Sharpen the Knife / Soften the Heart

by levislattes

Summary:

The first time it happened, they both walked away from the encounter with a few damning marks on their bodies; bruising, scratches, and maybe even a bite mark or two.

Levi was angry—he was always angry with Erwin, then.

Erwin allowed him his hatred, but he refused to let the integrity of his leadership be compromised for Levi’s moods. And so, after yet another argument; one that finally devolved into yelling and accusations hurdling like knives through the air of his office; they found themselves folded into each other over Erwin’s desk. 

Notes:

Read the tags, read them again, and then enjoy, my doves. 💗

Chapter 1

 

 

The first time it happened, they both walked away from the encounter with a few damning marks on their bodies; bruising, scratches, and maybe even a bite mark or two. 

Levi was angry—he was always angry with Erwin, then. Erwin allowed him his hatred. After all, it’s not as if it was undeserved.

But he refused to let the integrity of his leadership be compromised for Levi’s moods and so, after yet another argument, one that finally devolved into yelling and accusations hurdling like knives through the air of his office, they found themselves folded into each other over Erwin’s desk. 

Bruising fingers and snarling mouths were the banner of their violent joining, tearing clothes away from hips but nowhere else. 

Erwin wasn’t sure who had reached for the other first, though in hindsight he is confident that it must have been Levi who grabbed him and pulled him flush against his own body, teeth bared in threat but juxtaposed against the hardness growing in his uniform pants, pressing against Erwin’s thigh. When Levi yanked at the belts over Erwin’s middle and ripped open the zipper of his trousers, Erwin let him, and then retaliated by shoving Levi into the front of his desk and planting a thigh firmly between his legs while snaking a hand beneath the back of his waistband. 

Levi had hissed—really hissed at him, but he allowed his touch, and never once tried to stop him. Hell, when Erwin tried to be gentler and offer Levi a more comfortable position, something for lubrication besides their own saliva, Levi had cursed him beyond the Wall and insulted his resolve.

So Erwin had complied and pushed onward, even though Levi’s cries of pleasure-pain echoed with a shade of guilt in his head for a week straight. 

But that didn’t stop him from getting hard at the worst of times, bringing himself off at night to the memory of Levi bent over his desk, one hand bracing and one tucked close to his chest as though holding something precious; always with one hand balled at his chest, glaring venom up at Erwin over his shoulder even as his brow knit tight and drool escaped the corner of his mouth, dripping iridescent onto the hard, polished oak. It didn’t stop Erwin from fantasizing—remembering—how Levi took him and all his size over and over, demanded that he fuck harder when Erwin’s efforts to be considerate became a little too transparent, and then bit him when he came. 

Erwin had shouted, and Levi’s climax had followed almost immediately—the imprint of teeth had left an angry red sting on his arm for days.

He really had thought that that would be the end of it, for both of them. 

The ever-growing tension between them had reached a boiling point, thick enough to cut with a dagger, and so naturally it had to spill over at least once. Life in the Corps went on, and Levi’s attitude toward him was no less cold, even if his blatant insubordination occurred with a little bit more time passing between each incident. 

That could just as easily be attributed to the passing of time, Erwin thought logically. So he didn’t have to feign his surprise when, after delivering a mandatory report to Erwin at the end of the day, in his usual droll tone that belied the sharpness of his eyes, Levi closed the distance between them and grabbed at Erwin between his legs. 

“Yeah?” he asked flatly. 

Erwin had to swallow the pitch that threatened to accompany his voice when he replied.

“Okay.” 

Levi let go of him then, walked himself back to Erwin’s desk and undid the front of his own uniform pants, sliding a hand beneath them and palming at himself, casually hardening beneath his fingers and watching Erwin with an air of indifference while Erwin figured out that he was meant to take care of himself. He did so quickly enough, and unclasped the belts and buttons of his own trousers before approaching Levi, who turned and matter-of-factly bent himself over the desk. 

Erwin hesitated, half-hard in his own hand, before rounding the desk with quick steps and retrieving a small pot of cream meant for treating blisters. Levi was watching his every move, and snarled when he saw the item in Erwin’s hands.

“Don’t bother with that shit. Come on.” 

Erwin paused at his side, weighed his options, and made his choice.

“No.”

“No??”

“I can’t have you injured, Levi. If you want to do this, this is going to be a part of it. That’s final.” 

Levi glared with all the disgust that Erwin normally saw reserved for him in the eyes of parents whose children died gruesome deaths under his command. 

“If that’s not agreeable to you, of course you’re free to go,” Erwin added. 

He didn’t mean for the words to come out soft like that. Another sneer from Levi, calculating the presence of a bluff, before he showed his hand.

“Whatever. Just do it.”

Erwin’s relief at Levi’s acquiescence was…not ideal. And it was easy enough to pretend that his insistence on better preparation was simply born from his need for Levi as a soldier in top form. 

But that was self-loathing fuel for later, and he did as requested, opening Levi with just enough speed and harshness so as to not spur biting complaints from him, or…actual biting. 

When he finally pushed in, he did it slowly, but without offering reprieve. Without offering Levi a chance to catch his breath, maybe. He paused when he was pressed tightly against Levi’s body, but when Levi croaked out for him to “Move, fucking bastard,” he set a steady pace. 

Levi’s body was intoxicating, and Erwin got lost in it: he made a mistake. Running a hand over Levi’s bare hip, Erwin pushed at the hem of his shirt, just a bit, brushing the skin of his back as he nudged the shirt upwards. 

Levi jolted. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” 

Erwin didn’t have a reply.

“I just…”

Levi shook his head hard. 

“Don’t.”

“Okay.”

He kept his hands on Levi’s shoulders then, pulling him back in time with his thrusts. He finished hard, quick and hot, and when he tried to reach around Levi’s body to aid his completion, his hand was smacked away. Levi reached down and jerked himself hard a few times before spilling, and Erwin groaned along with him despite his best efforts. 

Their second tryst officially came to an end when Levi glanced backwards, sheen of sweat on his forehead and mumbled a quiet, “Get off.” 

Erwin pulled out all at once then, according to Levi’s directive, and he certainly did not take any twisted pleasure in the way the sudden loss made Levi gasp and keen against the desk for a moment.

Levi dressed quietly and efficiently as soon as he could stand upright, and took his leave without saying another word; Erwin was left standing alone in his too-empty office, belts still hanging loose around his otherwise tucked-in uniform pants and wondering if he’d finally stumbled into something that he could not talk or reason or bullshit his way out of. 

And he wondered, even more dangerously, why he didn’t seem to have even an inkling of desire to get out of it in the first place.

***

It continued like that, for a while.

Erwin grew better at predicting the episodes, at reading Levi’s moods, and being prepared when Levi would accost him with vicious touch and a hunger needing to be sated. Erwin gave him what he needed, freely. 

He only slipped once after the initial touching incident, when he was so drunk on the heat and grip of Levi’s body, that he mistakenly let one hand slide up Levi’s side, caressing his ribs. 

Levi moved so fast that Erwin didn’t even process it until his wrist was caught in a steel grip; Levi was contorted, twisted backward, staring up at Erwin with a wild fury in his eyes. He had snatched Erwin’s hand away from his chest so deftly that they were both now just staring at each other, brought to a complete standstill. 

Levi’s eyes cleared after a long moment, the appearance of a wild animal who is backed into a corner receding into slight surprise and annoyance. Whether it was directed at Erwin or at himself, Erwin couldn’t know. He was ready to open his mouth and apologize—Levi had told him not to touch, after all—but before he could do any such thing, Levi dropped his wrist, resumed his position and pushed his hips back against Erwin’s groin. 

“What are you waiting for?” he hissed, and so Erwin felt at ease to continue, and resumed a punishing pace.

That’s all it ever was—a hard and fast fuck, a hot release of tension, and then solitude. They never undressed, they never touched beyond what was strictly necessary for two men to fuck each other. 

Even though Erwin was realizing, with no small amount of ambivalence, that…he kind of wanted to. 

The idea infiltrated his mind, at the very least; it was worst when he was lying in bed, hopelessly awake in the middle of the night, and caving to the urge to let his hand wander south, slipping beneath the waistband of his sleep pants. 

He played with himself slowly, unrushed, gentle squeezes of soft flesh coaxing him to hardness beneath his palm and the tips of his fingers. Images of Levi played behind his eyelids, conjured by the conspiracy of his memories, desires, and subconscious. 

Levi bent over—that he’d seen in the flesh, numerous times. Levi, naked. Something he’d never seen, and lamented he might never get to see. Levi in his bed, wringing the sheets beneath his fists, crying out loud as Erwin gave him pleasure. 

Levi, letting Erwin run his hands along his thighs, over his stomach, up the strong, muscled planes of his back…

Would he moan into Erwin’s skin, if Erwin were to press him into the mattress with the weight of his own body and rub against all of those sensitive places? Would he bite in order to silence himself, or to rile Erwin up? 

Erwin would really, really like to know. 

By the time he was fully hard in his hand, Erwin was already leaking with the effect of his smoldering fantasies. It didn’t take much, he was already so worked up—a series of long, hard strokes and a thumb rubbing at his tip, and soon he was spilling into his fist, biting the sound of Levi’s name out of his mouth while he came. 

This was really getting out of hand, he thought only moments after climax, the cool air of the room seeping over his sweat-kissed skin, before he even caught his breath. Levi didn’t even like him. Hated him, in fact, and had just found some twisted way of channeling his anger that was, in all honesty, rather preferential to Erwin over getting a knife stuck in his neck. It’s not like he had any right to complain, or to long for more. 

 

…And still, Erwin knew his fate was sealed when one night, while driving into Levi the way he’d learned was best for keeping him satisfied (with his hands obediently unmoving on Levi’s hips), Levi surprised him. 

It wasn’t anything groundbreaking—Levi didn’t declare a sudden love for Erwin or pull him into a kiss, or anything like that—he just grabbed at one of Erwin’s hands, pulled it from its place on his hip and wrapped it around his own cock. 

And even though on the inside Erwin was whirling with—something, he didn’t falter, squeezing Levi against his palm and savoring the privilege of holding him like this for the first time. 

He made Levi come first, and would have pulled out then, but Levi shoved his ass a little harder against Erwin’s hips and it only took another handful of seconds after that.

But none of that meant anything when Levi still hated him. 

Erwin reminded himself every time Levi showed up with that now easily recognizable look on his face, and every time he left silently afterward. He reminded himself like clockwork, even if there was less than nothing he could do about the ugly, tantalizing things swirling in his chest every time he looked at Levi’s round, sullen, perfect face; every time he heard a bitten-back moan when he was moving deep inside him. 

Levi was never going to want him, not in any way that was true or real, and it wasn’t even his fault that Erwin had gotten caught in his unwitting traps, too weak to keep himself afloat in the face of Levi’s wicked desire, his hatred, his passion. 

No, in all things concerning Levi, Erwin only had himself to blame. 

***

And yet, Levi was growing more docile. Bit by bit, and month by month. If that was an illusion, some nasty trick that Erwin’s mind was playing on him, well…he wouldn’t examine it too hard.

It was with a start that Erwin looked up from a heap of paperwork one day to the sudden realization that Levi hadn’t been insubordinate with him in weeks, if not longer. He still wasn’t warm, not by any means, but they did talk now, sometimes. 

Not when they were alone—never then. Levi only allowed his body to talk for him, then, and even so his silent phrases were kept short and to the point. It was when they were amongst others; casual, clipped conversation about things relevant to two military men. No longer did Erwin feel the presence of eyes like daggers on the back of his neck, or his throat; no longer were Levi’s words to him only ever spit through bared teeth, laced with threat. 

