Chapter Text
The next day of filming went by like the strike of a razor-edged blade, quick and brutal, but clean and succinct. Out of nothing but pure spite for the captain and his insensitive requests, Eren purposefully strolled on-set fifteen minutes late. With lofty, listless indifference he ignored the way Levi looked at him, trying to get his attention, straining for eye contact with a persistence that seemed desperate. Levi’s effort alone would have been moving if Eren weren’t so stubborn to give him a taste of his own medicine.
They went on through the motions of filming; it was the prison-bar scene, where Eren is confronted by the Commander and his Captain after his first transformation into a Titan. They shot it quickly, correctly, with all the diligent professionalism that could be expected from two veteran actors and a tenacious young male ingenue. No words left their mouths but the lines provided by the writers, no personal barbs or exchanges permitted beyond the means of production. They weren’t even given any notes. They just filmed, and they did it well.
As soon as the big Softbox light went dark over the set and the actors were dismissed, Eren bounded out of there before Levi could even think about approaching him. What first started out as a revenge plight now felt like a power trip. Levi got Eren’s hopes up, wasted his time, and sorely Eren would do the same. Vaguely he recalled crossing paths with Levi this morning, seeing him distressed in a post-gym sweat, with a sort of harrowed look in his eyes that bordered on afraid. At that time Eren had every intention of going soft on the guy, but then the captain looked at him like he was vile, and literally ran the other direction.
Eren was done being treated like scum. He didn’t give Levi a chance to follow him once their filming was done, running to the next studio over, where he knew some of his friends were in rehearsal. With ample water breaks and snack-runs in between, he and his friends played with the ODM gear all the way until evening, insisting they were practicing whenever an upturn-nosed producer came to prod and needle around. With no windows to indicate the sun slipping down behind the skyscraper landscape, the day slipped by in an instant, in glorious beaming cries of youth and fun.
It wasn’t until he was back in his sweats and hanging his harness back on its rack that he finally saw Mikasa. Having just broken set, she strolled in wearing her costume but now adorned with an oversized anime t-shirt overtop.
“Mikasa,” Eren said, wondrous at the way her name filled his smile.
“Hi, Eren. Your ODM maneuvers are getting so much better.”
“Thanks,” he said. He went to his bag that he’d left on the table, fishing through it for the brownie he’d packed. “I’m so glad you’re here. I didn’t see you all day and was scared I wouldn’t have the chance to bring this to you.”
“Eren…” she took the brownie, albeit meekly. “You didn’t have to.”
“Yeah I did,” he said, adamant. “I was being a total dick, and I’m sorry.”
“It looks so good. I have to try a piece right away,” she said, laughing out of humility more than anything else. Unwrapping just the corner, Mikasa took a small bite, and smiled. “It’s so good! Thank you.”
“I wish I could take credit,” he sighed. “But unfortunately these were Jean’s doing.”
“I’ll have to thank him, too.”
“Do me a favor and don’t,” Eren said. He took note of the thin shine of sweat over her forehead, the ruffled nature of her hair. Of course it didn’t surprise him in the slightest that Mikasa still made unkemptness look regal and majestic, old t-shirt and all. “How was filming for you today?” he asked her. “I didn’t see you much. I was kind of worried you weren’t here.”
“Yeah. I did some of Mikasa’s close-ups,” she said humbly. “ODMs. Fights. You know.”
“Dude, that’s awesome. I hope they finish editing those soon. I can’t wait to see you in action,” Eren praised. Breathless with a sort of enthusiasm he couldn’t place, he was compelled to ask her: “Hey, you want to come over tonight?”
It was nothing short of endearing how quickly she lit up, an immediate gush of warmth spilling over her usually stolid face. But the light in her eyes flitted away as quickly as it came, replaced with a shifting unease. “I’d like to,” she said warily, “but I don’t know if Jean’s okay with it.”
“Of course he is,” Eren frowned. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Okay, sure, but I still don’t want to trouble him, or you.”
“He’s okay with it, I’m telling you,” he said impatiently.
