Chapter Text
"No one will ever love you passionately for being nice."
Charles Baxter
II.
The apartment in Trost was grander than the one they'd had in Shiganshina. For this reason, Erwin knew, Levi liked it less.
But it was acceptable. It was on the second floor with a good view of the quiet street, which crossed a larger boulevard at the other end, verging on a large and splendid public garden. Moreover, the white-tiled kitchen was big, with a proper oven, and the bathroom was huge too, with a freestanding claw-footed bathtub big enough to fit them both.
Erwin thought Levi would like that very much. But he knew they were here for him.
To his shame, he realised, looking around at these comparatively stately surroundings, he did not feel changed. He could just about stop himself from curling all around Levi at all times like an overgrown kitten -- though even that took effort -- but he could not quite translate that reserved energy into action. Instead, he watched Levi unpacking things carefully into the gleaming kitchen, skiving off his own task of unpacking their clothes into the large and overly-dignified wardrobe in the bedroom.
He eventually found himself pathetic, standing around mooning over Levi arranging the packets of spices, and went off to do his own job. By the time he was done, Levi was in the bathroom, inspecting the cleanliness situation and taking inventory of the toiletries. Erwin leaned against the doorframe, watching him silently.
"This bathtub is ridiculous," Levi announced, looking at it with a critical eye. Erwin smiled at him.
"I think you like it," Erwin said. "But you're afraid of liking it, or getting used to it. So you have to pretend you think it's ridiculous."
"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know everything I said was going to be the subject of an investigation," Levi sniffed, turning to the sink and beginning to sort through the modest collection of soaps and oils he had carefully shuttled around with him.
"I'll stop on one condition," Erwin said, coming over to wrap his arms around Levi from behind.
"You'll stop if I tell you to," Levi corrected snidely.
"You have to bathe with me sometime," Erwin said, ignoring this rebuttal in favour of kissing Levi's ear.
"In your dreams, old man," Levi said.
---
The apartment block was located in an area that had clearly once been rather fancy but was now going to seed; that was why Levi could tolerate it, Erwin thought.
But still, they were going to have to find a bakery. A bakery so good that it could make Levi forget about Shiganshina, or at least, appreciate what there was on offer in Trost. Erwin hardly needed to have the thought -- Levi would take care of it, he knew, and Levi did. Every morning he got out of bed, sometimes slipping out of Erwin's tenacious, sleepy embrace to do so, straightened himself out and set off on his mission.
He always came back with a baguette and something else as well, and Erwin loved to lie in bed imagining it, Levi trotting around the neighbourhood in pursuit of sweets. At first he bought pain au chocolat, as had become his habit in Shiganshina, but he started branching out soon enough, unable to resist the variety -- first it was chocolate macarons, then pistachio, then warm and crackly cannelle, and one time sour cherry clafoutis -- but nothing compared to the day Levi brought home something in a box rather than a little paper bag.
"Look at this," Levi said, and his eyes were as big as saucers as he opened the pastry box and showed Erwin what was inside.
It never got old, seeing Levi like this. Levi, who oversaw the annihilation of each batch of innocent, green recruits with the same stoic world-weariness with which he approached everything from brewing tea to breaking someone's arm, now actively emoting over this. Pastries. That was what it took to crack him. Erwin could count on one hand the times he had even seen Levi like this during sex. But here they were. Pastry.
It wasn't that Erwin was jealous of the pastry, but the thought had occurred to him, and that alone was bizarrely delightful enough.
"It looks delicious," Erwin said, peering at it, still waking up while the coffee was steeping in the french press. He thought he had seen something like it once before, though he couldn't remember the name of it.
"It's called millefeuille," Levi said, pre-empting him, pronouncing the word carefully but flawlessly.
Erwin wondered how long Levi had been salivating over such a thing before he had allowed himself to buy it, or if instead he had marched in and purchased one the minute he had seen it. Erwin was not much for confection, but even he had to admit this one looked handsome; the pastry cream flecked with vanilla, dotted with raspberries at the edges, sandwiched between three crackly layers of pastry, lacquered with butter and sugar.
It was tricky to cut it in half, but the knives in the apartment were sharp and Levi was careful.
Levi picked up his half of the millefeuille, studying it. Then Erwin had an idea.
"Come here," he said, catching Levi by the waist and drawing him into his lap. Levi made a little noise of surprise right on the edge of protest, but he went down willingly enough. Erwin pulled Levi more firmly into his lap, wrapping his arms around him.
"Don't you want to eat yours?" Levi side-eyed him, an air of sniffiness about this evident lack of taste and appreciation.
"I want to watch you eat yours first," Erwin said, gazing at Levi.
Levi took a bite, and it must have been good, because he made a soft little moan of gratification when the taste hit his tongue.
"Is it good?" Erwin nosed at him, asking even though Levi's eyes were closed and he was evidently not in an analytical frame of mind. So many stupid questions, Erwin Smith.
Levi took another bite. One of Erwin's hands wandered into Levi's lap, and Erwin was half-expecting Levi to slap it away, but he didn't -- he let him do it. He let him unbutton his trousers and reach his hand inside and stroke him there while he ate, either because he wanted it or because he was too preoccupied to care.
It felt right to service Levi like this. It felt fitting; only proper. It felt like the least he could do.
Erwin watched in rapt adoration as Levi enjoyed himself. It didn't seem like Levi was going to come from this, which was fine, Erwin just wanted to touch him, to make him coffee, to see him finding pleasure in anything, to bear witness to his joy.
---
The park at the end of the boulevard was more than a park, properly, but Levi could not bring himself to call it a garden. He often went out to wander in it, for it was large and beautiful, and even after two weeks he had not scoured every little corner of it, snooping for birds and violets. He didn't feel self-conscious about it either. People in Shiganshina had known who they were, or some of them anyway. But nobody knew them in Trost.
It must have been somebody's full-time job to design the flower beds along the large central embankment. Concentric circles of flowers, red and yellow and pink, and little fluffy snowballs of white petals fringed with pink as well, like tiny bonbons, plump and cherry-bright.
Sometimes Erwin walked with him. There was a large and ornate fountain in one quadrant of the garden, sculpted with fish and ancient water-gods Levi did not recognise but somehow knew. As the weather got warm, Levi wanted to put his feet in the fountain, but he did not like the logistical challenge of stripping off his socks and shoes in front of everyone, so he kept his desire to himself.
"What's this?" Levi asked Erwin as they walked past one of the splendid flower-beds, reaching out to touch the yellow petals with the tips of his fingers, feather-light.
"Tulips," Erwin said.
"And these?" Levi asked, indicating a handsome bed of dark purple flowers with many rows of fringed petals.
"Also tulips," Erwin said.
"But they're different," Levi objected.
"There's a lot of different types," Erwin said. "I don't know all the names."
Levi leaned in to inspect the flowers more closely, giving them his full attention.
"They used to be worth a fortune, I think," Erwin said. "There was some period, a very long time ago, when a single tulip flower might be worth more than a house in the center of Mitras. It was madness."
"Was it?" Levi said, thinking of awful, cloying Mitras and then the world outside the walls, the woods, the fields, the little rivers. Birds chirping in the old forest, insects humming, fish splashing on the surface of the pond. Bright flowers in the open meadows, with nothing but air for miles.
"Ah," Erwin said, knowing what Levi was thinking, seeing it written on his face. "Of course not," he said, watching the delicate petals sway in the breeze.
---
Still, there was only so much the flowers could really do. At the root, Trost was stuffy, there was no denying it.
Erwin was accustomed to that, relaxing into it without much trouble. He barely noticed that Levi was not doing the same. He thought that it would be nice to take advantage of the comparatively higher-end restaurant options in the neighbourhood and further uptown, to show Levi what Trost could offer that Shiganshina never could. The middle and upper classes could be a little crusty, but they did have a certain interest in the culinary arts that Erwin hoped would translate into a dining experience Levi would really appreciate.
Within 90 seconds of being seated among these illustrious fellow patrons, everyone hush-hush, well-mannered and genteel in their plush, high-backed chairs at small, well-distanced tables set with three rows of cutlery each, complete with silver napkin-holders, Erwin knew he had made a colossal mistake.
Levi was acting cool about it, stoically perusing the menu, but his shoulders were hunched up in that way that indicated abject misery, as tense as Erwin had ever seen him. It was strange, Erwin thought, in the slow unspooling moment it took his mind to process the information in front of him. Levi was so much more comfortable facing Titans, vomiting from fever and exhaustion and watching people die than having dinner in Trost.
“You hate this,” Erwin said, quiet enough that only Levi could hear him.
“It’s fine,” Levi said, not looking up from his iron grip on the fancy menu.
“It’s not fine if you hate it,” Erwin said, “we can leave.”
“We’re not leaving,” Levi said stubbornly.
“Tell me what the problem is,” Erwin entreated him softly.
“These smug, priggish bastards remind me of the cops,” Levi said immediately, glaring down at the menu, determinedly not looking at the other patrons of the restaurant around them. Erwin was flooded with the dual sensation of gratitude towards Levi for always telling the truth when asked, and cold fear at what he, Erwin, had done, horror at what he had failed to consider.
"I'm sorry," Erwin said, eyes widening, "I didn't think-- we can leave," he said.
“If this is important to you, we’re staying,” Levi said.
“It’s not,” Erwin said, still reeling from the misunderstanding, and he saw the sudden dawning of comprehension in Levi's eyes, the absurdity of Erwin thinking that he’d been doing something nice for Levi, and how could he have been so stupid, of course Levi would hate it, would hate everything about it.
Levi stood up and started walking back to the door without another word, leaving it to Erwin gather up their coats and trail after him.
As soon as they were out on the street Levi lit a cigarette and inhaled desperately, sucking it down the way he only did when he was exceedingly anxious. He smoked the entire cigarette with the kind of manic energy that Erwin usually associated with the beginning or end of a blood rage, then lit another off the end of the first and started smoking the next one. He was breathing fast and deep. He must have been tremendously angry.
"I didn't realise--" Erwin started, and he saw a distinct tremor of fury run through Levi's body at the words.
"I'm not you, Erwin!" Levi burst out despite himself, struggling and failing to contain it. "I'm not your boyfriend from the military academy!"
"I know," Erwin said.
"You pick me up like a rat in the underground and then what? Forget all about it? You tell yourself I'm just like you? That I was born like you, had a childhood like you? That I would feel comforted by silverware?" Levi was almost shaking. Erwin said nothing. "Answer me!" Levi demanded.
"I don't tell myself that," Erwin said, meaning it. "I promise, I don't."
"But you don't tell yourself the truth either," Levi sneered. "You don't tell yourself the real story of how come I'm with you now."
