Work Text:
The mafia wasn't a place for the light of heart, or the weak of body. It wasn't a place for bubbling new love to flourish, or a place where family came first. No, most definitely not. In the mafia, one's first and only family was the mafia. If the boss said jump, one was expected to say, "How high?" If he said die, one would keel over on demand. If he killed one's most treasured person... one was not to question it.
Levi knew this. He knew it well, and had, in fact, lived by these words for twenty long years. When Erwin Smith, present mafia boss, and his foster father, told him to do something, he didn't question it. He simply did it. He lived for Erwin Smith, to please Erwin Smith, to emulate that which Erwin Smith desired.
Twenty years...
Twenty years was a long time to live. It was a long time to stay on the 'right path'. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost track of himself, and he'd slipped.
... Levi did the unthinkable...
... He fell in love.
He couldn't control it. He'd met a cute kid during a patrol, and on a whim had helped the kid out when he'd been attacked. Levi wasn't raised to be the compassionate type. He was heartless, he was cold. He was ruthless and pure evil, and he'd kill at the drop of a hat.
However, something he couldn't even describe possessed him to show the first glimpse of compassion ever in his life for this brat-- barely an adult in his own right. It had been two years ago. The kid was attacked by a small time gang that hadn't even made a name for itself yet. It never did, either. Levi had made sure of that quickly. In comparison to the mafia, this gang was small. Only eighteen members in total, and they were all dead in a matter of minutes.
Levi was skilled in the art of murder. He was raised to be a coldblooded killer. To a point, that's what he was.
Except when he was around Eren. Eren fucking Yeager. The source of his troubles, yet also the source of his unparalleled happiness. He knew it was wrong of him. Falling in love was one of the many things that he'd been raised to believe was unachievable for an assassin of the mafia, so he did the only thing he knew he could survive to do. He hid it. He lied about it. There was no way that he could give up the one thing that made him feel truly alive in his hopelessly miserable life.
Maybe that was where he'd gone wrong, thinking back on it. He was good at faking his indifference, but there had still always been an undeniably cheery air to him, and a hop in his step whenever he returned from visiting the brat. He couldn't hide everything, and Erwin Smith was by no means blind or stupid. Levi failed to notice just when his boss had caught wind of it, but somewhere along the events preceding the present, the older man's sharp, deceitfully kind eyes caught sight of Levi's happiness.
He should have known. He should have known the man would shoot him down. That man who he'd looked up to for a majority of his life, but secretly harbored such ill will to. He should have known.
So there he sat. It was a private dinner, casual formal. Both the men were in suits, but no ties, and the high-collared button-ups they wore had the top few buttons unfastened to create an air of faux nonchalance. There was a subtle undercurrent of tense distrust.
Levi didn't care for dinner with Erwin much. He'd ceased caring for it years ago, and meating his current lover, Eren, only strengthened his loathe to spend quality time with his Godfather.
The table was long. Erwin sat at one end, the head, while Levi sat at the other. Several square feet separated them, but Levi was still close enough to see that aggravating smile of his. It took every fiber of Levi's being not to break the mask of his own indifferent visage to outright scowl. Dinner with him was always painfully prolonged, to the point where Levi nearly wanted to pull all his hair out from the pressure in the room.
Erwin preferred full course dinners. No shortcuts. Today, Erwin chose white wine as the beverage and palate cleanser. First course was a soup-- rather bland in flavor, but that may have just been because Levi wasn't too keen on eating at the moment. They ate the first course in silence. Neither of the men had spoken even a word since Levi's arrival, at which the only words spoken were forced words of greeting.
As they finished their soup and awaited the second course, which would be a salad, Erwin attempted at light conversation.
"How goes your latest assignments?"
Levi shoved his bowl aside, crossing his legs out of habit. He didn't bother to look up at his superior, "They've been terminated for a while now."
"Are they really, now?" Erwin raised a brow, but it was feigned surprise. "I'm impressed."
"A job is a job. No need for praise where it is not due. Failure is not an option."
His Godfather did not respond to this. These were words that he himself had instilled into Levi's very being, echoed back at him after years of torture for jobs gone wrong. Levi had plenty of scars to show for it.
The salad was simple, just as the soup had been bland. There was yet another bout of awkward silence as they ate it. As Levi was taking his last bite of salad, the fresh smell of the main course wafted into the room from cracked open doorway of the kitchen. It smelled strongly of pineapple and a meat that smelled much akin to smoked ham, yet somehow different. Not unpleasant, but different.
Soon, the chef came in with two dishes in either hand. He first set one before Erwin, unlidding the steaming plate of food before doing the same for Levi. With a simple, "Bon appétit," the chef made himself scarce once more.
