Chapter Text
He was ten.
He was ten and he never forgot, no matter how many years passed, that awful moment. No matter how hard he tried to forget, he could only distract himself. He even dreamed about it. In the years since he often dreamed about the moment he remembered his mother dying.
It was never any less vivid.
He could smell the classroom; the other kids, the bright non-toxic paint in the art corner, the smell of pencil shavings and plastic erasers, and, faintly, a banana forgotten in the bottom of someone's bag.
It was cloudy outside. Melissa O’Reilly was picking her nose and flicking the boogers at the back of Candice Keys's head. Girls were gross. Candice hadn't noticed and Eren wasn't going to tell, in case Melissa started flicking her boogers at him. She seemed to have an inexhaustible supply and Eren didn't get into fights much back then.
Bill Sunderland had said Eren could try out his new racing game that afternoon and Eren couldn't wait. His mom had said it was okay, and maybe Mrs Sunderland would make cookies with white chocolate for them, the kind his mom never made. But cookies were a long way away, and there were a lot of mathematics problems to get through first. He glared at the lined paper of his exercise book and surreptitiously counted out the multiplication table on his fingers.
There was nothing worth remembering about this moment; it was like a thousand others.
Other than the fact his mom was dead.
It was like a punch in the gut. No, worse. He'd been punched before, in one of his rare fights, and this was more sickening and more painful. His pencil plopped onto the page from nerveless fingers as he stared, not at the back of Grant Richardson’s head but at a memory, new and shiny as a game still wrapped in plastic.
His mother, writhing and screaming above the ruins of a house he knew as theirs, her back broken while he watched, eaten while he watched. She had so much blood in her; when the enormous teeth closed around her middle it spurted out-
There was a sound. Eren didn't recognise it at the time, but the other kids could hear it, because they were covering their ears and staring at him in horror and everything was blurry.
He was screaming. The dreams usually ended there, or segued into something else.
The memories continued.
The teacher, Miss Willis, didn't consider for a moment that Eren was faking it. Up until that day he'd been a mostly obedient, if somewhat inattentive student. She thought he might have been having some sort of seizure, he learned later. Hyperventilating through his tears, Eren wanted to run to his mother, wherever she was. He had to try and save her even though he knew she was long, long dead.
He kicked and fought and cried and an ambulance was called and they gave him something that quietened him down although he continued to cry. All he could tell them was that his mother was dead. She'd been eaten alive.
It took Monica Jaeger only twenty minutes to drive across town to her son, and she took one look at him before flinging her arms around him, crooning and ruffling his hear, nearly in tears herself as she told him it was okay, it was all right, she was fine, she wasn't eaten and he was going to be fine.
And what happened next would always cause a stab of guilt whenever he remembered it, the first of a thousand cuts he would inflict upon his parents. Teary-eyed and chemically calmed, he looked at her.
“Not you, Mom. My other mother.”
Eren exhaled sharply as he realised he'd been lost in a flashback again. What was he doing? He'd gotten pretty good at pretending he hadn't been somewhere else, but by now everyone knew he was off in his own head a good proportion of the time anyway.
If it had just been that one thing it would have been okay, even though at the time his parents and teachers were terribly worried about his waking dream. Everyone would have got over it eventually.
But they didn't stop. It was like his brain kept producing these dreams and memories, in bits and pieces whether he liked them or not. And he hated them. A bakery reminded him of a girl with brown hair. He refused to go into second-hand bookshops in case they had some of those big old leather-bound books that left him shaking and short of breath.
High grey walls gave him nightmares. He refused to eat meat for three months when he was twelve and even now the sight of raw mince in the fridge for tomorrow's spaghetti sauce had him running for the bathroom to vomit. For those first few years he lived in a state of paranoia, unable to know what would trigger some new hallucination.
Now he knew, most of the time. He could deal, even when he was surprised.
None of it was fair. He'd fucked up, he'd failed, it was an endless drumbeat in the back of his brain. His parents and the counsellors they paid for tried to tell him his life lay ahead, that he had so much promise, and he couldn't get them to understand it was too late. Everyone fucking dies in the end.
It wasn't teenage angst, it was the truth. He'd seen so many of them die, or heard about it later. His dreams were full of dismembered friends.
When the talking didn't work they doped him up, but it didn't kill the dreams or the images in his brain, it just made him even less able to tell what was real and what wasn't. He itched. He burned to get out of his own skin.
Life began to suck in earnest, and not just thanks to his own malfunctioning brain. His bizarre new habits- drifting off mid-sentence, bursting into tears at random moments- made him a target for the handful of bullies that every school is burdened with.
Eren had been taught by his parents not to respond, not to give in, to report anything to the teachers and up until now it hadn't really been an issue. He'd been reasonably well liked.
When he started high school, the bullies now included boys who were much bigger and stronger than he was, and one afternoon he was cornered on the way home, drifting off again, ignoring the taunts hurled at his back because he'd remembered a beautiful young woman with her back broken, slammed against a tree, and his utter failure to prevent the tragedy. His hallucinations never made any sense; sometimes he was a child in them and sometimes a young man, but mostly somewhere between the two. But always he was inadequate. He knew she'd died for his sake.
He came to his senses when someone shoved him and he blinked as he returned to reality to face his aggressors, tears trickling down his face.
Don't fight, his mother had told him.
He stumbled against a wall and the three boys loomed over him and something snapped.
Don't fight. He had to fight. If only he'd fought more. If only he'd killed them all.
Fight, Eren. You're our hope.
He hurled himself at them. They were bigger and stronger, and his rage couldn't change that, but unlike them he had nothing holding him back. He wanted them to die, and he didn't much care if he died himself in the process. He bit and gouged and flailed and they gave him a bloody nose and a dozen bruises, but he didn't stop coming and the fight didn't end until they retreated.
They left him alone after that.
Eren started attracting a new breed of tormentors, ones who had demons of their own to appease and wanted a taste of the violence that Eren could offer. Eren obliged. He dreamed of being trained, of being shouted at and thrown and throwing others in the dust a million times. He discovered he could apply these lessons to reality.
He was suspended and lectured and threatened with criminal charges, but the fights were consensual, and there was nothing much to be done about a group of closed-mouthed teenagers who refused to discuss how they acquired their black eyes and bloody noses. It did frighten him, however, the thought of being locked up; anything but that. And he'd be cowed into acquiescence for a few days before someone would trigger his rage.
As Eren grew older and bigger, and his temper remained an unstoppable force, even these reprobates grew afraid of him and no one touched him at all. There was something in his eyes that warned people off. He was relieved more than anything else. Fighting hadn't made him happy, hadn't drowned out the nonsense his brain vomited all over his life.
