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Summer, Sweat, and Sausages

Summary:

Eren lazes around during the summer after his first year of college, wondering what he is doing with his life, going to school for a major he doesn't even enjoy and trying to outshine his perfect stepsister Mikasa. He's also oddly turned on by his stepsister’s revisiting uncle Levi, who Eren doesn't remember at all. They piss each other off a lot, then grow an odd bond of companionship—then Eren realizes Levi was shunned by his family some odd years back for coming out as gay, and for some reason, Eren's budding curiosity gets the better of him. Tensions run high, pants slide off, and Eren sweats from more than just the summer heat when he gains an abnormal craving for Levi’s "sausage." Humor and drama ensue and so does an absurd amount of smut. Outside of sex, feelings are also involved—and they soon crash hard into the ground.

TLDR: It's Ereri smut and humor with a side of stupid boys and drama. Just freaking read it.

My late-ass contribution to the 2014 SNK BigBang, also affectionately known as "the cucumber fic." Also, cissyswonderland made fanart.

Notes:

Eren’s a bit of a teenage asshole, an overcurious little shit, and Levi is somehow perceived as some weird-ass sex god after Eren discovers his true sexuality. He also tries to seduce Levi a weird amount and fails repeatedly, and Levi doesn’t know whether to find him endearing or stupid. Probably both. Either this or Eren’s a smooth vixen who doesn’t even know how to handle his own charm. (I swear, I never know my own character portrayals until mid-story, so I just keep writing what I do and wondering: what the hell am I even doing anymore?)

Now, I present to you, my first BigBang story (originally intended to be a one-shot, but then 20k+ more words happened, so LOL nope) and my first posted Ereri story ever, told in bits and pieces with lots of stupidity and profanity. It was supposed to be 50% smut, but now it’s just 50% Eren being an idiot, honestly. This fic was meant to be sexy, but now it’s just ridiculous and romantic. I’m sorry. Enjoy it anyway.

Chapter Text

The summer Eren returned home from college was a hot one.

Since the air-conditioning in the dormitory had broken two months after its occupants moved in, Reiner sweated to the point where Eren was turning down his lips in disgust. If they were a normal school, Eren resented, then this wouldn’t be a problem. Because normal schools ended their semesters before June, but here he and other students were, finally packing their shit for summer vacation before they returned in September for another trimester of Hell. Because normal schools were already done with their school year, but his had just begun in April.

Because his school system was a disaster.

Reiner continued sweating everywhere, and it continued disturbing Eren, though not as much as the time when Eren hadn’t bothered knocking on the door to the joint bathroom (shared by their neighbors Jean and Armin) and walked in on a naked Jean, full frontal. He wanted to recommend Reiner sit in front of the little fan in their room, but given its half-foot diameter, decided it was probably pointless to suggest it, instead packing his things as Reiner complained.

“So damn hot,” he said, and Eren nodded in agreement, shoving another pair of boxer briefs into his bag. “So damn hot. Wasn’t the A/C s’posed to be fixed weeks ago? I’ve been sweating balls, man. Buffalo balls.”

Eren paused and turned to him.

Reiner sputtered. “I-I’m just saying—it’s a bunch of balls, man. What’s the look for?”

“The look” was because Reiner was always talking about ass, dick, or balls. Always. Eren was sure that even when Reiner discussed his nonsexual relations with their lady peers, he threw in ass, dick, or balls for good measure, such as “she was as hot as balls” or “how’d you like those nails two-inch deep in your ass?”

Eren never judged him for swinging both ways, but his casualness with the human body was downright baffling. When Jean drank too much and screamed late one night—or early one morning; it was three hours after midnight, after all—upon slamming his dick between the toilet seat and bowl, Reiner arrived first at the scene, and by the time Eren joined the bathroom, Reiner had been rubbing “the pain” out of Jean’s penis for quite some time, its owner being either too traumatized or drunk to do anything but sit on the floor with a grimace.

Looking back on the incident, hearing Reiner’s constant complaints, and watching as Armin carefully aimed paper airplanes for Jean’s bed hair out in the hallway, Eren suddenly realized what a wild ride this last trimester had been. The exhaustion caught up with him, and in the middle of unplugging his Xbox, Eren sat on the hard, somewhat chilled tiles beside Reiner and looked to the ceiling because finally.