Levi appraised his plate with his calculating eyes. A Hawaiian baked ham, it seemed, only rather that a large slice, as per usual, it was shredded and served in the form of pulled pork. On the side was baked apples and a sweet roll. It appeared Erwin hadn't forgotten about Levi's longtime secret sweet tooth.
Unlike the soup and salad, the main course itself was good. Euphorically so. He found himself finishing his dish before Erwin was even halfway done eating his food. Actually, Levi noted, it seemed as if Erwin had barely touched any of his food. The man had eaten maybe a slice of baked apple or two, and picked at his roll a bit, but most of his plate remained untouched.
Levi showed genuine surprise at the peculiar behavior, "Are you not hungry anymore?"
If memory served him well (and it did), the burly blonde had a voracious appetite. The fact that his Godfather had gone through the first to courses so quickly and now suddenly wasn't feeling all too hungry was odd in itself. It caused a passing thought that perhaps he was being poisoned. That thought was dismissed, though. Erwin valued Levi's skills much too much to just kill him off.
The man gingerly patted the corners of his lips with his napkin, "It seems I might have lost my appetite tonight."
"Might you want to retire for the night?" Levi asked, trying his damnedest not to sound hopeful. The prospect of not spending the final course of the dinner with him was all too appealing, and it had rekindled his desires to get back to his adorable brat with even more fervor than before.
Erwin held a hand up, palm toward Levi. He shook his head, "No, no. There is still the final course. I've got a real surprise for you for dessert."
Levi hated to break it to the Godfather that he was less than enthused at the idea. No shabby dessert could hold a candle to his Eren. Outwardly, he continued to act indifferent, but inwardly, he was wondering what Eren was up to on his own. He figured that since it was a weekend, the boy would be hanging out with his beloved sister, the only family the boy had left. The girl was wary about her foster brother dating a member of a the mafia (let alone, an assassin for the mafia) at first, but she'd eventually warmed up to him. She had no choice when they were so madly in love with each other.
The chef made his fourth and final appearance to bring them dessert. It was a green ice cream of some sort in a champagne flute, two for each of them. His first thought was that it would be green tea flavored, but upon trying the sweet frozen treat, he couldn't put his finger on the flavor Erwin had chosen for their dessert.
"It's pistachio."
Levi looked up at his Godfather, quirking a brow just so.
"The confusion is written all over your face," he explained, taking yet another bite from his ice cream. Levi noted with suspicion that Erwin's appetite had strangely returned out of the blue when the dessert was brought out to him. The man had always been one to preach and preach, on and on, that it was of utmost importance that he finished his dinner before he got dessert. Odd. Very odd.
Amazingly enough, Levi enjoyed the dessert. He was nearly to the bottom of the champagne flute full of pistachio ice cream when Erwin finally asked him his opinion on that night's supper. Levi heard him ask, but didn't quite acknowledge the him just yet. He was toying with the bit of ice cream at the bottom of the flute with his spoon when he noticed something a little off about the creamy desert. As some of the remaining ice cream had started to melt down, there was a bulge of something at the bottom-- too big and too round to be a pistachio. It blended in well with the smooth green texture of the ice cream, so he assumed that was why he hadn't noticed it earlier.
He toyed with it a bit more, brows furrowing. What was it... what in the world was it...?!
Eventually, he got tired of pushing the object around in the bottom of the champagne flute. He scooped it up for closer inspection, but still it wasn't registering to him what it might be. Despite his innermost thoughts screeching at him that it was absolutely unsanitary, he dropped it in his hand. It was soft. Slimy. Maybe it was just slimy because it was in melted ice cream, though. He rolled the object around in his hand, catching sight of a pecularity in it.
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh god...
Oh god...!
His stomach lurched painfully, as if he might be sick. An eye. He was looking at an eye. Not just any eye, though. Oh no, that would be much to kind. Totally not Erwin's style. No, Levi recognized this eye color. Those eyes, so deep a beautiful turquoise that the ocean was jealous of them. Those eyes that he'd spent countless nights just gazing into. Those eyes that would shine with such compassion that they stirred a sense of love and desire in even Levi's ice cold heart. Now dull.
One eye. All he had was one eye from his lover, and it was dirty. It was covered in green ice cream. The taste in Levi's mouth was bittersweet.
His stomach lurched again, more violently this time. It felt like painstakingly long hours that thes thoughts were going through his head, but in actuality, two and two was rapidly being put together in a matter of seconds. He choked on the now stagnant oxygen in the room.
Levi gasped in more air than his lungs probably needed, "Is this...?"
