Levi Ackerman considered winter to be the most exquisite of the four seasons. It rolled by him in the passenger side window of the car, and having nothing better to stare at for the forty minute long drive to the hospital, he decided instead to take it all in. Yes, one of the downsides of living in a more rural part of town was the distance it took to get to the hospital, but it was worth it when he got a view like this. The rolling, sparkling white hills almost glowed against the night sky, black, barren trees heavy with snow that lined either side of the road. The hills were only overshadowed by the mountains, which were illuminated by a bright, cheerful full moon. Millions of stars untouched by smog or the misleading light of airplanes shone cold and clear above them, and Levi allowed himself a minute to take a breath, let the peaceful energy of the light wash over him, before he heard the driver of the car get off the phone, and he unfortunately had to give her his attention again.

"So what kind of case do we have this time?" he murmured to Petra, partially wanting her to answer and partially wishing she wouldn't so he could keep his full attention on the moon and the way it was reflecting on the snow. It had been a long time since he had felt this remotely peaceful.

"Well," the slight woman paused, trying to decide how she should word her reply, "I'm not entirely sure. From the way Dr. Zoe described it, it sounded like there were too many things to list."

Now she had more of his attention. Levi pulled his gaze away from the window and settled it on her, grey eyes backlit by the light of the moon.

Petra bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth, before saying, "Dr. Zoe did ask for you specifically though in regards as to who would handle the case though."

Levi snorted. "Well that's never a good sign. I mean, she knows what kinds of cases I usually handle. Are things bad enough with this kid that they didn't even consider giving him or her to anyone else?"

"Yes," Petra said seriously, and Levi felt a rare stab of uneasiness in his heart.

He paused, before humming, "Hmm. Alright. So what new challenge does she have for the Wings of Freedom's strongest?"

She smiled fondly. "That's just it. The kid isn't in any of the systems. They have no idea who he is. And he doesn't talk much, so the only information they've been able to get out of them is his name and his date of birth. He's…he's really skittish, she said, and that's putting it very mildly. Dr. Zoe said they've mostly had to keep him sedated because when he first woke up in the hospital, he started panicking so badly that he blacked out, and when he woke up again he hyperventilated, threw himself off the bed, and hid himself in the corner of the room. Wouldn't let anyone come near him without screaming bloody murder. When someone did finally manage to touch him, he scratched their face so bad they needed stitches. And…"

"…and?" Levi prompted her, stomach turning at the thought of what she would say next.

"Apparently he bit the nurse too. On the face. Tore out a chunk of the poor girl's cheek. And…and swallowed it."

"Christ," Levi breathed in horror, "And Hanji wants me to take this kid? Did she happen to give her reasoning as to why I'd be the perfect one to handle a cannibal?"

Petra huffed a quiet laugh, and answered, "Like she said, she doesn't know much about this kid, other than this name, age, and that he's terrified of everything. Which makes him perfect for our agency and for our best. She said the only other person she could remember being this crazy at one point out of all of our members was you."

Levi let his head knock against the head rest of the seat, running a hand through his hair, feeling his nerves accumulating and wanting to do something with that energy. Petra noticed, and pointed out, "You know, you don't have to accept the case. We're just going to take a look at this boy and observe him for a bit, see if you can handle him."

"I know, I know," he sighed. It wasn't unusual for him to meet his new cases in a hospital or in juvie, but this kid just sounded like a whole other universe of insane. Still, the first order of his job was to give him the benefit of the doubt, so he continued after a moment, "So what's his name?"

"Eren," Petra said, putting on her directional and turning onto the highway that would lead them straight to the hospital, "Eren Jaeger."

"And how old is he?"

"Seventeen. Apparently his birthday is in March."

"Hmph." Levi crossed his arms over his chest. "Good thing they found him now, otherwise we wouldn't be able to help him and he'd just be shipped off to Hutchings."

Petra nodded in agreement. Hutchings was the local psychiatric center, though no one ever called it that, not in these rural parts. It was more crudely referred to as the "nut hut" or the "funny farm" by the locals. Once people went in, it took a long time before they got out, even longer if their mental illnesses were severe. That's what happened when a psychiatric center was underfunded and its workers, while dedicated to their mission, were underpaid. The few that stuck around were overwhelmed and often didn't have to deal with all of their patients, and mostly ended up keeping them sedated and locked in their rooms without doing anything to help them because they simply didn't have the time or means, and a dose of haloperidol–promethazine was so much easier to administer than round the clock care.