And yet, nothing had changed about their…arrangement. If anything, the frequency at which Levi was visiting him and asking without words for Erwin to tame the boiling resentment inside of him had decreased. 

He’d had enough, perhaps, Erwin thought with only a slight tang of melancholy. He’s learning to tame the beast of their tangled and messy past on his own, and so he doesn’t need Erwin’s assistance any longer. 

On the occasion that he would visit and tug Erwin’s pants open, baring himself to be taken apart, he was less rigid. He still left without a word, after, but he was loose-limbed, and he let Erwin help get him off without a word about it. Erwin dared not to say Levi was softer these days, but he felt that way regardless. 

It had been a while—longer than usually passed between occasions, since they started this thing. Levi wasn’t acting out, but he also wasn’t coming to see Erwin. Erwin had mostly resigned to the possibility that Levi had wrung out of him all the use he had to offer, and was now finally done with him. 

Mostly—but not entirely. Because a part of him ached at the thought of never touching Levi again, never having him like that again, in a position of such vulnerability that belied his incomparably fierce strength and resolve. Vulnerability, and…trust? 

Did Levi trust him? 

He certainly didn’t at the beginning, when Erwin wasn’t allowed to so much as use a hand on him. How difficult must it have been for Levi to open himself like that, to turn his back to Erwin when all of his instincts were screaming DANGER? 

How acute was his misery, how deep the chasms of his pain, that he decided to seek Erwin out?

Guilt slashed hot and unrelenting through Erwin’s chest. It was his doing, all of that pain and rage. Maybe Levi trusted him now , at least a little bit. Maybe that’s why the visits were declining in frequency, why Levi hadn’t visited him in so long. 

Maybe Erwin had proven himself to be, at the very least, an ally. Someone who would listen to Levi and give him what he needed, and never once use that against him. Maybe this was how they mended the thing between them, that aching, gaping wound. 

And maybe, now that it had been mended—if it had—it was time to close the chapter and leave it gently behind. Pages filled with words and then stored away, only to be brought out again for the purpose of glancing at fondly when the hour was late and one found themselves lonely and longing.

It was for the better. That’s what Erwin was telling himself, that realistically he should have put a stop to this months ago. That he got more than he had ever hoped for from this…this thing with Levi that had appeared from nowhere and taken him in its overzealous grip. 

That it was okay, that it was an honor if Levi decided he no longer required Erwin’s services, because it meant that he had fulfilled Levi’s need. That he had seen it through to the end. 

And that would have to be enough. 

He was almost to the point of convincing himself when his heart nearly jumped out of his throat; the sound of his office door creaking open, a slight figure slipping silently inside, and the snick of the door closing them in together once again. 

There existed a moment suspended in time where neither man moved. They only stared at each other from across the room; Erwin seated at his desk, and Levi leaned against the closed door. 

It felt a bit like whiplash—the first time launching a pair of grappling hooks from ODM gear and subsequently getting snapped into the air before being mentally prepared for it. Erwin had just been telling himself why Levi’s absence was, in fact, a good thing, a better thing…

And yet, now he found himself crooking a finger in Levi’s direction, beckoning him to come, never dropping those deadly eyes from his gaze for even a single precious moment.

And Levi did, crossing the floor in that lovely, confident gait of his that may as well be a flashing beacon signaling to Erwin, 'I’m here for what I’m owed.'

He didn’t stop in front of Erwin’s desk either, didn’t wait for Erwin to rise and join him as he had in the past. This time, casual as anything, he rounded the desk and leaned against the sturdy oak next to Erwin’s chair, folded his arms across his chest and waited with a heavy gaze.

Erwin’s manners finally fucking caught up to him and he stood, too fast, scraping his chair against the floor. Levi did a good job of pretending not to wince at the grating sound.

The faux pas was quickly forgotten when Levi looked Erwin over slowly from neck to knee, lingering on his midsection, and when he again met his eyes, simply asked, “Yeah?”

Erwin did not respond immediately, and Levi neither squirmed nor repeated himself. This was—in a way—its own miracle. But Erwin was weak, and a hypocrite, and a blasted lecher at that. He nodded, managed to squeeze the word “Yes” out of his throat. 

It was little more than a rumble from his chest, but it was enough for Levi to put a hand on his belt; to pull the loop and prong free and then pop the remaining closures, and then to stick his hand down the front of Erwin’s pants. 

Erwin bit down on the inside of his lip to maintain control over his face, but he was already responding to Levi’s touch. Levi rubbed him slow with a touch that was stupidly potent, and used his free hand to loosen the front of his own pants and give himself the same treatment.

Erwin stood like an idiot watching it happen—It took a moment for his brain to catch up and wonder if he could be the one touching Levi like that, the way Levi was touching them both. He didn’t want to scare him away, or make him feel pressured in any way. But oh, he wanted to touch. 

He waited too long. By the time he had gathered the courage or the stupidity to lift a hand and offer to replace Levi’s with his own, Levi was turning away, shimmying the uniform pants down his hips and bending over Erwin’s desk, as he had come to expect—historically speaking.

A familiar coil of heat curled tight in Erwin’s gut at the sight, even more so than was already burning from his growing erection. But still, he wasn’t quite ready to give up on testing Levi’s temperament tonight. 

He opened him diligently enough to not be accused of drawing it out, but still he moved slower than normal, using a little extra lubricant. Levi took it—he always took it so well—and didn’t say a word about Erwin spending noticeably more time with two fingers before adding a third. 

Levi had his cheek pressed hard against folded arms, face turned to the side where he rested on the surface of the desk. Erwin fed off the knit of his brows and his lidded eyes, and the way his lips twitched when Erwin dug in especially hard or crooked his fingers.

And it wasn’t until Erwin was three fingers deep and questing for that spot inside Levi—and found it, when he angled his fingers just right—that Levi let loose a strangled yelp and then glared back at Erwin, demanding, “What the hell are you waiting for?”

Erwin just barely swallowed his smirk, but he did, and gave Levi an innocent “Sorry” before lining up and breaching him: Again, slower than normal, with one hand on his shoulder. Levi didn’t complain this time, taking stilted breaths, letting go controlled exhales. 

When Erwin was buried to the hilt he moved both hands to Levi’s hips and sighed with relief—just a short, quiet thing. Levi was unmoving beneath him, except for the way his back rose and fell with deep breaths. Erwin waited another moment longer, but still Levi didn’t complain…

He just shifted his hips ever so slightly, rubbing them into Erwin’s groin with the barest pressure. The sight would have been enough to make Erwin come, given another handful of minutes. 

As it was, he pulled back and set a medium-slow pace fucking into him, something that felt excruciatingly intimate considering the nature of their tenuous relationship. Levi’s only reaction was to gasp quietly and—after a few—push his hips back to meet Erwin on each thrust.

It was more than Erwin had ever dared to hope for tonight: It was the most erotic scene that he’d ever witnessed from Levi, and he had to slow even further to keep himself from ending this prematurely. 

But Levi didn’t. In fact, when Erwin slowed, Levi picked up his pace, fucking himself back onto Erwin even when Erwin slowed nearly to a stop. 

And it wasn’t just thrusting; Levi was circling his hips slightly on the downstroke, grinding himself onto Erwin’s cock in a way that must have been satisfying, because he wasn’t stopping, and his breaths now carried the slightest melody along with each one. 

And Erwin was on the verge of losing what little remained of his sanity. 

Oh, what had he done?

Levi wasn’t slowing down, and Erwin didn’t have the blood available to his brain to stop himself from doing what he did next. 

“Hey,” he said softly. 

“Ngh…What??” 

“I’m going to move you, okay? It’s okay, hold tight.”

Levi froze, but didn’t protest. Keeping a gentle but firm grip on Levi’s hips, Erwin took a half-step back, until the back of his knees hit the chair—and then slowly, carefully sunk onto it, pulling Levi into a seat on his lap, still buried inside him. 

For a moment of stillness they sat there—Levi was still gripping the edge of the desk. Tensed tightly enough to spring, he glanced over his shoulder, fixing Erwin with that steel gaze that glinted like a blade in the low lamplight. 

“I could kill you, you know.”

Erwin was made slow and stupid on Levi’s body. The low, menacing words didn’t strike any fear into him; they just stirred hot and troublesome in his gut the way only a madman could attest to. 

“Yes. Probably.”

The stillness stretched on, and Erwin wondered vaguely if Levi was going to make an attempt to prove his own claim, or perhaps just get up and leave. If he didn’t like what Erwin had done, either was within the realm of possibility. 

The fingers of panic had just begun to creep into Erwin’s chest, threatening to squeeze at his heart—and not from Levi’s threat—when Levi turned forward once more, abandoning his deadly glare, relaxed his weight a bit and moaned.

It wasn’t loud. It was barely even audible, but Erwin heard it. Levi must have decided that this was fine, at least for now, because he resumed the motion of his hips, only now he was fully in control of their sex for the first time, mounted on Erwin like this.

And oh, he was a vision; riding Erwin’s cock and finding just the right angle that had him keening, arching his neck just a bit, and flexing his shoulders. How Erwin longed to push Levi’s shirt aside, to take handfuls of his shoulder blades and wrap his hands around that slim, strong waist. 

He didn’t dare push Levi’s boundaries like that, even lust-drunk as he was. But he longed for it nonetheless. 

Levi must have been getting close. His rhythm was getting shaky, his exhales harder and inhales sharper. His hands were still closed tight on the edge of the desk, and so Erwin reached around and took him in hand, stroking in time with Levi’s movement. 

When he came, it may as well have been Erwin’s climax, too. Levi gasped and groaned through what sounded like gritted teeth, and spilled hot and heavy in Erwin’s fist. His whole body trembled on Erwin’s lap and Erwin was high on the feeling of it. 

He groaned low, in tandem with Levi, and let his forehead drop onto the middle of Levi’s back in a moment of weakness.

“Levi,” he uttered softly, into the fabric of his shirt. 

Levi went deathly still. 

Except for the aftershock tremors of his orgasm, which continued to roll through his body and into Erwin where they were pressed together, before fading to nothing in measured waves, like water dripping from a nearly empty canister. 

The stillness stretched for a remarkable amount of time. Erwin didn’t want to rush him, but he also wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

“…Levi?”

No answer.

“Are you alright?”

A twitch of his neck, but still no answer. 

Erwin’s focus was shifting almost entirely from pleasure to concern, and he needed some kind of communication from Levi to do…anything, really. But Levi wasn’t moving or speaking, and Erwin grew increasingly worried. He barely opened his mouth to speak again when Levi beat him to it.

“Are you going to do something?” 

The words came on a growl, like an accusation, and an angry one at that. Erwin wasn’t sure what to do with that, so he tried a different approach.

“Would you talk to me for a moment?”

“Did you finish or not?”

“Ah…well, no—"

“So do something. Fuck.”

This wasn’t erotic pleading—it was something hurting and desperate. For once, Erwin couldn’t bring himself to give Levi what he wanted. 

“Levi, I want—Hey, would you get up for a moment?” he asked, tapping Levi lightly on the side of his ass. 

With what might’ve been a brief, shallow sigh of defeat, Levi did as requested, standing from Erwin’s lap and immediately tucking himself back into his pants on slightly trembling legs. Erwin followed suit—his erection had begun flagging anyway, and clearly Levi wanted to be done. 

