(I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin. ^^)
Eren woke up on the floor. What a wonderful way to wake up, Eren thought miserably to himself as he stood up with a soft moan, standing up straight and stretching out. He cringed at the resonating cracks and pops that emitted from his sore back, and a pang of pain made itself known in his wrist from yesterday's events.
He listened closely, then, hearing soft breaths from behind him. He nearly panicked before remembering that a certain shortie stayed the night with Eren. Neither wanted to use the couch, Eren using the argument that, 'This is my house, therefore I get to use my own bed,' and Levi interjecting with, 'I'm the guest, you should be offering up your bed like a chivalrous gentleman.'
In the end, the two shared a bed.
The first time they had, nothing happened. The second time, Eren found out that Levi likes to kick in his sleep. That, or the other was having a nightmare. Either way, Eren didn't like waking up on the cold floor.
Levi started to toss and turn again, kicking here and there, and groaning fearfully. Eren wasted no time sitting on the edge Levi was facing, and stroking his cheek softly, using his other hand to smooth out Levi's messy hair. Though Eren was dead tired, and it was... what, two in the morning? He refused to let Levi have a nightmare while Eren was there.
After a few moments, Levi calmed down, the frown slowly diminishing from his face, turning into a peaceful expression. Eren turned to get off the bed, but Levi threw his arms around his neck.
Eren didn't hear anything from the other, and he realized that Levi had done this in his sleep. He shifted, but realized he wasn't gonna get away so easily. For someone who was sleeping, he had a tight grip. Not tight enough to come closing to choking him, though.
The brunette slightly panicked for the second time in ten minutes, gently trying to pry Levi's arms away with no avail. In the end, he gave up with an exasperated sigh before falling asleep again.
~Whoop Timeskip~
Ravioli woke up, a sweet fragrance filling his nose. He didn't open his eyes, but only took a moment to inhale the scent, still slightly drowsy. It smelled like... coconut and pineapple. It smelled slightly feminine, but not completely so. The silver-eyed male took his time before it dawned on him that he had his arms wrapped around something-or someone-warm.
Reluctantly, he pried his eyes open, which were greeted with soft, shiny chestnut hair. He found that he'd buried his nose into it unintentionally. He felt the other breathing, back rising and falling with every inhale and exhale against his stomach and chest, nearly forgetting who it was he had spent the night with.
Confused, he slowly let go of the warm being, realizing he'd clung to Eren in his sleep. The other remained unresponsive, sleeping like a rock.
Levi sat up, rubbing blurry eyes, getting rid of any sleep that remained. He looked at his arm which beheld little imprints from Eren's clothing. It seemed that he held onto the other a little too tightly, and silently hoped Eren wasn't awake for any of it.
Said male turned over, groaning softly as he stretched out on the bed in a fashion which closely resembled a cat. He took a glance over to Levi with tired green eyes before turning his head back down into the pillow he'd rolled over to. He then mumbled quietly, "Good morning, Ravioli."
"What was that, you little brat?" Levi inquired, while his voice beheld as much venom as he could have given it considering the current situation.
He could see Eren give a little jump from fright, before Eren hesitantly replied, "Er, uhm... Rivaille."
Levi stared at the other. "Rivaille?" He hadn't heard that name in a long, long time.
".. Uh." Eren didn't move as he murmered that one sound.
"How did you know my real name was Rivaille, brat?" Levi deadpanned.
"Okay, seriously, I had no idea. It was the first name that came to mind, Levi, I swear." Eren pushed himself up, curling in a little so he was on his hands and knees for a moment before pushing himself over into a sitting position, cringing slightly as the dizziness that overcame him for a moment. Levi thought the hands and knees position suited Eren for a moment before mentally throwing himself off of a cliff for thinking something like that.
"Sure." Levi replied, voice laced with dripping saracasm. His eyes drifted to Eren's collarbone, which donned arm and handprints, obviously from Levi.
Eren threw his hands up in surrender. "I'm telling the truth, I swear."
Levi stared him down for a moment before sighing. "Right, okay, let's talk, Eren."
Said brunette looked slightly frightened at those words.
The ravenette sighed. "I'm not going to tear your head off."
"I'm going to share some things that my other friends don't know about me, got it brat?" To which Eren nodded eagerly before Levi proceeded.
