seasonsrpg | [Closed Log] Fireflies are stars that couldn't journey to the skies

(Well maybe he should reconsider growing into such a humongous tree of a man-)

Levi could tell him that he likes everything that isn't rotting or moldy, but in this case neither of the options is. He could eat all of it, too, despite what his size may suggest, but if the seller doesn't cave in a few more moments he'll just mumble a sour; "Alright."

Aside from those reservations, though, he's honestly quite excited. The food smells really good, and he's never had this fancy stuff before. He's hardly even blinking as he watches the skewer move closer to him and immediately reaches out to snatch it.

(He absolutely will not bc the difference between them is ~~hot~~ charming ok-)

Unfortunately the merchant doesn't seem keen to give away more free food than they already are, so they'll just have to share, oh well.

Erwin takes them a few paces away from the cart to eat, carefully setting down his jar before taking a bite off his skewer. It's a little chewy, but still pretty tasty nonetheless. His eyes light up a little. "It's good!"

He'll finish chewing and swallowing before speaking again, asking eagerly: "How's yours?"

(Damn ok-)

Levi crouches down, carefully untucking the firefly jar from the crook of his arm and placing it next to Erwin's.

Then he inspects the chicken skewer he'd gotten, looking at it from all sides, sniffing it, all the while looking like he's been handed something befitting of kings. He feels drool gathering at the corner of his lips and quickly rubs at it with his sleeve before sticking the first piece of meat into his mouth.

"..."

Yeah, there's not going to be any waiting here. By the time Erwin asks him that question, half of his skewer is already gone.

"Mmfhm," he confirms, careful not to actually open his mouth lest any of the delicious food escapes from it, and chews faster so he can swallow it down and talk properly --

-- or just get more of it into his mouth. Yeah. Sorry, Erwin, your new friend doesn't have much in the way of table manners, but at least he does look like he's just discovered joy after finally returning from two world wars, so it probably counts for something.

...-oh. Wow, guess he really was hungry-

Which just makes Erwin happier that they could get something to eat together. He doesn't seem to care about table manners, and Levi looks really happy, so...after he takes a couple more bites of his skewer, (slower, making sure Levi finishes his own), he offers the rest to Levi. there's maybe about a third remaining.

"Here - you should try this one too!"

Levi has almost closed his teeth around the last bit of chicken to pull it off of the skewer when he's reminded that they had agreed to share. Looking a little ashamed, he pulls it away from his mouth and holds it out to Erwin so he can try it, a scowl on his face and a bit of an angry flush to his cheeks.

He does take the beef without protest, though, of which there's definitely more left so he'll be the one ending up with more food, but they haven't made an agreement about that, so it's probably fine.

The beef is harder to chew, but it's roasted well, so the difference isn't too unpleasant. It does at least force Levi to spend more time on eating it, which is probably helpful to make sure he doesn't make himself sick by just gorging down food like that. Luckily, he doesn't seem to be having that problem so far.

Erwin just shakes his head - he'd meant for Levi to just have the whole chicken one and the rest of the beef, since he's not had either before and he's clearly hungry.

That and he's making such a scary face about having to give it up.

"You have the rest, Levi."

Levi stares at him more intently. The scary look had just been about him being embarrassed rather than feeling forced to give up the last bite of chicken, but now it's directed at Erwin, and so is the almost-empty skewer still.

"We had a deal," he huffs through his mouthful of beef. "Take it or I'll shove it up your ass."

Erwin blinks, oddly feeling heat rise to his cheeks for some reason under that glower.

He takes the skewer, but doesn't eat it yet, frowning.

"Wouldn't that be a waste, though?"

Surely food is better eaten than shoved the wrong way up a butt???

Huh? What was Erwin looking all awe-struck about?

Well, clearly Levi's words made an impression, especially considering that he does finally take the chicken, and Levi feels very pleased with himself. Too bad Kenny can't watch him apply his lessons practically -- no, he won't think about that now. He'll be back. If Levi ends up escaping this strange world, he'll be right there waiting for him.

Though... he's not sure if he even wants to, anymore. This place is nice. He can play in the sun and people keep buying him food. Why would he want to go back into dark, damp underground, even if the only semblance of family he still had was there?

He moves to put an arm around Erwin's shoulders, just like he'd seen his guardian do when he was convincing other people of something, and gestures at his chest with the beef skewer before taking another bite from the food.

"Yeah, but 's about sending a message," he explains patiently, though maybe with a slight air of superiority. "Makes people listen t'your words more."

