please don't hate me for this...

---

Turquoise eyes fluttered open to a dark bedroom. The first thing Eren was aware of was the stiffness of his back and how the headboard dug into his ribs. With a grunt, he sat up, a blanket he'd been covered with falling from his chest and pooling in his lap. He vaguely recognized it as the one he kept in the trunk of his car. Upon stretching out his arms, he realized the bed was absent of Levi. Remembering the events of the night before, he threw the blanket from his legs and quickly climbed out of bed. He stopped short once reaching the door, seeing that across the hall the bathroom was vacant. If Levi had relapsed, it had been a while ago. He took a deep breath simultaneously pulling his fingers through his already messy hair and shuffled down the hallway. He half expected to see Levi drawing or staring off into space as he often did after a relapse, but as he rounded the corner into the living room he turned out to be wrong.

Levi hadn't relapsed, that much he was able to tell immediately. There was a change in his demeanor and attitude when he was under the influence, something that disturbed Eren because he could feel that it wasn't truly Levi, but more like a ghost of him while the real him was caged inside.

The raven sat on the couch, knees up and arms resting on them, forehead pressed into his sleeves. He seemed much more relaxed than the night before, but he was still. Too still.

"Levi?" Eren murmured, taking a cautious step forward.

The artist's body twitched and he lifted his head ever so slowly. His eyes were glassy; a fire burned within them. He definitely hadn't relapsed.

Before sinking down onto the floor in front of him, Eren noted the nibbled on piece of toast and half empty cup of tea on the coffee table.

"How are you feeling?"

Eren should've expected the impossible raspiness of Levi's usual lower baritone when he spoke.

"Better physically. Emotionally it's like I've been thrown into the deepest pits of hell."

Instinctively, Eren extended his hand forward but thought better of it and dropped it back into his lap.

"Need to talk about it?"

"Remember when I told you the memories are the hardest part?" A nod. Gray eyes slid closed. "Every time I close my eyes I see everything. It's eating me half alive." His head fell back into the nest of arms and knees. Eren wracked his brain for something to say that might be helpful, but came up with nothing he hadn't already said to sound genuine enough. Instead he reached up again and gently pried Levi's fingers from around his leg. He took the one hand between both of his and rubbed it gently, sending attempted silent reassurances through touch alone. Lazily, Levi's body unraveled. His knees dropped so he sat cross legged; his arms fell like dead weight to his sides. Eren had never seen someone look so defeated, so terribly burdened by depression, and that included himself.

"Don't give up," he found himself whispering. "Please. For me."

Levi shook his head just slightly and suddenly he was descending, bending all the way over so his forehead found something of a pillow on Eren's left shoulder as he pushed his fingers between Eren's.

"I can't do this, Eren," he mumbled brokenly.

The lump in the teen's throat returned as he reached up with his free hand to rub gentle circles in the bony back of the artist.

"You can. You have to fight it. I believe in you."

"You idiot. Don't you see I'm hopeless?"

"That's not true. You can survive this." Eren swallowed hard. "You just need the right kind of help. Help I'm not capable of offering."

"No, Eren. No."

"What other option do you have, Levi? I just wanna see you get better but this...this isn't helping. We both know you can't do this on your own."

The man drew in a shaky breath. "I can't. I'm sorry."

"W-would...would you rather d-die?" The teen's voice cracked.

A long pause preceded Levi's response. "Sometimes I think that might be better. No more pain. No more struggling or burdening."

"L-Levi..." Eren was on the verge of tears. His hand had halted on Levi's back and curled into a fist. His heart physically ached, hearing these words.

"But I promised myself I would hurt you as little as possible from now on. So here I am."

Eyes squeezing shut, Eren said, "Put me aside for a second. D-do you really want to...?"

Another long pause. "No, I guess not."

Eren managed to relax a bit. "But you still won't go."

Levi shook his head. It took everything Eren had not to ask why and then beg him to go. He wasn't completely sure why he refrained, he just did.

"Even if I s-said that you staying out is hurting me?" he murmured.

Levi tensed. His free hand came up and his fist planted lightly on Eren's chest. "Don't do that to me, shithead. Don't try to guilt me into it."

The teen hadn't been lying, of course. It really did hurt to watch Levi deteriorate right before his eyes, to be powerless against it. But he wouldn't guilt him into going. That was low, and guilt already burdened this man much too heavily. The physical part of withdrawal might have been what was draining him of his biological life, but the emotions were clearly much worse. They drained him of his spiritual life, sucked away his will to keep fighting. And if he lost that, he was physiologically doomed.

