Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13555002.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Shingeki_no_Kyojin_|_Attack_on_Titan
  Relationship:
      Levi/Eren_Yeager
  Character:
      pretty_much_everyone_-_Character
  Additional Tags:
      vegan_eren, butcher_levi, Eren_Has_Anger_Issues, Slow_Burn, Enemies_to
      Lovers, they_fight_a_lot_in_the_beginning
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-02-02 Chapters: 1/? Words: 3227
****** Dangerous animals ******
by FragileYetEerie
Summary
     Eren is an angry vegan, ready to fight anyone who disagrees with his
     views, and the guy who works at the local butchery just happens to be
     one of those people.
Notes
     In this story, Eren is a vegan and basically insults a lot of people
     because they aren't, trying to make them change their mind. This is
     however not my view of vegans in general (I am one myself so yeah),
     it's simply due to his personality that he acts this way. therefore,
     his views aren oftentimes quite extreme, and I don't want anyone to
     feel attacked by this.. it's just that I could imagine eren being
     quite aggressive when it comes to things that are important to him,
     especially certain core values.
     Levi's kind of an asshole here, but I swear he'll soften up
     eventually, too.
     tags will be added, because they'll reveal a bit too much otherwise,
     but none of the main characters dies or anything like that.
     also, there might be some violent parts in here, and Eren is 16 while
     Levi is 19, so this might not be for you if the age bothers you.
     otherwise, enjoy hopefully!
"Eren, your sister has a cold and I'm already going to be late for work as it
is. I know you hate going to the butcher, but could you do me a favor and just
go there this once? I ordered in advance, it needs to be picked up today,
they're closed tomorrow," my mother asked way too nicely, handing me a twenty
dollar bill as she she was speaking.
"Mom, I've told you how many times? Meat is disgusting and as long as we abuse
animals like this, we humans are less than animals. It's barbaric, those
animals deserve freedom and not to be hung from a ceiling and have their
stomach cut open after being shot in the head, just because we feel entitled to
eat them," I began to argue with her, my words coming out fluently; they were
well practiced after all. Animals rights were something I'd always been
concerned with, it was a topic I was utterly passionate about. There was no way
to measure the amount of anger that people's ignorance caused to rise inside of
me on a regular basis.
I didn't really care if it annoyed the people around me; I needed to speak up
whenever that topic was brought up by anyone. Especially the fact that many
people felt this absurdly strong dislike towards vegans and vegetarians made my
blood boil.
This world oftentimes frustrated me, in many different aspects. But that didn't
mean that I stopped fighting for the things I believed in.
"Eren darling, I know you've always had a strong sense of justice, but I've
told you before. Just because you don't like the idea of animal products, it
doesn't mean that we aren't entitled to our own decisions anymore," she said,
which I knew was basically just a friendlier version of 'deal with it.'
"Now, please be a dear and help me out with it this once, I really need to get
going," she pushed.
And although I could have stretched this particular argument out for hours, I
kept my mouth shut.
I needed her to drive me to Armin's tomorrow, so a huge fight would honestly
not be a good decision on my part.
"Fine," I bit out, "I'm going to get your dead animal parts for you, alright."
"Don't pull that face in there, and please don't start a fight at the butchery.
I know that this whole thing is important to you, but it's not worth fighting
over. Attacking people won't change anyone's behavior for the better, alright?"
I nodded stupidly and five seconds later, mom was out the door, taking fast
steps as if that would change the fact that she was going to be late again.
In that aspect, my mother and I were a lot alike, arriving minimum five minutes
late at any occasion possible. People kept saying that we had one and the same
face, as well, but I'd never thought it was that extreme of a similarity. Maybe
it was just harder for me to see because I never really looked at my mother to
search for hints of myself in her face. That would be a sort of .. weird thing
to do either way.
Whatever the case, she wasn't going to make it in time, and I really should get
going too if I didn't want to run all the way over to the butchery to get there
before closing time. Not that I wanted to go there at all, it was honestly the
last thing I wanted to do with my Saturday evening.
