Work Text:
The morgue is a cold place. A cold, quiet, lonely, empty place. There are no beeps of machinery, no frantic family members begging for help, none of that. Levi prefers it this way. There are less problems to solve, no emotions to navigate. Just him and the dead.
“Good morning, Doctor Ackerman.”
And sometimes Eren fucking Jaeger.
Levi suppresses a sigh and continues his dictation of the inside of a corpse. He hopes that Eren’s greeting hadn’t been caught in the recording otherwise Hanji would have words to say about it. Oh, Levi. He’s so polite!
Polite or not, he’s a distraction.
Levi pries open the chest cavity and reports that, upon first glance, it is unremarkable. Eren is a nurse for radiology, so Levi isn’t really sure what compels him to continue returning to the morgue. A coronal slice through the left lung: scarring. Eren could be spending time with his friends rather than watching Levi cut into human bodies. A coronal slice through the right lung to confirm similar scarring patterns. Bilateral pulmonary fibrosis. Cause to be determined. Unless Eren is trying to change careers, he doesn’t really have a need to be down here. Palytoxin, Levi guesses when he cuts through the heart. But he keeps that finding close to his chest for now, so to speak.
The rest of his autopsy is unremarkable. Some scarring along the kidneys, but otherwise insignificant. The lymph nodes that he inspects are normal and that rules out sarcoidosis. Just out of curiosity, Levi gives the patient’s hair a small tug and it remains fully in place. Probably not Lupus either. At this point, he does announce that he suspects palytoxin, but it seems unlikely unless the patient had been poisoned or he worked below ground.
“Concluded at ten fifty-one on the twenty-first of November, year two-thousand one-hundred and eighteen. Levi Ackerman, medical examiner. End dictation.” He signs off the way he always does, then ends the recording.
Without looking at Eren, Levi can hear him coming closer as quietly as he can. So, not very.
“Good morning, doctor. I apologise for interrupting your dictation.” Eren says softly, as though there are secret recording devices hidden in the lab.
“Brat.” Levi responds in lieu of greeting and gets to undressing himself from his surgical gown. “What brings you down here this morning?”
“Just saying hi.” Eren mumbles and it almost brings a small smile to Levi’s lips. Almost, like his mouth is thinking about maybe smiling and he tries to ignore that warm, swelling feeling beneath his sternum. He pushes the patient back into his refrigerated hold in the wall and breathes easy.
Levi steels himself then turns to face Eren once his PPE has been removed and placed into respective bins of waste and cleaning. Eren is watching him, the way he always watches him, like he’s waiting for something. Levi wants to know exactly what he’s waiting for and if he can remove that look from his face.
“Hmm.” Levi says instead of all of the things he wants to say. And then, “It’s Friday.” Eren’s entire face lights up with those words and it’s blinding. And again with the quelling of that warm, happy feeling.
“What are you going to do this weekend?” Eren asks and Levi glances around his small morgue with a grimace.
“Work probably.”
Eren frowns and that happy feeling is gone. “But it’s the weekend.” He says and Levi can’t hold back a small chuckle.
“Sorry, kid. Sometimes I have extra work to do.”
“But…” Eren worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” He sighs and then perks right back up again and that dichotomy of emotion used to give Levi whiplash, but after a few months of knowing each other, he’s gotten used to it. “Armin and I are going to the beach! It’s supposed to be nice weather tomorrow.”
Levi snorts. “Try not to catch anything while you’re down there. Beaches are disgusting.”
Eren laughs, which is weird. Levi knows his personality isn’t the warmest, but he cares about people, quietly. No one needs to know how much he cares, but he does. And hearing Eren laugh at something he said is unique. Most people don’t find him amusing. There are exactly two people on the planet who find words that Levi says funny and that’s Eren and Hanji and neither of them are great representations for humanity.
But neither is Levi.
“You should come with us.” Eren says in a manner he probably thinks is nonchalant and Levi turns to fix him with an unimpressed stare. “I know you said you have work to do, but you can spare like a couple hours, right?”
“Do you know how many autopsies I perform on bodies that have washed up from some body of water?”
“How many?”
“At least one a week. And the smell is something else.”
“Well maybe you can join us for dinner afterwards?” Levi goes to say words, but Eren flaps his hands around. “We’ll shower first before we meet up with you!”
Levi should say no, but he doesn’t want to, so he doesn’t. “If you smell even a little bit like salt water, I’m leaving.”
Eren grins and Levi finds himself turning away so Eren doesn’t see him smile.
&&&
Levi and Eren had met purely by chance. Or at least, it had seemed like chance. Historically, Levi never ate his lunch in the hospital cafeteria because it’s a cesspool of infections. But it was Practitioners Appreciation Week and Hanji had begged him to make an appearance for appearance’s sake. Levi found himself dragged from the mortuary and shoved in between Hanji and some random nurse.
