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Erwin is on top of him.
That’s how Levi knows he’s dreaming. Because his Captain, Erwin Smith, is on top of him.
It doesn’t feel like much of anything when Erwin’s hand leaves its resting place against his cheek and trails down the side of his neck, but Levi can at least appreciate the view, the enamoured look of desire that dances in Erwin’s pale blue irises. He thinks back to the first time he saw that look on Erwin’s face, just a few months prior, soaring through the damp, humid air of the Underground. The dark green hood of his cloak had fallen from his face, and Levi had seen them then for the first time. His eyes. Blue, blue, blue. A blue he’d rarely had the privilege of seeing, only visible through the cracks in the ceiling up to the surface. His cheekbones, chiselled from marble, the sharp line of his jaw. His lips, and how they had curled into an astonished smirk as Levi deftly evaded his grasp.
He wonders, if the plan hadn't been to let themselves get captured, would Erwin have even managed? Or would Levi have slipped from his hands easily, their paths never crossing again?
Erwin’s hand is resting on his neck now, long thick fingers pressed against the quickening pulse that thrums underneath his skin, half hidden by his dark black hair that he’s let grow out for too long. He ought to cut it. Since Isabel, since Furlan… he’s let himself go, hasn’t he? Stopped caring for himself. He used to be pretty. Pretty enough to distract the eyes of some drunk swine in a bar whilst he quickly dipped his hand into their coin purse. Pretty enough to bat his eyelashes and play the part of the teary-eyed innocent, making a deal gone sour suddenly turn sweet again. Pretty enough to make money from it.
It’s how he knows this is a dream. Erwin would never touch him like this. He’s not pretty anymore.
The people on the surface are beautiful. Vapid and cruel, yes, but beautiful nonetheless. At the galas, the balls, the endless soirees Erwin drags him to in order to show humanity their new weapon, the ladies twirl in their frilly dresses and the gentlemen sweat in their fine velvet suits. In the Underground he was considered attractive enough to pay for his company. Up here, he’s barely worth a second glance. Some strange curiosity brought up from the depths to be prodded and stared at for a few passing seconds before another lady in a frilly dress walks by, spilling out of her clothing in all the right places.
If Erwin were to touch anybody, it would be somebody like that. All curves and long, flowing hair.
And he does touch those women. An innocent hand on the small of one’s back. A palm pressed to a dipped waist mid-waltz.
Is that why, now, Levi dreams of Erwin’s hands on his waist?
Has he seen this so many times before that it has become ingrained in his subconscious, projected onto himself in some perverse reimagining of the sort of man Erwin is?
The fingers on his waist are warm. He can’t feel their presence, can’t feel skin-on-skin, but somehow, he feels reassured. He feels safe in his touch.
Hands travel lower and suddenly those fingers are fisted in the leather of his harness straps, gripping, taking, consuming. Levi swallows and lays there, still, unmoving. He’s certain that if he moves, this will end. He’ll shoot awake and be left laying in the cold of his bunk bed, in a room that used to house six but now only houses one. So he lays, as still and silent as possible, and waits. Waits for Erwin to dip his hands lower, for his strong fingers to easily undo the clasps of his leather harness.
The wood of the desk presses into the small of his back and he curses himself. Perverse. Lecherous. This desk is Erwin’s home, where he spends every waking minute. How dare Levi invade it in his sleep, taint it, morph it into some sick fantasy for his own benefit? How dare he turn Erwin’s hands - kind, gentle, uncertain - into a proxy for his own subconscious desire? Erwin would not touch him like this. Erwin does not touch Levi with certainty. Erwin evades, goes to place a concerned hand on one shoulder and then thinks against it, pulls him from peril in the heat of battle and then immediately releases him as though his skin burns to the touch. His eyes, too, are wrong. Locked on the curve of Levi’s waist, admiring, drinking in the sight hungrily. Erwin does not admire him. Erwin looks at him with furrowed brows, lips pulled into a taut line, eyes swimming with guilt.
He pushes away the thought of Erwin’s strained expression, the one he wears for Levi only. If anything, he’s grateful that Erwin has a face reserved for him at all.
Erwin’s large hands are gripped around his thighs now, over the silky material of his trousers, the leather of his harness shed and tossed to one side with little care. He shudders, regards Erwin’s expression as his brows knit together, focused, concentrated, the look he wears when he’s buried deep in paperwork, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Levi longs to kiss those lips, longs to draw his name from them without it being tainted by regret, by whatever pity Erwin still holds for him. Gently, Erwin’s fingers go to his fly, to the buttons strained tight over his twitching cock, but Levi doesn’t want him to be gentle. He’s sick of gentle. He’s sick of concern, of whispered apologies, of a measured tone of voice so as not to spark anger.
He moves. For the first time, he moves. His hand goes to close around Erwin’s wrist, stilling his movements. He doesn’t wake up, and thanks whatever gods are up there for that fact.
“What are you doing?”
His voice doesn’t sound like his own. It echoes around him until the words don’t seem like they came from his mouth at all.
“Levi,” Erwin whispers. His face has switched, surprise in his parted lips, embarrassment in his eyes. As though he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. “I… Forgive me.”
For what?
Always, forgive me. Always, I’m sorry, Levi. Does he not know by now that Levi has forgiven him? That he no longer holds him responsible for their deaths? That he hasn’t, not sice Erwin gripped the edge of his blade and roused him with that fucking speech? Or here, right now, in Levi’s dream, is he asking to be forgiven for what he’s about to do? For what he wants to do. Should Levi not be asking for forgiveness in his place, for perverting his words?
He shoots up in bed, drenched in sweat. The thin material of his bedsheets is soaked, turned sticky with the evidence of his arousal. He grits his teeth and peels himself from the covers, placing the soles of his feet against the wooden floor to ground himself. He breathes, once, twice, as deeply as he can manage.
For the first time, he is grateful for his solitude in the room.
***
“Forgive me, Levi.”
Erwin is saying something about another fancy gala in Mitras, his brows furrowed, his expression apologetic, but Levi is not listening. Instead, he is staring at the way Erwin’s fingers wrap around the cool metal of his pen.
He swallows.
There is nothing particularly enticing about the pen, nor Erwin’s fingers. Yes, they are long, and thick, and strong and covered with the evidence of hard labour - soldier’s hands - but overall, there is nothing particularly enticing about them. And yet, despite this, Levi cannot stop imagining them unbuckling leather harness straps.
“I know you don’t enjoy these sorts of events,” Erwin tells him. “And if there were any other way to go about this, I would. But I really do think it’s important that we make your presence known in the Corps. You’ve only been with us for a few short months and your kill count far exceeds even the longest-standing veterans. It gives people hope, and - forgive me for being crass - but hope makes people open their wallets.”
Forgive me.
“Whatever.” Levi replies listlessly. He does not move his eyes from Erwin’s fingers, aside from instead regarding his knuckles. Rosy from the heat billowing out from the crackling fireplace in the corner. Scarred, like a farmer’s or a metalworker’s. If Erwin had not joined the Corps, what would he have been? He can’t imagine Erwin tilling fields. Nose always stuck in a book. Perhaps a teacher. Maybe a father. Is Erwin at a fathering sort of age? People have kids by their early twenties these days. His mother, he thinks, had him when she was far younger. So perhaps Erwin would be a father.
“So you’ll join me.” Erwin says. Levi thinks it’s supposed to be a question, but it’s not, really. “I do appreciate that, Levi.”
Levi, forgive me.
“Who’s hosting?” Levi asks, like he cares. It all seems the same to him, no matter which merchant or royal’s house they’re standing in. Hors d’oeuvres and champagne and red-faced men and frilly ladies.
“Sir Millicent.” Erwin smiles. “I do believe he’s taken quite a liking to you. He requested your presence specifically.”
Levi tries to remember who Sir Millicent is. “Did he now?”
“Yes,” Erwin chuckles shortly. It’s as though he knows exactly who Sir Millicent is and is recalling whatever the fuck Levi did to make him like him so much. “You’re rather lucky he finds your… brand of humour so enjoyable. But do try not to call his brother a pig this time.”
Ah, that Sir Millicent. “Maybe his brother shouldn’t look so much like a fucking pig, then.” Levi frowns. “Or act like one.”
Erwin laughs. A soft sort of chuckle half hidden behind the back of his hand, the one holding the pen. At parties, Erwin laughs really fucking loud. It draws people’s attention to him. Levi supposes that’s the point. He wonders which is Erwin’s real laugh: the chuckle or the bellow? Or some entirely secret third option that Levi hasn’t heard yet?
“Maybe.” He agrees. “But nonetheless, let’s try to be amicable, yes?”
He’s been too harsh on Erwin in his dreams. Yes, there are those apologetic, pitiful glances. The silent retraction of his hand, always too wavering to decide whether or not to touch Levi. But there are also those laughs. The smile that reaches his eyes. The fact that he asks Levi to lock the door to his office when he visits so as not to be disturbed. He shares things. His smiles and his opinions and his thoughts and his precious fucking time that seems to be so valuable these days. It takes a lot, Levi knows, to share a piece of yourself with somebody. He briefly wonders what he gives Erwin in return. He doesn’t smile a lot, that’s for fucking sure.
“I will behave.” Levi jokes dryly. “For you.”
Levi isn’t watching Erwin’s face, so he doesn’t see the twitch of his lips, the way his eyes avert to one side as he measures Levi’s words in his mind. He doesn’t see the relief that seeps into his features, mixed with a sort of satisfaction, a knowing. Instead, Levi sees the twitch of his fingers around the pen, and wonders what it means.
“Thank you, Levi.” Erwin replies. “I’m trusting you with this, okay?”
“I haven’t let you down yet, have I?”
***
That night, Levi dreams of Erwin’s cock in his mouth.
Fingers are gripped tightly in his hair, the entirety of Erwin’s hand fisted against his scalp. Erwin’s hips are rocking up into his mouth, forcing his lips wide, forcing them to stretch obscenely to make room for his added length, his thickness. Gone is the painful ache in his jaw, the bitter taste of sweat and salt that Levi associates with this act. In his dream, this is bliss. Erwin tastes of soap and sunlight. He doesn’t gag when he finds his lips so far down Erwin’s cock that his nose brushes against his abdomen, buried in a thick tangle of light blonde hair. He doesn’t gag. Tears don’t prick in his eyes and he doesn’t feel drool running down his chin. He just hears Erwin’s long, satisfied groan. Just sees the serene look on Erwin’s face, his head bowed forward, brows pulled taut and lips parted.
