Even though Levi can hold his drink incredibly well, he doesn't go to bars often.
"Levi! Let me buy you a drink!" His tall, blonde and boisterous friend calls out to him from the bar counter with a huge, dorky grin.
The hulk of a man is probably the reason for his lack of visitation to bars.
The black haired man scoffs at him. "Tch, no."
Levi sits at his table, the one that's been abandoned by his friends that are now sitting at the counter, including Erwin, nursing his rum and coke. It's his rum and coke, since he bought it; and his pride likes that sense of possession. Erwin pouts back at him, which doesn't suit his Captain America-like face at all. In fact, it makes him look pretty damn dumb. Which in turn, makes Levi look dumb, seeing as he's actually friends with this idiot.
And not only that, they actually live together. Platonically. Because Levi kind of needs to freeload off of Erwin, seeing as he's piss poor. But he got a job recently as a cashier, so he'll use his owndamn money, fuck you very much.
Sure, Levi might be beneath Erwin, since the man's the assistant manager of their shop and he's simply a mere cashier, but he's got an income now; and it's enough to buy him his own drinks. Although he could've had a better income if Erwin hadn't been so bloody good at his job. In fact, he could've gotten Erwin's job, if Erwin himself hadn't been "oh so perfect" at it. Levi is never asking for a promotion ever again.
No-one else in the crowded pub seems to be affected by his sour mood. Instead, they're choosing to find happiness in the sour liquids they have in their glasses. If anything, it's actually a lively night in the overheated pub, Survey; there's cheerful pop music playing from the flat screen T.V on the wall and it seems as though it's somebody's birthday, seeing as people keep shrieking "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAN!" And there's lots of yelping, which follows the slaps on the back of a brown haired man, who chases after someone laughing at the top of their lungs, as though slapping the living daylights out of someone's back is the funniest thing in the world.
Ah yes: birthday bumps. In Glasgow, they had a similar sign of affection. If you were head-butted by friends on greeting, it was classed as a "Glasgow kiss". Or, you could ask an ignorant soul if they fancied a kiss, and you head-butted them; then they knew that you came from Glasgow and weren't to be fucked with.
Levi had done that a couple of times. It had been worth the bruise on his head and very much worth the look on those perverts' faces as they scrambled away down the alley. Good times, good times. Thank fuck he doesn't live there anymore. Trost, a good number of miles away and far north of Glasgow, is a better place for him to be in.
He decides to go to the bar counter, just to avoid having Erwin shout across the room at him again, because even if it isn't embarrassing for Levi, it's just annoying, and the whole place is loud enough as it is. He watches the brown haired man from his bar-stool, who seems to be twenty one, if that can be guessed from the huge ass balloon at the man's table.
The man's back is facing him, and he's chasing an obnoxious, sandy haired man, shouting after him in a very Northern accent "I'LL FUCKING CUT YER BALLS OFF, YOU SLIMY PEICE OF SHIT!" Well. If Levi can hear him over the racket, the man certainly has a set of lungs on him. And from his accent, that means he's from around here. Not to mention eloquent. Levi likes him already.
Then the song changes to something by Fitz and the Tantrums, and suddenly an entire table stops moving upon hearing the music. Even the brown haired man and his frenemy stop in their tracks.
They rush out, as though the fast-forward button has just been pressed after the pause, and they go into the middle of the room to dance. There has to be around twenty of them, all about the age of twenty one or so. Either this guy's birthday is a huge deal to them, or they don't have school tomorrow. Seeing as it's a Sunday night, it's probably the first.
For some reason, he's still watching the brown haired man, still looking at his back and he begins to wonder why until his focus turns around and Levi can see his face.
And what a face.
Levi inhales, and it's as though there's a rising fizz in his gut, one that doesn't quite feel like nausea but it still sets him on edge.
Like, damn, what a face.
It's heart shaped, tanned, clear skinned and his hair's in a middle parting, with chocolate brown threads that fall over his forehead. He's wearing a blue football shirt and jeans too. Levi wants to get closer, because this kid's eyes are as big as fuck, but he can't make out the colour of them. It's too dark, and he's too far away for Levi to ogle him properly.
So he does. He leaves a coaster on top of his drink, the universal sign for "don't fucking touch it", and he makes his way to the middle of the dance floor, closer to the man that's got his attention, not hearing his friends, Erwin, Hanji and Mike, cheering loudly behind him. He squeezes past sweaty bodies, because even though Levi is an intimidating person-he's fully aware of that-he's also shortand therefore not that noticeable in crowds. He is definitely all too aware of that.
Usually, when Levi is in the mood to find a partner, he picks out possible candidates from the crowd, then figures out if they're worth the trouble of talking to or not. He usually spends too long considering his choices and they wind up leaving before he gets a chance to talk to them.
Yeah, that doesn't seem to be the case tonight.