Erwin's expression was one of neutrality, "Surprise."
"No," he breathed out, "y--... y-you didn't..."
"I'm sorry, Levi," No, you're not, "but you're my favorite. I can't have my favorite being soiled by the grubby hands of a little boy. It was for your own good."
No, it's not!
He ground his teeth, thinking back on the duration of the dinner. It all made sense now. The peculiar smell of the meat, the loss of Erwin's appetite at the main course, and now the only thing he had left of his lover sat as an awful reminder in his hand.
For the third time, his stomach lurched, and he couldn't hold it back. He became sick, all over the floor beside him, with barely even enough time to uncross his legs and turn away from the table. His stomach completely relieved itself of all the contents it had gained that night, and the wave of nausea dizzied his mind. His throat burned. His nose and mouth burned with the acid that ripped through them. He didn't dare look at the contents now covering the dining room floor. Disgusting.
He used the back of a shaking hand, the empty one, to wipe away his mouth. Wiped the hand haphazardly on his pant leg. Cleanliness was the furthest thing from his mind at this point in time.
Soft foot steps approached Levi. Erwin skirted around the puddle of vomit on the floor, around to his other side. A large hand was placed on the dining table, and the other on Levi's shoulder. It made Levi feel sick again, almost as if the simple contact was enough on its own to make him vomit again. Levi remained shaking in his chair, still in shock over the whole ordeal. His hand still contained Eren's eye, the only thing he had left of the boy anymore.
"It's for the best, my dear Levi."
Levi allowed his head to sag downward, not willing to meet his Godfather's eyes. His shoulders shook in silent sobs, but Erwin's hand remained firmly in place. The assassin lifted a hand to grip at the table, in attempt to keep himself from falling over. Erwin squeezed tighter at his shoulder as he noticed this.
"You understand, right, my child?"
No, he wanted to say, no, I don't at all. I don't understand how you can take away such an angel's life so easily, let alone do this. To defile his corpse in such a way... to... to...
And then Levi was sick again. He didn't even know his stomach still had anything in it to purge. It turned out that it didn't, because all it produced was horridly hot stomach acid, just when he thought his esophagus had taken enough abuse thus far. His Godfather rubbed soothing circles into his back.
"It's okay. Everything will be better now."
Levi's hand started to wander across the table. No, it won't.
STAB
"...Ga-aa...aaagh!" Erwin screamed in agony at the offending metal prongs of the fork protruding from his hand, which effectively pinned his arm to the dining table.
Then, Levi did two things for the first time in his life. He showed emotion, and it was pure, unadulterated malice and rage that filled him to the brim and threatened to overflow. The second thing he did was blatantly defy his Godfather.
When he came to dinner, he'd unfortunately done so with no weapons, as his Godfather had always requested it as such. He'd have to make do with his body. With the memento of his lost lover still clutched in his hand, he stood from his seat. Erwin was gasping raggedly from the pain, and had just been about to make a grab at the fork pinning his hand. Levi beat him to it.
He grabbed the handle of the fork, forcing it in deeper before forcefully yanking it from Erwin's hand. The man cried out again. It was a wonder the chef hadn't emerged from kitchen yet to see what was the cause of the commotion. He figured the chef was hiding because he was pissing his pants at the idea of trying to break up whatever was the cause of the boss of the mafia, of all people, to scream in such a way.
"I," the assassin whispered. Whispered, because if he didn't, he'd scream. He tightened his grip on the fork handle, then stabbed into the man's torso, "I... am not... your plaything..." he leaned up to whisper into the man's ear. Erwin gurgled as Levi shoved the fork in as deeply as it would go. He'd purposely missed the man's vital areas.
Erwin coughed, "How could you--?!"
"No," Levi snapped, tripping his boss so that he'd collapse to the floor, "how could you? How could you take away the one thing I cared about? How could you so selfishly take him from me?!"
He grabbed at the lapels of the man's suit and shook him. He didn't shake him very strongly at first, but he was quickly growing more frantic in the attack.
"How?!" he screamed, no longer able to keep his voice down. "Why?! Tell me Why!!"
"Y...ou..." Erwin managed to choke out, but that was about all Levi could hear over his own screams. He vaguely realized that he didn't even care to get an answer from the man. He was too wound up to care anymore. His mind was set on one thing, and one thing alone. Revenge. Bloody, violent revenge.
Levi was staring down, eyes seeing nothing in particular, "... Pay..." he said, voice deathly quiet again, "... I'll make you... pay..."
Erwin either chose not to respond to this, or was incapable of making a response. Levi's hands were trembling from how tightly he was clutching Erwin's lapels.
