Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Step on the sidewalk crack, break your mother’s back. 

Repeat. 

Step on the sidewalk crack, break— a sharp spontaneous pain stabbed Eren through this chest— your mother’s back. 

Repeat.

The obnoxious anxiety-inducing phrase that had lived in Eren’s head rent-free his whole life was back to play with him again. It was so juvenile and childish and… 

Eren wouldn’t allow himself to consider whether it had anything to do with the guilt he felt in relation to his mother’s actual death. 

Her untimely demise.  

Phrases with a funny emphasis worked somehow to cheer him up despite it all. 

It’s not like Eren was that much of a bad luck magnet— that doing something like stepping on a crack would have actually caused any new negativity in the world. 

So why was he walking incoherently, unable to focus on anyone around him as if he’d just thrown back six shots and was now attempting to function like a normal human being? Who knows. 

Oh wait, Eren did. 

He was psychoanalyzing everything again. Being obsessive-compulsive, and unable to control it. 

Eren hadn’t looked up once, allowing instead for his mind to drift elsewhere, so he was shocked to catch himself almost step down onto—

Don’t step on the crack. Don’t— you almost did! Okay, wow. That was a close one.

“Okay. Stop,” Eren said out loud to himself. It often came down to talking to himself to snap him out of his antics.

Eren breathed harshly, lifting his eyes away from neurotically watching where he was stepping. Unfortunately, through the soles of his shoes, Eren could still identify when he did step on a crack, but he had to stay strong. Because if he wasn’t careful, he would go back to counting his steps, or worse, recite the alphabet in association with his steps until he finally spiraled into a frustratingly compulsive counting game, one in which he commonly held himself prisoner. 

Why did he do these stupid fucking things, and why couldn’t he stop? 

One, two, three, four, five, stop, seven, eight, stop—

“Stop,” he groaned more aggressively this time. 

He forced his eyes back up, only to have his heart assault his ribcage when he saw him.  

“Fuck,” Eren whispered, immediately changing directions, in spite of being just under ten meters from his building. 

It’s okay, he could be late for his final, there was a grace period after all. If it meant less proximity from him, Eren would do anything.

He pulled the bill of his hat down just a bit more to block out the incessant daylight, but also to hide his face, feeling much more confidence in the anonymity.

Seeing him reminded Eren that he didn’t have any friends. He hadn’t for a while. Not since—

“Hey, Eren!”

Don’t look up, don’t draw attention. Please.

Correction, because that was unfair. Eren didn’t have many friends, but he did still have Armin. Over the years, his group had dwindled from a fairly large size to finally result in just the two of them. 

Eren internally cringed. Did he really forget Armin? What kind of a shitty excuse for a friend was Eren? 

Armin’s hand clamped down on Eren’s shoulder, officially pulling him from his precariously anonymous position. 

“Where are you going, Eren? EECS hall is right here,” he said with a friendly giggle, oblivious that he had just indicated Eren’s location in the dangerous zone the boy had purposefully meant to avoid.

“Uh, yeah,” Eren replied in an exasperated voice, knowing someone as unassuming as Armin would be unable to detect it. 

He considered lying and saying he meant to walk over to the smoking area to light up just briefly before the exam, but there wasn’t enough time to make that a feasible excuse. 

Eren nodded instead, the bill of his hat effectively covering the entirety of his face while he walked back up the mild hill with his cheerful blond friend. 

Armin opened his mouth and words were coming out — Eren was certain of it — yet all his ears seemed trained to hear was a nearby low voice asking, “Hah, is that Eren over there?”

Swallowing the knot that had quickly formed in his throat, Eren tried to pretend like he was listening to Armin instead, but he could already feel the prick of tears at the corners of his eyes. He cleared his voice softly at Armin’s side, keeping his eyes down. 

Just keep moving. Count your steps if you want, if that will make you feel better. Anything to feel better. Please, just try to move on.

“Yoo, you’re right,” a new voice said louder, clearly testing the waters, “yeah that’s Eren.” 

There was some laughter then, which apparently caught Armin’s attention too. 

“Eren! We’re having a party at the frat tonight, you should come!” The same boy shouted, far too eagerly. 

Eren knew that voice too well — it belonged to the number one most annoying fucker he’d yet to encounter — Floch Forster. 

“Hey, Eren. I’m having a party in my pants, and you’re invited,” the next voice also immediately registered as Reiner’s, and then even more laughter sprung out amongst the lot of them. 

Cool joke, bro, Eren wanted to sarcastically retort, and incredulously looked over in their direction. Of course that was at least partially the response they were looking for, because Reiner made some snide comment like, “of course he’s interested.”

Armin surprised Eren by scoffing and turning to look at the group of antagonizing boys. 

“Hey, guys!” he began before Eren could stop him. 

Armin froze up, most likely as a result of never having ever mustered the courage to confront someone much less a group of popular students before. Eren’s momentary sense of hope crumbled to pieces. 

“Shut the hell up!” Armin finished bluntly. It didn’t have much of an effect beyond causing the testosterone fueled boys to scoff and laugh even louder.

In spite of their reaction, Eren’s heart still fluttered in his chest. Did he subconsciously like the sound of their laughter? The bullying? The thought alone shamed him to no end, completely disarmed and frozen by Armin’s side.

Hadn’t there once been a time when Eren had been the one to protect Armin from bullies? How was it possible that their roles had changed so much? 

Rolling his lips in between his lips, Eren grabbed his shorter friend by the bicep in order to redirect them back towards their building. It took a second, but Eren remembered to keep moving forward, refusing to give the group of males a second glance. 

At least Eren didn’t hear his voice. For that, he was grateful. 

He wouldn’t cry — he had absolutely no reason to — he had make it to his CS-160 class, and he would take the stupid fucking final, finish his sophomore year of university, and move on with his life. 

He could do this. The final, at least.

“Eren is getting protected by that?” Floch asked incredulously, inspiring further laughter. 

Armin huffed out a deep breath of air, though it thankfully sounded significantly less affected and emotionally charged as Eren currently felt. 

It was times like these when Eren hated being five foot ten inches tall, because he wanted to curl into a ball the size of a cat and hide under a bed somewhere, wanting never to reemerge. He tried not to think about it too hard, but in all honesty, Armin’s just slightly lower than average height had never seemed so attractive to Eren. 

As the two students proceeded to approach the finals hall, Eren was able to provide himself at least a small amount of relief. He couldn’t help how tall he was, but at least he could manage his weight. He could manage how well he maintained his hair, his skin, and nails. That which he could actually control gave him the little bit of power Eren needed to feel like he was still human. 

When Eren sat down in his seat, just moments away from getting passed the paper exam, his stomach conveniently reminded him how devastatingly empty it was. It wasn’t the best idea to skip breakfast — he could have at the very least grabbed one of the few bars he could actually enjoy — but the anxiety had kept him full for probably at least the entire past week. 

Actually, Eren couldn’t remember the last full meal he ate. 

He was disappointed in himself that he was constantly teetering on the line of anorexia, especially with his height, which required him to consume more calories than many others yet they didn’t interest him in the slightest. 

How was he supposed to eat when everything hurt all-the-fucking-time?

Okay, stop. 

Don’t think about eating.  

Don’t think about him. 

Don’t think about her. 

Don’t be so fucking emotional. 

It all hurt too much. 

Think in numbers; Eren could do that. He wasn’t the fastest at coming to complex conclusions, yet he was capable of them, given he had the time, space, and resources to do so. He was an honors student for a reason; Eren could do this.

Thankfully, the test did go well. Staying up into the early hours of that morning had been stressful, and caused Eren to extra-overanalyze past traumatic experiences only slightly, yet it had paid off. Eren could feel good about that. 

Little mattered more to him than his GPA. Possibly Armin…? The uncomfortable event prior to the exam was making Eren question that. But certainly not eating, sleeping, or having a social life. Not anymore.

Armin finished before Eren, so he was a little stressed when he walked back to his apartment on his own. It was good, he needed to decompress. 

Eren tried to think about something that might make him feel better, or at least ease some of his stress, but to the best of his abilities, he couldn’t get Reiner’s annoying and clearly facetious invitation out of his head. 

It was humiliating when Eren remembered the feelings he used to harbor for the older boy. Maybe even for a second, Floch as well. But not anymore, stop, please, it’s not like that! 

Don’t think— don’t remember any of that. Eren couldn’t allow himself to recall all the vaguely positive traits that had lured him in towards any of them in the first place. He couldn’t allow himself to go down that rabbit hole.

What about the feelings he used to have for—

Seriously, shut the fuck up, Eren. Just shut the fuck up, and stop. Oh, there’s the coffee shop.

Yeugh. Fuck. 

This was what Eren looked like. 

Five foot and ten inches tall, one hundred and fifteen pounds (on a good day), with a body mass index of below seventeen. His skin stretched tight over his bones and muscles as a result of having such a near zero percentage of body fat. He’d tried to eat in the past two weeks, but the stress and anxiety of starting his internship had thrown him for a loop. 

One day he had summoned the motivation to sauté tofu. But unfortunately, Eren had been so exhausted from staying up late the night prior that he’d fallen asleep and let the tofu burn on the stove— it was the first and only time he’d ever set off his fire alarm. 

Being vegetarian wasn’t always the easiest, but it was certainly easier than being vegan, which had lasted for about a year. Eren shivered when he remembered seriously how little he had been eating back then.

Eren missed his mother’s cooking. It had been nearly ten years since he’d last tasted it, but he could still remember it being so delicious. Addictive, really. Eren had been a very healthy weight as a result of his mother’s amazing cooking. So basically, when she died, his desire to eat went along with her.

His slacks he’d bought with his dad’s credit card just two months ago were already just slightly oversized on him. Eren gasped out loud when he realized the leather belt he’d selected to hold his trousers up properly was now too big for him as well. 

“Fuck…” Eren hissed under his breath. 

He stood there for a second, thinking about how he could be handy about this. It was Monday morning, and he had two hours before he needed to show up at the office downtown. It was far too early for any clothing retail stores to be open, certainly not the brands Eren preferred to exclusively shop at. Swallowing, Eren walked down the short hall to the kitchen, and gazed around to see if anything sharp could catch his eye.

A knife would work. 

Eren went to the utensil drawer, pulled it open to reveal the two sets of forks, spoons, and butter knives. He didn’t ever have anyone over, so he never really had a need to buy more than two sets. 

Oh, right, Eren didn’t have any knives in his kitchen. With his meatless diet, there wasn’t really a need for one. He did at one point have a knife for chopping vegetables, but it had mysteriously disappeared a while ago.

Looking down, Eren considered any other possible solutions. There was one around here, there had to be. 

Nearly ten minutes later, Eren had successfully punched a hole in the tough leather with a pair of unsharpened scissors he’d found in his desk. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do to keep his pants up for the day (or week), until Eren got around to accepting he’d lost more weight and would need to purchase an even smaller belt in the women’s section this time.

He pulled on his button up, working on fastening it to his chest, only to realize it was just slightly oversized as well. Shit. Eren was going to look like a dumbass wearing clothes that were too big for him. He licked his lips and looked around his closet. He didn’t have a ton of clothes, but maybe he had some saved from when he was younger?

It was too warm for a sweater, but a gray cashmere sweater vest would work. Eren didn’t know where the fuck it was from, because it wasn’t exactly his style, in spite of looking good on him. It must have been a gift, judging by how meticulously it was hidden in a box on the shelf.

Eren had his backpack, shoes, and hat on, checking himself out in the mirror before something yellow caught his eye. He side-eyed the funny shaped fruit for just a moment before reaching out to grab it. 

Eren had once loved bananas — eating them on a daily basis, actually — until he’d had enough of his older brother labeling him a ‘fag’ for enjoying them so often. So it was a really big surprise to see it in his apartment. Maybe he’d blacked out from hunger last time he’d gone shopping and not noticed checking out with it. It had happened before.

Walking through the streets of downtown was refreshing. Eren had gobbled down the banana, basically exactly the way that sounded, to avoid anyone seeing him eating it and get homophobic ideas about him. 

The office wasn’t too far of an urban hike, maybe about twenty minutes, and gave Eren an opportunity to get his nervous energy out before being faced with what would certainly be the most anxiety-inducing experiences of his life. Or, one of them. 

Meeting some of the other interns only made Eren feel worse about himself. There were a lot of them, and as a result of working at this large and incredibly well known company, he knew that all his peers had to be top caliber. 

Eren had a great GPA and prior experience, but honestly didn’t feel he had the capability to land an internship like this without the help of his brother’s referral. Zeke didn’t work at this company, but he knew loads of PMs who were able to send his application in the right direction. 

And… that was that.

Maybe he could have done it on his own. Maybe not. Who could say? Fuck imposter syndrome, right?

All interns received a welcome presentation, their work laptops they would be using for the duration of the internship, and of course branded backpacks, jackets, and laptop cases. It was a little excessive, but a company of this size must want to keep their interns happy. Honestly, it was annoying, but of the new products — besides the embedded logo — he did kind of like the jacket.

A woman called Hange was admittedly doing a great job helping the majority of the interns acclimate, keeping the energy up as they all found their seats in the neighborhood styled office layout. There wasn’t a ton to get done — it was the first day after all — and surprisingly, Eren actually enjoyed talking to a couple interns that were also his age.

No one knows me here.  

It was oddly liberating not recognizing a single person in this setting. 

No one knows what a social reject I really am.  

Ah, there it is. 

No one knows I’m a weak degenerate slut.  

It’s not like he could have stopped himself from thinking that last thought — he’d thought the one prior already. They were an obnoxiously packaged deal. As long as he didn’t cry about it in public and push himself to continue conversations with others, he could get over it for now.

Included in the day’s agenda was meeting their CTO, but that time had come and gone, and according to Hange’s anxious ramblings, she was aware and overcompensating for it as well.

Eren felt a weird, unexplainable weirdness. The kind of weirdity that he arguably could say he felt on a regular basis, yet somehow… it was stronger. 

He chewed on his lower lip, then relented to make himself a cup of tea while everyone was still waiting. Eren excused himself to find one of the kitchen nooks, only slightly getting lost because of how absentminded he was. Tea, right. Eren was supposed to find a place to concoct some tea.

It was a lot easier to find a nook when he put his thought to it. At the counter, Eren selected a plain mug — ah, nope, there’s the company logo again — then peered around for where the tea bags were located. He distinctly noticed how quiet it was; he could hear himself counting the seconds as they passed in his head. 

Tea, tea, tea, tea, tea, tea, where are you? The nineteen-year-old reached down to open a drawer, then another, then decided to check the cabinet. Finally, there they were. At last.

“Tea one, tea two, tea three…” he spoke absentmindedly, in no louder than a whisper. There were a number of different kinds, which for some odd reason excited Eren, and just when he decided on a bag, he reached down and selected it carefully with two fingers. 

“Not that one,” a voice over his shoulder spoke calmly.

Eren jumped against the counter, knocking over the mug he’d set up for himself. He made an alarmed sound that embarrassed him, especially in combination with the fact that both his hands formed a deathgrip on the counter top, his forehead loudly slammed into the cabinet, and his dick got crushed in the entire act of jumping.

It was a humiliating reaction, as typical. After hissing from the pain his entire body just went through, Eren turned his head to the side to peer over his shoulder at whoever the fuck just decided to sneak up on him.

Most male heights varied in relation to his, as they do, but usually not this particular male’s. Eren had to try not to immediately laugh as a result of having to look down to see the person who had snuck up on him.

The desire to laugh completely evaporated, because… Oh. The man was incredibly attractive. 

It was one of those moments where Eren could confidently say, ‘Wow. This is my type,’ and blink as he took in the shorter black haired male’s entire appearance. He had a gorgeously angled face, wore fitted and grotesquely expensive-seeming suit, and had an aura that effortlessly radiated success and confidence. Or was it outright dominance? 

Eren’s degenerate slut mind ran wild. But then stopped at a complete standstill. 

Oh.

Eren’s eyes widened, a pink flush formed over his cheeks as his dick throbbed against the edge of the countertop. The kitchen nook remained so silent.

No, this couldn’t be happening. Why was this happening? The feeling was so strong, and Eren didn’t have any answers. 

All he knew was this man was making it happen again.

Why him? Eren felt like a broken record, repeating in his mind over and over, I don’t know, I don't know, I don’t know. I don’t know why this is happening.

The clearly older man tilted his head, his eyes softened and tongue slipped out to lick his bottom lip. Eren fearfully and unintentionally mirrored him, licking his lip too, but then ended up accidentally having his breath caught in his throat. 

Because why did it look like this man’s eyes were… recognizing Eren? 

“What are you looking at, punk?” Eren should have suspected his voice would sound low and dominating, yet it was still so astonishing to hear it with his own ears. 

It was so arousing.

“Oh!” Eren’s heart hammered in his chest. He dropped his eyes to his own feet.

Not only was he aroused, but also feeling sorry for himself. There was also confusion, fear, and somehow hope, so it was a strange combination of erratic emotions going on within him.

Seconds dragged on before the man spoke next. 

“Go to your seat.” 

It was so commanding, it made Eren knit his eyebrows together and part his lips, as if prepared to talk back. 

However, in true Eren fashion, he closed his mouth, effectively giving up and somehow eager to follow this man’s directions. He was lucky he turned around when he did, because his face had broken out in a sweat and his pants were far too tight.

Eren didn’t need to be told twice, he got the fuck out of there, only to realize he had returned without his tea. He hunched over himself, resting his elbows on the desk and placing his forehead into his hands. 

What a fucking idiot.  

He was sure his seatmates noticed the odd display, yet he heard nothing as he sat there, eyes squeezed shut tight. Eren racked his mind to determine whether or not he said he would return with tea or not. 

Why did that man give him, or, make him react like that? Eren hadn’t felt like that in… a couple of years, actually. Not since… 

No, fuck, no. Eren was not supposed to think about that. Please, he’d do anything, he just could not think about that—

“Ahh, here we go!” 

Hange was speaking again. She was closer to Eren than he would have expected, because he looked up from his palms to see her standing just to his right, and she wasn’t alone. 

“Our Chief Technical Officer, Levi Ackermann!”

Eren swallowed uncomfortably. The man who’d given him that ocular shakedown earlier had to be the mysteriously unpunctual CTO they’d been waiting on, didn't he? Nice. 

Eren felt like whining out loud, but preferred not to tip off his deskmates as to how strange of a person he actually was. Instead, Eren sat there awkwardly, his face remaining hot and heart pounding uncomfortably in his chest. 

Was he allowed to look at him now?

“Good afternoon,” Levi said curtly, “I’m Mr. Ackermann to you all.” It was fitting that his first order of business was to establish dominance over the rest of the other interns as well. For some reason, this stung. 

At his authoritative voice, the entirety of the floor seemed to shut up completely. Daring a glance around, Eren recognized just how entranced his peers seemed to be as a result of the man’s — Mr. Ackermann’s — presence, or more likely his handsome appearance, as well. 

Knowing others were looking at Mr. Ackermann as well made the nineteen-year-old stew in his chair with his jaw clenching and dick twitching. Nevertheless, he was still discovering how intense his emotional reaction was growing, and it terrified Eren to his core.

He had to distract himself, and as soon as possible. Eren focused on the stitching on the material of his pants, wanting to divert his attention from how obsessed he was becoming with the older man’s voice. Mr. Ackermann was still talking, Eren just wasn’t absorbing anything. 

Just his voice was making Eren unravel to an epic extent, and for that, he grew even more afraid. Something so small like that… 

Eren knew this was going to be bad.

The burgeoning obsession. Why is this happening again?

“We likely won’t interface at all. I’m pleased to have you all here, and I look forward to reviewing the work you’ll complete by the end of the program.” 

The older man paused, seeming to be totally aware how captivated his audience was. Eren couldn’t help himself from releasing his gaze from his pants to watch the way the man’s lips moved when he spoke. 

How do those feel? How does Mr. Ackermann taste?  

Slate gray eyes landed on Eren for the second time in five minutes. It felt like he was experiencing deja vu based on how exactly similar the look Eren was getting again. 

The younger boy held Mr. Ackermann’s gaze, refusing to break their contact, unlike last time. Someone could put a gun to his head and Eren would still refuse to look away. 

He couldn't show disrespect to someone who captivated his entire soul the way this man had, and still currently was. 

Eren’s growing fixation with Mr. Ackermann almost made him not notice how the man was looking at him in a way like he could see through him— like he was aware of all the nitty gritty details of Eren's depressing life. It was starting to feel a little bit too overwhelming, like Eren was having trouble breathing. 

The more seconds passed, the more Eren felt sick as a result of Mr. Ackermann’s devastating glare. 

“Do not disappoint me.”

That felt targeted. Had Eren already disappointed Mr. Ackermann, maybe in the kitchen nook a few minutes ago? What was it that he’d done? And how could he fix it? Where was all this pressure coming from?

Frazzled, Eren rose from his seat, breaking that precious gaze he had been growing to covet, to get some air from it all. 

He needed to escape, so the last thing he could possibly care about was how it looked to stand up so abruptly and leave the large open concept room. He found a staircase and took it. Eren had almost no concept of the campus layout, so he wandered aimlessly yet somehow still on a mission for a couple minutes before he saw a men’s restroom sign. 

Eren might not be known for many observation skills, but he somehow had an incredible knack for finding abandoned restrooms. The more out of the way, the better. The easier it is to hide that way.

Entering, Eren chose to take the very last stall to feel even more inconspicuous. After locking the door, he sat down on the toilet, lifting his feet to plant them on the same seat so that he could wrap his arms around his knees and weave his fingers into his hair. 

He wanted to start sobbing because, seriously, what the fuck was wrong with him? It’s his first day, and he’s already an unraveling fucking mess. But was that really that surprising? 

All Eren had were questions, and no answers.

Why was he getting set off this easily? There certainly had been days that Eren would consider pretty ‘normal’ — days where these kinds of obnoxiously intrusive thoughts didn’t drive him crazy, where he did eat and sleep at least somewhat well — but it seemed like all those combined days of peace were banging at Eren’s front door for retribution now. They were dogpiling on him, eating him from the inside out, like cruel, relentless debt collectors.

Eren remembered watching Levi’s lips move as he spoke, how he wanted to touch and taste them, and how he wanted to shrivel up and die when he realized how many other people were probably thinking the same exact thing about his man. 

Eren didn’t have it in him to remind himself Mr. Ackermann was not his man, because that would only make him want to cry. Thinking about crying reminded Eren of the last time he cried, and how utterly pathetic he was for crying that time. 

He hated spiraling like this, because then he found himself internally asking, hey, remember when Jean Kirstein invited you—

“Stop,” Eren whispered to himself under his breath. Please, please, stop. Eren couldn’t take it right now.

—to his room, and you eagerly accepted. You were practically frothing at the mouth, you were so excited that he saw you. That he chose you. Holy shit, that was embarrassing.

“Please…” Eren whispered again, his voice breaking. He didn’t want to be ruminating about this — an entirely separate issue — right now. He didn’t want to be trapped in a bathroom stall, hiding from the world, his new company, team, and himself. 

Remember when he told you to do that, and like a good little boy, you did that. You remember what ‘that’ is, right? Getting on your knees, unzipping your pants, pulling your dick out, opening your mouth—

The door to the bathroom opened suddenly, scaring Eren out of his berating intrusive thoughts. He caught himself, pausing his heavy breathing before the newcomer could hopefully catch on to the fact he was hiding in there. 

Wait, did someone actually enter? Eren blinked, he couldn’t hear anything.

He was prepared to let go of the breath he was holding, resigning to assume someone had simply opened the door but not entered, when he finally heard footsteps. Eren’s eyes went wide, relief washing over him when he realized he’d just prevented himself from getting outed for his weird behavior. Okay, maybe someone had entered, but paused to check something on their phone before actually making use of the restroom.

That had to be it. That was a normal thing, nothing weird about that. 

Yet for some reason, Eren felt the hairs stand on the back of his neck, as if whoever had entered could see right through the black partition stall, which was the one thing lending him a scrap of privacy in this situation. 

But that was impossible. 

It’s not like someone came here to check on him— no one had been behind him while he wandered this far away from his building. No one cared enough to do something like that, which for some reason still bothered him. 

Eren probably wasn’t even that memorable.

The footsteps stopped. Eren heard the sound of a belt unbuckling, making him inadvertently swallow the spit that had formed in his mouth. He felt like such a pervert for feeling the inkling of arousal when a man was preparing himself to do something so human like urinating. 

Please don’t act like a degenerate, please, just this once. Don’t make this a thing, too.

The sound of a thick stream of piss hitting a urinal sounded ten times louder than it should have. It resonated in Eren’s ears, making him breathe just slightly louder than he should have been in order to remain unnoticed. But with how loud the sound of someone relieving theirselves was, he didn’t worry about it that much.

Eren couldn’t help it, he silently placed one of his feet to the tiled floor so that he could lean forward, dipping his head down to look under the row of partitions and find the feet that belonged to the newcomer.

The man wore very expensive looking black leather shoes. He wore black slacks as well, which didn’t exactly make him very recognizable. Also, for the record Eren had spent a whopping four hours tops at this company, so that wasn’t a surprise regardless. This could be literally anybody, and that soothed Eren’s anxiety just a touch. The presence of the stranger made his breathing easier, his position hugging himself a little less intense, and his head a little more clear.

Eren felt… better.

Listening to this man piss started to feel oddly relaxing. His reaction was a little nonkosher, actually.

Eren flushed red quickly, the heat making him want to pant while simultaneously growing lightheaded as a result of the blood rushing to his dick. Eren’s eyes blinked wide. You’re kidding.

I’m getting aroused from listening to a stranger piss?

Swallowing yet again, Eren realized this was a new low. Eren was pretty confident he’d hit rock bottom before — a couple times — but this? There was no way.

The man finished, and Eren heard the sound of a zipper fastening, forcing him to hurriedly lift his foot back up from the floor to avoid any chance of getting caught hiding all the way at the end of the toilet stalls. 

The sudden sound of water indicated the man was washing his hands, then using one of the reusable cloths, and then leaving when the door opened and closed for the final time.

Eren counted to ten, then took a deep breath before dropping both feet onto the floor. 

“Fuck…” he whispered in the tiniest voice he could manage. He obviously felt it before he saw it. Eren didn’t want to glance down and be reminded of the shameful erection he’d popped as a result of… Goddamn it.

Regardless, he had to do something about it. Eren didn’t bother taking off his pants, he simply unzipped his fly and pulled himself from within the opening from his boxers. Giving himself an experimental rub, he pulled his foreskin back to reveal an already dripping wet head. 

It really put him in the mood, because Eren was eagerly tugging himself off, closing his eyes to think of someone that might make this humiliating display of degeneracy go a little faster.

Yeah, he still thought of Jean. He couldn’t help it, and he didn’t beat himself up for it, either. Let’s be clear. Eren had pined for Jean for years — Jean had transferred into Eren’s secondary school their senior year, and Eren gunned for the university Jean had been early accepted to, then thankfully got in as well — so it would be a little out of the ordinary for himself to deny his most primal desires. 

But it felt dry. Not tantalizing and reliable like usual. 

Kinda boring, actually.

Someone else took over Eren’s thoughts. Someone new. Someone with black hair, a severe undercut, calculating eyes, chiseled jaw… 

Fuck. “Oh my god,” Eren breathed in the smallest voice possible, his eyes rolling back into his head when he thought of Mr. Ackermann. He felt like he’d just turned his arousal up from zero to a thousand, because he was instantly close, no— he was there.

Simply remembering the way the older man had made eye contact with him, how Mr. Ackermann had seen Eren, and held him in that gaze, forcing the younger boy to develop an interest of epic proportions for him…

It was too much.

White fluid burst past the hand Eren had haphazardly lifted to try to catch it and dropped onto the tiled flooring. Eren’s eyes going from shut tight to flying open wide added to the nearly excruciating orgasm he experienced.

Eren kept on that train of thought, looking to maintain that seemingly intimate memory he had shared with Mr. Ackermann. 

Remembering how Mr. Ackermann had made him feel — made him feel seen — and how the attention belonging to someone so dominating, a little patronizing, and so undeniably sexually attractive like Mr. Ackermann. Mr. Ackermann was the one who had done this to him, who had given this to him. Mr. Ackermann.

There was only Mr. Ackermann. It hurt how much the man filled his thoughts. 

“Mr. Ackermann…” Eren moaned deliriously.

Chapter Text

It was absolutely not normal how aroused Eren became the second he entered the building he worked in. 

After a few days, Eren started having to open the door with one hand while the other held his laptop in front of him casually at crotch level, so as to not alarm any unsuspecting person. 

Most people probably don’t want to see a scrawny, uncomfortable looking boy with an erection first thing in the morning. 

Luckily for him, most days were fairly to majorly mundane, but Eren did try his best to catch glimpses of Mr. Ackermann as the program proceeded. 

If he was lucky and did get to see him, Eren almost instantly got hard and had to go to that same, very out of the way bathroom to take care of himself. It was pretty pathetic when he thought about it after the fact — because he always thought about it after the fact — but it felt so good in the moment, Eren couldn’t justify his behavior even a little bit. 

He got through his hedonistic routine uninterrupted most of the time, however there were times where someone would enter and Eren would have to pause. 

The worst times were when one or even two other people came in to sit on the toilet and be on their phone. Eren had to wait for up to ten minutes before, and it fucking sucked. 

Eren already knew he was in the wrong for doing what he was doing there in the first place, but it’s not like he could just out himself by putting his feet down and leaving the stall after having sat there in complete silence for so long. 

What if someone decided to leave at the same time and saw his face? There was no way in hell Eren could stand being ostracized at school and at his place of work. 

Unfortunately, there was no way he could stop himself from taking part in these illicit activities that forced him into these weird fucking predicaments in the first place, so. Eren had to deal with one problem at a time. It was the only way he could move forward.

It was Eren’s fault for trying to enjoy his nuts instead of cranking them out like he should be doing. 

But every once in a while, he would experience that same exact situation that he had experienced that very first time. 

Eren would have his hand on his dick, lower lip between his teeth, eyes rolling back into his head while the thought of Mr. Ackermann absolutely consumed his mind when the door would open, yet no footsteps would be heard. It made pins and needles rake under Eren’s skin, putting him on edge while relaxing him totally at the same time.

Who was it, and why did this keep happening to him?

Eren had to assume it was the same person, someone who for some reason wanted to take a moment just as they entered the space to anxiously check their phone. They wanted privacy, Eren could surmise at the very least, and that made him wonder if maybe they (or presumably he, since it was the men’s restroom, but Eren still erred on the side of caution) were perhaps checking their dating apps. 

The idea of this person cheating on their spouse regretfully added some flavor to Eren’s already debaucherous thoughts.

He liked to pretend the man who entered was Mr. Ackermann— that maybe Mr. Ackermann had a relationship outside of work, and he entered the bathroom to get a moment of privacy to check his Grindr, and maybe, just maybe one day would come across Eren’s profile.

But there was no way. 

Mr. Ackermann was a high profile executive. First of all, he absolutely had to have his own private bathroom. There was no way he would subject himself to setting foot in a public bathroom where he may or may not encounter a weirdo like Eren participating in… This.

Secondly, because of his well known status in the tech community, he couldn’t just be on Grindr. Right? There were other apps for rich people. Right?

But of course it got Eren off thinking about how disgusted the rumored clean-freak Mr. Ackermann would react if (or potentially when) he found out Eren was masturbating in the bathrooms on a near daily basis, regardless of whether he was thinking about him. 

Eren didn’t know why he was like this, so he couldn’t explain the reason why it made him cum so hard when he imagined the older man glaring at him, degrading him, or even firing him in front of his whole team. He should be disgusted, but Eren couldn’t find it in himself.

Then the man would move again, step up to the urinal, undo his belt, begin pissing, and Eren would have to hold back his sigh. He could jerk off while the man pissed — there was no way the newcomer could hear the slow soft faps with the sound of his own stream so close to him — but Eren would remain frozen and wait for him to wrap up with washing his hands and eventually leave.

In his mind — everything and anything would always only remain there — Eren was secure in his lewd conduct. Although he should have, he didn’t technically have a reason to feel bad about it.

He just had to get through the rest of the summer.

Eren was enjoying the internship. He really did, however, for the life of him, Eren could not think of a single way to describe how it was going, because the second he was asked — by his only friend, Armin, or those sparse times when his father came into the city to get dinner together — all Eren could do was think about was Mr. Ackermann’s perfect face. The way he glared, licked his lips, held his cup of tea, showed off his toned forearm muscles when his sleeves were rolled up, or unintentionally teased Eren those few and far between times when he wore exercise clothes to the campus gym. 

The man was not tall — he was actually precisely five inches shorter than Eren — and while it felt questionable at first, that fact turned out to kind of rock Eren’s world. In spite of how nontraditional their union would be (just, in many ways), this caused Eren to develop an obsessive size kink, to the point where he was only able to watch porn with shorter tops and taller bottoms. 

So maybe Mr. Ackermann might not be the huge, domineering man Eren had expected to spiral for, but he certainly was built, bulkier, heavier, and certainly stronger than Eren could ever dream to be. 

Eren didn’t need his bachelors to get that Mr. Ackermann was well endowed. It was just obvious.

He honestly had no idea it was possible that someone could have such a perfect body.

One of his most memorable experiences being in close proximity with the older man was the time Mr. Ackermann had leaned over Eren’s shoulder to examine a couple lines of code that he had breathily referred to as, “Remarkable,” directly into his ear. 

Mr. Ackermann must have known his behavior would make an impact on Eren, whose reaction had been to enjoy the shiver that ran down his spine, lean his head back and close his eyes as a shaky breath snuck out of him. 

It was perhaps the sluttiest thing Eren had ever done — and he was actually known for being a slut among many of his classmates — without taking his clothes off.

Eren had instantly felt ashamed of himself, yet hopeful to get some kind of reaction out of the executive, but was disappointed to watch the man continue walking through the intern floor, presumably to check on other’s work.

He would have felt totally devastated by his own behavior if it weren’t for the fact that Eren had to have popped the biggest erection known to man, or himself, at least.

Beyond constantly beating off to Mr. Ackermann, Eren could never admit the amount of hours he spent stalking the older man. 

It was a total ‘fuck you’ to find out he didn't have much of an online presence. His social media accounts were private, and if Eren had two brain cells, he’d assume the man wasn’t very active online by any means. He made a living working with technology, so it made sense, and only spoke to Mr. Ackermann’s dedication to avoiding an electronic addiction like Eren and half of the world had.

So, he decided to be a little bolder. 

Eren took Ubers with Mr. Ackermann’s apartment complex along the route, just so he could look out the window and simply watch it as he passed by. He felt a little like a tourist, in spite of the fact Eren had walked through this part of downtown numerous times. 

He had spent hours sitting in the coffee shop directly across from the man’s apartment complex, only to realize like a dumbass that the man likely accessed the building through the underground parking area. But he didn’t take this recognition hard. 

It wasn’t like his stalking habits impeded on any plans with friends. He had none. And it was specifically that kind of lack of awareness that explained why.

Over time, sleep grew harder and harder to come by, so sometimes when he was particularly struggling, Eren would walk past the building at night, looking up and eyeing every single visible window that was lit, wondering which at the top level belonged to him.  

Because it had to be the top level— Eren was confident with the research he’d done off and online that Mr. Ackermann would never live on a floor level below fifty.

Eren was happy to appreciate that they both had picky tastes in common.

All he thought about was accidentally running into the man in regular life. Sure, he had the opportunity to walk past Mr. Ackermann’s corner office (up to three times a day without it becoming obvious), but the idea of seeing him outside of work… To see him wearing casual clothes — not that his typical work attire didn’t already overstimulate the senses — seeing the way the man acted when nobody was looking… 

It would be so nice. 

It was obvious Eren just wanted to see more of him, but it was a lot, lot more than that.

It wasn’t that weird, really. People have internet obsessions with celebrities all the time— when Eren was thirteen, he had many. But this was different, Mr. Ackermann was actually accessible to him. 

Eren had the opportunity to see him in real life, breathe the same air he did, touch the same surfaces… It was something he felt eternally grateful for, in spite of the fact that these forms of contact would be viewed as incredibly mundane to others.

Eren was a very lucky boy; he was reminded of that every time he got to hear Mr. Ackermann’s voice nearby, smell his mouth watering cologne just after he passed Eren in the hall, or read an email with his address simply CC’d. Seriously, just being on the same thread made Eren feel somewhat closer to him, and that made him stupidly happy. 

Yes, it was pathetic. But it felt so nice. It felt like he was being fed, and eating good too. Eren couldn’t deny himself that. Eren liked feeling this way, even if it was devastatingly one-sided. 

Thinking about how good Mr. Ackermann could make him feel kept Eren up at night. Mr. Ackermann would take such good care of Eren with his perfect lips, hands, and of course that one particularly intimate part about him. If he put too much thought into the size of the man’s cock, Eren would have to do something about it. 

