Chapter Text
1
Now, Eren wasn’t stupid. Sure, he’d done a lot of stupid things, over his 27 years on the planet, that’d landed him in the position he was in now, but he wasn’t stupid. He had a job he took pride in. A roof over his head. A wrench in his hand. His headphones on. And as he wasn’t stupid, he held next to no interest in getting involved with his bosses illegal fight club run in the back of the garage workshop every Friday night. No. He wasn’t that dumb. Had he had the choice, Eren wouldn’t have been working overtime, but unfortunately with money came next to no patience. The car beneath his hands worth more money than he’d ever make in his life. The owner absolutely had to have his car back from some kind of rich alpha business in the morning... Whenever they could drag themselves in after their champagne breakfast with an extra servicing of coke on the side... or put more accurately, they came stumbling in, yelling, when their precious chauffeurs dropped them off.
Leaning back, Eren wiped the sweat off his brow, throwing a filthy look towards where tonight’s fight was happening. Blood already clung heavily to the air. Too many alphas would do that, and the men fighting were fighting for next to no money. The winner could expect a face filled with broken teeth and maybe a few hundred to their name. All this fighting bullshit starting long before he started work at the garage, but for him to personally see it, this may be the twice or third time. Fortunately, overtime generally happened in preparation for the weekend, the garage owner tried not to have such rowdy alphas around cars worth upwards of a quarter of a million dollars. The piece of shit alpha who ran the garage shoving this into his lap as he was preparing to walk out the door for the day. The man bullshitting about going home to his family, even now Eren could see him standing there screaming at whoever he’d backed. Whatever, he’d get what was coming in time. Turning his attention back to the radiator, he was close to being able to get out of there that he could taste it. First came double-checking the hose clamps, then filling the radiator and doing a pressure check. Maybe two more hours and he’d finally be free to enjoy the weekend... Fucking finally.
All of that, and now Eren was pressed to say just how things had taken a turn.
Leaving the garage, he’d damn near tripped over the figure sitting by the back door. Face bloodied, hand badly wrapped, alpha pheromones pouring off him, despite the slight figure of the slumped man. No. He wasn’t going to help him... Not until the man groaned, hand moving to his ribs under Eren’s wide-eyed gaze. He knew he was fucked if the alpha was packing a gun... Now was not the time to be pausing instead of passing by
“Oi. Shitty, brat... got a light?”
“Who are you calling a shitty brat?”
“The tall lanky shit stain standing there, looking down on me like in goddamn infectious. Didn’t your Mumma teach you it’s rude to stare?”
“Didn’t yours teach you it’s rude to bleed out on the back step of someone’s shitty garage?”
Snorting at him, the stranger seemed genuinely amused
“Tch. Sorry to offend, I’ll be sure to drag my bleeding fucking arse out of here before your boss catches me”
Eren’s mother had worked behind bars for as long as he could remember. Some of the best advice he’d ever gotten came from drunks at the bar. The more they swore, the more honest they were. Ugh. He was going to regret this when he wound up murdered in the morning. At 6ft, he wasn’t exactly short, nor was he weak, but even he knew a gun or a knife would make work of his lanky arse in no time if he was sleeping
“Can you stand?”
“What?”
“Can you stand?”
Tilting his head back, the stranger stared up at him. Narrow grey eyes, bruising on his lip, and a look that questioned what the fuck Eren was on about, as he scowled. The man older than him, yet kind of interminable when it came to a clear age
“Look, if you’re trying to get into my pants, you can fuck right off”
Glaring down the scowling, Eren had no time for this. The air was getting chilly, his bed calling, and his mood already annoyed, bordering snappy. An angry alpha brought out the worst in him, and this wanker wasn’t helping his own cause
“I’m not so lonely as to stoop to scooping trash out the gutter. Your hand’s busted and your face looks like the wrong end of a dog, I’ll give you a place to crash then you can crawl back into whatever roach motel you call home come morning”
“What-the-fuck-ever. You got scotch at your place?”
