Key to a Caged Heart

Over Your Shoulder

A/N: SPOILERS. If you don't know about the titan shifters, read no further.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading this and voting! Feel free to message me about anything, I'd love to hear from you! Sorry it took longer to update but this chapter is 3x as long as normal and I'm still formulating the plot so I didn't want to publish this until I knew it wouldn't contradict what I might do in the future. The song for this chapter is from the movie soundtrack for Rudderless. So without further ado...

"Eren! Thank the walls, we were worried man."

After Eren's eventful weekend, it felt surreal to return to the morning routine of hanging out in the high school parking lot before class with his usual group. The familiar environment was disrupted by Levi's charcoal grey Lexus, parked alongside Reiner's rundown truck. It was a subtle evocation that this was not the usual Monday morning. A lot had happened in the past 48 hours and he couldn't situate himself in his weekday habits with Levi's presence to remind him of that fact.

Upon exiting the warm interior of Levi's car, Eren was struck by both the contrasting autumn chill and a slap on the back from Reiner, the latter eliciting a groan. The questions regarding Eren's impressive ride to school came second place to questions about his jail escapades.

"What happened while I was gone this weekend?" Jean asked, tone a mixture of worry and curiosity. "All Reiner and Bert told me was that you were locked up. Did you finally get sent to the loony bin for your unstable behavior?"

"I'm surprised the farm hasn't come to get you back yet, horse-face," Eren retorted, with the quick mood shift from calm to choleric that validated Jean's comment.

"Sorry man. We formulated a whole bail out plan where Bertholdt and I punched holes through the walls of the police station and while the cops were distracted, you would escape, but that fell through when we couldn't even punch through the plank of wood in Bertholdt's garage."

"Great plan guys," Eren said drily, rolling his eyes.

"So what happened?" Jean asked again, not having his question answered the first time.

"Yeah Eren, what happened?" Levi parroted. Levi was still in the school parking lot, leaning against the open door of his running car. Eren shrunk under Levi's intense stare so Bert took it upon himself to explain the situation.

With the same psychotic thrill in his voice that was present Saturday night, Bert began, "You know that convenience store at the gas station off of Maria Drive? Well, we were grabbing some stuff like usual-" Reiner shoved Bert, interrupting him. "When this moron decided to steal from the cash register as well. That Boku no Pico impersonator in our class was the cashier and he pressed the button alerting the police."

Levi's gaze became more intense, and Eren tried folding in on himself to dodge those silver daggers that pierced him. "You were robbing a convenience store?"

"That was all Bert's idea! We were just supposed to grab some alcohol and snacks."

"That's still stealing, you shitty brat. You better not steal anything from me."

Before Eren could promise he wouldn't, although Levi had no reason to believe his word anyway, the intimidating male had gotten back in his car and driven off.

For the first time in a long while, Eren felt like a shitty brat. Despite his initial contention whenever Levi called him that, Eren knew the words held no true bite and he grudgingly accepted it as an unconventional nickname. Now, however, the words were not empty. They held their Merriam-Webster definition and the bite stung.