Erwin shivered even though he had already put his coat on, and he was holding Levi's coat in his hand, lamely, foolishly, not brave enough to slip it over Levi's shoulders and with good reason.
"I try to," he said quietly. The story was painful now. He knew that he had forced Levi's hand, that he had not invited him to leave the underground but had dragged him out at knife-point after shoving his face in the sewer-water. He had done it even though a part of him had already been captivated by Levi. He had done it because a part of him had been captivated by Levi. He knew that. He admitted it on demand. But it was true he did not dwell on it. He wanted it to be prettier than it was, sometimes. It was weakness. He knew that too.
"Try fucking harder," Levi glared. "Don't make me rub your nose in it all the time; don't make me take care of this too. I'm not your fucking mother," he spat.
"I don't fool myself about what I did to you," Erwin said sharply, not because he was angry but because he wanted Levi to listen. "I don't regret it either, but I don't tell myself it was good."
"Explain to me how you thought this was a good idea then," Levi said scathingly, knowing there would be no way, no possible good reason, knowing it would make Erwin look desperate to try, and even though he always said he was not going to teach Erwin anymore, not going to train him to love better, he always did it every time. "I'm waiting," Levi said imperiously.
"I can't explain...you're just so incredible, so strong," Erwin said, feeling wretched even saying it, which was fine, that was what he deserved. "It's hard to imagine... it's hard to remember how certain things might affect you."
"That supposed to make me feel better?" Levi growled.
"No," Erwin said. "But I want you to know I don't imagine you different from what you are. I don't want it to be different. I just... I didn't think about this."
"You didn't fucking think at all," Levi muttered, almost sounding disbelieving, like how was it possible, for Erwin to think so little about what Levi might think or feel or want when Levi spent half his stupid fucking time thinking about Erwin.
"You're right, I didn't," Erwin said, immediately confirming it, not fighting this characterisation. He saw Levi's body relax, but he knew he was still angry; of course he was, he had every right to be.
"Stop trying to solve my problem and solve your own fucking problem!" Levi said, flaring up again, furious. "That's why we're here!"
"I know," Erwin said, "I'm sorry."
"Fucking get it together," Levi said, voice shaking just a little, so slightly you would not have heard it at all, if you had not been listening for it with guilty ears. "For fuck's sake," he said, lighting another cigarette and stubbing out the old.
Erwin knew Levi was right. He wanted to apologise again, but Levi did not value verbal apologies from people he loved. Erwin would have to figure out some way to make it up to him with action.
---
Levi spoke to him in monosyllables and grunts for the next few days, but he still slept in the bed with Erwin.
Erwin was pathetically grateful.
Levi was angry, Erwin knew, but more than that he was tired.
It was unconscionable that he -- Erwin -- should be allowed to have worse and more debilitating daddy issues than Levi did. Nobody in the world, surely, had more right than Levi to those. Levi had only ever told him the story once, of Kuchel and Kenny and the things he had seen in that room. The memory of the story alone gnawed at Erwin's bones. He could not imagine what it was like to live with the memory of the experience itself.
There are things that time does not erase. Erwin thought of himself as a boy, thought of Levi. Erwin had dispatched his own father before he even knew what he was doing, and he would be chasing that fact all his life. Some days it felt to Erwin as if there was nothing but that inside him, nothing to his life but that huge, unspeakable mistake. Erwin would be paying for it, for making that mistake, for the rest of his life.
Levi could not understand it, Erwin knew. Levi had never made such a mistake. But that was because everything and everyone had left Levi before he had ever had a chance.
---
For a few days, Levi did not feel like cooking. This meant they had opportunity to scout out any number of shabby little bistros and cantinas in the seedier side of town.
Erwin followed Levi around without complaint. Levi knew it was because Erwin felt guilty, and he accepted it, but underneath his stoic acquiescence he really was waiting for Erwin to get over it. Being excessively sorry and penitent was a kind of wallowing, a kind of sticking himself there, attaching himself to Levi's business. Levi wished Erwin would mind his own business instead.
After a couple of days, they settled on one Levi liked best. The food was good, hearty and unpretentious, even more rustic than the place they had favoured in their neighbourhood in Shiganshina. They could have found better, but Levi did not want better, and anyhow he had taken a shine to the stout, friendly woman running the place after he saw her bodily throwing a drunken patron out on his ass.
This was important. To find the company of people willing to throw down to protect things that mattered, people who knew how to take care of business, who didn't mind it if things got hairy. Someone who would use whatever they had, do whatever it took, who would neither pull the punch nor flinch at the blow. Nothing else conjured that plain, open appreciation in Levi, the sense of respect, that look of recognition in Levi's eyes.
Sometimes Erwin wondered if he had got lost, somewhere along the way, because in his head he knew what really mattered, and knew to keep humanity's victory front and center, but all the other parts of him seemed to think it was really just Levi that mattered, only Levi who meant anything at all.
---
Erwin wanted to ask Levi if he was still mad at him, but he knew it would be selfish to ask.
He wanted to ask how Levi could forgive him, but he wouldn't have meant for the stupid miscalculation with the restaurant, or the error that had got them both benched, Levi falling like a domino behind him.
Levi was bored with it. He went out on his own to explore the neighbourhood. He found a rickety old bookstore, and a somewhat dated ice cream parlour, its banners tattered and worn. He wondered when Erwin would be back to himself, but that was silly. A person never comes back to themselves, they only come forwards, to join up with the new version of themselves, the person they have been disowning.
Erwin stayed up more and more, sleeping even less than Levi now. But he didn't seem haggard, he didn't seem worse for it. Something was animating him now; he was driven forward. If sleeplessness was the price, Levi couldn't say he minded it -- actually, it was nice, to not have to lie alone, awake at night. To have Erwin stroking his hair and snuffling at his neck rather than snoring soundly beside him.
That was the thing about Erwin. He would take everything from you, but in return he offered himself, unflinchingly. He was there with Levi in the bad places he had led him to; he never abandoned him there.
It is a rare man who can stand in his own wrecking place, who is able to face the carnage he has created. There is a kind of strength in that, Levi thought.
---
It had been weeks now, but the charm of domesticity was not wearing off. If anything, it was intensifying.
It surprised Erwin, in a way. That Levi should feel this way was fine, was to be expected, but it startled him to discover this in himself, this enchantment with the mundane, with ordinary, everyday life. Levi was the consummate soldier, the perfect machine of death, and yet here he was, cooking, mending, washing dishes, and Erwin was in love. Erwin would never get tired of watching Levi washing dishes. Erwin often came up to hug him from behind, toying with the strings of the little apron he wore to keep his clothes clean and dry.
Truthfully, Erwin had fantasies about that apron. He wanted to undo the fastidious little bow Levi always tied it in. He wanted to carefully undo Levi's trousers and push them down, just enough to give him access. He wanted to press Levi up against the white porcelaine sink, to tell Levi to keep going while Erwin fingered him open, stretched him out and slid into him.
Erwin wanted to bend Levi over the sink full of soapy dishes and fuck him, hard and sweet, until Levi was gasping beneath him, until he came into that apron with a yell, and he'd be blushing crimson, Erwin knew, he could picture it, Levi, blushing like a maid as Erwin fucked him, as Erwin held him there against the white countertop and made him take it, plunging into him, coming inside him, burying himself in Levi again and again and not stopping until Levi also came, flushed and squirming, overwhelmed by the combination of filth and domesticity.
Erwin always fantasised about carefully cleaning the apron for Levi afterwards too.
He often thought about this when he was standing next to Levi, dutifully drying the dishes as Levi washed them, which made it a peculiar torture. Sometimes he even felt himself getting hard just from thinking about Levi, though not always -- that was still inconsistent. Sometimes, though only momentarily, he felt a strong urge to translate desire into action, to do something, to touch Levi, to kiss him, to bring his fingers to that tidy little knot at the small of Levi's back, to hook him there, to hang him by a thread, and he wanted it so strongly he thought the energy of his desire might leap out of his skin.
He was not sure Levi would let him. It had been a while.
---
The sun was rising earlier and earlier, and yet they never got back in the habit of waking up early. Levi wondered if they would. Eventually they would have to. But would they do it a moment before it was absolutely necessary? Levi doubted it.
He couldn't bring himself to mind. The minutes and sometimes hours they spent dozing in bed were his favourite times of the day. Sometimes Erwin played with Levi's hair; sometimes he gave Levi a massage.
"Why are you with me?" Erwin asked him, one bright grey midmorning when it was slightly cooler than usual, threatening to rain.
Levi understood that he was asking genuinely, not seeking approval or validation. This, therefore, Levi could tolerate. He could hear the unspoken coda. How can you stand it? Erwin was looking at him in that way, pressing into him with his eyes, and that was genuine too. What's your trick?, he was asking. Can you teach it to me?
Selfish, Levi thought. Let me have my tricks, Levi thought.
Levi said nothing for a while. He took Erwin's hand in his own as if he was picking his pocket.
"I stay with you because you always expect me to leave," Levi said.
---
They were getting used to the rhythm of life in Trost. The markets were grander and less charming, but that was alright; the tea and coffee was better, and so were the spices. Levi found cumin and mace in a little épicerie, and gianduia in a chocolate shop near the cathedral, or near enough. In fact, the shop was halfway between that big old fancy church and the gaudy old theatre that used to have burlesque shows. That probably did it for chocolate, Levi thought. Right in the middle between gargoyle and showgirl.
Levi often deliberated before buying one or two slabs of chocolate; it was not that they were so expensive, but Levi wanted to be careful. The woman that ran the shop was a little eccentric, wearing her hair in pigtails despite her rather advanced age, but Levi liked her attitude. She delighted in his careful decision process and he enjoyed giving her the satisfaction of watching him choose. She always wrapped them carefully in tissue paper and he always carried them home with equal care.
He knew they could have afforded more. There was not so much money, and yet it was more money than Levi had ever had that did not have claim on it. But he did not want to expand his tastes so quickly and so much. He knew that Erwin would find a way to make it through the hearing, that Erwin would ultimately succeed, and they would be back in the field again. It would be a mistake to get too comfortable. Levi knew.
---
Erwin didn’t really obsess about chocolate the same way, but he would listen to Levi while he talked about it. And he enjoyed it well enough, especially after dinner.
"I want to run something by you," Erwin said one evening, as Levi was fetching the chocolate from the little side-cabinet drawer he kept it in.
“Hm?” Levi said, meaning go on.
“I don’t have a strategy for the hearing yet,” Erwin began.
“Hm,” Levi said, frowning at the various chocolate options as if this was the focus of his attention.
