Work Text:
Click, click, whiiirrr, snap!
“What are you doing?” I turned to ask him. Eren just smiled back at me, cheeky as he usually did.
“Capturing the moment.” His explanation every time.
“Why the fuck do I have to be in the moment?” I rolled my eyes.
“Levi,” Eren’s smile grew, “You are the moment.”
To him I was the moment. We’d been walking through a park, a lazy afternoon. Just… walking. Nothing special about it, but because I was there it became a moment to him. Because he was there, it became a moment to me.
Life’s made of moments.
The moment I met Eren, some idiot photography-student brat who stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and made me trip.
The moment he apologized and explained, hurriedly, embarrassedly, that he was taking a photo of a flower poking between the cracks of the pavement before someone stepped on it.
The moment we ran into each other, again, because somehow our daily routines converged on that sidewalk, but neither of us had ever noticed.
The moment we actually started saying more than just ‘hello’ to each other.
The moment when we first became ‘friends’ and he told me about his sister and I told him, reluctantly, that I was a lawyer in a firm.
The moment he showed me some of his photos as we walked and even I had to admit they were pretty damn good.
The moment he asked if he could take a photo of me, and I refused.
The moment he tried to take one of me secretly, when I stopped to see that the flower was trampled, and he succeeded. I tried to make him delete it but the brat’s as stubborn as they come.
The moment he promised to give me the photo, but couldn’t right now because he had to get to school.
The moment we decided to meet for lunch, the first time we would meet outside of our daily walks.
The moment he passed me the photo over the table and our hands stayed with each other for a few moments too long.
The moment when I walked alone, for once, and hated every minute of it.
The moment I caught him taking photos of a closed down store and we exchanged phone numbers, my excuse was that it was boring to walk in silence, so I might as well text him.
The moment he seemed all too happy to receive my phone number. So did I, but I didn’t show it.
The moment we began to talk, more than once a day, and so often that even Hanji inquired as to who I was talking to.
The moment I had a day off, and invited him out to dinner, my excuse was that I was bored, and he accepted.
The moment when he didn’t know that the restaurant was semi-formal and came in a t-shirt and jeans, and immediately began to babble embarrassedly. I didn’t care, although I did tease him about it.
The moment Hanji found out who I was talking with and wouldn’t stop telling me to kiss him, even going so far as emailing me a video of her singing her rendition of ‘Kiss The Girl’, and titled it the ‘Eren Version’.
The moment Eren asked me out, not on a date by title, but to walk through the park with him that night for a photography assignment.
The moment he made me stop in the middle of the park and asked if he could take a photo of me. I asked why and he turned red, going through a series of trying to explain before saying, sheepishly, that I looked handsome in the lighting.
The moment I did kiss him. Right there, right then in the middle of the park with nobody around.
The moment he kissed me back, both of us were shocked and blissfully happy.
The moment I asked him out, date by title and meaning, and he accepted.
The moment Hanji insisted on helping me prepare for the date, and I had to practically push her out of my office, and not just because I didn’t want her help, but also because I didn’t want her to see me that nervous.
The moment we both met at the café, and in seeing him just as nervous as I was, part of my nerves fell away.
The moment we both fucked up the date, me by ordering something he was allergic to, peanuts, and having it sent back, and Eren by spilling the coffee on me by accident.
The moment Eren couldn’t stop apologizing and even though I was uncomfortable as fuck with the dirty coffee all over me, I still grabbed his hand and told him it was fine. I was happy just to be with him.
The moment he told me he walked here from his campus but it was late and I didn’t want him walking alone so I drove him back.
The moment he paused before getting out of the car, and kissed me on the cheek, much to the surprise of myself and I think he surprised himself too. He told me I tasted like coffee.
The moment I went home and I couldn’t stop thinking about a specific brat because all of a sudden I couldn’t decide if his eyes were blue or green. In the end I decided they were both.
The moment we went on our second date, to the beach because obviously food wasn’t our forte, and admittedly I was more than glad to see Eren in a bathing suit, I think he was a little embarrassed to, considering his face was red the entire time.
The moment when, weeks later, I had to leave for a business trip, but we kept in contact, calling each other everyday because we couldn’t bare to be apart.
The moment Hanji stole my phone when he called and ran off with it, Eren told me later that he’d like to meet her sometime, that I had strange friends, but he was laughing as he said so and I had to admit I was very thankful to Hanji for once, because I’d missed his laugh more than I knew.