“So how’s the internship going, Eren?”

When Eren thought hard about how much of a whore he would be for Mr. Ackermann, he would swallow, remind himself to sit up straighter, and stare into his father’s eyes while he pretended to be equally as focused and straight as his older brother. Definitely not like he’d just spent all of his precious brain juice thinking about his object of obsession.

“It’s going really well. I’m learning a lot.”

That was always good enough of an answer for his father. He would ask about the project Eren was working on, and Eren would respond dutifully. It wasn’t quite lying, but he wasn’t very direct with him either. 

But that’s kind of what happens to a father-son relationship when one emotionally checks out and the other has to essentially be raised by his dad’s credit card. They didn’t discuss Eren’s dead mother or sister. They didn’t discuss Grisha’s ex-wife or firstborn son. They both just pretended they cared about what the other was talking about. 

Or, at least that’s what Eren was doing.

Maybe it was silly to possess such hardcore daddy issues when Eren could recognize that his father was making attempts to be there for him. Maybe it was too late. Maybe he just needed time— it was all pretty unclear, and not something Eren prioritized wanting to understand. 

For the time being, Eren preferred to see him as a credit card. Grisha seemed reasonably okay with that too, so it worked out. There was no tension or pressure to work harder to meet the other, and that was okay.

It made his mind wander to what his relationship would be if Mr. Ackermann was his father instead. Eren tried to not think too hard about it, because it was sick, but he still knew he would be the very best son, ready to do anything his daddy required of him. Eren would eagerly wait on hands and knees, with his tongue out and ass prepped— if Mr. Ackermann wished it, Eren would do it. It was as simple as that.

When he met eyes with his father across the table from him, Eren choked on his food. God, why did he have to think about this kind of shit when his dad was right fucking here?

When his mind wandered back to being on his knees, crying for daddy as he took it from behind, Eren had to just accept he was sick. 

There was no other explanation for it. 

Anxiety built in Eren with each day that brought him closer to the end of his internship. In truth, he had learned a lot, developed relationships with his fellow interns, and had a better understanding of what it was that he did like in a working environment, as well as what he didn’t like.

Not to be too pessimistic, but Eren did not like himself working in an office. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the act of working, it was more just like… 

Eren should not be allowed to work in an office. 

Sure, he had been covering his tracks well — going through something similar to this once before had helped Eren learn how to not get caught being a pervert — so there was practically no way Mr. Ackermann was aware he had been basically stalking him for the better part of two months. 

So, because things were coming to a close, the anxiety was setting in. He had worked his ass off in hopes of earning the return offer he so desperately coveted, and based on interactions with his supervisor, that was likely to be a reality. Yeah, he might have to wait a year until his rising senior summer to return to the company to have a valid reason to see his CTO again, but it would be worth it. 

On lunch breaks, Eren often wondered to himself if perhaps there was something he’d done already that might have caught Mr. Ackermann’s attention. The questions were non-stop; he was constantly wondering if he was doing enough to make some kind of lasting impression all while maintaining an uninterested façade. 

He daydreamed that Mr. Ackermann liked the way he looked. 

Eren wanted that so bad — like, so, so bad — to be the case. 

Thanks to his mother’s surprisingly dominant genes, Eren’s beauty had been nearly identical to hers through every stage of his life. It was annoying to be consistently asked whether he was a boy or a girl, but Eren learned to appreciate the androgyny, or until the relentless bullying began. That was about when he stopped growing his hair out and dressed more masculine, although those intentions slipped over the years.

With such a girly face, Eren considered his mother’s genes to be a huge bonus as a gay boy. 

When he was younger, he had been pressured to play sports alongside his older brother, but once he’d been given the option, Eren had decided to quit, letting his once toned and angular muscles transition into softer curves. He’d learned that he’d made more than a few straight guys question their sexuality in the past, and some even act on their attraction to him. It had never been the men that mattered, though. 

But that was a while ago. Things had changed, of course, like his body suffering as a result of Eren’s struggle with eating and depression. Then there was the ridiculously juvenile fact that some boys had pressed gum into his hair a few months ago, which had forced him to cut the beautiful near chin length hair he’d worked so hard to grow and take care of. 

That took a while to get over.

Eren still found himself attractive, he had at least that shred of confidence in himself. Yet he spent a horrendous amount of time in front of his bedroom mirror making sure his thick eyebrows remained perfectly manicured (in that way that made them look effortlessly natural), and obsessively examining his body before he would distract himself with relaxing skin and hair care. 

Just this summer, Eren had found endless enjoyment in watching himself practice blowing the biggest dildo he owned, working on building up skills to back up the ‘cock-sucking lips’ he’d been blessed with, and ultimately to be prepared for whatever Mr. Ackermann was packing. 

So, yeah. Eren wanted to hope Mr. Ackermann found him attractive, because if not… Eren was pretty sure he had absolutely nothing else to offer him. It depressed him to think of himself as a useless puzzle piece that didn’t fit in his dream man’s equation whatsoever. So, he had to make the little things count.

Today, though, Eren and Mr. Ackermann made eye contact. 

It was from across the room, but still — Mr. Ackermann had been looking at him first, and that was enough to make Eren stand to attention in his pants, and produce a not very subtle excuse to go to that bathroom. 

It was Eren’s bathroom, basically, not that anyone else knew that.

No one was around when Eren walked down the hall that led to it, he made sure of it when he pressed the door open and looked around behind him just before he entered. Nervously biting his lip, Eren walked with purpose to the back of the room, directly to the stall that he had all but claimed as his.

Just for the record, if someone were to have a black light on them, which Eren would strongly advise against, and a DNA kit… Nevermind. The bathrooms were said to have been cleaned daily, and he wasn’t always so messy, so maybe (hopefully) it wasn’t as big of a biohazard as he presumed.

Eren could hardly be bothered to sit down as a means to hide his feet on the toilet seat, he was far too fired up with the memory of Mr. Ackermann’s eyes looking into his own. 

Fuck, I should be embarrassed.

He lifted a foot to rest on the rim of the toilet bowl while he pulled himself out of his slacks. His hand completely grasped himself, pulling his skin back in that way that forced a shudder to go through his whole body, because Eren had convinced himself that that was how Mr. Ackermann would touch him. The aggressive approach had Eren’s ass tingling, reminding him of how he’d fucked the hell out of his favorite dildo just the night before, which had him biting back a moan at the realization he’d have to wait until he got home to do something similar.

Eren’s eyes fell to a close as his breathing came out shakier than typical, feeling unusually close already after just a minute. At times like these, it was hard to remember that it worked to his benefit to get the act over with as soon as possible.

The door opened abruptly, forcing Eren to come to a complete stop. He waited, but there was only that familiar silence. Eren’s heart hammered in his chest and eyes went wide and in his anxiety, his left canine pierced the skin on his lip. It took so much to not make a noise, but Eren bore through it.

After a moment, he heard the sound of the man’s footsteps, the unbuckling of his belt to presumably take his cock out of his pants and aim it down into the urinal, guiding his piss to the porcelain in just the right place. For some reason, the thought process alone had Eren sucking in a deep breath. Shit, he really needed to be careful, but he knew better than attempting to deny his body its honest reaction. 

Eren had to slip a finger over his slit while using his other hand to squeeze himself at his base when he realized how much he enjoyed not just the pain from biting his lip, but also the sound of the steady stream of piss. His eyes were doing their best not to slip back into his head— Eren was on the brink of the best orgasm of his life, and he had to just hold on a little bit longer.

In his heady cloud of pleasure, Eren lost his footing. The bottom of his shoe slipped from the toilet rim and loudly slammed against the floor. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

The combined noise and sensation alarmed him back into reality.

Oh, no.  

On autopilot, Eren pushed his deflating dick back into his slacks, realizing how little time he had now to reveal himself as to not spook the other individual in the restroom.

Or wait… He could just stay in the stall. The person who entered didn’t know how long Eren had been in there, right?

It occurred to Eren that the water had stopped, meaning the other occupant in the bathroom must have been startled into removing their hands from the automatic sensing sink. 

“Hello?”

Eren heard an ear-splitting buzzing noise ringing in his head. It was like he was in a trance. The obedient dog in him knew he was being summoned, yet he stood still. The silence dragged on. Eren still considered the option of pretending like nothing happened but the other person remained in the bathroom as well. 

Were they waiting for him to come out? Was this all in his head? Had they already left? Was Eren in there alone now?

How much time has passed? In his haste, Eren hadn’t brought his phone with him.

Finally deciding to nut up, Eren straightened his posture and buckled his belt properly. 

Please don’t let there be someone in here who heard that just now. Please, please, please.

Eren decided he would keep his head down as he exited the stall, and just do his best to make a run for it when he got closer to the exit. He wasn’t looking, but he knew he was close. 

Eren quickened his pace, only slightly realizing out of the corner of his eye that there were a pair of legs just to his right.

“Stop.”

Eren did as told, that same voice making him stop dead in his tracks. He’d heard it sparingly, but he was confident that that person just now was Mr. Ackermann speaking. Eren had hardly made it across the bathroom, and at this point, he wished he was back in the stall because he was prepared to simultaneously vomit and shit himself. 

“Look up.”

Eren anxiously lifted his gaze. He wished his heart would stop beating for just a minute or so, because for fuck’s sake, he needed to be put to death for so many reasons, but also because that would be better than facing the situation he was in right now.

It was who he thought it was.

Mr. Ackermann looked like he was ready to tear Eren to shreds. The fear was beginning to rub him in a very, very wrongfully arousing way. It was engaging him in a dangerous way, one that Eren should definitely not exhibit in front of this particular man. Before he could stop himself, Eren was tossing his gaze back down to the floor in blatant shame.

“Were you planning on leaving before you wash your hands?”

The nineteen-year-old swallowed the spit that had accumulated in his mouth. Fuck. This situation just went from bad to worse— not only was he outed for being a little creep, but now a dirty one, especially in the face of Mr. notorious neat freak. Eren didn’t know what to do, or how to function properly. 

“What are you, autistic?” 

Was he serious? Eren tried not to make a face, primarily because in spite of the clear condescension, he wasn’t sure whether to take that as an insult or not. Eren was clearly on the spectrum, what the fuck did Mr. Ackermann mean? 

“I know you know how to follow orders,” he added with malice in his voice.

A soft sound escaped Eren. What… was Mr. Ackermann referring to exactly? Sure, Eren could follow orders, and obviously he would do whatever his double (or triple?) skip boss asked him to. Mr. Ackermann was incredibly high ranking, so… it would be stupid to ignore his orders, right? 

So why couldn’t Eren just fucking respond?

He was taking far too long, confirming the older man’s former suspicions while going against his latter statement, and if anything, Eren desperately wanted Mr. Ackermann to believe he could diligently follow orders. Here goes nothing.

“I… didn’t go… ” Eren finally stated awkwardly. It was a start. And, sure, neither kind of fluid had left his dick, but he’d still obviously been touching it.

“Are you kidding me?” 

His tone became serious so suddenly, making Eren jolt in place. He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again, his face growing hot while his eyes fixated on the tiled flooring off to the left. 

Mr. Ackermann’s aggressive request, “Answer me,” reminded Eren where he was at once.

“No…” 

It took all he had not to stammer. For the life of him, Eren couldn’t seem to look into Mr. Ackermann’s eyes, and it was destroying him from the inside out. 

He hated how unnecessarily hard these kinds of things were for him. It made him miss how he used to be, before the crippling anxiety sunk into his life, sticking to him like glue in every possible situation. It’s not like it was easy for Eren to make eye contact in the first place, but it was even more difficult that he was requesting it.

“Wash. Your fucking. Hands,” the older man ordered, forcing Eren to squeeze his eyes shut again and tense his shoulders. Mr. Ackermann sounded so disappointed. Eren was the one to disappoint him, and he only had himself to blame. 

“Look at me.”

Eren gulped anxiously. There was no way he could look into the older man’s eyes now, not with how undeniably sexy and dominating his voice was. Not with how bad Eren wanted him to grab him by his neck and slam him into the wall hard enough to make his head spin. Not with how desperately Eren wanted this man to bite and spit on every square inch of his body. 

No surprise, Eren was already growing at an astonishing rate in his pants, and if Mr. Ackermann realized that, this whole thing would be over. More than over, Eren would be fucked.  

First and foremost because one of the most devastating pieces of information Eren had learned as a result of his sleuthing was that Mr. Ackermann was straight.

All Eren could do was bite his lip and try to ignore how hot his face was, the tears prickling in the corners of his eyes, and of course his tightening pants. Sorry, but he couldn’t make himself look in the eyes of the man he was obsessed with, it just wasn’t possible. Mr. Ackermann could never know how utterly pathetic and disgusting of a person Eren truly was. 

Instead, he sidestepped his superior to approach the sinks. With his eyes down, Eren reached out for soap to be dispensed into one hand before bringing them together to wash under the automatic faucet. The sound of water filled the incessant silence, and Eren felt like he could finally breathe again. His tongue hesitantly wet his lips just before sucking the lower one into his mouth, tasting blood.

Eren could feel the burning stare penetrating the shirt on his back. Mr. Ackermann was watching him. Was it Eren’s birthday? The tables had been turned, and honestly, if Eren had the privacy he needed to go full degenerate, he would probably be crying and shaking right now. But he was stronger than that, he could keep it together. 

But he couldn’t handle not confirming that Mr. Ackermann was looking at him, so Eren decided to raise his gaze into the mirror to see sharp slate coloured eyes piercing into his own. Eren fought the urge to lower his again, suddenly feeling empowered to stare back just as intently as the man was. 

But then something occurred to him— Mr. Ackermann wasn’t exactly looking at him, it was more like… similar to the very first day they’d met. The man was looking through him. 

How was he even capable of that? How was Mr. Ackermann able to access Eren, pull this absurd reaction from him like it was absolutely nothing? Eren was well aware he had put the man on a pedestal, but had Mr. Ackermann realized that? 

Then… Why did it look like he was getting some kind of sick satisfaction from humiliating Eren? That was way too hopeful. Eren wanted to relish in the moment and be appreciative that no one else was there to ruin it — and at any rate, Eren had so much new material to jerk off to — but now he was faced with a new probing question that would eat him from the inside out if he didn’t get the answer.

Is Mr. Ackermann also enjoying this as much as I am?

Eren removed his hands from the water — recognizing he had been washing his hands for more than two happy birthday songs already — then covertly swallowed the saliva in his mouth as he stood up straight. His eyes challenged Mr. Ackermann’s, finding himself unable to look away after he’d built up so much confidence. It felt… good, like they were on somewhat equal standing.

“I knew you could be a good boy.” 

The executive knew what he was doing. 

He had to, there was no other way to explain the choice words Mr. Ackermann had been using with him. There was no fucking other way.

The man was closing in on Eren, their height difference becoming more and more obvious as he did so. It was like they each maintained opposing magnetic fields about themselves, because the urge to lean back and touch Eren’s body to the older man’s became overwhelming. 

Mr. Ackermann was so close. Eren was becoming delirious again.

“Mr. Ackermann,” Eren said in an unnecessarily whiny voice, forcing himself to clear it quickly before he intended to continue, yet the older man beat him to it.

“What happened to your lip?” The older man’s voice suddenly became very serious. Eren’s eyes blinked wide and zeroed in on the angry red cut embedded in his lip.

“Oh—” Eren sounded stupid, why did he always have to respond like that?

“Did someone do this to you?” Mr. Ackermann’s eyebrows knitted together, his eyes narrowing as if Eren had some information and was keeping it from him. It was oddly possessive, which only made the younger boy’s heart ache because of how badly he wanted to hear more of it. Was this even real?

Eren whipped around so that they were facing each other. Their close proximity was even more astonishing than the brunet boy could have ever expected, and that made him lean his ass back against the countertop, his fingers gripping onto the edge behind him. 

“N—no!” Eren was quick to insist. 

Mr. Ackermann didn’t look like he trusted Eren’s anxious response for a second, which of course, totally warmed his heart. 

Does he care that much? Does — does he think I got this from someone else?  

If the older man’s agitated expression was any signal, Eren would be inclined to believe his own line of thinking… Yet in an instant, that trace of frustration was completely gone. The moment had ended. Mr. Ackemann seemed to realize they were in far too close proximity for things to remain professional, and he dutifully stepped away.

At last, the unforgivingly gorgeous man seemed to size up Eren in a way that was definitely not professional — and made Eren’s mind instantly return to his potentially debunked determination of Mr. Ackermann’s sexuality — his gaze lingering on the intern’s eyes and lips. If he was aware of their height difference, the man made absolutely no indication, in fact, he seemed to exude even more confidence than before.

“By the way,” Eren was immediately on edge again, “your fly’s down.” Mr. Ackermann scoffed to himself and turned. 

Eren should have felt ashamed for getting caught, but instead he felt like he was bursting at the seams to admit he had been thinking of him the whole time.

“Little liar.” 

Eren thought maybe he had imagined it, but the way Mr. Ackermann whispered that last part under his breath, there was no way in the dead silence of the bathroom that he couldn’t have identified it.

Eren realized then that his hands had been clutching the edge of the sink to the point of white knuckles, so he took a breath and released his grip at once. There was a time where he might have thrown a complete fit — in frustration or happiness, he wasn’t sure — but he’d graduated from that stage in his life. 

Jesus fucking Christ. How could Eren have been so fucking stupid? 

He knew those shoes belonged to Mr. Ackermann. Eren for some odd reason just preferred to pretend it was him instead of accepting it. 

Chapter Text

Although it was disappointing that Armin (basically his only friend at this point) would be studying abroad for the next six months, Eren was pleased to have finally reached his junior fall semester for a number of reasons. The biggest being he now had the freedom to take classes outside of his major, so finally he had access to ones that he was interested in, and not just required of him. 

He left his machine learning class that day just a little overwhelmed, but the good kind of overwhelmed that made him feel more anxious-excited than anxious-terrified. Imposter syndrome driven questions were already making the rounds in Eren’s head, making him wonder if he was good enough to be in the class or if he had the capacity to learn the course material to begin with, but these dark thoughts were ones he could shut out. This was a challenge he was confident he could succeed in. Though it could be mother fucking hard at times, data science ultimately made sense to him.

It was whatever, Eren decided. He’d think about it in two days when he had the class again. 

For now, it was early afternoon, and Eren planned to stop by his apartment to eat lunch before returning for his other classes and additional study commitments. He was feeling particularly empty, having not eaten anything so far in the day, and was looking forward to making smoothies with the new blender he’d ordered earlier in the week. 

Thanks dad. He guessed.

The nineteen-year-old was mentally making notes of the ingredients he had, and whether he needed to stop at the student collective grocery store to pick up more protein powder or berries, when he made the cosmic mistake of accidentally making eye contact with Floch Forster.

“Fuck,” Eren whispered under his breath as he watched the redhead’s turn towards him and curl his lips in a devilish way. 

He had been spotted as well.

“Eren.” 

Eren strongly disliked the way the other boy spoke his name. It was both whiny and sarcastic, with an obnoxious edge of potential flirtatiousness. He wished Floch would leave him the hell alone, but why would Eren ever get his wishes answered?

He steeled himself not to stop, keeping his walking pace normal, and reminded himself to breathe. 

Eren returned his eyes to face forward, but tilted his head down just a touch so that the bill of his hat made it impossible for Floch to see his gaze. Eren was practically counting his breaths as he clenched his jaw, desperately hoping for no further interaction, reiterating to himself to just keep moving in spite of the scoff he heard as he passed the other boy.

“You gonna just walk past me like that?”

Eren wished he had remembered to grab his earphones earlier that day to more obviously block out the annoying prick, but it didn’t matter. He had legs, and he knew how to use them, so he was going to stick to that plan.

Whe the redhead whistled to him like he was a dog, Eren had to desperately search for the answer to who the fuck does he think he is?

It was times exactly like these that Eren wished he could work between or after classes. Then, at least, he probably wouldn’t be getting involved with bastards who have nothing better to do than fuck with him. If he hadn’t taken on such a heavy course load, he probably would have looked around harder. 

When Eren had made it quite a few paces away, and heard no follow up questioning, he finally allowed himself to take a real, deep breath… only to lose it again.

“Eren.”

Eren's gaze lifted to the sight that forced him to blink. He knew that voice anywhere. 

But there was no way, right? 

That was one of Eren’s incredibly talented intrusive thoughts messing with him, right? Eren had gotten good at mimicking the gorgeous voice that belonged to the man of his dreams.

Whether he believed himself or not, Eren couldn’t stop himself, he turned on his heel to just check to see if it might be the real thing. Let’s be real, he had very little to lose. Perhaps catching Floch on his tail would be the worst case scenario, but still. 

Eren would gamble with these odds, even if they were slim.

Nothing could have prepared him for the arresting sight that was Mr. Ackermann standing just a few steps behind him. 

The man looked incredibly comfortable in a suit that had to be worth a full semester’s tuition, and his black hair gelled back just slightly, showing off the severity of his undercut, although rebellious hairs here and there escaped to frame his face nicely. 

Perfectly. 

Hang on. Mr. Ackermann… Did he recognize Eren?

“No way…” the student accidentally said out loud. Eren instantly clamped his mouth shut, his face turning ten shades darker in humiliation.

The older man breathed out just slightly harder than usual — not that Eren technically had any kind of benchmark to interpret from — but it put Eren oddly at ease despite himself. 

“You seem surprised to see me,” Mr. Ackermann said casually, a small twitch of his eyebrows signaling to Eren that, yes, he definitely heard that last thing he’d said.

It had been just a little over two weeks since Eren’s internship had ended, but to be perfectly clear, the last time he had actually seen Mr. Ackermann was this past Saturday. Eren wasn’t even being careful about his stupid stalking habits— it had been actually almost exactly around where they were currently standing. 

Wait, oh no.

Eren was this close to turning towards the upscale skyrise building that he knew Mr. Ackermann lived in— a terrifyingly compulsive reaction as a result of having stood at that exact vantage point to gaze into the higher levels a number of times before.

Had he been caught? 

Eren had an ounce of self awareness, maybe. He was pretty sure his tactics had been becoming sloppier over time. Not being able to at least catch a glimpse of the older man had driven him to be this way, so to be fair it wasn’t totally his fault. 

But that begged the question… was Mr. Ackermann implying that Eren shouldn’t be surprised to see him here? 

Fuck, shit. Please tell me he doesn’t know, that he hasn’t found out.

“Why are you wearing that fuckin’ hat?”

Eren blinked rapidly, completely forgetting the fact that he was wearing his favorite cap. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? 

That it’s his essentially his closest friend, practically a part of his daily uniform, the one fucking thing that makes him feel just a little bit more comfortable in this utterly cruel, cruel world? 

“That’s a lot of thinking for such an innocuous question.” 

A minute narrowing of the older man’s eyes gave Eren the impression he was perhaps teasing him. T—teasing him…? 

Is he teasing me?

“That’s— it’s…” Eren began, growing flushed in the face from the pressure he amassed from just one simple question, “sunny.”

A beat passed awkwardly. Eren felt like he was seven feet tall, a strange foreign creature gazing down at the most attractive and boner-provoking man he’d ever laid eyes on. Though he tried to distract himself from finding arousal in their size difference, his mind still went to places where Eren could clearly imagine the executive mounting him.

Oh god. The visions were getting out of hand. And his own fumbling was humiliating, frustrating him to the point where he was actually considering indulging his flighty stress response. 

“Sunny,” Levi repeated. 

His eyes narrowed further as his small tongue barely peeked out to wet his lower lip, then sucked it in to briefly bite down on before letting it go. It was mesmerizing, and Eren was staring.

“I mean, it was sunny earlier, and I know it’s not as sunny now.” No, don’t do this, don’t ramble…! “But I was already wearing it, and so I thought, if I take it off… I’ll have hat hair. And—” 

Eren paused what he was saying and thought for a moment. He read Mr. Ackermann’s expression clearly. It made him swallow the spit that had gathered in his mouth. 

“You don’t care.”

Mr. Ackermann blinked and actually smirked.

“What a smart boy.”

Eren’s heart pounded in his chest. He was so, so irrationally excited. His metaphorical tail was wagging eagerly behind him— he wouldn’t be surprised if one spontaneously appeared, Eren was manifesting it so hard. How could he help it — the way Mr. Ackermann stood so cool, giving him attention like this, looking at him with gorgeous eyes that carried interesting emotion within them. 

“You like being praised.”

It was a bold assertion, but an astute one. A very welcome one.

“It’s… not bad,” Eren admitted, averting his eyes for just a second before they magnetically returned to the older man’s, just in time to catch the corner of his lips curling upward ever so slightly.

Were they flirting!?  

Was this real— was this happening?

Was this a moment they were having? Eren’s heart was going crazy, his eyes wide, memorizing the older man’s expression to the best of his ability so that he could remember this moment forever. They were outside of the workplace now, no stupid HR to get in the way… 

Would it actually be possible to have a relationship with Mr. Ackermann? The thought filled Eren with a grotesquely immense amount of hope. Could they go on dates, hook up in public places— would Mr. Ackermann propose to him? Could they get married? Grow old together—

“Eren, I’ve been calling your name.” 

No. Not now. Please.  

Eren hardly had time to turn before the obnoxious redhead slung his arm around his shoulders, pulling him down only slightly and into the other boy’s armpit. Eren’s lips parted, preparing to whine but stopped when his eyes met Floch’s patronizing ones. 

“Don’t run away from me next time, okay?”

Eren froze. He wasn’t sure what was the appropriate thing to do in this situation. He could give a flying fuck about Floch, really, though his behavior was par for the course. Floch took any opportunity to belittle Eren and invade his space. 

But in front of Mr. Ackermann? What would the older man think?

Did it seem obvious that Eren and Floch had… done things together in the past, based on how casual Floch was acting with him? 

What if Mr. Ackermann thinks that Eren isn’t entirely devoted to him? There was no way he could know that in the first place, okay, but the nineteen-year-old didn’t want to risk any chance of influencing the man’s feelings away from him. 

Whether they were there or not in the first place, this was a bad look. Especially when there was a potential relationship with this man on the line.

Eren couldn’t allow Mr. Ackermann to think he and Flock were together. Not now, not ever. 

Clearly indicating that he wasn’t interested in being touched by Floch was a good start, so Eren struggled in the other boy’s hold, growling a bit to verbally represent his distaste. Unfortunately though, the redhead was stronger, and put little effort into keeping Eren at his side. 

“I know how much you love struggling, but— oh. Almost didn’t see you there.” 

The condescension was thick in Floch’s voice when he seemed to only just notice the third male. It made terror radiate in waves from Eren’s entire being. 

He lifted his gaze and anxiously tilted it towards the older man to gauge his reaction. Mr. Ackermann gave virtually nothing away from his own expression, yet the tiniest upon tiny twitch of his left eye made Eren’s eyebrows apprehensively come together and his upper teeth bite down on his lower lip.

Eren didn’t have much hard evidence at all, but something told him that Mr. Ackermann was pissed.

“Floch, can you get off of me?” Eren attempted to diffuse the situation. The tension between the three males was making it hard for him to breathe. 

When Floch didn’t remove his arm, Eren lifted his hand to manually remove it, though the redheaded boy only pulled him into his side harder. Eren’s whole body shook and he lost his footing for a second with just Floch’s arguably low-effort tug on his shoulders. Floch might have been an inch shorter than Eren, but he was significantly more built and undeniably strong. 

Eren knew that first hand.

“C’mon, Eren, don’t be like that.” Floch was placing their faces close together. “Remember what we talked about? I told you not to act shy in front of me anymore.” 

Eren would be lying if Floch’s words didn’t stir something within him, and he technically wasn’t lying, their previous trysts were in the past , but they fell flat coming from his schoolmate’s mouth. This kind of condescending domination was what Eren craved, and thought about daily really, but not like this.

“Eren, look at me,” Floch ordered. He tried to disobey, but it was futile when he was getting jerked in the other boy’s direction. Eren really tried not to, but he couldn’t help submitting. And he regretted it.

“Look at me, up here,” Floch snapped his fingers, “up here, yeaah, that’s a good girl.”

Eren felt like his eyes were going to burst with tears any second — his nose was already running like a faucet and drool dripped down both sides of his lips as he hollowed out his cheeks around the frat boy’s dick — yet he turned them upwards to look into Floch’s.

“I didn’t say to stop,” Floch teased with a breathless scoff. “I just need you to look at me while you do it.”

Eren threw his gaze in the opposite direction, his face burning with humiliation that he’d just let his mind wander to one of those places he desperately tried to avoid. 

Self-disgust was all Eren knew in those moments, meanwhile he could sense the smugness from the boy at his side. It was pathetic. Eren needed to be stronger. He had to.

“You two seem…” 

Eren couldn’t help watching as Mr. Ackermann’s eyebrows twitched, and his gut twisted into knots. Eren desperately didn’t want him to make any kind of assertions about their relationship. 

“Close,” Mr. Ackermann concluded. The expression on his face had returned to be unreadable. It occurred to Eren that whatever ‘progress’, however pathetic it had been, he had just made had shattered into a million useless pieces.

Eren confidently denied it. “No—”

“We’re gonna get going,” Floch both interrupted Eren and purposefully ignored Mr. Ackermann’s comment. He didn’t spare the older man a second glance, he simply yanked Eren in his direction again, though was sure to ask, “Your place or mine?” loud enough for the at least minimally unimpressed older man to hear.

Eren tried to turn his attention back to get one last look at Mr. Ackermann, perhaps to plead to him it’s not what it looks like! with his eyes, but Floch wouldn’t allow it. The other boy curved his hand so that it covered the side of Eren’s face that was closest to the man, his fingers acting as a shield to keep his eyes off Mr. Ackermann’s. It made Eren want to scream. 

What bothered Eren more than his significant lack of agency was his body’s stupidly honest response. Not only was he twitching in his pants, but the frailty of his limbs seemed to enjoy allowing Floch to pull him along with his classmate. 

Eren would be lying if he denied that Floch’s obnoxiously dominating attitude helped make him such a great distraction when Eren had been spiraling for Jean in the past. Yet now, Floch was less interesting than a paperclip when in the presence of the older man Eren somehow knew had a dangerous supply dominance simmering below the surface.

He’d seen just a touch of it when he’d been confronted in the bathroom a couple weeks ago, and it hadn’t left his mind since.

“Gross.”

He wished he didn’t hear it, but he did. 

The sound sliced through Eren’s eardrum as if the word were a knife, plunging into the flesh of his brain and exiting the other side of his head. It made him dizzy, the thought of this made up hole in his head gushing blood, draining him of everything he had left. 

All because of this one word. Because he said it.

Eren craned his neck the opposite way to catch a glimpse of Mr. Ackermann with a cigarette between his lips now and his hands holding a metal lighter. He had a puzzling look in his eyes, something between mischievousness and disdain, with an overall air of ‘get the fuck out of my sight’.

Eren’s body went numb, becoming practically dead weight, which made Floch happy to haul him away from the older man. 

“Gross.”

He could still hear it.

The concept of having a relationship with Mr. Ackermann was stupid. It was idiotic, pathetic, cringeworthy. Eren had to be fucking insane to think that a stupid fucking autistic excuse for a human being would potentially be something that Mr. Ackermann might want. 

How could anyone possibly want someone who can’t even stand up for themself? Eren was clearly made to be so uncomfortable by Floch, but he just let it happen.

Why would Mr. Ackermann want… just… anyone remotely like Eren?

Eren was as close to tears as he could handle when he placed both hands on Floch’s solid midsection to remove himself from the other boy’s arms. He suddenly found it significantly easier now that he’d been dragged far enough away from Mr. Ackermann’s threatening presence. 

What a joke.

“Hey, what’s wrong, crybaby?”

“Get the fuck away from me, fucking asshole,” Eren spat, managing himself now that he was standing on his own. 

A sad, pathetic part of him wanted to reach back out just to be touched once again, because if Eren could be honest with himself just a tiny bit, he would recall that he actually enjoyed being manhandled like that.

“Woah, the claws’ve come out,” Floch teased again. That was it.

Eren couldn’t stop himself from reeling his arms back and pushing his classmate’s shoulders away from him again. The force hurt, but the heat building in Eren’s head distracted him from any kind of lingering pain or regret. 

“What…” Floch was laughing, his eyes crinkling at the corners while he lifted a hand to run it through his hair, “what the fuck was that?” 

Eren knew it was impossible that Mr. Ackermann was nowhere near the two of them anymore, but he felt just a little better that he had been able to just moderately stand up for himself. 

Maybe he saw?

“Are you joking?” Floch came closer, tilting his head to garner Eren’s attention again. “Is that your idea of a push?”

“Get away from me.”

Eren wasn’t interested in going home anymore. He wasn’t interested in Floch following him there and harassing him, because obviously he had nothing better to do. Eren was going to go back to campus to the library he most commonly studied at and get some coursework done. There was no way Floch would follow him into a zero tolerance silence space like that. 

Well, it had worked in the past. So, he turned on his heel.

“Eren!”

“Fuck off,” the brunet growled in a low enough tone that reminded him of the older man’s.

“Gross.”

Eren swallowed back his tears. No, please don’t think about that — but it was too late. 

Mr. Ackermann doesn’t want me.

That wasn’t necessarily true, Eren had to remind himself. He didn’t know that yet.

Eren actually didn’t know what Mr. Ackermann might have been referring to when he said that. He could have been meaning to call Floch gross— or maybe Eren’s lack of agency could have been considered… 

It was better than thinking Mr. Ackermann disliked Eren for who he intrinsically was.

“God, you’re so in your head.” 

Floch was following him. Are you fucking kidding me?  

“I forgot how crazy you can be.”

Eren whipped around so fast he had to blink a number of times to avoid succumbing to the overwhelming lightheadedness. 

“Hey, I said fuck. Off.” 

It didn’t need to be said, both boys understood it. 

Before I go crazy for real.

Floch had the gall to scrunch his eyebrows together before popping one up. He apparently knew what was good for him, because he scoffed, lifted a hand from his side and poked Eren’s collar bone protruding through his shirt. 

“Whatever. Don’t forget my party on Friday.” 

Eren was in the process of rolling his eyes, but he got lethargic half way through, and lost focus long enough to miss Floch grabbing the collar of his shirt. Eren hated how much he loved that. 

“You’re going to be there.”

“I’m—” The redhead let go of Eren’s collar and pushed him away in the same motion, then smirked and turned away. “I’m not going to be there.”

Floch didn’t respond, just kept walking away. Eren desperately wished he could express just how frustrated he was— at the situation, at Floch, and at himself. 

The one good thing Eren had been given was torn from his hands, shredded into pieces, and pissed all over. 

He lifted his hands to his lips, covering his mouth with his fingers to stop himself from grimacing too deeply, and avoid scaring other people. Floch got Eren so hot, he felt like he was losing his grasp on reality. The demons were coming out, dancing around him in circles, giggling and plotting ways to make his life even more like hell. 

Eren would be going there soon enough; maybe it was good to acclimate sooner rather than later, especially with how poorly he was taking care of himself.  

On cue, or maybe he just decided to stop ignoring it then, Eren felt his stomach cry out in pain. The smoothie obviously wasn’t happening. Okay, what was the next best thing?

Thankfully, boba shops ransacked his college town like the black plague, and Eren only had to walk past two storefronts before he made it inside one. 

Sugar, he desperately needed sugar. 

The sun was setting when Eren left the library for the day. For some reason, he was fixated on the idea of eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, even though he normally classified that as a ‘lunch only’ option. That happened sometimes, a wrench got thrown into his traditional concept of ‘meals’, but Eren couldn’t force himself to give a shit. Having an appetite was a good thing.

He picked up artisan raspberry jam and the peanut butter brand he used to eat as a kid at the small student collective grocery store before heading home. He’d made it about halfway when it occurred to him that his bread might have begun to mold by now, so he might have screwed himself over by not picking up a new loaf, but Eren didn’t have the energy to turn around.

And there was no way in hell he would be walking back after it was dark. 

Eren produced his key when he reached his apartment. He lived on the top floor of a Victorian styled home, above some moderately quiet grad and PhD students, so he had hardly anything to complain about. It was a spacious one bedroom that he got all to himself, and if he had a shred of gratitude, he would be reaching out to his father more to tell him he’s appreciative. But that was hard. 

So… no.

As soon as the key slid into the hole, a sudden calmness came over Eren. Like the wind had stopped, his backpack became lighter, and his muscles relaxed. The key normally faced more difficulty than that when he inserted it.

He turned his head quickly to check to see if anyone was around, perhaps watching him, but came up with nothing. It was dusk — his favorite time of the day — yet right now the degree of serenity was verging into creepy, and the lack of street lamps illuminating the residential street was growing more alarming as the seconds passed. 

Eren swallowed, his eyes darting around in search of movement. 

Something… was off. 

