Be My Salvation (Ereri/Riren)

VIII

"Levi?"

"What?"

"Oh, you're still awake?" Eren whispered into the dark of their room, only an hour or so after they'd settled in for the night.

"Yeah."

"Wanna go down to the sunroom with me?"

"For what?"

"I dunno..."

A beat of silence.

"Wanna make a blanket fort?"

Levi rolled onto his left side to see the kid better; his eyes were virtually the only thing visible in the dark room like they were lights of their own.

"What, are you five?"

"No..." He blinked, waiting for a response. When he didn't get one, he sat up, cradling Zoë in his arms. "I'll just go by myself, then," he said, sliding out of bed and heading toward the door.

Sighing, Levi scrambled after him. "Wait."

"What?" Eren didn't so much as turn around as he headed toward the stairs.

"You're gonna get in trouble, idiot," Levi hissed, stopping at the top of the steps as Eren descended, seemingly without a care in the world.

"Petra won't mind," he said, "as long as I clean up after myself and don't break anything."

"Jesus..." Levi muttered, following him down the stairs. "Why not let the kid have the sunroom and give me my own room?" he muttered to himself as he heard the screen door separating the kitchen and sunroom open. He managed to catch it before it swung shut as Eren flicked the lamp in the corner on, letting Zoë hop down onto the touch with her tail held high.

"It's almost midnight," Levi muttered, crossing his arms. "What's the point of this?"

"For fun," Eren answered simply.

With that, he went for the dining room and began carrying the chairs into the sunroom one by one, positioning them to face the walls in odd positions before he wandered to the front closet to scout out a blanket big enough to reach across them. Once he'd found one - and several others - he carried them all in a giant pile back to the room and dumped them onto the couch. He then searched about the kitchen until he found an open box of zip ties. Levi merely watched with skeptical eyes the whole time.

"Are you gonna help?" Eren asked as he was unfolding the biggest of the blankets - a navy blue comforter that must've been a spare for Petra and Oluo's bed, clearly king sized.

After a moment of watching Eren struggle to keep a corner of the blanket on the chair and secure it with the zip tie at the same time, Levi sighed in defeat and moved in to help. It took only a few minutes for the two of them to spread the comforter over the chairs and secure them, and then drape a few of the other, smaller throw blankets over the sides to make it more of a fort. In the end, Eren's smile was small but proud as he knelt down in front of what he'd dubbed the 'door' and put the extra blankets and pillows from the couch inside before crawling in, the cat right behind him.

"C'mon, Levi," he coaxed from the inside.

The raven shook his head, moving to the end table where the lit lamp sat and fished in the drawer for a flashlight. Once found, he flicked the lamp off and the flashlight on before following Eren inside.

The other grinned at him as he settled in, and Levi couldn't help but suddenly notice that in every one of that boy's smiles, there was something empty. Something broken. But he pushed the thought aside and found a decent spot to set the flashlight so it'd provide light but not blind either of them in the process.