Chapter Text
Levi is sitting up in the tree, branch between his legs, back to the trunk. He takes a bite of his apple, tilts his head back and shuts his eyes to catch the sun. It’s warm today. The first really warm day they’ve had all year. If he was a different kind of person, he’d be minded to sigh, stretch out his legs and curl up in some nook like cat.
But he has other reasons to be sitting in this tree. “You’ll keep score,” Mike had made him promise, earnestly, the way Levi used to demand Kenny time how long it took him to run from one end of the lane to the other. He realises now – Kenny probably just made up the answer, because it’s fifteen minutes gone and he hasn’t been keeping score at all, just watching the two packs of sweaty, sun-tanned alphas kicking a leather ball from one end of the field to the next. Like children, he thinks, and he’s surprised by himself, that he thinks it more fondly than scornfully. Like big fat puppies rolling over themselves for a feeding, more like.
He takes another bite, lets his head rest back against the bark. Mmm. It really is a warm day, but Levi is cool here, sitting up in the shaded branches, his feet dangling idly either side of him. Beneath his shut eyes… well, there’s the birdsong, and the rustle of the branches, the occasional cheer when one side scores – something. Honestly, Levi doesn’t even know the rules.
“You’re not paying attention,” a voice says, disrupting his peace.
Levi cracks open an eye, squints down at Erwin, who’s all frowny and put-out. It’s probably bad sportsmanship, Levi thinks, not to keep score. Erwin is all about sportsmanship. Teams. They would call it Pack, where Levi comes from, but you’re not supposed to use words like that above ground.
He takes another bite of his apple. “Mmm,” he agrees, licks some of the juice off his lips. It tastes so tangy and sweet, better than usual, even. So firm. Levi loves firm apples – hates when they’re soft and mushy and disintegrate in your mouth. “Would you like to be winning?” He asks, lazily.
Erwin turns his head to the side to hide his smile, Levi sees it. When he turns back, he’s schooled his features into something more suitably disapproving. “You should join us,” he offers. “We could use your strength.”
Levi examines his apple. “No,” he tells him. “I don’t want to get filthy, rolling around in the dirt like that.” And he lets his eyes shift their focus from the apple to what’s beneath, Erwin, with his damp hair pushed back on his brow, linen shirt stuck to him with sweat. There’s a faint scent wafting up at him, strong enough that it’s reaching him here, all the way up in these branches in the open air – book glue, Levi thinks, a little incredulously. An alpha like that, with those shoulders, and he smells like a book that’s been left in the sun.
“It’s good for morale,” Erwin insists.
Levi takes another bite of his apple. “Tch,” he shrugs, “it just wouldn’t be fair,” he tells him, through his mouthful. “I’d outrun you all.”
Erwin sighs. “Suit yourself,” he says, waving his hand. He strips off his shirt as he jogs back to the field, tosses it carelessly onto the side. What a waste. He should be more careful. Levi watches his back, pays close attention to the back of his neck, in fact, that broad space where his hair is cropped, and more brown than the blond hair on his head.
He adjusts himself on the branch between his legs.
Levi sighs. It really wouldn’t be fair of him to join the match. It would be – deeply inappropriate, in fact, but Erwin is so very… liberal. Has to be, to have fought for Levi so hard, for his right to be here at all, even if it was mostly self-motivated. The Survey Corps, Erwin had explained to him long ago, is a den of misfits, outcasts and oddities. He could have said, freaks, but he chose not to. That is the word for it, though – freaks, like Levi, an omega with the strength of ten alpha. Feral. Erwin considers himself something of modernising influence, Levi has learned. Which is probably what happens when your father is a teacher with all sorts of strange ideas.
No, Erwin either doesn’t realise the inappropriateness of his suggestion, or doesn’t care. Maybe he thinks it’s very modern of him to even suggest it. Levi, he could say, I order you to join us. Oh, well, if he insists, Levi thinks. You’re too warm, Erwin might tell him. Take off your shirt. They’d all watch him, like dogs with a bone. Levi could be desirable, he thinks. He’d take off down the field, ball between his feet, and the others would give chase. Someone would tackle him, or he would trip, at the last hurdle. Hands on his wrists. Erwin would have to punish him, for losing the game. No – not that. They would chase him. They would catch him. They’d hold him there, beneath the sun, spread out in the grass. It would be so warm. He is so warm. He’d squirm there, all their hands, smelling like alpha. Maybe they would have to turn him over. It’s Erwin who would pin him to the grass. It’s Erwin’s right, he’s the Commander. By all pack rights, Levi belongs to him. He would slide his hand up Levi’s nape, grip him, or else stroke him, until Levi was all soft and sighing and everyone could see how – how good he is, how easy he can go under, a real omega, a bitch in –
He’s only vaguely aware of kilting off balance, the short glide through the air, the heavy blow of earth reaching up to smack him. He lies there on the dirt-packed grass, twigs digging into his skin, and stares up and the canopy of leaves. He can’t even think how he got here, the wind knocked out of him. He must’ve – he must’ve fallen. But he’s dazed enough that all he can do is lie there, even as he hears alarmed cries, pounding feet coming his way.
“Are you alright?” Erwin asks, all concerned. It’s Mike, and Erwin, and some others, and their skin is sweat-slick, and they smell like – it’s lumber and parchment, respectively, but neither of them are – wearing shirts, in fact, leaning over and blinking down at him all worried on his behalf. Mike reaches forward to brush some leaves out of Levi’s hair; Levi catches a deep scent of him, right at the throat, burning wood, and it makes him shiver. He wants to – to press his nose into it, scent it as deep as it can go, rub his nose against it and – and make it a part of him, maybe –
“Levi,” Erwin says, and then again; this time, his voice is lower, it’s an order, and not just any order, it’s the kind that hooks him behind the knees. “Levi,” he commands, “talk to me. Speak.”
“Hot,” Levi sighs, eyes half-lidded to block out the sun.
Mike slides his arm beneath Levi’s shoulders to sit him up, except – he’s rubbing all along Levi’s nape, that soft sensitive spot on the back of his neck, and Levi’s mind shuts off, entirely, disconnected from any sense at all, slipping pliant and loose between their arms. “Oh,” he moans, and someone blows cool air across his face, “hot,” he whimpers.
His legs fall open and he can smell himself, suddenly. He must – he must smell so fucking needy, but he can’t think about it, his brain is offline and he’s just shivering there, limply. He pushes his head back over the arm beneath his nape, bares his neck, as honest as he can be, as a direct a signal as he can give. Please, he thinks, touch me.
“Oh dear,” he hears Erwin say. Oh dear, it means. What an inconvenience.
The heat turns to shame inside him. Thick, cloying, desperate. Utter humiliation. He can smell the pity off of them, all of them, watching him writhe around like a stupid little bitch begging for scraps. As if – as if any of them would ever – could ever –
He cracks open his eyes. Erwin is looking down at him, sadly. “Let’s take him inside,” he says. Inside, where it will be cool, and empty, and sterile. Where there will be no scents clinging to the weave of the sheets they put him on. What was he thinking? He’s not thinking, he’s not thinking at all. Erwin, he’s so clean, so neat, all tan-and-blond. He’s so clean. He smells so clean, like ink on paper, and Levi is – he’s dirt, mud, the kind of earth that can only grow fungus, deep below the earth. He can smell it on himself. Erwin wouldn’t… he couldn’t, not with someone so filthy, so…
They carry him like they’re afraid to touch him, like he’ll infect them. Erwin keeps his hand clamped on the back of Levi’s neck, as if to placate him, stop him from agitating. It’s not enough. It’s never enough, but it leaves him boneless, unable to fight the shame, unable to fight anything, vulnerable and open to whatever harm someone wants to inflict. Don’t leave me, Levi will beg, if he has to. He couldn’t stop anyone like this. He’s an open wound, a festering sore –
Levi jerks awake, hand clapped to the back of his neck. It’s dark, still – early morning, before the sun rises. The room is cold, freezing in fact, the fire in the grate burnt down hours ago. There’s a light dusting of frost on the inside of his window. It’s glistening in the reflection of the low candle on his bedside table.
It’s freezing. It’s winter, not summer. And Levi looks down at himself, blinking haze from his eyes, pushing damp hair off his brow. The sheets are soaked in sweat. His sweat. He’s as hot as he would be if he had been lying out in the sun. A night sweat, random, not unfamiliar, but not something he’s experienced since he started taking essence when he joined the Corps.
Ah, he thinks, with that sense of resigned irritation. Shit.
