It was so dark when Eren woke up that if he hadn't looked at the clock he would have assumed he hadn't slept at all. He could hear the patter of rain outside as he stared at the blaring red numbers of the digital clock, watching as 3.07am ticked closer and closer to dawn. Sleep began to take hold of him again, dragging him back into somnolence. They were dark dreams of shadows and narrowing hallways, dead ends and grasping hands, pounding footfalls from behind driving him forward.
He woke with a start to the buzz of a phone vibrating and dancing across the nightstand. It wasn't until his fingers touched his own unmoving phone that he fully came-to, remembering where he was and why. Across the narrow strip of floor between them Levi stirred, throwing back the blankets and blearily reaching for his phone. Eren suppressed a laugh at Levi's hair all crumpled and sticking up wildly after having gone to sleep with wet hair. Levi stared at his phone a moment longer before finally shutting off the alarm. Looking up from his phone he blinked groggily at Eren; when he spoke his voice gravelly and rough.
"That's the longest I've slept in months and I feel like utter shit." He didn't wait for a response from Eren before getting out of bed and shuffling towards the bathroom, mumbling what sounded like a long string of obscenities under his breath.
Eren sat up, rolling his shoulders and neck and listening to his spine pop and crack. After a moment of stretching out he stood up and headed towards the bathroom as well, knocking on the closed door.
"Hey, are you done? I need to -" The door opened inward suddenly and Levi poked his head out, a toothbrush jammed in his mouth.
"Gi'minute." He left the door open as he retreated back into the bathroom, his hair dripping wet, clearly having shoved his head under a faucet to deal with his rumpled hair.
"Why are you brushing your teeth before breakfast?" Eren waited for Levi to spit out the toothpaste and rinse his mouth before answering.
"Morning mouth is fucking disgusting." Levi jammed his toothbrush into a plastic case before walking past Eren and out of the bathroom, appearing much more cognizant of his surroundings.
After flushing the toilet Eren finally took a look at his reflection in the mirror. His hair was just as disastrous as Levi's had been and he followed his lead, sticking his head under the faucet and scrubbing at his head with the towel, trying to dry it as much as possible while he still had a chance. Staring at his toothbrush next to the sink he figured he might as well follow Levi's lead on that too. A knock at the door startled him and he nearly knocked over Levi's bag of toiletries which, as he looked closer, appeared to contain at least three types of lotion and two different types of toothpaste.
"Are you taking a shit? I want to shave."
"One minute."
Levi gave an approving nod to Eren's toothbrush and pulled out a plastic-wrapped mug and what appeared to be a bar of soap out of his bag. After rummaging around some more he pulled out a box that ended up containing (in separate compartments) a razor and brush. Eren watched interestedly as Levi examined his face in the mirror, the unflattering and harsh light making the dark stubble on his face stand out in even sharper contrast to his pale skin. Levi laid everything out in what was clearly a familiar ritual, waiting for the tap water to heat up and filling the mug, beginning to use the brush and soap to create a lather before brushing it across his face in slow circles. Eren couldn't help but stare at Levi with no small amount of fascination as he picked up a razor and dragged it slowly and gently down his cheek. His hand stopped as he was about to make his second stroke, eyes snapping to Eren's reflection standing behind him in the mirror.
"What?"
"I thought you'd use a straight razor."
"Why the fuck would I use a straight razor?"
"The whole badass image thing." Levi let out a short bark of laughter.
"I may be good with a blade but I'd probably slit my own throat trying to use one of those fucking things."
"Didn't think you'd use a safety razor though. I don't think I've seen anyone who wasn't collecting a pension using..." Eren trailed off, eyes widening as Levi's eyes narrowed.
"I'm twenty-nine not sixty-nine." Levi's silent glare had Eren beating a hasty retreat out of the bathroom, quickly changing out of pajamas, suddenly acutely aware of his own stubble and realizing that he'd forgotten a razor.
He was picking at his stubble when Levi finally left the bathroom, clean-shaven and looking oddly at peace. However the look only last a few seconds as he cast his gaze to Eren, frowning.