Finally, he would return home.

College was nice. College meant freedom, independence from his folks, and sometimes, it was just what he needed. The escape from expectations eased him, given his father was a renowned doctor in their hometown, now a distinguished surgeon in the city, and his stepsister, Mikasa, effortlessly outshone him, having graduated early from high school and traveled abroad on humanitarian missions through a prestigious university. Honestly, outside of his stubbornness, Eren was sure he had no strengths, but in college, that was fine. Nobody ever judged someone for his or her inabilities or weaknesses because they were all in the same boat, just trying to make it through their respective majors and maintain regular breathing patterns. In college, school wasn’t a competition unless he aspired to further his education, and the importance of his social status dropped a few rungs on his ladder of priorities, so when Eren failed, it didn’t cause a fuss and he didn’t draw much attention.

At least the nagging about his grades was reduced to text messages and phone calls and didn’t end with him slamming his door shut.

College was nice. So very nice.

However, now that he was a second year student in the College of Business, Eren tired of studying numbers and charts, having chosen to pursue financial economics and regretting it terribly. He hated working full-time at the university café, where his classmates just pissed around and annoyed him to death. He’d had enough of the cramming sessions in the library only fueled by chips and energy drinks, not to mention the constant meals at the dining hall with the same generic shit being served over and over again. And—probably the least important thing on his list, but something still worth complaining about—Eren was done with their weird-ass building coordinator who sniffed every goddamn person entering and exiting the building instead of checking their ID card like a normal employee.

In general? Eren was just fucking tired—tired of everything.

College was nice, but it was just so fucking tiring.

He packed his Xbox and its games, and Reiner whined because he wouldn’t have anything to play for the next week until the dorms closed. Eren only threw his boxers at him in retaliation, making his roommate laugh.

“Hey, you haven’t told your folks you were coming home, right?”

Eren furrowed his brows. “No, I have not…?”

Reiner only smirked. “Good luck with that.”

Once more, Eren tossed a clothing article at the other student, making him let out a booming laugh before packing the rest of his necessities.

He couldn’t wait to go home.


After his freshman year of Hell on Earth and now the beginnings of a second, Eren looked forward to coming home after school let out, to sleeping in his own bed, and to eating his mother’s homemade meals, even if it meant hearing his parents’ criticism of his grades or worship of Mikasa, who recently began an anti-deforestation campaign in Tanzania.

He honestly looked forward to coming home, but his parents didn’t know.

When they originally asked if he would return for summer break over a month ago, he’d insisted that he’d already had plans to attend summer school and make up the classes he’d “failed.” Despite the odds, he somehow managed to perform magically well on his finals—barely scraping by, but he passed nevertheless—and thought, How great. He could finally relax and take a break from his busy life, anticipating a stress-free summer full of (women and) literally nothing to do.

Or so he thought.

On the train ride home, he imagined his parents’ reactions to suddenly seeing their son again after so many months apart. His stepmother rushing to the door to embrace him in surprise, then to chide him for not calling ahead of time or ever calling enough, honestly. Even his father creaking throughout the halls, grumbling about how someone had disrupted his work, only to see Eren and put on a grin, pat his son on the back, and welcome him home.

The thought massaged his stressed mind as he stumbled off the train and onto the platform of his designated station. Lugging his backpacks and gym bags over his shoulders, Eren scuttled down the steps, turning to look at the makeshift town with its older buildings and endless crop fields. General stores and other family businesses littered the road further away from the station on his left—the nearest brand name grocery store located ten minutes away in another town—whereas beanstalks grew on his right, leading to his family’s secluded summer house near some small woods.

Before his father took up a larger clientele, going from private practice to hospital work, this was where he lived.

Before they ever considered the city an option, they lived in the clinic by a farmer’s fields for quite some time. Then Eren’s mother passed away when he was ten years old, and when they buried her, they moved to the city, where—two years later—Eren’s father met and married Mikasa’s mother, a widow with a thirteen-year-old daughter. Then Eren was raised in that city and befriended Armin, only returning to the town when he was fifteen and his father finished constructing the summer house, which was a five-year anniversary gift for his stepmother—daughter to Japanese immigrants—standing proud as the only traditional, Japanese-styled home in probably the whole state.