_
Levi doesn’t choose to ignore it, he simply decides to table it for a later date. Everything is in short supply since Maria fell – time, food, people, and yes, whoever it was that used to collect the flowers that are used to off-set heat. He’d been biding his time, had figured he’d get a supply from the farms in Rose, but he’s lost the race. He’s not so good at listening to his body, he realises – even his thoughts seem slower, stupider, like he’s already heat-dazed. He thinks he’ll attend the meeting that’s arranged for the morning, then perhaps he’ll… well. There are the things he wants, and the things he can have. And he’s thinking about those things – tall, blond, thick brows and heavy-knuckled fingers, book-glue and sweat and patience (in Levi’s fantasies, Erwin is always so very patient), when he knocks into the corner of the hallway, kilters off balance.
“Shit,” he mutters, rubbing his throat. Or maybe – maybe this really is just a fever. He’s burning up like it’s a fever, he almost feels ill. He needs to settle down, really. He needs to find something, somewhere. Clean out his quarters, that’s what he needs, something had made him sick, so – so he’ll clean his quarters, get them nice and fresh and smelling only like good, nice things, and he’ll… he’ll nestle down in bed, and perhaps then – then –
Two hands on his shoulders, squeezing. “Hmm,” they say, as if perturbed, and push him back against the wall to stop him from slipping further down it.
“Can I help you?” Levi asks, irritably.
Mike sniffs him again, the crown of his head, this time. He steps forward, just a little – but to Levi, it feels like a physical force, pushing him back into the wall. Strangely, he doesn’t even protest it. He feels him go a little hazy. Mike smells like wet wood, today. Levi’s eyes grow heavy. Wet wood, some marshy earth. And Mike’s nose slips lower, sniffing at his ear – Levi hears it, his breath, the slight crinkle of his shirt, his beard when it drags against Levi’s shoulder –
He has to push him away, bodily, shaking his head clear. Mike backs off, easy enough, but Levi’s legs feel week. “Freak,” he mutters under his breath, stumbles off from the wall. He tries to keep his pace quick, but he feels like someone’s tied weights to his ankles. He has the sudden, irrepressible urge to lie down in the middle of the floor, roll onto his back and bare his belly, pull back his chin and –
Something knocks into him, or someone. Just two soldiers, walking down the hallway, but they don’t make way for him the way they usually would, with a deferent nod and a ‘Captain’. Levi recoils, watches their retreating backs. “Hey,” he calls after them, wanting to give them a piece of his mind, but the sheer disgust in the eyes of the woman who looks over her shoulder at him, and the weakness in his legs, changes his mind, somehow.
He decides he’ll skip breakfast, then.
He slips out, into the cold morning air, and finally he can breathe. He thinks it’s going to snow, soon. It might even snow before the final expedition, which will mean delaying until after the new season. Levi won’t complain. He’ll never complain about winning an extra few months without having to smell horse’s guts and the shit of fallen comrades and the thick, pervading scent of fear. In the cold air, Levi can’t really scent himself at all. It feels good, clarifying. He tips his head up at the sky, and it clears his head, cools him down, the muggy hot heat fading. Perhaps it’s just a flush after all. Perhaps he isn’t going to have crawl on all fours and beg his Commander for a reprieve. Perhaps, come tomorrow, he’ll still be Captain Levi, and not – whatever else.
He doesn’t what a heat Above, here, would look like. Underground, it was always… there was Kenny, at first. Kenny took care of him, in that awkward, excruciating way he had, locking the door to the safehouse and posting himself on the roof like a fucked up sentinel, delivering food through a bucket from the window. There had been bad times. People who figured they could take a turn. But Levi knows – he knows not all alpha can be bad, because Kenny never tried him, not even once, not even though he knew Levi’s mother was a whore and he was bred for it, really.
But Kenny had left, or died, or – Levi doesn’t know, exactly. He’d disappeared, the way people always do Underground. Levi was strong by then. He could make do. There was – he wasn’t always – Levi has hazy recollections of stumbling through the streets with bloody knuckles and holding his stomach like his guts were going to fall out. He lived below so long he got it stuck on him, embedded in his scent, rock and sewage, he thinks. He remembers hiding. He remembers – hands, or, worse. And they’d held the back of his neck and laughed. And Levi hadn’t felt like the strongest anything, he’d just like a bitch in heat, while they held him face-down in the dirt. It got stuck on him, is the truth.
There are no other omegas in the Corps. The brass consider it a waste – Levi’s know of a few in the Garrison who pull their weight, and a few tokens in the MPs that mostly serve on their backs, or sometimes their knees if a Captain’s in the mood for it. If there were omegas – perhaps they would take him through, the way he and Farlan used to. But he knows they find that kind of thing disturbingly feral, Above – too… too pack-like, he thinks, all those omegas, bundling into one bed, nesting down together, safe, and warm, and oh so –
No. It’s cold. Levi pulls off his cloak, watches his breath fog in the air. When he tips up his head, he sees an icicle hovering just above from the beams of the porch. He waits for his heart to slow, his temperature to cool, until he doesn’t think of anything at all.
By the time he finds the office, Erwin’s already lit his fire, is half in discussion with the squad-leaders Mike and Trant. He nods at Levi when he comes in, doesn’t ask him why he has a red nose or why he makes a beeline for the fire. Erwin’s set it wrong. He always sets it wrong – what kind of grown man doesn’t know how to light a proper fire? He wastes the coal, just tossing it in haphazardly, like an idiot. Levi pokes at it with a stick, tries to push warmth back into his hands. No heat, he thinks, with relief, rubbing the cold out of his fingers. His head is blessedly clear. “Tch,” Levi interrupts Trant mid-flow, “you’re wasting the coal again, Erwin. You’d think Maria hadn’t fallen, with the way you’re burning through it.”
“Hey,” Trant demands, “that’s your damn Commander, show some respect.”
Oh, yes, Erwin should make Levi show him some respect. Levi sits in his chair and rolls his eyes and thinks about all the ways Erwin might make him show him respect. He might discipline Levi, right there and then. He might – he might scruff him by the nape to make him whimper in front of all of them, get him shaking his hips and spitting slick down his thighs, and he’d – he’d pull down his pants, to check, announce to all of them: ah, he would say, looks like the Captain is just another bitch in heat. Levi could be. He’d beg Erwin. He’d show him how good he can do it. Maybe it wouldn’t be good enough. Maybe… maybe Erwin would tan his ass right there, and when he fucks him, it’ll leave no doubt in anyone’s mind who owns him. He’d be the most – he is the most desirable, he decides, the best omega, he could be the best omega of them all, if Erwin would just give him the chance to prove it –
Levi can smell grass. He rests his cheek on his fist, slumping down in his chair. “Quarterly expectation,” Erwin says, and then some numbers Levi doesn’t follow. Levi’s fist slips behind his ear. This close he – mmm. He strokes the soft skin just around the edge of the nape of his neck, nice and gentle. It feels like summer. He can smell it, even, all around Erwin and Mike and Trant. Not so much off Hange and the rest of them. Erwin is… he’s all fresh-linen and books, and Mike is fresh cut wood, and Trant is like candle oil burnt low. Levi strokes his nape without really thinking about it, feels warm and fuzzy.
Someone clears their throat. Levi blinks, pulls open his eyes, without realising he’d let them close, or get half-way there, at least. They’re staring at him. They’re all staring at him – Trant’s fixed him with eyes that look like they’re split between murderous and aching. Levi recoils, suddenly; the room stinks. It’s not even him – he takes a couple of hasty scents just to check – it’s the rest of them, or rather he should say, the three of them, the three alpha, staring at him unreservedly, the way dogs prick their ears at the sound of a the stew bowl being put out.
“Erwin,” Mike says, and he sounds aggrieved. “I told you.”
Levi realises, finally, that he’s aching hard beneath the table and near enough wet to soak through his underwear. Oh, Goddamn. Goddamn, and they can smell it –
He pushes back his chair. “I – “ he starts, “I think I’m – I think I’m catching a fever,” he says, stupidly, like they can’t smell him, like he can’t smell the responses off of them.
Erwin moves down the table – Levi wonders if he’s planning to throw him over the side of it and fuck him senseless, but instead, he just rests the back of his hand against his brow. It’s like… lying face-down in cool sheets after a fresh bath. Levi blinks to force his eyes open. Erwin’s fingers are on his chin; they tip his head this way and that and Levi just lets him, shivering. Erwin is touching him and he thinks it’s the best thing he’s ever felt, ever. He curls his fists in the seat of his chair just to keep them from reaching out. And Erwin’s fingers – they reach so gently, barely-there, just to brush against his glands –
“Ah,” he says. “I see.”