“Jean!” he called to the man all the way on the other side of the set, screaming over the heads of the interns and other actors surrounding them; “Can Mikasa come over?”
Instead of shouting back, Jean just stuck two thumbs up, way over his head. Sasha and Connie, deep in their wrestling game, saw the opening. Together they surged forward and attacked his middle, knocking him to the ground.
Mikasa played with her bangs. “Thanks… Sorry, I- Actually, what I meant was, maybe I should just go home.”
“What? Why?” Eren practically demanded. Then he stepped back, softening his voice as he placated, “Oh. Are you saying you need alone time? … I get it. … I mean, we’d miss you. But I get it.”
“Not that,” Mikasa felt an inordinate degree of embarrassment. She had to remind herself it was only Eren she was talking to, and had no reason to feel ashamed. She lowered her voice, laughing at her own shyness, and admitted, “I just really need a shower. And I don’t really trust the ones here at the studio.”
“Just come shower at ours,” he said, while his roommate approached from behind.
Jean pulled a face, “Dude, you can’t just tell a woman to come shower at a fucking bachelor pad. That’s borderline harassment.”
Mikasa laughed, “No, it’s okay, I’m not uncomfortable. I’ll take you up on that offer if you meant it. I have spare clothes with me. As long as you really don’t mind.”
“See? She’s cool,” Eren said, sneering at Jean right in the face. “I’ll save all my harassment for you, thank you very much.”
“Did anyone else hear that? This man is threatening to harass me,” Jean said, punching Eren’s arm.
“Thank you for the brownie, Jean. It was really good.”
Jean was pulling Eren in a headlock now, talking casually around the physical assault. “No prob. Eren’s idea to give it to you and Armin, though.”
“Armin,” Eren repeated, stuck inside Jean’s arm. He blinked, looking to Mikasa. “Can we-? Should we invite him with us tonight?”
Mikasa made a thoughtful expression. “I saw him go into his dressing room. I think he’s getting ready to go home.”
“You don’t think he’s gone already, do you?” Jean asked, a little worried.
Eren didn’t let the question hang in the air for long. He pushed Jean’s arms off of him and ran down the hall, Mikasa and Jean not too far behind. Their feet clacked down the hall of dressing rooms until they piled to a stop, the door in front of them opening.
“Hello, cadets,” Erwin greeted. Dressed in clean but comfortable Prada with his hair loose over his forehead instead of slicked back like normal, he looked like a car salesman more than he did any military general, or a sugar daddy of some kind.
“Wait, I apologize,” Erwin chuckled. “You’re off the clock by now aren’t you? You probably don’t appreciate being called ‘cadets.’”
“Hi, Erwin!” the three chorused. Even off-set, the man was enchanting, winsome, and staggering, and they were three lambs trotting after the lion until their little hooves couldn’t carry them further.
“Commander, maybe we’re lost,” Eren admitted. “I thought that was Armin’s dressing room.”
“This one? Oh yes, it’s his.” he said, quickly, dismissively. Clearing his throat, he adjusted the collar of his polo and marched directly down the hall, hastily throwing a perfunctory goodbye over his shoulder. “Fare thee well, fledglings. Take care of yourselves.”
Eren narrowed his eyes, his spark of joy doused out by the sudden inexplicable wave of dubiety that washed over him. He looked to Jean and Mikasa, wordlessly asking if they all noticed the same thing he did. But Mikasa was impassible as ever, and Jean was busy countering the boy in the dressing room.
“Yo, Arm!” he called, crossing his arms in the open doorway. “I didn’t know you shared dressing rooms with Erwin. Kind of dick of you to not tell us this rather staggering, amazing piece of information.”
Armin sat cross-legged before his dresser mirror, hunched over a dog-eared book in his lap. He didn’t stir when they entered, he only glanced up at their reflection in his mirror. He frowned at Jean’s question, shaking his head no.
“Erwin makes visits,” Mikasa explained. “He stopped by mine the other day because word got around about Sasha’s snack mountain, and he was curious.”
