Lovers (Killers) Ereri/Riren AU

Chapter Seven

A/N: I JUST SAW BIG HERO 6 AND HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AN AMAZING MOVIE NO SPOILERS HERE BUT Y'ALL SHOULD TOTALLY GO AND WATCH IT!!!

Disclaimer: No, still don't own SNK or Eren or Levi or any of those little shits.

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Three days later, Levi was released from the hospital.

Eren was sad to see him go, but the older boy promised to come back and visit every day, so Levi's absence didn't seem so large anymore now that he had promised to come back.

Only, things didn't exactly work out like they planned. When Levi got home the first day, the state of the house he and his uncle shared was like a pigsty and he almost had a heart attack looking at it, so he spent the rest of the day cleaning until the house shone like a newly polished diamond. The cleaning helped to take Levi's mind off of everything that had happened; Farlan and Isabel's deaths, his short time spent in a coma, and the heart-wrenching despair he'd felt when Isabel's heart gave out. Well, cleaning took his mind off of almost everything. He couldn't seem to forget Eren.

The way the younger boy's green eyes sparkled whenever he got excited or happy, his soft brown hair, the way it felt so right whenever they were pressed up against each other, kissing passionately—he couldn't forget any of it. He spent most of his time cleaning in a half-dazed state, wandering around daydreaming about the boy he'd left behind in the hospital.

He was going back to visit the next day, but then something happened that neither of them had accounted for—school. Which Levi had missed a lot of. Also meaning that he had a shit-ton of homework that needed to be done. Finishing up your sophomore year of college with a brain injury and the loss of your two best friends was depressing to say the least, and the amount of classes Levi had missed made it even more so.

So Levi spent the next day sitting in lectures and taking notes and receiving huge packets of papers that he'd missed from every teacher he visited.

So he missed another day of visiting.

The next day was pretty much the same routine, only with more work and less listening. All Levi could think about was Eren. At least today was a Friday; if he got all his work done quickly, he could spend all day tomorrow and Sunday with Eren.

Only, he underestimated the amount of work he needed to get done, so for the first half of Saturday he sat in his room figuring out quadratic equations and writing essays on anglerfish.

When he finally arrived at the hospital, he was dead tired, but when he saw Eren all that exhaustion vanished. The first thing they did was hug, and then the next thing he knew they were kissing passionately.

"It's been so lonely here without you," Eren whispered breathlessly when they finally broke apart. "Jean's gone back to being grumpy because Marco has a huge project in school so he can't visit the hospital, and there's no one to talk to anymore. Mikasa won't even visit after what she saw."

Levi laughed a little at the last part, but turned serious again almost immediately. "I know, and I would've visited sooner, but school's being a bitch. But don't worry. I cleared the rest of my weekend schedule especially for you." He smiled at his lover and went in for another kiss, but Eren pushed him away. His green eyes were filled with worry.

"All of tomorrow they're prepping me for surgery," he said. He stared down at his hands, which were rubbing back and forth against each other like he had a nervous twitch. "I'm...scared, Levi. There's a large chance that the transplant might go wrong. Or that the new heart will reject me. My family is placing all their bets on this new heart; you have no idea how hard they've been working to try to pay for this thing. And...I just really don't want anything to go wrong." When he looked up at Levi again, his green eyes were filled with tears. Levi's heart nearly broke just from looking at his expression.

"Hey," he said gently, taking Eren's hands in his own and gently rubbing his thumbs over his palms. "Hey, it's going to be okay. You're so strong, you know that? You keep on fighting, no matter what. And you're going to fight to keep living, because we need you to. Mikasa, Armin, all those people who know you that I've never met, but I'm going to, I'm going to meet them because you're going to show them to me. They all need you to keep fighting, and so do I. You may be a brat, and I might be a jerk, but we need each other to keep on going. I love you, Eren Jaeger. And this is not a fight you're going to loose."

Eren's eyes filled with tears again, and he rushed forwards and slammed his lips into Levi's, the shock of the kiss electrifying them both. They held each other close as Eren cried, and they kissed, the younger boy's tears dripping off his nose and splashing onto Levi's cheeks.

"I love you too, Levi," he sobbed, throwing his arms around the older boy. "I love you, I love you, I love you…"

~o)0(o~

The next day, Levi didn't get to see Eren, but he waited anxiously in his room for the younger boy, sitting on Eren's bed and looking through his sketchbook or simply just writing more chapters of his book. Eren loved the story, and Levi was going to keep on writing and give it to him simply as a show of how much he loved him.

Eventually, Levi was so tired he just fell asleep in Eren's bed. When the other boy came back from surgery prep, he smiled softly at the sight of his boyfriend curled up in his bed, laptop still clutched in his hands. Gently Eren removed it from his fingers and set it down on the nightstand, then changed into sweatpants and climbed in next to him, letting himself be immersed in Levi's warmth for one last night.

~o)0(o~

In the morning, there were already doctors and nurses bustling around the room when the two boys woke up, Hanji among them.

"Good to see you back here, Levi!" She said brightly, and the boy groaned overdramatically.

"Eren, we're going to need you to change into this," Erwin said, handing the boy a hospital gown. Eren nodded and stood up, stretching as he did so and cracking his back.

"Don't do that, it's not good for you," Levi said lazily as he got up too, stretching like a cat and making a point out of not cracking his back.

Eren laughed, though his nerves showed in his eyes. He kissed Levi hurriedly, acting like it was his last time, before getting up to go change. While Levi waited for him to come back, Armin, an old man Levi didn't recognize, and Mikasa arrived. She pointedly ignored Levi, instead looking everywhere in the room except for at him.

When Eren came back, he was immediately suffocated in a tangle of bodies as the people in the room simultaneously dove in to hug him. Petra had tears in her eyes when she pulled away, and she hurriedly wiped at them, trying not to seem too emotional.

"I'm not going to be in the surgery room, but good luck, Eren," she said, wiping at her eyes. She gave him a quick hug. "Be strong. You can get through this."

He smiled at her and hugged back. "Thank you so much, Petra."

The older man, who turned out to be Armin's grandfather and apparently the man who had been taking care of Eren and Mikasa since their mother's death, was next, and he gave Eren a hug as well, making him promise to come out of this alive. Then Armin went, a couple other nurses, and finally Mikasa, who whispered something fiercely in his ear that made Eren go pale with his eyes widening in fear of whatever his older sister had said.

And then it was Levi's turn. "Remember what I told you," he said as he hugged Eren. "I love you."

"I love you too," Eren whispered back, pulling him in for one last kiss. "I'll see you soon."

He went over to the bed which the doctors would be wheeling him down to the surgery room in, and with a last glance over his shoulder at Levi, climbed in, giving them a thumbs-up. And as he was wheeled down the hallway away from them, Levi didn't like how much this felt like a goodbye.

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A/N: Wow, that was kind of a depressing chapter and the cliffhanger didn't really help much...oh well, guess you'll have to live with it. I'll update again tomorrow! :D