Levi’s legs feel like they’re trembling. Maybe they’re not, but they’re certainly too weak to carry him. Erwin is talking in a murmured voice to someone, Mike maybe, his hand still cupping beneath Levi’s chin. He scents a spike of fight off of the alphas, and Hange – he knows it’s Hange, they scent like iron and shoe polish – is squeezing his shoulders, protectively. Erwin hasn’t taken his hand off his throat. “Leave it, Trant,” he orders. “Mike,” he says.
The room becomes lighter when he hears them leave. Erwin says something to Hange, and they take their hands off his shoulders. “Levi,” Hange asks, “do you want me to stay?”
To stay? Stay where? And why? “Perhaps just until he’s more… cognizant,” he hears Erwin answer for him. Hange pushes on Levi’s shoulders, gently, until he’s face down on the oak table, his breath fogging the glazed table-top. He feels… there’s probably a polite word, for it, or a better way to say it, but Levi can’t think so good right now. He feels like he wants to strip off his clothes and rub himself up against the Commander’s legs, is what he feels, or else, have someone drag him outside and dip him the ice lake. Preferably naked, though. Yeah, that’s what he wants. He wants to – to peel off his clothes and shiver and have someone’s hands touch him, scratching the itch beneath his skin with nothing but touch –
The sudden, dizzying arousal starts to fade. He realises he’s been making this stupid, groan-y little sounds, like a simpleton. He lifts his hands, plants them on the table by his head, can’t quite bring himself to push himself up and face them, so he just lets one fist fall back against the table. He shudders. Goddamn. The flush is fading, but it doesn’t change the facts – he’s just spread his legs in a damn officer’s meeting, in front of Erwin, his Commander, and there’s nothing that’ll ever take it back.
Lucky, most of us will be dead in a few years, he thinks, morbidly. It actually reassures him, some, or at least, gives him the strength to lift his head. He feels like he’s been pressed through a steam-roller, his hair stuck to his brow. Hange has been drumming their fingers against the table, raises their brows at him. “Back with us, then?” They ask.
Levi pushes back, until he’s seated, blood rushing to his head with the sudden movement, making him dizzy. “I,” he for some reason decides to lie, “have a fever.”
“That’s one word for it,” Hange agrees, and Levi sees them meet Erwin’s eyes over his head, but can’t bear to look at the man himself. “I’m going to get a medical officer – “
“No,” Levi interrupts. “Don’t. Don’t be stupid.”
Hange raises their brows. “You have a fever,” they repeat. “Don’t you think you need one?”
Levi shuts his eyes, scrubs his hand over his face. “It’s not a fever,” he mutters.
Hange cocks their ear. “What was that, Levi?”
“I said, it’s not a fever,” Levi snarls at them, smacks his fist against the table. “Goddamn, you need me to spell it out to you, huh?” The anger gives him the courage he needs to look at Erwin. “Tell them,” he demands. “Tell them I don’t need a fucking doctor.”
Erwin’s sitting at his desk, as if trying to put as much space between himself and the stinking, writhing lump of Levi as he can. He steeples his fingers. “That’s depends,” he says, levelly, “on our next steps, yes?”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Levi grouses. He looks at Hange. “What’s he talking about?” He asks.
Hange’s eyes flick from Levi to Erwin, and back again. They clear their throat. “I think I’m going to wait outside,” they say, clearly picking up on some kind of signal off of Erwin that’s gone over Levi’s head. Maybe it’s the kind of thing a beta can only pick up on – when their alpha’s given them an order, that is.
“What’s that about?” Levi asks him, and grips his throat – his voice is croaky. “What’s the fuckin’ mystery?”
Erwin seems to ignore him, writing something at his desk. “Please,” he says, gesturing briefly to the seat in front of him. He’s writing something, pen scratching against the paper. Eventually, he seems able to tear his eyes away, wipe the excess ink off his pen, and set it down on the placemat. “Now,” he says, as if to say, you have my undivided attention. “Are you sure you don’t require medical assistance?” He starts.
Levi folds his arms. “Yes,” he tells him, coolly.
Erwin nods. And their game of chicken begins. “You are due for a heat, aren’t you?” His commander asks him, like that doesn’t mean anything, like it isn’t the – height of rudeness. “My apologies,” he says, maybe seeing the look of disgust, or else surprise, on Levi’s face. “You’re approaching your lying-in, is that correct?”
Levi stares. “Yeah,” he says, because two can play at that, if it’s what Erwin wants. “I’m due for a fucking, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Mmm. I suppose, in a manner of speaking.” Erwin leans back in his chair, seems to regard him, impassively, like trying to work out how to deal with a very specific kind of problem. He looks at Levi the way he looks at his strategy maps. “You should have informed the medical officer if there was a problem with your – what is it? Flower oil, or some such thing?”
Spare him the lectures, like he’s a recalcitrant child. “They’re farmed in Maria,” Levi tells him, quietly. “I couldn’t get any.”
“And you didn’t think to warn someone?” Of course, Levi thinks, this is a burden. It’s a burden for Levi, it’s a burden for Erwin, for the entire Corps, having a bitch in heat setting everyone on edge. “If you had started while out in the field – “
“Then maybe I’d be extra tasty for the titans,” Levi snaps, defensive, feeling shaky and snarling to make up for it. “Goddamn, you think I don’t know? I was going to – deal with it,” he mutters, and pushes his hair off his brow. “I only realised this morning, figured maybe – it was just a fever,” he tells him, sullenly. It seems pathetic, now, the lies he told himself.
Erwin doesn’t say anything, straight away. But he leans forward, abruptly, and notes something on the papers in front of him, like a thought has just occurred to him, completely disconnected from what Levi had been saying. Levi waits for him to finish, privately seething. “Are you done?” He asks, when Erwin puts down his pen.
Erwin covers his page with another, so Levi can’t see what he’s written. He rubs his mouth with his hand, like he’s thinking deeply. “Would you mind if I asked you a personal question?” Erwin asks, patiently.
“What, this isn’t personal enough for you?” Levi snaps.
If Erwin is put out by his manner, he doesn’t let it show. “You’re untouched,” he says. “Since the first day I knew you, I could tell. There’s never been an alpha on you, not even once.” He waits a beat, like expecting Levi to protest. “Yes?” He prompts.
Levi scoffs. “I’ve been fucked,” he tells him. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
“By who?” Erwin asks politely, as if they’re discussing the weather.
Levi folds his arms, looks away.
“By who?” Erwin asks again, more insistently. “No,” he seems to decide, “it doesn’t matter. You’re a virgin – “
Levi represses a shudder. “I’m not a virgin.”
“With respect, I can smell you are.”
“I’ve slept with people. Other people. Omegas,” he gets out, eventually.
“That doesn’t count,” Erwin tells him, dismissively, rustling the papers around his desk, searching for something.
“What,” Levi scoffs, “you think you’re something special?”
Erwin blinks at him pointedly, as if to remind him, I’m your Commander, but Levi’s pissed off enough and strung-out and sitting in a wet-patch, so he’s not too minded to care about Erwin’s feelings, or propriety, or chain of command, when Erwin is asking him, Goddamn, in that shitty level voice, so, Levi, are you a virgin?
“To an alpha,” he explains, “it doesn’t count,” he corrects. “My apologies, if that offends you.”
It doesn’t offend him, no. But people up here don’t get it – more rural folk, they do, they still roll in packs and let the omegas take each other through heats, but in the cities, in the rich northern towns, people like Levi are married off as soon as they get their first flush, and that’s that. So it doesn’t offend him, that Erwin doesn’t think bedding down with a pile of omegas isn’t a suitable way to spend your lying-in, but it does irritate him, his dismissal, his sheer belief that he’s right in the way only alphas can be, really.
“Erwin,” he warns.
“Levi,” Erwin agrees, calmly. He seems to be searching his face, for something. “I hope you weren’t… unsettled,” he says. “By some of the reactions to your condition. I think, this sudden change of affairs has set people on edge.”
It doesn’t matter what it’s done. Levi’s dealt with worse. The thought makes him shudder, he pushes it away. “I can take them,” he mutters.
Erwin raises his brows. “Even in your condition?” He asks, and it seems to be a genuine question. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never known you to…”
Yeah, he hasn’t. He’s never known Levi as a bitch in heat, is what. Erwin had talked big talk, about being an equal, about lending his strength. After Farlan died, there was no one Levi trusted, anymore. Underground was never safe, but it was sometimes home, the scents were familiar even if they did make him sick. But up here… he hadn’t wanted to the omega. He’d seen how the gangs treated their Os, breeding fodder, worse, just slaves on all fours. And his Mom wasn’t O, but it’s the same principle, and –
And Levi’s repressed worse than heats. “I can handle it,” he tells Erwin, wants him to believe it. He doesn’t want to be a burden.
“Is that what you think?” Erwin asks him, lightly. He makes a soft sound at the back of his throat. “Levi,” he tsks.
