A/N: Another update? Two updates in two weeks? Consistent updates? What be this sorcery?! Thy witchcraft! *Shot*

-Misty

The Change You Wish to See

(Original summary, but screw the stupid character limits) Levi's never put much care into things. He doesn't put much care into things at all. Nothing ever peaks his interest. Well, that's until he meets Eren Jaeger. Levi isn't sure what it is that's so interesting about him, and it irritates him to feel these feelings he's never felt before. Regardless, he goes to talk to the boy. When he doesn't receive an answer, he just thinks that the boy is rude; however, he understands why when Eren doesn't answer him. Eren is deaf.

Rated M for sexual content, adult language, some violence, mild character death

Main pairing: Riren with some side pairs
Anime: Shingeki No Kyojin (Attack on Titan)

Chapter Seventeen: Bankrupt

"Dear Levi;

It is with great sadness and a heavy burden to inform you that, effective January 25th, the store will be closing. I've tried everything I can do, but this is the third attempt to save the place from going under, and unfortunately, I can no longer bargain with the banks. In their own words, they said it was a gift that the place will be open for, as it stands now, twenty-one more days. They must figure that the short notice, provided our situation, will bring in some form of income.

Though I am afraid that this means that you, Miss Zoe, and Eren Jaeger will no longer be employed by me. After all you've done, I promise to write up proper reference letters. I will make sure you get into a nice work environment. After all, you've been with me for years. It's the least I can do.

I will help you as much as I possibly can, though Eren's case may be a little more difficult to provide for. I'll look into specific jobs that need his presence, but I can't make any promises.

I'll look for Hanji as well. I can't personally get any of you jobs, but I can recommend them and we can hope for the best.

After all of this, I hate to ask for more from you. However, the bank is allowing us this slot of time to try and pay off some debt, and that is what I hope to accomplish. I would appreciate it if you could try bringing in some form of business. If you have to create signs to put on the windows, that's fine. I'll even allow you to pick personal discounts for anyone coming in. All I ask is that nothing is ninety percent off or free. I think fifty percent off works just fine.

I also ask that you please bring in anything overdue. Please collect the pay and make sure the books are put up for sale. I saw the recent report where two books have been taken out longer than their due dates, so I'd like that taken care of. I guess anything left over by the time we close can be put away into storage until I can figure out what else to do with them.

I hate that I have to give you this news, Levi. I really, really do, but I can't put it off any longer. I know we've had scares in the past, but this is the real one. I tried everything I could, even tried pushing the date we close back, but they aren't letting me off of the hook for this one.

Once again, I'm truly sorry."

The silence in the room was tense, morose even. It weighed on their shoulders like fifty pounds of lead, and none of them at that point were even keen on the idea of breathing. The idea of making a sound was like trying to walk on thin ice; if you did it wrong, it'd break right out from under your feet. That was how they felt right about now.

Levi set the paper down in his lap, eyes once again drifting over the words to make sure he hadn't read them wrong. Of course he didn't. He wished with all of his might that he did, or even that this was some sort of cruel joke, but it wasn't. There was no way he could have read the letter wrong; he'd only read it six times over. The first four times were to himself, once to Hanji, and then once more to Eren. Hanji had used her proper knowledge in sign language so he could understand what was being read out loud.

It had all been announced within the same day to each of them, but it still didn't settle right.

"So… What do we do now?" Hanji asked, her fingers moving softly for Eren so he could keep in the loop with their conversation.

"We beef up our resumes and start looking for new jobs." Levi told her and crumbled up the letter. He tossed it into the trash can beside Eren, who looked positively lost and destroyed. It was even worse when he read Hanji's fingers, and Levi knew why.

Who was going to hire Eren? He'd been hired by Levi, but that was because he knew him and his situation. There weren't many jobs that he knew of that could allow the work of someone deaf, and the ones that were around probably weren't nearby, or by any means available. Eren didn't know of any, Levi sure as hell didn't know of any, and if Hanji did, she wasn't piping up about it.

Hanji and Levi had chances of getting jobs. It was easier for them, but Eren couldn't hear. There weren't many jobs that had qualifications for the hearing impaired.

"There's nothing we can do?" Eren asked somberly, hoping for some positive answer. He knew the answer already, but he was still clinging to hope.

"No, I'm sorry…" Levi told him, knowing Hanji would sign for him. "It's been too dead in here, and I know you've seen it."

"Yeah, but…" Eren couldn't think up of anything else to say. He didn't know what to do in this position.

"Eren, don't worry. We're going to help you find something." Hanji assured him with a weak smile. "It may not be with us, but it'll be something."

"But not this…" Eren signed. Levi felt his heart jump into his throat before dropping down into his stomach.