"I was born in France, but my father ran off when I was born, and my mother was a horrible person to everyone else, and eventually me. Now, I got lucky, since she wasn't abusive. Physically, that is. She yelled at me a lot, and died at some point from suicide. I was thrown into an orphanage, from which a man named Erwin Smith adopted me from. He moved here, to America, and I lived with him for a while, before running away." Levi laughed bitterly. "I believed his kindness was false, that he never cared about me in the first place. I was afraid because no one had been nice to me like that before.
I lived a couple of years on the streets, avoiding him at all costs, stealing to survive, and dealing things that you should never learn about. In the end, he found me, and persuaded to me that he truly cared, in which he actually did, because I'm blind to kindness, Eren. I'm not used to it; I've been raised on nothing but hate. My name is, in fact, really Rivaille, but whoever tries to say it as such has the worst time. Those morons have no idea what they're doing and are incapable, therefore, I switched to Levi. It seemed like the closest alternative, and it stuck." Levi finished, taking a deep breath, and avoiding eye contact with the other for a moment.
He was taken into warm arms, but didn't protest. "I see. Thank you for telling me about you, Levi. Now, let me tell you about me."
The shorter pulled away, staring at Eren, bewildered. Levi knew his past was bad, but Eren.. this kid was completely traumatized, and he was okay with letting Levi know about it?
"Are you sure?" He inquired, raising an eyebrow. Eren rolled his eyes. "It isn't that bad."
Levi shot him a look, before Eren gave a half-hearted laugh and replied, "Okay, maybe it is."
He inhaled audibly. "I had a perfect childhood, you know. That is, until my mother died."
Levi nodded, listening intently, afraid he wouldn't ever get to hear anything again if he didn't listen now.
"Mikasa isn't my real sister; she was adopted. Her parents were brutally murdered in front of her, and was nearly sold as a slave. My father used to be a doctor, and was going to check up on them. At the time, I had been taking lessons in karate, and got myself into streetfights all the time. He brought me along with him, in hopes I would become friends with Mikasa.
Kids didn't really want to be my friend, and none of them really met my standards, so, dad was giving a last shot at getting me a friend. I was really unsociable. But, when we got to their house..." Eren took a deep breath before proceeding, "... There was blood everywhere, two dead bodies dismembered, it was disgusting." Levi noticed Eren visibly paling, setting a hand on Eren's head. He continued, closing his eyes for a moment, and getting a bit of his color back.
"They had taken Mikasa to a cabin in the forest. I found it by following their footsteps. Before I did, dad told me to stay where I was before going to the nearest police station, finding that he had left his phone at home. I didn't listen, being the stubborn child I was, and grabbed a knife form the drawer before searching for clues to where they could have gone. When I got there, I pretended to be lost. One of the kidnappers had answered the doors, and didn't see it coming as.. I nearly impaled him on the knife. I then ran out, tying the knife to the broom.
When he came looking for me, I charged at him with the knife on the broom, taking it off to stab him repeatedly in a fit of rage. All I could see then was red from pure animosity toward the men who had killed her parents and kidnapped her. Once I finished, I untied her, and that's when she told me there were three men."
It was Levi's turn to visibly pale. Eren chuckled bitterly. "Yeah. He came out of nowhere and strangled me. Then, I told Mikasa something I've found that she lives by: 'Fight. If you win, you live. If you lose, you die. If you don't fight, you don't win.' She picked up the knife, breaking the handle, and stabbed the man. It was gruesome, and dad was pissed when he found us. The police didn't charge us with anything, since we were just children, and it was purely self defense. What they were doing was illegal anyway. Later, about a week, we officially adopted her. The scarf she always wears was the one I was wearing that night. It's her comfort object.
Two years later, we were involved in a car accident. Two of us escaped with minor injuries, but mother did not."
"Who was the other that didn't leave with minor injuries?" Eren stared at him before standing up, back facing Levi, and removing his shirt.
Levi's slate-grey eyes widened slightly as he stared at Eren's back. A large, jagged, pink scar ran across his back. It didn't end there. Eren turned around, lifting up the right leg of the shorts he had changed into last night, showing him another scar, as well as his left shoulder, which had one that ran across his arm.
"It was fatal, yes, but I managed to survive due to some miracle." Eren returned to his place on the bed.