The moment he returned to the town, it was home again. He didn’t need to recognize the people—though he sure as hell did; it was quite a small town—but just the thought of the field dust, the open sky, and the tatami mats beneath his sweating back as the wind brushed through the woods and sliding doors, rustling the curtains that added a western touch, sent him home again. It made him look forward to every summer, even if it meant being around his disappointed father and frequently distressed mother.

He could never explain the feeling of desiring a home he didn’t miss to begin with, but he supposed this was fine.

“Home” didn’t need to be explained.

Eren kicked the dirt up from under his shoes as he made the trek to the Japanese manor from the station, the long walk being worth the surprise on his parents’ faces instead of the momentary shock when he called to ask if they could drive over to pick him up.

Of course, he forgot how fucking long the walk was.

By the time he saw the woods past the endless, endless fields of crops, his shirt sagged with sweat, and by the time he approached the front porch, he could have sworn breathing was an impossibility, his lungs aching with his every inhale and exhale.

Where was the damn wind? More importantly, when he gave up on surprising them and tried calling halfway, where was his phone service?

Spotting an unfamiliar car out front—his father probably changed models, Eren concluded—he turned his attention to the summer home that he admittedly liked more than their city condo. Although it was a traditional Japanese-styled dwelling, only the first floor consisted of tatami flooring and sliding doors. The hallway was a sleek hardwood, ending with a staircase that led to the second floor (uncommon for these sorts of homes, but constructed upon his mother’s insistence). Complete with wooden flooring in every room and glass windows, the second floor contained Mikasa’s room, his own, and his parents’, which all had western-styled furniture, and though the thought of stairs turned him off at the moment, the thought of his soft mattress gave Eren strength to continue onto the porch and toward its paper doors.

The moment he checked the hanging flowerpot, he groaned. The spare key was gone, but that was fine because there was always someone home.

Or would be, eventually.

Oh, shit. Maybe he should’ve called after all, he realized, but his body was already a few steps ahead of his brain, ringing the chimes outside the door to signal a guest’s arrival.

For a few seconds, time froze—and not because he was on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.

Shuffling towards the door. Grumbling unheard past the several cicada. A shadow approaching from the hallway. His father?

His heart thudded a million beats per minute, and he searched for an explanation of any sort that would make sense for coming home at last minute—since, unlike his warm stepmother, his father preferred plans over surprises—but all thoughts shrank on his tongue when the door slid open.

Instead of surprise or even indifference in his father’s eyes, Eren looked down to meet a different set of indifferent eyes, belonging to an older, glasses-wearing man half a foot shorter, who then grimaced at Eren’s sweaty appearance before wandering down the hall without explanation.

Eren lingered silently, pondering, feeling out of place in his own home.

He almost didn’t walk into the house, tempted to call his mother and ask if she and his father had moved away while he was in the city.

But there was something in that unfamiliar man’s gaze that made him pause.

Something familiar.

Something familiar in that unfamiliar man that convinced Eren to step into the house after all.

An old neighbor? A colleague of his father’s? The man’s identity eluded him, but he figured if some spark of acquaintanceship hid in his eyes, then he did know of the man—just not explicitly.

Eren shouted as he kicked off his sneakers, leaving his bare feet to touch the hardwood, “Mom! Dad! I’m home!”

“They’re out right now,” an irritated voice drifted from the other side of the house, and Eren realized it belonged to the stranger. It was gruff, like his appearance, but sterner than Eren expected for a shorter man.

Passing the photos of his childhood and adolescence hanging on the walls—of him and his mother, him and his stepmother, him and his graduating class, him and Armin, him and Mikasa—Eren followed the noises of somebody typing on a keyboard and entered the living room with his bags, grateful that nothing in the room had changed outside of its new occupant: the stranger with an apparently grumpy demeanor, now writing something on his laptop at the coffee table.

A parted bowl-cut with shaved scruff, baggy eyes that reeked “workaholic” behind thinly framed glasses, and furrowed brows that seemed to naturally scream disapproval—it all rang a bell, but Eren had trouble figuring out just what that bell meant.

