Chapter Text
A lot can change in ten years. Things profound and things trivial wash away just the same in the ebb and flow of time— a human construct that doesn't even really exist, so maybe that's not the right term. Movement is better. Things change and time 'passes' because we're always moving, never at rest. The push and pull of motion is always there. If we're measuring change by my own accomplishments, there's no point in dragging out a ruler, and bothering to mark it down would just be a waste of effort. I haven't changed a whole lot these last few years, especially not in any way that might be considered profound. I have my own closet full of skeletons but I'm content to let them fester a little longer.
Eren, however, is another story.
He had the nerve to waltz back into the picture when things were just beginning to click into place once more. He had the idiotic sentimentality to hold on to that stupid receipt with tightly scrawled letters forming directions ("I didn't need it, I still remember the way," he told me, "but I kept it for sentimental reasons."). He had the tenacity to grow up but still be so infuriatingly him after all this time.
Ten years got rid of all the baby fat. Ten years made him taller and leaner and stronger. Ten years (miraculously) managed to make him a bit brighter in the intelligence department, too. Those expressive eyes were still wide with emotions and wonder, but the transparent naiveté they used to shine had either dimmed significantly or simply disappeared. The latter is such a long shot that I'm not sure why I've wasted brain power thinking of it. Trying to wrap my mind around the idea of Eren being completely grown up and not at all an idiot is just too fucking hard. He's bold and he's passionate and he's brave, he's fiery and he speaks before he thinks of the consequences. I dare say the kid has a temper to contend with my own. He's just not the kind of person who reaches that kind of enlightenment at the tender age of twenty-seven.
Let me take a moment to point out how hard it is to stay angry at someone whose entire presence makes your body scream to be touched. I don't easily forgive, and I never forget. I'm beyond pissed at him. I'm seething, I'm angry, I'm so pissed off. Eren's stupid, bratty face forks my thoughts in half and it's disorienting because I can't decide if the first thing I want to do when I get my hands on him is strangle him or kiss him 'til he suffocates. Either way he's headed for asphyxia, a truth I'm more sure of than anything else at the moment.
When I found him crouched on my doorstep I stopped breathing for a minute.
I don't really remember much of anything in those fleeting moments of recognition after so many years apart. I might have slapped myself once or twice before I decided he was real and not at all a ghost. I may have touched him just to reinforce that decision had I not been blindsighted by rage and tempted to smash his face into the steps he so calmly sat on. Or into my face. No, the steps, definitely the concrete steps.
I'm angry at Eren, I can't forget that.
Somewhere in the midst of my thoughts I realize I'm no longer alone. Here in this park, this little nook in a gathering of trees where I let my legs swing off the edge of a small, wooden foot bridge. Here, where I find sanctuary when I'm not capable of coping anymore. He's one of the few who knows. What a dumb place for my feet to carry me.
He steps onto the edge of the bridge, the satisfying sound of boots smacking wood giving him away. "Are you ever going to come home?" I don't have to look to see that his fingers are worrying at his shirt. He's never quite sure what to do with his hands if I'm not leading them. I wonder if that's changed at all.
"Are you ever going to leave?"
"Not again."
Silence, featuring crickets. I can't think of a fitting reply so I don't.
"You used to be this age too, Levi," he finally starts. He halts his speech and I can almost feel how hard it is for him to swallow around the concept of thinking out his words before vomitting them carelessly. "You ran away too. You took time for yourself to grow. You know almost better than anyone else that I needed grow up. Well, here I am. I'm about as adult as I'll ever be. I left for me, sure, but I also left for you." His temper is rising with every word and his efforts to think before he speaks are evaporating in the heat. He hates the silence, has an itching need to fill it with words, even if he doesn't know what he means. "I'm grasping at straws here trying to be what you want— no, need me to be, and you're just going to sit there and ignore it. It's like it's just not good enough for you and I never will be and you're so fucking cruel—"
It's funny, how easily you can catch someone off guard when they're growing increasingly flustered with boiling emotions. Eren gives me opportunities to catch him off guard more than most. Notwithstanding his height and the necessity to grab him by the collar of his shirt, it surprises him when I kiss him in the thick of his tirades.
"You're an idiot." I contemplate elaborating the fact, but what's the point. I've said it so many times. "I left no one behind when I took off. But you... you left so many people behind and you didn't explain it to them. You barely explained it to me— which, by the way, you really should have thought that note out better, if you were going to be gone for so fucking long and eventually drop off the face of the earth. At least take me out to dinner before you royally screw me."
