Chapter Text
“Ugh.”
He didn’t want to be here. Anywhere, but this fucking zoo.
Levi didn’t even have to raise his eyes to notice the chaos going on around him—a bunch of high-schoolers acting like savages, cooped up like chickens in the school’s less-than-spacious cafeteria. He seriously debated going to sit outside, but the prospect of freezing in the rain wasn’t exactly all that appealing either.
So, he reluctantly settled for staying where he was in the far left corner of the room, at his table occupied only by himself.
Levi didn’t find it strange that in the packed cafeteria, his was the only empty table. He was a “new kid.” Nobody ever sat with the fucking new kid. All these people established their friend-groups freshman year—a luxury Levi didn’t have after being dumped into this school as a junior. It was only a few weeks into the school year and he didn’t have a single friend.
But he didn’t really expect to have any anyways. He wasn’t exactly someone who could be deemed “approachable.”
He pulled his hood down a little further, tugging his headphones out from the neck-hole of his hoodie and fitting them snugly into his ears. Shoving a hand into his front pocket, he hit play on his iPod in a well-practiced motion and sighed with relief at the familiar cadence of drums and driving guitars that blared to life.
He let himself revel for a moment in his mini-getaway before turning his attention back to his untouched lunch. He looked down his nose at his questionably-edible school-issue grilled cheese, cut down the middle like the way his nanna cut his sandwiches. She always cut his sandwiches wrong.
Levi picked up a half, took a bite, and almost immediately tossed it back on his tray. Nope. It wasn’t a question anymore. Definitely not edible.
This was the most decent school he’d been to so far and he’d thought they’d at least have a halfway decent menu—guess not. Now all he wanted was to get home so he could make himself food that didn’t taste like peasant scraps and cardboard.
He needed to eat something at least, though. He grabbed the only other thing on his tray—a chocolate pudding cup—and tried to open it, only succeeding in ripping the tab off of the lid that sealed it.
“This fucking…piece of shit,” he grouched, picking at the foil lid with his short fingernails and trying to find some sort of purchase. Levi quickly gave up out of frustration and grabbed his spoon, stabbing it into the lid and prying it back, before returning to his efforts to peel it off.
Success…but with casualties. He sneered at his thumb—pudding on the side of it—and wiped at it meticulously with his napkin as the song he was listening to ended and was replaced by the quieter beginning of the next.
The relaxing bassline, the quiet drawl of the singer... Beautiful. His head lolled slightly, side to side with the melody. Music was the only thing he could really rely on to put himself in a better mood.
He didn't really like to admit it to himself, but he needed to relax more. Levi was so high-strung all the time, which was undoubtedly a cause of his misfortunes at his previous schools. Skipping class, talking back, getting in fights, isolating himself...he had enough anxieties as it was.
School only added to that. People—teenage peers—definitely added onto that. He sometimes thought that making a friend or two might help him ease some of his tension, but to be honest, trying to make new friends was more of a stressful endeavor than he would like it to be. So he just didn't even bother anymore.
He scooped up a spoonful of pudding and contemplated it for a moment before he flipped the spoon upside-down and stuck it in his mouth. He sucked at it idly, the handle of the spoon resting against his chin. Not bad...at least the generic pudding cups at this school were okay. He pulled the spoon away, his bottom lip catching anything remaining.
“Dreams are made winding…through my heeeaaad,” Levi mumbled softly under his breath with the song, licking his lips and dipping his spoon back into the pudding cup. Just one more class after lunch and he could go home. He could survive. He lifted the spoon to his mouth again but nearly dropped it when the shrill school bell pierced through the din of the cafeteria.
He thought it was chaos before, but it increased twofold as everyone tried to shove past each other and squeeze through the only exit—a pair of doors by Levi's table in the back.
Scooting around the backside of his table to avoid the river of people, he took his pudding cup from the tray and dumped the rest of his disappointing lunch into the trash bin. He took a moment to get another spoonful of chocolate decentness before deciding to head out to his last class.
