Levi POV
"What is it with you and this servant?"
Izzy put her ears back so they were pressed up against her head as she watched Erwin pace through the room. Levi sat in a chair inside his superior's room, legs crossed and a hand on top of his loyal beast.
"What is it with you and your little monster?"
"Stop calling her that.", Levi grumbled.
"She got trained to kill, Levi. To kill and to not leave any remnants."
"Aren't we the same?"
Erwin huffed; his hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers. The thoughtful gaze Levi had come to recognize as worry and anxiety rested on the sleeping boy in his way too huge bed. Nobody could say that a General of Eldia's army didn't get paid well enough.
"On some days I would like to think that we aren't.", he responded softly.
"Suit yourself. And Izzy isn't some monster as you like to call her." He patted the dog's head, allowing his expression to relax at the sight of the animal's eyes, closed in bliss. "She just happens to be one of the most dangerous dogs ever bred."
"And of course that sort of dog belongs to you."
Levi raised a brow.
"You're talking as if I chose her to be the one that would belong to me."
"Well, you're right. I do know you better than that.", Erwin smiled, his eyes only grazing him for a second, then his attention was all over the servant boy in his bed.
"Where is Marie? Wasn't she supposed to stay with you for a while?"
"She left. I told her that she needs rest."
Levi chuckled and Izzy looked up at him with the same adoring glimmer in her face as always when her master did something but staring at nothing with a serious and motionless expression.
"You really want me to believe that she just left because you told her to? Eyebrows, who the fuck do you think you're talking to?"
A smirk flew over Erwin's face and he lowered his head, a sigh leaving his lips.
"I may or may not have told her that she could stay with me for a whole week if she gave me time to deal with all the chaos since the evening of the ceremony."
Levi didn't answer to that.
The thought alone made him want to...he didn't even know anymore what those memories did to him. He replayed them again and again in his mind, trying to find a way out. A way to forget those stunning eyes that had captured him with no way to escape.
To forget the smell of wood and...and something strange that he didn't recognize and yet felt so familiar with. And to forget the warmth of the young man's body against his own.
If he closed his eyes only for a short moment, Levi could still hear the soft words whispered into his ear.
"Trust me on this."
Just what had the prince been trying to achieve that night? Had he really thought that his asshole of a father had wanted him there because of his claim to the throne now that his brother was dead?
A knock on the door made both men turn their heads and Erwin called whoever was outside with a dark voice in.
The doorknob turned around and a second later – and to Levi's surprise – Faris was in the middle of the room, a tray with food and water in hands.
"I'm sorry to interrupt.", he said in his rich voice, the accent dripping from each word. "I have the things you wanted. Medicine, food and..."
"Thank you. Bring it over there, I will-"
"Oh, no. Please. I will take care of him." Faris bowed lowly, carefully balancing the things on the tray as to not lose them in his display of respect. His blond hair fell forward, hiding his dark eyes from Levi's. "This is the work of a servant, not that of a General of His Majesty's army."
Levi saw that Erwin was about to object. He saw it in the way his jaw tensed and in the nervous glances in the sleeping servant's direction.
"Just let him do his job, Eyebrows.", he grumbled. Izzy, who saw the new person in the room, came up to him with a wagging tail, ready to greet him like the friendly beast she was.
But as soon as Faris detected her, he shrunk back, his eyes wide with fear. His fingers were shaking and all the color left his face. Levi would have loved to watch what would further happen – but somehow, he couldn't find it in himself to use the boy's fright for his own joy.
He might be a bastard.
But not that kind of a bastard.
"Izzy, down.", he ordered firmly and the dog obeyed immediately.
The servant visibly relaxed and even managed to shoot a grateful, if small, smile at Levi before walking over to Erwin's giant bed, sitting down next to the servant. Eyebrows watched him as if he were an assassin about to kill his beloved wife.
"Do you know him?", his superior asked while Faris was busy wiping the smaller servant's sweat from his forehead. First the boy didn't answer. Levi was about to send Izzy his way, when he said: "We all know each other."
"We?"
"The servants. We see each other. We talk to each other. We are a family of our own."
Levi huffed, leaning against the back of his chair.
"A family that would betray you for the promise of a softer bed and more money, I bet."
Faris looked up from his work and met Levi's face with an icy cold expression on his face; a hateful glimmer shimmered in his mysterious eyes.
"Not far from a family by blood then."
Levi was taken aback by the answer, not expecting the wave of resentment that came from the quiet servant.
"When will he get better?", Erwin asked and nodded in the small servant's direction. Faris continued with his procedure and tilted his head, narrowing his eyes at the boy.
"A few nights until he will fully recover. But he should be able to work in two days at least. He would be recovering a lot faster if they hadn't starved him that long in a basement cold enough to freeze your shit."
Although anger and hate were flickering in the boy's speech, Levi smirked at his cursing. It sounded strange coming from this innocent looking guy.
Not so innocent if you think about what happened that night when you caught him making out with that boy.
He growled softly, not letting that thought continue any longer. He had a hard time already to forget what had happened back then. And Levi wasn't willing to let this ridiculous train of thought continue any longer inside his head.
"He should have gotten something to eat.", Erwin said, almost as if to defend himself.
"Beautiful words in this ugly world. But words don't change anything, nor do they assure us of anything they represent. Comfort. Safety. Love.", Faris mumbled, his hands working on getting the hair of the younger servant out of the way to pour some of the liquor in the glass on the tray inside of his mouth.
"You have quite the dark mindset about our world.", Levi remarked. Faris' response was an amused smile on his lips.
"If you don't, then you haven't seen enough of it."
And how true that was after all...
(A new chapter in such short time! Poor Armin is sick and Eren weasled his way into taking care of him. Erwin's confused and Levi suspects something...AND we finally get some Eren x Levi interaction!
Hope you liked it! Stay tune for the next chapter of 'Coming for your heart'!)