Eren just stares expectantly at me. Not because he's not soaking it in, on the contrary he's eager to do so. In the few seconds I've managed to turn around the conversation he's cooled down and acknowledged the fact that I have feelings that need to be spoken and that his are not the only ones involved. Maybe being away has changed him more than I'd like to give him credit for. Maybe he redeemed his stupidity.
"I just... I can't stand the thought of you walking out when I worked so hard to open up to you, to be able to convey these feelings for you. You know how difficult it was and for five whole years you say absolutely nothing to me."
Deep breaths, calm down, don't lose your temper, don't strangle him with your hands, don't strangle him with your tongue. Why isn't he talking? "Say something already, Eren," I growl, pinching the bridge of my nose and willing the furrowed lines on my brow to go away.
"You've always been right, I am an idiot."
The brat stops there and forces me to lose another centimeter of control, forces me to look up at him again. Why the fuck did he have to get so tall? I've played into his hands and he takes it as a cue to start up again.
"I'm sorry— and I know, I know those words are literally pointless in the grand scheme of things, but there are sincere feelings behind it and it makes it valid, and you deserve to know. I know you're angry and I know I don't even deserve to breathe the same air you do but I'm willing to change that."
His hands are still incredibly awkward. I wonder if they've gotten any bigger too. His fingers were already impossibly long, back then. I abused that fact on more than one occasion. Calling them 'occasions' makes it seem like it happened less often than it did. Encounter sounds better.
"What do you want me to do, then?"
"Let me in, just for the night."
He says this with pleading eyes. Hopeless, puppy dog eyes. Fuck me harder eyes. Who am I to deny such a powerful force? I don't really want to say no. I know I have every right to tell him no. But his beseeching eyes, his piano fingers, and his sincere and almost painfully transparent expression are such a dangerous combination.
I barely have time to sigh defeatedly before his lengthy arms take me captive. They hug me with a strength I've never felt in him before, and for a brief moment I expect him to pick me up off the ground and twirl me around like this is some stupid teenage romance movie. The scowl on my face is mostly there out of muscle memory and habit and I'm not entirely unresponsive; a moment later I find myself hugging his torso and burying my face into his button-up shirt.
"Let's go home."
The car ride is silent. But not uncomfortably so. The silence wraps around us and draws us closer together. I'm actually impressed at how capable he is at keeping his mouth shut. He hasn't said anything idiotic since his first outburst and as we drive through the empty, night-stained streets I wonder if it might be the only one. When I glance over at him to stare his eyes are content with watching the road. He doesn't even flinch, just keeps driving.
He used to be a lot more nervous when he drove. The way he gripped the steering wheel would almost make his knuckles turn white by the time we got to our destination. He sat straight up in his seat, even if the seat was completely vertical he'd manage to find a way to straighten himself out even further. Sometimes I think I even caught him clenching his jaw as if we were at home grinding out some sessions in Burnout. Now, Eren seems relaxed. He's actually resting against the back of his seat, maybe even slouching into it. He's driving with one hand and its grip seems like it's on the verge of being too loose to control the car's direction. That hand is so big, was it always that big?
So focused on the size of his hand, I don't notice when we've pulled into the driveway, or when he's turned those pretty (dumb) turquoise eyes towards me. The moment I do notice he gives me a tentative smile. It's as dopey as ever. He starts to open his mouth but I don't allow it and press a finger to his stupid, dopey lips. "No, nope, shut it." He actually grins and nearly laughs at this. As a means to mask the impending smile on my lips I turn to exit the car and he follows suit.
Jesus Christ, Levi, whatever happened to being angry at the boy?
Once inside I get a proper look at him under incandescent lights. I tell him he owes me and he leaves me in the living room for the kitchen to make a pot of tea. The entry is a wide, open arch between the two rooms, so I can study him from the comfort of the couch, undeterred. I still think his hands are bigger than they used to be. The arms attached to them are bigger too. Lengthier, but also bigger in mass. Did he get those muscles from paid physical labor or were they just a product of working out on the side? Does the idea of Eren in the midst of a workout routine turn me on? Yes, yes it does.
"How have things been?" he asks me when he hands me a steaming mug, made to my standards.
"You still remember how to make it the way I like," I sigh after a sip, curling up on my end of the couch and tucking my knees up to my chest. "How do you think they've been? I can survive without you." He flinches ever so slightly at that. Does he deserve to be left hanging?
