Archive of Our Own ^beta

I think everyone has these kinds of days, where they think, if there was no one else in the world what would you do? For me, I think I thought I’d stop shaving, but then again I’ve never really had much in the way of facial hair anyway. Just a few little stray hairs that look like they’re from a billygoat or one of Nile’s pubes. What would you do? Walk around naked? Braid your armpit hair? Rub your junk on the Mona Lisa?

I woke up past noon which was great. Usually Mom was banging on the door before then telling me to get my lazy ass out of bed. She always would knock on the door with a polite, “Levi!” and then knock-knock “Levi! Time to get up!” and then knock-knock-knock “Levi, you have five minutes or I’m sending Uncle Kenny in.” Uncle Kenny never knocked, he just pulled off the covers and opened the blinds and if I wasn’t out of bed by then, he’d grab my ankle and drag me to the front porch to wake up on the welcome mat. And if you’re really committed (like I am) you can sleep out on the welcome mat, but our cat, Jinx, has taken to licking my ears so I’ve given up on that.

So I woke up after noon, made coffee and that’s when I realized mom’s purse was still on the counter. Lucky day, I thought to myself. I’ll steal her ciggys. Then I realized that Kenny’s truck was in the driveway. Huh.

Sipping coffee and smoking a cigarette I watched the neighbor’s mower drive by my window. Huh.

Jinx jumped up on the counter and begged for food, wailing and dipping his paw in my coffee.

“Let’s get you kibble, eh boy?” I said, scratching his ears.

The silence was starting to get to me so I turned on the tv, but all of the channels were blanked out save for TVLand which was airing some I Love Lucy special. Ha, Lucy is a fucking crackup. But then TVLand blipped out too and it was just me and Jinx. The air felt heavy, like the still before a storm, hot and languid and making my arm hairs stand on end. I was too afraid to go outside. Too afraid to step past the doormat. I didn’t hear anyone all day. Not the mailman, not the neighbors fighting. Not kids playing in the street. Nothing. That sense of trepidation that had me waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I waited. I stayed up until 3AM waiting for Mom to come home or for Kenny to come bursting through the doors drunk off his ass.

Was this some joke? If it was, it wasn’t funny.

Was this like a weird Home Alone-type scenario? Had terrorists released some kind of poison gas and my family had evacuated and left me behind? Was I Kevin? Was there a gas leak and everyone died? Where was everyone?

Come day two, I got up and left the house.

I guess I don’t really need to tell you what comes next. A lot of running. A lot of screaming. “Hello? Is anybody there? Hello!!!” Crazy Tom Cruise running through Times Square in Vanilla Sky, yada yada. My therapist says I do that (the “yada yada” and my terrible shit jokes) because I’m afraid of appearing weak. That I think my emotions are a weakness. I’m like, buddy, who the fuck doesn’t? No one wants to appear fragile. Because then they know they can break you. And I come from the “Fighting Ackermans!” no seriously my uncle looks like if Clint Eastwood had a baby with the Notre Dame mascot. We’re fighters. We’re survivors. So I’m not going to tell you that I fell down crying, weeping at the complete emptiness of the world.

Everyone was gone.

That’s all you need to know.

Not dead. Not zombified…just…gone. The power was still on in most houses I broke into, the automatic sprinklers still going, dogs and cats begging for food, hamsters in their wheel. Everything was the same, the houses all felt as if their owners had left for a late night Ben and Jerry’s run and would be back shortly.

So maybe I cried. Maybe I took a dump in every house whose door I broke down. The point is, we’re survivors. I’m a survivor. And I was going to survive.

I dumped all of Jinx’s food onto the floor and let the tap fill up in the sink for him to drink before grabbing Uncle Kenny’s favorite leather duster (too long on me, but who cares, the bastard never let me borrow it) and my favorite driving gloves. The old girl took several false starts before she finally rolled and roared to life.

Now, if you’re a survivor and have been raised on Romero films, where do you go?

The mall. Duh.

Except I forgot I live in the bougiest fucking city on mother Earth. Our mall didn’t have a Cabella’s or any hunting sports stores. It did have an REI so I grabbed a helmet and a sweet knife from a display case. It took me several tries to open it. Finally I just grabbed rope from the climbing section and tied it to the truck and drove until it cracked open. See this is why humans are the evolved species—tools and problem solving.

Then I broke into the main mall. Malls are creepy. It’s like we built museums to our own greed. So there I was, looking like Mad Max, strutting around an empty cavern, alternating between pursing my lips to whistle or puff away at a ciggy. I hadn’t seen anyone for over three days now.

So imagine my surprise when I walk past the Sephora and nearly run into what looks like a walking creamsicle holding a million samples.

“Holy shit,” they said.

“Holy fucking shit,” I said.

“Wait,” they said, still holding their samples. “How do I know you’re real?”

“What?” I asked.

“I mean, maybe you’re my Wilson,” they said. “It’s been like three days with no human contact, so like you could be my first hallucination. Quick, say something only I would know?”

“What?”

Now I was really confused.

“You’re right. Here say something that couldn’t come from me.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked.

“Shit. That’s a hard one.” They nodded, thumb to lilac lips.

There was an awkward pause as we stared each other down.

“You’re real, aren’t you,” they said finally.

“Yes?”

“I can tell because only other people piss me off this much,” they said haughtily.

“Same,” I said through grit teeth.

“Ugh, whatever, you’re boring.”

Boring? People have called me a lot of things over the years, but never boring.

“Not to mention short,” they said critically and I fumed. “Whatever, I’m leaving.”

And they did. What the hell just happened? I watched them go into the Sephora and stay there. They were the first person I had met and I hated them. So what? If there’s one person there has to be more. And if not, well, I’ve always been a loner anyways.

I spent all day in the Victoria’s Secret right across from the Sephora, watching. Every so often they would go out and grab clothes from other stores and add them to the pile. Then it was change, catwalk catwalk, makeup, catwalk, five different kinds of lipsticks, a bunch of glitter hairspray, more catwalk and then the cycle repeated itself. Meanwhile, I’m busy wearing the worst kind of camouflage in a store that is so PINK it literally writes it on all of its clothing. I wound up falling asleep on a very plush push-up bra and when I woke up, the person was nowhere to be found.

