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Eren may or may not have a huge crush on his maths tutor.
Yep, that’s right, the twenty-two year old, five-foot-three, perpetually impassive man who somehow made trigonometric calculus sexy. The teenager spent most of his time wondering why on earth each tutoring session couldn’t turn out at least a little bit more like a porno. Instead he simply had to sit there and attempt to pay attention to the explanations the guy was giving rather than the entrancing way his mouth moved.
“Oi Eren, are you even listening?” he asked tonelessly and the teen scratched the back of his head, realising that he had no idea what his tutor had been saying.
“Uh – sorry Levi,” he muttered, adverting his eyes but Levi just stared at him curiously.
“You look like shit,” he said, bluntly and Eren looked up in surprise. “Seriously, are you even sleeping?”
The brunet turned away so Levi could no longer see the bags beneath his eyes. “Yeah,” he lied.
“Bullshit. Tell me.” Despite the shorter man’s tone it struck Eren that maybe, just maybe he actually cared.
“It’s just a-level stuff,” he said vaguely and Levi raised an eyebrow, keeping an otherwise impassive face. “My dad’s been pushing me pretty hard recently, I know he just wants me to do well so I can get into uni, but I just…it’s kinda stressing me out.” Levi nodded, picking up the paper and maths books from the desk and putting them away in a drawer. “What are you-” he began to ask, but Levi cut him off.
“You’re not gonna learn anything whilst you’re like this, there’s no point,” he said simply and Eren checked his watch, his tutoring sessions were an hour and a half, but he’d only been there for twenty five minutes.
“My dad’s not coming to pick me up for another hour,” he pointed out, still slightly alarmed by his tutor’s sudden stop.
“I’ll get my laptop, we can watch something,” Levi shrugged and as much as Eren liked the idea of that, he still felt a little bad – after all his dad paid for these sessions. “No charge,” the tutor said, as if reading Eren’s mind. The teen nodded a little.
Levi brought down his laptop and the two relocated to the sofa, the older man put the laptop on the coffee table and opened it, typing in his password quickly before sitting back and waiting for his desktop to load. The screen flashed up with a word document already open and Eren was confused before realising that the laptop must have been locked rather than off. Levi pulled up his already open chrome tab before switching to a blank one. But Eren would recognise that shade of blue anywhere. Levi had a tumblr account.
“Right, I need to piss, so look through my Netflix and choose whatever you want and I’ll be back in a minute.” And with that Levi left Eren with his laptop. As soon as he was gone the teen acted, knowing he would never get a change like this again and unable to resist. He flicked back to the still open tumblr tab and clicked on the account tab, trying not to laugh at his URL: well, at least he wouldn’t forget it. Eren heard the toilet flush and flicked back to Netflix and scrolled through the shows mindlessly.
“What d’you choose?” asked Levi re-entering the room.
“Battlestar Galactica?” said Eren nervously, wondering if he should have chosen something less nerdy – but Levi nodded.
“I keep meaning to watch that, you mind if we watch the first episode?”
“Sure.” Levi pressed play and angled the screen before sitting right next to the teen, so their upper arms were pressed together. Eren took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the programme rather than the fluttery feeling in his chest. Part way through the episode, Levi moved his hand to his own knee leaving it there, so that the fingers lightly touched Eren’s thigh. The brunet could barely focus from just that, so every semblance of concentration was lost when Gaius came on screen and Levi turned to him slightly and said “he’s hot, I like him”, his breath blowing over Eren’s ear. It was all the younger man could do to hum in agreement and prevent himself from doing anything embarrassing.
They finished the episode and sat there for a while talking about it, well mostly Eren talked and Levi stared at him devoid of emotion but nodding occasionally so Eren knew he was listening. Soon enough there was a knock at the door and Eren was surprised to see it was his mum who’d come to pick him up.
“Thank you for this Levi,” said Carla, smiling fondly at the tutor. “Eren’s improved so much, even his teachers said so, didn’t they sweetie?” She turned to Eren who nodded awkwardly, wishing she wouldn’t call him such childish names around Levi.
“My pleasure, Mrs Jaeger,” he said evenly, catching the teen’s eye slightly.