Looking over at that adult-sized puppy across from me, seeing that hint of a pout not necessarily directed at me, makes me think not. I add very softly, "Not that I want to." The words hit him like a wave of relief and he slumps into the couch, fiddling with the cup of tea he made for himself. He doesn't drink it like I do. He says he's more of a coffee person, and it doesn't surprise me. He's bold like the taste of the coffee he prefers to drink so it suits him. He drinks from his cup nonetheless.
"Earlier, at the park...." He pauses and scratches at the neck of his shirt, a gesture he almost exclusively makes while in button-ups when he's tripping over thoughts and trying to turn them into words. "You were right. I left a lot of people behind. I didn't really think about that when I left, you know how thoughtless I can be." More than anyone. "One night won't fix everything, and it sure as hell doesn't begin to fix what I might have destroyed with anyone else. But that's what I want to do, in time."
"But?"
He drains his tea fast enough to make me feel vaguely astonished (and not at all because of the way his adam's apple bobbed so enticingly while doing so, nope, not even slightly) and sets it down, remembering to pull a coaster from the stack at the center of the coffee table. "Being away so long made me contemplate a lot of things, about you. Around the time I stopped communicating with you was when it began. I thought about the seven or so years we'd known each other and how foolishly I pawed at you. I didn't care about the fact that I was fifteen, or sixteen, or seventeen. I didn't care that you were an adult with a job and a life separate from me and that I wasn't supposed to be part of it outside of school."
The weighty subject had made me sit up at some point and I'd abandoned my cup of tea. Legs crossed now, I pulled one of the throw pillows to my chest, as if its comfort might soothe the ache that began to fill my chest, the discord knotting up my stomach. His eyes are trained forward, at that empty mug of his. He's not fidgeting with his hands, content to rest them at his knees.
"And then when I left, and we stayed in contact, and how everything I felt for you intensified. At first I reasoned that it was because these feelings were true. That I actually liked you, wanted to find myself in a future where we both lived together and loved each other and spent the rest of our lives together. But then I got to thinking, about all those conversations we had when I was still in high school, about wanting things you can't have and how important it would be for me to stop doing that to myself. So then I decided that I was wrong, that I wasn't in love with you, or even the idea of you."
Fuck me.
"I told myself I just wanted you because I still couldn't really have you, that it was unhealthy to continuously lust after my high school counselor. I selfishly caused you so much stress and could have gotten you in such deep shit, all for my petty teenage libido."
"I'm flattered that you decided to finally, officially break this off with me. Face to face, how touching," I interrupt rather bluntly. "Do you have to be so utterly verbose about it?"
When I move to get off the couch he stops me with a hand at my thigh, effectively seating me once more and earning himself a scowl. I cross my arms, the pillow I'd held now discarded on the floor, forgotten when I'd attempted to stand, and I think of how childish it must look. Here Eren is, being an adult and acting as such, being responsible enough to explain why he stopped talking to me and I'm just being a big fucking brat about it because my heart can't take it. I've never claimed to not have flaws. "What?" I hiss, quickly losing my patience.
He gives me a look, one I've never seen before. He's smiling and there's this weight of knowledge obstructing the usual transparency in his blue-green eyes. "Weren't you always the one telling me not to jump to conclusions? I made you lose your temper on at least three different occasions because I made so many assumptions."
I made a face again, looking away in an admittedly juvenile matter.
"I was right the first time."
It's my turn to slump and feel relieved. The smile on his face blossoms and he draws back, but now he's on both of his knees barely an inch away from my crossed legs. "Oh?" It's the only thing I can think to say, still dealing with the aftershock of my own assumptions. Thinking some adolescent boy ditched you without any real answers is one thing; thinking that same adolescent boy is officially rejecting you when he explains why he fell off the face of the earth is a surprisingly different experience.
He's poised to speak again, lips forming a delicious 'O', before he decidedly shuts it. His absurdly large hands move to rest on my thighs and a moment later he kisses me. He kisses me hard and passionate and despite all my experience I lag behind, utterly stunned by the force and the suddenness of its arrival. Fuck this brat for catching me off guard. He grunts then because now I'm giving him a piece of my mind with my tongue and boy does he like that.
"Don't even think about it," I mutter when his hands begin to wander up my thighs, breaking away from his lips with a good bit of reluctance. Given the opportunity I pull back to study his face, telling as ever. He's still as eager as he was before he left. It doesn't take much to make him want me, he does half the work with his over-active imagination. "I have to shower, alone."