Who the hell are you?

Eren wanted to ask, but upon recalling the ache in his legs, chose to rest a bit in his own bed and wait for his parents to get home instead. He opted to not take a shower while a stranger still lurked in his house—never applying this same logic to sleeping in his house with said stranger around.

Eren glimpsed once more at the man—evidently too focused on his own project to spare him a glance—before beginning his trek to the second floor.

Most of the sliding doors in the house were open, so Eren could feel a breeze roll across his exposed legs and bring cool air to his heated and sweating forehead. The stairs weren’t kind to him in the slightest, only straining his calf muscles, but he figured this meant nothing since the whole point of walking upstairs was so that he could rest.

Or so he thought.

He didn’t even recognize his room anymore. Once messy and disorganized, the room looked as if Martha Stewart had just paid it a few thousand visits. Once scattered with video games and sports magazines—“sports” being the kinder term for half-naked ladies with some athletic articles involved—the floor was now swept clean, the desk overtaken by neat stacks of books he’d never seen or even heard of before. The sheets that he always kicked off and never bothered cleaning were now replaced with gray covers tucked neatly underneath the mattress and folded just so they could envelop the pillows Eren had never used.

Inspecting everything even more closely, from the windows to the highest shelf in the room, he realized everything was—what the shit—clean? His mother never cleaned his room, always insisting it was Eren’s job, end of discussion—though this same logic did not apply to cooking—so it made Eren wonder if her resolve wavered or if his father moved into his room while he was away at college. Were his parents fighting again, and rather than sleeping on the futon downstairs, did his father prefer Eren’s bedroom? That would explain the absurd amount of books Eren had only ever seen in his school’s library.

Sighing—this was an issue for “later,” not “now”—Eren plopped down his bags, took off his shirt, and stretched his back, feeling his bones crack before he made his way to the bed, slithering through the sheets and chucking the pillows to the surprisingly shiny floor with some loud thumps. His father probably wouldn’t mind him stealing back his bed for a few hours, he concluded, shoving off the thick quilt to avoid gathering any more sweat. Closing his eyes, feeling the wind sweep across his damp skin from the opened window, Eren allowed the breeze to lull him into sleep, waiting for his stepmother’s voice to awaken him a few hours later.

Or so he thought.

“You disrespectful little shit,” snapped someone from beside him, voice disgruntled.

Eren twitched, the voice unrecognized—not Mom—and promptly ignored. Instead, he hugged the sheets tighter to his chest, wanting to reclaim the small bits of sleep he’d managed to find.

Then something whacked straight into the side of his face, popping his ear, and he jolted awake.

“What the fuck?” Eren grumbled, eyes snapping open to see the object that just hit him—a pillow?—collide with the floor before another flew his way. Eren barely dodged it, the cushion smacking the wall behind him instead, and he turned to glare at the man from before, whose gaze challenged his own.

“Just because the floor is clean doesn’t mean it’s worthy of my freshly cleaned sheets.”

His freshly cleaned sheets? What in the—

“At least,” the man said, cutting off Eren’s thoughts, “they were clean until you kicked them off and decided you didn’t need a damn shower.”

“You fuck—”

“Your parents are coming back soon,” the man interrupted, tugging the sheets still on the mattress despite Eren’s weight on them. “Go bathe while I clean these again.”

“Why should I take orders from you?” Eren grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with his fist, frowning at the loosening sheets.

“Because you smell like a bag of shit,” the man answered bluntly, shamelessly returning Eren’s glare like he honestly didn’t care about being tactful.

When the man pulled the sheets for a final time, sending Eren face first into the wall before walking off, not caring about the curses exiting the student’s mouth, Eren decided he hated this man.

He hoped to all of the gods out there that his parents came back soon.


With no knowledge of who this man was or his purpose in his summer household, Eren chose to abandon his failed attempts at napping and, instead, try his hand at washing off the sweat becoming his second skin.

Because, logically speaking, when a stranger lurked in your house, the proper course of action was to either sleep or bathe.

He turned on the water, undressing while he waited for the tub to fill. And when he finally slid in, water lukewarm and his muscles relaxing, he thought of college.

In an instant, he tensed again.