"Stop picking, that's gross. Shave it off if it's annoying you so much."
"I forgot my razor."
"Shit luck."
"Can I borrow yours?"
"First, that's fucking unsanitary. Second, have you ever used a safety razor?"
"I've shared in a pinch before." Eren rolled his eyes at the disgusted look on Levi's face. "I disinfected it before and after using it."
"Still fucking gross."
"Whatever. I haven't used a safety razor before, I thought you had to be at least fifty before you could." He met Levi's glare with a momentary cheeky grin before dropping it. "Is it hard to use one though?"
"Takes some getting used to. Cheaper though."
"How so?" Eren watched as Levi rinsed his face off and patted it dry before rubbing lotion onto his face and neck.
"It's a bit of money up front but I can buy a hundred pack of safety razor blades for the same price as an eight pack of those fancy-ass cartridge razors."
"Oh wow."
"But like I said, decent amount of money up front for the shaving brush and soap and handle."
"How did you end up using a safety razor?"
"Much as I love discussing personal hygiene and grooming habits, I do want to get this shit over with." Levi turned abruptly and walked past Eren and out of the bathroom. "It's seven now so there should be some place to grab breakfast and then we can hit up the bank and get the fuck out of here."
Levi grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder, waiting at the door while Eren collected his things from the bathroom. His hand was on the doorknob when he looked back to find Eren frowning deeply at the motel room.
"What?"
"It's just going to be weird."
"Going back?"
"Yeah." Levi turned to Eren, looking at him thoughtfully.
"The bank is in Downtown. We don't have to go anywhere near South Stationary."
"I know, it's just… it's Shiganshina as a whole but also… I'm curious." Eren's eyebrows furrowed as he looked off to the side, focusing on something. "Maria Wall was still an empty lot when we left. I wonder if anything's changed."
.
Half an hour later found them sitting in a diner that catered primarily to truckers, with massive portions and a waitress who insisted on referring to Levi as "hun" and Eren as "sweetie" while chewing furiously on a piece of gum. Their waitress – Delilah, according to her nametag – caught Levi's blunt staring at her mouth as she dropped off their food. She smiled at the both of them, opening her mouth and pointing at the gum sitting on her tongue before going back to chewing it and causing Levi to frown a bit harder.
"Sorry, it's that gum that helps you quit smoking. It ain't cheap, but it's cheaper than a pack of cigs. Two weeks since I had one too." Delilah beamed at them and Eren smiled back before glancing towards Levi, expecting a comment about hygiene.
"Congratulations, and good luck."
"Thanks, hun." Levi winced at the pet name and she threw her head back and laughed loudly before wiping the tears from her eyes and turning to go back to the kitchen.
They ate the rest of their food in relative silence. Their only extended conversation was them trying to think of what the bank needed as proof of identity, hoping that the biometric component wasn't voice recognition on a phrase Eren was supposed to know and didn't and worrying that they would want a passport and wouldn't accept just his Rose State-issued non-driver's ID card.
"You don't have you birth certificate with you."
"Well someone never mentioned I might need it." Eren was glaring at Levi as he stabbed at his French toast.
"It's a bank. Banks always want shit tons of ID. Especially when you want to take something out."
"The only time I ever went to a bank was to get Hannes' safety deposit box after he died. And they didn't give a shit because they knew who Hannes was and who we were."
"So you don't have a bank account?"
"I do, I just didn't set it up myself."
"Who set up a bank account for you?"
"Some guy Hannes knew in Trost. We stayed with him about a week while he got things squared away for us. It was pretty clear it was a one-time thing for an old friend and we haven't seen him since." Eren tipped his head back and finished the last of his coffee. When he put it down again he was frowning. "Besides, the birth certificate is a forgery anyway."
"Your birth certificate is a forgery?" Levi's face was blank and disbelieving.
"I don't exist, remember?" Eren gave him an annoyed look and then sat back, his brow furrowing. "I guess this is why. Hannes must have known Grisha was doing something shady and didn't want Mikasa and I getting pulled in like this."