“Now I’m curious,” Jean said. “Why didn’t she tell me about that? I want to see a snack mountain.”
“Well, that’ll be up to Sasha. So good fucking luck. I don’t think she’d let even you get close to her precious commodities,” Eren said. He leaned around his roommate, peering a fraction into the dressing room, “Hey, do you have plans tonight, Armin?”
Armin blinked a few times, his brain working at a snail’s pace to register that the question was addressed directly to him. After an unusually tense ten seconds, he folded his book shut and shook his head no.
“Do you want to come over to Jean and my place?”
His apprehension was apparent, even in his silence. Even more apparent, though, was the fact that he was trying. Eren could see it in the way Armin’s eyes kept flicking up to them through the mirror’s reflection, the way they fought to be seen despite the insatiable urge to flick away and go unseen. His heart almost melted at the sight.
“Mikasa’s coming,” Eren added hopefully. He extended the bag with the brownie inside, “This is for you, by the way.”
Armin smiled fully now, taking the brownie with receptive warmth. “Thank you,” he said, the two-word phrase initiating their night together.
They stopped by the convenience store on the way back home, where Jean and Eren begged Mikasa to buy some liquid courage for the night. They stocked up on protein bars while they were there, and played a game with each other to find the most ludicrous, disgusting-sounding candy they could find. Eren convinced Mikasa to try on different sunglasses while Armin wandered the aisles, eyeing the rainbow rows of plastic poison in a dazed confusion. Jean didn’t say it out loud, but he thought Armin looked a lot like Marco during their Seven Eleven run, naive and unsure, but happy to be with them.
When they made it back to the apartment, Eren, for whatever reason, insisted on making dinner. Never mind the fact it was almost midnight and all the other three insisted with flailing arms and whining protests that they’d eaten already. But Eren Jaeger was nothing if not unstoppable. Half an hour into crashing pots and pans together, shouting over the blare of the kitchen timer, and spilling anything liquid over every single flat surface, Jean jumped in to help his roommate and the two of them became a wrestling mess of kitchen utensils and flour splotches. They wrestled with each other, knocking boxes over and leaving pans sizzling so long over the stove that they would have caught fire if Mikasa hadn’t leapt in to save the day. Eventually Armin timidly worked his way into the kitchen too, and with the two of them as damage control for the boys’ roughhousing, they managed to calm down enough to salvage a somewhat decent meal of beef and chicken stir fry.
They portioned their food into chipped ceramic bowls and recycled takeout containers, passing out canned beer and scrambling for their mismatched array of metal and plastic utensils. Funny thing was, though, even after all that trouble, they barely ate a bite of any of it. The TV was on, music was playing, and energy was high, zealous, and in-the moment.
“Dude, Armin, dude, what’s your mom’s name again, has she made any movies recently?” Eren begged, frantically typing in a name on the search bar of their TV, making several typos and backspacing manically each time. “Your mom has a different last name, right? Didn’t she do that one movie, with that one guy? Gimme a name, gimme a name, I’ll put it on.”
Typos galore, Eren somehow managed to put on the movie Armin suggested. By the time the opening credits were through, none of them paid a single bit of attention. Like the food, the movie just became a background element to their time together. The soundtrack was drowned out by their overlapping voices that escalated to shouting, stories interrupted and retold. The screen flickered bright lights over Jean’s open-mouthed guffawing, over Eren wiping the tears that slid down his cheeks he was laughing so hard.
And when all the roughhousing finally got them tired, laying back against one another, Armin did parlor tricks while the other three batted their eyes in awe, Mikasa blinking with amazement and Jean demanding Armin spill all his secrets. Eren just sat and watched him, seeing him for the first time.
“What did you do before this, Armin?” he asked while Armin was shuffling cards. “You had a show when you were younger, right?”
“Just a kid’s show, but that was when I was really little. It was a long time ago. Helped get my parents into the industry,” Armin said, shuffling his cards at a slower pace. The cards went still in his hands, a somber look crossing his face. “No, I didn’t really do much before this. Grew up in backstage dressing rooms, playing on sets. I was homeschooled; you can probably tell.”