I scrounged for food and fucked off to go sleep in the motorhome I’d stolen. Although at this point I’m not sure it could be called stealing. At night, I could hear the summer peepers and mosquito buzzes in my ear, there are soft glowing lights bouncing around outside and I ignored them intent on sleeping.

In the morning, I witnessed an odd sight: My favorite stranger waking up from sleeping on the Macy’s display furniture (damnit, that was a good idea, those mattresses look plush as fuck), disappearing for a bit, and then they reappearing, walking quickly with a towel in their hair and one around their chest to the little nest they made in the Sephora. Instead they found me.

“Where’d you find a working shower?” I asked, standing up from my crouched position over their clothes.

“Oh it’s you,” they said in disappointment.

“Where,” I repeated. “Did you find a working shower?”

“Hello! Good morning! Here’s your Cinnabon, Eren!” they said sarcastically.

Eren. So that’s your name.

“Where. Did. You. Find. A. Working. Shower?” I asked menacingly, taking a step towards Eren, crushing an eyeshadow compact beneath my boot.

Eren tugged their towel a little tighter and began worrying at their lower lip. Good. Be a little afraid.

“Why should I tell you?” they asked defiantly, sticking their chin out.

“Go ahead. Don’t. See how well that works out for you.”

They pointed and I followed their finger until I found a hidden employee shower. Will wonders never cease?

Oh god, showers are amazing. I kept it brief because I have no idea how long this shower will stay working or how long the hot water will last, but I got under my nails and behind my ears and it was glorious. When I stepped out, however, I noticed all my clothes were gone.

“Oh you little…”

I stormed out, furious and found Eren outside the bathroom, holding a pair of scissors to my duster.

“Not another step, Neo, or the ugly coat gets it!”

“Don’t you dare!” I warned, hand to the towel around my waist.

“I’m doing you a favor. You’re going to get heatstroke wearing leather in this heat,” they said sniffing.

“You’re dead,” I said in a low voice.

Sensing danger, they panicked. Eren tossed the scissors aside and booked it. I chased them. My friend Hanji once dared me to go streaking through the mall, but I chickened out because a security guard was standing by the entire time. Eren raced past the Lush and the carousel and I followed them buck naked. They looked over their shoulder and it must have been a terrifying sight. Imagine a very naked 5’3” angry shortie with resting bitch face gaining on you, fully intent on murdering you over an ugly duster. As Eren rounded the corner, slowing down so their pretty pink platforms could make the turn, I tackled them to the floor.

“Ha!” I said victoriously, pinning them and rescuing my duster.

Eren froze looking over my naked torso and then trailed his eyes downward to where we were pressed against each other. A rosy flush crept along their tan face. I snorted and put on my duster.

“Now you just look like one of those perverts who flashes people,” Eren said from the floor.

“Where are the rest of my clothes?” I asked.

They shrugged, dusting off their skirt and fixing their crop top. I found my clothes in a trashcan. Sighing, I set about washing them in the sink.

Eren came out to watch me hang them to dry from the Winnebago.

“What are you doing?” they asked, filing a chipped nail, a casualty of our tussle.

“What does it look like?” I said, sweating in nothing but Kenny’s duster.

“Like you’re hanging bunting,” they said sweetly, giving an acidic smile. “No, why are you washing clothes?”

“…Because they’re dirty,” I said as if it were obvious.

“You are in the parking lot of a mall. There are literally thousands of garments you could wear.”

“So you’re saying that if my clothes get dirty, I should just toss them? That is so fucking wasteful.”

“I’m just saying, I’m sure there is another Ramones shirt in there you could wear. Or at least a new pair of undies.”

I only grunted in response.

“Hey you never said your name.”

“That’s correct.”

“Come on, you’re the first person I’ve seen since…whatever this is happened. At least tell me what to call you, or else I’m going with Elvis.”

Oh god no.

“Levi.”

“Hi Levi, I’m Eren. He/him pronouns. Although I don’t mind She/her.”

He held out his hand and I begrudgingly shook it.

“So what do you think happened?” he asked, chewing on his lip again. “My best theory is some Left Behind shit—you know like Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains?”

“Look, just because you’re the only other person here doesn’t mean we have to talk.”

He huffed off. Good. Bye-bye.

I fell asleep outside, wearing just boxers and Kenny’s duster and woke up with a terrible sunburn. It was dusk by the time I roused myself and the wind had picked up. The humidity set a heavy sweat rolling down my neck and in the distance I heard the low rumble of stormclouds. I hurriedly pulled my socks and boxers off the line. My Ramones shirt glowed a bright green and I plucked off the firefly letting it walk along my fate line before blowing gently to help it move along. Its wings fluttered a bit before it took flight.

That night the storm hit. It started with a few low rumbles and then before I knew it the Winnebago was swaying from the breeze, hail hitting the roof loudly, the ceiling leaking and dripping onto my face as I hugged a pillow to my chest. Finally the wind ripped the door open and it hit the side with a loud bang and I’d had enough. I raced out in the storm and slipped in the doorway of the mall.

“Eren? Eren!” I called out.

I found him sitting upright in one of the display mattresses, covers wrapped around him so only his eyes were visible.

“It’s really loud,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I nodded, wiping my wet bangs out of my eyes.

I stood there for a moment, dripping onto the floor.

“You could stay here if you wanted,” he offered.

“Thanks,” I said and opened a queen sized sheet set, making up a mattress.

“What’re you doing?” he asked in confusion.

“Making a bed…” I said because it was obvious.

“Oh.”

And I realized he had been offering me to share his. Ha. He turned his head to the side in embarrassment, tugging the covers closer.

One problem with holing up in the mall was that all of the lights were on and so was the ‘oldies but goldies’ music lightly floating throughout the entire space. The volume was so low, however, it was like someone whispering in your ear while you’re trying to sleep. I pushed a pillow over my ears and tried to block it out. Eren however seemed to enjoy it.

“Jeremiah was a bullfrog,” he sang, still bundled up. “He was a good friend of mine.”

“Please, shut up,” I said through grit teeth.