“Ah, Levi.” He mumbles. Quiet. Secretive. This moment shared between the two of them in the privacy of the office. This fucking office. “Be good for me. I’m trusting you with this.”
He whimpers around the weight of Erwin’s length, squeezing his eyes shut. Must his mind pervert everything Erwin says to him? It’ll soon bleed into reality. It already has. His newfound fascination with Erwin’s fingers is enough to confirm that fact. Erwin bucks his hips again, and Levi widens his lips, lets his throat go slack, lets oxygen be cut from his airways and feels no difference because this is not real, none of this is real, and here, Levi can safely allow himself to be consumed by his all-encompassing desire for a man whom he should not feel anything but soldier’s camaraderie for. Here he can safely allow Erwin to become the man he wishes he was: filthy, crass, selfish, a man who takes what he wants and does not ask for fucking forgiveness. It’s laughable, really. Even if he were as selfish as Levi wished him to be, he would not take Levi.
He knows Erwin does not want him.
***
Erwin bellows loudly at a joke Levi does not understand and draws the eyes of party-guests onto his handsome, beaming face. He does so with ease - the perfect balance between a man who does not care what others think of him and a man who cares entirely too much. To an outsider looking in, Erwin Smith is the carefree, young, up-and-coming hotshot of the Survey Corps. He does not ride the coattails of Commander Shadis. In fact, he has set the coattails alight in a burning blaze of glory and wields the flaming fabric as a weapon. Next in line for Commander, people whisper as he passes, and handsome, too.
Levi sulks into his glass of champagne and ignores the witty retort that Erwin throws back in the face of a drunk socialite. The things that they are saying to one-another are scathing, but they’re both laughing as though they are old friends. Levi thinks this is called ‘banter’. Personally, he fucking despises it. When he makes a horrid remark about somebody’s wife-girlfriend-mistress, he does so because he fucking hates their guts.
His eyes scan the room. Big chandelier. Gaudy gold candlesticks. Flashy tiled dancefloor. Well, he doesn’t know what he expected, really. Something to be different, perhaps? The first time they had done this, the first time Erwin had taken him to one of these things, he had been disgusted. The overflowing, barbaric showing of wealth made his skin fucking crawl, like insects were swarming him, eating him alive as punishment for daring to rub shoulders with the sorts of people who thought it okay to hoard food and precious resources from the withering hands of the masses. Now, however, he’s gone… numb. Yes, the food makes him sneer. The scenery and decoration still makes his skin itch. He wants to claw out the eyes of every fat fucking swine in this fucking room and burn this estate to the ground, drench it in champagne and set it alight, spill blood and guts on the marble floors. But he said he would behave, and so he will.
“I must say, Erwin.” Fat Swine with Moustache guffaws. “The Corps is certainly thriving under your rule.”
Levi swallows. What rule? Erwin sits behind a desk all day and does paperwork. He is no king. He’s a man. A tired fucking man who forgets to eat and falls asleep at said desk, only to wake up with ink stains on his cheek.
“Oh, spare me, please.” Erwin smiles. “You speak as though I’m Commander already.”
“Are you not?” Fat Swine with Bad Teeth chuckles. “The common consensus is that Shadis is out. That you’re puppeteering the Corps from the shadows.”
Erwin waves the suggestion off with a coy smile as though it offends him. “You’re asking me to speak poorly of my superior officer, gentlemen.” He says, the congeniality of his tone concealing the warning behind it. “I have full faith in Shadis and I will continue to do so until he passes down the torch.”
Erwin makes no insinuation that the torch will be passed to him, even though everybody knows by now that it’s the most likely scenario. Levi can’t think of anybody else in the Corps fit to lead like Erwin is. Nobody alive, anyways.
“Besides,” Erwin continues. “To have faith in the Corps is not just to have faith in it’s Commander. Our soldiers are the beating heart of the Scout’s Regiment. We’re lucky to have so many strong-willed people in our ranks.”
Levi frowns. He’s heard this spiel before, Erwin’s subtle transition into singing his praises.
“If it weren’t for Levi, I’m not sure I’d even be around to ‘puppeteer from the shadows’.” Erwin laughs.
Eyes train on him. He tries his best to look unphased, because that is Levi, is it not? Humanity’s Strongest does not shy away from the glances of a few nobles. He stands his ground and purses his lips like this is all such a hassle for him, to be standing here, amongst these people. And it is, but not because he believes himself above it - no. It’s because he’s naturally distrusting, has been taught that since he was a child. Kenny taught him that. Kenny taught him not to get too close, to keep everybody at an arm’s length, and then an added knife’s length, just to be sure. He does not know these people. He does not know what they expect of him, who they expect him to be, and so he will be a mystery, an infallible puzzle of a man - unbreakable, perplexing, impossible to figure out - and save himself the loss of dignity that sucking up to these people would cause. Ultimately, Kenny taught him the bitter feeling of disappointment, too. To be disappointed, and to disappoint. There’s only one person in this room he would hate to disappoint. So he will not open his mouth, for fear of saying the wrong thing - likely, because he does not know what people with wealth find funny, find pleasing to hear - and save himself the loss of dignity that disappointing Erwin would cause.
“Levi’s only been with us for a few short months now,” Erwin tells Moustache and Bad Teeth. “And yet his kill count is far beyond our oldest veterans. I have great faith in him, and all of our fresh soldiers, to help further the Corps’ goals.”
Ha. Erwin’s penchant for bullshit is through the roof tonight. Surely he knows that Levi is an anomaly amongst men. That any fresh new soldier couldn’t hold a candle to his strength.
“Levi,” Bad Teeth says. “It feels as though you popped up out of nowhere. I’ve been hearing so much about you and yet nothing at all, it seems.”
“What do you mean?” Levi asks. It comes across as aloof, for which he is glad. His true meaning is that he has no idea what this fucking guy is on about.
“Well,” Moustache coughs. “Surely… you don’t just go by ‘Levi’, do you? I thought it was a rumour too silly to be true.”
A sneer makes its way onto his lips and he corrects it quickly. Personal fucking question. No fucking decorum. When will these surface-dwelling reprobates learn that they don’t need to know every fucking piece of information about a person? They don’t even care, truly. They’re just ‘making conversation’.
“I do.” He answers. He does not elaborate. Mysterious and aloof. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”
He makes his escape, and Erwin finds him again later, hidden out of the way on a concealed balcony outside of the main hall. He’s alone, until he hears those heavy, sure-footed footsteps and knows immediately who they belong to.
“I haven’t been here for long.” Levi says immediately. “Don’t worry. I’m just taking a break from singing your praises.”
“I wasn’t worried.” Erwin replies easily. He closes the door to the balcony behind him, the same way he does when he invites Levi into his office. Every room becomes his office when it is just the two of them. A space they share in silence, in mild, uneventful conversation. A bubble where just the two of them exist. “You’re doing very well tonight.”
Erwin takes his place beside Levi, leaning his forearms on the railing of the balcony. The dark olive green fabric of his dress uniform has been rolled up to his elbows, and Levi feels a lump form heavy in his throat. The top of his head is shoulder-height on Erwin. He thinks about fingers gripped in his hair and squeezes his eyes shut, burns the image from his retinas before he allows his mind to wander, but Erwin’s arms still linger behind his eyelids. His stomach stirs uncomfortably with heat and he wills himself to get a fucking grip.
“This is horrible.” He whispers, and he’s not sure whether he’s talking about the party anymore, or whether his words pay homage to the filthy image he’s crafted in his mind in a matter of seconds.
It comes to him so regularly now, in short bursts that make his face burn bright red. Images of his dreams invade his every waking moment, especially when his eyes land on Erwin’s face, his neck, his fingers, his cock hidden behind the fabric of his neatly pressed trousers. Every part of him that Levi has imagined in dreams, right in front of him, real and tangible and touchable. He scolds himself internally, keeps his hands pressed firmly to his sides.
“I’m sorry, Levi.”
“Stop it.” He grits. “Stop fucking apologising for everything.”
“Sorry, Levi.”
Erwin’s got a shit-eating grin on his face, boyish, his cheeks flushed from the heat of the packed hall. It makes Levi’s head reel dizzy and confused. He looks ten years younger in Levi’s presence, when they’re alone. Is it his influence, or does Erwin just truly look fresh-faced when his eyebrows aren’t drawn in a focused furrow? He has been too harsh on him. Erwin jokes with him, and he can’t remember the last time his Captain had danced around the subject of Isabel and Furlan with pity in his tone. They are moving past it. He is allowing Levi to heal, to become somebody entirely new, no longer defined by his past. The thought sickens him as much as it excites him. He does not want to be defined by his tragedy, and yet, to forget them - to move on - would be a sin.
He doesn’t know if he’s allowed to move on.
“Would you like to hear my report of the evening?” Levi asks the air.
It is a game they play, one that Erwin had to learn the rules to but is doing a very good job of remembering. He knows by now Levi does not wish to give a report. He knows Levi wants to complain and Erwin is the only friendly ear in this whole building.
“Please.” Erwin smiles.
“Sir Millicent,” Levi begins. “Is as much a pig as his brother. I despise every fucking second I spend in his company. Speaking to him is on par with speaking to a brick wall - if the brick wall happened to have a narcissistic personality disorder. He thinks his youthful figure is a good excuse to eat whatever he wants but he does not realise his athleticism is already failing him and he is - to use the words of polite society - steadily becoming ‘over the hill’.”
“I never would’ve thought you to be so shallow.” Erwin chuckles.
“You know for a fact,” Levi spits, abandoning the effort of speaking in that la-di-da sort of way that he only uses at these bullshit fucking parties. “That it has nothing to do with how people look. Some cunts are fuck-ugly but they can’t help it. It has everything to do with the fact that these people are hoarding food whilst people are starving, Erwin. You know how many people I’ve seen wither away? Corpses on the fucking street, too thin for the rats to even pick at. And these cunts are eating shellfish for the fucking taste.”