This school really was his last chance. If he cut class and fucked around again, his nanna would kill him. Turning, he continued to mumble the lyrics of the song around the spoon in his mouth.
"Befooore you know I will be waiting all awaaa-aughk!" Levi choked on his spoon when he smacked bodily into something solid. He stiffened sharply when he felt a large hand on the middle of his back, but the contact disappeared just as quickly as it came.
"Oh! Sorry, man. You okay?"
Levi stared at the guy. Or rather, at his chest, since that was all that was at his eye level. Damn, he was tall…which really wasn't saying much considering Levi was only 5'1", but that was beside the point. Levi snapped out of his trance, realizing how much he was staring at the thick muscles pressing against the thin, grey cotton T-shirt he wore. He was just staring, neither of them moving or saying anything. An embarrassed blush slowly crept up the back of his neck and to his ears, and he was suddenly thankful for the hood he still had up.
"Whatever," Levi replied hastily as he ducked around him. He didn't bother to look at the guy's face as he headed for the doors, or meet the pair of piercing blue eyes that followed his lazy gait to the hallway.
Levi made his way to his locker—located more toward the middle of the long hall that stretched across the length of the school's first floor—and pulled the spoon out of his mouth again. He let out a long breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.
"Damn idiots…don't watch where they're fucking going," he grumbled to himself, still a little embarrassed.
He didn't really know anyone at this school…didn't know what they were like. If they were the same as the kids at the other schools he'd been to—where staring in the general direction of some "tough guy" meant you were asking for your teeth knocked in—he didn't know how long he would last. He could hold his own for sure, but those kinds of people pissed Levi off to no end. He was so tired of them and their bullshit. He didn't want any more of it.
He made to angrily stuff more pudding into his mouth but looked down at his hand, confused. It was empty. Did he fucking drop his pudding? He paused for a brief moment and looked at his locker door with a deadpan expression, as if it had just dared to utter to him the worst Dad Joke imaginable.
Whatever. He probably dropped it on that guy; it was his problem now. Levi just hoped that wasn't fuel for another idiotic fight. He had avoided that so far and he'd be damned if he got kicked out of this school because of goddamn chocolate pudding.
The locker door opened with a harsh, metallic squeak as Levi swiftly snatched out his plain black backpack and slung it over his shoulder before slamming the door shut again. His locker didn't have a lock on it; he never bothered to get one. He probably put too much trust in the hope that no one would take his stuff, but he never kept anything of too much importance in there anyways.
Although, he wouldn't put it past that asshole, Nile, to take his stuff just for the hell of it; that jackass had been on his ass since day one. He was more of a nuisance than a threat at the moment, though, so Levi just tried to ignore him. Avoidance was key to his survival of two more shitty years in high school.
He took a deep breath, eyes closed.
He had art next. That was good—a class that wasn't too hard for him, and one he could spend doing something that would distract him from everything else around him.
Turning on his heel, he trudged up the staircase to the second floor, his Converse squeaking lightly against the shiny linoleum floor.
The bell rang right as he slipped through the doorway, and he sat at his assigned table before the teacher turned away from the board at the front of the classroom. Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was began explaining the next lesson to the class: "Elements of Design" blah blah, "Color Wheel" blah blah, "paint on paper" blah blah. Color & Design really wasn't that hard to understand; he didn't get how people were failing this class already.
Look at the guidelines. Color the thing. Done.
The assignments were easier than the lessons made them out to be, and the teacher was relatively easy to please, so Levi always did something simple yet effective. In this assignment, despite all the information the teacher threw at his students, they only had to use 3 Elements of Design and they had until the end of next week to do it. If he started now he could probably finish on Monday when they came back from the weekend. Easy. As. Pie.
Even though he would've liked to keep both headphones in to block everyone out while he worked, he took one out in case the teacher called on him. He had already been scolded once about it and wanted to avoid another useless hassle. He scooted his chair back, the loud scraping sound making him cringe, and leisurely made his way to the back of the classroom to sift through his bin of art supplies.
