[text] The truth is I’m not over you. //dun dun dun...
MEME. || More Texts for You Bitches.
The phone dings and a woman’s voice speaks out into darkness.
Bodies shift beneath blankets, a rustle of bed sheets as legs stretch and arms tighten. Eren’s face twists with dissatisfaction, and from somewhere above his head, he hears a sound to match what he feels. “I’m going to kill whoever is texting you right now.”
A smile plucks at the corners of Eren’s lips, and he nuzzles his cheek against Levi’s bare chest. He loves the gruffness in the other man’s voice. “It’s probably my dad. Please don’t kill him.“
Eren feels the sigh brush through strands of his sleep-mussed hair. “If it’s your dad, you should probably see what he wants.” As much as he dislikes the idea of moving, even for a moment, from where he lies draped over his boyfriend, Eren agrees that he should check his phone. If it is his dad, it could be an emergency. His father knows where he went tonight; he would not be texting him at this hour if he did not have a good reason for doing so.
Tiredness gives way to an anxious itch in the pit of his stomach. Trying not to let his thoughts get too far ahead of him, Eren pulls out of the embrace and leans toward the bedside table, fingers patting the glass gently in search of his cell. He settles back down beside Levi, head resting on the pillow, as soon as he has the device in hand. A tap upon the screen, and the woman starts to read aloud for the two of them.
Messages, 2 minutes ago. Plus one. Jean. Jean? Eren stills, going rigid. “The truth is I’m not over you.” Actions available.
Eren does not register the rest of the audio commands. Fingers clench around the phone, and his breath catches in his throat. Fully awake now, his mind reels in the wake of hearing the message, the words steamrolling him over and over and over yet he struggles to swallow them whole.
Shit. Levi. “Levi, I,” he what? A jumbled mess of things wants to leave his mouth all at once: apologies, explanations, excuses. But when his lips part, nothing. Before he has a chance to work out the knot in his tongue, Levi speaks up.
“So that Jean guy we ran into the other day’s your ex.”
There is no point lying about it. Eren nods. “Yeah.”
“Look, Levi, I don’t know why he texted me this. I haven’t talked to him since we broke up.” The words Eren could not find before suddenly come flooding out of him like a faucet turned on to full power. “You can read through my messages with him if you want. They’re months old. I know it looks suspicious that I still have his number saved, but I promise, there’s nothing going on between us.”
The silence that follows could suffocate him. He can practically feel Levi thinking beside him, but still he has no way of knowing just what thoughts twist their way, snake-like, through the older man’s head. Moving onto his side, Eren turns his face toward his boyfriend, needy for some sort of contact from him–voice, touch, anything. “Levi—”
“I believe you, Eren.” As if he had been buried, Eren is pulled up for air when he hears Levi’s voice again, quieter than before in a way that sounds distant, but the distance between them is closed when an arm wraps around him again, pulling him back to where he had been before: pressed up into the other’s man side. Eren relaxes against him, hand coming to rest over a steady heart beat. “But I want to be the one who answers. Can I?”
Eren freezes once more. “You want to text Jean? What’re you going to say to him?”
Eren feels a kiss against the furrow in his brow, Levi’s lips working at wrinkles with soft presses and feather-light touches. “Relax, Eren. You can hear what I am going to say to him. If you don’t like the message or if I cross a line, you can tell me, and I’ll change it, alright?” Another kiss on his cheek, one at the corner of his mouth, and Eren nods. “Alright.”
Message.Text field. Is editing. iMessage. Character mode. Insertion point and start.
Listening as Levi navigates his phone, Eren waits impatiently for the text. Is Levi angry? Is he upset? Eren has never been the best at reading, but he is especially terrible at reading Levi. When the voice gives no indication of the emotions lingering below, it is hard, nay, impossible for Eren to know what is really going on.
“Jean,” the name is steady on the other man’s tongue, and Eren waits for what is to come, “this is Levi, Eren’s boyfriend. Thank you for waking us up at 2 o’clock in the morning to tell Eren you still have feelings for him. That’s definitely not something either of us expected to hear, but it can’t be helped. What can be helped is you not doing this again. Eren’s happy. I’m happy. Do not try to get in the way of that. I don’t know what exactly happened between the two of you. Eren hasn’t told me much. But I do know that you hurt him, and I won’t let you hurt him again. Do not text this number anymore.”
Send button. Double tap to send.
Eren closes his eyes and takes a breath. “Yeah.”