A/N: This is a short chapter, but this is covering something someone mentioned to me that needed shum explanations. Next chapter... It begins... The countdown... Although it's a poor countdown, because I don't know how many chapters we have left. I'm still working on that! X'D

-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 Thirty One: Keep it a Secret

"Hey, Levy...?" Eren mumbled and looked up from under the towel his boyfriend had carefully situated on his head. The older man was drying off his hair from his shower, but stopped when golden eyes looked up at him curiously.

"What...?" He asked.

"Are you painting something for someone again?" The brunette signed, and for a moment Levi didn't understand. It wasn't until Eren pointed to the blank canvas's in the corner of his room that he understood.

"Yeah... Yeah, something for someone." He had yet to tell Eren his plans to make money for his implants by means of painting. He knew he'd hear some form of argument from him, such as it was a lot of money for the implants and he shouldn't waste his time. This is why he decided to keep it a secret.

"Really...?" His boyfriend beamed up at him, and for a moment the older man had to look away. He couldn't handle the absolutely adorable look on Eren's face right now. Was he even aware he was doing it?

Damn brat.

"Why would I lie?" The man asked him. Eren shrugged his shoulders, a confusing triumphant look on his face as he turned back around to let Levi finish drying him off. "What's with that face?" He asked of him, but he knew he wouldn't get a response. Instead, he continued drying Eren's hair until he deemed it satisfying for himself. Spring may have been just around the corner, but it was still too cold to be walking around with wet hair.

"Levy..." Eren spoke his name after a few minutes of silence.

"What...?"

"What are you going to paint?" The brunette asked, an odd glint of something (Levi wasn't sure of what) in his golden eyes.

"Uhm... Whatever comes to mind, I guess." Levi signed.

Suddenly, the grin that had been digging at the corners of Eren's lips pulled wider, a smirk if Levi was aware of it.

"You're painting because you want to, aren't you?" He asked of him.

"Even if I was, why is that such a shock?"

"It's not, but..." Eren paused to sit up off of the floor and scoot next to his boyfriend on the bed. "That means you like painting again, right?"

"I never stopped liking it," Levi told him. "I just had things come about that took more importance in my life."

"So why start now?"

"What...?" Where was he going with this?

"You still don't have a job, you live alone, and I'm young enough to make our relationship bordering illegal. With all that's going on, what's suddenly made you start painting again?"

Damn. Sometimes he forgot Eren was smarter then he let on to. Or maybe he was just that obvious.

The older man sighed. He wanted to tell him that he was the reason for his painting. He wanted to say that he was painting to make money so he could get his implants, but he wanted to keep that a secret to later surprise him. Sure, it could take years before he raised that money, but he didn't want Eren getting his hopes up so high.

Sure, his last painting sold for two thousand, but that was from Erwin. The blonde was probably being nice. He had said he should have paid more for its worth though, hadn't he?

"Is it because it got you money?" Eren asked him and tilted his head. "There's nothing wrong with that. If you want to make a career out of your art I'll be behind you, but I don't get why you don't want to talk about it..."

"I guess I'm... Worried?"

No, he'd still keep it a secret for as long as he could. For now, he needed to pull something out of his ass if he wanted Eren to believe him.

"About what...?"

"Erwin could have been playing nice. Being an artist is a very difficult job, and most people aren't willing to pay top dollar for a piece of paper that'll hang on a wall and do nothing." He explained to the teen. "Being an artist requires skills and talent-"

"Which you have." Eren mentioned.

"And a sheer amount of luck. It takes the right person to see it for you to get popular and really make money. That's just how it is."

"And who's to say you won't get that?" The brunette asked. "Maybe Erwin wasn't being nice. Maybe he was paying exactly what your painting deserved, and maybe he'll pass the word around for you. After all, he's an old friend willing to help, right?"

"... You're annoying, you know that, right?" Levi suddenly asked, trying desperately to change the subject by ruffling Eren's damp hair. It was annoying when this teenager was right.

"Hey...!" Eren whined and swatted at his hands.

"Who are you to give me advice when you can't even get yourself together?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eren grumbled under his breath, some he said that Levi couldn't make heads or tails of.

"You figure out what you're doing about school yet?" Levi asked him.

Eren stilled, his eyes looking over to the man and then away, as if deep in thought. He had been thinking about it, hadn't he?

"... I think I wanna change my major..." He replied skeptically.

"Well we know you want to. What I'm asking you is if you've decided what you're going to do." Levi reconsidered his choice of words. If Eren hadn't thought about it thoroughly, he wasn't going to have a straight answer. If so, he would, but that meant dragging it out of him.

"... Yeah. I'm going to do it." He reluctantly replied.

"Have you told Mikasa and Armin yet?"

