Listen to that ^^^ while you read; it'll milk out all the feels, I promise.

Also. Last chapter before the epilogue.

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Levi was released from the hospital a little over a week later. The doctors kept him for so long for tests and making sure his body was capable of functioning on its own after such a detrimental accident.

An accident. It had been an accident, Levi told Eren the second day he visited. He hadn't meant to overdose, but he had been looking for a fix.

"I'd been struggling for a while, Eren," he said softly, never looking at the brunet directly as his fingers fidgeted in his lap. "I mean, more than normal. But I didn't want to worry you, so I hid it. I thought I could fight it, but then you left and I was too weak. So I ended up doing the stupidest possible thing, but that shouldn't surprise you." He punctuated the words with a dry laugh, but Eren wasn't amused in the slightest.

Eren visited him every day for as long as he possibly could before he was kicked out, either by one of the nurses bugging him about visiting hours being over or Levi telling him he should go, that he should have better things to do than wait around a hospital all day. Eren never did. He could've gone to work, but Petra and Bertholdt said they were fine running the place until Reiner returned. He could've made plans with his friends, but he knew he'd just be a downer. His depression was starting to get the better of him again, but of course this wasn't something that got past the raven.

Alex wasn't notified of the news right away per Levi's request. He'd already ruined Eren's time with his family, already burdened Armin with finding him that night. He refused to ruin his sister's honeymoon, too. To him, it wasn't much. He wasn't anything worth racing home for, and if he'd been awake to have it his way, he would have told Eren to stay in Germany with his family for the duration of his trip.

Levi didn't allow himself to apologize to his younger companion anymore. The words "I'm sorry" were damn near meaningless and he couldn't ask Eren's forgiveness. Not this time. He didn't deserve it. He'd broken such a huge promise and he felt it was only a matter of time before Eren realized how absurd it was to stay with him.

And so on the rainy morning he was released from the hospital room, he made the decision to take this particular matter into his own hands.

Eren walked beside the man as he was wheeled toward the door. He slung his jacket around his shoulders in preparation for walking out into the end of summer, beginning of autumn rain. It was his favorite kind of weather, just cool enough to need a jacket, fresh and breezy, but not quite on the winter side yet. Sweater weather.

"Have a nice day," the nurse who escorted them out said before reentering the building. The two stood under the long overhang for a moment until the doors slid shut again.

"Ready to go?" Eren asked.

Levi gave a stiff nod. Eren so desperately wanted to hold his hand as they journeyed through the wet weather across the parking lot to his car, but with Levi's hands tucked neatly into the pockets of his vest, he got the inkling the feeling wasn't mutual. This wasn't the first time Levi had done something of the sort in the past week. He'd rarely even touched Eren, and if he had it was with reluctance, with hesitance. It was almost like he felt his touch alone would hurt Eren, but the brunet never brought it up. He in fact pretended not to notice, though the weight of it laid heavy in his chest.

Levi hadn't been so talkative, either. Any conversation was started by Eren, and with Levi's lack of input, ended fairly quickly. The younger wanted to pretend it was all in his mind and was trying to convince himself things were normal between them and that they'd return to the way they were once Levi was home again.

But he knew it was all talk and completely empty. That's why Levi's next words didn't come as much of a shock as they might've had things been normal.

"Eren, we need to talk."

The brunet gulped. They'd reached the car; Levi was tugging on his sleeve to pull him away from the driver's side door and toward the trees lining the sidewalk.

"O-okay," Eren murmured.

He followed the short man to the moderate protection of the tree nearest the car. For a long moment, Levi faced the road, away from Eren and not allowing him to see his face.

"So...talk?" Eren prompted. His stomach churned almost painfully; his heart pounded in nervous anticipation.

"Yeah..." The raven turned. His eyes, so much stormier than the storm above, lifted to Eren's, whose orbs were a bright contrast to the ominous demeanor of the storm and the yellowing of the leaves above them.