“I’m working on it, but it’s tough. I’m in a corner here. I’ll have to hammer Shadis on his main weakness, his squad mortality rate.”
“Mmhm,” Levi agreed, selecting the bar he wanted. Erwin watched him carefully shuffle the little collection of chocolate and put it neatly back in the drawer, bringing only the one he wanted back to the table. He loved how fastidious and careful Levi was with everything. He thought he could watch Levi sorting buttons, threading needles.
Levi had been right from the first: Shadis was weak, emotionally. And his weakest point -- psychologically and practically -- was the squad casualty rate. How Erwin was going to link that to his own absolutely borderline treasonous complaints, he did not yet know, but he did not say so out loud. He would figure it out, and Levi would not want to hear him be melodramatic.
"I think the cat's out of the bag on us though," Erwin said, talking around the situation as Levi sat back down at the table and broke the bar of chocolate in half with a snap.
"Think so?" Levi said, a little noncommittal, focusing on eating his half of the chocolate.
"Yeah, cute stunt and I can't say I'm sorry about it, but they've got to know, now," Erwin said.
"That's fine," Levi shrugged. "They knew I'm your rabid dog since ages. Doesn't change much."
"You are," Erwin smiled, feeling the warmth bloom in his chest, reaching out to touch Levi on the ear affectionately. Levi crooked his head just a fraction, leaning ever so slightly into the gesture, smiling back. "Bit of a bitey puppy, actually," Erwin teased.
"Watch who you call puppy," Levi objected, but his eyes were bright with enjoyment. Erwin continued to hold onto his ear then, since he was having fun.
"Once I get the hearing sorted I think I see how to deal with Shadis," Erwin said, back on topic, but still playing with Levi's ear.
"Oh?" Levi said, interested.
"I'm going to stop protecting his flank," Erwin said.
Levi goggled at him.
"Surprised?" Erwin asked.
"Surprised you're admitting it," Levi said.
"It's only you," Erwin said. "You know by now anyway. And I've told him a hundred times already, and he still won't change his formation. We are stemming the bleeding with our squad members; my last two casualties and Hange's broken arm the time before came from that. If I stop--"
"It'll be carnage," Levi said.
"It will," Erwin confirmed.
"He'll crack," Levi breathed.
"Like a walnut," Erwin said grimly.
"Fuck, that's ruthless," Levi said, sounding almost breathless, so Erwin knew he understood.
"It's worth it," Erwin said seriously, though it was distasteful, there was no denying that.
"It's genius," Levi said, with the look in his eye that he got when he was watching a particularly clever boxer in a ring or a tavern brawl. Erwin was always hot for that expression, though right now that was wrong, and the confusion made a clang in his guts. It was sick and gross, he disgusted himself with it, but Levi was hot for it too, he knew, hot for destruction and carnage despite or because of everything, wired that way at the root.
"Don't get too excited," Erwin said.
"Me?" Levi said, eyes shining, lifting his chin. "Never."
---
Erwin still preferred to walk in the evenings. The dim twilight of the neighbourhood suited his contemplative mood. Slowly, but surely, he was metabolizing his circumstances, digesting his way through the problem.
One evening, he home from his walk finding Levi curled up on the green velvet couch reading poetry. He looked soft and sweet and gorgeous. Erwin felt a spark of heat ignite for him and realised, with a dawning wonder, that he never walked in on Levi touching himself anymore.
Erwin missed it. He watched Levi for a long moment, eventually drawing Levi's attention, those slate grey eyes flicking up to meet his gaze over the rim of the book.
"Not going to jerk off at all in this apartment?" Erwin asked teasingly, his eyes hooded.
Levi stretched, intentionally provocative, knowing that his shirt would ride up and expose that sliver of stomach.
"What's it to you?" he asked archly, a glint in his eye. He was teasing Erwin.
"I got used to watching you," Erwin breathed, not breaking eye contact. There was a heat crackling between them, as palpable as a living thing.
"Want me to do it now?" Levi asked, his voice low and smooth, velvety-soft.
"Yes," Erwin said.
"You too, then," Levi said, challenging him. Ah, so Levi had noticed. Erwin was getting hard in the mornings again, Levi must have felt it against him in bed sometimes. By now it was more than incidental.
Erwin wavered.
“Come and sit here and do it,” Levi commanded, his pose authoritative, almost regal; the line of his mouth lofty and persuasive.
Erwin went.
Levi tracked the motion with his eyes, and beneath the want and softness there was the predatory gleam of something tightly coiled that nevertheless knows what it wants. Levi's tongue darted out to wet his lips. He did not look away, kept looking at Erwin hungrily as he got his own cock out, as if seeing Erwin was what he needed, the sight of him enough, whetting his appetite for himself. Then Levi kept his end of the bargain, unbuttoning his trousers and putting his hand down them, teasing himself to full length.
Erwin stroked himself, looking at Levi, allowing himself to really look at the pale curve of his jaw, the wiry strength of his forearms, admiring the way the veins there stood out as he pumped himself with those strong, capable fingers. Levi encircled his cock with the loop of his thumb and forefinger, jerking himself off slowly, more languidly than usual.
He was savouring it, Erwin realised, looking up into Levi's face and finding Levi gazing at him so intensely that it nearly took his breath away. Erwin's own cock bucked in his fist. He looked down in surprise. He was getting wet already.
"Yeah?" Levi said, noticing the situation, zeroed in on Erwin's dick, entirely focused on the slick pink head of it at the top of his fist.
"Yeah," Erwin confirmed. "I'm that hot for you," he said. Levi groaned and sped up his hand, his own hips rocking up into the tight loop of his fingers. "God you're beautiful," Erwin breathed.
"Let me suck your tits," Levi countered.
"And here I thought I was imposing on you," Erwin said, smiling, loving how demanding Levi was being.
"That a no?" Levi asked, leering.
"Of course not," Erwin said, stunned he even had to say it, unable to believe Levi thought he had to ask.
Levi moved forward until he was straddling Erwin's lap, unbuttoned Erwin's shirt and buried his face between the soft pillows of Erwin's chest, groaning. Then he moved his mouth to one of Erwin's nipples and latched on, suckling like a babe, making Erwin moan and tremble, it had been so long, and Levi's mouth was so ferocious. Levi unlatched long enough to scrape his teeth over the sensitive bud of Erwin's nipple, making him gasp, then laving it with his tongue again, and when Erwin looked down he saw Levi smirking up at him, every inch aware of the effect he was having.
"God, I forgot how good you are at that," Erwin gasped, and this compelled Levi to surge up and kiss him, forceful and hard, sucking him in to the vortex of his mouth, and when Erwin broke away he was panting with it.
"Jerk me off," Levi breathed, right into Erwin's mouth, lips sliding against him as he spoke, barely enough space between them for words to form at all, driving into him with his mouth and face and whole body, hands insistent and bruising on the muscles of Erwin's chest, "Jerk us both off, come on, do it, do it," he said, urgent, urgent.
"What about the mess," Erwin moaned, his mouth still pressed hard against Levi's face, lips smeared against Levi's jaw as Levi rocked against him
"Who gives a fuck," Levi said, juicy and triumphant, wild with it, smacking the k at the end of the sentence in an almost feral glee, and then leaning back down and pressing his face into Erwin's chest, rubbing the stubble of his cheeks against Erwin's pecs, making them red and raw and sensitive, so that Erwin was trembling when Levi licked him there, mouth wet and sloppy, soaking his pecs with spit as Erwin jerked both of them off in one big hand, blushing and moaning as Levi sucked his tits.
Levi's hips were bucking up into Erwin's hand now, sliding their dicks together, and Erwin was so turned on, leaking so much now that everything was slick there too, and it was almost too much, overwhelming, having Levi in his lap after going so long without it, suckling his chest as they rubbed themselves together, and they were going to come like this, Erwin could feel it, and he wanted it, that sweet intensity of the two of them rocking together, so long delayed, so long denied.
"Oh god, yes, just like that, Levi, ---" Erwin sighed, urging him on, though he hardly needed to, Levi was losing it, sucking one slick pink nipple, his mouth fierce and ravenous, and then bringing those clever fingers up to his other nipple to pinch it, hard, the way he knew Erwin had always liked it, squeezing the bud between his fingers until Erwin was groaning with it, gutteral and deep, body shuddering, half flinching away, and Levi loosed his grip just a fraction in response and no, no that wasn't what Erwin wanted at all, so Erwin grabbed Levi's hand and clamped it to his chest, hard, making Levi moan now, because Levi loved it when Erwin was shameless, wanton, whore, he could almost hear Levi say it but his mouth was occupied, but even just imagining it was good enough, and Erwin gripped them both tight and ran them both right up to the edge and then took them over it, their voices cracking and groaning, something inside him faintly howling, raw and right and true.
---
Things were easier between them after that. For one thing, Erwin felt like he could sidle up to Levi and feel him up if he wanted to, which was truly a load off his mind.
"Stop it, you pervert," Levi tutted, sometimes, but there was never much force in it, and in fact sometimes Erwin thought Levi was playing with him by saying it. But he didn't want to push.
Sometimes in the afternoons, instead of reading or cleaning, Levi mended their shirts or socks or trousers. Erwin had told him long ago that he didn't have to, but this always lead to Levi waving him away, unconcerned. Levi would not be deterred.
It was incredibly sweet to watch it, Levi with the little cotton thread in his mouth, so utterly focused, so engrossed in the task that he barely registered anything else.
Levi always did a beautiful job, and Erwin felt like the lucky husband of an exemplary wife, a feeling he had thought he would never get to have when he took up with a fellow soldier, a person he would always have to show his ugliest side to, someone he’d have to kill and die and shit besides. But it was possible to have both, it must have been, for here it was – he had it.
Erwin had never expected it. It was more than he deserved.
---
That summer in Trost was much hotter than usual, and Levi was not prepared for it. It had always been cool in the underground, and there was always a breeze out in the open air beyond the walls. Levi went out to walk most days, enjoying the sun and the gardens, but he often came back sweaty and annoyed about it.
Levi was so tempting fresh out of the sunlight, dewy and pink, and Erwin often wanted to go over to him and kiss him, but he knew how gross Levi felt, how much he wanted to get clean when he came home. Levi always took that stuff very seriously. Erwin tried to contain himself.
Even when Levi only wore a thin cotton shirt and loose slacks he was too hot. Eventually he purchased some tan leather sandals to wear. Erwin was privately wild for it, Levi's pale little feet in the soft brown leather straps, but he worried that Levi would be self-conscious if he said anything -- he could get like that, especially about new things. Erwin kept his feelings to himself.