“Please, call me Carla,” she reminded him and he nodded. “Kuchel’s staying with you at the moment isn’t she?” Ah, so that was why she’d come.
Levi nodded. “She’s in town at the moment, though.”
“That’s okay, sweetie,” she said, looking a little disappointed. “Could you pass this on when she gets back?” She handed over a book and Levi took it from her. “It’s for next week’s book club,” she explained.
They said a brief goodbye before Eren and Carla headed to the car to drive home. It wasn’t too far and Eren could have easily walked it, but his parents always insisted that it would be a waste of precious revision time and the teen wasn’t about to complain about getting a ride.
As soon as he got back home he was off, waving off his mum’s announcement that it would be dinner in half an hour and hurrying up to his room. Eren grabbed his laptop, sat down on his bed and opened the lid before turning it on and typing in his password a little more forcefully than was really necessary – but he couldn’t help it, he was practically shaking with excitement.
What kind of blog would Levi have? He decided that it was probably a porn blog – a classy one though, with a crisp theme and all in monochrome; or maybe one of the humour blogs that spent their time derailing and taking the piss out of all the pretentious posts. He typed in the URL:
[5ftabitch.tumblr.com]
Eren’s fingers tapped against his laptop as he waited for the page to load and once it did he had to press it again, because that could not be Levi’s blog. The screen loaded the same again and Eren just stared. He couldn’t have been further off in his prediction for the blog. The background was a very light pink with a thin lace banner at the top, the side bar contained a drawing of flowers, a list of links (home/message/my face/tags/faq) and a description – quite honestly if it hadn’t been for the description Eren would have thought he’d made a mistake. But no, there it was:
Levi/22/UK
I like cats and flowers and cute boys
Feel free to talk to me but please
check my FAQ first!!
uwu
Eren couldn’t decide if it was description or the endless pictures of cats which filled his blog that was more unnerving. He looked at the tags for a few of the posts (#so cuuuute!! #look at its lil smushy face #i want twenty #hanji look at this #get me one pls!!!!) and decided that, description be damned, there had to be some mistake. This couldn’t be Levi. This couldn’t be the utterly impassive man who did nothing more emotive than make jokes about constipation whenever Eren was trying to do a difficult maths question; the man who could probably kill a guy just by glaring.
He moved his mouse towards the links. There was one way to sort this once and for all. His arrow hovered over the ‘my face’ link. He knew that there was no one else this could be, he’d literally seen the URL on Levi’s laptop – but he still couldn’t quite believe it. Except now he had to. Because that was definitely his maths tutor’s face staring up at him, wearing…were those cat ears?
Eren stared. The photo was black and white and cut off mid chest, Levi’s head was turned to the side, that familiar emotionless expression on his face and two little black ears protruded from his slightly messed up hair. It was probably the cutest, most surreal thing he’d ever seen. He scrolled down to see the other pictures and noticed the notes count on the first image. Over five thousand notes. Who the fuck gets five thousand notes on a selfie? It turned out that there was only one other picture, this time of him and another person with dark hair tied into a pony tail and glasses – he’d reblogged it presumably from the other person, who had captioned it ‘surprise sleepover with captain grumpy pants’.
Apparently Eren didn’t know Levi half as well as he thought he did. So he decided to remedy that by taking a trip into Levi’s FAQ.
When’s your Birthday?
christmas day!!
Are you Jesus?
not the last time I checked but who knows
What’s your favourite colour?
cats
That’s not a colour?
(ﾉʘ‿ʘ)ﾉ～『✧~*CATS*~✧』
What do you do?
I’m a maths tutor and I’m also studying for my PHD ^^
Are you gay?