"As messed up as he sounds," Petra said, "We have to believe we can help him. That's the mission statement of the members of the Wings of Freedom, right? To help every child the rest of the world is convinced is beyond saving."

Levi nodded. She was right, of course she was. "And this is why I chose to bring you along instead of Oluo, Gunther or Eld. God can you imagine? Oluo would turn around the instant he found out that the kid had bitten someone and eaten their flesh. Ironic considering how much he almost bites off his own tongue."

Petra laughed lightly, and then caught sight of the exit looming above them. "Ah, there it is. We're almost there."

He grunted in response, and leaned back in his seat, glaring at the bright city lights and loud rushing of the cars blowing past them. He'd feel better once he was back under the mellow light of his moon, with nothing but the winter stars and the foxes in his back woods for company.

000

Once they made their way into the hospital, they were immediately greeted by Dr. Hanji Zoe, a family medicine practitioner who just so happened to be the favored doctor for the Wings of Freedom agency. She was great at what she did, and, like the members of the Wings of Freedom themselves, she understood the situation of many of the kids she helped, because she was in their position once. Yes, her passion for her work bordered on psychotic and her enthusiasm for anything and everything drove Levi up a tree, but she was a great asset to what they did, so he tolerated her.

"So," Hanji asked once their hellos were out of the way, "You guys up for meeting him? It should be safe. He's asleep right now."

Levi narrowed his eyes at her, and growled, "We're here to observe his behavior to see if I'll be able to take him on as a case and begin to implement a plan to help him based on that. How are we supposed to observe his behavior if he's asleep, moron?"

The doctor waved her hand dismissively. "They'll wear off soon, don't you worry. Then you can see for yourself what I described to Petra over the phone. Should be interesting. It's a shame that he's like this. Eren is…"

"Is what?" Petra inquired.

"Well, if I may be frank," Hanji elaborated, "He's a very pretty young man. He'd have very lovely eyes if they weren't so full of fear. It's just a shame that whatever happened to him to cause this amount of terror and high level of reactivity did happen. I mean, it's a shame that it happens to any of the children of course, and all of them are lovely, but Eren is…well, you'll see."

As they walked down the hallway, Levi found himself asking, "So, how did Eren end up in your hospital in the first place?"

"Well," Dr. Zoe told him, "Someone found him passed out and unresponsive in the snow and called an ambulance for him. But that isn't really the interesting bit."

"What do you mean?" the dark haired man wondered.

"For one thing, he was completely naked. In that case, it's lucky they didn't find him any later. Otherwise he probably would have died from hypothermia in this weather. But what shocked me was the fact that there was a heavy metal collar around his neck."

He heard Petra gasp beside him, and felt a spike of rage prickle in his chest just before his face hardened into a glare. Hanji continued quickly, "We took it off as soon as he was admitted, kept it as evidence. You usually don't see things like unless you're dealing with the victim of a serial killer, or at least that's in my experience."

"I guess that just gives us an idea of what we're dealing with," Levi surmised, still grinding his teeth, "If this kid was in the hands of a serial killer or anyone else with antisocial personality disorder, no wonder he felt the need to bite someone's face off when he woke up."

Hanji nodded. "I haven't even told you guys about all of the injuries we found on him when we examined him."

Petra and Levi looked at her expectantly, but before she could fill them in, she stopped in front of one of the rooms, and gestured towards the open doorway. They stopped to take in their surroundings, and it was only then that they realized they were now far away from the main bustle of the hospital, and were all but isolated from everyone else. The quiet was very unsettling, and Levi was sure he had never been in this part of the hospital before. There had never been a need. It only served to unsettle him more.

As if reading his mind, Hanji explained, "We had Eren in one of the other rooms before, but after he attacked our nurse, we decided moving him away from everyone might be best. I think all the noise and all the people in the room were just too much for him to handle."

The two of them nodded, and went in ahead, Hanji following behind them.