And when he thought about it, when he managed to claw back some of himself, he knew he didn't really want to hurt anyone, and he knew he was lucky he hadn't caused any permanent injuries.
Alcohol helped. Buzzed he could live in the moment, and plastered he could simply not live at all. He was thirteen when he discovered the numbing side-effects of his parents' liquor cabinet. His new found coping mechanism gave him the clarity to feel guilty for all he was putting his parents through.
He'd go through periods of trying to make it work. He'd take notes in class and make an effort to talk to people, focus on the here and now. He'd do some chores around the house and try and pretend he was a normal teenager. When it started getting too hard he'd sneak drinks (this was before his parents decided not to keep any alcohol in the house at all.) Sometimes he'd get caught, and shouted at or grounded or worse yet reasoned with. As he got better at hiding it, he got caught less, but it never worked for more than a few days.
He'd fall asleep, and dream, and he'd remember Jean's lifeless corpse standing in for him one last time as they attempted to convince the capital he was dead. Another failed plan. He couldn't remember why it had been so important. He couldn't remember what cause they'd all been dying for.
And he'd be lost again, the futility of everything-including the rage that pulsed through his veins-sending him back right where he started. He hated these dreams; he hated not being able to convince himself that they weren't real. He wanted to, so desperately. He tried everything the therapist suggested, but the therapist didn't understand. He wasn't there. He hadn't seen them, hadn't known them.
Eren hadn't been there either. One evening he tried to write it down, the sick, bloody story of his other life, but he realised he didn't know. The reason had gone, all that remained was the emotion and fragments of memories. And they weren't all bad.
The relief from knowing someone hadn't died (they died later,) Mikasa's smile, Levi's terrible jokes. Riding with the wind in his hair. The hope of a new plan. Friends. Comrades. People he'd believed in. People who'd believed in him.
They hurt more because nothing in reality made him feel anywhere near as good.
Eren lost his virginity at fifteen, having expended no particular effort on his part to do so. Eren didn't really realise that what tormented him looked from the outside, to some people at least, utterly cool. The girl reminded him of Armin and there was something about the slope of her neck, and the way she smiled that calmed him a little.
But she wasn't Armin, and Eren's bone-deep disappointment at the discovery that someone's arms around you and someone's mouth on your neck didn't really change anything meant he treated her fairly badly in the end. Eventually the social cachet of being Eren's girlfriend wasn't worth the erratic mood swings and the indifference to her own problems, and she quietly dumped him.
Eren felt vaguely regretful, and his dick was disappointed but he didn't care that much. She wasn't dead, after all, and by those standards the event was hardly a blip on his emotional radar.
He had friends of a sort. Admirers mostly; other outcasts looking for the protection his fearsome reputation afforded him. He hung out with them when he wanted distracting, but generally he preferred to be on his own, somewhere high up, where he could see the horizon.
Eren lived in a town called Roller, in a part of California as far removed from the beach as from the moon. It was cold and wet in winter, and hot and dry in summer. The Jaegers both had jobs and they lived in one of the nicer areas, where people kept their lawns clear, and assumed the cops were there to help.
Decay wasn't far away, however.
The economy here was no better than anywhere else, and Eren only had to walk a few blocks from his school to find the empty buildings he liked so much. He didn't appreciate them for their aesthetic value, and he had no real desire to explore their innards, but no one stopped him from climbing them, scaling fire escapes and access ladders until he made it onto the roof.
Here under an open sky, with no walls around him, he felt a bit better. He'd sit up there for hours watching the clouds or sleeping. He slept better up there; fewer dreams.
Eren knew no fear. The homeless, the junkies, the cops, and even the twitchy meth dealers didn't frighten him. He avoided the latter simply because he didn't need trouble, and thus trouble rarely came to him. He was not prey.
He stayed in school, a minor miracle that occurred only because his parents promised he could have a car if he graduated. It would be a cheap pile of shit, he knew, but it was the only thing he was looking forward to. Freedom. To take to the road and never look back. He didn't care where he went, and in fact the depopulated vastness of the Nevada desert to the north called him far more urgently than the bright lights of San Francisco or Los Angeles to the south.
So he stayed in school, waiting. And passing, for the most part. To motivate himself he'd picture his car, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth, forcing himself into an imaginary driver's seat, not the meat cocoon he sometimes had nightmares about.
He was sixteen when he met Cat. Until that day he'd always pictured that name as more appropriate for a girl, but it suited Cat down to the ground. He moved with a kind of macho grace that had Eren realising, with a kind of resigned amusement, that he might be a bit more bisexual than his brief dating history had implied.
Not that Eren gave any sign of these thoughts, partly because he was freakish enough already but mostly because Cat was a raging homophobe. Occasionally he would even play along with the advances made by other men until he had an excuse to turn on them, ask them if he looked like some sort of faggot, and unleash a rage that was as unexpected and brutal as Eren's own.
But the first time Eren and Cat met, there was no sign of that rage.
Eren was hungry, and lacking in cash. He'd spent the afternoon on top of a deserted mall. He'd napped a bit, and when he'd woken up in a cold sweat under the blazing sun he was sure he was being hunted by some huge naked thing. It had taken him a long time to calm down, drink what was left of the warm bottle of coke he had in his bag, and remind himself that he was too old to be scared of monsters.
Now the sun was setting and his stomach was rumbling. If he found one of his friends they'd probably buy him something to eat, but he'd taken off as soon as his last class had ended and he had no idea where any of them were. He could look in the usual places but it was probably easier just to go home for dinner.
He made his way down to the ground floor, which stank of rotting carpet and urine, and then out into the street. He moved purposefully, his hunger driving him on.
“Hey, you.”
Eren paused. The man talking to him was in his early twenties, solidly-built with close-cropped black hair and dark, expressive eyes. He had a couple of friends with him who were maybe a bit younger. Eren didn't know if he could take them or not; he suspected they were armed, but he had no sense, back then, of his own strength. He believed that he'd once killed people much larger than him, but he also believed that his mother had been eaten when he was ten and so he didn't put much stock in his homicidal imaginings. But he wasn't afraid. What happened happened, and they didn't seem aggressive anyway, keeping a polite distance from him and their hands where he could see them.
“I don't have any money,” Eren said calmly.
“That's a shame. You want some?” The stranger grinned, “I know you, man, I've seen you about. This is my turf.” The man spread his arms, to encompass at very least the all-but-deserted street, and maybe the entire world. “They say you crazy. I say maybe, but you ain't the stupid kind of crazy so who cares, right?”
“Okay.” Eren guessed some sort of deal was in the offing, but he couldn't imagine being interested. He didn't want to join a gang particularly; it seemed like pointless effort for little reward. But this guy didn't put him on edge the way most people did, and Eren didn't walk away.
