"You spoke to him?" Levi's hands dug into the front of Erwin's shirt.
"I tried to, you switched back pretty quickly." Erwin didn't force the other to let him go.
"It was him, he got scared." Levi let go to run a hand over his face.
"God, I hope those assholes didn't hurt him." He muttered.
They stood in the center of Hange's lab, Erwin gazing at the torn look on his friends face. Levi gazing at nothing. His head bent as he looked at the floor. The door opened. A person came in with auburn hair piled up in a messy bun on top of their head. They held papers in one hand while patting their chest with he other. Another person came in behind them.
"It's in your hair." The tall lean form muttered.
The hand left their chest as the auburn haired person reached up for the pencil stuck in the bun. They pulled it out to circle something on the paper.
"Shitty glasses what's going on?" Levi bellowed.
The auburn haired person looked up. Thick glasses covered their eyes as they glared at their boss. They pushed the frames up higher while shaking out the report in their hand.
"All patterns are normal!" They fumed.
"You say that like it's a bad thing." The man behind them muttered.
"Well, Moblit, it is!" the auburn person hissed.
"It means this runt is normal!" they cried.
"Hange, relax. While you were out, they switched." Erwin pointed to the monitor set up beside Levi.
Hange had left the wires on the small crime boss. They were also connected to the machine. Giggling like a school girl faced with their crush, they raced up to the machine.
"Oh, yes. Umm hmm, right here look!" they pointed to several long spikes on the paper.
"So, about 1:45, for a minute thirty seconds?" Hange peered up at Erwin.
"I guess. I mean it felt quicker than that, but he may have been sitting there a few seconds before I realized it." Erwin offered.
"Have we tried communicating with him?" Hange asked.
"Eren isn't a guinea pig either!" Levi growled.
"He spoke to me." Erwin offered.
"What?" Levi narrowed his eyes at the man.
"What did he say?" both Hange and Levi asked in very different tones.
Erwin recounted the dialog. He said how Levi had looked confused by this. He corrected it by shaking his head.
"No it was Eren. I know he heard me. It was as if he was here." Erwin offered.
"Maybe we can force a shift." Hange was tapping their chin.
"If we can come up with something to tell him, a meeting spot. Date and time. It's possible we could find him." They insisted.
"It's late now, let's get some rest." Erwin offered.
"Did you tell him my name?" Levi asked once they were alone in his house.
"No. I was trying to get his information." Erwin stated.
Levi slapped him across the arm. "You idiot!" He growled.
Erwin blinked at the man. Levi walked up to the window over looking his dark back yard.
"He's a street kid. He wouldn't just tell you something. You've seen how hard it is for me to get them to trust me! It takes months. We have seconds with him!" Levi ran a hand through his hair.
"My apologies. I guess my training got in the way of that one." Erwin sank into a chair. He glanced at the tense shoulders of his boss.
"Levi, we will find him, I promise you!" Erwin said.
The posture of the other man didn't change. He stood, ramrod, straight looking out into the darkness. For a long time neither moved. The chair groaned as Erwin stood up. He walked up to the shorter male. Reaching out he ran a hand over the taught tight muscles of the mans back, up to his shoulders. Levi let out a hiss.
Chuckling, Erwin dug his hands into the muscles. He worked out some of the tightness as his hand pulled, pushed or released the stress from the other. Levi slowly relaxed.
"Tea?" Erwin asked once he felt the body loosen up slightly.
"You know me too well." Levi smirked.
The next day they drove out to meet up with Isabel and Furlan. They sat at an outdoor Café.
"We haven't made contact yet." Isabel stated.
"It's almost as if they have dropped..." Isabel elbowed the tall man beside her.
"We decided to meet you here because..." Isabel stopped talking.
"Izzy?" Furlan asked.
"Don't follow me, just watch." She dialed her phone.
Levi's rang. He pulled it out placing it on the table. The speaker was on as the other two huddled around it. Isabel walked down to the bus stop, Furlan not taking his eyes from her.
"Armin " She asked in a surprised tone. The boy lifted his head up.
"Izzy, hi!" He greeted her with a huge grin.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were from down there." He gestured vaguely toward the town she had said she had lived in.