---
Levi wanted to break up a fight in the shabby little corner bar one night. He picked up the laguiole knife from a nearby table and was halfway across the room before Erwin caught him from behind.
"We can't get in trouble," Erwin told him apologetically as Levi rounded on him, furious but not reflexively violent, recognising his hand.
"You can't get in trouble," Levi said.
"Ah," Erwin said, "I think it's we, now."
---
Levi never wore any shoes other than the little sandals now, and Erwin was in two minds about whether to tell him how much he loved them. On the one hand, Levi could get spooked so easily about these things, about being perceived as cute or soft or sweet in any way. On the other hand, Levi’s feet in those sandals were utterly charming, cute and soft and sweet in every aspect.
The very great advantage of the sandals was that one could easily take them off and put one’s feet in the fountain on a hot day. Usually, Levi walked alone, but Erwin could imagine it. He hoped Levi was doing it.
---
One evening , Erwin came in from his walk and hung his hat on the peg behind the door and shrugged off his linen jacket and greeted Levi in such a way that Levi sat up and took notice.
"Huh," Levi said, watching the way Erwin tracked in, the angle of his chin, the line of his shoulders, the lope of his gait. "You've solved it."
"God damn it," Erwin said, but mellow, almost laughing. "I can't get anything past you."
“Never,” Levi agreed.
Erwin went over to join him at the table. Levi was eating gingersnaps and drinking tea in the fading light. It had just gone 6pm. These days they were not eating dinner until 9pm most of the time anyway.
"Not gonna tell me?" Levi said, after a long moment of waiting expectantly. Patience had never been his forte.
"I think it's better if I don't tell you all the details," Erwin said carefully. "If you know everything, if you're not surprised, then we look too much like a unit."
"They already know we're together," Levi frowned.
"They do, but even so they think you're my attack dog, my underling," Erwin said, allowing the disgust he felt for that idea show in his voice. "They won't be thinking that we work as a team, and it's better to let them keep that illusion."
Levi frowned at him still, cocking his head, displaying his lack of understanding, inviting Erwin to elaborate.
"They underestimate us like this," Erwin explained.
"Ah," Levi said. "Yes."
"It has to look natural, it has to look like you have no idea what I do and why I do it," Erwin said.
"Well, to be fair, I do have no idea how you're going to come out of this looking good," Levi said.
“There is no way come out of this looking good,” Erwin said. “But think about this: maybe that’s fine. Maybe I’ve been looking too good for too long — I haven’t made a misstep in years. It makes me too much of a threat.” He took Levi's hand and absently trailed his fingers over it, just because he liked to, because he could. Levi's fingertips were faintly sticky from the gingersnaps. Maybe he had been licking the sugar off them; the idea was delightful. Erwin continued his explanation. “If I look well-intentioned but misguided, foolish or naive or too theoretical, I’ll get off with a light disciplinary curtailment and the higher ups will see me as malleable and useful again.”
“You have to play the idealist,” Levi said, cottoning on.
“That’s the best way forward now,” Erwin grimaced. “It won’t be easy to pull off even that, but I think it’s feasible. I’ve known enough idealists in my life to know how to imitate one.”
“It's clever," Levi said, fingers tracing Erwin’s hand right back, entwining them together. "You should have been doing that years ago,” Levi said. “What’s been keeping you?”
“I don’t enjoy deception,” Erwin said.
“Too bad,” Levi scoffed. “You’re too fucking good at it to waste it.”
There was a strange admiration in his eyes, twisted at the root, a little bitter, but admiring just the same.
---
One day the following week Levi came back from his walk in the high midday sun completely drenched with sweat and Erwin simply could not take it, could hold it back no more. He was almost instantly hard for him, simmering from days of pent-up fantasies and frustrated action, unsure of his body and of Levi's reaction, and now he wanted Levi desperately, as if nothing he could have done would have quenched that thirst.
In three long strides, Erwin crossed the room and shoved Levi up against the door and kissed him, hard and long and slow and deep, locking their mouths together and not letting up, forcing them both to breathe through their noses.
He started unbuttoning Levi's shirt, and that seemed to be agreeable enough that Levi did not stop him. But instead of pulling it off Levi's shoulders, Erwin pushed his sodden shirt to the side, baring his torso that way.
Then he moved his head to Levi's armpit and buried his face there, inhaling deeply.
"Get off me, you dirty bastard," Levi growled, ineffectually pushing at Erwin's head, trying to shove him away, but Erwin didn't think he really meant it, and for some reason he didn't feel like caring, he grabbed Levi's hands and pinned him against the door with the weight of his body and took his time, breathing in the musky scent there while Levi squirmed against the door.
When Erwin pulled back and licked him there, Levi really started struggling.
Erwin held him down and pressed his face closer and stuck his tongue right into the crook of Levi's armpit, the hot, bare skin, sweaty, almost sticky right there, a place where there would have been hair had Levi not been so fastidious about shaving everything all the time. Erwin licked him again, getting him wet, wetter, sloppy, and Levi keened with revulsion and arousal, hands scrabbling at Erwin to push him off, eventually succeeding with enough force that Erwin had to stop what he was doing and pin Levi properly, gathering up both his hands and holding them above his head against the cool wood of the door.
He leaned down and pressed his nose to Levi's nose -- this drew a little grunt of indignation from Levi about where that nose had just been -- and then he pressed his face to Levi's neck, snuffling at him, wanting to smell and taste everything, animalistic and wild for the salty residue of sweat on his body. Erwin stuck out his tongue and licked Levi's collarbone and then up along the ridge of his shoulder before dragging it slowly, sweetly, back down to the muscular curve of his armpit, licking him there again, tonguing at the tender, slick little niche of him.
"You’re disgusting," Levi said, glaring down at Erwin.
“It's my mouth, I'll put it where I want,” Erwin said, totally unconcerned, serene in the knowledge that Levi would submit to it, would not deny him -- this wasn't his first time putting Levi through this, though until now it had only been after long missions outside the walls, which always made Erwin mad, frenzied, hungry for Levi beyond reason, and made Levi much the same, with fewer inhibitions after spending days covered in blood and filth.
This wasn’t like that, but it wouldn’t matter. Erwin was going to get what he wanted.
Levi was trembling beneath him, fighting his body's instinctive erotic reaction to being pinned against the door with Erwin licking him, repulsed by the fact that it was his armpit -- his sweaty armpit!-- revolting, so revolting --confronting enough to his sense of hygiene that it would almost be cause for panic, -- no, no, no -- off! off! off! -- it must have almost been torture, for him to have Erwin there at very join of his body, and Erwin could admit it excited him to make Levi take it, and to know that despite it all a part of Levi would even be turned on by how filthy it was, Erwin knew -- a secret, banished part of Levi liked that just as much as he did.
"Nnn --gross!" Levi gasped, writhing.
"You're delicious, actually," Erwin said, then licked him again, lewd and wet. "You taste," Erwin said, his mouth inches from Levi's skin, "so fucking good."
Levi moaned, fierce and anguished, a cry half-swallowed in his throat; he was trying to suppress or at least hide his reaction, trying not to make noise, but when Erwin reached down to palm Levi through his trousers Levi had to work to stifle a moan. When Erwin did it again and pushed his face back into Levi's armpit, licking up the sweat there, getting lost in it, filthy and groaning, pressing himself against Levi as he did, then that was too much — Levi couldn't manage to keep quiet.
“God this is so—- nn! Fucking! Dirty!—“ Levi keened, shuddering against him.
Erwin moaned into Levi’s armpit.
He held Levi there for a long time, moving to his other armpit, licking him tenderly, interspersed with kissing his pink little nipples, and eventually Levi gave up, slumped against the wall, trembling and defeated.
Erwin pulled back to assess the state of him. Levi was blushing crimson, biting his own lip white, working furiously to maintain any control of his own reactions, any control at all, wrestling with his own arousal in a desperate, frustrated agony.
It was so fucking hot it made Erwin want to fuck him through the door, to fuck the living daylights out of Levi right here, and he was hard for it, but he didn't know if he had it in him, so he settled on something almost just as good.
"If I let your arms free so I can kneel down and suck your cock, will you let me?" Erwin asked.
Levi nodded, still biting into his lip, not ready to admit that he liked everything Erwin was doing to him. But he moaned when Erwin went down on his knees, unbuttoning Levi's slacks and pulling everything down and off so Levi was gloriously bared to him.
Erwin leaned in and inhaled there too, right at the groin, nose pressed to the pubic bone, shaved as neatly as the rest of him. He stroked Levi with his fingers, though Levi was already hard and growing harder, and then he licked a long stripe up Levi's cock before swallowing him all the way down in one greedy gulp. Levi's head thunked against the door, making Erwin moan too, taking Levi as deep as he could, until the tip of Levi's cock hit the back of his throat and Erwin hollowed his cheeks and sucked, working him hard, fully intending to wring this orgasm out of Levi, whatever it took.
He had to come up for air, once, wiping his mouth, and then Levi slung one leg over Erwin's shoulder so he was half straddling him, getting closer, giving him more access, and this physical admission of Levi's enjoyment made Erwin feel victorious, powerful, unshackled and ravenous, starving for more.
Levi started rocking his hips forward, fucking Erwin's face just a little, and Erwin let him do it, brought one hand up to steady Levi's hip and then the other, and then he decided he wanted the control back so he used his grip on Levi's hips to pin him to the door, leg still slung over his shoulder so Levi was almost lifted off his feet now, groaning, sweetly overwhelmed, hips jumping with pent-up energy, breathing fast, so fast he was almost shaking, gasping, ---- "Ahh, aaaah, nnnn—-“ and Erwin worked him even harder, swallowing him down into his throat, wanting Levi to come, lifting him up against the door with both hands now while Levi writhed and shook and came above him, and Erwin swallowed everything.
---
"Bathe with me," Erwin said.
"No," Levi said, not looking up.
"Please?" Erwin wheedled.
"No," Levi said, now cruel and relishing, since by pushing on the matter after being rebuffed Erwin had made himself fair game for mockery and insults. "Stop being pathetic."
"Why don't you want to," Erwin said, leaning into it, sounding needy.
"You know why," Levi said, looking him over disdainfully, as if he ought not to have had to say it at all.
"I can make you," Erwin said, shifting in his seat just a little, eyes gone dark. Levi smirked.
"Not with that kind of dumb-ass telegraphing, you can’t," he said, arching an eyebrow, pushing, as always, daring Erwin to do better.
---
By midsummer, Levi's undercut needed a serious trim. He asked Erwin to do it with a short razor in the bath, so he could wash the offcut fuzz down the drain. All the while Erwin did it, kneeling next to him in the bath at various angles, Levi thought of Hange.