“Dude, yeah, no offense, but you reek of homeschool,” he laughed. “I could never learn from my mom, oh my god.”
Armin hesitated before he admitted, with a blank, unreadable look, “My parents didn’t teach me.”
“Oh,” was all Eren could say. The phrase alone wasn’t particularly concerning, but with that empty tone, it made something twinge in his stomach a little, desperately wanting to ask more.
But Armin was so new to them, a timid thing whose trust he still needed to earn. Because Eren did want to earn it. Not even as an apology for being so cruel before, Eren genuinely wanted to know this unique person before him, this kind soul who befriended Mikasa and made his apartment feel like home.
So instead of pressing further, he jerked a thumb at his roommate. “Jean’s mom taught him.”
“Shut up,” Jean groaned, rolling his head back. “She did not.”
“She did! She totally did!” he insisted. “Just not, like, math or anything.”
“Wait wait I want to guess, I want to guess,” Armin said excitedly, waving his hands and scooting closer on the rug. “I’m willing to guess she was your, like, coach or something?”
Jean pulled an exasperated face, lolling back on the rug that held them. “Oh, Armin, baby,” he groaned, tired. “You’re literally so close it’s painful.”
“Give me one hint,” Armin held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “A fraction of a hint.”
“Um, okay,” he thought for a moment. “I was the only guy in my mom’s classes, literally like my entire life.”
Armin clapped his hands together, elated. “Your mom was your dance teacher, wasn’t she!”
Jean collapsed back on the rug. “Ding ding fucking ding,” he sighed. “Not only that, she owned the whole fucking studio.”
“That’s so sweet,” the blonde smiled.
“What dance did you do?” Mikasa asked, holding her beer with a relaxed ease that was inspirational.
Jean draped a hand over his eyes dramatically, “What didn’t I do? I think I’ve done, like, everything at this point. Do you know how infuriating it was as a kid, to not be allowed to join the basketball team because you had to help your mom teach all the girls how to Pas de cheval.”
Armin looks at him sweetly, clasping his hands over his heart“Aw, ballet.”
Jean peeked an eye open from between his fingers, “Did you dance ballet?”
“No way, I’m not nearly strong enough for that,” he waved his hand dismissively, the loose hair bouncing on his head. “I used to go to the theatre when I was a kid, though. My nanny would take me to The Nutcracker every Christmas. I had such a great time.”
“Oh my god, I have PTSD from The Nutcracker.”
Armin smiled with his eyes, long strands of hair obscuring the gleam in his eyes. “I can understand why. My favorite by far, though, was Sleeping Beauty.”
Jean shot straight up from his relaxed posture, now tense and rigid with excitement. He looked at him as if his lips just uttered the most wonderful phrase in the world. “No way. I was Prince Desiré.”
Armin covered his mouth with his hands, “No way.”
Jean looked like he might have an orgasm, or collapse in euphoria, or both. He bowed his head with dramatic pleasure, still clutching his heart through the fabric of his shirt. “It was the most beautiful experience of my life.”
Mikasa tilted her head to the side, wet hair trailing down her skin onto the fresh bathowel draped over her shoulders. “Wait, then how come you were making fun of Eren for being a film virgin? Clearly, you’re one too, Desiré.”
Eren beamed. “Yeah, fuck you Desiré.”
“I’ve done films,” Jean spat back. “Commercial dance films. Music videos. I’ve just never acted in them before.”
Mikasa sips her beer, “So how’d you end up in movies?”
Eren glanced at his roommate, concealing his concern behind the mouth of his beer can.
Jean hesitated, his gaze wandering off to a place in his memory. “Tore my ACL,” he said after a while. “Couldn’t dance for a year. It… was not fun. Um.”
He cleared his throat and went on. “And then, one miraculous fucking day, Eren had an audition for a stupid little show you’ve never heard of called Attack on Titan.”
Mikasa and Armin smiled.