“I never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink his wine,” he whispered.

Then a few minutes after that.

“Levi, what happens if the power goes out?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

In the morning, the storm had blown over. First thing I did was grab several flashlights and batteries. Then I grabbed some energy bars from the Winnebago, which was thankfully still intact although covered in debris, and chowed down.

When I reentered the mall, Eren was frantic.

“Where were you?” he asked, falling in step with me as I continued prepping.

“Out,” I said in a grunt.

“Why didn’t you wake me or tell me where you were going?” he asked, walking sideways now.

“Because it’s none of your business.”

He looked offended by this, but continued, “What should we do today?”

“You do what you want, I’ve got things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like getting out of here.”

“What?”

“Look, I have no intention of sticking around here.”

“But—but we’re the only two people left! You can’t leave!”

“I can and I will. And if I found you there are bound to be others. I’m sure someone else will come along. And hey maybe they’ll actually like you.”

“What the hell is your problem?” he grabbed my arm. “What about me bothers you so much?”

I looked him up and down and fixed him with a sneer.

“You look like someone put a Flintstones push-up pop in the microwave,” I said.

“So? It makes me happy. And I look cute. How is what I wear different than your whole punk nonsense? At least I’m original.”

“Original! Ha! I didn’t know you invented knee highs and chunky sweaters! See the problem with people like you—“

“People like me?”

“Yeah, people like you!” I spat, poking my finger into his chest. “The problem with people like you, is that you all think you’re so counter-culture, but you’re just another walking magazine, an advertisement. All you do is consume. You think you’re being original, because that’s what they’ve sold you on. You ever hunt fireflies in the summer? Well people like you are just like those fucking fireflies in a jar, each one trying to outshine the other thinking they’re brighter than the stars only to fade and burn out and die.”

“Who cares? Let me dress how I want to dress! Wear what I want to wear! What is the problem with that?”

“The problem is you’ve substituted aesthetic for a personality! At least punk means something.”

“HA!” Eren laughed. “Like what?”

“It’s about fighting against the establishment—“

“What establishment, Levi? In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t any people! There’s nothing to fight against! This may be as anarchist as it gets! And what’s wrong with me wanting to see the world in a brighter way? What’s wrong with trying to make things beautiful? Why are you so mean?”

“It’s better than being in denial!”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means, the world went to shit and you decided to play dress-up!”

His nostrils flared, his eyes widened and without warning, he socked me right in the nose.

I fell backwards onto my butt, clutching my bleeding nose.

“You’re just—you can’t—“ he panted, fists raised and I looked up at him, fire in my eyes.

It wasn’t pretty. I’ve been in plenty of fights before. I know how knock a man out. This wasn’t a bloody fist fight. This was pathetic. Two people tussling in the dirt. I ripped out one of his glitter hair thingies, taking a good chunk of hair with it. He scratched at my face, the buttons on his blouse ripping out my eyebrow piercing. I gave him a split lip when I accidentally elbowed him. And then we were tangled up biting, scratching, and slapping at one another, rolling around on the floor. He did more damage to me as I struggled to stop his flailing limbs. Finally, I had one arm bent behind him.

“Ow! Ow!” he yelped. “Don’t you’re going to break it!”

And if I did who would set it? No one. I sighed and released it shoving him away from me and panting on the floor. He scrambled away to a corner, his breath heaving in half sobs.

“Last two people on Earth and we’re fighting. What does that say about the human race?” he asked crying.

I cried too.

We didn’t talk much after that. I washed the dried blood off my face and changed my shirt. Then I went back to collecting supplies and when I came back Eren was drawing a line in chalk down the center of the mall.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’ve just decided that until you leave, we should stay on our own sides,” he said stiffly.

“You put the beds on my side,” I pointed out.

“I don’t care.”

“And the shower.”

“I don’t care.”

He stood up and limped away.

Night came and Eren curled up on the floor, his back toward the line he’d drawn. He was using all of his Forever 21 clothes as blankets. He looked a great deal like an Easter bunny surrounded by pastel eggs.

I walked past him, towards the beds and he said, “I miss my mom and dad. I miss my sister. I miss my friends. Why couldn’t it have been one of them instead of you?”

I curled up in bed but I couldn’t sleep. I thought packing up the Winnebago and moving on was necessary, but moving on to what? Where was there to go to? Or was I trying to go away from something? Someone? What if there wasn’t anyone out there? What if it truly was just him and me? What was the point of leaving?

I got out of bed and dragged my stuff over to where Eren had drawn the line and lay down next to it, staring at Eren’s back and his fitful sleep. When I woke up again, started awake from some awful nightmare, Eren was staring back at me across that line. I scooted closer, until my knees touched the chalk and he did the same.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I whispered.

“Neither could I,” he whispered back.

Apologies have never been my forte. So I didn’t say anything. I instead felt sleep drag my eyelashes down fluttering like wings in the breeze and then I was out. When I woke again, it was morning and Eren was looking back at me. We stared at each other for some time. I could see yesterday’s makeup still on Eren’s face, tear streaks in the silly glitter he wore. I had trouble breathing out of one nostril as it was crusty with blood. Neither one of us wanted to cross the line, for fear that made us the first to admit wrongdoing. Finally, I broke the strange silence by sitting upright.

“I have to shit,” I said.

Turns out several days of eating nothing but crap are not that good to your stomach. Eren was waiting to use the shower and I let him silently. We were like polite unspeaking roommates at this point. Eren showered and did his usual walk in his towel to pick out an outfit and I watched him, eating a bowl of cereal. There was still good milk in a freezer at the Starbucks so I used that as Eren tried on outfit after outfit before throwing on a mint green croptop and bleached denim high-rise cutoffs. He then left to do his makeup. I kept catching his eye in the mirror as he bent over applying cream after cream and powder after powder. Finally, I got up and walked over to him, sitting down on one of the spinning stools, slowly revolving. Eren watched me, his lips curling into a pleased smile.

“Want to try?” he asked waving around his tube of lipstick.

I snorted.

“C’mon,” he said, huffing. “I’m bored.”

I was bored too. My plans to take to the road like some rogue, roaming badass had been cut down and now I was stuck. When in Rome?

