Chapter Text
Eren’s ability to see blood on people’s hands was an interesting ability to discover he had, to say the least. The first time he remembered having an experience with his gift, he was in the doctor’s office as a young boy with his mother and a broken arm. The doctor walked in, and Eren noticed a small red spot on the man’s hand.
“There’s blood on your hands.” He said, completely innocently, in his own mind informing the doctor he should wash his hands.
Eren’s mother rushed to apologize, but the doctor was frozen in shock. Mouth agape, he turned his hands over and over and didn’t see any blood. His immediate thought went to the young green-eyed boy somehow knowing that he cut the life supply to one of his patients years ago; and he broke down into tears. He apologised to nobody in particular, Carla standing awkwardly next to Eren saying that they would try another doctor. Eren, however, noticed the blood on his hand hadn’t brushed away when the doctor had been searching for the blood.
The first time the abilities existence dawned on him, however, was in a school assembly. He was sat with his best friends Mikasa and Armin, and a veteran army recruiter had walked onto the stage. Everything about the man was completely and utterly normal, aside from the smeared blood on a few of his fingers reaching the first joint.
Eren’s eyes widened in shock as he leaned over to Mikasa and whisper-shouted in her ear, pointing at the man on stage. “That man! He-”
“It’s rude to point, Eren. Didn’t you hear it explained that he lost his leg in an explosion” Mikasa snapped, snatching Eren’s arm down from its previously raised position.
“But his hands , look at his fingers ” He replied, his head nodding in the direction of the man on stage talking about joining the army.
“They look normal, Eren. What are you on about?” She replied.
Eren turned to Armin at this point, frantic. “Armin, look at his fingers!” He once again whisper-shouted.
“I’m looking...at what exactly?” He whispered.
“Can’t you see it?”
“They look normal, maybe a little worn but fine. What are you talking about, Eren?” Armin asked.
It was then that Eren realised. All the times he had seen a few drops of blood on the hands of returning soldiers, interviews from veterans from wars, police officers, even television broadcasters being allowed to show murderers with a couple of blood spots on their hands. Eren realised he could see blood on people’s hands.
After that assembly, he tested his theory by looking up pictures of serial killers and assassins on the internet to see what happened. And, sure enough, all of them had a few spots of blood on their hands. Thoughts raced through his head as to why he could do this, maybe he was some kind of psychic? Maybe a God of some description had given him this gift? He scoured the internet for hours, trying to see if there were any past examples of Gods giving people the ability to see blood on hands; but all he came up with were quotes about eternal damnation.
Over time, Eren grew up and with his aging he grew used to his ability. He decided against going into a career in criminology, although it made sense in his own mind at first. Instead, he went in the complete opposite direction and studied teaching, eventually becoming a primary school teacher. Thankfully, there was never anyone with blood hands in that place of work, so he felt safe.
Out of work, he took extra effort to stay away from those people. If he was walking down a street late at night and someone walked towards him with anything that could resemble blood on their hands, he crossed over. He even was going on a date once with a girl that had a spot of red on her hands that could have easily been makeup or sauce; and he immediately turned around and left the date.
He didn’t really like girls anyways.
He stayed out of the way of meeting new people for a while, only interacting with work colleagues or his school and university friends. He didn’t go on dates, he didn’t really use public transport and definitely didn’t even consider moving out of the flat he shared with his ex boyfriend until it became painfully obvious that 1 year was far too long to live with an ex.
Said ex, Jean, proposed that he looked into a flat share. The idea was terrifying, attempting to explain it to the man saying “What if this stranger is secretly a serial killer”, which is almost exactly what his biggest worry was. Jean, however, had the genius idea to ask around their friends to see if anyone wanted to flat share with him.
Most people said no, and it was starting to look rather unsuccessful until his friend from university, Hanji, mentioned someone. They said that their friend Levi was looking to flatshare for a little while, as he didn’t really have anywhere to live. Upon asking if this so-called ‘Levi’ could secretly be a serial killer, Hanji laughed it off saying “If my Levi was a serial killer, I think I would know”.
Eren took this to the heart, seeing as Hanji had always been very honest to him, and decided to agree to him moving in on the spot. Both of them needed to get straight into it so they had somewhere to live and someone to support the costs of living there so it made sense to dive in.
He had tried to organise going out for a coffee or something with this Levi guy before he moved in, but he said he was away on business so it would have to be over the phone. They called and it was lovely, Levi sounded like a perfectly normal and nice man just trying to find somewhere to live to help him get on the housing ladder and Eren decided that there could be absolutely nothing wrong with the wonderful, cheery man down the phone.
Eren went ahead and got the flat, with Levi’s help, and moved in as soon as he could into one of the identical bedrooms the flat had opposite Levi’s soon-to-be bedroom and began filling the fridge and hanging up posters and stuff to make it feel more homey. The restoration itself was starting to go rather well, when a polite-sounding knock bellowed from the front door.
Eren sauntered over to the door, dancing in small motions to the radio he had brought out to keep him occupied when cleaning up the apartment. When he opened the door, though, his dancing faltered.
The man that stood at the other end of the door was shorter than he was, but clearly more athletic if the muscles coming out of his black shirt were anything to go by. He wore his black hair with an undercut, a slightly off-centre parting to the style, and his facial features seemed almost bored and tired at the same time; in an annoyingly attractive way. Eren’s eyes widened in shock, however, upon looking at the man’s hands.
No, not even his hands, up to just past his elbows the man stood in front of him was dripping with blood, each shocking red drop supposedly symbolising a life. Where previous people he had seen had had maybe a few droplets, or the murderers had up to maybe halfway up their palm, he was way above them. Eren had never seen the blood drip from anyone before, and he knew that this guy was trouble.
Instinctively, he took a step away from the entrance of his apartment and clenched on slightly tighter to the door. “Can I help you?” He asked, his voice tainted with terror.
The familiar deep, velvety voice of the man standing opposite him flowed from his mouth with a slight French accent as he said the one thing Eren had been dreading him to say.
“I’m Levi, your new roommate.”