Be My Salvation (Ereri/Riren)

XXII

"Am I allowed...to ask just one thing?" Eren murmured as he kicked at the dirt below his shoe, his hands wrapped around the chains of the swingset where Levi sat right next to him.

"Mhm," Levi murmured, watching in the sunlight as the dust flew up from the ground.

"With this whole college thing, and you probably going away soon and all that...I just wanna know...where does that...um..." He swallowed hard and pulled in a deep breath. "Where does it leave us?" he barely whispered.

Levi's answer didn't come instantly. With each passing second, Eren's anxiety shot up and soon his knuckles were aching from gripping the chain so tightly.

"You're talking about last night," Levi murmured. Though it wasn't formed as a question, Eren nodded. Another long moment of quiet passed; Eren forced himself to focus on something, anything, but his growing uneasiness - the slightly uncomfortable way the swing curved beneath him, the heat of the sun as it beat down on his back...

"I guess that's up to you," the older finally said. "I'm gonna be the one who's leaving." Eren couldn't help his cringe at the word leaving. "If you don't want anything out of...heh, whatever it is, I won't blame you. I mean, shit's changed now..."

"Are you saying you don't?" Eren couldn't help but ask, lifting his head.

"No." Levi met his eyes evenly. "But if it'll make it harder on you later..." His sentence faded out and he shrugged, knowing Eren knew what he was getting at. Neither of them wanted to say it.

It was hard for Eren, being so used to getting close to people only for them to leave him again. It would hurt in ways he knew he couldn't even fathom if the same happened with Levi, and his first instinct was to protect himself from it. At the same time, however, his feelings for the dark-haired boy sitting a mere foot away from him were too strong to ignore. He felt an attachment to Levi unlike any other before, and a bigger, stronger part of his instincts said to hold him as tight as he could for as long as he possibly could, even if in the end it meant heartache.

"I guess we'll never know what happens, right?" he said finally, reaching over and threading his fingers between Levi's - not too intimate a gesture, just in case someone happened to be peering down at them from the door or an upstairs window, but affectionate enough that Levi, at least, would get the message. "Why waste an opportunity?"

Levi's eyes narrowed just a fraction; it was impossible to even guess what he might've been thinking past those stormy irises, but eventually he nodded. "I agree."

Eren's smile helped wash away some of the dread sitting in the pit of his stomach. "Okay. Then it's settled." He squeezed the other's hand for finality.

~

Over the course of the next several weeks, the two stretched their time out and made the most of each second as best they could. Eren did his absolute best to put to the back of his mind the fact that Levi would be leaving much too soon and instead focused on their unspoken promise from the swingset.

The hours upon hours they spent with each other during the day - downtime (which was most of the time), mealtimes where they'd purposely sit next to each other, any time they went anywhere as a 'family' - was spent with endless conversations about everything and nothing all at the same time. Levi would help Eren with his schoolwork where he could, and where he couldn't, would silently sit beside him and watch, or perhaps read his own book to keep himself occupied. The two would sit in the sunroom talking, playing with the cat and sometimes the dog; Levi would occasionally play the violin and let Eren hold it a few times and then cringing whenever he made a horrid sound with the bow. Very quickly, Eren thrusted it back at him and shook his head, never wanting to hear such a god-awful sound again.