"That night, it was storming, and I was terrified. I didn't like storms as a little kid, but the fact that my mother died during one... no, due to one... is terrifying." Levi raised an eyebrow, and Eren responded with, "Lightning struck on of the trees, followed by a loud clap of thunder, and it fell in front of the car. That's part of the reason I have somewhat... a phobia, if you will."
"A phobia is an understatement, Eren."
To this, he flashed a small, pearly smile. "Yeah. I suppose so."
He cleared his throat. "Dad started to drink afterward, to the point where he killed himself from the amount he drank. He was torn when my mother died, she, oh," he chuckled, "she was his-no, our-whole world, and when she died, everything in the world became 1000x less brighter, less lively, less cheerful. It seemed that when she left, so did the sun. We revolved around her, and all of a sudden, she was..." Eren's voice cracked. "She was.. gone. Dead. She left us, and you don't, you'll never know, how bad we wanted her-how bad we want her back."
He cast his green gaze downward, avoiding Levi's eyes, knowing the other was astonished that he had broken down in tears like that. He'd only realized that tears were overflowing, over the brim when he blinked and watched little droplets hit his hands, pooling up because they just wouldn't stop. "She was our everything, and... man.." He sobbed, clenching his fists. "I'm almost mad at her for leaving us, because we loved her so much... She was everything, you know..?" He pressed his palms into his eyes, almost as if doing that would hold back the seemingly endless tears.
Levi held the other close while they sat in silence, Eren's sobbing the only source of sound.
"... You didn't cry at her funeral, did you?" It was less of a question and more of an accusation, but not as threatening. Eren paused a moment.
"So many years... it took me so, so very long to finally realize... she was gone, that she would never come back. It always felt like one day, she would knock on the door and say... and say.." He choked on his sobs. "say, 'I'm home, Eren, Mikasa.' and take us in her loving embrace like she used to, but she's not. She'll never come home."
Levi could hear it in the other's voice; he was dying a little on the inside, his mother's dead leaving a terrible would on his soul. That was corny, Levi mused to himself, but I'm determined to heal him.
That was when he recalled texting Eren. He winced as he remembered what he said to him. 'Didn't your mother ever teach you that?'
That's why he took so long to respond. That was a touchy subject, and though Levi didn't know about it them, it made him hate himself even more for it.
The more Levi thought about it, the more he had to respect Eren. He went through quite a few traumatizing things, nearly dying twice, losing two parents and killing three men, with his adopted sister, merely to survive. Yet, Eren looks on with a bright smile on his face, toward most, toward Levi and Mikasa especially.
"Your mother isn't ever going to come back, I know," Levi spoke again, cringing as Eren choked once again at the comment; "but I promise I'll be here instead, okay? I'll never be as good as your mother, let alone even my mother, but I can say that I won't leave you so easily, and so unexpectedly. Got it, brat?"
Eren paused a moment, still sobbing slightly, but he threw his hands around the other, clinging to him as if he would slip away like his mother did.
"... You.. don't leave me.. okay? Ever. I won't ever forgive you if you do." Eren took a shaky breath, about done crying.
"I won't ever leave you, okay?" Levi hugged back for reassurance. Eren pulled away, looking at the other with bloodshot eyes as tears still streamed down his cheeks. He sniffled before holding up a hand, extending his pinky.
"Pinky promise?" Eren asked childishly, and Levi held back a sigh at the immaturity of the question.
He then extended his hand as well, wrapping his slim, pale pinky around Eren's larger and sunkissed. "Pinky promise." Then, Eren wiped his eyes away with his free hand, giving Levi a bright smile.
Eren took a few moments to calm down, before the two got out of bed, and changed. Levi went to take a shower, and Eren had taken one the night before, because blood is kind of hard to wash off at times.
He went into the kitchen, finding Mikasa, as he had the previous time. She didn't even glance at Eren as she spoke, startling Eren. "Are you okay, Eren?"
"How.. I don't...?" he stuttered out, and she sighed. "I heard you crying. You explained our situation to Levi, haven't you?"
He nodded his head. "You know what that means, Eren?" She asked, menacingly.
Eren looked scared for Levi's safety before Mikasa cracked a small smile before replying, "It means that Levi's part of our family now."
(UGHRUHGUHGH I ALMOST CRIED.)