Erwin doesn’t reply. He just waits for Levi to be done.
“There was a time…” Levi tells him, and he’s not sure why he’s telling him, because he’s never mentioned this to anybody before. Not even Izzy and Furlan. “... I was maybe seven or eight. My mum was sick, so any food I managed to scrounge up went to her. I didn’t eat anything myself. Water - clean water - was just as scarce as food but even so I needed a way to fill my stomach. So I drank, instead. Did you know it makes you sick to drink water when you haven’t been eating? You over hydrate. It makes you throw up. So I learned, at the age of maybe seven or eight, that to drink to fill your stomach you need to mix salt into the water first. It gives your stomach lining something to latch onto, convinces your body not to expel the excess water and actually process it through your system. For three weeks or so all I did was drink salt water. And these people, they eat their fucking shellfish, and they complain that there’s ‘too much salt’ in the seasoning.”
“I’m sorry, Levi.”
Levi shrugs his shoulders and sniffs to clear the air. Too much. Too much about himself all at once. He’s glad that when Erwin found him, he wasn’t as thin as he had been then.
“Whatever. It’s not your fucking fault, is it?” He frowns. “We eat good in the Corps, you know.”
“Do you think?” Erwin asks. “Most people complain.”
“Most people haven’t starved, Erwin.” He sighs. “Three meals a day. That’s good. Fuck, I’m hungry.”
Erwin chuckles softly. “Go and have something to eat.”
“No. Not here.” Levi scowls. “When we’re home.”
His lips stutter over the word ‘home’. It sounds strange coming from his mouth, and yet at the same time, so undoubtedly right. The Corps is his home now. Until he kicks the proverbial bucket, which will likely be sooner rather than later. He wonders if his life expectancy was longer below or here on the surface.
“Dinner will have long passed by the time we’re home.” Erwin points out.
“Do I have your permission to sneak into the kitchen and make something, then?”
“It’s hardly sneaking if I give you permission, is it?” Erwin says. He’s leaned down now, his back bent at a strange angle, his forearms folded over the railing of the balcony. He rests his chin on them and regards the estate’s gardens with hooded eyes. Like this, with him bent all the way down and Levi stood ramrod straight, he’s taller than him. “Make me something, too.”
“I’m not your servant.” He tuts, eyes shifting to the side to regard Erwin’s profile. There’s something far-off in his expression, mopey, youthful. “A man of your age should have a wife to do all that shit.”
Erwin snorts humourlessly. “And what age is that?”
“Fifty, I’d assume.”
Erwin drops his chin from its resting place and buries his face into his broad forearms. Levi’s eyes go to the door, to make sure they’re still alone. For anybody to see Erwin acting like this, like a child… It is his duty to protect this stupid man’s reputation as well as his physical body. “I’m thirty next month.”
Levi doesn’t know how much younger than thirty he is. He doesn’t have a birthday - not one he can remember - and there are no surviving family members to tell him what year he was born. He remembers how he trembled when Kenny left and thinks he still might’ve been a child when it happened. He remembers being lanky and hormonal a few years ago and figures he might’ve been a teenager at the time. He thinks he might be in his early twenties now.
“Good for you.” Levi huffs. “Should I bake a cake?”
“I don’t think you know how to bake a cake.”
“No. I don’t.” He agrees. “This is why you need a wife.”
“I’m never marrying.” Erwin tells him.
“Is that, like, a choice? Or is it just that nobody would have you?”
“Ha.” Erwin snorts. “The latter, probably.”
I’d have you, Levi thinks.
“Stop sulking. You’re acting like a child.” He scolds. “You’ve been out here too long.”
“I’m working.” Erwin defends. “I’m listening to your report.”
“My report’s over. Go back inside.”
“Come with me.”
“Ugh.”
“Levi,” Erwin says, poorly concealing a quiet laugh. “Come on.”
Levi glances down and sees Erwin’s sweet smile, the glint in his eye that makes his face seem younger. He doesn’t look thirty, not when he’s out in the fresh air, under the pale moonlight. Behind a desk, maybe. But not here. Not with Levi.
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.” Erwin lies.
“Okay, then.”
***
His cheek is pressed against the cool wood of the desk, and Levi is thankful, because his face is blistering with heat. Behind him, two strong hands grip the waistband of his trousers slung loose around his hips. Erwin goes to push the fabric down, but delays, instead pressing the length of his clothed cock against Levi’s ass.
He cannot see Erwin’s face, not tonight. His view is cut off just below Erwin’s jaw, his shirt unbuttoned but not removed, hanging loosely over his broad shoulders. His torso is immaculate, sculpted into two bulging pecs and washboard abs, thick curly hair covering his chest and trailing down his abdomen into the waistband of his trousers. Around his pretty neck rests a plaited, thick, string necklace, sporting a large green gem on its end. Levi laughs bitterly. It seems he, too, already envisions Erwin Smith in the role of Commander.
Erwin bucks his hips once more and shifts Levi halfway up the desk in the process, leaving him to fumble with his weight, stretch one long leg up onto the expanse of wood and position himself neatly amongst the stacks of strewn-about papers, his inkwell, his fountain pen tossed to one side. The bulge of Erwin’s cock sits heavy on his ass, rests between his clothed cheeks, sends electricity and heat shooting to his own dick. He inhales softly, and wills himself to stay right here, underneath Erwin’s certain touch, forever.
“What are you waiting for?” He asks.
Erwin sparks to life like he always does whenever Levi speaks to him in these dreams. His face, previously hidden, comes into view as he bows his head, leans his weight over Levi. He looks bashful, shameful. Apologetic. His hands are still fisted in the fabric of Levi’s waistband and he makes no attempt to pull it down.
“I, Levi,” He stammers. His fingers twitch and Levi swallows. “I shouldn’t be…”
Something stirs in Levi’s abdomen and he feels his cock strain against the fabric of his trousers. Does it arouse him? To have Erwin enamoured with him, yet trying so hard not to be? To regard him as something untouchable. To think him pretty, and yet unattainable. How narcissistic of him, to believe he is deserving of Erwin’s respect. How narcissistic to believe that Erwin would have him like this in the first place.
Levi moves his head so that he can glance at Erwin over his shoulder, hoping the arch of his back will entice him, or at least make him more amenable to the idea. “I won’t beg.” He whispers, fixing his dark eyes on Erwin’s own pools of blue and pulling his lips into a tight line. If Erwin wants this, then Erwin wants this. A stupid thought to have, really, given that this is his Erwin in his dream. He should want it, shouldn’t he, if this is a fantasy?
“I’m not asking you to.” Erwin replies smoothly, the only telltale sign of his hesitation the twitch of his fingers.
Subconsciously, Levi must be tired of the talking. Of the back and forth, of the will-they-won’t-they, (they definitely won’t). His vision swims, fuzzy, hazy, like he’s looking at the dream through a pane of glass turned frozen by a morning frost, the kind that numbs his fingers to a pale white. Erwin is saying something, but he can’t make out the words. It’s as though his ear is pressed to the door of Erwin’s office, like he’s trying to figure out a quiet conversation through a thick panel of wood. It’s as he hears Erwin’s soft grunt that his vision suddenly focuses again, and he feels the cool pressure of his trousers around his thighs, his ass exposed and presented eagerly, back arched, arms braced on the cold wood of the desk. His face flushes at the image, goes even deeper red when he notices Erwin’s fingers hooked into the waistband of his own underwear, sliding the fabric down over his cock that springs free, bobbing heavily above his balls.
Levi must whimper because a sound fills the air that he knows wouldn’t have come from Erwin’s lips. His lips that have turned up into a coy smirk, eyes roaming Levi’s lithe figure appreciatively. His hand strokes over the length of his cock, languid, slow, and he watches the twist of his wrist, watches Erwin watch him with a satisfied smile. He breathes an impatient sigh into the quiet of the room, and Erwin must get the idea, because before he knows it he’s being spread wide. Erwin grips the thick of his thigh with one strong hand and pulls him apart, stretches his legs so that his hole, loose and wet, flutters - needy, expectant.
A deep chuckle rumbles from Erwin’s chest and Levi seethes, grits his teeth.
“What the fuck,” He spits, “are you laughing about?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Erwin reassures him, placating his anger with the warmth of his palm pressed to the small of Levi’s back. He rubs it in tiny circles, unwittingly causing shivers to run up his arched spine. “You just… hah. You’re already so…”
“What?”
“So… ready.”
Levi rolls his eyes. He props one of his elbows up on the desk and rests his cheek against his palm, fixing Erwin with an unimpressed glare. “What did you expect?”
He’s not sure he wants to know the answer. Especially not when Erwin poorly hides an embarrassed smile and says, “I thought… nevermind.”
“What? Either say it or fuck me.”
Erwin’s brows knit together and Levi takes pride in the fact that, even in a dream, he can fuck with Erwin’s head. He can confuse him, make him blush and trip over his words and feel so uncertain of himself. It’s becoming his new sense of power, he thinks, even when presented ass-up like a whore. To be able to make him sweat. “I think I’ll just fuck you.” Erwin evades.
“Oh, you think-?”
His words are cut off by the sudden press of Erwin’s cock against his twitching hole, the sudden pressure of his head slipping inside the rim, making him squeal unexpectedly. He squeezes his eyes shut, sucks in a breath of air through his teeth, preparing himself for the uncomfortable stretch, the quick burn of pain. Nothing comes. Instead, Erwin groans above him, eyes shooting upwards, focusing on a spot on the ceiling as though looking at Levi will quite literally kill him. As though seeing what he’s doing to Levi’s body will taint him. The flush on his cheeks has spread to the broad expanse of his chest, and when Levi opens his eyes, he settles his gaze there. The pink of his blush is half-masked behind the thick curly hair that coats his pectorals, but Levi can see it clearly in the arm candlelight, the way it frames that heavy green gem that rests around his neck.