“Here…” Eren picked out a dark green. “You’re going to look like some evil swamp witch, I swear. It’s gonna look so punk.”

“Are you sure it’s not gonna look goth?”

“No, trust me.”

I froze as Eren came at me with the small tube.

“W-wait! That’s the sample!” I exclaimed nervously. “You can’t use that!”

“…That’s what it’s for,” Eren said.

“It’s got germs!”

Eren nodded understandingly as if this were some weird quirk of mine he was altogether too familiar with despite our short time together and I narrowed my eyes. He sprayed some of the cleaner on a tissue and wiped it off.

“Clean, see?” he said, shifting weight to one foot and dipping his hip.

“Fine,” I grumbled.

He moved forward slowly, like someone approaching a strange dog, underhand and palm open. Taking my chin he tilted it upwards. He twisted the base of the tube like a nurse flicking a syringe and I flinched, leaning away from him but his grip was oddly firm so my jaw jut out at an odd angle. As he approached I looked from him to the tube then back to him and back to the tube and then I scrunched my eyes closed as he finally made contact. He drew a line down my bottom lip and then began carefully filling in the points.

“You know you have amazing lips,” he said.

“Are we done?” I asked in panic.

“Almost. See, now we blot with a tissue, then you apply a little foundation—blot—just make granny gums on the tissue—there you go. Then after the foundation—yes, it’s clean Levi!—we reapply—“

“They only have you reapply so you’ll use more product and have to buy more,” I complained and he frowned squeezing my mouth.

“Stop talking,” he said, tucking his tongue into the corner of his mouth. “There. You look so fucking punk right now. You look like such a scary badass. Can I do your eyeliner?”

I looked in the mirror rubbing my lips together. He was right. I looked pretty scary. The shade was so dark green it was almost black and on my pale skin it leapt to life. I stood up to get a closer look in a mirror. God, imagine if I looked like this every day. Imagine if Kenny saw me looking like this.

“I look stupid,” I said wiping it off.

“What? No, Levi!” Eren protested as my attempts to remove it simply smeared it across my face.

“This is stupid,” I complained.

“Why would you do that?” Eren asked, looking completely crushed, while I looked like the Joker. “Why do you ruin everything?”

He stomped away, dabbing at his eyes.

“Hey, don’t do that,” I said catching up with him. “Don’t cry.”

He let out a hiccupping sob and then held it in, lips trembling.

“Don’t do that,” I said softly, taking a tissue and dabbing under his eyes. “You’ll ruin your makeup—“

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked angrily, indicating my lips.

“I just—it’s just not my thing,” I said shrugging.

“Because if you’re saying there’s something wrong with it, then you’re saying there’s something wrong with me!”

“I—“

I’d never really thought of it that way.

“It’s just not who I am,” I muttered.

“Then who are you, Levi?” Eren asked.

I don’t know.

“What is all of this for?” Eren waved at my clothes, knowing the same could be said of him.

He was mad at me. He was mad at himself.

“What are you trying to prove? You couldn’t even keep it on for five seconds to make me happy?”

“How does this make you happy?” I asked bewildered.

“Because I can forget! I can forget all of…this!” he shouted pointing at the empty space. “You’re so afraid what people will think of you. You’re afraid they’ll think you’re weak. Well guess what Levi? There’s only one fucking person in the world and he thinks you’re beautiful! And you—you can’t—you just—“

He was right. I was still tethered to who I was or who I was supposed to be. Still attached to Kenny’s shadow and his fragile concept of masculinity. Still wearing his fucking duster like it was a goddamn baby blanket. There was no one. There is no one. There might not be anyone else. And here we were, huddled up in the one section of the mall we could afford. But there was no money! There was nothing! There was just me and one sobbing brat who had the greenest eyes when he cried.

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Go ahead.”

I sat down on the stool and let him paint my face. Eren fixed the lipstick, still sniffling, but his tears subsided as he began focusing on applying eyeliner.

“I’m going to give you this totally smudged rockstar look,” he said and I nodded.

“Let’s go to the other side of the mall,” I said and Eren blinked in surprise.

So we did.

“I don’t know why,” Eren said as we walked through the expensive department store, huddled together like two scared country mice, afraid we might be told to leave. “But I keep expecting to see tumbleweeds.”

I laughed.

“You laughed,” Eren said in shock.

“I do a lot of things,” I said uncomfortably. “I’ve never been to this side of the mall before.”

“Neither have I,” Eren confessed.

“Too expensive,” we both said at the same time.

We turned to look at each other and Eren broke into an elated grin. Combat boots squeaking on the polished floor I took off in one direction and Eren took off in another.

“Look at all of these designer name brands!” he exclaimed, jumping around holding several blouses.

“What do you think?” I asked, coming around the corner in a brand new black leather jacket with so many zippers and straps it almost looked like bondage gear.

“Like sex,” Eren said nodding approvingly. “Oh! Wait!”

He disappeared for a bit and then reappeared with a graphic tee.

“New Ramones shirt! Because that one…uh…”

Had blood all over it and the neckline was torn from our scuffle?

“You got that here?” I asked, looking at it.

“Well yeah.”

“No that’s okay, I don’t need it,” I said shaking my head.

“I saw a Sex Pistols shirt too, I could—“

At my pained expression he stopped, hiding his laugh behind his hand.

We wandered around, pulling whatever we liked out and throwing it in a cart. As we passed a rack of prom dresses, I nudged him.

“You ever go to your prom?” I asked.

“No, they said I was beneath the dress code,” Eren said chewing on his lip. “Boys aren’t supposed to wear dresses. Especially not with super short hemlines.”

“I didn’t go to my prom either,” I said.

Only because I decide to get high behind the building instead.

We stared at the glittery dresses.

“Mermaid tail!” Eren said stepping out from the changing room in a green strapless dress covered in a million blue and seagreen sequins.

His dark skin brought out the bright colors of the dress and he twirled on the spot, sending little rays of light bouncing off the walls.

“How do I look?” he asked, throwing a sultry gaze over his bronzed shoulders.

“I gotta see you from the back again,” I said twirling my finger.

“Shut up!” he protested.