Levi, having already finished dressing himself, stood with his gaze averted and arms crossed as though half tempted to turn tail and run out of Erwin’s office. Erwin shifted on his feet and felt entirely out of depth. 

He didn’t manage to speak before Levi beat him to it, spitting.

“You really just…love fucking things up, don’t you?”

Erwin blinked.

“If I offended you, I apologize—”

“Tch.”

“…Did I not?”

“You people. Think everyone else cares so much about your words, and your, your…gestures, well guess what. You couldn’t offend me if you tried.” 

Erwin stood there, baffled. Levi wasn’t willing to talk right now. He was just throwing words like knives, and Erwin could take them, but this wasn’t what he wanted for them tonight. He had thought that…well, that Levi felt differently about him now, maybe. 

Or maybe not.

He must have been in his head for a moment too long, because Levi cast his eyes to the side, arms drawing tighter around his middle.

“I’m leaving” was all he said before turning his back on Erwin, rounding the desk and making his way to the door. He wasn’t going fast—Erwin could have said something, asked him to wait, thrown more useless apologies at his feet like burnt offerings—but he didn’t. 

When he left, Levi closed the door behind him softly enough to break Erwin’s heart. 

***

 

Levi did not come to see him again after that.

Erwin couldn’t bring himself to seek Levi out either, when he was so unsure if his presence would be welcomed or scorned. Scorn he could live with—was honestly used to it, by now—but not from Levi. Not anymore.

Still, he waited. Days passed, and then weeks. He might still come, Erwin told himself. Lengths of time had passed longer than this, before Levi would appear in the night like a dream and bring some mindlessly fragmented pieces of Erwin back to himself—surely without even realizing that he was doing such a thing. One insignificant touch at a time, all piled together and mounting to something of great significance indeed.

But Levi didn’t come. 

First, he didn’t allow Erwin to see him at all, and it felt intentional. Not in any obvious way—Levi was much too smart for that. But Erwin could tell, had spent enough time studying and ruminating on Levi’s behaviors that he could feel Levi avoiding him, at least for a few days after their last evening together. 

Then, once the avoidance was over, he slunk back into the frays of their shared spaces, unashamed and carrying himself the way he always did, with an unshakable air of confidence. But still he didn’t speak to Erwin, barely even looked at him. 

And Erwin wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t surprised that Levi wanted nothing to do with him, nor that still he held himself with dignity and strength. Erwin had been wrong about one thing: His sullied hands could never have tarnished Levi, no matter how intimately or deeply or how many times they touched him. Levi didn’t take into himself anything that would render him weaker, no—he couldn’t. That which he touched only gleaned strength from him, fed into by tiny droplets that dripped unaware from Levi’s very soul. This was his power, and Erwin’s foolishness. 

So it was to his shock when one day, just prior to a meeting which was bound to be long and dreary and that Erwin was responsible for heading in Shadis’ suspicious absence, Levi arrived a couple of minutes before the scheduled start. 

Nobody else was there. Nobody else would have shown up early for one of these meetings even if they were bribed to do so. So when Levi appeared through the doors of the meeting room, silent and deadly as ever, Erwin simply stood at the head of the long table the way he always did to greet the attendees, and Levi let the door close behind him. 

“Hello,” Erwin greeted him cautiously. 

Levi was carrying something in one hand, and Erwin only noticed it once Levi started moving towards him, down the length of the room. Erwin watched him get closer like the inevitability that he was, only taking his next breath once Levi had stopped short of him by a few feet and set something on the table in front of him. 

It was a cup of tea—fresh, if the steam rising benevolently from inside was any indicator. 

Levi was already backing away, pulling a chair out near the middle of the table by the time Erwin found his tongue. 

“Is this for me?” 

Levi glanced at him like perhaps Erwin wasn’t as smart as he had everyone fooled into thinking he was, and then nodded once as he dropped into his chair.

“Why?” Erwin asked, and then wished he hadn’t. If Levi was extending his good graces, the last thing Erwin wanted was to appear ungrateful. 

Levi didn’t look offended though. He shrugged one shoulder, and then answered, “You’ll be glad for it. It’s not poisoned,” he added dryly, like an afterthought. 

Erwin laughed, the sound punched from his gut and ringing a little bit too loud in the mostly empty meeting room. 

“No, I—Yes. Thank you, Levi.”

Levi shrugged again, crossing his arms and dipping his head where he waited in his chair—a posture of indifference. Erwin shifted on his feet. This was the first time he’d been alone with Levi since…

It’s been at least two weeks since then, Erwin’s brain supplied. More than that, he knew. It always took, at minimum, two weeks for Levi to come back around after one of their rows. Sometimes longer—sometimes much longer—but never less. Erwin isn’t quite sure when he picked up on that little nuance, but he is confident in it nonetheless.

And shouldn’t he SAY something? An apology, maybe? Not something that would come across as fabricated or insincere. Perhaps, an invitation…? Something. Anything. 

“Levi,” he began. 

Levi didn’t move, barely acknowledged him speaking. Erwin took a breath for courage. 

“Do you want—”

The abrupt swinging open of the door and the arrival of several other attendees stopped him from saying anything further, and he wasn’t sure whether he imagined Levi’s shoulder sagging slightly in relief. He could torture himself about it later. 

For now, he wiped all traces of vulnerability from his face and mind and became the leader that he knew he needed to be, greeting everyone and charging headlong into the matters of the meeting the way he knew best, like a battle strategy. 

Thirty minutes in, he was internally and incredulously thanking Levi for his foresight and more, his consideration. He always forgot how the tedium of these affairs wore on his voice and dried out his throat. On the increasingly frequent occasion that they were left in his admittedly capable hands, he almost didn’t blame Shadis for shirking the responsibility of them. 

Almost. 

He grabbed the cup after making a particularly well-driven point, wetting his throat and fighting the urge to close his eyes at the relief provided by the tea. It was brewed perfectly—not a hint of bitterness, soft and soothing.

Erwin eyed the table over the rim of his cup as he drank, and briefly locked eyes with Levi through the fringe of his hair. Levi looked right back for a moment—Erwin just couldn’t quite read his face—and then dropped his gaze. 

I have to talk to him, Erwin thought to himself while saying aloud something entirely different. 

By the time the meeting finally drew to a close, Erwin was as ready as he could ever be to grab Levi’s attention before he slipped away, to have a private word with him and hopefully regain some semblance of normalcy between them. 

He scoffed at himself. When had their relationship ever bore any resemblance at all to “normalcy”? 

Still, he found himself missing the way it was, for however short a time. And he steeled himself for what he was prepared to do. 

Levi was fast though. As soon as people began rising from their seats, Levi was up as well, and he marched toward Erwin, which surprised him to begin with. But Levi only plucked the empty cup from in front of him, then spun and began retreating just as quickly. 

“Levi—!” Erwin tried to interject, but Levi waved him off.

“It’s not a problem.” 

Levi lifted the cup in the air slightly without turning back as though to dismiss Erwin’s thanks, concern, or request, and then he was gone. 

Erwin was left where he had begun, alone at the head of the table, and all the more befuddled for what had just transpired. 

***

It only took one more day for Erwin to break. 

And in truth, he had wanted to yesterday. But the grace of Levi’s presence, of his caring, or…whatever it was that had motivated him to bring the tea for Erwin...

It had been enough to hold Erwin over, to keep him floating in a little cloud of hopeful what-ifs, in a way that wasn’t entirely miserable like it had been some time before. And the acute sensation of being dismissed, the way Levi had taken his cup and disappeared without offering the chance to exchange words, was enough to make Erwin hesitate in his pursuit, uncertainty still a tangible thing in the air between them. 

For the span of another twenty-four hours, anyway. 

By evening of the following day, Erwin’s nerves were buzzing. He paced the floor of his office, wondering if these sensations were at all similar to what he’s witnessed from men who drank too much too often, and suddenly found themselves without access to liquor. 

They would shake and groan and sometimes collapse in their withdrawal, and Erwin had, not without sympathy, wondered how one could develop such a dependency on something that they could not persist without it. 

His smile was void of humor now, examining his own behavior with a cold eye. He was pathetic, truly, and he was close to the point of not even caring. 

The idea came to him like an epiphany, all at once. 

Levi still hadn’t come to him. Erwin had hoped that perhaps he would last night, after their exchange before the meeting, and he hoped again that maybe he would tonight; but he knew that he was fooling himself. 

And he realized now, stopped in his tracks of frenzied pacing: What was stopping him from going to Levi?

In the past, he never would have dared to do so. Levi was…unstable, back then, even at the best of times. Unpredictable. It would have been unwise to make him feel cornered, to seek him out like that. 

Not to mention that, as his superior officer, Erwin never would have wanted to make him feel like he couldn’t say no. 

…Levi was more likely to brandish a knife than do something he didn’t want to do, but that didn’t exactly make the prospect any more promising.

But now…now, things were different. Now, Levi made him tea. Levi thought about him in ways that weren’t laced with malice, probably. Levi…Levi rode his cock the last time they fucked, here in this office. 

He let Erwin move him and touch him and he liked it, if the noises he made and the way he came on Erwin’s lap were any reliable indicator. 

Erwin twitched and heat crept into his veins at the memory, a sidelong glance at his desk chair for the hundredth time stirring up complicated emotions in his chest cavity. 

Now, things were different. Levi would not lash out at him even if his presence was unexpected, or undesired. Levi would tell him to go, if that’s what he wanted. 

Then, Erwin would know where they stood. He would know that Levi truly was done with the thing between them, and they could move forward on even footing. 

Yes, it was a good idea. 

And if Levi did want his company, or anything else, well…then Erwin would be more than willing to oblige him. 

Goaded on by his brain or perhaps a different appendage entirely, Erwin confidently turned on his heel and left his office, heading in the direction of Levi’s room. 

***

 

Erwin’s boots clicked too loudly on the wooden planks beneath them as he walked down the dormitory hall. His nerves were pinching tighter the further he went and he felt too tall, too large for these walls in which he no longer belonged. 

The only thing keeping him moving forward was Levi, and the prospect of seeing him again. Talking to him. Being alone with him, where they could at least have a conversation. An honest one.

He stopped himself from thinking 'their first,' because they’d had plenty of honest conversations in the past. Words filled with vitriol and frustration, hurled like weapons. That’s not the type of conversation he wanted to have with Levi tonight, or ever again, really. 

He didn’t think he was wrong to suspect that Levi might feel the same. 

Arriving in front of Levi’s door, Erwin paused. He was never nervous when Levi came to him; why was he so trepidatious now, all of a sudden?

He shook himself out of it as best he could and rapped twice on the door, short and sharp. He spoke before he could think twice about it. 

“Hello, Levi? It’s…” He cleared his throat. Using his title felt pretentious, saying ‘it’s me’ felt too intimate. “It’s Erwin.”

No response came. He strained his ears, listening as hard as he could short of pressing his face against the door. 

“I was hoping we might talk,” he tried. “I wanted to say…thank you. For the tea yesterday. And—well, that’s not all. But thank you, really.”

Erwin winced. Perhaps Levi wasn’t in at the moment and therefore his efforts—and his embarrassment—were going unobserved. For a moment, he almost hoped that was the case. But no…he knew better. And he knew that, if not in his own office, Levi would be here at this hour. There was the faintest flicker of light shining through the crack beneath his door, too. 

He sighed and considered walking away then, saving perhaps just a little bit of his dignity. 

And then, in a moment of stone-cold realization; Erwin decided that in the face of Levi’s good graces and affection—if he even dared to hope for that—his own dignity was of extraordinarily little worth to him. 