You're so cool, Levi-

And then there's an arm around his shoulders, and it feels nice and warm and companionable. Erwin leans in, a giddy little smile alighting on his face because it makes him happy that his new friend wants to be close, so there's no hesitation when his arm goes likewise around Levi's waist. It's a sideways hug, right?

He supposes he understands what Levi's saying, but it still seems a little silly.

"If you say so. But if everyone went around doing that, no one would have anything left to eat!"

Anyway, he takes a bite.

Well, clearly he's cooler than a bunch of school people, not that the bar is high-

Okay, this is new. Erwin is supposed to look nervous, not happy, and he's certainly not supposed to hug him. Levi frowns. Is he doing something wrong? Or maybe this kid is just weird and taking joy from things he shouldn't be?

He tries to wiggle away and huffs.

"Everyone doesn't need to," he explains. "Or manage to." He imagines there's a certain amount of wrangling involved so somebody who isn't strong would probably not succeed! It does seem like a waste of food now that he thinks about it. Maybe just the skewer is supposed to be used.

It's definitely that he's weird, definitely that he probably has a messed up sense of danger to a degree, because even if he knew how dangerous Levi actually could be, it still wouldn't put him off. Oops!

It's hard not to feel a little disappointed when Levi squirms away, but Erwin lets him go, covering for the loss of closeness by nibbling a little more on the meat skewer.

"Huh," he says. What Levi's saying still doesn't quite make sense to him, but that doesn't really seem like the important part anymore.

"Thank you for letting me eat it instead of trying to shove it up my butt."

Oh no, guess that affinity for dangerous things started early...

Levi sighs and proceeds to work on his newly acquired half of beef skewer. It's a bit more hearty but also harder to chew, not that it's a problem for him. It disappears about as quickly as the chicken did, too. Looks like he's not picking favorites any time soon.

"Yeah," he grumbles with his mouth still half-full, "lucky you." Because if he tried he would have most definitely succeeded, and it was definitely kind and gracious of him not to.

As soon as the skewer is empty, he's leaning against the cold cabinet to peer at the selection of cold treats that they were also supposed to get. The iced juice looks weird to him, so after some consideration he reaches for the cookie and cream sandwich abomination, not really waiting for permission or anything. Hopefully the merchant remembers their earlier deal.

It sure...did...

Frankly, Erwin does feel lucky, because he's getting to share tasty food with a new friend. The skewers go in the little trash bucket the vendor has set out to the side, and then joins Levi in examining his options for the cold treats. These are quite the novelty to him, but he ends up picking the same thing as Levi, curious about the thing called ice cream.

They pick their items, and then the vendor waves them away, because now they've taken all they were allowed to have. Erwin gathers up his firefly jar and waits for Levi to do the same, and wanders them over a little ways away before biting into the cookie sandwich.

Blue eyes light up immediately with an excited "mmm!"

Oh it's tasty. But also cold. It's cold. Like eating snow, but much more delicious.

Isn't friend getting a little ahead of things? Then again, he has bought Levi food, so that at the very least puts him solidly into the not foe box.

Levi picks up his jar carefully and follows, setting it down again once Erwin stops since he's not going to risk dropping it while handling the unfamiliar food item. It turns out to be the right choice because as soon as he takes a bite from it, he startles and nearly drops it, though luckily his reflexes are already fast enough to snatch it out of the air before it gets anywhere close to the sand.

"Fh-- It's cold!"

The snow that made it into the Underground was never clean enough to eat, and it's not like they had refrigerators, so it's probably the coldest thing he's ever had in his mouth, save from water left outside during the winter. It's not even unpleasant so much as it's a complete shock because he couldn't even conceive of the concept until now.

No? They're having fun together, eating yummy food, catching fireflies, learning about each other. That's definitely friend territory!

"Mhm!" Erwin gets through the rest of his own bite, licking cream from his lips and laughing. "Good catch!" Seriously, it was pretty impressive.

"It's strange, right? It's so warm outside but the box kept it really cold still somehow...and the cream is sweet!"

It's also uhh melting. It might get all over their hands if they don't eat it fast enough.

Hmph, okay, maybe he's got a point there.

"Food 's supposed to be hot," Levi grumbles, nonetheless shoves more of the cream and wafer sandwich into his mouth. Now that he knows what to expect, the coldness actually feels really nice against the warm weather of a Solarpeak evening.