This wasn't fair. This just wasn't fair. He really wasn't concerned for his own situation, though he should have been. He had overdue bills to pay and a landlord breathing down his neck, but what about Eren?

Eren finally felt like he was helping his family. He finally felt like he was doing something worth the effort. He was going to lose his first job though, and it wasn't even on his part.

How was any of this fair?

"I know working isn't usually like this. There's a lot more to it, but… This was just comfortable. It was easy, it worked out for Mikasa, Armin and I… Even if I could find a job, who knows if it would be the same…"

"That's something you can't worry about now though, Eren…" Hanji told him and patted his knee. "Let's focus on finding some options first."

"Let's focus on being a little less depressed here." Levi spoke up quickly, his hands following shortly after so Eren could understand. "Like he said, that's twenty-one days away. We're still here, still working, and worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, it's going to happen, but there's nothing we can do about it, and sitting here whining our asses off isn't going to make anything better." Had Hanji not been signing for Eren, he would have missed all of that.

"So what do you suggest we do?" Hanji ask.

"I say we fucking close for the day and kick back. No one needs to know anything different."

"Can we do that?" Eren asked.

"Fuck yes we can. Look at it outside right now." Levi said and motioned to the windows. "That snow is coming down hard. We close down when it gets serious like this, so that's the excuse we can use. No one is going to come in with this weather anyway, so there's no point."

Eren and Hanji looked outside, watching the snow fall along the streets. True to his word, it was falling fast. It had only started snowing about an hour ago when Levi first received the email (some sort of grim reminder?), but it was already a foot deep. The weather channels had been talking about a seriously nasty snow storm coming their way, and it looks like it had come early. If this kept up, they were definitely going home early.

Eren didn't doubt that Mikasa and Armin were probably setting things up in the living room at home to stay warm. Their heating had been very fussy with the nasty winter, and each of them had to get separate heating units for their rooms. They'd all probably end up camping out in front of the TV with each heater on either side of them for tonight if the heating decided to go out again.

When the two of them looked back from the window, Levi wasn't in the room with them. He wasn't gone long though, and when he returned, he came back with an open, half empty bag of chips, and a full container of soda.

"Levi! What are you doing with my snacks?" Hanji whined as she questioned him.

"We're about to eat them and talk shit while we do so."

"With my snacks?"

"Find a better hiding spot than the filing cabinet next time." Levi told her while handing Eren the bag of chips. "We'll just kick back, relax for an hour, and then head home." He said while kicking back on the couch beside the brunette.

"We won't get in trouble?" Eren asked.

"How could we? It's not like he can fire us now." Levi retorted and reached for the chips. Eren openly allowed him to have some as he sighed, seemingly confused by the idea of talking bad about something he liked. Sure, they were about to lose their jobs, but that didn't mean he didn't like it.

"Where do we start?" Hanji asked, her hands reaching for her soda.

"Let's start with our endearing neighbors and their big ass tree that they can't clean the leaves up from and I'm stuck doing their job."

"I saw that earlier in the year. You'd think they'll just cut the branches down some? I mean, they're getting pretty far out there."

"Who the hell knows? All I know is that I won't be working here soon, and they're going to have to clean up their own damn messes."

"They're probably going to miss you for that."

"I hate that giant ass tree."

Eren's eyes followed their conversation, eyes drifting from one set of hands and lips to the other. He found their bridge of topics to be quiet interesting, because they hadn't been what he was expecting at all. Sure, they were talking shit, just like Levi said they would do, but when he imagined that, he imagined how some of his friends outside his little house talked.

When it was him with a bunch of guys, it was constant perverted jokes and sexism of the highest degree. Thank God Armin was usually there, or else he wouldn't know what to do when they started bragging about their experiences with girls, because he had none, and was easily classified by Jean as a "hopeless loser."

When he was stuck with Mikasa and her friends, he found their conversations grouped toward bad mouthing someone who had made their day harder. It was also always constant stress of men and the pressure of having to be a "woman" around them. Mikasa did that a lot, but she was a cook. She had to deal with the critiques of people every day, so he could see where that came from. However, she never complained once of having stress from anyone other than Eren and Armin. She didn't "try" around any guy unless it was them.

Eren wasn't entirely sure if he appreciated that or not though.

Armin just didn't talk bad about people. He was one of the few, rare people who grew up believing the saying, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Eren didn't understand how Armin did it though. He kept everything bottled away for so long, and it wasn't healthy to do that. He took great joy in reading though, so there must have been some sort of positive to come from that. It must have been some form of a coping mechanism, though the brunette wasn't much of a reader, so he couldn't see how.

Honestly, he only ever came to the bookstore for freedom. That, and because it was always quiet. He didn't need to worry about hearing anything when there.

