Archive of Our Own

“Are you the witch?”

“Yes.”

“I…I need to speak to you. It’s really important.”

Levi’s leg hurts.

Which is saying too little, honestly.

Every time he sees a doctor or one of the old men with brittle bones who hang around the market they always whittle the problem down to that small sentence. His leg hurts. If Levi were a poetic man he’d word it a bit differently, really drive in the level of suffering he’s endured for the past six months.

Because his leg doesn’t just hurt. His leg has been actively torturing him. He has felt nothing but pain for so long that he’s become numb to anything else, and his life has boiled down to a steady routine of ‘attempting to hurt just a little less’. Hundreds of adjustments every day to soothe the throbbing and feign normality. Endless attempts to work through flares of agony. Countless days where he grits his teeth and limps wherever he may have to go.

The kids in his neighborhood call him the village cripple, for fucks sake.

It started with his ankle. He thinks he may have busted something while climbing the steps, popped something out of place when he stumbled on the wobbly board halfway up and had to scramble to avoid breaking his neck. His house has been filled with problems like that lately, so it’s pretty likely. His ankle hurt with the sharp pain of a sprain and he didn’t even think enough of it to call the doctor. He wrapped it and stayed inside for a few weeks to wait it out.

But then the sprain never went away.

The stinging pain in his ankle festered, growing in intensity as weeks passed by and no sign came that it was going to get any better. Then the pain spread. His foot hurt next, always sore, his toes always cracking, always making him clench his teeth when he pulled his boots on. Then it traveled slowly, ever so slowly as the days went on, until every time he walked he felt as if someone had embedded a knife in his calf.

Over the course of half a year he’s lost any semblance of normal mobility. He carries a cane now just so he can stand going to work. He’s left a permanent bodily imprint in his favorite chair and he bought a new pillow just to prop his foot on so that maybe he can nap without wanting to die. He can barely get up to clean. It’s no way for a man to live.

The local doctor’s all but given up on him. Pain medication worked at first, giving him a few weeks of moving like a normal person, but now every time they try something new or up the dosage it just gets worse. By the time fall rolls around he’s considered a lost cause and he’s started getting uncomfortable stares from everyone he passes when he hobbles outside of his house.

The calculated point that he officially gives up is the day after Christmas. It’s cold, his leg muscles tightening then stabbing him sharply every time the wind blows, and he’s inching along like a pathetic geezer in a foolish attempt to reach the market square. He taps his cane against the cobblestones, testing for ice, then steps forward. His teeth clench against the pain but he keeps moving.

Then his knee feels like a circus strongman has taken a mallet to it. Lightning erupts, shattering his kneecap into thousands of pieces and embedding every single one in his muscles like broken glass.

The result is instantaneous. Levi goes down, leg buckling under his weight, cane flying from his hand and skittering along the ice, and he cracks his skull quite nicely on the uneven stones as he collapses into an entirely ungraceful heap. White dances over what should be a lovely view of the village from the ground, blinking like fairy lights as the telltale smell of copper worms its way into Levi’s nose. He doesn’t need to test his fingers on his skull to tell he’s bleeding. He can feel it dripping down his face.

That is the moment he quietly gives up. Cold, from the wind and from the stones, seeps into his clothes and his leg gives a painful clench as Levi makes no move to get up from the ground.

This is how he ends. Levi, once a great man, once a powerful man, now reduced to a pathetic heap laying on the cold street. Doomed to suffer the fate of the homeless who quietly pass in the alleys when it snows. Destined to freeze and obstruct the walkway just in time for the morning commute. If only his mother could see him now. How proud she would be of her son.

“Are you okay?”

Bless, a stranger coming to see the fall of his dignity.

It isn’t until he tries to move that he really feels how much of the cold has wormed its way inside his clothes. Levi’s head tilts, ever so slightly minding the throbbing from his fall, and the sight of well-worn but comfortable shoes greets him. The shoes stop around his cane and dainty fingers wrap around its handle, picking it up gently before his rescuer shuffles over to him faster than before.

He recognizes them now, thanks to a glimpse of fine blond hair. Arlert. The bookkeeper who runs the shop next to his. He works under his grandfather and comes in every once in a while. He usually leaves a book behind.

“Mr. Ackerman? Oh gosh, that doesn’t look good…” Arlert kneels next to his crumpled body, cane clenched in his hands, and he brings forth his thin little fingers to brush away some of Levi’s hair to get a better look at his injury.

Considering Levi is older and a prideful son of a bitch, this rubs him the wrong way and he can’t hold in his own irritation. He isn’t some fragile spinster who needs to be nursed, dammit.

“I’d hope it wouldn’t. I broke my skull, last thing I’d want is to be pretty.”

To give one point to Arlert, he doesn’t even react. He sets the cane down and settles himself a bit more to help Levi stand. “Let me help-“

Levi bats him away and rolls over so he can lift himself up. “Fuck off. Give me my cane.”

Arlert does so without hesitation.

Getting up is slow, painful, and Levi pretends he doesn’t contemplate throwing up right there on the street when his knee gives a terrible creaking noise the second he tries to bend it. He wobbles more times than he cares for and he can feel the bruising forming under his clothes. Arlert watches the entire spectacle with a closed expression.

“Um, sir?” Again, he doesn’t even react when all Levi does is glare in his direction. “Just a suggestion. Your leg…hasn’t gotten any better, has it?”

Levi would hit him with the cane if it wasn’t the only thing keeping him upright. He opts for another option, hissing through his teeth “Is it that obvious? I was so sure I was skipping like a schoolgirl.”

Arlert recoils at that, going a bit red with the realization he’s cause offense. “No, I mean-“ He waves his hands, breathing for a moment before calming himself and starting over. “Have you…have you considered asking the witch?”

Levi actually gives the effort to turn his whole body, staring a hole into Arlert’s head. “The witch?”

He knows Arlert isn’t joking. That’s the sad thing.

There is a witch who lives at the edge of the village. Everyone knows that. The baker knows it. The church knows it. Levi knows it, despite not caring much for town gossip.

But Levi’s never put any stock in the rumors. He’s been content to ignore the witch’s presence entirely. If people want to go around believing some con artist who lives in the woods then feel free, it’s their own fault when shit goes sideways and they have no one to blame but themselves. He’s met plenty of people who use the same shtick to sell whatever they want to any person stupid enough to buy it. He grew up watching fool after fool give all their money to miracle creams and magic charms and coming back empty handed long after the seller packed up and moved on to the next street corner. He isn’t so far down in the dumps yet that he’s willing to fall for something so stupid.

And Arlert must see this plain as day on his face, because he presses forward with more intent than Levi would expect from someone so…small.  

“Well, the witch helped my grandpa. He’s felt better than he has in years!”

Levi turns away and begins hobbling toward the general direction of the market. His knee is actively killing him with every step but he doesn’t care. “I don’t need an old crone selling snake oil. Especially if she’s got a kid peddling for her.”

“No, really!” Arlert jumps ahead of him, eyes flickering to Levi’s wobbling leg as he keeps up ahead of Levi’s slow pace.  “The witch kept me from going under when I caught that fever in spring…a lot of people, actually-“

He shuts up, then, catching the fury building behind Levi’s eyes. Arlert quickly backs away a few steps and keeps a more respectable distance as Levi continues wobbling down the street.

“Sorry. I just…just, something to keep in mind,” Arlert’s voice follows him weakly, timid and barely heard over the wind. Levi doesn’t look back.

The witch, honestly. He’d thought the kid was smarter than that.

It turns out gullibility is contagious.

“Oh sure, I’ve been to see the witch!”

Petra’s smile is radiant despite the cold outside, and Levi actually has to reel back from his perch at the front desk looking over the shop books. He will not deny the sharp stab of betrayal in his chest at her words. He trusted her to be smarter than this.

“…you’re kidding,” He deadpans.

“Nope.” Petra winks, stepping down from the stool she’d been using to restock one of the higher shelves. Levi hates the fact he’s confined to the front desk, it’s his shop and his responsibility, but the twinge in his knee reminds him this is what employees are for. “Remember last year when I was fainting and getting sick a lot? I went to the witch, and I got this little charm to cook in my food; I’ve felt great ever since.”

Levi shakes his head, deciding that he can no longer trust Petra’s good judgement. “You got a placebo.”

“Aurou’s seen the witch, too. You’ll notice he hasn’t bitten his tongue since September,” Petra points out, pulling a box of stock close and opening it to restock the shelf of fruity teas that always sells out around the holidays.

Levi tuts, “That you know of.”

Petra wrinkles her nose at him before turning to her other side, eyes falling on the only other person in the shop with them.

“Eld, didn’t you see the witch a few months ago?”

Eld, until this point, has been smart enough to ignore them both and sweep the floor like he’s supposed to. When Petra finally drags him in, though…

“Sure did. Gave me a ring to give to my sweetheart for a blessed marriage. We’re expecting twins now.” Eld’s face melts into that sickly lovey-dovey look that Levi hates, cheeks flushing a bit as he leans against the broom. If he were any further gone there would be hearts floating around his head. He at least has half a mind to look slightly apologetic about it.

Levi cringes, a shiver of disgust crawling up his spine. “That’s just you being a horny git.” 

“You just don’t want to believe in anything,” Petra teases, flicking Levi’s ear when she stacks the empty stock boxes behind the desk to throw out later. “Why the sudden interest, anyway?”

Levi looks away from her and rolls his jaw. The bruising from his fall has finally come to its peak, purple and yellow mingling on his skin in ugly splotches, and every time he gets up he can feel how tender he is all over. His knee hurts just as much as ever and overall it’s been a very…well, in general it’s been a shitty few days.

It doesn’t help that at home he feels more and more like an invalid. He’s tripped on the stairs, lost everything from his keys to his silverware, and this morning when he left there was a leak in the roof he knows he’ll have to pay someone else to fix.

It’s been very hard, with such a terrible string of luck, to simply forget about Arlert’s suggestion.

“The kid next door suggested it. For my leg,” Levi mutters.

Petra hums, looking over Levi’s leg from where it’s stretched out under the front desk. She’s always been the first person to know every time his leg situation got worse, she’s well aware of how hard the past few months have been. “I’m surprised you haven’t already tried.”

“I’m surprised you all believe a scammer with a pointy hat. You know all those smiles and niceties are just for show,” Levi replies, something akin to a grin daring to form on his face.

The shop becomes quiet at that.

“What?”

Petra hunches her shoulders, wincing just slightly. “No one ever said the witch was nice.”

Levi only raises an eyebrow.

“No, she’s being serious,” Eld buts in. “The witch is…intimidating. Can’t really tell if I can trust anything that comes out of that house. I half expected the ring to kill me, the way I was looked at.”

Petra nods, agreeing with his story and both of them sharing the same scared look.

If anything, the stories about the witch are even hokier now. Levi’s seen this tactic too. Some con artists use sweet talk and compliments, others use the image of power. It wouldn’t take much to convince countryside villagers of being a mighty and powerful witch.

“You were basically advertising all of this to me five seconds ago.”

“I think going would be a good idea, I really do, just…” Petra bites her lip, setting a gentle hand on Levi’s shoulder and dropping her voice low. “Be wary. Always watch exactly what’s being said, and what you have to pay.”

Levi actually laughs at that. Granted, he’s been told his laughter isn’t actual laughter, but a weird throaty noise that would scare children, but he does it.

“Or what, she’ll gobble up my firstborn?” Levi shrugs off Petra’s hand, reaching for his cane as he stands up. He’s gone too long without a drink and the perks of owning a tea shop is that he always has something to make. “Petra, I’m not going. The fact you think I would go is hilarious.”

“You’ll eat your words, Levi Ackerman!” Petra calls after him.

“Get back to stocking!” He calls back.

He does, in fact, eat his words starting the next night.

His leg pain’s always had some level of predictability. It’s little things, like how and when to use a heating pad, or what weather aggravates it, or the right way to prop it up so that he can relax for a while. He’s been managing this far because he learned the little things that allow him to live his life around the constant muscle fuckery.

But the second he lays down to sleep, everything normal about his leg goes out the window and he ends up staying up until four in the morning contemplating sawing his limb off. The metaphor of the circus strongman and the mallet is replaced with the butcher hacking at his leg muscles with a dull cutting knife.

And it goes on for hours.

And hours.

And hours.

It’s when he emerges from bed with only thirty minutes of sleep and tears of pain bubbling in his eyes that he makes his decision. If anything else, maybe the old crone has some strong whiskey and he can drink the feeling away for a little while.

The appeal of the village comes from the wall. It’s the first thing anyone hears about, and the picture that gets put up when people consider traveling. The village itself is the kind that’s got all the storybook looks; fairy tale houses, cobbled streets, a market square with shops that have been open for hundreds of years; that sort of thing. There’s even laws that keep all the buildings maintaining their ‘historical appearances’ for the tourists. But the wall is truly something else.

Back when the village was first built it was like any other. But something happened—one story says wild animals, another says war—made the villagers decide building a circular wall and corralling all the people inside was a wise choice. The village grew inside the wall into the charming place it is today, and everything outside was either left to rot or rebuilt much later when the village no longer considered the wall as the definite border.

Most of the rebuilding efforts are on the northern and western side, though. The expansion follows the train tracks and civilization. On the eastern and southern side is nothing but wild forests, and the village is content to leave it all alone as the ruins of their forefathers is overtaken by nature.

The southern side is where the witch lives.

Levi downs enough pain medication to kill an animal before he leaves. The journey from his house to the southern exit isn’t nearly as daunting that way.

The southern exit leads directly outward and into the forest; the cobbled path continues on long enough to connect to the circular road that surrounds the village before tapering off and being overrun with tree roots. Levi wobbles unsteadily on his feet when the road ends and squints into the snow, tracking down the dirt paths left over from ages past that should lead him to whatever hovel the witch is living in.

He locates it with only minimal difficulty. The path through the snow is wide enough for one person, in a twisty line that seems to go nowhere.

It isn’t a surprise to see how people are iffy about visiting the place. The first run-down house Levi passes is barely a shell of a building. Just stones, making up what used to be a wall. Rotten wood leaning against young trees supporting nothing. Winter robs it all of the beauty it may have with plants reclaiming the stone, leaving only bare vines and branches to add to the feeling of emptiness. The few structures that still bear windows whistle as the wind passes through. Half formed houses, a broken garden wall, trees that have grown enough to consume what may have been a store—a bird erupts from the gaping maw of a partially collapsed home and Levi almost drops his cane.

The noise of the village is mysteriously absent. The silence that takes its place isn’t comforting.

Every slow step Levi takes only drives him further into an eerie stillness that raises the hairs on his neck.

According to the rumors, the ones he remembers at least, the witch lives in the house with a garden around it. Levi passes more and more dilapidated homes, more patches of trees that have long since overtaken whatever human settlement may have existed before, and he begins to think maybe he should have asked for a map before he spots something out of the corner of his eye.

He would have missed it if it wasn’t for the smoke rising out of the tilted chimney.

The house is surrounded by a garden. The snow and cold have left it empty and blanketed in white, lumps being the only sign of the rocks that make its border and tall sticks in a row signifying what may end up being tomatoes come spring. As Levi comes closer more and more details come to light and he sees the house does look like it’s been lived in.

The house itself is a miracle, considering it hasn’t collapsed on itself. It sinks into the earth, brick and wood warped into an odd shape that may have been rectangular once, long since changed into something oblong. The roof tilts inward toward the middle and the chimney sits at an angle with the smoke coming out of a half sideways top. Soft light shines through red curtains in the windows and the pathway leading to the entrance is perfectly shoveled, with a mat laid out covered in bits of snow. There’s a pile of logs partly covered by a tarp and boot prints in the snow lead from there to the door in a pathway that’s become mostly slush. Another leads off further away where Levi can see a chicken house nestled between two trees.

For some reason the air around the place seems charged.

Levi pauses, just for a moment, and wonders what he’ll see on the other side.  Childhood stories make him think maybe it’s a gross hag with stringy hair. Experience makes him think of a woman with an obviously fake turban and a set of cards. He knocks, heavy and shaking from the cold and maybe even that medicine, and waits.

The knocks themselves are thunderous in the silence of the forest. They echo into the stillness, fading…fading…

The door opens with a bang and Levi blinks in surprise when a youthful face takes the place of weathered wood.  

“What?”

The face belongs to a boy. His voice is rough, irritated as he stares down at Levi’s crooked form leaning on his cane on the doorstep. Dark hair frames his face and Levi can see the shiny fabric of a headband peeking out.

Levi is lost for a moment, staring at the boy’s eyes. They’re incredibly green.

“I have a problem,” He says dumbly.

“Doesn’t everybody?” The boy gripes. He sweeps over Levi’s face, brow knitting together before his face relaxes. He opens the door wider and steps back, gesturing with a wooden spoon clenched in one hand. “Come in. Clean your boots or I throw you back outside.”

Levi does so, glaring when the boy slams the door after him before marching deeper into the house. The boy is tall compared to himself. Dark skin lights up brilliantly in the light of the crackling fire in the sagging fireplace, his dress—dress?

Levi blinks. The boy walks past cluttered bookshelves, rows of jars and candles and mirrors and shining stones piled on every surface, and the movement causes swishing of fabric that catches the eye immediately. From the doorway it had looked like a normal jumper, but Levi can see now that it’s a rather long one. Past the hips down to the knee of heavy material, with the fabric of a much softer layered skirt peeking out from under it. His legs are covered in striped stockings and thick knit leg warmers frame the chunky shape of winter boots. 

Before he can stop himself, Levi finds himself muttering “That’s a dress,” in the most confused voice.

The boy turns to him from in the kitchen, narrowing his eyes as he sets the spoon down and picks up a knife.

“Yes. That’s a chair. That’s a door.” He says, pointing with the knife before setting something down on the chopping block and making quick work of it. “Care to point out anything else obvious?”

Suddenly Petra and Eld’s intimidation makes sense. The simple act of cutting what looks like a potato seems much more violent than usual with that much irritation behind every movement. The boy isn’t even looking at him but Levi gets the distinct impression that the kid is imagining his face is that vegetable.

Not that it really works to make Levi feel anything other than annoyance.

This can’t be the witch. This is just an angry brat.

Levi squints, focusing on the back of the boy’s head, and says in a clear voice—“I came to see the witch.”

“Present,” The boy replies flippantly.

Well hell.