“I was depressed as hell and Eren dragged me with him, just because I hadn’t seen the sunshine in, like, four days,” Jean continued. “The lady saw me waiting in the lobby and assumed I was an actor. Handed me a script and told me where to stand and what to say, and here I am.”
“That’s so bizarre, but wonderful,” Mikasa commented. “I’m so glad you found your way here to us.”
“You know, I always had a feeling you were a dancer,” Armin said softly. “The command you have over your body is just magnanimous. It’s inspiring, really.”
“Eh, shut up. I’m not half as good as I used to be,” Jean dismissed. He rolled his head over to face the girl beside him. “Your turn. What’d you do before the show?”
“Oh same old same old,” she waved her hand noncommittal. “Athlete turned model turned actor. Nothing original, I’m afraid to admit. Eren?”
Eren knitted his brows in concentration. “I dunno, actually. Acting is all I’ve ever really known.”
He saw Armin’s big curious blue eyes fall on him. It was easily discernible how much the blonde wanted to know more. But Armin had courtesy stitched into his ever fiber, and once he realized Eren wouldn’t elaborate willingly, he slunk back to allow respectful distance, and went back to shuffling his cards.
Mikasa and Jean didn’t see it, engrossed in the task of picking out nail polish colors, but Eren saw it, and he thought it was the kindest gesture in the world, nothing short of entranced by Armin’s kindness.
“So Armin, what’s that tea thing you do?” he asked, wanting to prologue his time with this enigmatic young soul. “Are you a witch or something?”
“Oh, it’s nothing nearly as exciting as that. I just like tea, and I like sharing it with people who look like they’d benefit from it,” he said. “Actually I was considering taking some to Levi eventually. He’s always drinking tea, and I figured-”
“-No. Do not do that.” Eren cut in.
Armin flinched at the aggression. “Why?” he asked gently.
“Levi is…”
The blue eyed boy waited patiently.
Eren locked his jaw, anger tight in the tendons around his teeth. “Just don’t worry about him,” he muttered. “He’s kind of an asshole and, frankly, he doesn’t deserve your attention. He doesn’t deserve any of ours.”
He caught the way Mikasa looked up from her nail polish, the way she looked at him worriedly. He pretended not to notice, and she pretended she wasn’t hurt by his distance. She tucked a strand of wet hair back over the towel on her shoulders, and went on sorting through nail polish colors with Jean.
The night drew on until morning, the tenuous weak eyed morning still hours before the sun peeked out over the lip of the horizon. Armin rubbed a fist over his eyes, and Eren noticed, amazed, quite convinced he hadn’t seen anyone over the age of four rub their eyes like that, sleepy or no. Mikasa noticed it too, and the two of them, drawn by the invisible red string around their hearts, had a moment of eye contact and understanding. Mikasa then insisted that they all go home and try to get at least a little bit of sleep before tomorrow. Jean and Eren, like kids on a playdate, insisted she and Armin spend the night, but she turned them down, saying she’d catch a ride home with Armin and his driver. Stepping past the uneaten meals and the morass of blankets and scattered pillows, they hugged her goodbye. Eren went in to hug Armin next, but something about his body language screamed that he wasn’t a hugger, so Eren opted for a verbal parting instead. Armin announced that his driver was just outside, and the two left, taking all the fun of the night with them.
With the door closed, the room was noiseless, barren, yet strangely liberated. Eren and Jean blinked back at each other in the dim light, the still-going TV casting strange glows over their sweat-shining skin. Jean is strangely beautiful, Eren realizes, gazing back at him all glimmering and radiant.
“Dude,” Eren said, breathless.
Jean laughed tiredly, “Am I crazy or was that the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life? All we did was sit and talk but still, it felt…”
“I really like Armin,” Eren said. The simple, terse statement, adamantly announced, found him choking up with emotion, eyes wet and heart throbbing.
“I know,” Jean breathed. “I really like him, too. I mean, that day I spent filming with him and Reiner made me realize just how much he… Shit, I feel like such a dick. Why were we all so mean to him before?”