Erwin heaves a stuttered moan as he grinds his hips further, and all Levi feels is the stretch of his hole widening around the thickness of Erwin’s cock, the heat that emanates from his length. He twists his body, glances over his shoulder, and watches in dazed delight as Erwin’s dick disappears even further inside his body. His head swims dizzy and he exhales a breathless groan, refusing to take his eyes off the tremble of his thighs, the eventual satisfying press of Erwin’s abdomen against the pert flesh of his ass, of which Erwin has now grabbed in his two large palms, pulling him apart and then pressing him back together around the base of his cock. There’s the undeniable pressure of Erwin’s balls pressed against his own, of slick, hot, wet, the drip of lube he doesn’t remember applying, of the burn of muscle and the sound of their laboured breathing melding together as one.
“Oh,” Levi sighs, his eyelids fluttering shut briefly before he forces them open again. There’s not a fucking chance in hell he’s letting his focus slip for a second. He’s not missing any of this. He’s not going to greet the cold emptiness of his room anytime soon. “Oh, fuck.”
“Shit, Levi.” Erwin grunts. His voice is strained, choked. It is not dissimilar to the poorly-concealed panic that takes over his voice outside the walls, whenever Levi does something brash, stupid, puts himself in danger for the sake of - what? The mission? No, for the sake of earning Erwin’s praise. Earning his concern.
“Fuck.” Levi says again. His body slumps forwards, and he finds his still-clothed chest pressed against the desk underneath him, his hips held in place, elevated, by Erwin’s strong palms. Erwin’s cock throbs inside of him, and he feels the sudden rush of addiction, of a need to consume, to take as much of this as he can before it inevitably ends. “Please god fucking move.”
Erwin doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s picking up a steady pace in seconds, the burn of his grip on Levi’s waist sending his mind reeling into a desperate mess, needy, hungry for more, for anything Erwin is willing to give him. He drags his cock out of Levi’s hole until only the head is still resting on his rim, then shoves his entire length back inside in one quick thrust. Levi groans, throws his head back, feels his body shoot halfway up the desk from the force of Erwin’s thrusts, only just managing to steady himself on the edge of the desk with two hands gripped against the wood. He twists his neck once more, if only to regard the expression on Erwin’s face, the deep furrow of his brow, the sweat shining on his forehead, the slick wet saliva on his parted lips. Levi cries out, another long thrust, his body somehow managing to suck Erwin’s length to the hilt. If this were real, he’d be split in two, sobbing. And yet, his ass does not burn. Nor does it give way to that all too familiar sense of pleasure that only reality could bring.
Erwin’s face turns to bliss, his eyes trained on the puffy red rim of Levi’s hole, the way it contracts around the head of his bulging cock. There’s serenity in his satisfied lips, and euphoria in the flush of his cheeks, hunger in his brow, desperation in his voice, and his eyes, his eyes, hold guilt. Every emotion Levi has ever burdened this Erwin - the Erwin of his dreams - is painted onto his pretty face. The Erwin that does not know when to touch him and when to leave him alone. The Erwin that’s bridled with selfishness, takes what he wants, takes Levi’s lips for himself. The Erwin that stammers over his words, and the Erwin that is so sure of his commands. The Erwin that thinks he is beautiful.
“Fuck, Erwin, Erwin,” Levi pants, and through broken breaths, finally manages to speak. “What… What were you - going to say - earlier?”
Erwin’s hips do not still when he growls in the back of his throat. “Doesn’t - hah - matter.”
“Tell me.” Levi begs. “Tell me, please.”
Erwin bows his head, leans his weight over Levi so heavily that his chest, his stomach, presses into his back, trapping him against the desk. He groans, low and heavy, into Levi’s ear. “God, Levi.” He murmurs. “I need you to tell me it’s only me.”
Levi’s eyes shoot wide.
His room is just as cold as he left it, and his sheets are stuck to his thighs.
***
Wind rushes through Levi’s hair. He leans down in his saddle, his chest pressed against the mane of his black mare, streamlining his movements and spurring her on faster with his heels in her side. He can see them now, on the horizon. Miche had sniffed them out a few moments prior, but now, their ungainly bodies waltz over the dip in the valley, swinging from side to side on ginormous, uneven feet.
The long-distance scouting formation has been working well, so far. Red smoke rises on the horizon to their left. Two in front, and god knows how many to the side. They should course-correct right, steer the majority of the troops out of harm’s way and let the left flank deal with the danger.
Levi waits for Shadis to fire his flare.
The green smoke does not rise.
He spares a glance to his side. Erwin rides his white steed with his face set into grim determination, and does not let his gaze wander. Miche’s knuckles are pale, gripped tight around his reins. He, too, has looked to the side, and meets Levi’s gaze. A silent conversation takes place between them.
Shadis won’t course correct, Levi glares.
No, Miche nods, so get ready.
“Commander,” Comes the voice of Erwin, loud enough to be heard over heavy titan footfall. They’re close enough that the ground is shaking now. Levi can feel it beneath his horse’s hooves. “We should steer right.”
Shadis’ teeth are gritted, and he grinds his jaw. One of his hands is still attached to his reins, the other hovering uncertainly over the flare pouch at his side. He’s taking too long to decide. The long-distance scouting formation works, yes, but it requires quick decision-making skills. The ability to assess a situation in a matter of milliseconds and determine the best course of action. Of course Erwin would create a formation that requires one’s brain to work at a million miles an hour - something only he can do.
The moment passes. The short moment where something can be done about the situation passes, and Shadis’ hand falls limp at his side. Erwin’s voice does not betray his disappointment when he says, “Levi, Miche.” But Levi can see it clearly on his face. He knows exactly what he’s thinking. If it were me, I’d have done it right.
“We’ll handle it.” Levi says, his tone lacking fear. Two titans isn’t so bad. If the left flank handles their side of things, he and Miche can clean up here. They’ll be fine. This doesn’t have to be the end of everything. “Say when.”
Erwin nods, and keeps on course.
Levi counts the metres between him and the two titans ahead. The gap is slowly closing. He takes in his surroundings. Not much in the way of coverage. Nothing for the wires of his ODM to latch onto. There’s a thicket of about five trees ahead, and Levi thinks, if they can just get close enough, that they’ll be okay. Erwin seems to be thinking the same thing, because he does not veer right as expected. He rides alongside Miche and Levi, and tries to get them as close to the treeline as possible. It’s unlike him to engage with titans himself: his proficiency with the ODM gear is admirable, of course, but his brain is the most important thing about him. It wouldn’t do any good for him to go throwing himself into danger. The Corps needs him alive, with that miraculous mind of his intact. It is the only reason that Levi does not call out that they’re getting too close. He trusts Erwin to make the decision. He trusts Erwin to decide when he stays and when he goes.
Erwin’s hand shoots out to the side, and he keeps his palm flat, motioning for the two of them to hold.
They hold.
Miche’s got a grim look on his face. Levi imagines his own expression is the same.
Their horses fly towards the small thicket of trees.
Finally, Erwin concedes.
“Go!”
White-hot electricity shoots through Levi’s muscles, through his veins, through every fibre of his being and before he even registers his movements, he’s leaping from the saddle of his horse. He pulls the triggers of his ODM and watches as the harpoons hurtle forwards, implanting themselves in the old, rotting bark of one of the trees. The foliage is hardly tall, and so he keeps low to the ground when he releases his gas, his heels grazing the grassy ground as he darts forwards. Before he reaches the thicket, he releases his harpoons, and reattaches them further up the tree’s trunk, changing his momentum suddenly and quickly hurtling him into the air. He gets a good amount of height: not optimal, but enough. Enough to unlatch his harpoons once more and redirect them into the shoulder of the titan on the left. The beast doesn’t even react as the metal tears into its flesh. It just keeps running, the gormless expression on its face unchanging.
Levi reaches the apex of his upwards arc. The ground is so far below him that Erwin’s figure astride his white mare seems tiny in comparison to the surroundings. He watches as the Captain spurs his steed and narrowly avoids the footfall of the titan on the right - Miche’s titan - but keeps close enough to intercept if required. The green cloak slung over his broad shoulders flutters behind him. When he turns his head, the blue of the skyline dipping below the horizon reflects the blue of his eyes.
He rips his eyes away from Erwin and refocuses. His body is carrying him via muscle memory to the nape of the titan. He tucks his legs neatly into his body and soars over the shoulder of the titan, unlatches his ODM and spins mid-air, refixing his hapoons into the back of the beast's neck. His momentum shoots him too far out, but he course-corrects, increasing his gas flow to quickly speed him toward his target. The cold metal of his blades’ handles presses into his palms. He breathes in. Metal meets flesh. An unsatisfactory shower of blood spurts from the titan’s nape, as though he’s hit an artery, though he briefly remembers Hange mentioning that titans don’t have arteries.
The beast crashes to the ground with a heavy thud that shakes the leaves of the trees and sends a flock of birds flying into the air. The steam begins to rise, and to his side, Miche’s prey lays dead, too. He presses the back of his hand to his cheek and feels the sticky wet of blood, though he’s not sure whether it’s coating his face or his hand.
He exhales the breath he had been holding.
He exhales too soon.
He doesn’t know how he didn’t see the black smoke from his position in the air.
Miche’s attention has been drawn to it, too. It’s close. Too close for either of them to formulate a plan, it seems, because Miche’s already sniffing the air and his lips are pulling into an irritated grimace.
“Fuck.” Levi mutters as he hears the clear, ringing whistle from Miche’s lips, calling their horses.
“We should go.” Miche tells him.
Levi’s only half paying attention. His horse is in front of him, he knows this, but his body won’t spur him to mount her. His eyes are still glued to the black column of smoke, steadily getting closer.
“Levi.” Miche tries. He feels a hand on his shoulder, pulling him away, but he shrugs it off.
“It’ll follow.” Levi whispers. “S’heading towards the centre of the formation.”
“We can’t take it here.”
“We can. I can.”
“And get yourself killed trying.” Miche frowns. “Don’t be stupid. Fall back. We regroup with Erwin. Take it later if needs be.”