He questioned whether he should enter the apartment. The light was on in the first floor unit just beyond the door to his left— they were cool people. Or, cool with him. Eren could ask to spend some time with them since he was feeling a little scared, but then what? He’d have to go home eventually.

As soon as he faced forward, turning the knob and pushing the door open, Eren felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand. Something was definitely weird. Did Eren leave the oven on for some reason and have gas fill the apartment? Carbon monoxide? 

Or was there someone standing at the top of the stairs off to the side, waiting for Eren to take that last step and walk directly into their clutches? Or worse, their knife?

“Gguh,” Eren accidentally groaned out loud, uncomfortable with the visceral reaction he had just now to the idea of being murdered in his own home. No, that wouldn’t happen. 

Eren had been a good boy; he didn’t deserve that. He mostly believed that.

He was probably just hungry.

Eren closed the door behind him, locking both the deadbolt and the knob as he toed his shoes off, pushing them to the wall with the side of his foot, then took cautious steps up the hardwood stairs. His hands gripped the leather straps of his backpack, curving his wrists inwards so that they covered his chest a little better. He wasn’t sure why, but he was bracing himself from some kind of physical altercation. 

“Stop…” Eren whispered under his breath, talking to himself again. He didn’t need to go down that road again, he didn’t need to worry about things he didn’t need to worry about. What was it he wanted? 

Oh, right, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Just keep walking up the stairs, Eren.

“Peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time,” he ended up mumbling out loud, which helped to calm his anxieties. He kept singing the obnoxious song in his head, hoping that when he approached the last step, his heart wouldn’t constrict or practically skip a beat, but it did. Eren’s breathing was hard to manage for a moment. 

But he didn’t stop, he pushed forward, placing his foot at the landing, and lifting the rest of his body with him.

“Peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat…” he said in a low whisper, flicking his head from side to side. Eren’s heart still pounded in his chest as he took in his surroundings. It was dark, for one thing.

Was something really wrong? Or did Eren just want something to be wrong? Why was this anxiety self-inflicted?

Nothing seemed wrong with his apartment. The TV, his gaming console, couch, coffee table, one single piece of art Eren owned— they were all still there. Kitchen looked normal, and the hallway extremely ominous, okay, check.

It was just a bad vibe. 

Eren slid his backpack straps off his shoulders, letting the bag drop to the floor. He rolled his shoulders, closing his eyes and hoping he wouldn’t open them to someone standing directly in front of him. 

At that thought, his eyes opened with a start, his heart going wild again. 

“Uagh, why am I doing this to myself?”

He took a couple steps toward the kitchen counter, dropping his elbows down onto the cool surface and placing his forehead into his hands. Why did his body feel so tired? His eyes fell to a close again, and back slumping to arch into a precarious position. 

Not a second passed between Eren’s movement and the sudden memories of Mr. Ackermann from earlier in the day, like they were somehow associated. 

Mr. Ackermann… What if he was here? Right now? What if he was standing behind him, watching him with curious eyes, his own mind going with ideas of what he’d like to do with Eren now that they were finally alone. Now that they had privacy. 

“I’m not alone,” it suddenly occurred to Eren to speak out loud. It was meant to be a question, but he really wanted to state it instead. He’d been thinking it this whole time, and finally acknowledging the fact felt so good. 

“What a smart boy.”

A shiver ran down Eren’s spine when he heard that voice, so crystal clear in his ears, like it was being breathed directly into them. It sounded so deep, so addicting, and so arousing. Eren’s eyes were eagerly rolling back into his head while his dick filled out. He was going to pass out if he wasn’t careful.

He felt pressure on the back of his neck, pushing his face into the freezing cold marble countertop, and making Eren hiss in frustration and pleasure when new pressure was placed on the cleft of his ass. Lewd sounds escaped his lips as he arched his back further, pushing back against the new presence. 

Eren was already whining and panting like a dog. It felt so good to be touched by him.

When his belt was unbuckled, Eren’s slacks easily fell past his hips and his tight briefs were yanked down immediately afterwards. 

“Tear them, get rid of them, please!” Eren begged, irrationally unaware how slutty he sounded on their first time being intimate. He’d like to pretend he was better than that. But he sure as hell was not.

When fingers were roughly pushed into his mouth, Eren moaned around them, using his tongue to slobber and suck on them, making them as lubricated as possible to make Mr. Ackermann’s life easier. 

The fingers ventured farther back, as if attempting to trigger his gag reflex, but that reaction had been dead and gone since Eren was at least sixteen years old. His eyes still teared up and his nose dripped, though it didn’t matter to him.

The stimulation endeared Eren in a psychotic way; he appreciated that he was being played with, even if his body threatened with a potentially painful and humiliating natural response.

The fingers were at his ass hastily, and Eren found himself smiling. 

“Slow down,” he teased, just before gasping from the sudden insertion. “Aah— fuck!”

Then it felt like he was being cranked wide open. So these were what Mr. Ackerman’s fingers felt like. Eren was coming undone too quickly. The fingers worked his insides, twisting and scissoring, then curving to attack that spot. Oh god, how did he know!?  

Eren was moaning like a cat in heat, definitely loud enough for the downstairs neighbors to hear, yet still arching his ass up further so that he was on his tip toes.

“Yeah!” Eren cried. Mr. Ackermann was pressing on that spot with all he had, making Eren devolve into a sex-crazed degenerate in his own kitchen. “Yeah— oh god, it feels so good!”

The way the older male’s strength and speed intensified aided made Eren know Mr. Ackermann was smirking in that confident yet subtle fashion, exactly how he had earlier that day. The image was burned into his memory; he didn’t need to turn around to confirm it.

“That’s— there! Fuuh— there! Oh my god, Mis—Mr. Ackermann!” Eren’s voice raised several pitches. He was failing at being a good boy like he’d hoped. He knew it, the man behind him knew it. It would sadden and embarrass Eren if he wasn’t on the brink of the best orgasm of his life.

He finally couldn’t help himself— Eren’s hand found his dripping cock, clutching it tight to avoid cumming from contact, but of course that didn’t work out so well. Almost right away, he was far too lost in the pleasure to take a step back and recognize what a lewd whore he was when it came to Mr. Ackermann. 

Because it was Mr. Ackermann doing this to him, that’s what made it a special occasion.

Eren gasped, his vision going white. 

I want to say his name.  

Eren still felt apprehensive, but bold enough at his final moment of total depravity. 

“M—Mr. Ackermann!”

It was glorious— Eren didn’t think he’d ever cum this hard and for this long just from masturbating or using one of his presumed Mr. Ackermann shaped toys. 

 No, this was the real deal, baby.

His ejaculation painted the stainless steel dishwasher just below the counter that his head was pressed against. It had been so cold minutes ago, but with his hot breath and tears of ecstasy he’d shed, it’d grown warm and made Eren’s skin moist from condensation.

Eren’s fingers left his own ass just in time before he collapsed onto his knees, his face flinging off the countertop and slammed back into the steel of the dishwasher. The aftermath was weird and painful, because it was cold for the most part, yet hot, stinky globs of fluid smeared over his forehead, cheekbone, and hair above his ear.

His arm felt completely wiped out at his side, laying there practically dead, while his other hand held on tight to the edge of the countertop, but even that one was tired from jerking himself off for no more than thirty seconds. 

Why was his body like this? Why was he like this? 

Eren’s eyes fell to a close while he caught his breath, trying to focus on shutting all the thoughts out.

If Eren were more coherent, he would have recognized the movement in the corner of the kitchen. He would have realized that someone was standing in the corner, watching the obscene display of obsession and horniness.

If it weren’t for the fact that the stranger was prepared to make his presence known, Eren would have never roused from his blissed out state.

He was pretty sure some of his cum might have gotten into his eye, the one that had been pressed to the metal surface of the dishwasher, because Eren was unable to open it entirely to get the full picture of who was approaching him. His depth perception was majorly fucked up, and that made it hard to focus on the person’s features. 

All Eren could tell was that they were wearing dark slacks and black shoes, but even that minute detail made his heart wake up and thump wildly in his chest.

Eren had spent a good amount of time dipping his head to look under the row of toilet stalls at those particular shoes. 

Of course, he could be totally dead wrong, Eren felt half alive right now. The exhaustion and lack of nutrition was taking over, and reality was slipping through his fingers like grains of rice.

The stranger pushed away from their place leaning against the wall to approach Eren’s pitifully slumped pile of limbs on the floor, practically gliding through the space with such confidence— like they were the owner of the apartment. 

Perhaps they might as well be, because Eren was pretty sure he was on the brink of death, and this person was his grim reaper, here to fetch him.

When his eyes fell to a close again, he could see the demons dancing around in his head. There were flashes of red, white, and total blackness in quick succession, but he then heard a melodious chuckle, in complete contrast with all the other terrorizing sensations Eren was experiencing.

“You really are a sick little puppy,” the man’s voice, which oddly sounded a lot like his voice, surrounded Eren. 

His eyes opened just a touch to watch the stranger crouch down, seemingly in slow motion, then tilt his head to Eren’s level. 

That’s weird, he looked like him too. 

Eren would recognize those eyes anywhere, nevermind that perfect skin complexion, silky hair. Goddamn it, Eren’s grim reaper would look exactly like his object of obsession.

It almost made him want to laugh, or at least shake his shoulders to indicate that he had found his realization amusing. But strength came to Eren the second he swallowed a lump in his throat, producing a loud sound that got him to will his one eye back open to get a better look.

Eren thought he’d absorbed the man’s features fully and completely, but he had to be wrong. Mr. Ackermann wouldn’t weave his fingers into Eren’s hair, providing warmth from his broad hand to Eren’s head for just a moment before gripping it tight.

No, Mr. Ackermann wouldn’t yank Eren’s practically lifeless body by his hair and slam his skull against the metal facade of the dishwasher.

Because that would mean there was no hope for a relationship between the two of them. Right? 

People don’t hurt the people they love. That was all Eren had to support his theory— the one where he felt it couldn’t possibly be true that Mr. Ackermann was the stranger bashing his brains in right now.

Thankfully, there was almost no pain, really only a tiny amount. 

As all consciousness escaped him, Eren managed to whisper, “I’m sorry, Mr. Grim Reaper.”

Chapter Text

Eren had a headache before he even woke up. It was weird, like everything hurt, yet he couldn’t feel anything at all? 

Did he, like, exercise or something yesterday? That couldn’t be possible. 

The extent of Eren’s daily exercise consisted of walking to and from class, and maybe going on an early morning jog, but only once a month. It was embarrassing, and no he didn’t want to talk about it, about why he cared so little about his body.

He had to force himself to slowly open his eyes, but then all too quickly allowed them to fall back to a close. Okay, wow, his head really hurt. Eren felt hot all over, and when he opened his mouth, he was devastated to realize how painfully dry it was. Eren tried to cough a couple times, but it only made his head spin harder, and made it more difficult to obtain a firm grasp on reality.

In spite of his headache, Eren appreciated the normalcy of waking up with an aching erection. So, he did what he always did— relax his shoulders, keep his eyes closed to imagine his face, while an exhausted arm slid down his bare chest and under his briefs to grasp himself at his base. A low, scratchy moan passed Eren’s dry lips, so he closed them again and swallowed, the action painfully reminding him how badly he needed water. 

But it could wait. 

Masturbating took precedence.

He envisioned that it was Mr. Ackermann leaning over him, using his hand to stroke Eren under the blanket. The nineteen-year-old pretended to hear the older man whispering dirty things into his ear, speeding up his pace, and adding that perfect twist to his tip— the maneuver he appreciated so much that Mr. Ackermann knew about him.

“You like this? Only a slut would enjoy this.”

“That’s…” Eren spoke in the lowest whisper he could muster, or perhaps create in the first place, since his voice seemed to not work so well, “so good… yes…” 

He couldn’t help the hot feeling spreading all throughout his body, the sweat breaking out on his chest and face, and the coil tightening to a near unbearable extent within him when he heard something outstanding.

“I bet you wish I would put my mouth on your filthy cock, don’t you?”  

Eren could have imagined it — no, he definitely did — but he felt a waft of cold air blown onto his flushed face, and that was his undoing.

“Whore.”

The noise Eren produced was a combination of a low pitched whine and loud breathy moaning. If he hadn’t known the exact context of the situation and heard the same noise, he would have thought it was coming from an actual cat in heat. It embarrassed him, but that ultimately made his orgasm stronger. 

“Fuck…!” Eren rasped, his dick exploding the contents of his balls across his chest and on the inside of the blanket. After the orgasm began to fade, reality decided to rear its head and dole out the humiliation. Touching the gooey substance on his abdomen, Eren groaned. “Aah, gross…”

“Gross.”

Fuck, there was that word again. Eren wanted to physically shake his head to try to toss out that thought, but was too weak to do so. Damn, what had made his whole body so stiff like this? He hadn’t played tennis with Armin for months. 

Eren opened his eyes, blinked a few times, then was able to focus on the same ceiling he saw every other morning. He could laugh at how utterly typical this behavior was. 

No, actually he couldn’t, his throat was too dry and it would hurt.

Okay, what now? He needed to clean himself. Right. 

Eren tilted his head to the side to see his digital alarm clock. Though outdated, he appreciated being able to see the time without having to check his phone. Speaking of which, that wasn’t charging on his bedside table. Eren glanced around with what limited motion he had. 

He must have left it elsewhere, because honestly, he didn’t even remember getting in bed.

Oh, the clock. It was 06:40 AM.

It was really early, early even for Eren. He normally stayed up pretty late and had to drag his ass out of bed to get to his 08:00 AMs, but he must have gone to sleep fairly early the night prior to wake up at this time naturally.

What happened last night?

Eren rolled his shoulders, deciding finally to sit up. He didn’t have an 08:00 AM class today, but still, it was worth it to get into the shower after violating himself and his place of rest so terribly.

Eren’s body ached as he sat up, his head spinning for a couple moments before he officially gathered his bearings. “What the fuuuck…” Eren whined to himself, bringing his palm to his forehead, only to flip it around to use the back of his hand to feel how hot he was. 

Oh no, do I have a fever?

Eren wanted an answer to his question, and he knew he had a thermometer in his bathroom, so he forced himself again to stand up, but it was painful. 

“I’m fucking nineteen, why are my joints…” popping so much? This was an abnormal amount of pain, Eren decided, licking his lips, though realized right away that did almost nothing to soothe his discomfort. 

Taking a deep breath, Eren took a first step on wobbly legs towards the door, but had to reach out for the closest thing to him to maintain his balance. Wow, what the hell? Why was his body being such a piece of shit right now?

Okay, maybe this had to do with forgetting to eat last night. Eren’s stomach had a mind of its own, scratching and clawing at his insides, desperate for something to break down and use for energy. He needed that peanut butter and jelly sandwich he had been so excited about the night before. What happened to that plan, anyway? 

Swallowing with a dry mouth, Eren realized water would need to come first. He could make that happen, at the very least.

Eren placed his hand on his belly, catching the creamy liquid from dripping onto the hardwood floor, and used his other to reach out for the glass doorknob… 

Only to grasp something metal instead.

He’d been trying to focus on not letting his cum spill, but speedily turned his attention to the doorknob to see something totally different than he expected. 

What the… fuck? 

This was definitely, definitely not here yesterday. He might not be the most observant of people, but he knew what his doorknobs felt like. 

Eren’s mind and heart began racing, then blinked, deciding to inspect it further. There wasn’t even a hole for a key— what?

“Hello…?” He had absolutely no idea who he was talking to, or if there was someone else there in the first place. Eren felt disguised with himself a moment later, standing by the door in small briefs and a handful of cum cupped against his stomach. Was someone watching him right now? Why did he feel like he had eyes boring holes through his back? He was way too scared to turn around to check, though he knew he would have seen someone by now if that was true.

Unless that person was hiding?

Eren’s whole body tensed, which took a lot of energy to do while remaining standing. He tried to regulate his breathing, but it was hard to stay calm when he was close to figuratively shitting himself. 

There’s someone here. In this room with you. Right now.

Eren didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t.

Turn around. He’s right there!

“Stop.” It helped to say it out loud.

For some reason, Eren thought to knock on the door. To be clear, his own door. And by banging on it loudly, it distracted him from his intrusive thoughts. He had to ignore those, because they weren’t true. 

Ignore them. Ignore them. Please. 

He didn’t want to think whether there was someone else there. He wanted to leave this room, get in the shower, and get the fuck out of here. Eren didn’t care where. 

Or did he need to walk back into bed, close his eyes, and try this over again? Was that crazy?

The nineteen-year-old went for the doorknob, twisting it only slightly, though it seemed to not be capable of turning more than a few centimeters. It was definitely locked. Eren didn’t need to yank or rattle it any further. He knew he was locked in his bedroom. Again, his own bedroom. 

Then the questionable realization occurred to him. 

Did I… get kidnapped… in my own home?

“No,” Eren said out loud. “No, that’s not…” 

His whole body began to tremble. He dipped his head down, bringing his shoulders up and his chin in towards his chest, as if it might help him hide from the current situation that was beginning to scare the hell out of him. 

How pitiful he must have looked for his captor.

“Please…” Eren ended up whispering out loud. “Unlock…” He sounded meek, like a tiny little mouse only millimeters away from the trap that would snap his neck and send blood flying everywhere.

A soft click came from the doorknob, and Eren’s hesitant fingers turned it with ease. He was grateful for having not removed his hand, because part of him was terrified he might have missed his opportunity. When he felt the door start to move away from the frame, Eren accepted that it was now opening. He could have sworn there was resistance there just a moment ago, yet now…

He must have imagined it. He imagined it all.

Something told him to keep his mouth shut. 

He didn’t want to believe that there was someone behind him, watching him cower, or that someone might be getting a sick kick out of terrorizing him like this. The eerie feeling enveloped his entire body, causing him to break out in goosebumps. 

Just don’t… say anything. 

Because whoever was also there was listening.

“Okay…” Eren ended up saying out loud, breaking his silence. He had to remind himself that this was bullshit. “Fuck…” he whispered next, shaking his head only to regret it. 

He followed through with opening the door to its widest extent, appreciating the soft creaking sound that accompanied the action. Eren peered out, viewing his empty hallway, as typical, then took a deep breath. His arm was starting to ache from trying to hold onto his handful of yuckiness, so he made a break for it and ran for the bathroom. 

Even with the searing hot water splashing him in the face, the feeling of being watched didn’t leave him the fuck alone. He must be delirious from whatever illness he’d picked up, because he definitely had a fever. Washing his body felt particularly hard, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

When had he become this bony?

He was grateful he had opened his mouth and swallowed some of the water from the shower spout because he could finally swallow again. Eren didn’t like being able to see or feel this much of his bones. 

The reality was whenever he felt disgusted with himself, whether it be self-inflicted or set off by bullying, Eren found so much comfort in barely existing in the incredibly slim physical state he was in. His stomach hurt less when it was empty while he went through pain rather than when it was full. It wasn’t much easier to explain than that. 

But this was excessive. 

His body was weak and malnourished in the twenty-first century. This shouldn’t be happening to anyone, much less Eren who was extremely fortunate, and moreover, had access to his dad’s credit card.

Thinking about some of his favorite places to eat around the area inspired some hunger in him, which he appreciated, and allowed him to plan out his day. It was still early, so he had limited options, but all in all, it didn’t matter. He needed to get the fuck out of his spooky apartment and… Yeah, that was the top priority.

Once he finished his shower, Eren toweled off, leaving it in the bathroom to return to his bedroom to put his clothes on.

A shiver ran down Eren’s spine and extended to his extremities when he entered. He tried to tell himself it was just cold, and he was stupid for leaving his towel behind, but it didn’t cut it.

Don’t turn around.

Eren ran to his closet, careful not to go in too far as to not get pushed or pulled inside, grabbed a long sleeve dark striped polo shirt and black slacks. He dropped the pants on the floor and pulled the shirt over his head as quickly as possible, then picked up the slacks to pull over his legs. No, he wasn’t going to walk all the way in his closet to open one of the sliding drawers that held his briefs, because he didn’t want to die. It made sense in his head, and he was terrified, so Eren refused.

He did need a belt with these pants, but they were going to have to sag just a bit, because Eren felt like his time was running out. It was like someone was counting down from ten, agonizingly slowly, taunting him that he needed to flee as soon as possible. 

Eren couldn’t find his phone, and didn’t try looking too hard for it, so he left the bedroom and sped down the hall to look both ways for his backpack, only to find it against the wall where he remembered he’d left it. Good, it had all the shit he needed in it. Eren raced over to pick it up and throw it onto his back just as he realized he didn’t have any socks to wear with his shoes, but again, that was a non-issue in the face of his current situation.

He heard his brow bone smack against the wall before he could understand what was going on physically with his body. 

The pain in Eren’s head made Eren’s bones vibrate within him, his vision going black for a whole second before he gasped and remembered to open his eyes. It was a weird sensation, like he’d just barely escaped falling victim to his internal and external headache, but was still able to just barely hang on.

Then Eren remembered he could speak.

“Hey—!” he barely managed. While his skin felt refreshed from the shower he’d taken, Eren still didn’t get a chance to drink water, so his voice was still scratchy and weak.

The hand on the nape of his neck tightened, squeezing the life out of the underdeveloped muscles that ran along the column of Eren’s neck. It must have been his pursuer’s grasp there that had pushed him into the wall in the first place. 

He wanted to scream in protest, but stopped himself when two things occurred to him:

1. I was right. Someone was in his apartment. That had not been a delusion, it was reality. And;
2. I’m upset with myself because of how good this feels. Eren loved the way he was being manhandled, in spite of the spiking pain in his forehead.

Eren was pulled back only to be slammed back into the wall — or maybe that was the lightswitch this time — not once, but twice. Adrenaline coursed through him, and Eren finally slapped his hands against the wall and door in an attempt to, what? Steady himself? Eren not only didn’t know what he was supposed to do, but he was also incredibly frail. 

Plus, he knew that only one hand was holding him firmly by the neck, but not what the invader possessed in their other one.

“Fuck!” Eren tried to use his voice again, but it was weak. “Stop! Please!”

An unfamiliar male voice began to speak behind him in a different language. Eren bristled. 

It shamed Eren to admit that the first thing that came to mind when he heard the man’s voice was wow, he sounds hot. Was that French?

It was hard to remember at that point but the pain from his temple did the trick. “Please let me go…!” Eren managed. “You can… take whatever you want…”

The man didn’t bite. Eren should have thought before he spoke. 

His apartment was pretty — top floor of a Victorian house with lots of natural light — though it wasn’t the kind of place someone would break into for valuables. On account of his dizziness, Eren didn’t quite have the brainpower on hand to be more thoughtful of the situation.

Eren wished he was stronger, but his knees buckled a bit and he was losing his grip on consciousness. The hand on the back of his neck tightened, causing Eren’s eyes to roll back a bit and make him cough from the constriction. 

The man behind him said something in a low voice, but it was unintelligible.

It was weird that he had to both find a solution and distract himself from his current situation. It was hard to manage, so of course, his excuse was pitifully executed. 

“I—I…” Eren stumbled over his words, trying to come up with something, anything that might help, “have to go to class!”

Eren deserved the patronizing scoff he received. Like Eren was going to get off the hook for something like that. What was he thinking? 

He should have said that his wife was in labor… or his chief-of-police father would be arriving with a key to the apartment in under five minutes. 

Not that he had to go to class. Especially this early in the day.

Eren couldn’t assume someone who had managed to break in there was a total dumbass. For Christ’s sake, if this home invader had two brain cells, he’d be able to tell just from sniffing the trembling nineteen-year-old that he was simping for him — a total stranger — and most certainly had daddy issues.

Of course at that moment in time, Eren’s illness decided to act up, causing him to aggressively sneeze two consecutive times. Surprisingly, the hand on his neck allowed Eren the flexibility to shoot his face down with the natural movement of sneezing both times. 

“You don’t seem to be in a state to attend class,” the man said in English this time.

Eren’s heart went into overdrive in his chest. It was beating painfully hard in his ribcage, feeling moments from shattering his bones and erupting into a gruesome bloody pulp.

“I’ll make it so that you can’t go to class.”

Eren felt the grip on the back of his neck tighten, so he braced himself by placing his palms against the wall, preparing for another devastating impact, doing even more damage to his aching face. But all that came was the man harshly jerking Eren’s head in the most minute movement, then abruptly stopping.

“Sike,” the man teased, much more playfulness amongst the ominousness this time.

The truth was, Eren most likely would have laughed had the person in the situation not been him. Grateful the impact never came, he relaxed a touch, and remembered the oddly arousing sensation of being grabbed by the back of his neck. He thought about that voice taunting him, speaking directly into his ear, and he relaxed further, though his heart was still going wild. Eren’s dick was just starting to perk back up in his slacks when something sharp poked him in his kidney.

Nothing should have been sexually charged about the situation to begin with, but it didn’t change when there was a knife pressed to his lower back. 

“Please… Let me go.”

The sharp edge lifted the back of Eren’s shirt, dragging over his protruding hip bone and up along the skin on his back. Eren tried not to shake too much, but the blade was terrifying him. 

It could plunge into him at any second.

It could be over in a second, or the male could drag it out for hours. Eren’s life was in his hands now.

“You’ll let me do whatever I want to you.”

“Yes…” Eren replied truthfully. He could do whatever he wanted with him. If he wanted to kill him, Eren would begrudgingly allow him. 

Eren belonged to him in body and soul.

He didn’t have the visual component to confirm it, but he knew from every other sense he had. It really was Mr. Ackermann all along.

It was that line of thinking that did it for him; his knees gave out from under him and Eren topped down onto his shins. It wasn’t a graceful movement in the slightest, particularly because his wrists dragged down the walls and his neck was still being held by the man behind him. 

Though he still wasn't off the hook yet, he was cut some slack and not hung by his neck. Big fat tears took precedence over breathing. Eren didn’t know who he was when he thought things like that. 

To believe that he didn’t deserve to own his own body had mental and emotional consequences. His mind coming to these conclusions could be a result of his life being on the line, but Eren wasn’t entirely sure that was it. 

Eren was sincerely fucked in the head. He needed to display the semblance of survival instinct, but he was failing.

“Please!” Eren’s voice was a mess and his body shook with sobs. “Please, please!” he repeatedly begged. Finally, his instincts were kicking in. “Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!” He was using every ounce of his strength not to give in to the darkness. “I’ve been good, I promise!”

I haven’t been bad. Seriously, I haven’t been bad. I really do promise. Please, don’t think about that… I really haven’t been that bad!

“Is that what you think?”

Eren quieted down for a moment, pausing his loud sobbing in an attempt to strengthen his listening comprehension. 

Did he… doubt me?

Eren made a move to turn his head to try to make eye contact with his captor, but the male was faster and much stronger. The top of Eren’s head made contact with the wall this time, producing a sickening crack sound and making the younger boy see stars. He was on the brink of unconsciousness yet again, but he remained roused enough to whimper some more.

“Please…” Eren whispered.

 The sharp tip of the knife that had been poking his lower back just a minute ago was now digging into the nape of his neck, in between the man’s thumb and forefinger. He felt it penetrate the superficial layer of skin, yet the pain didn’t hit. The area felt hot and buzzing from being held so tightly. 

“Don’t…”

“The obnoxious sound of you crying makes me want to push it in, all the way, until the blade severs your spinal cord.”

“Please!” Eren screamed.

If I died, it probably wouldn’t affect that many people.

“Please what? What are you begging for?”

Just do it. Kill me. It can be over in seconds if you do it right.

“Just… please…!” 

Eren’s brain was overworked, and he was struggling to even use his mouth to begin with. He didn’t know what the answer to the question was. Yes? Purple? Window? Eren forgot what had been asked. His face was bleeding, that much he knew, because it’d gotten into his eye and mouth now. It tasted like shit. Eren wanted to spit it out, but he didn’t think about how.

Don’t think.  

“You’re not making much sense, Eren.”

“Please let me see you,” Eren finally decided. What the fuck was he thinking? It was incredibly stupid to think he had any power in a situation like this, but then again, his situational awareness in general was stunningly low. He noticed that his voice had become eerily calm, and the tears were halting, most likely on account of having such little hydration in his body.

There wasn’t a response that came immediately, and for a second, Eren seemed to recall a recent memory where he had to have imagined Mr. Ackermann’s presence. 

That happened, right? When did that happen? It felt like it wasn’t that long ago.

The person behind him seemed to move into a crouching position. Eren was confident of it a moment later when he heard the man breathe behind his ear. They were so close now, so much closer than ever before. Eren honestly should have felt blessed that this happened to him to begin with. 

Fingers gingerly tilted his jaw to angle it back towards the man behind him. The movement was so gentle in contrast with the treatment Eren had previously been receiving that it stunned the teenager that this behaviour was possible.

There had been multiple close calls, but this time, Eren was confident he was this close to fainting.

Mr. Ackermann wore a puzzling expression, and his eyes moved rapidly over Eren’s face as if analyzing him, perhaps even assessing him. What was Eren subjected to now? 

Eren got to look at him, did that mean he’d passed some kind of test that had been set up for him? 

Was that a good or bad thing?

The older man’s hair was slicked back, giving Eren a clear view of his near perfect face. Eren wanted to do vile things to that face. He wanted to honor it, worship it, desecrate it, tear it apart and climb into it. He couldn’t explain why just looking at it brought out such a visceral reaction, but Eren’s breathing became erratic. He was losing his grip on reality, he was aware of it, he just couldn’t help it.

Eren threw all of his weight at once onto the older man, which admittedly wasn’t much, in an attempt to wrap his arms around Mr. Ackermann’s neck. Both forearms were caught in the process and held tightly in place, tight enough that made Eren hiss and struggle to recoil. Eren loved the fact that Mr. Ackermann hardly moved, even though Eren had brashly forced himself upon him. 

Mr. Ackermann’s sturdy build under his perfectly pressed button down aroused Eren to no end.

“No.”

Eren winced. What was he thinking? That Mr. Ackermann would just take him into his arms? 

In spite of the insanity of the entire situation — the fact that this man had broken into his apartment and tried to knock him out cold — what made Eren think someone like Mr. Ackermann would want to hold someone like him?

This particular line of thinking made the weak tears resume.

Narrowed silver eyes scanned Eren’s face, analyzing him again, but stopped at his forehead. 

“Tch, you’ll get blood on my shirt, idiot,” Mr. Ackermann said with a scowl. Eren’s shoulders shook from the stress he’d put himself under. 

It’s just the blood he’s worried about!?

He couldn’t contain himself. “I’m—I’m so sorry!” Eren unintentionally screamed into his superior’s face. He squeezed his eyes shut tight in an effort to slow the tears, but the pain from scrunching his face up only exhausted him. Eren opened one eye at a time, apprehensively checking for Mr. Ackermann’s reaction, only to recognize the look the older man was wearing. Eren closed his eyes again and sobbed one more time. 

He’s disgusted by me.

“I’m sorry…” Eren repeated. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.” 

He wasn’t entirely sure why he was apologizing to the man who’d committed a number of felonies to be where he was at the moment, but it seemed right. 

There were a number of things he wanted to apologize for. That much was clear to Eren, but he didn’t know if then was the right time to admit to them.

I’m sorry for masturbating incessantly in the workplace to perverted thoughts of you.

I’m sorry for being such a disgusting excuse for a human being and upsetting you.

I’m sorry for what you have to see today, my behavior and appearance must make you want to vomit.

I’m sorry for being the way I am, and the way I’ve spiraled into a sad mess for you.

Mr. Ackermann expended an annoyed sigh. 

“Eren.” 

He said his name so eloquently; it was irrationally soothing to the younger boy.

Hearing just that made Eren feel like a scared little puppy who has been lost for months, starving, alone, and has finally been rescued by his strong, capable owner. After so long, he felt safe.

“You really are a fucking disappointment.”

Chapter Text

Eren must have passed out for real, because he was in bed again when he woke up. 

This time, he opened his eyes and was surprised to… actually feel significantly better. He was much more aware of his surroundings, but sat up far too abruptly in efforts to look around for a particular person, for him.  

Right away, he noticed a cold compress fall down his face and land on his lap. As soon as the coolness left his forehead, Eren felt the headache slowly fade back in. He then saw the digital clock on his nightstand proudly profess the time as 12:09 PM, indicating that Eren had officially missed his physics 3A class.

“Fuck…” he whispered harshly to himself, trying to catch his breath. He lifted a hand to touch the source of his pain, only to feel a foreign material affixed at his temple. Wrapped around his head was a soft bandage, but Eren had to wonder what good it really was doing. He flinched when his fingers brushed over it— it being the massive bump on his head he’d acquired from—

Eren rushed up from the bed, standing to his feet so quickly he felt vertigo take over him for a moment. He was so lightheaded and disoriented, Eren dropped to his knees almost immediately, reaching a hand out to find purchase anywhere as a means to ground himself. He wanted to curse again, but as the dizziness took its time fading, his attention was drawn to the sound of a glass being knocked over from his side table and liquid splattering on the hardwood floor.

Eren never put that there. Had that water been meant for him? 

Had Mr. Ackermann left out a glass of water— hang on, had Mr. Ackermann been the one to bandage him and care for him? 

Eren couldn’t allow himself to spiral on that topic, because the spilled water was the only thing on his mind. This was bad, Eren still desperately needed water, and now there was a mess. His towel was in the bathroom, so how was he supposed to clean it?

One problem at a time. Please.

He decided to side step the slip hazard for now in favor of taking a look at his head-bandage situation in the mirror, but the distinct sound of metal brushing against hardwood caught his attention. There was something bugging him at his heel, a light pressure he hadn’t noticed until just then. Eren barely had to move, as he was still on his haunches, to view the newest issue.

Attached like a vice to his thin ankle was a fitted leather clasp, and an ambiguously long metal chain was secured to that. Eren wasn’t able to see where it ended, just that it disappeared under his bed. 

He sat there in a squat completely bewildered. Eren made no noise, his eyes and mouth were both wide open in complete shock for a good while. 

He looked back and forth between the coiled chain and the cuff on his ankle a few times, unable to believe what he was seeing for the first two straight minutes. 

No, yeah, he was definitely chained to something. That was not a joke. 

He really had been kidnapped in his own home. 

Wow, brand new low.

Eren dropped back down to his knees, painfully aware of how hard the impact was on his kneecaps, which also happened to land in the puddle of water. He was still bewildered when he reached out to grasp the chain and pull on it. 

The movement of the metal inching toward him at such an agonizingly slow rate made Eren think of a snake. It made a chill go down his spine.. 

There was maybe enough slack in the chain to allow Eren to wander into the bathroom, but he probably wouldn’t be able to make it very far into the kitchen. 

Realizing his newfound role as prisoner made his heart do a weird somersault in his chest— and to be clear, it wasn’t exactly that he was excited. Eren wasn’t confident he had a solid understanding of the situation, so it was too soon to get excited. 

And besides, only a true headcase would get excited at becoming some sadist’s prisoner. 

Eren absentmindedly tried to wedge his fingers in between the leather cuff and his ankle, but was barely able to fit two digits. Okay. 

His heart flaring in his chest was becoming overwhelming, though he promised himself he was not excited.

Eren was still wrapping his head around how he felt about the situation at hand when he thought to look down. It occurred to him to wonder, since there was a chain attached to his ankle, then how was he meant to dress himself?

There was no way to explain what Eren was wearing other than just coming out and recognizing that fitted perfectly to his slim hips were a pair of bikini bottoms, but in cotton. 

They were simple, just white with strings on his hip bones that were tied together in little bows, emphasizing the article’s femininity. Eren had to admit that the stark white color made his olive skin tone stand out as remarkable, which wasn’t a compliment he’d been able to give himself for quite a while. 

For someone who was chained to a wall somewhere, the fastenable function of the underwear logically made complete sense.

The nineteen-year-old’s lips parted and a small gasp came out when it clicked that he hadn’t been wearing these prior to being made prisoner— someone had removed his clothes and redressed him with these.

It was at that moment that Eren looked up to see his reflection in the tall mirror leaning against the wall in front of him. His eyes grazed over his kneeling position on the floor, spotting the black leather and silver chain by his ankle, his thin thighs that led up to the girly underwear he wore, then his bony, bare chest, and lastly that.

“Fuck.”

Eren had been in the process of admiring himself when he wound up looking himself in the eye. He hardly even recognized what he saw.

The whole left side of his face was an odd kaleidoscope of green and purple colors. It was so alarming that Eren couldn’t take his eyes off of himself. The bandage was properly wrapped around his entire head, though dipped down to cover his brow bone that had taken the brunt of his punishing physical abuse from earlier. His eye on the same side looked like he’d been punched, most likely a result of hitting his brow bone in two different places, so overall, no. Eren’s face was not a pretty sight.

His first reaction was to start crying, but he honestly couldn’t. Eren was dehydrated to a baffling extent. He gazed longingly at the pool of water on the floor that he desperately needed.

