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“It’ll be fucking weird,” Levi says, lighting Erwin’s cigarette, “with you gone.”
Erwin looks out the window as he inhales. He blows smoke into the outward-facing box fan they’ve propped onto the windowsill. “I’m sure you’ll manage fine,” he says. He turns to Levi and hands him the cigarette.
Levi gingerly holds it in between his index finger and thumb. He hates smoking, hates the way the smell clings onto everything. It reminds him of Kenny and that crappy apartment they used to live in, the way cigarette smoke, dust, and mold were as commonplace as the coffee table or the cot in the corner Levi slept in. But Erwin’s moving out tomorrow, and he brought home a pack of American Spirits, so Levi will indulge him, as always. If he’s learned anything this past year, it’s that Erwin Smith is a difficult man to deny. And he so rarely gives in to his vices.
Levi brings the cigarette to his lips, puffing on it halfheartedly before flicking ash into the tiny bowl they’re using as an ashtray. “Didn’t say I wouldn’t manage,” he says. “Just that it’d be weird.”
Erwin takes the cigarette from his hands, regarding Levi with amusement, the corners of his mouth flicking upwards, just a little. “You hate smoking, don’t you?”
Levi turns away from Erwin, looking back out the window. The snow is relentless. It’s supposed to stop tomorrow, but at the rate it’s going, he doubts the roads will be clear by the time Erwin has to drive to the airport tomorrow morning.
He leans his head back onto the couch cushion of the loveseat he’s sitting cross-legged on. “Is it that obvious?” he replies, keeping his gaze fixated on the tree branches outside. They’re being weighed down by the snow. He wonders if they’ll snap.
Erwin’s still looking at him. He can practically feel his eyes brush past his cheek. “Did Hange get back to you?”
“Yeah. They’re moving in next month.”
In the corner of his eye, Levi watches Erwin take another drag of the cigarette. “That should be nice,” he says.
“Yeah.” It should be. It will be. Hange can’t clean for shit, but he’ll get them to pick up after themself. And he misses them. Ever since Erwin moved in with him, he’s seen them less and less, and it fucking sucks. He’s never told them that, but there’s no need. They know.
Still.
“You excited to put on a suit and kiss some politicians’ asses?” Levi says, glancing over at Erwin.
Erwin snorts. “I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“You know that’s what you’ll be doing.”
“Pixis seems less corrupt than the rest of them. I think I could learn a lot from him.”
Levi snatches the cigarette from his hands. “Yeah, he probably doesn’t bathe in the blood of innocents, but he’s still a fucking politician.”
Erwin raises his eyebrows as he watches Levi take a drag. “I suppose you’re right,” he says, eyes flicking down to Levi’s lips in a movement so brief and miniscule that Levi convinces himself it’s just wishful thinking. “Still,” Erwin continues, “this internship will open a world of opportunities I wouldn’t get otherwise. If I can get the ear of those in power, I could actually change things.”
Levi coughs into his arm, putting out the cigarette. It’s almost done for, anyway. Erwin makes no moves to stop him. “You and your fucking change,” he grumbles.
Erwin loves change. He keeps cash on him just to hand out to homeless people. He volunteers at the soup kitchen. He stands on street corners and hands out flyers with raised fists on them. Levi sits in the corner of his meetings sometimes, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. He watched his mother waste away and die in a shitty one-room basement apartment when he was five and gave up on optimism shortly after.
But Erwin is…he’s just so… Convincing. Hopeful. Easy to follow. Easy to want. Bastard.
“I’ll be back in the city for the holidays,” he says, voice so oddly gentle and cautious and awkward it makes Levi stare. “Next year, I mean.”
Levi blinks. “Okay,” he says.
Erwin runs a hand through his hair. Levi’s pretty sure he’s the only person who’s seen him without a pound of hair gel slathered on his head. “You’ll still be here, I’m assuming?”
“Where the fuck else would I go?”
“I don’t know.”
They lapse into awkward silence.
Levi doesn’t dream like Erwin does. He wants enough money to make eggs for breakfast every day, and to be able to make them for Erwin on the weekends when he isn’t working overtime or protesting or whatever else he does to avoid acting like a normal fucking human being. He likes his eggs boiled and unseasoned, like a freak. The thought of never hearing the pot bubbling again squeezes Levi’s chest.
A chilly breeze from outside blows through the open window. Levi shivers, reaching for a blanket. Erwin watches him before sliding another cigarette out of the box.
“Are you a chain smoker now?” Levi asks, wrapping the blanket tightly around him.
Erwin ignores the comment and glances around the room, eyebrows furrowed. “Do you know where the –” His eyes land on the spot next to Levi.
Levi follows his gaze and sees the lighter on the couch next to him. He sighs, taking it and leaning forward to light Erwin’s next cigarette. He wrinkles his nose at the puff of smoke.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Erwin says, blowing smoke out the window.
Levi tucks his feet underneath him. He almost wants to laugh.
You didn’t have to do that. The words send him careening back in time, back to when Erwin first moved in, when he’d invite him out to get drinks and talk his ear off about social justice, before walking back to their apartment and letting Levi clumsily suck his dick.
Levi doesn’t drink anymore.
If Erwin recognizes the echo, he doesn’t show it. It’s been almost a year since then, anyway. Sometimes, when Erwin leaves the shower, towel slung low on his waist, Levi will wonder if he’ll approach him like he did back then, just tipsy enough to make it excusable, guiding his hand down his pants and saying, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
He doesn’t. Obviously. Maybe he realized that Levi had trouble saying no to tall, buff blondes, or maybe he just started feeling bad about it. It doesn’t matter either way. Levi still boils his eggs and lights his cigarettes. For all that change, Erwin’s got a selfish, possessive streak. He keeps it well hidden under layers of charm and good intentions, but Levi knows it’s there, is probably the only one who does.
