Do You Still Love Me

New Painting

Eren hurried over to Hanji's house. He just wanted to distract himself from his thoughts that had started clawing at his mind. He made sure that he had brought his laptop just in case they planned on watching an anime that wasn't on Netflix.

When he arrived at the door he knocked and prepared himself for the loud barking that normally follows. He was confused when he was met with silence. The dogs didn't greet him at the front door, or at all for that matter. Hanji didn't seem to be their either. He began to worry for a moment when Hanji didn't answer and the usually noisy house had been silent.

He went to pull out his phone to call Her to see where she was. He paused when he heard the familiar barking coming up behind him. He turned around to see Hanji with a happy Sonny and Bean.

"Oh, you're here early," Hanji said with a pleasant smile as she walked up and greeted him. "Sorry, I hope you weren't waiting here very long. I just went to take these guys for a quick walk," She said patting the dogs' heads.

"It's okay I just got here a minute ago so I didn't wait long at all," Eren smiled brightly before Hanji unlocked the door and they both entered the friendly little house. She quickly unhooked the dogs from their leashes and they spared no time rushing at Eren to greet him.

"You're gonna love the lasagna I made," Hanji said as she put away the dog leashes. She quickly joined Eren in the living room plopping down on the couch next to him.

"I brought my laptop in case you wanted to watch that new anime I was telling you about," Eren suggested.

"Yes," She squealed, "I've been dying to see it I hear it's so good." She could hardly stay in her seat bouncing with excitement. "I hear that the characters are actually gay this time and it's not just queerbaiting," she said happily.

"That's what I heard," he smiled pulling out his laptop and looking up the episode. Hanji seen the first character and immediately squealed, "He's so cute."

They watch the first two episodes enjoying every minute of them, but timer went off halfway through the second episode. Hanji ran to pull it out of the oven. They finished the episode and then it was time to head to the dining room to eat.

"How's Levi?" She asked hoping that after what had happened earlier he was doing better.

"He's fine now, he just held back his emotions for too long. He told me to tell you he will text you when he needs too," Eren said trying to ease her worry. He told her everything that Levi had said to him of what's been going on and how to calm him down.

"I see, well I'm glad he's okay now," she said after hearing the full story from Eren.

Their time spent together wasn't very eventful this time around, but they enjoyed it nonetheless. It was mostly them talking about mundane stuff over dinner and watching anime for the rest of the time. They managed to make it to episode six before Eren had to leave.

Eren decided to head home around nine saying goodbye to Hanji and promising to return tomorrow with Levi as they had planned earlier.

"Drive safe you hear me," she said hugging him, she never really did like him driving at night.

She always felt driving at night was scary and could be dangerous. Eren, on the other hand, felt peaceful when driving at night especially late at night or early in the morning. At that time the roads were always empty and it seemed like cities had fallen completely asleep. It was the perfect time to clear his head and get him thoughts clear. He liked driving around occasionally stopping at a few places where he would disappear too to be alone or to think.

He took his time driving home not really in a rush. He was enjoying the peaceful night sky and the breeze from his open window. He enjoyed the time he got when he was in the car. He had his music playing and he was humming along to the melody. The song was a catchy song with an uplifting beat as he tried to ward off the negative emotions that constantly plagued his mind.

It wasn't long before he pulled in the driveway, there seemed to be little to no traffic. He got out of the car and headed in the house. The alarm was on and the house was dark and quiet.

'Levi must not be home yet,' Eren thought putting his stuff away and heading up to their bedroom. He changed into his paint stained clothing and went into his studio.

"Well, since I have time to myself I might as well get to work," Eren said picking up a paint brush and a canvas he had over to the side. He already had a painting in mind, but he wanted to take his time with this painting so he grabbed a canvas that was half his size.

He started with tracing the rough outline of a pair of hands. Using his own hands as references. He managed to get most of the edge of the hands complete before needing to look up another reference picture. He carefully typed into google a picture of a heart. Not one of those made up ones that represent the idea of love, no, a real anatomically correct heart.

He traced a rough outline of where it would go on the canvas paying close attention to the details of the heart. When he got it where he wanted it he was about to move back to the hands to position the fingers the way he wanted, but he heard footsteps on the stairs and decided it was time to clean up. He would finish this painting later. He took off his apron and cleaned his brushes before walking out of his studio. He headed into the now lit bedroom and opened the door.

"There you are," Levi said seeing Eren walk into the room. He walked over to Eren and went to give him a kiss.

Eren put his hand up in front of Levi's lips, "you reek of alcohol," he said. He looked at Levi's face closely to try and see if he was drunk, buzzed, or perfectly fine. As he was scouring his face looking for any evidence he noticed a light and faded red stain on his cheek. Lipstick.