Regardless, a small sob still sounded from his throat. 

He needed help.

“Mr… Ackermann…?” 

It was the only name that came to mind, and the person he needed he wanted most right now.

“You really are a fucking disappointment.”

The older man’s words echoed in Eren’s skull. 

He shook his head to distract himself from the verbal memory, only to regret it instantly. Eren placed a hand at his throbbing forehead and moaned. It felt like an overwhelming earthquake was going on around him, delivering more and more pain.

Air. Some air would help.

After taking just one step towards the large bay windows in his bedroom, something suddenly felt eerily wrong to Eren. There was already minimal furniture in his bedroom, he knew that, but it seemed like something was missing. The air felt too still when Eren carefully padded over to the window seat. 

He didn’t get the sense that someone was in the bedroom with him once again, thankfully, but when he sat down, the feeling of eyes on him returned.

The teenager’s shaking hands found the place he’d touched countless times to lift the window, but something was different. Eren’s eyes widened when he checked where his fingers were. 

Metal hinges were now in place bolting the window to the sill. 

Just to be clear, the apartment Eren lived in was on the top floor of a vintage Victorian home, so these weren’t brand new windows by any means. Eyeing what had been done to his windows made Eren realize that this was the work of a deranged serial killer. 

It made him reevaluate the heart palpitations he’d experienced as a result of getting physically chained to this bedroom. 

This wasn’t all a dream, this was entrapment. Eren was living out a legitimate horror movie plot. 

Yet with this new particular surprise, Eren felt oddly calm. 

He couldn’t help himself from admiring the excellent craftsmanship. Eren had to admit, the work was so subtle, he wasn’t sure he would have noticed it were he sitting on his bed against the other wall, or even standing a few feet away. 

Someone used actual tools to construct this. When? When Eren was gone during the day yesterday? Or did this happen during the time Eren couldn’t quite remember? 

All he knew for certain was that he didn’t do it. He’d never even held a power tool. So how…

Blinking, Eren turned his head far too quickly to his bedroom doorway and recognized the antagonizing and gorgeous man who stood there. It was terrifying at first, and he flinched hard. Eren brought his palm to his lips to hide any fearful noises, as well as the blush that was in the process of forming across his cheeks.

“M—Mr. Ackermann…!” Eren breathed in a raspy voice, embarrassing himself. Why did he sound so hopeful? 

“Stop calling me that.” 

The piercing glare made Eren shut up instantly and flinch again. Something inside of him encouraged him to get up from his place on his window seat and drop to his knees into the puddle on the floor.

Eren couldn’t help his submissive tendencies if he tried, clearly. Perhaps he thought appearing as weak and submissive as possible would work to his advantage. Maybe then he wouldn’t endure any more abuse to his face.

Regardless, Mr. Ackermann didn’t seem to get any angrier. In fact, he appeared to be receptive to Eren getting on his knees for him. 

“Are you still calling me ‘Mr. Ackermann’ because that’s what I instructed you to do on your first day?”

He was clearly referring to the internship. Eren took a second to realize how far he’d come from then— how far they’d come since those days. Before he got too deep into his lewd memories, Eren remembered to comprehend the older man’s question and come up with an answer. He had trouble making eye contact, so Eren nodded instead. 

“That’s what… I thought that’s what… you wanted to be called.”

“That’s what I want to be called in the office.” 

Eren heard the distinct sounds of footsteps approaching him, yet didn’t dare to look up from the hardwood flooring. 

“Look at this, it’s a fucking mess in here,” the man observed in a disappointed voice.

Eren felt like a naughty pet, caught in his mischievous act of defiance, yet none of this had been purposeful. How was he supposed to convey that, though? Eren’s heart pounded in his chest when he realized what he was about to say. 

“I’m sorry, Levi.”

It felt so good to use the man’s first name. Eren’s skin was buzzing with heat all over his neck and chest when he wondered why he hadn’t done it sooner. He had known it this entire time, yet had chosen to remain respectful of Levi’s wishes. 

Levi. Levi. 

Eren didn’t think he’d get over the throbbing euphoria he felt in his chest for a while.

Eren’s eyes widened when he’d realized where his thoughts had taken him. He pressed his hands down against the floor in what was meant to be casual visual protection from the movement going on in his bikini underwear. The painfully addictive desire to jerk off was nagging him, scratching on the walls of his insides, begging him to take care of himself.

“Are you going to tell me what happened here?”

He had to snap out of his perverse thoughts once again to remember the context of the situation. He was in trouble. Oh, right. “

That's—” Eren lifted his eyes to peer at the puddle. What was his explanation? The simplest one usually did the trick. “I was… disoriented.”

Levi seemed inclined to believe him, because he made a small sound of understanding. 

“That’s fair, Eren. I did just try to smash your skull in earlier, after all.” 

How nice it would be to hear the older man say that. But more than anything, Eren found himself curious as to why it happened. Why was he so mad at Eren? Why did Levi say… that he was disappointed in Eren?

“Did you…” Eren hated how red his face must have looked, “take care of me…?” In spite of his curiosity pertaining to the larger situation, he still found himself asking the question that made his heart pound erratically inside him.

Eyes narrowed at Eren’s pitiful state. 

“No, someone else came by and took care of you,” Levi replied sarcastically.

Eren felt embarrassed for asking such a stupid question, but just learning that he’d been simply touched by Levi — let alone cared for — made his heart beat like crazy in his chest and his face turn impossibly red.

He was lost in his own little world again, blushing and smiling to himself, totally unaware of Levi’s pointedly annoyed glare. Two snaps of Levi’s fingers broke Eren from his trance, instantly turning his attention to the standing man. He had been so bashful this whole time, Eren hadn’t even noticed Levi was holding a bowl in hand.

Eren watched as the older man crouched down, making firm eye contact as he placed the bowl down on the floor directly in front of him. Eren wasn’t sure what to do or even whether he was allowed to look away. The curiosity got the better of him, so he peered down to check out what was in the bowl.

His cheeks warmed again when he realized it was a bowl of water. 

Like, for a dog. 

His immediate reaction was to protest. Eren had cups in his apartment — his kitchen wasn’t that barren — so why—

“Drink.”

Eren probably humiliated himself, but he didn’t need to be told twice. He eagerly reached both hands out to cup the bowl, but was intercepted rather harshly. 

Levi swiped at Eren’s hands, smacking them out of the way, and before he knew it, his head was harshly pushed down into the ceramic bowl. His painful forehead banged against the rim and water spilled over the sides, but the pain didn’t stop there. The hand that had pushed him into the bowl didn’t release its hold on the back of Eren’s head, it just held him in place, effectively performing the task of drowning him.

The younger boy thrashed his shoulders, trying to get out of the grip at first, then resorted to pressing his hands against the wet floor to try to gain some leverage, only to be reminded how weak he was.

Levi finally let go of Eren after what had to have been at least ten devastatingly long seconds. Eren gasped for air; his whole face dripping with water and splattering drops onto the floor around him when he coughed.

Eren had his eyes shut tight, but he could clearly hear Levi tsk. 

“Could you try to be less of a fucking mess?” 

Eren opened an eye to notice the overt look of disgust the older man wore. 

“I’m—” Eren managed through choked breaths, “sorry,” he paused to whimper and cough again, “Levi.” Just saying the man’s name had an oddly relaxing effect on him. It made the ragged breathing easier. Or, that’s what he told himself.

Levi’s gaze zeroed in on the center of Eren’s face, then flicked back up to meet Eren’s terrified eyes. 

“Don’t waste it,” Levi instructed, a dull look in his eyes contrasting considerably with his menacing expression, “drink it properly.”

Eren’s lower lip quivered. He could feel the blood stream from one nostril, and when he glanced down at the bowl of water, now tinged with pink, Eren swallowed the moisture that had formed in his mouth. He watched a red drop of blood land in the bowl and disperse into the liquid slowly. It grossed Eren out, but he still dipped his face down into the water bowl to awkwardly slurp at it. 

He tried to ignore the obvious taste of iron in the water he drank, yet ended up spilling more water on the floor around him in the process. His eyes were squeezed shut to try to block out more of the disgusted look Levi had for him, because he knew it was still there. When he felt like he needed a breath of air, Eren lifted his head up and coughed again by accident.

“Do you feel better?”

Levi’s voice sounded oddly tender, then surprised Eren further by placing a hand on top of the boy’s head, as if to give him a praising pat. Like a dog. Eren’s cheeks heated up at the affectionate gesture, unconsciously tilting his head just slightly into the touch. His eyes fell to a close and he swallowed once again before attempting to breathe evenly, despite the fluid still leaking out of his nose. He could ignore it if it meant more head pats from Levi.

Eren didn’t like to complain. Not for Levi.

“Y…” 

Eren was in the process of replying when one of Levi’s fingers slipped over to the epicenter of Eren’s painful brow bone and pressed down on it. Luckily, Eren had the space to wince away from the touch, and Levi didn’t retaliate immediately. 

For some reason, Eren got the sense he was about to be slapped, so he dropped his head further so that his chin was tucked into his collar bone. But nothing came.

Levi sighed loudly and withdrew from Eren’s personal space. The confused brunet boy lifted his chin to watch the man stand to his feet and walk back through the doorway where he had mysteriously appeared just minutes ago. 

A small sad noise left Eren, and then a louder mumbling of sounds. He opened his mouth wider, but was fearful of accidentally referring to the man as ‘Mr. Ackermann’ once again, so he stopped himself.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming back.” Levi paced through the doorway, this time with something new in hand. When Eren realized what it was, his breath got stuck in his throat and he unconsciously leaned back, falling onto his ass.

He remembered the whole ‘horror movie plot’ situation he was in real quick.

Levi held an impressive looking power drill in the air by his head, as if purposefully showing it off. He looked between the tool and Eren, then smirked at the boy’s fearful expression. 

“Never seen a fucking power drill before, little puppy?”

Eren blushed, knowing he’d been caught looking like a scared little bitch just now. He shook his head as minimally as possible to avoid any new pain, then looked down as he waited for Levi to speak next, since he felt like the man was in a talkative mood.

“I spend so much time writing code, it gets boring,” Levi mused. Both males turned their attention to the power tool. “Software can be such a drag compared to working with hardware,” the older man added with a cocky smirk. 

Eren was absolutely astonished. Levi was already so handsome, but with the added recognition of his extremely high ranking at one of the biggest international companies— that his skill and intelligence in such a vastly difficult field was nearly unmatched… It did things to Eren’s insides. Beauty aside, Eren had a new reason to be equally as fearful as he was attracted to Levi. 

If Eren had a drop of intelligence, he would be planning a way to get himself out of this threatening environment.

Levi approached Eren’s side of the bedroom, making the younger boy flinch and close one eye. He felt ashamed of himself a moment later for assuming the worst from Levi, so he turned to face him, though kept his gaze down, which was conveniently about crotch level.

Eren was surprised when a cool palm pressed against his shoulder blade for a split second, which then applied enough force in that small blip of time to send the frail boy flying onto his back. The back of Eren’s head hit the floor and bounced, making him wince and whimper. He brought his hand to the location where the pain was strongest while he hissed in pain.

“I’ve found working with my hands to be a productive hobby…” 

Levi pressed the power tool’s trigger for just a second and the loud electric drill turned on briefly. Eren watched the drill bit head with wide eyes. It was tiny, making Eren want to cringe in discomfort at the thought of it penetrating his skin. 

“Spending too much time looking at a computer isn’t good for anyone.”

He won’t use it on me. He won’t use it…

“What are some of your hobbies, Eren?” Levi asked quizzically, bringing the drill closer to his person, as if to inspect it. 

He didn't give the younger boy much time to respond, but if Eren was honest, he didn’t know if he even had an answer. 

“Stalking? Fond of that by any chance?”

A worried noise betrayed Eren. He didn’t want to be seen this way— not by him. He didn’t have time to consider how someone like Levi would have even found that out, because the taunting man continued.

“Let’s see, what does a dirty little degenerate shit like you also enjoy doing…?” 

Levi pressed the drill trigger again, and it whirred loudly. Eren swallowed, knitting both eyebrows together as he tried to move away by the tiniest amount. 

“Masturbating?”

Eren had tried so hard to keep his noises to himself, but Levi was too on the nose. If he was honest with himself, and had a shred of dignity, Eren would own up to those two hobbies of his, and promise not to do them anymore. Well, he wasn’t sure it was possible for him to give up his masturbation addiction, but still. He swore he would try.

“Are you thinking about what it would feel like if I drilled holes into your body?” 

Levi asked in a demure voice. Eren was huffing out breaths, struggling to think straight because of how much pleasure he felt from listening to the older man taunt him. 

“Carve my name into your skin… Does that excite you?”

Levi placed a knee on either side of Eren’s hips. They were so close. Eren couldn’t see its exact placement, but he felt the warmth there, and it made his dick proudly throb.  

“What if it was your name carved into my skin?”

There was a sudden buzzing sensation at Eren’s nipple, making him flinch again. It was so stunning, he could hardly control himself, but then the drill bit dug into his skin. The writhing boy gasped out loud, then quickly bit his lip to stop any other embarrassing sounds from passing them, but stupidly opened his eyes to see how obscenely close Levi had leaned in. Eren couldn’t believe it at first.

He could feel the older man’s breath on his skin, the intensely arousing cologne he wore, and witness an expression Eren had never seen before. In the man’s uncharacteristically wide eyes, Eren saw interest mixed with his usual level of disdain. 

Was Levi enjoying Eren’s lewd moans and cries of pain? His flinching and writhing away from the blade, accidentally lifting his hips to grind his erection against the older man’s own hovering crotch? Or did he prefer the flavor of unconcealed fear Eren was exuding?

“Ggguh!” Eren made the most embarrassing sound as his eyes flew open. 

The slow drill bit was vibrating way too perfectly on his nipple, and a hot flare of euphoria encompassed Eren’s entire body. He was gasping for air, overwhelmed as his body moved on its own. His back arched up off the floor as his dick pumped out cum into the cotton material of his undies, making a mess of the fabric. 

It felt insane to cum this close to his person. 

“Le… vi!”

Eren’s eyes had rolled back, and his jaw went slack, so when he slowly regained his grasp on the world as he knew it, he realized he had an even bigger mess on his hands. 

A power drill just made him cum. Or maybe it was the extreme fear.

Alright, it was a combination of things, really, was what Eren would like to believe. But when he dared to peer at the man who was still caging the nearly naked boy with his intimidating presence, real terror took over.

Levi didn’t need to say it, Eren could tell he was thinking it. He knew he was obviously shivering from the aftershocks of such an intense orgasm— he probably looked like such a mess. The behavior he’d exhibited throughout the extent of Levi’s time in Eren’s bedroom was probably atrocious in his eyes. 

Levi seemed to understand that Eren was aware of his perverted and humiliating conduct. The room was deadly silent— no whirring of the power tool or even breath from either male could be heard. It was building up and making Eren want to sob. 

Producing tears would be better than looking the older man in the eye.

“When was the last time you ate?” Levi broke the silence by asking in a disapproving voice. 

Eren blinked. It was hard not to look at Levi, especially with the eye-drawing movement he made as he stood back up to his feet. Eren remained frozen on the floor, not daring to get up from the puddle of water, nor face the mess he’d made in his undergarment. He had to answer as soon as possible to not upset the man.

“I don’t know…” Eren admitted in a small voice. He wasn’t sure why there was a dark spot in his memory from the night before, but if Eren had to bet on it, the answer would be no.

“Come into the kitchen, on your knees,” Levi instructed, turning around at once to leave the bedroom and disappear down the hall.

Eren glanced over at the coil of chain beside him for just a moment. Levi didn’t seem to point out the obvious… Did that mean it didn’t occur to him?

Eren made his way into the hallway, obediently on his hands and knees, though remained aware of the distance he’d been allowed. Just as he expected, the chain didn’t allow him to reach the kitchen table, so he had to stop where he was. Levi was immediately to his right, standing at the countertop working on something. He moved gracefully, presumably creating something for Eren to eat, so he couldn’t help but stare. 

Levi looked so natural.

The younger boy heard a jar closing about a minute later, then the man turned around with a plate in hand, exposing what had to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Eren’s eyes went wide when he saw it. 

He unconsciously swallowed whatever spit he had in his mouth. His nose had seemed to stop bleeding, but he could still taste the gross flavor on his lips.

Levi came to a stop just in front of Eren. He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. 

“I wish you could see yourself right now.” 

Eren instinctively looked down. He knew he looked like a total mess, okay. Bruised face, bloody nose, bony body. He felt so numb for a moment that he didn’t even know how to react. 

Levi saved him from having to think too hard, because he bent at the waist to place the plated sandwich on the floor. His voice seemed so loud in spite of the low tone he used when he spoke. 

“I’ll have to get you a proper dog bowl. I hate to see someone as degenerate as you eating in a civilized way.”

Eren’s cheeks turned rosy again, and the uncomfortable moisture in his girly briefs reminded him why he deserved that description. There was no way around it. But it was a massive diss nonetheless.

In the next moment when Levi presented the knife that had been stashed in one of his belt loops, Eren couldn’t stop himself— he screamed. It was such an uncharacteristically loud reaction, but he was completely terrified. It caught Levi off guard because he wore a new look of confusion then amusement.

“Calm the fuck down,” Levi spoke with a disrespectful amount of mirth in his tone. “It’s for your sandwich, not you, punk.”

Eren couldn’t. He wanted to — trust — but he just couldn’t. His whole body shook, and if it weren’t for how determined he was to remain as obedient as possible, he would have stood up and ran away. He didn’t know where, he just knew that Levi holding a knife was the last thing Eren wanted to see. 

“Oi, I said calm down.”

The dominating tone in Levi’s voice did somehow calm his nerves a touch, though Eren found himself feeling concerned for a whole new reason.

He could hardly watch as Levi pressed the knife diagonally across the sandwich, cutting it into two triangular pieces. The knife must have been sharp, because it completed the task almost immediately. 

When Levi removed it from the sandwich, Eren saw the red jelly residue smeared on the stainless steel knife, then had to turn away as soon as possible.

It looked like blood. It looked… too real.

“If you keep starving yourself, your body will have no means to support itself,” Levi spoke as if he were a teacher educating a student; as if Eren didn’t already know this. “Your organs will malfunction, collapse in on themselves, and rot away inside of you.”

The imagery was vivid, and Eren visualized a window into his own body, capable of seeing how black everything inside of him was. If it were at all possible, Eren’s nearly nonexistent appetite would have decreased, yet Levi’s intimidating glare encouraged Eren to select one half of the sandwich. It physically hurt drawing his hand closer to the knife, but he snatched it quickly and brought it back closer to him. 

He probably looked the most like an animal at that moment.

The gaze didn’t lessen at all until Eren brought it to his lips and took a bite.

It tasted really good. And Levi made this for him. 

“Do you have any idea how stupid you’re being by not feeding yourself?” 

Eren’s disposition lit up. He was doing a good job of distracting himself from how terrified he was of the weapon by considering whether Levi meant to suggest that he actually cared about Eren’s wellbeing. 

“Or do you want your body to hate you just as much as everyone else does?”

Chapter Text

“Or do you want your body to hate you just as much as everyone else does?”

Eren didn’t know how else to immediately respond other than swallow the heavy lump in his throat, drop his head, and let go of whatever form of strength he’d been holding onto. He’d felt like he’d been on the brink of tears this whole time, and now, it was time to give up. Being watched while he ate was already hard enough, so to be reminded that his body was incredibly unhealthy looking — sure, fine, to an egregious extent, Eren would admit it — on top of that, it was just too much.

His hand holding the triangle half of the sandwich Levi had prepared for him fell to his thigh, though it didn’t drop from his grasp entirely. In spite of how shitty Levi made him feel, Eren would never disrespect him by letting the food he made go to waste. But as soon as it happened, Eren felt his own wrist bone dig into his thigh, and he swallowed again, because he knew Levi was right to point out how poorly he was treating himself. 

Eren already knew he would listen to whatever Levi said, and as utterly depressing as it would be, this was one of those times where he’d have to adjust his lifestyle to accommodate the older man’s needs. 

They came first.

If Eren’s body was grossing him out, he’d do anything to fix it. If it was his personality, Eren would change it. If it was his cocksucking skills, he’d skip classes to practice until his mouth bled and his jaw felt like it was going to fall off. If it was even the language he spoke, Eren would learn a new one— so he could certainly work on his appearance.

In spite of committing to it, the tears weren’t stopping, only continuing with no end in sight. It hurt so much, if Eren really let himself think about it, but he’d try to get over it. Eren heard Levi make a frustrated sound of annoyance. He was astonished to feel a finger at his eyeline, carefully wiping a fat tear from his left eye. 

Eren brought his gaze up to meet an unreadable expression.

“I know you like me, Eren.”

Eren hiccupped instead of notifying Levi that that was an understatement. His cheeks warmed, the humiliation coming back, but he had nowhere to hide this time. It must have been really pathetic for Levi to have to watch such a pitiful show, so Eren steeled himself and tried to square his shoulders. It was an attempt to preserve any shards of dignity, and actually inspired Eren to stare straight on into Levi’s eyes.

The older man seemed to appreciate that. He tilted his head, then stooped to a crouch, making Eren flinch but quickly reopen his eyes to take in their newfound proximity. His lips parted, but Levi was already talking again. 

“Do you want to know the type of body that I like?”

Eren lifted his head when he heard that. Yes, yes please! He was curious if his tears had caused Levi to go easier on him, and whether he had more power than he might have thought in this situation. Did the emotional manipulation go both ways? That consideration made Eren ecstatic inside.

Levi waited a moment, then smirked.

“Women’s.” 

Eren’s heart sank. 

“Tits. Ass.” 

Levi leaned in closer to Eren’s face and spoke slower, breathing air onto his cheeks as he enunciated the next word.

“Pussy.” 

The younger of the two closed his eyes and trembled a bit when he felt the full power of Levi’s sick grin, signaling just how much enjoyment he was getting out of Eren’s distress. 

“I love women, all their fucking problems, their pretty smiles, soft hands…” His smirk could light up a room if it wasn’t already light out. “How their bodies are perfect for fucking.”

Eren couldn’t help it, he had to look away. He wanted to shout, “I’ve been mistaken for being a girl so many times! You have no fucking idea! I can grow my hair out, wear slutty outfits and makeup, it’s easy!” But how could he when the mess in his briefs was so very clearly not caused by a girl. His internal thought process added weakly, “I can do my best. I swear.”

It’s not like Eren has never cried himself to sleep, wishing, begging invisible gods, praying that he’ll wake up as a woman. The most vivid dreams he could remember were when he existed as a girl. In fact, if Eren had been born a girl, so much would be different. So many things would be better, and so much easier. The most important thing being the men he was interested in would actually feel things for him; not disgust, but lust. Desire, longing. 

But Eren wasn’t a girl. He was devastatingly, heartbreakingly aware of that. He was also disturbed to be aware that being humiliated like this was making the biggest indicator of his manhood half-aroused, and hungry for more. 

He thought he’d gotten over his gender dysphoria phase, but apparently it was back in full swing. So that’s great. 

Eren had been body shamed before, but nothing had ever hit home this perfectly. It was like Levi knew exactly where each and every one of Eren’s weak spots were and knew how to attack them with precision.

Eren most certainly wasn’t the only one who had done their homework on the other male.

“Don’t think for a second that this body belongs only to you. Accordingly, if you don’t take care of it, there will be consequences.” Levi looked directly into Eren’s eyes as he said that. 

Eren felt something squirm in his stomach. It felt like a dying butterfly.

“I’d hate for it to be ruined when I want it.”

Eren was pretty sure his heart stopped for a second. Eren’s eyes probed Levi’s, searching for some kind of indication that maybe the man had made a joke just now. 

“That was a poor choice of words.” Levi surprised Eren by breaking eye contact first. In spite of how hard these past few minutes — this whole day, really — had been, Eren took this moment the hardest. The rug was torn out from under him yet again. 

Please, when will this stop?

“Because that would be gross.”

Eren gasped. Was this the part where he bawled his eyes out? Ran back into his bedroom, hid under the bed, slit his wrists in the bathtub, screamed into a pillow? 

“Please stop.” Eren barely recognized his weak, pathetic sounding voice.

“Stop what?” Levi taunted. When Eren looked up with big, wet eyes, the older man gazed at him pensively. “Stop fucking looking at me like that,” he requested instead. 

Eren’s eyebrows knitted together in apprehension, wondering whether he wanted to smile as a result of being capable of making Levi drop his bullying, or break down further from the damage already done. 

“Eat your fucking sandwich, bonehead.”

Eren had dropped his gaze but lifted it again to watch intently as Levi stood to his feet. He turned before Eren could catch sight of his face, so he had to tell himself he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Levi returned to the kitchen counter and began cleaning up after himself. Eren felt far too sick to eat, but he forced himself to take bite after bite while he watched the man roll up his sleeves and start washing the knife he’d used to cut the sandwich with. He collected the only cutting board Eren owned and washed that down as well. 

The scene was incredibly domestic, if not totally heartwarming, almost like a gift Levi was bestowing on Eren. It funnily enough reminded Eren of when Zeke would hit him and make him cry when they were younger, then be extra nice to him to make up for it, or more likely to make the tears and the cries for “daddy!” stop. 

Swallowing the last bite of the first half, Eren cleared his throat. He felt full after eating so little, but it was the best he could do for now. The faucet turned off, drawing Eren’s attention to the man currently drying his hands. 

The silence was deafening, so Eren asked cautiously, “C—can I go to school today…?”

“You have no more classes today,” Levi replied quickly, effortlessly. “What would be the point of that?” The older man turned around to shoot Eren a nasty glare. 

“So that you can run and hide? Perhaps tell everyone how I really am?”

Eren’s eyes went wide. “N—no! No, Levi, I would never!” Eren insisted. Deep in his heart, Eren firmly believed himself. Levi didn’t seem to, though. “Levi, please! Believe me!”

Levi clicked his tongue, cocking a brow, as if he expected that response. “Calm down, fuck.” He turned his attention away. “I already know you’re too stupid to rat me out.”

The brunet dropped his gaze, but his heart was going wild. Eren knew he should have been upset by that disparaging comment, but he just wasn’t. Levi trusted him. That made him feel content. Much better. 

There were still questions that formed regarding Levi’s legitimate concerns about why Eren couldn’t leave, but the nineteen-year-old chose to ignore them.

Eren’s cheeks were a rosy red in spite of still being wet from the tears. Levi sighed. “You are so fucking weird.”

That’s okay, Eren thought with a small smile. No one understands me.  

“I’m leaving. I have to go to work,” Levi announced casually, as if they were actual acquaintances. “Your chain is long enough to allow you to shit in the toilet and reach the refrigerator. I bought some food, since it was fucking empty for some reason.” 

Levi scanned Eren’s form, wearing an expression of disapproval, 

“I expect you to eat it all. It’s gross looking at your bones sticking out every which way.”

Eren swallowed, cringing at that word. “O—oh, yeah. I’ll eat—”

“If I find any of it in the compost or stuffed down the drain, I’ll cut off one of your ears and feed that to you next, got it?” A shocked noise left Eren, but Levi didn’t stop. “I’ll tear the pipes out and check if you look even mildly guilty.” 

The disturbing imagery upset his stomach, but Eren dealt with it by choosing to see the words as Levi’s way of ‘caring’ for him. That had to be it. 

“Right… I’ll… eat it,” he managed with rosy cheeks, hoping he was actually telling the truth to himself. 

He did want to look good for Levi, and it wouldn’t hurt to actually be able to shit properly for once, or grow healthy nails, or benefit in all the plethora of ways that came along with good nutrition. 

“Can I have my laptop?” Eren asked quietly.

Levi looked up from checking his phone. 

“I didn’t touch your laptop.” 

That had to be a lie. Eren blinked, about to stand up, but then thought better of it and crawled back into his bedroom to check his desk where it normally was. His dual monitors were still set up, his keyboard, mouse, and all other accouterments necessary for a computer science student. Also, his laptop. 

Eren frowned. He swore it hadn’t been there earlier. He didn’t have a ton of things in his bedroom, but he’d sworn… 

“Have fun,” Levi said in a mocking tone from down the hall, certainly not meaning it.

Eren glanced over for a chance to see the man of his dreams before he disappeared, possibly forever, but he only caught the back of his head and the impressive power tool in his hand as he passed through the door frame leading to the stairs approaching the front door. The brunet made a surprised noise, crawling up onto his knees to try to catch a glimpse of Levi. 

“L—Levi!” Eren cried, pressing his hands against the hardwood floor and arching his back as a result of having weak legs. He didn’t think he could stand if it actually meant stopping the man in his tracks.

He wasn’t sure who seemed more astonished— Eren, when Levi actually reappeared in the doorway to check on the boy he’d left behind, or the older man who looked like he’d briefly seen a ghost. Maybe he didn’t believe his own behavior. Or, maybe it was because Eren’s body was arched seductively like an obedient cat, in the perfect position to be taken care of in ten different ways by a man like Levi.

According to Eren. Probably not in Levi’s opinion.

But Levi was doing that thing where he seemed to be looking through Eren again. It had been a while since he saw that gaze, the surprise in his eyes. He really did look like he saw a ghost.

Eren’s cheeks heated up. He hadn’t honestly expected Levi to return, so he felt a bit stupid when he looked down and flushed, pressing his whole body submissively against the wood flooring, then gazing back up to mumble a soft, “Bye,” in an apologetic tone. 

The sigh he heard from the older man was slightly less agitated this time. It might have actually sounded amused, if he really thought about it. 

“Goodbye, Eren,” Levi responded without making eye contact, then took his leave again. 

How Levi had trust in Eren that he wouldn’t contact authorities as the first thing he did when he opened his laptop, he would never know. But Eren didn’t plan on doing that. 

If Levi wanted to pretend that Eren was his precious little pet — even if there were some beatings here and there — Eren decided he didn’t mind. More than that, he was giddy at the prospect. 

Actually, the first thing Eren did was compose an email to the dean of the engineering college, CC’ing his academic advisor, as it was necessary to include her for the second time he would have to write this kind of email. 

Dear Dean Pyxis,

I’m sorry I’m such a sad fucking piece of shit for requesting permission to stay at home like a fucking idiot loser again. I know I pulled this shit two years ago, but here I am again, a depressed useless fuckhead. I can’t fucking handle life, so

Eren pressed the backspace key. After a few taps, he held it down, deciding right now wasn’t the best time to write this email. A million things could happen between now and the end of the semester. 

What if — god forbid — Levi changed his mind and untethered Eren from his bedroom? 

If he requested this kind of thing way too early, it would make a mockery of the mental and emotional instabilities he experienced in a situation similar to this in the past. 

Eren could remember the time he’d had to request he take his entire semester online for the first time. That was a mistake, because his whole world rocked, the single sandwich half churning inside of him. The idea of drinking water made him feel sicker, although he knew it would only help. But the truth was, Eren needed more than just space and time when she died. 

“Stop, stop, stop,” Eren reminded himself with a small growl, placing both hands on his temples, then hissed from the pressure on his aching head. He inhaled and exhaled loudly, trying to regulate his breathing but failing miserably. Eren's heart raged in his chest, and it took all he had not to scream until his ears bled.

Then he remembered how Levi casually pulled out a knife in front of him, and how loud the shriek that had been pulled from within him sounded in his own ears. There was nothing he could have done; the fear was bubbling over and Eren had little options.

Eren saw his sister’s face for a brief second. 

She didn’t smile very often, but he could only seem to remember her smiling face for some reason. There was a slight rosy tint to her cheeks, with cute dimples there, and long shiny black hair cascading over her shoulder because of the way she was bent in Eren’s direction. 

The weirdest part of when Eren remembers her is that he can visualize their countless conversations, but can never hear either of them making a sound. It’s like watching an old-fashioned movie; there’s an eerie aspect to it, something that Eren doesn't quite like, and an overwhelming fear that something bad was going to happen at any second. 

His mind was always playing shitty, fucked up games with him, but the biggest ‘fuck you’ he could give himself possible the memory of his dead sister’s face appearing behind his closed eyelids. 

“Fuck!”

A buzzing distracted him from his labored breathing and pounding heartache. 

Buzzing… phone? Eren got up, astonished at how sore his legs had become just from sitting on them for, well actually he lost track of how long it had been. His joints popped loudly, and then he felt lightheaded. Cool. 

He was horrified to hear the sound of the chain attached to his ankle dragging along the floor behind him. It was a weird reminder— one that excited him, but also made him question the life choices he’d made to wind up in this peculiar situation. 

Eren was nothing if not good at avoiding coming to terms with things, so he bent down to lift up the chain and carry it with him to avoid the noise.

His first stop was the bathroom because drinking water was a must, and it was unlikely he would be able to reach the kitchen sink. 

The first thing Eren noticed was that the bathroom seemed cleaner than earlier that morning. The glass he used to drink water out of was missing, oddly enough, and a whole ten seconds worth of fruitless searching had him saying ‘screw it’ and then leaning into the basin to drink directly from the faucet. 

This is what things had come to, so Eren needed to just do it and get it over with. 

As he drank, it occurred to him that it was likely all potentially harmful materials and/or items that might be used to escape would be missing from his immediate area, so it wasn’t that surprising. No glass, no razor, not even his tooth floss. 

After what felt like a whole minute of drinking water, Eren turned off the faucet and stood back up. He heard the buzzing noise again, quieter this time, so he left to find it. Once he made it to just about that same exact place in the kitchen he had eaten earlier, Eren came to a stop. It was a fucking bummer, too, because he could see his phone lying on the countertop, a little more than too far out of reach. 

Eren hadn’t left it there. 

Someone else must have done it to fuck with him. 

Annoyed, Eren turned back around to his bedroom to look on his laptop to see if the notification was accessible there. He sat down gingerly at his desk chair and clicked around to turn the display interface on. Checking his text messages, he saw he had exactly five waiting for him. 

Today, 09:34 AM 

Floch

you skipping today? 

Today, 10:21 AM 

Floch

i wasn’t even that mean to you yesterday, why are you being like this?

Today, 10:32 AM 

Zeke Jaeger

How are you doing?

Today, 12:04 PM 

Floch

if you ignore me, you’re only going to make me want you more

Today, 01:12 PM 

Floch

you know i know where you live right lol

Eren swallowed. He wasn’t sure which sender made him more uncomfortable. 

Who was he kidding? He wasn’t going to respond to either of them. 

He instead went on his uni’s canvas website to find out what he’d missed from his classes earlier and make an attempt to rectify that. There ended up being a good amount of coursework, basically just preliminary research for a project that began the following week. It wouldn’t be hard, just annoying at best. Eren was familiar with the common tactic that teachers used to weed out the students that didn’t want to fully commit to their classes. 

A couple hours went by. Eren only seemed to notice because of how dark it’d become in his room. When he looked out the window to see the pretty colours in the sky, it only reminded him to seek out the small metal pieces that were sealing him in. 

If he thought too hard about it, then he could start to feel suffocated and uncomfortable, especially since he did enjoy leaving his window open for hours on end as a means of ‘getting closer to nature’. 

Anything counted when he spent so much time indoors and on the computer. 

Around seven in the evening, Eren decided to shower for the second time that day, really only focusing on washing his groin area, which had grown icky from sitting with dried cum all afternoon. It made him reflect on how little fluids he drank, because realistically, he should have had to piss by then, which would have reminded him to clean himself. 

That didn’t come naturally to him, unfortunately.

Eren returned to his bedroom nude, walking straight into his closet to find some briefs to put on to begin with. But when he entered, he noticed right away that some things were missing. 

Furrowing his brows, he opened his underwear drawer and found multiple pairs of new briefs, all similar in style as if from the same brand, though different in design. He knew for sure that they weren’t his because almost everything Eren owned was from Uniqlo, total basics, and these were much nicer.

He lifted a pair in his hands to closer examine one. They were typical men’s briefs, but had clasps on one side, not so surprisingly on the side that Eren was hooked up to the chain.

“The fuck…” Eren was furrowing his brows in thought again.

Did Levi have these custom made for him? This style, if you could call it that, was far too uncommon to see in a clothing store. Part of Eren wondered if these were some kind of kink wear, but they seemed so high quality. 

He pulled them on and clasped them on his side. Stepping out of his closet, he looked at himself in the mirror. Setting aside how obviously protruding his hip bones were, they looked good on him, and the fabric was so soft.

It made sense that Levi would want Eren to look good for him, right? He was basically providing the materials to succeed as an attractive person in his eyes, so all Eren had to do was follow through. He really couldn’t have made it simpler for him. 

It filled the nineteen-year-old’s chest with warmth and excitement, because he hoped that over time, he might become the vision of perfection for the man he was so madly in love with.