“Those kids you hang out with, your little ducklings? They're stupid. They're dragging you down, thinking that because they got crazy old you in their corner they can do what they like. You ain't helping them, man.”
“I'm not responsible for them,” Eren said.
“That's my point. You just want the kind of friends who know when to leave you alone; you got your own shit.”
“What do you want?” Eren asked.
“I'm Cat, and I wanna be your friend.”
“I'm hungry,” Eren said.
“Yeah? Me too. You guys hungry?” Cat looked at his friends and they agreed they were hungry and so Eren found himself plied with McDonald's while Cat and his friends talked about nothing in particular. He went home afterwards and Cat told him he'd see him around.
And he did. Cat had the ability to make himself good company. People talked to him, gave him discounts and felt bad when they let him down. They felt even worse after he'd punished them, but most of the time he gave the impression he genuinely liked the people he was hanging out with. Girls loved him, and Eren discovered a few months later he had at least one kid somewhere, a daughter, whom he was planning to get something nice for – at least on the rare occasions he remembered her existence.
And he could read Eren better than anyone he'd ever met. If he wanted to be alone, Cat would disappear, and when he wanted company, there he was. He was better company than Eren's old friends, who took to avoiding him. When Eren stopped to think about it he wondered if Cat had warned them off, but found he didn't really care if that was the case.
One evening they were sitting around Cat's apartment, drinking beer while some people Eren didn't know were swearing at each other around the Xbox.
Cat was doing something on his phone and Eren was just sitting at the kitchen table, drinking Cat's beer and eating corn chips. He felt okay; he was managing to live in the moment.
“I know what you're waiting for.” It took Eren a moment to realise Cat was talking to him, and he focused his attention. “You're waiting for me to say you've drunk too much of my beer and eaten too much of my food and now you gotta pay it back. But it ain't like that, this is friendship. I don't make people do shit.”
Eren didn't reply.
“If you want to help you can help, and I'll pay you, but otherwise don't worry about nothing.”
“Okay.”
Nevertheless, Eren itched to do something. In his dreams he was always seized with a terrible purpose, but in reality there was little that motivated him. Still, he started going along with Cat, and in was on these expeditions he saw the older man demonstrate his sudden, explosive rage towards those he deemed inferior. Eren didn't judge him. He was in no position to judge, he decided.
Mostly Cat and his gang dealt drugs and acted as a small-time loan sharks, but in a world full of unreliable people, every opportunity to remain solvent had to be taken. Eren preferred to be slightly drunk when he accompanied Cat. It made these expeditions seem more like fun and less like petty crime. They made him feel like he had a purpose, and comrades, and that feeling was like coming home and Eren clung to it as long as he could, until he sobered up. Cat himself seemed to sense when Eren's conscience was starting to bother him and Cat would simply not invite him for a week or two until he started getting bored and restless again.
Sometimes Eren struck out on his own, not to prey on anyone else but to expend his rage on inanimate objects. Sometimes his vandalism was senseless destruction, sometimes he'd buy paint and try his hand at graffiti, drawing huge looming figures or writing names of people who'd never existed on crosses.
Over the summer he spent several weeks painting what he considered his masterpiece; a pair of overlapping wings that he spread across the back wall of a disused petrol station, so picked because the Toxic Environment signs kept almost everyone out. Nevertheless, two weeks after he'd finished the work someone spray-painted a nude woman between them and dubbed her 'Angel.'
Eren spent ten minutes staring at it, seething. The wings were important; they meant something. They were hope and freedom, and honestly he'd been proud of his work; prouder than anything else he'd done all year. He tracked down Cat and asked him where he might find a sledgehammer.
A couple of hours later Eren stripped off his shirt and worked himself into a lather as he turned the brick surface into something more closely resembling the surface of the moon while Cat watched, leaning against the chain link fence and smoking thoughtfully. He bought Eren soda afterwards, and asked him if he felt better.
Eren lied and told him he did, but he nursed a sick, cold feeling of failure for the next few days, and every time he thought of it for weeks following. He couldn't even protect a symbol from some kids with spray paint.
The next time someone gave Cat lip, Eren didn't even wait to be asked; he knocked the offender out cold with one blow.
There was money too, now that Eren ran with Cat. It wasn't very regular, but it was better than nothing because Eren could barely stand school, and he knew he wouldn't last more than a week in most jobs even if he hadn't had a reputation that preceded him all over town. His parents didn't push it; they gave him money sometimes, but he rarely asked for it. He didn't really need it, as Cat gave him food and drink if he wanted it. The money he did get he saved up for his eventual escape, putting it away in a shoebox at the back of his closet. He was quite sure his parents knew about it, but they were probably more relieved than anything else that all he was hiding was his savings rather than drugs.
Cat knew about his desire for a car, and often talked of getting him one someday, but Eren didn't expect it to actually materialise. He knew he was only useful to Cat as long as he was there, and his plan was to leave town and never come back. There was no profit in getting Eren a car from Cat's perspective. So he saved his money and waited for the day he'd leave.
Senior year crawled by at a snail's pace. Eren was seventeen now, angular and wiry with a haunted air and scarred knuckles. He was no longer said to mix with a bad crowd; a year in Cat's service had cemented his position as part of the bad crowd.
He turned up to school slightly hungover, and spent his evenings prowling Roller's streets. He got most of his sleep in class, or sprawled on a rooftop afterwards. Even in the colder months he didn't lose his tan.
“Eren, can I speak to you after class?”
Ms Hall reminded him of poor, doomed Petra, and the guilt he felt was probably reflected in his eyes whenever he talked to her. He'd let Petra down, and he knew he let Ms Hall down too, but she never failed to be encouraging. He didn't think he'd done anything wrong, as he hadn't done anything at all in class today other than drift off into another waking nightmare, but he was prepared to look contrite anyway once the class was dismissed and he approached his teacher.
Ms Hall didn't look much like Petra; the resemblance was more subtle than that. She was plump and wore lots of rings which she'd twist around her fingers as she talked during a lesson. Most of the other students liked her well enough, but her attempts to get them to appreciate literature mostly fell on deaf ears.
“I wanted to talk to you about the essay you handed in last week. On Romeo and Juliet,” she prompted him, at his blank look. Last week held little meaning for him, it might have been last month.
“Yes?” It was the first piece of assessment he hadn't asked for an extension for; usually Mrs Hall gave him extra time and he exploited her kindness, but he'd written that essay one afternoon on a rooftop, pouring out the words and handing them in on time.
“I was very impressed. It was clear that his words spoke to you; there was such passion, although I am going to have to mark you down a bit for simple errors you would have caught if you'd read over it a few times.”
“I see. That's good then.”
“Eren, you should feel proud of yourself. I'm proud of you.” She looked at him encouragingly. “I feel like you have a lot to say, a lot locked away. Literature can help us express our pain, free those words.”