“Captain,” Levi reminds him. He impresses it, slowly. “Commander.”
“I am,” Erwin agrees, folding his hands carefully on the placemat. “Your Commander, I mean. There’s a hierarchy to these things, of course. You’re under my protection, I’ll take care of it,” Erwin announces, paternally. “You really don’t need to be worrying about anything else, in your condition.”
Levi thinks he wants to throw up. “Your protection?” He snarls.
“Yes,” Erwin says, mildly. “Well, that’s generally how these things go, don’t they?”
Levi scoffs, derisively. “You can’t be serious,” he says. “Goddamn, Erwin – “
“I’m sorry, I thought we were using titles only?”
“You want to fuck me, Erwin?” Levi can’t stop himself from sneering. “Is that what this is about?”
“In three years,” Erwin starts, carefully, quietly, “have I ever – “
“I’ll bet you think you’re something special, huh?” Levi continues, feeling – something hot, and boiling, in his chest. “You figure you’re gonna – take me under real good, huh? Take real good care of me,” he spits. His skin is itchy, there’s a hollow ache in his stomach, his fucking balls are swollen, and his Commander is – sitting across from him, lecturing him in that benign voice, as if Levi doesn’t know, or worse, as if – he thinks he knows better than Levi, even –
“I don’t really have the time, to be blunt,” Erwin says, carelessly. “But I can see to you in the evenings, if you’d like.”
“Oh,” Levi drips, “how very accommodating of you. Will it be a hardship, Commander?” Levi sneers.
Erwin inhales slowly, exhales through his mouth, eyes shut. A beat of silence passes, where he appears to collect himself, thumb nails digging into his hands. And then he starts again. “Apologies,” he says. “Perhaps I should just be straightforward, it would save us some time, yes?” He doesn’t wait for Levi’s answer. “I’m proposing that we take this opportunity to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. You’ll have comfortable chambers, you’ll be safe from prying eyes. It will be good for morale,” Erwin tells him, almost earnest. “To have you feeling – well. You’ve heard that a happy omega means a happy pack? Now, we’re not a pack, nor would we want to be, but I think the logic still applies. It will be good for everyone,” Erwin presses. “Settle some of the bad atmosphere, yes? Make your position more clear.”
“My position?”
For the first time, Erwin seems something like speechless. Levi can see him weighing up the words in his mind. “Yes,” he says, carefully. “It will go a long way to settle certain issues, if you – well. If you scent like mine, I suppose.”
Owned. Levi rolls his head on his shoulders, listens to his back click. He really does need to unwind, he thinks. He feels like a sack of bones pieced together by meat.
“And, it will be good for you,” Erwin tells him, authoritatively. “To be able to smell a real alpha, hmm? Or at least, I imagine it would,” he adds, blithely. “Better than omegas, no matter how warm, or pretty.”
“And good for you?” Levi asks, and he wants to sneer it, but he thinks it sounds more pathetic than he planned.
“Of course,” Erwin agrees, politely. He is really is very polite. Very measured. Levi chances a look at his Commander’s hands – just like he expected, clean beneath his nails. And such thick fingers, he thinks, and starts to feel the haze settling in again.
He tears himself out of it through sheer force of will, knowing Erwin can smell it, but is graciously refusing to comment on it.
“And you’ll fuck me,” Levi finishes, for him.
Erwin’s lips twitch, for the first time. “Well yes, Levi,” he tells him. “In a sense.”
In a sense. Levi pretends he’s not imagining it, digs his nails into his palms. Well yes, Levi, I suppose I can make time to fuck you. Perhaps I’ll get some reading done while I take you from behind. And if you’re good and quiet, I’ll even let you suck me off while I write my letters.
But – but oh. Levi can almost smell it, the scent of Erwin, if Levi was bracketed between those thick thighs. He’d pet Levi’s hair, gently. Well? He might say. Go on. Levi’s never had an alpha’s cock in his mouth. He doesn’t know how different it would be. He needs to fight the haze, though, to give Erwin his answer.
“You’ll need some time, yes?” Erwin asks, as organised as ever. He notes something down in the calendar on his desk, marking the days Levi will be on leave, perhaps. “To – “ he waves his hand. “I’m not sure what the polite phrase it. Settle in,” he decides. Nest, he means.
Levi wonders if Erwin is trying to make him feel small, or if Levi’s is just a sensitive bitch like this. This was never a problem before. Erwin’s never – made him feel small, before. He’s felt other things, because of him, but not this. Less-than-notice. Levi wonders, if he was a different kind of person, if this conversation would go a different way. Perhaps Levi should fall to his knees, bat his lashes. Bear his neck and spread his legs or any number of other things better omegas do. Levi never learnt how, it was an indulgence, but –
He might like to be desirable to Erwin, is all. He might like to be a real omega, rather than a military instrument that needs to be fine-tuned, oiled up, kept in good condition. Like ODM. Probably worse than ODM – Levi’s seen Erwin finger that equipment, and he’s a shade more caring than he’s being right now. Levi thinks about Erwin’s fingers, slipped into his triggers. Neat clipped nails, no dirt beneath them. Nice and clean. Clean thick fingers, yes. Bigger than Levi’s. What might that be like? Having them… and Erwin is alpha, so very alpha, the most… more than any of them, all of them…
“Levi,” Erwin says, voice low. More than low – commandeering, and not in the military sense, more in the – the – the kind of way that hooks omegas like him behind the knees. He pushes out a recollection of being scruffed by Kenny for missing three bottles in a row, telling him what he was worth, and the damn grip of his voice, like it had knocked him flat and rolled him off a roof, that kind of crushing disappoint, or worse, disapproval, the threat of it, which makes you – want to crawl like a dog, belly to the floor and neck bared. Has Levi disappointed Erwin? He’ll try very hard not to, he’ll try very – very –
“Mmm?” He asks, and can’t meet Erwin eyes, feels very certain that he needs to keep them trained somewhere past him, below him, and usually he can fight instinct to the point of effortlessness, but today he can only give in.
“You understand,” Erwin says, and Levi thinks he’s trying to be a little gentle, now. “I won’t – “ he clears his throat. “I won’t – “
“Spit it out,” Levi mutters, and rubs at his eyes with his hand. His head hurts. He remembers this part, the belly aches, the exhaustion, the band that settles around your temples like a noose around a neck.
“I won’t knot you,” Erwin says, and he says it like he’s doing Levi a favour. “You’ll be as untouched after my bed as you were when you came to it.”
Untouched. Levi doesn’t want to be untouched, he wants to be touched, outside, inside, filled up with touch. His skin is already itching for it. He has the words: he could say, Erwin, the only reason I’ve never been knotted is because there was never a single person I trusted long enough to keep me in one place. To split him open. Erwin’s an alpha, though. Levi’s never known an alpha who’s turned their nose up at a clean cunt when it’s in heat, but then, maybe a man like Erwin can choose to be picky. He’s the Commander. Goddamn, he’s Levi’s Commander, the man whose orders he follows, who – after this, he’ll need to continue to follow, who’ll always remember him as he’s going to be, a heat-dazed O.
“Yeah,” Levi says, and his throat feels tight. He rubs his nape, unthinkingly, and feels relaxed by the warm tingles it sends through him. “Whatever,” he says, eyes heavy-lidded.
Erwin is watching him. “I’ll have to ask you to keep yourself to my quarters,” he seems to decide. “Just for the foreseeable future, you understand. I wouldn’t want anyone to… disrupt the process.”
Disrupt the process. Erwin’s little experiment, perhaps. What happens when you take one unknotted omega, nearly half-way into their prime years, and show him alpha cock for the first time in his life –
“This is a good opportunity,” Erwin continues, “a unique opportunity in fact, yes?”
“For what?” Levi asks, suspicious.
Erwin seems to look for the right words. “To… reinforce the chain of command,” he says, tactfully. “Or perhaps you haven’t noticed. But your presence in your unfiltered state is putting some people on edge, in more ways than one.”
Levi thinks about the eyes on him in the meeting, after he’d embarrassed himself. The shoves in the hallway by unfriendly shoulders, betas who on some level, think he doesn’t know his place. “Y’know, I’m not really a Captain,” Levi feels obliged to say. “I didn’t ask for it, it’s just a name they gave me. If it sets things right – “
“You’re a Captain now until the day you die, don’t misunderstand, please,” Erwin interrupts. He pauses. “Unless you’re not thinking straight,” he adds, squinting slightly, like he’s trying to tell if Levi’s sex-addled. “Are you fully cognizant, Levi?”
Dear God. “Are you?!” Levi cries. “You’d better hope you hit your head, Erwin, asking me, am I fully cognizant –” he mocks.
“It’s important you understand what I’m telling you,” Erwin says. “What I’m offering.”