It prompted him to figuratively skip into the kitchen to check the fridge for what had been selected by Levi to be eaten. Eren shivered for a second when the cool air hit his very exposed skin, then felt the chill reach his bones when his sights landed on what had been stocked. 

Oh fuck.

There were quite a few prepared meals, all with generous amounts of meat in them. Eren knew Levi had likely sought out the most calorie dense foods, but he hadn’t thought to ask Eren whether he would be able to consume them in the first place. 

Because the answer was no, Eren physically could not eat meat. 

A soft whimper escaped him, and he felt hopeless. 

“Fuck,” he whipsered, closing the door behind him. Levi was very explicit about what he’d do if Eren didn’t finish the food. Having dealt with anorexia for a number of years, he’d figured out many ways to hide not eating food, but for once he really did want to do what was asked of him and eat. 

He returned to open the fridge to scan for what was also available. Something with steak, but there was also rice and vegetables — he could eat that part — pasta with meat, something stir fried definitely with meat… Great. Levi really hadn’t made this easy for him after all. Eren sighed as he collected the third option and removed it to reheat. 

It was only when he was sitting at his desk with a fork that it occurred to him that he was a fucking dumbass for not realizing this had most likely definitely been done on purpose. 

Another desperate whine emanated from Eren’s throat. He put his head carefully into his hand. 

It took a long time to eat such a minimal amount of food, but Eren was proud of himself. Levi wasn’t going to cut off his ear and feed it to him, he just wanted to see if Eren would crumble under the pressure and flush the meat down the toilet or go against all his morals to actually eat the meat. Eren decided if he ate everything but the meat, he would pass the test. 

Feeling a little more secure in his decision, Eren returned to his desktop to distract himself with gaming or memes or anything that wouldn’t make him go crazy from being in a bedroom with zero access to fresh oxygen.

A notification popped up in the top right corner of his monitor, indicating a new text message had been received from an unknown number. 

Curious, Eren clicked it to get a better look at the file that had been shared, only to gasp.

He’d watched straight porn before, sure, but it had been a while. He wasn’t prepared to see a woman’s entirely naked body, titties and all, getting raw dogged that evening. Something told Eren not to do it, but he was too curious. This couldn’t have been an accident. He clicked the video that had been sent to him and started watching.

The first thing he heard was obscenely lewd moans. The woman had to be getting the fucking of her life, because she was writhing like a cat in heat, holding her tits and looking up at whoever it was who was filming with the most blown expression on her face. She seemed to know she was being filmed because she smiled an open mouthed grin in order to keep making those orgasmic sounds.

“Baby, please! I’m camera shy,” she said with a giggle. She lifted a hand to touch the camera man, probably his chest, but Eren couldn’t be sure.

“Lying slut,” a familiar voice retorted. 

A veiny hand extended past her belly and over one breast to grasp her throat. Eren couldn’t see or hear it, but a familiar aura infiltrated the video, and he thought he was going to be sick. Eren couldn’t take his eyes off the woman getting choked if he tried; he forced himself to watch the pretty girl’s chin tilt upwards to make her look down her nose at the male she was with. 

“Aren’t you?”

She bit her lip to manage another encouraging moan. Eren swallowed, his hand coming to cover his mouth when she inevitably replied. 

“Yes, Levi!”

Eren was too shocked to cry. He proceeded to force himself to watch as Levi turned the angle from her face to where they were connected, where his cock disappeared into her pretty, sopping wet pussy over and over and over. The cries got louder, his name screamed endlessly, but it sounded like static in the back of his head. 

Levi was showing Eren his cock. As much as Eren hated that he was using it on another person, Levi was sending him a message. Whether it was the one he meant to, Eren was unclear. 

As much as this was most likely intended to be a punishment, Eren chose to see it as a reward.

In spite of his optimism, he cursed that woman’s existence and thought of every last way he could see her die the worst possible deaths.

Chapter Text

Perceiving Levi having sex some random woman as a reward simply on the basis that Eren got to finally see the older man’s cock was the stupidest, most odd thing he could ever do to himself. 

Eren gave himself the migraine of migraines trying to imagine it was his pussy getting destroyed, then the video ended far too soon, and he was ultimately left questioning all decisions he’d ever made in life that led him up to him starting the hetero video over once again at the exact moment Levi’s dick became visible.

He became so nauseous, and had to actively fight to keep his ‘dinner’ down. The disgust he felt for getting off to the one he loves fucking another person was overwhelming and the need to purge was obscenely powerful. 

Eren tried to tell himself he didn’t care so much that the person Levi was fucking was female, but the memory of her body irritated him and lingered around in his head. Eren refused to be jealous of someone he didn’t know, because he was familiar with the neverending rabbit hole he wouldn’t go down yet again.

The following day on Thursday, Eren was ignored. He knew he was in possession of Levi’s phone number, which was at least some mode of communication with the older man, but none of the text messages he sent from his laptop were delivered. It was stressful, but he did get an opportunity to heal mentally, emotionally, and a touch physically. 

Eren tried to look on the bright side of things sometimes. 

Friday wasn’t much better. Eren spent the day at his desk working on coursework and getting as ahead as possible. He muted his notifications because he was sick of waiting for something from Levi that would never come. That, and Floch had decided to spam him with reminders of his frat’s party that evening. 

Eren wished he didn’t have to figuratively waste his breath and respond— there was no way in hell he’d be able to attend, but there was also no way to explain why. 

So… Ignoring was the way to go. 

Eren ended up taking one of those nightmarish late afternoon power naps that turned into a coma-like deep sleep where he woke up feeling like a zombie, confused what day and year it was. 

He pulled the blanket off of himself and shook his shoulders, trying to come to terms with reality. It wasn’t that hard, because his head instantly hurt from shaking it and his ankle was still bound to the leather clasp. So that was cool.

The dusk lighting came in through the window at such an elegant angle that it made Eren’s room look like it was on fire for a couple minutes. He sat back against the wall at the head of his bed to quietly watch as it faded, his arms crossed over his lap and his legs flat against the mattress below him. 

The beauty made him forget how tragically terrifying his situation was, and appreciate the moments of peace he had been awarded. Eren felt strong for not missing Levi for once.

When the light got low enough in his room, Eren crawled from his perch back over to his computer desk, feeling a wave of depression wash over him at the familiar situation. 

He’d spent the entire day inside, well over two days by now actually, and looking at his reading material for class was so overwhelmingly upsetting, he didn’t know what to do with himself.

He decided to check his text messages app on his laptop. No surprise, there wasn’t anything from Levi. 

Cool. 

There were more messages from Floch, however.

Not cool.

Today, 05:04 PM

Floch

how’s it going slut

Today, 05:07 PM

Floch

can’t wait to see you tonight

Today, 07:59 PM 

Floch

why haven’t you texted me back? why are you playing so hard to get all of a sudden lol 

Eren took a deep breath. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with this jerk. What the hell was he supposed to tell him? 

“Sorry, I’m chained to a wall in my bedroom. I’m going to have to pass on tonight, regrettably.”  

He didn’t want Floch in his business any more than he already was, so he’d have to be a little more cryptic if he did finally lose his shit and respond. 

To his horror, Eren heard yet another ding, signaling another message had come in.

Today, 08:11 PM 

Floch

don’t make me come over there

Eren groaned. Floch didn’t really know where he lived— he was just fucking around. 

He had to be. 

The situation was making his already low-energy body even more exhausted, so he stood up from his desk and padded back over to his bed where he faceplanted. That was a mistake, because oww. He’d changed his dressings, minimizing them, so there was less padding when he made contact with his firm mattress. 

Eren sighed, closing his eyes. It felt tiring to even breathe. He knew he should have eaten more earlier; he likely wouldn’t be as exhausted if he had. It was already after eight, so Eren decided he might as well call it a night. 

It wasn’t exactly how he’d have liked to spend his Friday night, but he’d certainly had worse ones, so Eren brought his legs up to curl up into a ball again.

“Get up.”

Eren felt like he heard Levi’s voice clear as day. Or night? It was definitely nighttime, judging by how dark the room was.

Eren looked around. He couldn’t trust himself at this point, being as Levi-deprived as he was, and how good he was at perfectly recalling the man’s voice. 

His millisecond of excitement vanished and he slumped his head over. Regardless of whether Levi was there or not, it was worth it to entertain a conversation with his inner voices. Eren was that desperate for contact.

Then he heard the doorbell.

Eren’s eyes opened and head lifted at light speed. Did he really just hear that, or was that imaginary too?

He glanced over at the digital alarm clock. 

09:48 PM

The doorbell went off again, signaling clearly to Eren that it wasn’t some made up lie in his head. This was reality, and someone was at his apartment. 

Eren stood up, wobbly, then approached his doorway. He knew there was only a few meters he could walk before he’d get stuck in that same place that he couldn’t seem to traverse past, but he decided to walk it anyway.

The doorbell went off again, and then Eren heard loud pounding. 

“What the hell…” he whispered out loud to absolutely no one but himself. 

This was so odd. If Levi had decided to show up, he would’ve let himself in in a similar fashion likely to how he’d somehow broken in to begin with. Eren had no proof, but this person for sure wasn’t him, and that pissed him off. 

When he reached the place he wouldn’t be able to walk past, Eren climbed down onto his knees to crawl just a bit so that he could look down the stairwell that led to his front door on the first floor. There was an opaque window in the top fourth of the door, so Eren could see there was someone ominously waiting there. 

“No way.” 

That better not be Floch.

“Eren!” he heard his name shouted by a familiar voice on the other side of the door. 

This guy was drunk. Great. 

“Open the fucking door!”

He didn’t sound aggressive; if anything, he sounded like he was having a gay old time disturbing him and definitely his neighbors. He hated the idea of his downstairs neighbors being mad at him, so Eren anxiously bit his lip, wondering what he should do. 

In all honesty, he was frightened.

“I’ll huff, and I’ll puff…” Eren heard a taunting voice joke, “and I’ll—” the door swung open, “blow the house down!”

Eren couldn’t help his gasp because— what!? Why was his front door unlocked? Eren never left the door unlocked, for no reason, not ever. 

How did that just happen? 

Floch stood at the base of the stairs, his hand still holding the door knob, with a huge grin on his face. There were absolutely no lights on in the apartment, so Eren couldn’t see his expression for the most part other than his gleaming teeth, which only added to the increasingly eerie situation. 

“Fuck…” Eren whispered. 

He wanted to curse again when Floch seemed to recognize him sticking his head out just slightly from the side of the doorway. 

“Eren… Why’re you on the floor?” the redhead asked, then started laughing incredulously. “What the fuck’re you doing…?” 

Over the sound of Floch’s persistent laughter, Eren swore he heard another oddly familiar sound. 

A chill ran through his body because of how close by it sounded— like it was meant for Eren to hear, yet far enough away to intentionally avoid the location being discovered. 

It sounded like a loud, disapproving breath. 

Floch continued to laugh as if he was having the time of his life, or maybe like he knew he was about to. 

“You love being on your knees soo much, Eren,” the redheaded boy turned around and closed the door behind him with a scoff, “that’s so on brand. So you, Eren.”

The home-invasion-victim-specialist needed to shut this down asap. 

“Uhh… Stop! Floch, please,” Eren insisted. 

He felt a small breeze pass his ear, and turned instantly to look behind him, seeing absolutely nothing in its wake. 

Eren’s eyes darted from the stainless steel fridge to the perfectly clean counter top, to the small dining table that was too far out of reach. 

Nothing seemed out of place. 

Eren turned back towards Floch when he heard steps coming up the hardwood stairs. He flinched when he realized he was still wearing his shoes. 

“Floch, wait! Don’t come up here!”

“Eren, I hope you sincerely understand how little of a shit I give about what you want,” Floch said with a menacing grin, though wobbled a bit. “Daddy’s coming.”

Eren cringed. His mind raced with excuses. 

“I’m very sick!” Eren tried this time, backing up just slightly. There was a whole storey worth of stairs to make his way up, but Floch was taking two steps at a time, and almost halfway there already. 

“Enough already, god.” 

Eren’s heart sank with every advancing step.

This wasn’t good. This was very, very not good. He needed to try a different angle. 

“There’s someone here!” Eren wasn’t exactly sure that was a lie, actually, but it made Floch come to an astonished stop.

There was silence, and then, “Is that why you’re on your knees—”

“Yes!” Eren blurted out, not entirely thinking, but not regretting it if it meant Floch would fuck off. “Pl—please don’t come up any further,” he swallowed, “they,” it was obviously a man, Floch could see right through that, “will get… upset…”

Floch seemed to be processing. 

“The man you’re fucking is going to get mad if the other man you’re fucking shows up here?”

Eren swore he heard someone take a breath. He darted his head to the side to look yet again, hoping maybe he would catch some kind of movement, something that would jump out at him as abnormal, or perhaps validate his concern that they weren’t alone. 

What was that?

Something moved. Eren saw eyes blinking, but he couldn’t figure out where in all the darkness.

He’d lost track of time. Floch had proceeded up the steps to close enough where he could reach out, slide his fingers through Eren’s long bangs, and pull.  

Eren cried out in shock, then recoiled from having his weak body yanked forward. The movement wasn’t enough to stretch his body or draw attention to the fact he was still chained by the ankle.

“Fuck! Stop!” Eren cried in surprise. He lifted both hands to grab ahold of Floch’s hand to ease the sharp pain of having his hair yanked from his skull. “Stop!”

“You know I love it when you act like a slut,” Floch breathed, leaning in close to Eren’s face. 

The brunet tilted his head down as best as he could when he knew exactly what was coming next. 

“But only when it’s for me.”

Eren turned one last time to try to see if Levi was there, or anyone who could help him. Floch caught his eyes searching the dark space beyond him.

“Why don’t you tell me who you're looking for, Eren?” He paused. “Or was that just a lie?”

“S—seriously, Floch! Stop!” Eren tried again when the other boy’s fingers tightened their grip. His shoulders were shaking. “There’s—there’s someone else here!”

Floch paused for just a second, then tilted his head and blinked. In the low lighting, Eren watched the annoyance flash on the other boy’s face. “Oh, gender neutral? How ambiguous?” His dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me there’s a lucky lady hanging around here,” he joked, smiling cruelly down at the other boy.

“No— it’s not like that, Floch!” Eren cried. “Please, just listen to me! He’ll get mad—”

“So it is a he!” Floch cried sarcastically. 

Eren couldn’t scoff at the pure saltiness of his response because of the pain he was in, but he whined insistently and continued to try to get away. 

“You really want to make me jealous, don’t you?”

Eren didn’t know what to say to that. Why would he go out of his way to make Floch feel anything? Last he checked, they weren’t friends anymore, and this was some kind of demented one-sided relationship that Floch was prolonging solely for Eren’s torture.

“Where the fuck is he, then?” he shouted into Eren’s face, then turned to look around. “Come out, asshole! Wherever you are, I’ll find you!” 

Floch faced Eren again. 

“Don’t tell me he jumped down the fire escape when he heard Daddy come in?”

Eren wished he could yell or throw something at Floch for continually referring to himself as ‘Daddy’, but he prioritized hissing when the redheaded boy yanked his hair upwards and shouted, “It hurts!”

“What the fuck is this?”

When he had been forcefully brought to his feet, the chain attached to Eren’s ankle made a loud noise against the hardwood floor. Eren glanced in the same exact direction as the other boy, both taking in the very same sight at the same time.

“What kind… of kinky shit are you getting up to in here?” Floch demanded, his voice raising with each word. 

For some reason, Eren finally felt vindicated. “None of your fucking business, leave!” he snapped back, yet flinched automatically at Floch’s scowl.

The grip on his hair left suddenly, not giving Eren a chance to even have a moment's reprieve because Floch instantly smacked it across his face instead. 

“Ohh… You want to talk to me like that, you fucking slut?”

Eren brought his hand to his smarting cheek, holding it tight as heat transferred from his face into his palm. Tears sprung to his eyes when the pain vibrated through his whole head. Thankfully, he missed his temple and brow bone where it hurt the most, however he was unsure whether Floch disturbed the new, much more subtle dressing he’d placed there.

Hands at the collar of Eren’s shirt groped the material, forcefully pulling the slumped over brunet boy to his feet. It was awkward, because he nearly slipped out of the shirt at first, but then stumbled back to his full height. 

Eren was eye to eye with a furious looking Floch, but there was something much more unexpected in his expression. 

Floch looked actually hurt.

Eren didn’t get a chance to even mentally address how that made him feel, because Floch pushed him backwards into the wall nearly three steps away from where he previously stood. 

“Whatever. I don’t care if somebody else had you. I just need to replace his cock with mine.” His demented cover-up smile made Eren tremble at the implication. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Eren swallowed hard. He wanted to admit that no one else had ‘had’ him. He also wanted to admit that this chain secured at his ankle wasn’t for kink play. 

Eren wanted Floch to know that he had been placed under a nonconsensual house arrest, and desperately needed to have a breath of fresh air from outside. He wanted to cry all those things out, confess completely that the man who had trapped him there was practically evil incarnate, but he couldn’t.

Because they weren’t alone. Levi couldn’t hear what Eren really had to say. 

Eren didn’t want to upset him like that.

“Please, Floch,” Eren tried one more time. “You need to leave. I promise it’s for your own good.” 

The first tear dropped from his left eye, and then the second from his right. He was growing hyper aware of the third presence in the adjacent living room. It was making his skin buzz under his clothing.

“You never were good at saying no.” 

Floch’s look of hurt was gone, replaced by devilish intent. It was clear now that he wanted to harm him, most likely in relation to how Eren had supposedly harmed his ego just moments ago. 

“You and I both know, if you really wanted me to leave, I would be gone by now.”

Eren hated that Floch actually had a point. He wasn’t going apeshit. His requests had been firm, yet his confidence wavered. A choked noise left Eren’s throat along with a dribble of snot from his nose. This wasn’t going to end well, and he knew it. 

“Please, Floch.” Eren still couldn’t find it in him to beg harder for him to leave. He should be begging harder. “He’s mad,” he warned, yet there wasn’t enough conviction. 

“Who’s mad?” Floch asked clearly. 

The name was on the tip of his tongue. His lips even parted, tongue touching the roof of his mouth to form the L sound, but Eren couldn’t make himself say it. It wasn’t because he was afraid of the repercussions that he or Floch might face having given away his identity, it was more of something else. Eren didn’t want to share even his name. 

He wanted his unfortunate situation to remain a mystery, something that was only his, even if it was for a short while.

Of all the fucked up males in his apartment at that moment, Eren had to be the most fucked up of all. That realization made him shudder.

Floch must have felt the chill in the air, because he seemed to bristle. 

“What the fuck are you talking about, Eren?” he demanded. “You’re starting to fucking creep me out.”

All of a sudden, like a magnetic pull, Eren locked eyes with him. The third male must have purposefully blinked at that point to catch his attention, or even moved a touch, because the outline of his body was barely even visible. But he was there. 

Eren knew it. 

Levi was leaning against the wall on the far side of the living room, observing with his arms crossed casually over his chest. Eren couldn’t make out his expression because of how dark it was, but something told him that he was not pleased. Eren should have been more forceful with removing Floch. He knew that now.

A terrified noise left Eren’s lips but he clamped them close as soon as possible. He closed his eyes, too, while he was at it, and tucked his head down into his chest. As if curling in on himself could save him from anything that was about to happen. As if he had the capability of shutting out the enraged aura suffocating him, which Floch was somehow immune to. 

He was going to be in trouble.

“Please…!” His own loud sob surprised himself, but his whole body reducing to a shaking mess was even more stunning. He couldn’t control how scared he was; it was an innate reaction.

“Eren!” Floch scoffed. “Are you on pills again?” 

He let go of Eren’s collar and instead pushed him backwards into the wall again, making him hit the back of his head against the hard plaster. 

“Better be fucking poppers, because I’m not in the mood to ease you into it.”

It was so embarrassing being treated this way in front of Levi, Eren couldn’t stand it. He lifted his wrists to protect his face from any more potential blows as well as avoid betraying how utterly terrified he was. The last thing he wanted was for Levi to know he was at least somewhat enjoying this kind of treatment.

“Move these,” Floch grabbed ahold of Eren’s wrists, easily yanking them from their shielding position to back down by his sides, “and kiss me.”

The redhead leaned in, expertly pressing his lips to Eren’s, and most likely unintentionally clashing their teeth together. Eren moaned into the kiss primarily because of how astonished he was by the pain of a tooth going into his lip, but pushed back into it on instinct. 

Floch pulled back, making a loud lip smacking sound ring out loudly in the silent apartment, then put his lips right back on Eren’s. 

Eren moaned again, his eyebrows knitting together in a fruitlessly horrified way. It was mainly because he knew he was a whore for loving the way Floch took care of him, but also because he knew if he opened his eyes, he wasn’t sure he was going to like what he saw. 

Eren hardly managed to push Floch back a centimeter with a weak shove, and ultimately caused the other boy to force him directly into the wall, slamming his whole body against the flat surface.

A hand groping his bony ass made Eren jump and remember where he was. His eyes opened, but the haze from having the life kissed out of him made it hard to focus on any one thing. It took some time and effort to avoid melting into the other boy’s hold, but Eren was capable of opening his eyes wide again and scanning past Floch’s long red bangs. 

This time the noise Eren made was much more pitiful. He knew he’d fucked up. His whole life was a fucking mistake, and he hated himself, but admitting that couldn’t make up for what had happened. 

It hadn’t been intentional, but Eren had brought Floch into this, and now they were both fucked. 

Levi was no longer standing where he had just been a minute ago. Separately, something shiny on the countertop caught Eren’s eye. His body shook with fear when he understood the situation a little better.

He certainly hadn’t been the one to leave a knife out, primarily on account of how he remembered he purposefully didn’t own any.

Chapter Text

Eren moaned into the kiss, intentionally as loud as possible, as an obvious indication he wanted to say something. Floch seemed to not get it, yet appreciated it, because he tilted his head to part their lips and then crashed them back together. 

It had been so long since he’d had a last kiss, so Eren melted a bit when he felt overwhelmed with the sensation. 

“How did a rat get in here?”

Neither Eren nor Floch had expected a presence to Eren’s immediate right. Well, Eren had an idea Levi would show himself eventually, but had lost track of time in the arms of another man. 

He instantly felt horrible, ashamed, and embarrassed for enjoying it, especially with Levi standing there, but what could he do? Eren was touch starved, and Levi didn’t seem like he was going to give in to him anytime soon.

Wait, that was highly presumptuous. Why did Eren assume that Levi was going to ‘give in’ to him at some point? 

Just based on his behavior he’d just exhibited in front of the older man, how the hell could Eren think he would be getting anything at this point?

He was reminded that he was just a weak, greedy slut. If someone he wanted wasn’t giving Eren the attention or affection he craved, he easily opened up for someone new to give it to him. It was devastatingly humiliating.

Eren didn’t have time to ruminate about his whorish ways for long; both nineteen-year-olds jumped, stunned by the new and ominous presence.

Floch pulled Eren in towards his chest, seemingly to protect him from the immediate threat. It only made Eren feel worse, though, and refused to meet the older man’s expectant eyes. Due to being squeezed in Floche’s arms, the brunet boy was left gasping, surprised at the valiant gesture, and honestly a little more than aroused. He knew better than to be, but he just couldn’t help it. 

Cowering in combination with that kiss that Floch knew Eren wanted, he could only lift his hands to grasp onto Floch’s shirt collar and be brought in tighter.

Peeking over his own broad shoulder, Eren watched Levi’s eyes narrow at the sight of the two college aged boys, forming a disapproving expression on his face. It felt like a whole minute had gone by, but in reality, it had to have been milliseconds.

“Who the fuck are you!?” Floch shouted in a protective booming voice. 

“So curious,” the older man had the gall to pause, making both boys wait for him to continue speaking, and clearly exercising his vast control over the situation. “You forcefully entered someone else’s apartment, and you want to know who I am?” Levi asked quizzically in a deadpan voice. 

Floch’s lips opened and then closed. Caught. 

“Trespassing is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of one thousand dollars,” he stated clearly and confidently, “I thought a little pre-law fuck like you would know how illegal your actions are.”

Floch tensed, a calculated rage going on within him that both Eren and Levi were clearly aware of. Of course he couldn’t respond to Levi’s thinly-veiled threat, and it was clear he was rattled that the black haired man had read up on him. 

Floch might seem brash and obnoxious, but he was somehow one of the smarter people Eren knew, especially for his particular breed of frat bro. 

“Are you fucking Eren?” 

After Floch spoke, the room went completely silent. Eren held his breath while his heart thudded in his chest, considering for a moment if Levi were to actually respond with an affirmative. 

What if Levi said “Yes”?  

Eren felt about ready to explode as he waited for Levi to speak, his desperate expression drew the older man’s attention, making him smirk. Both Levi and Eren knew the answer was a resounding no, but the anticipation made Eren curious what would be said next.

“What are you going to do about it?” Levi cocked his head tauntingly. “If I say yes?”

Floch scoffed haughtily, unaware how woozy the boy was in his arms. His whole body tensed and then untensed right away. There was a click in Eren’s classmate’s brain.

“Hang on…” he relaxed a touch, “you’re that guy from the other day.”

Oh, wait. That’s right.

“ You were the one talking to Eren outside the café.” 

Floch’s hold around the brunet boy tensed again, as if he were preparing to launch himself at the older man any second. 

Eren was quickly reminded that this was a drunk and enraged possessive teenage boy with a chip on his shoulder, someone who felt like the world owed him something, and potentially invincible in association with the fraternity he belonged to. 

There was a certain stupidity that was interwoven into Floch’s personality, which had up until now seemed frustrating at worst and something that Eren had been managing (poorly) dealing with, but now his presence was even more violent than usual. In combination with Levi’s cool and menacing aura, this…

Something bad was going to happen.

“You should leave,” Levi warned. He didn’t personally move a muscle, not revealing any threatening weapon or give any kind of indication of what he was thinking. Therefore his advice seemed empty, and Floch fell for it.

“Or what?” 

He let go of Eren. Floch stood to his full height, which in and of itself was a territorial counter threat to Levi’s words. 

“What the fuck are you going to do about it, manlet?”

Levi’s silence must have encouraged Floch to take that step forward and cock his arm to throw it in the shorter man’s direction. Levi dodged it easily; being sober probably helped with that. 

Floch pivoted surprisingly fast, though, and aggressively threw another punch. Eren’s eyes were drawn to his figure, thinking back to some of the soccer games he’d attended in private where he’d seen Floch move similarly, yet Levi's more minute movements missing the dangerous fury was even more impressive. Levi was agile and calculated, observing Floch’s movement and waiting for his opportunity to strike back.

And it was astonishing when he did. Due to his stature, Levi was able to side step, crouch, and finally tackle Floch at the waist. He lifted the younger boy in the air like he weighed nothing, then put his shoulder into Floch’s chest, making him land hard on his hip on the hardwood floor. ]

The other teenage boy hit his head on the kitchen cabinet with a loud bang, making Eren wince and take a step back. His heart was pounding in his chest as he watched Floch take the abuse in stride and attempt to get onto his feet again, but Levi was faster. 

Eren watched as Levi’s knee went into Floch’s solar plexus, stunning his assailant, and then the same leg swung precisely into the redhead’s skull. Another sickening bang rang out when Floch hit his head a second time, this time against the floor, making Eren whimper, but it sounded pathetic. 

“S—stop. Stop!”

Why didn’t he say that almost a full minute ago when it started?

Did he enjoy two adult males fighting over him? Because… That’s what was happening, right?

Levi either ignored him or didn't hear, because he pinned a knee on either side of Floch’s hips, hovering above him menacingly. The redheaded boy was clearly out of breath, having just had the wind knocked out of him, yet he struggled up to a sitting position. 

The sight made Eren gasp, because he found it odd that Levi seemed to… let him do so. Logically, if Levi wanted to win the fight, he wouldn’t have let him up. 

That was when he noticed something was missing from the countertop.

“Wai—” 

Eren’s eyes went wide.

“Levi, no!”

In Floch’s hurry, he moved to reposition himself into a more threatening situation. He wasn’t aware he was impaling himself on the undisclosed weapon in Levi’s hand. 

Eren was in the process of catching his breath when he lost his footing, falling to his knees unceremoniously as the gleaming kitchen knife slid into the juncture of Floch’s neck and shoulder. 

His jaw gave into gravity, flying open, having just witnessed something so astonishing and devastating at the same time. 

And Eren had been totally useless.

Not again. 

This can’t happen… be happening… not again…

Floch clearly hadn’t intended to advance onto the knife. He couldn’t quite speak in his predicament— the expression of surprise on his face was as obvious of a signal as anyone could have needed. 

His life was flashing before his eyes. 

Had Levi meant to stab Floch? Eren couldn’t bring his eyes to glance at the perpetrator, because he wasn’t sure how it was going to make him feel.

It was just an accident. 

But it still happened.

Eren saw red. It flowed from Floch’s neck in dribbles, then transitioned into a steady stream. He had just moments left, Eren knew this, yet he did nothing. 

He weaved in and out of his own consciousness, his lips parting and stomach churning like a cement mixer, then fell further onto his hands. He felt weak, like usual, but this was extraordinary because the sensation was more than familiar. 

This felt like deja vu. 

He didn’t feel like himself when he stood up onto his feet, ignoring the black spots in his vision and wavering in his steps as he directed himself down the hallway, walking away from the most horrifying scene he thought he’d ever witnessed. 

Eren didn’t know who he was. And not who those other two men in the living room were either. He was just tired.

He didn’t listen for the gurgling sound in the kitchen, the chain dragging on the hardwood floor behind him, or any indication Levi was even still in the apartment. 

Eren could only focus on his bed, lifting the blanket, and getting into it. It didn’t feel familiar, as if this were the first time in his whole life that he’d performed an action like this. 

What time was it? 

How is it going to feel to wake up tomorrow morning?

Would Eren even be able to fall asleep? He was willing to figure it out, so he laid his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Eren had no idea how much time passed. He maintained a quasi-awake state for at least ten minutes, and at most ten hours. It was confusing, but Eren didn’t try to make sense of the world around him. He wasn’t sure if the things he heard were in his dream or if they were actually occurring in real time around him. 

Eren heard something heavy dragging across the floor. A long zipper? A power drill definitely made Eren blink his eyes open at one point, but then he was right back to sleep. And then there was the soft sound of the washing machine running. 

That last sound was the most relaxing, and Eren actually felt at peace. He forgot about everything going on around him, the last three days being a strange mixture of heaven and hell, and even the pain in his forehead subsided. Actually, that could have been because he slept on the non-bruised side of his face.

His mind drifted to wonder if maybe Eren imagined the whole thing. 

It occurred to him, still half-asleep, that this all had been some fucked up dream. The last three days, everything. It made him want to scoff and realize what an idiot he was, and his heart thumped in his chest. 

It felt so real, like he was lifting his hand to feel it through his shirt. It was pounding, and he was alive. 

Even more, Eren’s done shit like this before. How could he trust himself when he knows he’s dreamt up crazy scenarios like this in the past? Making up noises that weren’t there, believing feelings were reciprocated when they weren’t, experiencing night terrors in daily life that didn’t actually exist. 

In his current state, Eren could perfectly remember how it felt to wake up that one morning a couple years ago, after experiencing what felt like the worst nightmare he’d ever had, and then being consumed by that sweet feeling of relief when he realized it was all over. 

That had probably been the best moment of his life. When things were over. Eren liked relief. He liked comfort. He was spoiled in that way, always seeking it out, even if it did make him a bit of a whore. 

Eren had come to terms with that.

Thinking so much had distracted him from his immediate surroundings, so maybe he had fallen asleep after all, because Eren roused when he felt something touch his shoulder. 

Someone had gotten in bed with him, and positioned themselves behind him, sliding an arm under Eren’s waist to curl around into a hug. His head was gently tilted to lean back against someone’s chest, confirming the second entity in his bed.

Eren made a small sound of confusion, coming out more like a tired moan than anything, and debated whether he should commit to opening his eyes. 

Soft lips pressed to Eren’s neck in a precarious place at his nape, then lingered. It felt blissful.

“You look like such an angel when you sleep.”

There was no way Eren couldn’t not react to that. His breath hitched in his throat, making his breathing pattern alter a touch. 

That was Levi’s voice, and he actually sounded pleased for once. He sounded thoughtful and nurturing, wanting to give pleasure instead of stealing it away from him for his own enjoyment. 

It was comforting. 

Eren felt at peace with the world, with his situation, and with his internal thought processes. He’d just woken up from a nightmare in the arms of his most coveted man, and nothing could sour this moment, or even the rest of Eren’s life. 

He didn’t want to move or disturb the older man who’d seemed to have finally given into his feelings for him, because there was a shard inside of him that worried this might be the dream. 

And if it was, then Eren would never wake up.

But he’s already established that he’s greedy. At a certain point, Eren couldn’t bear to sleep anymore, because he needed to see Levi . 

He opened his eyes to see his bedroom flooded in light from the curtainless windows. His body had been uncomfortable sleeping in the position he’d woken up in, his mouth dry, and stomach feeling somehow worse than empty. 

Some shifting below him alerted Eren that the man he was resting on top of had roused as well. His heart pounded in his chest when it occurred to him that he’d wound up leaning back on Levi in his sleep. That still counted as cuddling, right?

Though he was tired, curiosity got the better of him. Eren tilted his head back to side eye his living, breathing pillow. He thought he must be hallucinating at first, because the sight made him vibrate from the inside out.

Levi had one arm behind his head, propping it up at an angle, most likely due to the fact that Eren only had only one pillow. His eyes were drawn to Levi’s bulging biceps, which peeked out from under the short sleeve of his stark white T-shirt. 

Eren couldn’t remember what he had been wearing before, but the last time he’d seen this much of him had been back in the summer when Levi had been in his work out clothes at certain spontaneous times of the work day.

“Good morning,” the older man breathed in a raspy voice. 

Eren’s lips parted, his cheeks going red with embarrassment. Levi had no idea how badly Eren had been wanting to hear him say that. 

Absolutely no idea.  

“How did you sleep?”

Eren didn’t know how to answer that, and he was way more curious than anything, so he asked instead, “Why are you here?” 

It was abrupt, making Levi blink his eyes in surprise. Eren regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth. 

“You don’t want me here?”

“No—!” Eren insisted far too eagerly. “That wasn’t…” It was his intention, though. He was having a hard time believing Levi would want to get in bed with him in the first place, much less stick around to say good morning to him.

“I came back to check on you, to make sure you’re okay.”

Eren was the one to blink this time. It hurt too badly to continue looking at the older man out of the corner of his eyes, so Eren reluctantly twisted himself, switching over onto his stomach and resting a knee in between Levi’s legs, meaning one of Levi’s was now in between his own. 

Eren’s hand landed on a very firm chest, and it took all the nineteen-year-old had not to just collapse to feel more of it at once. He wanted to press every part of their bodies together, but in order to not more clearly indicate how aroused he was becoming, he had to clear his mind. 

Focus on the present.

“I should be leaving.”

“No!” Eren cried again. “Please stay…”

It took a moment, but then he heard Levi reply.

“Okay.”

It didn’t seem like Levi to comply the way he was. Maybe he was teasing, or this was some kind of sick joke that Eren was just about to be made the ass of. He was so tired that maybe he’d be okay with it, as long as he got to experience kindness, if you could call it that.

“What?”

Eren blinked, a little embarrassed that he had got caught being in his own head, but also pleased that Levi seemed to want to know what was going on in there.

“No, I…” He didn’t actually know where to begin. 

Was this a dream?

Did the whole thing with Floch coming over and making out with him even happen? Eren wouldn’t put it past his dirty dreams to conjure something up like that, and especially something like what he believed to be going on between him and Levi in real time.

“Eren, what’s wrong?”

Eren wasn’t sure if he wanted to accept that Levi was gaslighting him, or just skip right over it to appreciate how caring the older man was acting. This was a treat, and Eren refused to squander it. 

“Nothing… Nothing’s wrong,” he replied with a small smile. His cheeks felt warm and his head was buzzing, even more so when Levi shifted his leg under Eren’s, reminding him that it was still there. They were touching, and touching so much at that. Eren and Levi were quite frankly cuddling. 

Eren didn’t think he could ever come down from this high.

“Thank you for saving me last night,” Eren admitted shyly. 

He didn’t know what would have happened if Levi hadn’t been there. Would Floch have had his way with him? Would Eren have had to fight back, or ended up loving it? 

He shivered.

“Th—thank you for…” the nineteen-year-old drifted off again.

He was having a hard time following through with his thoughts when he was so exhausted but also feeling so good. It would have been perfect to nuzzle into Levi’s embrace and let sleep take him, but having this opportunity to talk to the older man was far too important to him. 

“What did I do?”

Eren peered upwards to make eye contact, only his lips parted in small surprise when he saw the older man’s expression. He looked… incognizant. Genuinely confused. Eren couldn’t understand how someone could look confused when he was clearly alluding to the events of the night prior. 

