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The quiet ringing of the doorbell is what woke up the old, silver haired man. Levi’s head shot up in surprise and his brows furrowed in confusion as he looked around in their small lounge. Clicking his tongue, he tapped at his hearing aid, assuming that the ringing noise was coming from it. The piece of garbage had a knack for playing up lately. When the noise didn’t stop, he growled under his breath.
Pushing the lever on his wheelchair, Levi moved towards the couch where his husband, Eren, was snoring away during his afternoon nap. Picking up the cane beside the couch, he used it to poke Eren in the rib.
“Oi, Oi,” Levi muttered. “Wake up you old-bugger.”
With a few more harsh probes, Eren’s snores turned into a snort until he choked himself awake. After a small coughing fit, he looked quizzically at his husband.
Levi scoffed. “Do you hear the ringing noise or is it my shitty hearing aids again?”
It took a few blinks until Eren’s eyes shot wide open as he heard the ringing doorbell.
“Doorbell,” Eren confirmed as he grabbed the cane from Levi and heaved himself up slowly. With old and cracking bones, he stood and righted himself.
It was a hard task to waddle himself to the front door as Eren was still recovering from a hip replacement. After a decent ten minute waddle that would put a penguin to shame, Eren got to the front door and opened it. What he found was their usual parcel delivery guy and three big boxes, all stacked in a lovely pile. His eyes flew back to linger on the young man in question.
Eren always felt envious of the young parcel driver. He was good looking and surely in his twenties still. Oh how Eren missed the days when he was still a spring chicken and happy to be running around. Now he was pushing 80 and needing a fooking cane to walk around. Never mind the balding and excess skin from years of working out at the gym. How sad.
“Good afternoon, Mr Ackerman! Parcel delivery for you, Sir. May I get your signature?” The young man asked, holding out the digital device and a small plastic pen with a brilliant smile and not a wrinkle in sight.
Eren stared at the man in confusion. He didn’t order anything, did he? Neither did Levi, surely. Well, that he was aware of anyway. Eren didn’t allow Levi to order things online anymore - such as their groceries - as Levi had a habit of shaky fingers and miss clicking things. The amount of boxes and their sizes outside took Eren back to a recent mishap of when Levi ordered 222 packets of toilet rolls instead of 2. What an eventful delivery day that was. Eren vowed never again.
Eren squinted suspiciously at the boxes and yet plucked the little plastic rod out of the young man’s fingers anyway with his own wrinkly and sun-spotted ones. It was hard to read who the delivery was for as he had forgotten his glasses, although signed it anyway. Even in this ripeful age, receiving parcels was still a joy. Who knows, perhaps it was a surprise gift.
“Would you like me to carry these in, Sir?” The young man asked when he was given the device back.
Eren felt absolutely delighted at the young fellow asking such a question.
“Oh please, young chap! Nice to see you young ones having some manners still,” Eren agreed happily. He stepped aside and allowed the postage man to do his job.
Meanwhile, Eren waddled with his cane to get his glasses and an envelope cutter his late friend, Armin, had gifted to him once his will had been released. Eren had passed his husband in the lounge who was found to be sleeping in his wheelchair again; something that Levi had been doing frequently as of late. What a lazy, grouchy old man, Eren thought endearingly.
Eren found the boxes nicely packed by the entrance foyer and with a chuckle and goodbye from the parcel man, he was left to find out what exactly was in the boxes. He was beginning to hope it was a gift and not something Levi had ordered by mistake. He quickly got to work, slicing the tape and opening a box.
What Eren found confused him even more. It was most definitely not for him. There were hundreds of small clear plastic packets, all containing thousands of little clear crystals. They shone wonderfully and were packed so tightly. Without a second thought, he groaned.
Oh he knew it. This was most certainly Levi’s fault!
“Levi!!” Eren shouted angrily, knowing full well that it was going to take a few more calls to his 93 year old husband to wake up. He threw a big breath to try a few more times.
After a short while and a few more painful screams, Eren heard the telltale signs of a snort and some garbled words.