Levi looks around the house. The insides are tilted and odd just like the outside, but it’s all so…disjointed. Past the endless layers of candles and crystals and jars the kitchen is filled with spices and plants, pots and pans hanging from hooks as something meaty smelling bubbles on an ancient stovetop. An honest-to-god cauldron is sitting two feet away from Levi’s legs next to the fireplace. A handmade broom is propped against a cabinet filled with dishes that seem to be from thirty different sets all thrown together with no care for matching. This is what he’d expect for a witch’s house.

But the boy in the kitchen is the last thing he expects to go with it all.

“…you aren’t-“

The boy cuts him off immediately, throwing the potato bits into the pot and adding a small pinch of spices into the mixture without breaking a sweat. “I’m aware. If you’d like to see an older woman with warts, you’ll have to try picture books and a costume shop.”

Levi bites his tongue before he replies with something nasty. The kid’s attitude is something else.

His leg pulses and he remembers why he’s here in the first place.

“Are you going to ask anything or are you just here wasting my time?” The boy asks.

Levi sighs and settles his weight a little more firmly on his cane. Again with this kid’s attitude. If this were six months ago…

Well. If this were six months ago he’d still be himself. There would be no reason asking a witch for help like the desperate invalid he’s become.

“My leg. It’s been hurting for half a year,” He bites through his teeth.

The boy looks at him, a cocky smile glimmering in the firelight. “Already see the doctor, did you?”

Levi’s eye twitches. “The pain medication stopped working. It just kept getting worse.”

The boy stirs his pot, eyeing it for a moment unsurely before stirring again and putting a top on it. He lazily wipes his hands on a rag before tossing it aside and allowing his eyes to roam over his guest. He doesn’t bother fixating on the cane like Levi expects. He stares Levi in the face instead.

There is a second that drags on for far too long as he seems to dissect Levi through his eyes, invasive and predatory, before he blinks and makes his way over, settling in an overstuffed chair covered in a patchwork quilt.

“Sit down,” The boy orders. Levi wrinkles his nose but his leg throbs enough to convince him to flop into the chair sitting opposite the boy’s. It’s the softest chair he’s ever felt in his life. “Did it start anywhere specific?”

Levi thinks back to his ankle on the stairs. How one moment he had been going up to his room, he stopped to take an old picture off the wall, and then suddenly…

Suddenly pain, like an ice pick had been driven directly into his ankle.

“Come on—I can’t work unless you say something, you daft bastard,” The boy demands.

“My ankle,” Levi mutters. “Then my foot, then it just started moving upwards…took out my knee this week and now I can’t even sleep.”

“Hm.” The boy leans forward and gestures. Levi reluctantly moves his cane to his other side and stretches his leg out. The boy gently takes it in one hand and puts his fingers to the muscles, testing. “On a scale of one to ten?”

He presses down below the knee. Levi’s knuckles go white as he clings to the plush arm of the chair.

“Twelve,” He hisses, through teeth clenched so hard he feels they’re going to break in his mouth.

The boy’s lips quirk up and he lets go.

“And yet you walked here.”

Levi frowns. “I was in the army once.”

“Right, big strong tough manly man. Got it.” The boy waves one hand, sarcasm pouring with every word before he focuses on Levi’s face again.  “You’re loaded out of your mind, no wonder.”

There is a limit to how much bullshit Levi is willing to take from other people. The level varies, from family to customers to strangers, but he very much has a limit. The kid is rapidly approaching the limit. Levi clenches the arms of the chair, growling from the pulsing in his leg as the painkillers he took before coming do jack shit to null the ache that’s going to make the walk home an actual hell.

“Do you know how to help or not? I’m only out here asking for your crackpot ‘magic’ because I don’t have other options,” Levi snaps.

The boy raises an eyebrow. “Have you tried cutting it off?”

And that is the limit.

“I’m wasting my time here, I knew it—“ Levi grips his cane and stands, biting down an agonized groan as his leg screams at him for the high crime of moving. The boy doesn’t move as he begins the awkwardly slow shuffle back to the door.

He takes one step and he wobbles dangerously. Levi hears the boy sigh heavily, feeling the eye roll boring into his back.

“Stop,” The boy orders. Something compels Levi to listen, entire body stiffening and halting its journey out. “Sit.”

Levi does so.  

The boy stares at him again, bright ocean eyes glimmering dangerously in the flickering light of the fireplace. Petra’s words come back. Be wary, she had said. He can see why now.

Beneath those eyes and that youthful face is something dangerous.

“To start you off, I’m giving you tea and a medicine of mine,” The boy begins, voice much softer and lacking the edge from before.

Levi scoffs.

“That’s your answer? Tea? I own a tea shop, I have-“

The boy silences him with only a look.

“I can assure you, Levi Ackerman, that you do not have what I am giving you,” The boy says, commanding and powerful in a way that escapes words. “And this is far from the actual solution. I just don’t want you doped on painkillers all the time. Those things rot your mind from the inside if you take them needlessly.”

There is a moment of silence, with the only sign the world is still turning being the crackling in the fireplace and the distant bubbling from the stove.

“What is the solution?” Levi asks.

“Tell me what your home is like.”

Levi blinks.

“What?”

“Your home. Describe it.” The boy urges, pressing his fingertips together in front of his face and wiggling a bit more snuggly into his chair.

Levi blinks again.

“It’s a house,” He starts, unsure and grasping for the faintest clue as to what this has to do with anything. “It’s small, but I like it.”

“Gardens? Yard? Family?” The boy motions for him to go on, urgent.  “Details, please.”

“I have the tiniest yard in the back. No gardens. I live alone,” Levi continues, tense. What purpose this has escapes him completely.

“Alone?” The boy asks.

“Alone,” Levi assures.

“Do you lose things? Has the house had troubles, lately?” The boy tilts his head as he presses, inquisitive and just on the other side of unsettling.

Levi grips his cane tightly. That’s exactly how things have been. The leaky roof, the loose step, just that morning when his bedroom door jammed—

He steels his face to hide the fact the kid is hitting the nail on the head.

“What does that have to do with my leg?” He asks, voice flat and even.

“Everything.” The boy smiles. “You understand, of course, that my services do not come free.”

“Nothing in life does,” Levi shoots back.  “So what’s the cost? How much money are we talking here?”

The boy wrinkles his nose. His offense is clear, with the way he sits up and eyes Levi like he’s just insulted his mother.

“I do not charge money for these services,” The boy spits. “You hear fine, Mr. Ackerman, but you do not listen. It would be wise to remedy that.”

Levi never has been a patient man with metaphors and mumbo-jumbo. He only gets angry, pressing on and seeking to end this meeting as soon as possible so he can leave.

“So what? Do I owe you a favor? A tin of my shop’s product?”

The boy thinks.

He puts his hands together, resting them over his lap as he toils over his options in his mind. He cares not for Levi’s impatience or the sky getting darker outside. It is a long minute or so that he debates his price and every second that passes is loaded more than the last.

“Open your home.”

Levi waits a beat before shaking his head. He must have misheard.

“What?”

“Your home. I want you to open it,” The boy says, unperturbed.

Anger swells in Levi’s veins, thinking of how much he’s put into his home and how hard he’s worked just to have it. He toiled for years to have the money for a house. He worked himself to the bone to make the move out to the village. He’s invested so much time, so many days to filling it with the things that make it home…

And this little brat wants it in exchange for tea and medicine.

“You can’t have my house, you fucking-“

“I just told you you need to listen more, you fuckwit.” The boy raises his hand, glaring.  “I don’t want to own your home. I have one already.”

The little voice in Levi’s head telling him he can walk away gets just a little louder, but he ignores it and continues on. He needs a cure. He needs relief.

“Then what?”

The boy comes forward, leaning out of his chair to get directly into Levi’s space. Levi meets him head on.

“Your leg is a problem that will not be fixed by a cup of tea and some coddling. It will take time. It will take work. The new year is about to start, after all. A perfect time for change.” The boy leans away then, returning to the lax manner of someone who is completely at peace. “Give me one day to settle things here.”

Settle?

Levi looks around. At all the crystals, bundles hanging from god-knows-where, blankets, candles—

It comes out hollowed out and dumb, the realization.

“You want to live in my house.”

The boy shrugs. “Until the problem is fixed. Once that’s done I will leave.”

“It doesn’t seem fair—“ Levi starts, grasping to find some way to stop this—

“I can cook, clean, and I will be providing assistance for that bum leg of yours. All I ask in return is a roof over my head.” The boy rises from his chair and moves to one of his overstuffed shelves with an elegance that seems almost out of place. “Don’t like it? Shove it up your ass and keep popping opiates until you hit the street for something harder.”

Levi bites back his complaints. He knows that last bit is true.

The medicine from the doctors has done nothing. It worked for a little while, just a small window, but now he has to take so much just to get some kind of reaction. He can’t go through life with his mind in the clouds. He can’t keep relying on those things just to live. Not when they don’t work.

He’s seen what people become when they take those things without needing them. 

“…and this will definitely fix my leg?” Levi grips at his cane, rubbing his thumb against the smooth wood.

“If all goes well, you’ll be leaping from the rooftops like an able gymnast,” The boy promises. He isn’t looking back, plucking a small bag and an even smaller bottle of something red from the mess on his shelf and nodding to himself.

Levi debates exactly what he’s doing here.

He could turn down the offer. He could leave. He’s never believed in this alternative garbage anyway. He could go see a specialist about his leg. He’s lived alone for so long, and he likes being alone, prefers being alone.

But on the other hand…

His leg throbs. The pain is intense enough to make his chest tighten.

He thinks that’s enough of an answer.

“When can I expect you?”

The boy smiles.

“Dinner,” He says, handing Levi the bag and the bottle before heading back to his kitchen and returning to his food. “Take that with yours tonight, by the way.”

So this is it. Levi nods, pocketing the items and standing up to go.

He hobbles to the front door and braces himself for the cold waiting on the other side before stopping and looking back to the kitchen.

“Can I have your name, at least? If you’re going to barge into my house and all?” Since you already know mine somehow is left unsaid.

The boy’s lips curl like the Cheshire cat, menacing as he takes his pot off the hot stovetop.

“Eren.”

He takes the medicine.

Levi, for the first time in ages, sleeps a full 8 hours and walks to the shop the next day with his leg only somewhat throbbing.

The word Levi would use to describe his house is ‘dreary’.

He doesn’t like using that word, but it fits.

He isn’t sure when his house made the drastic fall from ‘homey’ to ‘dreary’, but it’s painfully obvious when he leaves the shop early with the intention of cleaning and he actually gets a good look at everything without his leg distracting him. Before this whole mess started his house was a place of comfort. A place of safety. He bought it just because it was the kind of house he would have wanted as a kid. Now something is always off about it, something just isn’t right. The warm sunspot where his chair sits lacks the cozy feel it used to have. His kitchen is dull and empty. The walls are bone-chilling with how bare they are. The mirrors are covered and the curtains are drawn, leaving everything coated in a layer of darkness that he’s willfully ignored until now.

He tries to fix it. Key word: tries. His leg isn’t cured, but he has more mobility than he’s had in a while so he makes headway much faster than predicted. He gets a broom and manages to bat away the cobwebs on the ceiling that have been bothering him for ages. He mops. He sweeps. He wipes at the counters until they shine and dusts everything twice.

He feels a bit better than he has in several weeks, getting all of it done. He almost forgets his leg ever hurt at all once he gets into the swing of it. Hours pass with the house beginning to look more like its old self and the looming arrival of the witch is nothing more than fleeting thoughts amidst scrubbing and wiping. It doesn’t even fully register until somewhere between cleaning out the fireplace and beating out the sofa cushions, when he stops and makes the last of the tea.

He pushes the witch out of his mind and keeps cleaning. He wants to get his house back in order while he can move. Hopefully this arrangement will only last a week or two and he’ll be back to comfortable solitude.

Upstairs has a different level of need than the rest of the house. Levi’s room feels too big once he’s done clearing out all the corners, too easy since his things only take up half the room at most and leave the rest as an odd sort of void. Most of his attention goes to the walkway and the bathroom, scrubbing at the tiles and bleaching everything back to perfect whiteness. He can finally exchange the shower curtain for a new one he bought months ago and the act of throwing the old one out is refreshing in a way he can’t describe.

It’s the other bedroom, the one across from his that he passes every time he climbs the stairs, which raises his hackles.

He hasn’t gone in there in quite a while. He cleaned it out some time ago but…well. He’s pretended it wasn’t there. He doesn’t need that room anyway. He’s only one person and he doesn’t have an abundance of things to put in storage. Levi stops, after finishing up the floors, and simply looks at the door for a while. He could go in and dust. He could make sure nothing is laying out. He could change the sheets on the bed or make sure the closet has enough storage space.

In the end it goes untouched. Levi cleans the outside of the door but doesn’t set foot inside.

The witch arrives the moment he begins fixing his dinner. He hasn’t even pulled the food out of the fridge when he sees something standing in his walkway, waiting. Materializing out of seemingly nowhere, clad in thick stockings and a long coat, with a bag over his shoulder and a trunk at his feet the witch spots him through the window with a nod.

 Levi opens the door to let him in and doesn’t comment on how easily the trunk glides along as Eren pulls it with one hand. In the distance Levi can see his neighbors pressed against their windows and whispering.

He shuts the door a little more forcefully than normal, locking it as he explains “Your room is upstairs, to the right.”

Eren nods and pulls his things along, quietly surveying the house as he ventures deeper.

“You didn’t lie. You do live alone,” He says, stopping to stare at the covered hall mirror.

“I wouldn’t lie about that sort of thing,” Levi snaps.

“Living alone and living alone are different things, Ackerman. Hopefully you’ll learn the difference sometime soon.”

Before Levi can bite back, he’s gone. He ventures upstairs and that’s that. The beginning of an arrangement that needs to end as quickly as possible. 

The first day of the new year is spent with Eren unpacking his things. The spare bedroom smells of spices and flowers now, candlelight shimmering under the door constantly. The kitchen becomes filled with more jars than Levi can count and twenty new cooking utensils and tools find their way into what was once a very organized space. Candles begin invading Levi’s sitting room and he only complains once, before Eren glares at him and assures him they’re all scentless and won’t damage his precious furniture.

Not that it stops Levi from hating them. He didn’t know one person could own so many beeswax candles. Hell, he didn’t know bees could make this much bloody wax.

Eren tears open the curtains and upends the entire house to his own whims. But through it all the changes are always done in a way that when Levi tries to complain, he finds things haven’t changed nearly as much as he thinks. The spare bedroom is still locked away from him, out of sight. The kitchen is still his kitchen, and he can locate everything he needs even with the extra jars and pans. The candles in the sitting room are placed just so, just right so that when lit it’s at the perfect angle for reading or enjoying a nice rest, with no flames between him or any of the books he may want to pick up.

It’s change, but it’s also not that at all.

His house is not his anymore, but it is.

He exists alongside another, but when Eren isn’t in the room, it’s almost as if he doesn’t exist at all.

And that right there is the most mystifying thing. Eren’s presence.

Levi pays a lot of attention to the freeloader in his house. He wants to make sure he’s really getting what he’s paying for. Eren’s mere existence is something that confuses him, and makes him question himself in ways he can’t really explain. The first night of the arrangement, when Eren vanished upstairs it was as if he ceased to be. Levi didn’t hear a sound out of the second bedroom. Not a thump. Not a creak. He had almost forgotten he’d invited the witch inside until he turned around while cooking and found Eren standing just outside the kitchen.

When Eren is there it’s the exact opposite. Eren commands the room. His presence is suffocating, present in a way Levi can’t ignore even if he tried. Simple everyday things like making breakfast or sitting down to listen to the radio become something really worth watching, if only just to see if there is ever a break in the way the witch glides through each activity like something not of this world.

(There isn’t.)

(He’s checked. Even when sitting down to read there’s something about the way Eren holds himself, head high like a queen on her throne.)

The first knock takes him by surprise.

The routine of the arrangement has become a bit more settled. Eren’s medicine has lifted Levi’s spirits greatly, given to him every morning as he leaves for the shop and Eren settles in for a long day of…whatever it is Eren does. Levi isn’t sure if Eren does anything to earn money. He isn’t sure of anything Eren does when he isn’t there, and even when he is Levi has a hard time figuring out what exactly is going on. But he never seems bored, so Levi never bothers to question it.

Levi goes to the shop, where he’s finally starting to do more than just sit at the front desk every day, and when he arrives home Eren is cooking dinner to the soft tunes of the ancient radio in the sitting room. They don’t exchange many words but they’ve become a bit more comfortable. It’s the kind of progress that paves the way for actual productivity later.

The first knock comes on Levi’s day off. He’s spent the day enjoying the benefits of medicine, doing the laundry while Eren knits something in the sitting room. The knock takes him by surprise as he stops for a glass of water; confusing him when he opens the door and a woman he’s never seen before is standing on his porch with red eyes.

“I’m here to see the witch.”

Of course.

Eren appears as he always does, with no explanation or noise, and he calmly shoos Levi to the side as he opens the door wider and lets the woman in.

“You didn’t mention your clients would follow you,” Levi whispers, hushed and side-eyeing the woman sitting down on one of the stools in his kitchen.

“Did you expect me to tend to only you? That’s being selfish.” Eren brushes him away with a smile, one that plainly says he’s enjoying how uncomfortable Levi is at the moment. “This will be quick, don’t get your cane in a twist.”

With that he turns all of his attention to the woman in the kitchen, and Levi has no choice but to retreat to the sitting room to watch.

(He at least feigns picking up the newspaper. This is still his house and he should be privy to whatever the hell is going on inside it, but he’ll grant them the illusion of having this time to themselves.)

“Why are you here?” Eren stands instead of sits, watching the woman with the same stern face he greeted Levi with in the woods. In some way Levi feels vindicated that it isn’t just him that pisses Eren off by existing.

“It’s—it’s my boyfriend,” The woman hiccups, tears leaking from her eyes as she speaks. “He said he loved me, he said he adored me and that we were going to get married and live far away from here…”

She makes a throaty noise then, pulling a tissue from the pocket of her jacket and muffling an agonizing sound into it. Eren doesn’t budge to comfort her or show disgust at her display. He waits her out until she’s willing to speak again.

“B-But today, today I caught him in the arms of this other woman…the things they were doing! I feel like such a—People saw them, they probably think I’m an idiot, after all the boasting I did about him…” The woman’s words slur together and jumble in a mess, twisting themselves so intimately with each other that they become something new altogether.

Eren doesn’t seem to mind, leaning against the counter opposite the woman and keeping his voice cool.

“What do you want done, then? I’m not a mind reader.”