“Now that is an ass,” I nodded approvingly.

“Fuck off!” he laughed throwing a shoe at me.

It was hard finding a tux that fit me, given how wide my shoulders were but how short my body was.

“You have like weird gorilla proportions,” Eren said painting his nails to match his dress.

“Fuck it, I’m just wearing a bowtie and my new leather jacket.”

“And nothing else?” Eren asked, curling his lips into a playful grin.

Skinny jeans, no shirt, cummerbund and tie and my leather jacket.

“You know what you need, doll,” I said in a drawl, offering him my arm. “Accessories.”

“Yes!” Eren said jumping. “You read my mind! Here, let me go open the cases here and—“

“No, not here. Not in any of the department stores.”

I steered him through the mall, his dress making soft swishing noises, the sequins rustling as he followed me. He walked better than any Miss America I’ve ever seen. I stopped outside the store.

“Tiffany’s,” I indicated waving my arms.

“What? No!” Eren gasped. “We can’t!”

“Says who?” I asked, kicking down the door.

Decked out in a diamond tiara and several large diamond earrings Eren nudged my hands covered in silver as we sat eating protein bars sitting on the edge of the fountain in our prom gear.

“I feel like something is missing,” Eren said, tapping his seagreen shoes, wiggling the diamond toe ring.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I’m sick of protein bars and dried jerky,” he complained, throwing it aside. “It’s making my skin break out.”

I was also tired of dried food, but we had no way of growing our own produce quite yet.

“I have an idea,” I said.

The McDonald’s in the mall was on the far east side and the stench was unbearable. We hadn’t stepped in it to forage for food yet because of that fact. The thing they never show you in post-apocalyptic movies is how bad grocery stores smell. All of that fruit and produce going bad? Fly city baby. And McDonald’s may be the home of plastic food but there’s a great deal of dairy rotting in those McFlurry machines. Gross.

“Oh god,” Eren plugged his nose.

We propped open the front and back doors and soon the smell was slowly—slowly—filtering out. I was trying to remember that summer I spent stoned behind a Mickey D’s counter as I fussed with the oil.

“Just stay over there, babe,” I said.

I don’t know when petnames had started for us. I just know that I wanted to take care of him. He could take care of himself—I knew this, my nose knew this—but he was scared, fuck I was scared. No one prepares you for this shit. I just wanted to make what might be our last few years on earth the best they could have been because damnit he deserved so much more. I deserved so much more. We both deserved brilliance. So these diamonds? Fuck ‘em, I’ma wear them. They’re fucking meaningless now but they glittered on Eren’s bare neck and he just looked so radiant. Radiant. Eren fucking glowed.

“I don’t want you getting grease on your dress.”

Chicken McNuggets have a pretty long shelf life right? I sniffed the frozen bag and it seemed okay so I started up the fryer and made us a feast of nuggets and fries.

“Oh. Oh I love you. Oh. Oh my godddd. Oh this feels so good, you’re the best,” Eren moaned eating his nuggets and fries. “You’re like a superhero. Super Levi to the rescue with fries.”

But something was still missing.

“Why is there even a bar inside the Nordstrom?” Eren asked wrinkling his nose, his lips closed around a fry.

“Because they need a place to send the obnoxious husbands of the women shopping here,” Levi said, grabbing things from the bar.

“That is so sexist,” Eren said huffily.

I grabbed a bottle of champagne and Eren shrieked when it popped.

“May I pour you a glass?” I asked, waving the two flutes I was holding.

“No,” Eren said suddenly. “I want my own bottle.”

I offered to open it for him but he insisted on holding it between his thighs. When that failed he hit it with the bottom of his heels until it popped and bubbled out and he caught it eagerly with his tongue. We drank and passed fries back and forth, stumbling through the mall.

Then things got a little crazy and blurry.

Walking past the perfume counter of a third department store, I paused.

“I always hated it here,” I complained.

Eren nodded and put the bottle to his lips in thought.

One quick trip to the sports equipment store and I was stomping bottles on the counter, crunching them with my heavy boots and smashing bottles to pieces with an aluminum bat. Eren shrieked and howled, wearing a pair of goggles over his tiara as glass broke around him. He grabbed the prettiest most ornate bottles and lined them up on the railing overlooking the main atrium of the mall. Using an arm he ripped off a mannequin he swatted them out one by one.

“This is for all those years of T-ball I never wanted!” he howled.

“That one went far,” I nodded as one failed to break on contact and instead sailed through the air.

I found a security guard’s Segway that still had charge and tied a sales rack and pulled it behind me as Eren rode on it. I took a sharp turn and he screamed in laughter.

“I’m gonna fall!” he cried as I took another sharp turn.

We ran up and down the escalators until we grew breathless.

“What do I do?” Eren asked as I lay like a corpse on the moving rails of the escalator. “What if your straps get caught and the escalator like tries to eat you?”

“Just spin me. I saw it on Youtube.”

He gave me a little push and I kept my body rigid and began spinning in circles. Eren shoved a fry in my mouth as I sped by and then bit half off as I came by again.

I lopped the heads off of mannequins. Eren drew in lipstick all over the walls and I followed with spray paint.

LEVI HAS A TINY DICK.

LEVI HAS A TINY ^ MASSIVE DICK.

Eren ripped the computer monitors off of the POS and threw them over the railing.

“You know why they call them POS?” I asked.

“Why?”

“Because they’re pieces of shit!” I spat over the railing and Eren gasped in laughter.

Eren threw glitter in the fountain because he wanted it to “sparkle!”

Drunk off our asses, we smashed or tagged any glassy surface, made piles of mannequin limbs and strung them up like macabre art installations, screamed and howled at the top of our lungs and danced on every single sale counter. The level of debauchery was staggering. Jack Ass would have thought we overdid it. We couldn’t tell if we were celebrating or mourning, our crazed joy bordering on grief.

“If I were the king of the world, I’d tell you what I’d do!” I sang loudly and off-key, laying Eren down on the edge of the fountain. “I’d something something don’t know the words, make sweet love to you.”

Eren giggled and I pulled him upright.