The electricity is still thrumming through his body. It stems from his heart, pumps hot through his organs and then to his limbs, to his legs and his arms and finally to his fingertips which twitch around the hilt of his blades. Thunder rumbles in the distance, but Levi can’t see rain clouds. The black smoke gets one platoon closer. The left isn’t holding the abnormal back. Levi thinks back to long limbs, a titan on all-fours with flashing, narrowed eyes and sopping wet hair hanging in its ugly face. He thinks of Furlan’s torso, split in half. Isa’s head, bitten clean off.
Miche’s hand is on his bicep again, pulling him towards their horses. His eyes don’t leave the black smoke as he mounts his mare. As a Squad Leader, Miche has superiority over him. He has every right to order Levi around. But Levi has never listened to anybody’s orders except Erwin’s.
He snaps the reins forcefully and his mare bristles into action, darts in the direction of the abnormal. Behind him, Miche calls out, but he’s not listening. He thinks if it were Erwin’s voice, he’d stop. But Erwin has rode on too far. He’s trusted Miche and Levi with their kills, and expects them to regroup. He doesn’t have time to consider whether or not he’s breaking Erwin’s trust with his actions because in a matter of minutes he can already see the ungainly form of the abnormal in the distance. Corpsmen fly through the air, circling the beast, each of their movements more elaborate than the last, but nothing they do seems to work. The titan thrashes unpredictably, catches ODM wires in its long, spindly fingers. It must be eighteen metres, at least, all skin and bone. No fat or muscle to latch on to. A face like a skeleton’s, gaunt and sallow, deep-set into an ugly sneer.
Levi spurs his horse faster.
There’s nothing to create momentum, nothing around to get him up into the air. He’ll have to bring the ugly fucker down to his level, then.
Quickly, he reaches into his horse’s saddle bags and takes out a black flare, affixes it into the gun, and aims it straight forward. When he pulls the trigger, the flare goes off at a forty-five degree angle. It’s a stupid fucking thing to do - he knows the dangers of flare misfires - but it does mean that the black smoke shoots directly through the air, straight into one of the titan’s eyes. It roars, throwing its mountainous head back. Its hands go to cover its damaged eye, now leaking blood down its horrid cheeks, the skin stretched thin over bone.
The flare has the added benefit of alerting the remaining soldiers to his presence, but he still yells, “Fucking move!”
It’s hardly poetry, but it gets his point across. Each soldier - and there’s only fucking three of them left - scatters to one side. It’s a relief. They’d only be in the way. The beast hunches down, doubled over in pain, causing its loose skin around its stomach to sag. Its remaining eye - not covered by its hands - flies around in its sallow socket, attempting to lock onto its next bit of prey. Levi doesn’t give it the chance.
There’s a tipped over supply wagon behind the abnormal. Small, but it will do. Levi lodges his ODM harpoons into the wood, watches splinters fly as he supplies gas to his thrusters. The momentum takes him quickly along the ground, his boots picking up mud and grass as he darts across the floor. There’s no way he’s getting any height like this, but he doesn’t need it. He unsheathes his blades once more, and slices the tendons on the back of the titan’s ankles.
No arteries, but tendons. How cruel of the beast’s maker to give it a literal Achilles’ Heel.
Levi is glad that the three remaining soldiers have gained some distance from the titan, because it immediately slumps to its knees as soon as the blood spurts from its ankles. He’s fucking soaked with it, but now’s not the time to be complaining about cleanliness. On its hands and knees, the beast is so reminiscent of that titan that Levi already feels the red-hot sparks of rage flying through him. It doesn’t take much to latch onto the beast’s cheek. Doesn’t take much to spiral up its skeletal arm, cutting as he soars. Doesn’t take much to fix the soles of his feet onto each of its shoulders, and quickly slice his blades through the creature’s nape. It bawls beneath him, its last dying screech, and finally collapses into a pile of skin and bones underneath him.
Steam rises. It scalds him when it reaches his skin, but he doesn’t move.
He stands amongst the smoke - titan steam and black flare residue - and lets himself burn.
“Levi, sir!”
One of the soldiers is shouting up at him from below, astride their burgundy steed. It pulls his attention away from the face of the titan. It looks nothing like the one that killed them.
He makes his way down the back of the titan, sure-footed, using the ridges of its spine as a staircase until he reaches solid ground. The soldier that had called his name holds the reins of his horse that he abandoned a few metres away. He nods towards the kid - hardly a kid, probably older than him - and takes the reins from his shaking hand.
“Levi, sir,” The soldier repeats. “Thank you. Thank you. If it weren’t for you… Falker and Ginter already…”
The soldier - Levi doesn’t know his name - is looking towards the mangled bodies of two fallen comrades, only recognisable as Scouts for their green cloaks now soaked with blood. Falker and Ginter, he supposes.
Again, he thinks of them. His guts, spilling from the bottom of his belly. Her head, eyes still open. Exhaustion penetrates his muscles and he is far too tired to get angry. He is just filled with the same old familiar sorrow.
“We’re the same rank. You don’t have to call me sir.” Levi sighs as he swings his leg over his saddle and remounts his horse for the second time in ten minutes. The smoke is starting to dissipate. “Who’s your Squad Leader?”
The soldier’s face twists into a frightened grimace. “Kestrel, si- Levi. But he… he ran. I don’t, I don’t know where…”
Levi sneers and looks out to the horizon. Fucking coward. The red smoke from earlier indicating a titan presence has disappeared. He doesn’t think the abnormal took out the entire left flank. He can see a squadron in the distance. He closes his eyes and brings into his memory Erwin’s formation plan, the position of each troupe. It had been on his desk when they’d shared a pot of tea. That’s how he remembers it so clearly. He’d been trying not to look at Erwin’s lips, and so he’d kept his eyes glued to the paperwork on the desk. He daren’t even look around at his surroundings, at the interior of the office, lest he be brought back to the contents of his dreams.
What a stupid thought to be having right now, surrounded by the corpses of his comrades.
“The three of you, group up.” Levi says. He tries to channel Erwin’s assured tone of voice when he speaks. “Stay close to one another and ride left until you meet up with Squad Leader Farah’s group. Merge with her squad until camp and regroup with Kestrel afterwards if he’s still alive. If not, stay with Farah. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” The three say in unison, their hands over their hearts in salute, and Levi feels unease in the pit of his stomach. What right does he have to be saluted? These men are older than him, have been soldiers longer than him. He ought to be saluting them.
“Good. Go, now.”
They leave him amongst the corpses of men and titans. It is only then, in his solitude, that he realises Miche is going to be furious. And Erwin…
Better get back quickly.
The ride to regroup takes longer than expected. He hadn’t realised just how far he’d diverted off-course when he’d been barrelling towards the abnormal, too focused on reaching the danger ahead of him rather than looking back. This time, he keeps his eyes to the sky, and uses the dissipating flare smoke to guide his path, weaving through the terrain as a solo rider. His shallow breathing, still affected from the earlier fight, fills his ears, as does the incessant pounding of his heart. It’s not a hot day, yet sweat still soaks the back of his uniform, turning his palms slippy and uncertain on the reins. He grits his teeth and spurs his mare quicker.
It doesn’t surprise him that Erwin and Miche have ridden on. Shadis will have ordered it. Despite his rising kill count and Erwin’s constant commendations, he’s yet to make his value known to the Commander and he doubts he ever will. Though, if it were just the two of them, without Shadis… He shakes his head and puts a stop to the train of thought. Miche would prioritise Erwin’s life over his any day.
And Erwin. If he had ran, veered off course, and it was just him and Erwin?
No.
Erwin would prioritise the mission.
It’s getting dark by the time he sees the white mare in the distance. The sun is dipping below the horizon, casting a glare over the rolling hills that paints the landscape a deep, bloody red. He spots them on an incline, only made obvious by Miche’s large stature and the light that bounces off Erwin’s mop of blond hair. Shadis is hunched down against his muddy brown mare, scanning the terrain for a good place to set up camp, his paper map rolled out across his lap. The titans will be winding down by now. A yellow mist fills the skies: a regrouping flare. Soon, the rest of the Corpsmen - those that have survived - will convene in this one spot and start pitching their tents.
He trots closer and prepares for an earful.
When Miche lays eyes on him his expression turns dark. Levi can smell his fury from metres away, the menacing aura of rage written on every single one of his features. It’s deserved, he’s aware. What he had done was stupid. But to let the abnormal rampage through the left flanks without combatting it with somebody capable… Well, it’s the excuse he’ll use when Erwin says in that low, even tone: “Levi, a word.”
Erwin isn’t looking at him, actually. That’s what worries him the most when he finally rejoins them on top of the hill. Instead, he’s completely absorbed in dismounting his horse and making his way over to the nearest Squad Leader, beginning to delegate the work, the setting up of camp, the watch schedules. He’s only treated to a single glance as Erwin passes by him, unimpressed and strained.
Even worse than an earful.
He does his best to ignore the nagging guilt and aids in the camp set-up. Tents are erected, fires are started. Night sets, as does exhaustion into the bones of each soldier, huddled around campfires tucking into ration bars, mourning those lost. He’s never been good at reading a room, but by now, Levi can tell how everyone else has fared in their travels simply from the atmosphere in the camp. Tonight, for example, is veering on the cheerful side of things. Comrades warm their fingers on cups of hot tea brewed in large kettles, the leaves practically stewed, but to them, the flavour doesn’t matter as long as it’s hot. There’s a quiet chatter, cautious, but energetic. At the corner of the camp, he spies the three soldiers from earlier. Their SL, Kestrel, is nowhere to be seen. They don’t seem particularly upset by this fact, and Levi can't say that he summons any sympathy either.
As he passes by them, the freckled one who had called him sir nods at him amicably.
He returns the gesture.
“Levi.”
The voice brings him away from the calm murmurs of the camp, and he turns automatically despite not wanting to. Erwin stands, arms folded over his broad chest, his lips pulled taut. Levi fixes his gaze on the Captain’s forearms and fails in stopping his mind from wandering.
“What?”
Erwin cocks his brow as if to say, really? It’s a fair response. He’s sure he’s caused him too much stress today.
“Walk with me.”
He exhales, deep and slow, and prepares himself for the earful. It’s been a while, actually, since Erwin had to discipline him. He’s been good and well behaved for months now. He doesn’t know what it was about today of all days. He’s seen the black smoke of an abnormal sighting plenty of times since that day and never felt rage like that, never felt the nagging need to chase, to kill, to eradicate. Had it been that Erwin wasn’t there? Didn’t tell him to stay, to ride on with the group?
