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As if your eyes just focused on the individual raindrops finally, sticking to a window as singular units of water, not the pouring cascade falling down. Exactly like your vision refocusing on that which had been in front of you in such a fleeting manner. It is the only way Levi could describe the sudden feeling that overcame him as a person in his entirety.
The feeling so absolutely foreign no conventional method of explanation would do it justice. His body let out a breath as it refocused on the world around him.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
And then there was Eren next to him.
The ocean lapping at his legs, the ends of his trousers carefully rolled up as the waves barely managed to lick the seams. A wistful look engraved in his expression as he looked upon the ocean, his eyes steely and the edges of his lips just slightly downwards.
“You’re here.”
Levi needed a moment to collect his thoughts. Why was he here?
The water around his legs was icy cold, seeping through his bones. Yet Levi only noticed the shivering now. His pants, even though rolled up just like Eren’s, were soaked through. He’d been standing here for a while.
Time seemed to slow down.
A voice in Levi whispered that maybe for once time didn’t exist. A lunatic’s thoughts.
“What?”
Eren’s expression didn’t change, no chuckle, no bashful scratching of his neck only the sounds of foreign birds cawwing at the open ocean.
“You. The actual you, the one currently fighting me.”
“Ah.”
And suddenly it all rushed in. Nothing like a violent torment flooding a city, nothing like the realizations books make one believe bring upon epiphanies, more like a gentle wind that brought with it things Levi was already aware of.
Emotions escaped Levi. As if in this moment he had nothing to give but the sight him and Eren were staring at.
It all stayed like that for a little while, the atmosphere blanketing him like a coat, its warmth fleeing from him.
“You know,” Eren began, breaking the silence, “I didn’t expect to have been here for two months. I spend maybe a few minutes with Connie, a few hours with Jean, years with-” the neutral expression didn’t leave his face even as Eren’s voice faltered.
Levi snorted, an ugly sound escaping his nose. He couldn’t help it, he’d fucking opened his eyes, forgot what the hell he- the other him, the one that’d actually experienced with Eren whatever the fuck he was talking about- had been doing and was now looking around at a sight he hadn’t even known before this very moment. What a joke.
“Don’t start sentences you can’t spit out, brat,” he let out, the final word tasting bitter on his tongue.
Eren seemed slightly taken aback by that, his shoulders hunching as a gentle smile finally graced his features.
“Let’s walk,” Eren said.
Levi followed one step behind.
“So what in the hell is this, Yeager?” he finally bit out, interrupting the ocean’s waves.
“You’ll only remember this once I’ve died. Planted memories in your subconscious, and all that, you could say… paths.”
“I’m an Ackerman,” Levi retaliated, the last name on his tongue sounding like a threat, a warning. One Eren knew very well was not a show of power but rather a reminder of it.
Eren chuckled: “That you are. But,” an exhale as he looked to the sky, “Ackermans are a byproduct of titan science. Of the curse. The path we are currently on… it’ll destroy it. No longer as scary as you once were, huh, captain?”
Eren finally turned his head backwards, shooting Levi a look all the while not relenting his casual pace.
“I guess so,” Levi responded, just the slightest growl audible in his words.
“You’ll wake up in battle and remember… ‘this’.”
Levi’s eyebrows furrowed: “Remember the two months I spent here doing what? Shitting? I don’t need those memories Yeager.”
His companion let out a laugh: “No worries, it’s more like a dream. The vague notion of what happened, maybe some phrases, just as long as you all remember we…”
Levi knew there was more to that, not a thought unfinished but a sentiment Eren couldn’t bring into words. A child losing his words.
The silence remained for a while as they continued on, Levi feeling no push to catch up to Eren, watching his back as his legs would continuously disappear and reappear from watery sights.
“No questions about why I did the rumbling?” Eren eventually asked.
Levi kept quiet. Letting the question properly settle in his mind. Why Eren rumbled?
Did it matter? He did it. He continued on. He moved forwards. What was there to ask? There wasn’t a question Levi didn’t know the answer to, questions he cared about.
“Of course not,” Eren broke his train of thought, “it’s you. You never cared about any of that, did you? You’re probably only wondering whether I have any regrets, aren’t you?”
“Do you?”
Despite that Eren didn’t turn around, Levi just knew the boy was wearing a pitiful smile. His voice lacking any strain Levi had wished he could find in it.
“I’ve respected you since I met you, captain. It’d be a regret of mine to not lie to you in this instant, they’d pile up.”
The same pitiful smile graced his features now.
“Dick.”
…
“What are we doing here, Eren?” the question left his lips more as a sigh than an actual sentence, fatigue coating his words.
Eren laughed, it wasn’t one of his hearty laughs, the one where his eyes crinkled at the edges and a dimple would appear just below his cheekbone, it was more along the lines of the manic ones he’d let out during missions. The ones embedded to the bone with something much more despair-inducing than simple humor.
