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1
“Captain!”
Levi looked up from his knife sharpening at Eren’s call. Eren bounded towards him through the trees, arms held in front of his body awkwardly. For a moment, Levi thought he’d somehow managed to injury himself despite his ridiculous healing abilities and Mikasa’s ever watchful eye. But as Eren approached, Levi realized he wasn’t hurt; his hands were cupped together around something.
Eren stopped just short of where Levi sat, mindful of his sore leg propped up on a stuffed travel pack. “Is it swollen again?” Eren asked, nodding towards Levi’s exposed ankle.
Levi shook his head and flicked his knife in the direction of Eren’s hands. “What do you have?”
“We found a whole bunch of them down by the stream,” Eren explained excitedly—though really he hadn’t explained anything. “Ah!” He lifted his odd fist to his face and peeked between a small crack in his fingers. “I hope I didn’t kill it…” Apparently whatever it was survived the trip from the stream to camp because Eren looked up at him. “Ready?”
Levi still had no idea what he was supposed to be preparing himself for, but he nodded.
Eren opened his hands wide. A spark rose up, glowing faintly and weaving through the warm, summer air. It looped lazily before them, dimming and flickering like a candle about to be blown out.
Levi furrowed his brow as the spark flew directly in front of his face, making a familiar noise. “Is that a bug? A bug that lights up?”
“Yeah,” Eren exclaimed, eager eyes still tracking the bug’s path.
It was interesting, Levi supposed. Definitely one of the strangest things he’d seen so far beyond the Walls. Oh-ing and ah-ing over a weird bug was more Hange’s thing than his, but Eren’s excitement was contagious. “How does a bug light up?” he asked.
Eren laughed. “I don’t know! Armin’s trying to figure it out. He’ll probably be down by the stream watching them all night.”
The bug, apparently tiring of entertaining them with its blinking light, flew up higher. Eren watched it with his head tilted back until it was so high it became indistinguishable from the stars. Then he sighed, looked back down at Levi and beamed brighter than any bug could ever manage. “Wasn’t it amazing?” he asked, his entire face aglow with the brilliance of his smile.
All Levi could do was nod as his heart thundered like horse hooves in his chest.
2
“Cap— oh, excuse me,” Eren said as he took in Hange standing next to Levi with a map outstretched between her hands. But Hange rolled up the map and waved him closer. “You’re fine, Eren. We were just finishing up.”
Eren nodded at her in thanks and then held out something round and pale green to Levi. “We found this tree with fruit,” he said. “They taste really good.”
“…You saw a weird tree with weird fruit and you ate some of it?” Levi asked, glancing at the fruit doubtfully. “What if it was poisonous?”
“Sasha said it looked edible,” Eren defended. “And then Connie said he’d eaten some a few days ago without realizing it was something new. It’s perfectly safe.”
Levi still didn’t reach for the fruit. Eren rolled his eyes and grabbed one of Levi’s hands, closing his fingers around the green fruit. “Just try it. One bite. I promise you won’t get sick.”
Eren’s fingers were hot against his skin. Levi jerked his hand away. Hange made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a stifled chuckle and Levi shot a glare in her direction.
“Try it,” Eren repeated, undisturbed by Levi’s sudden retreat. Warily, Levi sniffed the fruit. It smelled somewhat like an apple. He bit into it and was surprised by its tartness. It tasted a little like pomegranate seeds, but with a soft, juicy texture. “Not bad,” he decided, going for a second bite.
“I want to try one!” Hange said, bouncing on her heels. “Do you have another, Eren?”
“Sorry, Commander. I only brought one for the Captain. I don’t think there were any more left on the tree either…”
“Levi! Will you—”
“No. Find your own.” He ate the last bit of the fruit and snorted as Hange practically wilted.
Armin called to Eren and he left them with a final grin. Once he was out of earshot, Hange sprung back from her disappointment and sing-songed, “You like him.”
“Fuck off,” Levi muttered.
Hange just chuckled again, not bothering to muffle it this time. “He likes you too, you know.”
Levi scoffed, “He does not.”
“No, he definitely does. Well, probably,” Hange amended, tapping her chin with one finger. “At the very least, you’re more important to him than anyone else.”
Now that was just a shit-stinking lie. “Mikasa and Armin are the most important to him. They’re nearly inseparable.”
“Well, obviously. But after them, it’s definitely you.”
Levi didn’t have to listen to this nonsense. He stalked away, but Hange followed behind him, keeping up easily with her longer legs. “Just think about it,” she insisted. “Whenever they do separate, Mikasa goes to Sasha, Armin goes to Jean—”
“Armin and Jean aren’t fucking,” Levi interrupted.
“Maybe they aren’t fucking, but they’re definitely something,” Hange said without missing a beat. “What was I— oh, yeah. Armin goes to Jean, and Eren comes to you.”
“Don’t you have something to be doing?” Levi asked. “Reports or research or fucking off?”
Hange clapped him on the back twice. “Fine, fine,” she said. Then she leaned close to his ear and whispered, “You never said you didn’t like him.”