“I…I want this to stop. I can’t stand feeling this way. Can you maybe give me someone new? Or point me to who I’m going to be with? I just want someone to really love me,” The woman lets go of her tissue then, raising one hand and twisting a shiny ring on her finger. In the sunlight Levi can see the shine from the sitting room and it boggles his mind how large the diamond on it is.

Eren’s voice takes his attention back, with a cruel laugh paired with sharp eyes that cut the woman open with no mercy.

“You are a fool.”

“What?” The woman sniffs.

Eren pushes himself away from the counter, coming closer to the woman and crossing his arms as he takes her apart with words that make her shake in her seat.

“One doesn’t throw themselves onto a new person the second they’re discarded. And one doesn’t rely on people like me to solve the problems of their heart.”

“But…but—“ The woman tries to defend herself, tries to speak, but Eren cuts her off before she can summon anything to her lips.

“You’re the queen of all fools if you think me pointing you to another man is going to fix anything. And you’re the high queen of idiots if you think I have any sway over who you’re going to decide to devote yourself to,” He says with harsh eyes and a hard voice, looming over the woman and only intensifying her sadness as she withers beneath him.

It’s almost pathetic to see, how she crumbles and cries again, pressing her face into a new tissue from her pocket.

“Then what can you do?” She cries, muffled by the thin sheet and the skin of her hands.

“I could do a lot of things.” Eren says, in the way that implies he’s going to do none of them. He looks at her for a bit longer, watching her sniffle and dry away snot and tears on her reddening face, before something melts and his shoulders lose their posture. “But for you, I’ll give you this.”

He goes to one of the jars. The tops on some are wrapped with twine, Levi’s seen up close that each one is tied tightly and some are woven with beads and little fibrous threads. Eren takes one of his own knives, one of the sharp daggers with an onyx handle, from the chopping block and cuts one of the strings without a second thought.

“First, give me the ring on your finger. The one he gave you.” The woman startles, looking down at her finger with a face of pure aching before she sniffles and slides it off. Eren pockets it and replaces it with the string, tying it in a neat bow.  “Now take this instead. When you leave I want you to write his name, and the feelings you felt for him, down on paper. And I want you to burn it. Burn it and watch it burn, until all that’s left is the ashes. Wear this until it falls off and once it’s gone, I want you to avoid even the thought of another man.”

The woman sadly wiggles her finger, attention purely on the dainty bow where a diamond once stood. “Any man?”

“Any man. Focus on yourself. You’ll find as time goes on that things are better when you think about what you need instead of what another can give you.” Eren puts the knife back in the shopping block with the rest and returns to his former place, perched with his arms crossed and staring down the young woman whose tears are finally beginning to dry.

“And that’s…and that’s it?” She asks sadly.

“If a month passes and you still ache for him, come back,” Eren says with finality.

The woman gazes once again at her new ring with an ache in her eyes, but she nods and stands up, pocketing her tissues. “Thank you…”

“No thanks needed. Now go,” Eren ushers the woman to the door and sees her out, dismissing her as she tries to give her thanks again on the way out. The lock is locked once again and it’s as if the woman was never there at all.

Eren sighs and comes back to the sitting room, splaying himself over the sofa and taking out the ring to examine it in the sunlight. Levi lowers the newspaper and sets it aside.

“What are you going to do with the ring?” He asks, craning his neck. It’s a nice little thing, the kind of jewelry he rarely sees in places like this.

Eren hums and turns it over in his hands.

“It was a gift given out of false love.” He sets it down on the bricks in front of the fireplace, squinting at it before grabbing the ash shovel and hitting it with a loud CLANG. Levi cringes at the noise and frowns when he sees the big ‘diamond’ shattered under the hit.  “It’s fake, too, so this trinket is filled with deception and negativity. Wouldn’t do anyone any good as it is.”

“So it goes in the garbage?”

Eren thinks for a moment before shaking his head. He picks up the ring, sans fake diamond now, and tucks it into his pocket.

“I’ll take it to the jeweler. Have it melted down and remade. Purify it so that it can shed its past connections.”

Disappointing, but at least something will come out of it. Levi’s eyes travel back to the kitchen, to the stool where the woman was crying and the jar where Eren took his string. It all seems too simple.

“That woman…” He begins.

“What about her?” Eren replies, occupied with gathering up his knitting and counting how many stitches he got done that day.

“Don’t witches have real magic for that sort of thing? Love potions and ways to woo people?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Eren glares at him and pure venom radiates from his eyes, before he resumes counting his stitches then tucking his project into the little basket that holds his yarn.

“That woman wants self-fulfillment and a false sense of happiness from getting attention. Once she learns she can satisfy herself she’ll be better off.” Eren stands then, cracking his knuckles and checking the clock on the wall. “I’m going to start working on lunch. Do you want anything in particular?”

Levi is lost, still thinking about the woman.

It would be easy to sell her what she wanted. A fake potion or something to give her temporary happiness. Give her what her little heart desires so she’ll run off happy and spread the word and send more people Eren’s way. That’s how a con artist or a business would run things.

But all she ran off with was advice and some string from a jar.

“…no. No, anything is fine,” Levi mutters, watching Eren as he begins pulling out ingredients and plotting their meal.

It hits him then, that maybe the witch actually is good for some things.

 Levi has never been the most social butterfly, and part of the reason is that he’s not that great of a people person.

Meaning: He doesn’t like people, so he doesn’t pay attention to people unless it’s needed.

So it takes him a while before he notices the way the village is acting. Staring and whispering is something he’s gotten used to, with his increasing leg problems and reliance on his cane. And the marketplace is a notorious hovel for gossip. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t see wives and shopkeeps whisper to each other and laugh. The kids in the village are always saying something to each other, spreading rumors about whats-her-name or this-one-guy that are millions of variations on the same schoolyard myths.

That’s not even getting to the teenagers, who Levi still has trouble blocking out with how ferociously they go at it.

It’s genuinely weeks into the arrangement, as January bleeds into February, that he finally notices. And he only does so because Eren decides to walk alongside him to the market.

He wonders if Eren ever feels cold in his dresses. He’s long since stopped questioning why he wears them in the first place, but the more he looks at the fabric and how it swishes around his legs framed by thin lace the more he wonders if stockings and legwarmers are enough to fend off the freezing weather. Even under his coat Levi still shakes with the tendrils of cold seeping into the cracks. Eren, for what it appears, doesn’t notice the cold at all. He walks slowly to accommodate Levi’s pace on his cane and his gloved fingers, peeking out from a dark cloak settled on his shoulders, hold a basket that Levi suspects carries much more than could reasonably fit inside.

Eren catches him looking and deflects attention toward the way Levi’s leaning less of his weight on his cane.

“How’s your leg?”

“Feeling better.” Levi tests putting more weight on it and cringes, but he doesn’t fall to the ground like he would have weeks ago. “My knee doesn’t bother me at all now.”

“But the rest does?” Eren cranes his head to look at Levi’s leg better, watching the careful way he moves it as he avoids a patch of ice.

Levi shrugs. “It isn’t as bad as before, but it’s still enough to keep me from moving as much as I’d like.”

Which is still an improvement to before, at least. He’s been getting up more at the shop and actually walking around but most of the workday is still being spent sitting down.

“Hm,” Eren hums. He makes a pinched face, the kind Levi usually sees him make when he misses a stitch in his knitting, and shakes his head. “I thought as much.”

Levi rolls his eyes. Typical Eren. Only speaking in cryptic riddles and things that only make sense to himself.

“How long is this cure supposed to take, anyway?”

“That depends on you,” Eren replies in an even voice, eyes far away on the shops opening their doors and working on their window displays.

Levi stops and glares. “Excuse me?”

Eren stops a few steps later, turning back with an arched brow and that smug look Levi hates more than anything.

“I would explain, but we both know you don’t actually believe a thing I say about my craft so I’m not going to.”

Levi opens his mouth to argue. Then clamps it shut, because the little shit is right. He pointedly ignores Eren’s smug face as they fall back into step and enter the market.

Over the years Levi’s gotten used to the stares of the people here. They stared when he first moved in and it only took him a week to become accustomed to their nosiness. They stared when he opened his shop and began looking for workers. They stared in the spring, they stared when his leg began making him limp, they stared when he began using the cane—

The stares today, though, are far more intense.

He doesn’t notice until they’re just inside the market. Brenda from the butcher shop drops her broom when her eyes flicker in their direction and out of the corner of his eye Levi sees her run inside and wave her arms at her father at the counter. He’s confused for a moment before he hears the whispers.

On the other side of the street the man who runs the toy store is whispering to the paper boy. Not far from them two of the early shoppers are whispering to each other behind cupped hands and pointing in their direction. A teen on their bike nearly crashes into a pole when they double take as they pass.

Levi looks at his coat. Does he have something on it?

Is his face more pissed off than usual? He’s been told his resting face isn’t very pleasant, but—

It hits him when a grown man crosses the street to get away from them that it probably isn’t him. Levi glances at Eren out of the corner of his eye to find the witch is completely nonchalant at the shockwaves he’s sending through the marketplace. If people aren’t scooting away from them then they’re being entirely blatant about following them, with a few skittish schoolchildren separating from their path and staring at them with eyes as big as dinner plates.

Levi clears his throat when a mother yanks her toddler away from them and takes the long away around to avoid bumping into them. “Is it normal for you to have an audience?”

Eren shrugs.

“On average, they try to be more subtle. This direct approach is a little refreshing.” Eren tilts his head at Levi, flashing a smile of faux affection. “I think it’s because I have you as company.”

“Wonderful,” Levi mutters.

His shop is blessedly nearby, and he’s all too grateful to see the windows lit up when he opens the door and stomps inside. He’ll be glad to be rid of all the nosy fuckheads outside.

Eld is setting up the tables in the front of the shop and freezes when he looks up, a set of plates clenched in his hands. Petra has her back to them and is still humming a peppy song to herself as she dusts the display shelves behind the front desk.

“Good morning, Levi! I already set the kettle up, so—ah.” She turns around and drops the rag when her eyes land on Eren. The frozen smile on her face morphs into one of barely concealed terror. “Uh. You…hello, it’s been a while.”

Eren doesn’t react to the tension in the room, shifting his basket in his arms and nodding in Petra’s direction.

“Miss Ral.” He greets. He turns his head just slightly and Eld grips his plates to his chest. “Gin, how is your wife?”

Eld visibly swallows, inching towards Petra with all the grace of a deer on ice. “Good. Very good. We’re having twins in just a few months.”

“I see. You should come by when the birth is close, I have some things that should make it easier on the mother.”

Eld makes a noise Levi didn’t think could come from anything but a dog toy. “Will do.”

Levi sighs and taps his cane just a little too hard against the floor, making Petra and Eld jump and focus on his scowling face.

“Both of you stop standing like you have sticks up your asses,” He orders before turning just enough to look at Eren. “Are you going to stick around here, or…?”

“I have business to take care of, so no.” Eren waves Levi off, spinning on his heel to head toward the door.  “I may come by later, though. Your kettle selection looks promising.”

Levi snorts. “Yours is a rusty piece of shit, you need a new one.”

Petra and Eld’s jaws drop, but Eren just sticks his tongue out as he opens the door.

“My kettle has experience and has never once made a bad cup of anything. You have no faith in antiques.”

“Yeah yeah, scram you petty freeloader…” Levi shoos him out, making sure the door shuts properly before shucking his coat and ambling toward the front desk. Petra and Eld are still as statues the entire time. “What?”

“The rumors are true…” Petra whispers in awe.

“The hell are you talking about?” Levi throws his coat on the hanger and takes his place on the stool behind the desk. The book is already open and says they have a table booked for nine, which means he has just a little while to get everything ready before the monthly book club comes in to drink for two hours and talk.

Petra and Eld meet each other’s eyes before they flush and look bashful, looking anywhere but Levi as they sputter.

“We didn’t want to say anything—“ Petra starts.

“Especially since you hate gossip—“ Eld cuts in.

“But for the past few weeks everyone’s been saying the witch has been in the village,” Petra continues, snatching Eld’s plates from his hands before setting them out just to give herself something to do. “And that all the people who went looking for him were directed to your neighborhood.”

Eld doesn’t even bother to give himself busy work like Petra and stares at Levi like he’s some kind of precious creature.

“I never would have thought you of all people would be seduced by the witch. What a time to be alive.”

“I haven’t been seduced by anything,” Levi deadpans.

Petra sets down the last saucer and points at him accusingly. “Then explain yourself!”

“I went to him for my leg. He’s living in my spare room until he’s finished curing it.” Levi waves his cane for emphasis, bored at having to remind his own employees he’s been unable to stand for months.

Petra melts with disappointment and curls her lip. “That doesn’t explain anything!”

“Have you ever gotten a clear sentence out of him?” Levi asks pointedly. Petra doesn’t respond. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Eld inches closer to the desk and buts into the conversation with a question asked in a hushed voice, like Eren is outside listening and waiting to send his wrath down for daring to be curious. “What is it like? Living with him?”

“My sitting room smells like beeswax and I’ve become way too familiar with spice mixes.” Levi shoves him away with the cane, grabbing a pen from a cup and attempting to actually start working.

“No, no—do you see him do magic?” Eld nudges the tip of the cane away and presses on. Levi sighs and some deep, dark part of him accepts he isn’t going to work at all until a customer comes in to distract everyone.

“I see him mixing shit in his little pot and filling up jars with everything from herbs to cicada husks. He’s weird. If magic is spending three hours polishing a crystal and humming to the radio then it’s not nearly as exciting as stories make it out to be,” He snaps. “Anything else?”

Eld slumps, exactly as Petra did, like he’s a child who’s just been denied a cookie before dinner.

“You’re a terrible storyteller. Don’t you have anything good?”

Levi pointedly clicks his pen, crossing off the previous day’s reservations and refusing to look at the way his employees are begging him for petty gossip. “My house is regularly invaded by his clients. Nothing is good. Ever.”

“Boo,” Petra groans from the far tables.

“Get back to work,” Levi orders.

Eld and Petra make the sort of noises one would expect from a petulant twelve year old, but they comply.

It’s their nosiness on top of whatever the hell went on outside that really rubs him the wrong way. Something about spilling his guts over what goes on in his house feels wrong. Wrong in the way that makes your stomach churn and your bones ache, makes your mind buzz for hours because the idea is so terrible.

He doesn’t understand why, but he knows that’s how it feels.

He doesn’t want to tell anyone about Eren’s fuzzy sheep slippers that only make appearances after his nightly showers. Or how he always burns candles but never gets wax anywhere. Or how he wordlessly commands the kitchen, breathing life into foods Levi’s made for years but has never made so good. Or how sometimes, when Levi uncorks some wine, he goes to his room and returns with backwater moonshine that burns Levi’s eyes and reminds him of his younger days.

He doesn’t want to talk about the way Eren smiles when he’s lounging in his big striped socks and soft lounge pants, or the way he handles every person who comes to Levi’s door. God knows he doesn’t want to talk about the clients who don’t earn his immediate hatred and receive long talks instead, talks that he barely hears from how low Eren pitches his voice.

Something about telling everyone those little details feels like a betrayal, and he can’t shake it.

In the short time Eren has occupied his house, those things have become…well he can’t say comforting, or familiar, because they can’t be. He doesn’t even really know Eren as a person.

And he does miss living alone and having his house to himself.

Levi muses over this, tapping his pen against his lips as he thinks.

He guesses he’d have to say—

BANG

“I heard Levi got seduced by the witch!” Gunther Schultz barges into the shop, red-faced and panting with exertion. From the looks of it he ran all the way from the other side of the village.

Levi drops his pen and holds his head in his hands, groaning as Petra and Eld abandon their work to begin filling in their friend on the latest gossip.

If Levi had to say anything, it’s that Eren’s presence is currently his greatest annoyance.

“The next person who says I was seduced by anything is getting beaten to death with this cane.”

The first major step to Levi’s recovery comes on Valentines Day.

February begins with the town gossip going crazy and Levi suffering the consequences. Every day there are grown women and snotty children pressing themselves to the windows of his shop and fleeing when Levi glares at them. Every morning there are more whispers and more nosy shopkeepers making excuses to converge near his shop and amble around for a while. Some of the crowd dare to come in and browse for a few minutes, attempting to be sneaky by looking at him while he’s busy.

They aren’t. He can always tell.

Some dare to ask him directly about the witch. Some out of curiosity. Some out of disgust. A few notable souls do so while blushing and seem to drop hints that they would like to know if the witch is single.

None of this is helped by Eren’s frequent excursions to town. He’s been leaving the house more and more, vanishing into the markets or to some other corner of the village, and it stirs the pot every time someone spots him anywhere that isn’t his solitary cottage. The foot traffic that ensues when he stops by Levi’s shop to talk is more than the place has seen in years.

At home February truly kicks into gear when Levi begins to constantly answer to door to hopeful lovesick fools seeking love magic. Potions, charms, one teenager bluntly asking for luck to get laid—they turn out by the dozens in the days leading up to the holiday and Eren’s mood gets worse with every one. The first few were turned away outright and not even allowed inside. The next few were calmly told that Eren refused to make what they seek on principle. The next few were more insistent and tried to throw money, refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer.

Three days before Valentines Day, Eren gives in and begins handing out small vials. Levi watched him make them all himself; it’s nothing but water, food coloring, and rose petals.

Both of them agree it’s probably the best solution to get some peace and quiet. If any of the bastards notice it doesn’t work then maybe they’ll listen next time.

When the titular holiday arrives Eren surprises him by coming into the shop early, a satchel bouncing against his hip as he walks with a little more pep in his step than normal. The couples at the tables gawk and immediately begin whispering amongst themselves as Eren comes to lean against the desk, looming over the books as Levi attempts to work.

“We’re going ice skating.”

Levi’s pen halts while reserving a table. “What?”

“Ice skating,” Eren repeats. “They have a festival going, and the water is still frozen. It won’t remain that way for long.”

Levi sets his pen down and pinches his brow.

There is a festival. On the northern side. Just outside the gate, really. Since it borders the forest there’s a lake, and every year the village sets up a stupid festival that couples flock to because they’re idiots who feel the need to freeze to death because of a greeting card holiday. As if they can’t ice skate or make hot chocolate any other day of the season.

He never goes. He never has a reason to go. Why Eren wants to go is a mystery, and he isn’t going to indulge.

Levi slowly rejoins the world and pointedly picks up his cane, raising it to eye level where Eren can clearly see it. “Aren’t you forgetting something important?”

Eren shoos it away and meets him head on. “I’m not asking you to put on a show. Or even stay on your feet the entire time.”