So there we sat. Once the laughter and shouting stopped it was quiet. The ‘easy listening’ filtered through the mall like a ghost. The Segway was in the fountain. There was glass everywhere. I smoked a cigarette wearing $300 shades, covered in glitter and perfume, fries in my pockets. Eren’s tiara was crooked, an empty bottle in his hand. We viewed the destruction with reverence and awe.

Then, either because of the champagne or maybe the week old chicken McNuggets, Eren vomited all over the front of his dress.

<*>

I let Eren sleep in the next morning. We had pushed all of the mattresses together into one giant bed but managed to occupy only a small portion. Untangling from his arms was hard. His soft breathing tickled my chest, but I eventually won out.

I started sweeping up the mess from the previous night. We had really done a number on the place. I decided after cleaning up all of the glass I was going to clean out one of the fast food places so we could use the grills for food.

I heard Eren calling for me. Screaming for me. He staggered out in an undershirt and a pair of boxers looking round wildly.

“Levi!” he shouted, running around barefoot.

I stopped him.

“Where were you?” he cried, striking my shoulder. “I thought you’d left!”

“No, Eren. Eren calm down. I‘m right here. I’m here.”

I held him and he shuddered in my arms.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I just—I thought you—“

“I’m here,” I said pressing my cheek against his hair.

I’ve never been needed before. Or wanted.

“What were you even doing?” he asked finally, looking around.

“Cleaning.”

He snorted in laughter.

“Why?”

“So you don’t cut your feet on the glass,” I mumbled self-consciously and he picked up a bare foot sheepishly.

We had a lazy day, just curling up in bed. At night we sat on the curb to the back of the mall, watching the fireflies dance in the tall grass. I watched Eren put on lipstick in the reflection of the mirror as I read a book. He peered over the edge of the pages, green eyes sparkling.

“What do you think?” he asked, fluttered a pair of false lashes that had little beads at the end.

“You look like a butterfly,” I said astounded.

“Really?” he asked, looking flattered.

I set down the book and took his chin, kissing him in one seamless motion. He smiled against my lips and kissed me back. After that, we made out nearly every moment of every day. We sat out on our favorite curb eating granola bars, passing a bottle back and forth and swapping long lingering kisses. We curled against each other at night.

Time moved quickly and yet it seemed to not move at all. The days and nights ran into each other.

“Hold still,” Eren said and pressed a pair of bright pink lips to my neck, leaving a mark.

He grinned.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now stay there and don’t wipe it off.”

He pressed a pair of lemon yellow lips against my throat. Then green. My neck and chest were covered in bright glittery kisses. I looked at them in the reflection of the mirror as he straddled me and then covered my lips with his own.

“I think I love you,” he said at night into the dark. “And not because I have to and not because you’re the only person left. I think I dreamt for someone like you. And I might never have met you otherwise. There were just too many people in the way.”

I kissed his knuckles, thinking hard.

“Would you ever have talked to me if there were other people?”

“Probably not,” I admitted.

“Hey Levi,” he said a different day as we watched the fireflies, sitting on the curb again. “Let’s leave here.”

“I thought you didn’t want to leave?”

“I think I was in denial before. And I felt like we had to hunker down and survive. But surviving—“

“Ain’t living,” I agreed.

Eren nodded.

“And I was afraid. What was the point? I thought. But with you, I think I can go anywhere. We can do anything. Let’s go see things together, Levi. There’s a whole world out there just for us. I want to see that sight with you.”

I hadn’t thought about leaving for a long time, but he was right. With him, I can be free.

“Just the two of us on the open road,” Eren grinned.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

We spent the next day preparing. Gathering bottles of water and food for a good two months. The morning of, we woke up early, sealing all the entrances to the mall so animals wouldn’t overrun it.

Wearing a pair of jeans and a hoodie he slipped into the passenger seat of the Winnebago.

“Ready?” I asked, taking his hand and he nodded.

We passed Eren’s neighborhood and he waved. We passed mine and I hoped Jinx was okay. Probably chasing mice. As we crested the hill to exit the town Eren beamed at me excitedly and then he stopped as he looked out over the horizon.

“Levi,” he said in a shocked whisper.

“I see it,” I said.

“Levi what is it?” he asked, grabbing my arm.

“I don’t know,” I said, slowing the car to a halt.

Spreading over the valley, swallowing whole buildings and houses was a black curtain. Darker than a stormfront and gaining faster than a twister it swept over the town.

“Levi turn around,” he begged.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

“Levi!” he shook me.

“Yeah,” I said, popping the Winnebago in reverse and peeling down the street.

“It’s following us!” Eren said looking over his shoulder. “Levi it’s gaining! Go faster!”

I pressed my foot to the floor and we squealed down the highway, the shadow of the wall chasing us.

We made it back to the mall and immediately boarded up the doors and windows. We didn’t see it for another half hour, noses pressed against the glass and then it overtook the parking lot and the Winnebago but stopped at the curb, waiting.

“Oh my god,” Eren gasped.

I took off in the other direction and Eren called after me. I just had to look out the back windows. I had to see—

“We’re trapped,” I said, hearing Eren come up behind me. “It’s trapped us in here.”

Eren burst into tears. I held him as he cried, watching the immobile black wall.

“I didn’t mind staying here with you,” he said still sniffling. “But now we’re stuck in here, Levi. What if we run out of food? Or water? Everything we had we put in the Winnebago and now it’s gone. It’s just gone, Levi.”

I stroked his hair, mouth tight.

The shadow didn’t appear to have moved and so we stood on our curb and watched it. The darkness was opaque. A solid wall that had boxed us in on all sides.

“What do you suppose it is?” Eren asked.

I had no idea.

“Levi look!” He seized my arm. “The fireflies!”

There where the tall grass would have been (or so I thought, it was hard to get a sense of proportion) were our fireflies blinking brightly in the black, seemingly unharmed.

“Maybe only inanimate objects are taken,” Eren said out of the corner of his mouth.

We had taken to whispering in front of it.

“Well, let’s find out,” I muttered back.

I picked up a rock and threw it.

“No! Don’t!” Eren grabbed my arm a second too late. “What if it gets mad?”