He swiped at her as though she were a pesky gnat and she darted away, laughing.
3
“Cap-tain,” Eren called, stretching out the syllables of the title. He jogged across the packed, wet sand to where Levi stood at the water’s edge. He stopped beside Levi, not even shivering when a frigid wave licked at his toes. “Look what we found,” he said, a little breathless, and held out his prize.
“A shell?” Levi asked. He squinted at it, but it didn’t look particularly different from any of the other thousands of shells scattered along the beach.
Eren examined the shell in his hand and swore. “Here, come on,” he said, tugging on Levi’s arm until Levi followed him further up the beach to where the waves wouldn’t reach. He squatted, pulling Levi down with him, and set the shell on the sand. “Maybe it’ll come back out,” he muttered.
With Eren’s eyes trained on the shell, Levi took the opportunity to study Eren’s face. His nose and cheeks were flushed from the cold breeze blowing in from the ocean, though the temperature didn’t seem to bother him like it did everyone else. His hair was not immune to the breeze though; it stood up in complete disarray, as though he had just risen from sleep. Eren bit his chapped bottom lip and Levi’s focus zeroed in on the tiny movement.
“Ah!” Eren said suddenly, body tensing. It startled Levi a bit, but he concealed the minor fright with a slow blink. “Look, see?”
Levi wrenched his gaze from Eren’s face to the shell and was surprised to see it was crawling along the sand. “What the fuck?”
“Right?” Eren shifted his squat to kneel on all fours, crouching low to the sand to get eye level with the shell. “There’s this little animal inside that looks kind of like a spider.”
A spider? Levi bent low too and sure enough, there was a reddish creature inside the shell with several legs of various sizes. “That’s fucking weird, Eren.”
Eren looked up at him and smiled that devastating grin. “But it’s amazing, right? I wonder what kind of stuff is deep down in the water where we can’t see,” he said, nodding towards the ocean.
Levi glanced at the endless expanse of water. “Could be anything,” he agreed.
Eren stood up, brushing sand from his rolled up pants. “You were standing out there for a long time,” he said. “Isn’t the water freezing for you? Even Connie hopped out after about a minute.”
Levi stood too and shrugged. “Got used to it. Besides, I didn’t dive all the way in like he did.”
Eren glanced down at Levi’s pale legs. “It doesn’t bother your ankle?”
“Made it feel better, actually,” Levi admitted.
“Really?”
So Eren rolled his pants up higher and joined Levi in walking along the shallows, occasionally splashing water with an almost child-like glee.
Levi had never liked killing. There had been no joy in slicing Titans, not even pleasure at a job well done. When the war had already ended, all he’d felt was bone-deep exhaustion and sorrow at what a cost their victory had come to.
Walking up and down the beach with Eren, so close that their arms and hands brushed every few steps, he felt a glimmer of happiness about his role as a soldier for the first time—an odd gladness that he’d helped shape a world free of Titans. A world where Eren looked down at him, salty sea breeze ruffling his hair, and smiled.
Fuck, he had it bad.
4
“Captain,” Eren said, quietly so he wouldn’t startle Levi’s horse. Levi glanced up from picking her last hoof clean to see Eren approaching with slow, measured steps. He didn’t really need to bother. Levi rode this particular mare through two years of Titan battles; she did not spook easily and she was nearly as accustomed to Eren as she was to Levi. “What is it?”
“I’ll wait,” Eren said. “Unless you want help?”
“Nearly done.” He pried the final pebble loose, checked the hoof and shoe for damage, and allowed the mare to lower her foot to the ground again. She made a soft huff and he stroked her flank a few times, murmuring that she’d done a good job, before finally turning to face Eren properly. He had one hand tucked behind his back and Levi raised an eyebrow. “So?” he prompted.
Eren withdrew his hidden hand and presented Levi with three flowers. “Look. Mikasa noticed them. From far away, they just look kind of purple, but if you get closer…” He gently tapped a single large petal. “The ends are black! And the middle where the… I forgot what Armin called it, but anyway, the middle is bright red! Have you ever seen a flower like that?”
Levi had to admit that he had not, although he usually didn’t pay much attention to flowers. These were nice though, despite the fact that it seemed too cold for any flowers this big to still be in bloom. Their colors were interesting and a pleasant fragrance wafted from their heavy petals. “They smell like tea,” he noted.
Eren’s face lit up and Levi’s heart somersaulted. “You think so too? I told Mikasa and Armin that, but they didn’t think so.”
“I’ve drank a fuck-load of tea. That’s definitely a tea smell. Mikasa and Armin don’t know shit.”
Eren laughed and pressed the three flowers into Levi’s free hand. “Here, you can have them. I’ve got to go help prepare dinner.”
As soon as he left, Hange appeared with that uncanny and annoying ability of hers. “I saw that,” she said, voice syrupy with amusement.
“Don’t fucking say it.”
Of course she said it. “He gave you flowers,” she crooned, waggling her eyebrows.