"You do exist on paper. Your name is scattered around over informal high school records, people remember you, there's a record of you being born in Shiganshina City Hospital, who your parents were. Though I guess literally everything from Shiganshina stops after you turn seventeen. You know, your name doesn't pop up in any records we could access until you enroll at Trost." Levi paused, his eyebrows furrowing. "You said you worked a job while getting your GED. There's no record of you having a job and your GED pops up out of nowhere."
"I got paid under the table. I took classes for the GED and everything and sat the test but uh, it was a school that catered primarily to undocumented people."
"So not much of a paper trail."
"No."
"Honestly, that's pretty fucking impressive. A whole year of your life gone and not too much left before that."
"It's not like I'm a high profile person now, but there are plenty of records of me once I started at Trost: scholarship and grant, dean's list, worked on a research paper with a professor last year that got published... I'm surprised they didn't find me sooner."
"Something must have happened that suddenly made you relevant to whatever the fuck they're doing."
.
Eren went to the bathroom while Levi paid at the counter, staring at himself in the mirror and thinking about everything that had changed in the past four and a half years. He raised a hand to brush at his stubble; that was one fairly major change. Whereas when he'd left Shiganshina it had been patchy and barely there, now he had facial hair that if left unchecked would grow into a full beard in about a week. Another change that he counted as fairly major was going from getting mediocre grades while he was in high school to likely graduating university with high honors, a feat he attributed largely to no longer falling asleep to occasional gunshots and the wailing sirens that followed too late; the sound of bar room brawls spilling out loudly onto the street; the hardened shouts of officers at innocent and guilty alike and the ensuing slam of a body against the hood of a police cruiser.
Pulling himself out of his memories, Eren leaned down to the sink to splash water on his face, resisting the urge to pick at the stubble along his jaw as he dried off using the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
Levi was waiting for him at the exit, looking relatively relaxed even as he glanced at his phone to check the time. When he noticed Eren approaching he shoved it back into his pocket and jerked his head to indicate that they were leaving.
"Thought you fell in."
"Splashed some water on my face and couldn't find anything to dry it with. Had to use my sweatshirt."
"Mm." They set off across the parking lot towards the car, Levi's gait unexpectedly slow and rambling. "It's only eight thirty."
"Doesn't the bank open at nine? It's a twenty minute drive from here so that works out, doesn't it?"
"Just checked their site. Turns out you can't get to the fucking deposit boxes until nine thirty."
"That's bullshit."
"Any ideas for how to kill some time?" Levi glanced over the top of the car at Eren who was focused intently on his hand on the car's door handle, his jaw set. When he responded his voice was quiet.
"I'm kind of curious about what South Stationary looks like. Maria Wall was still an empty lot when I left and that was three years after..." He trailed off, frowning deeply.
"If that's what you want."
"Yeah."
They drove further south into Shiganshina, following road signs and their GPS rather than trusting Eren's memory, dulled by over four years of time. They turned off the highway at the exit for the stationary factory, passing by the dead building and the surrounding warehouses; only a skeleton crew remained though the holiday. There was trash on the streets and piled up around the gutters, soggy paper and wrappers and plastic bags. The only bottles on the street were broken ones, the whole bottles and cans having been collected by people to be redeemed. Eren remembered Hannes' downstairs neighbor – her name forgotten – who bought her grandchildren's birthday presents with the money she got from her collected recycling. She did well too; for all that South Stationary was at war with itself, nobody was so cruel as to take away from an old woman. The larger glass bottles that were worth ten cents instead of the usual five had a habit of being left untouched in the recycling bins in the blocks surrounding their building.
The building that he had never really called home – he had always referred to as Hannes' apartment – was still there, looking slightly dingier but with a freshly painted front door. He didn't point it out to Levi as they passed. Eventually, familiar landmarks began to turn up and Eren began to direct Levi down streets he remembered, occasionally getting turned around as his worn memory lead them astray. Levi was patient though, making the turns that Eren asked him to without saying a word even as nine thirty drew closer and closer.
It was nine twenty-five when they finally found the street where Maria Wall used to be, Levi turning off the car as they parked across from where the building had once stood.