Hange had been the first scout Levi had let touch him this way. After Isabel and Farlan and the rest of that company had perished, Levi had been prickly, yowling, trusting nothing and nobody but Hange, because Hange was only ever interested in one thing and that was knowledge. There was never any agenda. Hange would always tell you straight up if they needed something. If they were angry, they kicked a chair. If they were happy, they squeaked. If they found you fascinating, they said so and they meant it.
Levi remembered how wretched he had felt the first time, a month after joining the scouts, realising that he would need help to get the back as neat as he liked it, and that Farlan was not here anymore, and would never be here again. Levi remembered the sick fist of regret in his chest, the awful knowledge that he was bereft by his own hand and Erwin's, that he had chosen to follow someone who had cut out his heart, that he would have to go begging for help to someone, anyone. Oh, he could have borne it alone, he could have changed his hair. But what would have been the use? Eventually, it would grow long, and he would have to face the problem.
He remembered the morbid dread, the trip to Hange's room at a quarter to midnight, their cheery "Hi Levi!!", their round eyes when he held up the razor and said "Can you," in a voice that he had to work to make anything other than small. The way they had breathed "Of course," the way their joy at his trust, at his having chosen them, was written plainly on their face. Levi thought now that it must have been a shock to Hange, whom virtually everyone considered a freak, but Levi had not seen that then, had not known it. Levi was a freak too and his face was in the mud, he was not watching Hange, he had not yet seen the way their face crumpled when someone ignored a question, or insulted them in response.
Hange had been so careful, so tender, so invested in getting it right, in giving Levi the best haircut he had ever had, and they had done it, and Levi had been pathetically grateful, so fucking wounded with emotion that he thought he must have crawled back to his bunk rather than walking.
Having Erwin do it now, it wasn't the same. Erwin tried, but he didn't care about it like Hange did. He didn't feel it an honour like Hange did. Hange had started to do Mike and Moblit's too after a while of doing Levi's, and Levi had preened at the thought, that the others were admiring his sweet lines, the lines Hange made for him.
We aren't supposed to just be two, Levi thought. People like us belong together in a squad, a crew, a community. We aren't meant to live alone.
---
"Tell me a story," Levi demanded one afternoon, sticking his feet in Erwin's lap when they were both sitting shirtless on the larger sofa, wilting in the heat. Erwin welcomed this, for Levi's feet were cold, and very cute besides.
"Alright," Erwin said, "What kind of story?"
"Tell me," Levi swallowed, "Your favourite memory of your mother."
Erwin wanted to say Oh, to say, Levi, are you sure?, but he knew Levi would hate it, would hate him for it, would say Did I fucking stutter? and get up and storm off and feel a thousand times worse than if he'd never asked. So he didn't say anything like that.
"Let me think," Erwin said, careful not to make his tone too gentle, lest he be accused of coddling Levi and end up inciting his ire that way. "Well, my mother never taught me to cook. So I think Farlan's mother has the advantage here, in your books. But my mother taught me to read."
Levi nodded. Apparently this passed muster, and Erwin could continue.
"Come here," Erwin said, lying back a bit more into the cushions and beckoning him over. Levi lay on his chest as Erwin had wanted him to. Erwin put a hand in Levi's hair and another at one of Levi's own hands, interlinking their fingers.
"I remember certain things, from before," Levi did not have to ask to know Erwin meant, before my father was taken away from us. "Birthdays. Holidays. Cousins, uncles and aunties. They stopped seeing us, afterwards. But you know, it’s strange, but I think what I liked best were the times my mother read me poetry. She used to hold me in her lap like this and read it to me. It was like another world. Sometimes she didn't even need to read it, she could just recite it. It was all I wanted."
"But," Levi started, then stopped, and his voice was full of awe. "My mother used to sing to me."
"Did she?" Erwin asked, coaxing, holding Levi close.
"I don't remember much," Levi admitted. Erwin held him closer.
"But you remember that," Erwin breathed.
"It's not so different," Levi said, marvelling to himself, as if he barely dared to say it, and it was exactly what Erwin wanted to say, but he had not had the guts to say it himself. Levi was just that little bit braver and always had been.
"It's not so different at all," Erwin said, clinging onto Levi like he was Levi's mother now, or Levi was his mother, or neither, or both. They each did all of it, Erwin realised, and maybe that was why they worked so well together, slipping in and out, taking care, being cared for, holding and being held, and Erwin knew it was possible to pass a whole lifetime without ever finding this, without ever having someone who feels like home to you, who feels like everything, who makes you into everything back, and he was lucky, the luckiest bastard on earth, and he did not deserve it but he would never have given it up, it was his now, and he was never going to let it go, too bad, too bad, bastard, daddy, whore, everything, lucky and selfish and grateful.
---
"Levi, will you--"
"--No," Levi said.
"You don't even know what I was going to ask," Erwin protested.
"I fucking do," Levi said. "The stupid bath thing again, try and deny it."
"It's not that unhygienic," Erwin said, changing tack. "You can always shower after, again."
"Stop begging me for it, it turns me off," Levi said.
"Is this a hard no or do you just need me to convince you," Erwin asked, since surely this was no less hygienic than sex anywhere else and it was just that it affronted Levi's sense of respect for the act of bathing itself.
"If you wanna convince me you're gonna have to do a hell of a lot better than this," Levi said scornfully.
"Understood," Erwin said, knowing that this was the permission he had been seeking. It was good of Levi to be Erwin's puzzle, to keep Erwin busy. Levi wasn't even trying to do it, it was just the way he was. Erwin wanted to study him every time, like a new, unforeseen knot at the end of a handsome rope, to get at him, that sweet revelation of seeing him unravel.
Levi was work, but he was worth it every time.
---
The days got longer still, stretching impossibly out, so that it was still light at 9pm sometimes when they might bathe and get ready for bed. Levi resisted the siren song of the shared bath valiantly until the day that Erwin produced the small vial of almond oil and said that he was going to massage it into Levi's hair.
"Where did you get that?" Levi said, looking at once impressed and envious, as if Erwin being able to source something he, Levi, would have struggled to get was a violation of the laws of physics.
"I made friends with the chemist on Marais street," Erwin said.
"That old guy?" Levi goggled. "No way, he has a hookup?"
"He does," Erwin said. "Never underestimate the elderly, Levi," he said, all mock-serious like he was delivering a solemn lecture, which always made Levi want to laugh.
"Oh, alright," Levi said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Fine."
"I'll go run the bath," Erwin said in a mild and lofty tone that indicated he knew better than to rub his victory in Levi's face.
By the time Erwin called Levi into the bathroom, the room smelled sweet with the perfumed soap he had lathered under the tap to make a thin film of bubbles over the water. Levi sniffed the air when he came in, suspicious, narrowing his eyes at Erwin. But Erwin knew to ignore that, mentally shrugging it off as he got into the bath, watching with interest as Levi carefully removed his clothes and put them in the hamper. There was no mistaking it: Levi was blushing a little too as he crossed the room and climbed carefully into the large claw-footed bathtub, sinking into the water right in Erwin's lap.
Erwin didn't say anything, letting Levi get used to it -- he was almost afraid to spook him, but he didn't think that would happen, not really. Levi was in the water now, settling, settled. Erwin drew him into his arms and held him close against his chest, breathing right against his ear in the way he knew Levi sometimes liked, the way it almost tickled, the way it reminded him he was with someone else, that he wasn't alone.
Stroking up Levi's biceps and shoulders with the tips of his wet fingers, watching the rivulets of water cascading down, Erwin thought he had never seen or held anything or anyone so lovely. He massaged Levi's shoulder muscles, then his neck, gently but firmly, working through the tension until Levi was sighing and melting against him.
He uncorked the little vial of almond oil, spread it on his fingers and ran them through Levi's hair. He pressed hard with the tips of his fingers, digging in, creating the pressure Levi liked, massaging the oil into his scalp, soaking the roots of his hair with it and combing it through with his fingers, alternating the motions until Levi was nearly moaning with how good it felt, making Erwin grin triumphantly into the back of his head.
"God, that's good," Levi groaned, head hanging forward a little, almost drooping. He was so relaxed. Erwin leaned in and inhaled the scent at the nape of Levi's neck, soap mingled with almond oil, and the shifting of his hips made him realise he was half-hard already, just from this, from servicing Levi, and Levi felt it too and said nothing but instinctively, sweetly pushed back against him, getting him harder.
Levi groaned again when Erwin dug in with his thumbs behind the backs of his ears, and Erwin remembered now that Levi was often sensitive there and leaned forward to put his lips at the delicate pink shell of Levi's right ear, and Levi groaned again and shivered in his arms, so vulnerable and open that it made Erwin even hotter for him, even harder, canting his hips forward, grinding his cock against the small of Levi's back as Levi almost mewled with it.
“There you go," Erwin said, right in Levi's ear, rocking his hips against him, "It's not so bad, is it?"
"Fuck me," Levi breathed, rubbing back against Erwin, hands gripping the side of the tub so he could twist around and look him in the eye. "Fuck me now," he said.
"Yes," Erwin moaned, reaching for the vial of oil and coating his fingers with it once more and then reaching down, down between the soft, beautiful curves of Levi's ass to rub at him there, massaging him loose and open there too, loving the way Levi rocked his hips back against him, taking his fingers.
He reached back and slicked himself up with his other hand, and then nudged Levi up, and Levi braced one hand on each side of the heavy iron bathtub and lifted himself up and back, tilting his hips up so the angle was just right for Erwin to press the tip of his cock to Levi's waiting hole, so pink and perfect, so small and tight, and Erwin watched Levi tense and release his muscles, willing himself to relax, and then he felt him tense and release around him as he pressed his cock slowly into the tight heat of him, and it was so right, so good, to see Levi take him, steady, unrelenting, inch by greedy inch, until he was sheathed all the way inside him and they were joined, joined together at last.
Erwin sighed and pressed his forehead to the back of Levi's head, kissing the fuzz of his undercut.
"Move," Levi whispered, almost sounding dreamy, and Erwin murmured a soft mm-hmm in response and started rocking his hips, just shallowly at first, the water barely splashing at all, sliding sweet, just a little motion, and Levi moaned and tipped his head back, though he did not relinquish his grip on the sides of the bathtub, maintaining some control, some leverage, even as he was unravelling.
"More," Levi moaned, eyes closed in pleasure, every muscle in his body singing with how badly he wanted it, and Erwin whispered Yes in reply and fucked him harder, working in deep until he was slapping Levi’s body forward with each thrust, until Levi was pushing back, his whole body shuddering with it, holding himself there as Erwin nailed him just the way he always liked it, sweet and brutal, filthy and deep, until Levi was shaking and keening and swearing-- “Fuck, fuck--- fuck!”
