Bite Me.

38.

Eren was eminently anxious when he got to school on Monday. He hadn't seen his friends since they'd left the party, and undoubtedly they would be furious that he had ignored all the concerned messages they had bombarded him with over the weekend. Just as he expected, they took turns berating him and smacking him over the head for being a moron and 'drinking so much he had to stay at the party'. He was glad that they all believed that story- he didn't know what he'd do if only they knew the truth. He also hadn't seen Levi since he'd driven him home on Saturday, and now that he had recovered from his hangover he could think a little more clearly about what he had agreed to. He couldn't tell yet whether he regretted his decision, because he still didn't know quite what it would entail. He'd never actually had a boyfriend before. He'd had a grand total of two girlfriends when he was in year seven and still lying to himself, but that had been occasionally buying them a Mars Bar and awkwardly waving across the playground. He hoped this (whatever 'this' was) would be something more than that. He was aware that he was overthinking everything as usual, and that he needed to relax. Hanging out with Levi up until this point felt pretty natural, and he didn't have to make any pretenses or struggle to keep up conversation. It flowed comfortably, even when they were arguing. He was never bored around him, that was for sure. But still, he was anxious about how he was supposed to act. This was why, when he saw Levi passing through the corridor, he almost ducked his head and walked faster. No, he told himself, don't be stupid. He is your boyfriend. Kind of.
But did he want to talk? Evidently, he did because he waved him over.
'Uh, hey,' Eren waved back awkwardly.
'Your friends are staring,' Levi looked over his shoulder at the staring teenagers.
'They hate you now. Mikasa told them you were a dick to me, and that you fought. It's fine though, they haven't said anything to me.'
'You sure? I hate coming between you and your friends...' He placed a hand on Eren's shoulder, and his heart started hammering stupidly. He wanted more than just a touch on the shoulder, but they were in public. This whole secrecy thing was going to be so fucking difficult.
'Let's get out of here,' he whispered conspiratorially, glancing back at his friends.
'I'd enjoy nothing more. Think you can shake your friends?'
'Maybe. Where can we go?'
'Wherever. I have a car and you only have two classes today.'
'How did you know that?'
'I, ahh, may have checked your schedule,' he chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. 'But it'll be way too obvious if we just disappear for the entire day. There'll be an empty classroom somewhere, a supply cupboard.'
'There's an empty room right there,' Eren nodded his head in the direction of a room.
'There's a lesson going on in there right now, moron,' Levi grabbed him by the arm and quickly, without hesitation, pulled him to the stairwell. Everybody had gone to lessons by now, so it was pretty much empty except for a few hurrying lower schools with their giant rucksacks. They all avoided Levi like the plague, terrified of him just like everybody else in the school. He kept dragging him further up until they got to a locked door that said in huge bold letters keep out.
'We can't stay here,' Eren told him. 'So many people come through here.'
'We're going up there.'
'But the door's lo-' Eren was interrupted by the sound of the lock being snapped. 'Right. Supernatural voodoo powers.'
He followed Levi up the almost pitch black stairwell until they reached the top, where he felt himself being slowly backed into a wall. He met Levi's lips with eager anticipation, and unlike all the other times it was a slow, soft affair. This was permitted and purposeful, rather than just a rush of reckless emotion. He'd never experienced a kiss like this with Levi, and he was enjoying it immensely. Levi took his hands gently and pushed them up against the wall, kissing down his neck so softly it felt like a butterfly's wing beating against him. He mewled quietly and tilted his head back, pushing his hips forward.
'Tell me something,' he murmured, a smile playing across his lips. 'Do you enjoy kissing my neck so much because you want to feed, or because it's the only place you can reach?'
Levi scoffed indignantly and stood on his toes, making him yelp in pain.
'If I can't reach you, I'll pull you down,' in one swift motion, he curled his arms round Eren's neck and jumped up, wrapping his legs round his waist. 'Or I'll climb up.'
'Last time we were in this position, you slit my artery,' Eren reminded him. 'I have to admit, I'm a little scared of you right now.'
'Ugh, you're seriously bring that up now?' Levi pulled back, leaning on Eren's arms. After a moment's further thought, he jumped down.
'What's wrong? Oh, sorry. I shouldn't have said that.'
'It's fine, but I think we really ought to talk about it anyway.'
Eren groaned and sat down. He'd come up here hoping to just have some fun, and now he was stuck having a serious conversation about domestic abuse.
'I forgive you for all of that,' he pulled Levi down to sit next to him. 'Honestly, I don't care about any of that. What matters is that you changed.'
'But still- I did those things to you, whether you forgive me or not. You might say you don't care, but I do. I'm- I'm kind of terrified, actually,' Levi confessed, picking distractedly at his nails.
'What's wrong?' Eren felt his heart jump into his throat. The last and only time he had seen Levi even slightly scared, his brother had been kidnapped by crazies. His switch to an emotionally functioning (well, as functioning as Levi could be) was still disconcerting.