I didn't bother to tie my shoes, slipping into my used, black converse that
were beginning to look more grey than actual black. Deciding that a thin jacket
might be a wise idea, I grabbed a dark blue one, slipping inside and mentally
reminding myself not to forget about my keys again.
When I finally stepped outside, a soft breeze was blowing, but the wind wasn't
that cold thankfully. It was early summer, and the days tended to be really
warm already, but the evenings were still too cold to be spent in a t-shirt.
Still, the streets were strangely filled, all sorts of people strolling around,
some carrying bags and others looking like they were going to spend the evening
in a club, with heavy makeup on their faces.
I made my way through the crowds of people that seemed to be moving slowly on
purpose, as if they were trying to piss
me off deliberately. It already angered me that I'd let my mother convince me
to do this. There was no way I wasn't going to open my mouth and comment on it
in some way, so there was no point in even trying to calm myself down, really.
It was out of my control.
Soon, I reached the last corner, making a right turn, and seeing the shop
before me already.
Kenny's was my mother's butchery of choice, and the owner was an old friend of
hers.
Usually, whenever I went grocery shopping with her, I'd wait outside, sitting
on the old looking bench underneath two trees a few metres away from the
building.
But not today.
No, today I needed to go inside, all by myself.
A cheap bell rang as I pushed the glass door open, and the smell of all sorts
of meat assaulted my nose instantly. I didn't understand how anyone could
possibly step in here and actually be hungry after seeing these results of a
massacre.
No thank you.
I must have had a matching expression of disgust on my face, because someone
started speaking, and I was the only other person in here, so they had to be
addressing me.
"Are you constipated or something? What's up with your face?"
My eyes focused on the guy the moment he spoke up, and in that moment I found
out that the voice belonged to a raven haired male standing behind the counter,
wearing a striped apron.
He looked strange, a little smaller than me from what I could tell, and yet a
whole lot more like an adult than I did. Especially his face was weirdly
unique, the kind of face you'd remember if you saw it once.
I didn't care about his face though, what I cared about were the words he'd
addressed me with.
"Excuse me?" I asked, deliberately emphasising the words, and speaking louder
than necessary.
The asshole seriously answered with nothing but a raise of his eyebrow, as if
he knew that it would only make me angrier.
And if he did know, then I sure didn't care that he was right about this,
"Sorry, I was just disgusted with your products for a second there."
That put a crack in his expressionless facade for a brief moment.
"All our products are high quality, our shop is much cleaner than any other
butchery I've been to, and before you, no one has ever complained. So, brat.
What exactly is your fucking problem? If you're that disgusted, don't fucking
enter at all," he spoke, but it sounded almost like a growling dog. I felt like
he'd jump over the counter any moment and hunt me down with one of the knives
lying around.
Luckily, I had managed to get under his skin too, apparently.
"My fucking problem is that this is literally a shop that sells parts of dead
animals," I spat the words out, going into full arguing mode.
"Yeah, a butchery. What's your point? Or are you just too stupid to read what
the signs says before you enter a shop?"
My fingernails bit into my palm as I stood there, remembering what my mother
had asked of me.
No fighting with anyone in here; I was supposed to behave.
I was my own person though, and if there was one thing I couldn't stand then it
was being unwillingly censored. Fuck behaving. No one but me had the right to
decide who I could and could not fight with. Not even my mother; as complicated
as that attitude might make things for me sometimes. At times it felt as though
my one and only talent was getting into trouble.
So I did what I was born to, and actively decided to dig myself a deeper hole.
"My point is that it is disgusting to eat dead animals, while at the same time
claiming to like them and want them to live good lives. It's what hypocrites
do," I said, fully aware of the fact that this was a bit of a low blow,
considering that I barely knew him.
His eyes hardened on me, but neither of us seemed willing to back down.