“You… what you… the thing that you did. With him,” Eren managed to mumble. 

Was he really going to say it? Did he really need to say it?

“Did you have a nice dream?” 

Levi didn’t answer the question and was obviously changing the subject. Was it because of guilt?

Eren wanted to let it go, but he couldn’t.

“I didn’t have a dream,” he started, which may or may not have been a lie, “but you saved—” Eren stopped himself, because he wasn’t sure if that was the correct way to frame the situation that had arisen the night before, “made sure I was safe last night. I remember.”

It felt unfair to pretend to be a victim when Eren had technically allowed Floch to come onto him, into his apartment, and ultimately put himself at risk. He felt guilty for any sort of feelings that made him think that Floch deserved what happened to him the night prior.

Floch didn’t deserve to die. Nobody does. 

“Do you not want to talk about it?” Eren asked, hoping he sounded less demanding this time. 

It was completely possible that Levi wanted to sweep what happened under the rug, because of how bad he must feel from his own actions. That was valid and understandable, yet Eren felt bad because he still needed to hear verbal confirmation that something happened last night.

“Nothing happened last night.”

Eren’s brows furrowed. He was starting to get frustrated. It was actually quite comical if he took a step back and looked at his behavior— he felt blessed for the opportunity to be near Levi but now when it came down to being gaslit in such close proximity, Eren was unable to roll over. 

“That’s not true. You—you…” he didn’t want to admit it out loud. 

Don’t say it.

“You stabbed… Floch,” Eren said in the smallest voice possible. 

There. There, he said it. Though he thought he would feel relieved once it was out in the open, Eren wound up feeling worse. He felt despicable for being okay with the fact, and even went as far as to thank the man. 

He really was an awful person. 

“Who’s Floch?”

Levi remained in his comfortable looking position, showing off his muscles and tipping his chin up to stare down at Eren condescendingly, and ultimately still allowing the younger boy to rest half on top of him. 

Eren realized very quickly that if he wasn’t careful, Levi might go right back to being disgusted by him, push him off his body and even hit him. Eren understood that and yet he couldn’t stop himself from arguing.

“And I didn’t kill anyone.”

“What?” 

Eren hardly recognized his own voice when he spoke. It wasn’t possible that what Levi said was the case. 

“You did… you killed my friend.” 

Were they friends? Eren felt even more disappointed in himself that was able to pretend that he and Floch could be considered ‘friends’. Floch tormented him, always flirting and then threatening, using him for sex ever since Eren had given it up to him at that stupid, fucked up party nearly two years ago. 

Floch made Eren’s life hell for a while, but he’d let him, because it was better than having nothing going on in it at all.

That can technically be called a friendship, can’t it? A toxic one, but Eren digressed.

“No Eren, that was you.”

Eren’s lips parted, but no sound came out. His brain was sputtering, short circuiting after hearing Levi say that so easily. What? No. No, that wasn’t true. 

“That’s impossible—” Eren was immediately on the defense. “What do you mean I killed him? I didn’t kill him, that’s insane! I was just there, I did nothing. There’s no way I could have killed him, Levi! What? Believe me!” 

Eren was becoming more and more desperate as the word vomit spewed from his lips. 

“Levi, I didn’t do it!” 

Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, making his vision blurry and almost impossible to see Levi at this point.

“Levi… Say something!” Eren demanded. “Please, believe me!”

Levi didn’t say anything, but he made a soft shushing sound. Eren could hardly make out Levi lifting his arm from behind his head to place a finger in front of his lips because of how messy and overwhelmed he was becoming. 

“Levi…!” Eren drew his name out in a whiny voice. “Please, I promise it was me. I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill anyone!” He couldn’t tell why he was trying so hard to convince Levi, but in his sleep deprived brain, Eren just knew he had to. 

The finger in front of Levi’s lips moved to touch Eren’s instead, forcefully shushing him all of a sudden when he used his whole palm to cover the younger boy’s mouth. Eren made some noises of struggle, knitting his eyebrows together in confusion and frustration as he desperately tried to signal he wasn’t enjoying this. His pleas for Levi to let go were completely ignored, the sound all jumbling together, and even Eren was having trouble understanding what he was meaning to say. 

Levi’s hand was pressed so forcefully to Eren’s face that he realized after a couple seconds that both his airways were being blocked. Eren tried his best to inhale oxygen, to find some method of breathing, but none came. He was running out of air, his vision darkening, and his body weak for a multitude of reasons — everything was fading.

Eren was fading.

“Goddamn it, Eren. You’re kind of an idiot, aren’t you?”

Chapter Text

Eren wondered if his eyes were gaslighting him when he opened them but only saw blackness. 

It didn’t register immediately that he was hyperventilating, and well on his way in the process of losing his shit because air was not circulating properly in his lungs. With limited access to crucial brain power, Eren could at least determine he was enclosed somewhere with cold, wet material touching his face, and his wrists were bound in front of his chest. All he could resolve to do was violently thrash around.

His automatic fight or flight response had him in a death grip, unable to listen for anyone else around him. He screamed into what felt like a cloth gag in his mouth, but it came out more like a weakened and frightened animal’s last call before death. Eren’s biggest fear was that his cries for help were reaching deaf ears, unable to come to terms that he’d potentially be left for dead. 

The last thing he could remember hearing echoed in his head eerily.

“You’re kind of an idiot, aren’t you?” 

Who had said that? Levi had been there with him, hadn’t he? Wherever it was that he was currently bound and stuffed into this tightly enveloping space, Levi had to have at least been there at some point. He wouldn’t let Eren die, right? 

Critical thinking be damned, Eren almost wanted to laugh hysterically at that thought. 

Then a zipper was unzipped directly in front of Eren’s face, casting abrupt light onto his face, and air. Yes, finally, beautiful air. Eren sucked in as much as he could through his nostrils, willing himself to be less dramatic but was unable to. He couldn’t quite adjust to the light, but he blinked through the pain to focus on his new surroundings.

How long had he been captivated in the dark?

Eren watched as Levi — the only person who he could possibly be happy to see in light of his current situation — reached out way too close for comfort, to retrieve a piece of cloth that had been lodged in his mouth. The act made Eren gag, and fight not to vomit in front of Levi. 

He flinched when he noticed the older man was holding the piece of fabric — one of Eren’s own briefs — tauntingly. 

“Did you know you talk in your sleep?” 

Eren’s eyes focused on the man in front of him. “ What?” He didn’t get it. That’s the first thing he’s going to ask me? How could he have possibly talked in his sleep when he’d been gagged?

Levi held an amused look in his eyes that taunted Eren, conveying something sinister, something that he knew and would not tell.

It felt futile to press further.

“Where am I?” Eren insisted, wanting to calm himself down because he knew how this was going to end if he had an attitude with Levi. “What did you do to me?” he asked, slightly more mellowed out, despite his heart hammering in his chest. He felt lucky, he could see things more clearly again.

Like expected, Eren’s line of questioning annoyed the elegant older man. Levi narrowed his eyes, his amusement deflated. “Calm the fuck down.”

Eren had one of those moments where he became irrationally angry. He wanted to play nice but his nerves were overcoming him again. He felt scared, cornered, and sick, like something awful was about to happen to him. Or worse, had already happened. 

“Levi, please don’t downplay what happened—”

“I don’t care enough to downplay your situation,” Levi sliced through Eren’s train of thought. And Eren believed his words. He was regaining function in the majority of his body, although slowly, and began to feel and hear the crinkling of cold, thick plastic encasing the majority of his body. Eren saw the color black when he looked down.

Eren probably looked like a fish out of water, opening and closing his mouth, yet unable to say anything. He desperately wanted to form words, but “body bag” was somehow escaping him. Instead, he stuttered, his body vibrating with fear like a livewire. 

Where had Levi gotten a body bag?

Tears came to Eren faster than he would have liked. “Pl—please,” Eren begged, even though he didn’t know what he was begging for. “Please, I’m sorry!” He didn’t know what he was sorry for. 

Levi looked unimpressed. “Cut it out. You’re so loud.”

“Where am I?” Eren tried again, but upon glancing up at Levi’s hardening face, he decided to drop it. He didn’t like feeling this way, like he had to please Levi at his own expense. It was frustrating and humiliating at the same time. Somehow, his tears stayed on his lash line, which gave him only an ounce of comfort. But it still helped.

Eren took deep breaths while he worked on sitting up, feeling more control over his body as he moved more and more oxygen to his brain. His hands were still bound together, which Levi seemed to already be prepared to attend to. 

Levi moved quickly with a pocket knife, which immediately made Eren recoil and then pause. 

Levi used one hand to firmly grasp his wrist, making all of his anxieties fly away. When they made contact, Eren felt relieved, comforted, and in a twisted way, loved. There was clarity to his situation, even though logically there shouldn’t be. 

He needed to remind himself, this was not okay. This was fucked up.

But Levi’s fingers lingered on the soft, tanned skin of Eren’s wrist. The touch made his face grow hot, less from frustration now and more bliss. Eren felt honored. The sensation made him think of the Levi he’d been spending time with most recently, yet the memory was fading fast. 

When he tried to recover it, Eren had already forgotten most of their conversation. 

“Was that just a dream…?” Eren asked himself out loud, only half expecting an answer. Still, he tried to focus. Remember. 

He could remember laying in bed together, touching so much, and getting to gaze at Levi’s face up close. It had felt so real, and so far away now.

“Did you have a dream in there?” Levi teased, a tender smugness to his tone that made Eren flush from embarrassment. Eren brought the heels of his palms up to rub his eyes, then tried one last time to access the recesses of his mind to remember what he’d experienced. 

Levi. In bed together. Talking. Levi sounded… Eren frowned. Levi sounded like he actually cared about him. But what was said?

“That’s actually kind of cute.”

Eren felt his own jaw clench. He didn’t know if it was because he was being teased or if it was the fact that Levi had let go of him and stood to his feet. 

Turning his burning face up towards the standing man, Eren hoped he wasn’t giving away as much as he was feeling, but that was unlikely. Levi was looking down at him with such amused condescension, it made Eren want to bawl from an odd concoction of emotions. He couldn’t describe it, but being called cute by Levi made him feel so irrationally in love. It was nearly impossible to contain.

Would Levi think it was cute that despite clearly kidnapping him, Eren was still so in love with him that he’d probably let him do it all over again? Rough him up a few measures worse the second time around? Would that be cute if Eren asked for it? Or would Levi find it annoying, and want to get rid of him for being a freak? 

Eren was ashamed of himself. “Levi, just tell me where we are.” He didn’t sound kind at all, and definitely not reflective of how he was feeling. It came out irritated and tired, definitely not cute.

“Is that how you want to speak to your host?”

Brain empty, Eren gawked.

“This is…” 

Hesitantly, Eren crawled out of the body bag by about half a meter to better observe his surroundings. He hadn’t given himself an opportunity to do so before, but he saw now that he was in an apartment, a very modern, and incredibly fancy one that suited someone of Levi’s paygrade. Eren took in how gorgeous and minimalist the space had been made up to be, and then recalled that this was only one of what had to be multiple rooms. 

There were pristinely clear windows that lined the far wall, which overlooked an early Saturday morning cityscape. Eren was astonished at how much he could see. The clocktower on his university campus, far but recognizable, the gorgeous mountain range beyond. It was a superb view.

Eren caught himself staring for too long, but there was so much to take in. 

Although the answer was clear, Eren asked anyway. “I'm in your apartment?”

A few moments passed by, leaving him shocked in suspense, but then Levi spoke. “I was starting to think you were actually fucking stupid.”

Eren gritted his teeth and scoffed, his eyes falling to a close. He might be mentally ill in one or more capacities, but he had pure confidence he was smarter than a majority of the population, and he had his impressive test scores to back that up. Recognizing himself for his academic merit reminded Eren of school, and then of a classmate in particular. 

He really wished he hadn’t landed there, because now he clearly remembered.

“You—you…” He didn’t want to admit it out loud. “You killed… Floch,” Eren spoke in the smallest voice possible.

His dream. 

He’d asked Levi that in his dream, so no shit he hadn’t received a credible answer. What could he expect from a dream? 

Now was his opportunity to ask again, because as far as Eren knew, this was real life. If he tried hard enough, he could get answers. 

“What happened to Floch!?” Eren demanded, coming off much hotter than he intended. Right, this wasn’t a dream, so Levi couldn’t evade his questions by choking him out anymore. Actually… that might still be true. Still, he pushed, “Tell me the truth! Please.”

Levi clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Can you calm the fuck down?” he barked, though his composure was far too casual. “Don’t worry about him.”

It was another non-answer. “Levi.” Eren’s ears started ringing from how hard he was clenching his jaw. This was a game to him, wasn’t it? Why was Levi trying so hard to shield him from the truth? It’s not like Eren would go to the authorities, there was no way he’d betray the older man like that. “Tell me the full truth.”

Levi turned to glance at Eren with more surprise than anything. “I didn’t know the puppy could get mad. Yip for me, puppy,” he teased. Eren’s chest lightened when he recognized Levi’s behavior as joking, but it was still humiliating nonetheless. He was not ready to hear, “You really want me to tell you that I gutted that freak like a fish?”

Eren’s whole body twitched. He took a long moment to process what he just heard.

What had he expected, for Levi to say Floch was in ‘bad shape’, but he’s going to pull through in the ICU? That he’d been bandaged up in a similar fashion as Eren and was resting in a body bag nearby? 

There was no way. This was Levi he was talking about. This kind of person doesn’t leave a trail, if getting stowed away in a body bag as a means for (presumably) stealthy transportation was any indication.

“You want me to explain any further?”

“No!” Eren shouted. Too loud, he realized when Levi glared. “Please, fuck.” He could still remember the shocked look on Floch’s face. The wordless departing. And it was just an accident. Just an accident. Floch wasn’t meant to die. He hadn’t meant to die. “No.” Eren almost preferred to be gaslit like in his dream when it occurred to him that Levi was taking sick satisfaction in admitting to his crime. 

Levi killed someone. In front of Eren. It unfortunately happened.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on!?” Eren was starting to unravel. Everything was overwhelming. Being in Levi’s presence up until now had been a treat, but things were taking an extremely dark turn. Or, they had a couple clicks ago, Eren was only truly absorbing it now. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t able to see past Levi’s charm when he’d been fixating so hard. Eren couldn’t have seen this coming. He didn’t mean to spiral for a…

Murderer. Levi was a murderer. 

“Levi, please! Tell me why you brought me here!” Eren insisted. Was there a next step to Levi’s demented plan, was Eren next?

“Shut up,” Levi replied indignantly, turning away from the younger boy, who wasn’t deterred by his change in body language. 

“I—I can’t!” Eren admitted. “Not until you tell me—” he changed course fast, “you broke into my apartment, placed me under house arrest, and transported me to… wherever the fuck this place is,” he rambled out that last part. It was Levi’s apartment, he knew that. He’d knowingly cased the place multiple times. “Why?!”

Levi glared at Eren, eyes calculating. He was thinking most likely to formulate the perfect lie, Eren was sure of it. Would he believe it this time? It pissed him off.

“And don’t give me some bullshit lie—”

“ Oi !” Levi shouted, surprising Eren with how incredibly loud he’d raised his voice. 

He’d never heard someone speak to him like this, or at least not any time he could remember at that exact moment. 

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, little boy.” His tone was worse than reprimanding, it was ice cold, devastating, and ferocious all rolled into one. It made Eren shake in place and worse, actually feel like a child. 

But his will wasn’t totally destroyed. Eren hesitantly continued, “Th—then give me some fucking answers!”

Levi’s hand made contact with Eren’s cheekbone in an astonishingly loud smack. His face was swiped to the side so hard, he saw only darkness and then stars. The younger of the two lifted his hand to hold the stinging skin in complete shock, so utterly fazed and unable to react right away. 

While he was still staring in amazement at the pristine flooring, Eren heard in a deeply condescending voice, “Don’t fucking question me, brat. I don’t want to hear anything out of that little bitch mouth of yours.” Eren opened his mouth to respond impulsively, even though he didn’t know what was about to come out, but Levi was quicker. “Shut the fuck up.”

Eren did as told, clenching his jaw as the first tear dripped from his eye.

While he’d been so pleased earlier to be in the presence of real-life-Levi, he suddenly wanted his dream-Levi back.

Eren had no indication how much time had passed after Levi’s last remark. The sound of the front door opening and then a feminine voice shouting, “Hiii baby!” rang throughout the expansive apartment, seemingly surprising both males. 

Levi didn’t think twice, he shoved Eren in the chest hard, pushing him back onto his ass. Eren didn’t have a chance to realize what had even happened.

“Go in the bedroom,” the older man instructed in a low voice. Eren met eyes with a cruel glare. “It won’t be pretty if she sees you—”

“Levi!” the woman screamed, this time in a less patient tone. The loud clicking of heels were rapidly approaching. Eren’s heart hammered in his ribcage while he debated whether he was still in control of his body, or if he was going to stay frozen on the floor. Levi sent him one last glare before approaching the foyer of the apartment.

“Petra,” Eren heard Levi address her in the other room while his whole being buzzed with adrenaline. He needed to move yesterday. “Why are you here?” His voice was fainter now that he had walked away, and Eren found himself missing it. 

“Why am I here!?” Eren heard a note of irritation in her voice over his blood pounding in his temples.

He didn’t have the luxury of being nosy. Eren scrambled up off his ass and ran through the apartment towards what he had to assume was the master bedroom. The heels clicking on the tiled floor spiked his anxiety like crazy, incentivizing him to hurry the fuck up. He could hear her voice crying out in further frustration, then there was a squeal of delight, and more of usages of Levi’s name.

Eren made sure to close the door behind him as quietly as possible, praying nothing could be heard down that godforsaken hallway he’d just just run down. He was lucky his nervous pacing made no noise within the bedroom, because had he been back at home in his older Victorian style apartment, the creaks alone would have alerted the birds in the nearby trees. 

But he wasn’t there anymore. He was at Levi’s. 

But so was Petra. And this whole situation just became ten times more fucked up.

The seconds — then minutes — ticked by, and she was on the move again. Eren could barely think over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. Levi had facilitated this situation, so was it possible he was still stalling? What was taking so long? Wasn’t he going to send her away? Was that too much to ask for?

Eren didn’t know how to manage his emotions, so he continued to panic. Then the clicking of heels continued. He didn’t know how to keep his heart in his chest when the door suddenly flung open and a female body now stood there. Eren just stupidly sat down on the bed as casually as possible. It must have been the most awkward thing to witness, from Petra’s perspective at least.

He watched in slow motion as the shocked woman’s eyes landed on him, making her jolt in place. 

“Oh my god!”

Eren’s shoulders jumped up to his ears. Levi was going to be pissed. Why couldn’t he have climbed under the bed? Into the closet, the ensuite bathroom? Out the window, for fuck’s sake! That would have been better than the situation he currently found himself in.

A fucked up part of himself wanted to laugh. Hard. This whole situation left Eren to be a useless victim unable to advocate for himself. But then again, what else was new. Regardless of how bad he tried to make himself feel, he was fucked. 

He maintained thinly veiled terror in his eyes while in contact with the redheaded woman, while Levi took his time to nonchalantly reply from another room, “What’s wrong?”

“Levi!” Petra screamed, which — okay — was valid, “who the fuck is in your bedroom!?” 

Eren thought he was going to throw up and shit his pants. It would honestly be preferable to his current situation. He’s been through worse anyway.

The older man sure took his time to pad down the hallway that led to his bedroom — the one Eren had unfortunately chosen to ‘hide’ in. 

Levi took one measly glance Eren’s way and then returned his gaze to Petra. No emotion. 

“That’s Eren Jaeger.” 

Eren’s jaw couldn’t help but drop a few centimeters. Levi had used his full name — a shock on its own — and shared it with this woman. 

“He’s a friend’s son,” Levi explained, and even more casually added, “he came here to ask for career advice.”

“What is he doing in the bedroom?” 

Great question. No one seemed to know what the correct answer was. Not immediately at least.

One thing Eren noticed was that she didn’t refer to it as “their bedroom”, and for that, he was able to relax enough to inhale one new breath of air. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder if Levi cohabited with anyone, much less this woman. But still, he was incredibly uncomfortable and worried about what Levi might say next. There was no way he would out himself about the events that had led up to this, right? The body bag? Had that been addressed?

Levi didn’t say anything at first. He didn’t rush to explain himself or give any signal that he was anxious to reply, but Eren should have expected that from a psychopath. 

“I don’t know,” he finally responded coolly, taking a step towards the hallway so that he could better peer into the bedroom where Eren sat rigidly at the edge of the bed, “what are you doing in the bedroom, Eren?”

Eren had never been so put on the spot. You… sent me in here! He wanted to exclaim. I have no fucking clue what’s going on, or what to say! Do you want me to lie to her? Do you want me to tell the truth? Don’t put this on me, please! But he couldn’t verbalize any of it. Eren was forced to think on the spot. Levi wanted Eren to panic. This was just one of his many forms of torture. It just finally wasn’t verbal or physical.

But Eren had been through mental torture before.

“I have never been in… an apartment like this,” Eren admitted sheepishly, really pulling off the shy, anxious, nervous, wants-to-kill-himself teenager look.

The older man beside the woman who held a look of pure disbelief made a sound of disbelief. “Your father has an apartment like this abroad, though, right?” Levi asked just as casually, making Eren swallow and then heat bloom in his cheeks. Petra’s face crumpled into disgust. 

Eren was internally tearing his hair out. Why was— what was even the point of asking himself that anymore? 

“O—oh…” Eren swallowed with an increasingly dry mouth. “It’s just… that I don’t…” this was humiliating, “I don’t see my father that much…” He didn’t honestly mean to admit the truth; “I don’t even know where my father lives.”

There was dead silence. What an unbelievable sounding statement. Even Eren would have shook his head at something like that.

“You don’t…” the redheaded woman began. She seemed to stop herself and furrow her brows, suspicion clear in her features and frustration returning. “What the fuck is going on?” she demanded again, this time much more hysterical, and turned towards Levi. 

“Ask him.” Levi was the king of the I-truly-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. “I wasn’t keeping an eye on him.”

Yeah, why don’t you ask her to check your panties drawer, asshole, Eren couldn’t help but seethe to himself. There had to be some incriminating material in there, things that didn’t belong to this Petra woman. Eren could only appreciate just a moment of reprieve with that thought, and then he reminded himself that it was highly unlikely that she cohabited there. 

But then, how did she get in on her own?

“Hey, Eren?” Petra asked, this time it was in a higher tone, snapping him out of his petty thoughts while making his anxiety spike again. 

He wasn’t sure what she was about to ask, but he was pretty confident it was probably going to be devastating. Eren finally stood to his feet, feeling so weird having been sitting down on Levi’s bed this entire time, and nodded his head to indicate he was listening. It probably looked odd, but what else was new. The whole situation was fucked.

“Can you get out of our bedroom now, please?” Her tone was icy cold. It was not pleasant to hear.

Yet Eren was less bothered by being asked to leave in comparison to hearing her refer to it as ‘theirs’. He blinked his eyes rapidly, nodding his head numbly and stumbled forward. He hadn’t noticed it earlier in his hurry, but his body ached when he moved. 

“Why is he so…” She sounded like she was meaning to speak under her breath, but Eren was definitely within hearing distance, so he wasn’t sure why she even bothered. “Fucking weird…?”

Eren’s eyes burned with tears, unable to look up and make eye contact with the much smaller woman. It was embarrassing that he was letting her lord power over him, but it was par for the fucking course. Right, nothing new. 

Maybe if he stopped being involved in weird fucking situations, maybe stopped being a total societal reject, this kind of sensation would stop happening.

Petra had moved aside just enough for Eren to squeeze through the doorway and he proceeded to walk away from the two of them. Some more words between the two were exchanged, thankfully quiet enough for him to miss that time. It was an excellent reminder to ignore his nosy tendencies. 

But upon turning, out of the corner of his eye, Eren watched Levi smirk and turn towards the redheaded woman. It was apparent that they were about the same exact height, which made Eren wonder if Levi preferred that kind of dynamic— to have a smaller partner at his side. Levi then lifted his arm, wrapped it around her shoulders in order to grab her jaw from the other side, and pushed it towards his face so that he could lean in properly to kiss her neck. 

The kinetic movements were almost exactly the way Eren had imagined it in his dream. The way his lips moved, eyes closed, and body language shouted an antagonistic possessiveness… 

Eren wanted to feel that all on himself for real. So, so bad. 

While Petra closed her eyes and leaned into Levi’s lips, the older man kept his open and stared directly at Eren, who had at some point lifted his gaze to fully watch the spectacle. They were a handsome couple, there was no denying that. 

His cheeks flushed even redder, this time embarrassed that he was reacting to a somewhat tame scene, but he was working double duty to crank his mind away from the memory of Levi fucking her in that cursed video he’d been shown in the past.

Stop. Fuck. Please don’t think of that. 

The idea of crying in front of this self-righteous woman made Eren lose almost all interest in the deeply alluring look Levi held for him, and he was able to take a calming deep breath when Levi parted from her neck. The man didn’t move too far away, though, because his lips stopped at her ear to speak in a low voice. 

“His mother died. Be more understanding. He’s a bit… traumatized.”

“Oh,” Petra said out loud, but still in a much softer tone than before. Her eyes landed on Eren. He didn’t watch her, but he could feel the pity in her gaze. 

After another couple seconds of awkward silence, Levi asked her, “Don’t you have a shoot to go to?” in an amused tone. 

Eren was so impressed with how easily he was able to redirect her attention, because Petra seemed to be able to get past the whole weird situation she’d accidentally walked into, blush, and then nod. 

Eren supposed someone like Levi would have that kind of power.

And then it occurred to him why Petra looked so familiar. She was a model— or actress? Eren wasn’t entirely sure, maybe both cases were true. He’d seen her face before in advertisements, for probably movies and products. Whatever she was featured in, he just knew he wouldn’t be watching it. He’d already formed an opinion about her on a ‘judging a book by its cover’ basis, and it seemed to be pretty on point.

And just like that, it was as if Eren never existed. 

“Yeah, okay, sorry baby.” Eren proceeded to watch the show, his body half turned towards the two who stood in front of the bedroom still. 

She did sound remorseful, biting her lip as she looked down. Levi’s hand still firmly held her jaw, so it was simple for him to redirect her face by bringing her forehead to his lips. He left a loving, passionate kiss there, then let go entirely. 

“Ugh! I’m fucking stressed!” Petra whined. “They have me running all over the place—”

“Just get an assistant,” Levi suggested, sounding like this wasn’t the first time he’d done so. He started moving down the hall towards Eren, making him almost bite his lip in panic. The younger of the two shuffled to the side, having to only take a few steps before he was in the larger living room now. There was no bottleneck in the hallway anymore, which meant there was less of a chance Eren had to come in close contact with Petra again. 

“You know I don’t like anyone touching my stuff!” 

Eren seemed to then understand why these two were in a relationship together— they were both narcissists. 

Petra launched into a rant about how much she hated the creative director, how everyone was out to get her, and how nothing was ever fair. Levi surprised his captive audience by patiently listening, but upon closer inspection, Eren could see the irritation surfacing on his unfairly attractive face. 

That finally felt like a win. Eren didn’t particularly want to be in some nonsensical (read: made up) competition with this woman, but knowing that Levi wanted her gone just as much as he did made sparks of excitement fly within him. 

Still, it was a fact that if there was a way to make Eren suffer, Levi would make sure to draw out whatever situation so that the younger boy could experience discomfort to the very fullest. 

“Okay, I really do have to go. Shit.” Petra sounded genuinely disappointed. She let out a deep breath of air. “Thanks for listening, baby.” 

She leaned in and kissed Levi on the mouth, who accepted it wholeheartedly. The sound of their lips coming in contact made Eren want to throw up. She seemed to remember then that he was still there, going to the unnecessary length of flinching hard when she saw him in the hallway. Petra made an annoyed sound, perhaps as a goodbye, then turned, walking extra aggressively in her heels back towards the front of the apartment.

The door opened and closed, making a soft clicking noise when it shut all the way. Then it was silent. 

Eren didn’t expect Levi to be the one to break it. Looking casually off into space, he spoke with disdain. 

“I told that bitch not to wear stilettos in here.”

Eren made an embarrassing squeak-like sound when Levi’s seemingly soulless slate colored eyes landed on him.

“Don’t some people make you want to punish them?”

Eren’s mouth opened, as if he plausibly had some kind of response to that. To be fair if he really thought about it, his answer would be a resounding yes, but he didn’t feel like being angsty. Contributing to whatever was culminating here.

“She asked if you were a faggot,” Levi told him without an ounce of sympathy. Eren didn’t remember asking, but the news made him uncomfortable either way. “She looked at me like she wanted to ask if I was one too,” he admitted as well. Eren’s lips closed and his cheeks grew hot. 

Did she really think… that Levi might want to fuck me?  

He could get past the homophobic slur part. Eren had been sitting in Levi’s bedroom. Eren knew for a fact that older men in places of power like Levi did tend to find him as exactly their type— with his androgynous — often leaning towards feminine — looks, he was a lot of men’s types. He had a whole promiscuous phase to prove it. 

But men in power had liked Eren for an extra reason. He was insecure. Unpredictable but easy to manipulate. He let them go too far, and he always came back, too. 

Levi had to appreciate those aspects as well. In some capacity, at least. There was some reason why he was there, he just hadn’t figured it out yet.

Eren ultimately decided not to bite. Levi clearly wanted him to; he wouldn’t have said anything otherwise. Something else was bothering him.

“How did you know about my mother?” Eren asked instead, his breathing starting to ramp up again. He wasn’t supposed to get worked up over his mother’s death anymore, but he still struggled a lot in the growing-up department.

“I know everything about you, Eren,” Levi fired back easily. 

The chaos in his darkening eyes made Eren fearful, afraid to what extent Levi had dug into his background. Did he really know everything? 

In terms of ‘skeletons in the closet’, Eren knew he had to have a whole French catacomb in his by now. He wished he was joking, but he was a screwed up mistake of a human being, and that was as far as he was willing to think about it.

The older man approached Eren while he had been thinking. “Take your shirt off, and get on your knees,” Levi instructed. 

Eren’s gaze wavered, flickering between Levi’s eyeline and the floor before ultimately complying and sinking to his knees. He couldn’t help his mind sailing through the air like a Molotov cocktail and straight into the gutter when his fingers found the hem of his shirt, preparing to pull it over his head. 

Eren felt a chill go through his entire upper half when he removed it, making his shoulders shake a bit. A rash of goosebumps spread across the expanse of his taught olive toned skin, embarrassing him. In spite of how chilly he’d just become, the heat from his blood pulsing under his skin kept him hot and uncomfortable.

“You’d look good with longer hair,” Levi complimented him suddenly. 

Sitting on his knees, shirtless, with the widest eyes he could muster, Eren didn’t think it was possible a more shocking situation could have arisen. Their gaze locked on like magnets. 

“R—really?” He hated that he sputtered, but he was buzzing with excitement. Sue him. “My hair used to be… longer,” Eren tried to explain before he remembered the reason he had to cut it.

“I know. I liked it.” 

Shit. Levi was fucking with him again, wasn’t he? There was no way he just got a compliment from Levi fucking Ackermann just now. 

“Th—thanks…” Eren bit the inside of his mouth and dropped his gaze. He couldn’t help it, he was adding another body modification to his list at Levi’s thinly veiled suggestion. There was no way to get past it; it was now a new goal.

Eren gazed at his balled up fists resting on the tops of his thighs, wondering when he’d be told the reason he was asked to kneel and remove his shirt. He had a creeping suspicion that he’d learn soon enough, and that it wouldn’t be pretty.

Without warning, the door burst open again. Eren jumped in his skin, throwing his head in the direction of a familiar enraged strawberry-blonde woman. 

It was almost funny. It occurred to Eren to feel like an injured rabbit left out for the dogs, as if he were some kind of holy sacrifice. There was absolutely nothing he could say that could be a suitable excuse for his behavior — being shirtless and on his knees in this woman’s boyfriend’s living room — this time. This was an act of war.

And ultimately, if Levi wasn’t going to kill Eren, she was.

Chapter Text

“What the fuck are you doing!?” Petra stopped, her jaw flying open when she saw Eren doing exactly as Levi asked him to. “I just left my—” 

“Left your keys?” Levi asked, stepping into view, holding a set of feminine-accented keys. 

Eren looked aghast between the bewildered woman and Levi’s complacent expression. He was speechless.

“On purpose or accident?”

Petra now was the one looking between the two males, caught off guard and suddenly on the defense. 

“Are you— are you kidding me?” she demanded, sending a final death glare Eren’s way. 

He turned his focus back to his fists on his thighs, almost totally confident he was about to get curb stomped by a high-heeled woman until he processed what Levi had just said. Glancing back up to the redheaded woman, Eren saw how embarrassed she now appeared when looking at the older male. 

“You think I did this on purpose?”

Levi didn’t dignify her with a response. Instead, he turned and walked silently into the kitchen only to open the fridge what felt like ten thousand seconds later. It then proceeded to be silent until both Petra and Eren heard the sound of Levi opening a can of coffee. Eren didn’t know what it was, but Levi didn’t strike him as a consumer of soda. 

“Petra, be honest,” he finally replied in the most apathetic tone, reappearing in the doorway for the others to see him. He brought the small metal can to his lips — it was coffee — in a smooth motion. When he tilted it, Eren could see Levi’s Adam’s apple drop a touch down the column of his neck. The action was so attractive and enticing, he accidentally let out a soft whine. 

That struck a nerve, because Petra scoffed. The narcissist in her declined to answer Levi’s question and instead turned the spotlight to the poor unfortunate soul kneeling only two meters from her.

“Why the hell is he shirtless on the floor?” she asked in a berating voice, referring to Eren as if he wasn’t even present. As if he didn’t exist. 

Eren sure as shit didn’t have a response, and he wasn’t certain Levi did either. He needed to get up, or get out, or… He needed to find some way to avoid whatever the hell was about to happen. 

Maybe he should be the honest one here— it’s not like this was his first time in this kind of situation.

Just as he found the strength in his legs to move, he lost all will when he heard Levi’s callous reply. “Don’t ask questions you’re not ready to hear the answers to.”

Barely a second passed before Petra rebutted with a shriek, “Levi!” 

She actually stomped her foot against the floor, like a tantrum-throwing child, as if that would do anything about the delicate circumstance Levi’s had contrived. In the grand scheme of things, Eren hadn’t had that many interactions with the man, but he clearly lorded a substantial amount of power over people like nothing he’d ever seen before. 

“Are you seriously telling me you’re fucking around with him?!”

Eren wondered if Petra forgot his name at this point, as her refusal to refer to him by anything other than ‘he’ or ‘him’ was becoming more and more uncomfortable. Eren could appreciate that he wasn’t really in a position to deserve respect, getting caught in this shitshow of a position that he was. It’s not like he had engineered this situation. No, it wasn’t his fault, but it didn’t stop him from continuing to wonder why.

“Levi!” Petra screamed even more desperately, as if that would make him respond any faster.

“Petra, I doubt you want to lose your place in another show,” the oldest male replied coldly, essentially threatening her with her own commitment to her career. His eyes had narrowed, indicating that he was reaching a new level of being pissed off. Eren had seen that exact expression before, and then there had been blood, so his anxiety naturally spiked. 

Eren didn’t mean to, but he scoffed. Whether it was in fascination or fear, he wasn’t sure, but it did not help.

“Go on. Your shoot awaits you.”

Petra decided to turn her frustrated glare towards Eren in spite of Levi’s dismissing comment. “Are you fucking laughing at me?” she demanded, making the younger boy’s lips part and his eyes to go wide. His heart was pounding in his chest and he lifted his hands to defend himself, but didn’t get a chance to speak. She took a step in his direction and aggressively added, “Shut the fuck up, you little fag!”

“Petra,” Levi was the one to chastise her, in spite of the situation he had manufactured. It was funny, because Levi had used those kinds of words with him in the past. The hypocrisy was a little baffling, but especially annoying both Petra and Eren because of how vehemently he was still withholding his reason for the youngest member of the room being in the compromising position that he was.

“Answer me, please Levi!” she insisted. She was breaking, most likely aware she wasn’t going to win this one. Petra added with futility, “I’m not leaving until you do!”

“You’re free to believe whatever you like,” Levi replied callously, taking another sip of coffee, drawing Eren’s attention to him like a moth to a flame. 

The strawberry blonde made a sound of utter exasperation. “You know I’m going to tell everyone about this — about what I believe to be happening here — if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Levi’s jaw clenched, like he was desperate to say “You won’t” but he smirked instead. 

“Fine by me.”