Eren tried to imagine his life if he lost Levi. Immediately it seemed bleak. Not necessarily meaningless, but damn close to it. He would survive. He could go on. Though things would never be the same. Since first looking into the eyes of the raven-haired fool, his life had changed drastically whether he realized it at the time or not. From that moment, there was no going back. He'd fallen hard. It seemed like the stupidest thing he could've let himself do...fall in love with a junkie of one of the most lethal drugs out there. It was almost as if he was following a similar path as his mother, though his father only became addicted after he was conceived rather than before they met. Still, the situation was eerily similar. With that similarity came a disturbing feeling of phantom despair, knowing how that situation ended. Despair that could very easily become real.

This man had stolen irreplaceable pieces of him...pieces he would hold forever no matter what the future held for the two of them. Those pieces were what he sacrificed, the time he spent in that apartment for his one purpose, and something deeper within himself he couldn't truly identify.

"Distract me," said Levi, breaking the silence and Eren out of his internal banter.

"What?" he stammered stupidly.

"Distract me," Levi repeated, forcing a swallow. "Just...say anything. Give me something else to focus on. Please."

Eren's mind fumbled for something to say and he ended up blurting the first thing that came to mind. "Uh...what's your favorite color?"

"Turquoise." The raven answered immediately without really thinking. He didn't fully realize why he'd said what he had at first. Forever his favorite color had been blood red, or any red, really. Turquoise seemed the dead opposite, yet he felt he was telling the truth. "Why?" Asked Eren, equally as surprised. He expected an answer like black or gray, something dark.

"It's...the color of your eyes," Levi admitted shyly, raspy voice barely audible.

A thrill of flattery tingled through Eren's nerves; he felt his entire face prick with heat and was immensely glad that Levi couldn't see the obvious darkening beneath his skin.

"Seriously? That's why?" he asked innocently.

"Tch..."

"Um, well, thanks?"

"Insufferable brat," muttered the man.

That was when the coughing started, dry and horrid-sounding at first like normal. He gripped at his chest with his free hand while Eren's began rubbing his back again, waiting for it to stop. Gradually, it seemed to die down. It was so along the lines of the norm that neither of them expected it - the next retch that came with a splatter of dark red, bright against the pallid shade of Levi's hand that had come up just in time to catch it. With another cough came more; Eren felt the hot liquid splatter on the front of his shirt, and then once more after that.

"Well that's new," he muttered.

Eren stiffened and gently pushed the raven up. His shocked eyes descended to the shaky, bloodied hand between them and his own came up to cup it from underneath. At first it didn't seem real; he desperately wanted to be dreaming. He didn't want the blood to be real. Didn't want what it meant to be real.

But it was. He could feel it drip from Levi's hand and pool in his own palm. He could feel it causing his shirt to stick to his chest. He could see as it dripped from Levi's lips. He, too, seemed to having a hard time taking it in.

"Y-you need to get to the hospital..." he murmured, fumbling for his phone in his pocket but found them to be empty.

"No...just help me to the bathroom," mumbled Levi, running the back of his clean hand across his lips, smearing it across his cheek.

"You're bleeding from the inside, Levi. Don't...you can't just brush it off like it's nothing..."

"Hmpf..." The raven shoved himself to his feet. "My lungs are just dry...I'm fine..."

Eren stared up at him, dumbfounded as he watched him stumble toward the hallway, leaving a trail of drops of blood as he went. It took a minute before he snapped to his senses and sprung up to help.

"This is idiotic, Levi," he attempted to reason. "You're dying...you can't just..." He was at a loss for words, the knot in his chest tightening. Watching Levi suffer like this had his heart feeling as if it were being constricted by chains.

"I'm fine," Levi insisted. "I needed a shower anyway." He hobbled into the bathroom.

"Will you be okay...?" Eren asked cautiously, eyeing the way he walked and required to hold onto something in order to maintain his balance.

"As I've told you, I'm an addict, not a baby."

With that, the door shut less than an inch from Eren's nose. Levi planted his back against it and stared down at his shaking, bloodied hands. He'd never much minded the sight of blood before, especially if it was his own. That he was used to. But this...this was different. It scared him. Came from something bleeding from the inside. What was more, the usual burning of his lungs disappeared as soon as he laid eyes on the red liquid. That definitely wasn't normal, nor did he think it to be a good thing.

''You're dying, you can't just..."

'Yes, Eren. I know I'm dying. And I'm petrified shitless.'

He shut his eyes. He wouldn't let the brat know that. The longer time went on, the more pain he was forced to endure, the more he witnessed the pain in Eren's eyes, the more he realized he wouldn't be able to do this on his own. That was something Eren knew from the start; the first thing he'd suggested was rehab. It was Levi who refused. It was Levi who was keeping himself away from the possibility of truly getting better. He knew his addiction ran much too deep to be able to sit and wait for his body to simply get over it. He needed more than that...more than sitting around and trying to fight it on his own. Regardless, the thought of some strangers touching him even to take something as simple as heart rate or blood pressure petrified him almost as much as the cloud of death looming over his shoulders. Eren was the only one he'd let lay a finger on him for more than a few seconds since he was fourteen unless he was completely intoxicated, and then it wasn't real, wasn't genuine. Anyone else brought the overwhelming feeling of violation, conjured memories he desperately wanted to forget and the phantom pain of having been violated. He couldn't stand it, and going somewhere people would need to touch him, even if they were helping him was a horrifying thought.

