More Than Tongue Can Tell (RIREN// ERERI)

Chapter 36 - Never Alone

If this isn't coherent, I'm sorry. It is 4 am. I'm being a benevolent god right now. Night-Night, Motherfuckers. CW: a pretty violent dream.

Not even an entire day after Levi had arrived in Massachusetts, I received a rather suspicious phone call at around midnight my time, meaning it was nearly three in the morning for him. Closing the textbook I was answering questions in, I reached for my vibrating phone.

"Hello?" I answered the call and immediately felt the dread of the caller on the other end of the phone. Levi didn't speak right away, so I spoke again. "Levi?"

"Eren, I'm sorry for calling s-so late," he whispered, and I could hear a quiet rustling in the background. "I just had a really weird dream." By the time he said the final word, he was speaking almost inaudibly.

"Don't worry about what time it is, Levi. I'm up. Wanna tell me about it?" I asked, shoving my History homework aside and stretching out my legs, ready to hear out whatever he could possibly have dreamed of.

"I- I wouldn't even know where to start," Levi sniffed, and it finally occurred to me that he was crying.

"Well, babe, what do you need from me right now?" I asked, popping in a set of earbuds, and waiting for him to say something. He stuttered, stumbling over his words for a moment, but finally caught hold of what he wanted to say.

"Just tell me everybody is home safe, okay?" Levi demanded suddenly, so desperately that it shocked me to hear him talk like that. There was a quiet shiver in his voice each time he tried to speak that I couldn't help but notice.

"Yeah," I said letting out a quick exhale. "Of course. We're all fine over here. I can sneak around and check on everybody if that would make you feel better," I offered, preparing to have to get out of my bed to do just that.

"It would, but I know I'm being stupid right now. I just woke up. I'm not thinking straight. Don't feed into it," Levi sighed, and then I heard a door open and close in the background of the call. "I'm in the hallway, headed outside to smoke a cigarette, and you're coming along for the ride."

"No cancer sticks," I jested, not really minding, given how stressed he seemed, but willing to give him grief over it anyway.

"Stick a sock in it. I'm doing what I want," Levi snorted.

"Well, do you want to talk about that dream you had?" I tried to push him a little now that he was officially sans room mate, wandering towards an exit to his dorm.

"Lemme get some fresh air first, Jaeger," he said, and I could once again hear him rolling his eyes. "Patience is a virtue, you know."

"Well, you're the one that called me," I laughed, shaking my head at him as if he were standing in front of me and could see what I was doing.

"Touche," my fiancee hummed, while in the background, I heard four quiet beeps and then a metallic clicking sound. The next thing I could hear was the wind of the cold early morning. "Alright. I'm outside."

"Is my patience time up?" I inquired.

"You brat," Levi said, flicking a lighter and inhaling. "But yeah. I guess. Are you sure you wanna hear it?" he asked again, immediately being met by another nod that was invisible to him.

"Tell me everything, Levi." I said, bracing myself for another trip into the torture Levi's dreams subject him to.

"Okay," he breathed, "I guess I'll get started, then.

"I was strapped in the center back seat of some kind of SUV, and your mother was driving, Mikasa was in the passenger seat, you were on my right, and Poppy was on my left, fast asleep.