Paper Airplanes (Ereri - SNK)

Eyeless.

Eren swam in the lining between sleep and wake, fighting to grasp full unconsciousness. His bed felt cold. Too big. Too empty. He'd given up trying to find a comfortable position long ago and had simply stuffed his head between two of his pillows, the rest of his body sprawled across the bed.

Nights were always like this when they were spent alone in the basement of the castle, where it was colder. More isolated.

'I can't rely on Levi every night,' Eren scolded himself every time he'd decided to stay in his own bed, as he always thought he should've in the first place during nights like those. Still, there was something about falling asleep next to another warm, living, breathing person whom you cared about, and Eren could never deny that.

He'd just begun to fall asleep when a faint shuffling sound carried to his ears. Footsteps, he concluded, after pulling his head from between the pillows, and they were coming from the direction of the stairs. He sat up, hugging a pillow to his chest and squinting into the darkness as the soft steps gradually came closer and a figure appeared on the other side of the bars of the cell.

"Hello?" he whispered into the darkness.

"It's just me," said a low, unmistakable voice as the cell door was pushed open.

"Who's 'me'?" Eren joked.

"Tch," muttered Levi, stepping into the cell.

"What are you doing down here?"

"The same thing you do when you sneak up to my room every other night." Levi felt his way toward the bed, his feet shuffling along the cold stone until his shins met the mattress. "Where the hell are your matches?" he grumbled, hands feeling over the bed. He'd just come into contact with something warm that he could only assume to be Eren's leg when a box was pressed into his hand. He fumbled for one of the wooden sticks and struck it against the box. It sparked to life, illuminating the soft face and green eyes just inches away.

Eren squinted at the sudden light. Levi moved to light the torch in the corner, illuminating the little cell. He shook his hand, thus ending the life of the flame alight by the match. He tossed the charred stick in the waste bucket as his hand was taken and he was pulled onto the bed by the teen.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Eren asked, not releasing his hand.

Levi got comfortable, crossing his legs to face Eren. "I hardly ever sleep."

"Touché..."

"At least...when you're not around I don't."

Eren chuckled breathily. "I keep you warm or something?"

"Something like that."

Smirking, Eren laced his fingers through Levi's - surprisingly soft for all they'd been through. Lightly, Levi's thumb brushed over his own. It suddenly didn't matter that Eren hadn't slept well the past couple of nights, or that he should've been sleeping at that moment. The one he cared for most was there with him then, and he'd had constant thoughts of how the moments with him might be limited because of the cruel world they coexisted in, and he drank and reveled in every moment he could get with his captain, even if he lost precious sleep because of it.

"Eren."

"Hmm?" he hummed with a frown. He knew every time Levi addressed him by his name rather than by 'brat' or 'kid' or simply 'hey', it was serious, and usually not in a good way.

But almost as soon as Eren looked up from their hands, torn from his internal mind babble, he was granted no time to react before a soft palm pressed to the side of his face and a pair of warm lips smashed into his own. A surprise squeak sounded from his throat; he froze involuntarily for a moment. He was lost as to how to react, feeling Levi's nose tucked next to his, his hair tickling his forehead where his own bangs parted, and his superior's almost desperate attempt to get a response out of him. But he was frozen. Had no idea how to respond.