Levi's eyes were firstly drawn to the lack of people in the room. Normally there were at least a few nurses and other patients set up a single room, but other than a single other nurse changing out the I.V bag, who left when she saw them enter the room, there was no one. It was dead quiet. Even the lights had been dimmed when they first walked in, before Hanji went over to turn them up slightly. His eyes drifted over to the single bed and its occupant next, and Levi felt the familiar sensation of a million conflicting emotions rushing through him, prominently sympathy, horror, and anger, the same emotions he always felt when he got his first look at a victim.

His first thought was that Hanji had been right; Eren was a lovely young man, his skin and hair dark and his face gentle with youth. But his face itself was gaunt, hollowed most likely by a severe lack of food, and his lips were chapped and cracked by a lack of water. He looked like he needed a bath quite badly as well, his hair noticeably greasy. The blankets had been pulled up almost to his chin, and there were quite a few of them, more than what the hospital usually put on its patients. There were also odd shaped lumps on the kid's chest. Levi raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask, Hanji filled him in.

"He was suffering from severe hypothermia when we first admitted him," she said as she stepped in front of them, joining them beside Eren's bed, "We finally got his temperature stabilized, but we've kept a few heat packs on his chest and back still. Can't hurt in this weather. But as I was saying before, once we stabilized him and he warmed up enough to regain consciousness, he freaked out, passed out, woke up again a few minutes later and then launched himself off the bed and smushed himself into that corner over there."

She pointed to the corner of the room nearest the bed, Petra and Levi's head following her hand. "We tried to be as careful as possible getting him to come out. Everyone was quiet and calm, didn't move too suddenly or anything, but he was still so scared that he started hyperventilating and urinated all over himself."

Petra clucked sympathetically, and murmured, "Poor sweetheart."

The doctor hummed in agreement, before continuing, "We finally got Hitch close enough to touch him, and when she did, that's when he attacked her. He made a break for the door, but collapsed before he could get too far. I chalk that up to the fact that he's pretty severely emaciated. He just wasn't strong enough to make it. After that, we had some other nurses subdue him pretty quickly, but he wouldn't calm down, so we didn't have a choice but to drug him. That was about two hours ago though, so it should be wearing off soon. While we wait though…"

They watched as Dr. Hanji very carefully pulled back the blankets, letting them sit in a giant pile on top of Eren's lower legs. Coming to stand closer by the bed and looking intently, they observed as she removed the heat packs from his chest and set them aside, before carefully gripped Eren's hospital gown from the bottom, pulling it up until it was rumpled under his chin. They averted their eyes, waiting until she covered up his lower body again. Once she did, the first thing Levi noticed was that Eren was terribly thin, just as he suspected from looking at his face. His ribs, which expanded and contracted subtly as he breathed, and his collarbone, looked like they were about to poke through his skin. He made a disgusted noise, and Petra echoed his sentiments.

"Damn," he said, "Kid could poke an eye out with those ribs."

Hanji confirmed, "He weighs less than you, and he's almost a head taller than you are. I think he's around thirty to forty pounds underweight. But that's pretty fixable. Blood tests came back not too long ago told us he's not underweight because of an illness, so all he needs is a few good meals and he should be good as new in that department. However, I wanted to show you guys this." She pointed to a rather large scar on his chest near the area where his ribs met. Levi recognized the shape of the scar, as many of his friends in the police force had one like it.

"Looks like he was shot," he said grimly.

Hanji pressed her lips into a thin line. "That's not the only scar that disturbed me. Look at the one a little to the right of that one."

They did so, and they noticed a long, thick scar where she had pointed out. When they looked to her for answers, she said, "It looks like a surgical cut, but not one made by any doctor I know. If surgeries do leave scars, they're pretty small and neat. They don't look like this. So it makes me wonder who was performing their own surgery on him, and why. Maybe it had something to do with the bullet wound, maybe not. We won't know unless he tells us."

"Good fucking God," Levi growled.

"Oh, hold on," Hanji said somberly, "You're about to get even angrier. Now, I won't show you, but I can tell you what I found on his lower half."

She replaced the heat packs back on Eren's chest after she pulled his hospital gown back down, all before she pulled the blankets back up to his chest. He didn't so much as flinch at her touch, still deep in his drugged sleep. Once she was finished, she turned back to Levi and Petra.

