A tail for an eye - Eren x Levi

Chapter 14

'Anger'

Eren stared up at Levi, a swirl of confusion and interest spiralling in his expression. Nothing seemed quite as intriguing as one another to each other. A strange feeling set in the both of their stomach, though it went unaddressed, but it was there for definite. The silence didn't feel awkward, perhaps a little tense and threatening, though mostly calming. Too calming. Every sound outside the cabin was drowned out from their focus and slowly their eyes began travelling along their bodies, searching around as though they'd find gold. Levi felt silently flustered as Eren looked all over his face, his chest and every limb, but it wouldn't be enough for his returned stare to falter. His eyes gained a certain look within them, he hooded over his eyes slightly, tilting his head further back and continued inspecting Levi's body. Levi squinted his eyes slightly.

"Why don't you take your eyepatch off, does your eye look ugly?" Eren said, too busy staring along the rest of Levi's body to bother with eye contact.

"Brat," Levi hissed at him, turning the side where the eyepatch covered him away from Eren.

"You like calling me that a lot," he stated, "is it something you call all mer-people?"

"Only the ones that annoy me. That's you."

"I annoy you?" Levi couldn't tell if Eren actually felt hurt by that fact or if he was playing around, thinking he was funny. 

"You're cocky," Levi began, turning his head back to Eren, "persistent to a point of stupidity, arrogant and reckless."

"Sounds like a fun person to me."

"Sounds like an idiot to everyone else," Levi responded quick. They shared a moment of staring at one another once again.

"Do you hate me?"

"I don't have a reason to. I don't know you," Levi answered honestly, feeling irritated by the questions but finding there was little else to do to pass the time now that they'd caught him.

"But you know me well enough to sell and kill me." Eren's change of tone took Levi back. He lost the gleam in his eyes and the confident behaviour he'd been presenting turned into a slump within the water as he sank a little lower, wetting the tops of his shoulders.

"It's easier to do that to someone when you don't know them." He hadn't planned to say that out loud, though it did cause Eren to lift himself back up in his posture. Levi regretted his words, worrying that he'd given Eren an idea. He already felt somewhat guilty for having to sell the merman, he appeared youthful and acted just like a normal person. Who was Levi to decide if Eren should get to live or not?

"Do you ever think pirates could one day get. along with mer-people in peace?"

He thought for a moment, "I don't know. Maybe. But not for now."

Eren didn't respond to that, just returned to the position of sinking within the water to chin level with a frustrated stare towards the wood of the floor. Levi didn't feel like interrupting the silence, though he did decide to adjust his chair away from Eren to give him some sort of space as he sulked. To Levi, Eren appeared somewhat of a mess in emotions and personality. One moment they had spoken about a serious topic, the next he'd gained confidence and stared at Levi as though his prey, then the next he was back to being depressed. Levi couldn't blame him for the last one, he was awaiting an inevitable death, it felt cruel to prolong it out in this way. But the abrupt changes in personality were strange. Eren reminded him of an immature teenager, though he wasn't sure on how mer-people's ages worked. He assumed similar to humans. Regardless, Eren held the stereotypical traits. It seemed a little sweet, reminding Levi of teenagers who lived around him or the days of being a teenager himself. Perhaps not quite as reckless as Eren, though the spirit was the same. If still in the ocean, Eren would've grown and shared fond memories of his close capture with pirates to younger mer-people and perhaps grown a tale of his own. However, that wouldn't happen anymore. It shouldn't have saddened Levi, but it did begin to have a slight effect.