Eren broke out into a grin. He couldn’t help himself. Levi was obliterating this woman’s trust and regard, which should have pissed Eren off and made him want to ease the animosity, about how it was actually a misunderstanding, but it just left him smiling. Was it because Levi was letting Petra believe that something was actually going on? 

Had Levi been intending on doing something with him, other than humiliating him of course, and wanted Petra to find out? Eren wished just this once that he could get into this man’s head.

Petra’s face finally crumpled. She’d done her best to keep up her tough girl act, but she faltered when Levi dared her to tell. By her defeated expression alone, both males easily confirmed she was all talk. Eren wouldn’t put it past her to threaten to ruin Levi’s reputation, but he had to wonder if that was possible in the first place. 

Loud clicking of heels sounded as Petra approached him to swipe the keys from Levi’s hand. Then she got in his face. 

“Fuck you!” She turned to point at Eren, making him flinch. “And fuck. You. Freak.” 

There was venom in her words that was meant only for him. Levi got off practically scot-free in comparison. Petra turned towards the door, having left it open the whole time, and slammed it after herself. Levi didn’t seem to mind that fact. 

He finished his coffee, then tilted his head back and forth, making small popping noises as he stretched his joints. He was so undisturbed, Eren was actually in awe. This had all just been a show of dominance though finally had concluded, and what an end. Eren was in a state of disbelief until Levi’s words reached his ears.

“You can get up now.”

That was all Eren needed to hear. Nevertheless, he did exactly as told. 

“Why did you do that…?” he ended up asking in a soft voice. It was a good question, and Eren wondered if he would get an actual response. He shot himself in the foot by asking immediately after, “What if she does tell someone?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Levi replied with a scoff. He set his can down on an elegant coaster atop a nearby marble console table. He took a few casual steps forward. “She needs to learn to not be such a nosy bitch.”

Eren furrowed his brows, squaring his shoulders when he stood to his full height. The movement left him a little lightheaded and caused him to blink a couple times. It occurred to him to consider how childish Levi’s response was, but the mean-spiritedness was on point. 

“Why do you call her a bitch if she’s your girlfriend?” Eren asked, blushing up a storm when he remembered he was alone with Levi again. 

Levi smirked. “I like bitches.”

Eren couldn’t help but scoff, not allowing himself to go down that rabbit hole. Eren didn’t have the best relationships with women, having struggled with severe bouts of gender dysphoria before, and knew he could get a little incel-y if he wasn’t careful. His first mistake was assigning a gender to the word. 

“Why are you mad?” Levi asked, perceptive to a fault. Eren clicked his tongue, his face going red, anxiety running rampant over his features. “You wanted to know why I brought you here.” Levi wasn’t asking a question, he was making a statement. 

Eren nodded rapidly. 

“I figured if you wanted to be my bitch so badly,” Levi’s gaze penetrated Eren’s skull, looking directly through the eagerly awaiting boy standing impishly in front of him, “I’d let you.”

Eren opened his mouth but then closed it quickly again. He did a mental double-take. As much as he wanted to ask, What? What does that even mean? he thought better than to make himself look like an unintuitive idiot, and instead thought about it for a few more seconds. Was this what he thought it meant? 

“Is this a reward?” Eren wound up asking in a reluctant voice. 

Levi clenched and unclenched his jaw, watching Eren like a hawk, analyzing him, or perhaps coming up with a creative way to respond to what he’d just heard. 

“It might benefit you if you choose to see it that way.”

More crypticness. Eren dashed his tongue out to lick his dried lips, sucking his lower one into his mouth with his teeth for a moment as he thought about what he just heard. 

“What…” how did Eren put this delicately, “would you like me to do then…?” he asked apprehensively. Because that was it, right? Levi wanted Eren to do something for him, that’s what a bitch does.

Levi’s attention had been drawn elsewhere, so he turned towards Eren, as if he was an afterthought. “I don’t know…” A cruel smirk formed on his lips, then disappeared. “Make me a sandwich.”

Eren dropped his gaze to his feet.

“That’s what you're good for, right?” Levi asked. Eren was only mildly aware from glancing up from under his lashes that the older man was tilting his handsome face in a taunting way. Levi took another intimidating few steps forward.

An impressive desire to submit came over Eren, forcing him to tilt his own face farther away from Levi’s imposing one, an intense heat spreading across his face when he realized how desperately he wanted to nod. In an alternate reality, his tail was wagging and his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“Make yourself one while you’re at it,” Levi said up close in Eren’s face, then used the palms of his hands to push his bare shoulders. Eren flinched away from the older man and turned towards the daunting kitchen. It was beautiful with loads of natural late morning lighting, gleaming appliances, and one too many blocks of knives. 

Once noting that last component of the kitchen, Eren swallowed, then was surprised to hear Levi scoff and add, “Or two. Bag of bones.”

Eren wanted to instinctively clap back with something about how clearly riddled with mommy issues Levi must be to want these maid-like services, but then stopped that line of thinking. If Levi wanted someone to take care of him… Why didn’t he use the perfectly good girlfriend he already had? Why was he imposing these tasks on Eren? Was this the newest in a long line of methods of torture? 

Levi knew good and well Eren wasn’t a good cook. Or, a cook whatsoever. He overcooked pasta, burnt anything that made contact with a heat source, and in general left a space messier than he found it. As much as Eren would like to play the pretty housewife for someone like Levi — and wow, was that idea appealing — he was not built for the kitchen.

Nor was he in possession of any other valuable skill a homemaker might need in order to function properly, for that matter. 

“Here.”

Eren turned to completely miss the large cream colored cloth that was thrown likely purposefully in his face. It didn’t hurt, but Eren still felt miffed that something was tossed so haphazardly at him. 

“Put it on,” Levi instructed while Eren made heads or tails of the fabric. 

Upon closer inspection, Eren had to stop himself from scoffing, because it was an apron. And not just any boring apron, but a delicate one sewn with soft material and a lace trim, small pockets, and straps that were meant to crisscross into a bow in the back. It was lovely, and Eren wanted to hate it, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

“Since I doubt you know how to use a laundry machine.”

Maybe that was true, if Eren really thought about it, but what did that matter? He just knew that he had to press a button or two after he placed his sticky clothing in and then it would all come out smelling fresh and… no longer sticky.  

Eren bit the bullet and pulled the apron over his head, placed his arms through the proper channels, then worked on tying it behind his back. He didn’t give himself a chance to pause to bully himself for falling so easily into the role of Levi’s bitch. He didn’t need to, because the condescending amusement on Levi’s face made it all worth it. He was pleased, even if it was in some cruel, demented way. 

He didn’t know if it was him or the apron talking, but Eren spoke weakly, “I can make you… something,” not impressing neither himself or Levi. To tell the truth, he was a little dizzy from the tingly feeling the soft material was impressing upon him.

The older male crossed his arms disapprovingly. “You have to open the fridge first.”

Fucking bumpkin. Eren deflated, then clenched his jaw and turned to the tall refrigerator, approached it and reached a hand out, only to jump when he heard a loud grunt.

“Oi! Are you kidding me?” Levi demanded, making Eren throw his fearful attention back in his direction. Something in the way he asked that question made Eren viscerally remember the nearly airtight body bag he’d been placed in earlier. He had to remind himself to tread lightly. “You have to wash your fucking hands before you touch anything.”

Right. “O—oh.” That wasn’t as bad as he was expecting. That was obvious, but not something Eren could admit to being a traditional first step of entering his own kitchen.

As if the space was booby-trapped, Eren moved carefully towards the skin, fumbling around to familiarize himself with the high-end products there. His heart was weirdly pounding in his chest when he pumped some hand soap into his palm, taking a moment to appreciate the alluring scent that Levi must also wear, and then went to turn on the faucet. Eren made sure to spend more time than typical cleaning his fingers, especially since ‘typical’ meant maybe two lightning fast rubs to the front and back of his hands and then moving on. 

Once he finished, Eren wiped his fingers dry on a fluffy towel placed neatly to the right of the sink, appreciating the time he had to himself before he had to face Levi again. 

Only, Levi was no longer standing there when he turned. He’d been ditched.

Grinding his teeth in annoyance, Eren realized he should have expected the disappearing act. He knew Levi was a clean freak, but more so that he took great pleasure in teasing him, so the older man was likely hitting two birds with one stone.

Just a touch more dejected than usual, Eren returned to face the fridge. He was dumbfounded to see how immaculately stocked it was, having not expected this level of preparedness. He needed to get accustomed to expect the unexpected. 

Sighing, Eren peered around the fridge, spotting multiple things he could eat — essentially just fruits and vegetables — but realized he had no idea what Levi would want. 

He tried to think back to earlier in the summer, when they briefly worked together, raking his memory for any instances where he saw Levi eating at any of the multiple campus cafeterias… Because of course Eren had known a majority of his internship where Levi would eat when he wasn’t in a lunch meeting, and to his knowledge, the man had a variety of different meals.

Maybe it was a little selfish, but Eren kept his eyes away from the similarly well stocked meat drawer, because if he was going to eat something, it was going to be vegetarian. Unless Levi wanted Eren to fuck up two different meals, he was going to have to try something Eren actually knew how to make. 

His eyes found perfect looking red tomatoes on the vine, a container of coconut milk, and a chunk of parmesan cheese. Tomato soup. Easy. Eren pulled the ingredients out and eyed them, noting how fresh they looked, and wondering how recently Levi had to have purchased them, if he did at all. Someone at Levi’s executive level must have some kind of personal assistance here and there. 

Eren realized then as he got to work how much he would hate someone going in and out of his space, and he liked even less the idea of someone other than himself touching Levi’s things. 

Weird ideas of possessiveness roamed around in Eren’s head, including the invasive consideration of stooping so low as to piss on Levi’s belongings to mark his territory. He’d likely be locked up in a fucking basement while receiving the ass kicking of his life if he did so, but… that didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. 

Eren was smirking to himself while mixing the ingredients into a pot. It was weird, because he couldn’t exactly remember the last time he’d made himself laugh. The past couple days, or twenty-four hours, actually, had been—

He stopped his train of thought and brought a palm to his forehead. Fuck.  

A familiarly annoying face appeared in his mind, one that had red hair and was probably bubbling in a tank of acid or buried six feet deep somewhere. Eren had to get rid of the image fast. Please, don’t think of it, he tried to reprimand himself, but that just caused more of Floch’s face to come clearer into his mind.

“Fuck,” Eren whispered, dropping the wooden spoon he’d been holding to bring his other palm to his forehead. Fuck, it hurt. He saw the gleaming of metal in his mind like a strike of lighting, it was blinding and painful, causing Eren to step back and lurch forward in place, narrowly missing the edge of the counter. The pain was deepening, growing roots into his whole body, and grabbing hold of him.

He was falling into a deep pit of despair, unable to get a proper handle on himself, spiraling out of control. It was scary, and his breathing started to fall out of step with his heart, resulting in a mind-breaking fear that he was falling apart.

Eren truly felt like he could not breathe, that his body temperature was far too cold and his heart was beating far too irregularly to survive, and that he was going to die.

Strong, warm hands gripped Eren at his flanks, making him yelp in surprise and launch his body forward unceremoniously into the countertop. The entirety of his cooking project was jostled, and one hand narrowly missed the steaming hot pot and/or landing on the burning hot surface of the electric stove. That snapped Eren back to reality, realizing he almost maimed himself for life from an absurdly timed panic attack.

He didn’t have a choice whether he was ready to face the person who’d brought him back down to earth. Instead, he was torn from the countertop, spun around and pushed back into it so hard that his whole back tingled painfully. As soon as they made eye contact, Eren realized he was panting. 

“Watch yourself,” Levi said callously with a suspicious look on his face, as if wanting to demand what the fuck is wrong with you? but was abstaining.

“Levi!” Eren exclaimed, his face once feeling icy was now burning with a painful blush of humiliation. “Don’t look at me.”

Levi denied his request and instead scanned Eren’s expression thoroughly in an attempt to assess the meltdown he’d only partially witnessed. The defiance endeared Eren, making his eyebrows shoot upwards and a look of complete devotion form on his face. Levi continued to pierce through Eren’s eyes with his own, still scanning for something invisible that he believed to be there, but then gave up and averted his attention elsewhere. 

In particular, to the mess behind him.

“What the ffff—” Levi started laughing mid-word. “Fuck is that?”

The hairs on the back of Eren’s neck stood on end. For once, it wasn’t himself in particular that was being made fun of. It was his cooking.

All fear, anxiety, and existential dread be damned. Despite how much it would have meant for Levi to have said something so simple like, “Are you okay?” Eren was living for this new treatment.

“Whh—what?” He couldn’t help but flail his arms, narrowly missing burning his elbow this time. “Stop! I’m not done!”

Eren glanced over to meet eyes with a gorgeous amused face. 

“Seriously, did you kill a rabbit in here?”

Eren looked back down at the pot of hot, mashed tomatoes. He was going… to make soup with it. He had the spices to the side, the coconut milk… But it never occurred to him to look for a food processor. It didn’t occur to him to look up a recipe. There was a mounted tablet only a few paces away, he could have used that for a multitude of things, actually. 

But no, Eren had decided to go at it the old-fashioned way. With just a wooden spoon and a Le Creuset. 

“What fucking use do I have for you if you don’t know how to do anything?” Levi demanded, eyes narrowed, disappointment clear on his face. 

Eren knew better than to respond. He would only disappoint further with his nervous fumbling.

“Do you think that’s cute? To be fucking incapable of caring for anyone, let alone yourself?”

Eren squeezed his eyes shut tight, tilting his face down and swallowing the lump in his throat. He tried not to focus on how it sounded when Levi said “cute”. The truth was he already knew how bad his basic life skills were, he really didn’t need to hear it from someone he had on the highest pedestal.  

An apology was on the tip of his tongue, but Eren couldn’t seem to spit it out. So they stood in silence.

It was strange interacting with someone so terrifying, yet smaller in size compared to Eren. When he tried to hide his expression, it was inadvertently angled in Levi’s direction. When he opened his eyes, he saw Levi glaring at him with amusement, then scoffed. 

“Did that hurt? Are you going to cry?”

Eren didn’t want to admit it. 

“Answer me, bitch.”

It felt like Levi’s hand was on his neck, but both hung lifelessly by his sides. He didn’t need to attempt a threatening move, in their current position Eren felt plenty threatened. 

Eren didn’t hear himself say it, but he felt his mouth move, telling the truth. 

“Go to your fucking room.”

Eren blinked, not helping the tears that were threatening to fall. 

Wordlessly and dejected, he left Levi’s personal space to numbly turn down the hall. He had no idea where he was going, and stopped when a doorway came into view. Pausing, Eren lifted a hand to try the doorknob, only to flinch when he heard Levi shout, “It’s the third door, idiot.”

His soft touch to the doorknob had opened the door to give him a preview of an immaculately clean bathroom. Eren swallowed, walking further down the hall, and registered that his legs hurt from standing for so long. He trembled, knowing that he hadn’t eaten anything for at least twenty-four hours, and that Levi would be even more upset when he would inevitably realize. If he hadn’t already.

Eren approached the third doorway. Testing the knob, he turned it gently to reveal a room that held nothing special. It was just a bedroom, mostly unfurnished but boasted floor to ceiling windows which was unique in and of itself. There was a desk set up with a fully functioning and expensive looking computer. Eren frowned when he recognized his backpack at the edge of the desk. 

Had Levi set this all up for him?

Was this actually his room in Levi’s apartment?

There was a futon rolled up in the corner with clean sheets resting on top, so there was nothing extraordinarily comforting about the space, but it smelled like Levi. Like he had been in here, creating this space just for Eren, almost as if he had been in his own mind. Eren didn’t care much for art, furniture, or décor. Sure, he loved looking at plants, but couldn’t for the life of him remember to take care of them, so those didn’t worm their way into his apartment much. But these bare bones were immaculate to him.

Eren was still too baffled to speak when Levi appeared behind him. He nearly tripped over himself in surprise.

“I wanted to give you a shittier room,” Levi supplied, “but I value education too much.” His eyes lingered on the desktop computer for a moment, drawing Eren’s eyes over there as well. Did Levi really value education? Was there a reason he didn’t allow Eren to simply pursue that on his own instead of dragging him into all of this? And by the way, wasn’t he a shred fearful that Eren might use the desktop to report his behavior?

Did Levi fear anything? 

“I don’t take care of people. This isn’t some hostel for fucked up teenagers.” 

Eren watched as Levi lifted a new bottle, this time a protein drink, to his lips to take a sip. He would have those, Eren thought, wanting to sneer at how ironic it was to be in the tech industry and invest in that kind of product. 

“Why so pouty?” Levi didn’t break eye contact although Eren felt forced to, feeling ashamed of his judgmental expression. “Not even one day in and he’s already a spoiled little bitch.” He sighed in exasperation as Eren’s heart ticked hard like a time bomb. “If you want, I can chain you up again. I can make you cook and clean cuffed… Maybe twist an ankle so you have to crawl…” 

Eren shuddered, swallowing a dry lump in his throat. 

“Or can I trust you to be a good boy for me?”

Hearing ‘good’ and ‘boy’ in the same statement made Eren’s heart skip a whole beat. Maybe even two. The combined sound aroused him in a way he couldn’t fight, also made him desperately wish that Levi wouldn’t notice, but that in and of itself was unlikely. Eren decided to bite the bullet and say something before Levi could, which was embarrassing if he thought about it, which was precisely why he didn’t. 

“I just want to be close to you, Levi.” 

The resulting scoff sounded louder and more mean than it should have. In spite of that, Levi’s response was significantly softer. It made him rethink the ‘no fucked up teenagers allowed’ rule Levi had just made. It made him rethink a lot of things.

“My bedroom is right down the hall, you obnoxious little stalker-freak.”

Chapter Text

Homework was the hardest thing to concentrate on when Eren remembered every other ten seconds that he was in Levi’s apartment, and not just that— he was given a bedroom, free reign of the entire space, and endless opportunities to spend more time with him.

Those opportunities just hadn’t exactly started yet. 

Since Eren had clearance to take his classes remotely, he was able to properly apply himself to his lessons after getting over the initial shock of his new environment. If there was one thing Eren was good at, it was shutting the world out and immersing himself in programming languages. 

But then again, he was also easily distracted by the outstanding fact that he lived with someone like Levi. Maybe referring to him and Levi as ‘living together’ was a step too far, since Eren was confident he could get sent out in a worse state in that same body bag as before at any given time. But still, every morning Eren woke up and was reminded that he was literally cohabiting by the sounds of someone else moving around in the same residence. 

Even though each day he had to navigate avoiding some degree of bodily harm imposed by his so-called roommate, Eren was living his best life.

There were some days when Levi would walk around in slacks but shirtless, holding something not much larger than a washcloth meant for drying his hair while he spoke into his cell phone in the living room. 

Eren admired the way he managed his time— he would sit in one of his many exquisite looking forms of furniture, or he’d pace slowly to and from one side of the room to another. Eren even caught him setting his phone down, flipping the device off with his middle finger, and walking into the kitchen for an extended period of time before returning to the call.

Levi did what he wanted, when he wanted. Eren’s presence in his home was all the evidence needed to back up the claim. 

Eren couldn’t tear his eyes away. He’d be in the middle of cleaning up a mess he’d caused and just stare. And Levi was no idiot, he knew Eren was staring. It felt like a reward every time he didn’t turn around and give Eren the finger for being ogled. 

There were boundaries that transitioned from rigid to more malleable and even flexible right before his very eyes.

Levi had odd ways of showing dominance in situations where absolutely no dominance was necessary whatsoever— excessive use of flipping off his phone being one of those instances. There were unspoken rules that Eren caught onto like a well-trained dog. He understood when his presence was undesired at certain times of the day, and made himself scarce when he noted the mood Levi was in. This often meant he had to hold in his bowel movements at times, or alternatively barricaded himself in the kitchen or bathroom when he sensed an aura in the office beside the living room. 

He was meant to do his coursework, maintain good grades, and show them off every time he received a new mark. Sometimes, Levi even supplemented Eren’s engineering lessons with his own. The nineteen-year-old could barely manage to follow along, though, with how mesmerized he felt just watching Levi’s lips move. And besides, Levi taking the time out of his excessively busy day to teach him? When just a day or maybe even twenty minutes prior, Eren had gotten smacked for something as minimal as forgetting to put his toothbrush in the proper position it belonged…

It was the most absurd thing.

Eren didn’t truly know where the line was drawn anymore between being Levi’s captive, or maybe — and he hated thinking of it like this, but — his dependent. Levi normally came across as peeved that he had to deal with Eren in the first place, so it made Eren wonder why this all had been set up. Why had Eren been transported here (lest he forget about the body bag he wore in transit)— why did Levi bother when he only seemed to be hot and cold with him?

It was so unclear whether he sincerely hated Eren’s guts or if he just felt a strange need to watch over him— either as a means to consistently punish or as a sense of responsibility.

Whatever it was, Eren didn’t necessarily hate it. He managed fine, but that didn’t mean he approved of it. The relationship was tricky, like a minefield at times, but Eren knew this wasn’t a random act of… whatever the fuck one would call this— there was a greater meaning behind it all. 

Social cues were in general difficult for Eren to pick up on, but he knew Levi was thoughtfully and meticulously unraveling a riddle of kinds, dropping regular hints that hid in plain sight. 

Eren was building an artillery of tools necessary for the opportunity to live another day.

He just had to always be on the lookout.

Speaking of which. 

There had been a day, one of which Levi had gone on a three day business trip, where Eren had been left alone. He hated those days the most, not knowing Levi was in his vicinity. Those days hurt.

Eren had been attempting to solve a problem set in his notebook in the living room as a means to avoid looking up explanatory videos on his desktop. He had an exam coming up, so he couldn’t rely on the internet whenever he encountered a trickier than usual question— Levi was setting him up for a much more extreme version of self-discipline, and Eren wanted to exercise that while the older man was gone.

Unfortunately, it meant Eren’s mind would start to drift. He would think about past conversations with Levi — fights mostly — or count the new number of bruises up and down his arms and legs. 

He didn’t think Levi leaving would cause him to experience significant withdrawals such as auditory hallucinations. 

At first, Eren played a scenario in his head where the supposed sounds of a key in the door meant that Levi was about to enter the apartment — most likely to surprise him, since he had told him earlier he would be home late that night instead — and see him studying dutifully on his knees in the living room. 

He had a bad habit of imagining his daydreams to be far too realistic, to the point where Eren would become turned on to an excruciating extent, and he’d wind up with his hands down his pants tugging himself while his eyes fell to a close and his head hit the hardwood floor in complete unabashed ecstasy.

But this wasn’t a hallucination. There was actually someone at the door with a set of keys, actually attempting to enter, and it definitely wasn’t Levi. 

Levi didn’t struggle to open his own door.

Eren’s heart went wild, eyes opening to an alarming size. Though his body was sore from this or that recent beating, he still sprung up to his feet to check the door. 

Whoever was trying to enter at this point was making Eren suspicious, because nearly 30 seconds had gone by, and they were still struggling. 

Padding over with soft footsteps, Eren approached the door, leaned in close, and held his breath while he peered through the peephole. And who he saw shouldn’t have shocked him, but unfortunately, it did.

Petra stood on the other side, biting her pretty pink lips as she tried yet again to mash her key into the lock. It made Eren want to scoff in amusement— the sight was needlessly entertaining. It also reminded him of the person who had come by the day after the last time Eren had seen her. It now made total sense that he’d been contracted to change the locks. 

Eren wondered if Levi and Petra had gone on a break of some sort, as it had been over a week since that last time. Seriously, on a daily basis, Eren had been bracing himself for some kind of Petra appearance, and finally it had arrived. 

Luckily, it hadn’t coincided with timing where Levi was also present.

“Fuck me…” Her voice was muffled from the other side of a substantially thick metal door. “You have to be joking…”

It checked out that Levi would require more privacy, now that he was harboring someone like Eren at his residence. It gave the teenager some relief as well, knowing the only person who previously had access was now denied— quite literally left out in the cold.

“That… asshole…!”

Eren savored the intense look in her eyes as she tried to force an impossible turn of her key once again. Oh, it was blissful. What had she been intending on doing? Showing up at his apartment — she must know he was away on business — to maybe undress and await him on his seventeen thousand dollar couch? 

His internal teasing stopped the second her eyes flicked up towards the peephole. Petra seemed to be able to gaze right through it, as if she could possibly see in that way, and directly at Eren. Like as if she knew he was there. Her pretty hazel eyes narrowed, turning practically to slits while her lips parted.

If she had suspicions, she seemed to have them confirmed at that very moment.

Simultaneously, Eren understood something as well.

It was either kill or be killed.

Eren surfed that high for hours on end knowing Petra had been denied access to Levi’s apartment. He even tried to stay up late to get to see him when he got home that night, but ended up calling it at one thirty in the morning, jerked off, and went to bed to be properly rested for his eight am exam the following morning. 

But then as soon as he tried to fall asleep, it occurred to him that Levi might have gone over to Petra’s that night just to disappoint him, and as a result he burned with jealousy as he tossed and turned all night, unable to find peace.

Eren had hoped that Levi would return the following day, so all throughout his exam and the rest of that Friday, his heart would not stop pounding in anticipation. He felt like an actual dog, waiting for his owner to return, praying that it would be any minute. His inability to focus caused him to not finish answering all of the problems on his exam and receive a lower grade than expected.

That was strike number one.

As a general house rule, Levi had been forcing Eren to eat at regular times. Even though he wasn’t there, Levi had set up a raspberry pi to alert Eren when he needed to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The teen was aware the apartment had cameras installed — he’d found one rather obviously situated in the hallway with both his and Levi’s bedrooms — and was yet to scope out any in the kitchen or living room, but he knew they were there.

In spite of that, he forewent breakfast and lunch that day. It was a vicious cycle, because he didn’t feel like he deserved to eat since he would be getting in trouble, but not eating was another source that caused punishment. 

Strike number two. 

Eren didn’t know what the strikes were amounting to, though he was aware they were stacking up against him. He knew Levi was always counting, even if he was away — at the office downtown or at Petra’s, he told himself he didn't care — and that there would be repercussions. 

He thought maybe his punishment was that Levi wouldn’t be returning home for another night, since it was about eleven-thirty Friday night that Eren found himself alone in the apartment once again.

Fine. That checked out then, he deserved that. 

He couldn’t hold back how much he’d come to miss Levi, though. When Eren closed his eyes, he could see Levi. He could smell Levi. He could feel Levi. Maybe not physically, but in an odd way as if their souls were physically linked, and he could tell he was close by.

“Levi…” 

Eren wasn’t in his bed, or futon, anymore. He was in a much more grand bed, in every sense of the word. 

There were four posts, thick red blankets atop pristine white sheets, and large plush pillows that Eren felt himself sink into. He was naked, his skin hot, desperate to be touched, most of all where his swollen dick throbbed at his groin. So much pleasure was coursing through his veins that keeping his eyes open past a measly squint was a near impossible feat. It was partially because of that that his mind remained blank, unable to formulate any thoughts or questions to explore the reason why he was in a new yet odd setting.

Eren could still feel that Levi was nearby, but he was unsure how near, or whether the man was even aware of him at all. He couldn’t stand forgoing the pleasure of his own touch. Eren needed it, bad, even if it wasn’t the touch of the man he wanted. 

The moment he made contact with his slippery length, his whole body arched into the air. He had a superb imagination, concocting strong rough hands with a familiar touch that pushed him down, further into the mattress. The hands covered his mouth, smacked his cheekbone, cut off his windpipe at his clavicle, squeezed and yanked on a single nipple. The hands hurt him, but the pleasure only rose. Their movements were quick, attacking different parts of his exposed body, leaving lashes and fleeting sensations in their wake. This persisted to the point where the potential of this treatment being imaginary flew out the window.

It was way too real.

In the midst of it, Eren exploded. He didn’t even have a chance to stop himself— his dick tensed, then shot out long, hot ropes of cum across his chest. It was overwhelming how much he was capable of feeling, yet not being in control of any of it. But it didn’t stop there.

Eren knew he was being watched. Now, at least. He didn’t know when it had started, but that didn’t matter to him. Technically, it didn’t matter who it even was that was watching. Eren felt the pressure of eyes on him, and that brought him back to a world full of pleasure. 

The hands had never left, but this time around were even more punishing. The hand at his clavicle moved upwards to ostensibly suffocate him. The one at his mouth pinched his nose as well. While his nipple was apparently done being harrassed, that hand had moved lower towards his belly and groin area to apply a significant amount of pressure. Eren felt his intestines and stomach pushed up into his lungs and into the sharp ridges of his ribcage. 

He wanted to scream. It all felt too much. He didn’t want to feel anything anymore. 

He wanted it all to stop. He wanted to live.

In his last moments, Eren felt the need to turn his head to the side. He managed only slightly, but one of the massive stark white pillows blocked his view. He knew there was a person there with him, the one who had been watching him. Eren wanted to see so badly that he willed every last nerve in his body to allow his unrestrained arm to lift and push the pillow out of the way.

The mirage of a person dressed in formal wear was stunning in a way that Eren would note was less awesome or surprising and more horrifying. They sat in a crimson dyed leather armchair, holding onto both sides with a loose grip, but with enough determination to display the power their hands held. Their legs were spread apart in a way that screamed masculinity and supremacy, but that wasn’t remotely close to the scariest part.

The person, who now seemed less like a person and more of a ubiquitous being, didn’t have a face. Not one that Eren could discern, at least. 

It had inhuman horns.

Eren felt his eyes roll back a touch with the gross lack of oxygen he was supplying his brain. In spite of his struggle, he had to push through, force his pupils back down to try to concentrate. He wanted to confirm who or what it was that he was seeing.

It was likely the blurred vision fault, but the best his eyes could provide for Eren’s comprehension center were horns attached to a completely scratched out head. It seemed to be covered in a charcoal soot, almost as if a child or unskilled artist (such as Eren) had scribbled and animated a featureless head with equally fuzzy yet substantial horns sprouting from where the temples would normally be. 

The person, Eren still decided he wanted to call it, was more creature than man. The fuzzy animated behavior of the person’s face continued to shift shapes, as if it were intentionally playing games with Eren’s mind.

Then something happened. There was no way he should have been able to tell, because the shadows of the face should have made it impossible to differentiate, but Eren was sure of it— the devil blinked at him.

Eren didn’t have the opportunity to scream, everything just ended at once.

Eren woke up because he thought he heard his mom call his name. 

It had been such a long time since he’d heard that particular cadence that he opened his mouth to respond before he was even fully awake. His eyes hadn’t opened quite yet, but he attempted a pitiful cry, shouting back, “Mom!”

It hurt to use his voice. It had become scratchy, as if he’d been yelling for hours. Logically, Eren knew he had to be dehydrated, but that didn’t stop him from allowing tears to escape from his eyes. It was hard. He was still waking up, coming more in touch with reality, and deep down Eren knew that meant his mother wouldn’t be there.

There would be nothing that could remind him of her in this place, much less Eren’s own mind, since he’d largely eradicated most memories that could link him to her.

“Eren.”

It wasn’t her voice, but it was the next best thing.

Eren was already crying when he opened his eyes, so imagine his humiliation when he realized Levi was gazing down at him from his position crouched beside the half-naked and sweaty teen’s futon. There wasn’t time for him to freak out and hide. Eren didn’t want to, anyway. He just wanted to let his emotions out and be his own pitiful self for once. 

“Are you okay?”

The sky might as well have fallen down. That was not anything remotely near what Eren would have expected to have heard Levi say to him, so it was extra lovely to hear with his own ears. His heart appreciated it, but his external reaction didn’t reflect that.

“I’m not…” Eren replied by accident. Levi couldn’t possibly care how he was really feeling. It was shameful to be honest when the chance of being laughed at or mocked was so high, but being honest caused Eren’s throat to constrict and more tears to pour out of his eyes. 

“Did you have a bad dream?”

A hand gently pushed Eren’s long bangs aside. After hiccupping, he leaned up into Levi’s cool touch and nodded while his eyes remained squeezed shut. For the first time since living with the older man, Eren lied to himself about who was touching him. At that moment, he wanted it to be his mom. He wanted to pretend even though he felt like he’d lived his whole life in hopes that this exact situation might arise. But he couldn’t help it.

“I want my mom…”

He heard himself sound like a child. Instantly, he was ashamed. It was just one of those things that slipped out probably because he wasn’t quite as awake as he should have been, and he hadn’t been getting the best sleep the past few nights since Levi had been away. The fact that Eren remembered only then that Levi had been gone was a testament to how mentally out of it he was.

He realized that the hand on his forehead had stilled. Eren cut his losses and opened his watery eyes to peek at the older man’s reaction through all the tears and snot.

Levi looked mildly astonished, but caught himself and hid his expression once he knew Eren was watching him. Perhaps he’d never seen someone act so immaturely, but that wasn’t completely it. It certainly wasn’t that Levi found Eren cute or anything for being so childish. He looked disconcerted. 

“Let me… Get something for you.”

His tone was short and gruff, but his actions were gentle. Levi used both hands to guide Eren’s head back down onto his pillow, then lifted the blanket that had been kicked aside to cover the teen’s exposed chest. His behavior came off as slightly shaken, leaving the nineteen-year-old with more anxiety than he needed at that moment. Eren held onto the edges of the duvet and brought it up to cover his face. He tried to dry his eyes and open them, but it was hard to do that at the same time as evening out his breathing.

It took a few minutes to calm down, but Eren didn’t dare move right away. He was stuck in place, focusing on his breathing which also included managing his heart rate when he really allowed himself to think about how Levi was going out of his way to bring him something. It better not be something that would upset him further— it only occurred to him then that that could be a real possibility. 

Just when Eren had grown impatient enough to attempt to sit up, he heard the sound of Levi gently opening the already slightly ajar door and entering. He held a small wooden tray with a medium sized bowl with only one hand. Levi had remarkable balance, because he proceeded to bring the tray with just that one hand down to the futon beside Eren’s chest. Using the other hand, Levi propped open the small legs that made the tray suddenly a surface that the teen could eat from while in bed.

In the bowl appeared to be simple greek yogurt with cut up fruit and some honey drizzled on top. Eren’s lips parted and his eyes went wide. The honey was fragrant enough to reach his nose and make his mouth begin to water. 

“What…”

Words evaded him. There was no way Levi happened to know what Eren’s mother used to eat fairly religiously in the mornings, and at a certain point started to serve for Eren as well. 

He wanted to ask how? next, but part of Eren didn’t want to ruin the moment. Or maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe it was a coincidence. It had to be. It’s not like a breakfast consisting of greek yogurt, berries, and honey were unique to his mother. 

“I thought this might make you feel better.”

Eren looked up at Levi, bewilderment far too difficult to try to hide in his expression. He didn’t know what to say. 

“Just eat it.” 

Levi didn’t want to accept any thank-you’s, fine. Eren understood that. He brought the spoon to his mouth and swallowed practically immediately and then went for more. The flavor triggered things in his memory that he’d rather forget, but it was so good that he couldn’t stop.

“I have a surprise arranged for you this evening.”

Eren tried to refrain from asking, but still wound up wondering aloud, “What’s the surprise?” There were more surprises on top of the delicious one that sat on the tray before him?

Levi made an amused snorting sound. “Go fuck yourself.”

There was the Levi that Eren knew.

He then left, apparently having nothing more to share or value to add to Eren’s dining experience. As much as he would have liked to show the man how much he appreciated the gesture by devouring the whole thing in front of him — something Levi would definitely recognize as growth since it was one of the rules Eren had been struggling with the most — it was lovely to enjoy on his own. He genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he fed spoonfulls into his mouth non-stop until the meal was nearly completely finished.

It was so surreal, like having an out of body experience. 

Eren had been so focused on eating that he hadn’t stopped to notice the change in furniture within his own bedroom.

As soon as his eyes lifted to acknowledge the difference, the spoon dropped from his hand and clattered in the ceramic bowl he was still holding onto. He realized he recognized something. There was now a chair in the corner of the room that previously had been bare. 

It was a crimson stained leather armchair.

Chapter Text

There was nothing particularly interesting about being kidnapped. If that’s what this situation was still called. 

Levi had left Eren alone multiple times now, and on each occasion, Eren had chosen to stay. In those instances, he’d found himself too afraid to even test opening the door. 

He knew how vigilant Levi was, and if Levi found out Eren was interested in the idea of going outside the apartment, he was afraid of what the repercussions would be. Would he beat the absolute fuck out of him? Threaten his life for attempting to blow his cover — their cover, now — and make a mess of the already blatantly bizarre situation they’d taken turns in contriving and sustaining? 

Would Levi say fuck it and actually kick Eren out for good?

That train of thought sucked him back into the complete mind-fuck that were Levi’s incomprehensible string of choices.

So he would say the current state of being kidnapped was boring and leave it at that.

Eren was standing on his own in the hallway bathroom, staring into space instead of brushing his teeth when a surprise article of clothing was tossed at his head rather harshly.