"No... Do you think they'll be mad at me?" Eren looked at with expectant eyes, pleading for answers.

"Of course not," The older man answered. "They're your family and want what's best for you, but you're old enough to know what you want too. If you think business is wrong for you, they won't torture you to stay." He continued to explain.

"I'm just worried... I don't want to put any stress over their heads..."

"How is that going to stress them out? If anything it should make them feel better knowing you're happier in school."

"Yeah, but..." Eren paused, trying to get his words together.

"It's either that or Mikasa forced you into more online schooling." Levi remarked with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Forced me?" Eren asked. "She never forced me into online schooling."

"She didn't?" Levi stared at him with a frown and furrowed eyebrows.

"No, I put myself there." Eren told him. "Just after the accident."

"I thought she had put you in school on the computer to help you."

"No way. She was like, nine, ten? She had no say over my life at the time."

"So then why are you in it now?" The older man was officially confused. All this time he thought it was Mikasa's idea to have him in an online school. He figured she'd been doing it for years without keeping point that she was a kid herself. She couldn't do that, but a legal adult could if they chose to. So he had been wrong this whole time, but then why was Eren there?

The questions swarming his mind seemed to be silently taken in by Eren. The teen sighed as he looked away, deep in thought. Obviously they were on another sensitive topic, but he seemed willing to share, if only for a moment.

"When I left the hospital, they were telling me going back to school meant needing a personal aid. I needed to switch classrooms, learn sign language, be with a whole new group of people, and lose all of my friends... I was only nine. Knowing I had to give up that much... I felt it easier to just go into an online school and stay at home..." Eren stared away at something, though Levi didn't know what, distantly. He hated the look on him, a look of disinterest and depression. It wasn't a pretty look to him, but he figured as much after bringing up the topic.

"Maybe I gave up? I don't know. I know that I didn't want to face my friends as someone deaf, because things would be awkward around us. They'd treat me differently, and I wouldn't be able to talk to them without my aid... It was just too much for me at the time..."

"So then why did you stay?"

"Because it was easier. After losing my family and living with Armin, it was easier to stay at home and do my work there. I didn't need any aid's translating things for me and reminding me I lost part of my life. I mean, I've got it. I know losing my hearing doesn't make me weak or dumb or anything else, but I didn't at the time, so... It was just easier to stay in it."

The teen's shoulders hung low like this head, lips turned down in a frown. He sighed heavily, though shaking through it all. He'd admitted to something he hadn't in a while, weight finally lifting off of his shoulders. It seemed easier to breathe now, but the ever looming thought of the man next to him taking this all in still weight heavily in his chest.

"I see..." Levi responded and rubbed at his back.

He couldn't imagine Eren going through what he had to at such a young age, let alone any child. No one should have to go through that, especially without their parents by their sides. For years Eren had subjected himself to mental anguish and torture. He'd envisioned himself and something weak and useless, and while that was nowhere near the truth, he had been a kid. He didn't know any better. He'd beaten himself up for years, and all this time Levi assumed some of it had been Mikasa's doing, but he found himself to be wrong.

Eren had managed to pick himself up, but at what cost? What did he had to do to bring himself back from it all? What sacrifices from him and his family were made to make sure he wouldn't fall?

Levi sighed softly before pulling Eren close and pressing his lips into his forehead. His damp hair brushed and tickled at his cheeks, but he managed a smooth and relaxed response as he pulled back to look at him.

"Levy...?" Eren spoke his name questionably. He had expected a response such as that, but he wasn't sure he fully understood the meaning behind it.

"I love you..." Levi said carefully, making sure Eren's would follow the movement of his lips. "You're probably one of the strongest people I know, stronger than me even, and I want you to keep that in mind. Okay?"

He wasn't expecting Eren to follow that much, but it was something that needed to be said. Judging by the way his head tilted slightly and the furrow between his eyebrows, he hadn't picked up on much or any of it.

"Huh...?"

"It's nothing..."

The gentle smile that spread Levi's lips was even more confusing. What had he said? What didn't he read right? He wasn't making fun of him, was he? No, Levi wouldn't so that minus the occasional brat nickname.

"Levy, I didn't..." Eren began, but his protest was swallowed down by a kiss.

The older man's lips melded well with his own, taking anything he had to say and putting it to the side to wait. Firm hands settled on his naked waist, calmly, but with the promise for something more.

Whatever it was he had said, it could wait.

A/N: By the way. It had been pointed out in the previous chapter that I had put Fridge instead of Fringe by mistake. This prompted a very serious discussion with my beta reader that no, this wasn't a spelling mishap, Eren simply turned into a titan while they were having sex and was carrying a fridge on his head.

Do you people see what you do to Lady Mari Chan and I? You promote these responses.