As he watched the last of the pink tinted water swirl down the drain, he came to the realization that he would have to choose. Choose between the two poisons - the fear of feeling violated or being violated, of being alone again; or the probability that the drug he couldn't stay away from would permanently destroy his brain and not only the fear of death, but death herself.

Meanwhile, Eren stumbled his way into the kitchen to scrub the blood from his own hand. He elected to yank his shirt over his head, knowing there was no saving the peppermint green of it from the scarlet stain of Levi's lifeblood. He discarded it into the trash before making way to his bag that had made a home in the corner of the living room between the television stand and smaller couch to yank out another shirt at random and pull it over his head. He proceeded back to the kitchen where under the sink he found, sure enough, an abundance of different cleaning products. He selected one he figured might be able to remove carpet stains and one of the brushes hung neatly off to the side. He moved back to the hallway where he began to scrub the bloodstains. The pungent odor of ammonia stung his nose as he ground the bristles into the carpet, attempting to erase the rusty stain as if it could eliminate with it what caused it. Not just the coughing and the blood, but all of it. The withdrawals altogether. The drug that caused them. The decision that was made to take the drug in the first place.

But the stain never completely went away no matter how long and hard he scrubbed. The faded scarlet hue stubbornly clung to the fine threads of the carpet. As much as he tried to ignore it, the metaphor they personified nagged at the back of Eren's mind. It was as if the stains were the drug itself and the floor was Levi. He scrubbed and scrubbed but the stain would never come out. It was the same with the real situation; it seemed that no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he said or did, the drug had its hooks in Levi so deep that even he was powerless against fighting it. The only way to rid the apartment of those stains was to rip up this carpet and replace it with new...but to Eren, there was no replacement for Levi. He stood by his decision to be dragged down with him if that was what was fated to be.

Nonetheless, the fear that he might be pulled under as well was not nullified. The fear that Levi could so easily lose his life, that in fact he was on the verge of the very thing. How many more relapses did he have left before his venom completely consumed him? How many more could his ailing body withstand? How much more time did he truly have left before his heart...?

Eren couldn't finish the thought. He dragged his sleeve across his forehead in mock exhaustion and continued scrubbing, moving from one stain to the next, pretending it was paint or dye rather than blood. His nose soon became immune to the smell of the ammonia. He did as best he could before rinsing the carpet and replacing the cleaning supplies. With that, he all but collapsed on the couch, his head thunking against the wall behind it, eyes lidded. The image of Levi's bloody face haunted the backs of his eyelids and he forced it away, forced himself to think of something different.

He figured he should call his mother just to check up. He was still in the middle of considering it when his phone started buzzing somewhere beneath him. He fumbled in the cushions and found it among them.

"Mom," he breathed after tapping the green 'answer' icon.

"Good morning, Eren," came Carla's soft, motherly voice from the receiver. Immediately, the simple sound of her soprano helped bring his thoughts back from total chaos. "Is everything alright?" she asked.

"Not nearly," he muttered, collapsing once more against the back of the couch.

"Levi."

Funny how a simple name could have a person's entire body react with warmth and butterflies mixed with dread and worry.

"He's bad, Mom. Really bad. And I don't know what else to do..."

"Is he still refusing rehabilitation?"

"Yes. I'm starting to think there's no way to talk him into it, and I can't force him to go. I've tried everything..."

"You know, hon, sometimes you have to take action for the people you care about without their consent in order to help them."

Eren chomped down on his lip. He was afraid she'd say that, but that only served to make her statement more accurate.

"It's okay if you're scared, Eren. But as I told you the night you left - help him like I couldn't help your father before it's too late. Even if you're taking a risk."

"I know, I know," he mumbled, running his fingers through his hair. "You're right."

After that, he asked how she and Mikasa were doing. She merely claimed that it was much quieter around their house without him around and she wasn't used to cooking for only two. Otherwise, things had pretty much stayed the same since the last time they spoke.

Her parting words were a simple, "Good luck."

As if on cue, Levi's slender figure appeared around the corner of the hallway the second after Eren let his phone drop back onto the cushions. He slinked into the room, hands hidden away in his pockets in his usual manner, and collapsed into the cushions next to Eren as if his legs could no longer hold him, which was probably the case. His hair - the longer part flopped over to the left and the rest having grown out considerably in the past weeks - was shiny and wet. He brought with him the pleasant scent of his shampoo, a scent Eren's nose was becoming familiar with. Upon looking him over, Eren couldn't help but notice something unfamiliar in the depths of those stone gray eyes, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Feeling better?" he asked instead.