This class wasn't as packed as his other ones; there were group tables that sat around six people each, and they were spread around the room a good distance from each other. Even so, it was still a little rowdy and loud sometimes, which made the familiar jitters of anxiety settle in Levi's chest.
He was thankful for his table, though. He sat in the middle of the side with the least traffic behind him, by one of the counters. The only other people at his table were two girls that sat across from him, but he didn't really have to worry about them. The two were foreign exchange students that seemed to be good friends, and usually they just chatted with each other in Chinese—not too loud or obnoxious—and paid him no attention apart from the occasional, "Could you pass me a brush?"
Levi pulled his bin from the slot it was tucked into, jostling things around as he searched for and grabbed the few items he needed.
On his way back to his seat he filled the plastic cup that he had grabbed with a quick burst of water from the faucet and ripped a sheet of watercolor paper out of one of the pads on the back counter.
He gently placed the cup of water down, careful not to spill, and dumped the rest of his supplies in front of himself as he sat back down. He could get away with doing this project quickly and in small steps. The sooner he got done with this mundane garbage, the sooner he could spend the rest of his time buried in his sketchbook, creating whatever he pleased.
Hurried footsteps from a pair of wet squeaking shoes skidded to a halt in front of the classroom door, catching the attention of Levi's ears. He didn't look up from the watercolor palette he was activating with quick dabs of his wet paintbrush.
"Can I help you, young man?"
"Ah, yes. Sorry, sir. I'm transferring into this class if I can get your approval signature? I need to rearrange classes for football."
"Not exactly a good start, coming in…" The teacher paused to presumably glance at the wall clock. "Sixteen minutes late."
Levi smirked at that, taking pleasure in this guy getting reprimanded already even though he technically wasn't even in the class yet. He continued dabbing water onto the blue and purple colors in his palette, trying to decide how he wanted to mix them.
"I'm sorry, it won't happen again. I was getting pudding off my shoes funnily enough," the guy explained, ending his apology with a soft chuckle.
Levi's smirk fell from his face in an instant and his eyes flashed up to look at the guy for the first time. Tall, muscled, thin grey T-shirt. Ffffffuck .
The teacher looked at him critically for a moment before agreeing and signing his paper. "I'll give you a week to make up the other two assignments but you still have to turn everything in like everyone else. Go ahead and take a seat at table six in the back there," he instructed, gesturing vaguely to Levi's table.
"Great. Thank you, sir," the guy nodded, taking a few handouts from the desk. When he turned to see which table was his, his eyes met Levi's and he tilted his head ever-so-slightly, giving him a contemplative, knowing look.
Levi's eyes wavered when those blue eyes met his gaze. His jaw clenched and he ripped his eyes away, sinking down in his seat.
Fuck.
Shit.
Fucking shit.
He didn't want any trouble. He really didn't. Levi sunk a little lower, hiding the lower half of his face in his sweatshirt and glaring down at his blank art paper.
A chair scraped against the floor to his right. He chanced a glance at the guy and was met with that piercing gaze fixed on him again. That stare sent a dull buzz of anxiety through Levi's body, making him swallow hard.
He broke the eye contact to look down at the large hand moving toward him, then glanced back up to the eyes again.
"Hi," he greeted politely with his hand extended, "I'm Erwin."
Levi looked down at the hand again and frowned a bit.
Really? No "What the fuck, man?" No conflict? No drama? No…anything?
He sat up a bit, shifting uneasily.
"L…Levi," came his reply, brusquely shaking the hand in front of him. He took a moment to quickly look over Erwin.
He truly did look like a football player, and honestly didn't look like much of a high schooler—broad, tall, and filled-out with decently-defined muscle. He kind of had a big nose, but it fit his face and his strong jaw well. His brows stood out, thick and angled, but Levi found something intriguing about them. His dark blond hair was styled in a cut almost like his own, but it was in disarray, like he'd been running his fingers through it recently.
Still, there was a softness to him—although he couldn't decide if it was a physical trait so much as just his demeanor showing through. That softness was one of the only things that made him look really young, and Levi couldn't help but think that Erwin was…handsome .