“Levi,” he said, just to say it. Because he wanted to. “I would really like to talk. I would like…to see you. We can go to my office, if you want. Not—! No, I just mean so that we can sit and have a drink. Tea. That’s all. I just—We don’t have to talk here, if you don’t want to.”

The silence from the other side was deafening. Erwin could almost see it, and he pictured Levi too, sitting with his profile or back to the door, still as death, eyes sharp, listening and cradling something inside of him that wouldn’t allow him to respond. 

“Of course…we don’t have to talk at all, if you’d prefer.”

Erwin sighed again and leaned against the door with one arm above his head. “I’m sorry if…for not…trying sooner.”

He didn’t specify what he was trying to do now, and he didn’t need to. The words burned a little in his throat, but not in a bad way. They burned like alcohol poured over an open wound; cleansing and needed. 

He could practically feel Levi’s steady breathing from what could only be mere paces away, and he adjusted his own breaths to match the ghostly rhythm. 

“For not trying harder. Or, maybe, for trying too hard.”

Erwin bit down on the inside of his lip. This was humiliating, a little bit, but he deserved to be brought low. Especially at the feet of someone like Levi; someone whose strength eclipsed that of armies. And not only in battle, either. 

“Levi,” he said again, barely more than a whisper. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll go now. If you need anything, or…You know where to find me. Anytime. I mean that.”

Erwin hesitated, considered the ramifications of knocking once more or even trying the doorknob, and quickly quashed the urge. He listened for another few moments, just in case…

And then he turned and strode away, back down that oppressive hallway and into the night.

***

If Erwin had truly hoped that Levi was not privy to his ramblings the night before, all doubt would have been erased from his mind the following morning, when Levi would not meet his eyes for nearly the whole day. 

Erwin held himself tall regardless, even if he wanted to wither—and did what he could to make Levi feel at ease in the wake of such a thing. 

Slowly but faithfully Levi loosened up, and they were able to resume the casual, if not a little stilted, camaraderie they had managed to find before that night in Erwin’s office, all those nights ago. 

Erwin was thankful for it. He didn’t regret the attempt he had made to seek Levi out, but he was alarmingly grateful that he hadn’t managed to blow it all up in his own face. And he trusted that now, he had well and truly offered an open door to Levi, with no strings or expectations or hidden motives attached to it.

The Corps’ next expedition was approaching in little less than a week, and Erwin was glad not only for the tentative peace wrought between them, but for Levi’s allyship at best—and neutrality at worst. 

And he was equally glad for it by the time the expedition rolled around. 

It was only a little rougher than usual. A single abnormal had broken through the formation, and forty-five percent of their left wing was lost by nightfall. At least half of them were new recruits, and the ones who remained were shaken to their core.

One of them, made brave or stupid by sheer terror and grief, chose a peculiar way of channeling it when he spotted Erwin consulting with Shadis amongst the survivors and beelined, where he then began spewing incoherent curses at the Captain. 

Erwin wasn’t particularly phased; he always felt for the recruits whose first experience beyond the Walls resulted in this kind of terrible outcome, but he had become somewhat desensitized to the rawness of it, by necessity of maintaining some semblance of sanity. 

He was trying to listen, to let the boy release his rage unto him—Shadis was saying something too, some weak rebuke of the boy, and Erwin couldn’t truly understand half of what was being screamed at him, though a few vicious assaults on his character were made perfectly clear. 

From nowhere, another voice broke through the grating cries.

“Hey. Brat.”

The din of the surrounding camp quieted at this voice, and it brought the poor recruit back to himself after a moment. When he turned to face the voice which had addressed him, his eyes widened and his face sobered minutely at the image of Levi, standing just a few paces behind. 

The boy didn’t appear to have any words, standing there wide-eyed and tear-streaked. A trail of blood trickled slowly down his temple, teasing the curve of his eye before continuing down his cheek. 

Levi spoke again. 

“Are you alive?” 

He asked the question casually, without any hint as to an underlying meaning. 

The boy’s mouth opened and closed twice; Levi just arched a brow. Finally, the recruit managed a reply. 

“I—My friends aren’t. They’re dead, they’re all dead, and it’s HIS—”

“Didn’t ask about them.” 

Levi came forward then, continuing even when the recruit took a trembling step back, and stopped only when he was deathly close. 

“Are. You. Alive?”

“Y–yes.” The boy’s voice had quieted, made somber by Levi’s inexplicably calm—and slightly menacing—demeanor. 

“That’s right,” Levi said. “And it’s thanks to HIM”—Levi jerked his head toward where Erwin was still standing on edge—“that you are. His formation. His work and his plans. The fact that he actually gives a shit that any of us make it back tomorrow.”

The recruit’s chest was rising and falling heavily. Pain and anger and confusion all swam together in his eyes, but he didn’t speak. 

“And it’s probably thanks to your friends, too,” Levi said, a little lower. “So pull it the fuck together. Don’t make it for nothing.”

The boy stared at the ground by Levi’s feet then, silent. Erwin shifted on his own feet as the camp collectively took a breath and began trickling back to their own business. Levi turned to walk away. 

“They say he forced you into the Corps.” 

Levi stopped walking. 

“They say he blackmailed you and threatened your friends.” The boy’s voice trembled, but he didn’t crumble. “Then he got them killed.” 

Levi stood stone-still. His back was still to the recruit, and Erwin couldn’t see his face.

“Didn’t he?” The boy sniffed, a crazed smile dancing weakly on his lips. “Why would you defend him?” 

The silence stretched on for a handful of agonizing seconds. Finally Levi turned, slowly, to look the recruit in the eye. His face betrayed nothing. 

“My friends died same as yours did.” 

The boy’s shaky smile cracked, and the corners of his mouth turned down. There were fluids running down his cheeks again, but it wasn’t blood. 

“And it still wasn’t his fault,” Levi finished. Then, he walked away, the green of his cloak carrying him into invisibility in the dim of night. 

Erwin watched until he could no longer make out his shape—he probably ought to have stopped him leaving camp, or Shadis should have, but Levi was perfectly capable of looking out for himself—and then he turned to the recruit, who was a lone, bloody mess. 

“Go to one of the medics,” he ordered gently. “Get patched up.” 

The boy startled, registered Erwin’s words, and sneered at him. Then he stormed off in a direction that was decidedly not towards any of the medics. 

Erwin stifled his sigh. He could only do what he could do for each young soldier who braved the Survey Corps dream, and it would never be enough, but he had to find ways to be okay with that. 

And Levi’s words…

They played in his mind over and over as if on a loop that evening, until he wasn’t sure if he had really heard them with his ears or simply manifested them in his mind. 

He tried his best not to be distracted. The expedition wasn’t over, after all. They still had to—as Levi had said—make it back. But damn if he wasn’t very distracted nonetheless. 

It got late. No one ever got much sleep on expeditions, but they had to rest nonetheless. Groups of soldiers huddled around campfires, and Erwin was making his way to his tent for the night when he caught a glimpse of a familiar face by one of the fires. 

It was Levi, and he was doing something with his hands. It was—

Erwin took one more step into the shadows of the night when he saw that Levi was sitting next to the boy from earlier. He wanted to observe without disturbing them. 

Levi was wrapping a bandage around the boy’s head, fingers moving quickly and carefully. The boy sat still, contrite, and let Levi tend to him. 

Levi’s lips were moving too, not constantly, just here and there. The boy’s cheeks glistened softly in the firelight, and when Levi was done dressing the wound, he stood and left as swiftly as before. 

Erwin ducked into his tent and tried to calm the frenzied beating of his heart. He couldn’t help but feel that he was on some kind of precipice, with every nerve in his body screaming for him to jump. 

And whether the fall would carry him into some undeserved bliss or misery of the acutest kind was not for him to know. 

***

 

The ride back to Maria the following morning was blessedly successful, and they arrived at base in the early afternoon. Scouts were granted the remainder of the day plus the following for leave, as was custom. 

Erwin was stabling his horse, trudging mindlessly through the routine before he could withdraw to his quarters and nurse the brewing ache in his head when he heard a rather timid voice from behind him. 

“Um. Captain Erwin, sir?”

He turned and found the boy from yesterday, the one who had cursed him in the field. He looked like an entirely different person now, meek and trembling. Under Erwin’s gaze he shrank even more, and Erwin made his best attempt at turning his mask cool and neutral. 

“Yes?”

“I, uh. I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. It won’t happen again.”

Erwin nodded. He wasn’t good at this kind of thing, especially with young soldiers. 

“Alright,” he said. 

“It’s just—we joined because of you,” the boy blurted. “Because we admired you. And I won’t give up, sir. I’ll make sure they didn’t die for nothing.” 

Erwin wished the ground would open and swallow him whole. 

“Good,” he said instead, trying not to choke. “You will.” …hopefully not be dead within the year like most your age are, is what followed ruthlessly in his head. 

The boy saluted, hard, and Erwin needed to leave. 

“Dismissed,” he said. “Go and rest.”

“Yessir.” 

The recruit left. Erwin stared at the tack in his hands. Something drew his gaze upward, and down the row of stalls, in the midst of Scouts in various stages of taking care of their horses, a steel gaze watched from behind a black fringe, shaded by the hood of a forest green cloak. 

It only lasted for a moment, and then Levi turned away, disappearing to finish his tasks and leaving Erwin to his own whirling thoughts. 

He wound up neck-deep in bathwater in his own private quarters. He didn’t normally allow himself this luxury, preferring to keep his bathing to a routine of efficiency, and especially so after an expedition. 

Oftentimes, paperwork and mortality reports kept him in his stinking field clothes until the early hours of the following morning. 

Not so this time. Work was going to have to wait this time. Erwin’s head was full of a dull static, and he couldn’t discern how much of it was due to the regular fatigue of a less-than-successful mission, the encounter with the young recruit (whose apology was more unnerving than his attacks had been), or, simply put…Levi.

Levi. 

His would-be assassin turned defender. 

As much as Erwin loved to stew in ambiguity, he couldn’t deny any longer the chance that Levi really mustn’t hate him. How could he? Levi wasn’t obligated to care about Erwin’s wellbeing, his honor, or his reputation. 

Erwin didn’t need Levi to defend him in front of the Corps, but Levi did so nonetheless. And not only did he defend him, but he took away the only ammunition of his own that could have been used against Erwin, as well. 

Erwin would never know what it was like to possess that kind of grace in the face of such pain. 

His thoughts continued to roam as he dried after bathing. He dressed down in a pair of neat trousers and a long-sleeve, buttoned-down shirt that hung loose at his waist. On top of that, an unbuttoned sweater. 

If only he could talk to Levi. Sit with him, thank him, tell him that he never needed to do another thing for Erwin because simply being was enough. Kiss his face and praise him for his strength, for his weakness, for the purity of his convictions. 

Touch him and make him come, as many times as it took until he loosened into well-deserved rest and relaxation. To uncoil that which was always wound so tight in him. 

Erwin was jerked back into his body when his face began heating, embarrassed by the turn his thoughts had taken. Not that they were wrong, or that he was ashamed. He just knew he couldn’t act on them, and the lack of control over his desire regardless of that was humbling. 

But oh, he did long for it. 

He also trusted Levi, and trusted him to have believed Erwin when he said that his door was open. He wouldn’t insult him by seeking him out again and reiterating the sentiment, or by begging to be received. 

