Wednesday 4th June 2014

While wandering half aimlessly along the street in search of a second-hand store, Levi sees Eren sitting on the steps in front of a church-like building. He unzips his favourite grey hoodie halfway down, either because he's self conscious or because some strange part of him thinks it might look more appealing (ha, as if). Clamping his lips together, Levi jogs slowly until he's in front of Eren, who's on his smartphone and texting (or possibly pretending to. Yes, we've all been there Eren).

Eren looks up, bright green eyes shining as he smiles. "Oh hey! You didn't get lost." He stands, one hand on his clothed knee used to help himself up. "How's you?"

"You gave me the right address... eventually... So it wasn't too hard to find. And, um," Levi shrugs a little, embarrassed by the social pleasantries. Since the staff at Swansea ask him the same question so often he has to make up stories as to what he's been doing lately. "I'm fine, I guess."

Levi hands Eren the loose papers with his badly written script. "Ah, awesome!" Eren beams and hurriedly skims over the words, pausing on his way inside the shop. He looks up again at Levi. "We'll have a read over everyone's stuff inside. We're just waiting on Mikasa to come back with juice, then we can figure out what props we're going to need, and that." He shuffles alongside Levi. "How's work been?"

Has Eren... Asked that kind of question before? It seems a little weird that he's asking about Levi's life all of a sudden. Well. Not that he's complaining. It fills him with a sense of domesticity, leaves him day-dreaming about cuddling with Eren after a long day of work, as he fills him in about how Erwin almost got sacked for being a love-sick idiot around the customers.

"At least Mike's finally encouraged him to redo his fucking pink walls. That was a bloody nightmare."

"Aw no, he still has Locket though, right?" Eren asks.

Levi's lips tug at the edges in greeting when the other appear in view. "Yeah yeah, she's still with him."

Like Jean and Biscuit said, the shop really is full of junk and nik-naks. At the back they've magically stacked couches one on top of the other, with a few wooden chairs stuck in here and there for good measure. And it's a good thing he's brought his tiny bottle of hand sanitizer because this place is dusty as hell (because naturally for Levi, hell would be a dirty, putrid place. Where other people fear mythical fiery depths: he fears very real rot and grime. Why does Swansea come to mind...)

Levi hovers beside a clutter of CD's as Eren walks ahead until Armin, Biscuit and Jean motion him over to where they're standing by a section of lifeless fridges and antique suitcases. His footsteps echo and he nods to Armin's crutches with a raised eyebrow.

"You're still stuck with them?" Levi's friend John had only needed them for three weeks. (He says 'friend' but really John was just some asshole who was friends with some other asshole in Levi's gang.)

Armin pulls a grimace, shoulders sagging as he groans. "I fell down again, so it's seven weeks. I give the title Genius a bad name." he slaps Levi on the back, ignoring the glare he gets. "But hey, you're here! Does Eren have your script? Jean had me write half of his, basically. I could be home right now but no, I need to make sure he doesn't take credit of my work. And I'm bored being at home all the time, Levi." he shakes his head solemnly, baby blue eyes widening and Levi's tempted to copy him. "Being temporarily handicapped isn't fun."

Levi rolls his eyes. "So you've said." Armin's been texting him, and he's been one of the more talkative of their group. It's been like having another Hanji and it's also not fun. Do you not feel his pain, Armin. You may be bored but Levi is in much pain. In the same way Armin's legs are in pain, Levi needs crutches for his brain, perhaps.

Jean tries to go in for a "bro-hug" but Levi quickly dodges it and stuffs his hands in his trouser pockets as Jean falls forward. "Hi, no hugs, thank you." Levi greets. The ashen haired man corrects his stance with a frown, like a bird would ruffle it's feathers when intimidated. Sorry Jean, no-one's stroking your ego today.

A few moments later, Mikasa appears with a six pack of coke cans and places them onto a nearby table . She and Levi seem to have some strange "eye blink" greeting where neither of them speak, but somehow find something to quietly snort in laughter about, only increasing in volume when the rest of the group watches the silent exchange with confused expressions. They only met two weeks ago but hey; it's totally plausible that they're suddenly best friends.

Once everyone's settled with a can of juice and their chairs are set in a circle; beside Levi, Eren begins to read the scripts he's been given.