“I just-”
“Go on, take your time.”
Eren sighed, “It's just obvious, isn't it? Just cause they were young and all doesn't mean they weren't gonna die. It made it worse, right, cause they were looking at each other not at all the other crap that was going on around them.”
The play had put him in mind of another story, one Armin had told him in a hushed whisper one night, about Franz and Hannah. He wondered what had happened to Hannah in the end, because it was hard to picture her by herself. Franz and Hannah; one unit, one breath. A stupid married couple in a world where such luxuries couldn't be afforded.
He'd loved.
He'd loved people too. Too many people, taken away from him one by one.
Ms Hall seemed to expect more from him.
Eren shrugged. “I dunno, it seemed obvious to me.”
“And you conveyed your impressions passionately and clearly,” she said. “This is the essence of communication.”
Eren could see she really wanted him to be happier about it, but the truth was he didn't care particularly. It was a relief to get a good mark, but all he needed to do was pass. It wasn't like he enjoyed Romeo and Juliet, and in fact he'd fallen asleep when they actually watched a performance; it just happened to make sense to him. Everyone dies, even stupid young people in love. It didn't piss him off the way most of their set texts did.
“Well, that's good,” he said. He wanted to get out of here. He'd made it through another day.
Ms Hall talked to him for a bit about how he might obtain some extra credit, but the idea of doing more school work than he had to was utterly alien to him. There was no point. He wasn't going to college. He was going to get a car and drive, and anything beyond that was too complicated.
Eventually she let him go, and Eren strolled out and checked his phone. Cat wanted him to go out that night, and Eren didn't have anything better to do.
He stepped out into a hot, dry wind that ruffled his hair and smelled like dust. The sky was big and bland, flat and shallow as a pane of glass, and Eren stretched, listening to his shoulders click as he wondered where he should spend the few hours he had free.
Most of his classmates went to the mall. There was only one now as the other one had finally closed a couple years before; Eren remembered people getting upset about it. The economy, the war on terror, the drug problem; none of it bothered Eren much. He wasn't afraid of big, nebulous things any more than he was afraid of getting mugged on the way home.
He wasn't even afraid of death. He felt like he'd died already. Died and dried out in the sun and turned to dust and blew away. Would be nice. Better than chewed and shot and sliced and hung.
He bought soda and chocolate from a convenience store. The chocolate would start to melt in his bag and he'd have to lick it off the wrapper later, but he didn't mind. Cat would buy him dinner.
He left the nicer part of town, and selected an eyrie on top of an old office building on the edge of Roller. He liked this one. It was a long walk, and a long climb at the end of it, but because of where it was situated and its height, he could see for miles and miles squinting into the heat haze as his eye traced the dark ribbon of road out of town and sunlight twinkled off the windscreens of the cars on the interstate. It was his way out. His future.
The evening was warm and unsettled, and Eren chafed more than usual at the restrictions of this world. Cat and the others met him in Roller's memorial park, more because it was central than for any appreciation of its tired and dusty looking trees, or the trash cans overflowing with rubbish at the end of the day. They ate fried chicken, and Eren drank enough beer to get his head spinning pleasantly. He'd grown adept at keeping himself just the right amount of drunk, and the group set off to look for trouble.
Cat was having an argument with someone, and there was some ritual posturing at the edge of his turf and Eren was bored witless by these petty battles that rarely amounted to any actual fighting. It was at these moments, when Cat thought he looked his biggest, that to Eren he looked his smallest; discussing who got to sell drugs on which corners like it was a negotiation for world peace.
Who gave a fuck? Eren laughed uneasily to himself. Cat didn't mind; Eren was scary because he was crazy, and his reputation was as useful as his actual fists. Somehow that brought negotiations to a conclusion, and they loped off again.
“I'm fucking bored,” Eren said.
It was after midnight now, and they'd paced the town like caged lions, but other than scaring off a handful of teenagers and glowering at the occasional police car, they hadn't found anything exciting to do.
Cat looked irritated. He'd been preoccupied with the results of his earlier negotiations, and Eren suspected he wasn't even that keen on being out tonight. But he had to uphold his image, and put Eren back in his place.
“Okay. Let's get some money.” That meant stealing, and since goods were better protected than people, that meant mugging someone. Cat looked at Eren for a moment, as if daring him to change his mind; he knew Eren didn't like that stuff, that he didn't really approve.
“Fine,” Eren said, refusing to back down. He wanted another beer first. He got it.
There weren't too many people on the streets at this point other than police, other troublemakers, and the night shift workers and it was these cleaners and shelf-stockers that they targeted. Generally they didn't put up a fight, but the possibility that they might was enough to ensure Eren wasn't bored.
Eren stumbled along behind the others, feeling guilty and depressed and slightly too drunk to care enough to call it off and go home. They were wandering about a block from a convenience store. Not much else was open to draw potential prey.
“That'll do,” Cat said.
Stomping along under the streetlights was a short man in jeans and a shirt. Hands in his pockets, head down, no meandering as he headed for the convenience store and clearly he was in a hurry. He had long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. He didn't look like he was paying any attention to his surroundings, which was just asking for trouble in this town at this time.
Cat ambled along behind him, closing the distance gradually, Eren and the others in tow.
“Hey, you got a light?” Cat asked, when they were within speaking distance. The guy hadn't even broken his stride, or glanced behind him despite the footsteps he must have heard in his wake. He wasn't deaf either, because Cat's words caused him to straighten up, his hands still in his pockets, and turn to look at them over his shoulder.
Eren felt as if the ground were giving way under his feet as his gaze fell upon their victim's face. The slouch and the long hair was all wrong, but those cold, narrow eyes and high cheekbones and pale skin was terribly, painfully, nonsensically familiar. Eren inhaled sharply and staggered back, unsure if he was suddenly very drunk or ice cold sober because the guy had clearly recognised him as well, his eyes widening and the colour in his face draining away.
Cat had heard him gasp and looked sharply at him, alarmed at Eren's uncharacteristic distress.
“Eren?”
Don't say my fucking name where he can hear you! But his jaw wouldn't unclench, and Eren caught his right hand curling into a fist as muscle memory pulled him into a salute.
His breath was coming in shallow, panicked gasps, and he'd had plenty of panic attacks before, usually caused by dreams, but he was pretty sure he was wide fucking awake right now.
Who the fuck was he?
The stranger- no not a stranger, he knew him, knew him so well it hurt, was working his jaw, trying to come up with something to say and Eren suddenly couldn't bear to hear him speak in case he spoke with the voice that threaded through Eren's mind and echoed in his ears like a real memory. A voice he'd missed.