Sometimes Levi wondered what Erwin had been thinking when he decided to make Hange the next commander. Not that he wanted the position for himself. No fucking way. “He didn’t mean it like that.”
“Levi, he gave you flowers. How much more of a signal do you need?”
But Levi just made a rude gesture at her and untied his horse, leading her to where she’d be sleeping for the night. He held the flowers firmly but carefully in his other hand, and glared at anyone who dared to give him a funny look.
5
“—tain,” Eren whispered just outside his tent. His voice was so soft that for a moment, Levi thought he must’ve imagined it. But then he heard it again. “Captain Levi.”
Levi shrugged out of the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and replaced it with his heaviest cloak before emerging from his tent. “What?”
Eren’s face shone strangely in the camp’s firelight. A snowflake fell on his cheek and Levi watched as it melted immediately on Eren’s hot skin. He was literally glistening, Levi realized.
“You weren’t asleep, were you?” Eren asked.
Levi shook his head and Eren’s face cracked with a brilliant smile. “Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He led him to a spot where the treetops broke, leaving a patch of the night sky completely unobscured. “Look,” Eren said, directing Levi’s gaze upward.
At first, Levi didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. But then a flicker of movement caught his eye and he stared as one of the stars fell. “What—”
"Wait. There'll be more." Sure enough, more stars slid across the sky, descending in slow paths that left behind a shimmering, fading trail. Levi watched the spectacle until the cold steeped deep into his motionless body. He stomped his feet and rubbed his hands together to bring some heat back into his limbs.
"Sorry," Eren said, removing his own cloak. He wrapped it around Levi's shoulders, sending his heart into an erratic beat that was surely loud enough for the entire woods to hear. "I forgot how cold it is out here." He didn't move away after settling the cloak on Levi, standing so close that Levi could feel his body heat emitting from him like a furnace.
"It's fine," Levi said dismissively. Wasn't like he'd never been cold before.
Eren glanced up as another star fell. "There's so many amazing things out here," he murmured. "I always wanted to go and see the outside world with Armin and Mikasa. Now that it is finally happening, it's almost impossible to believe."
"Why didn't you wake them up?" Levi asked.
Eren laughed. His breath puffed out before his face in white billows. "Mikasa doesn't appreciate people disturbing her rest." Then he grimaced. "And I'm pretty sure Armin is in Jean's tent and I really do not need confirmation of that." He looked down from the sky and brushed some snow from Levi's shoulders, his touch like a searing brand even through all of Levi's layers. "Besides, I wanted to show you."
"Why?"
Eren blinked, hand slipping from Levi's shoulder. "Why?" he repeated. His frowned at the snowy ground. Without lifting his head, he gazed at Levi through his eyelashes in a way that was completely unfair. "I just... I want to see the world with you too."
Shit. Levi had no idea how to respond to something like that. So course he wound up blurting the worst thing possible; Levi blamed Eren's unfair, lash-y glance. "Hange thinks you've been trying to woo me or something." Eren straightened and stared at him, eyes widening with surprise. Shit, shit, shit. Levi crossed his arms over his chest and tried to play it off as a casual question. "So... are you?"
Eren's expression shifted from surprise to something wolfish. "That depends," he said, grinning in a sly manner. Levi couldn't decide if he wanted to punch Eren in the shoulder or kiss him to get rid of that grin. "Is it working?"
Levi made up his mind.
*
"Come here," Levi said. The grin became a faint, questioning frown as Eren looked at the already narrow distance between them. Levi helped him figure it out by tugging the front of Eren's jacket to make him bend over. "I want to show you something."
Eren leaned forward obligingly, nuzzling his warm nose against Levi’s and chuckling until Levi captured his lips and shut him up. His mouth was hotter than Levi had imagined and he immediately forgot his frozen fingers and toes. Eren’s hands came up to frame his face and Levi swore his skin was thawing.
Shit. They should’ve been doing this months ago.
When Eren pulled away, he stared at Levi for a moment, cheeks flushed, and then burst into chuckles again.
“What?” Levi grumbled.
“Sorry,” Eren said, not sounding sorry at all. “I can’t believe you actually said that. ‘I want to show you something?’ That’s terrible.”
Levi huffed and folded his arms over his chest. “You were the one bringing me bugs and fucking weird shell-spiders things. What are you, six years old?”
But Eren just shook his head, lips pressed together in an effort to stop laughing. Levi narrowed his eyes at him and Eren bit down hard on his lip, shoulders shaking, before finally he gave up and laughed out loud. So Levi yanked him down by his jacket and shut him up again. When Levi was finished with him, Eren wasn’t laughing anymore.
“It’s cold out here,” Levi told him. A little dazed, Eren nodded in agreement, although he did not look cold at all. “Come with me,” he added, seizing Eren's hand and leading him back to Levi’s tent. Eren followed along, twining his fingers between Levi’s gloved ones.
They could see more of the world in the morning. Tonight, Levi just wanted to see Eren.