"Look," he began, voice just loud enough to reach Eren's ears over the sound of the rain. "I don't know how to do this properly. I don't even know if there is a proper way to do it. So I'm just going to say it." His next words came in such a way without any means of interruption. "I can't bear to hurt you anymore, Eren. I'm so tired of seeing so much pain in your eyes because of me. Every goddamn time I turn around, I've done something idiotic and selfish to hurt you again and I'm doing nothing but holding you back. You have so much potential that staying with something like me has held you away from and I can't stand to do that anymore. So I'm going to let you go. Go back to school, back to your family, your friends. Be happy. Let yourself breathe and live. Find something you love...and someday you'll find someone you can love and who can love you completely without any setbacks or excuses. It's the least you deserve. Maybe someday you'll be able to forget about me, and you can be happy as possible. It's all I've ever wanted for you, and I've learned that I can't give that to you. So I want you to go find someone or something else that can."

Eren's heart was a hummingbird's wings, adrenaline and fear and pain and denial chasing the blood in his veins like a dog pursuing a cat. At his sides, his hands shook vigorously in tight fists. He wanted to drop to his knees and beg Levi not to do this, tell him how wrong he was and plead for him to change his mind. Even so, he could only muster up three broken words.

"You're leaving me..."

The raven didn't miss a single beat. "Don't look at it that way. I'm merely freeing you."

No! Eren's mind screamed. No! You can't call this freedom when I haven't even been trapped! How can you think this is will help me?! How can you not love me anymore...?

"Look...I know things haven't been easy..." he mumbled, fumbling internally for the right words while on the very edge of an anxiety attack. He was forcing back his tears. "I know I'm not the best person to be with. I-I've been trying, though...and...and I know you struggle, too...a-and I'm sorry if I haven't been good enough in trying to help you. B-but I can try harder, Levi. I can! I...I don't want...to..." He trailed off, voice much too shaky to go on without sounding unintelligible.

"You think I'm doing this because you aren't good enough?" Levi murmured. "Did you not just hear a word I said?" Eren couldn't respond. "I'm always going to be too fucked up to be worthy of loving you in the way you deserve."

"You're wrong," Eren mumbled. He forced himself to speak past his borderline violently shaking voice. "You can't think you're fucked up without thinking I am, too. If you are, then I have to be, too, or neither of us are. Because we love each other. Be-because we work together and understand each other. If...having mental issues and a shitty past makes a person fucked up, then I'm no exception."

"But you've never hurt anyone, Eren. Not like the way I have. Not in the ways or as bad as I've hurt you."

"But I know it's not on purpose, Levi! When...when you overdosed, were you deliberately thinking of bringing me pain? Or any other time you relapsed, or broke a promise? Was that your intention behind all of it? Were you...I don't know...trying to get off by hurting yourself because you knew it would hurt me, too?" His voice rose with every word, but that did not stop its tremulousness.

Finally, the ravens eyes dropped, his hardened manner faltered a bit, but just enough. "No. But I was being selfish."

"You should know by now that I don't care about that, Levi. I told you I knew this wasn't going to be easy from the very beginning, but I was willing to try and I couldn't abandon you. Wouldn't. Won't. I know what it's like to have a voice in your head telling you what all of your flaws are and telling you that you don't mean a damn thing to the world." The first tears spilled over, inevitably, but he fought past them. "I know what it's like to be weak and unable to fight them even if you know logically what you're doing is ridiculous. I-I know it isn't your fault, Levi, and that you can't always be on the winning side of the battle. It would be different if you were doing these things on purpose...but I know you're not."

Blue-gray eyes narrowed, peering up from under thick dark lashes. "How can you be sure I'm not?"

"Because I know you. I know who you are without those demons influencing you, a-and I know you wouldn't be standing here trying to break up with me for my own good if you were intentionally trying to hurt yourself to hurt me."

Levi was rendered speechless. He stared at Eren with his mouth hanging open idiotically, eyes wide. He withdrew his hands from the protection of his pockets as if he was going to move forward, but his feet remained firmly planted in the grass.