Eren turned and ran. Once he'd made the decision to go, no force on earth could have held him back, and he felt like he was flying. He could hear Cat saying something behind him but he didn't care to hear what, and he realised the others were following, trusting he'd had good reason to flee.
The night air burned in his throat, made his eyes water, and ran cool fingers through his hair. He ran blindly, taking turns at random and desperate to get away, not just from the man in the street behind him but from the knowledge that he'd seen him.
He recognised me, he recognised me. Only self-preservation prevented Eren from screwing his eyes shut to try and block everything out. He'd outpaced Cat and the others entirely, fuelled by adrenaline.
Breathless and bathed in sweat he finally had to stop, his legs rubbery and threatening to buckle underneath him. He leaned against a wall, watching the street behind him, fearful of pursuit as his breath rasped in his throat.
But it was only Cat and the others who finally rounded the corner after him, equally out of breath.
He couldn't offer them an explanation, he could only shake his head when they asked him what was wrong and when he spoke all he could say was, “Stay away from him. Leave him alone.”
~~~
Levi didn't move for quite a while. He watched the hoodlums leave, most of them casting puzzled and annoyed glances at him as they went, uncertain as to what this retreat meant for their reputations.
He didn't look back, however, and Levi was glad.
His heart was pounding and his skin felt clammy and a little worm of a headache was starting to come to life somewhere behind his eyes. He didn't take his hands out of his pockets until he was sure they weren't going to be shaking.
He turned and resumed his interrupted journey. A piercing beep alerted the sleepy cashier to the fact that he'd entered the store. Levi reeked of cleaning chemicals. He'd just finished work; he'd spent the last few hours emptying trash cans and pushing a mop around an office building, a job that was tiring and boring.
He was almost always bored. You couldn't have a mind like his and find the real world interesting.
At least he wasn't bored tonight. He stalked through the store, buying rice and beans and other cheap staples, and the cashier kept staring at him and then hastily looking away whenever Levi caught him. He knew by now that they didn't think he was a robber, just a serial killer. It only got worse as he got older.
Maybe he fit the profile, but he wasn't any danger to anyone who minded their own business.
He didn't want to think about Eren, but Eren had haunted his thoughts, one ghost among so many, ever since he'd been a teenager, and seeing him in the flesh-
“It doesn't make any fucking sense,” he mumbled to himself, and the cashier glanced at him in alarm. Levi glowered.
He walked home, which in this case was a trailer park at the edge of town. He could hear a baby wailing somewhere as he unlocked his van and stowed his purchases. Then he decided he wasn't hungry any more, stretched out on the camp bed in the back of the van, and set about finishing that bottle of Jack he'd stashed underneath it the night before.
It didn't solve any problems, but it did make them go away for a while.
Levi hated waking up during the day. Before dawn was his time, but when he cracked open an aching eyelid-everything ached today-the sun was high in the sky and the van was uncomfortably hot.
He was hungover, thirsty, hungry and in desperate need of a piss and could still remember with perfect clarity the expression on Eren's face when their eyes had met. Shit, he'd probably dreamed about it.
He groaned and rolled out of bed onto the floor, disgusted to note he'd gone to bed fully clothed, and relieved to note he hadn't been sick. A few drinks eased his sleep more often than not, but he normally didn't go overboard like that. He was a moderate alcoholic, he liked to tell himself, and not prone to overindulgence.
He'd really done it this time. He took care of himself like it was a duty; drink, eat, bathe, shave. It was about eleven in the morning by the time he'd forced down the last of the tinned soup he'd heated over his portable gas stove and eaten out of a steel bowl.
He had to get out of here, whatever this town was. It was fucking haunted and he didn't want to hang around. He was scared that he'd start recognising more people. Maybe he'd finally cracked; lost all sense of perspective and let his bizarre fantasies bleed into the real world.
No.
No, he wasn't alone in this. Eren had looked terrified too, and he definitely hadn't imagined him running away, taking his gang with him. Why was Eren hanging out with people like that anyway? It didn't seem like him- no, get a grip. You don't know him.
But Levi couldn't leave, which was his first instinct. He'd only arrived a few days ago, the way he usually did, almost broke and almost out of gas. One night's work wasn't going to fund his escape, and he'd paid for his spot in the park for a week anyway. He was stuck here. With Eren.
He had to do something. He was not going to skulk about town in a state of utter paranoia in case he ran into him again. He was going to get some sort of explanation. If there was an explanation.
It was asking too much to hope for more than that. Nothing was as painful as hope.
~~~
Eren didn't sleep. He went home as soon as he could get away from Cat, which wasn't difficult; Cat could tell he was 'plumbing new depths of crazy' as he put it, and let him go. Eren had made him promise not to go looking for the guy.
Levi.
Eren didn't sleep, but he brushed his teeth, and changed into shorts, crawled into his childhood bed and hid. He's going to kill me, he thought. He's going to take one look at the mess I've made of everything and kill me. Or he wouldn't; maybe Eren had imagined the look of recognition. Maybe he was just some guy who looked like him.
Round and round he went, until the sky turned light and he forced himself, hollow-eyed and twitchy, out of bed and downstairs. He watched cartoons until it was time to go to school; not usual behaviour for him, but his parents only observed without comment.
He couldn't keep track of anything. The day seemed to fall through his hands like water. He couldn't really remember walking to school, yet here he was. He couldn't follow the simplest conversation for more that a couple of sentences before he had to refocus and start again.
And what bothered him almost as much as loss of coherency was the fact that no one seemed to think he was behaving any more oddly than usual. Maybe this was more clarity, rather than less. He didn't know what he was going to do after school; part of him wanted to run straight home and hide again. At least while class continued, he was safe.
“Hey Eren.”
Eren looked up. He'd been sitting at his desk, although the class was over, staring out the window at the basketball court and still trying to decide what to do. Now someone was talking to him, a kid he didn't know.
“Yeah?”
“There's a guy outside looking for you.” He looked worried, probably wondering if he'd been better off calling the cops instead of passing on the message. Eren had turned his phone off before he'd gone to bed, and hadn't turned it back on since. Now he did so, and noted a handful of 'get back to me' messages from Cat.
Eren sighed.
Cat was just looking out for him, in his way. He knew Cat didn't want him to go off the deep end, and his behaviour had been a little extreme.
“Yeah, okay, I'll talk to him.” He couldn't begin to explain himself, but the least he owed Cat was to let him know he was okay. As okay as he got, anyway.
It wasn't Cat who was waiting for him.
Eren knew distantly that the sun was still shining and the day was hot and still, but nevertheless he shivered.
“You going to run off again, Eren?” Levi was leaning against a wall, positioned so the shade cast by the school sign fell on his face. He looked incredibly fucking suspicious and Eren was sort of surprised no one had called security to get rid of him.
And that voice. It was everything he'd hoped and feared.