"Yeah, well. You know how it goes for people like us." She clutched her bag tightly to her.
"Yeah." Armin looked away.
"Do, do you have a place?" She asked.
He glanced up at her nervously. "Um, well..." He rubbed at his neck.
"No, I don't want to intrude." She shuffled back a step.
"It's OK. Look I know this guy, he's kind of intense, but he likes having people around. If you can look past some of his crazier antics he isn't bad. Go down near the water, there's an old road with a blue bridge..." Armin went on to tell her how to find the hang out of some street kids.
"Jean's the guy that is sort of in charge there." He offered.
"How come you don't live there?" she asked.
"My friend, Eren, he doesn't like crowds." Armin had looked away. Isabel shook her head waving a hand behind her.
"This Eren, you guys been together long?" she asked. Armin laughed.
"We're friends nothing more. But yeah..." He tilted his head back as the bus pulled up.
"I'll text Jean to be on the look out for you." Armin offered as he waved.
"Isabel!" Furlan yelled.
Erwin was struggling to hold Levi back. The blond knew where Eren was. He was so close! Suddenly Levi wasn't watching the red haired girl talking to the blond. He was sitting in an open field peeling the blades of grass around his feet. The creek ran over his toes as he looked down. It was so peaceful here. He looked around, he was all alone.
Standing up, he took in everything he could see. He heard the sound of an expressway not to far off. There was a busted up semi trailer shoved against the cement barrier. Blue tarps flapped in the breeze. From what he could see, there used to be a warehouse or something behind the semi. He took a step forward.
Suddenly Erwin was in his face. "Did you get that, Eren. He isn't like what you think!" Erwin was crying out nearly desperate to convey something to him.
"What the hell is going on?" Levi snarled.
Erwin let go. He slumped back in the chair. "We may have lost him." He sighed.
"What?" Levi demanded.
"Sit down, we will explain." Furlan didn't look any happier than the blond.
Isabel plucked at a napkin. Levi glanced around at them. Slowly he sank to the edge of the chair. He tried to catch their eyes, but no one would meet his.
"One of you better start fucking..."
"He knows." Isabel whispered.
"Knows?" Levi glared at her.
"You are that Ackerman. He freaked out, yelling about the mafia and how he wasn't going to get involved with that." Erwin stated.
"But..." Levi felt like he couldn't hold himself up any longer.
A pain too intense for words smashed into his chest. Eren! He screamed the name. Suddenly the field was back. He needed Eren to know he wasn't going to hurt him. He grabbed a flat rock to try and scour a message into the boulder he had been sitting on. It wasn't long before he was back with his friends.
This time it was Isabel who was looking at him with eyes close to tears. "... he's kind, he helps us. Stop running from him, please." She begged.
"It's me." He whispered. Had Eren gotten her message?
"Well, he seems to be conflicted." Erwin stated.
Isabel sat back. "He wants to see you." She whispered.
"Well, at least he was happy to hear you hadn't died as a child?" Furlan looked questioningly at the mafia boss with them.
"Not now." Levi growled.
"He thought you were dead for the past ten years." Erwin explained.
"There is some good news though..." Furlan said.
Levi flicked his eyes up to him. "What?" he tried not to sound hopeful.
"We told him to meet us tomorrow at the Café, ten o'clock." Erwin offered.
"Did, did he say he would come?" Levi's chest was tightening. Could he be only a day away from seeing Eren again?
"I was still trying to convince him, when..." Isabel waved at Levi.
"We switched back?" Levi guessed.
They all nodded. Levi picked up his cold tea. He sipped it absent-mindedly. It was just something for his hands to do, while his mind raced ahead. How could he convince Eren? Would the he see the message Levi was trying to give him? He closed his eyes as his heart hammered.
He needed to calm down. They had switched enough for one day.
"Oh, looks like we need to go!" Isabel grabbed Furlan's arm. The two ducked down an alley as a shadow fell across Levi. He looked up.
"Hello mother, ladies." He bowed his head to them.
The rest of his day was spent following the chatting over enthusiastic women around. He hated them all!