The moment when he came to meet us outside the airport, and his best friend and sister had come with as well, and I felt like I was meeting his family and almost got cold feet if it hadn’t been for Hanji practically pushing me out the door. Little did I know that I was actually meeting his family, all of them that mattered to him, anyway.
The moment I introduced Hanji to Eren, formally introducing him as my ‘boyfriend’ which made both of us blush, but Eren didn’t disagree.
The moment Eren introduced me to his sister as his ‘boyfriend’, and I didn’t disagree either.
The moment his sister, Mikasa, threatened me that if I hurt Eren she would kill me and his best friend, Armin, tried to hold her back. Meanwhile I had to stop Hanji from smothering Eren in one of her choke-hold hugs.
The moment we went on our third date, we went to a movie but Eren had tests that day. He was exhausted and fell asleep halfway through, leaning against my side. I forget what the movie was about but I just put my arm around him because the theatre was cold and I didn’t want him to get chilled.
The moment when I forgot the directions to his college and ended up taking him back to my house and just laid him in my bed and went downstairs to sleep on the couch.
The moment Eren stopped me by waking up all of a sudden, and grabbing onto my sleeve, he asked me, somewhat non-coherntly, to lay down with him. So I did, and we fell asleep like that, curled up in each other’s arms.
The moment when he came downstairs, I had woken up before him, and apologized for being so troublesome. I just kissed him to quiet him down, and told him to stop worrying.
The moment, months and many dates later, when I got a call from Eren, he was sobbing on the other line and couldn’t speak correctly so I made him tell me where he was and drove over there in the middle of work because he was more important to me than any damn thing I was working on.
The moment I found him, hidden in the shadows of the back wall of his school, and sat next to him, holding him until he calmed down enough to tell me what had happened.
The moment he told me that his dad had come home, and said that it was stupid but being around him had upset Eren. So when he couldn’t take it, he left and ended up here. It was winter and cold so I took him back to my home because he didn’t have a jacket.
The moment he opened up to me. He told me that his dad, an ex-doctor, was an addict, he’d gotten fired after he tried to smuggle drugs out of the hospital. He told me his dad had even tried to push drugs onto Eren, and then Mikasa as well. He almost succeeded in doing so too, had it not been for Mikasa.
The moment I actually wanted to kill someone, and it was my boyfriend’s father.
The moment Eren stopped me from doing so, he asked that I not leave him and just stay there with him. So I did.
The moment I asked Eren to stay with me, just until his father left town again, and would no longer visit Eren at his dorm.
The moment Eren agreed.
The moment, almost a year later, Mikasa was leaving for summer abroad and instead of having Eren go back to an empty house for the summer I asked him to stay with me, and he agreed again.
The moment our lives had so easily become intertwined that neither of us noticed it but now neither of us wanted to separate them.
The moment Eren told me, one lazy afternoon as we both lay in bed, that he loved me. Then immediately grew embarrassed and told me to forget what he’d said.
The moment I laughed, actually laughed. He asked why I was laughing, and I told him I was relieved, and said ‘I love you, too.’
The moment when he went back to school, and the silence without him there was deafening, and I hated it.
The moment I asked him to move in with me, full time, and, once again, he agreed.
The moment when, yet another year later, we were walking along our usual path and I happened to catch the glimpse of a jewelry store behind the spot where the flower once grew. They had put a flower box outside and a whole slew of brightly colored petals lined the windows.
The moment I began to think that once Eren graduated, I would propose to him. Because I was assured that we would still be together.
The moment I told Hanji about my plan because she saw me looking through a jewelry website at wedding rings, and she pestered me until I told her. Then had to practically tape her mouth shut so she didn’t go shouting it out to the world.
The moment, another year later, when I knew it was only a few months before he would graduate, and I had finally picked out a ring to propose.
The moment a group of his friends took a spring break road-trip together one last time, and it gave me time to plan over how I would propose to him. Nothing that would be a giant spectacle, I knew Eren wouldn’t like that, something romantic, something he would love. Something memorable for us.
The moment I got a call from Mikasa, and she was sobbing.
The moment Eren went to sleep and didn’t wake up that morning.
The moment I drove all night long, with Hanji in the passenger seat because she wouldn’t let me go alone.
The moment I reached the hospital where he was, and nobody knew what had happened but everyone was scared and sobbing.
The moment I broke down in front of Hanji, in front of everyone, because I couldn’t lose him. Not then, not ever.
The moment the doctor came out with the results.
This moment.