Erwin stayed in his chambers for long hours while mulling these things over, slipping in and out of conscious thought. The sun cast long shadows through his window, moving in steady rhythm across the floor, touching the wall and then the floor and then the bed with gentle fingertips. 

When finally the golden glow faded into dusky whispers, Erwin made his way to the kitchen and back with just enough food to hold him over until breakfast. After eating he walked along the length of a small bookcase, piled with books where there was no more space on the shelves. 

He caressed the spines lovingly before pulling one out and walking to the far wall of the room and settling under the window.

An hour later saw him still stood there with the book in his hands, reading a single page for the third time.  

Erwin tapped a finger on the book’s spine absently. There was no reason for him to be on his feet, but he always found it difficult to remain seated or still so soon after an expedition. Some lingering adrenaline, or something. He had long since given up examining it.

So he turned from side to side in front of that window that poured pale moonlight onto the pages of a book he wasn’t really reading, and let his mind fall into the abstract of pale, supple skin and silky midnight hair, all of it protected with a fierce scowl that faded beautifully into pleasure when coaxed just right.

He let himself become so unfocused, just existing in a space somewhere between purpose and chance, that he almost missed it when a sudden knock sounded on his door.

It sounded only once; a sharp rap, and then silence. Erwin stood there and stared at his door, and thought that he must have imagined the intruding noise. Nobody would come knocking at his private quarters at this hour on the day of a return. 

Unless…

The door handle turned silently, then a familiar figure slipped inside and let the door close behind him. 

Erwin feared he might be hallucinating; as though the strength of his yearning had manifested the appearance of a Levi-like specter to taunt him through the night. He held his book, still splayed open on one hand, and turned to face his unexpected guest.

“Levi.”

“I knocked,” Levi said, as though Erwin had asked, and then, “You said anytime.”

Levi’s voice was soft in a way Erwin wasn’t sure he had ever heard it before. He spoke normally, clear and confident, but also like he knew that no one was around to overhear him. Unguarded. It made Erwin’s head clear and his chest tighten. 

“I did.”

Levi crossed his arms over his chest, and he leaned against the closed door while his eyes swept the floor. He was dressed in his standard-issue uniform, jacket and all.

Erwin felt his tension like a sixth sense and knew that he must have had some kind of objective in coming here, but decided to let Levi reveal it on his own time. Erwin leaned lightly on the small desk beside him, mirroring Levi’s posture. 

Seconds ticked by and Levi didn’t speak. It looked like he wanted to—but his lips were pinched shut and his fidgeting increased. Erwin wanted to smooth the crease of his brows with his fingers and to kiss away the tension around his mouth.

He settled for saying simply, “You did well out there.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I guess.”

“I mean it,” Erwin echoed, and allowed himself a soft smile. “Your skill continues to amaze me. I expect you’ll surpass even Miche, soon.”

Levi frowned and Erwin wondered if that bothered him. He didn’t counter Erwin’s statement though, just shrugged a bit. 

“That brat was out of line.”

Erwin blinked, then it was his turn to shrug. 

“He can’t be blamed. His friends died under my leadership, as many others have. It’s only natural he would direct his anger at me.”

“Nah, it’s bullshit,” Levi mumbled to the floor. “They knew what they were signing on for. They knew the risks. Pinning it all on you is a pathetic excuse.”

Erwin had a sneaking suspicion that Levi was no longer really talking about the recruit, or his deceased companions.

“He did apologize. He won’t be disciplined further.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Silence resumed for a moment, each of them planted the floor’s distance apart from the other, before Erwin decided to offer an opening. 

“Why did you come here, Levi?” 

He asked in the gentlest way possible; not accusing, just inquiring. Levi sighed like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders and he was finally giving in to the relief of its absence. Still, it took a moment for him to answer, and when he did…

“I should’ve opened the door.” 

It took Erwin a moment to catch up. 

“No,” he countered when he did. “No, you don’t owe me anyth—”

“No, I know. Just. Stop talking.”

Erwin shut his mouth obediently. Levi took a deep breath through his nose and pushed off of the door. 

“I should have opened the door.” He began moving across the floor, breaching the distance between himself and Erwin at an agonizing pace. “I wanted to. I just…”

Erwin watched him approach, willing himself to stay still and silent. 

Levi came within arm’s reach of him. There, he halted and looked down at his shoes.

“I wanted to,” he muttered. 

Erwin fist-fought the urge to reach out, to try and hold him.

“Why didn’t you?”

Levi shifted on his feet. Standing this close, Erwin could see the way he moved his weight from one hip to the other. 

“Scared, I guess.”

Erwin almost laughed. Levi wasn’t scared of anything. Was he?

“Of what?”

Levi looked up then finally, and met his eyes. 

“Knew if I did, I was gonna do this.” 

Erwin tried and failed to stay afloat in the depths of Levi’s piercing gaze. 

“Is this so bad?” he asked. 

Levi rolled his eyes, and the mirth of it made Erwin’s stomach flip. Not as violently as it did from what Levi did next, though. 

“Not this, idiot. THIS.”

And then he placed his hands on either side of Erwin’s neck and tugged, rising up on his toes to meet him in a soul-deep, earth-shattering kiss.

Erwin was stunned into stillness. Betrayed by his body, his arms hung useless at his sides. Levi’s lips were soft yet insistent against his, as though rallying their courage for this one single kiss. 

Levi broke the kiss hesitantly, with hands still clinging to Erwin’s neck. His eyes roved over Erwin’s face in search of acceptance, in search of something, and slowly they dimmed in the wake of not finding it. 

He scoffed, just a breath, as his hands slid away from Erwin’s skin. 

“See?” he said lightly, but his eyes betrayed the bitter defeat in his words. 

Erwin cursed himself for his silence, but his body simply would not respond to his commands. 

Levi didn’t hate him. Levi wanted him. Levi wanted him in a way that mattered, in a way that transcended what they were once bound to be to each other. 

And Erwin truly, deeply, desperately wanted Levi in return.

He regained his agency just as Levi began to pull back, turning away from him. 

“Levi,” he breathed as his arm shot out to grab Levi’s wrist, pulling him back in. He didn’t give him another second to doubt, just pulled him into his body and kissed him back. 

Levi’s muffled noise of surprise was surrendered to Erwin’s kiss, and for a moment they just clung to each other and kissed until they were both breathless. 

It didn’t take long. Levi pulled off of Erwin’s mouth and held him there by his collar, both of them panting slightly. Levi’s lips were shining in the dim light; they hadn’t even opened to each other’s tongues yet, their kiss was just that desperate. 

But Erwin wanted to. Oh, he wanted everything that Levi would give him, and he was fairly certain that Levi wanted it too. His eyes were falling back to Levi’s lips and he was ready to reclaim them, but Levi’s grip on his collar held him back when he tried to lean in. 

Levi was looking at him in a way Erwin had never seen before; certainly not from Levi, and maybe not from anyone else either. It was somewhere between bemusement and affection, with a shade of gravity coloring the rest. 

He didn’t kiss Erwin again, or let him do the same. He just pulled on Erwin’s clothes where his grip held strong, walking backwards and steering them both until the back of his thighs met the low table beside the bed. 

“This okay?” Levi asked, even though he hadn’t done anything yet. 

“Yes.”

A twitch of Levi’s lips let Erwin know that he had betrayed his eagerness. He couldn’t find it in him to care in the slightest. 

“Okay.” 

Levi’s fingers relaxed at last, releasing Erwin’s collar only to push the sweater from his shoulders. Erwin shrugged it off and tossed it gently onto the foot of the bed. 

Levi was already working at the top of Erwin’s shirt buttons, unhurriedly loosing each one from its hole, eyes greedily tracing the skin that was revealed by each slip of fingers. Erwin watched Levi work on removing his clothes just as greedily, hoping in barely-subdued desperation that he would get the chance to do the same. 

As if he had spoken aloud, Levi finished with his buttons, pushed the fabric to each side and let his fingers trail down Erwin’s bare abdomen, leaving shivers in their wake. Then he steered him once again to sit on the edge of the bed and stood between his knees.

“You can do me, too.”

The words came out stilted, like the shape of them was foreign on his tongue. 

So strong, Erwin marveled. Levi stood before him, cheeks flushed, and did not buckle in the face of the unknown.

Erwin pressed the backs of his fingers lightly into Levi’s clothed stomach and ran them up and over his chest, then dipped beneath the uniform jacket and pushed it gently from his shoulders. 

Levi let it fall to the floor, and Erwin’s eyes were immediately drawn to a—decidedly non-standard-issue—strap on Levi’s shoulder, flush and unassuming against his body like it was made specifically for him. It held a slight leather sheath laid over his heart, narrow and only extending about four inches from top to tip, with another three inches in the handle. 

He stared. Levi let him. 

A distant memory sparked somewhere in his brain. Always with a hand tucked close to his chest…

Then Levi said with gravel in his voice, “Take it off.”

The command sent a flurry of sparks down Erwin’s veins, directly into the part of him that was beginning to strain against his trousers. Eager to obey but unwilling to risk tearing a seam or otherwise damaging a clearly valued belonging, Erwin slipped the weapon—a dagger that was barely large enough to warrant the name—from its sheath, and laid it on the bedside table. 

All of this he did slowly, so as to ensure Levi’s satisfaction.

And Levi did certainly appear content, his eyes hooded in a way that belied his usual cool disinterest; Now, that piercing steel was molten and hungry. 

Next, Levi bent just slightly at the waist and retrieved a second item from the outer section of his uniform boot: Another weapon, a knife, but longer and slightly more sturdy in appearance. This one he revealed on his own, flipping it once in his hand, all casual elegance…before laying it on the table next to the first and kicking the boots off entirely. 

Erwin was wholly entranced by the little show Levi seemed to be giving him. He sat with his hands loose in his lap, awaiting his next instruction, or invitation.

If he wasn’t so attuned to Levi’s every movement, to every fiber of his being, Erwin might have missed the quiet, stunted inhale Levi took before he said under his next breath, “Okay,” and began undoing the buttons of his own shirt from the top. 

He was so beautiful with his guard low; Erwin couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and letting his hands fall on Levi’s hips, holding him like a lifeline while Levi undressed slowly. He almost expected to be brushed off, but Levi did not deny him the touch. 

In fact, the color in his cheeks only deepened and he kept his eyes trained downward until the last shirt button slipped free—then, a barely noticeable pause—and he shrugged the fabric off of his body one shoulder at a time until it joined his discarded jacket on the floor. Erwin’s thumbs slipped on instinct to touch the skin over Levi’s hip bones on instinct, rubbing soothing circles there.

Levi was every bit as beautiful under his clothes as Erwin knew he would be. Taut muscle corded every inch of his torso; the kind that was wrought not only from playing the game of survival, but from being the very best at it. 

Deadly, Erwin’s mind offered, but he shook the word softly away. Levi’s body bore not markers of death, but of life. Erwin let his hands trail upward minutely, until there was nothing beneath his palms but bare skin. 

Levi’s body was also spattered with scars of varying shapes, sizes, and depths.

On his side, not a hair’s breadth below his ribcage, pale skin was gnarled and twisted over an old wound, and—oh, Erwin realized as his fingers caressed the skin on Levi’s back—the scarring was mirrored on the other side of his body, too. 

All the way through, then.

Erwin Smith, future Commander of the Survey Corps and a man intimately acquainted with the most gruesome types of death his world had to offer, felt his stomach turn.

He sat on his bed with the body of his beloved in his hands and he fought back a violent shudder at the thought of this brutal injury being inflicted upon Levi. 