And he really, really wanted to run off again. But he didn't. Instead, he straightened his spine, raised his head and squared his shoulders.
“No, sir.” It felt so right.
Levi flinched. He physically shied away, turning his head, and the unexpected motion brought other things to Eren's attention. Things he couldn't see the night before, and hadn't noticed until he took a proper look at him.
“Don't call me that,” Levi rasped. Eren realised his eyes were bloodshot, his skin wasn't merely pale it was sallow, and his collarbones and elbows jutted from under his shirt. He seemed diminished somehow, still muscled, still hard, but no more worthy of respect than anyone else you might meet on the street. Less, even; his shoes were clean but battered, and his jeans looked worn thin in places. He hadn't been living well.
“Levi?” What had happened? Eren knew what had happened; the same thing that had happened to him, after all.
“Who the fuck are you?” Levi asked.
“Eren Jaeger.” Levi stared at him with those steel-grey eyes he'd been unable to forget and was now unable to look away from. He was waiting for a further explanation, but Eren had none. He shrugged helplessly, “I don't understand it either.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath and then let it out. “That's all I wanted to know. Goodbye.” Levi shoved his hands in his pockets and simply walked away. It took Eren a good twenty seconds to realise he didn't intend to look back.
Eren sagged with relief as Levi walked down the street. Nothing bad was going to happen. He'd just been curious, but he wasn't interested in punishing him, Eren thought, his gaze never wavering from Levi's retreating form.
He'd spent the last seven years enduring other people and doing his best to stay away from them, and it took him a while to recognise the ache in his chest for what it was; loneliness. This wasn't right. He took a half-step toward Levi. Then another.
Then he ran. Levi might have flinched at his approaching footsteps, but otherwise he didn't react when Eren fell into step beside him, sweating and breathing hard, harder than was justified by his short sprint.
“Sorry, sir,” Eren said. “I mean, sorry, Levi.”
Levi walked on. He looked very tired, putting one foot in front of the other with the minimum of effort. He led them to the trailer park towards the edge of Roller, just off the arterial road that connected them to the interstate. Eren looked longingly at the gas station as they walked past, with its compliment of fridges full of cold drinks, but he couldn't risk losing Levi.
Levi approached a white van parked in one of the short-term stay spaces, and unlocked the back. Eren kept a polite distance as he stepped inside. The interior was dark, so Eren couldn't see the details of what was inside, but it seemed quite cramped. Levi re-emerged with a bottle of water and sat on the bumper to drink half of it in one go, Eren looking on with envy.
“Satisfied now?” Levi asked. “I live in a van, I clean shitters for a living, and whoever you think I am, I'm not.”
Eren licked his lips, “Can I have a drink, please?”
Levi hesitated a moment and then screwed the cap back on the bottle and tossed it to him. It wasn't cold. Eren didn't care. It tasted divine, and he drank the rest without stopping for breath.
“Thank you,” he said when he was done. Levi seemed to be waiting for a response, but Eren took his time. “You've got the same sort of stuff in your head that I do, don't you?” he asked.
“I don't want to discuss it,” Levi said.
“Me neither,” Eren said quickly. “But you're the only person I've met who gets it. Can I just-” He gathered up his courage, “Hang around a bit?” That was all he wanted. That was all he wanted; nothing else in the world interested him right then.
“I'm going to sleep,” Levi said. “Don't touch my shit, don't bother me, and you can do what you like.” He shrugged and climbed back into his van, and Eren looked away when he realised he was taking off his shirt.
Levi didn't speak to him again. Eren heard the squeak of aluminium when he stretched out on the camp bed and that was it. He didn't mind. He wandered back to the gas station and bought something to eat and spent the afternoon sitting in the shade of Levi's van. It was almost like being on the roof. He couldn't hear Levi breathing and he didn't snore, but the knowledge that he was there was calming.
Levi cooked beans for dinner over a portable gas stove and didn't offer Eren any. He didn't look surprised that Eren was still there, either.
“I'm going to work,” he said shortly. “So you better piss off.”
“I told the others to leave you alone,” Eren said. “If they see you again.” He was braced for Levi to ask what the hell he was doing with people like that, but he merely nodded.
“Yeah? Good.” He locked up his van and Eren walked with him back to town before they split up, Levi to the cleaning company he had a contract with and Eren for Cat's place. He realised he'd ignored Cat all day, and it seemed only fair to let him know in person that he was okay. Also, he was hungry.
“There is no need to apologise, Eren,” Cat said. “You look like you've been doing some serious thinking.”
“Yeah,” Eren said. In fact, he'd been doing the opposite. He was quite sure the Levi in his head had died, but with the existence of a real one confirmed, it was easier to believe his thoughts were imagined and they were easier to ignore. It was quieter. The sense of loss he constantly felt had been dulled somewhat. Cat noticed Eren was practically nodding off in his chair, and said he was welcome to crash, but Eren declined the offer and went home to sleep.
Levi's routine, Eren learned over the next few days, was fairly simple. He worked through until the early hours of the morning, stayed up for a while enjoying the quiet and a couple of drinks, and then slept until mid afternoon. With Eren around he started waking up earlier, so by the time Eren arrived at the trailer park after school he was finishing breakfast.
Eren kept coming around.
Being around Levi was like escaping a thunderstorm to a small cave; the storm was still out there, the rain still blew in, but it was better. Those first couple of afternoons Eren was sure Levi was looking for an excuse to tell him to go away and not come back, but then he seemed to come to some private decision, and Eren was officially tolerated. Probably because Levi didn't plan to stay in Roller long, but Eren avoided thinking about that.
He didn't offer Eren free food, and Eren didn't ask for any; he could see Levi had learned to live with the bare minimum, and Eren staggered his mother by getting into the habit of making sandwiches in the morning to eat with Levi later. They carefully didn't touch, didn't overlap the other's space, they just existed side by side.
“What do you do here?” Levi asked one afternoon as they sat in folding aluminium chairs, staring through the chain link fence that surrounded the park at the people coming and going from the laundromat across the street. It was the only place that seemed to be doing any business at that time.
“Meth's pretty popular.” Levi didn't laugh. “There's a cinema at the mall,” Eren said, but he didn't think that was what Levi meant either. “I like to sit,” he continued. “High up.”
“Ah.”
“Do you want to see?”
Eren took him to the office building. It was by far the furthest walk, but it gave the best view. Levi didn't complain about the hike, or the climb. He just wiped the sweat off his face with his forearm and kept going. When they got to the top the sun was starting to set and they collapsed breathlessly onto the concrete, Eren flat out on his back looking up at the wispy clouds above; Levi sitting with his legs outstretched, braced on his hands and staring out beyond town.
“I want to be above everything,” Eren said eventually. “I don't like having walls around me.”