He follows Erwin’s lead and finds himself walking through the camp, looking downright mopey as Erwin works more, delegates more, speaks to an endless amount of soldiers and gives out an endless amount of orders. He’ll make a good Commander, when the time comes. Levi’s mind goes to the office, the wood of the desk, the green bolo tie around his strong neck, resting on his exposed chest. Eventually, he finds himself in a tent off the west side of camp - Erwin’s tent, he realises, because his ODM is on the floor next to a sleeping bag - with Erwin and Erwin alone.
Levi gets the jump on him before he can begin.
“I know I fucked up.” He blurts. “I put Miche in danger by leaving him and I put you and Shadis in danger by not communicating my whereabouts. I disobeyed direct orders. But, in my defence, the abnormal was tearing through the left flank and you and I both know for a fact that Shadis wouldn’t have done a fucking thing about it until the fucker was on our goddamn heels. We would’ve lost more men had I not intervened and the formation would’ve gone to shit. The formation was already going to shit ‘cuz Commander Useless couldn’t fire a fucking flare gun to save his own fucking life, never mind the lives of our men-”
His rant is cut off rather abruptly by Erwin raising a hand to stop him. He goes silent immediately, and curses himself for doing so. This goddamn fucking devotion will be the death of him. The day Erwin tells him to jump into a titan’s mouth, his body will have moved before his head even catches up, spurred on by that familiar feeling of yellow lighting coursing through his veins.
“I think,” Erwin says gently, calmly. Always so calm. “That what you did… Was the correct course of action.”
Levi’s silence turns stunned. “Oh.”
“That’s not to say that you went about it in the right way.”
“Oh. No, I know. I shouldn’t have… I put Miche in danger. And you.” Levi repeats stupidly.
“Yes.” Erwin agrees. “And yourself.”
Heat flushes Levi’s body pink to match the rouge sunset peeking in through the tent’s doorway and he bites down on his tongue. How fucking stupid. The tiniest morsel of concern, of care, and he finds himself lapping it up like some mongrel on the streets scarfing down rotten scraps.
“I was fine.” He whispers. “I’m not even hurt.”
Erwin frowns. “Do you understand how important you are to the mission?”
Levi swallows heavily. The fucking mission. Again and again, his importance to the mission. Would he be so repulsed by the words if Erwin would simply say he was important to him?
“Yes. You keep telling me.”
Erwin’s lips, previously stern, fight to hide his smile. He glances to the side and regards the fabric walls of the tent as if they are the most interesting thing in the world.
“Perhaps you should listen to me for once, then.” Erwin suggests.
“I always listen to you.”
“Not this time.”
“In my defence,” Levi challenges, “You didn’t tell me not to go.”
“I thought it was implied,” Erwin replies easily, “That I didn’t want you charging headlong into danger when I told you to be safe last night.”
Levi’s head goes dizzy and he’s taken back to Erwin’s office just one day ago, what seems like a million miles away and a million hours before, behind those huge, looming walls. The light from the fire flickering, casting shadows on the walls and a youthful glow onto Erwin’s face. The teacup, too small in his large hands, perched on his lap. His state of undress, slacks and a white shirt and bare feet, too familiar, too un-Captain-like, too human and too close and too much for Levi’s eyes to see without perverting each contour of his body, each ruffle of fabric and each relaxed sigh that left his pretty lips.
He swallows again, but his throat has gone dry. He hasn’t replied yet and the silence threatens to reveal his thoughts.
“I’m sorry.” He says, finally. “You’re right.”
Erwin’s lips pretty lips, full, handsome, masculine have turned up into one of those soft smiles now, the ones he reserves for unsaid praise. “It’s okay.” He replies quietly. “You said you weren’t hurt.”
“I’m not.”
“The cut on your head begs to differ.”
Levi’s hand goes to his forehead and a sharp pain shoots through his brow when his fingers find the slick wet of an open wound. “Shit.”
“Come here. Let me sort it.”
“It’s - it’s fine. I can do it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Levi.” Erwin huffs. “Just let me. It’s an order.”
“Now that’s just childish.” Levi spits in an attempt to hide the fact that his body moves without his consent the second he hears those three words, the it’s an order that calls him to action, that sparks electricity in his soul.
“Yes, yes.” Erwin bristles as he locates a medpack, placing it on a makeshift table on top of all his maps and paperwork, gesturing for Levi to sit in the chair beside it. Just to piss him off, Levi moves the papers out of the way and sits on the table instead. “I’m very childish. You know this already. Now hold still.”
Levi holds still. He holds still and he holds his breath as Erwin deftly manoeuvres a cotton swab between his long fingers and cleans Levi’s wound. His face is drawn into a focused, stoic sort of expression, his lips a hard line, his brow analysing the wound as though it is a problem he can’t quite figure out. He’s reminded of fingers on leather harnesses once again. He’s reminded of Erwin above him in so many different positions, always in that same office. He thinks, right now, this tent could be the office. Their little bubble, filled with silence - comfortable silence for Erwin, and terrifying for Levi.
Erwin dabs the cut with antiseptic and Levi flinches, sucks in air through his teeth.
“You’ve had worse than this.” Erwin murmurs. It’s so close to his ear that Levi’s whole face turns hot.
“You could’ve warned me.”
“Oh, you want to go there? Now?” He chuckles.
“Fucking hell. You’ve made your point, alright?”
“Clearly not enough, if you keep doing it.”
“Barely, these days.” Levi bites.
“Mmm. You used to be a lot worse for it. Misbehaving.”
“Misbehaving?” Levi scoffs. “I think most people called it insubordination.”
“Oh, something like that.” Erwin smiles. “I seem to remember most people called it ‘being an asshole’.”
“I can’t help that.” Levi sulks.
“Well, someone’s got to do it,.”
“You don’t fancy taking up the torch?”
“Don’t think I’d get much funding if I was a dick all the time.”
“You are a dick all the time.”
“You’re talking a lot of shit for somebody getting looked after by me right now.”
Levi finds a smile on his lips. He can’t help himself. Erwin mirrors the smile with one of his own, far more blinding and far prettier.
“I said you didn’t have to.” He says, correcting his smile into a pissed off frown.
“I wanted to.” Erwin says. “You had me worried today.”
Levi almost chokes on nothing. He stalls for time by huffing an annoyed sigh and composes himself into his usual, sardonic caricature. Mysterious and aloof. Never giving anything away.
“And this helps, does it?” He drolls. “Babying me?”
“Yes.” Erwin replies, calls bullshit and cuts through Levi’s stonewall in a matter of seconds. “Stop moving so much.”
Levi stops moving so much.
Erwin’s fingers are quickly removing butterfly stitches one by one and affixing them to his cut. He’s just glad the gash isn’t so bad that he needs a bandage. He’s not sure wrapping fabric around his brow would help with the heat rising from his face.
“I’m sorry.” Levi says into the silence, if not to fill the air. “For worrying you.”
For the first time, Erwin meets his gaze. He removes his eyes from the cut on Levi’s head and fixes them instead on Levi’s own. In the dark of the tent, illuminated only by one gas lamp, his irises swim like the depths of a lake. He thinks of the sea, the large mass of water in Erwin’s books that he doesn’t let anybody else read, and wonders if this is what it looks like. Water so expansive, it must be pitch black if one went deep enough.
Erwin breathes a soft sigh. He’s so close, standing between Levi’s parted legs dangling off the edge of the makeshift table, not long enough to touch the grassy ground. He’s seen this position before too, in his dreams.
“It’s okay.” Erwin whispers. “You’re here now, aren’t you?”
It sounds as though it’s not okay, so Levi asks, “Are you angry with me?”
If the question takes Erwin aback, he makes a good effort to conceal it. Only the flush on his cheeks gives him away. Levi studies it, memorises it, internalises it. And then wonders what it means.
“Of course not.” Erwin replies. “No, of course not, Levi. I was just…”
Levi waits. And then Erwin goes back to fixing his wound in silence, so he prompts, “You were just…?”
Erwin’s expression shifts into something unrecognisable, but Levi can see the familiar telltale signs of strain in his tensed brow. He can only identify himself and his actions as the cause.
“Just… ignore me.”
“No, go on.” He frowns. “If you’re mad just say it. Tomorrow’s too important. We’ll get it out of the way now and be fine for then.”
Erwin smiles, and Levi can’t figure out the meaning behind that, either. He deems Levi’s wound dressed appropriately and packs away the first aid kit, but does not move from his place between Levi’s legs. “I’m not mad.”
“So what, then?”
“Nothing.” Erwin defends, and he’s getting antsy now. Levi thinks if he pesters him for long enough, he can get a straight answer out of him. “I just… Today. I thought…”
“What?”
“I thought… I - we - had lost you.”
Silence fills the tent once again. Erwin’s words float in the air between them and Levi opens his mouth to respond but finds nothing. He closes his mouth again, fixing his gaze on Erwin’s expression and trying to discern the meaning behind his confession. How strange, that in the heat of battle, Levi feels as though he can understand Erwin’s every thought, every micromovement. And yet here, in the solitude of their bubble…
He wants to question the correction. I to We. He wants to ask why Erwin feels the need to not make this personal.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Erwin swallows, heavy, and averts his gaze. His hands, without the distraction of the medpack, linger by his sides with nothing to do. He flexes his fingers, balls them into fists and then releases them again. Levi doesn’t break eye contact with the movement.
“We rode without you… for hours.” Erwin whispers. “I feared…”
He’s got that strained look on his face again - brows furrowed, eyes dark and hopeless - Levi once again the cause. He moves without thinking, as though he’s leaping into battle. He reaches down to grasp Erwin’s wrist in his hand as easily as he would unsheath a blade or trigger his ODM. Carefully, precisely, he flattens Erwin’s palm, and presses it to his chest, left hand side, over the slow thrumming of his heart. Even this, even the salute of the Corps, the sordid cries of dedicate your heart, Levi can bastardise.