"His bottom half is covered in injuries," she finally said, "Some of them have scarred over, some of them are recent. It's all concentrated on his groin and upper thighs, so I'm guessing these are injuries from prolonged sexual abuse. That would have tipped me off enough, but there's so much tearing in his anus that it's pretty obvious. There's cuts, bruises, even burns around and even on his genitals. Looks like at one point his urinary tract was damaged to the point where it's led to issues of incontinence, so it looks like he'll be wetting himself a lot more in the future, poor thing. I don't know if that only happens when he's scared, or if it'll happen at other times too. Only time will tell."

When she finished, Petra made a mournful, shocked sound and covered her hand with her mouth. Levi swallowed hard, trying to push down the bile that had risen in his throat.

"Dammit," he hissed, "No wonder he was trying to fight you guys. Look what's happened to him. Probably doesn't trust anyone anymore."

Hanji reassured him with a hand on his shoulder and a kind smile. "That's why you're here. To rehabilitate him. To give him someone to trust and show him that the world isn't a cruel place."

Levi snorted. "I'm not going to feed him that bullshit. The world is a cruel place. I'll forget my own name before I forget that. And like my mom always said, the world is a lot harder on the prettier ones that end up in situations like Eren's, or mine, or hers. I show these kids that they're stronger the cowardly bastards that did these things to them, and teach them how to own that strength. Once you do that, they tend to find the beauty in the world on their own, and that's the moment I live for."

Before either of them could respond, they heard a soft groan behind them, and all three of them stiffened at the sight of Eren's eyes fluttering open. None of them moved, or even dared to breathe as he worked on clearing the sleep from his eyes, blinking them harshly. Levi was shocked at how very green his eyes were; it was so rare to see eyes such a deep shade without some other color mixed in. Those eyes widened a moment later, pupils shrinking and dilating, movements drunken but violent in their conviction as he very quickly stiffened and sat up in bed, scooting towards the end of it, as far away from them as he could manage, knocking off his heat packs. His I.V tugged threateningly on his hand, straining against the tape that held it in place, the pole following him slightly. His shoulders rose and fell rapidly as his breathing began to pick up, and Levi could have sworn he saw the kid's pulse hammering in the main artery that ran through his neck, the rushing blood pushing at the vein roughly. A low whine rose in Eren's throat, his whole body tense and preparing for fight or flight. This terrified, hunted posture was such a stark contrast to his unconscious state just a few moments ago.

Hanji smiled at him, not moving from her spot. "Hey, kiddo, we were just talking about you. How are you feeling?"

Eren's eyes just flickered rapidly between the three of them, his pupils still sharpening and dilating as he fought the drugs lingering in his system and trying to drag him back under. The threat of losing consciousness seemed to frighten him even further, as his whimpering increased in volume.

"Aw, honey, we're not going to hurt you," Hanji told him. She nodded towards the people beside her. "This is Petra, and that's Levi. They're friends of mine. They want to help you like I do. Petra's nice, Levi…eh, as long as you have a squirt bottle to spray him when he misbehaves he's tolerable."

Levi shot her a withering look, and flicked his eyes back towards Eren, noticing that at her words, his breathing seemed to slow down the tiniest bit and his shoulders lowered just a fraction. He moved his hands to readjust his grip on the sheets below him, but the I.V snagged, tugging hard at his skin and impeding his progress. Startled, he glanced down at it, and gave it another hard tug.

"Oh, no, Eren, that has to stay in," Hanji said, reaching forward to halt his actions. Her fingers made the barest of contact with the back of his hand, no more than a whisper of a touch, but that was all it took for Eren's eyes to widen impossibly more, and for him to cry out, and leap off the back of the bed, successfully ripping the I.V out of his hand. A spurt of blood followed, and soon the back of his hand was covered in it. The pain of that and the fall from the bed, combined with the spike of fear that rose from not being able to haul himself off the floor due to his severely weakened body, seemed to drive up his breathing and plunge him into the beginnings of another panic attack. He felt his throat closing, the blood draining from his limbs, and the familiar tingling in his face settle in. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he pathetically tried to scramble away from them, breaths wheezing in and out of his chest. The blood from his hand continued to drip steadily onto the floor, and Levi made his move, knowing they had to get that patched up before he lost any more blood. Combined with all the diseases he could catch with an open wound like that, they needed to get him taken care of as soon as possible.