“What if I don’t have skates?” Levi asks. Eren smiles that damn smug smile of his and reaches into his satchel.

The amount of regret in Levi’s system is overwhelming as Eren sets down a pair of very familiar skates, freshly polished and ready for a new season.

“I found these in your closet.”

There is a point when one knows they’ve been beat, and Levi refuses to acknowledge that he is now past that point. Internally he swears to kick his own ass for not throwing those damn things out. He could always tell Eren to fuck off, he’s working, but out of the corner of his eye he sees Petra pointedly avoiding looking in his direction as she lingers close enough to the desk to take over if he gets up. Her spine is ramrod straight, prepared to jump if she’s ordered to.

Eren’s satisfied expression tells him that the witch has really thought of everything. He’s taken advantage of Levi’s employees fear. He’s not escaping this.

Let it be said though, that Levi Ackerman doesn’t give up easily. 

“…what if you don’t have-“

“Get your coat, Levi.”

He glowers and refuses to talk for most of the walk.

It’s freezing, like he expected it to be. The village was coated with a fresh layer of snow the previous night, leaving everything above street level fresh and new looking. Under their feet it’s a mixture of stomped snow and varying stages of melty slush mixed with salt. This does nothing to stop the crowds of couples and families all moving toward the northern gate en masse.

Before they reach the gate they can see the edges of the festival outside. The crowd is snaking along in a general line following the road, kids running ahead of their parents and jumping with excitement as their little skates hang from their hands. Levi forces his eyes to stay away from them.

When they pass the gate he finally says something to distract himself more than anything. “You’re wearing pants for once.”

It’s unusual seeing Eren without soft fabric and lace draped over his body. He still has a headband on, oversized and knitted to cover his ears, and there’s a necklace with a little daisy charm resting against the buttons of his coat, but seeing an average pair of pants under it all is...odd.

“I don’t only wear dresses,” Is all Eren says in reply.

Levi ‘tch’s and shakes his shoulders a bit to stir up some warmth inside his coat. “Could have fooled me.”

“Does it bother you?” Eren asks.

That question catches Levi off guard. He’s never been uncomfortable with it. Surprised, at first, but ultimately the clothes someone’s wearing isn’t something he’s going to waste time being upset over.

“No,” He answers honestly, a little taken back that he was asked at all. “I just wonder how you got into the habit.”

Eren shrugs, shifting his satchel where the strap sits on his shoulder.

“They’re comfortable, and men’s clothes have less variety.” Eren breathes in a breath of fresh air as the road takes a turn and to their right the lake begins to stretch out before them. The cheers and squeals of the people skating in circles are background noise now. “How long has it been since you were on the ice?”

Levi chews the inside of his cheek. His leg throbs on a step and he sucks in a harsh breath before answering. “A while.”

“And how frequent before that?” Eren asks.

Levi’s leg throbs again. “What’s with the questions?”

“It’s important,” Eren replies, calm in a way that makes Levi a little agitated.

“It wasn’t a hobby of mine,” He bites through his teeth. “But I…I guess I at least got on twice a winter. Maybe four, if I could stand it.”

He can feel the weight of his skates so pointedly, the way the tied-up laces rest on the shoulder of his coat and the way the heels bounce against him as he walks. It’s a feeling he doesn’t want to call familiar, one he doesn’t want to think about as they draw closer and closer to the edge of the lake and the smiles of the people skating past are harder to ignore—

Eren’s hand on his other shoulder draws him away from his thoughts. “Does it bother you to be here today?”

“You ask me that after you drag my freezing ass out?” Levi shrugs Eren’s hand off and sits down on a tree stump, shucking his boots and quickly shoving his feet into his skates before his feet freeze any more than they should. “No, it doesn’t, it’s fine.”

It’s obvious even without looking Eren doesn’t believe him. But Eren says nothing and sits down next to him, exchanging his boots for a pair of skates that look like they’ve been well loved through the years. Boots and bags line the shore of the lake in crooked lines and piles, and Eren takes both of theirs and tucks them next to a snow drift before taking to the ice without a stutter in his step.

Levi stays seated on the tree stump.

Eren on the ice is even more graceful than Eren on land. He moves with no effort, the slightest shift of his weight changing his path and sending him into wide turns and spins. He glides in a wide circle around the others on the ice, avoiding the stragglers who stick close to the edge in case they fall, weaving a trail that has the less experienced skaters stopping to point and gape.

Levi’s leg throbs with a vengeance as he watches. Something about the way Eren moves sets gears turning in his mind that he’d rather not think about.

Eren makes a few loops around the lake, venturing out with an easy smile on his face toward the emptier side to do a few spins where he won’t hit anyone. Several small children, all of whom are slipping and barely moving from the protective eyes of their mothers, wave to him as he passes. He returns the gesture with a flourish and doesn’t seem bothered when the mothers inch toward their children protectively.

He does one jump, landing with an unsteady wobble of the leg, but he smiles anyway.

Levi’s leg flares in pain, making him wince and curl his knee. He almost misses Eren abandoning the empty parts of the lake to make his way over, but the noise of blades on ice alerts him before Eren even gets close.

Eren slides to a stop just a little ways away, voice breathy and his dark cheeks flushed from exertion. “You should come out.”

“My leg is killing me.” Levi taps his cane against his foot.

Eren swerves, skating in a little circle and shooting a coy look over his shoulder. “That’s why you should come out.”

“I’d rather not break my neck.” Levi replies. He looks off to the distance, where the festival tent is raised and couples exit with disposable cups of something hot. He’s never been a big chocolate guy but a hot chocolate sounds like the greatest thing in the world at that moment.

“You won’t,” Eren promises, drawing his attention away from the promise of warmth. “Do you trust me?”

Eren holds out his hand in what can only be described as a beckoning gesture.

Levi stares at it for only a second before flatly shaking his head. “About as far as I can hobble.”

“Then that’s enough to get over here.”

Levi purses his lips. He walked into that one. “Smartass…”

It’s difficult, willing himself to stand. His leg throbs, the coil in his muscle winding tighter than it has in a few weeks and protesting with every second he spends detaching himself from the tree stump. The first step toward the ice is the hardest.

Eren is patient, though. He waits. He waits with his hand outstretched, watching Levi slowly make his way to the ice, skating just a bit closer when Levi gingerly steps on and beaming as he straightens himself. He isn’t sure what to do with his cane so he lets it hang from his elbow, the curved end hooked over his sleeve.

Levi keeps his arms out for balance and levels himself just enough to give Eren an ugly look. “There. I’m out. What now?”

Eren laughs and takes one of his hands, moving backward toward the open ice. “We move.”

The shoreline is left behind too fast for Levi’s comfort. It’s been too long since he attempted something like this, and his leg still pulses with every uneven bump in the ice. But Eren holds on to him with a strong grip and takes his other hand to spin them both in a lazy circle, tilting his head toward the sky and breathing in the crisp winter air.

Levi shivers, feeling his nose finally succumb to numbness. If he sneezes icicles he’s blaming Eren entirely.

Eren spins them again and pulls Levi closer to go faster, just a bit sharper on the turns.

“You don’t need to hold my hands,” Levi says, flexing his frozen fingers inside their gloves.

Eren shrugs. “I know.”

There’s a group of older children skating around them now, finally bold enough to separate from the adults and the mass circle of people to attempt their own tricks. Eren weaves them both between the newcomers with no problem and Levi can’t help but crane to look at one brazen little girl attempting to jump like a ballerina.

She crashes, and her friend helps her up only for her to try again. He doesn’t notice how tightly he’s holding Eren’s hands until they suddenly come to a stop.

“How does it feel to be out here again?”

Levi blinks, unsure.

He’s never hated this. It was never hatred, or blatant dislike that kept him from coming out. Even now, when he’s cold and tired and aching, he isn’t angry…

“I don’t know,” He answers slowly.

“I think you do,” Eren replies, in a way that makes it hard for Levi to argue the contrary.

(Because deep down he knows, he knows exactly how he feels, he knows why and he knows it aches to think about so he doesn’t—)

Eren makes them move again, bringing his and Levi’s clasped hands up to his chest and easing them along the ice in a makeshift dance.

“It feels good, doesn’t it? Under all the negativity?” He asks. The light catches his eyes in a way where the green battles gold, illuminating his entire face and clashing so badly with how sad his smile is.

(The people are staring, but Levi doesn’t care.)

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Eren says, switching gears to a more serious face that shows he means business. “It’s about your leg.”

“So you brought me ice skating?” Levi asks.

“Talking about it inside the house is a bad idea.” Eren answers, like it’s something obvious that Levi should have known from the start.

“Sure it is.” Levi rolls his eyes but goes along with it, used to how Eren’s logic goes nowhere. “What is it?”

“I want to remove the covers over the mirrors.”

The sounds of the lake and the festival on the shore wash away.

Levi tenses, hands gripping Eren’s knit gloves far too tightly without minding the delicate fingers underneath.

Eren’s voice is calm, grounding even, with how Levi’s heart pounds inside his chest, and he gently pries Levi’s fingers free before gently taking Levi’s shaking hands into his own.

“I’ve left them alone out of respect for your home and your choices. But I think we both know it’s time for them to come off,” Eren continues.

Levi swallows thickly, licking his chapped lips and casting his eyes to the ice.

“What makes you say that?”

“I think you know. But you don’t want to acknowledge it.” Eren’s thumb strokes Levi’s wrist, his stance deflating just enough to betray a genuine sadness in his voice. “And I understand that. I know the feeling.”

Levi wants to laugh. He doesn’t, though. He settles for halfhearted glaring, burying his chin in the collar of his coat.

“Do you?”

“I do. More than you know,” Eren answers.

Levi doesn’t know when they stopped moving. The lake continues to be a blur of people and movement around them but they remain frozen in their own bubble, unseen by the rest of the world.

Levi’s voice is much quieter, lacking its usual edge as he presses on. “What does removing them have to do with my leg?”

Eren lowers their hands and gently tugs his sleeve, easing them into moving again before he twists just so—pressing himself close enough to speak directly in Levi’s ear as he decides which way they move.

“Are you aware of the repercussions of repression?”

Levi shakes his head. “What?”

“There’s this condition. Called cardiomyopathy. A weakening of the heart muscles, a literal ‘broken heart’ that can be brought on by intense emotional periods of stress,” Eren explains, moving them away from another gaggle of children and toward an empty pocket under a frozen willow tree. “Not always, but it happens. I think about it sometimes, how all those emotions trapped inside a person can ruin their body slowly.”

He separates from Levi then, skating ahead and gently touching the dangling branches to make their frozen drops of water sparkle in the light.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re infuriating and cryptic?” Levi moves to catch up, brushing past the frozen branches himself and batting them away from his face.

“Frequently. I try my hardest to stay that way.” Eren beams as if he’s been complimented before he’s back to being serious. “Levi, I’ve been with you for a month and a half now. Don’t you think it’s about time you make some progress?”

Yes, Levi screams on the inside, he wants to end all of this and go back to normal. He wants his leg to stop chaining him down. He wants to go outside and enjoy being outside again. He wants his house to not feel like a cold tomb anymore.

“I fail to see what anything you’ve just said has anything to do with my leg,” He says instead.

“Because once again, you hear but you don’t listen.” Eren’s path curves and he comes close once again, close enough to feel overwhelming but just brushing Levi’s body. “Levi, how does your leg feel?”

And with that he’s gone again, and Levi nearly falls on his face as he tries to follow and realizes he’s been skating on his own.

The ache in his leg wasn’t even a concern.

“I…”

His leg wasn’t even a problem. He’d forgotten all about it.

“It’s time to move forward. Do you trust me?”

Eren holds his hand out again from further out on the lake. Levi shifts his arm to hold his cane in his hand, thumb rubbing the wood as he thinks.

It…it probably is time to move forward.

His answer comes in the form of pushing ahead to catch up, determined and dedicated to skate circles around the witch before the day is over.

Eren doesn’t touch the covers over the mirrors and has Levi do the job himself.

Before, every mirror besides the one in the bathroom was covered. Black fabric that barely shimmers in the light and turns each display into something to avoid. With each one he takes, Eren tucks the fabric away in a box and nods to him like he’s doing something good.

The house feels just a bit brighter afterwards, so maybe he is.

That day, the coil in his calf fades away to the barest of aches, one he hardly feels at all the next morning.

February gives way to March, which holds on to winter with a stubbornness that tries its hardest to fight the inevitable. More and more people come to the shop to escape the dreary outdoors and the amount of gossip they bring with them continues to skyrocket. Apparently he and Eren are in the local newspaper. The photographer caught them with their hands entwined when he was taking photos of the lake, forcing Levi to endure days of customers holding the photo to their noses as they peek at him from the window or a table.

Petra is genuinely scandalized that Levi forced her to hear the news from the rumor mill. But he weathers her irritation as he’s always done and within a few weeks it dies down.

Not by much, but enough that he isn’t seeing that damn photo everywhere.

The clients who appear on Levi’s doorstep return to their usual number. No more fools seeking love magic, at least not so many that Eren looks like he wants to punch the next Valentines display he sets his eyes on, instead they get an increase in people looking for simpler requests and small favors. 

A man comes in and requests something to help his wife with a difficult birth coming soon.

A woman comes in and asks for her sick mother to feel better.

A young couple comes in asking for luck that they will achieve their parents blessing.

A child comes in and begs for the luck to pass a spelling test.

Eren weathers them all with sternness and a sharp tongue, distributing advice with the same voice as a parent scolding a child and leaving every client with a request filled but aware that what they ask for is not always what he will give them.

Levi considers it strange that Eren doesn’t hold them or smile like he did on the lake. For once he stops tuning out the gossip and listens, confused at how the Eren he knows is different than the one the village fears.

“I asked the witch for luck once,” Says one man who stuffs his face with mini sandwiches during his lunch break every Wednesday in the shop. “Started off great. Got promoted at work, got more money, finally bought a car…he says I got greedy. That I used my new wealth ‘to cause harm to others’. Crashed the car. Got fired. Only stopped when I made him take the damn charm back. He must have cursed me from the start, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.”

“My sister went to the witch and she’s still scared,” Says one mother, who comes to the market weekly with two little girls hanging off of her at all times. “He asked her if she was going to use the spell for herself and she lied. He tore into her so badly she was crying when she came home.”

“Once I got dared to steal a rock from the witch’s garden,” Says one boy, who Levi recognizes as one of the local schoolchildren who’s always getting in trouble fooling with shop windows. “I was about to snatch it and there he was at the window. Staring at me. I had nightmares for days that he’d turn me into a frog.”

If Levi had listened to any of this weeks ago he may have thought it was real evidence that Eren was the steely kind of person he thought he knew from the forest. Those first weeks were nothing but Eren being a wall that nothing seemed to faze, an iron fortress that refused to budge for even the smallest reasons. The kind of asshole who only spoke to Levi in riddles and did things like wake him up banging pots and pans to ‘drive evil forces out of the house’.

But Levi knows better. He knows that while Eren is a person with a sharp tongue and strong convictions and weird habits, Eren is also…well, Eren.

Eren, who wears flowy pajamas made of soft material with little animals stitched on them.

Eren, who hums to the radio as he cooks and makes his potions.

Eren, who bakes like a madman when it rains and manages to make fudge that makes you feel warm inside.

Eren, who whistles back to the birds out the window and scatters feed for them in the mornings.

In the end he never can seem to grasp what he’s looking for.

He just looks at the facts; Eren is an enigma, and no matter how many quirks he observes he truly doesn’t know who Eren is as a person.

Eren is a fearsome witch who won’t hesitate to give someone what they deserve. Eren is also the kind hand that held him on the lake, and waited patiently for him to take the covers off the mirrors.

Eren is Eren.

And that’s all he probably needs to know anyway.

The second the snow melts, in a massive slush monstrosity that makes Levi want to die when he sets foot outside, his house is invaded by plants.

It begins with hanging plants in the kitchen in late March.  Baskets with cascading vines and leaves that Levi remembers seeing in Eren’s home back in December. The windowsill is filled with little bushes that Levi squints at for a while before discerning as various spices and cooking herbs. Little ceramic pots, handmade and painted with the same designs Eren puts on his jars and knitting, begin appearing with succulents and buds preparing to become flowers planted inside with fresh soil.

The final nail comes in the form of Levi returning home from the shop in early April to find his kitchen covered in seed packets and Arlert carrying a bag bearing the local gardening shop’s logo.

“Um…hi, Mr. Ackerman.” Arlert freezes when Levi comes through the door, eyes nervously darting around as his thin arms strain to hold up the bag. “I swear I was invited in.”

Levi eyes him with suspicion and takes a moment to survey his house. The kitchen counters are covered in packets of seeds and plant bulbs, little paper labels scattered all over bearing pictures and names of flowers and vegetables. There’s dirt scattered around the sink in soggy clumps. His floor, which he spent just yesterday cleaning, has tracks shaped like rubber boots roughly everywhere.

There have only been very few incidents since Eren moved in when he wanted to take a frying pan upside the witch’s head and end it all. At that moment Levi realizes all of them were mere child’s play to the disaster he gazes upon now.

“Armin, do you have the soil? I’ve got everything ready!”

Eren’s voice drifts in from the back, heavy stomping sounding from the doorway Levi never uses before Eren makes himself known.

“Armi—oh!” Eren stops, blinking as he takes note of Levi standing in the kitchen. “I didn’t expect you back.”

Eren is dressed for dirt. Levi can see it, covering a pair of yellow boots and staining the knees of a pair of overalls that look like they’ve wrestled with mud for countless seasons. Tucked in the pocket of the overalls is a small shovel and Levi cringes when a clump of dirt falls from the tip to land on what used to be his clean floors.

“It’s my usual time.”

Eren shrugs, uncaring for how his filth is contaminating Levi’s house. “Hm. Must have lost track while working, then.”

“Working on what?” Levi asks with growing dread. Eren only beams and effortlessly lifts the bag out of Arlert’s hands (Much to the poor kid’s relief, he was about to drop under the weight).

“The snow is gone! The ground isn’t frozen anymore, I can finally make some use of that pathetic patch of grass outside you call a yard,” Eren explains as he makes his way back outside. Levi follows, grumbling and fearing what chaos awaits him outside.

When Levi bought his house, it had been from an old woman who was finally too far gone and needed to go to a senior home. It was one of the few houses inside the village walls to even have grass. The square behind the house was bricked in, blocked from view from the outside, and the little old lady had explained that she kept this space because her grandchildren liked to play outside, even if what she had was too small to really do anything in. Since Levi bought the place it had more or less been a corner to store a grill he later threw out or to toss a bicycle he later gave away. For the past year it had been nothing more than dead grass. He’d considered covering the entire thing in concrete and maybe turning it into an extra room.