Fuck his pout, it's too goddamn adorable.
"Please hurry," he nearly whines.
I pry myself away before he has the chance to try and change my mind. He's already flipped my night upside down by showing up and changed my whole perspective on the last five years. I gave up being angry with him so quickly and now, barely an hour after he's shown up, I'm thinking about his lewd fingertips dancing inside of me. I'm still mad, I really am, but the thought alone makes me ache and I can't remember the last time anyone's touched me.
Under the spray my thoughts are scattered images from the past, of all the moments between now and the very first day I met Eren. He thought he looked so tough, sitting there in one of the two chairs lined outside of my office, his arms crossed and a deadly scowl on his face. He looked older for his age, not at all something uncommon for a boy at fifteen years old, but paired with the look in his eyes it wasn't quite the same thing. It wasn't just because of his physical presence, but that look haunting from the depths of his hues. That look that tells you he's not as oblivious to the world as most people are. Even with that kind of knowledge he was still a stupid brat. A little shit who decided that he wasn't going to function with due respect and civility in social situations.
Because of this, we met.
I put him in his place quickly, all the while managing not to raise my voice enough for the guidance secretary to hear— with anyone else, a simple task, but Eren made every fucking thing difficult. Had I not been on school grounds and had he not been in attendance at my place of work I might have literally smacked sense into him. His good behavior didn't last, though, and the reasons for him to be dragged back to my office came endlessly, one after another. Fifteen unexcused absences, twelve detentions, four failing grades, three suspensions totaling two weeks of missed school, two in-school suspensions, and one itching urge to get under my skin.
He got under my skin easily enough, but I never expected he'd do so in an almost literal sense. I thought my morals might have won out if the situation ever arose, and maybe if it had been someone else, someone less tenacious and persistent— less Eren, I might have. The moment we met our fates were sealed and it didn't matter to the universe that he was off limits in every way possible.
I uselessly pulled on a pair of briefs before exiting the bathroom, knowing full well what I'd find so wickedly lain across my bed. His socks and shoes were gone but he kept the rest of his suit on, playing shamelessly with my turn ons before we'd even begun. The first time Eren might have looked good in a tailored suit, but at seventeen he didn't have the kind of attitude to make it work one hundred percent; now, at twenty-seven, he had it. The thought of it— the fucking image before me, makes me shudder.
"Are you going to come here or am I going to have to coax you?" Eren interrupts my reverie, and yet again I'm hit with the fact that this is reality. There's a man ten years younger than me clad in a well-fitted suit ensemble, sprawled across my sheets, and I'm about to be ravaged by him.
I make him wait just a moment longer before moving forward and pouncing on his frame. He chuckles, the sound so masculine I feel it between my legs and inwardly whimper. Was I this attracted to him back then? "Someone's confident," I tease, masking my flustered state quickly enough not to let it show. Being on top helps.
He places his hands on my thighs, his handsomely tanned forearms a striking contrast to the white of his shirt sleeves rolled up just below his elbows. "Is there any reason I shouldn't be?"
The way he cocks his eyebrow when he says it makes me want to kiss him violently, so I do. His arms envelop me until I'm pressed against him flush, his body heat seeping through the fine cotton of his shirt and the undershirt beneath. I'm so distracted by my own hunger for his lips that I don't notice when he's taken the upper hand and laid me flat on my back. I don't care, just as long as he keeps pressing against me, keeps kissing me back. After going so long without even being in the same room as him I'm determined not to let him get away from me so easily ever again.
He's gotten better. It shouldn't bother me, but it does. We were never an official couple, I even told him plenty of times not to hold himself back in the event that someone else did catch his eye. The more his attentions were elsewhere the less they were on me and the less I had to worry about being caught. But now I think of him with someone else and it makes me ill.
"What's wrong?" Eren asks, breathless. His fingers card through my hair in a worrying fashion and I involuntarily press into the feel. "Do you still want to? We can wait, I just got back, it's only the first night...."
Looking up under the cover of lashes I can see how concerned he is and it's incredibly endearing. "Nothing's wrong." At his disbelief, I indulge in a smile I'd been trying to fight off for a good thirty minutes, adding very tenderly, "I promise."
When he speaks again his voice drops an octave and I barely have the restraint left to stay stoic. "Good."
I'm done for.