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It’s a normal morning. The light filters into their room slowly, then all at once. Eren has been awake since four a.m., unable to fall asleep, and he’s watched their modest apartment go from inky black to warm gold in what felt like a matter of seconds.
(but it’s been hours, hours, and hours…)
Levi has his back to him, the solid lines of his silhouette lit from the front and casting a bright halo that Eren has to squint to see. And Levi is very still, but Eren can read him even in his stillness, and knows at once he’s awake as well.
It’s a normal morning—they should count their blessings,
And It’s been ages since they last spoke about it, but Eren can’t help but ask,
“How often do you think about them?”
His throat is dry, and the words come out so quiet that he wonders if Levi even heard because his back is so still, but after a couple of heartbeats Eren can’t help but count, he answers—
“Everyday.”
Of course, Eren knew the answer, but he sighs in relief all the same.
“Me too.”
They make breakfast in relative silence.
They eat in it, too.
They make love loudly, with the window open,
A breeze rolling in from the city below.
They prefer to face each other. They like to share the humid air between them. It’s the only time Levi isn’t worried about dirtying the sheets because he enjoys the act too much to care. They kiss so deeply, ache so deeply, and for a little while they forget.
Levi doesn’t get sick of being inside Eren. After countless years, countless lifetimes, he’s convinced it's impossible. Eren is absolutely feral in bed, canines glinting in the morning light like a wild creature, head thrown back in surrender, in satisfaction, as he cums between them.
Afterwards, Levi stays inside him as he softens, and kisses the salty junction between Eren’s neck and shoulder. He whispers in his ear things he could only bring himself to say in these moments in between.
And Eren whispers back wetly,
“Do you blame me?”
And Levi never answers, just kisses him quiet.
The memories hadn’t been there when they met.
They trickled into their everyday lives without much notice, insidious and inevitable.
It started with flashes of events coming unwarranted during their everyday lives. They could have been in bed, watching something on TV, out for dinner, and they would have come with little warning; towering monsters, deaths of loved ones, sweat, blood, dirt, tears—
It was easier when they started coming back in dreams, even though Eren would wake in the night screaming, savagely biting at his hands until he bled. Levi would try to ground him, hold him through the tremors that followed. Tell him it’s alright, tell him the day it was, the year. They became predictable, though, and it was easier to plan for and prepare. They began to write what they knew; names, dates, and events that mattered.
Levi would dream too, but he preferred to process them alone. Perhaps that has always been his lot in life, a quiet resignation to things bigger than himself.
Levi showers first, and Eren changes the sheets. His legs are so wobbly after sex that he almost laughs at himself when they buckle underneath him.
He cries instead.
When Levi emerges from the bathroom, he finds Eren on the floor.
“Come on, get up.”
Eren sniffs, “I feel very silly right now.”
“Hmph. When aren’t you, brat.”
And Eren smiles at the nickname, despite the streaks of tears on his soft cheeks.
It’s hard, Levi thinks, in moments like these to align this Eren, his Eren, to the Eren in the memories. His cute Eren, all clumsy emotion and love, voided by depthless anger and emptiness. It was almost unfathomable. He felt a pang in his chest.
“I think we should go on a vacation.”
“We can talk about it after you wash up,” Levi gently nudges Eren’s shoulder. “You’ve still got my jizz coming out of you.”
Eren grimaces, “Ever the poet.”
When Levi makes sure Eren is comfortably situated in a warm bath, he leaves the bathroom door open and immediately begins googling houses for rent off the coast.
The house is old and sea-ravaged. The floorboards creek and the paint outside is chipping. Their bed (to Levi’s abject horror) is unwashed and unmade.
But it is very private and a minute’s walk from the ocean. Eren thinks it’s perfect.
So, they stay.
Since he was a child, Levi has hated the beach. The uncomfortable stickiness from the saltwater came only second to the fear he felt looking out into the blue expanse of it. He would cry when his mother would try to carry him deeper, the few times he ever did as a little kid.
Not even her soft voice could cajole him, and he would spend the remainder of the trips reading under the shade, far away from the shore.
Eren held no such reservations for the ocean.
He loved it like he loved everything; wholly and recklessly.
Levi liked to watch him splashing around, liked to see him laugh. When Eren would swim out too far, Levi would call him back (‘Oi, stay where I can see you!’) and his young lover would turn around, catching the light on his wet skin, would smile and acquiesce.
It made it worthwhile to be near something so innately malevolent if Levi could witness such beauty.
On the second night of their stay, Levi wakes up with a burning pain in his right eye.
The next morning, Levi wakes up alone. He rolls over and stares at the gray skies outside the window. After a couple of minutes of quiet, he gets up.
He finds Eren in the kitchen, already dressed.
“It’s raining,” Eren says around a mouthful of toast.
“So it is.” Levi grouses as he sits across from him at the small wooden table.
The kitchen is drab and cold like the rest of the house, but Eren got a fire started in the stove.
“I made your tea.”
Levi thanks him and takes a sip from the chipped teacup in front of him.
“What’d you wanna do today?”
Eren shrugs.
“Didn’t really plan on there being rain.”
“No one ever really does.”
“Well,” Eren sighs, “What if we went on a walk along the beach anyway?”
Levi arches his brow, “It’s a bit wet out there.”
“Yeah, but we could bring an umbrella,” Eren smiles.
“I suppose,” and Levi smiles back because he can’t resist.
They’re drenched by the time they make it back to the house in the afternoon. Eren is giggling in Levi’s arms, making a show of struggling against him as the older man picks him up off his feet before they go through the door.
“I can’t believe you lost our only umbrella,” Levi playfully growls in his ear.
Eren squirms, “Don’t be ridiculous, you saw how strong the wind got!”
“You’re gonna have to pay for it, brat.”
“Oh yeah?”
They’re already kissing when they reach the bedroom. Wet clothes are so hard to take off in the heat of the moment, and Levi gives up altogether in completely sliding off his jeans. He lowers them enough for his hard cock to spring free and rubs it between the soft cheeks of Eren’s ass.
Eren is breathless, whines into Levi’s mouth. His long legs bracket the older man, keeping him close, needing him so close.
“Oh, Levi,” he gasps as the thick head enters him.
He’s still loose, still wet from the night before. It burns pleasantly. Levi kisses him through it as he thrusts, until it’s more pleasurable than pleasant until he’s gasping for more, more, more—
Later, when they’re both bone tired in a hot bath, Eren will ask,
“Do you think we’ll ever find them? Do you think they want to be found?”
The “by me?” goes unspoken.
Levi kisses the crown of Eren’s (his lovely, good Eren’s) head and doesn't answer.