“You like that?” Erwin murmured, low and throaty, wanting to hear Levi say it even as Levi fucked back onto him, taking him deeper still, urging him on, asking for more with every rocking thrust back--
"Fuck," Levi gasped, "shit, yes, god, fuck, fuck, we're going to need --- a --- ah-- aaaaah, a shower, after, this," he gasped as Erwin fucked him, knuckles white and pink as he gripped the side of the bath, trying to contain the motion, almost weeping with how sweet it was to be split open on Erwin's cock, deep inside him at last, fucking him open, raw and instinctive, reducing him to nothing but nerve endings, nothing but sighs.
"You can take a shower," Erwin whispered hot against Levi's neck, "And I'll fuck you there too."
---
They fucked a lot more after that, now that Erwin was back in form. They usually took turns, although Erwin was enjoying taking Levi apart, and found himself often reaching for him, feeling him up, fingering him and fucking him. The sight of Levi clenching and shuddering around his fingers, his cock, made him want to get fucked himself, made him ache for it, and Levi usually obliged, smiling filthy, climbing on top of him.
Erwin marvelled that they still had the stamina to go multiple times a day sometimes. He thought it would slow down soon, that it was probably the pent-up frustration doing half the work, lighting the fire under them both.
Coming back to sex with Levi regularly was sort of like coming home to a place he had once known and finding it at all at once joyously familiar and utterly changed. He had forgotten so much while he had been uninterested. It had only been weeks, but it had felt like much longer.
Levi was clearly overjoyed to have him back, although he would not say it, he did not stop Erwin from pawing at him, did not bat his hands away as he once might have.
“God fucking dammit,” Levi would say after he came, or maybe, “Fuck, I need a cigarette,” if he was panting hard, almost winded, like the time Erwin had made him come twice in an hour on his fingers alone.
“Fuck me first,” Erwin said, nudging him with his hip. “I’m good for it.”
“I fuckin’ know you are, but you gotta give me a break,” Levi groused, but he was smiling like an idiot. “I need at least 15 minutes to recover from that, jeez,” he said, rambling on a bit, finally ending up at “I’m getting fuckin’ old or something,” and then mumbling, trailing off, staring into space, contemplating his life and his choices.
Erwin smiled down at him. The outburst had the tone of a complaint, but Erwin did not think it was one.
---
Sometimes Levi wanted to talk about after the war. What they might do if they won, if they defeated the titans in their lifetimes.
“What will you do, then?” Levi would ask, but Erwin never had a response. Erwin usually thought far ahead, but there was something about this that defied him -- he could not think beyond it. Maybe the deepest part of Erwin simply did not think it would be in their lifetimes. Maybe it was something else. Whatever he thought, what he said was that he would not know until it happened. That he would focus on making it happen first.
Usually, Levi left it there. But one time was different.
“I know what I’ll do,” he said, his tone lofty, the jut of his jaw high. “I am going to open a tea shop.”
Erwin’s eyes came alive. “Of course you are,” he breathed, “The cleanest tea shop in Trost. The best defended. After the war I’ll follow you, Levi.” To pay you back, he didn’t say. To pay my debt to you, for all these years you’ve followed me.
"It won’t be in Trost," Levi said, and Erwin immediately saw the truth of it, couldn't believe he hadn't made the connection himself. If we win, we won't be stuck in Trost or Mitras or anywhere we know anymore. We’ll never live in this cage again.
---
Erwin woke gasping one night from a nightmare about his father, the tangle of fear and dread in his chest, reeling with it, as raw as it had ever been.
There it was as always, the sight of those men leading his father away, searing hot, burned into his mind like a brand, and more, saw more still, things he had never seen himself but knew to be real, his father’s brains leaking out of his skull against the stone floor of some police cell or military dungeon, the firing squad shuffling out, men going home to sleep well, to sleep in their beds better and more soundly than good men slept, Erwin knew it, Erwin knew.
Levi’s hands were already on him, firm and heavy, gripping him hard, anchoring him there before he had even fully shuddered awake, “You’re ok, you’re ok,” Levi was whispering, “Shhh, you’re ok,” soft, firm, capable Levi, rolling to lie on top of him, hands on his wrists, pinning him there and blanketing him with his body, the way Erwin had done for him hundreds of times before, holding him until his breathing returned to normal, until the sweat was wicked away.
“Thank you,” Erwin whispered shakily, after a long while, and then and only then did Levi loose his grip on him.
“Anytime,” Levi murmured, stroking his thumb over the bone of Erwin’s wrist. “It’s been ages since the last one. I was surprised you never had one in Shiganshina.”
“I was too,” Erwin said. Levi had them pretty regularly. Erwin less so. He would have thought that being depressed would make the dreams worse, but it wasn’t like that. The dreams seemed to come when you least expected it, when you thought you had turned a corner and were safe.
“Do you need anything?” Levi asked.
“No,” Erwin whispered. “You’re perfect, I ---” and he found himself overcome with it, all of a sudden. "You’re everything. I can't lose you," Erwin whispered, "I can't do this without you, now," Erwin said, not even knowing it was true until he said it, until he had uncurled the words into the cool night air and he could never take them back.
"Of course you can," Levi said dumbly.
"I don't think so," Erwin said, a sad little half-smile on his face, though Levi could not see it.
"You can," Levi said mulishly, but underneath his insistence was a note of panic, high and clear as a bell.
"No, you're confused," Erwin said. "You could carry on without me. But I don't think the reverse is true, anymore."
"It's your plan we're following," Levi said, pushing himself up on his elbows and looking at Erwin now, that thin high thread of alarm growing stronger. "How could I do it without you?"
"You'd do something else just as good, without me," Erwin said, eyes soft, though he could barely see anything in the gloom.
"I wouldn't," Levi said fiercely, now openly scared and angry about it. "Are you thinking of going somewhere, you fucking asshole?"
"Of course not," Erwin said, "Never."
"So shut up then!" Levi said, suddenly furious almost to the point of tears.
“I’m sorry,” Erwin said gently. “I shouldn’t have said it, I was just unsettled after the nightmare.”
The look on Levi’s face said he knew Erwin was lying, and he hated it, but he did not push any further.
It would be better now if neither of them said any more.
---
There were roses in the park now, an embarrassment of roses, all kinds of colours that Erwin had never seen. They were sublimely beautiful, almost enthralling, and yet Erwin was torn, in any moment, between looking at the roses and looking at Levi looking at the roses. The look of awe in his eyes was so precious, the naked appreciation was so rare.
It made Erwin wonder what Levi had been like as a child. Or maybe what he would have been like, if things had been different. If he had grown up in a loving home. If he had been given food and toys and treats. Maybe he would not have been as magnificent as he was, maybe it was wrong to wish he had come from somewhere and something other than where and what he came from. And yet Erwin could not stop himself. He wanted to see it, baby Levi, spoiled and cute, eyes full of joy. He willed it into existence. It should have been that way. No matter the consequences, it should have been like that.
Erwin could not make it that way, but there was a determination in him to try. The fact that it was impossible did not deter him, did not damp his desire. It was the directed energy that counted, the application of force in the right direction. Erwin wanted to see it. He wanted it clear in his mind’s eye, as clear as the summer sky when he walked with Levi in the baking heat, admiring the fragile blooms.
---
One day Erwin brought strawberries back from the little fruit stall that was sometimes set up in one corner of the garden. He set the punnet down next to Levi, who was reading at the dining room table, his white shirt and navy slacks pressed and fresh, his bare feet luminous on the floorboards in the early afternoon sun.
"I bought these for you," Erwin said, leaning down to kiss him where he sat.
"Thank you," Levi said, kissing him back. Erwin gathered him up a little, one arm tight around Levi's shoulders, the way he knew Levi liked.
"I'm going to feed them to you," Erwin said, breaking the kiss. Levi moaned. "You're going to jerk yourself off while I do it."
"Fuck --" Levi gasped into Erwin's mouth, his body jerking in Erwin's arms. Erwin pulled out the chair next to Levi and sat down and started rolling up the sleeves of his own white cotton shirt in preparation.
"It's going to be sticky," Levi said breathlessly, but he licked his lips, pink and wanting.
"I don't care," Erwin said.
"We should do this in the bathroom," Levi said.
"We're doing it here," Erwin said firmly.
"Fuck, Erwin, it's going to make such a mess --"
"Too bad," Erwin said, "I want to mess you up sometimes,"
"You better fucking clean it up then," Levi said.
"Oh, baby," Erwin said, softly and full of intent, "You know I will."
Levi shut his eyes and moaned, toes curling already, and he might have been hard in those slacks already, hard just from the idea of it. It never took much to get Levi going.
Erwin at least allowed Levi to remove his clothing before settling back into the chair, about as obediently as Levi ever did anything. And Levi was hard already. A delicate little flush was staining his cheeks.
"Okay," Levi said, and he sounded breathy, his voice betraying him as surely as his body.
Erwin picked up a strawberry; red and juicy, glinting in the sunlight, studded with little yellow seeds like jewels. Levi's tongue darted out to wet the corner of his mouth, and Erwin would have bet anything Levi was salivating behind the closed seam of his lips.
"Lick your fingers," Erwin said, wanting to test this theory, to see it, and as Levi did so a rivulet of saliva ran down them to the palm of his hand, a fat drop splattering on his thigh. Erwin moaned with desire; Levi moaned in response.
"Touch yourself," Erwin urged him, and Levi did it, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth as he did so, but that wouldn’t do ---
"Open your mouth," Erwin said, bringing the strawberry to his lips and pushing it inside, gentle but insistent, and Levi closed his eyes and bit down and gave another moan, half-stifled by the fruit in his mouth. Erwin watched greedily as Levi chewed and swallowed, and then fed him another, fascinated by the delicate motion of Levi’s mouth and throat, the bobbing of his adam’s apple as he swallowed.
Erwin fed him another strawberry, and then another before Levi had even swallowed the first, and Levi made a little gurgling noise but by now he knew better than to refuse Erwin, not when he was like this, no, Levi knew better than to turn his head away, so he parted his lips and took it into his already-full mouth, biting in so the juices were bursting, running out of the corner of his mouth and down his chin, dripping down onto his torso, his thighs, the chair. And yet Levi’s hands did not falter as he stroked himself.
“Are they good?” Erwin asked, eyes fixed on Levi’s face, Levi, whose own eyes were screwed shut in pleasure, whose head was thrown back as he chewed and swallowed.
“So good,” Levi moaned, his hips canting forward into his own hand.