ʘ‿ʘ the gayest
Are you single?
uh-huh
Why do you like cats so much?
why DON’T you like cats so much look at them they are wonderful and fluffy and adorable and so so cute
Favourite band/music?
k-pop!! especially shinhwa ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Is there anyone you like?
ahhh kinda but shhh
Who is it?
i said shhhhh
C’mon tell me!
he’s just someone i know
What’s he like?
he’s very cute, super passionate and he gets angry p quickly, but he also rlly cares and his eyes are like OCEANS they are beautiful he is beautiful
Why haven’t you asked him out??
i don’t want to freak him out, he’s a bit younger than me and whenever i try to say anything like that i get super nervous too (◕︿◕✿)
Eren had stopped reading. He didn’t even know what to think any more. He knew what he wanted to think: that the younger man who Levi liked was himself, but that couldn’t be true, could it? But hey, with this knew side to Levi, Eren was willing to believe pretty much anything. He checked Levi’s tag list to see if there was anything he tagged his personal posts with and found, to his surprise, a step up from that: ‘ocean eyes’. He clicked on it, presuming it was a reference to the boy that Levi liked, and waited for the page to load. It was a mix of his own posts and other people’s that he’d simply tagged and Eren scrolled through, eyes wide with shock. There was a cat with light brown fur with darker stripes in it and large green eyes that verged on blue in the light – #if you were a cat uwu #ocean eyes #adorable ahh. An ask beneath that caught his eye and Eren blinked a little, trying to focus on the small writing – “you tagged that post ‘ocean eyes’ the one about ‘liking someone u shouldn’t’ and i wondered why?? sorry if that’s too personal!!!”. Eren looked down further to see if he could find the post they were talking about and saw it was a black background with white text reading “I SHOULDN’T WANT YOU BUT I DO” – #ocean eyes #too true (◡﹏◡) #stop being so cute ur making my life hard!!!. He scrolled back up to check out Levi’s answer and felt like he might go into cardiac arrest.
ahh no don’t worry anon!! that’s okay, i don’t mind ^^
well ocean eyes is the guy i like and he’s wonderful, but he’s younger than i am (he’s 17) and doitforsciencee always says im a creeper (╥_╥)
also i tutor him so i just!!! i want to tell him but i don’t want him to feel pressured or anything!!
plus our mums are friends so it would be super awkward if he said no
i don’t even know if he likes guys (⊙△⊙✿)
It was him. It had to be. He fit the description perfectly – as far as Eren knew Levi didn’t even tutor anyone else his age, he usually only tutored university students but he’d make an exception for the teen because their mums were basically attached at the hip.
There were too many revelations all at once. Firstly, the bizarre internet alter-ego who typed like an excited twelve year old and all that came along with that (including the borderline concerning obsession with cats) and even more confusing the fact that Levi actually liked him back. But what was he supposed do now? He was fucking ecstatic that he actually had a chance with the older man, but then he only knew that because he’d checked out his blog without him knowing. He’d been so excited about the fact that he’d get to learn more about Levi that he hadn’t considered that looking at his tumblr without his permission was a pretty shitty thing for him to have done – and definitely not something that he could keep from Levi.
Eren was skittish throughout the whole of dinner and when his mum asked he claimed that he had a lot of homework in for tomorrow. She looked a little suspicious but let him be. Once Eren got back to his room, he shut his door and sunk down onto his bed. He needed to go talk to Levi soon, preferably at that very moment but he was trying to be practical. Eren knew if he just asked his parents it would be a straight no (“You said you had a lot of homework!”) and if he tried to say he’d left something at Levi’s house, then his mum would probably just go and pick it up for him. He thought of all the films where kids snuck out of their bedroom windows and checked his own. It wasn’t too high up and if he lowered himself from the window sill, he could probably drop onto their carport without breaking the thing and falling through. He made sure he had his key, seeing as he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to climb back into his house, figuring that if he waited until late enough his parents would be asleep anyway and so hopefully wouldn’t notice him coming back in the house. He just had to hope that they didn’t go into his room any of the time he was out.
Climbing out of his bedroom window could have gone a lot smoother. Luckily, Eren didn’t make too much of a noise, but on the other hand he did have a graze all up his arm from his less than graceful dismount from the carport. The walk to Levi’s house was about twenty minutes, but it had been late enough that by the time Eren arrived it was pretty much dark outside. He stopped once he saw the house, realising that if he just went and knocked on the door there was no way his mum wouldn’t find out from Kuchel. He got out his phone, searched through for Levi’s number and called him. It rung for a few seconds before the other man picked up.
“Eren?” he said, his voice turning up slightly at the end.
