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[neighsaying]

INBOX (UN: OMNIDIRECTIONAL) text / audio / video / action This is Jean. Leave a message, and I'll reach back out when I'm available. [ Previously was thunderspear ] code credit

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[reviling]

"Thought you might." Jean has a good sense for quality things, which Levi appreciates. He also might have brought it up because he figures Jean might have tried it for...other reasons. Ones that begin with a D and end with 'olph.'

He goes about measuring out the tea into strainers, strainers into cups, and then finally the water, which is now a perfect touch below boiling hot so as not to burn the leaves. If Jean has a timer of some sort nearby, he'll punch in four and a half minutes.

A few more moments pass before Levi picks up the conversation again. There's a bit of something not quite hesitancy or trepidation, but deeper than simple concern.

"Jean...I want to ask you about Eren."

[neighsaying]

There's a digital timer tucked away somewhere that Jean has learned how to use. It's great for managing the multiple dishes he now works on for Thermo, but - next to the counter is a standard hourglass timer, with little indents indicating how much time has passed by the level of the sand. Whichever Levi finds, he's free to use. (Apparently some creature comforts are hard to let go of, though.)

Jean produces two glass containers, one of biscotti - a recipe he's trying out - and some softer scones, putting them on a small plate to go with their tea. When Levi speaks again, mentioning Eren, there's the slightest pause to his movements. His shoulders stiffen just a little - but when he finishes and turns, it's not because he's uncomfortable. He looks more like he's girding himself for a difficult conversation.

"I don't know how much I can answer, but go ahead," he says.

[reviling]

Levi reaches for the hourglass and flips it. Electric things still get some amount of suspicion (except for the cleaning appliances), so he tends toward the mechanical options when possible. The little pastries get a look of interest - Jean really has been busy, it seems, and in a way it tingles a little bit more...hope, contentment, back into his chest. Eren will never truly settle, but at least, maybe, Jean still can. Maybe none of them ever really will, not fully; at least, Levi knows there is still more that he has to do, and it might feel strangely like betrayal to live as though it'll never happen.

Maybe.

He sees Jean tense, and that's almost all he needs to know; something tells him that it doesn't have anything to do with Eren's recent carelessness that got him stuck through the leg. That thought twists unpleasantly - they've both put him through a shit ton of unnecessary pain lately.

Levi feels his jaw tense, has to force himself to relax it before speaking again. His voice is even, as it usually is, but there's definitely detectable worry in his words and the crease of his brow.

"You're the only one of us aside from him who's experienced everything. I just want to know...what you think about how he's doing here. So much shit has happened in the last few months, and his behavior is changing." And yet in so many ways, it isn't. It's confusing and heartbreaking at once. "You told me before a little of what he was like before the rumbling. What do you see now?"

[neighsaying]

Jean's expression changes almost instantly - going from cautious to something sadder, his gaze falling down to the floor. It's not that he can't meet Levi's gaze, it's that it's hard to look at him and realize how much Eren really hasn't changed.

".... He's more like he was before the rumbling happened than he is where he came from," Jean says somberly, looking up at Levi. "At this point, the only real difference is in their physical age - he has the same withdrawn look, the same pain around him. I..."

Jean holds Levi's gaze, hoping he understands how painful it is for him to admit this.

"... I think he's always going to end up that way," he finally admits, the words like grit in his mouth. "Raging against an imaginary cage, and unhappy. Finding enemies in the darkness and placing himself against the world to defeat them."

[reviling]

...it's the answer he'd expected, but even so, the confirmation doesn't ache any less. Levi feels that pit in his chest open wider, burrow deeper, and it seems fucking bottomless. He can only hold Jean's gaze for a heartbeat or two longer before his eyes draw away, resigned. Sorrowful.

Maybe in some way it should be a relief; that this was just how it would end up, no matter what any of them tried to do, including Eren. Maybe it should be freeing, to know that it wasn't that they'd fucked up only once, that in the end there isn't anything he could have done differently.

But he can't feel anything above the pull of that endless hole, swallowing hope.

"...I see." The words barely make it out, like glass in his throat.

It scrapes down as he swallows, fingers curling under his palm against the counter.

"So what will you do?" It's difficult, but not impossible to think that the bond between Jean and Eren now could be broken. This place has a funny way of reordering priorities, relationships...as small as it is.

[neighsaying]

When Levi looks away, Jean does as well. Their expressions are mirrors of each other it seems; resigned, apologetic over the situation that Eren has found himself in. Jean wishes Reiner had been right - that Eren had any chance of changing what he would become. Not this time, it seems.

When Levi asks what he'll do he looks out the window in the kitchen, exhaling softly. Then he moves, deliberate, to reach out and take one of the cups of tea, still hot, and cup it in his hands.