“You’re offering to fuck me senseless, it’s not a difficult concept to understand, take a look outside your window and you might catch two pigeons going at it in a tree.”
Erwin gives him one of his patient smiles. “Quite a mouth you have, Levi.” Erwin stands, abruptly, trails his fingers along his desk as he moves around it. He settles his hand lightly against the back of Levi’s neck, squeezes. Levi’s been touched there before, of course. There are alpha who have tried to have their way with him, in one way or another, or people who figured it was an easy hit, a good way to take him out of action. He remembers – no. Doesn’t matter. They’re not wrong; but Levi’s like a titan, he always protects his nape. And he’s been punished that way, too – been scruffed, lightly, or worse, pinched, and the pain is something else entirely, it’ll roll through you like a wave and leave you limp and whimpering in a pile of limbs on the floor.
But he doesn’t think, not even for a second, that Erwin means to punish him, or anything else bad besides. He thinks – Erwin is touching his neck. How much clearer could he be? It’s as overt a signal as Levi knows to interpret, not that he can interpret anything, right now. Besides, his body makes the decision for him: he smells himself, the sharp spike in his arousal, which has been hanging around him like an embarrassing cloud all day. But Erwin has touched him there. Why else would he touch him there, when in the years he’s known him, he’s never done it before? Levi’s brain goes offline, disengages. He wants me, he thinks, deliriously, feels his body respond to it, loose and willing. He tips back as his head, as submissive as he knows how to be, thinks Erwin might like that, but doesn’t really think it, just knows it, on some instinctual level. Erwin’s hand is like a brand, and he’s not thinking, not at all, except the hook behind his navel and all that soft pleasure from the back of his neck down his spine. He spreads his legs, feels his back arch, his own arousal so thick in his own nostrils –
Erwin’s… Erwin’s scent does not respond in kind. Levi is confused. Is he not being clear enough? Perhaps Erwin doesn’t understand. His hand slips off of Levi’s neck, to between his shoulder-blades, and – and –
It’s worse than outright rejection: it’s pity.
“You seem overstressed,” Erwin tells him, quietly, and even when he’s destroying him, his words are so calm, so mild. “Would you like me to get someone to gather your things?”
Levi wants the floor to open up and swallow him whole. He wants a titan to slam through the windows, pick him up in its fist, and shove him down it’s gullet. It would be preferable. Melting away inside its stomach would preferable to this, sitting here hard and leaking in his Commander’s chair, with his pity, his – his disgust, is what it is, that Levi would ever think he was good enough, that he was desirable enough, clean enough.
He refuses to apologise. He won’t apologise for it. What was Erwin thinking, touching him there, if he didn’t want to – why else would you touch him there? To comfort him?! Not where Levi is from, you don’t. You touch there if you to fuck, or you want to punish. This is a punishment, in a way. It’s a reminder. Levi wants to – evaporate, with shame, and it’s sick cycle, because Erwin will be able to scent it off him. Tch, what was he thinking, spreading his legs like that, all because of one – one little touch from an alpha.
Erwin is talking to Hange, murmured, by the door. He clears his throat when he’s finished. “Levi,” he says, politely, and pulls open the door for him to walk through. “Please,” he tells him graciously, “after you.”
Levi halts by the door, stares at a spot on the floor. He wants to disappear. He doesn’t know how to say to Erwin – I can’t. You need to go first. It’s instinctual, and pathetic in extreme. Alpha goes first. Levi’s hindbrain won’t take no for an answer.
Erwin seems to realise his dilemma. “Ah,” he says, to cover the sticky awkwardness, of Levi’s new position. “I’ll show you the way to my quarters,” he lies, like Levi doesn’t know. His knees feel weak. He snaps at Erwin when he tries to hold doors open for him, and only just tolerates the way he shields him from view when they pass by others, one arm hovering around Levi’s shoulders, covering him with his body.
This time, he insists Levi enters the room before him. “It’s polite,” he tells him, almost stern. “You’re my guest, Levi.” And he’d taken Levi’s jacket for him, draped it behind the door, and showed him where he can stack his boots, and pointed to the washroom. He clears his throat, folds his hands behind his back. “Well?” he asks him, mildly. “Is it to your liking?”
Levi wishes he wouldn’t talk like that, stand like that, so stiff, so formal. They’re friends, or at least, they were, up until three hours ago. It’s like Levi has forgotten what that feels like. He’s reminded, irrevocably, that Erwin is his Commander, is the Commander, and that this is his bedroom, a place Levi has only seen a handful of times. Last year, when Erwin had influenza. The night he got so drunk he couldn’t walk straight.
Levi draws his finger along the dresser. “Tch,” he mutters. “It needs a good clean.”
“Is that so,” Erwin says, levelly. “Not to your standards, then.”
“I don’t know how you live like this,” Levi tells him, turns his back to him and opens the shutters on the window seats to let in some fresh air.
“Live like what?” Erwin asks him, amused, like he knows it’s just posturing on Levi’s part.
“Pig,” Levi tells him, shortly.
“If you say so,” Erwin says, sounding bemused. He checks his pocket watch. “I’d best be going,” he says. “Do you need anything? I’ll send someone with supplies.”
“Yeah,” Levi tells him, with sudden deep urge, a heat-craving. “Apples.”
“Apples?”
“Yeah, it’s a fruit,” Levi tells him, like he’s stupid. “They can be red or green, grow on trees.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Erwin says, and if he’s bothered by Levi’s foul mood, he doesn’t say anything. “You stay safe, now,” he tells him, “that’s an order, you hear?” He says, all earnest, Commander-in-Chief, and Levi pretends his doesn’t feel his absence, alone in this room with his scent built in.
It’s intimate, truthfully. Beneath Erwin’s bed are the shoes he wears on weekends, some old shirts slung over the back of a chair, an ordered mess. Levi sits himself in the seat built into the window that look out over the grounds. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, feels the chill from the drafts in the frame but doesn’t mind it, rests his hot brow against the glass to soothe his skin. It helps. Erwin’s quarters are very – they feel very calm. His scent is baked in everywhere, fresh linen, old books. Levi feels like an intruder amongst all this civility. They’re as orderly as a Commander’s quarters should be, really; everything it should be. They have the books, the white-pressed sheets, the dress uniform hanging off a hook on the door, the military whore, waiting for the Commander to come back and use his ass –
Levi shudders, tucks his brow to his knees. The situation isn’t surreal. In a way, it’s as natural as any – in fact, it’s an inevitability. Erwin is right. It’s his duty to take care of Levi. But he can’t stop himself from thinking… those thick fingers, wide thighs, and Levi tucked up against them, so small. It might feel good, to be so small for once, he thinks achingly. Let someone take care of him, for a change. Although he doesn’t know if he’ll ever see Erwin in the same way again. Erwin seems to think he will – he’s treating this with an air of routine, like Levi is a chore on his list. Which he probably is. In all the years he’s had Levi at his disposal, he’s never used him, not once, although Levi gladly would have let him.
He’s smelt sex on Erwin before. Brothels, probably, although it’s not Levi’s place to comment on it. He figures Erwin picked up on his disapproval. But he’s the Commander. More than that – he’s a real alpha, the – the – the alpha-est alpha, of course he needs an omega’s touch. It speaks more to how fundamentally unappealing he must find Levi, to have had him under his nose all these years and never tried to push him up against a wall. Yeah. Push him up against a wall, huh? Wait, Levi would say. They can hear us. Erwin would – slide his hand around his throat, grunt. Levi’s not for speaking, no – fuckholes don’t speak, and that’s what Levi is, what he could be, and he’d be – be happy to, he’d even make noise, if Erwin wanted, it’s Erwin’s right, after all, he’s the Commander, Levi is… he’s his, by every natural right, he should – should roll over for his –
Someone knocks on the door; Levi’s eyes fly open, his legs clamp shut. God-fucking-damn, he hadn’t even realised he was touching himself, hand pushed down his pants and sticky with it. He pulls his knees to his chest, sits on his hands. “Come – come in,” he tells the person at the door.
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, Captain,” Petra says, genuinely. Not feeling well. That’s a nice way to put it, but Petra puts everything in a nice way. Levi isn’t sure what the formalities are, exactly – he’s her Captain, but right now he’s a bitch in heat, so he doesn’t feel compelled to order her. Instead, he pulls his knees up to his chest and jerks his chin at her, a silent prompt to continue.
“The Commander – “ she swallows, and starts again. “Well, the Commander wanted me to bring these to you,” she tells him. She’s all buttery raspberries, if Levi had to name her scent. Everyone smells different to everyone, but Petra – she’s buttery. Soft and smooth and bad for you, in too large a quantity. She places the two buckets on the floor by the door. Cleaning supplies in one – ah, thank you, Erwin, I’ll just become your maid, shall I? – and a stack full of apples in the other. An entire bucketful, in fact, and fruit doesn’t come cheap these days.