Erwin pushed another plush red fruit between Levi’s pale and perfect lips, his touch going rough with want, the juice running sticky everywhere, Levi moaning as the calloused pad of Erwin’s thumb brushed against his mouth, and the sound made Erwin feral for him, made it impossible not to shove his thumb inside, his thumb and then his index finger, feeling the cavern of Levi’s mouth as it moved around him, as Levi swallowed the fruit.
He was so absorbed in his task that he hardly noticed Levi bending his leg up until Levi’s foot was in his lap, pressing against the outline of Erwin's erection through his slacks, making Erwin hiss at the contact and then moan as Levi started sliding up and down, stroking him off with the arch of his foot, as strong and delicate and graceful as the rest of him.
“Fuck, baby,” Erwin gasped as Levi started pressing with the tips of his toes just at the head of Erwin’s cock, massaging him through his pants, getting him even harder still, still, though he was so hard already, and Levi knew exactly how to work him, giving it to him just right, that rolling pressure, again and again, subtle and yet relentless, until he was making Erwin’s cock jerk against him, and Erwin could feel himself getting slick at the head, as slick as Levi’s own cock was in his fist.
“How do you like it when I make a mess of you?” Levi said archly, a glint in his eyes as he surveyed the effect he was having on Erwin.
“I love it,” Erwin said sincerely, like a vow. He leaned forward and ground his cock into the muscular curve of Levi’s foot, frotting against him, almost rutting, shameless, like a dog in heat, and then leaning in further still, dragging the chair with him screeching against the sunbathed floorboards so he could press himself closer against Levi, harder, so he could get his fingers deeper into Levi’s mouth, so he could bring one hand up to grab Levi’s jaw and hold him in place while he pushed another strawberry past his lips and Levi gulped it down, and the harder Erwin pressed there, pressed his fingers onto his tongue, the harder Levi pressed his dick with the arch of his foot, and the faster Levi stroked himself off, until he was working himself furiously, groaning as Erwin filled his mouth with fruit, taking it, taking it and fucking up into his own sticky fist, fluid and juice everywhere, hot and wet and lush and ripe and more and then Levi was coming, arcing up with a shout, his back curved like a bow, like an arch, and Erwin came too with Levi’s foot pressed hard and shuddering against him.
After it was over Erwin leaned down and licked Levi everywhere, licked everything up with slow, broad strokes with the flat of his tongue, big and warm like the rest of him. He licked down Levi's torso, down between his legs, lapping up all the sticky juices there; he lifted Levi up just a bit off the chair so he could curl his tongue lower, catch the juice that had run down underneath him, licked the seat of the chair where Levi had been sitting, licking up the sweat that had pooled there. Levi let him do it. It felt dirty. It felt right.
“That’s filthy,” Levi said, watching, panting, breathless.
“You’re the one that put your feet on me,” Erwin laughed, holding Levi’s shoulder to steady himself as he was half on and half off his chair.
“I keep my feet clean,” Levi protested indignantly. “Clean enough to eat off”, he added, lifting his foot up and sticking it in Erwin’s face, wiggling his toes.
“Oh,” Erwin said, feeling that familiar swoop of his stomach, all of a sudden turned on again. “If you insist,” he said, grinning lazily, and went to it.
Levi moaned, lewd and appreciative, when Erwin sucked his big toe into his mouth. His hands flew to grip the sides of the chair as he threw his head back in enjoyment, naked in the sunlight, glistening with spit and sweat, and Erwin never wanted it to end, he wanted to suck every part of Levi, to make him come all afternoon.
They had all afternoon, Erwin realised with a little interior jolt. They could still do this all afternoon. Not for too much longer, not really, but for now they could, if they wanted to. They could do anything they wanted within that apartment. They had all day.
---
Levi was stubborn. But that obstinate midday heat did not waver, and Levi eventually gave up and switched to walking in the evening. That meant he and Erwin could have walked together. But most of the time, Levi wanted to walk alone.
He went through the garden, the flowers bathed in the golden light, dusky shimmering tones of brown and yellow. He walked down to the old theatre at the end of Rivoli street, admiring its peeling arches, its pale awning. He went down to the little park with the artificial lake with the fountain in the middle, loving to hear the rushing water, remembering how it felt the first time he had seen water gush through a lock on a canal. Sometimes children forgot their boats in the lake. Levi fished them out if he could reach them and carefully laid them to the side. Once he saw a little boat with a handsome yellow sail that inexplicably reminded him of Isabel.
If only she could have seen it, he thought. She would have loved it.
Levi still missed her, he still missed Farlan, and he knew now that he would never not miss them, that the ache would be as real as it ever was until the day he went down too. Until the very last moment of that very last day their phantom presence would never leave him. He would carry them with him, as real and palpable to him as a missing limb, a piece of him cut away forever. Farlan and Isabel. Kuchel and probably even Kenny, by now. And one day, Erwin too. Levi knew it in his bones.
Sometimes Levi felt so sad, so deeply, unbelievably sad that he thought he would drown in it, die to it. The sadness felt primal. It felt ancient. It was beyond his ability to express. Sometimes it terrified him, that merciless, unending font of pain, so real it should have been bruising, gasping.
Sometimes Levi was not a person at all but a howling scream, an endless lake of grief, so incomprehensibly vast he wondered how his body could contain it.
But he withstood it every time.
---
One balmy evening there was a thunderstorm, and with it, a torrential rain. Levi got caught in the downpour and trudged home soaked to the skin, and when he walked in he looked so miserable that Erwin didn’t even say anything, just went to fetch a towel.
Levi was not shivering, for it was not cold enough even with the storm, but he looked terrible. He had hated rain and storms ever since he had known them. Ever since that first time, outside the walls.
When Erwin approached him with the towel, Levi blanched, looking skittish. But he let him get close. And closer up, Erwin could see he looked furious, pained, half-drowned and miserable about it. Erwin made an involuntary noise of sadness and pity.
“Fucking horrible,” was all Levi said in reply.
“I know,” Erwin said.
Erwin towelled off Levi’s hair first, so that at least it would stop dripping onto the rest of him, and then he moved to take off Levi’s shirt. When Levi did not give him access, he clicked his tongue.
“Let me strip you,” he said.
“No,” Levi said, shrugging him off.
“Come on, Levi,” Erwin said. “Let me. Indulge me,” he offered, knowing Levi would find it easier to come at this way, rather than Erwin asking for permission to care for him, to give him what he so obviously needed.
"You're a spoiled little boy sometimes," Levi said, but without much force.
"I wish I could make you into one, too," Erwin replied, his gaze heated. A flush rose high on Levi's cheeks.
"You want to drag me down to your level," Levi said accusingly.
"I do," Erwin said, his voice throaty, full of promise.
He had Levi’s attention now.
Levi said nothing, but he obediently held the towel as Erwin carefully brought his hands to Levi's shirt, soaked to the skin and sticking to his torso, undoing the buttons one by one and then moving lower, to the buttons of his trousers. Levi shrugged out of his clothes when Erwin pulled them off. Erwin towelled off Levi’s naked body until he was pink with warmth and friction, and maybe he was blushing too.
“There you are,” Erwin said, dropping a kiss to Levi’s forehead, and he was surprised when Levi grabbed onto him, leaning against him, asking for a hug with his body. Erwin wrapped his arms around him, the way he almost always yearned to do, just feeling Levi there, smelling him, breathing him in. Erwin carded his fingers through the long strands of Levi’s hair, then rubbed with the tips of his fingers at the shaved portion of his head, scratching lightly with his nails like he knew Levi liked.
“That feels good,” Levi admitted.
“You like it when I take care of you,” Erwin said, feeling bold.
The tips of Levi’s ears were pink now. He bit his lip and said nothing. The lack of protest was success, or near enough to it.
“You know,” Erwin said carefully, “I don’t think I got all of you quite dry just yet.”
Levi looked at him quizzically, but again he said nothing. Erwin dragged the towel over Levi’s chest, pressing harder this time, rubbing at his nipples and revelling in Levi’s sharp intake of breath before moving lower, dragging the fabric down below his belly button, and then kneeling down to track it with his mouth, kissing the skin of Levi’s torso, soft and open-mouthed, and then pressing the towel between his legs, requesting access.
Levi shifted his stance to give it to him. Erwin was on his knees before him now, carefully touching Levi with the towel and then with his mouth, leaning in to kiss the join of Levi’s thighs, his stirring cock. Levi had shut his eyes now, lost in the sensation, and Erwin kept kissing him.
“Let me take you to bed,” Erwin murmured.
“Alright,” Levi said, low in his throat, voice scratchy from the wind and rain.
He walked Levi through the apartment to the bedroom and settled him next to him on the bed, but then before he knew it Levi was crawling into his lap, undoing his buttons, pulling Erwin’s shirt off and winding his arms around his neck, kissing him earnestly, guilelessly, ardently, like a child.
He let his hands roam over Levi’s body, that tiny, perfect form, lithe and strong, and then he felt overwhelmed by the urge to look at him, to drink it in, to get to see everything. He laid Levi out on the bed and admired him, that milky expanse of chest, those sculpted arms, the strength of his thighs. Without even really deciding to do it, Erwin found himself shucking his own pants and climbing on top of Levi so they could be skin to skin, covering Levi’s body with his own, feeling every part of Levi’s reaction as he leaned in and kissed him, slow and sweet.
“You’re so beautiful, baby,” Erwin said. A shudder ran through Levi’s body at the words. “What do you want?” he asked softly, but Levi said nothing. Erwin took hold of Levi’s jaw between his thumb and forefinger and held him in place so he could lean in and kiss him. “Tell me what you want,” Erwin said, firm but gentle, the barest hint of an order in his tone.
“I --,” Levi said, then faltered. He looked up at Erwin and his eyes were huge. Erwin gazed down at him, drinking it in.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Erwin said, and he was almost cooing at him, and Levi was letting him, letting him take control, take care of him, lead him into this headspace they had only ever approached the edge of a handful of times before.
Levi’s face went red. “Don’t—” he said, maybe protesting the use of the pet name, but he broke off and Erwin could tell he didn’t mean it, whatever it was.
“Feeling shy?” Erwin asked.
Levi nodded, and even that admission looked like effort, and yet – and yet. Erwin had a sudden instinct that this was the moment, that this was his opening, and decided to gamble on it.
“Do you need Daddy to take care of you?” he asked.
“Oh, god,” Levi gasped, and then clapped both hands over his mouth as if to stop anything more from coming, and Erwin was instantly wild for it, he had to know what more Levi might say, how deep this went, how far they might go.