'I don't want anything like that to happen again. Please, do you promise you won't let me get that bad again?'
'Of course,' Eren shuffled round to kneel in front of Levi, taking his face in his hands. 'I swear, I will not let that happen. You've got me and your brother and you were only like that because you were scared you'd lose him. And you won't lose me; you've tried to push me away so many times but I'm still here. Not going anywhere, in fact I think soon you'll be wishing you could get rid of me.'
'You were so shy and scared of me when we first met, what happened to wanting to stay away from me?'
'You say that like it wasn't less than a month ago. Maybe it's because I realised that underneath it all, you don't want to hurt me- you don't want to hurt anybody. Half the time, I think you just want to hurt yourself.'
'W-what's that supposed to mean?' Levi turned away, pursing his lips and trying not to snarl. Now was not the time to be getting frustrated and lashing out.
'You hurt people to get to yourself. You punish yourself for being a horrible person by doing terrible things to others and forcing yourself to deal with all that guilt.'
'How did you get so wise?'
'Life experience,' Eren looked down, dropping his hands to his side.
'I'm over 200 years older than you, don't talk to me about life experience.'
'I forget that all the time,'
'Understandable. It's pretty crazy, and I don't look a day over 20.'
'That's a pretty creepy age gap, you know. Say you were 80, which is a lot younger than you are, then you'd be a sexual predator.'
'Are you saying I'm not?'
Eren laughed nervously, twiddling his hair between his fingertips. He didn't know why he had been so anxious about this; it felt so casual when they were together, while also sending his pulse racing every time he heard that gravelly voice.
'It's just odd to think that you're actually older than my mum. We literally grew up in different millennia! Wait, you were alive in both World Wars.'
'I was a conscientious objector. Well, actually, I was just running a criminal underground that took advantage of the war, but the point still stands.'
Eren came to the sudden realisation that he knew next to nothing about Levi's life. There was just so much of it that he had no idea about. All he knew was that he'd grown up in Paris with Archer, the year he was born and that he'd been involved in lots of illegal things. His own experiences faded in comparison to how vibrant Levi's life must have been.
'What kind of things did you do in Paris?' He leaned forward, resting his head on his hands.
'Sold drugs, smuggled Jews from German-occupied territories.' Levi said this was the utmost casualness, as if it was just a boring office job he'd once had.
'You saved people,' Eren was fascinated already. This proved his theory that Levi was in fact a good person who just did bad things.
'My brother did most of it, I just organised the logistics mainly.'
'You... Wow. Where did you live when you grew up?'
'The streets. I met Archer in an orphanage when we were six, and then we ran away.'
'How did you survive?'
'At first, we stole. Then when we were older, Les Deuces noticed how good we were and they tried to stop us, but the people they sent to us also noticed. They joined sides with us, and soon we had an entire gang, verging on a mafia. For a while, in the times where we had no money and Les Deuces had cut off all our 'projects', we busked.'
'You busked? You and Archer?'
'He's surprisingly talented with the guitar.'
'And what did you do?'
'Mostly sang, but I also played the violin.'
'You know that now you've told me this, you two have to show me, right?'
'Ugh. Fine. I'd forgotten how much of a commitment being a decent person takes.'
Eren clapped with glee and after probing further into Levi's extensive history, he noticed the time. They'd been there for almost two hours, and he was supposed to be in history half an hour ago.
'Shit!' He gasped. 'We have to go, or my friends are gonna kill me!'
Levi groaned and helped him up, and they wound back down the stairs hurriedly. They parted ways at the bottom, Eren heading off to his classroom. He swung the door open and got a very stern glare from Miss Bramley.
'Why are you so late?' She demanded, pointing at the clock.
'Stuff to do,' he shrugged and took his usual place in between Armin and Mikasa. She huffed a little bit, but was fairly used to this kind of behaviour from her unruly, disruptive pupils.
'Where did you two go?' Mikasa elbowed him, and he jolted with surprise. Clearly she hadn't missed him leaving. This was kind of awkward... He didn't exactly want to tell her the truth, that they'd sneaked off to make out and ended up getting lost in conversation about what Levi's life was like in the past 200 years?
'I was tired, so we went to get coffee,' he lied, his mind completely elsewhere. Through further delving, he had learnt that Levi had essentially been a ruthless gang leader, but never that rich because he was constantly having to throw off the trail for Les Deuces. He had earned his vast wealth through climbing the ladder in England to become head of London. The only rules he abided by were those set down by a central Council of all the heads of each country's capitals and his exceedingly shaky moral code. He had found all of it scintillating, even though he usually hated history. He just enjoyed the chance to get to know Levi more, since it gave him an insight into why he had all these problems and affectations. One thing he had completely glossed over was his reason for coming to England in the first place. He had previously claimed it was for power, but now that Eren thought about it he had just been about to take control of Paris- that was just as much power as he'd have here, but he'd still be with his friends and wouldn't have to betray his brother. It just didn't add up... If he did it to make him safe, he could have made him safer by not leaving him to the mercies of Les Deuces, surely? Something about it was really off, and he resolved to find out what it was.