When Eren and Mikasa had left it had been a barren field of mud and trash. Eren didn't know what he had been expecting; the same scarred field, new public housing, perhaps a park if the world were kind. What he hadn't necessarily been expecting was for the street to have a mason jar aesthetic café and tiny specialty grocery store where he remembered a bodega they went to for milk and bread and in the summer, fruit as well. But what he truly hadn't expected was for a nearly-finished sleek brick and glass building to be in the place of that awful field, a large placard advertising the Stationary House apartments, a mixed commercial-residential building that would be largely made up of studio apartments.
"I guess it had to happen at some point since it's so close to the border and Eastside Park." Eren's hands were balled up, his knuckles turning white. "And eight years is long enough to forget over a hundred people died there. Probably got the land cheap too."
They both sat in the car, Eren's knuckles going white with how hard he was clenching his fists as he glared at the incomplete building. Levi simply sat back in his seat, a neutral expression in place. After a few minutes he let out a long sigh and started the car again.
"We should head for the bank." Eren gave a sharp nod and Levi programmed their destination into the GPS, turning around and heading towards the highway again.
.
The bank's front doors were ornate and imposing and Eren let Levi take the task of opening the heavy doors, simply following behind him into the building. The lobby of the building was just as imposing as its exterior doors; all marble floors and pillars with shiny brass fixtures. The line to speak with a representative was blessedly short and it was only fifteen minutes before they were seated in a spacious office, a heavy wooden desk between them and a chipper young woman with flaming red hair.
"So I was told you're here to look at a safety deposit box?"
"Yeah, um... these are kind of weird circumstances but -" Eren fought to keep his face neutral as Levi stepped on his foot again, but he plowed on regardless. "My father died and left behind quite the mess. I've been trying to get his affairs in order and discovered that he had a box here and that I was named a co-depositor. I'm a full-time student at Trost University and work part-time on top of that and I'm doing my thesis as well so I asked a friend to call and see if it could be sent to me rather than me having to come here but whoever spoke with them wasn't particularly helpful. Oh, and my name is Eren Jaeger."
"Oh dear, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. What was the box number?" Eren swallowed as she stared at him, the number completely escaping him.
"Ten, two, three nine." Levi's words were clipped and precise.
"And you are?"
"He's my cousin. I don't have a driver's license and he was nice enough to drive me."
"And from Trost too! That's quite the distance. Okay, well my computer is saying that we need a form of picture identification in addition to... oh wow, you're in the high security vault so that's a palm print and voice recognition in addition to the photo ID." Eren handed over his ID card and she spent five minutes typing in numbers and "hmm"ing over whatever was on the screen. Finally, she stood up suddenly and smoothed out her skirt, smiling at them again. "Now if you'll follow me..."
The three of them walked out of the office, Levi trailing behind this time as Eren walked beside the woman. They walked out into the main lobby of the bank, her heels clicking and echoing as they headed across and made a right on the other side of the bank of tellers. She took out a key card and unlocked the door, ushering them through ahead of her into a blindingly white hallway lined with heavy-looking doors, cameras at ten foot intervals. At the end of the hall they came to another door that required her to use both her key card and a metal key to open it. Eren shot Levi a nervous look as the door slammed heavily behind them and they began to descend a flight of stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs they made a left into an alcove with a heavy vault door. The woman placed her hand on a scanner outside of the door and spoke clearly into a microphone – Mary Dorchester, Assistant Branch Manager – before beckoning Eren forward and asking him to state his name as well. There was a heavy clunk from the door and Mary pushed it open effortlessly, revealing yet another starkly lit white room, dead silent except for the slight buzz of the lights and the faint electric whir of a security camera pivoting.
"As you see, we take security very seriously." Mary walked over to the row of box doors and Eren was strongly reminded of when he and Mikasa had been forced to go to the morgue to identify Hannes' body. He walked over to the small door reading 10239 to stand next to Mary who then instructed him to place his palm against the small door of the box, listening to the faint click as it finished the scan and unlocked. She held the door open as Eren slid the box out, nearly tripping backwards as a result of the unexpected lightness of the metal box inside.