Erwin gave him a small awkward smile and Levi realized that his quick look had turned into staring again. Their hands were still grasped together but Levi had long since stopped shaking his hand. Levi snatched his hand away and turned back to his work.
It was a moment before Levi continued, feeling like he should say something about the "pudding incident." Erwin hadn't mentioned anything about it but Levi was sure Erwin knew it was him that he had run into.
"Sorry…about your shoes," he said to his paint set. He saw Erwin turn toward him out of the corner of his eye.
He laughed lightly, and Levi found the soft sound of it quelling the anxiety tight in his chest. "Don't worry about it, Levi. It's not that big of a deal."
A flutter of something else flitted through his chest when he heard Erwin say his name, but he shoved the feeling away. Levi didn't say anything more, focusing his attention instead on wetting the paper in front of him and swirling it with color.
The rest of the class passed with relative ease. Erwin didn't try to make any lasting conversation, which Levi appreciated to some degree. He only asked a question here or there about an assignment, leaving the rest of their time in a comfortable silence.
Levi colored his paper with greens, blues, and violets—a swirling abstract mass of color. He took a piece of cling wrap from one of the supply drawers and placed it over the top of the wet paper, scrunching it in places so it left random geometric spots where the wrap clung to the moisture. He set the finished paper on the drying rack and called it a day.
From that point, Levi spent the rest of his time doodling in his sketchbook, taking some time to practice facial features. He made a page of just eyes, glancing around the room and sketching out any interesting expressions he found in his semi-realistic cartoony style. He tried to avoid drawing Erwin's, though. Levi already found his gaze flicking back to Erwin's face enough as it was, and he didn't want to draw any more attention to himself.
When the bell finally rang, he hastily stuffed his things back into his bag, ready to go the fuck home.
"See you later."
Levi paused. Was Erwin talking to him? He looked tentatively over his shoulder, already halfway to the door. Erwin was standing behind his chair, packing his things back into his own bag. He looked up and smiled that small smile at Levi again, raising a hand in farewell. No one ever said goodbye to him…
Levi felt flustered by the gesture and turned to briskly walk back toward the door, waving his hand aimlessly over his shoulder. That's all that blond bastard would get in terms of reciprocity.
He practically jumped down the stairs, back to the first floor, and glanced out the windows as he dodged his way around people to get to the front doors. The heavy rain from earlier had let up to a light drizzle. Good. He could make his journey home with less chance of freezing.
After being dumped in this little town, he had come to realize just how much it rained—it was almost perpetual. He thought he should probably invest in an umbrella sometime soon, but for the moment he just shifted himself inside his oversized hoodie, hands in his front pocket, and started his trek home. He put his other earbud back in and let his mind go wherever as he immersed himself in his music again.
As far as Levi knew, he was kind of an introvert. He liked being alone…most of the time. He still craved some human contact once in a while, but after moving out here for school—by himself—he'd never felt so physically alone.
His nanna was the only person in his family who still cared about him, and cared for him. He had lived with her for the past seven or so years, but after all the trouble he'd gotten into, he had to live out here to go to this last school.
He lived in a little cottage-type house—more of a small vacation home for his Nan that she was letting him live in. Sure, she'd come down and visit once in a while, but it was a few hours' drive from the city, which was a trip she didn't always have the time or energy for.
Levi breathed deeply and sighed to himself, taking in the damp smell of earth and rain, the chill of the air nipping at his face. His feet splashed in little puddles on the pavement as he walked, sometimes kicking at them on purpose even though he knew it'd soak into the canvas of his shoes. He'd just have to get used to that lonely feeling now, he supposed.
He took his time getting home despite the nagging hunger in his belly; he only picked up his pace the last few minutes of his journey when the rain started to come down heavier again. He looked up at the clouds and thought it looked like it would be another particularly stormy night.
Levi reached his home, taking shelter under the quaint little porch. He stamped his feet on the coarse mat in front of the door to shake himself of excess water, unlocked the door, and went inside.