Erwin’s hand is warm against his chest. His palm covers the entirety of his left pectoral muscle.
Levi’s not sure his heart is beating so steadily anymore.
“I’m okay.” He says. “Erwin, I’m okay.”
Erwin’s pained look crests into something indiscernible. Surprise, perhaps, or just confusion. His eyes widen almost imperceptibly and his pretty lips part just a fraction. Then Levi feels it. His fingers, tightening their grip, until a handful of his shirt is fisted in his lovely hands. He bows forward, leans closer, until their foreheads are pressed against one another. Electricity sparks at Levi’s fingertips, the ones still wrapped around Erwin’s wrist. He moves his hand, places it over the back of Erwin’s, and presses it harder into his chest. The contact burns and soothes all at once, sets his body alight and douses it in cold water.
“I know.” Erwin whispers. “I know.”
His eyes have flickered shut, but Levi’s remain open. He regards the slope of Erwin’s handsome nose, the curve of his cheekbones and the cut of his jaw from underneath his lids. The flush that has painted his skin rosy. His lips are still parted.
Levi wants to kiss him.
To talk would break the spell. Erwin would jump away, realise their proximity. If he stays quiet, maybe this can last a few seconds longer.
“Please,” Erwin breaks the silence. “Please, don’t…”
“Don’t what?” Levi asks.
Erwin shakes his head, and he feels the pressure of it against his forehead. He doesn’t make any attempt to move his hand away from his chest.
“Don’t do this.”
Levi can’t comprehend his words. Is he talking to Levi, or himself? “Do… what?”
“Levi,” His voice catches on his name. “I shouldn’t be…”
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
He thinks, maybe, he’s heard this before.
He can’t think to speak. His mind races, goes back to each of his dreams, how he had laid there, unmoving, in a desperate attempt to not rouse himself from sleep. He feels it now, the tightening of his muscle, the incessant nagging to be quiet, lie still, and pray this won’t end.
Erwin, he thinks, is doing the same thing.
They stay like that for god knows how long, Erwin’s hand pressed to his chest covered by his own, their foreheads pressed together. Erwin doesn’t open his eyes. He just breathes, slow and steady, the broad plains of his shoulders shifting with each exhale. The quiet makes Levi think. It makes him consider his options, like he’s planning an attack. To move forward just an inch would surely seal both of their fates. And yet, Levi can’t. Because it would break the spell. It would pop the bubble in a matter of seconds and then everything would be tainted - the tent, the rolling fields, the training grounds, the office. Every space that he and Erwin share in this comfortable silence would be ruined.
There’s a ruckus outside, a couple of soldiers getting too fucking rowdy for their own good. Erwin should go out there, reprimand them, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even turn his head.
And then Levi thinks, maybe, he ought to do something about that.
“Erwin.”
Erwin inhales deeply, as though he’s preparing to be scolded. As though Levi will call him out for his intensity, for his betrayal of their professional relationship. He can’t find the energy, nor the willpower. Instead, he inches slightly closer, pressing the insides of his thighs to Erwin’s hips, and the tip of his nose to Erwin’s own.
“Yes?”
His question is quiet, uncertain. He’s never uncertain in the midst of a fight. Why here?
Does he not know if he wants this? Or does he absolutely want this, and is telling himself he shouldn’t? Levi is his subordinate. Levi is a few years younger than him. But what does that matter? A military hierarchy that he’s never believed in and a couple of years between them. They are equals. Erwin had made that clear from the beginning. In any other world, outside of the confines of the Corps, this would be a perfectly normal relationship.
Maybe that’s what finally urges Levi to press closer. Or, perhaps, he feels the twitch of Erwin’s hand against his chest, the way his fingertips brush against the buttons of his shirt, against the leather strap of his harness that’s buckled tightly over his pecs. Either way, he moves. Unlike his dreams, he moves. He takes the initiative, and places one shaking hand against Erwin’s cheek.
Erwin finally looks at him, all doe-eyes, gone wide in pleasant surprise, that pretty blush incessant on his cheeks and the tip of his nose. How coy, to play the innocent. Levi thinks it will help. To know that he’s not pushing anything onto Levi. To know that Levi is the one who started this.
“You’re cold.” Levi whispers.
He’s not good at words. That’s Erwin’s specialty. He feels unequipped, flailing without a lifeline, and yet when Erwin smiles and shakes his head, he thinks maybe he’ll be okay.
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah?” Levi says. “You don’t want to come here, then?”
Erwin looks as though he bites the inside of his cheek. No, Levi sees him bite the inside of his cheek.
“I,” He says, stammers, fumbles. It feels good to know he’s not the only one struggling. “Can’t.”
“Does it matter?” Levi asks. “Whatever you’re thinking right now. Does it really matter?”
He’s not sure whether it’s his words that finally tip Erwin over the edge or his own whirring mind, but it happens. The strain melts from his face, leaving nothing but unburdened serenity, of wanting, of lust, of desire. Levi realises it is the first time he has ever been one-hundred percent certain that Erwin wants him. There have been moments. A hand brushed against his own over a stack of papers, a gaze left lingering too long, eyes catching one-another across a crowded room. He doubted them - of course he did. How could he not when his mind has been turning every small gesture of Erwin’s into something filthy for months now? Replaying it in his waking moments, and then mutating it in his dreams?
But this - the energy. The lightning through his veins, sparks flying, hitting Erwin’s exposed skin but not harming him. This has to be it. Mutual attraction.
Mutual devotion.
His dreams, his fantasies, meld into reality when Erwin’s lips meet his own. He’s warm - far too warm for the makeshift lodgings that the tent provides - radiating heat like a glowing campfire, like the fireplace that flickers in his office, illuminating their quiet nights together. Levi melts against the heat, goes pliant, goes quiet, and kisses back. He moves their lips together slowly, careful at first, testing the waters to see if Erwin will suddenly pull away, gain some common sense and remind himself that what they’re doing is a bad idea, Both of them know this. That a relationship of this kind breaches the lines of professional, breaches the lines of careful camaraderie that they’ve spent so much effort building up over the past few months. That with this, a kiss, a fuck, they ruin any semblance of the hierarchy between them. And yes, they have always been equals, but he doesn’t know whether Erwin will be able to order him into danger after this, knowing that he’s had Levi, touched him like nobody else ever has.
Erwin sighs, heavy and heated, against his lips. His hand is still pressed to his chest, still seeking the reassurance of the beating of his heart underneath his skin, his muscle, his ribs. The slow thrumming of blood that proves that, yes, he’s still alive. Despite everything, he’s still alive.
Levi leans closer into his touch, chest to chest, deepening the kiss and hoping his desperation, the culmination of months of want, doesn’t make itself known. Erwin seems to regain control of his facilities, and Levi soon feels the strong pressure of his arm around his waist. He feels his body slide right to the edge of the table, pulled closer, ever closer, and for a brief moment he doesn’t care how needy Erwin thinks he is, because he knows Erwin feels the same.
Every glance. Every lingering touch. He hadn’t been imagining it.
He hadn’t been imagining it.
Erwin breaks away if only to breathe, and a brief flash of fear strikes Levi’s chest. He thinks it's over, until Erwin leans back in, catches his lips once more, and kisses him deeper, hastier, hungrier. He takes what he wants and what he wants is Levi, and Levi can’t help but feel lucky. That his affection is returned. That a man like Erwin - stoic, infallible - would break just for him. Erwin’s palm presses into the dip of his waist and he shudders at the contact, the closeness, the familiarity of it all. He cups his hand around Erwin’s fingers and breathes a soft moan against his lips, praises god for the opportunity to touch them, to feel them against his own, skin on skin.
Reality is so different from his subconscious fantasy. Here, he can feel the calluses that decorate Erwin’s hands like craters dented into a rolling landscape. He can feel the biting cold of the roaring wind penetrating the fabric walls of the tent, turning his toes numb in his boots and whipping against his exposed cheeks. And, in contrast, he can feel the all-encompassing, dizzying, spiralling heat of Erwin’s body against his own, warding off the cold and making him fall further, melt further, until every inch of their skin is pressed against one-another.
Erwin’s fingers twitch and his grip on Levi’s waist turns bruising. Levi wonders if Erwin touches his body how he would in dreams, and briefly thinks to question whether Erwin dreams of him at all. He finds his answer when Erwin nips lightly at his bottom lip, navigating his surprised moan and taking the opportunity to slip his tongue into Levi’s parted mouth, slide it against Levi’s. He shudders, moves his tongue in unison, tries to match Erwin’s pace as he does in the field, in battle, always striving to meet his demands. He feels the slick wet of saliva melding together, mouths moving together, to becoming one, devotion reciprocated.
He breaks the kiss suddenly with a gasp, and Erwin’s face turns to concern, a sudden worry flooding the lakes of his irises. Levi quells his fear with three quick words, spoken quietly enough for only him to hear.
“I want you.”
Erwin stutters in response. His magnificent brain falters momentarily and Levi feels pride, feels satisfaction, in his ability to topple the man.
“Here?”
Levi nods, even if he acknowledges, silently, that Erwin’s question is not unfounded. There's very little privacy in the tent. Very little privacy in the camp. They have no bed to share, just a wool-lined sleeping bag strewn over the grassy floor and a makeshift desk covered in paperwork. They should wait. They should save this moment for a more comfortable setting. The office calls to him, a million miles away, its warm fireplace flickering, inviting.
But Erwin thought he lost Levi today.
And tomorrow, he might.
“Yes.” Levi breathes. “Here. Now.”
Erwin’s eyes go to the entrance of the tent, a simple sheet of fabric held in place by a thin piece of rope. Does it arouse him or worry him, to know that they could be seen? Levi can feel the hard press of Erwin’s cock against the inside of his thigh, thick and enticing, begging to be freed from the tight fabric of his trousers.
He swallows.
And then his magnificent brain must start working again, because he leans down to press a possessive kiss against Levi’s lips, and cups his cheeks in his large hands. Either that, or he’s finally gone mad, thrown all logic out of the window. Levi wonders if he has that kind of power over him.
“Okay.” He whispers. He’s got a determined, fervent sort of look in his eye, the one he wears when he’s about to do something extremely clever or extremely stupid. “Okay, love.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Erwin nods. “But we should, uh,”
“Be quick about it?”