He'd given up on a response when Levi spoke.
“I like the highway. I like being between places, going as fast as I can, the road ahead open. I hate traffic. I don't like having to slow down. I feel trapped then.”
“Why don't you get a job as a driver?” Eren asked.
“I don't like anyone else deciding where I go,” Levi said. “The choice has to be mine.”
They stayed up there until the stars came out and Levi needed to go to work.
Levi accompanied him other places. They must have made a strange pair, the rangy, disreputable teenager, and the short, tough looking adult, but Eren felt like he'd known Levi forever and it was easy to be comfortable in his presence. Eren showed him the places he'd discovered, and it felt like he was exploring his hometown anew. They didn't find anything terribly interesting, other than an odd sense of nostalgia.
He blew Cat off when he invited him over. If Cat was methadone, Levi was pure heroin; the cure for a blighted life. Cat wasn't terribly happy about this but Eren wasn't afraid of him, so what could he do?
Eren's orgasm woke him up. He convulsed against the mattress and then rolled onto his back, trying to contain the mess in his pants, still half-asleep. He remembered green cloaks and the smell of leather, which meant another dream about his imaginary world, but usually he woke up crying or yelling rather than ejaculating. He was pretty sure his hero-self had died a virgin.
He felt uneasy. As awful as his dreams and flashbacks were, he'd sort of gotten used to them, and he'd learned to fear any change to the status quo. There was nothing to be done about it for now.
He had no school today, and Levi was probably still asleep. Even so, Eren considered visiting him anyway and waiting for him to wake up. When he padded downstairs, the AC stripping the last of the dampness left by his shower from behind his ears. His parents were making breakfast.
“Hey,” he said.
“Good morning, Eren,” his mother smiled at him. Eren got the impression they were afraid of him, and probably not without reason. It wasn't just what he was physically capable of, but what trouble he could bring with him. They rarely fought, simply because he didn't ask much of them other than to keep out of his way, and they didn't deny him.
“Do you want any breakfast?”
No, he didn't. He still felt like he'd done something wrong; not the general wrongness of his existence but something recent and specific. But Levi's dogged insistence on eating three cheap, nutritious, and utterly boring meals a day had guilted Eren into improving his diet somewhat.
“Just some cereal. It's fine, I'll get it.”
His father didn't say anything. He'd been having some sort of worry to do with work, and Eren had been tossed in the 'too hard' basket long ago anyway.
“You've been coming home earlier these last couple of weeks,” Monica tried again.
“Mm.” It didn't feel right to cause mayhem with Cat after hanging out with Levi. Sometimes he wandered about but mostly he just went home once Levi had gone to work.
“Got any plans for the day?”
“Uh. Gonna visit a friend, I think. Play games.”
Monica nodded, and didn't pry any further.
Cat was home.
“Man, I thought you died or something,” he said when Eren walked in his forever open door. He sounded calm enough, but Eren could tell he wasn't very happy. “Where have you been?”
“Hanging out,” Eren said.
“With that fuck with the van? Yeah, I know.”
Eren lifted his head slightly. “You know?”
“You've been having play dates all around town, so of course I do. That's your business, but if you want my advice whatever he's giving you ain't worth it. I'd hate to see you trading your arse to the likes of him.”
“He's not-” Eren shook his head. “He's not selling me drugs.”
“Then what the fuck is it?” Cat hadn't raised his voice, but he hardly ever swore at Eren and the others had gone quiet, concentrating on not looking like they were paying attention. “Cause he sure as fuck ain't got any money- what?” Cat's phone rang and he snatched it up. “Yeah. What? Really? Oh this is good. Yeah, I will.” He hung up, and all trace of ill-humour was gone. “All right well, we got stuff to do today. Come on, Eren, you're invited.”
“Mm.” He didn't want to piss Cat off again. Once Levi left, Cat would be all he had.
“Some fuck wants to talk to us,” Cat said, as Eren and the others trailed in his wake. “I said sure. Why not? I like meeting new people.”
Eren felt uneasy again. Cat was always like this, but today he seemed more so. Eren knew what imminent violence felt like, and he knew Cat was working himself up. Whoever this fuck was, he was unlikely to get a friendly conversation. They set out in search of a pot dealer named Three Dog, whom Eren knew vaguely and who'd heard all the jokes before.
Three Dog was waiting for them, a short distance from the diner he usually did business out of. He had some stupid system where potential customers had to know to offer to buy him something, but Cat said he was just a greedy fuck allergic to paying for his own food. Food and stoners went together well, however, and he was a reliable source of income.
As the group approached, Levi stepped out of the alcove he'd been waiting in, his hands by his sides. He said something to Three Dog who nodded and hurried over to Cat.
“Hey man, good to see you.” He grinned stupidly, and didn't break his stride, making a bee-line for his diner faster than Eren had ever seen him move. Eren and the others stepped out of his way, but neither Eren nor Cat took their eyes off Levi.
He looked more like himself than he'd ever done before, despite the long hair. There was fight in his eyes and the slouch was gone, replaced by loose-limbed stance that had Eren's gut twisting somewhere between fear and recognition and admiration and a kind of weird longing.
“You're Cat?” Levi asked flatly.
“You've got some-” Whatever it was Cat thought Levi had, he never got to explain it. Eren saw it coming- Cat did too, but not quite as early and he was obliged to duck and cower back as Levi's fist sailed through the air towards his face. The others were stepping forward, reaching for knives and whatever else was handy, as Levi sprang among them like a tiger, fists and feet flying, his mouth set in a hard, grim line. He fought like Eren did; for his life, and without hesitation or fear of pain. Unlike Eren, he fought with a bit of forethought as well, gauging what his opponents were going to do next and acting first. He was outnumbered, but simply in a class unmatched by his opponents.
And Eren, Eren just stood there, his hands at his sides. He should, he should join in, he supposed, but on which side?
God he was beautiful. Strong. Strong in a world where everyone was weak. Eren could only stare, his mouth slightly open, his heart hammering in his chest. His instincts prodded him to fight or flee but he couldn't bring himself to move.
“Eren, you stupid fuck! Do something.” Cat looked stunned by the ferocity of the hornets nest he'd kicked, but defiant.
“I told you to leave him alone,” Eren said quietly.
“What?” He'd clearly not expected Eren to ultimately come down on Levi's side. It was a stupid choice to make, but Eren knew he could never, ever go into battle against Levi. Not even to save his own life. Eren was still watching Levi, and he saw him take note of Cat's distraction. Levi ducked under a clumsy swing, and his foot connected with the back of Cat's neck, throwing him forward onto his face.
Levi hadn't escaped unscathed, his hair had been pulled loose from his ponytail, his knuckles were bloody, and his cheek was starting to redden and swell, but downing Cat so definitively seemed to take the fight out of everyone else, and they backed off to see what Levi was going to do next.