“Is it crazy that I feel like I would do anything in the world for him?” Eren asked, titillated with breathlessness. “ This is the first day I’ve ever actually spoken to him and I feel like I would die for him.”
“Him and Mikasa, obviously. I mean, you’re Eren.”
Eren choked, glutted by his own overwhelm. The line between character and actor, a divide he clung to with his life, was starting to blur and distort, and it scared him.
Armin. Mikasa. Jean… yes, Eren was quite certain he would do anything and everything for them if he could, even self-sacrifice.
He swallowed.
“Jean, I think I have a date with Mikasa.”
Jean blinked, taking a moment to process this new information. “That’s great, dude. Don’t blow it,” he said. “Where’s your date?”
“I don’t know yet. I don’t know enough about what she likes.”
“You got this dude. She’s really good. Please be good to her. You got this. Don’t sweat it,” he said, giving Eren a hug.
Eren stood still inside Jean’s arms, frowning in confusion when the embrace didn’t stop after only half a second. He cupped his hand over Jean’s forehead. “Did you drink too much? You don’t feel warm.”
“Hm?” Jean pulled away. “I’m just giving you a hug, dude.”
“I know,” Eren said, narrowing his eyes. “I- Are you okay? You’ve been pretty affectionate lately. I- I mean, I’m not against it. I just don’t expect it from you.”
Instead of the barbed retaliation Eren expected, Jean just tilted his head to the side and asked, “What do you mean?” with genuine confusion.
“I don’t know, you’re just more affectionate,” he said in a tone that insisted he wasn’t offended, just concerned. “All touchy feely and stuff.”
“And here I thought you were going to get on me about bringing you coffees and brownies and stuff,” he laughed, throwing out a shrug. “I don’t know, man. New perspective I guess. I think this character is changing me, making me appreciate more things, and people and shit. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
Eren took a moment to receive this new information. “I don’t think so either.”
Jean nodded in understanding. He made a move like he was going to retreat to his bedroom, but lingered behind to say, “You know I was going to ask the same thing, Eren, if you were okay. …You’ve been acting a little different lately”
“Different how?”
Jean held his gaze. “Just different. A little quieter. A little… meaner? I was going to ask that, but after tonight I think otherwise. You seem the same.”
“Oh.” Eren felt something heavy roll over in his gut, registering this. Had he been quieter? Had he been meaner? And how bad was it that nothing immediately came to mind to explain such an accusation?
His roommate was still looking at him with concern, but Eren was quickly tiring of the attention.
“I’m okay,” he said, shouldering his way back to his own bedroom. “Good night, Jean.”
He’s shouldering his way to his bedroom when a buzz from the phone in his hand makes him go still. It’s Mikasa, inviting him to join a joint Spotify playlist with her.
The notion alone would bring a smile to his face, were it not for the other notification on his phone that took his breath away.
Levi: Brat. Are you okay? Talk to me.
Maybe Levi was right, Eren was a brat.
Maybe this whole aversion thing was childish and stupid. Eren felt really guilty all of a sudden, making a grown man worry enough to send him a text after midnight asking about his wellbeing.
“Damn it,” he sighed to himself, grabbing his apartment keys and heading to grab his shoes and jacket.
“Where are you going?” Jean asked, already dressed in the old t-shirt he slept in, suspiciously eyeing Eren as he laced up his shoes.
“The roof,” Eren said, zipping his jacket. “I got a phone call to make. I won’t be long.”
With that, he locked the apartment behind him and crept up the metal staircase that led to the apartment complex’s flat rooftop. It wasn’t a tremendous view, and it was windier and chillier up here than any place on planet earth, but it gave him solitude, which was more than enough. He pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head, dialing the number of the man he hardly knew and scarcely loved.
“Eren?”
Eren’s breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t even his real first name, but hearing it come from Levi made it feel like it was, and he was entranced.
“You had my number saved?” Eren asked hopefully, overwhelmed with emotion.
“Why are you calling so late?”