Mercifully, he hasn't noticed the melting issue just yet, but it certainly is about to be a whole Thing as soon as any of it touches his skin.

Exactly - they're definitely friends.

"It must be cold for a reason though - see, the cream is already starting to melt, like ice in the spring. If it was hot, it wouldn't hold its shape."

Logic! Also, some of the cream might start dripping onto the sand. Erwin takes another bite, making a face as he gets a bit of a cold shock through his teeth. But he pushes through!! Luckily they're not very big, and so shouldn't take too long to eat...

"Then they could use something else," Levi grumbles, though unfortunately he has no suggestions since he's barely seen sweets in his life and he definitely doesn't know about the harder creams used in some pastries that do hold their shape in warmer temperatures. As far as he's concerned, Erwin may be right.

He manages to almost finish his, eating like the starved little thing that he used to be quite recently still, when the cream finally drips onto his hand and once again, he almost drops the entire treat.

"Ugh," he says, licking it and shoving the rest of the thing into his mouth to prevent further damages, but that's not good enough, he needs to wash it off --

There's some more leaking out of the corner of his mouth as the remaining treat was still a little too big for a single bite, and he hurriedly wipes it off with the already dirty hand, suddenly looking anxious and alarmed.

Erwin manages to finish his without too much dripping, angling it so it ends up in the sand rather than on his clothes, at least, but there is still some on his fingers, which he does lick off and then...just wipe on his pants.

He laughs at first when Levi stuffs the remainder in his mouth, but then the moment very clearly and quickly turns into one of distress, and Erwin reaches out gingerly, large blue eyes flooding with concern.

"Levi? Is something wrong?"

Scandalous. Luckily Levi isn't paying too much attention to it, busy scrubbing the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand until it gets as dry as it possibly can, but it doesn't take away the sensation of something pulling at his skin.

"It's sticky," he complains urgently, holding his recently ice-cream splattered hand by the wrist with the other, as if to make sure it doesn't touch anything else. "That's gross."

Erwin gives him a bit of a quizzical look at first, a little confused by the reaction, but then fishes a handkerchief from his pocket and looks around. At first, he considers just wandering into the surf to get it wet, but then remembers when he was exploring it earlier how salty the water was and that it left kind of a funny feeling on his skin, so maybe not that, if Levi is complaining about feeling sticky.

Back near the vendor's cart, he spies something that seems like a pump...? but then sees someone walk up and press a button to shoot a stream of water out of a spigot and lean in to take a drink. That'll work.

"Wait here," he says to Levi, and trots off toward the little pump (drinking fountain). He returns a minute or two later with part of the cloth damp, and holds out his hand for Levi's.

"Here-" and if Levi lets him, he'll gently clean it away.

Alternatively, he could just snatch it from him.

He does sort of snatch it, but possibly along with Erwin's entire hand as he leans in to scrub the damp part of the handkerchief against the corner of his mouth before letting it drop lower. At that point Erwin is allowed to wipe his hand with the rest, though if he's let go by then, Levi will just do it himself.

When he glances at the other boy again, he's pouting a little, but it's not angry. Maybe more like a little embarrassed and a little surprised, as if he's just seen him in a whole different light. His breathing seems to be evening out, too, and he doesn't look panicked anymore as he looks to the side and sort of kicks one foot against the sand.

"...Thanks."

Edited 2024-02-06 22:56 (UTC)

Erwin doesn't let go, though it's more out of surprise -- he hadn't realized everywhere the stickiness had gotten to Levi, but once he's taken care of his face, he'll gently wipe off his hands. Levi has nice hands, he thinks. They're small but clever - and strong, as he's realizing.

But once his hands are clean, he seems much calmer. That's good, at least, and Erwin just nods cheerfully, and wipes his own hands off on the handkerchief before folding it over and stashing it back in his pocket.

"You're welcome, Levi."

He looks around, picking up his jar again.

"Do you want to catch more fireflies?"

They're also excellent for thieving, and he may or may not attempt to surprise Erwin by offering him the money he had paid to the merchant later at some point. Hopefully he's not too strait-laced for that.

For now, though, he just grimaces slightly as he watches the other boy shove the used napkin back into his pocket (what is he supposed to do, Levi? Burn it?) and picks up his own jar as well, looking at it contemplatively for a moment.

"I've got enough," he says, "but I wanna watch them some more."

They could find a patch of grass to sit down on and just admire the view for a while. Levi doesn't think he'll ever get tired of it.

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offeredhearts - 2024-02-10 03:21 (UTC) - Expand