And, Erwin thought without delay, Levi had lived. He won. Oh, what a marvel. 

Levi was watching Erwin watch him with just a hint of a whisper of wariness. He was showing himself to Erwin willingly, and Erwin knew that Levi did not want his pity or concern. He wanted, so badly, to press his lips to that gnarled skin, to plant his kisses like a mutilation in their own right all over Levi’s body from his bared stomach up to his neck. 

But this was new, and Levi was being generous with him already, and Erwin was not willing to mess it up. 

So he just tugged lightly on Levi’s hips, pulling him another half step closer, and flicked open the closure on the front of his pants. Before he could pull them all the way open though, Levi stopped him with firm hands on his wrists. 

An apology was already forming on his tongue when Levi simply redirected his hands away from the growing bulge beneath his zipper and pushed one between his thighs instead. Erwin touched him there willingly enough but was not entirely clear on Levi’s intention—until Levi made him flatten his hand against his inner thigh, and…

Ah.

There, tucked in yet another tailor-made sheath, was one more blade. Erwin found a grip on the weapon, removing it carefully—his knuckles brushed against Levi’s groin as he did so, and he couldn’t have imagined the way Levi’s breath caught—until this blade was also bared to their eyes. 

It was shorter than both of the others, almost stunted in its rounded appearance, but wide, and Erwin could tell—lethal. 

He weighed the blade in his palm and smirked a bit before laying it aside, affectionately amused by the small arsenal that Levi apparently kept on his person at all times. He shouldn’t have been surprised, and he really wasn’t, but…

Levi was standing still as stone between Erwin’s knees, bare from the waist up, and…completely disarmed.

The handle of that last blade had barely left Erwin’s hand, settling with a thunk on the wood of the bedside table, before Erwin was struck like lightning with the gravity of Levi’s actions. 

Levi wasn’t just allowing Erwin to undress him for the first time. 

Not only had he surrendered his weapons out of his grasp, he had let Erwin disarm him with his own two hands. 

He could have refused to be undressed, as he had so many times before. 

He could have left his knives in his own room so that his secrets remained hidden. 

I could kill you, you know…

This…This was a choice.  

Erwin’s mind sprinted at a million miles per second as he stared at that tool of violence on his bedside table, having just barely left his palm, and his heartbeat raced to match it as he arrived at that long-awaited conclusion. Levi was choosing to bare his secrets to Erwin. He was allowing him to see; he was showing his hand and putting all of his metaphorical cards on the table. 

He was saying, with his actions: 'See how I trust you?'

Erwin couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it sooner. Oh, he was not worthy. His gaze whipped back to meet Levi, who was watching him as though he was able to hear Erwin’s thoughts secondhand; as though he was fascinated by them. 

He leaned in a bit, or perhaps Erwin did. Erwin was overwhelmed with the significance of Levi’s faith in him—he wanted to feel Levi’s skin pressed against his body.

As though to express his understanding of the weight of Levi’s choice, or perhaps to affirm it in his own mind, Erwin placed a hand flat against Levi’s abdomen and let it snake upward—trailing over his side, his scars, and his chest—until it came to rest at the base of Levi’s throat. 

He paused; Levi gave no sign of dissent. Erwin curled his fingers around that slender neck and gave a gentle squeeze.

Defiantly, Levi arched his throat into the pressure, giving himself over to Erwin’s touch. 

That was all it took for Erwin’s desire to flow over into unadulterated, unchecked need, and in one smooth motion he slid his hands one to the back of Levi’s neck and one around his waist, and pulled.

They came together in a clash of limbs and mouths and swallowed moans. Erwin tried to hitch one of Levi’s legs around his waist until it was clear that Levi’s uniform pants were no longer a welcome asset, at which point he pulled back onto his own two feet to remove them with astonishing swiftness—and then he was naked and again on top of Erwin before he could blink. 

Somehow Erwin managed to collect Levi in his arms and, without ever detaching from each other’s mouth, placed him on the bed on his back while Erwin slotted between his legs like he belonged there. 

He didn’t hold him down, didn’t use his weight to his advantage; he just drew Levi’s legs around his waist, finally, and let Levi claw at his back in his attempts to draw him in tighter.

They kissed like it was their first time—and really, it almost was. Erwin was hesitant to try and open Levi’s mouth with his tongue, but no sooner than he licked at Levi’s bottom lip did Levi meet him there, tangling with him sweetly and trying for more. 

God, he could get drunk on it. 

One hand held him up, the other pulled Levi by his hip tighter against Erwin’s groin, then softened to caress the underside of his thigh. The slick of Levi’s tongue made Erwin throb in the pants that he still wore, and he grinded down into Levi on instinct.

“Ah,” Levi moaned in response and tensed against Erwin, and then he was pushing on his chest, toppling him from his position until Erwin was the one on his back, and Levi was tugging at his pants in turn. Erwin tried to help, but Levi batted his hands away when they fumbled with the closure. 

Erwin was too affected to be of much use. Levi was knelt at his side, naked and hard, and Erwin had wanted this for so long that he was light in the head. For the first time he could see the way Levi’s body creased at the hip when he bent forward; the sheer strength in his thighs and the contour of his hip bones, the way his muscles shifted over his chest as he maneuvered Erwin out of his pants. 

Forget 'could,' Erwin was drunk on it. 

He let himself be stripped of his clothes until he was completely bare, save for the open shirt still hanging off of his back and crumpled against the bedsheets. Levi crawled on top of him and Erwin welcomed him with his arms and lips. 

Conscious as Erwin had been about placing his weight on Levi, Levi was taking no such precaution. He pressed his body into Erwin like he wanted their skin to melt together and make them one; the weight of him was delicious and addicting. 

Erwin didn’t think he could get any harder than he was with Levi naked and enthusiastic on top of him, but when Levi slotted his cock against Erwin’s and circled his hips with a concentrated knit decorating his brow, Erwin was proven wrong. 

“Levi,” he groaned. 

Levi looked surprised to hear his own name, and then his brow smoothed and jaw slackened slightly. He crawled up Erwin’s body and laid worship to his mouth, until Erwin was sure that his lips would be red and kiss-swollen in the morning. 

He found himself looking forward to the sight. 

Levi was rubbing rhythmically against his stomach and the sensation was worth the absence of friction on his own aching cock. Erwin caressed Levi’s sides before reaching around to take handfuls of his ass, squeezing none-too-gently and encouraging Levi to grind harder against his torso. 

Levi let out a strangled half-moan and released Erwin’s kiss in favor of mouthing at his neck for a moment before sitting back on his knees and requesting for Erwin to sit up too.

“Do you have…?” he asked breathlessly, holding his hand out with urgency. 

Erwin nodded and sent silent thanks to the same deities he had cursed, for every night he spent desperately touching himself in this bed while fantasizing about exactly what was happening here now. 

He nearly knocked Levi’s knives off the bedside table in his haste to grab the oil from his drawer. Bypassing Levi’s hand entirely, he coated his own fingers and then tugged Levi further up his lap to reach one arm between his legs, seeking his entrance. Levi spread his knees a little wider across Erwin’s lap to accommodate him, arching into his touch and pushing back against his slick fingers. 

Slipping into the searing heat of Levi’s body, even with just his fingers, felt like receiving a pure hit of the antidote to a poison he didn’t know was infecting him. He pulled Levi closer to him, pressed in a little harder, and finally gave in to his desire to lave kisses across Levi’s chest. 

Levi’s arms snaked around his neck, holding him close. Breathy sounds escaped his lips with every pass of Erwin’s fingers, and Erwin was emboldened to let himself be heard, too.

“You feel so good,” he uttered against Levi’s skin, barely audible. 

Levi all but sobbed at the confession.

He pushed his hips back against Erwin’s hand. In favor of keeping his wrist un-sprained, Erwin presented another finger for Levi to take. 

And he did, beautifully. 

Erwin was nearly as lost in the pleasure of opening Levi as Levi was in being opened; his eyes fell lidded, the scent of Levi’s skin and all of his pretty sounds drowning out everything else around them. 

He was ready to give Levi more—god, he wanted Levi to ride him—when his attention was half-captured by the lamplight glittering off of the bedside table.

Or rather, the glittering of what lay ON the bedside table. 

Erwin’s brow furrowed, pulled slightly from the throes of his pleasure. Levi didn’t notice, but Erwin stared in his periphery at the assortment of knives he had taken off Levi’s person, with permission.

Levi had made it painfully clear that he was choosing to trust Erwin in the best way he knew how. Erwin understood that, and he cherished it. But what had he done to show Levi that he was trusted in return? What if Levi thought that, in order to prove himself trustworthy, he had to disarm himself in front of Erwin? 

Erwin had always given Levi what he needed, whether that was time or space or sex. Even back when he thought Levi might well try to stick a knife in him if he saw half a chance to do so. 

Perhaps not the smartest thing Erwin had ever done, but he had never been particularly risk-averse. Even to the point of self-endangerment, made evident by both his career and…more personal choices. 

So what if Levi thought that Erwin was, again, simply…giving him what he needed? 

The thought settled like a stone in Erwin’s stomach. He couldn’t let Levi believe that, he couldn’t even take the chance.

He wanted Levi, truly and deeply and desperately. He needed Levi.

He…He cared greatly for him. 

He needed to let him know, to show him. With that determination, he let his body move on instinct. 

“Levi,” he said as he stilled his hand, tipping his head up to catch Levi’s gaze.

If he were a weaker man, the sight of Levi flushed and panting with lust-blown pupils and kiss-reddened lips might have been enough to end him then and there. As it was, he swallowed before he could speak again.

“Let’s—"

“Yeah,” Levi rushed on a breath, pushing gently on Erwin’s arm to remove his fingers and still gasping when he was left empty. 

He reached behind and grabbed Erwin’s cock, pulling a startled groan from him.

“Good?” Levi asked, pressing the tip against his ass and severely testing the limits of Erwin’s self-restraint.

“Wait,” Erwin managed.

He wasn’t even slicked up, and the last thing he wanted to do tonight was hurt Levi. 

Levi kindly acquiesced to wait for Erwin to grab at the tin of oil and spread a layer of it over his cock, again testing his self-control; especially when Levi curled around his neck, put his hands in Erwin’s hair and murmured, “Want you in me. Can’t wait anymore.”

Erwin gripped the base of his cock hard, but he couldn’t hold back the moan that broke free from his throat at Levi’s shockingly erotic words. 

“Hmm?” Levi hummed against his neck.

“Yes,” Erwin said before he could stop himself. There was no answer but YES. 

Levi hummed his assent once more and moved to guide Erwin’s cock into him once more, and Erwin was only just barely able to grasp the last thread of his willpower to say what he said next.

“Levi…!”

His tone made Levi take pause, the glaze of his lust clearing only a fraction to meet Erwin’s eyes. He raised one brow in impatient question and Erwin knew he would never see anything more breathtaking in his whole damned life.

Erwin swallowed. It was now or never, all or nothing.

He trusted Levi with his life, and tonight he was going to prove it. 

***

With Levi’s attention on him and waiting, he lifted one hand to cup Levi’s jaw, bringing him in for a kiss deep and fierce. 

Oh, how he had longed for this, and the allowance was sweeter than he could have ever dreamed. 

Levi bit him—just enough to tease and sting. Erwin nearly went weak beneath him, but still managed to reach out far enough with his other arm to close his fingers around what they were searching for. He felt Levi’s body shift minutely, just a tensing of muscles; Levi was too damn sharp to be caught unawares, even in an intoxicated state such as this.

