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Eren’s skin does not scar, this is something that became obvious very quickly--if the fact that he had regrown two whole limbs was any indication. It did not matter how deep the cuts were, it did not matter what parts of his body were lost, the skin always grew back, knitting together with a stubbornness not unlike the titan shifter himself. It was convenient. It meant that no matter what happened, no matter how many hits and kicks and broken bones and flesh wounds and goddess-knew-what-else Eren took, he only had to wait a couple minuteshoursdays to heal where someone else would have been bedridden, out of commission or even dead. Knowing that, knowing that Eren was humanity's hope and one of the few things standing towards their victory, no one could deny that it was convenient. However, Levi knew Eren hated it. He hated it with a horrible sense of shame that the Corporal could feel through their bond, no matter how hard Eren tried to trample it down. He felt it and he understood as someone who knew that what was convenient was not always easy--but he could not be sorry. Did it burn him that Eren hurt over it? Yes. Did he wish he could take the feeling away and make Eren understand that the fading of marks did not invalidate all that he had been through? Yes. But was he sorry? No. He couldn’t be. Not when that same healing ability brought Eren back to him each and every day.
How many times had he cradled Eren in his arms, his body bloodied and broken? How many times had he pressed hands to open wounds with fear but not complete dread because he knew in that special way that soulmates did and without even having to see that the skin was knitting beneath his touch, stitching back together precious tissue and veins that helped to give Eren life and breathe air into his lungs. Too many times could Levi had lost Eren so no, Levi wasn’t sorry. Eren was too important to trade in for scars that would mean nothing if the owner’s body was a lifeless corpse. That of course, didn’t mean that he didn’t strive to ease Eren’s pain though.
It hurt to slip down into the castle’s lower floors--so lonely and cold, Eren told him through the bond, and dark, the dark was suffocating--only to find his wrists rubbed raw and sometimes bleeding on the shackles they had no other choice but to use when officials came by. He didn’t like the way Eren watched with a detached agony as his skin knit back together after nicking his palm on a peeling knife and he especially hated the way Eren’s happiness would fade away as if it were a stain finally scrubbed clean as his body had been--his body which had moments before been covered in claiming marks, bruising prints and scratching lines.
Gone, Eren’s mind would cry, his distress like the flares they shot up into the sky, made of black and greens and reds that hurt Levi’s soul. Always gone. Levi would do his best to soothe him, running fingers through the damp strands of Eren’s hair and holding him close. He would wrap his body around the other male as he did with his mind, enveloping him in calming blues and grays that Eren lit up like fireworks in his distress. It would hurt, sending pain radiating out through Levi’s very being as he was invaded with emotion too strong and uncontrolled to be anything else. He would endure it though, because there were far worse things that could happen to him--to them--than a little pain.
I’m here, he would croon, thoughts like a soft melody. Nothing is gone.
Eren would shiver and shake in answer, thoughts receding from bright bursts of fire to fizzling sparks that touched the cloudy wisps of Levi’s mind hesitantly, as one would dip their toes in water to test the temperature. When met with nothing but a sense of calm he would dive into Levi, enveloping his dying fire in a world of water. It was not unlike drowning.
The fact of the matter was that no matter how good it felt after it was done, the bonding of minds could be both unsettling and suffocating. It was like trying to force something too big into a tiny opening until the pressure was so great going further was impossible and going back wasn’t even an option. Isabel and Farlan had said that it was like slipping into a pit, all you could do was keep your limbs tight and hope that the ground wasn’t as hard as it looked. Levi found it to be akin to immersing oneself in water. One minute your feet were on even ground and the next you were plunging into a pool of water of untold depths and a surface that only seemed to grow further and further away no matter what one did. Except his soulmate was Eren, and the water wasn’t cold, it was warm--hot even--burning at his skin and rubbing him raw. It exposed the nerve endings of his very soul, leaving him bared and sensitive to the other mind reaching out towards his own.
Of course, the entire procedure took barely a minute in most cases, but it felt much longer when drowning in that pool of burning water, shoved and pushed around by waves like whips. He had asked Eren once what it felt like for him and Eren had told him that it was like free falling, the ground rushing up to meet him in dizzying distances. One moment it was close enough to touch with his feet, the next it was miles down, barely even a spec in his sight. When compared to drowning Levi hadn’t been sure which he would have preferred, but they had both agreed that despite the drawbacks it was well worth it.
Eren’s mind was so warm, lit up from within with a rainbow of colors that danced across the walls of his soul, bleeding out into space that Levi hadn’t even known existed. Levi’s own mind was a dreary world in comparison, his soul a hazy cloud of mist with shards of glass that glinted light and color in certain instances. Eren always claimed to love it. It calmed him to be in a place so different from his own mind. It was as much as an escape as flying was and Levi couldn’t deny that it was a relief for himself as well. Having Eren in his hold, in every way possible, gave Levi the ability to soothe all of the hurts that laid within. After all, the body’s outsides showed little of what condition the mind was in, and in a world where Eren had the hopes of humanity on his shoulders it was important to make sure the strain wasn’t breaking him.
It was as Levi was soothing the agony and self hate that came with every comrades death that he knew that if the bond did not exist, Eren would have surely crumbled by now. His mind was a wreck of disjointment and fried edges. His sparks were more often than not cries of help that went both unheard and unanswered in daily life, his lights flickering on and off like the dying lights of fireflies. Levi wasn’t even quite sure that Eren knew about half of them most times.
That wasn’t to say that Levi wasn’t the same. Eren had cried out in agony when joining with Levi for the first time after Petra, Gunther, Eld and Aurou’s deaths. He had walked the paths of the Corporal’s soul, diamonds strewn at his feet and clouds torn like cloaks, picking up the pieces of himself and putting them back together. It had taken long hours and many weeks, but Eren had never faltered, determined to right the wrong that he faulted himself for.
Now, Levi returned the favor. Every night that they could they would do this, escape into each other’s minds and help to soothe the hurts that fighting for humanity had caused, sometimes both knowingly and unknowingly. It was a relief, something that came naturally with time and of which both of them enjoyed greatly. Nothing was better than being able to sink into his soulmate’s arms at the end of the day, safe and warm and loved.
He only wished he could make Eren feel like that all the time.