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Levi was woken up by the sound of singing accompanied by music. He crawled out of the bed, quite upset, because who does that? Opening the window he yelled “Bonjour!” at the singing girl who was currently walking under his window, sarcasm dripping off his voice. He found out that when he passed out yesterday, he didn’t even change from his cleaning attire to the pyjamas. Just thinking about it painted disgusted look on his face.
“Filthy,” he murmured on his way to the bathroom to wash and change.
Later when he got to the kitchen he had to face one of his worst nightmares. What was the shitty four-eyes doing? There was flour everywhere. And ketchup. And what’s that substance on the window? Levi moved closer. Oh, definitely mayonnaise. Mixed with strawberry milk. What the hell? He went to the closet for his cleaning supplies and then he spent the entire morning getting the kitchen back to order.
“I found you a job!” Hanji, his roommate, called out when she came home in the afternoon.
“The fuck were you doing in the kitchen?” Levi asked, voice slightly irritated.
“Nah. Just a little experiment.”
“What sort of experiment requires covering the kitchen in all sorts of shit?”
Hanji just shrugged. Levi rolled his eyes. Why me? “What about the job?” he asked then.
“It’s a cleaning job,” she answered giving him a paper with address.
“Enchanted forest?” he asked doubtfully after looking at the paper.
“Yeah. It’s not even too far,” she said. “Well, have a nice day.” He looked at her as she disappeared in her laboratory, then he turned his sight back to the paper. Well, it was worth trying. So he went back to his room to pack. Since the employer provided accommodation he wouldn’t be home for a few days.
The next day Levi set out early in the morning, which turned out to be a good decision, because he managed to get lost like twice among all the big-ass trees. It was evening when he finally reached a cottage. By looking at the dirty windows he assumed it was the place of his new employment.
He knocked. When no one was answering he tried it again. At last, the door opened. A book was looking at him. Levi blinked.
“Hello,” the book said.
“Whoa,” Levi said and kicked it. “Talking book!” What the actual fuck? Maybe he inhaled too many vapours from cleaning chemicals and now he was hallucinating.
“Wow, rude,” the book said as it managed to stand back up from the floor, which, Levi noted, was very dirty. “Anyway, are you here for the job?”
“The cleaning?”
The book affirmed and let him in. “I’m Armin,” the book introduced itself.
“Corporal Levi, and it’s ‘sir’ for you,” he answered, dismissing the fact he was talking to a book, who actually might be his new employer.
The book, Armin, gasped. “The Humanity’s cleanest?”
Levi gave him annoyed look, which Armin hardly noticed, since the corporal seemed annoyed from the very moment he opened the door. “Yeah.”
Armin led him to another room, it’s boards clapping on the way. The room was a mess. He couldn’t describe it differently. Layers of dust everywhere, dirty dishes, piles of clothes, long pieces of torn cobwebs covered in dust hanging from the ceiling... Levi felt dizzy. It was even worse than that one time Hanji was cooking. Even worse, than when he went on holiday and left her on her own for a whole week. He couldn’t remember whether he has ever seen such a mess. How did he end up in such a filthy place? He was glad he packed two extra packages of gloves, because there was no way he would touch anything with his bare hands.
“You’re the new cleaner?” a tall person asked. Too tall. Levi looked up and found out, that the creature was actually sitting, yet it filled the room all the way to the ceiling. “Wow, you’re so...”
“If you’re gonna say short and cute, I’ll bite you in the ass,” he interrupted, loud enough for the tall person to hear it. He gave another look to his surroundings and reconsidered it, he wasn’t sure when was the last time this very tall person bathed. There was no way he would be touching him, therefore biting was out of the question.
“I was gonna say clean.”
“Good then.” He was glad he didn’t have to back from his promise.
“I’m Eren Jaeger, your employer.” He gave him a contract. Levi red through it carefully before signing it.
“Just Levi? No surname?” Eren asked after he looked at the signature.
“I’m like Cher, I don’t have a surname,” he explained.
“Who?”
“Nevermind.” He looked around again. “How did you manage this crap anyway?” he had to ask.
“Well, I can’t really hold a cleaning cloth or any cleaning supplies,” Eren explained pointing out the fact he could barely move in the room and his hands were too big for the usual bottle of Windex. And since Armin was a book, he wouldn’t do any cleaning either.
“And it’s just you two?” he wondered.
“The two of us and Mikasa.”
Levi looked around to see the ‘Mikasa person’ and then he noticed a grumpy looking sword in Eren’s shadow.
Eren continued. “My mum lived here as well, but...” he could see the Titan’s expression turn extremely angry as he spoke. “The germs devoured her.”
There were tears sparkling in his eyes, but he didn’t even seem sad. They were tears of anger. But just now, Levi noticed how pretty the creature’s eyes were. The colour was such a nice mixture of green and blue. And they were so bright. He even forgot that Eren was too big to fit in a bathtub.
“I swear I’m gonna kill every last one of them.”
He was so passionate about destroying all the germs. It was impressive for Levi, he felt deep compassion for Eren. They were sharing the same goal after all. He could feel his heart beat quicken. His eyes glistened.
“Not bad,” he said.
“Eren, calm down,” the sword told him.
“Well, I guess I should show you to your room... sir,” Armin broke the silent pause. Levi gave last short look to Eren, before following the clapping sound of the boards.
It was no surprise, that the room was covered in dust as well, cobwebs everywhere, dead flies lying on the window. Disgusting. At least Levi knew where he wanted to start the cleaning.