Eren on the other hand? He didn't do it. It wasn't that he didn't want to do it, because he did every now and again (the world was especially cruel to him), but he just didn't have anything in terms of material to do it with. Before meeting Levi, he ever so rarely left the house, so he didn't run into people who could treat him so poorly just because he couldn't hear them. Now that he got out of the house, he saw it more frequently. Levi was always there to stand up for him though.

He took everything else out by talking to Mikasa and Armin, so by the time those talks were over, there was nothing left to discuss. He didn't have much to complain about when he thought of it. Times were tough for more people than just him, and he was rather lucky. They had a house, a roof over their head, food on the table (Mikasa would always make sure that was the case), and an education. That was more than what most had.

He was doing fine in school, he liked the job he was about to lose, so what could he possibly badmouth?

"Oi, Eren," Levi slapped at the side of his arm, grabbing the teen's attention for a quick moment. Eren looked over to the two adults, finding their eyes on him expectantly. They were waiting for him, weren't they?

"I don't have much to complain about besides losing my job…"

"Times are tough and the government sucks. We're all there, Eren." Levi told him, Hanji doing him the favor of signing for him.

"Don't be hard on yourself, Eren. You aren't the only person being let out in the world."

"Not the only one to feel this way either."

"What way?"

"Like you're being cheated on, lied to; like everything around you is throwing the odds against you and putting the weight of the world on your shoulders." Levi spoke with authority. "The world is cruel and unfair, much as life is."

"So harsh, Levi…" Hanji sighed.

"That sounds like something my sister once said to me."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. I think it was after she had lost a job, but… Just before she got the job at the restaurant."

"Does she like to rant then?" Levi questioned.

"Not really. That was just a particularly shitty day."

"How so?"

"Besides getting laid off, I had Jean breathing down my neck and pissing me off that day. Mikasa doesn't like it when he does that, or, well, when anyone does that to me."

"Who is this Jean guy? I think I've heard you mention him once before." Hanji mentioned, trying to reach her hands over to her bag of chips that had been seemingly forgotten for the time being. The moment she got close, however, Levi pulled the bag up to his chest and kept it there.

"He's just a horse looking mother fucker. He's not very special. I can't imagine what his boyfriend sees in him."

Thinking back to it now, Levi did remember Eren talking about Jean. It wasn't a personal conversation they had though; it was something he read in his notebook. It was months ago, and if his memory served him well, it was on their first date. He couldn't remember what was written down in the notebook, he just remembered reading the name Jean. It must not have been too important though if Eren felt this way about the guy.

"Besides the fact that he's gay…" Levi quietly uttered, earning a disparaging look from Hanji.

"How'd you meet Jean then if you hate him so much?"

"I met him in kindergarten. He's been in every school I've been to up until I went into online schooling, but his boyfriend, Marco, is cool, and we like to hang out with him when we can. Unfortunately, where Marco goes, Jean follows, so I still see him from time to time."

"Say, Eren, what got you into online schooling?" Hanji questioned. Eren shifted uncomfortably then, his eyes shifting to the floor while his hands fumbled together in his lap.

"… It was… Just after my accident. I couldn't really continue in a public school anymore, so I didn't have much of a choice."

"And there aren't any schools nearby for people who suffer from hearing loss?" To that, Eren shook his head.

"Nope," He uttered.

"I bet you could be a person to change that." Levi spoke up, eyes on the soda he'd been neglecting. Eren tilted his head to him, eyes staring openly at him like he had lost his mind. The sentence just didn't make sense to him no matter how much he thought of it. It couldn't process through his mind correctly.

"How could someone like me do that?"

"You're the type of person people would be afraid of, because you're the type of person who can change things around for the better." Levi continued and took a sip of his drink. "Be the change you wish to see in the world as they say."

Once again, the words just didn't make sense to him.

"See you boys later!" Hanji exclaimed as she trudged her way through the knee high snow, looking for her car buried away somewhere in the street.

"Text me so I know that you're home safe!" Levi called after her. The least he needed was to worry about the woman and when she would get home safely.

"Love you too!" Or maybe he could handle it.

"Levy," Eren said behind him, hands bundled up beside his mouth to breathe against for warmth.

"Let me just lock the door. Want to start the car for me?" Levi asked him and held up his car keys. Eren nodded his head before taking the keys and wandering off to where Levi's car was parked. It wasn't far at all, but it would take a while to defrost and get the snow off of his windshield. Levi turned his attention back to the door, eyes glaring at the snow that had been tracked inside when they walked out.

The snow was easily to his knees, but he'd blame that partially on his height. He hated to admit it, but this snow wasn't easy to walk through. It was going to be a very bad drive to his place, but that wasn't Levi's biggest concern. If he crashed his car, well, insurance will cover it. He just didn't want Eren in the car when it happened.