It had occurred to Levi that maybe, hey, rewriting a conversation between yourself and someone else wasn't the best idea. Mostly because he knew that Eren would be reading over it. Also because if he had copied it, he'd not only have to know off by heart the weird things he'd said, but be reminded of his own stupidity at each rehearsal. Assuming that Eren even gets to the rehearsal stage.

By the looks of things, they might not even get past the script stage. The group's not exactly unorganized, but considering they didn't even know how to film an indie movie and looked it up... Well it's possible that this project might just crash and burn. Or be a waste of time. Whatever, at least it gives him something to do on his day off. And he has a reason to see Eren~

Eren starts with Jean's and Armin's piece, seemingly a skit about a young boy who buys a pair of boots and when he gets home a monster appears. He hurriedly puts on the new shoes rather than his usual ones, and it turns out they're super speed shoes.

"How fast can you run?" Eren pauses and peers at him.

Levi leans back in his chair so his right arm is resting on the back. "Not fast enough to be a superhero, sadly."

Biting his lower lip as he thinks -you know, just another occasion of Eren being strangely attractive and Levi noticing it at the wrong time- Eren nods, eyes cast off into space. "Suppose we could fix that in the editing process, uh... I was thinking for this, maybe you could pull some stunts? Can you run up walls?"

Levi nods and tells him again that he used to do parkour.

Somehow that leads to him doing a back-flip off of his chair. Because... obviously that's a regular occurrence in Levi's life.

"WOAH, you have GOT to teach me that, man." Eren tells him with wide eyes. "You're like Sonic the Hedgehog. Or Spiderman."

Levi dead-pans a glance at Eren as he sits back down, easing away his panting breaths. "Yeah I like the Spiderman comparison better, thanks."

After finishing reading aloud the rest of the scripts -including his own, which he cringes the entire way through because it's a fucking terrible idea-

"A beanie will be easy to find. I have a feeling this movie is going to be a small budget, possibly cheap production..." Armin notes, tapping his chin and staring at the check-list in his mind. "Not that that's a bad thing, if anything it'll help us get this done faster and my wallet will be smiling. Happy wallet, yay."

Eren pipes up, smiling at the script he's still holding. "Hey, can we make it so that the character's bisexual and the beanie's invisibility powers wear off on bisexual awareness week? I'd love that. By the way, your handwriting's a lot messier than I thought it would be." he adds.

And well, fuck you Eren; Levi can't be perfectly neat in every aspect. (Just kidding, he still loves you, Eren) It was also written at 4am with the delirium of a high-school student trying to finish their essay last minute. Although if anything, Levi was always able to hand in his assessments on time so he never fully understood that kind of panic.

Levi simply shrugs, taking a sip of his can of juice and trying to avoid everyone's eyes. "They say smart people have untidy handwriting."

"I must be the smartest of them all, then." Eren nods solemnly.

As they continue discussing plot ideas, Levi sees Jean pulling his chair closer to Eren, nudging the other man with his feet and leaning forward so that Eren's forced to look at him. Jean leans upright again, running fingers through his hair and smirking as he whispers to Eren. His stomach drops when Jean reaches out to wrap an arm around Eren's shoulders. Why that fucking little shit, he went and helped Levi out before now he's flirting with Eren right in front of everyone?!

"Ahem." There's a cough, or rather a signal that says "pay attention to me" disguised as a cough, from the other side of the circle. Mikasa catches his eye, then glances back at Eren and Jean with a meaningful head tilt.

He frowns and shakes his head. Mikasa's dark eyes widen marginally, and she repeats the same action, while mouthing "Make a move, you twat".

"Oh fuck no." He whispers, mouth curling down into a grimace that reveals his bared teeth.

"Eren," Jean exaggerates a large sniff. "Your cologne smells nice, what brand is it?"

Thick eyebrows furrow in confusion. "Um, I'm not wearing any..?" Eren replies.

"Oh..." Jean retreats onto his own chair and personal space, visibly defeated and with his tail tucked between his legs in a way that Levi can't help but snort at.

Levi hasn't really made a direct move with these kind of intentions since the beginning, so it should be okay for Levi to actually try something... Right?

For the next few minutes as Eren tells the other's what edits he plans to make, Levi tries to catch Eren's eye and quickly looks away whenever they make eye contact. Hmm. Not quite good enough, seeing as Eren's behaviour doesn't change. And... He's starting to get deja vu so maybe staring isn't the best option. Okay. New plan.

How about a plan of "ignoring everyone else and sticking to the plan of being Eren's friend" like he'd decided he'd do before.

Ah, it's not as fun.