“... Yes.” He smiles, awkwardly. “I’ll make it up to you. When we get back. We can spend as much time on this as you would like.”
If we get back, Levi thinks morosely. He banishes the thought. They’ll make it back. They have to. For once, something good has happened. He’s not going to lose it.
He takes the initiative to let his fingers wrap around the leather harnesses circling Erwin’s thighs and tugs, so that his legs are pressed against the wooden edge of the table. Erwin marks the brisk contact with a huff of air, his eyes not quite sure where to look, until finally, they settle on Levi’s face, similarly flushed with embarrassment. How stupid of them, to be blushing like teenagers. He can’t speak for Erwin, but he’s done this plenty of times. So why, when he undoes the leather loops and pushes Erwin’s garter up to hook his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers, does he feel so shy?
“As much time as I would like.” Levi echoes, mulling over the words. “You know, for once, you can be self-serving.”
Nervous laughter bubbles its way out of Erwin’s chest and he averts his gaze.
“As much time as you will let me have, then.” He whispers.
He would let Erwin have all the time in the world, if he wanted it. He would resign from the Corps and spend his days warming Erwin’s bed, loosening himself over his own fingers until Erwin retired to his room and took whatever he needed, whether it be stress-relief or reassurance. He thinks he could do that. He thinks it would provide more satisfaction than the Corps ever could. He does not care for the glorious mission. He only cares for Erwin.
“Such a sap.” He huffs, and Erwin glowers with pride above him at his flustered expression.
He wipes the look off his face in a matter of seconds when he slides his trousers and his underwear down in one quick motion, watching with immense desire as the hard length of his cock springs free and strands between them, between his thighs. He’d give anything to take that cock, let it split him in two, but tonight is not the night. For now, Erwin will just have to make do with the sensation of his fingers wrapped tightly around his base, one long, experimental pump already making him shudder.
“Oh,” Erwin gasps, and it’s a little too loud, a little too obvious, but Levi can’t bring himself to tell Erwin to quieten down. Not when his eyes slip shut and his brow knits, and he catches his bottom lip between his teeth to still his strangled moan. “Oh, Levi.”
Something ignites in him at the sound of his name. His uncertainty is swallowed whole by unbridled desire, his duty, to protect, to serve, to bring Erwin pleasure. He twists his wrist as he pumps Erwin slowly, the searing heat of it pressed against his palm, twitching, bouncing into the thick expanse of hair covering his abdomen whenever Levi flicks his wrist in a certain way, or leans forward to press is lips against Erwin’s chest, still covered by the fabric of his shirt. Yes, Levi has dreamed of Erwin undressed, naked, stripped to nothing and pressing him down into soft sheets. But this, too, is perfect. It is perfect because unlike his dreams, he can feel everything. Can feel fabric and skin and warmth and it’s so perfect and so real that he doesn’t even think of Erwin in his dreams. His mind does not wander to the office, to the bedroom, because why would it, when Erwin is here in front of him with pleasure written across his handsome features? He quickens the pace of his hand over Erwin’s cock, keeps his eyes glued to it, to the sheer size of it, so thick that when he wraps his fingers securely around it, they don’t touch. His mouth pools with saliva.
“Sit on the desk.” He tells Erwin. “I wanna blow you.”
Maybe he’s too blunt when he says it, but Erwin doesn’t seem to mind. He is next in line for Commander, but he still has that soldier’s obedience built into him. When he hears the order, he follows it immediately, without a word of complaint. He only thinks to ask, “Is this okay?”
“Yes.” Levi says swiftly. “Is it okay for you?”
“Yes.” Erwin tells him, breathless already, and Levi doesn’t think to wonder how long it’s been for him, doing something like this. Levi himself only left the Underground a few short months ago, where sex was a commodity to be traded. But for Erwin… he’d be the sort of man to wait for the ‘right person’, wouldn’t he?
“Good. Keep an eye on the door for me, Captain.”
Erwin lets out an embarrassed groan at the pet name, if it could even be called that. Really, Levi just had the sneaking suspicion that it would arouse him, and of course he had been right. Because as much as Erwin Smith claims to be the altruistic saviour of humanity, the power of it all must go to his head in some sense.
Levi sinks to his knees like second nature, slotting himself easily between Erwin’s parted legs. He pushes one of his palms flat against the inner plain of Erwin’s thigh and grasps the skin there, the tightly coiled muscle, massages it until Erwin is relaxed enough underneath him not to cry out when he licks a long stripe up the underside of his cock. He shivers in response, his gasp releasing breathless and causing hot steam to rise from his lips, dissipating into the cold air. He licks again, flattening his tongue to run it against Erwin’s skin, against the vein that spans from base to tip, swirling it around the head swiftly and earning a muffled groan in response. He glances upwards when he rests his lips on the tip of Erwin’s dick, watches his face, his eyes turned glassy, the back of his hand pressed firmly over his mouth to dampen the sounds that Levi keeps dragging out of him.
When he finally takes Erwin’s head into his mouth, he feels his whole body shudder beneath him. He squeezes Erwin’s thigh again and pushes it upwards, lifting its weight easily and positioning Erwin so that the sole of his boot is neatly resting on the wood of the table. Erwin shifts, writhes, bucks his hips impatiently into Levi’s mouth. He doesn’t mind, can’t think to complain, not when Erwin’s cock sits heavy on his tongue and forces his lips to stretch wider around the width of him, not when he tastes like heat, making Levi’s head feel fuzzy. This, too, is different from his dreams. It’s not easy. He feels the stretch, the ache of his jaw, the taste of sweat stuck to Erwin’s skin from the long ride today. They haven’t washed, neither of them, and usually the thought would make Levi sick. But somehow he doesn’t care, because it’s real, it’s finally real. And if this is what real means, sweat and an aching jaw and the feeling of breathlessness when he slips his lips further down Erwin’s length and begins to bob his head in a steady rhythm, he’ll take real any day.
Erwin grunts. He feels fingers in his hair, gripping the strands of inky black, pulling him closer, further down his dick, until he feels the head press against the back of his throat, feels tears prick heavy and wet in his eyes.
“Fuck, Levi.” Erwin pants above him. “Nng… That’s so good. That’s so good, darling.”
It’s the praise that spurs him, because of course it is. Everything he does is for Erwin’s praise, is it not? So when he slips further down onto Erwin’s cock and feels the tears spill from his eyes, leaving warm, wet trails down his cheeks, he doesn’t care. Because Erwin’s groan gets caught in his throat and on his face he wears a look of complete awe, the one he reserves for whatever stupid new feat Levi manages to pull off, the one he reserves for when Levi completes his orders with quick, unbothered precision. So when Erwin pants, and whispers soft praise into the air between them, Levi feels the need to push further, until his nose is tucked into the bush of hair that sits above the base of Erwin’s dick, and his lips are wrapped tightly around the base of him.
His airways are blocked completely. Even breathing through his nose causes him to gag, so he holds his breath, relaxes his throat, and swallows. Swallows Erwin’s entire length and watches his face morph into serene bliss, overwhelming pleasure, the back of his hand shooting to cover his mouth. It’s only when his vision blurs and his body begins to scream for oxygen does he finally shoot off Erwin’s cock, stopping at the head and feeling drool run down his chin, sticky and wet. He picks up his pace exactly where he left off, quick and precise, like unsheathing a blade, like slicing a titan’s neck, his goal Erwin’s pleasure, his satisfaction, earning his praise.
“Fuck. Oh, fuck.” Erwin gasps, his head falling back. His hips have started to move, to thrust in time with Levi, so that each time he bows his head, Erwin’s cock slams into the back of his throat once more. “Fuck, hah, this - you’re… You’ll fucking ruin me, darling.”
Arousal swells in Levi’s abdomen and he squeezes his eyes shut. To ruin him. He hopes he can.
Erwin bucks his hips once more and Levi suppresses his gag reflex, digging his nails into the hard muscle of his thigh. Erwin’s pleasure crests, and Levi doesn’t even mind that there’s no warning, that his thick load pours into his mouth, fills him, slips from the side of his lips and dribbles down his throat. Chokes him and renders him taken all in one motion, claimed, made Erwin’s and Erwin’s only.
He swallows, slips from the end of his cock with a dizzy grunt. He looks a mess, he’s sure, but Erwin still bows his head and regards him as though he’s the most beautiful thing in the world. He still reaches out with one trembling hand and wipes the remains of his orgasm from Levi’s chin with his thumb, an unbelieving sort of smile playing on his lips, his brow shining with sweat.
“Oh, love.” He says into the air, and Levi watches his words turn to steam, the freezing cold of the room suddenly settling into his body once more. “Come here.”
Levi does as asked. He stands, slots himself between Erwin’s thighs, and kisses him. He feels hands on his waist, on his ass, travelling around to his front and cupping his hard, aching cock in one large palm. He groans, pressing his forehead to Erwin’s shoulder, basking in the solace it provides, the safety.
It’s just as Erwin’s fingers reach the buckles of his leather harness that the shout clamours from outside the tent.
“Captain, sir!”
Levi doesn’t know the voice, but he supposes that’s not the point. Erwin’s hands are off him in a matter of seconds, dressing himself, tucking away his softening cock and redoing his own harness with the speed and precision of a soldier who has been jolted awake, caught off-guard, far too many times. He wonders how often Erwin has had to do this. Pull himself from something - from sleep, from relaxation, from a private moment - and assume the role of Captain Smith almost instantly.
They share a look - Erwin apologetic, Levi unbothered. His Captain leans down, presses a kiss to his cheek. It is an entirely unnecessary gesture. Levi understands the nature of this better than anybody. That both their services are required elsewhere, that at any given second they could be called to action. And yet, the gesture warms him. It serves as a promise, a vow to finish this later.
So when Erwin goes to the entrance of the tent and pulls back the fabric to speak to the young soldier, Levi does not feel betrayed. He does not feel abandoned, because Erwin is still standing beside him. And if they both make it back home tomorrow, safe behind the confines of the walls, Erwin will still be by his side.
And if Erwin is ever gone, he has his dreams.