Their kiss broke when Erwin pulled his arm back in, and Levi’s eyes tracked the knife in his hand like a predator to prey. Erwin could hardly fathom the strength it must have taken for Levi to allow him to do this, to brandish a weapon against his naked, defenseless body. 

Well…hardly defenseless. But disarmed nonetheless.

Cherishing Levi’s surrender but all too eager to offer his own, Erwin flipped the knife and offered it handle-forward. Levi did not move to take it from him, glancing first at the knife and then back to Erwin warily. Erwin didn’t waver, just holding the weapon like a sacrament for Levi’s taking. When Levi’s brow knit and he still had not accepted the knife, Erwin uttered an earnest, “Please.”

The word might have unlocked Levi’s limbs from himself; he took the knife in his hand. Erwin gave his best attempt at a reassuring smile even as the vision of Levi atop him with a weapon threatened to drain all the blood from his head in a far more enticing manner. 

And this time, Erwin had the pleasure of watching Levi piece together the meaning of the scene unfolding in front of him.

Confusion gave way to understanding when Erwin jutted his chin up, baring his neck just slightly, and settled his hands on Levi’s hips. He watched it flicker to life in Levi’s eyes before understanding gave way to intrigue, and then to hunger. 

“Oh,” Levi breathed, but it sounded like a taunt. 

He flipped the knife casually in his hand twice over, and Erwin’s stomach flipped along with it. 

“You’re a kinky fucker, huh?”

Erwin let go a breathless laugh but didn’t otherwise respond. Levi performed a few more acrobatics with the weapon in his hand as though by second nature, and then the tip of the knife grazed Erwin’s cheek. 

He stopped breathing. 

“I should’ve known,” Levi murmured. 

He dragged the knifepoint down to the sharp edge of Erwin’s jaw, giving enough pressure to threaten but not to break skin. 

Yet. 

“Laying down with your…well. With someone like me.”

He pulled the knife away from where it wanted to dip onto Erwin’s neck, dragging it now across the line of his jaw and perilously close to his mouth. 

“Levi—” 

Erwin was cut off by cool metal kissing his lips, and he dared not speak when the sharpest point swiveled to tug and pull his bottom lip downward. His cock throbbed painfully as a reminder of his negligence towards it.

“Fucking me like you do. And fuck…”—Levi dragged his ass against Erwin’s cock, and it slid deliciously against him with the aid of the oil—“You just don’t do anything halfway, huh?”

Erwin wasn’t used to being rendered speechless, but even as the knife released his mouth, he found no words ready to spill forth from between his lips; only a half-strangled moan at Levi’s rubbing against him. 

Levi slid the blade gently down Erwin’s throat; he kept it tilted at a slight angle so as not to slice Erwin’s skin open prematurely.

“Were you sayin’ something?”

Erwin stared at Levi’s lips, watched the words leave his mouth without fully realizing a question had been posed.

“Hm?” Levi asked again, and lazily caressed even further down, onto Erwin’s chest. 

“Ah…”

“Go on.” 

Levi’s encouragement, breathed damn near into Erwin’s mouth, made Erwin inhale to try again. When he did, Levi glanced down and made an artful movement with his hand; there fell a sharp, sudden bite in the hollow beneath Erwin’s collarbone. 

It gave with a sensation of wet and hot, and Erwin knew without looking that there would be a tiny pool of red blossoming where the sting now subsided.

He looked anyway. So skilled was Levi’s hand that the blood rose untouched from the wound, blade still clean and innocent. Affection welled to the surface of Erwin’s skin in tandem with the blood which now trickled lazily onto his chest, making a path through short golden curls.

But Levi…

When Erwin raised his eyes to look upon Levi, he found a level of caution meeting him there. He still held the knife with a sure hand, letting it graze Erwin’s skin, but he was holding back as if wary of Erwin’s reaction. 

Erwin did not want him to hold back.

Gently, he pulled Levi in to lay a soft, praising kiss to his mouth, licking at his lips when he pulled away. 

Some of the uncertainty melted off of Levi’s face then, and he pushed Erwin back by one shoulder to rest against the headboard; he let Erwin’s hands return to his hips, though. 

Indulgently, Erwin’s eyes trailed down Levi’s body again. The strength of him was tangible, all wrapped up in strong, scarred thighs which bracketed Erwin’s hips, and his cock—Erwin could probably take it in one hand, he thought, and then ached for it—hung heavy, swollen and neglected, painfully close to being pressed against Erwin’s abdomen.

For his inattention—or perhaps for his attention—Levi nicked him again, this time just below the ribcage. Erwin’s whole frame tensed and then released with a slight groan pushed from his throat.

The flow of pain was ebbed beautifully by the arousal growing with every moment Erwin spent under Levi’s skilled and merciful hands. 

Levi’s eyes were growing softer too, and Erwin could see that he was allowing himself to get lost in the game, in giving Erwin what he wanted. Erwin hoped he could give unto Levi as well, everything he had taken and more. 

He awoke to his own desperation when, with blade still pressed against Erwin’s skin, Levi bounced slightly on Erwin’s lap; just a tap of his ass against Erwin’s sensitivity, perhaps not even cognizant of what he’d done. 

Fuck, Erwin needed him now. He opened his mouth to beg. Instead, he heard himself say:

“You’re incredible.” 

Levi’s pause was barely there, and then he smirked. 

“Yeah?” he asked.

Still just playing along. Erwin wanted to grab his wrists, to hold him still and make him absorb Erwin’s sincerity from the very depths of his soul. 

Instead, he squeezed Levi’s hips and pressed his cheek into the flat of Levi’s blade.

“I mean it. You’re…just incredible.”

Levi’s mask slipped minutely; the smirk wavered. 

“Strong,” he inferred eventually.

A note of resignation sang clear in his voice and painful to Erwin’s ears. 

“Beautiful,” Erwin corrected. 

For a moment no mask could hide the emotion that danced on Levi’s face; surprise, mostly, undercut by something else. So he had never thought to prepare one for this type of praise? Erwin could almost feel his heart breaking.

“You’re beautiful,” he repeated. 

Of course Levi was strong: He knew that, Erwin knew that, everyone knew that. But Levi’s strength was a given. His beauty—his softness—that was a gift. And it was one Erwin intended to treasure. 

A shuddering exhale was the only warning Erwin received before Levi’s mouth covered his; and he gave over to it fully, accepting the demands of Levi’s tongue and not bothering to hide his moan when Levi grinded against him, harder than before. 

Levi pulled away only far enough to speak. 

“Put it in. Fuck.”

Erwin could not have been more agreeable. He worked a hand between their bodies, encasing Levi’s cock in his fist and giving it a firm stroke on his way; Levi pressed against Erwin’s torso for continued pressure when Erwin carried on with grabbing his own cock and lining it up. 

Levi sat back until the tip of Erwin was pressed lightly against his hole, and he sighed. Erwin fought the urge to pant with anticipation. 

Their gazes were locked, but Levi said nothing; he just coaxed the knife into an underhand grip, pressed the blade against Erwin’s throat with purpose and began to sink onto his cock. 

The softness in his eyes belied the brutal kiss of steel against Erwin’s neck. Erwin found himself wondering if this is what affection looked like on Levi, when it was unmasked. Sheer, potent, deadly adoration. 

Devotion, perhaps. Someday. 

Would Levi look at him with this much warmth in his eyes if he sent Erwin to his death? Would he plunge the knife in himself?

There’s no way Erwin could fear dying, if this is how he was delivered to it.

His trail of conscious thought ended then, because Levi was taking him expertly and pretty noises slipped past his lips. 

“Ah…mm.” 

Levi paused in his endeavor when a bit of strain began to show between his brows; he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and rocked his hips. 

Erwin would have liked to kiss his chest, his neck; to praise him, to hold him closer. But the knife against his own throat rendered him useless to do anything except keep his head up and his body under control as Levi trembled on his cock.

And tremble he did. With every inch that he took into his body, Levi gasped and let his breath out on a moan. His free hand cupped the back of Erwin’s neck for support and he gripped hard, trapping Erwin ruthlessly against his blade.

Even his knife hand, steady a man as Levi was, pressed tremors into Erwin’s flesh. 

Erwin knew Levi could take the whole of his size faster than this, and without as much strain. The scene unfolding before him, then, could only mean that Levi was slowing himself intentionally. Just as Erwin savored Levi’s surrender, Levi was finally allowing himself to feel.

And Erwin did not doubt him, would never doubt him. To ask him to remove the blade from his throat now would only be to rip away the trust he had offered so carefully, the trust that Levi had accepted with grace.

No, Erwin didn’t want to change a thing. He allowed one hand to trail away from Levi’s hip until it brushed his elbow, and then caressed up to his wrist. There, he laid his hand gently over Levi’s clenched one, soothing. Lending his strength to his own captivity.

Levi uncoiled; under Erwin's touch he softened, and he leaned in to mouth uncoordinated kisses against Erwin's jaw. 

He let his weight go with a guttural moan, so that when he pulled back to face Erwin again he was fully seated. Erwin might have been in a trance; all of his senses were filled with Levi, Levi, Levi.

Levi himself sat atop Erwin's lap like a throne, lips shining and skin flushed down to his chest.

"Beautiful," Erwin reminded him breathlessly.

Levi's eyes fluttered as though overwhelmed.

"So good," Erwin murmured without thought. He couldn't move, but it turned out he could speak. "Levi."

Levi didn’t answer, but rolled his hips; his head dropped back on his neck for a moment, arching his throat, then he began to find his pace. 

He made his own rhythm, using the strength of his thighs to drag Erwin’s cock back and forth through his stretched rim, every few thrusts punctuated by a particularly needy grind. 

Erwin couldn’t wait—didn’t want to. The hand that wasn’t supporting Levi’s knife hand reached for his cock instead, and Erwin began gently stroking him in time with his own rhythm. He would have loved to take Levi in his mouth—to have Levi use him in more ways than one, all at once. 

Unfortunately that wasn’t possible at the moment, so Erwin settled for cradling him in hand, enjoying the feel of him between his circled fingers and attending to the leaking head with his thumb. 

“Ah…I…fuck,” Levi groaned. 

Erwin wanted to kiss the sounds from his mouth. 

“Need…ngh."  

Levi couldn’t seem to string a sentence together, but his eyes traced the blade at Erwin’s throat—or rather, the hand that held the knife. 

Erwin had tuned out all discomfort from the metal pressed against his skin, but now he recognized that it was a bit biting. He couldn’t be sure it hadn’t already nicked him a bit, in that sensitive spot. 

“It’s okay,” he breathed, unsure of what he was offering but willing to give anything to Levi’s whims.

“Yeah,” Levi sighed, and suddenly the knife was disappearing from Erwin's neck, leaving a strangely hot sensation in its absence.

Levi didn’t move to discard the knife back onto the table, he simply let his hand fall; and before he could second guess himself Erwin caught Levi’s hand as it passed over his chest. He held it there boldly, pressing Levi’s closed fist directly over his heart, securing them there like a lifeline. 

It gave Levi the freedom to use him like an anchor, pressing the length of the knife in his fist against Erwin’s chest and riding him harder.

“Ah!” he cried out after a particularly forceful drop of his hips. 

Erwin snaked his free arm around Levi’s waist, cinching him closer; Levi responded by tugging him in by the back of his neck and capturing his lips. 

The kiss was insistent and messy, and the embrace meant Levi was grinding onto Erwin more than riding him at this point. Erwin hadn’t realized how badly he was craving Levi’s tongue on his own until he suddenly had it, and now the storm rolling in his lower abdomen was growing even faster and more wild than it had been before. 

