AN: I recommend listening to the song Paradise Circus, by Massive Attack while or after reading this.
One boom, one splatter, one thud and it's over. Well, over except for the cleaning part.
Levi goes home afterwards, stores his gun in his weaponry drawer, strips and throws all of his clothes into a tub of bleach, sets a pot of tea to brew, steps into his shower. Glass doors, directly in front of a ceiling-to-floor window, so civilians on the street could look up 25 stories and see his silhouette through condensation-coated shower doors if they so chose.
Levi is not really an exhibitionist, though. He sighs out, humid air a puff amidst the steam of the shower, as he tips his head back,
baring his jugular,
letting hot water stream down the crevices between his pectoral and abdominal muscles,
leaving trails of red skin in its wake.
Levi likes red, but not on himself.
Shampoo through silky black tresses, soap everywhere else, an adequate rinse, and he's done efficiently, at most seven minutes. He towels himself off and pulls on a pair of loose gray sweatpants that rest low on his hips, catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror in the process.
Levi doesn't find himself attractive. He's short and his oddly soft, oddly severe face doesn't match his thick build. Apparently the world likes what it sees though, he muses, considering how much smoother his job is when people find him easy on the eyes. Or maybe 'intriguing for the eyes' is more accurate.
He makes his way back to his tea, pours it into a mug, takes it black. By now, it's dusk and the lack of sunlight streaming in through his windows has made his apartment dim and faintly orange. Levi never bothers with artificial lighting though; he likes keeping it dark inside. Halfway through his tea, his phone buzzes, the vibrations against his thigh jolting him out of his tea-sipping reverie.
Fucking Erwin, he thinks, because there's nobody else it could be. He sets his mug down and picks up.
"Levi." Erwin greets. Levi grunts in response.
"So how'd the job go today?" he asks, his voice annoyingly patient, as if he's talking to a child.
"How do you fucking think it went, blondie?" Levi snaps without heat. He doesn't hate Erwin, far from it; Erwin is one of the few people in the world Levi tolerates, maybe even considers a friend. That doesn't mean the bastard doesn't grate on his nerves endlessly though.
"You're right, I don't have to ask. You never miss a target." Levi can imagine Erwin smiling on the other side in that eerie way of his, like he's mentally mapping out how the rest of this conversation will go in advance.
"So, Mina Carolina, why her?" Levi asks. Whether or not he knows details about his target before or after the mission depends on what information Erwin is willing to divulge, how he thinks knowing or not knowing will affect Levi and the outcome.
"She was the daughter of Dr. Carolina, a major scientist on the Coordinate Project. Mike has been tracking the doctor for a few days now; we think this shock will make her crack."
"...And what else?" Levi asks, because he knows Erwin and he knows there's more to this hit.
"We have reason to believe some moderate testing was performed on the daughter, but nothing Mike could detect as is. We think an autopsy could give us some information."
There it is. So this death was not insignificant, but it also wasn't incredibly significant.
With the recap done, Levi grumbles about having to warm up the rest of his tea and they end the call. He marvels momentarily at the seeming flippancy with which Erwin identifies targets and writes away their deaths.
Then he remembers who he is and marvels more at his own depravity.
It's not that Levi
enjoys killing.
He definitely doesn't dislike it either.
It's more like apathy. Every time he pulls the trigger or poisons a drink or slits a throat, he hopes he'll feel something, excitement, horror, anything. He wishes he'd see in color for once, and he does get a vague sense of satisfaction from seeing the spillage of red but,
it's not enough.
He supposes, then, that he does this job for the money, because he's good at it, he gives maybe a singular fuck about Erwin's mission, and
because he figures he's enough of a piece of shit that maybe someday carrying out a hit will give him a full mind and body thrill.
He just has to find the right target.
Later that night, Levi decides to go to bar on a whim. He doesn't do this often, but he hasn't had good sex in a while, and he could use the unwinding.
He's been to this particular bar maybe a few times before. It's a small, neat joint, with a decent-sized crowd for a Thursday night. Definitely not rowdy though, the music filters softly over the chatting patrons. No wild dancing either, part of the reason Levi likes this one.
He leans against the counter, facing the bartender's impressive collection of liquor, sipping his whiskey half-heartedly. He drinks more for appearances than anything else, he hates becoming uninhibited, can't afford to with the kind of work he does.
Levi thinks he'll give himself a few more minutes before starting his search for someone to take home tonight. He's barely strung this thought together when it's broken down immediately.
"Hey." a voice says behind him.
It's insignificant, just one greeting amidst the cacophony of voices and introductions and conversations that is life.
He turns around to match a face to the voice.
All he sees is green. And beyond that, color. So much color. Tan, green, brown white.
It's just one face amidst a sea of people, but it's unforgettable. Levi doesn't know why. Maybe because there's so much life written into every breath this man takes, every line of his open face, every blink of his too fucking green eyes. And something about the way this man grins at Levi,
Levi knows his life will never be quite the same again. He can just sense it.
Maybe this revelation has caught him a little off-guard, but he doesn't show it. He arches an eyebrow at the, decidedly young, man before him and says, "Hey yourself."
Green-eyes takes this as an invitation to step forward, lean his bare forearms against the countertop and glance sidelong at Levi, who's still facing the opposite direction.
He regards Levi like this for a lingering moment, lips melded into a soft smirk, eyes glinting with something Levi can't put his finger on. It makes him feel slightly unnerved, in a way that's almost refreshing for its novelty.
"I'm Eren." he says.
"Levi." he offers, tilting his head back and watching Eren's gaze flit up and down the veins of his neck not at all subtly.
They resume the eye contact.
A tongue darts out quickly, wets those
plush, pink lips.
Levi can't look away from the movement, isn't even surprised when Eren then says,
"I think we should fuck."
Brazen.
Confident.
If Eren isn't going to beat around the bush, Levi won't either. "Yeah?" he murmurs. "I don't think you realize, I'm pretty fucked up."
Eren raises an eyebrow in interest, leans closer to face Levi head on. "How so?"
Levi toys with what to say. He likes using words to play with his potential bed-warmers, wants to see how far he can push this one.
"I guess you could say I'm… dangerous." He chuckles to himself because that sounds stupid and melodramatic aloud.
Eren just smirks again. "I think I can handle that." he says, cocking his head to the side, daring Levi to challenge him.
Levi takes the bait. "Oh, really now?"
Eren's cool demeanor fractures slightly, and the full weight of his gaze is almost too much to handle, his response just a fevered
"Try me."
AN: I might continue this if there's interest.