In Eren’s hands, he finds a dead space being squared off with the same round rocks he once saw buried under snow in the woods. The soil’s been tossed up, some coated with new layers with what Levi suspects to be the contents of the bag Arlert was carrying, and throughout it all small farm tools litter half formed rows.

“Is this…?”

“A garden,” Eren sighs dreamily. He rips open the bag he took from Arlert and immediately upturns it, spreading gardening soil evenly across until he reaches the rock border. “Gardens really breathe new life everywhere you put one. So many positive energies, just being around one makes you feel new.”

A garden. An honest-to-god garden. Levi isn’t sure whether to think it’s ridiculous or kind of stunning that Eren had enough in him to turn Levi’s entire yard into his own personal dirt playground.

He sees blond hair backing away out of the corner of his eye and Levi jerks his thumb towards their guest.

“And you invited Arlert, because…?”

“Not just him,” Eren hums.

Levi feels the presence at his back before the dark “Hello” reaches his ears.

The Ackerman family are notable people for how they’re admittedly terrible at keeping up with each other. But they always have a way of finding each other again. Levi’s cousin is a woman he’s said all of maybe ten words to since he moved to this village.

But god, he’d remember her face anywhere.

“Mikasa,” He greets coolly.

“Levi,” She greets back, a flat stare too similar to his boring into his skull while the rest of her face is hidden under a large knit scarf.

They only take a moment to stare each other down before separating, Mikasa joining Eren in the yard and grabbing a hoe to dig the soil into proper rows.

“How long have they been here?”

Eren pauses while spreading soil, tilting his head to show he’s thinking. “Armin arrived at nine, I think? Mikasa came at noon and brought lunch. Stir fry. I left some for you in the fridge if you want it.”

So all day he’s had two strangers in his house. Lovely.

“And you’ve spent all day trying to make…a garden?” Levi feels the way his entire body deflates, already ahead of him in accepting that Eren is going to get his way and he’s lost his yard to the whims of a witch.

“Laying the groundwork for one, anyway.” Eren shrugs. “You’ll love it once it gets going. Some tomatoes here, lettuce there, maybe some carrots…”

Mikasa stops digging into the soil and pulls a seed packet from the pocket of her cardigan. “We have pumpkins.”

“Oh, right, thanks for reminding me.” Eren smiles at her and bats his eyes at Levi in a way that makes the hair on his neck rise. “You’re going to have some beautiful pumpkins.”

“I didn’t know I needed pumpkins.” Levi says, moving to the side so Arlert can brush past carrying seed packets.

“No one ever does.” Eren accepts a pack of seeds from the blond and begins humming, eyes scanning the rows looking for the perfect place to put them.

After a moment he seems to remember Levi is still there.

“Are you going to help or are you going to stand there and watch?” He asks, setting the packet down at the head of a row to mark for later. “The sooner you help, the sooner I can start cleaning the mess inside.”

And those are the magic (ha) words.

The sooner he’s done, the sooner Arlert and Mikasa can leave. The sooner he’s done, the sooner his kitchen gets cleaned.

The sooner he’s done, Levi can forget about the garden in his yard for a little while.

“…fine,” He hisses.

“Great! You won’t regret it.” Eren hands a trowel to Mikasa and heads toward the door, patting Levi’s cheek as he passes. “I’ll get you some boots and an old coat to work in, just sit tight.”

The warm gesture does nothing to ease how dead Levi feels inside at working in the dirt. This is his life now. Everything, for a lack of better words, being uprooted.

At least in the end he might save a little money on groceries.

The next step to Levi’s recovery is unintentional.

Accidents inside the house had been on the upswing before Eren moved in. Levi couldn’t go more than a week without slamming his hand in something or crushing his toe against a hidden piece of furniture. Doors got stuck, the heating would shut down, the roof would leak—one of the most common accidents Levi started having was nearly killing himself in the shower, for some reason. His home was a hot bed of potential disasters.

These incidents died down after Eren arrived. The doors stopped sticking. The roof stopped leaking. Levi didn’t have to sit down in the shower to avoid breaking his neck.

Of course, ‘died down’ doesn’t mean ‘stopped completely’.

Levi is putting away clean shirts in his room when he hears it. The shower shuts off, the curtain pulls back—then a shout and a tearing noise as something large and heavy collides with the floor.

Levi’s at the door before he realizes it.

“Eren?” He lightly knocks, listening carefully.

“I’m alive,” Is the groaned reply.

Levi cringes. It doesn’t sound good. “I’m coming in.”

Eren offers no protest, and Levi cracks the door before opening it fully and seeing what awaits him.

The shower curtain is ripped. Half of it is clenched in Eren’s hand, the material splayed across his body as he shakily drags himself off of the floor to sit up. He’s bleeding from his lip and his knees seem to have taken the worst of the damage.

Which is a relief, Levi didn’t want to chance calling a doctor if Eren’s head had hit the sink.

Eren smiles sardonically, flashing the blood spread to his teeth as he does so. “I love your claw footed tub, Levi, but it’s aged with a hint of aggression.”

“Christ.” Levi snatches a clean towel from the display and kneels down to help, dabbing at Eren’s lip first. Eren waits patiently for him to finish and licks at his teeth to clear away some of the blood, frowning when he tests how bad the cut is by flexing his lips.

That’s when Levi notices something. Eren has scars.

Levi has scars, too. He has scars from all sorts of things, from his former career to his life before moving to the village. Scars are nothing new to him. But Levi’s scars are the kind he can readily explain. This one was from a firecracker when he was ten, this one was from a knife when he was twenty; markers to show the passage of time for someone with a past like his.

Eren’s are something else completely.

The most obvious is one around the left arm, near the shoulder. A perfect circle around the limb. More peek out from his shoulders, appearing to go down his back, the last one Levi can see being in the junction of his right leg. The tissue is hard to miss against his dark skin, standing out in a much paler color that tempts him with the urge to touch.

Levi’s fingers twitch to do exactly that before Eren grabs the towel out of his hands and begins drying himself off.

“Would you mind grabbing some clothes?” He asks, rubbing the towel through his hair before batting away the remains of the shower curtain to wrap it around his waist. “I left them on my bed.”

Levi hopes it isn’t obvious how he scrambles away.

It probably is, but he can dream.

What the hell was that!? Trying to touch his scars while he’s on the bathroom floor… Shame washes over him, thick and filling Levi with the urge to slam his head against the wall as some kind of penance. He should say he’s sorry for being so disgusting toward someone in such a position. He takes a moment in the hall to gather his thoughts, rubbing his head to soothe the migraine that’s surely building after this entire mess.

But that’s when he realizes the situation he’s in. Eren’s room. That room.

His foot throbs as he takes a step forward and stills his hand over the knob.

It’s just a room. It’s always been just a room. A simple bedroom with nothing inside. He knows it is. He knows because he cleaned it out and when he shut the door all those months ago it was normal, it was just a room.

But it isn’t just a room. It’s her room—no. It’s Eren’s room. His room.

Levi doesn’t notice how hard he’s breathing until his fingertips touch the knob.

He turns it and opens the door, heart thudding too loudly in his ears, foot throbbing enough to threaten to send him to the floor, and he braces himself—

The smell of incense and candles drifts to him first as the door slowly swings open.

The room is smaller than his, but overlooks the street outside. The walls are a soft golden color and the curtains a pretty orange that always compliments the sunset.

(That’s why she picked them out, she loved that color.)

It’s a normal room. Eren’s special brand of messy organization is everywhere, from the dozens of candles spread from the windowsill to the dresser to the bookshelf to the nightstand, to the fabrics pinned to drape from the ceiling, and even the mismatched quilts and fat pillows that cover the bed.

There’s a stool Levi never remembers owning, and a mirror on the wall with necklaces and rings dangling off the carved décor of its frame. Bottles line the dresser, some with candles stuck in their necks, some with corks holding mysterious substances. Eren’s trunk sits at the foot of the bed with spare boots and shoes scattered around it.

Levi’s foot throbs, this time with less intensity.

It’s just a room.

He isn’t sure how to feel. It’s just a room.

What was he so afraid of, coming in here?

Levi quietly walks inside (his foot offers no protest, and isn’t that strange after so many months of pain?) and spots the clothes laying on top of the quilt, picking them up before turning and leaving.

There isn’t a reason to stick around, anyway.

It’s just a room.

Late April finds them sitting on the floor, idly sipping tea as they bat a marble across the coffee table and listen to the pitter-patter of rain outside. April is a rather sleepy month, despite spring kicking into gear, trapping them indoors more often than not with its sudden showers and windy days. Levi finds the weather a little relaxing, but the cozy feelings it spurs on are spoiled by how the weather changes make his ankle hurt.

He has it resting on a pillow that day. His other leg is tucked under him lazily, giving him a comfortable leverage over the edge of the table. Eren sits across from him on the other side with both his legs stretched out and his feet wiggling inside multicolor socks. How they came to sit like this is a mystery to both, but they don’t feel the need to stop so they don’t.

“Do you ever think it strange, how little we know about each other?”

The question comes with Eren batting around the marble with his pointer finger, gazing into the swirled glass before flicking it Levi’s direction.

“I don’t tell people much about myself in the first place.” Levi stops the marble with his own finger before it goes over the edge.

“I’ve noticed,” Eren says, looking out the window to the rain. “Mikasa is the same way.”

Levi wouldn’t know. He doesn’t talk to her. Before Eren tore up his yard the last time he’d spoken with her was when she came into the shop to ask if they had a specific import tea.

“But seriously. All this time we’ve been spending every day together, and we’re only a little better than people who pass each other on the sidewalk.” Eren slumps forward, resting his chin on the hard wood of the table.

“Are you upset that I’m not nosy?” Levi asks. He flicks the marble back at Eren and watches its path, ambling along the lines of the wood. “I respect privacy.”

Eren catches the marble and his lips quirk in a rather fond way.

“No, not upset. I actually think it’s very noble. Most people would have already interrogated me about the scars.”

Levi’s entire body freezes mid-lifting his cup of tea.

He’d feared this day would arrive.

There’s no excuse he could offer for doing something like blatantly staring. Especially since he’s never had that problem before. He has scars of his own! He’s used to it! He’s been close to other people with scars! Growing up the way he did, that sort of thing is as normal as having freckles or having brown hair!

But on the other hand admitting it seems just as terrible. He remembers the way his fingers itched to touch, to feel the way the tissue may differ from Eren’s skin, to get a closer look at how dark brown suddenly became pink. He wishes he could erase how the picture is burned into his memory.

Where the hell did that sense of curiosity come from, anyway?

“…I’m sorry,” He mutters, avoiding Eren’s eyes and focusing intently on the cup dangling from his fingers. “I didn’t-“

“Levi, please.” Eren waves it off with a laugh. “I’m not upset. If I hadn’t wanted anyone to see I would have taken your knees out the second you opened the door.”

He wishes that was what Eren had done.

“Why are you even bringing it up?” Levi asks over the rim of the cup, taking a deep gulp of his tea to distract himself from how sweaty his palms are getting.

“Do you have anything better to do?” Eren shrugs. “Besides…the rain is cleansing. Washing away the old and bringing in the new. Fostering connections in this time could be beneficial.”

Levi sets his mug down and quirks an eyebrow. “Is this magic?”

“It could be. Or I could be waxing poetic out my ass. You wouldn’t know.” Eren winks as he flicks the marble back and Levi nearly misses catching it.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” Levi grabs the marble and bats it around on his side a bit before sending it back. “So what do you want to know?”

“You start,” Eren insists.

“Really?”

“It’s only fair. If this is one-sided then it isn’t fostering a connection, it’s interrogation.”

That makes sense.

Granted, Eren has never been the most open person to talk with, and Levi can count on his fingers the amount of people he’s ever opened up to, so he isn’t sure how well this will actually go. Plus there’s the itch in his mind screaming, no, begging him not to play along and not to give in to the requests of the boy who’s been running circles around him for months. Especially one who makes him act so out of character.

Levi’s never been the person to play twenty questions or bother with small talk. It isn’t who he is. He isn’t interested in others and he isn’t interested in the details of their lives.

But…

That curiosity, that spark inside that makes his fingers twitch…it screams go on.

“Alright…when the hell did you get friendly with Arlert and my cousin?”

“Armin baked me a pie and welcomed me to the village when I moved in.” Eren is pure nostalgia, smiling more to himself than anything else as he lazily flicks the marble. Levi can’t help but notice the glimmer of the chunky ring on his finger as he does so. “He was the only person who came to my house and talked to me instead of gawking and running off. I liked his spirit. He’s very intelligent and cunning. As for Mika…”

Eren pauses, one hand raising as if to touch his neck.

“Mikasa was a client of mine, actually. I made the scarf she wears.”

“What did she come to you for?” Levi asks.

“That’s private.” Eren puts a finger to his lips and gives his best foxlike smile, wily and mischievous. “And it isn’t your turn. Where did you live before this?”

“All over. I grew up in the city, and it was shitty, and when I was in the army it was just in bases for a while,” Levi answers, shrugging. He never really considers his previous homes to be real places to live anyway. The longest he ever stayed in one place was seven months. He flicks the marble back and watches it zoom across to table to bounce off Eren’s arm. “Where did you come from?”

Eren corrals the marble into his hand before answering. “A village called Shinganshina. A little bigger than this one and further south.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Most haven’t,” Eren mutters. He flicks the marble back with a little hum. “Do you have any other family besides Mikasa?”

“Not really. I never knew my father and my mom died a long time ago.” Levi catches the marble and flicks it back, hitting Eren’s teacup and sending the little ball to the floor. “I have an uncle, but we don’t talk and I’m never even sure if he’s living anywhere.”

“You mean Kenneth?”

“He goes by Kenny.”

“Right. Mikasa mentioned him once.” Eren lifts the marble back to the table and rolls it between his fingers before sending it over.

The mention of Mikasa makes Levi think for a moment. He stops to really look at Eren, taking in the curves of his face and the fringe of his hair, the glittering studs in his ear and the flowery headband adorning him with daisies and chrysanthemums.

He wonders what kind of people came together to make someone like Eren.

“Do you have any family out there?” The words come out before he thinks, his ears heating before he backtracks and attempts to look less eager to know. “I mean…did you learn all this from your mom or something?”

“God, no,” Eren laughs, shoulders shaking as he leans over the table to muffle the noise into the wood. The sound is more pleasant than Levi remembers it being. “I grew up in a house of science. My father was a doctor and my mother stayed home to take care of me. When I was growing up I read medical journals because they were all over the house.”

It’s not what Levi expected, not at all, but he isn’t disappointed. If he thinks about it he can see a small Eren flipping through those sorts of books with that pinched expression of his, furiously trying to understand the words that go with the pictures.

It’s frustratingly cute, but he doesn’t say so and flicks the marble.

“Sounds boring.”

“It’s come in handy. My work is so much easier with an understanding of medicine and biology. You wouldn’t believe how many others out there do things like give people poison because they didn’t bother to check a field guide,” Eren rolls his eyes, cringing as he catches the marble.

“Oh, I’d believe it.”

“You speak from experience?”

Levi rests his chin on his hand, shifting his ankle on the floor. “Not mine, but I’ve seen plenty of idiots buy ‘miracle cures’ and end up sick.”

“Swindlers, always using the craft to cover up their cheating.” Eren shakes his head, eyes catching the window and watching the rain before he flicks the marble back. “Alright…why a tea shop?”

Levi purses his lips.

“Honestly…”

He hesitates, the sound of rain against the roof and the windows filling the silence with a full roar.

There’s a story that goes with his decision to open the shop. One that started the day he moved to this little village. He’s told it before, to friends, but…

No. He isn’t going to think about that. He swallows it down and pretends not to notice the way his ankle pulses.

“I’d always wanted to have one. I like tea. I like the quiet. I like watching the people who come in to drink and talk.” He flicks the marble a little harder than intended and his next question comes out rushes. “If you didn’t learn all that stuff from your parents, who taught you?”

“The witch from a village called Quinta.” Eren doesn’t comment on his mood and answers as if Levi hadn’t just rushed through his answer. “Her name was Rita.”

The way Eren says her name is a way Levi doesn’t think he’s heard before. At least, not from Eren. Light, nostalgic, filled with affection…

“You think highly of her.” It’s a statement more than a question, and Eren beams as brightly as the sun when Levi says it.

“Oh, she was brilliant! She was a tiny thing, but she commanded everyone like a general and no one could stand in her way.” Eren’s hands clasp over his chest, stars forming in his eyes as he seems to get lost in the memories of his mentor. “I was so amazed the first time I met her. I was suffering so badly and the work she did was inspiring…I knew I wanted to be just like her.”

Levi’s new sense of curiosity screams. He’s never seen Eren this over the moon for anything. The idea of listening to Eren go on about this woman doesn’t bother him like it would listening to anyone else’s drivel, he finds he wants to hear more.

Ask him, his mind itches, ask him everything.

“Did you enjoy your time as a soldier?”

Eren’s question catches him off guard. Levi blinks and returns to Earth, startled when he finds Eren looking at him expectantly and no longer wearing that dreamy, loving look. The marble is sitting in front of him. He didn’t even notice it’d been sent back to him.

“I can’t say I enjoyed it or didn’t enjoy it.” Levi answers. He hasn’t thought about his previous career in a while, and he finds the memories regarding it a bit dusty. “It was a way to keep food on the table. I was on the track to going pretty far, but…”

His ankle throbs.

“But?” Eren encourages.

“Life has a weird way of working out. I had something else to dedicate myself to. I decided not to reinstate.” Levi shoulders through the question quickly, pushing the thoughts of his old career away.

When he’s done, his curiosity makes itself known again and he contemplates his question before flicking the marble.

“…hey…you said, earlier…”

“Yes?”

Levi hesitates. He’s curious. Deathly curious, in a way he isn’t used to experiencing. But he’s also still himself, and he debates if he wants to potentially cross the line of what he deems ‘private’.

Eren’s expecting face forces the words out and he regrets them immediately.

“You said you were suffering when you met your teacher. What happened?”

The silence that follows is heavy and oppressive.

The way Eren commands a room is something that never seems to falter. The question hangs in the air, freezing time itself before everything becomes slow. Eren’s position doesn’t change. For only a moment his face is frozen in an empty shadow of the expectant look from before. It’s the little tics that change the entire room. The way the light leaves his eyes. The way his fingers twitch and his nails scrape the table, making the marble slowly roll to the floor and disappear under the sofa.