Looking back on it, his parents never told him to major in economics. Even though they always praised Mikasa in front of him, they never forced him to go into a specific field of study (though his father strongly hinted several times that he wouldn’t mind if Eren pursued a medical degree). He didn’t have to go into economics, but at the time, he handled money well and understood economic trends. Outside of his gym teachers, the only people who ever praised him in high school were his econ and history teachers, and from this, he gathered that he’d make a good economist one day.

Now, with each passing day he spent in a classroom listening to people argue for Friedman and against Keynesian economics and vice versa, with every hour he spent over a textbook learning about aggregate supply and demand, Eren felt pointless. He understood everything down to a T, but in the end, he was bored and unmotivated. Economics wasn’t his passion, and it showed in his grades, the only course in which he received an A being the economic history class he’d taken last year.

When he thought about his potential career options, Eren sank lower into the tub, creating bubbles with his exhales, officially giving up on his train of thought.

Later, with his body refreshed and mind numbed, Eren exited the bath, redressing in his room—the sheets had already been washed, dried, and tucked in, strangely enough—before going downstairs, expecting to see his mother and father in the premises.

Instead, he found the short man from before still typing away at his computer, muttering to himself and readjusting his glasses, scribbling notes down in a textbook a few feet away.

With little else to do, Eren sat opposite the man on the floor, and though he wasn’t quiet in the least, the man didn’t stir. Eren sighed, resigning himself to stare at the walls and floor for entertainment—

Oh, shit.

When the man closed his book, he left the cover in plain sight for Eren to read: Das Kapital.

An econ dude.

Where were his parents when he needed them?

Eren figured it wouldn’t take long for them to return, but within a minute of waiting, his foot tapped the floor in a quick, steady rhythm, his gaze flickering to the wall clock every two seconds.

And within a minute of that, the man snapped, slamming his laptop shut.

“I can’t do this,” he said simply and, without further explanation, walked out of the room and into the hallway.

What?

Eren rested on the floor for a few minutes, his eyes unfocused as the cicada roared outside, the sun streaming in through the doorway. After a brief moment of indecisiveness, he followed the stranger out the door.

He didn’t know where the guy went, so he wandered aimlessly, admiring his mother’s interior design skills until he passed the kitchen, spotting the man reading a newspaper and drinking from one of his mother’s teacups without using the handle. He didn’t look up, and Eren didn’t speak up.

He only took the seat opposite from the man again.

The stranger exhaled with exhaustion, eyebrows scrunching together even more than when he first opened the door for Eren. “What is wrong with you?” he groaned, rubbing his temples.

“Just keeping an eye on you,” Eren offered cheekily, kicking his bare feet up onto the table.

The man’s eyes narrowed at Eren’s feet—like they were a curse from the devil himself—but he didn’t comment, returning to his news pages.

Something sparked, and suddenly, Eren wanted to push it further. See how far he could go. Take this places, then drop it off and never come back to it.

“I couldn’t find the spare house key,” he pressed, looking innocently at the other man, who shrugged and, from his pants pocket, pulled out a key that strangely looked like—

What the—

“What’s some nine-to-five worker doing with our house key?”

“I’m not ‘some nine-to-five worker,’ you ignorant piece of shit,” the stranger snapped, shutting his newspaper and flicking it to the table with a glare directed at the younger male, who realized he spoke without meaning to, but still scoffed in disbelief. The man sure as hell looked like a nine-to-five worker with his plain suit and glasses to match, but—

“I’m a scholar,” the Das Kapital reader corrected, glare trained on the younger male, “and I’m house-sitting.”

House-sitting?

Eren froze.

“I think the more appropriate question,” the man said, readjusting his glasses and leaning in towards the college student, “is why the fuck are you here?”


Just like Eren thought, his father was definitely surprised by Eren’s sudden appearance, but was not pleased to have “another unexpected visitor” for the summer.

“This is Levi,” his mother informed him, gesturing to the man still seated at the table, which Eren had originally abandoned for his bedroom—or Levi’s; who knew anymore—after being dealt his fair share of embarrassment.

“So you’re Eren,” Levi said. “Great job on introducing yourself to your guest.”

Eren decided he didn’t like Levi, who was a bit hypocritical, if he thought about it.