Eren used his speechlessness as an opportunity and continued. "When I look at you, Levi, I don't see a monster or someone who's fucked up and trying to hurt someone intentionally. I don't see whoever you may see in the mirror. I just see Levi. I see you. I see the person I've been in love with since last freaking December and...and I see the person I wanna share the rest of my life with."

Just like that, Levi's resolve crumbled to nothing more than dust to blow away in the breeze picking back up. In less than three strides, he was directly in front of the brunet, throwing his arms around his neck and kissing him so hard they staggered a bit, caught by the trunk of the tree. A mixture of tears and rain dripping down the warm skin of his face, Eren enfolded Levi into his embrace tighter and more intimate than ever before, feeling his warmth and the curves of his body fitting neatly against his own. They kissed vigorously, fervently, passionately, refusing to part for several long, intimate moments.

No words were needed as they finally pulled apart, though only by the contact of their lips. Their faces remained close, arms remained locked around each other as the rain picked up and found its way through the leaves of the trees, also dancing toward the ground every so often. Cars passed on the nearby road and they were vaguely aware of the occasional footsteps and voices in the direction of the parking lot, but paid all of those things no mind, simply reveling in each other for as long as they dared to stand out in the rain.

Eren was the one to make the decision to move.

"We should get in the car before we get sick," he murmured.

Levi merely nodded in agreement. Hand in hand, they squished through the wet grass back to the car.

"Eren," Levi murmured once inside, reaching across to smooth the brunet's damp hair from his cheek. Said man turned in question. "I know things aren't easy. I just...I don't want you to think for a second that I don't love you."

Eren took Levi's hand, removed it from his face, and placed a tender kiss on his knuckles before running his thumb soothingly across them. "The same goes for you," he said.

Their hands never parted on the entire drive back to the apartment complex. They remained locked together, resting on the center console. Even as Eren parked and shut the engine off, they didn't release their grip.

The brunet turned, studying his companion closely for a moment before leaning across to capture his lips in a warm yet chaste kiss. Their foreheads rested together as he spoke.

"You can go, Levi. I swear I'm not trying to chain you down. If...if you don't wanna be with me..."

"Don't be such a brat, Eren. I thought I made it clear that I want to be with you."

"Okay..."

"I wanna stay with you. But there is...something else." He swallowed forcefully, drawing back and finding Eren's gaze again.

"Something else?" inquired the brunet, frown manifesting too easily.

Levi nodded slowly, his thumb picking up something of a pattern on the back of Eren's as he explained.

"The other day after you left for the night, the doctors gave me some news. And it wasn't good news." Eren tensed ever so slightly, his teeth automatically choosing part of his cheek to bite down on as he braced himself for said news. "They told me this overdose caused a disease," the raven continued, "specifically a blood disease that has no cure. There's treatment, of course...but even so, it's cut somewhere between 15 and 20 years off my already shortened lifespan."

"What? No," Eren said suddenly, snapping back and shaking his head fiercely in denial. "No, no, no..."

"I'm sorry, love. But you needed to know."

"But...why...?"

"Eren, I need you to know that the odds of me making it past or even to the age of fifty are very slim. So you need to make a decision."

"What do you mean? What decision?" Eren was frantic, eyes flitting back and forth between Levi's like he was trying to find the answers quicker.

"You need to decide if you're absolutely sure you want to stay with me. Because it won't be easy, and there's no doubt that you'll outlive me by a long shot. It's...it's up to you if you wanna deal with that or not, and I won't blame you or be angry if you don't."

Eren continued to shake his head. This wasn't something he'd expected, though now that he knew it, it seemed stupid not to have expected some type of repercussions. Relapse and overdose wouldn't come without a price, and he knew that, he just didn't want it or what it meant to be true.

But as he stared into the eyes of the person he loved more than absolutely anything, his resolve was final.

"There's no decision, Levi. I already know my answer. I want to stay with you."

An expression of relief crossed Levi's eyes fleetingly before he nodded. He leaned toward the brunet to place a gentle kiss on the tip of his nose.

"Fifteen to twenty years, huh?" murmured Eren a bit thoughtfully.

"Yes. Maybe more, depending."

