If Only For A Little While

Can I play with madness?

"To wonder if I'm free!" I sang, attempting to mirror Bruce Dickinson's voice but failing miserably, resulting in an off-key screech fest on my part. But who cares? As long as I'm having fun, right? "Give me a sense of wonder, to know I can be me!"

I continued to belt out the song, practically performing for Levi, guitar solo and all. I take pride in my air guitar abilities. "Levi go!"

"Go where?" He grumbled.

"Sing! Finish strong with me baby!"

"You're too into this," he answered, tightly gripping the steering wheel, "I'm not singing."

"Aw please," I pouted, "The guitar solo's almost over."

He muttered something under his breath just as the solo was about to end opened his mouth and sang.

Can I play with madness
The prophet stared at his crystal ball
Can I play with madness
There's no vision there at all

I gaped at the man, not even bothering to sing along anymore. His voice mesmerized me in a way I never thought possible. It was unique, low and seductive, nothing like Bruce's and yet somehow it melded into the song like it was always meant to be. Watching him sing felt like discovering some rare creature for the first time. Screw watching him listen to classical music all day, I wanted to watch this for the rest of my life.

"Can I play with madness," his voice faded away in sync with the music. I wished I could reach for it, pull it back. For a brief moment of silence neither of us spoke. I was entrapped fully by Levi, my gaze unyielding. He on the other hand refused to look at me, his eyes were glued to the road in front of him.

The silence was only broken by the start of another song, something by Aerosmith, but I was too dumbfounded to get into another song.

"I didn't know you could sing," I murmured softly. I watched him closely for any sign of emotion. His jaw was clenched shut and his brows were furrowed into his ever present scowl. Well almost ever present, for the first time I'd seen him totally relaxed as he sang. It was beautiful, he was beautiful.

"I don't," his frown deepened, "I only sang because you wanted me to."

I smiled, "Well thank you, I loved it."

----------

The drive wasn't as long as I'd anticipated, talking to Levi had helped. After a while we'd managed to push aside some of the initial awkwardness and were able to have a decent conversation. Mostly about trivial things but a conversation none the less.

When we finally arrived at our destination I shot out of the car like a caged puppy being let out. My back was sore from sitting in the same position for so long.

"Well this is the place," Levi announced, gesturing to the building on the other side of the car. I rounded the vehicle to get a better look at where we were staying. I didn't know whether to be excited or scared.

It was an average sized building, it must have been an apartment building back in it's day but now it resembled something more like a horror movie. Gritty, red bricks formed the exterior wall. There were small holes in places where the wall had been broken, exposing plaster and the internal woodworkings of the building. Most of the windows were either boarded up or covered in dirt and grime. The concrete steps leading to the worn, green doors were collapsed in one part, making walking up the steps a more dangerous task.

"Here?" I asked tentatively, praying this was some joke and that he'd tell me the actual base was elsewhere.

"Yeah, what'd you expect for a gang's base? A castle?" Levi mocked, "Come on Erwin's waiting."

I laughed nervously, "Can't wait to meet him."

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Some cutesy fluff here and there's always fun X3

As you can see I'm trying to update more regularly so yay for that.

I've written out my plans for the rest of the fanfiction and unless I change something there should be about 10-15 more chapters left before the end ❤️

Thank you all so much for being an amazing audience ❤️

-KarinParker