“He’s transferring workplaces right now, so he’ll be staying at the house this summer while we’re in Italy,” his mother said tentatively from her place at the sink.

Eren sputtered.

“Italy?”

Nobody fucking told him anything about Italy.

“We were planning to go as a family,” his mother told him, wringing the nearby washcloth nervously, “but Mikasa was busy and you said you weren’t coming home for break, so it turned into a second honeymoon…and Levi was the only person I knew who could housesit—”

He was missing out on Italy.

Italy.

Typical.

While Eren silently mourned his foreign trip that would never be—he could’ve rubbed it in that dumb “cultured” Jean’s face, dammit—Levi only sipped from his tea, nodding at Eren’s mother. “Don’t worry; I’ll take good care of the house while you’re away.”

She smiled, but traded a knowing look with her husband.

Eren stared at her curiously, asking the man before him, “Who are you, anyway?”

“Levi,” he answered simply, smartly, and Eren had the faintest idea that it was probably because he was pulling the guy’s leg earlier.

Eren resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “How do we know you?” he tried again.

“I’m Mikasa’s uncle,” he offered, and Eren accepted this since he hadn’t really met Mikasa’s family outside of rare formal occasions.

Silence settled between everyone, the ticking of the clock echoing through the room, and his mother cleared her throat, grinning. “I’ll cook dinner then,” she offered. “Grisha, you got pork chops from the market, right?” Though addressing her husband, she cast a cautious glance at her ex-brother-in-law that did not go unnoticed by anyone in the room.

Eren’s father nodded, emptying the freezer, also keeping a vigilant eye on their visitor.

Levi smiled at them. It didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Thank you both, again, for letting me stay here.”

As his parents prepared dinner, the guest letting his tea grow cold, Eren looked between the three for an explanation to the tension in the room.

He never received one.

An hour later, Eren cleared his throat and poked some broccoli with his fork, stalling until his parents left so he could throw away the food he didn’t want. Feeling that conversation was better than the stale silence that settled over them so long ago, he asked Levi, “What do you do?”

“I’m an assistant professor,” Levi answered after swallowing his food. “Economics.”

Oh, great—like Eren hadn’t had enough of those in his lifetime.

But Levi didn’t look like a professor, at least at his age. Most of Eren’s teachers wore casual clothes while they taught, but here this man was, outside of the classroom, wearing slacks and button-down shirts like it was a requirement.

Eren played with his broccoli some more, waiting for the clarification that usually comes when a professor shares their field of study, but Levi didn’t speak another word, only eating silently, stifling the table’s conversation even more. Leaving Eren to assume he was a Marx fanatic and nothing more.

At this rate, Eren was going to die.

“Well, you guys will be gone, and I’ll be stuck with this guy,” Eren tried again, joking tone evident as he addressed his parents, “but I at least get to sleep on my own bed, ri—”

“Bed? No. You’re futon-bound, son,” Eren’s father said, eyebrows furrowed, and Eren suddenly remembered the last time he received that look, when he’d spoken of becoming a farmhand in their hometown rather than attending university. “Farm—? No. You’re college-bound, son,” he’d said.

Huh. It was a weird thing to remember, but—

“I hope it’s comfortable,” Levi muttered under his breath, eyes sliding away.

Eren bristled and seethed because how dare— “Why, you fuckin’—”

“Language,” his mom interjected, effectively murdering the thought on his lips as she continued, “It’s true; you’ll be sleeping on a futon.” She looked wary of her own words as she avoided looking at their houseguest, who only looked at him expectantly.

Eren didn’t know what to say.

Didn’t know how to feel, honestly.

All of the things he’d been expecting when he came home—the warm hugs and smiles, the bed he called his own, the homemade meals and dinnertime bonding—were gone. Eren knew if he asked earlier, if they hadn’t already made a promise to Levi that he could sleep in Eren’s bed, that he would have his bed and homemade meals, no problem, but with just a few words, the visions that kept him alive the past month of college vanished into thin air.

None of it came true, and the person to blame for that was probably the man calmly sipping from a tea cup, acting like he was too good to use the fucking handle like a normal human being.

Eren didn’t like him.

He didn’t like him one bit.

This summer would be a rough one.