"I'll make you pay!"
He pulled the fork from Erwin's chest, bringing it up high above his head. He didn't bat an eyelash at the pleading barely witheld in Erwin's eyes. The pleas for mercy would never reach the man's lips, even if he wanted them to. Levi didn't allow himself to hesitate.
He swiftly stabbed the the fork, and this time it hit its mark with deadly precision. He stood up from the man's not-quite-corpse, and ignored whatever dying words the bastard of a man's lips would try to procur. A flash of color at the corner of his eye caused him to take notice of the eyeball on the floor. He'd dropped it during his assault on the Godfather.
The assassin picked it up with care, holding it to his chest, but not crying. He stayed like that for a few moments.
"I swear to you, Eren, that I will avenge your death."
He set his sights on the doorway to his next victim. The chef who would take part in butchering his beloved would be the next to die.
With his memento in one hand and an eight inch cimeter knife in the other, he carved up the chef's body with his own knife to his desire. Yet, even with the chef's blood drenching half the kitchen in red, it still wasn't enough to satiate his vengeful state of mind. He kept the memento of his lost loved one in his hand, and the knife he'd used to murder the chef in the other.
He stumbled out the back door of the kitchen, an uncharacteristically psychotic giggle bubbling up from the back of his throat. He was completely emersed into the insanity.
The hallways of the mansion were eerily quiet and empty. It made his laughter all the more gratingly creepy. Not to him, of course, but to anyone who might happen to hear it.
He was leaning heavily on the wall as he inched his way down the hallway, in no rush to get where he intended to go. That may have been due to the fact that he had no aim as to where to go. Levi simply wanted to kill.
Kill, kill, kill.
One wasn't enough. Two wasn't enough. Three wouldn't be enough. Not four, or five, or six. Had to kill more. He had to keep killing until the emptiness was filled.
After what seemed like ages of trudging through the empty corridors of the mansion, he came up to a doorway, the door slightly ajar. The narrow opening allowed for a strip of the wall and floor to be bathed in yellow light from within the room. He approached the doorway.
Inside was a group of people from the lower ranks of the mafia. Their names escaped him, but that was probably due to the fact that he'd never deigned their names necessary to learn. The door gave a long, hideous creaking sound as he entered the room. It immediately shocked the lackies out of their animated conversation, and they were noticeably wary of Levi's disheveled state. A majority of them had their terrified gazes set on the knife in his left hand.
He almost asked what they were so afraid of, but he then realized that a man covered in blood and wielding an eight inch knife could be quite intimidating. A small part of him in the back of his head still laughed and mocked them, calling them wimps. He stepped forward, slowly.
"What's wrong?" he asked, as more of a rhetorical question than anything else. No one answered. They might have been silenced by the maniacal grin across his face, but he couldn't know for sure. "Are you scared?" he asked one of the younger subordinates as he passed the kid by. He stopped when he stood before an older boy at the back of the room. Levi felt like he'd known the boy's name at some point, but it appeared he couldn't remember it anymore. Not that he cared. All that he cared about had been taken from him already.
He knew his eyes were unnaturally lucid as he gazed into the boy's. He leaned in close to the boy, and asked, "Does the name Eren Yeager ring any bells?" his tone was dangerously low as he spoke.
Recognition flashed in the boy's eyes for but a second before he shook his head so violently, it may as well have flown off his neck of its own accord. Levi's eyes narrowed.
"Wrong answer," he growled, and his knife was in the boy's shoulder before he could register he'd moved his own hand. The boy cried out, but not for long. He made quick work of him, then turned to face the horrified audience he had in the room.
It seemed they were in shock, because absolutely no one reacted at first. Then, as if a spell was broken, he took a step forward, and all of them start rushing toward the only exit. The bubbly feeling that made him giggle had returned, and soon he was cackling as he gained on the stragglers. All of them, every last one of them, were screaming at once. Some screamed just to scream, some screamed for help. The ones he found the most ironically amusing were the ones who screamed for their precious Godfather.
Oh, how he cherished their pleas, their begs for help, for forgiveness, for mercy! It was great! Magnificent! He was in nothing less than euphoria as he slaughtered those he'd called kin for twenty years. Their screams were music to his ears.
He was so lost in the madness that he didn't even realize when he'd run out of people to kill. He'd killed every last person in the mansion. There hadn't been a single room he'd left untouched, and now he'd kill them all. He was back to wandering aimlessly, wherever his feet would take him.
