddler?"

"Eren, you're the one that's been acting like an incompetent toddler to begin with!" Armin began vehemently. "Even if we didn't want to worry about you, your absences make it almost impossible for us when it comes to minding our own business! Heck, even Jean was beginning to—"

"Oh, so what am I now, your science experiment?" Eren snarled sarcastically, and promptly quashed Armin's vehement excuses. "Does it really give you that much pleasure to check up on me like I'm some sort of pet subject gone wrong? Actually, maybe you think I'm just like those screwy criminals that the government keeps on sticking in jail for improper emotional conduct!"

"We're not here to hurt you," Mikasa interjected in the few moments that Eren took to down the rest of his tasteless drink and prepare for his next onslaught of anger, "Armin and I came here to hear about your problems—"

"Oh, so now the two of you decided to replace my official counselling sessions with your own misguided kindness, is that it?!" Eren spat out venomously, and a sick sort of pleasure unfurled in the depths of his stomach when Mikasa and Armin recoiled from his stifling anger. A darker, more animalistic, part of his mind allowed itself to revel in the palpable shock and fear emanating from them, before his mouth flew open once more.

"There's no way that you can change me, even if you think it's the right thing to do! And what is 'right' and 'wrong' in this fucked-up world anyway? You speak of hearing about my problems, but all you're going to do is shove your opinions down my throat, like what the government probably does with those non-conformists that we study in class!"

"No, Eren—" Mikasa began waveringly, while Armin whimpered slightly and clutched his mug with shaking hands, but whatever she had to say was cut off by Eren's furious tirade.

"Oh, sure, they preach about morality in this world because it keeps us in line, but they don't believe in it at all, so why should you? They scare us with stupid stories like how you'd be cast outside the walls to get eaten by the mythical giants that still roam in someplace other than our dreams but it's all just false rumours and idiotic bits of propaganda!"

"Eren—"

"So you want to correct me now… well, how noble of you to care. But have you ever thought about whether you needed fixing up or not? We're all trapped in this world and we're destined to die, even if we're the most law-abiding citizens in this city, and we can't do anything about it! Our lives are vapid and vacuous, but do you ever think about how sad our world is?!"

"Stop—"

"I'm not the one that's wrong, guys! Look at the world around us, and you'll realize that it's the world that's gone and fucked with us! So when you want to ask why there's something wrong with me, go ask yourselves about whether there's something wrong with you first before you try and stuff the government's specially-made bullshit down my throat, will you? And—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, brat, shut up already!"

Eren almost bit his tongue clean off when the photos near his chair rattled from the force which his neighbour pounded on the wall, but it was nothing compared to the obvious flinch that vibrated through Armin's arm and flung his cup clean out of his hand. As the half-empty mug smashed onto the floor beneath and its lukewarm contents pooled onto the wooden floorboards, the occupants of Eren's apartment stared dumbly at the mess spreading across the living room.

When Eren finally clambered to his feet and broke the awkward tension in the air, it was unclear whether an hour or a minute had passed between the cup's breaking and its owner's almost laconic movements. If the moment had been any less serious, someone might've giggled at the dustpan that Eren had grabbed to clean up the mess… because, clearly, there was no way that a bristled head would be able to sweep either the coffee or their problems away anytime soon.

But neither Mikasa nor Armin sought to break the heavy silence clinging to their forms.

"I'm sorry," Eren murmured lowly, and almost stiffened up from partial embarrassment and guilt when two pairs of eyes snapped to his contrite ones. "I-I'm not sure what came over me…"

He swept up the broken ceramic shards under his visitors' unwavering gazes and, when he had retrieved a cloth to mop up the last of the cold liquid on the floor, Eren smiled wanly and shuffled into the kitchen without another word. He didn't care to explain himself, and the two others sitting in the living room didn't think to ask about what had just happened either, because the silence was too thick for them to breach again.

Which was why, when Levi came to knock on Eren's back door, he was greeted with the stifling oppression of a long and unbroken stretch of silence.

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"Eren," Levi's distinctively gravelly voice growled for the umpteenth time. "Damn it, brat, stop ignoring me and open up the door already!"

The only response came from the sidelong glance that Eren gave the shadowy figure on his balcony.

"I don't know what the hell's happening with you now," Levi continued, even though it was clear that Eren's attention had shifted from his barely there presence, "and I'm not going to deny how weirded out I was by you… but stop throwing a pity party for yourself and get the fuck out here, right now!"

A tired sigh floated from Eren's parted lips, before his deadpan voice drifted from his listless position at the sink. "What makes you think you're the boss of me?"