Slowly, purposefully, he went to the side table beside the bed, and grabbed a roll of medical tape that happened to be sitting out. Then, he went over to Eren and knelt down a few feet in front of him. Eren flinched away, but when he saw that Levi wasn't moving anymore, he too stilled. The two of them stared each other down for a long moment, Eren still breathing rapidly.

"Alright Eren," he instructed calmly, "I'm not going to touch you. We do need to patch up your hand though, yeah? But we need you to calm down a bit first. I know you can do that for me. Breathe with me, alright? Concentrate on that first. In," he raised his hand, and then lowered it slowly as he said, "and out."

His shoulders heaved a few more times, before they jerked in a way that told Levi that Eren was trying to follow his instructions. "Good, very good," he praised, "Again. In…and out." Eren did so again, and Levi offered him a smile as a reward. He continued to talk him through it until the boy's breathing eased significantly, though his hands wouldn't stop shaking. The bleeding hadn't ceased either, and that's when Levi decided now was the time to hand Eren the tape. Petra and Hanji watched with rapt attention, amazed. He kept his eyes lowered to the ground and kept his movements slow and purposeful, body angled away from the boy's, all gestures of appeasement to show him that he wasn't going to suddenly lunge and attack him.

"Alright, now I'm going to hand you the tape," he told Eren evenly, "I'm going to put it between us, and you can take it when you're ready." He did so, placing the tape on the floor between them and then backing away slightly.

Eren stared at the tape for a moment, before looking up at Levi, then back to the tape, then back to Levi. The man even nodded in encouragement, and finally, Eren stretched forward and took it. Levi had to hold back the sigh of relief he wanted to release, keeping his eyes on Eren as the boy began to wrap the tape around his hand. Once he was done, he tore it off at the end, pressing it down so that it stuck to itself. He inspected his handiwork for a moment, and when he deemed it acceptable, he looked back up at Levi. There were so many emotions flickering through his eyes that the man couldn't hope to name them all, but he thought he could see, past the overwhelming suspicion and terror, perhaps, a flicker of curiosity.

And then, suddenly, it all came crashing down. A thunderous stampede of footsteps, followed by a scream of agony down the hall, was enough to startle Eren severely out of the trance, and send him scrambling towards the exit. He heard Hanji curse behind him while Petra made a dive for the boy, grabbing him around the waist and pinning his arms to his side. He immediately began shouting at the top of his lungs, thrashing in her grip and trying to knock his head backwards into hers.

"I'm sorry Eren!" she said loudly over his screams, "I'm so sorry, please don't fight, it's okay!"

But he wasn't listening to her in the slightest, panic rendering him blind and deaf to everything around him. Levi didn't want to add to it, but the boy was fighting Petra with everything he was worth, and was quite strong, even though he was so emaciated. He brought one of his feet back and kicked her in the shin, hard, but not hard enough to make her let go, although her grip did loosen slightly, allowing him enough room to wiggle one of his arms free. That was when Levi intervened. He approached them swiftly, taking hold of Eren's free arm firmly and pressing himself close. Sandwiched between the two of them, the boy continued to fight, though his struggles were losing momentum and his screams were quieting down. But his breathing was still so rapid that Levi was certain he was going to pass out at any moment. And then, the boy lunged forward towards Levi's face, teeth bared. He dodged just in time, wrenching his head to the side, narrowly avoiding the same fate as the nurse from before. He knew they couldn't keep this up much longer, and Eren was so far gone in his fear that he was beyond reason.

"Hanji!" he called out to the doctor.

"On it!" she replied instantly, a syringe already in her hand as she walked quickly over to them. Eren saw the needle, and his cries resumed a new ferocity and pitch, redoubling his efforts to escape. Shockingly, he even managed to form words.

"No!" he wailed, his throat sounding raw and shredded as he begged, "No no no no no NO! Please, please! I don't want it, I don't want it! I'm sorry I was bad, I'll be good!"