And as he did so, he became aware of the fact that he was outside, in the rain. His suit, which had already been soaked in blood, was now also waterlogged. Even his shoes were filled with water. He couldn't muster the will to give a damn. Levi was holding Eren's eye in his hand, careful as to not bust it, clutched against his chest. In his other hand, the bloodied knife was ever present.
The road he walked was becoming familiar to him. It took some intense thought to remember why, but he finally did. It was the road where his beloved lives... lived... The empty feeling returned.
He found himself sitting upon the doorstep of Eren's home. The knife clattered to the stone walkway. He stared out at the wide expanse of homes across the street with eyes unseeing. It wasn't this world he saw, but a world he could no longer live in. A world in which his beloved thrived and survived. A world in which they could share cherished moments which Levi had taken for granted before. A world in which he could stared into those eyes that practically glowed, brighter than the ocean glistening in the sun.
... A world in which he could finally tell that damned brat just how much he'd meant to him...
But no. He was gone. Not some temporary kind of gone where he'd just have to track the boy down and apologize. Not the type of gone where he could come to the boy's rescue, like a knight in shining armour. The horrid truth was that Eren-- his sweet, beloved, adorable, ever bubbily and happy Eren-- was gone. Gone forever.
Just when he thought his life couldn't get any worse, it did. The door behind him opened, and the one person he didn't want to see appeared. Stupid. He'd been stupid to think that he wouldn't run into her when he was sitting at the very home she inhabited. Tired silver eyes met emotionless black, easily comparable to a bottomless pit of nothingness.
In a heartbeat, she knew.
"Where's Eren?"
Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away from his chest, and unfolded his fingers... the memento of his beloved, the only piece of Eren he had left, was there in his palm. Completely unscathed, because it was the only thing he could protect.
Mikasa's reaction was instantaneous. One moment, her eyes widened in horror with tears threatening to spill over, and the next, she had Levi straddled on the ground with his knife to his throat. He held fast to the memento in his hand during the fall. Levi couldn't bring himself to let it go. It was all he had left. All he had left was Eren's eye.
He stared up at Mikasa's eyes, filled with betrayal and anger, much like his own had been before he'd slaughtered his entire 'family'. That same vicious cycle was repeating once more, it seemed. But he didn't care. His eyes were empty, as was his heart, and his mind, save for his fleeting thoughts of the lost love he'd never see again.
Levi let the back of his head rest on the stone beneath him, "I won't blame you," he murmured, "if you kill me here and now. If it makes you feel better, do it. There's nothing left in this world for me."
It was a painful truth. One that echoed in Mikasa's visage momentarily, and then she was back to pressing the knife to Levi's throat with the intent to kill. He closed his eyes, willing death to whisk him away quickly. He waited.
And waited...
... and waited...
... but death didn't come...
He opened one eye, "What's taking you so long?"
"I can't do it," she stated flatly, trying so hard to reign her emotions in, but not managing to keep a few telltale tears leak from the corners of her eyes, "Eren wouldn't have wanted me to do it."
That did it. Levi couldn't hold back his tears any longer. The hurricane of emotions he'd forced down beneath the bout of insanity and psychotic calm he'd hidden in forced themselves to the forefront, and his tears fell like waterfalls from his eyes. His shoulders shook as he clutched the memento of Eren to his chest, and sobbed uncontrollably.
"Why can't you just kill me?!" he begged. "I don't want to live anymore... not without... I can't live without him..."
Mikasa stood, pulling Levi up with her. She pulled back an arm, making a fist, and brought it up, making contact with the side of Levi's face-- hard. She had an impressive right hook, that couldn't be denied. Levi winced at the pain, lifting a hand to cradle his wounded cheek. Before he could do that, he was pulled into a warm embrace by Mikasa.
"I know Eren," she said softly, holding him up as if he was frail. Then again, he might really have been by now.
He sniffled, digging the fingers of his free hand into the front of her shirt, he burrowed his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder. She let him. For the longest time, they didn't do anything else. Levi simply cried, and Mikasa simply held him, like a newborn babe.
Secretly, Levi was a little thankful... he was thankful that Mikasa had it in her heart to forgive Levi, even if it was only on Eren's behalf. He was thankful that she was willing to go beyond that and comfort him, and to allow him to cry to his heart's content and mourn over the loss of Eren.
It gave him peace of mind.
Roughly a month later, Levi, ex-assassin for the mafia, and lover of deceased Eren Yeager passed away in his sleep. His body had simply given up. It was a peaceful passing. His funeral was small-- the only person in attendance being Mikasa, who now had to mourn over the loss of not one, but two people.
His headstone was placed alongside Eren's, with but one caption beneath his name:
"Lover of Eren Yeager. May they be reunited in Heaven."