"Wow, um. Light." He held the large-yet-light box awkwardly in front of himself, eyes darting between Mary and Levi.
"We have two rooms off of here so that you can look at the contents of your box." She pointed towards two doors off of the room. "They lock behind you and for security reasons there are cameras in the rooms but they don't record sound. I'll wait here and when you're done we can head back upstairs."
Eren tried to shift the box into a position that would be easier to carry but there didn't seem to be a position that wouldn't be uncomfortable and wondered what someone would do if the box were heavy in addition to being so large. They shut the door behind them, Levi making sure it was locked before walking across the small room to where Eren had hefted the box up onto a low table.
"Well, are you going to open it?"
"Yeah, I just... we have no fucking clue what's in here." Eren brought his hand up to chew on his cuticles only to have Levi pull his hand away from his mouth.
"Just open the damn thing."
"You do it."
"Are you shitting me? It's your fucking box."
"Maybe I don't want to see what's in it."
"Eren, open the fucking box." He quailed under Levi's glare, ducking down and lifting back the top of the metal box.
Levi stood absolutely still as Eren opened the box, waiting for him to take the first look.
"You have got to be fucking shitting me." Levi's gaze snapped from the box to Eren's furious face. "It's fucking empty."
"Stop fucking around."
"I'm not, there's literally nothing in here." He shoved the box into Levi's chest.
Rid of the box, Eren was free to lean up against the wall, hands hanging apathetically at his sides as he tilted his head back and gazed up at the ceiling. Levi felt around inside of the box, letting out a low noise of frustration and finally tipping the box upside down, shaking it and hoping something would fall out. After a moment he too gave up and leaned against the wall, letting gravity pull him down as he slumped until he was sitting on the floor, legs splayed out in front of him and his head hanging forward.
"Well, that's that then."
"Guess we shouldn't have expected fucking anything from Grisha." Eren's voice was a snarl.
"Someone might have got here before us."
"Like who? I'm supposedly the only person besides him who can get in here."
"Maybe he came here himself. Maybe he never put anything in here. Maybe something happened to him before he could put anything in here."
"Let's just go. I've had enough of this." Eren unlocked the door and wrenched it open, barely concealing his frustration and nearly walking straight into Mary.
"Oh!" She looked up at Eren and startled back. "Is everything okay?"
"There's –" Levi interrupted before Eren could continue.
"It wasn't exactly what we were hoping it would be."
"I'm sorry." Mary looked between the two of them, her expression looking torn between a professional smile and a personal look of sympathy.
"Not exactly your fault that we didn't find what we were hoping for." Levi tried to keep his voice level in spite of his own frustration.
"Still..."
"We have a long drive ahead of us so could we just go back upstairs?"
"Yes, of course."
The walk back up was silent. There were no nerves or anticipation, only the feeling of defeat. It dragged heavy on their footsteps, Mary glancing back every so often at the two men trailing solemnly behind her. Each door that closed behind them felt like a resounding defeat; there was nothing.
Gloomy clouds were closing in on Shiganshina as they reached the car, opening the doors and settling heavily into their seats.
"I'm sorry we didn't find –" Levi stopped and looked down as Eren shoved his hand under his nose, a plain metal key sitting in his palm. "There was something in the box."
"Yep."
"And you let me believe for almost twenty minutes that I drove for fifteen hours and stayed in a crappy motel with a homophobic manager for nothing?"
"Yep."
"You little shit." Eren grinned at him and Levi couldn't help but let the corner of his mouth quirk up just a little bit. "You palmed it straight away, didn't you?"
"I figured it would be easier for one of us to pretend to be angry – and I'm good at being angry – than have both of us pretend."
"Any idea what it goes to?" The smile dropped off of Eren's face completely.
"No idea."
"Can I see it?" Levi took the key out of Eren's hand, holding the key a foot away from his face.
"Anything interesting?"
"Is there a West Street somewhere?"
"Yeah, ironically it's on the east side of Shiganshina. Why?"
"Because there's an address carved super fucking tiny on here. Does 2604 West Street, B34 ring any bells?"