“Why did you order crystals again!?” Eren demanded when he knew for certain his husband was awake.
“What!?” Levi shouted in return.
“I thought you weren’t collecting them anymore! You were happy to get rid of them!”
Eren well and truly thought Levi was. Back when Levi was in his 60s, he had retired with a very delicious figure in his bank account. With too much time and too much money, Levi took up hobbies and began collecting things. In the midst of going to crystal shops, mountains and many antique roadshows, Levi started a collection of crystals, geodes, rocks, and gems. Before either of them knew it, he had an entire trophy room full of it, in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
Unfortunately, when they had reached too old of an age, they had to sell their house and move into a one bedroom town house in a retirement village. It was nice, still having the freedom but having the security of doctors and nurses nearby. At the time Levi seemed to have been okay with selling his collection after some bargaining, although now Eren thought otherwise.
“What?”
“Crystals!” Eren yelled.
“What!?” Levi grumbled again, a little louder as he wheeled himself closer to Eren. “What shitty crystals? I didn’t order anything,” Levi sneered, looking right off peeved. He crossed his deathly pale arms in anger and looked at Eren straight in the eyes with an icy glare.
Still a little annoyed at Levi for ordering crystals without his knowledge and acting completely oblivious, Eren grabbed one of the little baggies and held it up towards Levi to prove his point.
“These crystals,” Eren snarled. “Don’t tell me we’re starting this up again. We don’t have room, Levi. ”
Levi took the baggy with a shaky hand, turning it over and over again to inspect it. At one point his silver brows lifted in surprise, before furrowing again and letting out a grumble.
“You blithering idiot,” Levi snickered. “Have you forgotten what this is, you old-shit?”
“Huh?” Eren asked, his fading white eyebrows shooting to his wrinkled forehead and hairless scalp. “What do you mean? It looks like those crystals you had on that one shelf at the old house.”
“It’s not. It’s fucking meth.”
“What!?” Eren squeaked, his eyes widened in shock, staring at his husband in disbelief. “Levi, you can’t be serious! Why did you order meth? Have you gone bonkers!?”
“No, you blithering fool. I’m 93 and not kicking the bucket yet,” Levi retorted. “Must have been the wrong address. Who did you sign for?”
Well, with that slight scare off his shoulders, Eren reasoned internally that maybe Levi was right. Maybe it was all a mistake.
“Oh yeah…” Eren mumbled. He hadn’t been wearing his glasses at the time. He looked to the box and found their address and yet a name that was most certainly neither of theirs. “Not ours,” Eren confirmed.
But if it’s not theirs, then who was this person? And why on earth did they send so many boxes? Was this all a joke? What were they meant to do with all of this!? There’s no way either of them would make use of it.
Eren continued on to read the weight of each box, gasping as he did the maths of the three combined boxes. His eyes widened comically as the total shocked his core.
“Oh fuck me! 20kgs worth of meth, Levi!” Eren exclaimed, he looked to his husband in surprise.
“Hoh,” Levi breathed, his own thin brows raising in interest. “Must have been a drug dealership. Blithering idiots didn’t even try to hide this shit.”
“No kidding,” Eren muttered, looking back down to the boxes containing the meth.
They could go to jail with all of this, surely. How were they going to explain this situation? He’s too old to go to jail! They don’t have any kind of money to pay the fines for having drugs in their house. Much less bailing out of jail. They weren’t fast enough to run away with it either like when they were young adults, nor even use it for that matter. Neither of them could drive to dump it anywhere either. Unless he asked one of his godchildren, of course. Although he wouldn’t want them to get involved. His mind spun, anxiety getting the best of him. Until he remembered his husband was right there. He was experienced in this sort of thing. He’d be rational about all of this.
Biting at his dry lips and feeling anxious over the entire situation, Eren lifted his head from the box and asked the most important question, “So now what?”
Levi all but shrugged his thin, shaky shoulders.
“Either we sell up or hand it in. What’s it going to be, old-shit?”