Despite himself, it almost makes him smile. It feels like a peace offering. “He wants me to ask if you need anything else, Sir,” Petra says, and then salutes, like she needs to. “Uh, anything else at all,” she adds, a touch more delicately.
Levi sighs, slowly, through his nose. He shakes his head, and looks back out the window. He’s going to miss the first snow. He likes the first snow.
“Alright, Sir,” she says, and salutes again. “I hope you…”
Levi glares at her. Just one look. It’s enough.
“… feel better soon,” she finishes, hastily, and shuts the door behind her.
The nesting instinct kicks in in earnest, then. Levi starts to scour the room, throws open the window, brushes down the floors and dusts the counters. He’s in Erwin’s washroom, scrubbing the floor when the need overtakes him again, leaves him breathless and shaking. “Oh,” he breathes, and in the privacy of this bathroom, doesn’t feel compelled to hold back. He lets himself whimper, caught frozen with it, and hastily tries to pull down his pants. It’s – it’s inglorious, it’s worse than demeaning, and the heat isn’t strong enough yet to shut off his fucking critical thinking faculties, so the entire time he ruts there, ass in the air and pants around his knees and moaning, all he can think is what the others would think if they could see their Captain now, just one more bitch in heat.
He shoots his load, sticky, onto the floor. He lies there shivering on the vinegar-soaked floorboards, arms wrapped around his stomach and sweating, and the flush starts to subside. Then, he kicks off his pants, and scrubs up the mess he’s left behind. He picks them up and dumps them in the washbasin, makes a note to move them before Erwin returns. With irrepressible curiosity, led by his nose, he can’t stop himself from picking through some of Erwin’s belongings – he unscrews his hair pomade, inhales deeply. Checking over his shoulder, as if this is the worst thing Erwin could see, he dabs some in his palms, smooths it through his hair. It just makes him look greasy. He sniffs Erwin’s cologne, next, spritzes some on his wrists, can’t resist stroking it behind his ears, at his scent points. It’s not enough, he thinks, with a dazed kind of desperation. He scents like he’s wearing Erwin, not like he belongs to him.
Before he realises what he’s doing, he’s crawled through Erwin’s wardrobe, absently throwing shirts and pants on the floor with a feverish stupidity. He crawls through them, carpet burning his knees, nose pressed to the fabric. He feels drunk. He lies on his back and piles them around him, old pants and white crisp shirts and the occasional sweater. He’ll make them all smell like him, he thinks, with certainty. Then everyone will know Erwin belong to him, too, and Erwin will want him for sure. He’ll smell like Levi always.
He bundles up one of the shirts, drapes it around his shoulders – it hangs like a dress. He ties a cardigan around his neck, covers it all with an over-large sweater. He’s getting warm again, but it’s worth it for the scent. He rubs some more of the shirts against his throat, gets them thick with his scent, and wishes he had more to tuck himself with. He’s not sure if he’s allowed in the bed. Erwin has this great, thick, feather filled duvet, but it’s not enough. He needs something that scents different, scents like – like – well, Levi doesn’t have a home, but whatever it is his body seems to think is home, he needs some of that. And he’d like more pillows. He could ask Erwin when he gets in, he supposes. Please, alpha, he might say, or, Commander Erwin, may I have some more pillows, please? The worst he can say is no. He’s sure a man like Erwin can pull some strings, requisition some pillows, even if it is for an omega like Levi. He’s very courteous. He’d want him to have pillows, Levi decides.
Eventually, he climbs to his feet, armed with his clothes and crunching on an apple. Levi stares at himself in Erwin’s mirror. First, he tries to imagine Erwin here, every morning. He’d do his cuffs, maybe comb his hair into place, check his buttons, tighten his tie. Straighten out his jacket. He wonders if Erwin smiles in the mirror.
Then, he looks at himself, evaluates. His shoulders might be too broad – he’s heard that said, a few times, that he’s too muscled. But Levi grew up lean, he rarely had a full belly, and he does a hard job; he can’t be soft, and plump, and small like the others. He’s small in other ways, of course, short enough that he borders on sickly, stunted. No wonder Erwin won’t knot him. Why would you want to mate with someone so… so…
He strips off his underwear and examines himself. He’s an ugly omega, there’s no two ways about it. There are worse things, of course – being a pretty omega, for starters. More trouble than it’s worth, is what Levi tells himself. Still. It might be – it might be nice, to be desired. Levi would like to be desired. He’d like to be a good omega, just for a short while, even if it’s pretend.
He tries. He tries to make his eyes go heavy-lidded, the way Farlan used to. Farlan was more submissive than Levi, prettier than Levi, but when Levi was writhing beneath him in a daze it didn’t matter. Levi misses him, suddenly, in a way he hasn’t in a long while. He wasn’t perfect, and they fought more than they agreed on anything, but he was a piece of home, in his own way. And he was safety, on nights like these, a warm balm, but a balm all the same. Levi pulls back his chin to his shoulder, watches himself in the mirror, wonders if this is what Erwin sees. Erwin doesn’t seem prone to feral behaviours. He has a feeling he finds it all a bit disturbing, no doubt that’s why he finds Levi so… why he struggles with Levi. Levi was raised feral. Packs and bared teeth and food-chains. He fought his way to the top of near-enough all of them, but when he’s in heat, it doesn’t matter. He may as well be the pack whore for all his efforts matter, then.
And now, bending over for his Commander, like it’s all he’s there for.
Tch, he thinks, all these scars, all this muscle, like a stunted alpha. His head is starting to feel hazy, again. The bed sits there, invitingly. He’s having another hot flush, but for some reason, the idea of crawling beneath the sheets and tucking himself up beneath the comforter sounds heavenly. He doesn’t want to be caught naked and snoozing when Erwin arrives, wants to prove to him that he’s more capable than that, but – but perhaps just resting his eyes, wouldn’t hurt anyone. It feels – improper. It feels taboo, like he’s doing something he shouldn’t. Rubbing yourself naked all over your superior officer’s sheets, having him – what, come back and find you like that. He can’t stop himself, though. The urge to be covered and warm and safe is so strong, he’s not even thinking about the rest of it. Warm, he bundles off the rest of the clothes onto the bed and piles them beneath him, so he can still have them close. He crawls beneath the heavy sheets, cautiously, tentatively rests his head on the pillow.
Oh, he thinks, deliriously, oh, oh, oh. It’s like scenting – relief, it’s like a hit of poppy milk to an addict, or water to an unquenchable thirst. Levi rubs his cheek into all of Erwin’s scent, tries to brush it up against his throat, making a sound like a contented cat. He pulls the sheets up over his head and rubs some more, tries to smother himself in all that scent. Maybe if he does it enough, it’ll rub off on him entirely, and he’ll smell just like Erwin’s, owned by him, clearly marked by him, and his sewage-and-rock scent will fade entirely.
Levi shivers, curls up in the middle of the bed, quivering with the delight of being so covered, safe and warm. He shuts his eyes, just to revel in it a while longer. He thinks of – of sticky, vicious things. Oh, please, he’d begged, squirming in the mud, their ugly eyes on him. Just – do it! Please! Fuck me, please, oh please, just fuck me!, and when he opens them again, the light in the room has changed – outside is dark, and someone has lit the lamps in the bedroom, and he can sense that he’s not alone. It gives him no cause for concern; it’s Erwin, he can smell it off him, but he sits up, frowning, rubbing at his eye with his fist. “Wha’?” He mumbles, all disorientated. He can smell his own sweat.
Levi hears the crunch of an apple. “Hello,” Erwin says, levelly. He checks his pocket watch. “Or, good evening, I should say.”
He’s sitting at the round table in the corner, an empty plate of food with the knife and fork folded nearly in the middle, a large broadsheet newspaper folded in half. He’s doing the crossword, Levi realises. “What – what time is it?” He yawns, discontentedly. He tries to blink the sleep from his eyes, but nothing’s shaking the slight blur around the edges, nor the buzzing in his head, like a swarm of angry bees has flown into his ears in the night.
“Nearly 9PM,” Erwin tells him, and then sets down his paper. He looks apologetic. “I talked to the doctor. She said, not to expect you to want to eat anything but fruit and vegetables, but would you like to see if I can get you something more substantial?”
Levi thinks about it. He shakes his head. His belly feels like it’s twisting itself in knots.
Erwin nods, understanding. “Very well, then. How do you feel?”