“Uh, hi Levi,” Eren replied a little breathlessly. “I’m, well, I’m outside.”
“A wonderful update on your life Eren, but I’m not sure it warranted a phone call,” Levi said tonelessly and the teen paused, before realising the misunderstanding.
“No, as in your house,” he clarified. “I’m outside your house.” There was a moment of silence.
“Why?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“You’re talking to me now,” Levi pointed out.
“In person, I-” he paused, not knowing how to explain it without saying ‘I don’t want to confess my feelings and beg for your forgiveness over the phone’. “Just let me in, it’s cold – and don’t let your mum see please.”
“Whatever,” said Levi before hanging up. Soon enough light flooded from the front door and Levi appeared, beckoning Eren. Once the teen was in he said quietly. “Mum’s in the living room, go straight upstairs and through the door at the far end of the hall. If you get mud on the carpet I will end you,” he warned and Eren nodded, quickly slipping off his shoes for good measure and hurrying upstairs as he heard the door shut behind him and Kuchel calling out to Levi.
Eren entered Levi’s room and simply stared. It was perfect. Completely and utterly spotless. He didn’t even want to move because he was worried he’d make some kind of a mess, so he just stood there and waited for the older man: trying to place his online persona with the man he’d just been talking to and failing spectacularly.
Levi entered and shut the door behind him, raising an eyebrow slightly at Eren who was still stood awkwardly in the middle of his room.
“You can sit down, you know,” said Levi, gesturing towards his bed and Eren complied, bring his knees up to his chest and clutching his shoes in his hands tightly, trying to work out how to start. “I’m guessing this isn’t about maths,” the tutor prompted and Eren laughed a little.
“No,” he admitted, biting the inside of his mouth. “It’s – well, uh–” He let out a long sigh.
“Spit it out kid, I’m not getting paid for this,” said Levi and Eren huffed, looking up at him with determination.
“Fine,” he said. “I went on your tumblr.”
“Huh?”
“When you went out the room earlier you left the tab open and I looked at your username and when I got home I went on your blog,” Eren said, quickly – pausing briefly for breath before continuing. “I invaded your privacy and I shouldn’t have done that, I will completely understand if you never want to see me. I just – I didn’t think about it like that at the time.” Levi’s eyes widened a little.
“Eren,” he said, but didn’t seem to know what else to say.
“I really like you Levi. I always have. And maybe if you can get past all of that shit I did we could do things together that aren’t maths – and, oh god, that sounded so much dirtier than I meant it to…I mean like, finishing Battlestar Galactica? Going to the cinema?” he was rambling and he knew it, but the older man didn’t look like he was going to speak anytime. “Levi?”
“Yeah,” he replied, sitting on the bed, so Eren’s feet brushed against the top of his thigh; the teen looked at him in confusion.
“Yeah…?” he prompted.
“Cinema, Battlestar Galatica, things that aren’t maths,” he listed, turning so he was facing Eren, their lips just inches apart. “Yes to all of that.” His breath ghosted over Eren’s mouth. “One condition though,” he added.
“Uh huh?” the brunet breathed, eyes flicking between Levi’s eyes and his mouth, about ready to give him anything.
“Your URL. Here and now – with no time to delete anything embarrassing. Especially anything about me.”
Eren groaned slightly but knew it was only fair.
“Is that a yes?” asked Levi, pushing Eren back until his back hit the bed and leaning over him so his body was between the teen’s legs. Eren moved his arms eagerly up to Levi, forgetting about the shoes he was clutching, which were consequently flung across the room, causing a loud thump. Levi huffed out a laugh, the corner of his mouth curving into a lopsided smile. Eren moved his now free hand to the older man’s hair, stroking his fingers along the undercut.
“Yeah,” he said softly, before they tentatively brought their lips together in soft kiss. It was beginning to become a little less soft, with Eren’s other hand clasping Levi’s back and Levi’s fingers threading through his hair, when they were interrupted.
“Are you alright?” called Kuchel’s voice through the door, seemingly having heard the thump of Eren’s shoes.
Yes, the teen thought, as they broke apart and Levi lay his forehead against Eren’s own, laughing softly. They were more than alright.