There was no sound of a thud, but I also couldn’t see it in the dark. The wall appeared unfazed by the rock so we painted a few others bright neon and threw them at it. One of mine—bright yellow—landed in front of the shadow, a few feet short. Eren’s went further and into the emptiness where it stuck, suspended in the air.

“Oh god,” Eren covered his mouth.

He spent the entire night turning in his sleep and sobbing. In the morning I checked the shadow. It had moved forward, past my rock, but I could still see it and the one Eren had lobbed. It was crawling towards us.

Eren sat on the curb with me all day, refusing to eat. Eyes red rimmed and face clear of any makeup he watched the wall. The fireflies came out at night, blinking in the distance, our only stars.

“We’re going to die here, aren’t we?” he asked me.

“No, we’re not,” I said fiercely.

“Have you noticed?” he asked. “It’s been nearly ten days and yet the grass barely looks longer.”

I hadn’t noticed that.

“And the music keeps playing on a loop over and over again.”

“That’s just the tape—“

“Is it?” he asked. “What if…what if everything just stopped? Time stopped?”

“We’re going to get out of here, Eren,” I said, kissing his hands. “We’re going to go to the coast like you wanted. Every day we’ll get up and watch the sunrise. Hm?”

At night he was quiet. When I woke he wasn’t in bed. I found him out by the fountain, wrapped in a blanket. He seemed calmer than he had since we returned.

“So I’ve been thinking,” I said. “What if we try going to the roof? Maybe there’s a weak spot we can exploit and—“

“I went out to where the fireflies were last night,” he said quietly.

“What? Why would you do that? Eren!” I shook him.

“And I talked to them,” he said calmly.

“Who? You talked to who Eren?”

“The beings in the wall.”

He must have seen the horror on my face because he reached out a hand to touch my cheek.

“And it’s okay Levi,” he said. “They told me we don’t need to be afraid.”

“You went into that thing?” I asked.

“They said we’ve been so brave but it’s okay. We can let go. This world has died. Hey, hey listen—Levi, it’s okay, we don’t need to be worried. This world is collapsing into another. That’s where everyone else has gone. They just missed a few of us. And we’re going to be reborn into this new world. We’re not trapped here, we’re being set free.”

“No,” I said. “No, Eren, it’s a trick. Don’t believe it. Don’t believe them—“

“It’ll be just like this world, Levi,” he said, holding my hand. “All of our friends, family will be there—“

“NO!” I stood up pulling at my hair.

“My mom might even be alive in this one,” he continued.

“They just told you what you wanted to hear so you’d give up Eren!” I shouted spinning on the spot.

“Levi, it’s okay, we can go to this new place together. We can go to the ocean like we wanted.”

“What makes you think there is a new world? What makes you think we’ll live if we go? What if we don’t know each other? What if you forget me? What if you and I never meet? I love you, Eren. I don’t want to go to a world where you might not exist.”

“I’m going.”

“No. I love you Eren, don’t do this. Don’t you leave me here!”

Eren closed his eyes and then I saw it. The wall of emptiness moved behind him, consuming everything. Devouring the mall before my eyes. Eren held my hand firm but I wrested out of his grasp.

“It’s okay, Levi. We can fall in love all over again,” he said palm open.

I shook my head stepping backwards. The emptiness swallowed him whole, slowly moving over his head and shoulders and then there was nothing but his outstretched hand and it slipped away.

I ran. I ran and I shut myself into the bathroom, shoving everything I could against the door to keep this horror at bay. I curled up into the corner.

“Eren don’t leave me. Don’t leave me don’t leave me,” I mumbled over and over again rocking back and forth.

The door shuddered and I scrunched my eyes closed.

“Don’t leave me Eren. Don’t don’t don’t.”

Of course this was how I was going to die. Curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor next to the shitter, crying in fear. I felt the wall push through.

“Please don’t leave me,” I begged as it took me.

Then there was nothing but darkness.

<*>

“Don’t leave me,” I mumbled.

“Levi!”

I know that voice. Hanji.

“He really bit it, should we call an ambulance?”

“He’s coming around!”

“How do you feel?” Farlan asked as I slowly blinked my eyes open.

I looked around at all their faces as they leaned over me, Izzy chewing on her bubble tea straw.

“Scarecrow,” I said to Hanji, pointing.

“Huh?” they asked wrinkling their nose.

“Tin man,” I said to Farlan.

“Fuck off.”

“Cowardly Lion,” I said tugging Izzy’s pigtail.

“Hey!” she protested.

“I had a dream. And you weren’t there,” I pointed. “And you weren’t. And neither were you! In fact no one was there, the world was completely empty.”

“Sounds like Levi’s heaven,” Farlan said dryly.

“Ow, what happened?” I asked.

“You wiped out chasing some twelve year old punk who stole a game,” Hanji said. “We were walking by or else we would have missed the whole thing and it was mwah, beautiful.”

“See, this is why we have rules about theft, Levi!” Erwin said from somewhere behind Hanji. “It’s in the employee manual that we’re not supposed to chase thieves and instead let loss prevention handle it.”

“Toto!” I exclaimed, pointing, and Erwin grumbled.

Wait, loss prevention? Employee manual? I hesitated to look down and then groaned.

“What?” Izzy asked.

“I forgot I worked at the Game Stop,” I groaned.

I spent a good part of my shift nursing a headache. Erwin said I could go home, but I needed the hours. Had everything been a dream? No. It had been real. It had to have been real. Because only the universe would think it was funny to have me die in the bathroom of one mall and then wake up working at another. Fucking irony. Irony? Maybe the Alanis Morisette version of irony. I had all of my memories from my previous life and also new ones from this life.

And man was this life just as boring as the previous one.

“Levi, do you think you could do a quick inventory of the—“

“Fuck off Erwin. You’re only the assistant manager.”

“Hey! Do you want to get written up?”

“I’m taking my break,” I said throwing my lanyard aside and clocking out.

I wandered around the mall, snagged a free sample at the Teavana (super sweet, gross) rubbing at the back of my head where I could feel a lump forming.

It wasn’t our mall. It wasn’t the one I had owned for a brief moment with Eren. It was different. Fuck I was tired. I had just lived two lifetimes in one day and I was emotionally drained.