“Shit I am so sorry I completely lost track of time, I’m sorry for waking you-”
“-No, it’s alright. I was awake. What’s wrong?”
“Yeah, I…” he takes a deep breath. “I feel like I’ve been really immature about this whole thing between us-”
“-What whole thing?”
“You know, the avoiding and the ignoring and - you know what I’m talking about Levi.”
There’s a really tense silence where Eren is sure Levi tries several times to say something, hitched breaths and strained sounds. Eren can’t hear much else from his phone speaker, no background noises that could reveal anything about Levi’s location. He’s shrouded in mystery still.
“I told you,” Levi says eventually, “that I don’t like phones.”
“No you didn’t say that,” Eren says wryly. “You wrote that. And I don’t like reading.”
“I suppose that only leaves us with one option.”
“One option to-?”
“Talk,” he said, a little clipped. “When is an acceptable time for us to meet off-set?”
“It doesn't need to be a big deal,” Eren stammered. “I can- If you want, you can just stop by my dressing room and-”
“-Absolutely not.”
“ … okay. I’m, um… Tomorrow, I have a photo-shoot and an interview, then, like, two or three hours open in the afternoon before I have to go back and re-film the failed Titan transformation scene.”
“Which t wo or three hours tomorrow?”
“Like, starting at four in the afternoon? Four thirty? My call time for the shoot is seven thirty at night.”
“Four thirty will suffice. Do you drink tea?”
Eren couldn’t recall a time when he’d had tea in his life aside from the few sips Mikasa shared with him. But the idea of having tea with Levi thrilled him. “Um, yeah. I do.”
“I’ll meet you at four thirty tomorrow. I promise I’ll get you back well before your call time.”
“Okay,” he said, the abrasiveness didn’t scare him anymore. Not when he was back on the roof of his apartment complex, dressed in black sweat clothes instead of strapped in his uniform on the battlefield. He was real now. And he had to assume, wherever he was, whatever he was wearing, Levi was real, too.
“Good night, captain,” he said, a twinge of fondness trickling into his tone.
“Morning, more like.” Levi’s voice is deeper, but interestingly tender as he says, “It is absurdly late, kid. Are you alright? Are you safe?”
“Yeah.”
“You sound like you’re outside.”
“I’m on the roof.”
There’s a beat of tense silence. And then all the little hairs spike along the back of Eren’s neck; he hears frantic shuffling, he hears the snagging of keys and quick footsteps, a grated voice rushedly whispering commands like, “shit, stay there, don’t move, shit, shit, shit…”
“Hey, I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay!” Eren clambers, his heart throbbing in his voice. “I’m not- Jesus, I’m not jumping! I didn’t mean to give you that impression, I- My complex has, like, a patio thing on the roof. I like to go up here, that’s all, there’s nothing more to it. Jesus Christ, I’m sorry if I worried you. I’m okay.”
“ … Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Levi. Fuck,” Eren wipes his eyes, sniffing. “I don’t have thoughts like that. Fuck.”
He expects Levi to be furious with him, but all he hears is relief when Levi slowly drawls, “It’s okay, kid. I understand.”
“Good,” Eren huffs, trying to sound angry, but he just sounds like a petulant child.
“Good night, Eren. I’ll meet you Sunday morning.”
“Okay… good night,” Eren said, the word crumbling out of him like the last leaf off an autumnal tree. He waited for Levi to hang up first, but after a few seconds passed, became clear that wouldn’t be the case. Eren hung up on his own, shoving his phone into his jacket’s pocket. He ducked his head, shivering as a nighttime chill breezed by.
Levi fucking Ackermann just nearly had a heart attack because of him. Eren. And all this time, he thought he was scum under the guy’s nails.
The guy whom he practically idolized.
Eren sighed, bunching his shoulders high as another breeze rolled through. He turned to go back inside, sorely convinced he was going to be absolutely exhausted by the time he made it to the studio tomorrow.
Jean was right, Eren realized with a bitter resolve. Actors were way too fucking complicated.