Coming for your heart

Chapter 48

"Calm down, brat.", Levi said as calm as ever but he didn't make any attempts to change his stance. Maybe it was because he didn't care, maybe he didn't want Eren to feel any more cornered than he already did.

"I'm not a brat.", he pouted. "And I have a name if you cared to remember it."

Not that it is my real one but whatever.

"Faris."

"Huh?"

"Your name. Faris.", Levi repeated, visibly bored. Eren figured that he would probably already be gone if he was that disinterested in...whatever he was doing here. In the room of his supervisor. But who was Eren to talk...?

"So, you are from Shiganshina? I thought you told me you lived in some shitty forest."

"I did.", Eren answered as fast as he could, trying to remember every little tale he had ever woven around the man. "My friends were from Shiganshina. I met them after...after what happened."

After you let all of them die. After you arrived too late to help us.

"We asked for nothing else. Just for a way to keep living. And you couldn't even give us that much."

"Were you there? That night in Shiganshina...did you see it?", he asked quietly, avoiding to meet the man's eyes at all costs. Not even his contacts could hide the pain that poked at his heart as he remembered the shocked face of his mother's corpse.

Levi was silent for a moment, his mouth a thin line and in tune with his sharp features.

"I was.", he answered shortly as if it was explanation enough.

Eren stepped closer to him, doing his best to keep his hands from clenching and unclenching. He didn't want the General to know how his seemingly uncaring expression was affecting him.

"They say that it was a massacre. Many people..." "Eren...don't." "Many people got killed."

Levi hummed, a shadow flying over his face.

"That's what they say."

Eren bared his teeth and went back to folding Armin's clothes and tugged his friend's blanket up to his chin. The boy might be sweating now but after the sweat dried, he would be freezing for sure. And after all...after all his mother had done the same for him whenever he had been sick.

Slow steps from behind made him tense up and he swallowed, ignoring his instincts although they were telling him to fight against the nearing danger. To test out his newfound powers.

"Is that Jean-guy one of the..." Levi cleared his throat while all the color left Eren's face. "Was he from Shiganshina?"

He had already remembered his little, drunk 'talk' with the General. Eren knew that he had mentioned Jean. But why the hell did he remember it?

He inhaled shakily, cursing the memories that flooded his mind at the mention of his friend's name.

"He...was." He is. He will always be. Even though Shiganshina will never be the same again. Not after all that...blood. Those corpses...the fire.

A low groan attracted their attention.

"Armin!"

Levi POV

Faris took the servant boy's hand and leaned down a bit, focusing his gaze on his stirring friend.

"Water...", the boy rasped and Faris had the carafe of water in his hand even before the brat had ended his speech. The servant's eyes fluttered open, a feverish glimmer in them.