Levi watched as Eren's features twisted up a bit, his lips pursing and his eyebrows pulling together while his eyes themselves went out of focus momentarily. He could practically see the gears turning in his head and figured there may as well have been steam coming out of his ears.

"What the hell are you thinking about so hard, nerd?"

"You're..." Eren came back into focus. "...going to think I'm crazy."

The artist snorted mildly. "I already do. Tell me anyway."

"I was thinking..." Eren huffed. "We should get married," he blurted. A rosy hue immediately dusted his cheeks and snaked up to the tips of his ears. He leaned away, keeping his eyes down and biting his lip.

Levi was taken aback by the sudden suggestion. He blinked stupidly at the other while his mind attempted to process it. A fleeting image of them in tuxedos, surrounded by bright red roses and holding hands passed in his mind, causing a great eruption of butterflies.

"Are you serious?" he asked softly.

Eren gave a hesitant nod. "I want to," he mumbled. "If you do. I...I want to give you the full experience, even if we have to deal with those other things. I want to make you happy."

Suddenly, Eren found himself being flicked on the forehead.

"Oww," he grumbled, using his free hand to rub the assaulted area. "What was that for?"

"Idiot. You do make me happy."

Eren's blush brightened; he covered his face as best he could with the one hand in total embarrassment. Levi found himself grinning just slightly at the flustered, adorable sight of this kid he loved. He reached out to pry his hand from his face, memorizing that beautiful rosy glow. He used the pads of his fingers to trace it, smile growing more than he'd ever consciously allow.

"So it was a dumb idea then, huh?" Eren whispered.

"I didn't say that."

"But you didn't say it wasn't."

"It wasn't."

"Then...you want to?"

"Yes, Eren. I want to."

"But?"

Levi's hand stopped short, cupping the other's chin. "But I want to do it the right way."

"Huh? What right way?"

The raven chuckled. "I'm going to be proper about it, and I'm going to ask for your mother's blessing first."

Despite Levi's hand beneath his chin, Eren's jaw literally dropped in shock. That didn't sound like Levi at all; he was never one to be traditional. This sudden - although small - change took Eren aback, though he had to admit he liked it. Liked the idea of Levi asking his mother for her blessing and being so proper. His shock quickly morphed into a full-on thousand watt smile.

"Should we go right now?" he asked, already beginning to turn to start the car again. Levi snatched his hand.

"Whoa, slow down, Eren. We have time. It's not like I'm going to be gone in a week. I need time to prepare."

"Oh. Right."

"Besides, there's something I want to show you."

As Eren cocked a questioning brow, Levi was already on the move to roll his left sleeve up. Eren immediately understood, especially as the colors and intricate, smooth lines came into view. He pulled his sleeve all the way to his elbow and held the limb out, letting the brunet get a good, long look at the new, still healing tattoo on his forearm.

Butterflies, as he'd worked on the morning before Eren departed the United States, danced up the surface of his skin along the letters of his scars. They were brilliant hues of blues, greens, turquoises, teals, and other colors of the sort. They each had a unique shape and design to them. They were surrounded by soft swirls of the same colors and were striking against the ivory shade of Levi's skin.

You could still see them, of course - the scars beneath the insects. The way they danced and fluttered up his arm, even in motionless ink, did not completely conceal the near fatal markings he'd inflicted upon himself all those moons ago. And that wasn't his intention, to cover them up completely. He still wanted to be able to see them, to know that he'd been through hell and the truth behind the origin of said markings. But the butterflies represented life, represented the choices he made to get better, and in a way they represented Eren. Not because of his relationship and his undying, unconditional love for the brat. But because Eren was the very reason his heart was still beating. He'd made that clear hundreds of times before, and he would continue to repeat it until his voice was hoarse or gone completely. Even if one day their relationship came to an end, it would still be Eren who showed him the light. That was something that would never change - nor would the scars or the tattoo. Both were physical reminders that he'd been shot down and beaten by life, but had still managed to pull himself back up. It was disgustingly cliché, but damn, was he proud.