"Shh, Eren, it's okay, it's okay," Petra tried to soothe him, and Levi could see the heartbreak on her face. It didn't ease until Hanji managed to get the needle in his arm, and Eren began to go slowly go limp in their arms, his cries fading away into nothing. Once he was completely unconscious, Levi hefted him up in his arms, placing his arms under the boy's knees, and carried him back over to the bed, gently placing him down onto the mattress. Petra was by his side in an instant, helping him to cover Eren's body back up with the blankets while he made sure that all of the boy's limbs were tucked up inside. She then smoothed the blankets over him, tenderly tucking them up under his chin. She stepped back after she was done, about to mention what a handful Eren had proved to be, but instead looked curiously over at Levi when he didn't do the same thing. He was wearing an expression on his face she had never seen before, and she had no idea what it meant. It was intense, but she wasn't sure in what way. She did know that it was focused entirely on the sleeping boy in the bed, however.

"Well then," Hanji sighed after a moment, "Now that the fun's over with, I think I'll go and grab Eren's paperwork for you guys to look over."

After a moment, Petra stated, "I'll come with you Hanji. I think…I think I need a moment."

Hanji looked at her strangely, before Petra nodded toward Levi. That was when she understood; she wanted Levi to have a moment alone with Eren, to fully gather his thoughts and decide for sure whether or not he wanted to take Eren on as a case. She grinned in understanding.

"Alright, sure Petra, I could use the company," she replied cheerily, "Levi, you'll stay with Eren?"

He nodded an affirmative. "Yeah, I'll stay with him. We'll both be here when you come back."

They watched him pull up a chair next to the bed, barely taking his eyes off the boy as he did so, and both women smiled at each other hopefully, before they made their exit. That left the two young men alone, and finally gave Levi a quiet moment to contemplate the boy in front of him.

Despite almost losing a chunk of his face as well, Levi had to admit there was definitely something about this kid's countenance that he liked. It was thin and worn, a loud testament to the horrid life he had been forced to live, but there was something else underneath the surface that he found interesting, and that was all the contradictions there seemed to be in it. For example, his face was haggard, yet it was also a wellspring of life and vitality was just waiting to be released with a few healthy meals and a caring environment. His skin was warm and dark like the earth, but his eyes were cool and luminous like the water. Despite the harshness of what Hanji had told him, there was something unbelievably gentle and sweet trying its hardest to bloom forth from within Eren. All Levi had to figure out how to do was how to draw it out.

Suddenly, Eren's brows began to draw together, his face scrunching up into a pained expression. A whine climbed up his throat, starting off quietly and gradually gaining in volume. Levi put together pretty quickly that the boy was having quite the bad dream; it was obviously potent enough to cut through the drugs.

Levi was completely taken off guard, unsure what he should do, or even if he should do anything at all. It was when sweat began to gather on Eren's brow and his eyes began to flutter open that he truly began to get nervous. He desperately didn't want the kid to have another episode. He wasn't sure if his weakened heart could handle it at this point. And he definitely didn't want to watch that needle disappearing into that soft, yielding flesh again, or see his body slump so lifelessly and so suddenly. So Levi's panicked mind did the first thing it could think of. First, he grabbed the boy's hand in both of his, mindful of the I.V, knowing he was taking a great risk by touching someone who was obviously so afraid of it, so he did the second thing that came to mind. Something far more risky, but for some reason, something Petra always called his secret weapon when calming down the frightened kids he took on as cases.

He started to sing.

It wasn't much. But his mind was scrambling for the happiest, sweetest song that it could remember, and all of those had come from his mother. So, out of him came a little ditty he could recollect her singing as she playfully danced with him in their room, deep in the unknown world of the underground. Embarrassingly, it was a love song, but it was all he had on hand at the moment, and he figured it was better than nothing.

"Hello pretty one

with eyes like the sea,

come and dance with me,

come and dance with me.

Hello pretty one

with eyes like the sea,

dance on the waves with me."

Eren stilled, eyes still fluttering and barely open, but gaze too blurry to truly make anything out. His whimpers quieted slightly but didn't cease, so Levi continued, gripping his hand a little tighter.

"I'll dance with you

upon the waves,

come and fly with me,

come and fly with me.

I'll dance with you

upon the waves

and give you my first kiss.

"Oh lovely one

so close to me,

say you'll stay with me,

say you'll stay with me.

Oh lovely one

so close to me,

you took my heart with your lips."

At that, the boy let out another few whimpers, but they dissipated into hums before softening into sighs. Levi felt his fingers flexing in between his palms, as if they were waking from the haze of sleep and fear and feeling for the first time a source of warmth and a point of contact. He wasn't sure if Eren was trying to grip his hand tighter or pull it away, but he decided to make that decision for the terrified young man and curled his fingers a little tighter around his hand. The boy didn't resist, instead choosing to let his hand relax completely.