And while he finds many things dirty, he doesn’t usually find people to be dirty. He may also be more touch starved than he’s willing to admit. He glances at Hanji who’s looking at the nurse next to him with a sharp gleam in their eyes that gives him cause for concern. He turns to apologise to the nurse for whatever Hanji is thinking about doing and finds himself staring into the greenest bluest eyes he’s ever seen in his life. Green or blue. Green...or blue.
Hanji drapes themself across Levi’s back to get a closer look at the nurse. “I’m Hanji, let’s be friends.”
“Uhm, okay.” The nurse doesn’t seem that put off. In fact, he seems pleased. “My name is Eren.”
“This is Levi.” Hanji says and their voice has taken on a dangerous edge. “He’s an M.E.”
Eren looks back down at Levi and stares at him with a curious air. Levi is used to getting overlooked, usually; he is short and doesn’t wear the warmest expressions. But he finds himself being inspected more closely than he really feels comfortable with.
“For murders or regular deaths?”
“Both.” Levi responds. Eren’s eyes widen and Levi doesn’t want to guess why. “Stop staring, brat. All practitioners are supposed to be appreciated today, not just me.” Hanji squeals and presses more of their weight against Levi’s back. He tries to shake them off, but they’re there for good. He blinks slowly once and accepts his fate.
“What if I only want to appreciate you?” Eren says and Levi smirks against his better judgement. He meets Eren’s eyes and doesn’t say anything. The longer he looks at Eren, the more uncomfortable he seems to get and the more he squirms.
Hanji remains quiet during this exchange for a little while and then says, “Levi, you’ve been single for a long time.”
Levi shuts his eyes for a moment and then sighs. With a motion a little too harsh, he gets Hanji off of him and then looks at both of them. “I feel more than appreciated today. I have dead bodies to pry open. Don’t spend too much time eating cake, shitty glasses. I’ll need your hands later.” He looks at Eren. “It was an experience meeting you.”
He leaves and is blissfully alone for about an hour. The door opens just as he begins suturing up a chest cavity.
“You’re late. I needed your hands sometime ago.”
“Did you?” That’s not Hanji’s voice.
Levi glances over his shoulder and looks at Eren. “Hmm.” Sometimes words are unnecessary.
“I can help.”
Levi turns slowly and looks at Eren from head to toe. “How old are you, kid?”
“Twenty-six.” Eren says a little defensively.
“What do you do in the hospital?”
“I’m a nurse radiologist.”
“Hmm.”
“But I’m good with my hands.”
Levi looks down at Eren’s hands. Clean. “I’m sure you are.”
“I can show you?” Levi raises an eyebrow. “Professionally.” He clarifies, but his cheeks are red. “Shut up.”
“I’m sure I didn’t say anything.”
“You did with your eyes.”
“Oh?” Amusement shocks through Levi. “You’re not bad company.”
&&&
And then he started showing up all the time. And Levi found it harder and harder to keep him away. There is something about his constant emotional honesty that Levi finds painfully refreshing.
Levi finds himself seated at a...surprisingly nice seafood restaurant on the water. It does smell of salt water, but he isn’t upset about it. He glances at his watch and wonders how early Eren will show up. He makes a bet with himself that Eren will come in frantically five minutes after their proposed meeting time of 6pm.
Levi drums his fingers along the table and wonders without aim what he would do if Eren stood him up. Order a fancy dinner and eat it alone probably. But something tells him that Eren wouldn’t stand him up unless he was actively dying and that makes Levi smile a bit.
“You’re smiling.”
“You’re on time.” Levi says as he looks up at Eren as he sits down.
“I am early.” Eren says wondrously as his eyes roam freely across Levi’s face. And there’s something fragile about the way he’s gazing that makes Levi want to lean across the table and hold his hand, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he glances at his watch and hums. “I placed a bet with myself that you would be five minutes late.”
Eren smiles. “Oh? And what did you lose?”
“I’d say I won in this case.” Levi glances off to the side. “Where’s your friend?”
Eren’s face turns red and he looks inexplicably embarrassed. “Would it be weird if I said I want it to be just the two of us?” Levi has to remind himself not to read into it.
“I don’t mind meeting your friends, brat.”
Eren’s blush travels down his neck. “It would be weird for a date.”
Levi blinks and then leans forward. Eren is desperately avoiding looking at him and he glances all around the restaurant. “Is this a date?”
Eren’s eyes flick between Levi and the rest of the room. “No?”
Levi leans back in his chair. “Then I could have met your friend.”
His heart is pounding and he is trying so hard to pretend like it isn’t. And, based on the red hue of Eren’s face, he isn’t faring much better.
“I-it...can be a date…” Eren’s eyes light up a little even though he stammers. “I would like for it to be a date!”
Levi fights back a smile, but he’s sure his lips still turn up. “Alright. Next time, just ask me.”
Eren’s face lights up and it’s hard not to admit that he’s cute. “Next time?”
Levi sighs and rolls his eyes. But he reaches across the table and takes Eren by the hand.
“Yeah, brat. Next time.”