The rain itself seems to vanish into silence, the grayness of the skies outside casting everything without color.

Levi opens his mouth to take it back, to wave it all away, but Eren beats him to it.

“Do you know what a blight is, Levi?” Eren asks. The words come out in a way that brutally reminds Levi of how Eren talks to clients, how Eren talked to him all those months ago, but the edge is replaced with something else.

Instead of disdain, it’s traces of sadness. Of melancholy.

“A…plant disease, right?” Levi fidgets under the weight of it all, of the way Eren can go from being a curious boy asking questions to the type of person who seems to hold knowledge much older and much more powerful than himself.

His ankle throbs and Levi has to fight the instinct to jerk at the flare of pain, clenching his hand under the table.

“Anger, grief, resentment, sadness…emotions like that, built up over time with no resolution, can be dangerous.” Eren explains. “It’s also an affliction to plants, you aren’t wrong about that. But a blight can also happen when all those sorts of things build up and become a curse.”

Levi’s ankle throbs and he swears he hears something upstairs creak.

He chooses to ignore it. His ankle flares again but Levi digs crescents into his palm with his nails and fights through it.

“You were cursed?” Levi asks, barely holding back a shudder of pain.

“In a way.” Levi doesn’t miss the way Eren touches his arm, fingers ghosting over where scar tissue should be. “Personal tragedy and youth don’t mix well. I blighted myself by being unable to process my own feelings. Now…what’s your favorite tea?”

The mood whiplash is so tangible Levi has to take a moment to make sure he heard correctly.

The depressing feelings of before are thrown to the wayside in favor of Eren putting his fingers together and eagerly awaiting Levi’s answer. It’s ridiculous. But the other option is to stew on the thoughts of blights, and something profound tells Levi that’s the last thing he wants to do.

There’s also something…touching, he thinks, about Eren still going on to ask him questions.

“Black. You?”

“Green.”

“Of course.” Levi’s eyes slide over to the endless plants in his kitchen. It’s obvious the witch would love green tea. “Have you always worn the dresses, or did you just pick it up sometime?”

The nostalgic look comes back a bit, and Eren’s fingers play with the hem of his skirt.

“Not until sometime after meeting Rita. She wore whatever she wanted and I envied that. So one day, she let me borrow a dress…and then she did it again. And again. And then she took me shopping for my own. How did you meet your friends at the shop?”

Levi shrugs, thinking back to all that time ago when he first crawled into town and opened his shop. “For some of them it was answering an ad for workers. I met Petra at the crafting shop across the street, though. I was buying a kit and she suckered me into testing how yarn feels for thirty minutes.”

It had been a weird day. Petra’s the kind of person who jumps right in to a conversation and Levi hadn’t ever gotten used to the odd sense of familiarity most people in small towns have. At first he thought she’d been flirting with him, she’d spent so much time going on about stitching a Valentines present—

His next question hits him faster than he expects, the memory of that time in the craft shop spurring a question that’s been burning in his head since February.

“How come you hate love magic so much?”

Eren’s brow twitches and the scowl he wore so many weeks ago returns with a vengeance, a low growl rumbling in his throat at the mere mention of the subject.

“Those who ask for love in a bottle ask me to violate things like free will,” He starts, using a tone Levi inexplicably connects with childhood when his mother was about to tear some unsuspecting victim apart for being wrong. “I cannot force someone to fall in love. I cannot force a person to see love that isn’t really there. Love isn’t an emotion that can be brought on so easily, they confuse it for mere infatuation.”

Eren’s hands run through his hair, grasping at the strands as the words tumble out in a speech that seems prepared from experience.

“Love takes time. Love takes work. Love is a choice, a choice to stay and see things through even when the spark fades and the excitement isn’t like fireworks anymore.” The look of absolute desperation that overcomes him explains just how much Eren has had to deal with this problem, and how much he’s worn down. “It’s just…it’s so maddening, to see all those stupid people beg me for that kind of commitment when they want to take the easy way out and have it given to them in a bottle. They want all the benefits without working for it, they want to be rewarded for not even trying! They want lifelong companionship for a few coins, maybe even a little extra if they want me to force someone who isn’t willing to succumb to love in a bottle.  And none of them ever seem to see what makes that wrong.”

“Wow.”

Wow is all he can really say. 

He’d never actually thought too deeply about what went into those requests. He thought it was annoying when they showed up on his doorstep, sure, but his big concern was more about them being so desperate they would go to a witch instead of biting the bullet and dating like normal people. Seeing how Eren feels about it makes it shift from an annoying and repetitive request to…

“When you put it like that, it sounds like a real dick move.”

Yeah. Something like that.

“Thank you.” Eren’s shoulders fall, fingers moving to massage his forehead after going off so much. “Love magic was the one thing Rita refused to even touch on principle, and I carry her opinion.”

Levi’s never been great at reading personal situations.

In the field, he has what friends call a sixth sense. When he was a soldier he could read a room and force the outcome of an operation with his own two hands before his men even had the spare brain cells to get their heads in the game. As a business owner he can zero in on any potential problem that may inconvenience a customer and plan accordingly. But with people personally, he’s never had a clue.

But he reads something right then. Like a light has come on upstairs, casting everything in a new way that he’s never seen before.

Levi tries to figure out just what that new way is and what he thinks of it, so wrapped up in his own mind that he doesn’t hear the clock chime the hour.  

 Eren does, though, and he gets up and stretches his legs before padding to the kitchen. “Do you feel like having pasta for dinner? I have a jar of tomato sauce I want to use.”

“Yeah,” Levi says, barely registering what he’s saying at all. “Pasta is fine.”

The rain isn’t thundering against the roof anymore, the clouds parting and dyeing his kitchen in the warm glow of the sun just as Eren enters, and Levi is struck dumb from the living room floor.

Spring is supposed to be a time of renewal and change, right? Is this normal?

Has he always felt so lightheaded watching Eren move?

May arrives with allergies making everyone in the village miserable, and Eren harvesting flowers by the basket to put in everything from soaps to perfumes to potions. It’s more pleasant than Levi expects it to be. Probably because he gets to use most of the things Eren makes, and he now has black tea and wildflower soap that makes his skin tingle with an odd, happy sensation every time he uses it. Also, he is miraculously he only person he knows who isn’t sneezing. He isn’t sure if it’s the tingly soap or the odd little charm that was slipped into his jacket pocket but he’s grateful nonetheless.

He still hasn’t figured out what exactly it is that’s changed between the two of them.

Nothing tangible changes. Eren still hijacks his home on a regular basis. Just this past month he’s replaced three lampshades and put a shawl on the sofa because ‘it matches the curtains’. Eren still checks his leg frequently. Every week he’s poking at Levi like a lab specimen and asking about his pain. Eren still grates his nerves by being cryptic. He smiles that smug smile of his, the one that implies he knows everything, and every time Levi has to resist the urge to grab his cane and use it as a bat.

But something has changed. He knows it has.

It’s something in the way Eren is. The way he talks, the way he moves, the way he brushes his hair from his face; something is different. Something about him incites the oddest feelings that Levi can’t decide are terrible or concerning. Fluttery feelings. Nervous feelings.

Envious feelings, even, as the weather warms up and Eren begins attracting even more attention as the hemlines of his clothes get shorter and shorter.

Temptation takes the form of using his cane on every foolish person who walks up to Eren and treats him like a prize.

“I’ve had my eyes on you for a long time now,” Says one man, who presses himself into Eren’s personal space in the market.

“I think I fell in love with you at first sight,” Says one woman, who comes into Levi’s home and shyly confesses from the front door.

“I’ve always thought you were mysterious, and I’m sure I can thaw your heart if you gave me the chance.” Says another man, who grabs Eren’s hands in front of the gardening shop and kisses them.

Every time Eren does the same thing. He glares at them, cold and cruel and uncaring, and he rejects them flatly right then and there.

“You know nothing about me,” He always starts. The first time Levi ever saw him do it, on a foolish lover who tried to gift him roses, he’d been stunned by the way Eren used his words as a weapon. “Do you even know my name?”

Some try to defend themselves. One notable person tries to insist that they didn’t need to know it to know they were in love.

“No, you don’t. You have no idea what you’re talking about. And you have the idea that I’m going to fall into your arms because you came up to me and said something pretty,” Eren continues. By this point if he’s being touched, he’s grabbed the offending fingers and holds them in a bruising grip. “It’s offensive that you think I’m so stupid. It’s insulting that you think you can earn me with words alone.”

There are variations on this speech, but Levi hears it all so often that they all blend together. Some are turned down just slightly more gently, some turned down coupled with a slap to the face, and on one notable occasion Eren walks away from someone without saying a word.

Petra comments once, when Eren sends someone running out of the shop for ogling his legs, that he’s rather harsh how he goes about it. Levi’s glad he is. The people Eren sends away never come back and they avoid his eyes the next time they cross paths. If they kept coming around Levi isn’t sure he’d be able to resist the bubbling urge to knock his cane into their stomachs.

Levi understands exactly why Eren does it that way. Like he’d said during their game; love takes time, and work, and effort. The people coming up and announcing themselves keep insisting their curious infatuation is the genuine article. They think the witch, with his mysterious ways and secretive nature, is really just crying for someone else’s attention. It takes Levi by surprise that the first time it happens he knows why Eren sends the fool running without mercy.

But it also takes him by surprise that he feels flashes of anger every time he’s around to see it. He finds himself making faces when he sees hopeful young lovers try to come near. He finds it harder and harder to listen to them talk as if they know anything.

Funnily enough, it stops as suddenly as it starts.

Levi isn’t sure how, but after witnessing a decent number of people try to woo the heart of the witch, they begin tapering off and running. He sees them a few times, approaching with hope in their eyes before turning tail and vanishing. They come forward then leave before a single word passes their lips. Some don’t even make it as far as Eren’s line of sight before they dart away.

Eren doesn’t seem to hint toward the reason.

But he does smile rather nicely and pats Levi’s shoulder in what he thinks may have been a gesture of thanks.

“Your ankle seems to be the last thing holding out,” Eren says, poking at the skin as Levi lays down on the sofa. Of all the leg examinations since the arrangement began this one seems to hold the most promise, with the finish line just beyond reach.

Levi grumbles to himself, flexing his foot and hissing as his ankle flares. “How soon is it going to be before it’s fixed?”

Eren thinks, handling Levi’s ankle gently to look it over one last time, before shaking his head.

“I can’t tell. But this is a very delicate time in the healing process so be careful. You’ll either be fine very soon, or worse than when you first came to me.”

Levi groans and smothers a throw pillow over his head.

“On the bright side, I think I can get you by on a brace instead of a cane,” Eren says, gently peeling the pillow out of Levi’s hands before he tears it in frustration.

It isn’t that much of a silver lining.  But Levi takes what he can get.

Real friends have a way of finding you again no matter the distance. In Levi’s life he’s made very few, but the ones he’s picked up along the way have this homing beacon that never fails to track him down without warning. That beacon activates in the transition from May to June.

Summer hits early and surprises the entire town. Children leap for joy and flock to the local lake, riding bikes recklessly all over and enjoying the return of the sun much to the exasperation of their parents. The bugs make their full return and creams for bites becomes the new hot item everyone needs. Eren’s clothes leave less and less to the imagination as his thick stockings and layers vanish to welcome in half-cut tops and little shorts that leave his long legs out in the open. A large witch hat makes itself known and Eren wears it with a smile, his face protected from becoming burned as he goes about his business.

It’s pleasant after all the displeasure of winter and spring. Bug bites notwithstanding.

“I heard from some friends last night,” Eren says one morning, a soft fabric bag slung over his shoulder as they walk to the market. The material for a light dress blows around his knees and Levi tries to remain at a steady pace so he won’t get hit by the fabric. (Or worse, see something indecent thanks to a well-timed breeze.)

“You have more than two?” Levi replies.

“Your sass leaves much to be desired.” Eren elbows Levi gently, his words lacking the bite they used to have all those months ago. “They want to come over. They’re a bit eager to meet you. ”

Levi hums. Aside from Armin and Mikasa he’s never seen anyone else in the village really be friendly towards Eren. “Witch friends?”

“I met them a few years before coming here.” Eren shrugs his bag higher, adjusting the straps so it won’t slip off his shoulders. “Ymir’s a bit of a horse’s ass but it’s what makes her fun. Her wife Historia is absolutely charming when she isn’t being a morbid savage.”

“So what, do they have their own village or something?” Levi asks. When he thinks about it, it makes sense that Eren is probably friends with others like him. He wonders just how many villages these days have witches. Is it a normal thing, or are they part of a dying tradition?

“They’re on Historia’s family farm. They travel, too, this year they’ve been wandering the coast and becoming friendly with the beaches,” Eren answers with an oddly resigned sigh, looking to the sky as they come up to the entrance of the tea shop. “It must be nice to live like they do.”

Levi pauses before his hand touches the handle, eyeing Eren as the witch looks up to the clouds. “You seem a little wistful.”

“I wanted to live by the ocean once,” Is all Eren says. “But that was a long time ago.”

If Levi had the chance, he’d have continued with a conversation that inevitably would end in the idea of taking Eren to the coast. Because he hasn’t had a vacation in a long time. He hasn’t left the village in a few years and he has the money. And Eren with that kind of sad expression doesn’t seem quite right.

But he doesn’t get that chance.

The noise is faint at first. Meshed with the background chatter of the market and the summer crowds, of tourists who flood the village past its normal capacity snapping photos of everything, it only registers as a faint white noise. Ignorable. Unimportant.

But as it gets louder, those listening realize too late that it’s all one person emitting a rather high pitched “eeeeee” sound.

Levi realizes far too late that that “eeeeee” sound is actually a very drawn out—

“LEEEEEEEEEEEVIIIIIIII—“

He barely has time to turn before he’s hit full force by a body running full speed and swept up into an octopus hug that spins him so fast any normal person would vomit.

Ah, yes. Hanji. It’s been a while since he’s felt the brunt of their greetings.

“Levi!” Hanji yells in that special booming voice of theirs, assaulting Levi’s eardrums with its giddiness. “It’s been ages!”

It’s been a year since he’s seen them in person. He retired peacefully and of his own free will but separating Hanji from service is an impossible task; they communicate mainly through letters and eerily timed phone calls that lead Levi to believe they’re constantly two seconds away from mortal peril. The last time he saw them in person he was seeing them off on their latest tour.

Had it been enough time for that to end? No. Not possible. Hanji isn’t due for a reappearance yet.

“Hanji,” Levi greets evenly, cheek smashed against Hanji’s chest and muffling his voice. “Do you mind? I’m injured.”

“That leg’s still bothering you? God you’re an old man.” Hanji groans at their fun being cut short but they set Levi down and allow him to open the door to his shop. Too many people have stopped to stare at the spectacle Hanji’s created and he can only put up with so much. “How’s civilian life treating you? Square cube law still making you unbearable company?”

Levi resists flipping them a rude gesture and instead closes the door after Eren files in. When he does stop to take a good look at his friend, he squints at the mass of bandages peeking out from their bangs.

“What the hell happened to your eye?”

“Ah. That.” Hanji absentmindedly scratches at the gauze, nonchalance evident even though the fabric takes up half their face. “Reason I’m here, really. Medical leave.”

“You aren’t staying at my house.”

“I know, I know,” Hanji waves it away, a fond smile tickling their lips as Levi hobbles to his desk to sit down. “I’m ‘too dirty for your sensibilities’.”

Petra leans out from the back, a teasing lilt in her voice as she surveys the scene in the front and immediately joins in the fun. She’s always gotten along a little too well with Hanji for Levi’s liking. “Actually, it’s because he has company.”

“Oh~?” Hanji’s eye roves back to Levi before finally sliding over to Eren, who has been silently watching the entire ordeal without a peep. Levi can see the lightbulb go off in their skull before they even open their mouth. “Ooooh~. You dog.”

Levi knows that voice. He hates that voice, because it’s always a precursor to Hanji shoving their nose where it doesn’t belong.

“Hanji—“

He’s too slow to stop them as they immediately become absorbed in Eren, shaking his hand viciously and grinning with more teeth than a reasonable human should have.

“Hanji Zoe. Longtime friend and former coworker.” Hanji adjusts their glasses and hums, taking in the cotton dress Eren is wearing with an appreciative eye. “You are smashing. How did someone like you end up making a love nest with Grumpy?”

“Hanji!” Levi slams his hand down on the desk to finally get their attention. “This is Eren. A guest of mine. Who doesn’t like being the subject of rumors.”

The last part is directed toward Petra, who stops smiling and beats a hasty retreat back into the ‘employees only’ section of the store where Levi’s wrath won’t touch her. Hanji just makes a face and blows a raspberry. Levi doesn’t give them the satisfaction and refuses to turn his head and look.

Eren laughs, though. He puts a gentle hand on Levi’s shoulder and gives a firm little pat before giving Hanji his attention.

“I’m the local witch,” Eren greets, bowing his head just slightly. “I’m helping him with his leg.”

Hanji whistles, impressed. “Witch, huh? I used to bunk with a wiccan. Always said the most annoying thing was people asking if her stuff had newt eyes in it.” Hanji pauses, lowering their voice with a dopey grin and nudging their thumb toward Levi. ”Please tell me Levi asked if you really ride brooms.”

“I’m a little sad he didn’t.” Eren’s laugh comes out as a small snort, muffled into his hand. “Levi, you never told me you had friends who were actually funny.”

“Hey!” Petra’s voice cuts in from the back.

“Staff notwithstanding,” Eren corrects himself. “Hanji, how long are you staying in town?”

“It’s probably going to be a few months.” Hanji shrugs and Levi brushes past them—dodging an attempt to ruffle his hair—to begin straightening up a display before the customers start rolling in. “I’m all set up renting a place near the train station, so I get to enjoy being around this time.”

Levi hums as he begins rearranging the tins of jasmine. “For just an eye?”

“More than that. Our last mission ended pretty badly so our whole unit is on hold until the investigation is done,” Hanji grimaces, though Levi doesn’t see it.

“Sounds like a shitshow,” He mutters, stacking tins so that the labels should be eye level with anyone sitting down. “Why isn’t Erwin already down here? Normally he’s up my ass as soon as he’s on leave.”

There’s a quiet after that. Levi’s hand halts over a tin as he realizes.

“…you don’t know?”

Levi turns slowly, narrowing his eyes when he sees a flickering of emotion on Hanji’s usually joyful face.