“You know I thought you’d be the shortest one!” a kick to the water, “I genuinely thought that, captain. I’d tell you that I respected you, that you made me into a person worthy of living life with no regrets. And then you shut me up,” a stomp so hard the droplets now clung to his shirt, “told me to keep my mouth shut and sit down and have tea because the birds' chirping annoyed you and you needed to calm down. I thought I’d talk to you for three minutes and end it but then I showed you outside and you complained about the shit stench of the birds and I wanted to stop it even earlier there but then you-,” a harder splash, one that came up all the way to the man’s elbows, “you had to get that look in your eye. Tell me how much you liked the air here. Asked me if I wanted to do training exercises with the 3DMG in the forest. For old time’s sake. You-”
Eren let out a breath as a last laugh escaped his throat, his face turning from the open ocean to Levi’s own for just a moment.
“You could’ve had feelings for me, couldn’t you?” the final words were bitten out by Eren as if a dog chasing after its own bark, its mouth snapping closed over the sound.
Levi’s breath caught in his throat, the oxygen choking him momentarily as they stared at each other.
“Yeah,” Levi exhaled, “I probably could have, yeah.”
“I love Mikasa.”
Now, wasn’t this just a comedy show?
Levi let out another snort: “Am I supposed to cry? Ever heard of a past modal tense, brat? Get your head out of whatever shitpile you got it in if you think I’m in love with you or something.”
“I could have too. I think.”
Eren abruptly stopped. Finally turning around and facing Levi fully.
“So. Let me get this straight,” Levi started off, his teeth gritting over one another.
“You came into my brain with your little magic Founding Titan powers, planning to tell me a sad story about how respected I was as your superior or some other bullshit but because I was nice to you, you overstayed your welcome in my brain for two months.”
“You overstayed your welcome in my Paths, sir.”
Levi tch-ed: “Cheeky brat.”
The wind continued howling as they stared at each other, Levi’s boots in his hands carefully swaying along as they held gazes.
“And you could have loved me.”
“I could have loved you.”
“But you don’t.”
A beat passed: “I don’t.”
Levi sighed as he closed his eyes. Ok then.
Levi started walking again: “And when did your little heart start longing for Mikasa, brat?”
“Levi.”
The Levi in question clenched his fists. Eren had no right to even hold this sort of pretence. Ignoring his question as if he was a petulant child.
“Stop it, Eren.”
Eren seemed to take the scolding to heart. Levi barely catching Eren’s hands leaving their fisted form as he deflated.
“I’ll show you the sight, you know, I’ll show it to you. I promise,” Levi didn’t have to look backwards to know Eren was following, his voice remaining stable as he trotted along through the water behind Levi.
“What sight?” Levi now spat.
“Our comrades. See them.”
That made Levi stop in his tracks.
No words were exchanged as Levi looked at Eren’s face, seeking for any sort of hint that he was lying. That his words were minced or his tongue white from the untruth he’d embedded them with.
When Levi couldn’t find any traces, his eyes carefully following the younger’s, his brows frowning with doubt overtaking them, he ever so slowly nodded. The movement barely noticeable.
“Okay.”
Levi knew the word hadn’t gone lost in the wind.
And they continued on walking. Levi lost track of time as his feet brought him further and further along the seemingly never-ending shoreline. Eren walking quietly besides him as they advanced.
Levi looked around. Every so often they’d pass a rare cabin, the wood no different from the old shacks that could be found in the remote mountains within the walls. Sometimes Levi could just barely make out the tips of misty mountains in the distance as birds would fly soundlessly towards them. Crabs scuttled along the shore as they’d arbitrarily stick their heads up from the sand every so often.
It was indeed a beautiful day.
After who knows how long Levi finally spoke up: “So what have we been doing these two months then?”
A small smile appeared on his companion’s face: “Mostly me appreciating your humor. I also didn’t know you were such a skilled hunter.”
Levi lifted an eyebrow.
“Sorry I wrongly assumed deer and underground thugs were slightly different targets.”
“Deer? Yeah. Roaches? No.”
Eren brought a fist to his face as he started laughing, his entire chest moving along with the giggling as his cheeks flushed red from the mirth and his green eyes sparkled along.
“What’s so funny?”
“That you already made that joke about a month in.”
“Can’t fucking expect me to know that now, can you?”
“No I can’t. But I’m glad to know you’re still… you, despite it all.”
So there was a cutoff point. Somewhere, sometime Eren had chosen to start the memory. Sometime before...
He flexed all ten of his fingers.
“What more, brat?”
“What?”
“What more did we do these two months, c’mon, let me hear it, we don’t have all day.”
Eren smiled: “Alright.”
The waves continued crashing against the shore as the sounds of Eren’s laughs flood over them. Levi’s own chuckles coating over the foam collecting in between his toes as they continued walking on. Birds flew over them as the ocean smell accompanied their trek.
Levi’s clothes getting more and more soaked as they carried on, Eren’s eyes crinkling more and more the longer they went.
Their hands brushed.
And Levi knew it wasn’t a promise, neither was it a cruel reminder of fate dangling in front of them.
It was just… a whisper of the modal tense.
Yeah, Levi thought with a grimace, that’s all it is.