He sighed. If it was his choice, he'd say it'd be safer to go to his place. It wasn't as far of a drive, and if need be they'd walk along the roads. Mikasa would have a bitch fit though, and she'd probably elect herself to come pick him up if that was the case.

Yeah, that wasn't really needed. The less he worried, the better.

Levi looked back into the place one last time, eyes scanning the inside of the bookstore, soon to be empty, to make sure he had everything. He didn't have much to begin with, but it was all he needed, right? He had his phone, and… Well, that was about it. His keys were with Eren-

Just as he thought of the brat, a car horn blared behind him. Levi turned around, prepared to yell at Eren for being such a klutz, but it wasn't him. Eren was still busy trying to get the snow off of his window so he could open the door without snow falling in. If it wasn't him who set off the horn, then who was it?

Levi felt something drop in the pit of his stomach as his eyes began scanning the roads. Further up the snowy road (the road itself was no longer visible), a car was coming down. The car horn was still honking, but Levi could see the tires at a standstill. That didn't keep the car in place though. No, it was sliding right down the road, and the man behind the wheel was blaring his horn at Eren, who wasn't even aware that the car was at the perfect angle to hit him if he didn't move.

"Eren…!" Levi exclaimed, but it was no use. Eren couldn't even hear the car let alone the older man, and he was completely unaware of the impending impact that was heading right towards him.

Fighting against the snow, Levi felt a rush of adrenaline hit him hard. He forced himself forward, legs lifting up higher than they were used to so he could trek through the snow with more speed than he ever had. The car wasn't far away now, and even if it was slow, there was no telling if the tires would grip the ground or not, or if the car would even speed up. The snow had been plowed in the roads, but only to a certain area. He still had to force his legs through the snow, but when it came to the heavy mounds piled to the sides from the snow plows, he had to say fuck it.

Levi used the car as leverage to hoist himself up onto the hood. It was slippery, but it was enough to have him sliding over to the other side and grabbing at Eren's jacket. By this point, Eren had seen him, but to what reasons Levi was acting like this he wasn't sure. All he knew was that Levi used his jacket to throw him further into the road, his legs slipping out underneath him to let him fall into the nearest pile.

Levi was all but relieved, but it was short lived. The headlight of the car made impact with his leg, and while it was by no means a serious hit, it was enough to have Levi tumbling the ground. By this point, the car had slowed significantly, so the impact didn't hurt. What hurt was getting the air knocked out of him when he fell against the road.

"Levy…!" Eren cried out once he'd managed to grasp the situation. He understood that a car nearly hit him, and he also understood was that Levi had pushed him out of the way and saved him. What he understood, but feared, was that Levi was now on the ground, pushing himself up after being hit by the car, which had managed to stop after scrapping into Levi's own car.

Eren pushed himself from the pile of snow and fell to Levi's side, arms pulling him up and bringing him against his lap. Levi wasn't in pain, though a little breathless, but the adrenaline was still rushing in his veins, worry still eminent on his face.

"Are you okay?" He signed to him while forcing himself from Eren's grip.

"Me…? You just got hit by a fucking car!"

"I'm fine, Eren! I'm more worried about you!"

"I'm fine, but we should get you to the hospital or something!"

"I'll be fine. Go inside for now." Levi told him and stood up, but an immediate pain shot up his leg. Maybe he wasn't as fine as he thought he was.

"Levy, the hospital!" Eren exclaimed and tugged at his arm.

"I said go inside, Eren!" Levi snapped at him. He was not playing games right now. He wasn't going to risk Eren's life out here, and if Eren didn't move, he'd make him move.

The message got across though. Eren jumped at the tone of his voice, even when he couldn't hear it. The tone spoke in his eyes. The expression on his face alone was enough to have him getting up and running back to the store, his heart beating painfully in his chest.

Eren managed his way through the snow, stopping short at the door to look back at Levi. He was worried for the man; of course he was. Who wouldn't be? Levi had told him to go inside, though the older man must have forgotten that he locked the door before they walked out. He stood by, watching as Levi wobbled his way over to the car that had long since stopped against his own.

The man got out of the car, shaking and wide eyed, like the situation that had just happened was impossible to imagine. Eren couldn't hear it, but he could see the man apologizing profusely to Levi. He didn't look upset with him; it was an accident after all. The man's tire caught in the snow and couldn't grip the ground. No matter how much he pumped the brakes, it wouldn't catch. He was just thankful that he had been going so slowly to begin with, or that could have been worse.

Eren was still worried though, still stinging from Levi's expression and words.

Why had Levi yelled at him? What had he done wrong? He was only worried for him. After all, Levi just got hit by a car, a car that nearly hit him.

So why was he mad at him?

A/N: You're going to love the next chapter. If ya know what I mean. ;) ... Oh, you don't...? ... Oh... Hm... You'll find out...