A tail for an eye - Eren x Levi

Chapter 16

"Unexpected interaction"

The sounds of splashing and Eren's body hitting the wood didn't come to a pause, even when Levi first entered the room. He could hear incoherent yelling from him, first starting out as stuttering before turning into him calling for Levi.

"Levi! Levi!"

'What is it, brat?" Levi's voice returned, causing Eren to yelp in surprise a little as his eyes had been closed as he thrashed his body around. Levi looked about the room, spotting an empty chair where someone should've been supervising Eren. 

Right on cue as he stared at the empty seat, the pirate assigned with that duty appeared behind him by the door, "Oh, Captain, it's you."

Levi turned to face him, blank faced. The boy continued talking, "Sorry, I needed the bathroom."

"Go have a break," Levi said, deciding to find out what the merman wanted. Despite wanting a quiet sit down, he couldn't deny his interest in Eren overpowered that.

"Okay," he responded, a little unsure but already walking back, "thank you, Captain."

In a flash, only two were now in the room. Turning around, they both made eye contact again. Eren appeared both relaxed in position - or as relaxed as can be when restrained - but uncomfortable in his face.

"What?" Levi asked again, not moving from his stance. 

"I could hear you arguing, with the weird blonde pirate," Eren spoke with a slow pace. Levi felt rather surprised he could hear them, they were at a distance. Then again, it made sense for mer-people to have more advanced hearing due to the difference in travel of sound waves. He didn't feel embarrassed nor called out, but sort of bad for Eren who's day must've been placing heavy clouds of sadness upon him, "I wanted to get your attention."

Levi still didn't move from his stance, unsure of where Eren planned to go with this, "Erwin." Deciding to inform Eren of his name felt irrelevant but no other answer entered his head. Ironically, Levi didn't think Erwin's name was worth knowing to Eren, or anyone's for that matter.

"You really don't want to give him any money, do you?" Eren said, little emotion on his face but an intriguing tone of interested in his words. 

"No."

"Am I worth a lot of money?" An unexpected question came from Eren, who'd began looking across the wood floor as though the most interesting thing. However, his eyes averted all over the surface and didn't focus on anything.

Levi stepped closer, crossing his arms and leaning agains the wall, this could either work out to be a long conversation or a short and awkward few spoken sentences, "Enough for every pirate here to retire."

Eren glanced up to Levi, who was also looking down to the floor but with highly focused eyes directly in front of him, "Really?" A lower and more depressing tone left his mouth this time.

"Why ask?"

"I don't really have anything else to do," Eren answered. A defeated look had plastered itself over him, as though he'd given up on the idea of being rescued, on the idea of living. It felt horrible to witness for Levi, but he'd brought it on himself. The conflict of feelings in him were firing inside of him. Half wanting to keep him so he could earn his retirement and keep up the legacy of his family, the other half wanted to free Eren. It felt off, all animals they'd ever killed never had an impact on Levi and they were still living forms. Yet, Eren was a different situation,  perhaps because he could talk and behave like a human, he half resembled on. Mer-people were like the balance between land and sea mammals. Unfortunately, freeing Eren actually presented more cons than pros, and Levi didn't want to end up regretting letting loose the one thing they'd caught which could make an impact in life. He had days to think about it before returning to land, maybe a whole week if the wind continued fighting them.