“Hurry up.”

“The fuck…” Eren groaned, recoiling from a part of the mystery fabric hitting his eye. He brought his fingers up to tenderly touch his eyelid while setting the bamboo toothbrush down with his other hand.

“You’re making dinner,” Levi’s commanding voice from further down the hall announced.

Eren frowned harder, cocking one eyebrow (the one that didn’t have a stinging eye below it) at the cloth now in his hand. He had been peacefully minding his own business, taking part in what Levi had asked him to do as a part of his daily bare bones self-care regimen. 

It always took him out of balance when Eren got the sense he was falling into routine with Levi. Like this whole thing had been set up so that they were intentionally living together.

Even when he was asked to do the dishes, scrub the floors, and wipe down the endless windows at Levi’s beck and call, Eren appreciated the routine. When it came to cleaning versus excessive engineering problem sets Levi would assign him when he got less than perfect marks in class, cleaning was oftentimes a lot less mentally taxing. 

But those butterflies-like feelings were interrupted when Eren sensed something unusual in Levi’s tone or demeanor. Like the way he was just ordered to make dinner. Eren knew there was no way in hell Levi intended to eat his cooking, and he swore he detected some kind of humorous tenor in the older man’s voice. Like amusement that went beyond catching Eren off guard in the bathroom with the — the teen actually examined the article that had been tossed his way — apron. Fuck.

He hated this apron. The uneasy feeling intensified within him.

“Okay…” Eren remembered to respond. 

Levi didn’t seem like he was in the mood to chat, much less argue or hear dissenting opinions, so the nineteen-year-old ditched the bathroom and padded towards the kitchen. He had to pass Levi on the way in, giving him an opportunity to inhale a whiff of his cologne. It always made his eyes roll back just a touch, and his heart pound a bit harder when he smelled that particular smell. 

He was practically lightheaded when he got to pulling the apron over his head, so he fumbled with the straps that were meant to tie across his back. Eren wasn’t totally paying attention, his movements lagged and his process was sloppy, which must have been what inspired the older man to approach him from behind and grab both of his wrists. 

The chilled touch stunned Eren. His shoulders twitched, wanting to jump up to his ears, but Eren caught himself. It was an odd display of power, because after a few long seconds, Levi released his wrists and quickly made work tying a (likely) expert knot. 

Curious, Eren glanced over his shoulder to try to catch a glimpse of their exchange, but was stunned instead when Levi grabbed whatever kind of knot he had created and pulled the younger boy’s body backwards, flush against his own.

The feeling of Eren’s bony ass clad in only a thin pair of lounge shorts against Levi’s solid groin made goosebumps erupt up and down his legs. Oh, wow— he couldn’t help arching his back into the body behind him. Levi’s presence was so demanding of his submission that Eren felt like he wasn’t even in possession of his own skin in this new position.

Eren couldn’t quite see Levi’s expression at the angle his neck had been craned, but he could feel hot breath on the back of his neck.

“Be good tonight, punk.”

Eren’s body was pushed so hard forward that he was forced into the countertop in front of him. It hit him in his gut, rattling his empty intestines within him that triggered a full body shudder now that there was space between their two bodies. 

A stupid question of why was about to pass through his lips when Levi’s hand wove its way through the chin length hair at the back of his neck, then pulled.

“Or I’ll break you.”

If he thought his eyes rolled back earlier, Eren was practically blinded by the autonomous response the act of dominance forced out of him. 

“Yeah? Say something. I’m not a fan of talking to myself.”

“Yeah…” Eren’s voice was so breathy when he responded, he barely recognized it. His difficulty speaking properly probably definitely had something to do with how aroused he had become in such a short period of time, but he wouldn’t make that fact known.

The older man clicked his tongue — a noise that Eren desperately wished was accompanied by a visual of his overall reaction so that he could tell whether that was a sufficient reply or not — and then let go all together. 

“Good.” Levi sounded like he was grunting his response. 

Eren couldn’t take it. His hands pressed flat against the cool countertop, his body twisted at his waist to gaze over his shoulder. Levi had a peculiar look on his face that intrigued Eren. There wasn’t much time for him to fully investigate it, because he had more to say.

“Your best friend will be joining us tonight.”

Eren’s lips twitched open wider, then shut completely. 

“Best friend?” He surprised himself by forming a complete question. It was on reflex though, because his brain had gone completely empty as a result of an overwhelming amount of lust that had taken over. 

Not a single name came to mind. To be fair, Eren didn’t try that hard.

Levi left him with that. It must have been a joke, so Eren steadied himself at that conclusion. Levi does tend to joke like that. 

When Levi disappeared from his sight and he allowed more oxygen to enter his brain, Eren tried to think more on it, but still. No names occurred to him.

Something didn’t sit well with him for the extensive period between their hot exchange and the doorbell ringing, alerting both males in their separate locations within the apartment of a new presence. He had barely moved from where Levi had last touched him, but he had thankfully gathered himself a bit more.

But then Eren disassociated the second he heard her voice.

Stunned, he stood ramrod straight with his hands pressed hard against the counter, feeling icy all over. He was racing through his own mind, trying to remember the ways he’d been taught to handle this kind of episode he was slipping into, but Eren couldn’t stop the fogginess he was trapped in. 

“What the hell— Levi!?” 

Eren didn’t dare to look up at first, but the pull of his curiosity forced him to give in. He had to see the severe degree of disgust she wore for him, painting every inch of her normally conventionally attractive face with complete disdain. He needed to know how disappointed his very presence made her feel.

Eren kept his expression neutral, but firm. Because honestly?

Right back atcha, bitch.

“Levi, what is going on?” 

She turned between the two males. Eren would bet everything he owned that he was the last person she expected to see that evening, and now stuck in this situation too, just like himself. Except, she probably could take off if she wanted at this point. 

“Take my apron off, you freak!”

“Eren,” Levi said calmly, causing the youngest in the room to turn his face — now growing hot with a mixture of frustration and embarrassment — in his direction, “leave it on. I don’t want to deal with a mess.”

“Levi!” Petra tried again, like that might make a difference. “Why is he still here?”

Eren remembered the response Levi had given Petra the the time she’d caught him in their — he meant Levi’s — bedroom: 

“something, something, he’s my friend’s kid.” 

And how little that had helped the situation. Eren didn’t believe he was in a position to reply to the devastated woman, but he wanted to keep the ruse going a little longer. Time was ticking, but Levi was calculated, as usual. He knew just the right amount of time to make Eren start to grow anxious with worry, as well as keep Petra’s suspicions at bay.

“Eren receives tutoring from me.”

“I didn’t know he was going to ask me to make dinner for you both,” Eren ended up supplying as well. It was quick thinking on his feet, and not totally lying, he might add. It boosted his trustworthiness, but he was in bad company. 

Petra didn’t look like she believed a damn thing she heard. But, she acquiesced when her eyes drifted over to a notebook and two university-level textbooks stacked neatly on the console table nearby in the living room.

But either of them could have placed those items there, right? Levi wasn’t known for allowing items to take up space and remain in sight when he was around the apartment. 

Maybe Petra didn’t know him that well after all.

She swallowed hard, as if she wanted to spit something out, but refused. Eren watched her expression apprehensively— the way her breathing was louder than usual, her body moving with each huff of air. Eren was entranced, wondering desperately what it was that she wanted to say, and why she wouldn’t say it.

What was she afraid of?

Eren felt utterly replaceable, uninteresting, and a waste of oxygen more often than not, and knew more than anything that Levi thought the same goddamn thing. Levi could decide the teen was wasting his time, money, and resources by housing him — or whatever their particular situation was at the moment — and break his worthless, shitty heart. 

Everything was always just… precarious. But it was also sufficient, because it seemed like an unspoken test had been passed when the desperate woman caved to her uninterested boyfriend’s conditions.

Even if just for that particular night, Eren was there to stay.

“You look ugly in it,” Petra spat out at him. 

When Eren snapped out of his thoughts, he looked over at her to see narrowed eyes, jaw clenched, and those familiarly bound fists at her side. Her essence terrified him, making him turn his gaze away in spite of how angry her words made him feel, returning his attention back down to the countertop he stood before. His eyelashes fluttered rapidly, daring tears to well up in his eyes.

Did he look ugly? 

It’s not like it was the first time he heard that insult. Eren was still working on gaining weight — he’d been ‘working on it’ for a while now, though — so he understood if the gauntness of his appearance might put off some people. He needed to take better care of himself, and while that thought occurred to him before, it was Petra’s devastating comment just now that truly solidified in him that he would do better. 

Eren was and still could be prettier than this bitch. Easy.

“Petra, relax. It’s just an apron,” Levi said in a voice that indicated that that would be the last comment from her regarding the situation. 

While Eren reminded himself to breathe normally in his head, he imagined briefly what would happen if she pushed her aggressive behavior. Would Levi raise his voice? Stand up for Eren again? (If you call what just happened as stand-up behavior.) Or would something worse happen? Petra was obnoxious, but Levi has put up with her for long enough— he must have some kind of soft spot for her. 

He wished he was surprised when he heard Petra scoff in that signature diva way of hers, but it was the lesser evil in the situation, so Eren decided to be okay with it. He couldn’t do much else.

“I need a drink,” she announced with a loud sigh, as if she were letting all the bitterness, hate, and disgust out of her body at once. She dropped her purse on the countertop right next to where Eren was setting up some of the ingredients he’d fished out of the well-stocked refrigerator, knocking over some of the materials. The action was so pointed, it made him flinch, then pause to think.

It was weird for a second, because both Levi and Eren happened to look up at each other at the same exact time. Eren watched the slate colored irises gaze directly back into his own emerald green ones. All of a sudden, there was a mutual understanding between the two of them, something like an innate click when the two seemed to telepathically devise a plan. 

Eren couldn’t quite explain it, it was practically supernatural, but he knew what to do.

“Eren’ll make it for you,” Levi offered, still looking directly at the teenager. His gaze was probing, like he was scanning to make sure he could trust Eren. He squinted, adjusting his jaw placement for a moment and then smirked. 

It made Eren’s cheeks flush because, fuck. Levi was devastatingly handsome. 

Petra clicked her tongue. “What? No—”

“Just let him take care of it,” Levi insisted, stepping toward the shorter girl to grab her upper arms and pull her into his chest. 

Eren’s core heated up with a manageable rage as he watched, his head going foggy with a growing anger. No. Levi couldn’t be doing this, he… he couldn’t. After that look they’d just shared? 

“Finish things up in here, will you, Eren?”

The way Levi shot a cocky glare back at Eren told him to keep his mouth shut, be a good little bitch and do as he said. Eren couldn’t argue if he tried. No matter how destroyed he felt knowing where Levi would be taking her. Eren’s face totally betrayed him, expressing in no uncertain terms how upset he was with his tilted brows above big eyes and trembling lips.

“Y—yeah,” Eren replied with a nod. 

He tried to ignore the self-satisfied smirk Petra wore in light of understanding Levi’s intentions, and how Eren would be left behind. He wouldn’t have minded if he were cooking for just himself and Levi — nevermind his lack of skills — but the fact that he had to do something for that fucking bitch made his blood boil. 

Because let’s be honest. Whatever he made was going to be shit anyway, but hearing her obnoxious bitching about it was going to be far worse than Levi’s version that tended to be a bit more abusive. 

Eren tried to ignore Petra’s loud giggling as she was pulled out of the impressive kitchen and down the hall towards Levi’s bedroom. He tried to ignore how hard his chest had tightened, and how darkness was taking over his vision. He had a task to do, and he was dead set on completing it.

That, and preparing dinner.

Eyeing the expensive purse that had basically been tossed into his lap, Eren licked his lips anxiously, flicking his gaze up to the direction Levi had taken Petra for just a brief moment. It was mostly quiet, but he hadn’t heard a door close, so he knew they were both ‘busy’ at the moment. He didn’t need to let his thoughts wander there. 

He lifted his hand to open the leather purse, but then stopped himself. His hands had to be filthy; he couldn’t leave a trace. Eren anxiously dashed across the kitchen to the sink to expertly wash his hands, then dry them appropriately before returning to the purse. He thought better, to actually return back to the sink a second time to check underneath it and— bingo. Eren reached for an unopened set of rubber gloves, which he eagerly tugged on.

Eren was poking through Petra’s items just when he heard the first loud, ostensibly whorish moan come from the hallway. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to brush it off, and if anything, use it as fuel for his task. Petra doesn’t get to be a fucking cunt and a total perfect princess at the same time. It wasn’t fair. She doesn’t get to steal Levi’s attention… No.

She doesn’t deserve that luxury.

Eren wasn’t sure what he was going to find, but if anything, this was exactly it: a small orange prescription bottle laid in the palm of his rubber gloved hand, reading explicitly XANAX. Oh, and there was another. VICODIN prescribed for a RAL, PETRA. Eren was more than a little shocked when he noticed a bottle with the label CLONAZEPAM in there too. The desperate urge to shake each bottle just to hear the satisfying rattle of medicine within almost overpowered Eren, but he bit his lower lip firmly to avoid giving in. It’s not like she’d be able to hear over her pornographic-caliber noises.

Those were still rolling in by the way. 

Eren decided to turn his mind off as he moved around the kitchen, finding a large glass, some expensive alcohol and appropriate mixers. Petra’s a girl, right? She probably likes fruity drinks. Eren made a judgment call, opting to complete the drink first before he went into the fridge and took out three salads worth of prepackaged containers, intending to arrange the contents within to assume the appearance of being homemade. He didn’t need a brain to perform that task, but to be honest, it had been absent ever since the other two left the kitchen something like ten minutes ago.

He completed all tasks while being nonconsensually subjected to the man of his dreams probably fucking the life out of that woman in his bedroom, just a hallway away. 

Eren could handle it. 

He’d handled worse, he had to remind himself. He’s been through much, much worse. 

Eren could practically smell the sex emanating from the hallway. He could inhale the humidity of two bodies creating friction, the scent of lubricated condoms, and the excited energy. Imagining those details made him rush with adrenaline, having to stop what he was doing so that he could hold onto the counter for support. 

Weather the storm, Eren. Reminder: you’ve been through worse.

It wasn’t much longer after Eren had delivered the bowl of (store prepared) salad to the table when Petra and Levi returned. Petra had a smug aura about her, feeling so self-satisfied that she fucked her own boyfriend. 

Eren wanted to sarcastically congratulate her, but the way her clothing had been jostled and remained in an unkept way, her hair similarly a little rustled, and cheeks still pink from fucking just now, he couldn’t quite find it in him. He’d come so far. He couldn’t lose his shit now.

Levi came back looking just as he had when he left, which seemed nearly impossible in comparison to Petra’s disheveled appearance. Maybe she had gone out of her way to appear more roughed up just to piss Eren off, or maybe Levi had simply pulled himself out of his pants—

Eren didn’t want to go there. He didn’t need to go there to satisfy some useless curiosity.

“Pffffft—!” 

Eren’s attention was jerked over towards Petra, who wore the most flabbergasted expression, looking directly at what he’d prepared for dinner. 

“Is there a reason you made just a salad?” Eren wanted to balk— Petra believed he made that. Cha-ching! “What the fuck are you trying to say?”

“That you’re a fat fucking cow,” Levi provided with an amused scoff. He made no indication, but Eren knew that Levi knew the whole ‘having made dinner’ thing was a farce. 

Petra’s face grew red, her aura trying to appear irritated but was in fact dripping with insecurity. It made Eren want to grit his teeth. Petra had such a beautiful body, she had to be batshit insane to not know that.

“Okay well, fuck you. I don't want it,” she declared. “I said I needed a drink—”

“It’s on the table.” Eren didn’t mean to cut her off, but he was over-eager to have her shut up. He needed to say something else, anything else, so he went with, “I hope you enjoy it.”

The second it left his lips, Eren knew he’d fucked up. Petra had taken a glance at the tall cocktail — to Eren’s credit, it was created rather attractively by any standard, enticing even — but then returned her glare to the tallest male. She immediately looked distrustful. 

“What did you do, spit in it?”

“No,” Eren replied meekly. He hadn’t thought of that. “I swear…” He probably wasn’t helping his case.

Petra took a good long look at Eren. There were gears turning in her head. 

“How old are you again?” 

“He’s nineteen,” Levi supplied for him, making Eren’s cheeks go rosy and Petra clam up again, “you think a nineteen year old doesn’t know how to make a drink?” 

He was heavily insinuating that someone like Eren was a partier, which, if you looked at him, seemed nowhere near true. Not anymore, at least. 

“I’m probably going to have to get a lock for the liquor cabinet.”

Eren’s heart not only warmed but also skipped a beat when it occurred to him what that meant. Levi was announcing that Eren was staying with him, yeah? Petra looked caught off guard, then returned to an expression of distrust. Did she catch onto that, too? Or was she under the impression Eren was only coming over for tutoring?

Regardless, he had expected this. “I made one for myself, too.” Levi in the meantime was selecting a spirit of his own to pour himself a drink. At this rate, they all needed one. 

“Okay, give me the one you made for yourself,” Petra demanded sharply, approaching Eren to take the identical glass rather than waiting for it to be handed to her. “You can have mine.” He noticed distinctly that it wasn’t a request, but an order.

“Okay…” Eren replied, not sure whether he wanted to manipulate her for a second into being disappointed — like maybe he had spit in the drink and would now be forced to consume it for her benefit — or remain in an even tone, uncaring. 

Either way, it didn’t matter. He should have been disappointed in himself for having ill-intentions, but he genuinely felt like Petra had brought it on herself. 

“I’m sorry if the dinner is shitty,” he was attempting to be modest, despite having little to no intervention with the meal. Levi snorted from behind the counter while Petra took her first sip — making sure to sniff it first — then seemed to look a little more relaxed. Eren felt like he had to more than he wanted to drive home the ‘poor me’ act, to further push the narrative that his presence was a total coincidence.

He wasn’t fooling anyone, not even the easiest person there— himself.

Chapter Text

“But I hope you guys enjoy it. I really don’t mean to impose.”

Petra’s moment of empathy passed and she was back to glaring. She didn’t say anything, just scoffed indignantly, then looked away, which almost hurt more than her words. 

They each sat down; Petra and Eren were next to each other while Levi sat across from them. The sun had set, so smart-lights had automatically turned on just a few minutes prior, giving the dining room an elegant glow. Petra commanded the AI home system to play “her playlist” rather derisively, and to her credit, gentle jazz started to play on speakers located in every room of the apartment. 

The mood made Eren swallow a mouthful of pure anxiety. Then the drink he’d concocted, so as to not make Petra uncomfortable drinking on her own. It was strong.

Both Petra and Eren looked down at their plates, neither of them even remotely interested in what they were meant to put into their bodies. Eren knew that, and he hated himself for it, but he just had to get this night over with. The first bite was going to be the hardest, he knew that, but he needed to get through it. 

The phrase repeated in his mind obnoxiously, his obsessive compulsive nature haunting him in the face of such a stressful situation— the behavior pretty much checked out. There was so much tension, so there was no way Eren could give himself a moment’s rest.

It was silent, and very awkward at first. Levi was occupied with his phone, likely dealing with some kind of work situation while Eren and Petra were left to deal with one another’s presence.

“What…” the strawberry blonde started, surprising Eren while he was in the middle of his own sip, “what did you put in this?”

Eren flushed, believing that this was her odd way of complimenting him. He really hoped so. 

After clearing his throat, he answered, “It’s vodka, gin, umm… condensed milk, strawberry liqueur—”

“You put dairy in this!?” Petra demanded, appalled. She sounded more shocked than angry, but that was just about to come. “Wai— vodka and gin?”

The sudden outburst surprised Eren, making him falter. “I—yeah. It tastes really good…” And it was fatty. And Levi wanted Eren to gain weight… It didn’t occur to him that mixing alcohol was bad either. 

It did the trick. Not like mixing lights and darks, but still. After just two sips, Eren was already very hazy.

“Yeah, but I’m not supposed to eat dairy!”

Eren frowned. “Okay, well. How was I supposed to know that?” he asked, growing a little more brave, which he would put money on the matter of the drink integrating within his system.

“Are you kidding? No one puts dairy in drinks— alcoholic drinks!” In spite of her words, Petra was taking another sip. It made Eren’s face crumple and a quick laugh burst from his lips.

“Petra, stop trying to pretend like you don’t have a sweet tooth,” Levi mumbled offhandedly while he kept his eyes glued to his phone interface. Petra turned red, clearly embarrassed, and even more annoyed when Eren erupted with more laughter. Eren could understand why she’d want to keep that fact under wraps, seeing as she was a reputable model and all. 

“Levi!”

“What?” He finally looked up, smirking. “It’s cute.”

Petra’s cheeks grew rosier, and she pouted while crossing her arms over her chest. Eren watched her behavior silently, his eyes lingering on her well endowed chest for a couple moments, then carefully turned his gaze in Levi’s direction to catch his eyes. He was scanning the woman briefly before flicking over to Eren's. 

“Whatever. This dinner is probably going to make me sick anyway, so Eren’s technically doing me a favor.”

“You’re welcome,” Eren sniped cockily, unable to hide his amusement with Petra’s aggravated response.

“I sweeeaar, you better not give me food poisoning!” she drawled with her finger pointed directly at him. 

Eren swallowed all of his smugness. At least he had fun for a moment. It was silent again while the two of them anxiously sipped on their drinks. Then he thought about the fact that Levi had called her a ‘fat fucking cow’ earlier, and he couldn’t hide his loud snort.

Both Petra and Levi looked over at him, Eren couldn’t see them but he knew it was happening, so he covered his face with both hands.

“What’s so fucken’ funny?” Levi asked in a low voice, a touch of humor there. It was an attractive sound. Fuck, it was really, really attractive.

“You’re fucking cracked,” Petra said with a haughty scoff, taking another sip.

Eren peeked one eye from behind his fingers to steal a glance at Levi. He had an amused smirk on his face, providing a look that made Eren yearn to reach across the table, grab his hard jaw, and smash their lips together. But he didn’t actually have the energy for that.

“Don’t you mean ‘moo’,” Eren asked the woman beside him, with practically zero context.

Petra clicked her tongue. “What!?” she demanded, then threw a fist into Eren’s upper arm. 

Both of Eren’s hands fell from his face and one went instead to his arm, holding onto the place he’d just been socked. “Damn! What the— owww!”

“Bastard!”

The pain subsided immediately, and Eren found himself full-on laughing. He even heard Levi snort and put his phone down on the table. 

“Go on, babe. Say ‘moo’,” Levi taunted.

Petra made a sound of defeat, or maybe that was her battle cry, just moments from a total emotional breakdown, but it was a little too cute in Eren’s opinion for that. Levi and Eren were being mean. There was no way around it.

“How can you be allergic to milk when you’ve got so much on you?” Eren joked, glancing over his shoulder and nodding to Petra’s chest. He had to admit, having noticed earlier, she did have a substantial rack for such a petite girl. He lost track of his jealousy in his sudden interest in seeing more of her body. 

“Eren!” 

It was the first time he’d heard Petra use his name, and he had to admit, it did something to him in his new state of ultra relaxed, spiraling intoxication. He hadn’t felt like this in a while, in a really, really long time, actually. 

Part of her was flattered, both males could see it plain as day. Petra sputtered a bit, probably shocked from the brazenness of Eren’s teasing, or maybe even because she was reminded of the activities she’d been sharing with Levi less than an hour earlier. Go figure. She was a woman, Eren couldn’t even attempt to get in her head.

“How old even are you?” she asked, taking a larger sip in an attempt to hide the tomato color that had bloomed in her cheeks. She slammed the drink down harder than necessary in her probably equally drunken state. 

There was no doubt about it, Petra likely hadn’t had a thing to eat that day either.

“I’m nineteen,” Eren reminded her. It was silly to expect her to remember a detail that had been shared recently, really. She hated him up until about ten seconds ago. “How old are you?”

Petra narrowed her eyes, but she smirked regardless. “I’m twenty-five,” she replied dryly. Eren couldn’t tell if she was unhappy with that fact, or if she was feeling insecure in her age compared to the teenaged boy beside her. She still was engaged in their little back-and-forth, because she added, “How tall are you?” It was a clear indication she was a little more than interested.

Levi was the one to interrupt then, surprising both intoxicated young adults across from him. “Petra, I thought you said height didn’t matter?”

“Not with you!”

“Aghhh,” Levi feigned hurt, but his pleased expression said otherwise. 

“No!” Petra looked trapped. “I swear L-Levi! Everything about you is perfect!” She made a noise of embarrassment, then proceeded to fumble with her words. “I mean, you’re not perfect—”

“I’m not?”

Levi was casually sipping his whiskey, so entertained. 

Any interest in flirting with one another disintegrated. Petra and Eren were both reminded of the unparalleled handsomeness in the man that sat across from them. Levi dashed his tongue out to wet his lips, then smirked. He could clearly see the attention he’d harnessed from just that little movement. Petra definitely had to have forgotten what she was arguing for, and Eren forgot anyone else other than him and Levi existed in their visible plane of existence. 

“You guys are cute.”

“No, you are,” Petra shot back with a drunk giggle. Levi’s eyes left Eren’s to gaze to her’s. 

Eren might have been too faded at that point to notice, but they seemed to grow more dull when he looked at the woman at his side. Or maybe that was what he wanted to believe. 

Eren was good at that, deluding himself.

In any case, Eren was growing overwhelmingly woozy far too quickly. He had to prop his chin up on his palm to steady himself. He hoped he just looked like he still had his shit together, even though he was fighting the urge to pass out as well as push Petra out of the chair she sat in because of the attention she now was hogging.

But he had to focus on himself for a second. It wasn’t right how difficult blinking had become. Something wasn’t right. 

“Petra…”

Eren tried to focus on the room around him — the pretty flowers arranged on the dinner table, the elegant aesthetic of the minimal furniture, and the overwhelmingly sleepy vibe from the music and the low lighting that reflected off the impressive floor-to-ceiling windows — but it was getting to be too hard. The room was growing dimmer, and then it dawned on him. 

He was fucking wasted. 

Eren had no idea what was even going on anymore until the voice he heard forced him back into reality. 

“Eren’s moving in.”

It wasn’t up for discussion. Levi put it out there, and the two younger adults braced themselves.

“W-what…?” Petra sounded just as out of it as Eren was. “The— are you kidding me?”

“No, Petra.” Levi sounded patronizing. Eren watched him as closely as his unfocused eyes could manage.

“That— I—” Petra was struggling to find her words, and instead started to hyperventilate. “What— what does this mean? You-you won’t even let me move in?”

“It’s already decided.” 

Levi had a calculated look when he narrowed his eyes, sizing Petra up based on her reaction. There was a new smugness to him when he crossed his arms over his chest. Eren, on the other hand, was having trouble breathing himself. Why was Levi saying this— admitting this? Technically, if they were going to be technical… Eren lost his train of thought.

Technically…

Oh, right. Eren had already moved in. Right? He was living in that bedroom over there. Down the way. 

Or was Levi going to move all of his things over here? Like all seven other items he owned?

Yeah, right.

“What,” Levi made a condescending scoffing noise, “do you think I’m going to fuck him or something?” 

That was the last thing Eren expected to hear, his racing heartbeat could attest to that. He was buzzing with excitement, but also dreadful humiliation, because he knew there would be more coming. 

“Look at him.” 

It was silent, except for the sound of melting ice shuffling around inside Petra’s near-empty glass. The dead air felt suffocating, and Eren’s lips parted on their own, as if in an attempt to beg for air, but he’d already given up. 

Eren begged himself not to cry. 

But Levi… the way he’d looked at him so many times now made it clear there was something between them, or there was potential for something to happen. Or was Eren insanely delusional? He must be. 

Petra was shouting something back, but Eren couldn’t really make it out. He was in his own world. A darkening world. Everything was going black.

“Why do you think I want to fuck him? Why do you think everyone’s out to get you, Petra?” She made an annoyed noise and rolled her eyes. “What a pervert. I just fucked you and all you can think about is sex…”

“That’s— I’m not… perverted…!”

“Eren.”

Someone was shouting, but it was echoing oddly in Eren’s empty skull. No it wasn’t empty, there might be some loose marbles rolling around in there.

“Eren! What did…”

He groaned. Why all the shouting?

“—take?”

Eren could hardly get his shit together enough to have a single coherent thought, let alone stay awake. Whoever was talking to him or asking him a question was shit out of luck if they thought they were going to get a straight answer.

A hard slap to his face made him forcibly blink, cough, and lose feeling of his muscles. The sudden urge to convulse was so strong, but the nineteen-year-old couldn’t seem to find it in him to control himself. All of a sudden, he felt sick. Worse than sick. Eren’s heartbeat was so soft he practically couldn’t feel a  thing. Maybe that was because he’d gone totally numb.

“W…ha…t…?” 

He was unsure how many seconds went by in the moments that he drew out that one word. No, the room was spinning. Eren was sick, he was going to be sick.

“Eren, I said what the fuck did you take!?”

Looking up, he saw Levi. Levi was there. He was holding him, too. His embrace felt so warm. Eren was happy, actually happy for once. It felt so good and warm, it almost made him want to drift off to sleep again, or… go back to doing whatever he’d been doing. 

Eren couldn’t help but gander lovingly upwards at the man holding him. Time fragmented still, confusing him and making him wonder how quickly or slowly he was really moving, but regardless his hand lifted to come in contact with Levi’s jaw. Somehow, he felt like he’d been waiting years to do just that. 

“Levi…”

“Eren.” His face was grabbed forcefully. All dreaminess and faux wonderland feelings dissipated when his jaw was parted so abruptly and unable to close due to the pressure applied to his cheeks. 

The nineteen-year-old let out a mangled cry, a plea for the pain to stop.

“Eren. What the fuck,” he paused for emphasis, “did you put in the drinks.”

It was so hard to stay focused, but the word drinks rang a bell. The drinks. What… had he put into them? 

“Secret,” Eren replied with a dry scoff that sounded entirely unlike him. He needed water, badly. His throat also burned, like he’d vomited recently— he knew that feeling well.

“It’s officially not a fucking secret.” Levi didn’t sound as harsh this time, perhaps relieved that Eren could perform comprehensive thought processes, even if he was fucking around. “Tell me what you put in it.”

“I can’t…” Eren swallowed hard, feeling like his eyes were rolling back into his head. He imagined leaping forward to catch them before they hit the ground— the setting being in some imaginary place within the recesses of his mind. “You’ll be mad.”

“Eren, if whatever drugs you took don’t kill you, I’m going to fucking do it. I swear to you.”

Levi’s tone was deadly serious. The glare he fixed Eren with somehow worked to wake him up a touch, but it didn’t last long. Eren started gagging. Oh god, he was going to be sick. Everything was blurry because tears had sprung unceremoniously to his eyes, he really had no idea what was wrong with him. He was jostled around, swung around by a strong, warm arm around his tiny waist which hauled him over onto his knees. 

A firm smack to his ass made Eren choke hard and forcibly eject lasting bile from his throat.

“Wake the fuck up, and answer my goddamned question!”

Eren had never heard Levi sound like this before. He was scared. Not overly, as in, probably not relating to Eren’s wellbeing. It was something more important than that. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Levi looking straight back at him, but it was almost as if he wasn’t really… looking at him. 

What was that saying? Not being able to see the trees for the forest? Did that apply?

“Eren.”

There was his name. Eren loved the way he said it. That same warm hand traveled from his hip to his face, and squeezed his jaw again. This time it wasn’t as hard. It was gentle, and when Eren opened his eyes, he saw Levi looking directly at him.

“Eren, open your mouth.”

He blacked out again, unaware that his body was heaving while Levi tended to him. He wasn’t sure to what extent, Eren just felt like he was being manhandled at a certain point. He couldn’t see a thing, but he was fighting off a fierce predator in his imagination. He wouldn’t exactly call it a dream, since it felt too real, and he was certain he was conscious at one point. 

Eren’s arm was throbbing when he came to officially. A hand had knotted fingers into the hair at the back of his scalp to tilt his head at an unnatural angle. His lips parted to accept water from a glass that was put into his hands. The liquid tasted awful, and Eren tried to refuse it, but the hand at the back of his head forced him to choke on it. Eren could distantly hear someone directing him to drink it, so he started gulping it down to the best of his ability. Then the hold on his hair transitioned into a gentle patting. 

“Good… Good boy.”

Eren opened his big green eyes to blearily look up at the mysterious man holding him. 

He felt breathless. It was Levi. And he was staring back down at Eren with a puzzling expression. His pupils were darting back and forth, scanning the nineteen-year-old’s face for something. 

While Eren’s vision was still hazy, he could see the gorgeous man’s features and legitimate emotions so clearly. It felt like a gift to be able to perceive him like this, in the simplest of settings. Neglecting the actual context of the situation, everything finally started to feel ethereal. 

Levi was unnaturally attractive. It wasn’t even fair.

Something came over him a moment later, his body growing hot and tingly with excited energy. It was precisely about the way he was gazing up at the man while he held his mouth open to accept water into his throat that made it feel like there was electricity in the air. 

Eren knew Levi could feel it too. Something between them connected, and the air shifted.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Feeling bold, Eren moved the glass just out of the way enough so that he could swallow and take a steadying breath. He was fighting to stay awake, but the most basic yet exciting bodily function of blood pumping through his veins was what kept him buzzing.

“You don’t like it when I look at you like this?”

Levi’s face twitched. There was an unrecognizable expression for a moment, but Eren didn’t dwell on trying to figure it out. 

The glass cup was set aside and his jaw seized once again in the man’s now free hand. Eren’s heart was hammering in his chest, his whole body coming alive as he watched Levi purposefully lean forward, purse his lips and forcefully spit into his open mouth. 

“Swallow it.”

He didn’t need to be directed. “More,” Eren pleaded, practically on autopilot. Fuck, if he did get more of this, he thought he might cum. It wasn’t in him to acknowledge how high he’d become. “It tastes so good. Please…”

“Fuck…” Levi’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “You look…” 

The older man’s eyes raked up and down Eren’s flushed face. It could have been seconds, it could have been hours. Eren had no fucking idea which way was up or down, it was everything for him just to imagine what it would feel like for Levi to lean in close, and—

It wasn’t his imagination. Levi spit a new glob of saliva across the younger boy’s face, purposefully missing his mouth this time. It made Eren make a sudden noise of surprise, his pants tightening to an uncomfortable extent. 

It felt so good to be degraded by him; Eren really was a whore for enjoying this. 

“So pretty like this…” Fingers on either side of his jaw squeezed his bones, then released after a moment too long. Eren’s tongue was out, trying to lick up any of the spit he possibly could, but the majority of it was out of reach. 

The older man looked like he had so much more to say, or maybe Eren was just imagining it, but he kept his mouth shut while Levi’s eyes probed him. 

“Don’t be a cock, Eren. Tell me what you put in the drinks.”

“I put…” Eren swallowed hard, trying to switch gears, but the tightness in his slacks was hard to ignore, “way too much…” he admitted. He didn’t need Levi to prompt him again, so he added, “Xan… xanax, benzo—”

“With alcohol?” Levi sounded baffled. “In your own drink?”

It took Eren a minute to remember that it wasn’t just the two of them alone in the world. There had been someone else. Someone important to the equation, with strawberry blonde hair and big brown eyes.

Right.

“Both,” Eren admitted, squeezing his eyes shut tight to try to regain his bearings. Why couldn’t Levi let it be? Eren wasn’t ready to come to terms with what he’d done. He already knew it was fucked up.

“Why would you fucking do that?” 

It surprised Eren that Levi’s questions sounded more curious than concerned.

Eren didn’t exactly have an answer. Why was he such a fucking idiot? 

“I wanted to make sure she — Petra — drank it.” 

A fucked up grin made it’s way onto his face. He couldn’t explain it — didn’t want to, really — he just really was an evil, entitled asshole. To the core. 

Then he remembered something. “I put less in hers, though, because I knew she wouldn’t take it.”

There was a long pause after that. Eren didn’t even know how to uncomplicate what he’d just said. And even though he was still out of it, the teenaged psychotic brat found himself missing a reaction from the man holding him. 

Shouldn’t there be… repercussions? 

“Yeah, fuckwit. There are.” 

Eren didn’t understand. Did he ask that out loud? He couldn’t understand everything going on around him, yet he was half-smiling up at his prince charming.

The hand at the back of Eren’s head slipped down to his nape to grasp his hot skin there. Eren shuddered from the new sensation of skin on skin contact, appreciating it to the full extent, when his vision was jerked to the side, the rest of his skull following what felt like afterwards.

On the gorgeous hardware flooring beside the two embracing males was another person, and they didn’t look pleased. They didn’t look like anything, in particular, really. They were just there.

It was a strawberry blonde woman lying on her back, shoulder length hair splayed messily underneath her head and across her face, eyes open and staring. Unmoving. 

It was Petra, and she wasn’t breathing.