"Slightly," replied Levi quietly. "Sorry...about that...and your shirt..."

"It's alright. Shirts are replaceable."

Levi nodded slightly, brows pulling together and eyes closing as if he were in pain. Knowing he was, Eren took hold of one of his hands. He'd noticed in the past how, for some reason when they were touching, things seemed a little more bearable for the raven. He wanted to do everything he could to help. This time was no exception, either. Levi visibly relaxed when he felt the warmth on his fingers and instinctively moved closer to the source of that warmth.

"I need another distraction," he mumbled.

"Uhm..." Eren mumbled, wracking his brain for something to say. It was suddenly as if he'd forgotten what a distraction was.

"Tell me something about you," said Levi, eyes reopening.

"M-me?"

Levi sighed. "No, the person behind you."

Eren almost, almost looked behind him before he recognized the sarcasm and immediately felt dumb. With that, he just started babbling without really thinking.

"I...remember when my parents told me they were gonna adopt my sister. I was only six but I hated the idea that I wasn't gonna be their only kid anymore and I cried every time her name was mentioned." He chuckled fondly at the vague memory. "They made me meet her before they decided for sure...and I remember seeing my mom hold her. She looked so happy to be holding a baby in her arms that even then, I got over it. I mean I was jealous, of course, and I fought for her attention a lot...and I admittedly kinda hated that kid at first because she cried incessantly. But I got over that, too. She's still a little brat, though."

Eren finished his story with a fond smirk playing on his lips, one Levi was captivated by.

"She probably gets it from you," he teased halfheartedly.

"Hmpf..."

"And even when you were more of a brat than you are now, you loved your mother endlessly," he observed, keeping his eyes downcast at their fingers that he'd absently began fidgeting with.

"Up until a couple months ago, I've never loved anyone more than her," Eren confirmed.

The corners of Levi's lips twitched into something between a grimace and a grin.

"So are you close to your sister?" he asked to get the subject away from that particular topic for the moment.

"Sorta," Eren answered thoughtfully. "We don't exactly have heart-to-hearts or share all our secrets with each other, but we're there for each other when we need to be. Like...Christmas night after you left...she even seemed kind of sad." Levi flinched at the mention of that night, earning a quick "sorry" from the teen. "And she often has trouble with school work, so I'll help her with that..."

Eren was running out of things to say. He could talk about his family, small as it was, all day. But Levi had asked him to talk about himself, and like most people, that wasn't an easy task for him.

"Keep talking," Levi practically begged once the silence became too long for him.

"Um..." Eren fumbled for something else. "My mom used to sing a lot," he blurted. "Especially when I was little and before my dad died. She often sung me to sleep...or she would be cooking or gardening or doing everyday things and she would sing. And I started to pick up on that. I learned some of her songs and I liked to sing with her. She has a beautiful voice and..." He trailed off and glanced at Levi, who had looked up from concentrating on his fidgeting (which ceased altogether) and instead had focused on Eren's face. "Sorry," he mumbled, embarrassed.

"No, continue."

"Are you sure? I feel like I'm just babbling..."

Levi nodded. Eren swallowed past his parched throat - something he chose to ignore - and went on.

"Sometimes I sang at school...just absently. At first it was really no big deal. But then..." He let out a dry, sarcastic laugh. "Then I started to get teased for it. At first I tried to ignore it and I told my mom and she said it didn't matter what anyone else thought. But of course the nicknames started and I was laughed at, so I stopped. And I stopped singing at home, too." Eren reached back to rub the back of his neck, still feeling mild embarrassment. "Now that I think about it, it was kinda dumb."

"What was dumb, exactly?"

"Just...the singing in general. I don't really blame people for making fun of it."

Levi's eyes flickered up from their focus on his playing with Eren's fingers, which ceased. "It's not," he said firmly, surprising the brunet. "You shouldn't have let them stop you."

Eren half shrugged and attempted to brush it off in a casual way. "I dunno. I mean I was little...and I suck anyway. No big deal..."

"Hn, I don't believe that."

"Believe what?"

"That you suck."

"I dunno..." Eren mumbled again as a blush started to creep up from his neck. He found himself unable to directly meet Levi's eyes.

"I'll only believe it if you prove it."

"Wh-what?"

"Sing for me and then I'll decide whether or not you suck."

The blush was full blown in Eren's face now, heating his cheeks and flaming at his ears. "I haven't sung in front of anybody since then...and that was over a decade ago..."

"So you still do it."

"Well, yeah, when no one's around..."

"Hmpf. I still want to hear you."

"You're not gonna let this go, huh?"

"Nope."

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Y'know the saying 'it gets worse before it gets better'? welp... >~<

but. go ahead and let me know how much this sucks :D