Eren, for his part, even though his brain was drowning in tranquilizers and despair, still picked up the sound of Levi's voice and instantly reacted to it. For a split second, the primal center of his brain urged him to fight; it was a male voice he didn't recognize, and unfamiliar male voices were to be feared. But just as quickly, something in that voice shut off that panic. Perhaps it was the deep, soft, vibrato that touched his nerves and soothed them. Perhaps it was the even, rhythmic quality to the tone that melted the icy dread in his pounding heart and created a cloud of warmth that steadily rose into his throat. Perhaps it was even the words themselves, providing Eren with pretty pictures that his sleepy mind seemed to conjure up easily of a place he had never seen, but wanted more than anything to visit. He saw the turquoise waves, the white foam as they crashed into a heated, sandy beach. He saw the couple Levi sang about dancing upon the ocean, their faces hopelessly affectionate towards each other, both of them young and carefree. Eren even felt a foreign sense joy rising up within him as danced along to the bouncy tune on the sand. He threw his head back, and felt the spray of the ocean, felt the warmth of the sun on his skin, felt his own long forgotten laughter bubbling up within him.

"My dearest one,

my only sun,

I will stay with thee,

I will stay with thee.

Oh dearest one,

my precious sun,

just sing these words to me:"

And at last, Eren's eyes shut gently, his muscles slowly relaxing one by one. Levi observed with wonder as the tension melted from his expression, and his dark lashes settled on his cheeks once more. He surrendered to his medicated sleep once more, and when he woke, he wouldn't remember his dream. However, the feeling of peace would indeed linger within him, and it would give him a taste of a state of being he wished to remain in forever, but sadly knew was impossible.

"Hello pretty one

with eyes like the sea,

come and dance with me,

come and dance with me.

Hello pretty one

with eyes like the sea,

dance on the waves with me."

Levi let out a huge sigh the instant he saw Eren's breathing even out, and once he was sure he was asleep once more, he let go of his hand, but not before rubbing the boy's knuckles with his thumbs almost as an afterthought. It was at that moment that he heard Hanji's voice behind him, and he whipped his head around to see both her and Petra in the doorway.

"Holy shit," the doctor breathed, "How did you even…you just- Jesus Levi."

Levi cleared his throat awkwardly, averting his narrowed gaze to the white-tiled floor for a moment, as if searching for what he should say there, before replying, "I panicked. I just wanted him to calm down and didn't know what else to do."

Hanji's mouth continued to hang open for a moment, before it snapped shut, and she gasped, "Well you- no, you don't understand. Nothing except the drugs has gotten him to relax so far."

Levi shrugged. "He was still pretty drugged. He was probably too out of it to really…you know."

Petra laughed softly, nudging Hanji with her elbow, and said, "See? I told you he's perfect for this case."

Levi scratched the back of his neck, still glaring at anything but them. Why did they have to catch him singing? This was why he so rarely did it, because whenever anyone heard him, they would make a big deal out of it, and he just couldn't understand why. He knew without a single doubt that he sounded like an alley cat on its deathbed, and yet every other idiot on the planet tried to tell him otherwise.

"So what do you think?" Hanji asked after she recovered, crossing her arms and cocking her hip confidently, "I know he's going to be a tough nut to crack, but I'm confident you can do it. Will he be making the ride back with you?"

He lifted his head to gaze at her for a moment, blinked, and then slowly turned his eyes back to Eren. He was still sleeping peacefully, his head turned subtly towards Levi. His expression was so soft now, his face that lovely mix of contradictions: earth and water, horrifying and hopeful, light and dark. He had to admit he was intrigued. And the boy had responded to him. Perhaps he would respond again? If for nothing else, he wanted to spare the others in the agency from their most difficult case yet. If the Wings of Freedom's strongest couldn't handle Eren, no one could. So, he sighed after a moment, and nodded.

A/N: The song in this chapter is of my own creation. I'd imagine the tune to it sounds similar to "Tanz Mit Mir" by Faun. In fact, the title of this fic is borrowed from another song by Faun of the same name. "Federkleid" means "plumage." Hope you guys enjoyed, more to come!