His ankle pulses.

“Know what?” Levi asks evenly.

Hanji’s face flickers again. Eren is looking at them, confused, before something dawns on him and suddenly he’s looking at Levi with worry in his eyes.

He’s never seen Eren look worried before.

Levi’s ankle flares again, harder this time and forcing his leg to tremble a bit.

“I sent a letter a week ago, I made sure you’d know before I got here…” Hanji starts, unsure, looking away from him and to the floor. Levi looks from them back to Eren, since it’s Eren who goes to the post box every day. If Hanji sent anything he’d know.

Eren shakes his head, the worried crease becoming clearer. “I haven’t seen any letters come in, it must have gotten lost in the mail.”

“Oh, no…” Hanji covers their mouth, shoulders bunching up defensively.

The stone that’s been forming in Levi’s stomach drops to his feet. Whatever this is, he isn’t going to like it.

“What?” He asks. “What’s going on?”

Hanji opens their mouth, the answer slowly pouring out amidst apologies and hurried reassurances.

Levi barely hears any of it.

Levi hates hospitals.

He’s only ever gone to the little local doctor, in a tiny clinic along the edge of the wall. Even then he only goes when he has no other choice. Hospitals instill a feeling in him he’d rather avoid forever, one where ice cold surgical gloves have plunged themselves into his chest and have started to rip away his insides. When he was a soldier he never had this problem. He was always around them, constantly checking on others who had fallen or getting himself patched up to go back out.

But things are different now. If he could help it he’d never set foot in one again. He can’t go back, not to that sterile wasteland, not to that horrible place…

With Erwin confined to one, the surgical gloves have managed to reach him once more and Levi feels them squeeze at his lungs with no mercy.

According to Hanji, the accident killed most of their squad and left everyone else with varying states of injury. Hanji is one of the lucky ones since they only lost one eye. A few others managed to get out with some burns and broken bones.

Erwin was at the center, though. The damage was so intense he’s going to be undergoing surgeries for months.

Levi’s ankle pulses and a coil begins to set in his leg. Eren walked him home early but he doesn’t remember any of it. One moment he was in the shop listening to Hanji explain what happened and the next he was in his sitting room with the throw from the sofa draped over his shoulders.

Erwin Smith is a man Levi owes so much to.

Erwin was his commander. His leader. His friend. One of the oldest friends he has.

Erwin was trapped in a hospital missing his limbs and large patches of skin, and Levi had no idea.

“Everything will be okay.”

Eren’s voice pulls him out of the fog.

The clock tells him hours have passed but that can’t be right. He was just at the shop. He had just walked into town. Today was going to be a good day. He was going to see about going on vacation.

“Everything will be okay in the end. Just breathe.”

He doesn’t feel Eren’s hands on his shoulders. He doesn’t notice the throw from the couch being pulled away from his shoulders. His voice is muffled and distant, submerged in water as Levi floats along in his own mind. He doesn’t feel himself being led upstairs.

“You’ll get through this.”

Levi falls asleep to his foot pulsing, with Eren’s voice echoing in his ears.

Levi makes plans to visit. The trip will take all day, since he doesn’t own a car, but he’s willing. As much as he hates hospitals he needs to see Erwin. He needs to apologize for not showing up sooner. He needs to assure himself the man is still there. Still breathing.

He has exactly one conversation over the phone. Erwin’s still the same old bastard, laughing at Levi being worried and telling him he doesn’t need to lose a day of work just for Erwin’s sake. Just like him to brush aside his own health. Levi chews him out for it for six minutes, fingers gripping the phone so tightly he worries it’s going to break.

Erwin laughs again and Levi can hear the wince over the line. Levi tries his hardest not to dwell on the fact Erwin doesn’t have an arm to hold the phone, and he’s been on speaker on a table the whole time. His calf aches and Levi has to sit down the entirety of the call with his cane on standby.

“It’s really okay, I’m touched you even called,” Erwin says.

“I’m gonna smack that smile right off your face, you bastard,” Levi replies, worry masked with anger. He can’t see if Erwin is actually smiling but he can imagine it. He can perfectly see that little quirk of the lips Erwin always flashed him when his mouth started running or he said something too crass for polite company. “You better be prepared for me to smother your ass with the cheap hospital pillows.”

He doesn’t ask Eren to join him, but a second bus pass joins Levi’s on the fridge mere days after he digs into his hidden money stash to fund the trip. They’re held up with little flower magnets Levi doesn’t remember buying.

“You don’t need to do this,” Levi says.

“I know,” Eren replies, not even looking. “But things will be better if I do.”

They don’t know what the hospital says Erwin can eat, but Levi watches Eren make gingersnaps to take along. Eren insists anyone trapped in bed deserves a treat, it speeds along the healing process. Levi agrees when he steals a spoonful of dough and the pleasant tingle of Eren’s cooking settles some of the churning in his stomach.

He wonders if Erwin will like Eren. The sly grin Eren has when he hands Levi another glob of dough makes him think the older man will like him just fine.  

The call comes the day before they’re supposed to leave.

Levi clutches the phone in his hands as his world shatters, numb to the calm voice in his ear. His morning tea is forgotten on the table. The color that had finally come back to his kitchen fades away until all he can really register is the white tile beneath his feet.

Hidden infection, it was too late, I’m sorry—

Eren walks into the kitchen just in time for his knee to explode and the pain to shoot directly to his chest, embedding glass in his lungs.

On the floor he wonders what that noise in his ears is. He doesn’t realize it’s his own screaming, even as he passes out.

Fevers have always affected Levi worse than other people. He gets it from his mother. If either of them were ever sick, they drifted through their own minds and never really remembered what went on while they were incapacitated. Levi’s always been careful to avoid getting sick as a result. His men used to complain about his forcible quarantines on any squad members who so much as sneezed but it served him well. Aside from a few stray colds he can’t remember the last time he was genuinely ill.

The fever that takes him in the wake of the phone call is the worst he’s had in years. Sweat beads on his forehead and soaks his pillow, leaving everything uncomfortably damp. Levi trembles under his blankets, drifting in and out of consciousness in a cycle that never seems to end. He takes the precious little time awake to think. It doesn’t go that well, since keeping his thoughts in line is akin to capturing smoke in his hands, but he tries.

He thinks about how his room is too big. One side is too empty, with a few tacks in the walls from posters and pictures long since taken down being the only things there.

He thinks about the shop, and how Petra probably deserves bonus pay for running it while he’s gone.

He thinks about his leg and how he can’t feel it anymore.

He thinks about Erwin.

He thinks about Erwin the most, even though he doesn’t want to.

The last time he’d seen the man was when he saw Hanji off for their latest tour. They talked. Erwin joked about Levi serving grannies tea. Levi threatened to shove his dog tags up Erwin’s ass. They’d promised to meet up again and catch up fully. It was an empty promise then, Erwin’s too much of a workaholic to ever consider taking the time for a leisure visit, and it makes Levi feel so much worse that they never actually did it.

He falls asleep with the afternoon sun in his face thinking about how he’s probably missing the funeral.

He wakes up when the clock at his bedside reads midnight and Eren’s voice is drifting in from the crack in his door.

“He’s been out for three days. Mostly asleep.”

Levi shakes and cringes at how moist his pillow feels. His hair is stuck to his forehead and he wishes more than anything he could lift himself up and go take a cool shower. There’s a folded rag on his nightstand and Levi blearily remembers Eren setting it on his forehead at some point, but it’s dried out now.

“He was doing so well, but then that call came….all the work he’s done is moot now. He’s worse than when he came to me.”

Levi can’t sit up, but he does roll a bit to hear a bit better before sleep comes for him again. It’s funny, he thinks. All these years of insomnia and sleeping problems and now he can’t keep his eyes open.

“What? No, I haven’t—“ Eren stops, and Levi supposes whoever he’s talking to is speaking. “You told me forcing it would do more harm than good. You waited me out.”

Another pause. Levi wonders who he’s talking to.

“Ah. I see.”

Levi grips at his blankets, frowning at how weak his hand is as he pushes them back. The air is too cold but he welcomes it against his overheated skin.

Eren talks more, but it blurs into something Levi can’t really understand. His eyes slip shut before he can help it and open to sunlight, with a cool rag being pressed to his head and gentle fingers smoothing his bangs back.

“You’re going to die.”

Levi blinks, breathing evenly even though his entire chest is lurching. Eren isn’t angry. Or smug. Or condescending. He’s…sad.

“At least, you will if this keeps going.” Eren sits down, pulling up a stool Levi recognizes from his sole trip into Eren’s room. “I’ve waited you out, and for a while, that was fine. You healed at a fairly decent pace. But that isn’t going to work anymore.”

Eren picks something up from the floor and puts it on the bed.

It’s a tin box. It’s ancient, battered and beaten from use and age, with the old pinup style art on its cover half rubbed off to expose the metal underneath. Levi’s hand twitches.

“Tell me, how many limbs can you feel?”

Levi makes a small noise, clenching one hand. His other won’t respond. His leg is numb. His arm is steadily joining it.

“It’s spreading, right? Your leg is gone. Your arm is next. Soon it will spread until you close your eyes and never open them again.” Eren touches Levi’s numb hand where it rests on top of the blankets, thumb gently stroking clammy skin before he pulls back to open the box.

Levi’s throat is dry and he can feel how cracked his voice is before he even opens his mouth. “I’m no lost cause.”

Eren smiles. Small and knowing. “I know you aren’t.” He reaches into the box and pulls something out. A photo. He doesn’t show Levi what it’s of, instead he stares at it with a contemplative expression. “If you want to get better, then we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

Levi clenches his good hand before relaxing it. The fever under his skin pulses as Eren finally turns the photo around.

Levi’s stomach jumps into his throat as the photo from the tea shop’s opening day stares him in the face. Three smiles gaze at him from the past, arms thrown around each other as a large ‘Now Open’ sign dangles between them.

Levi hates how much he’s glad to see this picture again. 

“Around the start of last spring, I got a client. He told me he was leaving and that he wasn’t coming back, and he wanted to make sure his friend was okay,” Eren says, putting the picture down. Levi’s hand twitches but he doesn’t reach for it. “He gave me this box, saying it was the most valuable thing he owned. I gave him something to bring good health and fortune, and I never saw him again. Your leg…it started to hurt that summer, right?”

Levi turns his head away toward the blank wall. “…yeah.”

Eren hums and puts the picture back in the tin.

“You waited another six months before asking for help. When I came, the mirrors were covered. There were no photos on the walls. There were empty spaces all over the house. Signs of things packed away. Signs of mourning.”

Levi glares at the wall, shifting to give himself at least a little space away from the witch. “Get to the point.”

“You never talk about the people who obviously used to live here.”

No. He doesn’t want to talk about this.

“There’s no point,” Levi says through gritted teeth.

“Your pain started when you packed away the last of the evidence, right?”

“Eren, stop—“ Levi’s good hand digs into the blankets, bunching them between his fingers.

“You obsessed over not thinking about it, but that only made it worse, right?”

“I—“ Levi tries to hide within himself, turning just a bit more toward the wall but his sick body is so heavy he can’t manage.  “Leave it alone. Please.”

The ‘please’ is pathetic even to his own ears.

“You know I can’t.” Eren’s fingers wrap around his numb hand and that seems to make it all worse, how he squeezes his apology into skin that can’t feel it. “The more you ignore it, the worse it gets. You’re doing this to yourself.”

The heat under Levi’s skin only gets hotter as he refuses to look back, refuses to think about the contents of the tin and Eren’s hand squeezing his. He doesn’t want to talk about this. He doesn’t want to go back to those old memories.

“They’re gone. There’s no point in lingering on it.”

Levi barely feels Eren’s hand ripping away from his before there are fingers digging into his jaw, turning his head around to face angry ocean eyes.

“You never let yourself actually mourn. You pent it all up until it started to poison you. You blighted yourself and you’re making it worse every minute.” Eren’s forehead presses to Levi’s, feeling the heat through the rag and his ocean eyes boring into gray before softening and allowing his hand to let go of Levi’s chin. “Who did you lose, Levi?”

He doesn’t want to think about it. He put those memories behind him. He doesn’t want to dig up all the things about the past that he buried, down deep where he would never have to think about them again. He packed it all away months ago, he was doing fine, he was feeling so much better—

Levi’s numb hand hits the tin and the contents inside spill out.

Himself, in front of the tea shop with a smile.

Hanji and Erwin putting a birthday hat on his head with a Santa shaped cake on the table, red hair in pigtails taking up an entire corner to beam at the camera.

Platinum blond hair raising a drink, mouth open as everyone in the shot cheers.

Two young boys, one with his mouth smeared in ice cream as the other glowered and shoved his messy friend away.

A friendship bracelet made from orange string.

A birthday card with a little doodle in lieu of a signature.

Dog tags.

“Levi…”

Levi starts, blinking away the fuzziness in the corner of his eyes.

“Levi, you’re crying.”

He gives up.

The story starts with a car crash.

Levi doesn’t remember the actual crash. He was taking a nap in the back seat. Farlan was driving, and he was always the driver because he was always careful, and Isabel was in the front passenger seat fiddling with the radio.

It was a normal day. They were going out of town to do some shopping. Levi napped in the back because trips made him tired. Isabel was excited because she never got to sit up front. He didn’t know until he woke up in the hospital that some maniac had run a stop and slammed into their car from the side.

He didn’t know until he woke up in the hospital that Isabel died on impact. The passenger seat where Levi usually sat was completely caved in.

He didn’t know the doctors had found something in Farlan’s bloodwork until they were discharged and got a call, saying it was an emergency. The voice over the line said they needed to talk about their options. About treatment.

He didn’t know Farlan had died in the hospital until he got home from work and checked his messages.

“Are you the witch?”

“Yes.”

“I…I need to speak to you. It’s really important.”

He’d been planning to visit then, too. He got the call days before he was going to bring some of Farlan’s things over. While the village caught spring allergies and fevers his best friend succumbed to an illness he had unknowingly lived with for months.  

“I’m sick. Really sick. The doctor says my chances aren’t great.”

“Are you here looking for a bit of luck?”

“No, I…I’ve accepted I’m probably not coming back.”

He couldn’t stand looking at his own house when their memories were everywhere.

He packed up Farlan’s side of the room because he couldn’t sleep otherwise. He packed up Isabel’s things because he could still smell her perfume wafting out the door down the hall.

He put away the cookware Farlan had bought when they finally got their own house. He hated thinking about how happy they were when they didn’t have to order food anymore.  

He got rid of the broken bicycle Isabel swore she’d fix one day when he realized no one was going to touch it again.

“I’m here for my friend, really.”

“Your friend?”

“He’s always made himself out to be strong, and that he can handle anything. And for the most part he can. But I know it’ll hurt when I’m gone. I want him to be okay.”

“What do you have to trade for that?”

“This is probably the thing I value most in the world. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

“I see.”

He packed up everything, eventually. He got rid of Farlan’s collection of stupid shirts. He got rid of Isabel’s posters.

Picture frames left the walls and were stored in the attic, where he’d never touch them. An oddly decorative rock Farlan put in the kitchen windowsill before he left was given to Petra as a lawn decoration.

Not long after that, he removed Isabel’s picture from the wall and his ankle started to hurt.

“Can you do it?”

“I can give you something to put in the house. I can’t guarantee anything permanent though. Grief is a strong emotion and life is unpredictable.”

“Then…”

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna lay out everything I have, okay? If…if he ever gets in trouble, if he ever asks for help…please do whatever you can. He’s like my brother. We’ve been through a lot and I—he’s gonna be a bullheaded bastard over this. He’ll resist as long as possible on getting help. I just want him to not be alone.”

“…Fine.”

And now Erwin’s gone too.

And it hurts.

It hurts so much, and he knows it’s not going to stop.  

He’s always managed to push it down, though. When his mom died he cried for a bit but he moved on. When he saw a soldier die on a mission he sent off word to the families and kept going. He’s always put it out of mind, he’s always been able to brush it off. That was just life. People die. The survivors move on. The memories of what they left behind become nothing more than fleeting thoughts, because spending too much time thinking about the dead is how you waste your life in regrets.

Letting it fester feels like tearing his own chest open and he hates it.

“I know you hate it. It was never meant to feel good.”

He hates how nice Eren’s fingers feel in his hair as the words pour from his throat, he hates how he’s crying like a child, he hates how everything hurts and his leg is on fire—

“But let it hurt. Let it burn. If you let it happen then the wounds can scar and heal.”

Most of all he hates how he doesn’t want to be alone.

“I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”

The fever breaks.

Levi sheds his sweaty sheets and stands up, noticing his leg feels better than it has in ages. There’s no trace of pain.

“What...what was that?”

The sun is down by the time everything is over. Coming down from the fever takes time, the heat and the clouds in Levi’s mind taking what seems like ages to vanish.

Eren works in silence the entire time. He shuffles Levi out of bed and wipes the sweat from his face, strips the bed, and fetches cool water to soothe Levi’s dry throat. There’s a small cone of incense burning on a dish on Levi’s dresser, filling the room with sweet smoke while an open window allows fresh air to come in. Part of Levi, the part that prefers his privacy and has grown up keeping his personal business away from others, wishes to threaten to keep the witches mouth shut in case he feels like telling anybody what went down. The idea of other people knowing he had a breakdown while sick doesn’t sit right with him in any way.

Another part tells Levi he won’t have to say a thing. Eren isn’t going to tell anyone anything, because it’s not their business.

So Levi stays quiet and sips his water, slowing Eren to shuffle him to the bathroom and sit him down while a fresh bath is drawn. It’s then that he finally finds it in himself to ask the question that’s been at the forefront of his mind since he woke up in bed.

Eren, the dutiful helper he is, looks up from adding salts and oils to the water to answer.

 “I told you how I cursed myself, once,” He says. Levi remembers. Despite himself, his eyes flicker to the scar on Eren’s arm peeking out from under the loose shirt he’s wearing. “I was young. I was in mourning. My grief became anger, which I took out on other people instead of dealing with properly. I lost the use of my arm before the fever hit me.”

Levi flexes his hand and remembers how numb it felt. His leg had been detached from him completely, lacking the pain of the past year but also lacking any sensation. Like it had been cut away altogether. His arm hadn’t been that bad but he could tell it was on its way.

It had been…not terrifying, because Levi has known terror.

It was something more personal than that.

“So it was a curse all along.” He says, more to himself. Eren nods his affirmation and tests the temperature of the water, stirring it a bit with his hand to get the salts to dissipate.

