Remembering You

Revelations

"Ow! What the hell?"

Eren craned his neck in spite of the pain lancing through his skull, trying to see what was causing a painful heat to flare up from the location of his injuries. Twisting his head, the brunet was horrified when the wounds began to steam and his tissue began to magically knit itself together. The pain slowly faded as his bones began to realign and repair themselves, skin and muscle growing back as though he had never been hurt, and the blood in his throat seemed to clear.

It was not possible. No human could have healed that quickly or survived such a grievous injury. Glancing at his companion, he was shocked to see a relieved look in Levi's eyes, as if the man knew what was taking place.

"Levi... W-what's going on?"

The moment he had felt the familiar heat sear his skin and saw Eren's shifter healing kick in, a wave of relief washed over Levi. He had seen his share of titan battlefield wounds to know when one was fatal. Eren had lost too much blood and if he had not been a shifter, he would have been dead by the time a doctor could look at him.

As much as he wanted to deny it, the current Eren had become just as integral to his life as much as the titan shifter had been before. Levi's heart had felt like ice in those agonizing seconds seeing the blood pool around the brat, unsure whether Eren was going to heal or not. He had already lost Eren once, Levi didn't know if he could go through losing the younger man again; he had barely survived the first time after Eren had used the Coordinate. This was even worse; there was no going back after death. At least with the memory alteration, he could live on knowing the shifter was alive, and presumably happy, somewhere.

Levi did not know what he would do if Eren had died. No matter what anyone said, it would be his fault for not training the brunet right all those years ago. It was would be his fault that Eirian would never be able to see his other parent. Or that Eren would never know he had a son. That they had a son.

"Levi... W-what's going on?" The dark-haired man knew the question would come up as alarmed green eyes stared up at him, but hearing those few words filled him with dread.

He knew that he had raised red flags in Eren's mind the moment he had rushed off and exterminated all the titans without blinking an eye. As much as he trusted the brat's skill, from what Mikasa had told him, Eren was good, but nowhere close to either of them. The titans they faced were not shifters, thankfully, lumbering with heavy footsteps towards the wall. Levi might be pushing it if they were aberrants, but if he was fucked, then Eren and any help, which would be undoubtedly be worse, would be doubly fucked.

Levi was well aware that he had not fought titans in over five years, or more precisely ever since the brat's pregnancy came about, but he had kept up practicing with maneuver gear. Sometimes he would head off into the forest nearby and practice when Mikasa took care of Eirian or when he could not sleep and needed to work himself to exhaustion. There was no telling whether he would need to call upon the skills again, and his assumptions had proven correct.

After the first fifteen-meter titan fell, he felt like most of his titan-killing skills had come back as quickly as if he had never left. Even so, not that anyone would be able to tell, but Levi felt like he was moving a fraction slower than before. His reflexes and instincts had kicked in, but his body was less cooperative. The shoulder injury did not help, but it almost felt like he was moving through honey. The dark-haired man had already come to realize that his body was healing more slowly than when he had first joined the Scouting Legion. It was the inevitable consequence of aging and something he did not particularly want to think about. If he had not already left the military, Levi might have considered retirement in the next few years... if they would let him. The alternative naturally was to push himself to the limit and dying in some pathetic state outside the walls.