“I don’t know, you going to let me fix your busted hand so I don’t have to have your death on my conscious?”
“I guess it’s better than dying in this filth”
Ignoring Eren’s hand, the strange alpha climbed to his feet, hand clutching at his side. Only a moron would come to a fight club where everything was rigged. Watching the stranger limp forward, Eren gave a shake of his head. What the fuck was he doing? His mother would be glaring down at him from heaven for the latest of his stupid choices.
*
Levi didn’t know what the fuck he was thinking climbing onto the back of a strangers motorcycle. The lanky shit pestering him until he felt obligated to go home with him. His initial feeling was that the man was both unfairly tall, and most probably an idiot. Anyone working for a boss as crooked as the kid’s had to be lacking in the intellectual department. Still, he wasn’t in the position to complain. A man had to wipe his own arse, and when there were bills to pay, he could only go where the work went.
Wincing as the stranger ground the gears, Levi ignored every fibre of his being. He was fucking filthy. Assaulted by germs, and the helmet wedged over his head held countless drops of sweat from its long-haired owner. When the stranger offered no name, Levi wasn’t in a hurry to offer up his. If he did turn out to be some sort of creep, that just wanted a quick fuck, it was better not to know his name. No one in this world did anything for nothing. A lesson crammed down his throat his whole life. Maybe he’d finally find some kind of excitement in the otherwise stagnant monotony of working his arse off to pay his bills until he died.
Zipping through the city, the kid had no fear of fear as he wove in and out of the nighttime traffic. The ride a solid 20 minutes, anything that might have been said lost to the sound of the motorcycle, not that either of them seemed in any rush to utter a word. All he’d wanted was a damn cigarette before calling for a lift, now he was willingly let himself be kidnapped... his friends would never let him live it down, not that he had all that many friends, to begin with.
Pulling up into a parking space barely large enough for his motorcycle, the stranger let out a long sigh, Levi mentally echoing it as he pulled his borrowed helmet off. If the parking around the apartment building was anything to go by, the place was a dump, only curable by burning the whole lot to the ground. Various car, some in pieces, sat sadly. Car parts piled up against the far wall of the parking garage
“Can you walk?”
Growling at the stranger, Levi could walk perfectly fine. A few busted ribs hadn’t killed him yet. Though the number of germs in this hell hole just might. His alpha equally annoyed at their surroundings
“Tch. You live in a dump”
“It’s got four walls and roof, what the fuck else could I possibly need. If you’re done sitting on my bike, follow me up”
Led inside the apartment complex, the ancient elevator didn’t work. Flecks of once cheerful forest green and cream white paint peeled from the walls, gone possibly decades without any form of basic maintenance. The building owner obviously a stingy bastard that couldn’t even spare $5 for new fucking lighting over each landing.
Four flights of stairs later, Levi hated to admit he was working up a sweat. Not once had the strange man who’d dragged him here looked back over his shoulder to enquire into his condition. For someone who’d decided he was “helping him”, Levi couldn’t be sure he didn’t intend to kill with all these damn stairs. Secretly he was sure more than one unfortunate citizen had expired on these damn stairs. Pausing to catch his breath, the break in his steps finally caused the mysterious stranger to cast a glance back at him
“Don’t worry, I’m down the hall. 104”
Biting down a hard “fuck off”, Levi grit his teeth, aggravating his split lip. He must be getting old. A split lip, knuckles bust from bare-knuckle fighting, and damn bruised ribs. He’d come this far, going back down seemed like too much damn effort. Normally he’d go to his... Levi hesitated to use the word “friend” when the woman was a fucking menace verging on “mad scientist”, with a mouth on her that’d rival any dominant alpha, yet calling said friend right about now would mean he’d never hear the fucking end of it from her. A man needed to pay his fucking bills, and she lived in goddamn “la-la land”. What pile of shit he had gotten himself into this time?