"That's the damn problem, you little shit." A note of reluctance crept into Levi's growl at this point. "I know I'm not and, damn it, I don't know much about you at all. I might not be like your sister or that blond kid, but I know that—"

"And what, exactly, do you 'know', hmm?" Eren abruptly hissed, before he wheeled away from the broken ceramic shards littering his kitchen sink and advanced towards the screen door. "Everyone keeps on saying that they're here for me and that they're people that I can trust, but who's to say that you're not all secret agents for the government?"

When silence was the only thing that greeted him from the other side of the screen door, Eren jerked his wandering hand back from the doorknob and continued to rage at its hazy mesh. "Nobody understands the things that go on in my head, Levi, so don't pretend that you care! The counsellors at college might be there to 'correct' my behaviour and try to instil some sort of happiness into me, but what's 'happiness' in this world? When you pass by people in the streets, what do you see there, huh?! It's all emptiness! It's all just a massive lie!"

"Really?" a low voice issued from the other side, and Eren gritted his teeth when Levi continued to voice his own thoughts on the matter. "Think about it for a moment, Eren, instead of spouting shit at every interval. Are you against happiness because there's none of it, as you claim so loudly, or is it because you're scared to hold onto what little happiness you might actually have?"

For the first time since his anger had reared its ugly head a scarce hour ago, Eren couldn't seem to muster up an argument from his bottomless well of rage. As the silence threatened to consume him whole again, his neighbour's weary voice resumed speaking.

"What are you even running from?" When Eren refused to give a response to his query, Levi sighed noisily and continued to talk. "Okay, fine, so you're a confused little shit that doesn't know what he wants. Now, I don't pretend to know you –for fuck's sake, your rant pretty much discredits anything I could say on that topic– but think about it for a moment."

Another tired sigh made itself known again as Levi paused momentarily. "What's stopping you from being like everyone else? For all you know, they might be genuinely happy, but you just can't see it…"

"I can see just fine," Eren miserably mumbled, but his next statement was cut off by Levi's interjection.

"Of course you can see, Eren, that's why you don't have glass marbles in your head." An annoyed huff broke through his tight voice. "You just don't see enough to figure out what's what."

"Well then, give me one reason to open my eyes further, as you seem to suggest, and see something that clearly doesn't exist!" Eren furiously roared. "It's all your fault that I'm this angry to begin with anyway! If you can give me one fucking good reason then I'll stop ranting… but until then, there's nothing you could say that could ever convince me. But really, you know what? I don't even think you've got a good reason in your arsenal to begin with."

"I never said that I was going to convince you with my words," Levi replied and, for a moment, Eren almost thought that his voice was just a little smugger than normal. "Why else did you think I was hollering for you to open this damn door, you clueless brat?"

In the blind rage that followed Eren's comprehension of Levi's comment, it was almost impossible for him to hear the concerned caution of his rational mind as he fumbled with the screen door and flung it wide open. When his furious gaze clashed with the odd calm in his neighbour's silver eyes, he flung his hands outwards and screamed angrily at his passive neighbour.

"I'm not a fucking clueless brat, you stupid old geezer!" At this point, Eren was so caught up in his rage that he failed to notice Armin's half-stifled gasp or the sudden light that had flickered in Levi's eyes. "And I'd like to see you prove your words, you—"

"Oh, fucking shut up and kiss me already, you stupid hormonal brat," Levi growled, before he bunched up Eren's shirt in one tightly-clenched hand and yanked Eren's mouth down to meet his own.

Huh, Eren dumbly thought, as Levi's chapped lips moved against his own, so his mouth actually tastes like green tea…

His irrelevant thoughts were soon replaced with more important observations, like the fact that he had been rather rudely cut off by Levi's abrupt interjection. However, when he finally noticed that Levi had forced a harsh kiss onto his lips with a ferocity that was purely him, his mind was teetering on the brink of becoming dysfunctional.

He had imagined this moment so many times in his daydreams that he had almost expected the kiss to be something straight out of a cheesy romantic novel. Of course, there wouldn't be flowers and a convenient gust of wind like the sappy movies that constituted most government films but, at the very least, he had thought that it would be the perfect end to an awkward exchange of feelings. To get something so animalistic and passionate was something that his short-circuiting mind would've never dreamt of conjuring up (unless it had something to do with the sticky stains that often appeared in his pants whenever he woke up) but, as far as he was concerned, this was infinitely better than his daydreams. For one, it was real…

…and for another, he was so absorbed in it all that he failed to notice Levi's satisfied smile, Mikasa's blank expression, and the mortification painted liberally across Armin's face.

In fact, he was so lost in the feel of the moment that he never noticed his foster sister's or best friend's departure from his apartment until it was far too late to apologize for his rudeness. Then again, it was hard to think straight when he hadn't been thinking straight for the past fortnight… and it probably didn't matter if he wallowed in this feeling for just a little bit longer, anyway.