Exhausted, still. Irritable, like he wants to bite Erwin’s head off, even though the man has done nothing but be perfectly pleasant to him so far. It takes his thoughts a long while to catch up, like they’re pushing through honey. There’s something wrong, something – something –
Levi flinches, tries to gather the sheets up to his chest to hide himself. His clothes – he’d left them in a pile by the mirror, more thoughtless than usual, he hadn’t been thinking, not at all. And now he’s naked. He’s naked in the damn Commander’s bed, rolling around in his sheets like a puppy, his shirts bundled beneath him like a thief. His clothes are gone, which means – Erwin will have moved them, somewhere. Is this some kind of punishment? Levi isn’t thinking as clearly as he usually thinks. “Where are my – “ he croaks, and then all that anxiety turns to anger, “where the fuck are my clothes, Erwin?”
Erwin takes another bite of his apple. “In my closet,” he tells him, softly. “I thought you might want them to be folded neatly.”
Well – he does. Yes, he does want that, and it’s very – it’s very thoughtful of Erwin to think of it. He doesn’t know how to say that, though, so he spits, “Pervert,” instead.
Erwin sighs, rests his hand on his chin, scribbling at the crossword. “Perhaps we should avoid calling our Commander’s perverts,” he warns him, lightly.
Our Commanders. His commander. Levi’s been snoozing naked like a damn house-omega, and now he feels shivery again, and bare, and vulnerable, and can’t make sense of anything at all. He pulls the sheets up to his chest to try and hide his nakedness.
Erwin sits himself on the edge of the bed. “Could I feed you?” He asks, quietly. It’s an offer, not an order, but it’s a weird thing to offer. It’s the kind of thing you’d do for a house-O, or one of those high-class whores, if you were trying to woo them, or get them accustomed to your scent.
“Creep,” Levi sneers.
Erwin holds out a wedge of apple. Levi opens his mouth for it, carefully takes a bite, snaps off a piece in his mouth. It’s sweet and crispy, the way he likes. He swallows, licks some of the juice from off his lips.
“Good,” Erwin says, encouragingly. Good, Levi thinks, distantly. He feels his cheeks flush. Erwin can probably smell it. He looks away, desperately.
“Again,” Erwin prompts, and feeds him the rest of the slice. Levi twists his knuckles around the sheet that’s hiding his nakedness, but if Erwin finds it strange to be hand-feeding his subordinate apple slices in his own bed, he doesn’t mention it. It’s almost nice, once Levi forgets the crippling embarrassment of it. He grows bolder once he realises Erwin isn’t going to say anything bad about it, or trick him. He chases Erwin’s fingers with his teeth, irritably, when he doesn’t feed him a slice right away.
Erwin chuckles, slightly, and lets Levi lick the juice from his fingers. Levi is testing, at first, just using the flat of his tongue. Erwin tastes like apple and sweat and the ink from the newspaper. Something else, maybe – he closes his mouth around his fingers to try and taste it from them, sucks them absently, frowning. He catches a taste of – no, not a taste, a scent, a trail. He tries to take them deeper. He grips Erwin’s hand between his own and realises he’s chasing the scent point on his wrist, not his fingers. He pulls Erwin’s fingers out of his mouth with a wet pop, snuffles along his wrist instead. He tries to taste it, too, gets Erwin’s wrist between his teeth and leave a nice mark –
“Ah,” Erwin says, and for the first time, he scents a touch nervous. “Maybe not with our teeth, yes? I’m rather hoping to keep my hand.”
Levi frowns at him. Baby, he thinks. Where Levi comes from, you always use your teeth. He has a distinct memory of someone – no, it doesn’t matter.
“Would you like to scent me, Levi?” Erwin offers politely, as if he’s asking him what spread he wants on his toast. “Here,” he says, setting aside the empty plate. He walks around to the other side of the bed and kicks off his boots, settles himself against the headboard. “Right here,” he prompts, patting his lap. “It’s alright,” he tells him earnestly, “you don’t need to be shy, Levi. This is my job, remember.”
His job. Levi wishes – Levi wants – he would like to be more than Erwin’s job. He needs Erwin to smell exactly like him so Erwin will carry his scent with him always, and then Erwin will adore him, maybe. He’ll think – he’ll think – Levi, who is my omega, and who is so… who…
Levi resists the urge to slap himself as the flush starts to fade, leaving only a ball-ache and loose feeling in his gut. How many days, he wonders, until he loses himself completely? There’s no going back now. Erwin’s going to have to see it, whether he likes it or not, no matter how – shitty Levi might be. There are worse chores, Levi reassures himself.
But he can’t forget Erwin’s scent of pity, back in his office. The urge to scent him is too damn strong – he starts to clamber into his lap, then looks down at himself, back up at Erwin, his slightly rumpled shirt, his neat white pants. He tries to cover himself with his hands. “I’m sorry,” he blurts, inadequately. He doesn’t know what he’s apologising for. His ugliness, his scars, for subjecting Erwin to all this in the first place.
“Well now, what are you apologising for?” Erwin asks him, gently. His eyes are smiling, but Levi just – he just gets the total and overwhelming sense they’re not laughing at him, more just at all of this, the stupidity of it. Erwin clicks his tongue, slightly, pushes Levi’s bangs back behind his ears. “We’re soldiers, aren’t we? What’s being naked to a soldier? Just bodies, Levi, remember. Just…” and Erwin tilts his head to the side, comfortingly, lays his palm against Levi’s nape, “fulfilling an urge.”
Levi shivers, happily. Keep petting me there, he thinks, desperately. But once Levi has pushed all his happyhappysafehappy scent out into the air, Erwin removes his hand, as if trying not to touch him any longer than would be proper. “I’m rather unaccustomed to being on the bottom,” Erwin tells him mildly. “As I’m sure you understand.”
Tough, Levi thinks. “Don’t overcompensate,” he mutters instead, sniffing tentatively at Erwin’s chin.
Erwin tilts his head. “Overcompensate?” He questions.
“You got a small dick, Erwin?” Levi asks, mocking. “Or d’you just feel like you’ve got something to prove?”
Erwin does that sigh again, the long inhale, the exhale through his mouth. “Very well, Levi,” he says patiently, and although he doesn’t sound particularly happy about it, he lets Levi crawl on top of him and remains pliant to his touch. He prods his nose against Erwin’s nose, testing; and then against his cheek, and his ear, trying to see how he’ll react. He’s nothing but patient, scenting a pleasant mix of arousedarousedkindhappyconcern,which isn’t perfect, but isn’t bad, either. Levi gently nips the end of his nose, embarrassingly feral, but it’s a whim of his he’s always wanted to do.
Erwin lets him, but his scent is a little chiding, warning, as if to say, don’t push your luck. Levi licks him, just to apologise. “Look at you, hmm?” Erwin says, fondly. He scratches the side of Levi’s head, the way you might pet a dog. “So you can be sweet, underneath it all.”
Levi snarls, twists and snaps his teeth so fast he almost catches Erwin’s fingers between them. Little one, he thinks, feverishly, I’m not a dog, it snarls inside him. He really only meant for it to be a warning.
Erwin scents all at once irritated and aroused. Maybe he likes his omegas feisty. “No, Levi,” he tells him. “We don’t bite people, understand? I’m not looking to lose any limbs taking you in my bed.”
Taking you in. Like he’s doing him a favour. Levi braces his hands on Erwin’s shoulders and snaps at him again, growling, tries to take his nose off. Once, twice. Erwin remains impassive, doesn’t flinch, not even once.
“We could try and use our words,” Erwin suggests, mildly.
Why, when this is easier? Levi sticks out his tongue, testing, lets it hover above the skin of Erwin’s cheek. This is the Commander, he thinks, achingly. Am I really going to taste him? Levi doesn’t know why, but this feels like crossing a line, more so than sleeping in his bed, or crawling over him, or scenting him. Those are things that have to be done, really, have to happen, for Levi to get fucked.
He wonders what Erwin tastes like. He can’t help himself. He slides his tongue against his cheek, sloppy, stupid. He wouldn’t be surprised if Erwin threw him aside for doing something so stupid. He can feel bristles of Erwin’s stubble. He tastes salty, and not at all like book glue, but he does feel clean, too. Once he starts, he can’t really stop, nipping at Erwin’s jaw and rubbing the flat of his tongue against the glands behind his ear. He feels his eyebrows knit. Erwin’s scent tastes… “Mmmph,” he sighs, helplessly, rubs his nose in the wet mess he’s left behind, tries to rub their necks together, to take some of that scent as his own.
Erwin is watching him with an amused look on his face. “I suppose that’s a good sign, yes?” He asks him, mildly. One great paw of a hand comes to settle on his ass, but it’s more so he can support Levi has he continues his scenting. He doesn’t push any more than that, although Levi feels himself twitch at the touch, knows they can both smell his sudden arousal.