He had to be patient. He knew. He could spook Levi if he went too far, too fast. He did not prise Levi's hands away from his mouth, as he wanted to do. Instead, he reached down and brushed Levi’s cock with the back of his knuckles. He touched Levi gently at first and then harder, getting him sticky and wet, scooping up the fluid and slicking his fingers with it, pressing tenderly at the tight little furl of Levi’s ass, massaging him there, making him moan.
Erwin leaned down and licked him there until Levi was trembling all over, his hands in Erwin’s hair, pushing and pulling, driving him in as much as he was driving him away. By the time Erwin pressed one long finger inside Levi was moaning for him, loud and sweet, his head tipped back, the delicious expanse of his throat bared in submission, his resolve melting away, his shaking body sinking deeper into the sheets.
“Beautiful,” Erwin whispered.
Levi made a little jerk of pleasure and embarrassment, his hands going rigid in Erwin’s hair. Erwin had to have more.
“Who’s my baby boy?” Erwin asked, almost sweetly, but there was a dark edge in his voice, for he knew how difficult it was going to be for Levi to say it, even just to say he was Erwin’s boy, but he wanted to hear it, to break him, to crack him open, and he was going to do it, would not be deterred.
“I—“ Levi gargled, sputtering, not able to force the words out—
“What was that, sweetheart?” Erwin cooed.
“I can’t” Levi gasped.
“You can, and you will,” Erwin said, dark with promise.
“Nnnn—-“ Levi moaned, almost a no but not quite, not quite —
“Who,” Erwin said, leaning in and enunciating close to Levi’s ear;
“Is,” Erwin continued, fingering him harder now, twisting, working him open, getting him ready;
“My,” he said, letting his lips graze Levi’s ear there where he was so, so sensitive;
“Baby,” he whispered, crooking his fingers up, making Levi jolt and gasp with it;
“Boy?” He pressed up again and again, searching, working, until at last he crooked his fingers just there and Levi yelled, back arching off the bed entirely, hips jerking, cock jerking too, and Levi shouted again as Erwin did it once more and finally shuddered and cried out —
“Me!” Levi wailed, his voice cracking on it, "Me, I am, I--- Daddy, please!"
“God, yes, oh, yes, good boy,” Erwin moaned, “My good, precious baby, my sweet, beautiful boy,” he murmured, showering Levi with praise as Levi keened and writhed on Erwin's fingers, riding his hand, and Levi was close, closer than Erwin had expected, and Erwin was delighted, heady with it, for Levi could be feral and raw when he was close and Erwin wanted to see it, wanted to know, wanted to push for more. “Isn’t that better?” Erwin pressed him, “Now can you tell me what you want?”
“Fuck me,” Levi moaned, “Take me apart, make me take it,” he reached up and twined his fingers in Erwin’s hair and pulled, almost bratty, needy, insistent -- fuck, he was losing it, already lost in it, and Erwin was going to make him take it, see it all the way through.
“Say please,” Erwin instructed him gently.
“I already did,” came the reply, a little indignant, almost petulant, because of course Levi was keeping score.
“Again,” Erwin commanded, greedy for it.
“Make me,” Levi said, looking up at Erwin, eyes hot and dark.
“Oh, beautiful,” Erwin crooned, “You know I will,” he said, leaned back, sat up and flipped Levi over onto his front, pulling him into his lap so he was straddling him, his perfect, soft, muscular cheeks begging for a spanking, and Erwin did it without even asking, just raised his hand back and spanked him once—
“---Fuck!” Levi yelped, his whole body jolting forward but Erwin’s other hand was there now, holding him down at the small of his back and Erwin smacked him again, loving the way Levi shuddered and shook.
“I know you want to be my good boy,” Erwin said, smacking him harder now as Levi thrashed and cried and frotted his hard, leaking cock against Erwin’s thigh.
“Ngh --- fuck ---” Levi swore as Erwin hit him again, and god he was so wet down there, wet from being fingered and spanked, Erwin could feel it slippery on his thighs and it was so hot it made him feral, halfway insane with it, but he had to hold on, he had to take Levi to the edge and over it, he had to give it to him, to give him everything he wanted.
“I’m going to make you,” Erwin promised, smacking him again, and again, again, watching greedily as Levi’s ass went pink and then red and his moans got ragged and he was crying out every time but his cock was still hot and hard and jerking against Erwin’s thigh as Erwin spanked him, his hand huge against the pale, tight globes of Levi’s ass, his handprint blooming red against his skin.
“How many do you need?” Erwin asked authoritatively, wanting to give him what he needed, to fulfill him completely.
“More,” Levi groaned, and Erwin went to it, spanking him again, the smack loud and reverberating through the bedroom, the room where they slept together, and now this, making Levi his boy, that little body a writhing, shuddering thing, a fish twisting on a hook, a crying baby, a sapling thrashing in a storm, everything everywhere, and Erwin spanked him again and again until he was red and raw with it, and he was, Levi was crying properly now, a trembling wreck, a sodden, sobbing mess.
Erwin shushed and soothed him, his perfect, beautiful boy, and then gently pushed him off his lap and up on the bed, admiring his handiwork, digging in with the meat of his thumb to pull Levi apart and expose the tight little furl of his hole, slick and open from the work of Erwin’s fingers, pinning Levi there, exposing him to the air, to Erwin’s hungry gaze, and the predatory, open possessiveness made him heady, and the longer it went on the more intense it seemed to get, until they were both gone with it, untethered, and Erwin had to grab the head of his cock and squeeze or he was going to come way too soon, couldn’t wait to get it inside---
"Nnngh --- fuck, come on!” Levi snarled, snapping first, though he still sounded small, angry, desperate and wanting, “Touch me, please, you bastard, fuck ----" he groaned with frustration, even less patient than Erwin, and this never happened, never, god it was delightful, Levi was wanting it, loving it in spite of how Erwin was torturing him, making him wait, in spite of everything, or maybe ---
"You love it when Daddy's a bastard, don't you?" Erwin said, dark and knowing.
“Yes, yes, fuck—” Levi moaned, losing it properly now, “Yes, I love it, anything, fuck, please, please, please--” and he was so gone he did not even seem to realise he had said it, was saying it, was begging for it just like Erwin had promised he would.
“God, yes, baby, you’re perfect,” Erwin groaned, and finally sank his cock inside in one long, slow, thrust, fitting Levi around him, and he was so close already, they both were, he wasn’t going to last, the way Levi gripped him like a vise, the heat and pressure all around him as Erwin started to fuck him slowly, massaging Levi’s insides with his cock. “Pretty boy,” Erwin praised, velvety-soft and soothing, drawing it out, “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yes—” Levi’s voice cracked on it, drawing it out, his face almost fully buried in the pillow, “Yes, yes, more, more,” he begged, rocking his hips back onto him.
“God,” Erwin groaned again and started fucking him harder, plunging into him, holding Levi down with both hands around his slim little waist and fucking him in place, making him take it, and his cock looked huge and heavy between the tight little globes of Levi’s ass and it was everything and it was his and his alone, “Baby, fuck, I’m close,” Erwin ground out. “Perfect boy, fuck, fuck--- baby--" he gasped, slamming in hard---
“Daddy---!” Levi wailed, “Daddy, daddy, please---” Levi babbled, chanting, whining, canting his hips up to meet him, arching his back like a perfect whore, a precious jewel, a shining treasure, magnificent boy, angel of death, the bringer of salvation, falling apart beneath him, fucked open and loving it, and Erwin loved it too, loved that he could give this to him, wanted to give him everything, and he was doing it, fucking Levi so hard it made him gasp, and those gasps were so breathless and gone it had Erwin groaning, though he was already panting with effort, driving himself into Levi, fucking him hard and deep, twisting his hips so he could hit Levi right there where it made him yelp and writhe, and Erwin held him there and fucked him harder, nailing him again and again and again as Levi took it and sobbed and cried and shook and came, arcing up and wailing, clenching around Erwin so that Erwin came too, filling Levi up, making him his, perfect and complete.
---
Arenne Street, Trost, 10:30 in the morning. They were trying to wake up earlier these days, as it was only a week until the hearing now, but they were having trouble getting the hang of it.
The heavy curtains filtered out most of the sun, but not all of it. The room was bathed in dim and dusky tones. Levi woke before Erwin and burrowed into his embrace, resting his face against his chest, nuzzling at him like a babe.
By the time Erwin woke, Levi was drowsing off again, and his sweet little face was slack and gentle, unguarded at last; his hair was dark and perfect against the soft linen. Erwin lay as still as he could, just to be with him, to draw out the moment, to drink of holding Levi in his arms, feeling Levi’s breath against him.
He stroked down the curves of Levi’s muscles, his shoulders, his back, his scapulae, the weave of his obliques. He stroked Levi’s hands where they were curled against his chest and felt them stirring, and then Levi was stroking back, waking up again, blinking into the light. He sighed softly and buried himself tighter, provoking in Erwin the impulse to grab him, to cling, to hold him tight, and Erwin did. When Erwin released him, Levi sighed again, and gave Erwin such an inscrutable look of joy and sadness that Erwin felt something bloom and fruit and fall to the earth within him. And he knew then that he would never be able to take any of it back, that there was nothing he could do for Levi other than to move them forward, but that if he could have been different, if he could have been better for him, he would have done it without question, without hesitating for a moment, because there was nothing more precious than this and even he with his abstract machinations, his scheming, loping, lofty-minded outlook, could see that.
Levi leaned up and kissed him, and Erwin kissed him back.
“We have to get up,” Erwin whispered. Levi shook his head minutely. “I know,” Erwin said, "I know you wish this wouldn't end.” He stroked the sides of Levi's face with his fingertips. His mouth was soft and warm at Levi's forehead. "I'm sorry that it has to."
"I know," Levi said, eyes still closed, almost soft with sleep.
"I'm glad you got to have this, at least for a little while," Erwin said. "I'm sorry that I made it hard."
"It's fine," Levi sighed, curling his fingers around the curve of Erwin's forearm, stroking him back, feather-soft.
"One day, you'll be able to rest again," Erwin said. "Maybe not soon, but I think someday. I think you will get to have this again before too long. It suits you, beautiful. It fits you like a glove."
"Not you?" Levi asked, always ready to cut to the heart of things, saying the quiet part out loud. Erwin kissed his temple.
"I'm not made for rest," Erwin said. "But I think you are. I want you to enjoy it when you can. You deserve it."
Levi's eyelashes fluttered, like a little bird, and his fingers clung to Erwin. Erwin stroked the fine razor's edge of Levi's hairline, just there at the nape of his neck.
"I love you," Levi whispered against his chest, a puff of air, damp against Erwin's skin.
"I love you, too," Erwin said softly, pulling him close.
Outside the window, Trost was humming.
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