"I promised I'd stay by his side no matter what," he tells Levi. "I made that promise - to him, and to Mikasa."

He closes his eyes for a moment. He knows this means he's signing some portion of his happiness away. He won't ever be the person that Dolph needs him to be. One day, that might mean he loses him for good.

"It doesn't mean I'll let him get away with anything he wants, though. I told him... if I needed to, I'd kill him."

Again goes unsaid, but when Jean opens his eyes there's a wry smile on his lips.

"It seemed to make him feel better, at least."

[reviling]

There's no external reaction to that declaration, except for perhaps the way the steady sinking of his heart likewise continues to pull at his expression. So it might come to that (again), after all. The original task he'd accepted in that very first hour of meeting him, the sole condition of his survival: that if he ever becomes a real threat, Captain Levi, Humanity's Strongest, would be able to put him down.

It's something he's always been prepared to do, but hoped he never would. Levi still carries that hope, and he won't put it down unless Eren forces his hand. It's just becoming more and more likely that he will.

That, too, might be inevitable. Even Eren knows it, and he'll still do it.

Somnius isn't home; Erwin is home. Jean is home. Eren, too. Somnius is just the strange place they've all found themselves in and needed to build a life, for better or worse. Levi knows Eren would tear it down if he feels it's in the way of his freedom, if given the chance. But even disregarding his own wishes, there are other people here with no other chances than this, people who can find relative comforts here than they would otherwise - people who would die, all for Eren's personal wish fulfillment. That, more than anything, Levi can't allow to happen.

He also isn't ready to give up the things that he has now. He'll have the rest of his life to be without them and no memory of this place to hold onto then. Levi realizes that Eren will always see a cage no matter where he looks, but that doesn't mean everyone else is trapped with him, or must suffer his consequences.

After several long, quiet moments, Levi reaches and takes the other cup, raising it to his lips to take a careful sip. Tea here is still better most anything he could get his hands on inside the walls.

"You won't have to do it alone." Because he could never leave killing someone you love solely to Jean. His gaze returns to the younger man, deadly, achingly serious. "Eren was once my responsibility. If it comes to that, we'll do it together."

[neighsaying]

Eren is the sun to his moon, Jean sometimes thinks. Always orbiting each other but never actually crossing. People are drawn into his orbit - people like Floch, and Mikasa. Others from other worlds too, like Aubrey. Armin is charismatic but Eren has his own energy, as flawed as it might be.

And, one day, he's read, the sun will go out. He's already lived through it once. The sun can't be contained no matter what they do - and Eren will never accept anything he thinks of as a cage.

He's trying, that much is obvious to Jean. He's trying to be content with the situation. Sooner, or later, he'll burst like a powder keg. The only question is how large an impact it will make. Will it just be a small fight, or something bigger?

Levi's words, though, offered seriously - words he's sure the Levi of the future had time to say as well - make him exhale sharply. The fingers holding the cup tighten, but he sets it down before he could even dream of doing any damage to the set.

The clink of porcelain against counter feels loud, in the quiet of the house. Jean shifts his gaze to meet Levi's, expression pained but just as determined. An expression Levi has likely seen before, in the young man resolving to kill to defend his friends.

Jean tries to find words, fails; swallows and starts again. "Thank you," is what he ends up managing to say. It feels like not enough for the grief Levi offers to shoulder the burden of. There's so much pain in Levi's future that he genuinely hopes it never comes to that here, to having to put Eren down. For everyone's sake.

end?

[reviling]

That memory is less further away for Levi than it is Jean; perhaps only Mikasa had been able to accept that reality so readily. He readily remembers that resistance, and later moving to full comprehension when that time so quickly came to pass. It is not a bad thing, to be resistant to killing another person, but their survival had depended on his young team being willing to do what's necessary.

Killing someone you care for, love, can feel even more unfathomable.

Jean doesn't have to say anything more; the weight of that understanding and shared burden passes easily between them. They both have held more than their fair share of pain in their lives, but also in this Levi is well adapted to carrying it. It'll never make it hurt any less, and some wounds will never heal. But it is something he knows he can do better than most. Much like violence. Much like killing.

If it's within his power to do it so someone else doesn't have to, he will. For Jean, it's never a question.

Eren is trying; even Levi can see it. Truthfully, he's never seen anyone more tenacious, perhaps outside himself. But it might not be enough.

Perhaps nothing will be.

He reaches to set a hand on Jean's shoulder (someday he'll grouse at how much they've all grown, even though the fact that he'll get to do that at all is precious in and of itself), and just offers a brief, affirming squeeze, gray eyes solemn and intent, before going back to his tea.