“And you should know better,” he said, in a clipped, military tone as he stepped up and planted his fist in Eren's stomach.
Eren crumpled, utterly unprepared for the blow, falling to his knees.
On his knees, in a courtroom, Levi looming over him, a bloody hole in his mouth where his tooth had been, the horrified crowd, the taste of blood. His impotent rage, his desire to save these stupid, venal, self-interested cowards. The hand knotted in his hair.
Bet it all on me!
“Eren, Eren, look at me, Eren.” Levi's voice reached him first, then the hands cradling his face and the heat of the sun on his head. Levi was kneeling in front of him, staring into his eyes, his forehead creased with concern.
“Captain!” Eren leaned forward, lifting his arms and clumsily trying to wrap them around Levi's shoulders. He was alive! He was alive after all.
No. Wait.
His stomach hurt. He drew back like he'd been burned, the look of shock reflected on Levi's face.
“I was somewhere else, sorry, sir- Levi.”
But it had been enough. He'd caught the scent of him, the feel of him, and Eren knew it had been him he'd been dreaming about so vividly. Levi rocked back on his heels, still looking slightly concerned.
“Don't call me that,” he said.
Eren glanced about. They were alone.
“Where's Cat?”
“They scraped him up and took him off somewhere while you were off with the fairies.”
Eren forced himself to meet Levi's eyes again. “What did they do?” he asked quietly.
“Come and see,” Levi said, and got to his feet.
They'd trashed the van. The windows were broken and the tyres slashed, and the inside looked like a bear had been through it. Eren's heart sank. He could see some signs that Levi had started to clean up the mess; many of his belongings were sturdy and designed for camping, and he'd sorted out the things that weren't broken.
“I'm so sorry, Levi,” Eren said. He felt like crying. This was all Levi had, and now it was scattered and broken. “Let me help, I'll clean up.”
“I'd really rather you didn't, Eren.” Levi's voice cut through the pity that was rapidly bleeding into self-pity. If Cat hadn't already taken a beating, Eren would have set out on a quest to give him another one. But that hadn't solved anything; Levi had already dispensed justice and what good had that done him? His shit was still busted and now his knuckles were too.
My fault, Eren thought. He'd let everyone down before, and now he'd let Levi down again.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He took a deep breath and turned his footsteps for home. He knew what he had to do. Sometimes his vision blurred on the walk back but he refused to cry. He had to at least try and make this a bit right.
His parents weren't home, luckily, and he went straight to his room, opened his closet and dug through the junk that was piled in the bottom until he unearthed his shoebox. He knew how much was in there as he counted it occasionally, and he took out everything, folding the wad of notes and shoving it into the pocket of his jeans.
He left the empty box on his bed.
When he returned to the trailer park Levi had swept up the broken glass and thrown out that which was completely junked. He was carefully bending one of his aluminium chairs back into shape when Eren arrived. He'd taped up his knuckles, but his face was still swollen.
“Levi.” Eren took out the money and held it out in front of him. Levi straightened up.
“What's this?” he asked.
“Eight hundred and eighty seven dollars,” Eren said. It sounded like a lot when he said it out loud.
“I didn't say how much, I said what.”
“My life's savings. Please take it.” He'd been holding out the money the entire time and Levi reached over and took it.
All gone, just like that.
Levi took a deep breath, “Are you sure?”
Eren nodded. He turned and trudged away, and Levi didn't call him back. When he glanced over his shoulder he saw Levi had returned to trying to repair his chair.
Eren couldn't cry. He climbed up onto a roof and found a quiet spot and curled up with his head resting on his knees and waited, but despite the sick, sad feeling in his stomach and the heat behind his eyes, the tears wouldn't come. Stupid. He'd cried over so many stupid things that weren't even real and now he actually had something worth mourning he couldn't even do that properly.
He gave up eventually. He lifted his head and dug out his phone and deleted Cat and all of Cat's friends from his contacts leaving him with his parents and a couple of schoolmates he hadn't spoken to in months. He knew if he said the right things Cat would let him come back, but every time he thought about him a mental image of Levi's van would resurface and anger would spike through him.
Fuck him.
No Cat, no Levi, no money. It was stunning how quickly he'd lost everything. He couldn't possibly afford to leave Roller now, even if he did get a car from his parents, and without Cat there was no easy way of making more.
He wanted to drink. He wanted to hit someone. He wanted to fucking cry. The empty horizon didn't feel like freedom any more; it felt like loneliness.
He went to school on Monday, and afterwards he stood staring longingly in the direction of the trailer park for some time. But he didn't have the guts. He didn't know what he'd say. Levi hadn't seemed angry at him, not after he'd punched him anyway, and that made it so much worse. Maybe he should get a job. Maybe he should make up with Cat. Mostly he wondered how Levi was doing, worried that his money might not have been enough.
Or maybe he'd already left. More than once he started walking back to the trailer park to find out for certain, and each time he turned back as he realised he didn't want to know.
Round and round he went, and the days drifted by.
~~~
Levi looked into his own eyes and squinted. The sun had only just come up and it reflected brightly off the mirror he had propped up on the inside of the van's back door to shave. He hated the communal showers in the trailer park, although he had little choice but to use them, and he shaved outside despite the morning chill on his bare torso. He ran his hand over his chin thoughtfully, checking to see he'd done a good job. He felt better than he usually did in the mornings, despite the sudden change to his sleeping patterns. Cat had stolen all of his booze and he'd decided against buying more; he needed the money for more important things, he told himself.
It wasn't like he was trying to set a good example to anyone. Either way, waking up was easier and going to sleep more difficult.
His hair was down, and he ran his fingers through it. It had gotten so long without him really noticing. He picked out the pair of scissors in his sewing kit, which had survived the attack at the bottom of his trunk unscathed. They weren't ideal, but they were sharp and they'd do. He grabbed a hunk of hair and started cutting it. The blades made a crisp, satisfying sound and the long dark strands fell at his feet.
He'd dreamed about this, about cutting his own hair into a style he'd never worn in reality. It came back to him. He tied it up again so he could get at the back of his head with the hand clippers and he wielded them without hesitation. How, he wondered, would he fare should he decide to wield a sword?
The ends of his hair were brushing his cheekbones when he finally untied it again. The morning air was cool against the back of his neck. The face that stared back at him from the mirror seemed more familiar than the one he usually shaved every morning. He ran his fingers over the short bristles at the back of his head. He'd done a good job, considering how out of practice he was.
“Not bad,” he said quietly.
His back and shoulders were liberally sprinkled with hair clippings and he collected his towel and soap and braced himself for the communal showers. At least they'd be empty at this time of day.