The song changes and the man he's seeking out stops dancing. His fringe is wet from excursion, his cheeks and forehead are red from dancing, and Levi can now see that his eyes are green, with a gleam of perfect, fearsome beauty that burns brighter when he smiles. Within the thrum of the crowd, Levi stares at him, he heart swells, and it feels like everything besides them has gone still. Now, he's only an arm's length away from the man.
A sense of giddiness takes over Levi, just as the man makes a move to leave, to go and sit down at the table where his friends are, and Levi grabs onto his arm with a look of undiluted hope. The feeling of skin on skin sends Levi into a trance, leaving him only able to feel the other man's heat.
The man looks back at him, with thick eyebrows frowning at the pressure of the firm grasp, clearly a little pissed off. But when he takes a look at Levi's face, he eases up and smiles broadly; about to politely greet the strange, black haired man, but Levi speaks first.
"You have such soft, fluffy hair. I just want to run my hands through it." Levi tells him in all seriousness, still holding onto his arm, while wistfully looking up at his hair. He stutters a breath.
Levi tilts his head, scanning the man's face. "What's your name?"
"Uh..." He's pretty damn cute when he's confused, and Levi likes that a lot. "Eren...Jaeger..? Do I, uh, know you from somewhere?"
Levi shakes his head, licking his lips, leaning closer, repeating the name in his head. Eren. Eren Jaeger. It's got a ring to it.
"No, you probably don't. I just wanted to talk to you. Is that alright?"
Eren's eyes widen. "Oh, I-I see, um…"
He glances back to the table where his friends are playing shot games and gesturing for him to come over when they see him looking over at them. He looks back at Levi with an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, my friends are waiting for me. Maybe another time?"
Levi nods eagerly and frees Eren's arm. Behind Eren, he sees an Oriental, black haired woman narrowing her eyes at him at Eren's table, a glare of which he returns. The fuck is her problem? He's just trying to get laid, here. Maybe not even that. He likes this kid; he's sweet, and his attitude is endearing. He wouldn't mind asking him out, but the fizzing feeling is making it hard for him to breath, not to mention the warm air and the lack of outside's oxygen.
"Another time, then, when I find you here again."
Eren flashes him another grin before jogging over to the table that cheers at his arrival, a grin that leaves Levi breathless, making him stare at his back until the crowd covers Levi's view.
When, not if.
Because he will find him.
He knows his name now, so there's no way Eren will be out of Levi's reach. When you learn someone's name, you're automatically their friend, right? With a pleased sigh, he goes back to the counter, where his glass is untouched. He sits down, takes it off, then has a sip of his drink before he notices his friends are staring at him in a row, like the weirdoes they are.
"What?" he growls at their perplexed and slightly horrified expressions.
Hanji, a man with long, dark brown hair in a ponytail and glasses, raises his eyebrow at him, apparently shocked. "What was that, Levi?"
"What was what?"
"Your interaction with that boy!" He cries out in a high tone. Hanji's from Ireland and it shows in his accent. He gulps down half his beer before explaining. There's also the love of alcohol that explains his origin.
"You were so awkward, invading his personal space like that! The poor guy looked as though he thought you were going to devour him, with the way you were leering at him like that!"
Beside him, Erwin nods in a way that makes it clear he's had one over the eight. "It's why he didn't get the promotion he wanted."
Hanji spins round in the barstool to face Levi. "Say what?! You never told me you wanted a promotion, Levi!"
Levi rolls his eyes. "That's because I'm supposed to go to the boss when I want a promotion, not you."
"He lacks social skills," Erwin continued. "He's not good with customers, he makes little kids cower beneath the counter with the way he glares at them, and when he's on shift, nobody dares to pinch anythin' off the shelves. Ain't that right, Levi?"
Levi doesn't say anything and he glowers at Erwin instead, the man who has the job that Leviwanted and needed, much more than this idiot with too much money jingling in his pockets.
"He was pretty cute though, that boy." Hanji looks over to the table where Eren is skilfully making it through a round of shots without retching or gagging.
"You've probably scared him off though, typical." Erwin mumbles.
"Yeah," Levi lets one corner of his mouth turn upwards as he looks at Eren through hooded lids, ignoring Erwin. "He's a keeper, that one."
And Levi will be the one keeping him, because he knows Eren will be worth the chase.
Later on when Levi's at home, or Erwin's home, at least, he finds Erwin's new, unused calendar that's just sitting around on the glossy coffee table in the living room. And while lying on the black, leather couch; he recalls the bubbling feeling inside him when he saw Eren's face, when he heard the man's low and thick, Scottish accent and when he finally saw his green eyes up close. Christ, he even touched the angel's arm!
It could very well just be a simple crush, but the thing is, is that Levi's never had such an intense reaction to seeing someone, ever. So as he writes a sentence in ballpoint pen on the dated box, he knows full well that it makes perfect sense to mark down such an event. And it deserves to be written as poetically, and romantically, as the event happened:
"The day I met Eren Jaeger is the day I fell in love for the first time."