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Eren stared at the table on the other side of the room, eyes narrowed and intent. Armin, who sat on the other side of their own table, raised an eyebrow at him, glancing first at the book he was using as a poor excuse of a shield and the man he was staring at. “Eren,” he sighed, shaking his head in exasperation. “What are you doing?”
Eren barely even blinked. “Not now, Armin,” he muttered. “I’m thinking.”
“About your finals or Levi?” He asked skeptically, voice disapproving.
“Armin!” He hissed, ducking down behind his book. “Don’t say his name!”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Shhh,” Eren told him, glancing back up. “just let it go.”
“You’re the one that needs to let it go,” Armin muttered, glancing back down at his own book. “I’m not pretending to read a book and spy on someone.”
“Let it go,” Eren insisted. “you can’t hold me back anymore.”
“Oh my god, Eren.”
“You’re getting rather creepy now,” Armin remarked in the middle of the semester, watching as Eren’s eyes traced Levi’s path through the courtyard. “Just ask him out already.”
“Hah,” Eren laughed, glancing over at him incredulously. “you don’t just ask out someone like that, Armin. He’d rip out my spine and strangle me with it.”
“I think hitting you in the head would be easier,” the blonde remarked.
He grimaced, turning back to his sketchpad mournfully as Levi disappeared around the corner. “He’d probably do both.”
“Probably.”
“Is that Ackerman?” Jean asked, making a noise of disbelief as he peered over at the drawing Eren had been working on all day. “With a crown of flowers?”
Eren flushed, slapping his hands over the drawing. Or well, hovering his arms over it more like. Charcoal was fucking messy after all and smudged like a bitch. No way was he going to let hours of work go down the drain because of some idiot blonde. “Shut up.”
“Holy shit,” Jean gaped, shifting to peer under his arms at the drawing. “Holy shit, Jeager. Do you want to die?”
“Shut up, Jean!” He snapped, feeling defensive as he slid the pad over some.
“You drew Levi Ackerman with a fucking flower crown,” the blonde shook his head, sitting back as if almost impressed at his stupidity. “You’ve either got it bad or your life goal is to live in a hospital.” He paused, considering. “Or is it both?”
“Who’s living in a hospital?” Marco asked, coming back with their coffee.
“Eren,” Jean explained, taking his cup with a kiss.
Eren made a face, giving a quiet thanks as Marco handed him his iced coffee. He took a long sip from it, hoping it would help cool his flushing cheeks.
Marco gave him a worried look, hands wrapped around his own hot--it was nearly summer, jesus christ why--cup. “Did you get into trouble again?”
“No I--”
"Not yet.” Jean interrupted, earning a glower. “But he will be when Ackerman finds out that he’s been drawing him smiling and with a flower crown on.” His words were too triumphant for someone who was supposedly so convinced of Eren’s impending demise.
“You drew Levi?” Marco asked, glancing over at Eren smudged sketchbook. “Can I see?”
Blushing even darker now, Eren pushed the pad over, closing his eyes against the waves of embarrassment. The longer the two took to look at it, the stronger the heat of his cheeks seemed to grow. He didn’t realize that he was frantically sipping at his coffee until a startlingly loud sucking noise sounded, telling him that he was already half way through.
“Eren,” Marco started, staring wide eyed at the drawing. “this is amazing.”
“Maybe good enough to die for,” Jean agreed.
Eren’s suffering look only increased when a swipe at his cheek only served to smear charcoal all over his skin.
“This,” Armin declared, setting his bag down on the table with a large thump! “is an intervention.”
Eren blinked up at him, a fry dangling from his lips.
“I don’t want any excuses!” The blonde continued, pointing fiercely at him. “And you can’t run away either. It’s for your own good, and I want you to know that while I love you, you have become an annoying love struck fool lately.”
Eren’s eyebrow rose; but Armin was far from done.
“This is why,” he practically shouted, slamming his hands down on the table. “we’ve decided that since you won’t approach Levi yourself, we will for you. So there.”
Eren stared at him for a few long moments, holding his fierce blue eyes, before with a wild grab for his bag and a handful of fries, he fled, just barely refraining from falling flat on his face.
Reiner paused, glancing up from his lunch to stare across the room. A streak of what he could have sworn was Eren darted past, eyes wild, bag just barely held together with a slipping grip and a handful of fries shoved in his mouth to free the other for opening doors.
“Was that…?” He started, only to be cut off by a scream, another blur that looked a lot like Armin running after him, his bag held in his hands as if he were about to use it like a mace.
“Don’t get involved,” Annie told him flatly, calmly taking a bite of her apple.
Bertholt gave him a pained grimace across the table before beginning to eat his own lunch.
Honestly, Reiner thought, shaking his head. He probably didn’t want to know.
Twenty minutes of a chase that had resulted in Eren nearly choking on his fries, slamming into several unfortunate bystanders, nearly falling into a fountain and then later falling down a flight of stairs had Eren at his breaking point.
“You can’t do this,” he pleaded, fighting against the hands holding him. “you’ve already endangered my life once today, Armin, you can’t do it again!”
Armin sighed, rolling his eyes as he and Jean pushed at Eren’s shoulders, a disapproving Marco looking on. “Honestly, Eren. You’re the one that ran away. It’s not like I pushed you down the stairs.”
“It’s a representation of what you did to my heart,” Eren told him seriously, feet pushing stubbornly at the ground in an effort to slow their walk. “you pushed my trust down the stairs and left it to die. How could you Armin?”
“What the fuck, Eren.” Jean muttered, shoving at his back.
Armin rolled his eyes. “I didn’t break your trust. In fact, we’ve been trying to do you a favor but you won’t listen--”
“Lies!” Eren shouted, squirming away only to be caught in a tug of war by his arms. “This is no favor, you traitor! Levi’s going to skin me alive and drown me in a sea of tears! He’ll rip up my drawings and shower my cold corpse in them! He’ll burn my grave and dance! He’ll--”
“For someone who apparently likes me, you sure seem to enjoy making me sound like a serial killer.”
Eren froze.
“Unless that’s what you’re into. Then I’m going to have to tell you that you’re out of luck.”
Armin bit back a smile at the look on his friend’s face, turning him around with a hand on his shoulder. When Eren seemed to be unresponsive he fixed his clothing, tugging his sweatshirt back down around his waist and fixing the rumpled fabric of his t-shirt. “Good luck,” he told the taller male, patting his head before turning to walk away.
Eren wanted to whimper. With Levi’s eyes boring into him, sharp and calculating and with a few wisps of black hair falling over onto his forehead, he nearly did. “Jesus, kid.” He said, stepping forward with a shake of his head. “You look like you were dragged face first through a pit of glass.”
With the way he’d hit the concrete that was fairly accurate. Which only made this that much worse. Of course Levi would choose the day to talk to him to be when he was in one of his old band t-shirts, his jeans torn and scuffed with his boots that were more fallen apart than together. Of course Levi would approach him when Eren looked like trash and he looked like sex. Of course.
“I fell down a flight of stairs,” Eren managed to tell him, voice strained and cracking.
“Is that why you look like someone poured ketchup all over your shirt?”
Eren looked down, staring at the darkened stains left from his previously bleeding face. Yup. It was official. Whether Levi killed him or not didn’t matter. He was going to die.