Levi’s grinding seemed to be having the same effect on him, and he broke their kiss mournfully to let go a broken sigh-turned-moan. Erwin did not let Levi go but held his waist even tighter, mouthing feverishly at his neck and the underside of his jaw.

More of the same sounds spilled from Levi’s lips. Erwin abandoned his hold on Levi’s waist to run a thumb over the tip of his cock, and the wetness that came away with it encouraged him to stroke Levi a little bit harder. 

“Ngh…do…do that,” Levi panted. 

“Hm?”

Levi’s hips gave an aborted forward thrust, pushing his cock more insistently into Erwin’s fist. Erwin rubbed his thumb in another questioning circle around the head, pausing over the frenulum, and Levi groaned an affirmative. 

“Yeah…yeah.”

“I’ve got you,” Erwin said into his skin, mindless of the fact that it was still Levi’s hand that held a lethal weapon to his chest. He swiped the precome from Levi’s slit one more time and began to stroke him harder, paying special attention to rubbing the circle of his hand over the glans. 

Levi was losing his rhythm, fucking himself shortly on Erwin’s cock with jerky movements and responding to Erwin’s ministrations with a steadily increasing volume.

“Ungh…! Fuck, Erwin. Fuck.”

Erwin’s eyes all but rolled back at the sound of his own name in that smoky, fucked-out voice that was so distinctly Levi, and yet still so novel and endearing and unbearably erotic. 

“I—Erwin…!”

Levi did not finish his sentence; instead he pulled Erwin’s head back with a fist in his hair and kissed him as deeply as possible. Erwin did not falter with the attention he lavished on Levi’s throbbing cock, and within only seconds of Levi’s kiss did his body jerk and tense; short nails dug into the flesh of Erwin’s neck and Levi released in short, hot spurts over Erwin’s hand and onto his chest. 

Levi broke away from Erwin’s mouth out of necessity. He was gasping, short and desperate noises that were higher in pitch than Erwin could ever recall hearing out of him before. 

Erwin’s eyes were as heavy, and he moaned low in tandem with Levi’s panting. It might've taken an eternity for Levi to come back down from that high, during all of which Erwin could have subsisted on the warmth of his skin and the scent of him alone.  

The liminal haze was broken when Levi flexed the fist still holding the knife pressed to Erwin’s heart, and Erwin loosened the grip on Levi’s hand that he had subconsciously tightened too much. 

He would stay exactly where he was for as long as Levi wanted him there or do absolutely anything else Levi requested of him, even if that was nothing; but he was still distinctly aware of his aching cock still sheathed in Levi’s body and begging for the chance to release.

Levi might have been able to read his mind. He nudged Erwin’s nose with his own and pressed a loose kiss to his lips, and then sat back into complete stillness and looked Erwin in the eye.

Levi’s brow was painted with a sheen of sweat, glistening in the lamplight. Little pieces of coal-black hair stuck disobediently to his face, and that combined with the flush of his cheeks had Erwin ready to offer anything Levi required of him.

“You want to come?” Levi slurred. 

Erwin stared in awe for a moment longer before returning to himself. 

“Yes.”

“Mm.”

Erwin didn’t know if Levi was entirely aware of it, but he wasn’t sitting completely still anymore. His hips moved in tiny, rhythmic increments—perhaps still riding the waves of his orgasm—that Erwin was all too aware of in his sensitive state. 

“Think you can do it like this?”

Levi had lazily raised his knife hand again, pulling it away from Erwin’s chest for the first time in many long minutes, and now he pressed it once more to Erwin’s neck; higher than before, wedged into the angle between Erwin’s throat and jaw. 

It threatened to bite if Erwin so much as swallowed too quickly. He didn’t say it out loud, but he thought the more appropriate question would have been if he could keep from coming like this.

“Yes,” he murmured. 

Levi sighed and leaned in to kiss him deeply without removing even the slightest pressure from the blade. 

“Good,” he whispered against Erwin’s lips. 

Then, Levi took him at his word and resumed his pace, and the wet sounds of hot skin on skin and debauched moans filled the air once again.  

Erwin felt as though he were fit to burst out of his skin. 

Levi was hotter than before, literally, and looser, figuratively. He bounced on Erwin’s cock with less restraint, all tension having been siphoned straight out of him through his own orgasm. His head was tossed back, mouth agape, grip unforgiving as he pushed that blade into Erwin’s mortality. Levi’s cock, wet and still semi-hard, bounced against Erwin’s tensed abdomen as Levi rode him. 

Erwin was going to break. He was going to shatter into a million pieces and hope that his fragments landed in a colorful array that was pleasing to Levi. 

Levi cannot have been unaware of the fact, or unwilling to take advantage of it. At least he was chasing Erwin’s pleasure instead of his demise, Erwin thought distantly. 

“Go on, big guy,” Levi breathed. One corner of his mouth was pulled upward, a flash of white teeth that Erwin was only now seeing in this shape for the first time. “Inside. Go ahead.”

Erwin never was able to say no when Levi wanted something from him. 

Like a flood that spent hours building higher and higher against a barrier and was now inevitably becoming uncontainable, Erwin’s orgasm crashed into him with such force that he did not even feel the blade biting into his skin when he threw his head back.

He spilled deep into Levi exactly as requested of him, and whether or not the quiet praise from a deep, smoky voice was imagined in his head or whispered into his ear made no difference in the moment. He felt a deep-seated sense of kinship with Levi in his moment of climax, for Erwin wasn’t sure that he would ever come down from this either.

“Fuck…!”

It wasn’t until he met Levi’s eyes, sparkling with amusement, did Erwin realize that the exclamation was his own. The gleam gave way to something else though, as Levi gripped Erwin’s shoulder and rocked his hips.

“Hold on…ah."  

Levi rocked in Erwin’s lap, grinding down hard where Erwin was gradually softening but still buried deep inside Levi.

“You’re…it’s right, just…fuck," Levi whined. 

Erwin watched, doe-eyed, as Levi grew tense and desperate once more.  

He didn’t come, not like last time. But with tremors wracking his already-spent body, Levi sobbed as he clamped down on Erwin again, shaking in Erwin’s lap while his half-hard cock dribbled fluid onto Erwin’s stomach. 

He slumped forward once he was truly spent, letting the knife fall away from Erwin’s throat and this time, discarding it entirely onto the sheets beside them. 

His head rested on Erwin’s shoulder, face almost buried in his neck, and his arms were limp. If not for his labored breathing and the way his body was still uncoiling into a puddle of relaxed mass in Erwin’s lap, Erwin might have been concerned.

As it was, he let both hands roam onto Levi’s sides and eventually the planes of his back, rubbing gentle and soothing. Levi groaned into his skin as he came back to himself.

“Damn it,” he grumbled, pulling his hands like lead weights to rest on Erwin’s ribs and pushing himself to a proper seated position again.

“Alright?” Erwin asked. 

Levi was a dream—Hair messy, body flushed, and completely fucked out. Naked in Erwin’s lap, in his bed. 

“Yeah.” 

Levi drug one forearm across his face before taking a long, deep inhale and letting it out slow.

Erwin’s gaze had fallen back down to the gnarled scar on Levi’s side, the one that was mirrored on his back. With a thumb he caressed the old wound; part of him was far away. 

A more important part of him had never been more present.

Levi was watching him with an indecipherable expression. Erwin wanted to kiss him. Instead, he spoke softly.

“Thank you.”

For trusting me, for wanting me, for giving me YOU without masks or deceit or conditions. For accepting me the same way.

Levi scoffed lightly and glanced away. He shrugged.

“I mean it.” Erwin echoed himself from earlier. “Levi. Thank you.”

Levi looked at him, reached for his chin, tilted it up. Erwin waited for the kiss, but it didn’t come. Levi was inspecting his neck.

“Got you there a little bit,” he mumbled. 

“Bad?” Erwin asked lightly. 

He was breathing and conscious, so it couldn’t be anything too worrying.

“Nah. Just a little—Here, too.”

“I’m sure it will be—ah.”  

Erwin’s sentence was cut off entirely when Levi leaned in and laid his tongue on Erwin’s neck. He stayed there only a moment, licked gently across the skin, then repeated the motion slightly further down. 

Erwin’s breath was caught in his throat—He felt a twitch in his groin despite his recent orgasm. 

Levi pulled back, just a flash of red and pink showing between his lips before he said, “Didn’t mean to cut you there.”

“It wasn’t the first time,” Erwin said before thinking.

Levi twitched.

“No, I s’pose not.”

“Maybe not the last, either.”

Erwin reminded himself distantly that he just never knew when to shut up, did he?

But Levi just hummed in response. He fingered the scar on the side of Erwin’s neck gingerly and then, in slow-motion, bent and pressed his lips to the thin white line. 

“Maybe.”

That single word contained the promise of a more beautiful heartbreak than Erwin would have ever hoped for. 

This time when Levi took Erwin’s jaw in his hand, he did kiss him. Soft and sure and oh so far from how this night began. 

Erwin couldn’t be sure how long they spent like that, kissing deep and soft and full. At some point, Levi lifted his hips just enough to let Erwin slip soft and wet from his body, and carried on kissing him. 

It was the slip of cool metal against his cheek that brought Erwin back to himself in full.

Silver eyes glinted down at him from above; Levi, fully alert and coy as ever. Erwin hadn’t even felt him retrieve the blade. 

A smile curled into the corners of Erwin’s mouth, matched by the devilish smirk looking back at him.

“Foolish,” Levi chided, kissed him once more and tapped the knife on his cheek before setting it aside on the table, out of the way of hands and knees and other soft parts. 

He rolled off of Erwin and stretched. Erwin resisted the urge to pull him right back.

“Will you stay tonight?” he asked instead.

Levi tilted his head like he was seriously considering his options, then sighed in discontentment.

“I should be in a clean uniform before breakfast.”

“Tomorrow is a leave day,” Erwin reminded him.

“Hm. I’m filthy, though…”

Erwin chuckled lightly.

“You don’t have to stay. The invitation is open. I would…like it, if you did.”

Levi chewed on the inside of his cheek. 

“You can use my bath,” Erwin offered. 

Ah, there it was, the relenting. Levi wasn’t fooling Erwin; he had wanted to be convinced.

“Okay. If you insist.”

They washed in tandem with each other, and Levi insisted upon cleaning and applying ointment to the cuts inflicted on Erwin by his knife. Erwin watched the concentration knit between his brows as Levi tended to his body and felt his affection swell ever the greater for it.

Erwin did not ask Levi to move the knives away from the bedside before they retired under the covers, and Levi did not offer. What had been forged between them was wrought of something stronger than metal and more deadly than steel. 

When Levi reached the short distance between their bodies to brush Erwin’s skin with his fingertips, Erwin knew with utter relief that this man would be the sweetest of deaths. 

✨✨✨

Dawn broke for them earlier than it needed to, bringing with it a waking both slow and thick. Spangled in early morning light, the two men found each other’s presence like an almost-forgotten gift left by one’s lover in the night; mildly surprising, but wholly welcome. 

Before Levi left his chambers some hours later, Erwin helped him redress with the same tender hands that had removed his clothes the night before. 

Gently, he replaced each blade; every weapon reverently stowed to its hiding spot on Levi’s body, every secret carefully recovered, with the unspoken promise that what had been trusted to the other on this night would not be rescinded in the cold light of day. 

 

 

End.