“Mmm,” Levi huffs, his breath all warm against Erwin’s skin. Something is starting to build in him, like a swampy heat, in his gut, spreading up into his head, all floating and – and cloudy. He feels slick trickle down his balls. Erwin grips his ass in both hands and gently kneads it, just tugging at him enough to pull apart his hole. The scent that releases is – it’s –
Levi buries his head in Erwin’s neck, rolls his hips forward, helplessly. Levi can only smell himself, it’s like – pure sex, and need, and fuckmefuckmefuckme, and he’s high on his own scent. Erwin gently shushes him, but Levi can hear his own wetness when he plays with Levi’s cheeks, and he needs – he needs –
“Mmph,” he whimpers, hiding his face. He rubs his hole against the thick warmth between Erwin’s legs. He can feel it – God, he can feel it, can feel himself soaking it, even. He thinks – he could fuck it like this, he could just rub and rub and rub, his cock brushing up against Erwin’s shirt. “I – “ he croaks, trying to use his words, “I’m making a mess – “
“Shh,” Erwin soothes, stroking his back. “It’s alright. Just clothes, little one, no harm done.”
“Could you – would you – “ Levi doesn’t know how to say it – he never learnt to beg pretty. He wants to say, could you touch me? Please? “My – ungh,” he grunts, wrapping his arms around Erwin’s shoulders, fucking himself against his hips. “Sorry,” he breathes, “sorry, sorry – “
And Erwin is saying, shhh, again, stroking his hair. “That’s it,” he encourages him, “that’s it, Levi. Rub your little hole against my cock,” he says, mildly, and Levi makes a sound caught somewhere between a moan and a cry, cheeks burning with embarassment. “Shh shh shh,” Erwin tsks, and his hands support Levi’s ass, but don’t push him, don’t prod him, don’t even try to force him to do anything at all, which must take supreme self-control, or else Erwin must think Levi is sickening, like this, worse than pathetic.
“Nngh, nngh,” Levi grunts, feebly, humping Erwin’s clothed groin. He’s so thick, beneath him, what would that feel like, inside? Levi’s never known anything like it. It would fill him up. It would fuck him so deep. Erwin would – yes, this is exactly it – Erwin would pin him face down in the sheets, squirming for it, aching for it. His hole will be so loose and so slick he’ll slip right in, scratch the itch deep inside him, the itch inside his hole, that makes you tear at your hair and sob. He’ll take such good care of him, yes, yes – “Oh, oh, oh,” he’s panting, and Erwin won’t even touch his cock. He’s going to come like this, all over his Commander –
“Oh,” he croaks, and shuts his eyes. “Goddamn, oh – “
“Shh, shh,” Erwin soothes, strokes his hair back from his head. “It’s alright, little one. Do you want to put your head here? Here,” he shows him, lets him make the decision for himself, whether to push his nose into the crook of Erwin’s neck. Erwin doesn’t tease him – he lets the lesson sink in on its own, lets him hide his head in Erwin’s shoulder and scent him so deeply as he thrusts himself helplessly against Erwin’s hip.
“It’s just – just – “ he chokes, stuttering. “Mmmph,” he grunts, and curls his fists, breath panted against Erwin’s chest. “Sorry, I’m – sorry, I – “
“Don’t apologise, Levi,” Erwin tells him. Levi’s holding himself so tight and so strained, he’s too wrapped up in the shame of it, in the logic, of being a Captain, rutting desperately against his Commander. “There’s nothing to apologise for.” Erwin keeps his hands to himself, and lets Levi take his relief from his body. “Are you going to squirt?” Erwin asks him, calmly. “Go on, I don’t mind. Shh, little one,” he says, and something inside Levi kicks into place, crashes, and he comes over Erwin’s clean cream pants.
Erwin doesn’t release him immediately – he holds him there, pushes his hand between the sticky hot gap of their bodies. He takes some of Levi’s come on his fingers and absently dabs it behind his ears, as if he’s just touching up his cologne. Levi shivers, tries to scent him there again – he wants to scent himself on Erwin’s skin, desperately, more than anything, but Erwin has caught him by the back of his neck, scruffing him like a kitten.
“Now, Levi,” Erwin says, sternly. “You’ll come to learn, but I don’t tolerate feral behaviour. Do you understand? It’s one thing, when you’re caught up in the throes – I know you can’t control it,” he adds, gently, “and that you probably did things differently, Underground. But you’re very strong, Levi. Stronger than me, even like this. Are you listening?” Erwin asks him, patiently.
Levi squirms. He feels something like – irritation, which quickly slides into anger, because Levi wants to push Erwin flat down on the bed and crawl all over him, scent his fill, and now Erwin is stopping him. He snaps his teeth at Erwin’s nose, that stupid nose, and tries to strain himself closer to pull Erwin’s throat as close as he –
Erwin does not pinch him; he strokes, pulls the skin of Levi’s nape up with the flat of this thumb, and Levi moans. He moans and moans, leaks onto the sheets. He – he forgets. No thoughts, boneless, like floating. He can’t lift his arms, can only wriggle there, mindlessly, while Erwin strokes and strokes, until Levi is just a whimpering, shivering mess of slick and sweat. As far as discipline goes it’s – it’s one of the gentler punishments Levi’s ever received. Erwin holds him there, just lets him embarrass himself to let the lesson sink in, and Levi thinks – when he’s able to think, some time later, that he’ll never be a Captain again, after this.
“You’re very high-strung,” Erwin says, quietly. He hooks a knuckle against his temple, wipes away a bead of sweat. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you wanted. It’s not what I wanted, either. But, I’m your Commander,” he reaffirms, firmly. “It’s my job to take care of you, Levi. And, it’s my job to teach you. So, I’m going to give you a punishment.”
Erwin guides Levi’s head down, between his legs. “Look at your mess,” he tells him, gently, rubbing Levi’s cheek in the smear he’s on Erwin’s pants, his shirt. “Now, the way I see it, good boys don’t have to clean up their messes. But, you need to learn, Levi. I don’t think anyone’s ever tried to teach you, even, and I think that’s a shame.” Erwin’s voice is so laden with something Levi can’t even understand, and he scents only sad.
Levi sticks out his tongue, cross-eyed at everything, Erwin’s hand on his nape, the pulse of Erwin’s cock beneath his pants, so tantalising close he can taste it, and his own scent, intermingling, until they become one. This isn’t a punishment. This is what Levi does best. He’s so very good at cleaning, isn’t he? Erwin shudders, slightly, when Levi starts to lick at the come he’s left on Erwin’s shirt, sucking it clear. Levi can feel his thighs tense, around his shoulders.
He drops his mouth lower, to Erwin’s clothed cock, and scents him delicately. It makes his mouth water, it sends a hook through his gut, he – “Mmgh,” he hears himself say, hips rising involuntarily, without thought, ass-in-the-air and presenting helplessly. He presses his nose at the crook of Erwin’s leg, where pelvis meets thighs, shakes his ass like an idiot.
Tsk, he hears Erwin say, poor boy.
Levi can’t stop himself. Oh, God, he can’t. Commander! He tries to remind himself, like he hasn’t humiliated himself enough already, but he’s already mouthing hungrily at the fabric of Erwin’s pants, feeling the length of his hardness with his lips. He can taste where he’d smeared himself, earlier. He wants to take Erwin in his mouth and just suckle on him, until he smells only like Erwin. Or he wants – to crawl around, show his Commander his hole, and rub back against him, like a whore. He rubs the flat of his tongue against the thick bulge between his legs, mouths at it, until the fabric is soaked through. It doesn’t matter which way he wants it – he know what he needs – needs to get – to see, and feel, and touch, and smell –
Erwin’s hand cups the back of his head, stroking soothingly. “Do you want it?” He asks him.
Levi’s mouth feels dry, suddenly. “I don’t know how,” he rasps. He’s suddenly so very scared of getting it wrong, of not being good enough for it. It’s his job, it get it right. To follow Erwin’s orders very precisely. He’s… he’s good, usually, at following orders…
“That’s alright,” Erwin tells him, gently. “I’ll teach you. I’m going to show you your place, Levi, so there’ll be no more confusion, hmm? You’re going to be a good boy for me, Captain. My Captain,” he says, earnestly, eyes soft and kind. “So don’t worry, Levi. Shh, no, don’t worry,” he soothes, at Levi’s agitation. “I’m going to take good care of you, you have my word. It’s my duty, Levi, isn’t it my duty?”
Duty, Levi thinks. He would like to be more than a duty. He would like to be a desire. Perhaps – perhaps, if Levi tries hard enough, he can prove it to him. He nods, wordlessly, desperately, and lets Erwin show him his place.