"I never once said that I like animals, so stop assuming things. I'm doing my
fucking job here and you're very fucking welcome to leave, it doesn't sound
like you came here to buy anything at all," he answered, and I felt myself
frowning at his words.
"It's not like I'd enter this place by free will, my mother forced me to come
here," I said before realising just how lame that had sounded. But lame or not,
it was the truth.
"Your mother described you a bit too accurately, I'm afraid," he sighed, but I
perked up at his words. "But fine, I'll just go to the refrigerator to get your
deliciously 'dead pieces of cow', wait a second please." The 'please' was
perhaps the most sarcastic word I had ever heard from anyone.
Asshole.
"Hey," I called, steeping towards the counter but consciously making an effort
not to look at the flesh laid out behind the glass. My stomach was already
feeling unwell, and I couldn't say that I blamed it for that with the amount of
death around me.
"What were you saying just now? About my mother, why would she talk to someone
like you about me? What did she even say?"
I yelled the words after him, but there was just a bit of noise to be heard in
the back room, no answer. It took about twenty minutes until the man came back
to the front, his face still angry, but his eyes suddenly had this light inside
them, making him look borderline sadistic to me.
"Why in the world should I tell you? But she did say enough to paint a very
vivid image in my head, and you're just as much of a fucking brat as I imagined
from her words," he casually insulted me, placing the packaged meat on the
glass surface.
"She wouldn't say anything bad about me, asshole. Stop lying," I accused him,
refusing to believe that my mother would tell a guy like that any person
information about me.
"She did say that you're extremely stubborn and that you'll verbally attack
anyone who does as much as to eat a fucking sausage, because you're one of
those 'I'm better than you' people, so shut your mouth, I'm not lying. "
That had to be at leat partially made up.
My mother wouldn't talk to anyone about me like that, he was just trying to get
a rise out of me again. I could feel it, somehow. Or at the very least, I
assumed it, with quite a bit of certainty.
Just as I was about to retort something, he spoke up again. This time though,
there was another, new expression on his face the moment before he opened his
mouth; the bastard was smirking at me, and I wasn't so sure, but it felt like
that smirk had somehow managed to give me goosebumps. There was something scary
about him; something about the way he looked at me like he was mentally making
a list of all my weaknesses.
Perhaps it was all the knives in his proximity.
It was a weird feeling that had me a bit paranoid.
"Your mom also offered to pay me twenty an hour if I attempt to help you with
your French grade, since she said that you're failing the class, which honestly
doesn't surprise me. I was about to decline, but I think I changed my mind just
now."
I think my mouth hung open.
Scratch that, I'm damn sure that my mouth hung wide open; and I was just as
sure that I looked stupid as hell, but I couldn't bring myself to care for the
moment.
That couldn't be true, could it?
My mom wouldn't do this to me.
But I wasn't quite certain. Would she? She'd lectured me a hundred times at
least to get my ass moving and practice so my grades wouldn't sink even lower.
They were already pretty low.
It suddenly seemed entirely too possible that she might have actually asked him
to do that.
"Then I'll tell her no. It's not like you can force me to participate in that,
so wipe that stupid smirk off your face," I huffed, feeling like a child
somehow.
"Whatever you say, brat."
There it was again, that arrogant tone that I could honestly not stand.
I didn't bother to give him another look as I grabbed the bag, pulling it down
with so much force that I was lucky the contents weren't scattered across the
floor afterwards. I placed the twenty dollar bill on the counter, and stomped
out of the shop with angry footsteps, only to be stopped just before I reached
the door.
"That's 21 dollars, actually."
No. No, no, no. I couldn't take another second in this smelly room with this
anger-inducing person. I'd rather be anywhere else.
"I don't have any more money," I said lowly, turning around halfway.
Apparently thanks to that, his eyes found me again, and he flashed me another
one of those smirks that looked downright evil.