“Um, sorry for the outburst, sir,” Armin apologized for his friend.
Levi shrugged. “So what happened? The brat talked about his mother.”
“Oh, it’s kinda sad,” Armin sighed. “It’s been a few years we’ve been like this. One afternoon I came to play with Eren and Mikasa and his father got really upset with him, because he wouldn’t clean his room properly.”
Understandable.
“So he drugged him. Well, us as well, I suppose, and when we woke up, we were like this.”
“Asshole.”
That was just rude, usually grounding the kid, until he cleaned the room properly would be enough of a punishment, right? Maybe a slap.
“And then he said that only a kiss of a clean love could cure him, well, I guess that me and Mikasa as well.”
“Clean? Don’t you mean pure?” Levi was puzzled. In fairy tales they always said pure, he was pretty sure.
“He probably meant that if anyone so clean would touch him, it would work as an antidote,” apparently even Amin wasn’t quite sure how it worked.
There was a bit of silence. “I guess I should go,” Armin excused himself and left Levi in his room. He quickly changed to his cleaning attire, because even though it was a deep night now, there was no way he would touch the dusty bed with a ten meters long pole. Not speaking of the dead spider right in the middle of the pillow.
*
After spending the whole night cleaning, he was quite tired in the morning. Eren even told him, he could start the cleaning the next day, which was very kind of him, Levi noted. But as long as the place was such a dirty dumphole there was no way he was sleeping when on duty.
First he got rid of the cobwebs and then he started dusting. He swiped the floors three times before scrubbing them. That was the worst part.
“You’re a life saver!” Eren said in the evening when his room was almost clean. The look he was giving to Levi was even brighter than the previous day. He looked genuinely happy.
“Don’t mention it,” Levi waved at him very proud of himself. Strange feeling settling in his chest at the praise received from Eren. His mind started to get filled by odd thoughts regarding his employer, which were absolutely out of place for a fairy tale. He shook his head and returned to the work. He wouldn’t go to bed until he was done with this room.
Several hours later, when the room was pristine clear and smelled of violets, Levi was ready for bed. Eren was sitting by the window, well more like laying – when he was sitting his head reached the ceiling and the window wasn’t that high or big.
“Good night,” said Levi.
“Would you like to join me?” Eren asked. Levi felt the rising speed of his heartbeat. He gave an annoyed expression of “if it has to be” and sat on the window sill.
It was a beautiful night. The stars were shining and the wind was blowing, which was apparent by the movement of the trees.
Eren asked Levi about the best cleaning techniques and Levi explained everything he could remember at the moment, trying not sound too excited. He even recommended him some professional literature on the topic.
Eren noted, that one day, they might become a famous cleaning duo. They would travel around the world getting rid of the germs and bacteria. Levi could feel mental connection to the boy and ignored the irritated look he was getting from the sword in the corner.
*
It was a week later, the whole cottage was clean, the smell of violets lingering in the air. No cobwebs, dirty socks or anything. Levi just put an envelope filled with cash for his good work into his backpack. As he threw it over his shoulder he sighed and looked around for the last time. Then he left the room and headed downstairs.
“Thank you, sir,” Armin said when he was standing at the front door.
“Yeah, try not to turn the place into a shit hole again.” Though if they did he could come clean again, he thought as he looked up at Eren. He would miss the Titan boy, it was actually kind of sad. Since the place was clean now, he didn’t feel like leaving at all. He could only imagine what his place looked like now. After him being gone for week with only Hanji and her weird experiments.
He would also miss the evenings of stargazing and discussing and planning of cleaning strategies with Eren. And his pretty eyes.
“What the hell,” he mumbled as he used the 3D maneuver gear, which was brilliant for cleaning high places he wouldn’t normally reach, and landed on Eren’s shoulder. The Titan boy gave him a surprised look, but he looked even more surprised when Levi pressed his lips to his left cheek.
“Oi, what are you doing?” Mikasa said with angry voice, but if Levi wanted to reply he didn’t get to it because suddenly everything was covered in sparkles and he felt as if he was flying down. “Shit.”
Before he could hit the ground, he used the 3D gear and swang himself down.
“What... What happened?” familiar voice said, except now it seemed much closer. He turned around to lay his sight on a young lad with ruffled brown hair and confused expression. And very familiar greenish-bluish eyes.
“Eren?” he heard Mikasa, her voice incredulous. The sword turned into black haired girl who was now running towards the young man to pull him into a hug. As the boy managed to shake Mikasa off he looked at Armin, now short blonde boy - though tiny bit taller than Levi - who was just standing there watching everything wide eyed and then to Levi, who was now standing few steps from the happening.
“It was you!” Eren said happily jumping into his open arms.
“Tsk,” he could hear Mikasa and then there was a chuckle from Armin.
Levi managed to catch the boy and then he pressed a small kiss on his nose. When he put him on the ground Eren leaned down to kiss him again.
Mikasa grumbled.
There was a wedding a month later.
Mikasa led Eren to the wedding altar where Levi was standing. Eren was wearing a white suit with wedding train, his eyes brighter than ever. As they walked the aisle Eren was giving him the sweetest smile, he was sure he’d get cavities, while Mikasa was giving him the usual glare.
He and Eren spent the entire evening dancing, before taking off to bedroom to do other things.
The thing Levi didn’t realise earlier was the fact, that when he married Eren he apparently married Mikasa and Armin as well, because - to Hanji’s amusement - they went to the honeymoon with them. Especially Mikasa insisted. But in the end, he didn’t really mind. At least as long as they got their own room.