Erwin finishes the cigarette and stubs it out in the bowl. Levi, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, turns off the fan and takes it off the windowsill before closing the window. They sit still for a minute, watching the snow fall in silence. It reeks of cigarettes. Levi sees a small, thin branch tremble under the weight of the snow before snapping and falling to the ground.
“Levi,” Erwin says. “Look at me.”
He so rarely uses that voice. It’s worlds away from that soft, stilted tone he used earlier. Levi looks.
Erwin’s watching him carefully. “Would you get on your knees?” he asks, like the question’s borne out of curiosity.
Levi sucks in his top lip with his teeth. “Yeah?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Why?”
“You don’t have to.”
Levi ditches the blanket, walking over to where Erwin’s seated, before kneeling in between his legs. Erwin’s mouth parts slightly.
They never did talk about it. There was no discussion on the morals of sucking off your roommate. It happened a few times, and that was it. They stopped going to bars together. Levi started going to his meetings and walking home with him, always a few steps behind. Erwin brought a girl home, once. Levi never saw her again.
He unbuttons and unzips Erwin’s jeans, pulling down his pants just past the crotch area, before pulling his cock through the fly in his boxer briefs. He’s already half hard. Levi looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “You have a smoking kink or something?”
Erwin laughs a little, sounding breathless. He grips the chair’s armrests as Levi strokes his shaft. “You’re on your knees,” is all he says in response.
“You never answer my questions.”
“No, I don’t have a smoking kink.”
“A domination kink, then.”
“Levi.”
Levi swirls his tongue around the tip of Erwin’s cock, letting his saliva drip down the sides, before wrapping his lips around it, taking it all in. His mouth is stretched to accommodate Erwin’s size, and he gags a little when he reaches the base. He usually doesn’t make a habit of sucking dicks, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that Erwin’s big.
Erwin exhales sharply, resting a hand on Levi’s head. He’s fully hard, now. “Levi, you…” He trails off as Levi slowly brings his mouth back up, gripping the now slick base of his cock with both hands, pumping and twisting as he continues to suck on the tip.
“Faster,” he breathes, and Levi tries, but it’s not enough. It rarely is, for either of them. They were both born with yawning, aching holes in their chests, Erwin even more so. He wants, made all the more ruinous by his usual insistence on self-sacrifice.
Erwin grips Levi’s hair and thrusts into his mouth, once, almost experimentally. Levi gags a little. Erwin wrestles back a moan and closes his eyes. “Hold still,” he says, and Levi does, looking up at him with watering eyes, guarding his teeth with his lips.
Erwin grabs the back of Levi’s head with both hands, gripping his hair, making him bob up and down on his cock at a rapid pace. It’s callous. Levi’s never felt so used in his life. His clit aches.
The apartment’s silent, save for Levi’s gagging and gasping. Erwin continues to thrust into his mouth, eyes squeezed shut, chasing his release. “Levi…Levi…”
Levi grinds helplessly against the seam of his jeans, twitching. His jaw is sore. He takes great pains to breathe through his nose. He realizes that he wants Erwin to touch him, even though he’s never done it before and he definitely won’t start now, not with his flight leaving in six hours and only so much time to sleep.
Erwin comes inside of his mouth without warning. Levi expected as much. He struggles to swallow it all, and he thinks it’s fucking disgusting, but he does. For Erwin, if nothing else.
He remains on his knees, staring up at Erwin, who’s leaning back and catching his breath, eyes shut. When he does open them, he looks up at the ceiling, expression unreadable.
“Erwin,” Levi says.
Erwin looks down at him, then. “Thank you,” he says. His voice is soft again.
Levi wipes the back of his mouth with his sleeve, wrinkling his nose. “At least your diet isn’t shit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“I should’ve said something.”
“You know you don’t need to.”
Erwin looks troubled at this, but he doesn’t argue. “Do you want to get up?”
Levi’s clit throbs insistently. He squirms. Erwin looks good from this angle, like an idol he could worship, devote his life to, even. “I’m fine down here, actually,” he says, trying not to sound pathetic and failing. Jesus fucking Christ.
Erwin hesitantly runs a hand through Levi’s hair. “Can you stay like this for a little longer, then?”
“If you want.”
“You don’t –”
“I know I don’t have to, Erwin, Jesus.”
Erwin licks his lips. “I can never…you’re the only one who…”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yeah, I do.” You fucking idiot. I always do.
If Levi didn’t know any better, he’d think that Erwin sounds a little desperate as he says, “You’ll let me know how the apartment is, won’t you?”
“Sure.”
Erwin sighs, brushing Levi’s hair away from his forehead. “I’m afraid that you’re right.”
“Huh?”
“That I’ll be…kissing politicians’ asses for the rest of my life.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“You weren’t wrong.”
“Erwin,” Levi says exasperatedly, “if anyone can manage to change shit, it’s you.”
Erwin smiles down at Levi. “Thank you,” he says again, and it’s so genuine that Levi aches. He drinks in that smile like he’s parched, downs it like a shot.
The hardwood floors bite into Levi’s knees, and he’s pretty sure he’s soaked through his underwear, but he stays put. “Erwin, I…” He clears his throat. “It’ll really fucking suck,” he says, “without you.”
Erwin opens his mouth to speak. Levi’s wishful thinking is at work again; he’s half-convinced that he’ll get an “I’ll miss you.” But when Erwin speaks, all he says is, “You don’t have to kneel anymore.”