“Self-inflicted because your grief and sadness had nowhere to go.”  

Levi stares down at his hand, flexing it and relishing in the ability to move it and feel it like normal. His toes curl against the cold tile of the floor and bury themselves in the plush rug in front of the bathtub. “Why didn’t you talk about this? Ages ago?”

“Would you have believed me? Or would you have told me to fuck off?” Eren asks.

Levi avoids looking at him, guilty.

“Right.” Levi doesn’t need to look to know Eren’s got his smug smile back. But it doesn’t last long, Eren’s features softening as he pours something into the bath water and the color turns to a soft pink. “Besides…when I blighted myself the slow way suited me better. I was given time to heal. Forcing it all on me at once would have been too much for a little ten year old to handle.”

Levi hums. “So you moved slow with me.”

He remembers the first few weeks. Eren moving throughout the house changing things, testing Levi’s limits with how much he was willing to permit the witch to do. He remembers the stilted first conversations, slowly becoming warmer until they talked like normal people and Eren stopped registering as some foreign entity. He remembers how they got used to each other, how they learned about each other. He remembers Eren making him tea in the morning and sending him off with something to eat that always seemed to charge him up.

He remembers all of it happening slowly, as easy as breathing.

“I slowly replaced what you had removed. This house had a serious absence of life in it. With every bit of life I brought back, you improved. With every bonding moment we had, your heart thawed. You were healing even if you didn’t realize it. I’m just regretful I had to resort to forcing it out of you.”

Levi can hear the sincere regret in Eren’s voice, but he find he doesn’t mind.

Laying in that bed was miserable. Eren did what he had to do, and Levi respects that.

“…thank you.”

Eren waves him off and picks up the basket of bath products that holds his supplies. “No thanks needed.”

“So…” Levi watches Eren shut the water off, pushing his bangs out of the way and inhaling the scents coming from the tub. “What now?”

He doesn’t know what to do now. For a long time his only goal has been go get his mobility back. But it’s done now. It’s cured. Eren rolls his lip between his teeth, thinking deeply before turning to go.

“Now, you bathe and use these salts. I wash the bedding. Cleanse away the last of this entire ordeal. Then we go to the attic and bring back the pictures you put away. Then I leave.”

Levi freezes.

“Leave?” He asks. There’s a tightness in his throat that has nothing to do with dryness.

He’d forgotten the biggest thing about what would happen if his leg was better.

“Your leg is cured. Our arrangement was in place to fix it, and now my job is done.” Eren puts away the basket and wipes his hands on the towel draped over the sink, nonchalant. He stops when he sees Levi’s face.

“Something wrong?”

Of course, there’s no reason to feel like this. He knew when this arrangement started that Eren was going to leave when his leg was healed. He’s expected it the entire time. Lord knows Eren probably misses his house. Levi settles the feeling in his chest and resigns himself to the idea of living alone again. It’s not the end of the world. If he wants, he can walk to Eren’s home no problem. This doesn’t mean they’ll never see each other again.

“…no.” He says. It stings, the idea of Eren being gone, but in the end this was always going to be how it ended.

“How do you feel?” Eren bends down to feel Levi’s head, the touch excessively warm against his skin. Eren’s hands smell like salt and soap.

Levi frowns, hand rising to rest over his heart where the ache is still piercing. It’s not as bad as it was when he got the call, but it still hurts. He doesn’t know how much of it he can actually blame on Erwin’s passing. “…not great.”

“That’s to be expected. Mourning takes time. But acknowledging how it hurts, and that you can’t force it to go away will help.” Eren’s hand moves to caress Levi’s cheek, thumb gently stroking the skin under his eye as he gives his best assuring expression. “You’ll heal. I’m confident you’ll come out of this okay.”

Levi can believe that.

It’ll hurt, it’ll hurt more than anything, but he honestly believes that.

Eren is packing when Levi runs to the shop to apologize to Petra for leaving her alone for so long.

And he actually does run. He hasn’t been able to move faster than a slow walk in so long that stepping out, feeling the summer sun on his skin and the energy of the village around him, he can’t help but run over the cobblestones and relish the burn in his muscles. He’s panting, sweaty, and exhausted when he reaches the shop and throws open the door but he’s never felt so good in his life. He thinks maybe he’ll break the cane in half and burn it sometime just to really celebrate.

Or he could just treat himself. Maybe buy a cake from the bakery. It’s the little things that count.

Petra tells him not to worry about it but he doesn’t leave the shop until he forces a few days off for her once he returns to work the next day. It’s the least he can do.

(Eld tries to sucker himself a few days too, but Petra tattles and says he spent most of Levi’s sick leave at home looking after babies. Levi laughs and doesn’t even care about the shocked look his employees—his friends—have as he leaves.)

He relishes in this freedom he’s been denied for so long.

He stretches his leg, testing the muscle that’s gone soft from disuse, and joy lights up in his chest at the idea of being able to pick up his exercise regimen where he left off. Maybe start jogging in the mornings.

“Levi?”

The voice drags him out of his own head, stopping him before he can cross the street. Levi’s attention turns from the bright sky ahead to the figure in an oversized coat walking toward him.

“Hanji,” Levi greets. “Hey.”

It’s almost embarrassing, how happy he’d felt moments before when he sees how ruffled Hanji is up close. Their hair is half out of their ponytail and under their glasses their one eye looks a bit puffy. Hanji beams anyway, waving with a hand carrying a bag with the telltale neck of a wine bottle peeking out. Levi falls into step beside them and they both cross over.

It’s weird to think that so much has changed between when Hanji first arrived and now.

“Um. I’m sorry, I missed the…” Levi starts. Hanji pats his shoulder with their free hand.

“It wasn’t a huge ceremony or anything. You know how Erwin was.” They give him an expression that he remembers fondly from the old days, when Erwin would overwork himself and insist things like movie night or visiting friends wasn’t a proper use of his time. He knows exactly how Erwin was he can perfectly see the small, uniform ceremony he would have insisted on. “I’ll take you to visit the gravesite later so you can say your goodbyes.”

“That sounds nice.” Levi’s heart hurts, but he allows the pain to exist and doesn’t try to shoo it away. Hanji’s hand claps down on his back before he can really stew in his feelings anyway, and he welcomes their energy. 

“Besides, I don’t blame you for not going. Your witch friend called and told me how sick you were.”

Levi’s head cocks as they take a turn toward Levi’s neighborhood. Some of the village children zoom past on bikes yelling at each other and Hanji waves at them. “Eren called?”

“Well sure.” Hanji replies, surprised. “Got my number through Petra. Told me you were a useless fever lump. I’m glad to see you’re better.”

“It was a…quick bug.” Levi mutters. He feels his face heat up and he isn’t sure why, the heat prickling his ears uncomfortably. “What’s with the wine?”

“I was just coming over to your place, actually. Since you missed the funeral and all.” Hanji jiggles the bag a little, the wine sloshing around in the bottle. Levi actually finds himself looking forward to it. His and Hanji’s drinking sessions all that time ago had been some of his favorite moments while on tour.

His neighborhood comes up much faster than anticipated and Levi hopes Eren will be willing to have at least one glass with them.

“What’s that on the door?”

Levi looks at Hanji, then at the door to his little home. There’s a key taped to the front. The spare he gave Eren.

Ah. So it’s done.

The sting is still rough, but he weathers it and allows his good mood to dissipate with the knowledge of the empty house inside.

“Guess he finished packing.” Levi takes the key and opens the door, stepping in and shucking his shoes by the door. He doesn’t hear any noises inside and it bothers him more than he’d care to admit.

Hanji follows and tosses their boots off with no grace, sticking the wine on the counter. “Who? Your witch friend?”

“Yeah.” Levi surveys the kitchen and sitting room to see what remains. The emptiness from before Eren’s time is gone but he can still see holes that should be filled. “We uh…the agreement was that he’d only stay until my leg was better. It cleared up so he’s going home.”

The kitchen looks naked without all of Eren’s knives and utensils taking up space. The spice mortar that he likes is gone. The frying pan that makes the best tasting bacon isn’t hanging from the wall. There are still little succulents in his kitchen window, and some herbs tucked away in a sunny corner, but the jars that filled up shelf space are nowhere to be seen.

The sitting room still has the cozy throw over the sofa, and a few candles remain. Eren’s knitting supplies no longer take up the basket by the fireplace. He can’t place exactly what’s missing from the room altogether until he realizes Eren’s books are no longer cluttering the coffee table.

“Aw. I only got to see him once. That’s a bummer.” Hanji’s voice echoes from the kitchen. They’re surveying Levi’s greatly expanded spice rack in the cabinet and eyeing his new plants with eagerness. “Say, this place has gotten a makeover.”

“Most of it was Eren’s doing.”

He says it sadder than he intends to.

“I like it. Looks like he was a good influence on you.” Hanji pulls something out of the cabinet, walking around and smiling at all the new additions to Levi’s house.

The pictures are back on the walls. Farlan and Isabel’s faces beam out from all angles in freshly dusted frames. Surrounding them are decorations Eren picked up and insisted had to go where everyone could see them. Isabel’s birthday party shares space with a carved mask. Farlan posing with his first car leads to a little wooden display with antique tea spoons. Hanji oohs and ahhs over them all and Levi feels a flicker of something that’s happy they’re being appreciated.

“I hope I can see him again sometime soon. It’s obvious you think pretty highly of him.” Hanji says, examining a little painting of the forest Eren picked up from the market square.

“Huh?”

“You’re not the friendliest person. No offense.” Hanji doesn’t look back at him but Levi still waves an unspoken ‘none taken’. “But you don’t act nearly as crabby where this little witch is concerned.”

The sting in his chest burns, memories of how soft his and Eren’s conversations had become filtering to the front of his mind. It had taken them so long before sarcasm and wit had taken friendlier tones. Was it really that noticeable?

Defensiveness makes Levi wary, forcing him to shy away from Hanji a bit.

“What of it?”

“Nothing bad. I just think it’s nice you’re close with someone.” Hanji finally turns, a sad smile coloring their face as their eye looks over him. “You know I worried about you, when I left the last time.”

He knows. The last time Hanji had been around was for a brief visit before their tour began. Before that it was for the funerals. He brushed off their concern then, saying he was fine, saying it didn’t matter, and now that he’s not forcing it down anymore he can clearly remember the concern on their face as they left him behind.

Levi rubs at his neck, a bit ashamed at how long Hanji probably had to wait just to say that. “I’m doing better now.”

“I know. I can see that. But you don’t make friends easy and being alone does things to people. I was worried over how you were doing all by your lonesome.”

He wonders how things would be if Hanji had come back earlier and seen him at his lowest. Would it have helped? Or would he have sent them off and demanded solitude?

(Knowing himself, the latter. He’d have died when the fever hit him and no one would know why.)

Hanji brandishes the item they stole from his cabinet and deposits it in Levi’s hands. It’s a mug. One of Eren’s mugs. A cheap, stupid mug with a black cat wearing a witch hat on it that he said he found at a yard sale.

“It’s good to see someone had an eye out for you.”

It’s standing there, staring at a cheap mug that something clicks into place in Levi’s mind. He can’t quite place the name of it, or how long it’s been churning inside, but he finds his eyes locked on the bright purple cup in his hands while his mind works at top speed to put everything in order.

Things would have been different if Hanji had seen him low. He knows that. He would have turned them away, refused their help until they forced their way in and tried to help him in their own way. He might have healed. He might have moved on and found happiness, some life, his leg may have gotten better over a longer course of time. Or maybe he’d die. Maybe no matter how much Hanji tried, it wouldn’t work and Levi’s curse would only get worse.

He’d have appreciated Hanji either way, because he loves them.

But where Hanji fills him with familiarity, with years of shared experiences and getting to know each other, years of inside jokes and the special kinship only squad mates could share, with Eren it’s different.

It’s so different, and he’s just now realizing how.

Hanji notices he’s frozen and bends down to try and look at his face.

“…hey, what’s wrong?” They ask.

“I don’t…” Levi traces the cat with his finger, thinking of all the times he saw Eren drinking out of the mug. It was always in the evenings. Eren liked warm milk with honey or hot chocolate the most before bed, said it soothed him. Levi always thought it smelled delicious, if a bit too sweet. “I liked…having him here, I think.”

No, he doesn’t think.

He knows.

He liked having Eren here. He doesn’t want it to end.

“…I need to go.”

The words come before he even thinks, and he forces the mug into Hanji’s hand as he turns on his heel to dart toward the door.

He liked having Eren here. He missed living with other people.

“Huh? We just got back—“ Hanji’s confused voice echoes from the sitting room but Levi’s too busy shoving his feet into his shoes to care. He needs to go. He needs to find Eren immediately and bring him back.

“I’ll be back, I just need to—“ Levi trips over himself getting out the door, barely getting the words out over his shoulder before his feet hit the bricks of the street. “I’ll be back in a bit—“

He runs.

Months ago he hobbled this path with enough painkillers to stun a giant. He had moved at a snail’s pace, gritting his teeth as every step put pain in him on an unbearable level. Now Levi flies; his feet thunder against the stones beneath them. His legs protest after months of moving so little but Levi is intent on catching up to wherever the witch is now.

Because he wants that basket of knitting back by the fireplace.

He wants his kitchen to be crowded with potions and jars.

He wants to watch Eren handle clients from the kitchen.

He wants, he wants, he wants—

The sting in his chest isn’t mourning. It’s heartbreak. The idea of whatever he had starting with Eren fading away, lost because they separated. He didn’t want that. He wanted more. He liked having the witch around. He liked working in that stupid garden. He liked tending to the little plants in his windowsill. He wants to keep doing those things instead of having them become memories.

He wants to watch Eren knit. He wants to see Eren’s bedhead when he wakes up. He wants to walk to the market in the mornings and eat Eren’s baking for breakfast.

People leap out of Levi’s way as he runs, his body darting between buildings and down narrow passages between houses that he used to scold Isabel for using. The gate that leads to Eren’s home in the woods looms ahead and Levi pushes his legs to keep moving, keep going, just a bit further—

Eren is right there, pulling along a trunk with a soft fabric bag hung from his shoulder. There’s a blue skirt blowing in the wind around his ankles and Levi’s never seen anyone better looking. 

“Eren!”

His voice is absolutely winded but Levi can’t be fucked to care.

“Eren! Wait!”

Eren finally seems to hear him, halting and propping his trunk up as he turns. His eyes widen as he takes in Levi’s sprinting form.

“Levi? What the hell, did you run all the way here? Your muscle atrophy must he ridiculous, what were you thinking!?”

Levi’s so glad to hear Eren’s disappointed tone that he nearly drops to the ground. He doesn’t, instead he pushes ahead the last little bits of distance between them. His legs are jelly by this point, Levi’s lungs trying desperately to suck in air that he just can’t seem to find, and as he comes to a stop next to the witch, he doubles over before dizziness causes him to lose his lunch.

“I—“ Levi sucks in breath, standing up and wincing at the feel of his shirt sticking to his back from sweat, but pushes it away to focus. “Don’t go.”

No, no. That won’t do.

He wants Eren to come back and stay because Eren wants to. He can’t simply order it.

Levi tries to even out his breathing, eyes locked on Eren’s with intensity. “I…”

He thinks about what he can say here.

He thinks about conversations held during the rain, during a time of cleansing and rebirth. He thinks about a fake ring and a woman with twine around her finger. He thinks about Valentines Day.

“I’m not here…to say I love you.”

If Levi’s life were a romance story, this would be the scene where he breaks the heart of a poor young suitor. But as things are, this is not his reality. Levi chooses his words carefully, locked on to Eren’s ocean eyes as guidance.

(The idealistic side of him says there’s hope glimmering inside them. Levi prays this side is the right side.)

“I’m not going to give you some grand confession. Because love takes commitment and shit. It takes a lot of work. And there hasn’t been nearly enough work done to even try and call this love.”

And he knows there hasn’t. There’s still so much he doesn’t know. There’s still so much unsaid between them, so much they haven’t done. Eren’s treated him all this time as a client, even if they’ve gotten friendly. That’s no basis for love.

But if they start over, then maybe they could lay the foundation. As equals.

“But I think. Maybe I could one day. There’s a lot that I don’t know about you. But there’s a lot you don’t know about me either. And I…I think I’d like a shot at learning. I’d like to put in that work, if you’d let me,” Levi’s hands clench at his sides, ears prickling with heat as the words come out and unreadable emotions flicker across Eren’s face.

“Levi…” The witch breathes.

“If you don’t want that, then fine. I understand. Even if this doesn’t work, I’d like the chance to try,” Levi swallows, the sting in his chest hurting with the idea of it not working, but he refuses to give in. He can’t force Eren to jump into this. No matter his own feelings it’s Eren who ultimately decides.

“Even if it ends badly, I’d like the chance to try to love you. And if it isn’t love, then fuck it. I’d like the chance to live with you for longer. So…please don’t go.”

Levi doesn’t beg. He holds out his hand, ready if Eren wants to take it.

His heart is still beating as fast as a hummingbirds wings, blood pounding in his ears, but he intends to give Eren all the time he needs.

Eren’s eyes slowly drift between Levi’s face and his outstretched hand.

Every second without an answer is torture, but Levi intends to wait as long as it’s needed. He’ll do this with Eren’s approval or not at all.

“…you’re helping me take the trunk back.”

Levi’s hand closes around another, warm fingers filling the spaces between his. Eren smiles, bright like the summer sun, and the wind whips his skirt around his legs. Levi’s never been happier.

“This isn’t going to be easy. We both have things that need work,” Eren says, grabbing the handle of his trunk. His hand separates from Levi’s to do so but it doesn’t hurt. His heart swells with happiness instead.

Levi grabs the other side of the trunk, taking on the weight with no complaint. “I never liked you because you made things easy, so that’s good for me.”

Eren laughs, and Levi leads them both back into the village.

He still hurts some, the loss of friends tainting the pleasant aura of summer, but he supposes that’s just life. He can still heal while giving himself something new.

He’ll make some mistakes, he and Eren will fight, and inevitably they’ll cross some bridges they don’t look forward to. He’ll meet Eren’s friends and have to come to terms with more weird witch stuff than he wants to care for. Maybe he’ll replace his bed with one made for two people. Maybe he’ll convert Eren’s room into a workshop. Maybe Hanji’s still waiting with that stupid mug and he can introduce them to Eren properly, and they can start things off by drinking cheap wine.

Eren looks at him with a smile of utter fondness as they walk, and Levi is struck with some very intense feelings that this will all work out just fine.

But that’s saying too little, honestly.