"Since you were such a polite costumer though, I'll make an exception," he
said, and chuckled shortly. I didn't find this amazing at all, the humor of the
situation invisible to my eyes. "Make sure to eat enough protein, yeah?" he
just had to add, of course, and I was about to fire out my usual argument about
how all humans needed to live could be covered without a piece of meat, but I
stopped myself before I said anything.
That would only lead to further conversation, which I wasn't so sure would be a
clever idea.
"Fuck you, I hope I'll never have to step a foot in here again," were my famous
last words as I finally heard the bell ring behind me when I closed the door
and rushed outside like a damn child heading out of school for the last time in
the summer.
Only now, surrounded by fresh air, I became acutely aware of the tornado of
annoyance that had built up inside me, storming relentlessly inside my chest.
Why did he and my mother have to know each other? Sure, she went there every
now and then, but there was no reason to mention me.
I'd ask her about it, for sure.
My heart was pumping at a fast pace, and I was glad I'd made my way out before
anything worse had happened than a few bad words.
The lectures after physical fights were honestly the worst. It always had me
feeling like I was a lost cause, succumbing to anger over and over again and
losing all sense of rationality in the process.
The feeling was sort of justified and true, but that didn't mean I liked being
the 'out of control' child, and in some ways I was trying to be better. More
civilised.
I just really couldn't help it when it came to certain types of people - they
didn't know how far to push me, (not that I was one to talk) and it oftentimes
escalated despite my best intentions when certain things were said.
Therapy had helped by providing ways to let the anger out, but it didn't always
work that easily.
I regarded the plastic bag with a distasteful look, swinging it back and forth
lazily as I walked back home, careful to keep it at a certain distance from my
body, though. I already felt as though the smell from in there clung to my
clothes.
The streets were a bit emptier now, the sun having set, and a dark shade of
blue covering the sky as the first few stars were already beginning to be
visible.
Although, they were moving. So maybe the stars weren't out yet and I'd just
admired two stupid airplanes.
Whatever.
Apparently it wasn't even that late yet. Still, all I honestly wanted to do was
fall into my bed, and never move out of it again.
Anger always left me exhausted in its wake; drained even.
I fished my key out of my pocket, and opened the door, rushing into the kitchen
first to place the entire bag in the fridge so I didn't have to look at it or
think about it anymore.
I kicked my shoes off afterwards, and hung my jacket on the wall before giving
it a seconds glance. Maybe I'd just wash it.
I needed to get rid of that smell on me fore I started vomiting all over
myself. From both the smell and the memory of that asshole it reminded me of.
Finally in the bathroom, I stepped out of my clothes quickly, and created a
pile on the side before finally stepping into the shower and letting the warm
drops rain down on me.
Showers were honestly one of the best damn things in the world, because they
helped in literally any situation.
I took my time washing my skin and hair thoroughly, and refused to wreck my
mind over the conversation at the butchery.
It didn't matter that much.
If my mom was serious about this, then I was going so be just as serious about
telling her that I wouldn't accept that guy of all to help me with that damn
language.
She'd have to understand that.
Once my shower was over, I wrapped a towel around myself, covering as much skin
as possible as I made my way over to my bed so I wouldn't freeze to death
before reaching my destination. I shook my head violently, getting as much
water as possible out with this simple method as I walked. Literally the only
bad thing about showering; feeling half frozen afterwards as you step out, and
sometimes that happened even on warm days.
Or maybe that was just me.
As I fell into my sheets and threw the towel over my chair, I shamelessly
wrapped my naked body up in the thick sheets, refusing to leave my warm and
soft space, clothes or not.
I'd just showered after all.
Tiredness was shockingly quick to pull me deeper and deeper into its grasp as I
lay there, realising that I hadn't even gotten the name of the guy I'd met
today.
Not that I'd care to know, but it sure was a good question what kind of name
someone like him might have.
Although I tried to come up with possible names, nothing seemed to really fit,
and eventually I just gave up, storing the guy under the pseudonym 'asshole' in
my brain.
That was about the last conscious thought I had before finally falling asleep.
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