Then I saw them.

They were sitting at the counter of the M.A.C. looking very bored, chin in hand, wearing a seafoam green wig and an oversized sweater with several cats printed on it. My feet moved before I knew what was happening.

“Uh, hello,” I said awkwardly and they started out of their reverie.

“Hi,” they said sliding out of their chair. “Did…were you looking for something?”

You. Eren.

“Sort of,” I sad scratching at the short hairs on my neck. “What…what do you recommend?”

They rattled off their entire product line, primers, foundation, eye shadow, lipstick.

“Yes, that,” I said pointing to the lipstick. “Red.”

They went into a list about what kinds of reds they had.

“You have what we would call a bluish undertone,” Eren informed me. “So you’ll want to steer clear of reds that are orange-y in nature. Go more for purple. See?”

Eren held up a tube.

“Do you want to apply it or do you want me to?” Eren asked.

“Uh, you go ahead,” I said. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

They gently took my chin in their relaxed hands, just like I knew they would. And then they swiped across my bottom lip.

“You have gorgeous lips you know,” they said, tongue in the corner of their mouth as they focused. “Nice cupid’s bow, this color will really bring them out you know. Oh, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling a little as they paused.

“You’re crying,” they pointed out.

“Just allergies,” I lied.

“Finished!” Eren said. “Now I can show you other—“

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.

They looked at me with trepidation.

“Sure,” Eren answered slowly, as if knowing what the question was going to be.

“What—how—would you want me to me to refer to you?”

“Eren is fine,” they said in a clipped tone.

“I mean, which pronouns would you prefer?” I stuttered.

“Oh, I mean, uh, whatever you want I guess. He/him most days. It’s what my dad uses. Um, usually when I wear the wig though I get a lot more people calling me she/her and I don’t mind. I just hate when they go ‘MISS! Excuse me miss! Oh sorry I thought you were a lady.’ So um, whatever makes you comfortable.”

“But…what makes you comfortable?”

Eren fussed about cleaning the sample for a long time before answering.

“I don’t really know. I think people expect me to know, but um…I don’t. And then when I say I don’t they think somehow that makes it false like ‘you’re just confused’ and I don’t know. People think that I put on a dress because I want to be a girl, but it’s not about what I’m wearing, I just…want to be me. I just don’t really know who ‘me’ is yet.”

I nodded slowly.

“Yeah it’s…” I struggled. “It’s not really what you look like out the outside that matters, right?”

Eren snorted.

“You do realize that I work at a makeup counter in the mall right?” Eren asked, head cocked to the side.

I was silent at that.

“And at any rate,” Eren said, putting things away. “I don’t always feel like one or the other. It varies day to day and sometimes I’m in between.”

“So…who are you today? Right at this moment?” I asked quietly.

They paused and a slight flush crept across their tan cheeks.

“Eren. She/her. For today at least. I’ll let you know who I am tomorrow.”

“I’d like that.”

She smiled and rang me up for the lipstick.

It struck me that I’d never fully appreciated how brave Eren was. Eren was the one who had walked out into the unknown, so dedicated to get us free. I was the one who had cowered in the bathroom. And I’d only said “I love you” when I thought I might lose her. She deserved better than that.

I saw her again a few days later. She was wearing the same wig and pacing back and forth at the back of the mall by our curb in toe pinching heels. I walked by her slowly.

“Oh,” she said startled by my presence. “Hey, it’s you.”

“Hi,” I said, messing with my keys.

“Eren. They/them today,” they said brightly, but their eyes were wet. “Hey so, my ride bailed and it’s like another hour until the bus comes and I was wondering if you could give me a ride home? I know we don’t really know each other but um…”

“Sure.”

They were quiet most of the ride home, sniffling.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I had a really bad day at work,” they said, flipping down the mirror to my truck, wiping at their makeup. “Okay, don’t look.”

Eren dug around and then pulled off the wig.

“Oh thank god, that was getting so itchy,” Eren said scratching at their scalp, fluffing up their chestnut locks.

Eren watched me but I kept my eyes on the road. I could sense those green eyes training on me and it hurt.

“Okay, I have to tell you something weird.”

I snorted.

“No, I’m serious, it’s really weird. Okay so, a few weeks or months ago, I had this dream and you were in it.”

I felt my throat swell up with emotion but tried to keep it out of my face.

“Oh?” I asked in a choked voice.

“Yes, you and I were the only two people on Earth. And it’s weird because until you walked into the shop a few days ago I had never seen you. I mean, I must have seen you somewhere around the mall or at least my subconscious did. It was weird though.”

I didn’t answer, I only tightened my grip on the steering wheel.

Eren only spoke to give me directions after that and as I stopped in front of their house, there was a pause.

“Thanks,” they said.

“No problem.”

“You’re really easy to talk to. You look scary, but you’re actually really sweet.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, but I felt my face heat up a little.

Eren leaned over and kissed my cheek and then before I could say anything they were out of the truck and through the front door.

I felt like I could fly. I practically glided away, my mind buzzing as I drove home. I pulled the truck in the garage and pulled out cereal and a bowl and was busy eating in front of the tv when Kenny came in and picked up Jinx to sit next to me.

“You’ve got a little somethin’ on yer cheek there,” he pointed and I put my hand to where Eren had kissed me and flushed all over again. “Don’t let yer mother see that.”

“See what?” she asked, breezing by with laundry.

She grabbed my cheek and tilted it, then gave me a light love tap and tsked. Mom spent the rest of the night complaining about how I haven’t brought my special someone around the house yet.

It wasn’t the last mark Eren left on me. I hid my laundry from Mom’s prying eyes so she wouldn’t see the lipstick on the collars. Eren and I spent our time after shifts sitting out on the curb watching the fireflies dance in the distance. And then the weeds grew dimmer and there were fewer of the little glowbugs out. Yet Eren stayed by my side, kissing my neck as the long grass grew burnt and brown.

This world wasn’t better. And it wasn’t worse. It just was, in that moment, in every moment, perfect yet fleeting. A series of bright flashes, sparks of happiness, only to blink out and fade. Right now, however, with Eren whispering he loved me, it was so very beautiful.