"I'm home," he called out sarcastically into the empty house. Obviously he didn't expect any answer. If he did get an answer, he'd have bigger problems than being a sixteen-year-old boy living by himself like a loser.
Levi knelt down and unlaced his shoes, leaving the wet miscreants by the door. He tossed his backpack carelessly by the coffee table in the main room of his house.
The house wasn't anything spectacular, but it was cozy: a living room, two bedrooms (only one of which was used as a proper bedroom), a kitchen, a bathroom, a one-car garage (with no car), the small porch out front and a nice little backyard. It was a home suited for one or two people, maybe a small family.
Cozy. But lonely.
His Nan was hours away, he didn't have any siblings to live with, he didn't have any pets (unless he counted that shitty cat that came around sometimes). He didn't have any friends to come over.
His mind flashed him a quick memory of Erwin and he had to scoff at himself. Yeah, right. What did he have in common with some huge football jock? Why would he ever want to be friends with Levi? He didn't do anything. He wasn't interesting. He was just some little, ill-tempered gay kid that sat by himself all the time. Not that he was "out" or anything; he didn't think that would help his cause much either.
Levi looked over the front room and heaved a slow sigh before making a quick trip to the garage to toss his hoodie in the dryer. He thought about what he should do for the rest of the night as he stepped into his room to change his clothes.
Homework? He peeled out of his damp skinny jeans and socks. Nah.
Cleaning? He shucked off his T-shirt and boxers. Nah.
Make a good dinner? He put on a clean pair of boxer briefs and a loose pair of dark grey sweatpants. Nah.
He was spent from a week of school and (avoiding) social interaction; it was Friday, he had some time to do the few bits of homework he had. He was too tired to clean and too lazy to make anything good to eat that night.
"Frozen pizza and TV it is," he declared to himself, throwing on a dark red thermal shirt and dragging one of his fuzzy blankets from his bed.
When he padded into the kitchen he could really feel the chill from the weather outside. It seeped in through the cracks of the closed window over the sink and settled itself on the cold tile floor. Levi scrunched his toes uncomfortably; he probably should've put some socks on too.
Braving the extra chill from the freezer, he grabbed a pizza and set it on the counter to thaw a bit while the oven preheated. In the meantime, he set a kettle of water on the stove.
Levi went and sat on the living room couch, wrapping his blanket around himself like a cloak. He dug his phone out of his backpack and shot his nanna a quick text that he was home before he flipped on the TV. Bored, with his face in his hand, he flipped through the movie channels until he settled on some horror movie he hadn't seen before and hoped wasn't too campy.
The kettle whistled shrilly, irritating Levi enough to get him off the couch to go turn the burner off. He grabbed a mug from the cupboard and opened one of the pantry doors—the entire inside of the door lined with shelves of different kinds of tea. He browsed his selection for a moment before settling for a tea bag of Earl Grey.
The oven buzzed loudly at Levi that it was heated to the right temperature, so he tossed in the pizza and set the timer in quick movements.
When his tea was steeped to his satisfaction, he grabbed a spoon from his silverware drawer, pulled the tea bag partially out, and pressed it between the side of the mug and the spoon to squeeze it out. He grabbed a lemon slice from the fridge, squeezed it in, and added half a spoon of honey, stirring it all together. He hadn't tried it this way before, but what the hell.
Levi sat back on the couch, crossing his legs under himself, and watched the movie idly for a minute or two. He let the steam from his mug wash over his face before taking a good sip, letting the rich flavor dance over his tongue. It was a little too sweet...maybe less honey next time. Resting his mug in his blanketed lap, he leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes.
He ignored the panicked breathing from the girl on the television, running through the forest from who-knows-what; he listened to rain patter against his house and let it lull him.
He kept thinking about Erwin. That stupid little smile… The face he made when he furrowed his brows in concentration just from mixing a simple color… His large hand covering his own when he shook it… His smooth, deep voice talking to him, saying his name…
Levi sighed for the hundredth time and forced the thoughts away again. Who was he kidding? Today was just like any other day.
Just another day of being alone.