'Eren!' Miss Bramley interrupted his thought process. 'Where is your essay I set for homework?'
He blanched; he hadn't done the essay, having had different things on his mind.
'I'll give you it tomorrow,' he feigned nonchalance. He wasn't scared of her one bit, but he just knew Mikasa and Armin were going to give him shit for this. He'd missed pretty much all his homework since meeting Levi, and he was failing two subjects already. She admonished him for not hitting another deadline, and then let the class go. He cringed, knowing a shitstorm was brewing. He ducked his head and tried to escape them, but Armin grabbed his sleeve from somewhere once they reached the classroom.
'Eren, I thought you said things were getting better,' he had a grave expression on his usually serene face.
'They are. Everything's fine now,' he brushed him off, pulling his arm away and shoving his books in his locker.
'Then how come you're skiving and failing two classes? Not to mention I don't think I've seen you hand in a single assignment in the past three weeks.'
'I've had other things on my mind. It's not really any of your business, anyway.'
'Yes, it is, you're my best friend! I'm not going to stand around and see you turn out like him.'
Eren didn't have to guess who 'he' was. He rolled his eyes and chucked his bag on the floor.
'I'm not going to stand around and have you lecture me like you've got authority over me,' he retorted, trying to walk away. He got about halfway down the corridor before Armin tackled him.
'It's not just that,' he said a little too loudly. 'You always act really weird these days. It's ever since you met Levi- he's made you selfish.'
Eren recoiled like he'd been slapped in the face. Was he selfish?
'You've made your mum so worried she cried talking about you to Mikasa,' he continued. 'And when was the last time we hung out? You brush us off whenever we invite you anywhere. A month ago, you could barely talk to Reiner without being intimidated, and now you're picking fights with Levi and his psycho brother.'
'So you're saying you preferred when I hated socialising outside of my usual circle. Are you jealous?' Eren was incredulous. It made sense though- Levi was such a prominent figure, and Armin was jealous and bitter that he'd lost his friend to him.
'Get your head out your arse and try to understand that I'm not fucking jealous! The world doesn't just revolve around you, and I'm not automatically going to approve of everybody- especially not some entitled narcissistic bastard who beats you up and gets away with it just because you're infatuated with him!'
'I suppose now would be a bad time to say hi...' Levi's voice interrupted. A small crowd had gathered to watch the small tiff play out, but now that the King had input something, curiosity peaked and everybody came running to get a good view. Eren felt his throat tighten, hoping nobody had heard what Armin had said. Clearly Levi had, judging from the smirk on his face. Then it turned hard, and he looked Armin up and down, sneering at him.
'You need to back off,' he snarled. 'Or I will see to it that so many of your bones are broken you can't speak.'
Armin's eyes widened and his face, usually pallid anyway, went white with fear. But he wasn't letting Levi get away with anything anymore- not when it was turning his best friend into the same sort of person.
'This is nothing to do with you,' he choked out.
'You were talking about me,' Levi pointed out, pulling out his phone and not looking up. He was being ridiculously casual about all of this; it was quite scary, really. A few people had heard Armin calling him an entitled narcissistic bastard, so surely Levi had too. Why wasn't he doing anything?
'Yes, I was. I was telling Eren that you're a shitty, awful person,' Armin was made brave by the bemusing disinterest he was met with. 'So I think it's up to him to decide whether it's your business.'
'Armin, don't...' Eren whined, feeling all eyes on him. 'We don't need to do this now, not with everyone watching.'
'And he didn't need to try to kill you tw-' Armin didn't manage to finish his sentence. Levi had grabbed him and pinned him against a wall, the height difference no matter to him. A startled gasp went up around the eager audience, anticipating a fight.
'I should snap your neck,' Levi hissed, too quiet for anyone else to hear. 'But out of respect to Eren, I'll probably let you live.'
'Oh, how kind of you. How come you suddenly have any respect for him? You've never shown it before.'
'Don't push your luck, blondie,' Levi chuckled; it was as if Armin wanted to die. Really, this kid had a death wish. He tightened his grip on his slender neck, ignoring Eren grabbing his shoulder and trying to pull him away. He slowly let go, staring Armin down until he looked down and scurried away- no doubt to tell that black-haired bitch from the party all about the big bad King who had possibly tried to kill him.
'You can all piss off now,' Levi flapped his hand at the crowd, and they quickly dispersed for fear of being caught in the crossfire; Eren looked pretty seething with anger, for some unknown reason. Hadn't Levi just stuck up for him?
Levi turned to talk to Eren, but all he got was an angry glare.
'What's wrong?' He raised an eyebrow, confused.
'Work it out,' Eren snapped, stalking off. He needed to be alone for a while, and Levi was only serving to worsen his mood; he had to get out of there.